Time for a redirect

For anyone that is a Facebook friend of mine, you may have noticed over the last fw days that I am working to make a conscious effort to redirect my ways of thinking. I am wired naturally to be a realist at best and focus on the what-ifs. Those always lead to the play-out of worst-case scenarios in my head, and then the anxiety/depression/panic/you name it soon follows.

I have been making an effort to live in the present - rather than focus on what COULD happen IF, I try to think about what IS happening NOW. This has helped prevent me from going into full-blown panic mode on many occasions, but I am not perfect and give myself the grace to have bad, ugly, panicky days. Because I am human.

While that's all good and true, I also think that throwing too much of a pity party when I'm feeling bad is detrimental. I have been obsessing for months wondering WHAT caused my breakdown. WHY do I panic? WHERE am I most prone to panic? WHEN will this hell end? And I am slowly accepting that those thought processes are leading me nowhere except down the road of old painful experiences and over-thinking scenarios I've already grieved, processed and moved on from. It also causes me to feel anxious about things I used to look forward to (vacations, social outings, buying a house someday, etc,). Needless to say, something's gotta give.

So, I am trying to intentionally focus on the things I do like in my life rather than obsess about all of the bad stuff. I really don't want to live my life as a recluse and want to get better. Positive vibes and a sense of spirituality has to help me - it just has to. Medicine has worked wonders, but I need to do some of the work on my own.

My therapy going forward will focus less on the "talk therapy" and dredging up old hurts and will instead help me learn techniques for how to deal with the bad feelings. The feelings will always be there - but I can sowly learn how to control my reaction to those feelings.

That is the goal. More to come at a later date. For anyone else suffering through this too, I feel for you, I really do. I am truly sorry for anyone that has to feel like a prisoner in their own mind.

-L