My mood has crashed. They say it's expected and 'normal' for where I'm at in the program but it really leads to excessive feelings of hopelessness. It's actually fairly debilitating. I know, I know...'don't engage in depression'...and I haven't up until now. I fight it. I get out of bed when every muscle in my body aches and my mind so bleak that the darkness and warmth of being under the blankets is all I want. I recognize that we are having beautiful days and get out for at least a few hours each day and feel the sun on my skin. Today I watched the sunset and listened to the waves crashing near the shore of my favorite beach (Praia do Vau).
I know that getting through these days will make me, again, appreciate the reprieve that will eventually come.
The worst part of feeling like this is the irritability that comes along with it and the complete inability to talk. I'm told over and over to keep talking. To put my thoughts out there and have someone help me objectify them and turn them to positive but something stops me - ties my tongue and mutes me - and I feel like I've gotten no where. Retreating into my familiar shell of silence and pleasantries (although that is also a challenge) gives me the familiar negative comfort I have known for so long.
The theory here, is that my rational mind has developed normally and at times, seems beyond my chronological age. My emotional mind, scientifically proven to be the mind that actually sustains people and can short circuit the rational at any time (as evidence by my major relapse into anorexia 5-6 years ago..my emotional mind finally said no and my rational could not sustain my day to day life).
So within this, the emotional mind that I have developed is one of negativity. It has been learned ad confirmed from a very young age (say, 2-3.5 years old before I was able to self-regulate, soothe, etc). The main point of this program is to address this negativity and change it to positive. This is achieved largely by repitition and practice. Expressing the negative, exposing it, and learnig a new language of positivity. This is such a simple explanaition of what I am practicing here...but the reason I'm even explaining this is...sometimes I am TIRED and I just don't want to fight it anymore. In these darker days I wonder, what would be so bad about keeping this current way of thinking if I maintain change with my behaviors? I really have come quite far with my thinking...I know it could get better but maybe I don't want it badly enough (that's what they would tell me in any other program if I had so many days of apathy), maybe I'm just too lazy, maybe I'm so terrified of actually not being able to change my thinking that I'd rather give up now and accept that I can be 'okay enough'... I'm not sure.
I know I could be okay if I left now. God...tomorrow's 5 months here and I have done a lot of work and put in a lot of effort. But they say it can get even better than this. That I don't have to be 'okay' but that I can be WELL. I'm not convinced I have the patience to wait for that. I just want my life back. I want to work and have friends and hobbies and I think I could now. It would be a struggle but I'm okay with struggling! I don't need life or anything else to be easy - I wouldn't want it to be!
Like I have said before, the better days are not often worth these days.
All I can do today is make it though and look to tomorrow...or next week...or 17 days from now when my family arrives...and wait for the day when I can be gentler on myself, when the voice in my head is a little quieter and I am again able and allowed to smile, when the beauty of the sunset permeates my mind and soul and I find peace again.
I know it will come and with that I know I have changed because right there, is hope.
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