Misinterpretation

I often get into a state because of the way I see things. If anxious I feel that the smallest of issues is a disaster waiting to happen which must be prevented immediately or if I'm feeling negative I see things as deeply depressing and of extreme seriousness. I become shrouded in gloom with no light in sight. I realise how dramatic this sounds but it really is all consuming. Maybe I have the opposite problem to rose tinted glasses! There is a lot of "self-help" out there and I have found useful info specifically for anxiety and depression which teaches us to challenge anxious and negative thoughts. I have mentioned before that I also find Buddhism useful since it suggests we use awareness to look at reality from an objective view rather than our own automatic perception. The question is though when the dark feelings descend can I see to stop and question my thoughts and feelings and find the real "truth" of the situation within the mess of my mind? If I can I am free of I cannot...

I got into a state last weekend because I misjudged the seriousness of something which happened. Next time something happens I aim to ask myself if my feelings are reasonable. Would a "normal" person think like that? I think I usually know they would not but don't progress much further than that. If only I can find a way to be calm, objective and reasonable. This way I will be in a better position to question my thoughts and feelings and recognise I am misinterpreting the situation and see it for what it really is. This would really be huge progress.

Upward curve

I have not written for a while. This is not because nothing's going on. I have been really quite low since November. It started with moving house. The process and the build up to the move and then the move itself was stressful. It actually went quite smoothly and relatively quickly. I dread to think what state I'd have been in had it not! So we were lucky with all that. However, the real stress came when once moved in we had the huge task of renovating the place which is now over half done.

All this got to me. I felt down, negative and stressed and my self esteem suffered although I am not sure how that relates to the disorder, mess and renovation. Maybe it felt out of control and too big for me? I'm not sure. This lead to feelings of anger and frustration a lot of the time. I found that the intense negative emotions made my mind very tired and also my body. I caught a cold in the winter which turned into congestion which lasted months and has still not 100% cleared. The doctor just said it'll take time to clear. Sure is! It's a real eye opener about how negative emotions can also physically harm you. I have discovered that stress even causes dizziness and back pain! Stress is bad news.

I have done a lot of work on trying to shift my emotions to up rather than down. I have tried to switch from negative to optimism and slowly it has worked. Trying to make myself see the good and be more light (hearted). Each day edging to being that bit better. I realised that I had somehow subconsciously decided that because I have OCD, anxiety and depression I cannot be happy. Of course this is not true because they come and go in varying degrees and can be manageable. I have used some Buddhist principles to help to calm myself which is very useful. 

Recently I have tried to avert my attention from the negativity and anger when it crops up and to switch to thinking of something which makes me happy or something practical. 

I think the route of my anger and lack of self-esteem stems from deep, long held opinions of myself which I have now learned are inaccurate. I believed for years that I should be and should have achieved things which I have not and this was terrible for my self-esteem. I read a book called "DON'T GET MAD GET WISE. Why no one ever makes you angry...ever!" by Mike George which made me realise I am not supposed to be anything other than myself. Sounds obvious but it is incredible how many people have no idea that is all / what they need to be. We keep trying to fit the square peg in the round hole because we think - or want - it to go but it just is

not us so it doesn't. Also to try to change these views and in turn my feelings about myself I have decided to focus on a few aims. I told myself I should do what makes me happy and do what I am good at. So I have based my aims on these things.

Something which had made a huge difference is that I have tried hard to atop my preoccupation with my problems. Anxiety and OCD like to put me though the torturous task of constantly repeating to myself my problems and how to resolve them. On a loop over and over I "repeat".  I have managed to stop this habit and free my mind. I managed it by keeping it short and sweet by saying to myself only the main points - I think there were just three - and then practicing letting them go and making myself focus on other things for prolonged periods. Now I don't "repeat" much at all. It has free my thinking hugely and made me feel more happy, creative, enthusiastic and energetic. I don't know how long I can keep this up but it's good! 

Life feels better now and I hope I can continue this even when the negative and fearful feelings rear their ugly heads. 

Exhausted

I am absolutely exhausted. On Thursday and Friday last week work was hectic and stressful. The team I support were producing a lot of work and since one of my colleagues was on holiday I was also supporting her team who were also very busy. My OCD is usually worse at work. In stressful periods, of course, it becomes much worse. This was one of those occasions. Because of the anxiety I feel very worried about making mistakes and because of the OCD I feel the need to check my work many times. By the time I got home on Thursday evening I was really feeling it and woke in the night at about 3am unable to get back to sleep. You can imagine how I felt on Friday which was much the same as Thursday workload wise. I got home on Friday looking forward to the long bank holiday weekend. But when I arrived at my karate lesson on Saturday lunchtime I felt half asleep and struggled through my lesson. I went home feeling mentally and physically exhausted. The physical exhaustion was not down to karate but because of the impact stress has on my body. I have experienced this before. I decided to give the afternoon lesson a miss - not so much a choice as necessary. Today I didn't go either. I feel an aching, crushing kind of tiredness. At first I did not believe how two stressful days could make me feel this bad but then I thought about how I have felt for the last several weeks. 

It seems every day when I wake in the morning my first thought is of my issues and it continues like that for the rest of the day. Thinking about my OCD, anxiety, depression, lack of self-esteem. Not always actually worrying as such but at least being aware of it - having it in my consciousness the whole time so it overshadows everything. This feels like a great burden - a heavy weight on my shoulders. I need to stop this. I don't always use the worry time as I should. I have tried to reintroduce this in the last couple of days. Worry time can be a great help. Another thing I have realised is that I am often in the frame of mind that I am and my life is my issues. Because I think of them constantly they have become more prominent than anything else in my life and have event become me or at least that is how if feels. I need to adapt my perception of myself and my life to being the me without the problems and the anxiety, OCD and depression just a part of it. Does this make sense?  I think the above has worn me down over time. I was down, negative and tired so then when things got stressful at work I just could not withstand the pressure. I also seem to have a constant cold. I expect that is a sign I am feeling the strain. I need to learn to cope better. I am fairly ok at handling the problems individually. I know how to deal with them. But the constant thinking about it all needs to stop. 

This is hard. I really want to be able to use the worry time to stop the constant thoughts and awareness of these problems and to think of myself as the person I am aside from these things - the real me if you like. Then I think my life can be brighter. 

Something weird happened this morning

I left the house and began to walk down the street to the station. After about 150 yards I suddenly thought did I switch off the bathroom light? At the moment I don't usually put the light on as it's daylight when I get up but this morning I put the light on while I was in there for a minute just before I left so it is not part of my routine. I was not particularly worried about it just annoyed. I thought it will bug me all day if I don't check it. Going back to the house to check something is, to me, a serious step backwards in dealing with my OCD but today was different somehow. I decided to go back but as I said it did not feel as though it was so much because I was worried but because it annoyed me. I went back and found I had turned it off. I am confused. Would a "normal" person have gone back not because of worry but because it would bug them? It seems odd to me. At one time threat and the subsequent feelings of worry would be at the forefront of my mind. I don't feel my OCD is becoming worse but I will be interested to see how I manage to lock up on Friday.

Stop the noise

I have just graded for my purple and white karate belt. This is something which makes me incredibly happy.

I have noticed that in the two weeks coming up to grading all the noise in my head stops. I need to focus on my grading and practice and prepare. I somehow seem to be able to achieve this state of mind where everything else takes a back seat and all the negative self talk and general skewed thinking inside my mind ceases. It is peaceful. Of course I am nervous and working hard but things are much clearer without the clutter. In comparison to my usual experience this is peaceful.  I have learnt that I can stop all the noise in my head. But how can I make this happen day to day? I have noted that when I achieve this clear and quiet state of mind coming up to grading it is automatic rather than conscious. I don't think - "right I need to have focus now and not worry about other things" - it just happens. There is something in my unconscious which believes that it is so important I achieve in karate I am somehow able, without even consciously trying, to get focused and block out all else.

If only I could  summon up a feeling of necessity to have this mind set for the day to day. Then I could control all the negative self talk and feelings which I struggle with everyday, focus, achieve and be happy. Of course though my ability to achieve this state of mind is down to my passion for karate. You cannot be passionate about the day to day.

From fear to joy

I was so upset on Friday night. I was signed up for a karate competition on Saturday but was feeling really unsure about it. Since I have been down I have not had as much focus on my karate practice I am afraid to say and I really was not at all confident. Also, I was planning to drive to the venue which is somewhere I have never been let alone driven. The whole thing was quite a scary prospect for me. I really did not want to go in the end and spent about half an hour crying about it. I decided though that it would be worse to not go as giving up would be too depressing. I thought that I can at least go and have a try. Ok I don't expect to do well but having competition experience is valuable in itself. So on Saturday morning I got up early, did some practice, sorted out the Sat Nav and off I went.

I won. I beat a guy! I was so happy I could not believe it. Yey! I managed the drive with no problems too. In the afternoon I drove to my usual lesson and was feeling good. Is it me who doubts myself or is it that life is just full of surprises?

Today though I have been really hard on myself. I went out to practice my parking and managed well apart from on my parallel parking. Oh dear me! I cannot do it. How hard can it be?! But my mind was struggling and in the end I had to give up because it was baking hot and I was not feeling great with that and the frustraion. Plus the brakes were too warm! That is how long I was doing it for. I felt such a fool which maybe I was but what I also did was disregard all the good I have done and just started to focus on that one negative thing. I am trying to make myself consider all the good stuff I have managed to do. Hubby will take me out next weekend to teach me the parallel parking. Bless him!  

Black cloud descends but the sun is in sight...

Yesterday my husband and I went out and I drove. This time it was quite different to the day before. I found I was more confident on my own!!! This is from being totally dependent on having someone else in the car helping me. I think I had gained enough confidence to go out alone which was great. But then I had my husband correcting me. He was of course trying to be helpful but I am so sensitive I take it as criticism. It takes one negative comment to knock me down and ten to build me up. I have been feeling down since then but am now reasoning that I did fine on my own and the criticism is intended to be helpful and I just need to take it on board and learn from it. Onwards and upwards.