dealing with rumination

In the blog post I wrote yesterday, I did something I can't ever remember doing before. I wrote something pretty negative and I didn't try to turn it around and turn it into some kind of lesson or positive message. I'm glad I did that. It reflects what I'm learning - that you don't defeat rumination by reasoning or arguing with it or trying to make something positive out of it. 

There is a good way to argue with it or disarm it (probably the better term). What you don't want to do is struggle or resist. When you do that you empower the rumination because you're telling it that it scares you. Rumination was really defeating me yesterday and most of today as well. It seemed hopeless. I was trapped in a cycle of fear. 

My weapons in the fight - my daily goals - were all rendered useless because rumination has me immobilized and unable to do my goals.

What helped me was a realization I made. I was ruminating, as I've been doing lately. I had some victories today but they didn't really bring me hope. They were victories of keeping going when it's hard and it's not going to get any easier. Later on, you look back on those times and realize they are the real victories, because it seems hopeless and there is no relief or escape in sight, but you do what you need to do anyway. 

The realization was about one of my recent ruminations. This thing had really bothered me. I was catastrophizing and imagining the worst and it was just one more thing weighing on my mind. There's always a main worry and this was my main worry for a while. Today it got resolved and it wasn't even a problem. It was nothing. And I almost didn't appreciate it or feel any relief because, of course, there's some other worry on my mind now - some other main worry. 

I've been trying to find a way of doubting my rumination, but it seems to have beaten me. It seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's won and my goals are useless because I can't do any of them. I'm just stuck in these thoughts and fears and they're closing me down. But then it occurred to me....that thing I was worried about the other day, that seemed so devastating, wasn't even an issue. 

The lesson about my fears is that they are unfounded – that my rumination lies to me. 

It still plagues me. After the initial breakthrough and feeling better, the rumination threatens to wash away the hope like a wave washes away a sand castle. But I know not to engage it. As tempting as it is to think about it and want to reason with it, that's not the way. 

hopeless

It's hard to really believe in positive change. 

I have such a history of rumination that it's all I really know. I can't see any way out of it. I spend hours stuck in rumination and going over and over the past and my struggles and pain and going over and over the future and what I'm scared of, and it's a loop that I'm stuck in. 

And when I'm stuck like that, my goals seem pointless and hard. Normal things seem scary and difficult. 

Everything seems pointless and hopeless.

opening windows

The reality is that every time I do one of my daily goals I am building and growing. 

I still keep getting caught up in rumination, but I just have to keep moving away from the rumination and moving towards my goals - towards doing stuff and being occupied. 

It sometimes bothers me that I don't really know how to do this. I don't really know how to be happy or mentally healthy. It's not like there is some state of wellbeing that I can return to. 

It's a scary thought, thinking about all the stuff I need to work through - all the issues I have and how damaged I am. 

But I'm learning that it doesn't matter. 

Making progress is not a matter of 'working through' all my issues and trauma. All of that stuff has no bearing on the new me. It's just irrelevant. 

Grass doesn't need to know how to grow, it just happens naturally. 

Rumination still has such a grip on me. It still stops me and keeps me inactive and keeps me stuck. But at least I know what the struggle is now. 

When I'm in my old state - being the old me - it's like the new me doesn't exist, and I imagine the old me having to do all these things that seem really difficult for the old me. I look to the days ahead and I'm overwhelmed about things I have to do.

Part of me sees that this is a really good struggle. Like, even though it seems like such a bleak situation that it takes me a lot of strength and courage to do ordinary things, that's a good thing. It's good to have that opportunity to have strength and courage. 

But also, it's going somewhere. This is a process, and it's leading to a good place. And it's a very secure place. There's nothing tentative about it. 

There are so many good analogies that capture what is happening and that I've been writing about. 

There's the analogy of the house of fear and pain that I've built and that I live in. The house made by my rumination. It's my refuge. That's the way my mind works. As I do my daily goals, I'm stepping out of that house, and every time I step out of that house it becomes less real and my own wider world becomes more of a home to me. And it's a one way process. Every step in a positive direction is permanent progress. 

Then there's the analogy of the tree (or the seedling) and the storm. The seedling is my new life as defined by my daily goals. It's so vital - so real and substantial, but because it's new, it's unrealized. It's still hard to even believe in. The storm is very obvious and seems really dangerous. I'm still in the storm. 

The good thing is that I have some control over this. I can actually beat the storm, and I do beat the storm. As time goes by I have more and better windows and less severe waves. I'm surprised at times by how good things are getting and how rumination and fear and all that stuff is losing its grip on me. Then, sometimes I'm taken by surprise by how hard the struggle still is. 

It's definitely up and down. I've been to a kind of hell, and in that hell I've changed. I've learned not to take the easy escape, because that's the route to death. I don't collapse and become helpless and desperate. I don't look to be rescued. And when I am literally falling apart, I keep trying. I'm not perfect, but I'm better than I was. 

everything is on fire

I finally found a writing prompt that I want to write about. It's one I've never seen before...write about why you want to write.

I want to write because writing is victory and life, and rumination closes everything down. 

Something happened after I wrote that second sentence. A huge change came over me. I went from being mired in rumination and fear, to breaking free and being in a completely different mindspace. I stopped writing and I was watching some youtube videos about art. I downloaded some art software I want to try. I listened to music. 

I'm experiencing this more and more lately. I'm in my house of fear and hopelessness and pain, and it seems like I'm stuck here. I have this belief, even though I don't feel it, that doing my daily goals - engaging - occupying myself - moving - taking action - taking positive steps...I have this belief that doing those things will help me overcome rumination. But my rumination is still such a presence in me and it tells me it's hopeless, that there's no point, that I'm stuck. What difference is my pathetic attempt at doing one of my goals going to make? It's just going to cause me pain (my rumination says). You need to keep your attention focused on me (my rumination says) because if you don't you will experience more pain. You need to listen to me so that you can be protected. 

But what's happened here is an example of the answer to that. It seems hopeless. It doesn't seem like it will make a difference. But I want to try. I want to keep trying. I believe in persisting in this struggle of action vs rumination. 

So, I find a way. I force myself to write something. And by the end of the second sentence, everything is different. I'm not in that house of pain any more. 

Of course the rumination will come back. I've been feeding it and building it up for my whole life. But that's the other thing that I'm learning that helps me with this: my rumination is not my enemy. I don't need to fight it or struggle with it. In fact, that's what has made it so imposing and painful. My struggle has built it up because I'm just fighting myself. My rumination is my own thoughts - my own creation. So rather than fighting it, I need to be understanding of it. It's trying to tell me something. What's it trying to tell me? It's like a scared child, actually, and I let it order me around and tell me what to do and what I can't do, but what I need to do is reassure it and calm it down. It actually wants to protect me. That was its original purpose. When it pokes its head through the door I need to invite it in for coffee instead of picking up a weapon or running away. 

alchemy

I was thinking about how good things grow directly out of challenging things. I'm not ready to feel good about the challenging things just yet, but I feel the good things growing, and the good things displace the challenging things. It takes time. 

I suppose it's like a kind of alchemy. You can't just wish away the challenging things. It doesn't work like that. It's not a miracle where suddenly all the pain is gone and the new life and strength and vitality is fully formed. It's a process and the good things somehow need the bad things in order to develop. 

In Hebrews 11:34, the Bible talks about how, through faith, our weakness can be turned into strength. That's the thing about real strength though: it's rooted in weakness, just like courage is rooted in fear. You have to experience weakness and fear to become strong and courageous. There's no other way. 

The struggle has eased a bit, but I'm unsettled and insecure...fearful that this new lesser struggle presages a spiral down into the hole I was in. But I also see a lot of difference now. I had the most interesting sensation this morning of, for the first time in a long time, being able to observe the struggle I've been in, from outside it. I saw how bad it was, but I wasn't in it any more. 

To have that experience, even if it passed as the day went on, is a really good sign. 

But I know that I still need the struggle. I see its importance in this process of growth. Because what happens when I get some relief, like I have in the last few days, is that I savor that relief, and something in me wants to take it easy and enjoy my new position. It's so easy to fall back into old ways of thinking and acting. So, I need to be reminded that I'm not out of the woods yet, so that I maintain my fierce commitment to my daily goals. 

exile

The Bible tells us to "Endure hardship as discipline" and that "God is treating you as his children." (Hebrews 12:7) Later in the same passage it says that "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11)

The Bible also says that "We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." (Romans 5:2-5)

It's comforting to think of those passages. In the face of real suffering it's hard to think like that. Suffering always seems unreasonable and out of control because we aren't in control. It's hard to rejoice, it's hard to be at peace and it's hard to believe that God has something good in mind for you. 

In Jeremiah 29:11, we read: "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That statement has a very interesting context. The Israelites had been carried into exile, and all the false prophets were speaking a message of consolation - saying that within a year or two, the people would be back home. Jeremiah - a real prophet - wrote a letter about God's true will and intentions, and his message was SO different. God said to the people, settle down in Babylon. Build houses, plant crops, get married, find spouses for your kids. Because I am going to bring you back after 70 years. 

Verses 13 and 14 read, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity." 

It must have been so hard to accept that message, especially when God says, if you seek me with all your heart I will be found by you and will bring you back from captivity. 

I was going to write about the lesson from this but I would be paraphrasing a message I heard so here is the actual message. 

This is one of my all time favorite messages from the Bible. I love it because it's so poignant. Pastor Butch Yu's message is that God's best intent is found in life's worst events. 

I love the way he fleshes out the message. You can imagine what it was like for the Israelites. They were devastated to have been carried into exile. Exile is like the very definition of what you don't want. The false prophets said, don't worry, just put up with this for a year or two, and then you will be brought home. God says the unthinkable: this is your home now. And that's the context in which God says, 'I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.' 

Normally we associate that verse with the kind of message that the false prophets were preaching. We think it means that God has plans for us, to prosper us according to our ideas of prosperity. But God has something better in mind. 

The good news is that, as Pastor Butch Yu says, God was with the Israelites in Babylon. They had the idea that they needed the temple and the culture of Jerusalem to really have fellowship with God, but no, they had the same access to God where they were. They could have a relationship with God where they are. 

This year has been probably the worst year of my life. But it has changed me for the better, and I have been an active participant in that transformation. I have been well and truly out of my comfort zone. I had no comfort zone. In the midst of that and through advice I was given and conversations I had and reflection, ideas began to form about how I was starting a new life and I had to aggressively strive to achieve my daily goals. I had to fight for these things every day. And there has been one overwhelming challenge after another. It seemed to get harder all the time rather than getting easier. But there is always times of respite as well. 

I'm doing a lot more now. I'm living a new life. Without the crises and challenges and difficulties I would not be. 

hope

When I get stuck in rumination, everything seems pointless. My goals seem pointless. Every one of them. My situation seems hopeless. I'm doomed. I'm desperate, I'm scared. There's no way forward. Looking ahead, there's no path. 

But there's a ray of hope in my life now. Despite what seems like an absolute barrage of unsolvable problems that are all interconnected making my situation hopeless, when I just do my goals, I'm able to, at least for a few moments, somehow get out from under the barrage and feel OK. I've never really done that before because I always saw my goals from within my rumination, so they seemed pointless and difficult. 

Because I've been working through a really difficult process for a while, I've been building good habits by having what David Powers calls a fierce commitment to my daily goals. But the rumination seems to win. It seems to have the force of inviolable facts. My situation really seems hopeless and desperate. 

But something is happening. When I'm stuck in these cycles of panic and defeat and pain that are so hard to break out of, I do something now that I didn't used to do. I focus on my goals and I look at the next one that I haven't done yet and I do it, or at least I try to. It's hard, but the challenge is just psychological. Like making art for example. All things being equal, there's nothing hard about it. It's the opposite - it's very enjoyable and satisfying. But somehow, when I want to do it, I feel like I can't. It seems really difficult and even painful, and I realize now that that's because of my rumination. My rumination demands all my attention and won't allow me to really engage with anything else. 

In the past, that stopped me from doing art and writing and other things that I want to do. It just seemed too hard. Then I would get desperate and make a bit of an effort, but what I did wasn't that good. It was half-hearted. But in the last few months I've been forcing myself to do art every day. And I'm happy with the art I'm making. I'm invested in it. 

When rumination really gets the best of me, it seems hard to do art again. It doesn't make sense but I think, 'I just can't do it'. I can't give it my attention. But because I've made it into a habit, I can just push myself and do it. And I'm being really creative. I'm not dragging my feet and doing it mechanically - I'm really making art. 

And when I do that it changes my perspective. The rumination, which is so oppressive and consuming, recedes, at least for a moment. A similar principle applies to all 41 of my daily goals, though I still don't manage to get through all of them in a day. 

My daily goals are my new life that has begun as I have emerged from some crises that I've gone through in recent years, and in some ways, my whole life. My vision is that they will grow and will become my actual life, and the rumination and crises will pass. 

I don't really believe in that at the moment though. I believe in it as a possibility, but I feel defeated and things look very bleak. But thinking about it stirs something in me. Like, my daily goals are a life. That's pretty powerful. And I think rumination is like a storm. It may take time but the life will grow and the storm will pass. That's not speculation, it's inevitable. 

changing

We don't realize how strong we actually are and we don't realize the strength we have access to. 

In this struggle between rumination, which is trying to close me down, and my daily goals which represent my new life, I'm still so subject to rumination and it's still hard to really see the power of my goals.

The rumination still seems to be winning. But I am pushing back against it. It seems like a water pistol against a fire hose, but I have faith in the power of my goals. 

My ruminations, anxiety, depression, fear and other negative thought patterns seem so real to me and my goals don't. They don't seem to make a difference. 

But I know they do make a difference. I can feel the difference even today. My spirit lifts as I do these things. It's just that the rumination is so pervasive. All it takes is one worry - one little detail - and I'm drawn back into the whole network of worries and fears. 

But I'm learning to see that network for what it is, and to see my goals for what they are. I believe in the powerful life-giving ability of my goals and I can see the error of my ruminations. I can see how one supplants the other. The suffering brought by my rumination will not be used to destroy me or break me. It's exactly what is needed to build me. There is no mistake. 

It takes time though. It's not a simple matter of fighting the rumination or reasoning my way out of it. It's a matter of growth and development. Growth of my new life, and falling away of the old with its rumination and other maladaptive ways. 

So, I'm kind of stuck with rumination for a while. I'm stuck with a lot of the pain and fear, but I'm learning that the real suffering comes from resisting and fighting them or trying to escape them. That's the problem - we want a quick fix. Pretty much every day I have some windows - some breaks in the suffering...moments, sometimes longer, of feeling OK, feeling normal, peaceful. And I want to hold onto them, but they don't last. It almost feels permanent for a while, but then I start to slip, and then the fear kicks in which of course escalates the problem, and down I go. 

As I wrote above, these two things - doing my goals and my rumination - supplant each other, but ultimately that only goes one way. Doing my goals is undermining my rumination. The rumination might temporarily interfere with me doing my goals, but every day I do them anyway, and I'm going to do them more and more and get better at them. There's a permanence to my goals that is not shared by my rumination. 

catastrophe creation

When you cater to your fear of pain, the fear will eat everything you've got. It won't stop at the bounds you set for it. It will take over your life and you will live in fear and pain. 

In the process I'm working through, things have been getting ridiculously hard. To the point where I want to just collapse and escape or be rescued or something. I don't see any other option. I think that's just how it's going to have to be, because I can't endure this. But then I was reflecting on it today and thinking, in a strange way, it's actually me doing this to myself. This is what I want...at least what the old me wants. 

It really is the old me too. I noticed that when I was in that state of mind, I had given up on my daily goals. They just seemed useless and ineffective. The rumination was too much for them. What good are they in the face of rumination, anxiety and depression? And because I don't think like that any more, I noticed that in my state of giving up, that's how I was thinking. And that's how things used to be. 

So I went from thoughts of my collapse to thoughts and actions of doing my daily goals. Doing that - making that effort - actually made me feel good. For the first time today I felt OK. It didn't last. There were maybe a few moments of respite and then back to the pain. But that's the reality at the moment. I can either collapse because of it or I can build my life. 

It seems like the end, but that's because I don't really know this new person or this new life. God is leading me into them. 

out

In first year English we did a module about creative writing and another one about essay writing, which shaped my essay writing practice ever since. The one about creative writing was equally earth shattering....what a revelation! I came up with a really exciting idea for my final project and I got the highest mark I've ever received for anything. 

What really set my mind on fire from the start was the idea we were taught that you didn't have to have a good idea to start with. Instead you could just play with language and produce something - see what came out. It struck me that that's exactly like my experience of art and music. I don't know what I want to achieve. I just do things and see what develops. 

There is an idea though. Like I said, there was an idea for my final project, but it's not an idea about how the final result will look. It's more like an interesting scheme or procedure I'm going to perform. It was so exciting working on that project. I had no idea what I was going to do but a sense of so many possibilities. 

My life is like this kind of project at the moment. I've rarely felt as broken and defeated. The outlook is bleak indeed. I'm not on top of this issue. It's on top of me. Truly it is. And it would extinguish my new life just like it has always silenced me and stopped me from acting and doing and achieving, but it cannot stop me now. 

It's not that I feel triumphant or that I can see it. I can't see the victory, but I think I'm becoming the victory. Because I'm a real living being but my rumination is a voice generated by fear. It still grinds me down day after day. It's still painful. I'm still traumatized and afraid. But I have a vision of my new life. 

My new life is in my daily goals and each one of my daily goals is a powerful weapon against rumination and for life. 

It may seem like this thing's on top of me, but already it doesn't stop me any more like it always has in the past. So, it's started. My new life has begun. And this thing still has me pressed down and confined, living in fear and trauma. But things aren't how they appear. It seems so fearsome and I seem so weak. It seems to have me beaten. But I keep achieving my goals day after day as hard as it is. 

I keep coming back to the idea. My new life, my new self, is a tree, and the rumination is a storm. It doesn't matter how things look. The tree will live and grow, and the storm will pass. 

Every time I achieve my goals, I'm taking further steps out of the house of fear and pain that I have constructed and lived in. Freedom and joy and real life seem strange to me because I live in this house of fear and pain. It's my refuge. But I'm getting out. 

montage

It seems so hard to do my daily goals, but that's an illusion. None of them are actually difficult. But it's the struggle with rumination and depression that makes them difficult. 

The problem is that so much of my attention and energy is captivated by this inner problem. 

Realizing that this is the nature of the problem gives me hope. It feels like something is going wrong and like I'm being broken, but the change is actually profoundly positive. I have hope because this is a process and it's a good process. 

Even when I do break down and feel like I can't cope any more, I'm learning to bounce back from that. I might melt down for a while. I panic, catastrophize, feel defeated and helpless, but I pretty quickly get back to working on my daily goals. 

There are windows and waves. The windows are times of relief and feeling better, and the waves are periods of intense challenge. I have to remind myself that I am making progress - that I'm not back to square one, I haven't completely failed, when I go through yet another wave. The problem is that, as I have more, better and longer windows, the waves don't get any easier. They seem almost harder. 

But I take comfort in the fact that the waves are part of progress. Growth is not linear - it's up and down, and the downs are as important as the ups, maybe even more important. Every story of triumph has to start with being knocked down, losing in some way. That's what motivates you to train hard and change. 

everyday

It seems like just another day. It's groundhog day, except in this version things get worse every day. It's weird how things are always getting worse but it never reaches some really bad conclusion. 

Rumination tells me it's hopeless. What difference does each of my daily goals make? How much progress can you make in a day? Anyway, what difference does it make? All of these goals - the whole lot of them - don't even make a dint in the problem. 

But that's very circular. Rumination is telling me that about itself. Every day, as I actually do these things instead of just thinking about them, which is what allows rumination to define them, something is happening. 

Rumination still dominates my mind. Like, as I'm writing this I'm thinking about it, and my thinking tells me that I'm defeated, that my daily goals don't make a difference. I live in this house of hopelessness and the walls are solid. 

But every day I do my daily goals. I still don't get to all of them, but I do as many as I can, every single day. 

it's what they are

Real change is a kind of miracle, because how can you become something you have never known? How can you have any idea how to be different? Changing requires a kind of blindness. You have to feel your way tentatively. It requires faith. 

Because you have an understanding of what is required, it's just that the reality of it feels completely unnatural and involves stepping into the unknown. There's so much pain and fear, which makes us feel like something is wrong. 

But pain and fear are guides. The reality of our spirit and the spiritual realm is so much more solid and substantial than we realize. You will not break. My whole life I've had this thought that what I'm thinking and feeling is causing me damage. And that thought generates pain and fear. And it seems like that has its way. It seems like it can really damage you. It seems like it does. It sets up an interlocking set of problems that can stop you and debilitate you and end you. It's real. Depression and anxiety are real and painful and debilitating. 

Finally I know the solution. And it seems completely too late. It still seems like the rumination will win. It really does. But why am I writing this? I'm writing this not because I have great faith or hope but because I have faith and hope in something great and true. I believe in the reality I have been writing about a lot lately...the narrative about my new life/ my daily goals being like a tree, and my rumination being like a storm. The tree can't help but grow, and the storm can't help but pass. 

Like a Tree

One of the things I realize I’m doing is resisting and struggling against the idea of going through pain, and that actually perpetuates the pain. The more I can accept that, yes, I’m going to go through pain no matter what, the less pain I will go through. I’m constantly triggering the cycle of pain. It begins with some feeling or idea, and I react with fear, and that makes something out of it and that cues these really long-standing thought patterns about suffering and worry and pain and I become fully engulfed by them. I’m stuck. 

The solution really is my daily goals. The problem is rumination and other maladaptive thinking, and my daily goals work directly against those things. Even this morning I experienced this. I was struggling from when I first woke up. Then I was working on some writing I'm doing for Medium and I got really interested in it, and felt better. But as soon as I felt that, the rumination came back, and I see myself as being in crisis, and I can’t escape. I think about how, probably for months and years to come I’m going to be in mental pain, forgetting the very real relief that I just felt. But I see now that, in a way, I’m choosing rumination, or rather, because I’m so used to thinking like that, I return to it. I don’t realize I have a choice. Because I have a lifetime of worry and rumination, it is pretty strong, and it seems like an impossible adversary. But I have a solution now. 

The rumination is like a very bad storm. It is threatening and ominous. It can be very destructive. My daily goals are like a seedling. They are my new life and it’s just starting. Seedlings are so fragile at the start. Storms have no life or consciousness of their own. Likewise, my rumination is just a voice or a story engendered by my fear. It’s my own. When I fight the storm, I’m just fighting myself. The seedling is my new life, and, as fragile as it seems, it absolutely will grow and become vibrant and strong. The storm will pass. That’s what storms do. And the seedling will grow. That’s what seedlings do. Sometimes I feel a bit discouraged or hopeless because I’m trying to make the storm disappear by making my seedling grow, but it doesn’t work like that. The best thing I can do is to do all the positive things that constitute my daily goals. 

Every day I am making progress through this process. My tree grows and the storm recedes or at least gets closer to ending.

It doesn't seem like it though, at the moment. But what helps is knowing this is all true. It's not just an analogy. It's an analogy that I'm using to explain reality. 

The thought of it pulls me out of the pit of hopelessness. It's a story that is compelling enough to break the story of my ruminations. 

thresholds

Why do I have faith? Because there is an absolutely awesome plan that is being worked out in my life through the most difficult of circumstances. 

It's more than just looking on the bright side. It's not saying, 'well this is unfortunate, but I'm going to make the best of it'. It's something of a different order. 

Sometimes it takes courage to just do ordinary things. It takes courage to go on. It takes what you don't have. But you have to do it. It's a crazy moment. In your mental scheme of things, what you have to do seems impossible. But this time you have to do it. So somehow you do it. It looks like an ordinary thing to everyone else, but from your point of view it seemed impossible. That's strength. That's courage. When you can't do it and you do it anyway. 

I'm always looking for where the relief is going to come from. I'm always thinking about how I'm going to be rescued. I fall apart when things get really bad and lose the ability to cope. But what I've been learning is that I have to cope. Things are going to get really bad. No one will understand or help at least in the way I think I need. I will have to go on and function and do things when I feel completely unable to. 

It's always hard. I'm always looking for an easier way. There are a lot of moments of relief and sprigs of hope that pop up in unlikely ways. There are situations that seem to just contribute to how miserable things are but then you find something hopeful in them. 

new me

I'm still pretty traumatized by this process that I've been working through, but I seem to be emerging from it almost not of my own volition. Even as I was feeling unsettled and scared because I don't know if this crisis is over, and I'm having to resign myself to the reality of fighting for my life for the rest of my life, I heard something in a video which made me think about my old life and my life now - the old me and the new me. There's no comparison. 

I'm living a life of meaning. I'm living a healthy life and headed in a positive direction. Every day I spend time with God. So, although life seems scary at the moment, my life is actually suffused with hope. In my old life, my situation was perilous even though I was in my comfort zone. Now, I may feel like I've been put through the ringer, but I'm being born. 

the struggle

Every time I really push, I get burnt. So, my response is to ease up. Obviously I'm pushing too hard. When we feel real pain, we think there must be something wrong. Like, this is not reasonable or normal. We're not meant to push ourselves to the point where we break. But I've been learning that that's exactly what I need to do. 

In this seemingly endless struggle, every time I push myself to a certain point I get basically smacked down. And at first I would ease up. I'm obviously pushing too hard. I need to recalibrate and set a more reasonable goal. But this is going to drag on forever, and it can't. I need to beat this, which means going through pain.

I'm learning and changing. Before, when I pushed hard and got knocked down, I fell back and made more reasonable goals. Now when it happens, I set a more ambitious goal. Not at first. At first it's hard to even function. It's literally hard to do even simple things because I'm so consumed and oppressed by this mental struggle. 

But I try. I just make an effort to do at least something towards my daily goals. And that changes me somehow. It makes me feel different. Then when I feel different, I see things differently. 

Just being able to feel better for a short period of time is a huge victory. 

don't listen to the horror stories

This place is old and creaky, but I've grown to like living here. It's very low-tech apart from my computer that I use for work, my website and so on. I cook on an open fire and don't use much electricity in general. I grow a lot of my own food. 

The place is haunted, which kind of bothered me when I first found out. I'm used to it now though. I made friends with the ghosts. As with everything, we ought not to believe the horror stories. 

Ghosts are actually quite nice when you get to know them. It makes for a very low maintenance relationship. You don't have to cook them dinner, offer them drinks or give them a spare bed. They're very easy to talk to. There are none of the formalities we have to engage in when we talk to living people. 

The conversation just flows. It's a major misconception that ghosts are elusive and kind of cryptic...like all the 'knock once for yes' type stuff. Try just talking to them like a normal person. 

None of the horror stories actually come from ghosts. They aren't a reflection of the reality of ghosts. It's like with witches. The narratives related to witches were not produced by witches, or at least they didn't provide the main stimulus for the stories. It was  puritans who came up with the stories. Maybe there's some fragments of truth behind it all, but a lot of the narrative was developed through a process of intense hatred and fear manifesting the very object of that hatred and fear. 

fear itself

My rumination is still so powerful, or so it seems. It's still debilitating. It still seems to have the upper hand. I'm achieving my daily goals but feeling little sense of joy or satisfaction. I think, yeah, I'm doing these things, but I can't live like this. And doom seems just around the corner. Everything seems dire. 

Pretty much every day, even in the midst of this struggle I have windows. There are windows and waves. Windows are times of respite when you feel OK, and waves are the opposite. Waves are the norm. David Powers talks about how you have to try - and 'try' is the operative word - to keep opening the window. You only have to try. The window is welded shut. Try anyway. It makes a difference - that consistent, thankless, dogged effort, day in day out. Maybe after 6 months, you get a few seconds of feeling OK. Great! That's huge! Keep going. You have opened the window. You have formed a new connection in your brain. You can build on that. 

Today I had a window because I was able to stop ruminating. I said to myself - you don't need to go over and over and over these old stories. You can think systematically. Consider how you're healing. Consider how you can heal. And then there was that sweet, incomparable relief. But of course it passes. It gets washed away in the torrent, and there's a kind of counter-attack when things seem worse than ever. It's like the demon or whatever it is says, that's cute. Did you think there was hope? Did you really think you could escape? I will pull you out of heaven itself and plunge you back into the flames of hell. You face the reality that you're going to be suffering acutely for the rest of today and tomorrow and this week and next week and for months and years. 

But....the window was real. I made a point of writing it down. In that moment, I had beaten the rumination. And that's what's going to grow. My progress, my healing, my new life, my daily goals. That's real. The rumination is just a bunch of scary stories. It still seems so powerful, but it isn't. It's losing it's grip. 

I was thinking - I am better. This thing doesn't stand a chance. What is it? It's just stories. It's just some disembodied voice. But I'm a living being with agency and talents and I can take action. I have a life. 

As I wrote yesterday, I had a window because I accepted the fact that this struggle is going to be long and hard - maybe never ending. Maybe I'll never feel good again. Maybe I'll be in mental pain for years. I'd gotten in the habit of thinking of times in the past when I really struggled and how bad it was and thinking, that's what I'm going through now...it's going to get that bad. But a turning point was me thinking, so? What if it does? Was it really that bad? If it gets bad I'll just deal with it as best I can. And there was something about letting go of the dread that brought relief. It broke the vicious cycle, because that cycle is fed by all the dread and thinking about how bad things are and how they're not getting any better. My problem is that I have a tension that I just can't release because it's deeply ingrained in my subconscious mind. But with so many of these things - anxiety, rumination, worry, etc - resisting it feeds it. 

But just like today's window, I felt OK for a while and then it's back to the fight. 

stories

I've been listening to 'Harder than you think' by Public Enemy with the promo video for the 2012 paralympics: video. 

It inspires me. There's a line from the song: "Harder than you think is a beautiful thing."

Sometimes you have to bring your own hope. Sometimes you feel like you can't go on, but you don't have a choice. So you just do it, and it's invigorating, literally. You're returned to yourself. You remember who you are. 

I've started living my new life, but these mental chains, demons or whatever you want to call them still have such a hold on me, still oppress me and cause me pain that goes on day after day, week after week, month after month. I live in it! I live in this! And it's crushing me. I almost give up because things are so bleak and there's no escape, but I don't. I hold on and fight and find some temporary relief, but only temporarily, then it's back to this outrageous struggle that's crushing me, against which I have no defense. 

But I made peace with it. I went from living in dread that this is my life now - this pain that may never end, grinding me into the ground - to an attitude of acceptance. If I have to live like this I will. I'm ready for it. There's always a sense with this struggle that I've managed to evade it in the past but now it's caught up with me, and it's undoing me. 

I always feel like that's so tragic and such a bad thing. It is, but there's a story here. There's a new life that I'm living. It's defined by my daily goals. 

In the last few months I've started writing about the progress I'm making and the victories I'm having. I've written 255 pages of bullet points, and counting. One point I wrote today is this:

• Every day, whatever is happening, I achieve as many of my daily goals as I can. That is the reality of my life. That is my new life. All of the sad stories about failure and lack and deterioration and being abandoned, are fading.

These narratives still seem so much a part of my life and it seems like they're crushing me. The crushing is real, but they're crushing the old me. My new life has only just begun. It's like a seedling and the old stories are like a thunder storm, but storms pass and seedlings grow.