What's at the Heart of It?

If you've been following my writing for the past few months I think you'd see the following trends:

First, I've become more and more negative towards myself and I've been trying to analyze WHY.

Second, I've been looking at making my life a bit more sustainable and friendly to the environment.

I started writing again because I believed, and still believe, that writing seems to be good for me, no matter what else is going on. What I've discovered over the past few months is that there are two sides to me (well, actually there are way more than two sides to me, but for practical purposes I'll discuss only two) that are striving to be heard.

There's the side of me that's desperately trying to live a normal life that aligns to my ideals and goals and there's the side of me that is insecure and self destructive. I hate to quote Paula Abdul, but it's like my life is two steps forward and one step back. There is progress I suppose, but I'm always looking at that one step back rather than the progress I've made.

I've found a new counselor who actually accepts my insurance that I'll see later today. I think I'm getting to the point where I'd be willing to try medications for a while. I've tried to eat well, exercise, involve myself in community, and do all the holistic things necessary to pull myself out of this spiral, but lately I've not even been trying to keep up with all things healthy. I don't know maybe something will click back into place and I'll be increasingly happy all of the sudden. Vitamins sure helped a lot.

I'd really like for this blog to be more about positive things, like me trying to build a solar oven next weekend, or a trip to New York (I had a great time over the weekend).

Every single woman in my family either is, or has been on, some sort of anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medicine. EVERY one of them. I've come to believe that I'm not just working against PTSD (although that's there too). I'm working against a genetic makeup that gives me a prevalence for depression.

If I'm going to live with this for the rest of my life something is going to have to change. It may just be my own attitude about it. I'm half convinced that my stress over my mental state is related to a belief in what is "proper" for me.

I certainly have other issues with "proper". That's why I get so mad at bad drivers in Boston (don't they know they can't make a left turn from the far right lane?). It's against the rules....

Despite my mother's effort to raise me "improper" somehow it didn't work. I still manage to judge myself against some invisible standard that I can never see or accurately measure myself against.

So somehow I need to redirect myself BACK to a place where I can talk about my daily life in a non-judgemental way that helps me process life's trails in a way that brings me closer to my own goals of a simple, sustainable, and loving life.