YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Fighting a real soul-sucking round of depression and anxiety these days. I have some primal programming that leads me to instinctively react to affirmations and gratitude journals and the like as Pollyanna bullshit, but I am trying to reprogram myself, and I know that I need to pay more attention to the things that are good and even great in my life. So I need to put some love out there today.

• I love when I try a new recipe for the first time and it comes out looking and tasting awesome.
  I love the big bag of fresh organic produce I picked up from my CSA yesterday, and how it is going to make healthy eating this summer easier.
• I love satellite radio.
• I love lying on my back, drenched in sweat, exhausted, and loose, after finishing an hour of hot yoga.
• I love when I can pull off a yoga pose for the first time after struggling with it.
• I love taking in all of the stimuli of a baseball field on a hot summer evening with all my senses.
• I love having beautiful parks to run in.
• I love seeing people that I care about achieve happiness and satisfaction in their lives, and I love when they let me share in their joy.
• I love the sense of relief and accomplishment when finally finishing a task that I have obsessed about and procrastinated over.
• I love my therapy group for providing me with a safe place to realize that I'm not any more fucked up than anyone else, for making me feel understood and acceptable from time to time, and for giving me space to be brave and open up and test my hypotheses that people will judge and reject the real me.
• I love the people on this board for doing the same.
• I love a big, floppy slice of New York style pizza.
• I love that first hot cup of coffee in the morning.
• I love coffee shops and Paneras with free wifi and comfy chairs.
• I love that my iPhone and iPad can actually help me get important, practical things done conveniently in addition to being fun toys and infinitely portable distraction boxes.
• I love that I am almost completely out of debt at the moment, and have some money in the bank.
• I love that although I am tired, incredibly tense, and overweight, that I am in good physical health, my blood pressure is good and my doctor just told me that my cholesterol and lipid profile are among the best that he has ever seen.
• I love how my teeth feel right after going to the dentist and having them cleaned.
• I love boobs.
• I love clever T-shirts.
• I love when I feel brave and secure enough to embrace my inner nerd.
• I love to laugh and to make others laugh (with me, not at me).

More things I love...

Those really big marshmallows that are supposed to be for s'mores, but are just fine right out of the bag.
Mexican Coca-Cola
Having a feline alarm clock with no snooze button
Our new living room furniture, which makes our place feel a little more like a grown up home.
Putting the last piece of an IKEA shelving unit together.
My cool little stackable recycling bins.
Having good health insurance.
Obamacare, in case I don't always have it.
Finally beating that level in a video game that I have been stuck on for weeks.
Finding and reading a digital version of a comic book a remember having as a kid.
Having my own office at work.
Costco

Mexican coca cola is the thinking persons pop.

Well played

Isn't it awesome how pets are just so excited to see you when you get home? You really feel important and loved in those few moments. I love it.

"I love a big, floppy slice of New York style pizza."
Me too.