I wish for two alternative worlds … one where I can either shake off this feeling of perpetual tiredness or one where I could stop wishing altogether. It does my morale no good feeling this way. I am a burden. I don’t think that is warped negative thinking. I just am. Alicia is bound to me by love and it must be a prison for her, constantly making up the ground that I am losing and being, in effect, a single parent to Xavier. How can anyone live with doing that to another person? But I do live, I hang about - linger, contributing nothing and draining the love and energy from the people I care about. And that is my punishment for being such a complete failure… seeing the people I love suffering because of my failings.
So that is it; that is what’s in my head. It takes no effort at all to prise the lid off those thoughts and let them loose on the page. So, time for some heavy lifting. What am I really guilty of? I’m glancing down my handout of ‘ten common thinking errors’ and I’m looking to identify which I’m plagued by in this instance. I don’t know how I’ll feel having rationalised it in this way… I don’t know if it will help. But I’ll give anything a try.
All or nothing thinking
I’m definitely seeing everything in terms of being good or bad with no middle ground or grey area.
Discounting the positive
Probably worse still, I’m having trouble seeing any of the positive… it is being filtered out leaving me with just the negative. My Alicia and my friends (new and old) are always trying to tell me that I’m doing well and that I should take stock of how far I’ve come. Walk before I run. But inside I know I tell myself they are being kind, saying kind things to help me get better and that I could be doing a lot better. That is how difficult it is to get through to me!
Jumping to conclusions
Alicia has done and said nothing to suggest that I am a burden to her. I extrapolate that from seeing how busy she is and how readily she sleeps at the end of the day. In fact Alicia gets positively annoyed with me when I suggest that I’m more trouble than I’m worth. For one, it is wearing to hear people talk in such a way but secondly she knows, and I know, that if positions were reversed I would do the same for my Alicia.
Minimising and magnifying
I’m exaggerating the importance of my negative thinking to the point that I’m reasoning my way into a justification for Alicia being better off without me.
Emotional reasoning
Because I am weakened, because it is taking time to get better, because getting better involves steps forwards and backwards, I see myself has failing even though others would not.
Ok… enough with the list of thinking errors. I have enough to work with here. I have in effect said to myself what others might say to me. But I haven’t troubled them… instead I have done it for myself and that must be a good thing. And it has helped.
Time to search the internet for clips of and an ankylosaurus, Xavier's new obsession. He’s sat beside me now as though queuing to use the lap top. We love ankylosaurs.
I'm a failure too Med, but and it's a big BUT only in our heads. We're being selective with the evidence.
ReplyDeleteLet me be really simplistic (because I am a very simple man :-) ). Can you drive a car? do you crash into things and knock people down all the time (I'm not including parking wardens, they are fair game)if your answers are yes and no then you're not a failure there etc etc. Lots of small victories are just as important a the odd big one in any war.
Onwards and upwards Med :-) Spanner
Mehdi this fight against depression is a long one, sadly their is no instant cure. Your friends and family are prepared to fight with you because we love you and we want our Mehdi back. You are being hard on yourself. Think how far you have come and each day think of the positives you have achieved. We could judge ourselves and our be negative but thinking negatively breeds negativity.
ReplyDeleteThree positives to get you going- you are a good man, a loving husband and a fantastic father.
And as if by magic….
ReplyDeleteI wrote this post feeling a certain way and worked through my thoughts to feel another way. It helped.
Since writing I’ve watched countless clips of ankylosaurs with Xavier snuggled beside me, read the warm comments from Spanner, Chloe and an inspiring e-mail. Like penguins huddling all over again…. And you know what… I’m not feeling the cold so much. Add one shower to the mix (I won’t admit even to myself how long it has been between showers because the will to take care of myself isn’t there)… so as I was saying… one shower later and I’m ready to do ‘one’ thing. Whatever that ‘one’ thing is… I’m going to do it today. I’m not even going to write here what that ‘one’ thing is because I know me, and I’ll see it as a promise… and if I break it I will see that I’ve failed… so no promises about what this ‘one’ thing is going to be. But I’m going to have breakfast and then I’m going off to do it with the rest of my pack.
Human kindness is an amazing thing.
You're really amazing. Your ability to unflinchingly look at yourself, how you're feeling, WHY you're feeling that way is inspiring to me.
ReplyDeleteI've been hurting so long. And hiding from it. And from the reasons for it.
Then one day you show up on my blog. And now you're helping me feel better.
So thank you.
And I'm here for you, too.
All or nothing thinking. I am guilty of that.
ReplyDeleteDon't you see how amazing you are? I want to put my hand through the computer and give you a noogie! You are amazing. I agree with the others, you have a talent to look into your self and write. That helps others who are going through the same thing, and helps the people who love them who are trying to understand them.
I don't know about marriage, every relationship is going to have it's ups and downs, that is life. Every marriage has a "honeymoon" period. So I am looking at it this way. You have a wife and a child. Your wife hasn't left you. My spouse left me. We were both bipolar- I took care of him when he was depressed, I wrote for him when he couldn't write the paying articles.
When his mania started going from hypomania to full blown, he decided to leave me. I was sinking into depression which was going to full blown suicidal despair and he didn't want to be bothered. It really hurt me. It wasn't a good ending.
I had a support group and I took a lot of comfort to those who had spouses, or partners who stayed with them. I miss it.
I;m not good with relationships, but it sounds like you have a diamond of a wife. You are blessed to have each other. The only good thing about singlehood is there is never a line for the toilet. ;)
Keeping a blog has helped me immensely. I think with analytical minds we can easily confuse ourselves, but when we write things out and see ourselves move logically through our problems it helps us with our self-esteem. You're not a failure because you have a great wife and child and father. (They are the only ones I've heard about so far, but bet there are more.) You're not a failure also because you work on your problem rather than giving into it. The way you're hanging out with Xavier by your side is most definitely not something a failure does.
ReplyDeleteYou are able to move people Med.
Hi Ami, thanks for being there and thanks for writing in your blog too. I'm gaining a lot of comfort and strength from reading about other poeple's experiences. Thanks especially for all the times you make me laugh out loud. Laughter sure does feel good.
ReplyDeleteSusan... I'm going to have to google 'noogie'! I am blessed to have Alicia and Xavier. What I have in them is what I would wish for everybody else. I'm sorry to hear this part of your story. I'm going to stick my neck out though and ask you if saying 'I'm no good at relationships' is a bit of 'all or nothing thinking'? You are something of a diamond yourself...
Linda, whenever you drop by you are just kindness itself. You have a lot of heart and that's hard to find at times. Thank you.
You've got a supportive band of readers on here Med. Reading other people's blogs can be useful too.
ReplyDeleteTo me, you're just the bloke who was the most intelligent guy in class, who just wanted to be a better footballer and fit in a bit more. I didn't know what was really going through your head, but have a better insight now, assuming that some of your demons started back at school.
Your doing good. You're very talented in all sorts of ways. But like other readers, I know that it's not compliments you need - or necessarily even crave. I, for one, can't solve the problem for you, but hopefully your family, friends and professional supporters can see you through it all.
Keep it up buddy.
There's me saying about you being the bright one - I've just re-read my comment and seen at least two apostrophe errors! What would Mr Boakes say..?
ReplyDeleteYou did, on this post, what you said I should try a little while ago. I didn't then but I will now. Thanks.
ReplyDelete