Saturday, December 16, 2006

Green Colored Glasses

You down with PTP? Yeah you know me!

Mama P is IN. THE. HOUSE. And she brings with her a new band: PTP - the Positive Thinking Police. Here's the new law in this joint: If I'm sad about something legitimate, I can cry more than Pipsqueak losing a shoe. But if my brain is just being dramatic, it's going in isolation, the death chamber... whatever will shut the insane ramblings up.

To be clear, I do not hear voices. I'm far from psychotic and more skit-so-frenic... meaning I can write a million scenes and endings (always frantically) for some very mundane thoughts. It's the writer in me: great for storytelling, but not so great for emotions which tend to take on lives of their own, the leading characters being Depression, Anxiety, and never to be underestimated, La Drama!

The new starring players are Positive, Hope and Faith. It's, in a nutshell, glorious.

I of course will falter again and again as I retrain my head muscle to focus on the "what is's", not "what if's." But after only three days, I feel 100% better. The brain really is a powerful device and, as always, there's the fine balance between squashing true emotions ("I'm mourning my dad's death") and bizarre projections ("I love the Christmas decoration tradition I started... but what if Pip swallows one and we end up in ER? And even if she is okay, will I remember Xmas each year as the day she had to poop out a green nutcracker? And will she be so traumatized that she hates the holidays and becomes sullen and angry each year? In which case, would my money have been better served saving for therapy instead of the 'Three for a Buck Holiday Bulbs' sale at the 99Cent Store?")

A woman in my online forum has a weekly online column dedicated to healthy living. She talks about this in one of her November posts and I encourage you to check her out. Even if you're like me who doesn't know yoga from ca-ca and thinks organtic eating is Frosted Flakes with some granola. She makes a ton of sense. www.msmindbody.com

I leave you with the invitation to view the world through some new glasses today. If Pip can take off her pink shades for some green ones (a miracle in itself rivaling Helen Keller's sign language for coffee... wait, that was my sign language) you can try it to.

And get back to me.

2 comments:

Heather said...

Heeheehee....hoo boy, you sure you're not my long lost older sister?

I too do the skit-so-frenic stuff....just ended my latest and wow, life is much easier all ready!

And, for the PTP's sake, I'm choosing to look at this tendency as overwhelming proof that I'm brilliant - and not at all that I'm some lame-o drama queen, lol :)

Lisa @ The Plain-Spoken Pen said...

I'll encourage you to be more positive if you encourage me - I do more than my fair share of whining, I'm sure, and could do with a good dose of positivity.