What are you thankful for?
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day has been full of family, friends, good food and making amazing memories. If you’re not someone who celebrates, I hope you’ve had a great Thursday. After all, we all have something to be thankful for and not just on the 4th Thursday of every November. (I know I’m a little slow with this post. I did actually write it on Thanksgiving, I just haven’t had time to edit it and post it until tonight…)
When I think back over my life, both pre and post depression diagnosis, it’s difficult finding times where I’ve truly been happy. The times I think I felt joy or happiness happened so quickly that I’m not sure if they were real or if it was just adrenaline (or something along those lines). I have a very hard time forming close bonds and relationships with people, it’s difficult to trust and let them in. However, I don’t think I have a dis-associative disorder since I have the ability to form those bonds with all of my furry guardian angels.
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile now, soul searching if you will. The blaring question (at least to me) is, “What happened that made it so hard for me to let others in? To trust?” It had to be something in my young childhood, because nothing comes to mind and I don’t remember emotionally feeling any other way.
I’ve asked people who knew me well as a child and I consider self-awareness as one of my greatest strengths, but I haven’t been able to get very far. Frustrating! I know there’s something keeping me from my full range of emotions and until I figure out what it is and take care of it, nothing in my life (at lease my emotional life) will change. I’m tired of my life feeling so flat!
By now, you’re probably asking yourself, “So… What does this have to do with being thankful?”
No matter how strong my sense of self-awareness is, I’m only going to get so far on my own. So, several months ago, I decided to go to counseling for some professional guidance in this process.
After answering all of the questions about me, my childhood, my family, our medical history, etc., the counselor asked if I had any questions. Of course I asked probably one of the most basic and broadest questions possible… “Do you think you can help me?” All the while thinking, “If you don’t have experience or even any textbook knowledge with (at this point I’m guessing) past trauma and PTSD, then I don’t want to waste your or my time and will find someone else who can guide me through this. (It’s amazing how much words and thoughts/intended meanings can differ.) She gave me an odd look and said that there’s never any guarantee, but she thought she could and would do her best.
My first step is/was to write down all of my memories, like an autobiography. Hopefully this will help bring up any traumatic memories, if there are any. I sat at a little coffee shop and just started writing. I started remembering things that spanned the whole emotional range. One moment I was smiling to myself, then quietly laughing to myself and at one point, I was also crying. Since I was told to write everything out, it takes a while. I only wrote about 3-4 memories, but when it was time to go, 2 hours had passed!
Why am I so thankful? Because I have memories that I thought I had possibly lost.
