14/05/2021
Journal - 6 May 2021
I’m sitting in my local café.
The sun is gracing us.
I’m waiting for a call from my best friend.
The day is new.
I have been at sea and clawing for the shore.
Treading thought.
Down the wrong pipe.
I look upwards and see the light.
I like your smile.
I wander around this earth. I cannot see the stars, but I am told that they exist. Burning spheres of light illuminating billions of eyes. Yet to me they are veiled in this city. If I was to doubt their existence it would be a lie. But I forget and disbelieve; I deny their shine. I see a navy haze and darkness reigns when I cast my eyes above. Is this all? It is what I see. Stars must be a fantasy. There is no glitter, no divine jigsaw piecing the heavens together, a map of the glorious expanse, lighting up the lands of every creature who draws breath. My brain insists upon this deception and I plod home in denial, musing that this beauty does not live, it is not the truth, but in reality, I am the one in the shadow, a creation of my own. I am not a ship captain guided by these stars, propelled in a straight line over rollicking seas. Instead, I curl up and believe that the only route is over rocky ground, a stumbling through the pitch black of a lonely path, and neither the things above nor the earth below are my friends. Yet the stars exist, and it is simply where I am in this moment that I cannot see them.
Growth
Over a thirteen-year journey of fluctuating wellness I have believed many things. There are the fundamental, objective facts: there is a love above and a love below; I am not alone. There are also the subjective messages, far more vulnerable to the shattering hand of good or evil, the rational and irrational, the hurtful or the nurturing.
These subjective messages are called ‘negative core beliefs’, a term invented in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and they fuelled my depression through deceptive thoughts and feelings. These were not a choice, but the whisper of the illness in my ear that then filtrated through my brain, poisoning everything in its path. At the time they seemed so real, so accurate, that I could not help but believe them. They were also reinforced by the memory of traumatic events and echoed throughout my body when those memories rose to the surface once more. This is one of the reasons depression is so potent; how could I feel hopeful when these negative beliefs infected me?
This is where the disinfectant comes in.
I don’t mean to harp on about my own metaphor but sometimes it just works.
More growth
I feel like I can write this now only because it is a ghost, a past apparition that long stopped haunting me. If this poison bled in the present, I feel that it would be a traumatic read in itself, for negative core beliefs can be potent, and it is only with the gift of time that such ghosts dissipate and lose all hold, all influence, all presence in my current consciousness.
Here are a couple of examples of negative core beliefs, or ‘sick thinking’, in my own words:
‘I am nothing’.
This feeling is an amalgamation of many others: ‘I’m powerless’, ‘I’m worthless’, ‘I am not a human but a humanoid piece of rubbish’. This thought – long buried - for me is attached to particular traumatic events in my past, generally those as a young person, that occurred at the hands of others. It has taken years of medical treatment and faith-driven growth to recover from those irrational thoughts that came from times when there was a threat to my humanity. In (many) years past, around the time I was in and out of a psychiatric hospital, the internal feelings of being subhuman could be exacerbated by my own hands in the use of self-destructive behaviours, so the outside would reflect the inside. In those times I was my own worst enemy, blinded by the irrational thoughts inspired by trauma. I am nothing, so I will treat myself that way. That was the ‘logic’. What a dark place. How lonely. Where to from there?
I have been told by the experts in CBT that with negative core beliefs the key is to flip them on their heads into positive core beliefs, or what I think of as ‘recovery thinking’. I have considered the positive core belief for, ‘I’m nothing.’ Literally speaking, the opposite would be, ‘I’m everything.’ But this doesn’t work. The true meaning of, ‘I’m nothing,’ is, as I said before, ‘I’m not a human.’ The positive alternative is, ‘I’m a human.’ Therefore, I am flawed and complex. I’m something, a real person with all my idiosyncrasies, a child of God. I am part of a group and this is a blessing. I’m not ‘everything in the universe’, but a real person. This is a privilege, and I will be grateful to the end of these days and into eternity, for as a human I am loved.
There are even positive core beliefs for the sub-categories, for example, the positive core belief for ‘I’m powerless,’ is, ‘I can make choices.’ The alternative to ‘I’m a failure,’ is ‘I have achieved things.’ Whether that achievement is a life milestone, or simply getting out of bed in the morning, these things count. Fuelled by a faith given to me. The hand of Grace encompassing me. I cannot be angry. I gaze upon this life. Joy remains, and in every stumble a hand draws me up, with tenderness. The ultimate achievement is bestowed upon every season. I climb the mountain, and drink in the scene as I stand upon the summit, feeling free.
Even more growth
One particular negative core belief shared by many people, even by those who are well, is ‘I’m unlovable’. This was rampant in the hospital. Meanings of this include, ‘I am too much of a screw-up to be loved.’ ‘I’m a burden.’ ‘I am repulsive.’ ‘I am horrible to be with.’ ‘My character is off-putting and my face is ugly.’ ‘I will always be alone. Eventually, everyone will abandon me.’
The positive counterpart to this states that I am worthy of love. However, it is also more complex than ‘I’m lovable.’ As you can see, these positive-negative core beliefs are not simple antonyms. For example, part of it is, ‘I’m too far gone, and therefore not worth loving.’ I remember thinking this regularly, that redemption was impossible and that I was going to take the Zelda Fitzgerald route of a decade of institutions, only to die when one of them burns down. The opposite of ‘I’m too far gone,’ is ‘My illness does not define me, my medical state is not my identity.’ By addressing the specific parts of these general statements, like ‘I’m nothing’ or ‘I’m unlovable’ and breaking them down, they become a lot more applicable and easier to transform from sick thinking to recovery thinking. ‘I’m a screw-up,’ turns into, ‘I have faced challenges.’ ‘I have no control over my body,’ turns into, ‘I am capable of getting better.’ This is true.
Look at all this growth
Negative core beliefs can still appear in times of comparative wellness. The difference now is that I am practiced at batting them away; I can banish them without believing them. This is, in my mind, an example of the transition from sick thinking to recovery thinking, knowing that while my illness can still breed negative thoughts I can now turn them around, and ‘I will always be sick,’ becomes, ‘’I have Strength behind me, and I will and am recovering.’ ‘This is my life,’ becomes ‘Seasons change and I am endlessly blessed.’
Stars exist. This place might cloud them out, but now I have faith that one day they will break through as I walk out of the shadow and on to softer ground, a deep blue coating the universe, speckled with unending light, balls of fire destroying the veil that once tricked my mind. Tonight is a rapture, a beautiful sight.
Journal - 12 May 2021
I am back at the café.
My pale skin is confronted by the sun and cool breezes stand no chance.
Fairy lights flicker even in the morning.
My blog post goes up in two days.
Will it be loved or scorned?
You reached out yesterday.
The sky is not the only light.
I like your smile.
