When Do I Know What I Want?

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Is it something I can share, or is it more esoteric?

Am I going to write about it or am I going to spend a page or more, avoiding talking about it. Sometimes I just need to warm up my brain before I can open up about what I actually decided to write about. Ok, it’s most of the time. I almost always seem to ramble on about something, pulling out details in an attempt to avoid sharing what I really wanted to think about.

What do I want is a very simple question.

Yet my answer seems to be alluding me. I cannot seem to focus on this question. Maybe it is because I do not know what I want. Or even more likely, I am afraid that what I want, what I need, is beyond what can be thought of right now. I am sure that the answer is way more complex than I think it should be.

My mother died at the end of March, and my wife just lost her dad a few weeks ago.

So, I am factoring that in. It just doesn’t seem to be a suitable time to talk about me and what would help me. In my therapy sessions, I am feeling more and more that I am good and that I even love myself. Yet, I am not living this. There is no embracing of the feeling of love or that I am special. I wish that I could turn this on and leave it at full volume.

I know it is within me to love myself.

But the nuts and bolts of how to do it keep alluding me. I have moments where I think this is possible, yet most of the time, loving myself is just a work in progress. So here I am, attempting to be what I want to be, without knowing how to be what I can be. This is all so confusing for me. Worse, I know that answering the question, what do I want, is so much easier than I am making it.

As my therapist pointed out, I already know many things that I do NOT want.

This is just as important as identifying those things that I do want. For instance, I do not want to continue being untrue to myself. I can see that this is the same as doing something over and over while expecting a different result. That was what was behind door #2 on the morning I went to the hospital. I did not choose that door.

That morning, I chose door #3, where I sought professional help.

That has started me on the path of figuring out myself and what is important to me. As I get more involved in my thoughts, I have additional insights into myself. And as important, I have insights into my relationship with depression. At times, I see what depression is wanting me to think. But this is still on-going. And my blog of nearly 5 ½ year’s, is closing in on 650 blog posts.

Each of these has been an attempt on my part to see behind the curtain.

I want to know what is happening when my depression wants things done a certain way. And I want to know strategies to keep it from getting the upper hand. I do not time travel very much these days. Now that I understand coulda, woulda, shoulda, I very seldom should all over myself. There are times when I catch myself beginning to exhibit one or more unhelpful thinking style that my depression lays in my path.

Now I understand things such as “all or nothing thinking.”

I see the setup, and I see where my depression is going. All ten unhelpful thinking styles are my depression tools of the trade. By better understanding all of these, I can see where depression wants me to go and why. Before I was given this tool, I had no idea what was happening when one of these thoughts would pop into my head.

Now I think, “Not so fast, depression!”

It amazes me that for decades, I failed to understand what my depression was up to. It would wind my clock and pull my chain. There were so many things that I did that my depression thought were clever ideas. Now, I know a lot about these 10 thinking styles. I can see that by understanding these styles, I am better equipped to acknowledge them without engaging them.

Kind of like years ago, watching my suicidal thoughts be on a leaf, floating downstream and around the bend in the river.

By not engaging with these thoughts. I can avoid all the energy they have. Once seen, I would let them drift harmlessly downstream. Although I am not 100% effective, my ability to see what my depression is doing continues to improve. And I find that even if I do not catch an action as it occurs, I almost always catch it very soon thereafter.

Once again, I have written two pages without addressing the topic I set out to write about.

I am beginning to feel as if this is intentional. Even if I am doing this subconsciously, I am still doing it, and I am doing it over and over. If I am aware of my topic, I can focus my thoughts and write about it as I envisioned I would. This does not always work.

My mind must be thinking of other things when I sit down to write.

This would explain how I end up spending the first 8 or 900 words writing something completely off-topic. These thoughts must pop up in my head and get written down as I think of them. I know what I sit down to write, but as my fingers touch the keys, my mind sends me off in a different direction.

Now I wonder if I am writing what I am thinking or if I am back to reporting facts.

I am no longer as proud of my Joe Friday act, “Just the facts, Mam.” After three months of talk therapy, I feel that I might have more to say than “just the facts.” I am starting to share how certain situations make me feel. I know it still kind of hurts to say these words out loud.

Yet, sharing my feelings has become my new thing.

I am not very good at it yet. After all, I have spent most of my adult life sharing just the facts. And there were times in my early life when I was quite proud of my ability to capture events as they occurred. At work, my ability to capture what happened is still one of my assets. Using bullet points to share the event was and is a trait that makes me valuable even today.

Sharing with others how an event makes me feel is still a work in progress.

This should be the point where I share a recent event and make a big deal out of sharing how that event makes me feel. Yet here I sit writing, without an example to share—unless you want to know about my laptop and keyboard.

I knocked the laptop off the kitchen counter a few weeks ago.

It was closed, and I had set it on the counter while I poured a cup of coffee. Somehow, I was taking a moment to get a bowl out for my cereal when I pushed the laptop off the counter onto the floor. When I picked it up, everything seemed as if it was OK. And for the first week or so, I was certain that I hadn’t damaged it.

Then, one morning, the keyboard seemed stuck, and the mouse had a mind of its own.

Boy, that frustrated me. At first, it was annoying. I had to be very careful about what was being highlighted. It was deleting large chunks of text. And the steering pad and clicker on the laptop weren’t responding. It took me twenty minutes to write a handful of words.

After a while, I was mad and just shut the laptop down.

I went into my office and wrote the rest of my thoughts on my desktop PC. That was OK, but I often use the laptop to sit on the front porch or in the living room in front of the wood stove. That morning, being in my home office did not feel as inviting, so having a finicky laptop was frustrating to me.

There, I shared my feelings about shoving the laptop off the counter and onto the tile kitchen floor.

It’s not overly enlightening, but it’s a start.