In my last therapy session, Dr. C asked me to rate my mood on a scale of 1 to 100. I said about 45. I'm not really discontent about anything specific lately, but I'm just kind of blah. I told him that I haven't really been getting too far above 50 or 60. Of course, the academic overachiever in me quipped, "I guess that means I failed."
This joke, however lame, reveals a lot about my relationship with my mood. When I get in a funk, I go right to judging the funk. I tell myself that, logically, I have no reason to be unhappy about anything. I beat myself up for not "going with the flow" more, for stressing about minutia, for being so weird, for not getting more excited about things I think *should* be exciting. I do this with bumps on the recovery road, too. I hit the bump, then I effectively hit myself for hitting the bump.
As Dr. C pointed out, I'm really only doubling my discontent this way. First, there is the fact that I feel bad; second, there is the fact that I feel bad about feeling bad. It seems that an easy way to reduce the intensity of any funk is to just accept the funk for what it is. I think this is similar to a point made in "This Emotional Life." When helping a woman with her phobia of flying, the cognitive behavioral therapist says that we end up feeling exactly the way we try so hard to avoid. This must be because we are thinking about it so damn much. I fear my funks. It's true. I fear getting swallowed whole by them. This just gives them power, of course. And all the thoughts about my funk create a separate funk, a meta-funk. Confused yet?
In "This Emotional Life," they talk about this idea of feelings as information. I always roll my eyes at my feelings. I consider them annoying, stupid things that interfere with my planned, orderly, controlled existence. Even with a happy feeling, I think, "Oh, what are you doing, you tease? Just coming to flirt with me before you settle down with someone else?" I've never really thought about this idea that feelings -- good, bad, and ugly included -- are helping me in some way. Maybe they are. Maybe they have hippie spirits: "Don't judge us, man. We just want to live free."
I'm trying this more often -- letting feelings just be what they are (and giving them the voice of a Woodstock attendee for the sake of amusement). If I'm in a mopey mood, it doesn't really help to sit there and criticize my mopey mood. How about just saying, "I feel mopey. Oh well. It'll pass." The best part is that the "it'll pass" is not me kidding myself. It's not wishful thinking; it's actually based on experiential truth.
***
Today's gratitude:
1. We watched the Chris Rock "Kill the Messenger" stand-up premiere on Comedy Central last night. Hilarious. I could have done without all the expletive-bleeping, but that's what I get for missing it on HBO.
2. I can't say I'm stressed out about anything right this second.
3. A new fiction story is asking me to write it. I'm considering complying with the request.
4. I like this blue color for my blog better than the pink, Mattel box color.
5. BBQ pizza tonight?
Monday, January 11, 2010
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5 comments:
I do exactly the same thing--become angry and critical of myself when I'm feeling bad because logically I have no reason to feel this way. But I've learned too that this only makes the situation worse and that I've got to accept the way I'm feeling for what it is. And I've also come to recognize the fact that when I'm feeling bad it will pass. It always does.
The blue looks great. Thanks for all of your words of encouragement during a very sad week in my life.
I like the blue a lot.
Your thoughts are wonderful. They always speak to me so deeply. Its amazing.
We often for example say "i should do this."...well, why not just exist in the moment and try to exist without that thought....like i always say "i feel so crappy and lazy " ...why not say instead " i can walk for 30 minutes today"...i plan to do a post on this soon...about instead of saying that former (negative feeling)...say the FACT...then it is what it is...and nothing more...words are words..thoughts mean ...nothing...we need to stop the attachments.
BBQ pizza ..yes.
Blue...yes.
I love the blue! Blue's my favourite colour :)
I have had to deal with both problems that you're talking about in this post - judging your feelings and fearing them. When I was younger I was ALWAYS telling myself that I had no right to feel sad/anxious/angry/whatever, because other people had it far worse and there was nothing that bad going on in my life. Of course, all this did was make me feel worse. Eventually I realised that my depression and anxiety were partly genetic, which stopped me being so judgemental towards myself, but instead I got scared. If it wasn't my fault, how could I stop it from overwhelming me? I think this is why people like to blame themselves so much, it gives them the illusion of control over the situation. Being angry with yourself is so much less terrifying than feeling out of control. I've had...six episodes of major depression in my life I think, each lasting between six and 18 months. With the last one, I did everything I could to try and make myself feel better, and nothing seemed to work. After ending up in hospital, becoming physically sick, losing weight again and rediscovering how being underweight seems to do something chemical to my brain to make the depression easier to cope with, I became terrified of getting back to a healthy weight because I thought the depression would come back and overwhelm me again. It hasn't yet, but it's only in the last month or two that I've finally calmed down about bad days. If I wake up feeling crappy I can sit with it now and tell myself that it will pass. It always has so far! But even if it persisted, it's just like physical pain. Physical pain increases if you are anxious and tense. Psychological pain, which is essentially also physiological, increases if you are scared of it and trying to push it away. Remembering that helps me a lot.
This is an essay, not a comment :P oh dear. I just wanted to say I relate and I think it's possible to learn to deal with this. See, that only took one sentence!
Well..everyone has already said what I was thinking when I read your blog entry!
All I have to add is that BBQ pizza sounds like a yummy idea :-)
Hopefully I can reintroduce myself to pizza this year...
Sarah x
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