Been Thinking

I've been thinking lately...what if? I've absorbed so much negative talk from friends, coworkers and the media lately and had so many strange and unusual things happen to me in this last year, that I suddenly realized today - what if my fears are out of proportion with the threat?

If I'm sitting here waiting for the worst to happen all the time, I'm not surprised when it doesn't -I just tell myself it hasn't happened *yet.* And then when something comes up as stressful, I can tell myself "see, I told you something bad was going to happen." Well, if I wait long enough, I'm going to be right. Good and bad things will happen and I'll be right a percentage of that time.

I do know that I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of "waiting for the other shoe to drop" and of protecting myself from invisible risks that never come to pass. I'm weary of fear, itself, and of all the energy it takes to buffer myself constantly against pain and loss. I want to believe that I am a good, capable person, who will find a way to take care of themself anyway when bad things happen, and who can still enjoy the good things while they come and go.

I'm tired of grief and fear and loss. I have got to find a way to let it go and say "I did my best," and have that be enough. I've got to find a way that my worth isn't wrapped up in what I do or in how others wish to define me. And the hardest part is finding the courage somewhere, somehow to stand up to my own self-talk and despair to protect my own heart and soul. To believe in the better side of "what if?"

Hello, Spidersal. You may have something there. Depression has its genesis in the past. Anxiety is forward looking. What if we focused on today and the choices we may make now? And we choose to purge ourselves of the malaise of the past as best as we know how? And with courage choose to face the future with greater peace of mind while recognizing there always will be some bumps in the road?

((((((((Spidersal)))))))))

Wow, what an insightful post! I think it's an incredibly healthy step for you to be coming to these realizations and I wish you the best of luck moving forward.

I've often wondered if my depression isn't simply emotion suppressed from the past - a hovering on the borderline between "feeling things through" and committing to the courage I know it will take to risk again. I get stuck by the fear of the next step and stand in the doorway, hesitating.

I always have kind of felt that some of my depression is because of the part of me I have had to "kill" to be safe. All the reams I never followed because "it will never work out", all the places I have never gone because "Going alone would never work." All the energy I lost being afraid anticipating the worst "to be prepared" and finding out that even if what I expected happened, it still hurt as much as it would have if I had anticipated something more positive. Worse, I would have been disappointed if I had been more positive, but I wouldn't have spent days or months being disappointed ahead of time Sort of like the brave man dies but once, but the coward dies a hundred times. (Not to say anyone here is a coward!) Huuggggssss!