Peace

As a teenager I learnt from cognitive behavioural therapy that bad feelings should be seen as grey clouds in the sky. If the sky is your mind, feelings are the clouds that pass swiftly through…

Similar is the concept of ‘Teflon mind’; your mind is an anti-stick -Teflon- pan. Food can be cooked in it, but never stick…

These metaphors are supposed to illustrate that negative thoughts shouldn’t have any staying power in our mind. That they’re normal and expected, but in due time they should drift, or slide away.

Whenever I’m ruminating on negative, anxious or paranoid thoughts, I try to remind myself of these metaphors. That the bad feeling will drift away, not stick.

It’s so uncomfortable when I end up ruminating on anxious thoughts, that in turn cause anxious feelings and set of a chain reaction of anxiety, compulsions and overarching pessimism.

These CBT approaches I feel are incredibly passive, a lot of anxiety reduction involves sitting with the feeling until it passes. Sure there are things, like breathing exercises, we can do to pass the time. But it does feel as though one must surrender in order to concur. A paradox?

Over time these techniques are supposed to help us overcome our anxieties and develop a new relationship with our thoughts. But as much as I do overcome anxieties -and I really do!- New ones grow in their place. Like a sort of mythological creature, I may cut off one head but two new ones will sprout!

The sky is always cloudy, the pan is always food-covered. Yes there may be movement and passing, but there is never emptiness. Stillness.

And obviously this is why drugs can be so appealing. Because no matter what, drugs force the clouds out of the sky, the food out of the pan. They create a quiet you can otherwise only dream of. And you don’t have to do a damn thing.

The reason my mind thinks about drugs - nearly - all the time is because it longs for peace.

And yes I could take prescription drugs, but those are for the worst of the bad times. I can’t take them every day or they’d stop working - why risk that!?

I write this from my bed - where I feel like shit - reminding myself it will pass, but wondering why it can never stop. Knowing that drugs could stop it and not reaching for them is strength, but I don’t feel strong.