Minor Adjustments

I’ve always been an insecure person.  I think it is probably a mixture of how I was raised and my constant problems with my self-esteem – as in I don’t have any.  Add to that a deep-seeded feeling of semi-worthlessness and this feeling that I don’t see myself as deserving of good things, and wham-o – insecurity.  I go into these panic spirals in my head – everything seems okay externally, but I read tone, context and intent into text messages, flippant comments, my own thoughts, events that I wish could have gone differently, etc.  Thankfully, these feelings and spirals are not constant all the time – they come and go in concert with my depression symptoms.  The more depressed I’m feeling, the more likely I am to have an insecurity spiral.

The stupid thing is that I KNOW how stupid they are.  I know in my heart that I am secure, that I am a good person, and that I deserve good things and I’ve worked hard for them.  I deserve my 4.0 in college – I worked my ass off for many years.  I deserve to graduate with honors because I did all the work to earn it.  I deserve to be in a happy, long-term relationship with a wonderful girl – we’ve worked together to iron out the wrinkles, grow together and become a secure, confident and happy couple.  This month was the 7^th anniversary of our first date, and in many respects I feel as though our relationship is stronger than ever.  On the other, due to school commitments and our crazy cats, we don’t get to spend as much time together as I’d like.

Background on the cats – Ashe is between 13 and 14 years old, grey and white, needy and clingy and incredibly lovey.  She was raised with Booger, but Booger had to be put to sleep 2 years ago due to saddle thrombosis.  Ashe became more loving to us, but since we were used to having two cats in the house, we adopted a rescue stray from a friend who had found a bunch of kittens in a field.  Enter Weasley.  She is tan/red and white, hence the name, and is currently 2 ½ years old (we got her at the end of July in 2015).  Weasley, I think, is unfortunately going to always be just a little bit feral.  Since she was so small when we took her in, we were scared of putting her out with Ashe right away, so we made our second bedroom “her” room.  Unfortunately, I think that decision ultimately doomed them to never getting along.  We’ve tried to integrate with very little success, but a lot of panic, hissing, scratching and biting for the effort.  Weasley is not just bad with Ashe – she needs to be knocked out to even be seen by the vet, otherwise she has a meltdown.  Given that, Weasley is stuck in her room for the day while we’re at work.  When we get home, we eat dinner, do our workout and then one of us goes to the bedroom with Ashe (who will pee on the bed or something else if she is locked in there alone) and the other stays in the living room with the hell cat.  Needless to say, this means we don’t get a lot of quality time during the week.  Thankfully this has gotten better since we started exercising together instead of individually, and we do get a lot of time on most weekends.  It just makes keeping the bond high more difficult, which probably doesn’t help the insecurity at all.

Don’t get me wrong – I know I am incredibly lucky, and I am incredibly grateful for everything that I have.  Sometimes it just helps to air my issues into the open to limit their power over me.  By naming them and acknowledging them, I can begin to retrain my brain to think and see things differently and hopefully grow from the whole experience.