Thursday, April 1, 2010

Seeing a rainbow

"We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey or miss a chance to see a rainbow along the way".  - Gloria Gaither

It's been a crazy week.  Or rather a crazy past couple of days.  We did affirmation bags at the retreat, where people write nice things about you and stick them in a bag.  There was a nice guy that I met ( I met a lot of nice people) through working on the leadership team, but I guess I told him that it was my dream to someday live in Paris and own a Mini-Cooper.  He remembered that and wrote that he would pray that my dreams of owning a Mini-Cooper with Parisian license plates would come true.  I thought this was really nice, so I emailed him and thanked him.  Now, tomorrow night we're meeting up for a drink!  I'm trying to be really casual about this and am telling myself that this is just a friend thing but my sister says it's a date.  I'm not really sure.  Either way, I'm nervous now and will probably be even more nervous tomorrow.  I get really nervous about meeting and hanging out with people, even if it is someone I have already met.

I met with my DBT therapist today and told her that coming to DBT makes me nervous.  She said she understood, which totally blew me away.  She's an intimidating person, which is totally my hang-up, but she also said she was worried about what would happen to me once DBT was over.  She is concerned that I won't practice my skills enough, or forget to use them when situations arise, and she's totally right.  Even now, when crises come up, I get lost in the moment and forget to use my distress tolerance skills, or emotion regulation.  It just escapes my mind.  I get too caught up in the anxiety, depression or anger.  I really need to work on it, I know.

Finally, today I met with the volunteer coordinator at the hospital that I volunteer at.  The assignment that I had was making me too anxious.  I was working with patients that were just depressing me too much and I felt like I wasn't bringing them any joy, and I certainly wasn't getting any joy out of it (even though I know volunteering is supposed to be a selfless act).  Anyway,  I just couldn't do it anymore, so I asked for a new assignment.  Now I will no longer be doing patient care and will be working in the gift shop, which is great.  I like retail, and there will probably be downtime so I'll get to read a book or do my needlepoint or something.  That's always a plus.  I keep going to Savers, Goodwill and SVDP, and collecting all these used books, but my concentration has been crap so I haven't been able to read.  The Adderall has certainly not really helped with the concentration.  I guess I just have to force myself to do things for longer periods of time. 

The doctor did say (unfortunately) that there wasn't much more he could do for me medicinally, that I would have to rely on therapy to get me through these tough patches.  I hate that!  I wish I could just take a pill and make it all better-isn't that what medicine is for?  I know that that is what therapy is also for-so that you don't have to take medicine, (I guess)?  But some people just have to do both together, and I guess I'll be one of those that will have to do both for the rest of my life.  Well, hopefully not the therapy part.  Sometimes I run out of things to talk about, or just don't want to talk at all!  I would rather just blog about it, you know?  Anyway, I need to practice seeing rainbows in life and not making judgements and seeing the bad, I guess.  It will get better at some point, right?  Hey-I have a quasi-date tomorrow!

2 comments:

  1. I live the quote, maybe if we could all see a few more rainbows life would be better. xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. That should have said 'LIKE' sorry. Maybe if i lived the quote, life would be better; unfortunately i don't xx

    ReplyDelete