Teetering

Sometimes my therapy sessions feel like I’m just spinning, not making any progress. Other times, I take steps backwards which always leave me confused and sometimes fearful. But on occasion, I’ll have a session that is awesome and I think I might someday become ‘normal.’ This past Monday was one of those sessions.

I had been mulling something over in my head about where I was at in life and I had a vision. Actually it was more of a drawing and here it is:

You see, I’ve been feeling like I’m at a precipice. On one side (in order that they’re weighing on me right now) is my eating disorder, depression, social anxiety, and OCD which is connect a bit with my eating disorder. On the other side is what I refer to as the 1s, 2s, and 3s. What I mean by that is when I boil down what upsets me around my apartment, they can be alleviated in one, two, or three steps. For example, I’d like my living room to be cleaner but the idea of cleaning it is just immensely overwhelming due to my depression. But when I analyze what it would take to clean the living room, I realize I only need to do two things – pick up stuff (especially since I have tripped over a pillow and fell hard) and vacuum. Just two things. The small part of me that is normal sees that it’s really not a huge undertaking to clean the living room but the depression even makes those two steps seem impossible. According to my therapist, being able to see that only a couple steps separate me from what I want is progress.

But we have the middle junk, what I’m teetering on. It’s the negative thoughts and the self-doubt and the exhaustion from the depression. As I’ve said, I’m teetering. I feel like I could fall to the left and drown in the depression, etc. or I can fall to the right and start taking those steps. Falling that way, however, takes energy and courage and support which I feel I have nothing of right now. It just seems it would be easy to just take the other fall and not fight sometimes.

My therapist was impressed with my drawing and conclusions and said I made progress but still I teeter, dipping to the left nearly all the time.

Dana