What Have I Accomplished?

My BFF tries to help me be more positive and become healthier. He worries, oft times for good reason. Right now he wants me to put together a list of all my successes and I'm having trouble doing it. My list of accomplishments seems so short for having lived 51 years. Some of the things on my list are that I've crocheted some beautiful doilies. That just seems like I'm reaching for the bottom of the barrel with that one.

This list has two purposes: 1) remind me that I can accomplish notable things; and 2) help decrease my anxiety over being able to accomplish things ever again, or basically, my anxiety over everything.

There are things I'm very proud of that I think are quite notable, such as teaching myself to ride a two-wheel bike when I was five years old, or buying my first house all by myself and with all my own money when I was 33 years old.

Then there's the doilies. They are pretty doilies, but not exactly notable.

Part of the problem may be that I generally think that if I can do it, it's not such a big thing then. It's taken me the over 3 years that I've (mostly) lived in Houston to accept that my just getting up and taking off for destination unknown IS a big deal.

A sub-purpose of this list is to help me regain my confidence and lose my anxiety over looking for and finding work. It was so nice to be working and making some money. I feel so worthless when I'm not making money, because I don't want to end up having to depend upon others to get by.

So, I'm having difficulties putting together my list. My BFF said he'll help me brainstorm and as much as he gives me crap a lot of the time, he does think very highly of me. 

He may even think that the doilies count. Not that he wants one.

How do you build your confidence? Do you know what your successes are? Share a few here!

When I Was Alone

I was the only girl my age in the cul de sac where I grew up, which meant that I only had people to play with when the boys needed an extra number or they were feeling generous (or when a girlfriend from school asked me to come over for the afternoon). After all, I couldn't catch or throw a baseball to save my life (although my football spiral was a thing of beauty) and my basketball skills were unreliable. I had reasonably thick glasses from the time I was nine, which probably had something to do with it.

But I was the only kid who wanted to play the part of Spock when we played Star Trek with someone's LEGOs and sometimes they needed an extra number for a sports game (my little brother was a thousand times better than I was by the time he was seven, so he took my place completely when I was 11, which was also when the boys determined I was truly a girl. After all, I was now wearing a training bra.

So I played alone a lot, even before I got a bra.

The thing was, I was only seldom sad about it. I'm alone most of the time now, too, but I'm sad about it most of the time. What was different and how do I get back to not minding being alone?

When I Did It Myself

When I was five, I wanted a two-wheeler bike. It was time to be done with my big tricycle and be a big kid. 

But first there is something you need to know about my parents: they weren't the kind of parents who thought through any aspect of their parenting. Mom was only 21 when I was born and Dad was 27. They liked to do what they wanted to do, and they did love my brother and me and enjoyed doing things with us, but they tended to parent on the convenience plan: if they felt like putting out the effort they did. If it seemed inconvenient, they found a reason not to do it.

So when I wanted a two-wheeler bike, they apparently weren't in the mood to be bothered with it at the time. They were both working, which afforded us luxuries that other kids with a cop or a secretary as a parent didn't, so it wasn't the cost. They just didn't apparently feel like it right then. So instead of the usual thing, where you buy your kid their first two-wheeler and teach them to ride it, they told me they'd buy me one when I was able to ride one. 

Hell, I was five. What they never understood was that I was an extremely bright kid, more than they realized, and logical, too. I wanted my bike, so I was going to learn to ride one.

Not Enough

I've mentioned the cognitive-behavioral therapy I'm doing right now with my therapist. It's got great potential and it's very promising, but ... not much is happening. I feel I've made very little progress in the past few months. So today I asked my therapist why, and she told me.

It's not enough to read the book and talk to her about the theory and how it can work and talk about the intellectual aspect, which I can do ad infinitum. I have to actually do the work. I have to think about it and apply it all through the week.

She said, "This therapy is the most important thing in your life right now."

The most important thing in my life. I hadn't been thinking of it that way. 

She said, "This is the only way you are going to be able to make your life be what you want it to be."

I more or less knew that, on an intellectual basis, but not on a gut basis. I wasn't feeling it. I wasn't thinking "I need to do this NOW before my life passes even further by me without my control or passion or action.

My attitudes and perspective changed today; I hope they changed for good. The work I'm doing now IS the most important thing in my life and always has been, I just didn't know it. I need to act on learning this therapeutic form and making it natural and automatic. I need to act, period.

I know me: I might forget all this in a day or two of feeling miserably anxious and failing all over the place. I won't mind gentle reminders. I expect my therapist to be a bit less than gentle because it is time and past for me to get this done. I'm 51. I don't want to still be exactly in this same place when I'm 52. In fact, I have an intention. I intend to make great progress by summer so I can actually begin looking hard for freelance work and be able to handle the anxiety, be able to make it smaller and smaller.

But it starts with making the therapy natural and automatic, and with action rather than with the passivity I've grown into. There's another Skye who views me as Superman for a variety of reasons; I can try to live up to that.

In the coming days, I'll tell stories of when I acted, when I persisted against failure or lack of support, when I succeeded and learned, and when I was my own superhero. Those are the anecdotes and examples I need to remember in order to regain those aspects of myself again and get back to my authentic self.

So hang around. And feel free to share your own stories of being stuck, of getting unstuck, and of becoming You.

Rockin' the Words

I'm writing a novel! I started on Feb 8th. I don't write daily, but I have written approximately 20,200 words. I'm in my third chapter (it feels like it should be chapter 3 at any rate) and I've got so much going on in the story now.

It's Deb Blake's fault. I told her I had no ideas for what to write: no characters, no scenes, no bits of dialog. So she gave me two lines, two weird little lines and there I went. 

It's still not easy to write after not writing for all these years, but it's getting easier. And the story is taking shape in my head as I write. I am getting background and information as I write and as I think when I'm not writing.

Today I started early and wrote 2153 words before breakfast. Before breakfast! Deb is keeping my spirits up by telling me I rock and that the story is hilarious and that she loves it but now I can actually say to myself: I rock! My last novel attempt was a romantic suspense, or at least an attempt at romance, and I got to 45,000 words after working on it off and on for over a year. That's a lot more than this but none of those words came this comfortably or fit together this well. Every one of those words had to be hammered into place. I gave up with the thought that it was taking way too much force to turn it into an actual story.

This story is the opposite. It's fun to write; it's urban fantasy of some sort; the words work together. Sometimes I have to stop and think, but the story moves and flows organically. I'm already aware of continuity issues and all kinds of other revisions that I'll need to address, but I'm able to stay in creative mode and simply ... create. It feels so good!

I am writing and I am rocking it!

Thanks, Deb.

I Did This

Just a super-short post to tell y'all that I took the picture in the header. It's from the Central Oregon Coast, from 2010 or 2011. It's only a portion of a photo, but I had to jump through some hoops to get it to fit as a header for the blog.

I'm always pleased when I can actually get the spray or a curling wave and I got both in this one. So, I'm bragging on myself and saying "See this awesome picture? I took it!"

Frozen

You know how people refer to the fight or flight reflex? They forget the third option: freeze and hope you aren't seen. That is my response to stress and anxiety and fear. I have all the chemicals for the fight or flight, but they have nowhere to go because I stay still and hope that no one, or whatever is causing me stress, doesn't see me. So the adrenalin et al. have no way to burn off.

When I am anxious or stressed in some way, I minimize myself, try to not draw attention to myself if possible. That goes on at all levels, even to the level where I breathe shallowly and hold my breath.

I used to have nightmares as a child — lots of them. But my folks didn't like me to wake them up or climb in bed with them, so mostly I just stayed in bed quietly after having them. There was one I had a lot: I'd wake up and be sure that a big, black dog was sitting next to my bed, just waiting for some sign that I was awake. And once it knew I was awake, it was going to tear my throat out. So I would stay as still as I could, which involved breathing very shallowly (I had no idea how a sleeping person breathed and wanted to take no chances of attracting the big dog's attention). I would do this until I either went back to sleep or passed out from lack of sufficient oxygen, I'm not sure which. 

As a result, I am very good at remaining very still and at breathing shallowly. Given that I am anxious all the time currently, I breathe shallowly a lot. I hold my breath a lot. And I sit unmoving except for some occasional involuntary fidgeting for very long periods.

And that's nuts. Moving and breathing are supposed to help diminish anxiety and stress. So why isn't my body (and that little mind of mine) trying to do what would help it? Because there might be a sabre tooth tiger — or a big black dog — waiting just outside my door. Or somewhere, just waiting for me to prove I'm awake and alive. And the primitive part of my brain is very strong.

So I sit, a block of ice, not getting any better because I am a sea of stress and fear chemicals with no way to burn them off.

Tell me, do you freeze or do you fight or flee?