Need to Read

Grrr. I want to read. I would love to get into a great series but I have no idea what I want. I don't do mysteries and crime stories but I love psychological mind-fucks. Horror, thrillers, paranormal, even fantasy are all fair game but I don't want vampires and cliches. I don't like war stories so that rules out a huge chunk of series and I don't like crime/mysteries so that rules out another massive chunk of the market. I'm bored with the Jodi Piccult style emotional dramas. I want something dark and twisty and seriously fucked up in the head.

And I have no clue how to find any books (let alone series) that fit those requirements. Urg. Maybe sleep is better than reading after all. It's not like I'm doing so hot at following storylines these days. Grrr.

I'm Lucky: I'm Not at High Risk for Addiction

I think it's a good thing that I don't have what's referred to as an "addictive personality". I have access to a wide variety of controlled substances and medications with high risk of abuse or dependence. And, the part that spooks me a bit, I really like the way some of them make me feel. But I've never had to struggle to not abuse them. I think longingly of their effects but not even strong enough to be considered a craving and they are relatively easy to resist.

Example:

"Man, that [insert drug name] makes everything in my head slow down and takes the edge off the pain in my soul. I want some."

"Yeah, that would feel good. But that isn't the way to make those kinds of pains go away. It doesn't last long and makes doing other things extremely difficult. Besides, addiction is ugly and this is a great way to start down that road. Do you really want to get hooked on something that would end up controlling you to the point that it would become more important than your kids, that would lead to being willing to lie and steal and put people and our family's lifestyle in jeopardy?"

"Bleh. Killjoy."

"I know. Get over it."

And that's all there is to it. There's no back and forth, push and pull, internal fight about whether to indulge or abstain, no fierce battle of wills inside my own self. I don't have to wrestle with demons to avoid falling into that horrible trap. I don't even worry that I could get to that point.

I am SO lucky. And I know it and am grateful for it every time I consider making that kind of bad choice and don't do it. It isn't that easy for others. It's a battle every waking second for some people. In the same way that it's a battle every waking second for me to stay alive and not jump ship, for some people, the mere presence of high risk substances is playing Russian Roulette. I am infinitely thankful that I don't have that problem. I wish I could isolate, bottle, mass-produce and distribute whatever it is that lets me be this way. Maybe I could trade it for desire-to-live, self-discipline, and anti-laziness potions.

This Should Be Fun

Our traditional 4th of July party is on schedule for Monday. That means the traditional pre-party cleaning hell is also on schedule. The house is so horribly trashed that we have planned cleaning for all day tomorrow and and all day Sunday. Kid-4 has already thrown one tantrum about this at which point Kid-1 screamed at him. (All this was before the fist fight between Kid-3 and the neighbor boy whose temper is every bit as bad as Kid-1.)

Tomorrow is gonna be fun. (SHOOT ME NOW!)

6 minutes (ultra brief)

The 6-minute method:

This is the super-short version. I hope to elaborate more later but want to get this out before I forget (again). The 6 minute method is intended to overcome motivational inertia or delay/minimize acting on counterproductive desires.

To do what you don't want to do, tell yourself you only have to do the activity for 6 minutes. Don't set a timer. Hopefully by the time 6 minutes is over, you won't be watching the clock and will be involved in the activity. But if you do see the time is up, tell yourself you did it for 6 minutes, you can do it for another 6 minutes. Do that for as many sets of 6 minutes as you can. When you do finally stop, remember you succeeded because ANY set of 6 minutes is more than not doing it for any minutes at all.

To NOT do what you want to do, tell yourself to wait 6 minutes before doing it. Don't set a timer. Hopefully by the time 6 minutes is over, you will have found a better alternative to what you want. If you still really want it and still really shouldn't, tell yourself you waited 6 minutes, you can wait another 6 minutes. Do that for as many sets of 6 minutes as you can. In the meantime, try to set into place something that will distract you from your desire, replace it with something more suitable, or become self-limiting so that something external stops you from being able to go after the counterproductive urge. Frequently, cravings pass or the situation in which they are available end. Try to last. If you cave in, remind yourself that you held out for longer than you wanted to.

6 minutes...

fold laundry for only 6 minutes
wait for 6 minutes before getting that bowl of ice cream

PS - it's 6 minutes for a reason... 5 minutes is a short amount of time. it's manageable, palatable, doesn't sound like a life sentence or an eternity. But it's easy to clock-watch 5 minutes. It's easy to see it on the clock and it's even easy to estimate 5 minutes in your head because we do it so often. But 6 minutes is just enough longer than that to make it not intuitively guessed without being sufficiently longer to feel infinitely longer.

Crash and Burn

For the record, I am not crashing and burning. I am just fine. Peachy, in fact.

Do you believe me? Neither do I. Neither do any of the people around me.

That's why I'm back here. I can't talk to them. I can't make a bad situation worse. They are so stressed already and a big part of that is because of me. They worry about me spiraling or they are having to cover for me or they are having to smooth over things that I have stirred up or they are just plain frustrated by me and and sick of my crap. I want to get it out, to vent and rant and whine and despair, but in a place and a way that I won't hurt anyone.

Is that even possible? To be miserable and to express that unhappiness - without hurting anyone?

When my family hurts, I hurt. Even when it has nothing to do with me, I hurt. I hurt especially when there is nothing I can do to fix their hurts. So perhaps my very existence hurts not just me but them... again.

*sigh*

Cycles

I guess everything goes in cycles. Seems strange that I haven't posted here in well over a year. I haven't posted anywhere, though. I just stopped blogging. Partly because I was doing so horribly at the time I stopped blogging and then moved from that horrible black place to doing pretty darned good, maybe the best I've been in a decade. Partly because I felt like my posts are a burden on anyone who felt obligated to read them. The whole point to blogging on an open blog rather than a private journal or blog that is locked down so no one can read it is that it lets me vent in a way that I can push the feelings and problems and whining and complaining out there, away from me. It's the catharsis concept, the way that finally telling a painful secret is supposed to make you feel better, that confession is good for the soul. If it stays totally private, it isn't truly released. It's given words and expression, which is helpful, but it isn't actually released. Yet at the same time, I had wonderfully supportive readers - something I am not accustomed to. (That felt so positive and uplifting and AMAZING!!) But when I found myself ranting about the same things and being negative and whining all of the time, I didn't think that was fair to those wonderfully positive readers - making them feel the need to comfort me when I don't deserve it and making them read all of my crap out of obligation.

It's been over a year now. Hopefully I won't be a burden on them anymore. I feel so low again - I have thought several times in the past month that I want to try to write through some of the thoughts and feelings that are swirling around in my head. Now, I think I am going to try doing that. It's time to find my voices again. I can hear them in my head, maybe they are ready to come out and talk again...

Rebutting Catastrophizing

At the recommendation of my Med-Shrink, I am reading the book "The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook". I am reading a part right now about rebutting various cognitive distortions. One of them is catastrophizing, which basically seems to be blowing something so out of proportion that it seems like the end of the world, unconquerable, unendurable. I find myself doing this a lot. I will start to worry about something and before I know it, it has me all riled up and seriously freaked out.

There is a technique that I've learned that really helps me. It calms me down and lets me start thinking rationally again. I look at the situation that has me freaking out and ask myself what is the worst thing that could happen. Once I've acknowledged the worst thing, I ask myself what I would do then. Once I make a plan for handling the worst case, I don't obsess with worry over it anymore.

For example, the papers I just did for school. I was so worried about not getting them done on time that I paralyzed myself and couldn't write them. So I asked myself what would be the worst thing that could happen. The answer: I wouldn't get the papers done in time and would get an F in course. That would be truly horrible. BUT... if I got an F in the course, I can always retake it and it would disappear out of my GPA. Now the worst case isn't a scary, shadowy, mystery any more and I can focus. (BTW, I got the papers written. I actually got As on them and therefore in the class but because I was prepared to cope with any grade I received, the fear didn't paralyze me any more.)

This really works for me. It gets me unstuck out of the paralyzing fear of failure. But it bothers people if I try to involve them. They say that I'm being pessimistic. Or they just tell me that I won't fail and how much faith they have in me. It doesn't matter if I tell them that I just need to know it will be okay if I do fail; all they tell me is that I won't fail. I've never been able to get them to see that planning for the worst helps me stop freaking out about whether or not it will come to pass.

So when I read this part in the book about rebutting catastrophizing, I was shocked (in a good way). On page 166, it says,

"There are many rebuttals to this pervasive distortion:" [snip]

Think, "OK, let's assume the worst really is happening or will happen. What will I do then?" There is something calming about fully facing the worst, accepting that it could happen or is happening, and then determine what you would do to improve upon the worst. Turn a "What if..." to an "If... then..." (If such and such happens, then I'll do such and such to make the best of the situation and salvage what I can.) [snip]

It goes on to talk about asking what if the worst doesn't happen. I change that just slightly to read more like, "So if the worst happens, I can handle it. That means I don't have to be afraid now. So what can I do to make sure the worst DOESN'T happen?

The moral of the story is, the coping device that I use frequently but that people don't think is a good one turns out to be a good idea after all. Maybe if I show this part of the book to the people who want to tell me nothing except that the worst WON'T happen, they will understand what I am trying to do and how they can help me with it...