I slept pretty well last night. Only woke up once from a nightmare but was able to get back to sleep pretty quickly and without disturbing J. When I woke up this morning, I was pleased to find my mood had lifted quite a bit and I was looking forward to the day. I exercised, listened to more records, and wrote the previous post.
I wonder why mood changes while I sleep. Some days I go to bed feeling down and wake up feeling great, while other days I can go to bed feeling great and wake up feeling down. What causes that? Dreams? The quality of sleep? Or is it just something that happens to everyone and nobody knows why? I’ve seen videos of brains in an fMRI machine – I wonder if anyone has tried to sleep all night in one. It would be interesting to see what parts of a brain are lit up when someone is happy or sad or cranky.
I’ve been working on writing a letter of appreciation to the Patient Care Manager at the hospital that fixed me up twice. It’s been difficult, though. For one, I’ve got so many people to thank that it’s going to be hard to keep it to a manageable length. It’s also difficult to write it in a way that’s professional and thankful instead of all wishy-washy. I just need to take it slow and not overthink it.
My appointment with Dr C today went well. Now that I’m not showing up with a different crisis every week, it’s really nice to be able to work on something for a couple of sessions in a row. Right now we’re working on thickening my skin and making me more resilient when bad things happen or I’m in a situation that has one (or more) of the triggers that really get to me. I’m going to try to deal with the anxiety and negative thoughts as if they were a person. So I’m planning on saying to the thoughts that they’re welcome to keep blathering on, but the rest of me isn’t going to be paying attention to them anymore. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
I’m also grappling with a bunch of other questions. The two that cause me the most consternation are “how can I be significant and insignificant at the same time?” and “What makes a good person?” The significance question bothers me because I have a direct effect on the people around me but at the same time if I weren’t here, the world would still turn and the sun would still shine. The good person question bothers me the most because I really want to be a good person and have the opportunity to do that while I’m putting myself back together. I just need to figure out what qualities good people have. It’s harder than it sounds – a quality that is positive in one person may not be in another. I’m a little worried these are the kinds of questions that you need to meditate on for years to answer, but I’m going to try.
J had an exam this morning and to celebrate her doing well we had pizza and watched Dr Strange. It was a pretty good movie. The effects were really done well and any movie that has Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton in it has to be good. Good company, good pizza, and a good movie makes for a good evening.
Stay safe!