An insight into my scrambled brain ...

Kerri Sackville (an amazing writer check her out if you don't already read her stuff!) shared this excerpt from her book The Little Book of Anxiety 

on her Facebook page today.  Seriously I had to read the words and look at the picture nearly a dozen times to take it in.  I have spent a lot of today reading over journals and catching myself up to here.  There is a huge amount to take in.  I read this picture over and over mainly because it is one of the many, many things my psychologist and I were working on at our last session.  I started writing a reply to Kerri on Facebook and quickly realised that it was far too long to put on there as a reply! 

It seems that I have decided in my head that I am a big, fat fraud and as a result of this revelation to myself that everyone around me is really just humouring me and at some point will all realise that I am this big, fat fraud and run a mile.  From what I have written down it would seem that I pretty much rattled off each one of Kerri's dot points above.  

Here are some of what my psychologist had to say to me in rebuttal: 

• Regardless of what i visualise it might or might no happen there is nothing I can do about it and in the process may make it happen ( in my case on Monday my particular fear/anxiety was around that I am a big, fat fraud and that eventually everyone who has ever turned to me for advice, that I may have given and they followed or any friend I have been a shoulder for or my husband might discover that I am actually really a shitty person and leave me so ultimately my biggest anxiety is around that I will be discovered for being a big fat impersonator or being an adult type person with real and valid thoughts.  Let's face it this can't possibly be true because I had to spend time in rehab learning how to use my arm and leg again because my brain was so scrambled that it had to physically stop my from using parts of my body so I would stop and understand that there was a problem with my brain!  So really who in their right mind would ever listen to a single word I have to say because I am so full of nothing that is of value or valid.  She was telling me that the more I worry the more likely I am to push people away because everyone who was here for me at rock bottom are still here so why would they leave now.  
• Worrying about worst case really, truly won't make me more prepared it will just mean that I have worried time away. 
• If worst case does happen I will still hurt and be devastated but I will pick myself up and move forward because I have before and I will again. 
• If I don't worry it might or might not happen but it hasn't happened yet and we don't know what tomorrow holds only what is now. 
• I will be devastated regardless and being prepared will not change this (as much as I want it to!) 
• I have absolutely no basis to think that things won't be the worst case because I have a crazy amount of worst case in my past.  So my brain is completely conditioned to believe that the worst will happen regardless.  But then I feel like a really selfish and crappy person because I live in Australia and I have systems and structures all around me if i fall.  I am not living in war torn Syria or Sudan just struggling to find water or food or a safe refuge for my children.  What right do I have to think that people I love dying or having anxiety or prem babies or you name it means that I have any reason to think that my life is so goddam special I shouldn't have some suffering.  
• And lastly if I don't worry I simply can't imagine that it feels like a nirvana somewhere with unicorns that fart rainbows with pots of gold at each end!

In addition I have a few more crazy ones of my own: 

• Fear of not being liked - because I don't like myself so once people (anyone) gets to know the real me they won't like me either. 
• Fear of being alone - because who would want to be around me! 
• Fear of rejection - so I won't try to make any new friends and boy putting things out there on a blog where people can actually read my crazy that is a huge challenge to the fear of rejection!
• Fear of success - seriously what will happen if I actually do get to a point where my mind is a bit more together and I can start to work on my dreams and they come together what then?! 
• Fear of change - let's face it I am not alone here this is a pretty common fear.  But I do know a few people that thrive on change but I am not one of them!  
• Fear of choice - like I said I am a special breed of crazy!  Who wouldn't want the luxury of time and choice and future and the opportunity to quiet the crazy and have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean to explore the choice of where to from here!  I am so lucky and blessed to have a huge loving network of family and friends and Australian healthcare system to be able to have this time to get "better' and "find me" in all of this.  Seriously, who gets this opportunity and is is scared of it! 
• Fear of myself - Yeap I am afraid of myself and who I might be at the end of all this.  What if I am actually just a really awful person?  What then?  For the record my psychologist doesn't believe this to be the case, she actually believes at the core I am the helpful, loving, supportive, giving, creative person that I have always been she just needs me to believe that too.  

Today, hasn't been a great day for me.  Not really sure why I have had a lot of tears and I have done a lot of reading.  But I also had a session with my old physio and I haven't seen her for probably 18mths so there was a lot to catch her up on plus I had some dry needling which often does make me feel a bit emotional (even though the needles where in my bum).  Plus someone whom I haven't seen since all this happened but was directly affected by some of my actions* over the last few years got in touch and wants to have a cuppa.  They are just concerned with me and that is it but I just don't think I am ready, I am not ready to stop beating myself up for being such a bad person so I don't understand how they (or anyone else like family) can.  But that is probably something for a another day.  So amongst all of this there have been tears, anxiety, racing heart, fear and so many other things.  

One thing I did write down at the psychologist was that I said more than once was that "I know this isn't rational" her very considered response was that emotions are not rational and they do not ever have to be they just are.  It would also seem that I did a whole lot of eye rolling in my session with her because regardless of what she thinks of me and regardless of her over thirty years of training and clinical experience with people like me, surely she can't actually think that I am ever going to believe anything except the bad about myself or life.  

Sorry for the big blergh today has not been a good day for me so it felt kind of nice when reading Kerri's page that I found out there were a few more out there just like me!  It feels like I have a tribe!  And a really cool tribe at that!

Big love and hugs to everyone 

Cathy xoxo

Thanks Kerri for the inspiration!

Click to purchase Kerri's book

* I should just add that I have apologised both in writing and in person throughout this year. To the best of my knowledge these apologies have been accepted and well received. I don't believe that catching up with them is anything other than just that catching up to see how I am doing. I have already resolved all the issues that were there from the past.

Maybe yes, Maybe No ...

It's been a while since I have had anything to say.  In a way that is not exactly true, my head is so completely full with so many thoughts but at the same time feels like it is full of cotton wool.  It is actually really hard to find one thought and turn that into something that makes sense.

Life is still a challenge, I actually think this is really the new normal for now at least.  Physically I am doing much better.  In fact my physio thinks I am nice and strong now.  I am still quite dizzy most days and my balance is still not quite there but overall from where I was to where I am physically she is really happy.  I need to keep doing what I am doing and keep using the stick so that I don't fall over  if I have a dizzy spell.  I also read that I have had a huge blow to my independence and that is for now my Dr does not believe that I have the cognitive function to hold a Drivers Licence.  While at the moment this doesn't feel so bad, I know that the reality of that will set in one day when I am feeling a bit better and more aware and want to just drive.

The big uphill climb is my mental health.  Apparently I had my 29th session with my psychologist this week, I say apparently because I am still very much living by my journal writings.  If it is not written down or recorded in someway then for now it pretty much hasn't happened.

Life can be pretty difficult when you live through other people filling in your gaps and reading over journals.  It can be really hard to piece together what is happening and why.  What I do understand is that this form of amnesia is called dissociative amnesia and is predominantly related to anything that relates to me and my place in the world.  The amnesia, balance, dizziness and the headaches that I seem to have written about a few times are forms of protection.  My brain is still very much operating in safe mode and does all of these things to in a sense force me to stop and sit and feel.

Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder is the formal diagnosis (with a pretty decent side dish of depression, anxiety and PTSD.)  FNSD can be a really confusing term but essentially if we think of the brain as a computer this is a software issue not hardware.  Continuing with that analogy for me the amnesia is a lot like that all of my memories for a very, very long time have been sitting in my working RAM and nothing has been adequately processed and filed away.  This is the process that I need to do now and I am in the fortunate situation of having a lot of love and support around me to be able to do this while my brain is in safe mode.  Unfortunately, the process is going to be long and quite possibly emotionally painful for me.

I am not 100% sure why this has happened or why I didn't ever process events in my life properly.  What I can say is that perhaps there will be no reason for this, perhaps there will, perhaps I will never know.  For now though I need to try to learn to sit with fear, the fear and uncertainty of the future, the fear of processing the past, the fear of letting go and not controlling everything, you name it I most likely have some fear surrounding it.  This goes for the good things too.  I still get incredibly anxious about life, seeing people, going out and about, I suspect a lot of this is attached to the amnesia issues but for now we don't know.  What I know is that I am climbing out slowly of the hole I have found myself in but first I need to dig through all the dirt that has fallen in and cover over the hole and be open to what will come.  This for me is probably the hardest part of all the unknown and that the end of my story is not written.

I will leave you with this Chinese Proverb:



hugs 
Cathy xoxo

For more information about Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder

Change ...

Change is an inevitable part of life.  Change will happen regardless of how hard we try to hold on and stop it.  Change is not something that I leap at enthusiastically, in fact it would be better to describe my feelings on change as something I am dragged to kicking and screaming all while digging my heels in trying to hold onto what is or has been.

I am not sure what about change it is that I don't like.  According to the Harvard Business Review the top ten reasons that people resist change are:

*  loss of control
*  uncertainty
*  when it takes you by surprise
*  everything is different
*  loss of face
*  fear of appearing incompetent
*  can involve extra work
*  the ripple effect of the change
*  historical reasons
*  very occasionally the threat change poses is real.

Looking at this list alone starts to raise my anxiety levels.  My mind is racing off to faraway places, times, events that haven't even had time to happen yet.  I have catastrophised every single possibility even the good ones.

I wonder if my fear of change came before my anxiety or if my anxiety was as a result of lots of change that has occurred that was a) out of my control and b) in many cases resulted in difficult or traumatic outcomes of varying degrees.

I have always been the type of person that likes to know how things turn out before they happen.  I will read the first and last chapters of the book to determine whether I read the middle based on how it ends.  I get frustrated with TV shows that have series long story arcs and there is no resolution in the one hour time slot and have been known to stop watching a series for this very reason until the entire series is available on DVD so I can binge from start to finish.  I am fairly sure I wasn't always like this (my parents might argue differently.)  I am almost 100% positive that my need to control every situation has gotten worse as I have gotten older (or quite possibly more anxious without realising that was a result.)

I would say that I have always been headstrong others would perhaps say bossy and I like things to go my own way.  I truly believe that the reason for this is because I was/am so scared of the uncertainty of the change, I was/am scared of how different things would be.  I cannot control how others will cope with the change and I project my feelings about it onto them (ripple effect.)  Many, many times in my life the change whatever it may have been moving house, moving schools, having no friends, being bullied, death, cancer, and so much more where things that simply happened to me, around me or to my loved ones.  That is so very scary so for me the perceived threat (or my catastrophised thoughts of the future from the change) has in many cases been very real.

I also have this ridiculous fear of letting people down so I can think of a time when I was editing a publication for an organisation, it had a very small circulation varying of between 3-5000 copies.  I had been editing for a number of years and had taken on more responsibility and the magazine was in reality one thing I didn't need on my plate but I struggled with letting it go.  I knew that once I did that things would change with it.  I can look back now with a little bit of self-reflection and hindsight and see that it wasn't the change of the magazine that I didn't want I was scared that if things changed this meant that all the blood, sweat and tears I had put in and the countless hours I spent away from my family was for nothing, because by changing the magazine in my irrational, crazy little head that meant that people weren't happy with my work and I had been doing it wrong the whole time and I had let people down that I loved and respected.  I truly believed this (and I think still a part of me still does) but I also understand that change is inevitable and that change can be necessary to stay relevant and current, which in itself is absolutely no reflection on my efforts.

I really want to be a 'go with the flow' type of gal but I just can't do it.  It goes against everything in me and I really struggle to enjoy things if I don't know what is going to happen.  If someone was to suggest going for a drive that would fill me with dread.  Where are we going, why, how long will we be gone, what is the purpose and on.  I find it really hard to just sit back and take in the scenery of the drive or that sometimes in life there is no other purpose than just to get out of the house and do something different.  I have certainly never been a jump in the car with a few clothes go travelling kind of gal.  I am much better if I know where, when, why and how (and to be the driver!) there is a bigger chance I will enjoy things and not ruin it for everyone else if I know all of this in advance.

Lots of change in life can bring beautiful outcomes like the biggest change when I discovered I was pregnant after being told I would never have children that is a huge thing to get your head around.  I have amazing children as a result of this change in my life they are the light of my life but boy that has been a huge learning curve in letting go, this is such a hard thing to do when every fibre of your being fights against it.

You would think I would have learnt through having children is that you cannot control everything, change will happen whether you like it or not but no I didn't learn that lesson.  So perhaps that is what this season in my life is all about it is about learning to accept that which I cannot change and the strength to cope with the change that does happen.  I don't think it is as much about changing who I am but more learning to love who I am and get it to work for me instead of against me.  Let's face it we can never go back to what has been because we are different people, we are older, in some cases wiser and very possibly we in our heads have romanticised the past it can never be that way again.  We need to live in the moment and enjoy things for what they are.

Change is not always bad contrary to what I tell myself.  Change can be amazing so I am told.  I doubt I will ever be someone who leaps feet first into change but maybe one day I can at least go along more willingingly and far less fearful than I am.  Let's face it without change a caterpillar would always just be a big fat grub instead of the beautiful butterfly it becomes through change.  Robin Sharma says "Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end."  Just like the butterfly!

image source:  butterflysite.com

How are you with change?  Do you like it?  Love & thrive on it?  Or hate it just like me?  Tell me your stories.

Big Love 

Cathy xoxo