I am halfway through my book on Acceptance and Commitment Theory and I am giving it the thumbs down. Maybe it is better in person- by book it is too cognitive, yet too simplistic. But what self-help book isn't simplistic? What self-help book doesn't assume that your life isn't really terrible screwed up and you just have to change your emotions and thoughts?
I love when it asks me to write the story of my suffering- and gives me one and a half pages. Where do I even start? And what does that even mean? What is suffering? It is not all unitary, not all of the same source. And then it tells me to keep the facts- but write the story in a different way. No need. I do that all the time in my head. I am all too often in "problem solving mode" as my therapist would say. I try to figure things out a lot.
That has always been my problem with cognitive therapies- either my mind is numb and blank, and I don't know what I am thinking- or it is so full of thoughts that there isn't any one in particular that is giving me most of my pain. Plus, when I am seriously depressed, if you point out to me that my thoughts aren't logical, I usually won't care. I will think that somehow the thought is still true in my case.
Meanwhile I am battling terrible anxiety today- and I think it might just be partially biological. The IBS has been really bad- maybe not getting full effects of meds. Plus I think I have been drinking gallons of water over the weekend. It is just really dry in my apartment and at work and my lips get so dry that they crack and bleed, so I have just been drinking water. So maybe my lithium is low. That, plus I wanted to go into work for paperwork (won't). Plus breast biopsy tomorrow.
Instead I took extra klonopin and even a little Zyprexa- I am still anxious. This sucks. I want to to be late enough to go to bed. Just to go to bed.
I'm not worried about the biopsy- just the waiting part. I can't believe I am doing this. There are times- and fairly recently- when all I wanted was some fatal illness. The only reason I started doing mammograms was because I was being hounded by my PCP.
I haven't felt that suicidal recently, but I have wished for death. I just want to stop the fight, I want to stop trying. I can't say that it hasn't gotten easier- sometimes it is- but it is clearly still a fight. And even the damn ACT book is depressing, emphasizing that it is still a fight. OK, you feel lousy you don't want to do anything. Ignore that (sorry- accept that). Do stuff anyway. Can you live your whole life that way?
If the paperwork doesn't get any easier, I have decided that I can't work 40 hours a week anymore. But it might be easier when we go electronic. No- I know a lot of the electronic documentation is worse- but I won't be drowning under stacks of paper, losing scripts, and I will be forced to do my notes in a timely manner. I am hoping that saves me. Otherwise I have to cut my hours or go somewhere where I can work fewer hours. Fewer hours means fewer patients means fewer charts to document.
I'm tired of fighting paperwork. My anxiety and depression. My weight. My fatigue. Sometimes I just want to give in to everything. But I know how that ends, and it is not good. So I keep fighting.
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