Grateful

As I mentioned, part of theme for IOP on Monday was being grateful. I've never been good with grateful. At all. I used to get so pissed at people who would tell me to find things to be grateful for. I'd think, "Yeah great there's a pretty blue sky and the sun is shining and I'm healthy and yada yada but EVERYTHING ELSE HURTS INSIDE!!" But lately I've been learning a lot about being grateful. Thing is, appreciating something good doesn't mean having to minimize what's bad. Some people seem to believe that, and drive me crazy in the process. They say stupid things like, "How can you so upset when you have so many things going for you in your life?" or "You really shouldn't complain so much. There's plenty of people out there that have it much worse than you." Yeah. Those comments still suck. I get where they're coming from, but when you're life is falling apart, you have deep pain inside, or you are battling a mental illness, it's not a matter of just appreciating or getting happier or "just dealing with it." Those kinds of thoughts have caused a lot of trouble in my life. I've been very ashamed of what's inside of me for a very long time, and have felt like a failure because I can't just be happy and enjoy and appreciate what I have. It added to the issues because I got convinced that something was wrong w/me because I couldn't just snap out of it.

But through all of my recent therapy, I'm learning a different way to be grateful. I'm learning to see that it's not all or nothing; that even when it hurts so much it's not all over. There's still something good to hold on to. And recognizing and appreciating those little things, those moments, helps bring the light back into an otherwise dark world.

Today I had my midterm for one of my classes. Leading up to it I was not doing well. I was panicking like crazy. My hands were shaking, my head hurt, the world was spinning. I'd already maxed out on any meds I could take. But the panic wasn't related to the test. No, it was related to some entirely unrelated life stuff, which made it all the more frustrating. Life and my crazy brain was officially getting in the way of me being able to function at a very important time. I realized as I was walking to the classroom building that this just wasn't going to work. There was absolutely no way I could go in and take a major test in the condition I was in. The sun was shining and felt good on my face, so instead of going in I found a nice grassy spot and lay down. I thought about the AA meeting I went to, where multiple people had talked about giving things over to god. Now if you read my god post you know my thoughts on the spirit/higher power/god thing but we're just gonna go with saying god for now to keep it simple. Anyway...I decided that if there was ever a time that I needed to give things up to god this was it. I couldn't handle this on my own, and I didn't have the strength to fight it. So I laid there, sun shining on my face and I said Ok god...i need you here. If there's any way you could slow my heart rate a bit and get me calm enough to make it through these next couple hours and through this test I'd really really appreciate it. As I was saying this the word grateful popped in to my head. I started thanking god for holding out the warm, sunny weather long enough for me to have this moment to feel the sunshine and regroup...since there was a winter storm warning for this afternoon/evening. As I thanked god for the sun, I went on to thank him for the grass to lay on and the beautiful world that surrounds me. Before I knew it I found myself saying "and it doesn't matter how this test goes because whatever happens I still have this beautiful world to live in." Yeah. Wow. I shocked myself with that one. But I realized then that I had calmed down enough to face the test and be ok with the outcome. My breathing came back and my dizziness had gone away. I was able to walk calmly into the building and into the classroom, amazed at the transition that had just taken place in a matter of minutes.

The test went well. There were only a couple of things that I really didn't know. My brain did get a bit "lost" at times, so I'm just hoping the prof. has a sense of humor when she grades it! I was really struggling to stay focused on the essays so I started writing them in narrative form. Meaning, a question about describing the ethical decision making process turned into a story about a caped hero out to save the world. It had all the information in it...just with a bit extra distraction...lol On another I did it almost completely stream of consciousness style...meaning that I wrote down every side comment that was in my head along with the essay itself. This test was extremely difficult for me to study for because there were tons of lists to memorize...the 5 steps of this and the 6 standards of this and the 8 aspects of this...etc. So on the essay asking me to recreate this list of 8 factors that I could never remember no matter how many times I studied it....I wrote out my attempts to remember it. Things like "Well I think _____ is one, and gosh this is a long list. But I think _____ goes on it too. And maybe ________. But really it's all about _____(lots of descriptions here because I couldn't remember the right terms). Oh and there's totally ______!

At the very least I made myself laugh, which made it easier to get through. I used every minute I had...the full 2 hours...and just barely finished the test. (Maybe cus i was busy adding silliness to the essays? lol) Anyway..I survived and I did it. And I made it to my therapy appt after that which went decently well.

Anyway...the moral to this very long story is that by really focusing on something that was good and that I was grateful for, I was able to turn my thought process around, calm down, and refocus.....which, frankly, is HUGE! A potentially disastrous situation turned out ok. So my new commitment is that every time I write a blog entry now, I'm going to conclude with at least one thing I'm grateful for. It may sound trite, but it's important to me. There's a big list tonight.

Tonight I'm grateful for:
*More than 2 hours of being fully content sitting here on my beanbag listening to music
*Going for a 30 min. walk in the freezing rain
*The hot shower after the walk
*The potential for snow tonight
*Successfully eating 3 meals of "real food" today
*Friends who care about me
*A therapist I feel comfortable with
*My squishy stress ball....best purchase EVER! So nice when I get panicky and fidgity...like during the test
*Skittles....my very favorite get rid of alcohol cravings candy. I usually always have a bag with me in my backpack, and just a few to munch on can work miracles! They also help me to stay focused and grounded at important times when I start to get lost in bad thoughts