Rambeling Thoughts of a Troubled Mom

An interesting series of events has occurred the last couple of days that has me in a new place emotionally and a new place with my thinking.

First of all, a few days ago a friend asked me how I was dealing with the emotional aspects of life's events the last 6 months. As I told her, I haven't really dealt with the emotions. Instead I keep busy, keep doing, and find ways to keep my thoughts off of the troubles for the most part. The times I do let myself think about things, I tend to just briefly graze over my feelings and focus more on just looking at the events as events with minimal emotional grasp of the events, aside from some anger and occasional tears. Even the tears are not permitted to stay for very long. Before they get going I take deep breaths and suck it up so they cannot get out of control.

Then a friend popped in to see the kids and I the other day, she brought with her a couple of pictures from years ago. It was weird to sit there and see the me from 26 years ago. There I was 15 years old, my chubby little face smiling, unaware then just where life would take me...

Certainly I would never have expected to be where I am today back then.

Then today I had several small, what most people would consider insignificant things, happen. First I went to church this morning and surrounded by friends felt a comfort I haven't felt in several months. There in that house of worship, for the first time in ages I felt a sense of real peace.

After church I came home and watched a show on tv. Generally if the tv is on, it is tuned into a children's program of some sort. But for some reason the tv turned on to a channel that I don't remember us having been watching this morning or last night. The program on was Obsessed. It was talking about OCD and went through with 2 people who suffered from OCD and how they overcame it.

One of the participants in the show made a comment~ she talked about how the compulsive behaviors were done to avoid feeling, that there was no feeling because the obsession took over and all you felt was the obsession. I was sitting there and wished at that moment I knew how to use the DVR thing on my TV so I could rewind it and hear it again. Because something about what she said really HIT home.

Then after supper, I had my daughter ready for bed, my son was eating and there was a knock at the door. At that moment I had such a feeling of apprehension that I didn't want to open the door. I pushed past it, got up, opened the door and there stood a very dear friend I hadn't seen in some time. I wasn't even aware that she knew where we were living now.

So I brewed a fresh pot of coffee and we sat and we talked... and we talked... and we talked some more.

I told her all about the events the last few days and how they all tied together...

I realized that I have avoided feeling anything about everything that has happened in the last six months of my life. I have kept busy, worked at keeping my mind and hands busy so I didn't have time to think about things or really feel anything about them. I let some anger out and some sadness, but really honestly I did not FEEL anything at any depth.

That peace I got today at church... it wasn't about any specific thing that happened while we were there. It was an ordinary service, a good message, but nothing that moved mountains. There were new people there because of some changes happening with the church, but most of the faces were familiar ones. I talked to several people, but no one said anything earth shaking~

I just felt peace... then it occurred to me. The peace flooded over me at one point when someone said something, that at the time I really didn't realize impacted me. It wasn't until I really gave it a lot of thought... the person said something about how we should pray for the end of "normal" thinking... specifically the comment was made because of changes the church is undergoing but for me... the thing that flooded me with peace... it was that I could be FREE of "normal" thinking.

Of course it also took looking back at the conversation I had early in the week, along with the program on tv about OCD thinking to get me here. Each thing brought me a little closer to an awakening, an understanding that is profound for me where I am today.

I know one of my character defaults is that I do have a tendency to have diametrically opposed reactions to events. That is, I either over react~ with emotional outbursts that are more dramatic than the situation calls for OR I have a flat affect and do not outwardly appear to react. This isn't 100% of the time or in every situation. However it is often enough that it causes me some problems in day to day living.

As my friend and I were talking about all of this, she made an observation that I seem to be having appropriate reactions to what has occured. After illiciting a promise that she would stay with me even over night if needed and also a promise to help me with the babies if I went off the deep end, I started pouring out my heart.

Stopping... but I will be back in just a little bit...