flowmom | need to commit to myself

[hoosiermama]

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.

Sorry--I haven't been following closely. How long have you been on zoloft? It takes about 4-6 weeks to sort of adjust to it and notice it's working and you're not feeling lower than whale poop. If you're not noticing a decrease in anxiety, you might try a different AD--lexapro and paxil are both particularly helpful for anxiety symptoms.

[flowmom]

Gardener, I also think that the section on "Internalizing the Rejection" will be key for me too. That happened to me as a child, and I'm back there again. Thanks for catching up with me...

[flowmom]

Hoosiermama, I've only been on zoloft for 2 days . I tried it for 4 days, two months ago then stopped due to possible side effects that may have been due to many other circumstances.

[Gardener]

fm,

Reading what I've just written, maybe I'm more depressed than I realize

My own personal experience with depression, included feeling like I was being swallowed up by a slooow black glacier and that I was losing my mind. Personally, my depression consisted of being obsessively, paralyzingly sad and terrified of just two things:
1) Absolutely nothing.
2) Absolutely everything.

I still find myself sobbing, weeping, welling up a couple of times a day. But since i know why I feel that way, I, personally don't consider that part of - or a return of - the depression. I view it as normal. Normal sadness. Normal grief. And one can't cure "normal." It may well be that I'm still stuck too long in one of Susan Anderson's Stages, but I don't beat myself up over it. I cry. For a reason. I hurt. Still.

Cut yourself some slack. You are in anguish. You find yourself suddenly sobbing, weeping, "losing it."
This is you feeling your pain, expressing your pain, purging your pain your way.

imho.

[hoosiermama]

Gardener, I also think that the section on "Internalizing the Rejection" will be key for me too. That happened to me as a child, and I'm back there again. Thanks for catching up with me...

It all cycles back around again with new traumas. that's why it's easy to get stuck--but the good news is it's an excellent opportunity to get to the root of things and move past old stuff. It takes work, but it also takes time and can't be rushed--believe me, I tried.

give the AD's some time. they're not magic, but they're another tool to get thru this time intact. or improved!

[Gardener]

fm,

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.

Tell your doctor. Your last bad experience with Zoloft may not have been for the reasons you cited: Zoloft may not be the right AD for you. Like I told you before, I tried three before we hit on one that "worked".

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.

This is very common: Depression/anxiety can go hand in hand and one can almost be "disguised" as the other.. I don't have panic attacks (racing heart, difficulty breathing, etc.) but I experience anxiety. And the one pharmaceutical I still have is a low dose, non-habit-forming anti-anxiety medicine. When I think I need it, it takes maybe 5 - 10 minutes to kick in and I feel nothing (not drugged, woozy, etc): it just takes the edge off just enough.
Repeat: talk to your doctor.

[flowmom]

Gardener, I think you are right. It doesn't doesn't concern me as much that I am sad and filled with grief. It concerns me more that I am having trouble taking action to help myself in concrete ways. This was a pattern in past depressions (in my 20s), and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of inaction-paralysis-low self esteem-self-berating, with a topping of financial stress due to under-earning. Addressing that is my goal in taking ADs.

[Gardener]

fm,

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.

You've mentioned struggling with immediate benefits of meditation, etc. What you so beautifully and vibrantly posted above tells me that you should just spend more time outdoors, period...even doing "nothing."
Sobbing or not , get your butt outside in this beautiful world more and just soak it up, take it in. Clearly, you derive true, deep visceral joy from it (I can relate )

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.

Why you just described a...a normal - though pained - human being! Hooray for flowmom!

[hoosiermama]

...and you're already taking action to break the cycle, and you're helping yourself in concrete ways. be sure to give yourself affirmation for that.

[Gardener]

fm,

...it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of inaction-paralysis-low self esteem-self-berating, with a topping of financial stress due to under-earning. Addressing that is my goal in taking ADs.

I can relate, here, too. I've been there. Quite frankly, I find myself back there again right now.
Stupid Romeo had good advice, good tips. You responded that you were familiar with David Allen & procrastination theory (which I assume is what/who SR was referring to). Revisit it.

I do two things now re: taking action, not procrastinating:

1) Taking Gypsy's advice, I identify which task frightens or intimidates me the most. This I do first. I get the most pressing, daunting one done (even if that's the only thing I accomplish that day!) It's gone. And I feel great. About that. And about myself.

2) I reframe all my "I shoulds," "I gottas," "oh-my-God-I-STILL-haven'ts....", etc.,into a preference, a desire, taking control, not being controlled. Instead of "should, gotta, still haven't," berating, when I pick that one task that intimidates me the most I say to myself. " I want this one off my plate NOW."
Anyway, it works for me.