the pits of despair

dan was talking on his blog about how he felt like sometimes people take glee in hurting others, and referenced the prisons in which saddam hussein's sons and "minions" (so to speak) happily tortured their neighbors. he spoke of how the fingers were not simply amputated, but were actually mangled.

i really took that as a symbol--the mangled fingers--and have been sitting here applying them to what i learn slowly about cognitive behavior and the writings of epictetus--then i am the one mangling my own fingers.

i think back to when i was a kid, teased relentlessly and bullied. my dad had a series of things he'd say that would make me feel like i should be able to cope with the teasing and hitting, etc: "Like water off a duck's back." "Sticks and stones, Kim--words can't hurt you." "Why are you crying? I'll give you something to cry about." (which he never actually did...)

do i torment myself, in a prison of my own making? have i mangled my own feelings, using the words and actions of others as the tool to inflict wounds? yes sirree, i have and i do.

can someone hurt me? yes. but in the end, i get to choose the degree to which i'm hurt.

the question becomes, now that i know what makes me stay in my internal drama pit, torturing my self until i'm too broken to breathe, is whether i want to stay here.

i think of epictetus and of what i've learned from the book "how to keep people from pushing your buttons." it's not something instantaneous. the answers don't come in a flash of insight. they come slowly, painfully sometimes. like pulling slivers out of your fingers--hurts like a sonofabitch, but when it's out, you can heal and not avoid touching everything.

in the book, they talk about the 4 ways you can think--awfulizing/catastrophizing, should-ing, and rationalizing are the bad ones. the good way is realistically thinking--something that is difficult to focus on, when you're depressed.

when you're in this dark pit, there are a whole series of ropes waiting to haul you out. (at least that's how my pit looks.) sometimes i yank on one i think is solid and going to "save" me, and it just dumps water on my head. or rocks.

realistic thinking, in the pit, is this tiny thread of thought, totally obscured by the other, thicker, flawed thought processes that are all much more familiar to me.

if i think catastrophically about what's going on in my head, it goes a little bit like this:

"what if my letter to serena was too mean? that would be horrible! what if dan never is able to heal? that would be awful! what if i am never able to heal, what if i'm always depressed? that would be terrible!"

(and it does sound horrible...and more horrible...)

if i should myself:

"i should be happier. i shouldn't be so depressed all the time. i should have asked no questions of serena. i should have been more polite. i should exercise tonight instead of going shopping. i should go home so i can make sure dan's okay. i should go shopping for the ingredients for the bars i have to bake on sunday, not for bras."

(and then i feel overwhelmed and guilty because i know i'm not going to be able to do all that tonight and i should be a better person.)

if i rationalize:

"i don't care about how dan's doing, it's up to him anyway. i don't care about why serena hasn't written back, it's up to her. i don't care about how i'm doing, because i'm not worth a whole lot. and i don't care when i bake those godforsaken bars, they're just bars anyway, so who cares if they taste like ass?"

(i don't want to eat ass-bars. do you?)

so on and so forth. it's a whole ton of ropes hanging down that look like they're my salvation. but i keep ending up on my ass at the bottom of my pit again. over and over.

is it because someone threw rocks at me? nope. what about the water? nope, not that either.

it's all about my reaction to being hit by the rocks. and my first reaction is guilt: what did i do that made them throw rocks at me?

realistic thinking goes something like this:

"i'm hurt by the fact that serena has not written back to me yet, but if i don't hear from her, i'm not going to perish. i'm hurt that dan's depressed, but i am doing all i can to be of assistance. i care about dan enough to be concerned, and caring is okay. are there parts that are is it awful, horrible and terrible? some parts. but i can feel this way and not allow it to dictate my behavior. if i don't buy the ingredients for the bars tonight, that is okay. i have more time than i am allowing myself. and my boobs deserve some flashy support."

it's just hard to do that all at the same time--recognize what you're doing, and curb it in a healthy way. especially when the fog rolls down into the valley and you're just reaching out and grasping for help by touch. you can't even see what you're reaching for--so when the snake bites you instead of the helpful rope, all you can think of is how much that hurt and why the snake was there. you're not even considering the idea that there is another rope, or that if you climb out of your pit, there's ever going to be another one.

rome wasn't built in a day.

not everything slides off a duck's back. sometimes the duck just has to avoid the rocks. or go sit somewhere and heal before the next truckload of rocks gets dumped.

before i get further into metaphor-hood than i'm qualified for, i'm going bra shopping.