Everything is awful

I have very strong feelings. I also tend to have all or nothing thought patterns and add to that a sense that i am responsible for the well being and success of humanity, i am rather vulnerable to thinking "everything is awful and it's all my fault".

If you know anything about the Myers Briggs personality types, based on the work of Carl Jung, I am an ENFJ. So I am all about how I feel and this can be a problem.  It can be hard to know if the way I feel is because of certain circumstances or whether my feelings are actually driving my perception of my circumstances.  Probably both are happening in a kind of self-fulfilling feedback loop. Whether the feedback loop is positive or negative depends on all sorts of factors.

Here is a list of contributions to the mix organised into loose categories. These are the negative influences on how I feel about life snd myself. If I can tick too many on the list then it will only be s matter of time before everything feels awful.

Physical
- poor or interrupted sleep
- hormones (I can guarantee a bad week due to pmt
- missing meals, too much junk or sugar.
- lack of fresh air, sunshine and exercise.
- having any illness or pain.

Environment
- mess or lack of visual order
- jobs around the house that need doing
- no connection with nature
- a negative vibe such as conflict or anger

Parenting
- feeling that I am not 'coping'. This usually means I am struggling to meet the practical demands and expectations I have of myself as a mum.
- tough stage of development for kids such as needing lots of supervision or hitting etc. Or clingy so lots of crying and high needs.

Relationships
- lack of quality time and connection with hubby
- conflict or hurt in friendships
- not keeping healthy boundaries with others.

Activities
- social, either not enough or stressful
- stress at work
- over committed and dont have enough time to do it all.
- lack of selfcare such as brushing teeth before bed
- not making time to read, pray, write.

Medication
- did I take my antidepressant and is the current dose and type working?

Random stuff
- bad traffic
-running late
- unforseen happenings ...

All the above and any combination can trigger negative thought patterns which then turn into...

"Everything is awful
I am awful."

And the feeling of that becomes my reality. The darkness comes down and if I am not careful, it can overwhelm me.

Last night I found myself seriously thinking about going back to work full time, despite knowing only 24 hours earlier that not only was that unwise, it was not what I truly wanted.

But that's the problem with extreme thinking and big feelings. You get lost so fast.

After a good talk with hubby and the process of recognising what contributed to it, I seem to be seeing things more clearly. I am able to take some steps back and start to question the thoughts that lead me down that dark hole. But that's a whole other post...

I guess I am realising that if I dont learn to see the signs that I am not ok then I am at the mercy of this horrible roller-coaster.  It has already had such a devastating impact on me and if I let the feelings keep dragging me down it threatens to keep me down and I might not know how to get up again. They are feelings, not facts. They are based in fact but if I give them too much power they can stop me from actually being ablevto function.