Daunting-tending to overwhelm or intimidate. Yep. That's depression.
This past week at the therapist's I was completely overwhelmed. It was the kind of overwhelming that reminds me of those cartoons that get passed by something at high speeds and their heads go whirling around in circles or when Popeye gets hit with an uppercut and his neck swirls upward like a unicorn lollipop.
My mind was like a molasses hurricane. Befuddled, messy, but terribly sluggish. At times I would cry but for the most part I was confused and unable to hold onto my emotions long enough to process them into reactions.
The session was frustrating and I expressed my dismay at "being so unproductive." That's when my therapist earned her stripes and encouraged me to keep plugging along until next week-she quickly quipped that making that statement was progress in itself.
She noticed how aimless and fumbling my session was but reassured me that addressing just one issue at a time would send ripples of results toward the other issues. We wrapped up the session with a couple minutes of nose-blowing and calming breaths and some homework: figure out three things that I want so we could determine a direction to head toward in therapy.
At home that night I was touchy and agitated, mulling over my homework and battling feelings of disappointment and frustration over my session. After lying down in bed with a headache and settling down to sleep my mind began formulating my three main desires.
Here's what I came up with.
1) Community. I want (need!) to be a part of some support network or community-whether that be a group of friends, neighbors, colleagues, family, club or group.
2) Parenthood. I really cherish the prospect of motherhood and parenthood with my fiance.
3) Develop strong, personal, intrinsic values. I want to cultivate self-assurance in order to pursue my life as I desire. I don't want to base my decisions on the perceived or anticipated reactions/opinions of others and to develop healthy barriers.
These three things are still somewhat underdeveloped but I'm happy with my revelations so far. Baby steps. Respect the baby steps!
I'm still in a sensitive spot and moving forward is a daunting prospect. My goal for this week is to give myself some leeway and focus on softening my inner dialogue. Baby steps-just keep swimming :o)
