enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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The rain in Florence falls mainly on the fifteenth.

I read over my note of this morning and it sounds so gloomy compared with what I felt.

I'm doing so well lately that I can hardly explain it. To be honest, I think it's that I've started to unwind that cycle of anxiety in which I had found myself.

I think I mentioned to you a while back that I had ordered some CDs by a woman called Dr. Cl@!re W33ks, now deceased, who was a famous therapist in this area. The CDs are kind of funny and dated, but I quite love this woman. She's very practical and tough-love-ish (an aspect of the Australian character/persona) that I LOVE (a very cut-to-the-chase, straightforward, unapologetic type of people).

So the sum of her thinking is basically that nervous illness for someone like me, I would say, is a matter of the person having become highly sensitized to any disturbance, thereby causing the individual's adrenaline to fire too quickly and, well, basically all the time. That's exactly what I've felt, actually - as though I'm constantly being fired through with truly unhealthy chemicals that ultimately leave me so fatigued.

I'm not explaining this very well, but what she concludes is that once someone is "sensitized," this sensitization is made much worse by the reactions that the person has to the fact that he or she is physically sensitized. The person doesn't understand why she is different from other people in this regard, so she grows "bewildered" and ultimately more and more afraid of the state.

I understood this right away, because I have understood that the fear of the problem is the worst part of it. Fear, of course, is what is based in anticipating the future. In a way, the whole thing is about being in the now (as usual).

This all sounds very obvious, but learning to react in the opposite way to that in which you have conditioned yourself to react (i.e. by riding the wave patiently, not fighting the wave of panic) is quite a challenge. What one needs to develop is a high degree of belief in the process (again, BoXx, belief!!! :), and in the likelihood of a positive outcome (to the process of ending anxiety).

If you've never had an anxiety disorder this will probably be difficult for you to relate to, but let me tell you that like most things when you are such a person and the lightbulb goes on...you're amazed.

Anyway. So I sort of feel myself unwinding like a coil, from the tightest mess of a place that I have been in for...well, probably since I was a kid and I started to fear everything (e.g. after my dad became ill, during my parents' divorce, blah blah the usual).

All I can say is that it is GREAT!

***

So the mildly disappointing news of the day is that M. is on a multi-day tour for the first couple of days that I am in Italy, but he wrote to me to call him and that as soon as he returns he will call me to figure out when we will cycle together. He seemed excited to have me call him, so I probably will. At any rate, although I'm a wee bit disappointed, of course, it will be nice to be over jet lag before I see him. :) Also, I have my class beginning on the 15th, and I'm certainly hoping that I'll make some interesting friends therein. :)

I think that that is all. Everything is going well. I'm feeling quite OK, except to the degree that I am a little bit nervous about my trip! Excited nervous of course!

I'm going to make some guac and chips! I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.

Hope you had great days.

AnnaMaria - I laughed so much at the thought of you reading me at the beginning and the end of the day. I feel badly for taking up your time. :)

OK. I suppose I should figure out if I am going to rush off to yoga. I'm kind of thinking more of doing my own yoga. It's kind of expensive to go to the studio. Not sure. Yet another round of thinking for this bird on tap I guess.

6:09 p.m. - 2008-08-25

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