Another Therapy Session

I had another therapy session this past Monday. As I figured, I was enlightened, yet, left wanting more.

As per her recommendation, I deleted all things news related on my phone, stopped watching the news at night, and joined CrossFit. I was almost instantaneously amazed what I could do with my time when I wasn’t focused on trying to find the latest negative news update. That on top of joining CrossFit was exactly what I needed.

Then, about two days later, I could feel my head start to fill with anxious thoughts. This time, they consisted of me feeling like a failure with my career and my dogs.

My Anxiety Journey

As stated in my prior post, Feeling Like a Failure,  I am just struggling to understand what the future holds for me. Once I explained all of this to my therapist, she restated my thoughts into something positive and said that I am not a failure and my business is not failing. I would be a failure if I did crappy work for people, but I don’t. I do really good work for people and businesses. This is, unfortunately, just a bump in the road. A really fucking big bump, if you ask me.

She told me that control and anxiety go hand in hand.

If I don’t have control of something, it makes me so anxious. I am the type of person that would rather do something myself as opposed to delegating the task because I know how to do it and I will do it right. Hence, why I established the business so I could work for myself. Our conversation ended somewhat positive with me having a different outlook on my future.

The dogs are a completely different story. 3 years ago we very unexpectedly lost one of our dogs, Trooper, to his stomach flipping in the middle of the night. He was 3 1/2 when we had to put him down. There are several different reasons a dogs stomach can flip. It can be from rough housing after eating, eating too fast, drinking too much water too fast, drinking after a meal, simply laying down on the ground too fast…the list is pretty long actually. It’s also extremely common in big dogs. Trooper was a lab mix and whatever he was mixed with, he was huge. He could sit his head on our kitchen counter tops.

Long story short, we heard a crying sound in the middle of the night and it turned out to be our baby Trooper. My husband went outside and confirmed. It looked like he swallowed a beach ball.

It was the most horrific sounds and sight I’ve ever saw.

You could tell he was in a lot of physical pain. We rushed him to a emergency vet, they crammed as much information into our heads about his condition, and then we has to make a decision, $6000 surgery that wasn’t guaranteed or put him down. We did not have that kind of money to spend, so we had to put him down. This incident has lead me to be extremely overprotective of our dogs. I come home every day and pray they are still alive when I get there. I am so on edge that something is going to happen to them when we aren’t at home. If this could happen to Trooper while we were at home, what in the world could happen to them while we are away. I worry every single day about them.

This is our big boy Trooper:

Trooper

Overall, I felt like I had alleviated some of my anxiety only to let it fester in other things, that once again, I really cannot control.

Why was this happening? Why can’t I just let things go? I over think every single detail.

She asked what I was doing to be creative. I told her absolutely nothing. But then, I got to thinking…I used to be creative all the time before I had Raelynn. I sewed everything for her crib, her curtains, made stuff for her walls, I used to make DIY gifts all the time. And then when I had her, I stopped. Between her colic, running the business, and miscellaneous household chores, where in the hell was I going to find time to do this?

She said make time. No excuses. Make time. Again, it did kind of make sense to me. When I was involved in these DIY projects, I would completely wrap myself up in them, no matter how big or small they were. I suppose I am going to have to make time to be a DIY-er again. I’m going to start small. Maybe with the hair bows again, then I will see where it goes from there. So far, she has been right, so I am going to take her advice and stay on track as much as I can.

This is the fitted sheet and skirt that I made for Raelynn’s crib:

Crib

She also asked that I make a timeline from 0-18 years of ago, obviously with the help of someone. She thinks that if we dig into my childhood a little more, something might come up that will help us better understand why I am the way I am. I honestly don’t believe there is anything huge or monumental that will explain this, but maybe just gradual events over time made me like this.