Tuesday 18 March 2014

The art of slowly learning to create my own good days

Dear world,

I am surprised to be able to say, that the feeling of strength and independence has stayed with me most of the time in the past three days. Not all the time: I would never ask for that. But overall. Which is really good!
I have had a lot of moments where I felt capable of doing things, and moments where I was able to pull myself together and continue with my good day when the difficult thoughts came creeping up on me. Every time I felt like it was too much, or I got upset and sorrowful, I repeated my mantra to myself: I can do this. I pretended I was strong, and allowed myself to feel strong, and thereby I automatically gained the strength to wish to continue with my daily life and activities. I studied a bit, I read some interesting articles about non-study related things on the internet, I drew a bit with the new colours I bought, I went to coffee with friends, I bought my groceries and did the cooking and I wrote stuff on this blog. I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself that I am good off on my own, and partially succeeded.

I have largely accepted the fact that I may not see F for a longer time now, due to different circumstances (his side effects and me going to Denmark for a few weeks etc).
I have so far managed to keep a distance to the thoughts, which tell me that extended time apart will be bad for the relationship and that we are drifting apart. I have tried to deal with any disappointment I might feel towards F, and turn it into disappointment towards the cancer, which I can then easier accept and get rid of, leaving me happy about F and our relationship for what it is at the moment.

I feel like I have been able to deal with a lot of depressive thoughts in a much more constructive way than I would have been able to 6 months ago. That's a pretty cool feeling!

A friend of mine send me a poem today, just because she thought the text was beautiful: 'the dying child' by H. C. Andersen. The poem describes a child's thoughts and words to his mother in his final moments. I must say, I was quite moved by the poem, I find it very beautiful, peaceful and sad at the same time. But even though I felt so touched by the words, felt the sadness fill me up, I was not overwhelmed by it. For once I didn't cry. I was able to somehow observe the sadness inside me, from an outsiders perspective, and actually enjoy that feeling as a verification of my own humanity, and remind me that I am very much alive at the moment. And then after a few moments I let the sadness and the poem go, focussing my attention on other things.

I consider this quite a big step for me, in learning to take control over my own emotions and thoughts. By this, I don't mean that I want to become emotionless in any way. I mean that I want to learn to not be controlled by my emotions, and succumb to a mental state of helplessness and depression when things don't go my way. I wish to learn to have a stronger, and more positive outlook on things, and to be able to manage my own sadness, anxiety and fear of the unknown.

It's a lot to wish for, and a lot of work that needs to go into myself before I can claim to have achieved these things. But I feel like I am taking steps in the right direction ever so often, some big and some small. I am definitely moving, and that is victory enough in itself.

L

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