I broke down tonight,missing My mum,My dad..
I didn’t even see it coming.
I was able to pull myself together enough to go to sleep. Tonight has been difficult. I am struggling with feeling disappointed with myself for “giving in” to my negative emotions instead of using coping skills to keep my head afloat. At this point I am fighting to keep my head above the water, fighting to keep from drowning in a sea of self-doubt and despair.
How did I get here? Everything was going along splendidly. I was finally starting to feel empowered. I felt like I was making so much progress in just a short time period. I was even feeling that somehow this couldn’t be real… How could I have come so far so quickly? I have actually been rather proud of myself for how I’ve been doing. However, despite my good spirits and increasing resolve, that little doubting voice in the back of my mind kept saying “Keep alert, this is just the calm before the storm…”
Sure enough, before I was able to perceive the warning signs, the storm broke loose.
I have been spending most of the day today prostrate in front of the television, seemingly engrossed but really just spacing out as I’ve tried to figure out what happened.
I think I’ve pinpointed it.
I became overconfident. I started to take on too much, too fast. Because I was feeling so good for a couple weeks there, I thought I could start going on Facebook more often, start having more online conversations, start going to larger social events again. I figured I would be fine, that I would be able to back off once I started to feel overwhelmed. The problem was that I lost touch with my own internal warning signs telling me that I was becoming too stressed. Looking back, I can see the increased anxiety manifesting itself through nightmares, rapid heart beat, and more urges to binge and self-harm. Yesterday I started to feel a cold, creeping emptiness come upon me that I hadn’t felt in weeks, that seemingly came out of “nowhere.” Well, that’s never true. Emotions don’t originate in a vacuum… I just wasn’t able to recognize what was happening inside me as I opened myself up to more and more outside pressure, which is not conducive to healing at this point.
I am upset with myself because I fell back into that familiar pattern I’ve gone through for the last four years. I start to see improvement, I start feeling better about myself, and then I start to get lax, get “comfortable,” and think I can take on the world again… Then I crash.
Well, as much as I’d like to think I’m endowed with supernatural abilities including spontaneous regeneration…
I still have a long ways to go in my recovery and I can’t kid myself into thinking I’m “just fine” when I’m not. I need to take it slow, and also give myself another break from outside pressures that just serve to overwhelm me. My biggest mistake was getting involved in conversation with someone who completely invalidated my view of myself and my illness. It tore me apart. Then right after that, I got a text message from someone I did NOT want to hear from, and was so upset I threw my phone against the wall (I can’t tell you how many times THAT has happened!) Basically, I need to focus on myself right now AND BELOVED HUSBAND and not spread myself too thin. I simply don’t have the skills to take on more than the basics right now, as much as I’d like to do more. I have high expectations for myself, and big things I want to do with my life… but those will just have to wait. I have to be patient with myself. My priority right now… is me.
So here’s to “falling forward.” Here’s to restoring my focus on the essentials. Here’s to simplifying my life again and resetting my priorities.
Tomorrow is a new day… I pray for the strength to press on.
