That title isn’t as gloomy as it sounds, its just a case of saying things aren’t always “sunshine & rainbows” and that’s kind of how I’m trying to look at things these days. It sounds a little silly so bare with me, for as long as I can remember my brain can focus mainly on one thing that has happened in a week (not an exact science okay) and it will determine how I consider that week has gone. More likely than not that focus will be the one bad thing because again that is how my brain seems to think. Now don’t read that wrong, it isn’t that my brain was looking at the worst case scenario, all doom and gloom so to speak, it’s that my focus was on the thing I was overthinking about. The anxiety I feel about most situations is hard to explain but I second and triple guess any comment or conversation I’ve had and literally dissect it. What could I have said differently, what I should I have said, what was thought about what I said, I shouldn’t have gone or said anything. Its like been constantly judged by yourself and constantly losing the argument.
I realise to some that sounds kind of crazy but to many or at least me that is what day to day life is like. Even something as simple as talking on my husbands stream these days fills me with dread and I end up been quiet not because I don’t want to chill with friends but because I wonder if I say something wrong or stupid that I will fuck up the friendships I’ve made indirectly. I have had very little luck with close friendships and I will leave it at that. Not everyday is bad which goes with the title its kind of a role of the dice kind of thing.
I’ve been thinking a lot more recently of trying to be positive and this came from sessions I had while trying to cope with the bad shit the last two years. Small things such as catching a wayward thought before it spirals, trying to think how much sense my thoughts are about said subject and it doesn’t always work but I try. I’ve started telling Cezz exactly how I feel about situations or what I’m thinking which I know probably makes very little sense to him but he tries to understand (really lucky there). I also tell Cezz to tell me things he wants me to do such as put the bins out for example or tell me directly and exactly what he means because I’m not psychic and it frustrates me when he gets irritated if I haven’t “worked out” out what he means (this is why I love those direct people, to the point is awesome, I know exactly where I stand). In that respect he probably understands me a little better and our communication has improved, also poor him for trying to work out how my mind is concocting irrational thoughts this time.
Positive thinking has never been my strong point so while my first month after finishing work was feeling guilty and all round shit for giving up a job in favour of my mental health. The next month brought the moving your ass and working on getting into a better state of mind. Everyday comes with its ups and downs like this week for instance has been pretty good but trying to establish a presence with my new crafting endure is sometimes difficult as I struggle with the social aspect (social anxiety is a bitch) among other glorious thoughts. Towards the end of the week now I’m feeling tired, struggling with social anything and all around I want to hide under a duvet for the next 3 days but that’s not an option unfortuetly.
With mental health been so important and the most important thing to me is my kids, I want to help my kids wellbeing by helping them try to see the good than happens everyday. I walk my kids back and fore to school everyday, its about a 10 minute walk and our way home is when we talk about the school day just like we always did pre-pandemic. Now something I actively do is listen to how their day went and then we talk about all the good things that happened such as playing football with friends, going up a level in reading and anything else they see as a positive thing that happened. Sounds simple but flipping the conversation round to the positive when you sympathise with how that felt is hard so we now recognise that its sad and then talk about “but this was good”. Not that easy I promise you but we tend to get out the general grumps of the day before we get home.
Have you every heard the quote “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain”, I feel this to my very core and it may be something that is plastered over posters, mugs, memes and everything else but it’s 110% true because if you’re waiting for just the good and base every decision on “what ifs” then you could be missing out.
Rogue x
