Spiraling and the Universe of Opportunities.

Maybe the universe if giving me the opportunity to learn something here.   Yesterday i got into a car accident – a bus hit me on a round about.  no one was hurt and i believe that the police are writing it up with the bus being more at fault than me since he was to yield and did not.   

Never the less, when these things happen, even if it is not my fault, I blame myself and inflict a lot of negative emotions on to myself.   I got into a car accident last summer that was also not my fault, but i was manic at the time and had been driving recklessly and i can never really separate that fact from what occurred, no matter what the reality is. 

but this time i am almost certain i am not manic.   however, the feelings i have of it being my fault are there.  

if i were more responsible,

if i payed more attention

hmm, was my disorganization in the morning an indicator that i must have been distracted during the driving?

If I wasn’t a manic depressive i wouldn’t have gotten into this accident.

When I have these thoughts i, in a small way, implode on myself.  I start a downward spiral of shallow breathing, obsessive thinking, which turns into anxiety and spins out into these catastrophic declarations about myself that are not really based in reality.   I think reality is that a bus hit me, everyone is ok, and it was not my fault and it was just an accident.  

Yesterday a very good friend suggested to me that I might take this experience as an opportunity to examine what self-talk I do to myself and what it can spiral into.   Take it like a tangible object and try to shift the pattern that has become ingrained in how i deal with crises in which I am involved.   Examine it to see if I can take the pattern of negative self-talk and catastrophizing about myself and shift my thinking to see if i can start to avoid this spiral.   

The spiral is so unproductive and spins into other people also.   my anxiety turns me inward and then it becomes selfish – i feel humiliation and pity for myself, i get self-absorbed about every negative feeling, examining it to the nth degree.   one of the consequences of that is that my kids and my spouse suffer – I am more irritable, shorter, i don’t have the time to be present with them because I am so busy flogging myself and creating the problem in my own mind. 

What I want to do is see this for what it really is -an accident that happened.  period.   no one was hurt.  nothing is permanently damaged.  I want to breathe through this chaos in my mind and be present for my family and my friends.

Monthly Courses

Does anyone really say “on the rag” anymore?

Persistent Vegitative State

 YesterdayI visited a young mother in a persistent vegetative state.   It also happened to be my mom’s birthday. 

Ironic.

A little story about squid

Seafood is great.  Everyone in our house loves fish and seafood.  Mussels, oysters, shrimp, salmon, tilapia, tuna.

Brian decided this fall when he took over all of the cooking that he would make more Asian dishes and use More Seafood.  He  finally purchased some wild caught squid from United Noodle last week and decided to make a rice and squid dish in a spicy asian sauce.

The sauce smelled wonderful when I got home.   Rich and savory    The rice was perfectly done.   Lucky parents that we there was no complaining when we sat down to dinner.  .

The squid was probably sliced into rings the circumference of large rubber bands and was rather thick – maybe the size of your pinkie finger.  Downside – it was frozen, so it was a bit on the chewy side.  Downside – daddy cooked it in the sauce a touch to long.   Upside – we like seafood right?

Joel took a bite,  chewed and started choking.  He gagged.   Then he coughed up a little bit of squid and complained about it having a stringy part.  A little mild whining and crying.  Recovered.  We moved on.

Seconds later, Augie is chewing the squid and starts to cough.   Then he starts to gag.   Then he resumes coughing.   “Are you choking?”  Daddy asks.   “ARE YOU CHOKING?”  mommy yells.   As he attempts to suck in air we can hear the Giant Life Threatening Obstruction in his throat.   Quiet panic ensues.   I stood up and tried to control myself  from running over, turning him upside down and shaking it out of him.    He is simlutansously trying to get a breath and cough.   He finally coughs and out spurts a chunk of squid across the table.   I landed conveniently on my fork.

The dinner hour is suspended due to hysterical crying .

Augie, the poor child, was totally freaked out.   Scared the beejesus out of himself.     He was so upset I took him down in the basement and  let him cry the fear out of himself.     Joel came down shortly after and reminded me that he too had choked and didn’t I notice that he was also was crying.

Once we got back upstairs, I found Brian sitting in his chair looking rather dejected.    Augie and Joel asked for salami and cheese sandwiches with mayo.  Brian and I sat there looking at our squid.   Then we looked at each other.   Salami and cheese sandwiches all around.

Augie:  ”I am never eating squid the rest of my life”.

Joel:  ”I almost died eating squid”

Kristin:  ”Squid will always remind me of my children choking”.

Brian:   “Squid is best left to the professionals”

My little Joely

Keeping this email so someday Joely and I can look back on it.

Hi, Kristin!

Yes, I think Joel DOES have fear around change, and he wonders if he’ll be successful. Luckily, he’s experiencing success when he tries new activities.

Today, I showed him how to start a number tower. This is a way to record those bead chains that have arrows to go with them, that are the squares of the numbers 1 through 10. (Not the long chains, like the 1000 chain , which are actually the cubes of numbers 1 through 10) Each short chain has a paper square to record it on. I showed him how to do the square of 4 – first counting the chain and placing the arrows, then writing the numbers 1 – 16 on the paper square. He did the 4 square, the 3 square, the 2 square, the 1 square (that was a big joke to him). Then he did the 5 square. He was really proud. Now, I stayed beside him while he did the 4 square, and I encouraged him to do the smaller ones when I left. But the 5 square was all his own idea.

Miguel came again for writing practice and did a good job of coaching. When he left, I sat down with Joel, admired the letters he had written – which were excellent – and asked him to “do another one…that one’s even better – I think you have room for one more,” until the rows were all filled. Then we looked back and chose our favorites. He put it away with every sign of satisfaction.

I think another issue for Joel is perfectionism – he would like to be perfect right out of the box and would prefer to give up if he isn’t. One of the times we see that most is when children have an older sibling who seems totally competent to them. Joel sometimes makes remarks comparing himself to Augie, so I do think that’s operating here as well.

Joel is really doing excellently – I’m going to help him put together a “going home folder” so that you can oo and ah over his work. I am going to hang on to the first writing practice work because I’ll drag it out in a few weeks so he can see how far he’s come.  He’ll be really surprised.

Thanks for the info – it’s really helpful to know!

Love,

Jean

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Funny joke I want to remember

I don’t know what to make of it, but I love jewish humor.  I am a fan on facebook of a site called “Jews” and they have the funniest shit on there I have ever read or watched.   My husband does not understand why I find it so funny and I can’t exactly explain it either. 

Anywho, I got this joke recently from a friend and I nearly fell off my chair.   

Okay:

Two bees met in a field. One said to the other, ‘How are things going?’

‘Really bad,’ said the second bee. ‘The weather has been cold, wet and damp,
and there aren’t any flowers, so I can’t make honey.

‘No problem,’ said the first bee, ‘Just fly down five blocks and turn left.
Keep going until you see all the cars. There’s a Bar Mitzvah going on
and there are all kinds of fresh flowers and fresh fruit.’

‘Thanks for the tip,’ said the second bee, and flew away.

A few hours later the two bees ran into each other again. 
The first bee asked, ‘How’d it go?’

‘Great!’ said the second bee. ‘It was everything you said it would be.
There was plenty of fruit and, oh, such huge floral arrangements on
every table.

‘Uh, what’s that thing on your head?’ asked the first bee.

‘That’s my yarmulke,’ said the second bee. 
‘I didn’t want them to think I was a wasp.

Overheard in my dining room

Joel’s narrative to Augie while they are making play doh people:

 

Joel:   This is me.  And this is Zeca.   We are part of God.   Here we are with chocolate on our faces.   Here we are crying for our moms.