Therapy

I am happy to say that I have been able to start seeing my again therapist lately. A friend of mine is helping me by paying for my sessions to see if it will help. I feel very blessed. I get down on myself about a lot of things but one thing I've done well is make some really good friends. Anyway, so I have picked things back up with my therapist and have told her that it is crucial to works towards making the agoraphobia easier to deal with. I don't expect miracles to happen and to totally defeat things. I will most likely always be somewhat more susceptible to anxiety but if I could find a way to make it less heartbreaking, to make it more of a hurdle to jump than a mountain to climb, that'd be ideal.

So our first session we caught up on things and went over what outcomes I wanted and she told me for our next session, she wanted me to write down all my thoughts that went through my head when I was anxious and things that have helped in the past. So for our most recent session, we went over those thoughts and came up with a way to turn it into less intimidating thought.

For example, when I get anxious a couple of things that go through my head are:

"What if things get worse?"
"How do I make this stop?"
"I hate this."

So we turned that into:
"Things might get worse but I can handle it."
"I can make this stop by deep breathing (or other helpful tool to calm down) and allowing it to pass."
"I hate this but I accept it and I am okay."

So now my "homework" is to memorize these new thoughts. Also, to give some time to these tools I have to calm myself down. Sometimes I get so worked up that I jump from one thing to the next too quickly because I want to calm down, like NOW.

On top of finding a way to deal with anxiety better, I want to leave the past in the past. I think I've got things that I still hold onto that cause me problems in the now over things that happened in the future. I want to move forward and stop letting these things ruin my attitude, relationships, etc. I am hoping to see results.

I didn't really make any resolutions this year other than to have a bit more fun this year. Looking back on the past year, I don't have a lot of great memories. Most of this year has been me struggling with anxiety, money issues, and trying to get over my ex. Who has been a real...not nice person to me at all. So this year, I have a jar set aside and I have labeled it Memorable Moments. Every time I experience something really memorable, I am going to write it down and put it in the jar to read when this year is over. I wonder what my first note will be and I certainly hope by the end of the year the jar is overflowing!