Baby steps

The last week has been a wild roller coaster ride! I've been trying to actually to work on my other project, and it's no where near finished; plus work has been quite busy with really weird situations that we don't normally deal with. Of course there was also last minute Christmas shopping which I actually enjoy doing just not in a rush. On Thursday, we took our dog to the vet for her annual checkup and because she had been acting a little sick. Well turns out she is very sick; she has Valley Fever, which for anyone not living in the Phoenix area, is a sickness similar to malaria, in that it takes months to get over and can always start up again. Our poor girl is fighting like a champ though, and with medication, she is expected to have a very good and long life. Now we, her and I, can take our meds together!


So trying to shake off the bad news, my GF and I decided to go drive around and look at Christmas lights last night. We found some awesome areas with lights set to music on the radio! It was a lot of fun and I felt like a little kid at, well, Christmas time. In the most amazing onset of sickness I have ever seen, my GF went from well, to sneezing, to sick in the space of maybe 40 minutes. Even though it's a crappy thing to happen, I'm frankly impressed at the speed of it. Now not to say all this because I'm complaining, I'm really not; all this is normal stuff in life and I get that flu's and sickness are a part of living. But driving in to work tonight, I suddenly just felt wasted, exhausted, and spent.


A part of my head just began to whisper, "Don't you just wish it was all over with? In the end everyone and everything dies." Whoa! Now, don't worry, I'm not getting weird. But I was a little surprised at how quickly and suddenly my mind could get completely morbid. I mean I worked in therapy for over a year to make sure I could catch the signals before they surprised  me and yet they still managed to do it again! It surprised me enough that I completely stopped the rest of my thoughts and focused solely on that one.


I was pleasantly surprised that my first reaction was one of shock and irritation. It didn't always used to be that way. At one point I would have thought the whole idea through and at another I might have actually acted on it. So in one way I'm actually kind of happy that my immediate reaction wasn't a positive one. To be irritated by self-effacing thoughts is a big step for me. Another surprise is that my first thought wasn't being worried about hospitalization. When I first left the hospital, I was scared that every little thing could send me back to the psych word. Not that it was so bad up there but it feels as if your whole life is placed on hold until you're well enough to be released. Once you're out, suddenly it feels like you have to play catch up with the rest of the world.


Once I allowed these sick thoughts to rent space in my head, they began to take over it. Even though I work very hard to take my brain back, times like today remind me of just how easy it can be to slip right back into that sick place. It's taken a thousand baby steps to get where I'm at now and I must remind myself that it will take a thousand baby slips to fall back there again; unless I jump backwards or turn and run back up the trail. So today, I won't run forward, but I won't run backwards either and that will be enough for me.