I'm a survivor so I'm allowed to make jokes about it!!
Quote:
I have explained to her that actually, the anxiety attacks were protective to me - much like a pressure release.
...or ... your anxiety attacks were like her cutting, a learned, but unhealthy, way to cope with disappointment and things outside of your control ... and now you are learning healthier ways to deal with those things, including through spirituality, new interests, etc ...
just sayin'
I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend the book The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck. The two key theme’s that resonate with me in this work by Peck are his views on discipline and love vs being “in-love”.
On discipline, he hypothosises that life is hard, and it is a series of problems, and the process of confronting these problems "evoke in us frustration or grief or sadness, anguish or despair." He says that in dealing with problems and crisis we gain wisdom, strength and courage – in fact dealing with pain and painful situations is the only way we can truly grow. He states, "This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness." He then discusses how we can learn to cope with suffering and go on to live the life we are supposed to live.
On love he discusses the difference between being "in love" and love. He notes that love is not a feeling, but an activity, and defines it as "the willingness to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own and another's spiritual growth." He writes to be very aware/and suspect of the familiar "in love" feeling for two reasons: 1) "The experience of falling in love is specifically a sex-linked erotic experience," which he believes may be genetically coded in us to insure the perpetuation of the species; and 2) "The experience of falling in love is invariably temporary...the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes."
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
