Better than Normalcy - Blog

Something that CBT therapy taught me is that anxiety can tend to make you vulnerable to catastrophizing and making things bigger than they are.  Black and white thinking is also associated with this.  Things are never going to get better...I will be like this forever...nothing will change and I will be miserable forever...no matter what I do things will never get better...it's like this and will never change;  these are just a couple of examples of thoughts like this can can run through your head. For me personally, I have had to come to accept many things about myself (in therapy, they call this radical acceptance).  My anxiety disorder, which I've had my entire life, has given me some limitations.  But it has also given me strengths.  Much of this has made itself evident in about every aspect of my life...whether in relationships, in my career, in school, even down to the ability to feel safe in traffic or walking on the side of the road.  I have h...

To this point, I believe I have lived through the darkest time of my life.  And I am grateful that I am still here.  And if there is one lesson I have learned going through it is that people have choices...and those choices can determine what burdens they bear or what burdens are inflicted on others.  Those choices can lead them down a path of happiness or despair. I remember writing the note.  I had made a plan.  On my way out of the door, I remember feeling scared and helpless and crying.  Looking back at it now...it probably seemed more scary then....and even if I had started down the path of my plan I still may have stopped myself eventually...only because I do think I had a string of fortitude to grasp onto.  But in that moment...when my whole universe seemed to come down to what seemed as the choice of living or dying...I chose to take myself to the hospital.  In my mind, I had chosen life and I chose to get help. I remember sitting in t...

My mother.  I've never written about my mother.  It's hard for me to write about her.  Mainly because, in a way, I feel like I grew up without a mother. My mother, you see, is mentally ill. She entered the Marine Corps when she was 19 and while in boot camp, had an incident that damaged her.  At some point, she met my father;  he was in the Navy.  My father left the Navy to take care of my mother.  My mother was pregnant with me when she was mentally ill.  After my father died, I found out that my mother hurt me when I was a baby.  And after that I was passed around to different foster homes.  I even stayed in an orphanage once and I stayed with my grandparents (both sides).  I also remember sometimes needing to stay in church members home at varying times. There was a time when I was allowed to be taken home to my parents.  I wouldn't call the dynamic in my home a healthy one.  I do think it was the best it could be...