Rewriting your childhood

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I'm finding it a little therapeutic to rewrite the history in realistic ways with the kind of outcome you want to have--it tells you what you are really looking for, and how to nurture yourself.

My therapist also pointed out that I probably know this voice, but it's buried... . I need to dust it off, so my T suggested this way since I'm artistically inclined. I'm not going to say it's faster, but I will say since my writing tends to connect my subconscious and conscious together, I can find the voice better in the mix.

Also suggested a better guardian mode. Such as "Not right now," etc.

Anyone else doing this? I thought it was worth a shot to try. 'cause insomnia sucks. Anxiety sucks. And depression also sucks. Panic attacks also really suck. I need to reinvent my mother that couldn't be nurturing.

[DesertChild]

I'm finding it a little therapeutic to rewrite the history in realistic ways with the kind of outcome you want to have--it tells you what you are really looking for, and how to nurture yourself.

My therapist also pointed out that I probably know this voice, but it's buried... . I need to dust it off, so my T suggested this way since I'm artistically inclined. I'm not going to say it's faster, but I will say since my writing tends to connect my subconscious and conscious together, I can find the voice better in the mix.

Also suggested a better guardian mode. Such as "Not right now," etc.

Anyone else doing this? I thought it was worth a shot to try. 'cause insomnia sucks. Anxiety sucks. And depression also sucks. Panic attacks also really suck. I need to reinvent my mother that couldn't be nurturing.

[fromheeltoheal]

Interesting!  My father is dead and my mother is emotionally unavailable, always, mostly because they're both British and that's just the way it is, or was.  I've let go of rewriting any of that, I had a good upbringing with parents who did love me, I just didn't realize it until I was much older, and growing up it was an emotional void.

So I've decided that we're only going to get really close to a few people in our lives, and we probably won't be related to them by blood, and that's OK; real connection with a human is real connection, regardless of what form it takes.  What I can do is make myself emotionally available and vulnerable and see what develops, and it's also important to remove the people who don't reciprocate or judge.

And then there're the things I can do for myself, which go a long way towards dealing with insomnia, anxiety, and depression.  Trial and error has shown me once again that what works includes:

Good diet

Daily exercise

Lots of water

Little or no alcohol

Little of no caffeine

Stretching

Mindfulness and conscious stress reduction

Sunshine

Forward focus and goals

Avoidance of ruts by doing a wide variety of things

And of course, talking to people who are 'safe' about what is really going on with me.

[myself]

I was thinking about the power of positive thinking. Thinking it was positive even thinking about how positive it is to be thinking positively. Many times I catch myself on the flip side of that. I can look back and think, Oh I wish I would have done that, or tried that, or been that. Had better parents, been a better friend. There are so many crossroads in our lives, looking backwards with 20/20 vision isn't possible. We don't have that many eyes. Maybe it's not so much a rewriting but a cleansing of our mirrors? That's more what I've been doing.