Walking on the road to recovery ........ 🤔

[NikNik]

Hi @Teej

Thank you for your kind words.

F&H has provided some great feedback.

I just wanted to remind you of this image:

Just because you weren't feeling great after feeling so positive, doesn't take away from that moment - it doesn't change the meaning.

I hope you're travelling better and not being too tough on yourself.

[Teej]

Just a strange update. My day started off terrible but is improving. My brain was completely awol. Decided this morning that putting on my shoes first would be a good idea :face_with_rolling_eyes:, only problem was getting undies and pants on over them was not a good plan😏. Really struggled driving to group, think I broke every road rule as I couldn’t concentrate at all🤨. By now I was pretty angry at myself, I was an hour late and missed half the walking part.......but something strange happened. Anger for me is always a flattening of energy and turning inwards to self hate. Today I managed to use it as energy to drive me to get my walking quota in. I managed my walking goal in half the time and it changed my day around. 

These are the moments for me that are helping. I don’t think I can strictly adhere to following a therapy but need to experience things as they happen and then try to replicate it again in similar situations. 

Yesterday something similar happened in that I came out of my very stressful situation armed with a plan for two scenarios. One if it went well and one if it didn’t. I actually left feeling more confident because I knew I could enact a plan either way and it worked. It really helped to have two plans as I’m not coping with positive or negative emotions (they can both lead to SH, the positive one more impulsively so now). It was one of the first times that I’ve been able to do that and I think I felt better about following my plan than the positive emotions from my experience. Also at this point just wanting to acknowledge that the sane help centre has played such a big role in much of the positive stuff that is beginning to happen. My double plan was created with support from the help centre on Friday.

Sometimes with mi it feels like life is supposed to just be a series of plans. I have struggled so much with that and hated myself every time I should have followed a plan and I didn’t. I think for me personally I need to treat each situation as it arises for now and deal with it as it comes up. DBT hasn’t worked for me as such but applying some of the concepts/ principles to situations when I’m in a place to cope with them is waaaay more helpful.  I’m still feeling totally overwhelmed with what is in front of me to get me functioning in society again but I am feeling way less stuck than I have since it all began 6 and a half years ago. 

I write this post on my bed totally exhausted from my few trips out this week. I had started getting mad at myself that I am only managing a few things a day and that this is still not good enough but I remembered that this is a work in progress and it’s ok. Proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks 😜. It’s only taken loads of support and lots of broken records to even acknowledge that 😳

love and hugs to all 💜🤗

[Faith-and-Hope]

That is sounding so great @Teej .....  ❣️.... well done.

I am bumbling through my days at the moment .... ticking off a few boxes here and there .... so something is done by the end of the day .....

everybody fed ✔️

something cleaned ✔️

something put away ✔️

something sorted / solved ❓✔️ (maybe)

any appointments kept ✔️

something for me ✔️ (cuppa will do)

It’s walking on the road to recovery .....

[Faith-and-Hope]

Didn’t know whether to acknowledge the re-gaining of emotional control specifically @Teej .... I know that’s the biggest part of this ..... that’s a big piece settling back into place.

🎉

[Teej]

Thanks @Faith-and-Hope. I know it’s all kind of messy with this stuff but I’m in a headspace where I’m trying to learn to deal with it all, even the good. I decided to share this as when I started on the forum it was members acknowledging their steps forward (and back) that was most inspiring and helpful to me. I have so much in my head still but a few things are slowly starting to make sense and feel ok. It took such a long time for me to stop looking for a magic wand (ok I’ll never stop looking for it but it’s a bit allusive and probably ain’t gonna happen 😝) and I think it’s taking a while to accept that we are all different and there will be loads of ways of getting to a better life, it’s just finding the things that work for me. I think this is such and individual thing like weight loss.....so many different ideas even though many combine similar things. 

I am so frustrated at my stamina. I guess having spent the most part of the last few years in bed was never going to be easy. I have so many things I want to do now, I have the motivation but straggle with strength and stamina. Add emotions and some physical work in a day and I’m wrecked. I know I have to be patient and push a little harder when I can. 

Thanks for the responses, the validation is good but it feels good for me to be able share as a way of storytelling too (one of brenes things 😊). Others stories helped me so much so I’m hoping mine might too. Sometimes just reading people’s experiences helps even if you disagree with some things. 

[Faith-and-Hope]

I agree @Teej .....

It was finding that people understood my confusion and distress when I first arrived here ... not based on similar circumstances, but on parallel feelings. Seeing how others made their way forward meant a lot .... and so did hearing then say that I was doing well.

We need all of it out here.

[Faith-and-Hope]

I hope that didn’t come across as clinical @Teej. It was my way of saying I felt it too ..... how important it was to hear the life stories, the struggles, and the baby steps forward ... and to receive the support and understanding we need too.

I love the two plans.

I edit plans .... that’s my way of working my way through whatever comes up.

💜

[Teej]

Not at all @Faith-and-Hope. I really wanted to write another post but had to do some things, then fell in a hole and just been doing puzzles as it’s all my brain would cope with. I could never take offence at anything you write. 😘

I have lots I want to say at some point soon, much of it I think you know. I’m just struggling to get words on a page. 

I hope your day has been ok 💜🤗

[Faith-and-Hope]

It’s been a calm sort of day today @Teej .... like the wave of our move here is starting to wash over me.  I still can’t think about it too much, and I am missing my other kids, so staying busy will be part of surviving this new reality.  

Tonight I am brain tired.  I am hearing you about struggling to line up the words properly .... think I need the dramas of the last three weeks to recede into the background now.  I can feel that it’s going to be one day at a time from here, finding productive things to do, but still waiting it out.  There is still so much unresolved stuff that can’t be resolved until a dx or some sort of crunch point.

Puzzles are good 👍 .... think they help to burn stress energy.

[Teej]

I’m glad today was ok @Faith-and-Hope. Here’s hoping you find a life you can enjoy more there soon. I hope when everything is settled you can find things that you look forward to again that are quintessentially F&H 💜🤗