"Sharks and fish can be friends" from Finding Nemo

[beatrice]

PEI - I think you are so right about the differences. Look at a playground full of kids - who in their right mind would want all of them to be the same? Some are outgoing, some not, some more courageoous, others naturally timid, and as long as each of them grows and develops, the differences are what makes life so wonderful.

What is right for you, is not right for everyone, as you recognise. Sometimes we see someone stuck, and wallowing [although I don't think much of it goes on here, really] But the wallower has to see that they need to stop. People heal at different rates, and in different ways.

I realise now that as I have healed from this trauma, I have also healed from a series of earlier traumas that I never allowed myself to feel or experience. So there is a greater peace. The length of time it has taken me has been really exasperating, but as I emerge, finally [though with backslides], I can see that I was dealing with a lot more than my h's MLC. In a weird way what happened enabled me to address other hurts and damage. At teh time people thought it was 'wonderful' how I dealt with family tragedy. No, it wasn't, it was weird. Grieving is what people do after loss, and they need to be able, and enabled to do this, otherwise it gets bottled up in ways that can be downright destructive.

[punkin]

Bottled up. That is the word for how I feel most of the time. I appear to be AOK, full steam ahead, self reliant and confident. Actually, I often feel I need to scream!!! Case in point, I went to a memorial service for a schoolmate that died last Friday. I was LOOKING FORWARD to someone wrenching my guts out of me, to let it out, and I just didn't. Pushing myself to BE STRONG.

Yes, Pei is right, we want it to BE OVER, and the perception of us having it all together and moving on may help, but inside ???
When I am alone, at night, all the insecurities and grief and rage comes out, but not as a healthy emotion. As a pounding headache, nightmare, panic attack. I feel stuck. I can't cry and get it out, and I can't move along. I do not want to wallow, but can't seem to get out of the butt crack I'm in emotionally.

When this all began, I couldn't STOP crying. Now, I can't cry. Everything is stopped up like a toilet. Dangerous waters. I'm afraid I'll go postal on a patient at work or something.

[AntoniaB]

Punkin that is how I was--it was all in my shoulders and neck something terrible--till I finally started to sleep better. I take ambien but not every night. If I take it every night, after the 3rd or 4th night, I get migraines the next day. I have to do like one night on, then 2-3 nights off, and on the off nights I take herbal stuff (valerian/passionflower in a pill) and melatonin. The herbs and melatonin are OTC and not as effective at knocking me out a good 7 hours or so, but I get some sleep.

All that means that in the day I don't feel as bottled up as I used to, I feel more relaxed. I know you were having sleep problems, and I wonder if this alone is responsible for a lot of the way you feel in the day. Lack of enough sleep can make you crazy, for real.

Are you seeing a doctor for any of this? Maybe you just need to find the right combo of herbs/natural stuff and prescritpion drugs. Oh there is also a book I've read through called The Insomnia Solution that talks about non-drug methods for sleep/lowering the anxiety at night, and mainly it talks about small movements you synchronize with your breathing, like fold your hands together and move your thumb slowly across your other hand as you breathe with that movement, to slow down your nervous system...

[punkin]

I've been exploring something called the NightWave, which is a technique that teaches you how to breath/control your heartbeat in order to relax and turn off your mind. Ordered it last night. It has a 30 day money back guarentee, so I'll let you know how it works. I have Ambien, which I do not take every night. Melatonin, HT5, all of that. It just doesn't seem to work. Yes, the Ambien knocks me out. I used it last night and didn't even hear my son call at 9:30, and the phone was next to my head.

[AntoniaB]

Hey glad to hear you're being proactive and I'll be curious to see how that works. I didn't take the ambien last night, did the herbal/melatonin, was awake off and on for 5 1/2 hours then finally gave up and got up. Now I just have to make sure I don't take a catnap today and I'll be more tired tonight...I would say more than half the women I know in their 40's-50's have issues with insomnia and yet I rarely hear men talk about this, making me think it might be hormonal.

As in, hormonal, then when you can't sleep because your hormones are all out of whack, you end up ruminating on everything bugging you. I know people who are not facing major stress at all who STILL can't sleep. It's like an epidemic :-/

[Walking]

I've found the best way to ensure I sleep well is to make sure I exercise every day. Just 30 - 35 minutes of something, even if it's just a good walk ... guarantees a good night sleep.

Of course I keep a little packet of sleep-aids handy in the bedside table just in case the guarantee fails occasionally ..... (but Antonia, menopause ... crikey, I hope not yet!! lol)

[AntoniaB]

God, I was afraid someone was gonna say exercise ;-)

Thanks for writing that V, I know....I hate exercise and lately have just gone for long stretches without eating to avoid it, ha ha.

I'm sure I'm in perimenopause or whatever...frankly I feel like I wouldn't care if I was in menopause at 42. My mom went through it at 45ish having had 4 kids. I never had kids and XH had had a vasectomy, so I've never had to worry about the whole pregnancy thing after I was around 27 years old, and that's a whole 'nother fear coming with dating again if anything "gets serious" and I hate to have to deal with all that. I'd be happy to just get the "change of life" under my belt/checked off, as it were ;-)

[labug]

Exercise didn't do it for me. I was riding my bike 10 miles most days and still would be wide awake at 0300 with gerbil-brain! I am post-meno and all this sleeplessness started pre-meno but was exacerbated by the bomb drop. I've tried exercise, decreasing caffeine, guided meditation, cutting out wine, Rx sleep meds, OTC sleep aids with little success. The sleeplessness has continued to plague me until...

I reached a state of detachment.

[punkin]

Okay. Tomorrow is the day. My XH and I are having our 13th grandchild, the first since we split, and he will be no where around. I don't even know if he knows or cares. Our D23 wouldn't have him there in any case. But I feel conflicted. It's his grandson, too, but I can't make him want to be there, and I can't make D allow it. All in all, he hasn't had anything to do with at least six of our grands in 2 years. If the girls contact him at all, he makes accepting the OW part of the package, and they aren't ready to buy. Why? Does she mean so much more than his own grandbabies? I will never understand.

[AntoniaB]

Punkin you might have already read it, but IB's thread is on this subject too lately, so it might help, starting around where Beatrice talks about her son's comment about MLCers...

I don't know that this is any "comfort" but my sister has complained for years that her in-laws were notoriously absent for many big events in her kids' lives. They lived nearby and yet she'd invite them for things and they would just decline and they'd not be doing a blessed thing. They just seemed to not want to be involved. They would say things like "we have 10 grandkids" or however many it was and just act like once there were a few of them, the rest weren't as special. I realize a birth is "different", but I think sometimes people just detach even if they aren't MLCers. My sister used to really get upset and feel rejected, and eventually when she saw that her MIL and FIL would also skip other grandkids' birthdays and such, she was able to see it was just how they chose to be in later life.

I do think that like a teenager, the MLCer has this weird sort of "accept the OP and throw your arms around them or I'm throwing a tantrum" mentality. I've seen my XH do it with all the mutual friends who "defected" to my side in that he has ceased all contact with them or liking their posts on FB, and yet, he doesn't defriend them, because he is obviously waiting till they "come around" and I don't think they ever will.