That’s what I’ve been waking up to for months now. I am dealing with several stressful life situations, and no wonder - every day, I do what I can about all these worries and problems. In the evening I sit down with a sigh of relief and try to relax and do something fun. Sleep, if I’m lucky, fitfully. At the crack of dawn, boom, here it comes, the racing doom-filled thoughts. Husband is going to have a stroke or heart attack. Daughter is going to develop an illness and she has no health insurance. Mother is going to die in car crash. Brother is going to accidentally set fire to his apartment. I am going to have a stroke or heart attack. Best friend is going to go broke, be out on the street. None of these things has happened. Yet. We are all soldiering on throughout the day, I do everything on my daily list, disaster hasn’t struck. Sit down, relax, think, well, everything is fine now! Morning comes - repeat. Drink coffee, get up and running, make more lists, do more stuff…And there are scads and scads of people with REAL desperate horrific problems. I sometimes wish, not to kill myself, but sometimes I wish it was all over just so I could have some peace. It’s all my anxiety and wrong thinking, I guess. Life seems so sad, like things are going downhill all over. If it’s like this now, me just anticipating disaster - what’s going to happen when something horrific actually DOES happen? Will I be able to handle that??
I’ve noticed that there seems to be an overwhelming amount of bad news coming down the pike lately. Surely we’re due for a reversal soon?
As for the gloomy thoughts, that seems to be my natural state. I always really dug this Shel Silverstein poem: http://www.qu-i-x.com/whatif.html
I’m sure people will be along with something more helpful soon, but in the meantime, may I offer a hug?
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
-Rumi
It wasn’t until I started keeping a mood journal that I realized that every morning, like clockwork, I’m either full of despair, angry, or terrified. Once I realized that, I was able to feel the feelings, but then let them pass without over thinking things. Now when I get the morning dooms, I can say “Yeah, duh, you just think that because it’s the morning. This happens every morning. Wait ten minutes and you’ll be fine.” I still feel it, but it doesn’t knock me off balance.
I also find it helps me to have something to look forward to immediately after I wake up. I try to lay out a good breakfast or something ahead of time so that I am too engaged to think too much first thing in the AM.
Thanks, both of you. Oh, to be 10 again, and wake up on summer vacation with the whole day ahead of you and the hardest decision what cereal to eat, lol!
Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. -Arthur Ashe