- treat Physical iLlness -- for what I can control, very good. For what's out of my control, doing best I can.
- balance Eating -- two weeks of doing quite well
- avoid mood-Altering drugs -- 6 months clean!
- balance Sleep -- epic fail.
- get Exercise -- doing, even if not for right reasons
- build M A S T E R y -- working on hanging in there, so far 100% completion rate
Ok, maybe not an epic fail, I mean, I could have not gone to bed at all. You see, we were taught when your "PLEASE MASTER" is out of whack, you are more emotionally vulnerable. What I have learned in my life through the past many months that, of the items, the two biggest areas that I have to remember to keep in the strong region is my physical health and especially, my sleep.I was talking in session the other day about a part I had read in my emotional eating book where it talked about when we are not physically well, we are not as quick to make good decisions. Of course, this was in regards to food, yet you could apply any behavior. It is like when you get a weak spot in your force field, the demons very quickly take full advantage of breaching it. I have recognized this and work to stay aware of it. Apparently, lack of sleep results in a very similar scenario as I am learning first hand in these past 24 - 48 hours.
I just about picked up the phone this morning and called my therapist. Yup, I just about crossed that line I have drawn in the sand. I sat there with my head in my hands going, "just call." I wonder what her reaction might have been. Possibly something like this (as we have had the start of discussion about how I won't call), "Oh! Christy called!" [excitedly, since this is not an expected behavior] and probably, almost immediately, followed up by, "Oh, Christy called." [worried, since this is not an expected behavior].
It is very well known that I have a history of doing some "quite less effective" things to get these type of mental fights to stop. The problem is, when emotional is winning, I want to go back and default to these types of behaviors by instinct, and that is where I have been headed lately and it was in full-steam forward today.
One might think, oh so you were calling your therapist to help you think through things. Yah, that would make too much logical sense. It was more like leaving the following question on voice mail, "would you be mad at me if I hurt myself?"
Now, with what little breath my rational mind has left, I know a few things. One, she would never directly answer that - and I would hope she would not. Two, she would remind me that whatever action I took is my own choice, she could not tell me what to do (nor would she), only help me see the consequences from all options. My guess is that somewhere in there she would remind me not to beat myself up for dialing the phone. In the end, I chose to not pick up the phone and call.
I can almost guarantee that the following question is going to come up - "why did you not call?" Do you see me broken or bleeding? It would seem that I was able to get through the moment without dragging innocent bystanders into the mix. Have I not spent the last 6-9 months learning how to "divert emergencies" like this? Therefore, should I not try to overcome it myself first? [ha! maybe my rational mind has more life left in it that I think]. Although these reasons are true and legit, I am sure the next question would be, "what is the real reason you didn't call?" Simple. I would not allow myself to.
I used to call Lisa all the time. I would call, listen to the voice mail, and hang up. Very, very rarely did I leave a message. Usually I was in some anxiety ridden state and knew if I closed my eyes and listened to her voice, it would help. I knew she did not answer her phone, so it was always safe to call. Not sure where that falls on the continuum of weird and bazaar, yet it is what I did. She never told me I had to stop. Who knows if she realized how many times I called.
Then, there was the one time I called her in distress. I called, left this super-charged emotionally-sided message, then called back two or three times within that next hour. I think I kept leaving messages. She did call back and the situation was resolved (or at least dropped out of the crisis level). The next day I started feeling very guilty for calling, embarrassed for being so overly emotionally, and ashamed for the multiple calls. I told myself I would never call my therapist again unless it was something neutral, like changing or cancelling an appointment.
I was never told the call was wrong or made to feel that I did anything wrong. All thoughts, feelings, emotions, were invoked and embedded by myself. I am sure I apologized profusely for calling - probably way more than I needed to. Whatever the actual reality of it was, I had made a standard for myself - no more leaving messages. If I could not vocally communicate in a calm manner, I needed to keep my mouth shut - and I have. Lisa always had this line when I would apologize (once again) down the line for something. She would say, "I have already forgotten about that." The thing is, I had not.
All this is a basis of why I write over speaking - letters, emails, blogs. I can be all emotional and over the top, then I can go back and edit it several times until the rational starts to kick in and take over. Prior to class I had no clue of emotional/rational separation and boy did Lisa get some emails that were as bad as the voice mail. Yah, still kick myself for those too. It's the basis of my continual asking to my current therapist, "are you really sure it is ok if I email you?" and my worry about the length of my emails. If I can't keep it off of the full emotional side ledge, I don't allow myself to go forth with communication.
This is not to say some have gotten past my guard shack. There is nothing like going back and reading an email you sent and realizing just how emotionally charged it was when, if you would have just waited to hit send for a few hours or the next day, you could have toned it down. Always room for improvement.
At the end of the day, I don't call and I don't always message. Yes, there was that brief moment today after I had decided making the call was not going to happen and my mind shifted to, why don't you send an email. I thought about how many emails I had already sent this week and their length and simply told myself hell no.
Am I ok? Am I safe? Yah, for the most part. Have too much on my schedule to do something stupid now. My "window of opportunity" has passed for today. There is still a fight going on in my head yet luckily I will have enough the remainder of today and tonight to distract me from the loudness of it. I anticipate things being well until I crawl in bed tonight and all is quiet. Will be interesting to know if emotional or rational has won by that point.
