*HOPE* for mythoughts

I'm glad you had that moment, Karen. Great advice about mindfulness, and keeping up the efforts. You always have wise and positive things to say.

Hi Mythoughts, Yes, observing and describing inside oneself can be difficult……and even when it’s easy to describe, sometimes it’s hard to take the bandages off the wounds for inspection. It gets easier, and I think it’s important to maintain a balance between introspection and distraction (at least in my own experience). Sometimes I walk around with open wounds all day, and that’s not so good. Getting through another day is reason for celebration, or at the very least, a pat on the back. Getting through a bad day is worthy of a medal, I think! (Still waiting to hear the details on those jackets, by the way.) I’ve been wanting to ask you.....do you have a start date yet for the GP therapist? I think you said it would be in July, but I didn’t know if you had a firm appointment yet. I hope all is still peaceful on the home front.

Hi Mythoughts, I was confused about your schedule! Thanks for putting it down. It's good that you have a continuous flow of therapies over the next while. I find that sort of continuity to be comforting. How often will you see the MSW? I'm with you on the hit & miss evenings. I was just thinking about that a few minutes ago, wondering how tonight will go for me, and then realized I was 'out of the moment' again. I have to keep a close watch on my mental wanderings, or it gets out of hand. I see a psychologist, and I'm down to about once a month now. I started by going weekly, and she has been gradually spreading out the appointments over a long while (we're well past the two year mark). I'm glad you asked me about that....sometimes I forget how far I've come since those very difficult early appointments. With the long waiting list at the clinic I attend, and the shortage of therapists there, I feel fortunate to be able to keep going. This clinic (part of a series of buildings at a hospital) is about an hour away for me, but it is well worth the drive. I'm glad things are okay at home. Things here are fine, but I'm having my own challenges with being responsible. Good thing I don't have to set an example for anyone. Yes, being in the step-mommy role was tough at times, especially coming into the situation after they had been parented by others for several years. It took me a while to get the feel for what was and wasn't acceptable according to their mom and dad, and some of it was quite far off from my own sense of values. I would imagine that it's tough for all parents at times to agree on some of the child-rearing issues that come up. I would be happy to share a bit of the story here, but I don't want to hijack your thread. So you have two sessions left with the DBT Grad group.....do you feel that it's been helpful overall? I'd be interested to hear your assessment.

Hi Mythoughts, I appreciate your thoughts about the DBT sessions, and their value and place in your process. I’ve enjoyed the workbook I’ve been using, but realize it barely scratches the surface, so I was interested to know what you thought. I really hope the MSW and GP sessions will help you to reach, and to heal, those deeper levels. I think you should feel really good about your commitment to doing this over the longer term. I hope your experiences will be at least as helpful….life-changing, really….as mine have been so far. I am hopeful for both of us on our respective paths. Thanks for the green light….I’ll give you some new reading material in the next day or so. I’ll try to keep it succinct, but you know me….that might be a challenge….lol. Have a good sleep, too.

Hi Mythoughts, I hope your day is going well. Mine has been busy, but better than yesterday. Right now I'm back at home, taking a break and watching a pileated woodpecker dismantle an old basswood tree beside my porch. It's the best entertainment I've had all day!

Hi Mythoughts, Happy Canada Day to you, too. It sounds like you’ve been really busy…..hot work for a summer day. You sound good, and I’m glad for you. Being busy does help with staying in the moment, and it sounds like today has been beneficial to you and your SIL’s son. Way to go. I’ve spent most of the day sick in bed with some weird bug, so I feel like I’m missing out on the nice weather. I will have to go out for a walk shortly to soak up some sunshine. I’m dipping into the herbal remedies this afternoon to get back in shape for work tomorrow, and have plans for a hot and spicy dinner to clear out the breathing passages. It should be all systems go by the morning. Stay in the present, and enjoy the rest of your day. Good to hear you sounding so ‘up’. Talk to you later.

Hi Mythoughts, I’m back again, after a quick hike around the back forty and a homemade veggie pizza loaded with hot peppers (yum!). Thanks for your wishes….I’m sure I’ll be on the mend soon! I hope you are resting and feeling relaxed. I know the quiet moments can be tough, and I know the day will come when you will have some quiet times that are peaceful, happy, and restorative. I promised you the other day that I would share some things with you about my history with depression, so I thought it might be a good time to do that, since I’ll be working a lot over the next few days. I’ll give you the low down on the marriage separation, since that was probably one of the lowest points of my life in recent years. I hope this will not bring you down, but rather show you that it is possible to move forward when you feel like it’s the end. I might have to break this up into two posts, so please bear with me... Well.....things started off very well with us, as they so often do. My ex-husband was wonderful to me during the years that we dated. We spent a lot of time talking about marriage, the children, finances….all the things you do to prepare for a life together. We bought a house on the other side of the border, closer to where his children were living with their mother, so that they could spend a few days a week with us (instead of alternate weekends) and have a better relationship with their father. I really believed we had the same sense of values and the same expectations about our relationship, and I felt in my heart that we loved each other very deeply. He had a history of domestic abuse, which I had no idea about , of course, and once we were married, it was only a matter of time before we had our first ‘incident’. After threatening to leave him, we tried seeing a marriage counselor over a period of a couple of years, but through all that time, my ex was unable to acknowledge his anger, and eventually he went into a rage with our counselor, so that was the end of that. I finally saw at that point that things were never going to change…..I’d kept up hope, and tried everything I could to make it work, for far longer than I should have, but it was futile. My ex-husband had brutal, unpredictable rages, which were always followed by periods of great affection, gift-giving and attentiveness, and I never knew which man I’d be dealing with when he came home from work. I lived with fear and anxiety every day, even during the ‘good times’ and I was devastated that the man I loved so deeply didn’t want to change his violent behaviour , even though he knew how badly he was hurting me. My life was becoming smaller and more restrictive, too, as my ex started monitoring me more closely, and limiting my time and contact with others. I was starting to have a physical and mental breakdown, and I knew I had to get out. I spent my days while he was at the office planning my departure: making private arrangements for mail, banking, legal advice, and moving assistance. I also had to get a separate cell phone to receive calls from my lawyer, etc. because it was not unlike my ex to examine the phone bills and review our voice mail messages throughout the day. The time came when he decided to go out of state to a conference, and I knew this was my chance to get out. Once I knew he had checked into his hotel, I got on the phone and got the movers there, and we cleaned out my portion of the household goods, closed my p.o. box, emptied my private bank account, cut off my cell phone, packed up my pets and an overnight bag, and left…all within about 8 hours. I’ve never been back since. ……..con’td……..

Raniah, I don't know how to respond to your traumatic experience, because no words would do it justice. I am impressed with your strength in the face of such an awful experience. You were the victim, and are now a survivor. Your story can provide hope for those who feel trapped and unable to make changes.

I respect that you've shared this personal experience with us. Thank you.

I do see how having hope is powerful in moving forward, for you and for me. You were the victim of an abusive man. On the other hand, I see myself as the victim of myself, of my emotional extremes and the twisted thoughts that I used to deal with them. I have never been abused, just rejected since I was 11 years old. So I end up hating myself.

I don't mean to dampen the spirit of your sharing. I deeply respect your journey, and thank you for your inpirational efforts. I hope that your next few days at work rewarding, but not too tiring.

Bye.

You are an excellent writer. Your thoughts are always well organised, and clearly laid out. You are also very convincing. I understand your points, and appreciate them.

I agree that any serious damage in life (accidents, trauma, et cetera) has multiple causes, not just one. For me, perhaps a genetic factor (suicides on my mom's side), emotional disregulation since early childhood, emotionally distant parenting so I never had help regulating in an adaptive manner, extreme sensitivity, lack of intrinsic self esteem, perceived rejection from peers, some verbal and physical abuse from peers over several years, and then the death of my father.

Your disabling condition also resulted during your development, and the abuse that you endured intensified it all. I'm glad that your attempts at healing have made such positive changes for you. And I'm glad that you shared with us here.

I'm back to the hospital today, to attend Grad DBT group. But now I need to cut the grass before more rain comes.

Enjoy your moments. Take care.

Hi Mythoughts, Thank you for your kind words and your compliments. They mean a lot to me. If I could convince you of anything, I’d hope it would be to ease up on yourself a little. I really believe that no one is as hard on us as we are on ourselves. You deserve some kind and gentle treatment, too. It seems like we have some things in common with respect to our backgrounds, from the list that you’ve given. I don’t know if the beliefs that we develop in childhood completely go away, but they can be managed, and challenged, and untwisted using the skills that we learn in our therapies. I really believe it’s worth the effort, and I get the feeling that maybe you do, too. I know how important it is for you to keep your promise to your daughter, and I would love for you to do that while feeling some moments of happiness along the way. How was the Grad DBT group today? I hope you found it helpful. I’d really like to hear about it if you feel up to sharing. I had a busy day at work today, but I enjoyed it. I felt appreciated, which really lifted my spirits. I hope you got the grass cut during that break in the weather we had today. It’s pouring rain here now, but I like the rain, so I’m happy with it. Karen….you seem to have a knack for finding the right words to reach people here, so I feel sure that you will be able to handle that difficult person at work. Just remember that you’re an amazing woman, and you deserve to be treated as such. Let us know how it goes!

Hello, Mythoughts.  I really enjoyed reading your descript ion of the DBT session you had.  You’re definitely a step ahead of me if you can follow this easily in your professional life.  In my case, I’ve spent too many years in customer service jobs, apologizing for things that are not my fault, and putting myself in the line of fire, when ‘the customer is always right’.  Not very good training for someone with depression and self-esteem issues!  And they tell me I’m a natural….lol.  I guess I learned well at an early age. I’m going to copy GIVE, DEARMAN and FAST, and go through the points on my own.  There is some really valuable guidance there. I’m off to the trenches shortly.  Thankfully, the customers at my current job are almost always kind, friendly, and supportive of my efforts.  So there may be hope for me yet! Thanks again for your summary.  I hope you have a great day.  The pom poms are in the mail.  

Hi Mythoughts,

I too am goint to use some of your training at work today. I work with a girl that is rather bossy and the last time I took it. But not this time. I have to learn to stand my own ground with her. I have been there longer and am tired of being a doormat. So it is time to speak up. But I want to be calm and assertive when I do it. Not frantic and yelling. Wish me luck.

I hope that your day goes wwell today. I will be thinking about you.

Take care,

Hugs, Karen

Thanks Mythoughts,

I will remember that. I have a hard time standing up for myself. But I often find that silence is golden. I just can't let her push me around. There have been many complaints to the boss from other workers. So I don't know how long she will be working there. Problem is she is really fast on the till. But I have been advised not to trust her.

Thanks for your kind works, and I hope that you have a wonderful day. I can't whistle either, cold sores. That is from stress. Wish me luck...

Hugs, Karen