All roads lead back to hell – reflection on the week past

This was a really intense week. In fact, it was borderline bad – pun intended. I had a ton of deadlines to get through at my day job and I still have a ton of things to get to for my side hustle. My anxiety has been through the roof and I have been resorting to sleeping pills for sleep. On top of this I have this ‘doomed’ perspective on all of this just thinking that all of this stress and work is ‘for nothing’ and that ‘all roads lead back to hell.’

One thing I did realise this week though is that I do tend to engage in ‘disastor thinking’ – or whatever it is called, where I just automatically assume everything will turn out for the worst. I do also realise, perhaps for the first time in my life, that this really is a ‘thinking trap’ and not very helpful towards life in general at all. I tend to label this thinking in my head as ‘cautious’ and ‘conservative’, sometimes even ‘realistic’ or ‘prepared for the worst’, but really all I am accomplishing by thinking this way is convincing myself that the worst of the worst is coming. This is a method that my parents used to use on me to make me ‘try harder’, but what it has been doing lately, when I literally can’t ‘try harder’ because I’m completely burnt out, is making me give up and become anxious. I feel like the whole world is out of control and nothing is at it should be and I am somehow to blame for all of this.

I am ready to let go of this thought trap now. I just pray to God that it lets me go too.

On a slightly more positive note I did manage to accomplish some things this week: I mended the relationship with my business partners and I think they now understand where my concerns for the business was coming from. I feel more at ease that they understand what is at stake and that they share the responsibility to make things work with me.

My husband all of a sudden feels like he has the ‘best job ever’, which means he has been learning more about his role in the business. It’s just really nice to see him ‘care’ about the business for a change as for the first two years of this he would just ‘watch’ me trying to make it work, saying that he believes in me, but not really engaging with the business and the work behind it, at all. I’m glad he cares and is developing into his role in the business.

I managed to express to the boss at my day job the amount of pressure I am under with performing at his job, and how I feel I am failing at this. He reassured me once again, that I do add value to the business and it is okay to keep learning… So for now….perhaps that is okay. I mean, you never know with ‘bosses’. My experience with authority figures have been that they are extremely unpredictable, but then again…I do have complex post traumatic stress disorder so perhaps that is also a thought patter I should investigate…eventually.

I managed to point out to this boss person how much pressure he was putting on my colleaugue as well. She started crying in front of him, but I kind of feel chuffed that I made him see how she was feeling. Perhaps he will be more gentle with her from now on. I don’t know. That was kind of like a ‘good deed’ for the day so I think it is worth mentioning.

I also have a very supportive manager at my day job which has also kind of pointed out how hard I am on myself. She hasn’t started ‘hating’ me yet. I guess this is another fear of mine I should explore of some point. She is so nice and amazing. I really want her to like me, same with the boss, so now I have this fear that I will do something or I will underperform and they will ‘hate me’. It sounds stupid, but when you’ve been raised on conditional love that fear can feel all consuming – even now still as an adult in my late twenties.

I think I’ve acted particulourly grown up with my husband lately. I am trying to do what the “Boundaries” book of Dr. Henry Cloud & John Townsend says and take responsibility for my wants and needs and everything else that is mine. Letting go of trying to control other people… So when my husband told me this weekend that he did not particulourly feel like going for a hike this weekend I told him it is ‘not a problem at all.’ and I actually meant it. It is my want to do something this weekend that will take my mind completely off of what is going on in my life and allow me to relax and I met it with playing some free game on my phone today (I know not the best substitute, but hey…I am trying to selfcare here…perhaps next time I will muster up the confidence for yoga or something or going on the hike by myself or with other people).

I also managed to get to the doctor and convince him that he should up my Sertraline subscription to 100mg instead of 50mg. Long story short, about three months ago I had no anxiety and felt really good with the way I was dealing with life so I decided to stop taking my anti-depressant (Sertraline) which I used at 200mg everyday for two years before that… Now I am anxious again and the nightmares have actually come back (as you’ll see from my posts I’ve been struggling emotionally) so I convinced the doctor help me get back onto the Sertraline. The reason I have to convince him, by the way, is because I had a fancy doctor way back when I started the anti-depressants, because I had a fancy job. I have since quit said fancy job, and now I am a struggling entrepreneur so I am going to the most affordable doctor I could find…which means convincing him first of all that I need the Sertraline and second of all that I need to get back to the very high dosage, or at least as close to it as possible, as soon as possible.

So I am atleast on 100mg Serdep now again…and I got some sleeping pills for in case sleeping is a problem. I also got some anxiety medication…which is addictive so I am trying to not take too much of that. Hopefully the Serdep will start working its magic again soon though…I am looking forward to feeling more emotionally balanced, safe and under control.

I also managed to read and understand a bit more of the “Boundaries” book written by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend. Here are some pictures of what I understand so far (this is all Greek to me as I come from a very disfunctional family, but once I’ve figured it out a bit more, I might do a post on it just to capture the essence of it):