Anxiety. A big Mo. Fo. It is something I would not wish on my worst enemy.
It fills me with all this negative head talk, bad head talk fed by my rotten core beliefs.
I believe that I am a bad person.
That I don't deserve the family I have
That I don't deserve to be happy
That I deserve every bad thing that comes my way.
My negative head talk tells me I am unlikeable
That I am an ugly, hideous creature
That I am a bad mum, wife, friend, person.
The lists go on and on and are very depressing reading so I won't go any deeper than I have already.
The negative head talk is an alien (like the one from the films) it feeds off the inner core of me and poisons my brain. It puts feeders up into my brain and tells me all the bad things and makes them true.
The core beliefs are toxic waste a big rotten ball of biohazard eating away at my insides.
Recently I was given permission and the power to remove The alien and The toxic waste. It now resides in a rusty metal box and dodgy wheels (like a shopping trolley, never quite going in the direction you want or expect them to go) The box is covered in chains and sitting on top is The alien, on a leash but it is hard to control and sometimes it ends up back inside me or sends spores into me.
Being able to visualise my anxieties, fears and beliefs like this makes it easier for me to experience more of the good stuff. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I can say it was a huge relief to be able to externalise all of this bad stuff; although pulling it around with me can be damned hard sometimes.
Another aspect of my anxiety is a feeling of emptiness.
Emptiness is feeling lots of emotions all at once, a whirlwind of emotions, thoughts and feelings running through my veins at a million miles a minute. But at the same time being emotionless, thoughtless and numb.
It is all consuming and paralysing. It makes me hide in my bed, and when I can't sleep anymore I find myself curled up in the foetal position in my craft room, unable to move or to do anything. When it finally occurs to me what is happening I feel guilt, anger and fear and this is when bad things usually happen.
(but I am not ready to go into that, so we will save it for another day when I am feeling braver)
The treatment for emptiness is to realise when I am feeling empty and try and identify what I was feeling immediately before and write down the emotions. Once the emotions are named, I have to sit with them, and accept them for what they are, do some mindfulness. For someone with a healthy mind, this is second nature and easy. For me it is the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest on my own with no special equipment, in bare feet.
For a very long time I have been experiencing negative emotion and squashing it down, and as time has gone by, the happy emotions have got squashed down too. I have emotions and feelings and I can no longer identify them.
A big one for me is the "Happy emotions", Happiness, Joy, love, success, pride etc. I know when I am supposed to feel them, I can say I feel them/ mean them/ experience them but at the end of the day, I JUST CAN'T FEEL it. This then feeds the guilt, the anger, the fear and makes them 10 times worse.
It is a vicious circle, and uncontrolled it gets worse and worse each time I spiral.
I am doing DBT and at the moment we are learning "Emotional reasoning" It is very powerful and slowly I can see how to learn to identify my emotions and sit with them. Over the past 3 days I have got good at doing my mindfulness.
My major achievement this week was on friday. I took Barney for a walk. For 45 minutes, half of which it was raining. I had my ipod on and blasted my head with Britney Spears new album (Femme Fatale) before you judge my taste in music, listen to the album it is a clubbing anthem!!
On the walk I felt the rain falling on my skin, I felt the wind blowing on my face, I smelt the smell of rain , the smell of a swamp (not nice!!) the smell of some unidentifiable flowers which had a beautiful smell.
I watched Barney enjoying his walk, doing his doggy version of mindfulness, I took my thongs off and walked bare feet after getting annoyed with the grit and things getting caught in my shoes. I walked to the beat of the music and the pull of a very excited dog.
When I got home I can truly say I actually felt happy and proud of what I had achieved. I was then able to sit in my art room and do some pretty awesome art work.
Yesterday I was able to go and meet my friend Louise at spotlight. The drive down I was feeling tense, nervous, scared and nauseous, but I was able to identify them and sit with them and actually have a good time catching up with a truly fantastic friend. I spent too much money in spotlight, but got myself some craft items that enabled me to feel pure joy (and a little bit of pain) in the evening. I have discovered the art of needle felting, it is just as addictive as wet felting but if you let your concentration lapse for even a moment, you end up needling your fingers which bloody hurts!!
This morning I am having fun with the kids as they colour in cows and chickens, and are now making cards with lots of different stickers.
So that is me for now...I am about to needle felt my spider on to my spiderweb felting project.
Thank you for reading xxx
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