My new therapist has set me the task of keeping a Process Journal. I am to track the connection between the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
4th day... So far I am shocked at how MEAN I am!! No wonder I'm depressed! I'm living with constant mean internal dialogue.
Example: When I started running copies this morning at my second job, the copier jammed. I tried a couple of times to un-jam it, to no avail. I resigned myself to being unable to run the copies this week. Felt depressed. Decided to lay it all out for my journal. Here's what I discovered:
Behavior: Copier jammed. I tried numerous times to un-jam it.
Thoughts: I'm only employed to do this one small task each week. How will I look if I can't even do IT? I could lose this job.
Emotions: Sad. Tired. Depressed. Worthless.
??????? Over a paper jam?????
So... Seeing how mean I was being to myself... I went back to try to un-jam the copier a third time. This time, I did it. Without beating myself up. ♥ The copy job is now complete. Am I jumping for joy? Nope. But I feel a greater sense of peace. And maybe a little hope? If I can stop being so mean to myself, perhaps this depression will lift...
Jen,
Ridiculous is our inner critic. Thanks for letting us look in the window of your brain. This knowing does deflate a lot of the crap we tell ourselves. I'm hopeful for you too!
Love,
Patsy
Jen, I'm the same. I've actually said things like I hate myself and I'm useless...I had stopped socialising with my friends because I thought they would be better off without me and that I'm a burden..??? Logically i know that doesn't make sense, but for some reason my dialogue is telling me other things.
Anyway taking everyday as it comes and hoping the dialogue will change it's tune soon.
Jen..This is great, that you can see that you are far too hard (mean) on yourself! This assignment is meant for this purpose, to make you more aware of how your thoughts, feelings and behaviors are connected, AND just how irrational some of the messages are that you continually 'say' to yourself. You are not alone. I know I did it over and over for many years, and I'm fairly certain that many others have/do also.
None of us deserve to be treated the way we have treated ourselves. I can see now how it is an obvious progression of low self worth and the negative view one sees of themself.
This brings to mind how often I have believed I was to blame for others' sadness, pain or simple discomfort...even if I had nothing to do with the real problem. I use to blame myself for any and every problem. Does that sound familiar?
Thank you for sharing....as always!! Jan ♥
Great post Jen! what a thought provoker. I have an "internal voice" which now I call ED, and it says horrible things to me all the time. Last night I dropped a jar of strawberry jam and the glass and jam shattered and spattered all over. Immediately the voice started yelling: "Molly you are such a stupid dumbass.... etc. etc. Over a dropped jar. Everything is my fault according to the voice.
I am trying to talk back to that voice.
Thanks for sharing!
Hey Molly and Jen - I have that voice too. He's a *****. And last night - when you dropped the jam, I spilled an entire container of freshly made cheese sauce I had just made...and it went everywhere. The drama that ensued was ridiculous.
I have been doing a new workout that involves boxing. it is helping me so much - so much - I picture ED - and kick the **** out of him. And it keeps me going. Anyone want to go in on a dart board with his face on it - and we can have a contest on how many times we can get that dart smak dab in the middle of his face?
After I wrote this post yesterday, I went on to have the BEST DAY I've had in a LONG time!! ♥ I can't even describe the feeling of LIGHTNESS that came into me... I went out to lunch after work, and I was patient when my order arrived wrong, and then late. I got a pedicure, a rare treat! :) I walked around the mall just because I WANTED TO. I did my grocery shopping. I watched some old American Idols I've been neglecting. Got some laundry done. Dishes. ACA last night. It was a FULL day, but that, for once, isn't what made it GOOD. It was the easy way I FELT. A lightness of spirit. Like when I realized that I'm feeling so low because of the way I'm treating myself, and THEN that the way I'm treating myself IS RIDICULOUS, I realized that, as a generally rational person, I CAN CHANGE!! ♥ Hope. I'm filled with hope this morning. I want to hang on to this feeling...
Molly, I giggled when I read your account... There must have been something going around, because I ended my day by dropping and shattering one of my bowls... :( I didn't beat myself up over it. ♥
Thanks to all of you "spillmongers" for making me feel better... Jen. WOW, I dream of having a day like you did., and all you had to do was give yourself permission to do it.!!
I am so happy for you, I only hope I can get there someday and get off this "perfection" train....
Green, definitely! Something like a germ-y parasite... Something with lots of stickers/spines, or perhaps suckers, sucking the life blood away... Invasive. Mean. Red eyes... Fluid. Possibly gaseous, able to travel through the body and attack the mind. :P Bleh-- Perhaps an exorcism is needed! ;0)
Interesting question... What does ED look like to you?
Jen: YOu have quite an imagination!! I think you described ED very well; a monster image.... I may have to start this thread, but I have another one in mind right now that I am trying to summon the courage to post...l
mine goes as follows....
I picture ED as a woman who is say dressed in Prada head to toe,with matching shoes ...and handbag.... perfect blonde hair , perfect blue eyes...perfect teeth , perfect face...then you look at her ---and she looks and smells of death....she is bone thin and wants you to be cool like her, like all of the Media and TV people/ actresses....
i see her as a wretched fashionista --like a fashion designer or something who belittles me cause i look healthy...she wants me to look unhealthy and THIN like her and her 'cool' friends....
i am not 'cool' if i dont look like her--i am worthless a nobody--ill never be loved unless i look like her..
she is the pinnacle of perfect beauty(although a skeleton) and im not good enough and fat....
she is like one of the shallow self centered asses on TV who claim you have to be bony to be beautiful....and that im fat cause i look healthy....in fact i----see the face of ED when i turn on TV, movies, media, magazines---all telling me im noboby and that they are better than me...and that i should be like them.....and if im not--then im not cool..
oddly---these cool rich superficial girls---when you look at them ---beyond the perfect hair and clothes----look like skeltons ---like holocaust survivors....
so how can that be beautiful????? it is not---it is a look of death and death aint pretty by a longshot...it is ugly...healthy is beauty....
may that ***** ED, that cool fashionista---die and rot in hell and leave me to be the person i am, that i want to be---and not change who i really am....