Untangling the Snarls

I've always loved untangling snarled necklace chains. I love the puzzle aspect and teasing out and loosening the knots and then watching it all unravel back to individual chains. 

Two weeks ago (when I started dressing my truth), I found three delicate chains stashed in the back of my jewelry box, so badly tangled that I'm still working on it even though I spend time every day loosening the knots.  I've made progress: one chain was set free, and the central knot that holds the remaining two together grows smaller at each session.

Untangling those necklaces is a good metaphor for what is going on with me internally lately too. The two one-on-one counseling sessions I've had, regular attendance at Celebrate Recovery, and four completed steps from David Burns' workbook "Ten Days to Self-Esteem," all have been working together as God's instruments to untangle snarls in my soul.  

What parts of my inner life represent the real me, the authentic being God created me to be?  What are mere cognitive distortions and negative thinking and coping mechanisms that I've lived with for so long that I began to believe they were the real me?  

It's been fascinating and rewarding journey, if a little painful in parts.

Dressing my truth as a bright and animated woman (in colors that pop, gold accessories among other things, started the first knot loosening.

When I started dressing my truth, it brought back a flood of positive memories from my childhood. I remembered the me that was full of enthusiasm and never short of ideas. 

I wrote silly short stories (like Mystery Martian and the Lost Glove, or How the Catfish Got Its Whiskers).  

I was an instigator and organizer of fun.  Once I wrote a script and rounded up my cousins to put on a Christmas pageant for our family (my youngest sister played baby Jesus!).  

I had business ideas. My sister and I made bookmarks with crayons and scrap paper from my dad's office.  Then I came up with the idea to go around the neighborhood selling them!  We even had a few customers in the little old neighbor ladies who thought we were adorable.

Yet somehow in my adult years, I started to see myself as boring and low energy and no fun.  I can't explain exactly why dressing in a bright, animated way validated and unleashed that part of me again, but somehow it did.  

That unraveled one set of knots.

Extreme self-consciousness and social phobias led me to believe that I'm an introvert.  But over the past few weeks, as my social anxiety has lessened and I find myself increasingly comfortable in social situations again, I'm finding that rather than being drained by them as an introvert would be, I'm actually energized by them!  

Last night I took a ginormous personality test over at SimpleMinds. And I although I've tested as INFJ or INFP in the past, last night I tested as Myers-Briggs ENFP, and it really resonated with me.

The ginormous test gave an Enneagram result too and came out with Type 4 (with a strong 3 wing). The Enneagram profile for a 4 says my driving motivation is needing to be unique and different, and the 3 in me needs to be admired and noticed.

I can see that in myself, and also see how when I'm unhealthy/depressed it gets turned upside down to "I'm so different that no one understands me or I'm so different that I'm missing out on something everyone else has," from the 4 and "I stand out like a sore thumb, everyone's watching me/judging me," from the 3.

Last night I was doing some reading about cognitive dissonance and rationalizations and confirmation bias that helped me to see how once I get started on those type of thoughts it's hard to stop.

For example, part of my social anxiety has been that when I see a group of women chatting, my default reaction would be to feel left out, and assume they have a closeness with each other that I can never have. I'm finally seeing the lie in that, and how my belief in that lie becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. I hold back from joining the group, withdraw into myself and so of course never do get close to them).

Yet despite the behavior I've had based on those irrational beliefs, God has blessed me with many caring people in my life.  What mercy and grace!

I'm so full of hope in the possibilities for the future now that I'm beginning to see the old rationalizations and fears for what they are and know how to defeat them. Even though it is a battle, I will choose to live in truth .... the truth that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, am capable of loving and being loved. 

At the same time, I recognize that I'm at a danger point just now.  In 2006 I went through and recovered from an episode of depression/anxiety.  I even used the same workbook I'm using now.  I looked through it and noticed that back then I started but never completed Step 5 in the workbook, and the rest of it remains blank.  

I can remember putting aside part way through Step 5 because:

a) I was feeling much better by then (much like now), 

b) my brain had already rapidly made some of the connections the author was leading up to with the exercises (much like now) and it felt redundant to go through them when I already "got it"

c) the exercises started getting harder/less fun!

I completed Step 4 just last night.  As I looked ahead to see what Step 5 entailed, the same feelings about continuing that I had last time reemerged. But this time I don't want to let those feelings trick me into stopping recovery.

I need accountability to make it through this workbook, continue going to therapy and continue attending Celebrate Recovery. Telling this blog audience is one way to keep myself accountable.

I want to fully untwist and untangle my thinking and not let the snarls stay and get me all tangled up again in a few days, weeks, months or years!

More on DYT and a Mental Health Progress Report

A friend of mine blogged today about her own journey with Dressing Your Truth, how she found out about it and how it has impacted her at a level so much deeper than just dressing and feeling beautiful.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2!

Part One has a great overview of what Dressing Your Truth is, and Part Two goes into how understanding her nature and dressing accordingly has created some aha! moments for her.

This is one of my favorite sections:

I am not a "textbook" Type 1 - what I call bouncy balls and fireworks. Rather, I describe my energy as "a dreamer, head in the clouds" energy. It is still a very light, airy, full of ideas energy - but it also has a soft, gentle, graceful element to it. Think Belle in Disney's Beauty & the Beast. Thinking of it in that way allowed me to start to truly accept and embrace this part of my nature in a way I hadn't been able to before.

I love that!  The way she expresses her bright animated energy is influenced by a secondary soft subtle energy which makes it not quite as in your face as the Type One description sounds at first.  I didn't believe I could be a Type 1 because I didn't feel extroverted and loud and flashy enough.  But I'm my own kind of Type 1!  Although I loved the comparison to Belle, but my mind instantly went to another of my favorite fictional heroines, Anne of Green Gables!

I have to say since purging my closet of the black clothes and dark shaded/rich golden colors and bringing out and wearing my clothes with colors that pop, I've felt more me than I have in years.  The excitable bouncy clapping singing dancing joyful sublime silly whimsical me!  It may sound strange, but just changing the way I dress and accepting my bright animated nature has been deeply healing for me.  I don't have to censor myself and be more "grown up" or serious or somber than I am.  I don't have to beat myself up for not being someone else.

This is only one facet of my recovery from depression and anxiety.  Going public with my problem was one important step.  Deleting doomsday-type websites from my favorites and blogroll is another.  Meditating on Scripture and going through Celebrate Recovery to keep my focus on Christ as my source of hope and truth is the foundation of my recovery. 

All those intersected on Thursday.  One of my favorite verses is Zephaniah 3:17, and at a friend's suggestion I meditated on it Thursday night while singing "Revelation Song" at Celebrate Recovery.  God gave me a vision of me worshiping in the Throne Room and Him delighting in me living as who I was meant to be, and tears flowed and a burden of fear and anger lifted off my heart.

And, in the midst of it all, God is showing me a new path for me to embrace my passion for breastfeeding advocacy.  But that's another story for another blog post.

Discipline of Asking for Help

I've had quite a year.  Actually, the run of stressful life events begins back in February 2010 when DH lost his job.  In May 2010, C was run over by a van and survived.  In July 2010, my father-in-law collapsed and broke his leg and we found out he had colon cancer (since completely eradicated, praise God).  The leg required surgery and the surgical wound became infected with MRSA, which is still lingering a year later.  In August 2010, we completed a short sale on our condominium in Southern California and relocated 200 miles north to the San Joaquin Valley.  In October 2010, we lost our precious baby.  Last month, I found out my dear grandmother has Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease and may only have a year to live.  Meanwhile, DH has been working crazy long hours to try to build an insurance agency from the ground up.

The stress and grief has brought some old patterns of negative thinking back to the surface,  and depression and anxiety have been rearing their ugly heads in my life.  I've been coping by zoning out online and getting angry and resentful with DH, which along with the long hours, has been hard on the connection of our marriage.

DH and I had a big discussion a few weeks ago that cleared the air between us and we are feeling more in love and connected again.

But I recognize that I need more help to learn to cope with all that life has thrown at me in healthy ways.

Last week I attended a Celebrate Recovery meeting, and plan to go back this week.  There I was confronted with something I haven't wanted to acknowledge or think about: I've been angry with God and have been pushing Him away.

Reconciling with DH and opening back up to God as my first source of comfort and strength has made an enormous difference.

But I know it is not enough.  There is still work to be done.  I want to finish the work I began and get healing for the old hurts and broken places that have been neglected and worked around over the years.

So I'm going to seek one-on-one counseling as well.  It's been a discouraging process.  The first therapist who called me back set an appointment and then cancelled it when she realized her case load was too heavy.  I made more calls and didn't hear back for almost a week. Finally, yesterday, one called me back and I have an appointment for Monday at 3:30.  I liked her over the phone, and I'm hopeful that we can work well together.

As always, I'm still a pearl in the oyster, still one of God's works in progress.