Gravity

Another tough week. This one riddled with the flu. Being home sick has provided me with more time than I wanted alone with myself (and god-awful daytime tv). Last week I referenced some difficult stuff I'm dealing with Doug on. I had an assignment for this past Thursday that revolved around that "stuff".

At first the assignment given seemed challenging but I sort of dismissed the potential gravity of it. Possibly as a coping mechanism? Then as I mentioned last week it started to get more difficult and I went into a sort of obsessive factual hunt and gather mode. I do apologize for not getting specific, again this is extremely personal but the emotions around it are worth sharing.

Then the gravity, the seriousness started to sink in and I sort of became panicked. Well, not so much sort of, I physically had a panic attack. I made a couple phone calls and then was fortunate enough one of those calls was able to come and sit with me while I processed all of this crap. As scary as this was and as emotionally distraught as I was at the time, looking back on that evening I see that I was sitting with my emotions - not trying to stuff them away. It was hard, surreal and physically taxing. I didn't use symptoms through it. This is progress.The feelings and thoughts behind the panic are still very much there and are at the tip of the iceberg of some self discovery or perhaps self actualization. One type of discovery I've noticed that has sort of shown itself throughout all of this is that I have a tendency to minimize certain types of situations, myself and my emotions..."that's no big deal" (not giving enough weight to my assignment) or "it's okay, it doesn't matter" equates on some level to "I'm no big deal" and "I don't matter". This is a topic for therapy, most certainly.

What's frustrating about the minimizing is that we've done some work on trying to show me that I do matter and I feel like this crap I've been dealing with the last week or so has pushed me backwards a bit, regressed. When I'm sad and down, I'm extremely self critical which makes it really hard to remember, much less believe, all that I've learned or been shown.

I'm wondering how often when I think I'm accepting a new belief or way of thinking that I'm not truly accepting it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that when I think I've resolved an issue or "dealt" with it and then it comes back and I don't handle it in the effective and adaptive way that I've learned, it makes me wonder how many of my lessons have to be repeated before I truly accept and believe them. I guess it depends on the lesson, some are just harder than others and deserve more attention and patience.

I hope that wasn't too confusing. I'm still sorta spacey from all my sinus crap. Oh how I hope I wake up tomorrow and it's like I was never sick. I want my energy back!