Need prayers and support for a health concern

[AntoniaB]

Thanks job and Tad! It is a comfort to know that other people feel like I do about the ex and MLC and everything. It's 4 years and I guess I get disappointed in myself that I'm not some sort of pre-determined level of 'over it'...but frankly I'm the type of person who sets up goals for herself and beats herself up when she doesn't attain them. The other day in PT I was trying to do this transverse abdominus exercise and I just could not get it right with the breathing and I kept saying to the therapist "I know I'm doing it wrong and it's driving me nuts because I can't do it right no matter what you say" and she said "you are so hard on yourself, let's just try something else. It's no big deal." Eventually I got it and she said my form was better than just about anything she'd seen. Well that's kind of me in a nutshell. If something is important to me I want to be better than good at it. I want perfection. It's not possible, but I still strive. (this doesn't count for things I don't care about which I am the biggest slacker in the world about ;-) But getting past what happened has always been this goal I've had and most of the time I feel really great--those are typically the times I'm not on the boards! And then other times I feel like I'm yanked back in time to that first year--temporarily.

I guess that I need to learn to live with this. I was talking to a board member on email and she said that we needed to live with the idea that we will always be people who feel some bit of sorrow for what has happened, not that it will stop us from living our lives and not that we can't have moments of real joy and happiness, but that we just have to accept that things are changed and sometimes we are saddened by that.

I told my mom that last night because even though I'm 45 my mom still has a big effect on me and I still feel occasionally like I need to defend myself to her if I'm not where she thinks I should be. She makes pointed comments at times like "Well for months you never even mentioned XH but rarely and you seemed really past him and everything and now, well, now you're mentioning him all the time, and you're having this depression..." and it's like she's saying there is something wrong with me, or that I've somehow failed at "getting over it". So I told her what the board member said and just sort of indicated look, we are all people who went through something that you do not understand and you never truly will. We can't get over this kind of a loss and have it never bubble up again.

I love my mother and she means well. She's been a real help to me since BD. But in so many ways she doesn't get it. She seems concerned that writing my novel is hurting me. She said "maybe it's drawing you back into the past." I feel on some level like my book is my way of trying to explain to others what it is like to be one of us. Our story is not one many people relate to...the loss of someone who not only leaves your life but does a 180 on you in terms of the way he/she treats you. I think that's part of the reason I have felt compelled to tell it. Most of my book actually deals with the LBS as she struggles to gain her ground and take care of herself when she is at the end of her rope. Again--not the usual plot.

It's funny in coming back here in reading posts and such I feel a bit stronger about this novel. I am so grateful that there are people here. I don't know what I'd have done if this forum hadn't existed and it's still the place I go to when things are at the worst, so thank you everyone. I don't recognize a lot of the names/stories on here now but if anyone needs anything from me, let me know :-)