Ultimate goal
I often find myself going back to the same events, memories, moments in time, and looking over them again. It happens for various reasons, maybe just to remember again, possibly to feel joy/sorrow again, most times to try and find something I may have missed before.
My life seems to follow some "had it then, lost it now" pattern and therefore I also go back looking to see where the changes took place - if I can find them. It is my guess that (for the most part) people do not just wake up one day and things have changed. It may feel like it, and yet I am going on the assumption that it is a gradual process. The "one day" is when that gradual change becomes noticeable. It isn't that it changed over night, your ability to recognize the change did. I understand this and therefore know that to find the needle in the haystack is sometimes more difficult.
I remember when I started class and we started learning distress tolerance. Even with my current difficulties remembering things, I do remember that first night almost minute by minute. Maybe enough time has lapsed that it is now stored in my long-term memory! Anyways, as I have said before, I hung on to every word, skill, tool, and concept that was explained that night like a lifeline. Each time we went over a skill option, in my mind I kept having the same thought - I can finally deal with the darkness, I can be ok. I had not made it to "I will be ok" at that point, and yet I realized there was an actual, legitimate, healthy, way to start toward getting there. And, of course, being a visual person, I found the whole pink elephant/blue donkey example just flipping awesome.
As I was making the last part of my drive home today, I thought back to that night. As I found myself laughing (that night is in my top 5 of favorite nights), I started wondering - where did I lose that optimism. Through class I moved from can be ok, to will be ok, to am ok, then somewhere I found myself unable to identify what ok was, let alone if I was there or could get there. At the end of that night, I had no clue what the future held or where I was even headed, yet I was fired up and excited that there was a way - there was a way to be healthy, there was a way to get past hurting myself. I remember leaving class, stopping up in the big parking lot by the old bookstore, and writing Lisa an email that was simply to the effect "this distress tolerance stuff is awesome." When I saw her the next time, I would brag about it most of session.
Wish I could say I had the same reactions the first nights of emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. Nope, my reaction after those night was more like "Oh, crap, I'm screwed" and the naive optimism was replaced with fear and the thought "not really sure I will be ok after all." Now, I managed to make friends with both concepts yet it was more like the acquaintance kind of friend. Distress tolerance and mindfulness were more like locker buddies.
I think I use all the skills more than I realize. I sit, think, analyze, identify, and more. I made it a point to try and integrate the skills into my daily life so that I wasn't going "oh, what skill shall I use here" and I would just react, using a skill without thought. I think I have done well with that goal. Always more work to do and more things to learn and change. Still hoping to take the class again in the fall and continue to learn and make the skills a way of life.
Did not really find any answers in my revisit of Distress Tolerance class other than what I have shared here. An awareness of a difference in how I feel about myself, my life, the world. Realizing I am different and yet it is not really a better or worse kind of thing, just different. I was still surviving then, now I am trying to live. Familiar versus unfamiliar.
Working through things can be wonderful. To take something that has had power over you, evaluate it, take the power away, and put it away is very rewarding. It comes with a price though - there is always something else there to work through. Once you get through the "little things" the big things await. When you start chiseling through those, the things that you don't want to face are unearthed. Some of those you know are there as you put them there and covered them in hopes they would never resurface, while among them are things others put there for you. You knew the extra pieces were there, you carried the weight of them, yet you did not know what they were or who may have put them there. If you were carrying them, they must belong to you. As you uncover them and as you have help identifying them, you may understand they are not yours, yet you don't understand what to do about it. The pieces are toxic to you and you now find yourself confused and scared. Your brain is in a tug of war trying to default to old behaviors and trusting the new behaviors will work just as well. The problem is that it feels like 1 versus 100 and the 100 is the old behaviors.
I just have to keep hanging in there. As I keep struggling to figure out where I am and where I am headed, I had the following question come to mind: for the time being, is it so important to know where I am trying to end up? Which is the better place to focus - getting to an end point somewhere down the line, or getting through moment by moment? I am guessing there could be arguments for both. Somehow, at least right now, I am thinking that where I am trying to get to may not be the right goal and maybe that is why I am struggling with identifying it so much. Maybe what I need to keep learning is living this moment. What can I do to make this moment healthy, and how I can get through it and still be safe. Then when the next moment comes, just do the same. Healthy and safe - seems I have heard this before, maybe a few times.
I think this is a good conversation to have with somebody. Maybe even tomorrow.
My life seems to follow some "had it then, lost it now" pattern and therefore I also go back looking to see where the changes took place - if I can find them. It is my guess that (for the most part) people do not just wake up one day and things have changed. It may feel like it, and yet I am going on the assumption that it is a gradual process. The "one day" is when that gradual change becomes noticeable. It isn't that it changed over night, your ability to recognize the change did. I understand this and therefore know that to find the needle in the haystack is sometimes more difficult.
I remember when I started class and we started learning distress tolerance. Even with my current difficulties remembering things, I do remember that first night almost minute by minute. Maybe enough time has lapsed that it is now stored in my long-term memory! Anyways, as I have said before, I hung on to every word, skill, tool, and concept that was explained that night like a lifeline. Each time we went over a skill option, in my mind I kept having the same thought - I can finally deal with the darkness, I can be ok. I had not made it to "I will be ok" at that point, and yet I realized there was an actual, legitimate, healthy, way to start toward getting there. And, of course, being a visual person, I found the whole pink elephant/blue donkey example just flipping awesome.
As I was making the last part of my drive home today, I thought back to that night. As I found myself laughing (that night is in my top 5 of favorite nights), I started wondering - where did I lose that optimism. Through class I moved from can be ok, to will be ok, to am ok, then somewhere I found myself unable to identify what ok was, let alone if I was there or could get there. At the end of that night, I had no clue what the future held or where I was even headed, yet I was fired up and excited that there was a way - there was a way to be healthy, there was a way to get past hurting myself. I remember leaving class, stopping up in the big parking lot by the old bookstore, and writing Lisa an email that was simply to the effect "this distress tolerance stuff is awesome." When I saw her the next time, I would brag about it most of session.
Wish I could say I had the same reactions the first nights of emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. Nope, my reaction after those night was more like "Oh, crap, I'm screwed" and the naive optimism was replaced with fear and the thought "not really sure I will be ok after all." Now, I managed to make friends with both concepts yet it was more like the acquaintance kind of friend. Distress tolerance and mindfulness were more like locker buddies.
I think I use all the skills more than I realize. I sit, think, analyze, identify, and more. I made it a point to try and integrate the skills into my daily life so that I wasn't going "oh, what skill shall I use here" and I would just react, using a skill without thought. I think I have done well with that goal. Always more work to do and more things to learn and change. Still hoping to take the class again in the fall and continue to learn and make the skills a way of life.
Did not really find any answers in my revisit of Distress Tolerance class other than what I have shared here. An awareness of a difference in how I feel about myself, my life, the world. Realizing I am different and yet it is not really a better or worse kind of thing, just different. I was still surviving then, now I am trying to live. Familiar versus unfamiliar.
Working through things can be wonderful. To take something that has had power over you, evaluate it, take the power away, and put it away is very rewarding. It comes with a price though - there is always something else there to work through. Once you get through the "little things" the big things await. When you start chiseling through those, the things that you don't want to face are unearthed. Some of those you know are there as you put them there and covered them in hopes they would never resurface, while among them are things others put there for you. You knew the extra pieces were there, you carried the weight of them, yet you did not know what they were or who may have put them there. If you were carrying them, they must belong to you. As you uncover them and as you have help identifying them, you may understand they are not yours, yet you don't understand what to do about it. The pieces are toxic to you and you now find yourself confused and scared. Your brain is in a tug of war trying to default to old behaviors and trusting the new behaviors will work just as well. The problem is that it feels like 1 versus 100 and the 100 is the old behaviors.
I just have to keep hanging in there. As I keep struggling to figure out where I am and where I am headed, I had the following question come to mind: for the time being, is it so important to know where I am trying to end up? Which is the better place to focus - getting to an end point somewhere down the line, or getting through moment by moment? I am guessing there could be arguments for both. Somehow, at least right now, I am thinking that where I am trying to get to may not be the right goal and maybe that is why I am struggling with identifying it so much. Maybe what I need to keep learning is living this moment. What can I do to make this moment healthy, and how I can get through it and still be safe. Then when the next moment comes, just do the same. Healthy and safe - seems I have heard this before, maybe a few times.
I think this is a good conversation to have with somebody. Maybe even tomorrow.