There is a low-grade panic that has occupied much of my adult life in varying degrees.
It’s been grown and fermented in an overactive mind that had too much material with codependent parents and a husband and kids w/ sensory and attachment issues.
I’ve really REALLY struggled to see the bright side of things.
The pathway to hellish living is a galaxy-wide highway in my mind. If there’s a negative slant to any situation, I find it and graft it into the pavement, making it even easier to view the world through darkly colored glasses.
When you add actual physical pain and pains that have mysterious origns, I might as well lay down in my own damn highway and just get the panic attacks started. It’s hard to concentrate. It’s hard to see anything positive that might happen about anything that currently going on (which is mostly bad from my vantage point).
The hard part about PTSD and anxiety is it renders you incapable frequently of seeing that good actually is still happening around it. There’s two problems: The bad in front of you is so bad, you are incredibly distracted and wounded by it. That makes it hard to both heal and also see the good that’s still around you. Two, it’s very hard to believe you can actually do something different to make the bad things stop. Your brain is at full stop. Executive function is offline typically. As a result, you believe this is the way it’s always been and always will be. It’s very, very hard to overcome these things to see and believe things can be different.
Today was massage day which is just a blissful day for me any week, anytime.
During the massage, the masseuse asked me how my summer was.
Typically my brain would go immediately like velcro to all the shit that’s happened.
However, in the last few weeks and months especially, I’m finally seeing how my propensity to negative thinking is perpetuating this negative reality.
I’m not going to have much chance for new good things to happen when I can’t see the good that is already happening. If I can’t see what’s amazing right now along w/ the awful, then how will anything new that’s amazing really make a difference. Billions of people around the world right now would in a heartbeat want to change places with me. In a second. That’s not to shame me; it’s just a reality check that no, you really do need to start seeing the good that others see and you could appreciate more.
So tonight I replied to him about my hiking and being outside all summer. I talked about collecting things from outside and just the good weather. I never once mentioned my family or my pelvic pain as being a bummer. I was positive.
And you know, it felt different. I felt different. I felt more relaxed while talking. I felt more hopeful. I felt like we had a better conversation.
It was amazing. I’m not sure I’ve ever done something that big of a switch before in the moment. it’s hopefully not something I’ll forget.
It’s definitely what I see my friends doing which makes me so happy and proud of them. I’m inspired to get things squared away in my soul, in my body and just do things better in my head especially.
What comes out my mouth is shaping my body. I don’t fully understand how but it’s true. It’s changing my brain. Kay has said that when you keep dwelling on the negative especially if it was something in the past, it keeps it alive in the present. You keep dragging it into today. How gross is that.
Glad to be in a space with the standard being one of change.