30.5 – For Last Week’s MM:

Your distractions aren’t random.

What you reach for when things get uncomfortable tells you what you’re trying not to feel.

Avoidance feels like relief in the moment, but will only strengthen the feeling you’re trying to escape.

What do you reach for when you feel uncomfortable? What are you trying to escape?

Next time you reach for a distraction, pause and write down what you’re trying to avoid.

When I have gotten overwhelmed with heavy emotions in the past, I’ve reached for video games and/or anime to distract5 myself from feeling all the negative emotions coursing through me. I’ve been through SO much trauma and abuse that it doesn’t take much for my brain to get overwhelmed. However, the recent Ketamine therapy I went through has given me a window of opportunity for this to ease up and neuroplasticity to reform and reintegrate more positive and helpful coping mechanisms and further processing with other modalities like EMDR. It’s still early, yet, but we will see how much progress I can make in the coming months.

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31.0 – Everyone Has Something to Teach

Two things for you to think about

Everyone has something to teach you, even if neither of you realizes it.

The catch is: it’s not their job to show you, it’s your job to figure out what you can learn.

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” – Simone Weil

Reflect: Then consider sharing this thought with others.

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Two things for you to ask yourself

Who in your life might be teaching you something if you started paying attention?

Recommended: Use these as journaling prompts for the week.

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One thing for you to try this week

Give one person in your life your full attention. Then reply and tell me what you learned.

Remember: Small changes lead to lasting breakthroughs.

https://markmanson.net/

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As for how I’m doing… I’m exhausted. I liken the 2nd week of Ketamine therapy to this: imagine doing complex maths or problem solving non-stop for 8 hours straight, and shove that into a 90 minute session (this is the length of time each Ketamine treatment was). My brain was doing marathons like that each time. The last one (Saturday) was the hardest and had the most lasting headache afterwards (not even a nap helped it, but a full night’s sleep did – thankfully).

I will say that it feels like my previous baselines for stress/anxiety levels, depression, and cPTSD stuff are different. It’s not a huge shift, but a subtle change that’s noticeable. And now, we enter the Maintenance Phase, where I’m able to go every 3 weeks for however long is necessary. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get an initial appointment for 3 weeks out (booked solid), but I plan to call the clinic I’ve been going to directly to see if I can get squeezed in, even if it’s last minute because of a cancellation.

All the same, yesterday was rough. The 3 Relapses I discovered the Sunday before my Ketamine therapy started was stuffed unceremoniously into a box and thrown deep in the closet of my mind, because I really did NOT want it to touch or influence how Ketamine treatments went. That all came out of me yesterday evening, shortly before our scheduled check-in time. I didn’t really start off in any kind of mood that day, but I could feel it slowly sinking down until a tiny moment in the kitchen when I was refilling my water can and The Boyfriend reached for a utensil on the counter next to me… I had a very brief moment thinking that he was about to hug me from behind, but that didn’t happen and the disappointment hit me like a ton of bricks… and didn’t let up until he was off work later and I broke down. It was slow, at first, but once he finally came over to hug me, it all came out in a rush.

And today… I’m just tired. I still have EMDR to do and I really want a nap.