What is the difference?

What is the difference? What is the fundamental difference?

For about a week I was on this huge (high adrenaline) run. It started when I heard the ABA coordinator talking about something. I realized I needed to support my son.

I have been grumpy with my son since he was born. I didn't want to deal with him. I didn't. I just didn't. I needed to sleep to go to a demanding job that demanded perfectionism. I'm a perfectionist anyway. And my mom had just committed suicide the year before. And I was/am codependent, I couldn't stay in bed when my wife had to get up every time my son woke up (which felt like 10 times a night, maybe it really was) - I always went in to help in some way.

I'm tired. I'm resentful. I didn't sleep well last night. I'm so anxious and angry and tired. Please help me. Someone some version of me somewhere in my head. Please help me.

So the ABA coordinator made me realize I needed to be the strength for my son. I needed to show him what love and strength and patience was. And then I listened to this TEDx talk about attention - where we must focus our attention. And I thought Yes, I must focus my attention on the good. I must finally - once and for all - hoist myself out of this glen of anger and anxiety and pity. I must be a source of strength and love, not a source of self-hatred, criticism, exhaustion.

I started in with the affirmations. I started in hard. It made a difference. I must not stop. I must affirm to myself that I am adequate, that I am enough. Because it is the opposite of this thought that brings in all the impatience, the fear, the anger, the insomnia.

I screamed at my son today, my innocent son. We are all innocent though. We all do the best we can with what we have. We literally cannot, could not do more. How could we?

I did the best I could with what I had.

And now in that strange purgatory of free will and determinism I say: I am determined: I am dogged: I insist on being a source of strength. I am turning this ship around right now.

I must accept the things I cannot change. Sometimes what I need to accept is that I have needs I must get met: space, peace, time to rest.