Monday, January 27, 2014
As I continue my recovery process I often feel the weight of grief. My grief has so many facets to it. Some of my grief is due to the injustice I experienced as a child which I could not escape. Then there is the alienation from my families of origin I have felt on different occasions in my life. This alienation has also been a source of grief. Now, as I work through the impact of my earlier life history in a proactive way, I can identify the aspect of my grief that is most prominent for me now. And this grief comes from my feeling of having missed out. I feel that I have missed out on so much.
To awaken to the reality that I have been experiencing an anxiety disorder for decades is no small matter. I have spoken about this in more recent posts; it wasn't entirely clear to me just what I had been experiencing during the first few months that I found myself back in therapy yet again. Last June, July, August and even September seem like such a blur now. I was focused on getting out of the messy mix of feelings I was feeling at the time and not at all focused on attempting to see the bigger picture of my life history. Once that initial stage had passed life became a lot easier...in some respects. I still find myself feeling a lot of pain these days...but at least I am finally fully conscious of it (or nearly so...can we ever be 100.0000% conscious of whatever pain there is in our lives??). My physical body, with the exception of my left foot, now is in very good shape. Indeed, I am probably nearly in the best physical shape I have ever been in now. And my emotional health is rapidly catching up as well.
Lost time. How do you deal with discovering you were anxious nearly as early as you have a consistent stream of memory? How do you overcome such a lengthy legacy of internal disquiet that was so long in the backdrop of your psyche? These are not rhetorical questions. Nor are they easy questions to resolve. All I can do now is live my life in the best way possible and be the person I wish to be. By living in the present moment and releasing all aspects of the past that no longer serve me now I can move forward in a decisive and healthy way. And yet still I feel the burden of lost time.
When I attended the partial hospitalization program at Abbott Northwestern Hospital last November there was a woman in my group that reminded me very much of my mother. She was marginally functional; the pain in one of her wrists would keep her awake at night. She was so sleep deprived that she was at risk of becoming psychotic. It was difficult to be around her because I found her emotionally draining. I for my part was probably also not always easy to be around. I still remember her speaking of her sense of me and talking about how she sensed so much anger in me. She was correct. I was very angry.
Anger is a primary affective state I can find myself slipping into when I ruminate too much about lost time. I need to keep myself sufficiently busy such that I do not have the time to ruminate on the legacy of my past. I have made incredible progress in these last seven months; friends have witnessed my transformation and have been impressed by the speed of my recovery. And yet there is still much work to be done.
I also feel a bit weary lately of winter. The sun is shining today but it again is one of the coldest days of the winter season. Last year the spring began very late; there were record ice out dates on area lakes. I am wondering what this coming spring will hold for us. I pray that it begins earlier and lasts longer than last year's version of spring. But with the jet stream configuration so stuck it leads me to wonder. What will cause the pattern to finally begin to break down?
I am going to take a bit of time away from this blog at some point in February. I do not expect it will be a long break...most likely no more than a week. I feel it would be healthy to step back and reassess a lot of my life right now. But I will return to writing! I find it so therapeutic and also uplifting. It pleases me to know that some people are finding great benefit from my willingness to share my thoughts in a form available to anyone who should choose to follow me.
I wish everyone who reads this a pleasant and enjoyable day.
As I continue my recovery process I often feel the weight of grief. My grief has so many facets to it. Some of my grief is due to the injustice I experienced as a child which I could not escape. Then there is the alienation from my families of origin I have felt on different occasions in my life. This alienation has also been a source of grief. Now, as I work through the impact of my earlier life history in a proactive way, I can identify the aspect of my grief that is most prominent for me now. And this grief comes from my feeling of having missed out. I feel that I have missed out on so much.
To awaken to the reality that I have been experiencing an anxiety disorder for decades is no small matter. I have spoken about this in more recent posts; it wasn't entirely clear to me just what I had been experiencing during the first few months that I found myself back in therapy yet again. Last June, July, August and even September seem like such a blur now. I was focused on getting out of the messy mix of feelings I was feeling at the time and not at all focused on attempting to see the bigger picture of my life history. Once that initial stage had passed life became a lot easier...in some respects. I still find myself feeling a lot of pain these days...but at least I am finally fully conscious of it (or nearly so...can we ever be 100.0000% conscious of whatever pain there is in our lives??). My physical body, with the exception of my left foot, now is in very good shape. Indeed, I am probably nearly in the best physical shape I have ever been in now. And my emotional health is rapidly catching up as well.
Lost time. How do you deal with discovering you were anxious nearly as early as you have a consistent stream of memory? How do you overcome such a lengthy legacy of internal disquiet that was so long in the backdrop of your psyche? These are not rhetorical questions. Nor are they easy questions to resolve. All I can do now is live my life in the best way possible and be the person I wish to be. By living in the present moment and releasing all aspects of the past that no longer serve me now I can move forward in a decisive and healthy way. And yet still I feel the burden of lost time.
When I attended the partial hospitalization program at Abbott Northwestern Hospital last November there was a woman in my group that reminded me very much of my mother. She was marginally functional; the pain in one of her wrists would keep her awake at night. She was so sleep deprived that she was at risk of becoming psychotic. It was difficult to be around her because I found her emotionally draining. I for my part was probably also not always easy to be around. I still remember her speaking of her sense of me and talking about how she sensed so much anger in me. She was correct. I was very angry.
Anger is a primary affective state I can find myself slipping into when I ruminate too much about lost time. I need to keep myself sufficiently busy such that I do not have the time to ruminate on the legacy of my past. I have made incredible progress in these last seven months; friends have witnessed my transformation and have been impressed by the speed of my recovery. And yet there is still much work to be done.
I also feel a bit weary lately of winter. The sun is shining today but it again is one of the coldest days of the winter season. Last year the spring began very late; there were record ice out dates on area lakes. I am wondering what this coming spring will hold for us. I pray that it begins earlier and lasts longer than last year's version of spring. But with the jet stream configuration so stuck it leads me to wonder. What will cause the pattern to finally begin to break down?
I am going to take a bit of time away from this blog at some point in February. I do not expect it will be a long break...most likely no more than a week. I feel it would be healthy to step back and reassess a lot of my life right now. But I will return to writing! I find it so therapeutic and also uplifting. It pleases me to know that some people are finding great benefit from my willingness to share my thoughts in a form available to anyone who should choose to follow me.
I wish everyone who reads this a pleasant and enjoyable day.
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