Entry Seventy-Nine:

There are some people who can’t live without drama in their lives. Recently, I have had the misfortune of being graced by the presence of two individuals who are like this. I forgot how draining they can be, but was quickly reminded as one of them attempted to sucker punch me in the gut with their raw, unfiltered emotional roller coaster. Luckily, a family member was kind enough to warn me about one occurrence and I was able to avoid being sucked into it. I wasn’t able to avoid the second person, but I did stop myself from being sucked in, even though I didn’t see their drama coming.

I try to put myself in people’s shoes and remember the times I got involved with drama. The main examples that come to mind as my high school years. I kept to myself, but that didn’t stop me from listening to gossip. It didn’t stop me from asking questions and inevitability I realized how toxic it was to indulge gossip. In the moment you judge the person and you fool yourself into thinking you’re better than them because you would never get caught in the situation that person is in.

I got pregnant a few years into my college career. This situation changed my perspective on drama, gossip and judging others forever. I’m much more considerate now than I once was, I don’t compare myself to others in a way that put them down and I think it’s due to experience, growth and maturity. My hope is that the people feeding off the chaos that drama brings, the heightened emotions they experience through it all realize that there’s more to life than drama. Life is so multifaceted and beautiful. It’s so important to be kind to others because you never know when you’ll need them and they’ll need you.

Love people even when they make mistakes. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to understand where these people who enjoy drama in their lives are coming from, but I’m not letting their tendencies define how I feel about life and how they perceive me. We all have our specific journey in life and I’m not going to stop someone from experiencing theirs, no matter how much I don’t agree with it.

Entry Sixty-Nine:

This week I have been thinking about hypocrisy. I have encountered it in a number of ways from friends who stabbed me in the back, to family members who told me they would always be there for me, but don’t ever actually come through. It used to bother me a lot. It bothered me that people held me to a certain standard, but didn’t proceed to hold themselves to that same standard. These people didn’t think the rules applied to them. For example, when I was younger I had friends that assured me they were loyal and would never speak about me negatively behind my back, but as time went on I discovered the opposite is true. Since this was high school I knew this drama was part of the learning experience and it helped me learn to discern who my real friends are. I still use some of those lessons to figure people out.

Now that I am dealing with hypocrisy in a different area of my life, I know how to handle it due to my past. It’s not as straightforward as I thought it would be and I can’t fully employ the same tactics of distancing myself from the person (since it’s not a person per se). I know I have to be silent to some extent because speaking out would only get me into more trouble. I pick my battles carefully and lately I’ve been realizing that I have learned and gathered everything I needed to from this experience. I’m reaching a point where I need to move on. I hope it goes well because I struggle with transitions.

Overall, what I have learned from these recent experiences at work and with family is that it doesn’t bother me like it use to. It’s not the end of the world. My reactions aren’t as explosive as they’ve been in the past. These experiences are helping me narrow down what I would like in an employer and the path I want to take. There will always be something I’m frustrated about, something that challenges me or goes wrong, but as long as I am making a difference, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know what kind of impact I have made in the lives of the people I have met recently, but my hope is that I’ve been a positive influence.

Entry Sixty-Two:

There is something about rereading old journal entries that make me feel nostalgic. I think it’s a combination of remembering the past, wondering if I would change anything if I were given a second chance to relive certain moments and then realizing that every step I’ve taken thus far has led me to where I am today. There were things I wanted that didn’t pan out like the ex I thought I couldn’t live without or the job I thought would lead me to my future career, but other opportunities were presented to me that made me realize life is full of options. Some good, some bad – it’s all about perspective and figuring out what you need, not just what you want.

I caught myself laughing at quite a few entries. I lied to myself a few times in my life mostly when it comes to my love life and who I wanted in my life. Denial is a powerful thing. I can say that I was trying to spare the feelings of others, that I was doing it for the greater good, but the truth is I’m not that selfless. I am human. I didn’t want to face the truth and that’s why I remained in denial. I know that I’m ready to continue to purge myself of insincerity so I can live a more genuine life. It started almost two years ago when I buried the hatchet with an ex who had caused me a lot of pain. I continued the purge when I ended the last relationship I was in because I knew it was better we separated instead of continuing to hurt each other. I have done a good job of getting my love life to a good place. I can sleep at night knowing I’m in a healthy relationship and that I’m not scared to be vulnerable because I know I won’t be shunned like I have been in the past.

All the work I did in therapy helped immensely. It boosted my self-esteem and made me feel confident about executing the skills I learned in the last fourteen years. Some skills stopped helping me, but they helped stabilize me which in the grand scheme of things mattered more. I’m proud of myself for sticking by therapy. I had to face some harsh truths about myself, about my place in this world, about my upbringing and ultimately it made me grow as a person. I’m not as upset as I initially thought I’d be about all the denial I experienced. I know a part of that is the process of growing up and learning who you really are. I spent years asking myself who I am and examining everything about my life. It is important for me to remember that sometimes it’s important to ask questions and other times it’s important to live in the moment. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying life and taking things one day at a time.

Entry Fifty-Nine:

Lately I have been wondering if it’s possible to love someone when you don’t know them. My previous relationship was filled with many surprises – one of them being the fact I didn’t know my partner. I took a good look at the relationship and realized it wasn’t what I wanted in life. The journey she was going through was something she needed to experience alone. I tried to be supportive, but was pushed away, lied to and ultimately these actions roused feelings of disconnect, displacement and disappointment.

My ex was evolving and I didn’t know if I would like who she was becoming. I do believe in love at first sight, but I don’t know if this is what I experienced with her prior to really knowing her. I have no doubt I was scared. I have no doubt that I didn’t like not knowing the answer to certain questions I asked her about the future of the relationship. I don’t do well with uncertainty. I know life is filled with it and I embrace it when I can, but this was one situation in which I couldn’t do that. My need to know overpowered my love because of the betrayal I experienced. I don’t know if things would be different had she not cheated on me and led a double life behind my back.

After mulling things over I returned to the same question: can you love someone you don’t know? Maybe what I experienced was a mixture of lust and loving the idea of who I thought my ex was. I think I’ve decided to answer this question with a yes. Yes, you can love someone you don’t know, but that doesn’t mean that who you’re loving is really who they are. We all project ourselves onto other people to some extent and as relationships progress we peel back some of the projections to get to know the person deep down.

I wonder if it’s true what this ex said about our relationship being a continuation of a previous long term relationship that I was fully invested in before I had my heartbroken. I think it’s partially true because I behaved in similar ways as I had in the past, but mostly not true because there were major difference between the two exes, circumstances, and also what I did and did not allow to happen in the relationship. I learned so much about myself and wouldn’t change this fact for anything because it’s made me a better individual and partner.

Entry Fifty

For years I have struggled with having my external expression match my internal emotional experience. People have mistakenly believed I feel a certain emotion when I don’t feel that way at all and that frustrates me to no end. I know this is the result of an invalidating environment I grew up in and I’ve learned to get in touch with my true feelings in the past couple of years. I am still struggling with matching the right nonverbal cues and body language with the appropriate emotion. I have thought long and hard about this. I even discussed this with my therapist and as I imagined mindfulness is what I’m going to have to implement to stop this behavior.

If I want to be an effective communicator I need to let people know how I truly feel, even if it risks getting hurt. As the saying goes, “how people treat you is their karma, how you react is yours.” Wise words spoken by Wayne Dyer. In the past it served me well to not let people know my true feelings. It protected me from different situations and different people, but as an adult this no longer serves me when I’m trying to nourish my relationships. I’m fortunate enough to know that this habit of mine doesn’t disrupt certain relationships because they know me well enough to know not to jump to conclusions. However, I would like to improve my ability to forge relationships overall and I know that starts with being an effective communicator.

I must remind myself that DEARMAN is a skill I possess. If I want to get something from someone I must implement it, but before I even go that far I need to make sure I’m using wise mind to stay balanced. Mindfulness is the very skill that not only ties all of DBT together but also make it easier for you to implement harder skills like opposite to emotion action and radical acceptance. In the end I am responsible for myself and all I can do is to try to get my point across as best as I can and understand that people will misread me even if I do everything right. That’s how human interactions work sometimes.

Entry Forty-Six:

The older I get the more I realize not only who my true friends are, what I stand for and value in life, but also what coping skills work and don’t work for me. It has been difficult for me lately, but I’ve managed to get through it. Sadly, I’ve come the realization that I may need to stop going to therapy for a bit to see how I would fare without it. The prospect scares me because last time I did this I had some terrible things occur and didn’t have the support I needed to get through. I somehow managed regardless, but I won’t lie I’m scared. I know I have more resources available than I did last time, but that knowledge doesn’t take away the fear. However, as the saying goes, “Feel the fear and do it anyways.”

I came to the realization that I may need to stop going because of the simple fact I can’t come up with ways of articulating what I need to work on. I truly don’t know what needs to happen. Every time I come up with something it’s gone by the time I get to therapy. My therapist and I have discussed so many different things I would like to address, but then nothing gets accomplished by the time I see her. I know a lot of the work needs to be done by me. I know that ultimately I need to be in charge of my own success and I don’t need to report to someone to get validation. I think it’s come to the point where I need to say goodbye because while it’s nice to go there to blow off steam – I don’t feel particularly successful when I leave. I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything.

I have reached a point where I don’t know what I want out of therapy anymore. Originally I needed skills and I needed to stop the self-harm I was engaging in. I’ve done both. I haven’t had the urges, even though stressful things have come up and that’s a good thing. I haven’t learned all the skills I need to learn but that’s a life long process. I think I need to take a risk and just stop going. I think I’ve reached a point where I can’t get anything else out of therapy. It would be nice to get more from DBT but I truly don’t want to go to group anymore. I’m not as emotionally unstable as I used to be and this isn’t to say that I’m cured or that I still don’t struggle, I do. I think this is the first time I’m willing to acknowledge to myself that whatever I was getting out of therapy – I’m not getting anymore. It doesn’t meet my needs. Nothing we agree on working towards gets touched upon and for that reason I think I’m going to bring up ending the sessions for now. If a crisis comes up I’d be willing to try again, but I truly believe I need to try to live as I have been and keep building from there.

Entry Forty-Five:

Depressive episodes aren’t easy to deal with. They can come on quickly and leave you feeling like you’ve been put through the wringer. I dislike that analogy but nothing adequately expresses the way depression zaps you of your energy, motivation and appreciation for life. I know that everyone experiences depression in their own way and I’m sure there are better ways of describing depression, but the previous statement expresses how I’ve felt depression in the past.

After years of observing and talking to different people I’ve come to the conclusion that people will do whatever it takes to avoid facing their feelings. People will try to drink their sorrow away. People will work nonstop so they won’t have any time to think about anything else. People will eat to cope with their feelings. One of the hardest things to do is to acknowledge and accept our feelings because doing that is opening ourselves up to not only growth but also pain. It also forces us to really look at ourselves. Some people can look at themselves and be okay with what they see, but others can’t for a variety of reasons. Why open yourself to the possibility of uncomfortable feelings?

Every emotion serves a purpose. I know I’ve stated this before but I think it bears repeating. I get caught up in the emotion I’m feeling that I forget that emotions love themselves. They will do whatever it takes to keep themselves alive. What I need to do is feel them and let them go. I spent so many years of my life being controlled by my emotions. I let them run my life. In some instances it worked out in my favor and protected me from harm, but in other situations it closed some important doors for me. I need to remember that and come to decision using wise mind because it’s the perfect mix of logic and emotion.

This weekend wasn’t particularly easy. I opened up to someone I care for deeply about a topic that’s very sensitive for me and it was of the utmost importance for me to do that. I am invested in this relationship and when you invest in something or someone you want to be genuine so you can live authentically. After everything that’s happened recently I firmly believe I’ve managed to live up to that and I can just hope I continue to nourish myself and my relationships so that my mental illnesses have less situations, concerns, etc to fuel it.

Entry Thirty-Six:

 

Recent discussions with my mother and friends have confirmed that it is difficult to find ways of increasing positive emotions and by extension letting go of painful emotions. Success for me depends on many factors like my physical health, the amount of stress I’m experiencing, etc.

The more I practice my various DBT skills, the more apparent it becomes that everything comes back to mindfulness. It is hard to be present, in the moment sometimes. This is especially true if I’m experiencing painful emotions like anger, fear or sadness. I know these might not be painful emotions for some people, but they are for me. I believe that everyone experiences emotions differently and for the most part I’m right because we’re individuals. Studies have been conducted that show people respond to external stimuli differently.

I have stopped asking myself “why me?” and replaced it with “what can I do to address this?” Monitoring my self-talk has helped immensely, but I need to be more diligent in the future. This is the first entry that opens with a picture. The reason for this is the realization that changing my mood and fostering positive emotions lies in doing things I enjoy doing without invalidating the emotions I was previously experiencing. 

In time I will learn how to do this without invalidating myself. It’s not as easy as it seems, but I will figure it out – I always do. For now I will admire the above scene and visualize myself being in a similar place very soon.

Entry Twenty-Two:

How did I get to this point in my life? Where am I going in life in general? Will anyone miss me when I’m gone? Have I made an impact on anyone’s life? What is the point of living, of existing? Is there such a thing as freewill or is the idea of having a choice just an illusion? These are all common questions that cross everyone’s mind at one point or another.

Questions of this nature are the reason religion was created, philosophies were invented and moral codes were implemented. I think that people have an inherent need for order, even when they go against it or thrive better without it. Why is this so? You cannot know what you are, what you prefer if you don’t know what the opposite of it is. There is balance in the universe and it’s constantly at play in everything we see, do, hear, etc. Sometimes we correctly identify opposites, but other times we don’t. Life is a learning experience and mistakes help us in the long run.

I know that one of my biggest struggles is combating my tendency to over-analyze everything from interactions with people I care about to literature. I was engaging in this habit in the above paragraphs. This habit when done in the correct environment benefits me, but when done in other situations can cause great stress, anxiety, obsessive thoughts and depression. Since we’re on the topic of over-analyzing, I’d like to officially say that I dislike that I fluctuate between thinking highly of someone and loving them to being extremely angry and intensely disapproving of that same individual. Sometimes this happens within a day and it can be upsetting because it makes me question my judgment. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m a good judge of character of if I should give up trying to figure people out. I have been told that I’m unreliable and not to trust my instincts, so it’s taking my longer to develop confidence in my ability to know who’s who, what they’re about and what their motivations are. What I try to do is remind myself that I know myself better than anyone else could ever know me and not to let someone else’s voice become my own.

This is the calmest I have felt in years and I feel grateful that things have settled down significant over the past two weeks. I think all the work I’ve put into being mindful has helped ground me and motivated me to take a step back from situations before reacting to them. Sometimes it is unnecessary to react and by react I am not referring to physiological changes that automatically occur, I am referring to the action urge that is connected to the emotions we experience. For example, when I feel sad I want to isolate, retreat from everyone and cry – those behaviors are the action urge. Sometimes it is okay to honor your feelings and engage in the action urge, but other times it is detrimental to your well-being to do so and what we need to do is opposite to emotion action.

I’m starting to realize that prompting events lead to emotions due to our interpretations and this is one of the ways we make sense of our lives. The events occur but it’s our interpretations that shape our lives, not necessarily what happens; what we think of them, how we feel about them and the decisions we make regarding our futures, these are the things that give us the opportunity to develop who we are and if we don’t like something about ourselves we always have the power to change.

Poem of the Month

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

– Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop