This Morning, I Cried.

And it felt so good! Crying has always been something that has not come easily for me. The only time I cried growing up was out of frustration. I don't ever recall crying out of sadness or joy. I remember watching "Where the Red Fern Grows" in Middle School. All the girls were crying at the end and I was a stone. There wasn't even a hint that I wanted to cry.

I have realized how much my anxiety has put up walls for me. I work so hard to keep myself under control that I keep everything under control. I am just surviving. Trying to keep it together, keep focused on the task at hand. All the while, the joys of everyday life pass me by.

With my anxiety under control, I really started to experience the great range of emotions. From great sadness to great joy. Over the last six weeks, as my anxiety has been high, I had returned to survival mode. No tears, for joy or sadness.

As we started tweeking my meds a couple of weeks ago, the emotions started to come back. Ahhh, how I have missed you. So, this morning I cried. The tears were initially out of sadness. I am starting an organic gardening class tonight. My cousins, Mike, who was killed two years ago was an organic farmer. As I was thinking about the class starting, I started to think about Mike and the tears started to flow. As they flowed, I started to realize how little I cried anymore. The last time was on Mike's birthday a couple of weeks ago.

Crying had been a near daily occurrence for me. In a good way! It meant I was feeling and experiencing life. They were not tears of depression, just an expression of myself. I would hear a sappy song, read something in the paper, see something beautiful, grateful for the life God has given me. It wasn't until this morning that I realized I had not been doing that.

The tears of sadness then became tears of joy. Joy for feeling again. Joy that my anxiety is getting back until control and I am feeling like myself again. Joy that I am beginning my gardening class and joy of being reminded of Mike.

Feeling Better

"The only true comparison we can make is with ourselves." Maybe the experience I had this week was to remind me of how far I've come. I am feeling much better but still trying to wrap my head around what happened. It was a reminder of where I have come from and how bad things were at points in my life. The feelings of despair, hopelessness, pessimism and I couldn't write it before...but suicidal ideation. (No need to worry for my safety, they're just thoughts, no intention to act.)

Those were pervasive feelings for me for many months. As I dealt with divorce, quitting smoking, financial crisis and my cousin's death. I remember thinking... What's the point??? Why was I put on this earth? I felt so completely out of control. I could accept that I didn't have control over many things in my life. What was so hard after I quit smoking was that I didn't even feel like I had control over myself. My emotions were all over the place. I so struggled to just feel at ease.

The last six months have been so wonderful in that I finally felt like I had control over myself again. I was pursuing my dreams and living my purpose. I have felt like "ME".

Thankfully...those feelings did pass. It was only a few days this time instead of months. I have a greater appreciation for where I've been and where I'm going.

I Had Forgotten...

The last two days have been pretty scary for me. Before I go into that, I need to give a little background first.

I haven't really talked much about meds. At various times over the last 10 years I have tried various medications to manage my mood. I hadn't had a lot of success but I hit another mood crisis about six months ago and decided to try again. I have a good / knowledgeable support system in both my husband and my healthcare provider. The meds this time have been wonderful. I have felt better than I ever have. I've gotten the benefit from them that I needed without unacceptable side-effects. The problem is, after about 5-6 weeks on a dose, the effects start to wear off. So, we increase my dose. Again, I feel great for about 5-6 weeks, then my anxiety starts to go up again. I hit a point a couple of weeks ago when we decided my dose was now too high and we lowered it.

The last two days have brought back feelings I have not felt in over six months. Frustration, despair, hopelessness, pessimism, anger, resentment, lack of empathy etc. Fuck! I had forgotten how this felt and it sucks. It is really scary to be back here. My husband and I had a long talk about it last night. Poor guy...he thought he had done something. Nope, just me! We have come up with a plan and I'm feeling a little better today. Hence, why I am able to write about it.

I'm really hoping "This too shall pass". But then again, I'm not feeling real hopeful right now.

Shouldn't I know better?

There have many times in my life that I have wanted to change. To do something that I knew was in my best interest. I wanted to lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking etc. The reason to do these things was clear. I can go through the list of the positive benefits: feel better, look better, more energy, live longer, smaller global footprint. The list of negatives to making these changes, hmm...... can't think of any. So what stops me?

For me, I had to look at what I was getting out of not changing. Smoking made me feel better emotionally and mentally. I felt serene after a cigarette, the world seemed manageable. My mind was clear, I able to focus and organize better. It's been over 3 years since my last cigarette, the nicotine has long since left my system. Serenity is still something I wish just "came naturally" to me. In fact, serenity is quite elusive. Damn you Serenity!!! Ok, so I now have that episode of Seinfeld in my head. The one where George's Dad is screaming "Serenity Now!" I digress...

There were a lot of reasons to quit.

1) The obvious...it's gross.

2) It bothered the people around me.

3) Shortened my lifespan.

4) Expensive ($4/day, $1460/year)

5) It controlled my life. I needed a cigarette every two hours. Pretty inconvenient at times.

6) Lost productivity. This is one I could argue because I was actually more alert, focused and calm after a cigarette.

7) I coughed a lot

8) My mouth tasted like shit every morning.

9) I smelled bad, my car smelled bad.

10) My boyfriend complained about kissing me.

11) Although I mentally felt alert, I was physically tired, low energy.

The list could go on and on. My point is that the negatives clearly out weigh the positives. Seems like a slam dunk decision...you would think.

What did it take to quit? For me the primary motivation in quitting was that I felt like crap. Physically I mean. This motivation would only get me so far.

What did it take to stay quit? I had to find a (healthy) way of getting the same feeling I got from smoking.

Staying quit had NOTHING to do with "knowing better". I knew all too well the negatives of smoking. That's the thing about addictions. My inability to quit was not a moral short falling, it wasn't bad parenting, it wasn't lack of education of the dangers of smoking, it wasn't that I didn't care of myself and others. The bottom line is I needed to calm the chaos that was going on inside of me.

Happiness is...

For me the answer is ACCEPTANCE. There is so much peace in acceptance. When I am at place of acceptance, no matter what it going on; good or bad I can be at peace with it.

To get to our home, we have to drive up into the foothills. If you like winding roads, it's a fun drive. :-) I was driving home yesterday and I got behind a slow driver. My first thought was "SHIT!", there goes my fun drive home. Then I had a moment of perspective. I was able to look at the situation a little different and thought "Today, I am going to slow down and enjoy the drive from a slow speed." Instead of fighting reality and wishing things were different, I was able to be at peace with how things actually were.

I have spent a lot of my life fighting the desire to be different that what I am, always feeling inadequate. I thought to accommodate for my weaknesses was to fail or to be lazy. If I allowed myself accommodations, I wasn't trying hard enough. Bullshit, life is challenging enough as is, why do we keep making things even harder?

I have weaknesses, I'm not good at everything. I can let go of focusing in on what I'm not good at and focus on what I am good at. I accept that and I have never been happier.

Roadblocks

All my life I have felt like I have had to work really hard to do anything. There always seemed to be roadblocks in my way. I had great ideas, the best of intentions but I struggled to follow the intention with action. Does that make any sense???

Once I quit smoking and started treating my anxiety in earnest, the roadblocks started to go away. It was a strange concept for me but suddenly I would think of something to do and I would do it. It used to be that I would think of something, think that I won't be able to do it the the way it "should" be done and so I wouldn't even try. If I did do it, it took a whole lot of "mustering" to get it done and I put it off as long as I could.

A friend pointed out that this was a form of perfectionism. I was like "I don't think so. I am a lazy procrastinator. That is far from a perfectionist.". He explained further..."You envision how you think something should be done, the perfect way it should be done. You then decide that you will not be able to accomplish it perfectly so you don't do it.". Ahhhh, light bulb moment!!!

I am so grateful for the smart people I have in my life!

Transitions

Smoking was a "transition" for me. Something to fill in the gap between activities. When I woke up in the morning; I got out of bed, grabbed a Diet Pepsi and went outside and had a cigarette. When I finished eating, I smoked. When I finished dusting, I smoked then I moved onto vacuuming.

The transition I still struggle with, three and half years later is when I don't know what to do next. It's not that I lack things to do, I just don't know what I want to start on next. Tonight, I finished working on a project that I had been working on for most of the weekend. As I sat on the couch, I thought "this would be a good time for a cigarette". Smoking a cigarette was a "transition", a chance to take a deep breath, clear my head, and ponder my options. By the time I finished the cigarette, I usually would have it figured out what I would do next.

After I quit, the worst transition time was when I would first get home from work. I would stand in my kitchen and think "now what?". Again, I had lots that needed to be done but I just couldn't quite get going. Something was missing.

I needed to find a new transition. This is still a work in progress. Like dealing with my anxiety, I have to have a "bag of tricks". Get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, knit, sit and stare, read a magazine. Tonight, I took a shower. When I got out, my husband looked at me confused and asked why I took a shower. I said something witty but the reality is I needed a transition. By the time I got out of the shower, I knew what I was going to do next and a blog post was born.