Going Orange

I love that in life, one single thing can change the way you think about things and turn your life down a completely different path then you expected. I love to be on a schedule. Mornings are my favorite and if I am working or if I am not working, I like to be up by five or six and enjoy the quiet crispness of the morning. Its my time, before anyone else in the house wakes up, to just be with me. This habit was probably developed over the years because I have so many children and usually married. In my last marriage we had seven children, two dogs, two giant birds and two cats at one time, and I was the only one who enjoyed the mornings. You wouldn't catch anyone up at five am, just me, and I loved it.
So that habit has stuck.

This morning I woke up at five am as usual and reflected on the past month or so that I have been unemployed by choice. Its been a good time to catch up with myself and just decide what I want in life. Did I figure it all out yet? NOPE! But Im closer. My therapist called me last night. I have not met with her yet. I am brand new to her practice but she wanted to check in with me and just tell me that she was looking forward to meeting with me in a week and a half and then she asked if I had any immediate needs. Oh my goodness...I really had to try hard not to spew all my emotions on her. Instead, I told her that I was struggling with boundaries with my family. I was hired on with Home Depot yesterday, YEP THATS RIGHT, IM GOING ORANGE, and now that I am working I will have to spend less time at my grandmas house helping out with her care. It was hard for me to set boundaries with my family. We do not have any outside help with my grandmas 24 hour care. My commitment to my family is that I would get up early in the morning and head to my grandmas at six and get her out of bed, changed, and fed for the day. I would then go home and spend time with my son, and go back in the evening and get her changed and back into bed. There commitment was to be with grandma throughout the day. My boundaries were that I would not be able to help out on the days I worked. For my own mental health and for the sake of my son, I felt it would be to much to keep my morning and evening commitment on the days I work. I told the therapist that I didnt feel like my family was happy with my decision to not help out when I worked and that I was struggling with THINKING that they didnt like me anymore or they were not pleased with me. (In case you haven't guessed, I need therapy pretty bad, I am a people pleaser). I could tell that my therapist had limited time but she gave me some homework. She said that each time I have those guilty thoughts, I need to write them down in my journal and the thought surrounding them. Ok, no problem, that was easy because I journal. She then told me to go onto Youtube and look up "distorted thinking," or "cognitive thinking" and watch some videos on that and we would talk about these things on in our first session. I thanked her and went right to it. I was shocked to find myself in every single one of the list these you tubers were giving. Just to fill you in on the basics of what I learned about myself. Here is the definition of cognitive distortions:

Cognitive distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn't really true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions-telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves."

This is really the definition of what my life has been. I didnt know that I had these broken ways of thinking and its probably the reason I can not seem to get my life going in a productive path. It was very enlightening and I can not wait to do some work surrounding this broken thought pattern in my life. Its amazing what five minutes with a professional can do.

So today is my first day at home depot. I start in about an hour and fifteen minutes. My position will be a cashier and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. Its only part time but that works perfect for me since I might be homeschooling my son if COVID doesn't figure itself out. 😾

Until next time friends.