it wasn't me, it was my strange and creeping doubt, it keeps rattling my cage

Sunday, 09/30/18, 4:08pm, 8:17pm

Hey there.

I made a discovery today, this afternoon, this last half hour of a technique I'm hoping to make use of in my "battle". (Whatever it's supposed to be called. My ongoing struggle, my life, my mental illness journey, my depression, my bipolar-ness). So often, I'm not necessarily even doing too badly, I find myself having a degrading dialogue with myself. You suck, you're a horrible mom, you're a horrible human being, you'll never be able to handle "it", you'll never succeed at anything, you'll never win this. I wasn't having the best morning/day today, but then I was doing a little better in the last hour or so. I had taken a shower, which helped, and I'd taken some snack and water to my boys at the park while Nasser was heading out for a Costco run. I was working on a puzzle when I found myself in this dialogue.

Well this time I took a real vulgar approach to it. Oh f*ck you, you a**hole depression. You stupid bipolar sh*t telling me all these awful lies. You're not wanted, you mother-f*cking worthless piece of crap. You may know my weaknesses or what brings me down, but that doesn't mean you know me.

It helped.

Unfortunately, I went through this cycle back and forth. I'd say this in my head, keep enjoying my puzzle, and those thoughts would come back, and I'd say it again. I'm not down again, so I guess it's proving to be a worthwhile technique, but then it doesn't just make those thoughts go away. And I really wish something would.

Tomorrow I'm starting this big deal "intensive outpatient" program for DBT, aka dialectical behavior therapy. This therapy is done in a group setting, three times a week, three hours each day, with a little bit of homework each night. Plus a one-hour appointment with the assigned therapist. Oh, and over nine weeks. It's a really really big commitment, which makes me nervous/anxious/scared/terrified. It sounds like an awesome thing though, and I think the intense immersion of it all will be all that much better for me. It will hopefully make the skills I learn during the program more habitual.

Sometime last month, I also started EMDR, aka eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's weird. The results of this therapy seemed a bit mixed when I was initially doing some research on it. It also seems a bit... strange... I guess. I went in with a lot of doubts. But so far, I feel like it's doing something and seems worthwhile. I don't feel like talking a whole lot more about it right now, since I think it would require providing a lot of backstory, etc, so I'm just going to leave it there.

I'm having a hard time accepting that I need this much treatment/help/therapy/support still. And I talked about this just last month and here I am again. I know that I've done so much, I've required so much, and I'm still not where I want to be. I do really well some days, and it seems I do terribly others. I want to reduce those dips and I want to make them less severe. And now... hopefully... this therapy program will help with that. Although I need to go in with, sure, some expectations of myself to gain as much as possible, but without that hope that this will fix it all.

I don't really have anything else to say today. Just that, anyone out there who reads this, think of me, send your kind thoughts, energy, and strength my way as I continue this work in the form of this program over the next 9 weeks.