Day 5

I had been having a lot of anxiety preceding our (my husband's and my) May 11 Mother's Day date with my mother-in-law. I experienced random body pains throughout my body, migraine headaches, severe sleepiness (requiring 14+ hours sleep and still feeling tired), and increased baseline anxiety. I tried to "think psychological" and realized that I felt unreasonably put upon and depended on by my own mom when I was just a little kid, but never felt that I could experience anger, resentment about it. I realized that my MIL always felt not-cared-for-enough, so she has learned to tell people up front what she wants and needs from them. Her history, plus my history...when they come together, I think they work against each other. She thinks she is acting on behalf of her needs, while I feel like she is being unreasonable and completely inappropriate. My inner child is generating more rage - which belongs in the direction of my own mother - but since that is unacceptable to me, I build up a pile of it directed at my mother-in-law.

That realization made me get through our Mother's Day lunch, trip the museum, and then back to the restaurant for dessert, but I got a thumping migraine, slept 15 hours, woke up tired-as-can-be, and have been dragging all day.

I wish that an exacerbation of symptoms was not part of the deal with this treatment!

 

Thanks for the comment. I kind of "forgot" that I'm not just supposed to allow myself to feel my emotions - I also have to accept the emotions themselves! I think I'm still calling them "bad" in my head.

 

Those automatic thoughts about the emotions still trip me up every time! The thoughts are almost always happening before I'm even recognizing that there are emotions involved. I think it's easy to call them "bad" in your head without even thinking the thought because the physical feelings that generally accompany them are most unpleasant. The "bad" emotions for me show up with shallow breathing, tense muscles, rapid heart-beat, and if I'm already on the "self-defeating thought" train without even realizing I've boarded - look out because that brings along the added bonus of stomach in knots. I'm working on really paying attention to all those physiological indicators, once I recognize them I know those "bad" thoughts are also happening so key for me right now is changing that pattern. Rather than let them keep happening, I force change on them. I move, (sometimes literally) to a place where I can speak out loud to those thoughts, confront them for the lies they are. If the self-dialog is not working, I get someone else involved. This past weekend I was nervous about a meeting. All those negative "what if" thoughts had the anxiety keyed up in anticipation of some awful hidden agenda. All the way to the meeting I spoke positive affirmations out loud in the car. I got to the meeting site and I was the only one there. I did the breathing, I went back to the car and forced myself to stay focused on all the other possibilities (those not related to my being a horrible, unworthy, unimportant person - because I'm not but that's where my mind goes on it's own) for why I was the only one there. As I sat and waited, I realized the anxiety was climbing so I had to move on and get someone else involved. Thank God for cell phones! I called my husband and I basically said all the same things to him that I had been saying to myself - this time I had his supportive responses as well and I was able to remain calm. When I got off the phone with him I contacted the person I was supposed to be meeting. Turns out it was just a "time" oversight on that person's part and everything worked out fine (there weren't any awful hidden agendas either). Every bit of the experience completely went against all of my habitual "instincts" and it was a valuable learning experience for me.

 

OMG DoughLady, I think we have the same MIL!! Mine is also cunning, a bit of a fox when it comes to getting what she wants. She will make out like you are getting something from her but she will be expecting a whole lot more from you. I feel a HUGE amount of rage towards her, more so than towards my own mother. Perhaps all of this rage towards MIL springs from repressing the even greater rage I feel towards my own mother. You have given me food for thought.