One Thought at a Time

my momma and me

My brain works so hard. Every  minute of every day, even when I'm sleeping, it's chugging away. Its main responsibility is to keep me safe. It does this by worrying. Some of the worrying is useful. It can result in my actual physical safety and it can result in problem-solving.

Some (and I'd venture to say most) of it is useless worrying. Seems like my brain has a tough time distinguishing the difference.

And it seems like it's always had this problem.  I've been realizing that the trauma I've experienced even before Dave died has wired my brain for this. When you're a little girl and your world is turned upside down when your momma is taken by cancer and your dad is taken by alcoholism, you learn to be vigilant. Your mind becomes ever-alert for more danger. You don't necessarily learn to relax and let others worry about you when you're still small.

And this is my brain. This was my brain before Dave died. That brain warned me that every fever Dave spiked and ever pain he had was the end to that love too. I was just starting to process this in therapy when he actually did die.

Can you imagine a better way to program my brain that the worrying was legit?

It didn't prepare me for widowhood. It didn't make it less shocking that he was Dave one minute and then a body the next. But try explaining that to my protective worrying subconscious mind.

The useless worrying doesn't help me, but knowing that is never enough to make it stop.
For those who've never been through complicated grief or trauma or who don't suffer from PTSD, I bet this is a really hard fact to grasp.

Letting go of it all will not only mean a reprogramming of a brain that has been programmed this way for 30+ years, but will also mean letting go of what my subconscious perceives as protective.

Why would it want to let go of that easily? It won't. It's not going out without a fight.

I suppose the vigilance of my efforts to overcome this have to be at least equal to the vigilance of my worrying mind. 

If my mind suggests something to worry about every few minutes than I've gotta counteract that with some sort of new neural pathway thought every few minutes too.

I'm tired just thinking about that, much less carrying it out.

Some days, 2 years out, are still challenging enough without adding the element of this reprogramming project.

But each day I get to try again. Each day is another chance. And the scientist in me likes the challenge. It's my own little research project. Can a brain this intensely programmed be rewired? Can PTSD, if that's what I have, be conquered in some way? In what ways can I heal my mind? I like the task of gathering information and trying out different strategies, noting the results each time.

I'm pissed though. I'm really pissed off that I didn't get to feel protected and safe as a kid. I'm unspeakably sad that I don't get to celebrate mother's day with my mom. And of course, I'm gutted by the fact that my husband is no longer here.

And all those facts are still just facts. I was dealt this hand for reasons unknown and it's my job to make my dad's, my momma's and Dave's existence worth it by making mine worth it. One day, one hour, one minute at a time. One thought at a time.

Worry Wart

source

When Dave died it was as though my brain got a reboot. I think of it as though my thinking brain went offline from the shock and my mind was led more by my emotional, intuitive brain. The chronic worrying I had before ceased. Vacillating over a decision stopped. Giving a shit what anyone thought about me ended. I was fearless and though I felt insane with grief, looking back now, I can see that I'd actually gained some sanity because my overly vigilant thinking brain was largely silenced.

But as the months rolled on, the old thinking brain has slowly returned, bit by bit. Lately, it's been back with a vengeance. I've been struggling to listen to my intuition over the roar of my thinking brain. I've been struggling to sleep over the sound of the loops of worry. All the bad news in the world seems to stick to me like glue and all of this is affecting my health (as of course, it would).

So what to do?
A book (saving me yet again) has helped a bit so far. It's called The Worry Solution*.
The title made me suspicious, but less so than another one called The Worry Cure. I have no patience for too-good-to-be true bullshit. But I took a chance with this one because it's brain science based.

It's helped me to learn that scientists believe that the brains of those who've lived through difficult childhoods are wired to be more vigilant. I can see that my brain is wired to worry. It's to protect me. Also, worrying for all of us was (and still can be) evolutionarily helpful. When we used to live in the open plains and get stalked by saber toothed tigers, we needed to be vigilant or we'd be lunch. But now, we have so little to actually worry about day to day and yet our brains are still worrying. It's as though they need something to worry about to protect us so they find something. Even if it's something that probably won't even happen. Also, when we worry about things we can do something about, it usually spurs problem-solving and becomes productive.

Knowing that this is what our brains do helps me feel less alone in my worrying.

The other thing that is starting to help me is imagery.
Imagery comes from the emotional part of our brain. It bypasses the verbal, thinking part of the brain that does all the worrying.
I've been practicing imagining a superhero me (cape and all) kicking the hell out of the worry when it begins. Then I imagine holding the worry out into space and letting it blow away. Last night I asked Dave to take it from me. I know he'd do that for me. On earth he'd do anything for me, so why not imagine him doing the same now?

And finally, before bed each night, I've gotten out my notebook, listed my worries, one by one, and then refuted them. Most of my worries are the kind I can do nothing about and will probably never come to pass. So I refute them. If my worry is "I'll be rejected" then I refute it (in writing) with reasons there isn't evidence to support that worry.

I also imagine all my worries stacked up over the years and think about the percentage of them that actually came to be and compare the two. The stack of worries reaches the moon and the events that really came to be can be counted on my hands.

The thing is, though, those of us who've had a spouse die, know what can really happen. And those of us who've suffered more losses on top of our spouse's death, are hyper aware of how bad things can get. It's possible our losses train our brain to be vigilant and the worrying is launched as a way to protect us (though it does no such thing most of the time).

What makes me most determined to kick my worrying habit is the fact that the worrying has the potential to suck the joy out of the current moment so that when something bad does happen, I don't have a lot of joy in the bank to sustain me through an inevitable rough patch.

My big worry lately (for some reason) is that I'll get sick and need help and my friends will have to take care of me or I'll just suffer alone in my condo. Yesterday I did feel some yuckiness coming on and took to bed, almost more as an excuse to lie in bed and watch movies than because I really felt seriously ill. As I lay there in my comfortable bed, listening to the rain outside and feeling the cool breeze from an open window slide over me, I realized that I had a lovely moment right there. Worrying about how sick I might actually be and how I would get help if I became really sick was not only ruining a peaceful time, but also probably making me sick.

I decided that instead of worrying, I'd consider myself lucky that I got to go to bed in the middle of the day and watch 80s movies with a napping cat tucked into my side.

Later, I took a bath, made my worry list, listened to the rain some more and slept through the night. Which is a miracle all its own.

I'm getting there.

*Disclaimer - There are some annoying bits of this book that I won't get into here, but there's just enough in it to make me think in different ways and that's what I wanted this post to be about.