Saturday 29 December 2007

Picking up stones





It's amazing the power words can have. One person's negative words can so easily destroy hours of work, hours of rebuilding of self.

The reality is, it isn't really the words themselves which have power, but the memories, thoughts, self beliefs etc which are triggered by those words. For you, this set of words might not have any effect. For me, they play into my own history and spark off core beliefs I have about myself. The accuracy (or otherwise) of those beliefs is actually irrelevant because, at the time those words were written to me, they became true and valid. They were backed up by evidence from the past. They were reinforced by the authority of the person who wrote them. They were strengthened by my own schemas.

Frustration is added by the fact that I thought I had "dealt" with all this, put all these thoughts into their rightful places (which is to say, recognised that they are not really as valid as I have always thought them to be) - and now it feels like I am having to do it all over again. After some hard thinking, careful application of CBT, and recording it as visually as possible (which helps me to process) I do recognise that the thoughts and emotions stirred up are, objectively, not balanced out by all of my experiences, only by some of them. I recognise it. really I do. Believing it whole-heartedly and automatically isn't as easy as the CBT manuals make it out to be, though. Wish it were.

4 comments:

cheekyfaces said...

I wish there was something I could do to help you.....

Disillusioned said...

Thank you.

It's getting clearer, getting more manageable. Unfortunately, the progress for depression is so much of a rollercoaster. And I have lots of things I have to work through - and that's hard work.

cheekyfaces said...

I know about the rollercoaster ....I was married to a severe depressive whose medicine cabinet rivalled Boots....

Disillusioned said...

So does mine - though I'm working on emptying it.