Experiences this week left me questioning the deep diving I'm doing in therapy.
A combination of significant and multiple areas of physical pain, as well as seasonal depression, brought back panic and anxiety feelings I haven't had in years. It came on quite unexpectedly and brought me to place an emergency call to my therapist.
She helped me see that anxiety and panic shuts down all states of mind other than panic. You need to do something drastic to allow your mind to refocus on something else such as splashing cold water in your face, getting outside, using strong smells or oils to refocus your thoughts. You have to get your brain moving in another direction.
Multiple states of mind is a new concept to me. Your mind holds a lot of information in multiple states and places. Anxiety shuts down access to all but the one that is feeding you negative and catastrophic thoughts. This is why you have to shock your anxious mind back to a place that it can access the other truth stored in your mind.
This time, as always, I went to the place that tells me I will ultimately be alone. I will be sick. I will be weak, poor and my life will fall apart like my father and my aunt. I am too messed up to truly climb out of this pit. This is just further evidence of that. This is where I can go very easily when things get challenging or hard.
My aunt also passed away yesterday morning and I wondered aloud to Kay if that could have affected me in any way, even without me being aware. She said she absolutely thought it could have.
When you recover from an event, like I did this week, you move onto something fun and rewarding. Don't overthink it. Shutdown thoughts about what happened and move on. Tell your system that it's over, that you're moving on and you're doing fine. Repeat that and that sense will get even stronger.
I have much to learn and have to continue to be strong and take small, consistent steps toward health. She said you start this process on the left side of the bell curve then work your way up. She said I'm almost to the top of the bell curve and doing some very hard work right now. I'm still on the journey and healing well.