So What's Been Goin' On?

Well, I've been thinking. I've been zoning out. I've been getting very few  hours of sleep a night — still — and wondering why. And the past couple of days I've been playing with the cool new toy Sabine bought me: an iPad mini. She said we all needed tablets, so she bought Griffin an android tablet of his choice and now she's seeing what about each of ours she likes so she can decide among all the choices for herself.

I also applied for six jobs yesterday. They say you need to apply for 100 jobs to find one. If I do, say, 5 a day for the rest of the month, I'll be set! Of course, I missed today. And I get very distracted by my housemates sometimes, especially since Sabine has retired.

I made a schedule of my daily routine needs. It will work, if I can get to sleep by 11, stay asleep all night, and get up at 7. Big 'ifs'.

My creativity seems to be in the bottom of the sink right now. I've been crocheting my brains out and showing some creativity there, but then I look at stuff people have made up that's on Pinterest or Ravelry and think "why don't I do that? I'm so dull!" The crocheting has left no time for other creative work (writing, drawing) or reading. But it is satisfying because I am creating tangible, useful, beautiful things for other people and that is one of my languages of love. Actually, two I guess: gifts and service.

I talked with my therapist about the rebound effect I experienced for the couple of days following my last post. We talked a bit about it being one of my patterns and how it seems related to how I withdraw after feeling a strong emotion — for example, after I have a cry or even a big emotional event, I then pull back and am distant and detached for a while, hours to days. I think maybe that's what I've supposed to have been thinking about and working on since Wednesday, but I forgot and it's upstairs in my journal and I don't feel like going up and checking it out. Right now I'm not feeling amazing and I don't feel like I'm doing Great Things, but I at least still believe I am and I can, even if not right now.

I get tired of thinking, examining, and analyzing. I feel I've had too much therapy. I think more than I do. Michele has commented on that. My Houston-BFF bugged me some this week and goaded me into putting up a poster (well, piece of paper) with "Action" printed on it. I chose a great font, good colors, some active-looking lines to go underneath. And didn't print it. H-BFF actually sounded disgusted when we talked the next day and I told him that. I felt shame. I printed it before the next time we talked, but hadn't taped it to my bathroom mirror yet because Griffin said not unless I use gaffer's tape, which he would give me, because it doesn't leave a residue. But he didn't get it to me, and H-BFF texted and harangued me for not putting it up, for making excuses, until I finally went upstairs, got two post-its out of my office-supplies box, and hung the sign on my mirror with two hot-pink post-its. Then I snapped a picture and texted it to him. He later congratulated me and asked if I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment. Actually, I felt a release of the tension I'd felt from not getting it done and a relief from the shame. But I like having it up. It makes me think and I think it's worming it's active little way into my brain.

My H-BFF had a much more traumatic childhood than I had (horrific, actually) and came out of it an overachieving, type-A, compartmentalizer. He succeeds. A lot. He is active to my passive, aggressive to my timid. I am kinder and nicer, but he accomplishes more. I could be tougher and braver, but he has heart problems and has had multiple heart surgeries. I understand him better than he understands me, and possibly better than he understands himself, but he has given me priceless insights into myself that I hadn't seen. He knows more about me than most of my other friends, but he doesn't get me as well as they do in most ways. And he wouldn't understand gaming even if someone gave him a job that required it (hmm, then maybe he'd need to hire someone like me ….).

Michele and I also talked a bit about authenticity. At least I think it was this time. I'm feeling rather fuzzy about what we talked about, actually. I know it wandered as it has been lately. I think perhaps the sleep deprivation has caught up to me. Last night was particularly bad and i started a sleep aid last night. I see Michele on Monday for a change and we'll talk about my experiences for the nights preceding. It would be nice to find something that would put me to sleep, keep me asleep for 8 hours, and let me wake up without feeling drugged the next day, without being habituating or causing serious side effects. I just want something for a month or two, just long enough to break this dreadful sleep pattern I've fallen into so I can return to a healthy sleep pattern again. And yeah, the sleep thing is pretty much tied in with all the other junk.

I'm tired of my issues. I'm tired of struggling, of going to therapy, of working on stuff, of wondering what the hell's wrong with me and why am I not functioning well or at all. I'm tired of not functioning well, if at all. At this point, is it my issues, or is it what I've become through therapy and depression and anxiety over the past 30 years? I feel like I really don't know what or who I am. Of course, that could just be an artifact of having become too analytical and mental about everything. Maybe I'm not lost: maybe I just think I am.

Good phrase, but I really don't know what to do about it. I don't know what to do other than keep going to therapy and working on things and taking meds. Maybe I'm especially fuzzy because the little sleep I got last night was especially broken and today was very dark and wet and stormy.

"Don't identify with your issues" is basically what Karen, my previous therapist, told me. "You are not your depression. You are not your anxiety." I am not what I feel. I guess I am more what I do, which in this case is kind of close to nothing, so that's not good either.

I was just talking with a friend about the list of Good Things About Skye and Bad Things About Skye that she had suggested I write down, as well as the feedback I'd gotten from friends I shared the lists with to elicit feedback.  A couple of friends told me the Good Things were true and the Bad Things were not in evidence. One friend told me to kind of, in not so many words, just get over myself or my issues and go DO something — volunteer, go for walks, just be active (she wasn't rude, just very direct). A couple of friends either didn't respond or responded indirectly, letting me know that I am loved. So the friend who gave me the assignment wanted to know what I was thinking/feeling about the responses and the assignment.

I hadn't spent any time processing it and had actually forgotten all about it. (I just read a snippet that said that losing two hours of sleep in one night can prevent your brain from forming long-term memories of the previous day — and I've been running on 4-6 hours of sleep a night for months.) So I thought while we talked. She wondered if the things on my Bad Things list were actual behaviors/actions, or just thoughts and I had to admit they are just thoughts. I think of myself as selfish and greedy, but I don't act that way. Sometimes my thoughts are greedy or selfish thoughts (or other negatives) and that leads me to think I am those qualities.  And this discussion led back to the idea that maybe I have spent and am spending too much time in my head analyzing and thinking and processing therapy and issues and maybe I'd be doing better if I spent more time outside of my head and did more things. I include doing creative things that are very mental, such as writing, in the "doing" category, so writing and drawing and crocheting count too.

It's the next day and I've now read the few notes I made on my most recent session with Michele and noted that she recommended I step beyond my Introverted box and push myself (hard) to do more networking (to find work) and step outside my tired box and push myself to exercise and do other activities. She said to find my energy-giving things and employ them to help me. Of course, I had completely forgotten all of that and I see her tomorrow (two days early to try and take advantage of my old health insurance, but I'm not sure if it will now that I think of it), so I won't have any progress on that front to report on. But she reads these posts usually and she'll know the wheels my hamsters have been riding the past several days.

So I guess my next task is to find out what my energy-giving things are. I need to boost my energy to make myself better able to attend networking events, exercise, clean my room, and so on. Unfortunately, that sounds like work and I'm feeling tired (five hours of broken sleep last night). And oh yeah, gotta somehow fix the sleep problem. The sleep med I got isn't working yet and I am wondering if simply using melatonin would do the trick at this point. Something to ask in the morning.

That's what I've been up to. How are you doing?