Navel-gazing

Today's goal: Deal with my anxiety without meds.*

Today is my first day of outpatient therapy. We come every day to continue the work we becan during our hospital stay. I was a little reluctant to come - I wasn't sure how much it would really help me. Everyone seems really nice and welcoming - a lot less crazy than the inpatient program. We'll see how it works out.

I called my boss and took a leave of absence from work. I told her I was going to take my 12 weeks of FMLA, but in reality I'm going to reevaluate at Christmas break. Maybe I'll go back - maybe I'll make a career change.

Today's self-reflection exercise goes like this:

1. One thing I would like others to know about me is that sometimes I put up a tough facade to cover the fact that my feelings are very easily hurt.

2. Ways my future will be different than my past - I will not direct my anger at my children, or at other innocent people. I will try to express anger at *situations* instead, and try to deal with it in a healthy, productive way.

3. My definition of morality is to act in the way that is most beneficial and least desructive to myself and others.

4. The best decision I ever made was to marry my husband.

5. My greatest fear is that nobody likes me.

6. A time in my life when I felt safe was when I lived alone in Chicago.

7. My definition of resilience is coming out of a situation stronger than when you went in.

8. A part of my past I want to put to rest is my compulsive lying from childhood, and my feelings of being an outsider after my move.

9. I am worthy of love because I try to be caring toward others.

10. Ways others are wrong about me: they think I don't care about others or about what they think of me.

11. I am not "damaged goods" because I am not a disease - I am a *person* who has a disease.

12. An alternative to self-blame and shame is learning to release negative thoughts and feelings.

13. My life isn't over yet because I need to raise my daughters to be strong, intelligent, independent women.

14. The forms of my creativity are very limited - I express them mostly through writing or baking.

15. My goals for the next 6 months to 1 year are to find satisfaction at work and to focus more on myself and making myself whole again.

16. I am not my mother; I am someone who admits my troubles, who seeks help for them, and who doesn't repress my emotions.

17. What defines who I am: I am a wife, mother, friend, avid reader, and queen of all trivial knowledge.

18. Compared to one year ago, my life is more unstable, but is on a positive trend instead of a negative trend.

19. It is my choice whether or not to forgive myself for hurting myself and my family.

20. The past does not control me because I can choose how I act and react in situations.

21. The next step after surviving is thriving.

22. I am addicted to routine.

23. One person who seems to understand me is my husband.

24. At this moment in my life, I want to learn to like myself.

25. I am allowed to make mistakes because I'm only human.

We talked a lot about false self vs. true self today, false self being the face we show to the world, and the true self being who we truly are. I made a poster contrasting the two, but I truly can't tell anymore which traits are really me and which are the ones I show to the world. I don't know who I am anymore, and that's sad to me. I wish I knew, or knew how to find out.


*Yeah. Not today. Vaunting ambition and all that, but, yeah. No.