I am weary. I woke up at 0430 today. I know I'm not hypomanic because my brain isn't clicking along at a thousand miles per hour. I didn't sleep well over the last couple of days because of this persistent headache. I also have been finding myself caught up in worry when I'm not busy working on something. As a result, I tend to push myself to stay active until I am too tired to keep going. It's not a healthy habit and I don't recommend it to anyone. (This is one of the habits I'm trying to break this Moura.)
Worry is not productive. I have a magnet up on my fridge. It reads: Worry is like a rocking chair, it'll give you something to do but it won't get anything done. I find myself looking at it on a regular basis and it serves as a little reality check. When you have an anxiety disorder, reality checks like that are super helpful. It's really easy to get caught in a cycle of worry and spend half your day unfocused because your thoughts are distracted by anxiety over a ton of things. For me, once I start worrying about one thing, I jump to another not much later and then the next thing I know, half an hour has gone by. All I accomplished in that half hour was sitting and staring at things as I perseverate on my anxiety. It's really frustrating.
With the recent death of my father-in-law, I am concerned about how my children are doing. They seem to be ok, just more restrained than usual. But, I find myself having my anxiety kick up and I sit, worrying that they're in deep grief and feeling like they can't express it. It leads to my checking on them a lot (and the boys get annoyed with me). I try really hard to make myself available and approachable for them at anytime they may need me. It is a lot of emotional work on my part and I don't think they realize it.
The hardest part of it all is putting aside my fretful thoughts for me to focus on the present moment. I have done my best to place my concerns in the hands of the Divine, but I am not very good at that. I am really good at repressing things, but that's not healthy. (Another habit I'm trying to break.) I journal frequently. It helps some. I have a therapist that I see on a regular basis, which helps too. The mental habits of worry have deep roots and are very difficult to rip out. It's like the worst game of wack-a-mole ever. Slap one down, sixteen more pop up all at once.
Still, I keep trying. Practicing catch-and-release with thoughts is a good mindfulness technique. I sit for a few minutes and observe what thoughts are running through my head. I acknowledge them and then I consciously put them aside. It is like a mental version of writing things out and closing the notebook. It's a technique that has been most successful in helping me to worry less.
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