flowmom | need to commit to myself

[flowmom]

CG, thanks for your post. You're on the right track with many of your interpretations...but I'm still working on the solutions. I've only had the occasional anxiety attack and I really feel for you that you've had to deal with that a lot. I don't have any clinical anxiety condition, but I do feel that - for me - a lot of what feels like depression is actually masked, diffuse anxiety. I would easily fit the clinical depression criteria, but of course that is largely situational ("normal" abandonment symptoms). My sister did find that during a huge life crisis she was dealing with what seemed like depression, with a lot of underlying anxiety...AD helped her with that and that's why she's encouraging me to try it.

Last night I re-experienced one of the unpleasant symptoms that I think might have come from the Zoloft: lying in bed feeling alarmed by how unnaturally loudly my heart seemed to be pounding.

[flowmom]

Kara, thanks for chiming into my thread . Running has been a trigger for sobbing, though it probably is a positive release of grief. I think a normal hatha yoga class would be good too. Thanks for the support from a fellow procrastinator...I know you know what a struggle it can be.

[flowmom]

FM, how're you doing today?

Feeling happy about the first day of spring . I am like a child when it comes to feeling excited about all the special calendar days . As a nature lover, the spring equinox today (tonight at midnight-ish) is very meaningful to me. Today is half light, half dark: life is in perfect balance. Life is stirring in the black soil that seeemed so barren. Flowers are bursting open and the sun is shining. Optimism is on the menu.

Do you think you're sobbing because you miss your husband, or because you miss someone (since you're not used to the void - none of us are) or because you're afraid of the unknown or because you feel something good is now ruined etc? I think it's important for you to know the reason.

1. I am deeply saddened by the pain this seems to be causing my children in the present.

2. I adore my H and I want to touch him, be close to him, and talk with him...it hurts not to have that.

3. All my dreams for the future revolved around our life as a whole, intact family...I'm mourning the loss of those dreams.

4. I'm scared of the future (multi-part fears).

5. The rejection that I'm experiencing is triggering deep-seated feelings of unworthiness, unloveability, insecurity. I am having to process the consequences of having been emotionally neglected as a child. Again.

--

Hmm, I guess even in writing this post I've felt the light and the dark. Just need to stop the dark from blotting out the light.

[flowmom]

Google Martin Seligman and "Learned Optimisim.

Thanks, I will.

[flowmom]

So, H was in a good mood today, and I met one of my DB goals for a second time...he made a joke to me.

[flowmom]

So I just did the Learned Optimism test here:

http://www.stanford.edu/class/msande271/onlinetools/LearnedOpt.html

The results say that I am pretty average in how I deal with bad things happening. It's my cognitive style around good things happening that is problematic. I tend to see good things that happen as short lived (temporary), caused by someone else (external), and only affecting a partial area of my life (specific). Overall I am "very pessimistic" as a result.

I can see that optimism could play a huge role in creating a better future for myself, so this is something that I'd like to investigate more.

[flowmom]

Well I just finished an ugly paperwork issue that I've procrastinated on for 2 years (something that H was really angry about). He won't know that I did it...but I do

[Gardener]

rr22, I'm behind and have been catching up with flowmom and I gotta tell you: This is a great post! Right on the money!

I have the never even looked or thought about another since met H problem too. I'm not sure that it WILL go away actually. I don't know if it goes away for everyone. I have met women and men who, post-D, say they are "done" for life and are living that reality. And no, they don't necessarily have "issues." I think people should be realistic and that how great divorce is books and individual therapists give people the idea that they DEFINITELY will meet their LIFELOVE around the corner. No. Reality doesn't bear that out. You only have some percentage chance of that. What divorcing people need to be accepting is the 50/50 chance that they will be single and figure out how to be happy with that.

My thoughts and feelings exactly. And where I am (right now), for me I would change the last line to:

"What divorcing people need to be accepting is the 50/50 chance that they will be single and figure out how to be happy with that." For me, that is both my starting point and my goal...before anything else.

Thanks, again for a great, cogent post.

[Gardener]

fm, I'm behind and doing some catching up. I am still working/reading the "Shattered" section of Andrson's TJFATH. While I don't "skim ahead," I do see that stage three is Internalizing the Rejection. Having not read it I assume at this point it refers to the "Spouse abandoned me, so there must be something wrong/lacking/failing/terrible in me!" victimhood.

I won't rush, because the book takes time, thought, reflection and work, but I can't wait to get to that section, that stage. I believe that has been my biggest problem: I became stuck - mired - in that stage, that feeling, that dysfunctional thinking for way too long.

And to be perfectly honest, I think I'm still there in many ways.

We'll see when I get there.

[Gardener]

As I said last night, this:

I do have friends who found that low doses of antidepressants just "took the edge off" and allowed them to start initiating self care activities like exercise, meditation, and making life changes.

This is a hard step for me because I was raised with powerful alternative health messages...pharmaceuticals feel "evil" to me. But at this point I can't afford to wallow when there's something that I can do that stands a good chance of helping me with little effort on my part.

Is exactly who I am, where I was and I took the pharma-plunge willingly. Glad that i did. Hope you have a similar experience in taking the edge off just enough to focus on positive steps.