Telling Stories

So, my therapist loved the two posts and all the comments and we talked about whether or not my perspective has changed ("not yet") because of telling my story from a stronger point of view. She also loved that Lora called me on using more passive verbs ("got through") rather than more active, stronger verbs. I'm working on that.

So this form of cognitive therapy seems right for me, because I am a story teller. Telling my stories with power and strength to overcome my feelings of powerlessness and weakness seems right up my alley.

My biggest problem is just that I am so anxious I don't think to do this. I don't think to do any of the other cognitive therapy I've learned. I don't think to do anything other than to hold onto myself so I don't fly apart into bits and hold onto the ground so I don't fly off into space. Because that is how I feel most of the time anymore.

Most people feel I'm doing better than last year and from the perspective of depression I'm doing vastly better. But I'm not so sure about the anxiety. I feel as if I'm more afraid of more things, or afraid of more things and more afraid of things I was already afraid of.

There have been times, even as recently as just before I chose to return to Oregon to help my mom, when I have felt confident and calm and very capable. So I can talk myself out of this anxiety, right?

I've been unemployed or under employed since the beginning of 2008, although the first year I took off on purpose as I determined what to do next. But the past three and a half years have not provided me with much of an income or very frequent employment. And that's what has me so anxious. I've been feeling so anxious about my ability to work and make money anymore that I haven't even pursued the lead that my friend Nan gave me for a national freelancer's association. And I haven't pursued a couple of other things here in town, either. Because I have lost belief in myself.

I am an excellent writer and editor with over two decades — close to three, at this point — of experience writing and editing for other people, whether it was writing articles for the School of Liberal Arts newsletter or editing reports on marine biology and salmon populations on the Oregon Coast. I've written instructions on how to use software, hardware, and computer programming languages. I've co-written technical white papers on new ways to communicate over the internet and I've written articles for a professional journal, a local newspaper, and a local online magazine. I've edited virtually everything, including appendices on mathematical models, even though I can barely muddle through basic math: clear expression is clear expression and you don't have to be able to understand every bit of the subject matter to effectively edit it for clarity and logic.

So why hold myself back? Why not believe in myself?

Because I've learned a hopeless, helpless way of thinking and being. Because I've been in shock since my mother died. Because it's hard work being positive and strong all by yourself and I'm tired. Pick one or more.

But that's just life. As my friends commented on my last couple of posts, I am strong. I am brave. I am capable. I don't even have to believe that I am any of that right now — I just have to act as if I do and I'll achieve some of the same results. 

Act like you are confident and people believe that you are.

I guess I can at least act like I'm brave and serene. 

And acting is just another form of telling a story.