Need so much intense motivation to accomplish so little!

[dare i say it]

I am happy for you. I will try to draw strength from your example. I could use some of that today.

[manuel_moe_g]

I am going to come to the session with stuff written down, will copy it from my concerns and understandings in this thread.

That reminds me, have to fill out lengthy questionnaire before first session.

[manuel_moe_g]

Spoke to my psychiatrist yesterday about started professional cognitive therapy, and he said that I might consider having my wife come into a session so the psychologist can explain about anxiety and depression. Hah! I am pretty sure my wife would think it was all excuse making for my laziness and my bad behavior - she is so strong-willed, she gets a boost of energy and focus when things get tough, whereas I get confused and drained.

I wish I could control my anxiety with a knob, turn it up when I need to anticipate difficulties, and turn it down when I need to get to work quickly - and I wish I only needed 4 hours of sleep a day, and I wish I wasn't so foggy when I first wake up in the morning. Oh well...

[MCspeaks]

I sometimes wish that people in my life wanted to know more about my experiences with depression/anxiety. I think it would be different to hear things coming from a psychiatrist, so maybe it would be good for your wife. And what's more, maybe you shouldn't be in the room, so she can express her concerns about your 'lazy' behavior and you won't have to hear them. Who knows?

[manuel_moe_g]

Yeah, I agree, MCspeaks. I am going to let things happen organically, I am just talking things thru in my head. If my wife sees my effort to improve myself, the exact things I have the most power over, that will say more than any words, and I will just let things progress organically from there.

[manuel_moe_g]

Recently, I was mourning the lack of dating and romance in my youth. And I have been mourning that my dreams and life-goals are impossible given how much work I put into them. I have several small victories a day, which is actually pretty good - this is the alpha and omega of success. I am envious of people with capabilities and dreams and who are not held back by depression and anxiety. But the place I am at I can actually be in the moment with compassion and fruitful help.

[MCspeaks]

I can definitely empathize with that! I'm so used to feeling miserable all the time and then I see how much other people are able to accomplish coming from worse off circumstances or whatnot. I wish our brains wouldn't automatically compare ourselves with others! As cheesy as it may be I've been watching Oprah's Lifeclass and something she said this season that totally stuck with me is that everyone's pain is the same. Pain is pain. We are always assigning various degrees to pain, but pain is anything that really interferes with your life, be it physical, emotional or mental. Maybe something that someone else is struggling with is not something we would struggle with and that's where we start to compare and judge. If we think about it in the sense that everyone's pain is the same, I think we would all be a lot more accepting (and I personally would be a lot less critical of myself!).

Glad you are celebrating your daily victories At my healthiest, I was keeping a "success" journal that I wrote in every night.

[manuel_moe_g]

Yeah, I have to constantly remind myself that outward appearance can be deceiving - people who I am intensely envious of may actually be living a life that I would consider hellish. Not everyone wears their heart on their sleeve like I do!

[manuel_moe_g]

I am playing with the idea of coming to peace with this:

I will fail, my failure will be a utter violation of my goals and values and responsibilities and relationships, inside the failure and the violation I will be keenly aware that I was the lynchpin and that my decisions and actions brought about the failure and violation... and I am OK with it.

I am OK with it, because the only goal I can hold on to is [1] holding onto the spirit of self-improvement under a realistic analysis of myself, [2] working on the things I have the most control over at the times I have the most ability

I am aware of my grandiosity, self-soothing with fantasy.

Unless someone is shooting actual bullets at me, I have a lot of leeway in my response to provocations. I can be torn down, disrespected, humbled, abused, irritated - and I can choose my response, and I can choose a neutral response, and I can calmly move forward in the spirit of "oh, I just learned something new about my environment, and I can form a rational response, and insert a gap between this event and my rational response and rational action"

[manuel_moe_g]

Have a therapy session on Wednesday - first time in a long time. Anxiety building. Have to fill out questionnaire, and will also scan this thread with what I discussed with "Dare I Say It" to come in with some stuff written down, about what I want to work on, and what my expectations are, and what my boundaries are.

Lately have been sleeping a great deal - and dreaming of being back in high school and college, which is a feeling that is bitter-sweet. I am mourning because of the lack of dating and romantic relationships in high school and college - I wish I had the understanding of my 41-year-old self in the body of a 14 year old, but that is ridiculous.

Spoke with my daughter this morning as I drove her to school about my feelings about what I perceive as her lack of caring about academics. I will not push too hard - because she does not handle criticism well. But, thinking back to my youth, there is something to be said about a brief communication about going down the wrong path. Of course, one of the stupid things about the high school years is no interaction with 23-year-old's and such about consequences of behavior during the years 15-16-17-etc. The world is set up for people to be minimally self-actualized - this is depressing to me.

Urg, a good description of my life is "being held captive by my anxiety, being a slave to my anxiety, being worn out and washed away by my anxiety"