Blogger dashboard has changed again and I am a little confused - a reminder that I've left this too long again. I will keep writing and hope someone is still reading and that it is of some help to them as well as cathartic for me!
It's been 'mixed bag' again. Mixed news about the economy (followers know only too well this is the most prominent and persistent trigger for my anxiety attacks) has produced mixed psychological results for me, perhaps, not surprisingly.
This continues to irritate me as well as producing some shame. It irritates me because, as usual, the media headlines the bad news and fails to balance this with the good news. For example, Mervyn King's pronouncement that the UK economy may grow even less than predicted (if at all) is not balanced out by with a reminder that unemployment has continued to steadily fall and that inflation has also dropped a little. I feel rather ashamed because I continue to interpret any such headlines as a direct threat to me and my family when this is unlikely to be true. I am not an intentionally selfish person but understand it may come across this way.
To add some balance of my own, yesterday I scored 82% on Moodscope, my highest ever score, so good days do occur when I get back on the 'perspective train' and file the irrelevant rubbish exactly where it should go - in the 'Bollocks Box'! Pardon my language if you will?
I still, for the most part, avoid the news. First because it seems unbalanced as I have already mentioned and second, to try and avoid the triggers. Is this running away? Perhaps, a little. But if some things which are largely irrelevant causes a panic attack why go there? The fears still lurk underneath that they are highly relevant and I am burying my head in the proverbial sand. But I needs must trust my therapist that these things need to be noticed for what they are, labelled and left alone. Notice, label, leave.
Easy to say very hard to do. Some bad days have highlighted this again but tomorrow, fellow travellers, is another day.
A final point which may help those of a more spiritual disposition. On the bad days I am returning more and more to the 14th Century Divine, Mother Julian of Norwich, whose most often quoted saying is simply this: 'all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well'. Amen to that on many levels but we all know how difficult it is to trust others, even those who are divinely inspired, when we are anxious and afraid.
Back to notice, label and leave it in the bollocks box. And try again tomorrow. Stay strong fellow travellers.
