My wonderful body and the magic of CBT
A page in the diary "Good mourning!"
Written by Luise 5. Apr 2007 07:49 AM
Hey diary and everybody,
I have a wonderful body. When I went through all this psycho-shit, it thought "Ok, she HAS to go through it. But let's shorten it a bit for her" and my body presented me with the sickness of last week that prisoned me in bed with my bad thoughts. I felt very miserable and alone, but at the end I experienced friendship and security, and that helped me up again. When I recovered from the sickness my soul also felt better and relieved from the unbearable anger, selfhate and helplessness.
My soul is ok now, but still very vulnerable. My wonderful body was so kind to give me a hurting ankle (may be a kind of rheumatism thing I had before - keep your fingers crossed that not, but it feels like it) to remind me of taking care of myself. I'm hobbling around slowly and the pain makes me think about every step I do - it keeps me in the moment instead of letting me drift away.
I was still very anxious for the last some days. I couldn't eat anything and woke up with a panic attack. But today I experienced again the magic of CBT: I'm counting my warped, negative thoughts over the day, write the worst of them down and check them to reality. That makes me realize that I'm calling myself a loser, a bad daughter, a strange person and many other things, that I'm ashame of myself and don't appreciate myself as much as I should. But everytime I do this exercise i learn that these thoughts are objectively not true. I's not a question of turning something negative into positive, it's just turning it into true facts. Yes, it ist true that I have a mental illness. No, it is not true that this makes me a loser. Why should I be a loser? Is every sick person a loser? Do I lose my value if I catch a cold? Did I want this depression? Do I enjoy it? How can I call myself lazy girl if I don't enjoy it? This sort of things. It's an easy technique with a surprising outcome. Even if I don't feel the change immediately, even if I'm not 100% convinced ot reality, it may happen that I feel my mood lift suddenly some hours later.
Like today. The beauty of the sunny day made me cry. It made me cry to be still alive. It just overwhelmed me, and I prayed, please, god, let me feel like this for my whole life. I'm not asking much - just let me feel alive.
I found a new way of thinking about what happened in canada, and it feels good and peaceful for me:
I don't have any news of my canadian, but I can live without his emails and without him! I still think of him with a warm smile and I wish so much for him that he's fine. But there's no need to continue anything. I'm ready to let him go, as he will always be in my memories. I'm not angry, not disappointed anymore. All what I've lived in canada was not my mistake and not caused by my worthlessness and was not meant as a punishment for me being a bad person. It just happened, we met, we fell in love, we connected. He was full of good intentions. He didn't want to hurt me. I'm shaking my head about myself: Did I really think we would marry and have children? Did I really think this guy would stay? I think I did, and I don't regret anything. It was an illusion - but what a sweet one! Both, good and bad, was caused by his intense personality (which is maybe damaged by a personality disorder). I don't want him back. It wasn't meant to last. It was too much - like a candle that burns very bright, but too fast. We have to go different ways now. But I will keep him in my heart forever, and I know he'll keep me in his.
Positives today:
- received an easter package from my mom. She always gives me presents, but she never says I love you. Today I try to believe that it is her way to say she loves me.
- cooked a nice Minestrone for myself
- bought some nice organic food to treat me good
- went to Yoga in my Gym
- had a sauna bath after
- cleaned up my car for the weekend - gonna go to a medieval festival and sleep in the car
- gonna go to bed now with a good book.
I hope everyone is doing well. Happy to hear from David/Boygerms and happy that Brutus is still writing his diary! Go, fellows!
Love,
Luise