Emotional resilience and the impact of its lack

[andthistoomustpass]

Yes dad.

[maisi]

Sounds interesting- bit of a bonus, bit of a challenge. Enjoy the energy levels

So might that mean a new phase when it settles in? I don't know if I could handle additional factors myself, and know you won't mind me saying that, since everyone's different.

Mind you I fell into a vat of happy pills as a baby, so they never let me have some more, even with a big punch up coming (Asterix and Obelisk reference, showing my age)

[andthistoomustpass]

Thanks Maisi

A next phase will come. I know SSRI's and most (but not all) of the benefits usually wear off after your brain gets used to the dose.

The weirdest thing right now is that because the increased meds seem to be blocking so much of the anxiety, I have headspace for stuff I haven't thought about in a long time. Simple stuff like noticing a pair of trousers are way too long and then having the motivation to immediately buy some hemming-web to sort it. It feels good.

I hope I will keep as many of the benefits as possible when I slide into the next phase. I'm really focusing on how I am feeling at the moment to, hopefully, make it easier to find my way back.

[andthistoomustpass]

Diary Entry

The new dosage has calmed down but so far I'm retaining a number of benefits
The anxiety is weaker and it seems far easier to adjust long standing behaviours.
Still hard as he'll but doable.

The thing that is pre-occupying my mind at the moment is loneliness.
This isn't anything new but I am more able to be honest about it.

It has always been me against the world, for as long as I can remember.
Never trust anyone, you will be betrayed.
Never let your guard down, you will be attacked.
Never show your true self, you will be pilloried, beaten and osracised (and rightly so).

I have worked really hard to challenge these beliefs in the last few years. I am more open and honest with others, more trusting. It has felt really good and I have made some lovely friends.

I want more than friendship. I want someone to pour my love into, someone who will love me back.
I've not dated for over 10 years. When I did, I needed alcohol to cope with the emotions but there was always the day when my feelings became too strong. My few relationships were short lived because fear would overcome my desire.

I can cope so much better with my emotions now. I think I could handle a close relationship. I think I could overcome my fears to create one. I want a relationship. I want to stop feeling so alone. It will take both hard work and luck to find and attract the right person. I have clearly shown interest and been turned down a couple of times recently. I am proud I am taking the risk but I won't have the confidence to seriously try until I've lost a lot of weight, which is underway. I do want to give it a go though. I want to share my love and joy. I want to share my life.

[sirhugo]

[quote="andthistoomustpass"]Diary Entry

It has always been me against the world, for as long as I can remember.
Never trust anyone, you will be betrayed.
Never let your guard down, you will be attacked.
Never show your true self, you will be pilloried, beaten and osracised (and rightly so).

that really hit home. its exactly where my mindset is, especially after the tesco incident. if you can get anywhere with this, please let me know

in terms of being lonely all I can advise there is don't try too hard. I was where you are at one point. do you know how I finally found my girlfriend?

I stopped looking

[andthistoomustpass]

Hi Mate

That is good advice. The thing we me is that I am scared of being close to anyone and have long been in the habit of avoiding that. It is important for me that I do try at this point, in order to challenge those habitual fears and behaviours. Mainly my post was about admitting how strongly I feel to myself.

As for the me against the world stuff, learning to trust is a slow process but I am taking baby steps all the time. It started with mutual support groups where everyone is open in a safe space. Highly recommended.

[andthistoomustpass]

Diary Entry

I've been thinking about my avoidance of further counselling / therapy and what the pay-offs are for me.

1. The obvious, I get to avoid the distress stage of plunging into trusting someone and of dealing with long buried stuff.

2. Many of my MH symptoms are protective and part of me doesn't want to lose them. ie. Being very overweight means that people expect less of you in general which in turn protects against the fear of negative judgements and rejection by encouraging negative judgements from first impressions. You are not scared anymore because what you are scared of has already happened.

Being very overweight also gets me out of many uncomfortable social situations. I have slimmed down dramatically a number of times over the years. This always resulted in a significant increase of the number of people trying to get to know me from a friendship perspective which leads to me having to be more open about myself and risk rejection. It also led to lots of female attention, very flattering but also promoting very distressing emotions.

I fear the consequences of letting go of my protective behaviours.

3. The relationship with my last therapist. Presumably due to time constraints, she kept the conversation to certain topics. That was very hard. To take that great risk of opening up and then to feel like a lot of stuff that looms very large for me was simply dismissed. She also practiced the style of not validating my feelings or experiences. This was also incredibly hard and left me feeling like I wasn't deserving of therapy. The combination of those two issues helped prompt me to feel that she didn't believe me about a lot of the stuff that happened when I was very young, where memories are vague at best. Again, this was very distressing.

[andthistoomustpass]

Diary Entry

I've never been sure of how objectively difficult my childhood was. After all, life isn't a bed of roses for anyone and it is most certain that plenty of people in the UK have had worse, then I look at war torn countries, etc and realise that my childhood was actually very privileged.

I downplay things as much as possible and kind of assume I am just overreacting and most definitely excuse some of the other people involved.

This weekend I stumbled across the ACE study, that listed ten adverse childhood events most common to middle class Americans. Any one experiencing at least four of the categories has a very significant increase in negative health and lifestyle outcomes in later life. Higher scorers have a five thousand percent increased suicide risk. I solidly hit eight out of ten. The list is flexible and allows you to add additional experiences. My final score was ten out of twelve.

This has hit home. I still need to come to terms with the nature of my childhood.

[deb1960]

Hi andthistoo

Our childhoods can be really bad even if bombs aren't going off. Also our interpretation is valid regardless. It seems your childhood was very distressing. I don't know how you deal with that. I would say my childhood played a role in my mental illness and I can handle it intellectually. Emotionally is another story.

Take care
Deb xx

[andthistoomustpass]

Thanks Deb

I think you are spot on but I don't know how I deal with it either. I wish I could accept but if you spend the first half of your life reinforcing and internalising negative messages about yourself and others for reasons of self protection it is so hard to let them go.

Thanks again.
x