DiStOrTeD REALITY

So this week I want to talk about a problem that kind of rules my life a lot of the time. Its my ability to distort reality. My ability to take a problem or situation and change it and truly beleive it. Its a scary thought right? The idea that things aren't really what they seem. Well it happens to lots of people, myself included.

I was talking with my therapist (re -occuring theme much?hehe) and I was telling him about some things that had happened in my life. I told him a story about someone I cared deeply for dropping me like a rock and not caring about me anymore and ruining my self worth. I told him how much I wanted to go back to the times when I was really happy. When I was loved. When I mattered to someone. Then a huge realization moment happened for me. That story I told him was completely false. What really happened wasn't like that at all. I had created it.

My thereapist proceeded to talk me through some steps in my "thought record." I told him the event and how my body really reacted to its. The physical sensations first. I told him I have adreneline, head rushes, stomach cramps, head aches, dizzyness. Then the thoughts that went through my head. I am NOT good enough, i am NOT worth it, I am NOT good looking, i am going to be lonely FOREVER. Then how much I beleived them. 100%. Then he asked me to recognize what REALLY happened. A very close friend was HONEST with how they felt about me and their relationship with me. How should I have felt about that event? content that the situation was honest and heartfelt, UNDERSTANDING that it was no ones fault but that things don't always work out the way we want them to. What is an appropriate way to feel about that? SAD, and dissapointed.

Now throughout that entire session I relived the experience i had. my anxiety levels were very very high and i wanted to run out of the room. But after we got through talking out how my body reacted and how i distorted my reality then RECOGNIZED ACTUAL REALITY my anxiety levels dropped to about 20%.

Its funny how I create a lot of my problems. My brain tells me i'm worthless and ugly, and my body reacts the same way someone should react to a death in the family over something very ordinary. ONCE AGAIN i know not everyone is bipolar. But I know people, I watch people, and I know that people do this every day. Its easier to beleive things are worse than they actually are. Over reacting is theraputic in a really sick way way... but its not really healthy. Sometimes we can make ourselves feel more important by making our problems bigger. Or we can get more sympathy if our lives seem really hard. Sometimes its just the self satisfaction of knowing that we got through something "really painful" that makes us over react. And in some cases its out of our control how our bodies react to minor situations. I'm pretty sure every single one of those circumstances apply to me in one way or another. What I really have to do is learn to recognize when I'm distorting my reality and shift my view. A lot of the time using logic helps. Ask yourself how severe the situation really is, and how you SHOULD react to it. And strangly enough when you tell yourself how you should feel... your body listens.