Control

People yearn for control of various things. Kids want control over toys, adults want control over situations, possessions, and sometimes people. The only thing I wish for are control over my emotions. Sounds easy right? To me, this is one of the hardest things I've had to overcome.

Even in the most mundane activities, your emotions can surface. The envy I have is immense for people that can control the simplest of feelings. Those people whether they realize it or not are so in tune to their mind and body that they are able to diffuse or regulate how much of an emotion they need at that time. I still can't figure out how to do this.

It doesn't matter how "self-aware" you are. Emotions can sometimes suck you in and not let you go. Personally, I can't stand this. It seems like when you pull yourself out something else will pull you in. A situation so small like someone cutting you off in the car can have the same destructive emotional reaction akin to someone just cheating on you with another girl.

From everything I've been through, I used to put up a wall of stone which caused me to block out problems from those bitches in high school, the marital problems with my parents, boy friend problems, and everything else under the sun. Then one day I just broke. It felt like every emotion flooded out of me all at once. Since then, patching up the flood gates has been immensely hard.

This has caused me to self-sabotage so much of my life recently. I have a good job- fuck that! i'm going to do xyz to mess that up. My relationship with my boyfriend- oh let me fuck that up while i'm at it too. People are getting sick of the "Seriously, I can't help it. It's like something I'm doing sub-consciously" excuse. Quite frankly, I'm getting sick of it too. Emotions are an ungodly beast and here I am, just a small David, trying to tame this thing.

I've been reading about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) which is is a therapy designed to help people change patterns of behavior that are not effective, such as self-harm, suicidal thinking and substance abuse (Wikipedia). Now I would just like to clear this up, I am in NO WAY suicidal or have thoughts of self harm, but apparently this approach works towards helping people increase their emotional and cognitive regulation by learning about the triggers that lead to reactive states and helping to assess which coping skills to apply in the sequence of events, thoughts, feelings and behaviors that lead to the undesired behavior (Wikipedia). Hmm, so I can change my anger and my perceptions for things so I can stop self-sabotaging myself? Sign me the fuck up!!!

I already work with a therapist to help navigate through my feelings, but I feel like just cognitive behavioral therapy isn't enough. I like the premise of DBT because it sounds like something more hands on and tangible that I can grasp. I even ordered  The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, & Distress Tolerance - by Matthew McKay, Jeffery Wood, and Jeffery Brantley. I want workbooks and shit. If I put the work into it and it's something I can actually see and refer to, then I think this would help me better.

Well wish me luck and hopefully if you need to tame your emotional beast there is help out there for you. I use therapy and most often I eat my feelings. Cheese fries makes everything okay haha.

The Difference Between NJ and MD

Being a native NJ girl, moving down here to MD was a severe culture shock. I had a great apartment that was only 15 minutes from the shore. The food was amazing. I was within reach of the Windmill, awesome sushi, the best homemade and restaurant Italian food. Ah I could just go on about the food alone!!! The Jersey attitude was a way of life and eventually you got used to that and the BENNIES during the summer.

Moving to MD for work was a huge change for me. I had to get acclimated to a completely different lifestyle. Driving down here is the worst. People drive slow and hardly use blinkers. I almost miss the tailgating and  careless passing that Jersey drivers possess. My apartment was is the "ghetto" and I'm just going to sum up how bad it was. I had a squirrel (at least that's what I like to image in my head) that lived in my dryer duct that basically rode out my entire lease with me. Regina. She was my pal.

I'm sorry I know you Marylanders like your Old Bay and whatnot but most of your food items are still gross. Everything is a chain restaurant here. Gross. I have yet to find some good mom and pop places with good any kind of food. Every place also claims to have the "best" crab dip here too. So strange.

OMG IT TAKES FOREVER TO GET SOMEWHERE!!!! Every place is 30 minutes at the minimum. If I need something now, I have to go to Wal-Mart. This is still a strange concept for me.

Even after a couple years living here I'm still not used to it. I keep telling myself one day I'll adjust.....

It makes sense....

It only makes sense that the "Valentina DEvine" is a super talented knitter. Look her up on google. She makes some awesome things. I only know this because as I was trying to search for my blog- "Valentine DIvine" and she kept coming up.

I haven't written on this blog in awhile. When I originally started this blog, I was in a really bad place. I had just broken up with my fiance and had to move out and basically start my life over. My family was at wits end and with a hard core Italian family that meant everyone had a problem with every single family member. At that time I thought my life was completely doomed. I had failed at the most basic and primal emotions. Love...and also survival. The first few months of living c by myself were the worst. I had to learn how to stretch my dollar to the utmost max and try to make strong interpersonal connections. I failed. Miserably.

Fast forward a bunch of years later to now and I've got this living alone thing down pat. All those wasted concoctions I tried to pass off as food forced me to learn how to be a better cook. Now I don't like to toot my own horn here, but I can now cook pretty good. My thrift shop bargains transformed into IKEA works of art. I must admit I did keep some of my old items because I swear one day I will refashion them. Most importantly, I was able to strengthen the bonds in my family and let go of the toxic bonds I held with some friends. In this process I was able to allow myself to love again. 

My goal in this blog previously was to vent and rant and rave about the injustices of life. Though I still feel there are injustices in this world, I've really learned how to cope. I can't promise that I won't complain, but I will promise to keep it at a funny minimum.