This Has Been On My Mind...

Hiya folks! So here I am, posting inconsistently, as I do...oh well! I have something that's been very heavy on my mind and my heart lately that I would love to share.

So I've been going to therapy for about four years now I believe and anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love therapy. My general stance on therapy is that it is beneficial to everyone and anyone and no matter how good of a place or bad of a place you're in it's totally worth going to. So I'm going to try to lay this all out in an organized manner by starting with where I have been mentally the past two-three years.

I have been struggling with anxiety and depression for a long time, but have been actively aware of its control in my life over the past three years or so. It came to a point, that being the last few months I'd say, where I was so lost, confused, frustrated, the list goes on. I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I didn't wake up and go to sleep feeling horribly sad and hopeless. I couldn't decipher any thoughts going through my head and I couldn't seem to get anything done. To feed myself small bits of joy I would shop and of course that only lasted for a few moments. Basically I was just done. I was angry with myself because I felt like I was doing all this hard work to conquer my poor mental health and I was just getting pulled further and further down into a pit of darkness and unknown. All my life I was sure of what I liked, I was sure of what I wanted, I liked that I enjoyed simple pleasures...now I was thinking things like, "What do you even like anymore?" "You need new hobbies." "You don't do anything." "You're wasting time.""What are you going to do with your future?" "Obviously you need to pick something else because what you want is a stupid dream that you have no control over." "You should just settle." "Who are you?" "You need more exciting interests." The list goes on and on and on, but in my head it wasn't a list. It was all these thoughts screaming at each other all at once, leaving me feeling worried, scared, unsure, and pressured. I felt like I knew who I was and what I wanted, but that wasn't working anymore so I might as well let it all go and just try to make it day by day.

So I went to therapy every week. And every week I would tell her how frustrated I was and how lost I felt and every week she would tell me I was doing good work and guide me through the scary abyss that is my head. Some weeks she would say things that were so helpful and other weeks I felt unfulfilled by the process. So here is where I pause to take a moment to profess some of my thoughts on therapy because I think so highly of it. When you continuously go to therapy there are times when you feel like you aren't accomplishing anything or that they aren't really helping you or saying anything useful and I think that there are two reasons this could be: 1. You have the wrong therapist and you should probably try a different one, but if this happens less often than you having a good session then it's more likely 2. this is just part of the process and something that happens. Sometimes you just don't have a whole lot to talk about or they just don't say what you want to hear. But after this past week that all those times I felt completely lost and terrible and she would tell me "You're doing great work Kayla. You just need to keep hanging in there." I have realized that I was getting to that rock bottom and she was just guiding me there because I needed to get there and I needed to get there myself. There was nothing she could say that would put me there. No amount of telling me what I needed to eliminate or add to my life would have facilitated the change in my head that needed to happen. So don't be discouraged when it feels like the connection is lacking, or there's little to say, or you think they don't want to help you. Just trust the process.

Okay, so anyways, I was lost, going to therapy, trying acupuncture (HIGHLY recommend!) I felt like I had done it all and yet I was still just completely lost. I still didn't know what I wanted to do about work, I didn't know what my interests were, and most of all I had given up hope that I would ever get my dream of having a family, which of course sounds super dramatic, but let me explain this tidbit, yay vulnerability haha. My dream forever since I came out of the womb was to be a wife and a mom. I wanted to have my little house that I decorate for each season and bake pies and take care of my babies and read books and craft. That was all I wanted. Fast forward to 23 year old Kayla who has never ever had a boyfriend or the prospect of one and is convinced that men find her repulsive and she will never have a family because of this. It sounds silly, but that was what I felt. I would lay in my bed and cry and wonder why everyone around me was in love and had babies and I was stuck, alone, and without any inkling of a desire to pursue something else as the end goal. And that's pretty much where I was before I had a very abrupt realization and my mindset changed.

I went to my therapist for the nine millionth week in a row saying "I feel so lost, so frustrated, so angry, so tired, so sad, and I just am so done. I'm done." And then she gave me some ideas. This whole session was disguised as any other, but low and behold it's the one that turned things around. So she asked why thinking of what I want in the future makes me so sad instead of excited and the idea that not getting that is just not true. I nodded and half agreed. She asked, "I think that you have doubt that it will actually happen." I definitely agreed. To which she told me that doesn't make sense. She told me a story about a man who visualized being healed from an injury and it miraculously worked. She told me, instead of listening to that doubt try to visualize your future and get excited about it because it WILL happen. She told me that if I believe that and I visualize it and feel it, that energy will make it happen. So I said okay I'll try, but, let's be honest, I had tried everything and wasn't putting all my eggs in one basket at this point. Next she told me to try another thing. This is the thing that has made the most significant change in my life. We are all hardwired to have negative thoughts, therefore, it's really easy to get stuck in a cycle of only thinking negative thoughts until we're thinking things that are pointless and the only purpose they serve is to fuel our anxiety. She called these our "feel crappy thoughts" Thoughts like, "That random lady at the store obviously thought I was rude yesterday and now I feel like a terrible person." You're never going to see that stranger again, you don't know if she thought you were rude, if you were then you were probably just having a bad day, and you aren't a terrible person because of this one second encounter. This thought's only purpose is to make you "feel crappy" and I am constantly flooded with these thoughts. So she gave me advice. She told me to "call out your feel crappy thoughts." I was good at recognizing the complete pointlessness of them, but I needed to actively tell them no.

So I left the session, still unsure, but willing to give it a go. The rest of the evening I visualized my future and instead of the normal doubt and sadness that came with it I got excited. I didn't think about "if" if would happen, but "when it does" happen. Let me tell you now. This has been working so well. I haven't felt alone and doomed for singledom forever since and it has been an incredible weight. Now, alongside that I also began "calling out my feel crappy thoughts." Whenever a thought came into my head that I didn't feel was necessary or positive I would say to it, "No. I know why you're here and I know what you're doing and I choose not to hear you." I would say this to myself and imagine pushing that thought out of my head. AND IT WORKED. I have gone years and years and years feeling cripplingly depressed and I have now gone almost two weeks straight without feeling an ounce of depression or anxiety in my and I have never felt more calm and at peace in my life.

Now, that was the process to my grand realization, which is much shorter, and this is it: I cannot control what I feel, but I can control what I think about what I feel.

I know that some days will be more difficult than others, but I finally let go of this idea that I had any control of things that in actuality I don't and I started to trust in myself and the universe and believe that things are going to go the way they will go and I will be happy and at peace all the while.

So that is what has been on my mind. I know that it's long and I know that I left a lot out that I could've put in, but you get the gist. Depression sucks. Anxiety sucks. But how lucky are we who get to feel things on such a deep level and get to learn from those times of sadness and hopelessness. I hope everyone is well and I hope to post something again soon.