Lived Experience Forum

[Faith-and-Hope]

💐💜🌷💕 @Teej ......

[Teej]

Part 2

i so wish I could get what is in my head on paper by some kind of telepathic means. I can’t so this will be jumbled and all over the place and I apologise for it in advance. 

I know this doesn’t follow on but it’s kind of telling how I got to be in this place...... I think 🤔. For a long time now I’ve been in a headspace of thinking I could only do things that were good for me or were steps forward. Everything else was a failure! I’ve failed lots and lots as a result. Just one example of that is trying to move out into the real world again (for me the real world has been about trying to connect with community through volunteering, try to connect to my family more doing things that were steps towards getting paid work and supporting myself). It was about moving away from the forum a bit and out my front door. All I’ve managed to achieve is guilt. When the forum was my life I had a purpose and to a degree it was like work for me. I think I felt a purpose when I was spending lots of time on it. As I’ve tried to walk away all I’ve felt is guilt and failure. I feel a huge sense of loss too. It’s become another catch 22 thing in my life. For a while I have been confused about all this. I’ve had lots of emotions during the past 6 months about the forum. 

This is what I know today though, some of thoughts that have crossed my mind in the last week or more.

i wonder how lj is going and whether the holidays are ok and what’s happening. I’ve seen her post but have felt paralysed to respond. I feel so bad I haven’t been responding to Apple. Ive noticed some really great posts of hers around the forum and that she seems relatively settled which is great. I’ve read her thread fragile but not responded yet because I feel paralysed. I miss the days of having a cuppa with f&h, it feels like I just drag her into my crisis’s now and that carries so much guilt. Kurra hasn’t been around for ages and I miss hearing what she’s doing, I really hope she’s ok. I saw ocean girl got a new pup and is studying, I’d love to chat to her but I feel paralysed. I usually find interactions with cheerbear positive and helpful but I often run away because I feel paralysed. Shaz has tagged me so many times and is so lovely but I’ve not caught up with her either. I miss catching up with 5ht and all her studying news and sciency stuff. I really wish I could have more conversations with Maz eth, niqua and Silenus I always feel that connection and feel ok after them but I feel paralysed. There’s a pattern building. I feel like I’ve let lapses, sophia1, dec, sunshower outlander tab, and so many others down. I had lists of names of people I care for and people I’ve had hardly any chats with but have so much respect for reading their posts but I still hide away. The truth is hiding hasn’t helped either. I haven’t transitioned to anything else but hold myself ransom on the forum instead. I have lots of meaningful relationships on the forum and with lots I know I havent named. I haven’t tagged because this post was me getting thoughts down. I’m not looking for recognition or attention for it. 

These experiences are not just online with the forum either. I watch my friends on Facebook and feel everything that’s happening in their lives but never comment or even like because I feel paralysed. I don’t even wish them happy birthday anymore. My love and care for them hasn’t changed, just my fear of communicating with them. 

Its not just the forum but real life friends too. I’ve effectively pushed nearly everyone away. The final straw of how much has come in the last 24 hours. Yesterday in therapy we discussed me going away with my best friend for a couple of days. I gave my reasons to my therapist why I didn’t think I could and she agreed it might be tricky and too anxiety provoking. Two years ago my therapist would have whipped my butt and told me to go. It’s been a huge reality check.

@Faith-and-Hope I haven’t been in the arena at all in a real way. I’ve suited up and put a bubble around me and the minute things looked scary I’ve bolted out of the arena so fast and hidden. The truth is I am so scared of getting in the arena, I’m scared of living and scared of being a burden. It’s more appealing for me to die than to hurt those I love or be a burden or fail at something. So much stuff becomes do or die in my head. 

Ok enough again for a bit. There is lots more. To be continued......

[Faith-and-Hope]

Maybe consider this ..... that what is bubbling to the surface as paralysis, fear, indecision, etc is what has been lying dormant inside for a while ..... and the bubbling to the surface is part of the healing .... ?  Junk is rising to your consciousness, and it’s not a matter of fearing it, or trying to avoid it, or even doing anything with it .... just acknowledging that it’s there ..... then washing it off in the shower ..... ?

That is not intended to be glib.  You are such a “doing” person .... but maybe the doing part of this is simply viewing what is happening ..... acknowledging this stuff as it bubbles up ..... then moving forward around it, in baby steps, with everyday life sort of things (cooking, walking the dog, showering) and finding that you slowly un-paralyse as a natural letting go of things you don’t want to carry forward with you ?

Just my thoughts .....

Cuppa available (almost) any time .....

[Faith-and-Hope]

Dross:  foreign matter, dregs, or mineral waste, in particular scum formed on the surface of molten metal

Dross rises to the top of the crucible when gold or other precious minerals are being processed .....

@Teej

[Teej]

thanks @Faith-and-Hope,

part of your response felt like it was straight from my therapist 🤨. There is a lot bubbling to the top. Not all my posts will be so droll and woe is me. There is a reason I’m writing this on the recovery thread 💜😘. Stay tuned if you can without taking pills to stay awake - lol. 

[Faith-and-Hope]

🤗💕 @Teej

[Teej]

Part three

love

its a topic that has had me twisted for a while. Every time I think I have it sorted in my brain I get confused again. Feeling love is what I’ve struggled with. The big thing that has had me ripped in pieces lately is how I can justify leaving my kids.....I obviously don’t love them or know how to love them. It’s turned into me believing that I’m a terrible person who doesn’t understand or love anyone else and that I’m totally selfish. I’ve been able to have a couple of conversations this week about it as something happened that was confronting and confusing for me. The tipping point was me missing my sons honours graduation because I was a mess in crisis. I sent him a message apologising and then had a response that challenged me in every way. My son responded with a message of love and gratitude that l helped get him to be able to follow his dreams. I couldn’t see how he could feel that way or even how to express it. I think I have come to believe that I wasn’t deserving of their love (or anyone else’s). All I could see was how I wronged him, how I let him down, how I first attempted suicide 6 weeks out from his yr 12 exams, how I wished I’d been able to spend more quality time with him, how he had to grow up largely by himself. I couldn’t imagine how or why he would write it. To top it off I thought I would never have written that to my parents at the same age. This all added up to me that I must be some kind of psychopath who is not cabable of true love. 

I bought it up with my therapist this week. She told me the opposite, that she thought I loved too much and that creates fear in me.  I’m not sure if that is true but what she said next helped. She said all my boys have expressed love and gratitude and that I must have done the right things for them to be able to love and show love. We went through the core emotional needs and it turned out that I did enough for long enough for them to develop into loving mostly responsible functioning adults. When I could break down cognitively the things I did to foster love I realised that I have loved and it’s ok for my kids to love me. This doesn’t magically solve anything but is helping me breathe a bit better and is lessening the suicidal thought drives I’ve been experiencing. 

Thats that chapter. But wait there’s more 😜...to be continued.......

[Faith-and-Hope]

Loving this chapter @Teej .... ❣️

[Teej]

Chapter four

feeling anything. 

Over the past few weeks/months ? period of time unknown 😳 I have come to understand that I have stopped feeling anything other than distress, anger or sadness. Of those feelings, sadness is the only safe one for me. I can’t feel love or joy or achievement (unless it’s someone else’s). @Faith-and-Hope I’ve read for a couple of years now your self care things and to tell the truth I didn’t get it. I’ve read about the things that bring you joy and nurturance and calm. 

Ive been taught and reinforced self soothing stuff in therapy but it always seemed something that I couldn’t do or put the walls up for. I have an extremely strong bond that you can only experience something nice when you’ve earned it. I also don’t think I’ve hardly allowed myself to feel any positive emotions. 

Sooo long story long this week sons girlfriend came out with these very warn slippers on (as the temperature dipped). She smiled and said wearing them made her feel happy. She looked really content and happy. I realised that I’ve forgotten how that feels. Even having a cuppa I’ve only done mindfully as a practice which means you don’t judge or put an emotion to it. The boys dragged out my mood reeds that had been sitting in my cupboard forever and put them in my room. For the first time in ages a feeling of calmness comes over me when I smell them. I hadn’t thought I’d deserved to have them. I think the final penny dropped when @greenpea posted this morning about uplifting songs or poetry. I was able to feel positive feelings and be ok. 

So @Faith-and-Hope part of dipping my toe in the arena will be about me trying to feel good things now, they don’t have to be happy or joy, calm and connected will do. For so long I’ve used distraction as a way to avoid feeling anything but it has served me too well at turning everything off and escaping. 

I think there’s only one more part which will be about therapy. To be continued......

[Faith-and-Hope]

🤗💕 @Teej ..... feeling warm and fuzzy here ..... 👍