Hear hear! I ran across this thread at exactly the right time. It’s been six months since my first Great Shock of 2007 and this thread gave me an additional kick in the pants to not give up again and become the person I want to be. I’m actually making plans for my future and believing in them. Hell, I’m starting to get my Teaching Confidence back (granted, that may be because I’ve found what I want to teach as well).
What’s that? A light? Indicating the end of a tunnel? :eek: How can that be?
It might be a train… an electric train, travelling in the direction you want to go. Hop on! 
SpazCat, I have to remember your advice about reacing out to my family. It doesn’t come naturally; I really have to push myself to do it. And I think they’ve gotten used the idea that I’ve walled myself off from them. So, another thing to do. But I don’t mind. It’s just pushing out of the pattern that requires effort. But then I remember that that pattern is sucking the life out of my father.
olivesmarch4th, thanks. You’re one of the posters I admire on these boards.
:: nods ::
Tell me about it. That little voice almost drove me to suicide.
I never thought of it that way before. I always knew I was on the knife edge between deciding to live and deciding to die–and that goes back to my birth, when I barely survived being 3 months premature… in 1963… but there’s a hidden core of stubbornness in me that pushes me forward. Sometimes it takes a lot to uncover it, but it’s there.
:: nods ::
Substiture “client” for “boss”, and you have me. I just booked a train ticket to go see someone who wants me–me!–to design them a solar-powered house. I’m oscillating between jubilation and absolute terror at the thought. Can I do it? Can I take these peoples’ money and actually deliver plans that will get approved and then, when built, yield a functioning house?
This is the biggest risk I’ve taken in many years, compared to which social situations such as small talk and asking a woman out are trivial (even if social situations are more immediately scary).
But my counselor gave me a way to handle social situations: think about what the other person wants or is doing, rather than what you want, feel, or are doing. Ask them questions, and try to learn a bit of their story. I’ve been testing this at Dopefests and elsewhere, and it’s working quite well.
Oh man. I have got to remember that or put it on a T-shirt or something. Another tdn jewel.
You’ve posted a few yourself. We need to mine this thread for great quotes and get some cocktail napkins printed up.
Here’s another favorite: Shoot for the stars and hit the mud. Shoot for the mud and make it.
:eek: Whoa. Whoa. Too stunned with self-awareness to talk.
:eek: <-- my eyes have been opened wide like this
That’s beautiful!
OC, I know from your other thread that you are now pregnant, and that you intend to keep the baby and raise him or her alone. (Alone, in the sense that the father is unlikely to be there.) Please seek help, professional as well as from your family - newborns are stressful under the best of circumstances, and postpartum depression is far worse among those who are already depressed.
This has been a great thread for me to read.
I have a long, long history of depression and PTSD, but have been doing pretty well for a number of years. Well enough that people who know me now would never in a million years guess what my “prior life” had been like—all the hospitalizations, a few suicide attempts, etc.
Lately, though, I haven’t been feeling that terrific. I started in therapy again, and the dpression is better, but the panic attacks are back. I realize that it wouldn’t take much for this whole house of cards to fall down. I have 2 kids and a husband, and if something ever happened to one of them, I’d have to hold it together for the rest of them…and I’m pretty sure I just couldn’t do it. My worst fear is that my husband contracts an illness (I generally imagine lung cancer because he’s a smoker, and that’s a wretched and lingering one, so it lends more trauma to my mental scenario) and dies. So, I’m left as a single mother and I cope so poorly that I ruin my kids’ lives, too.
Anyhow, I’m working on things, I really am. But there are certainly days when I want to call in sick and hide in my bed and all that. Just reading some of this stuff here has helped a lot.
Wow, lorene, I never would have guessed. You seem so together.
About your husband dying of lung cancer – It hasn’t happened yet. You’re stressing about the future, and you can’t control the future. But you can hedge your bets by convincing your husband to make a healthy decision.
That’s going to be hard, but here’s some advice – NEVER nag a smoker. It always backfires.
Yeah, as a former smoker, I know how effective nagging can be. 
Thanks for the kind words. There are days when I feel very together, and days when I don’t. From everything I’ve read olives and I have had a lot of similarities in our lives and a lot of what she wrote sounded familiar. I think the day when I can truly say I was no longer giving up was the day that I decided that I had to change from trying to make my past not true (never a realistic treatment goal, by the way) and make my future livable.
Some days, I’m just tired, you know?
I know the feeling. Those panic attacks can get you spiralling into all kinds of “bad thoughts”, can’t they? But I bet you have made it through a lot of things you thought would kill you. And you can do the best you can now and know that even if the worst happened, you honestly don’t know how you would be then. Yes, maybe your worst fears would be true and things would fall apart. But there’s always a chance they won’t. Hopefully you’ll never have to learn, but your strength will be greater than you imagine. OR you will know how to ask for help.
I am jumping into this thread quite late but just read through many of the responses.
It’s amazing what we go through , how it affects us, and how we come out on the other side.
For myself, giving up would be the return to drugs. I say that without thinking twice. At the age of 35 (several years ago), I started abusing my prescription pain meds and eventually began using stronger stuff that I had access to at work(nurse). It’s the health field’s dirty little secret, Nurses, Doctors, pharmacists,etc being addicts.
Anyway, my addiction and lies led me to a world of trouble and despair. I damn near killed myself several times with the amount of drugs I was using, and mixing it with booze as well. I also gained 100 pounds in the process leading up to this between being depressed, having marital problems, then separating. My life sucked, no one knew what I was doing and I felt so alone in my misery.
For the next couple of years I stopped the hard stuff and used “only” the pills and booze infrequently until finally I got some help. It took a lot of honesty and commitment for me to get the help I needed but I am grateful that I did. My life is 1000% better now. I am clean and I lost the weight too.
I never, ever want to go back to that dark, lonely, horrid place in my life. Addiction robs you of your soul, your entire being, your moral fiber. It’s so much better to be me again.
I have a week and a half off school just now, thanks to Sukkos (sp?), and having the time to rest, connect with friends, and just be has been wonderful.
The last three years have been really, really hard. I moved out here from California, because I decided that I wanted to live somewhere I could some day afford to buy a house, somewhere I might actually be able to date a little bit, and somewhere I had a network of family and friends. Once I got out here, I went through a year of unemployment, six months working for one of the worst school districts in the country (Dallas Independent School District), a year working in a pleasant but dead job, and six months working that job and another part-time job so I could get back into teaching and pay the bills. Then there was the colposcopy, the lay off, my Dad’s stroke, and in August, the principal at the part-time job wrote me a bad paycheck, which set me back financially a good two months.
sigh
Well, hell, no wonder I was so miserable.
I hope (fingers crossed) that I’m not jinxing myself in saying that I’m in a good place now - a good job, a good state of mind, a good place with my friends, and I’m getting out of that financial pit.
It’s helped a lot to write about it here, and it helped, oh, about a hundred gazillion thousand majillion bobillion degrees to read everyone else’s stories and their responses.
tdn, I can’t say how glad I am to read that you’ve found a good place in your head, especially with your completely understandable anger and discouragement over dating and relationships. Litoris, gigi, and olivesmarch4th, I wish I could take you for a Girls’ Night Out and share your stories, your pain, your triumphs. Lorene, I know where you’re coming from. It’s not forever. Get the help and support you need. Take good care of yourself.
“You,” as my minister likes to say at the end of the service, “are a good gift.”
Thank you, all of you, for the gifts you have bestowed on me.
Giving up seems to look a lot like moping around your house in your underwear, letting yourself get fat and out of shape and cutting off all ties to the outside world.
I like bumming around the house as much as the next guy, but it gets lonely and depressing if you do it for too long. Go to the gym or go for a bike ride or run. Explore around your neighborhood. Find a new trendy bar or lounge to hang out at. Go to a new restuarant. Don’t just sit around waiting for people to call. If people do call you to do something, try and show up at least for a little bit.
The problem, especially once move away from familiar surroundings, is that it’s easy to get caught in a depressing spiral of “I don’t have anyone to do anything with” -> “I don’t have anything to do.” -> “I’m not doing anything so I’m not meeting anyone.”
It also helps to try turning off the TV and computer for a few days.
Whew, I’m OK then. I wear tee shirt and PJ pants over my underwear.
I read a good piece of advice about this, to someone who was deliberating about whether to go out to an event. “You already know how the evening will be if you stay home, whereas if you go out it might be something new and different.” Sometimes I believe it, and sometimes the safety of knowing exactly what the evening will be like wins out.
What I realized too if I have the choice whether to go AND the choice whether to stay at the event. Knowing that I can up and leave if I feel like it is comforting, and then I don’t feel any sort of trap in being “stuck” at an event I am uncomfortable with.
What, are you throwing a party or something?
Sometimes I can be bothered to put on underwear.
Unless you go on a 3 hour harbor cruise like I did. Then you’re stuck for the duration. I went on one as part of a school alumni function and had a really terrible time. I went again the following year and ended up hanging out with these girls all night and even went on a few dates with one afterwards. So you never know even when you know something will suck.
I should point out I’m posting in my boxers. I started to get changed for the gym and kind of stalled out a bit.
To be fair, I don’t check to make sure the shirt and pants don’t clash horribly.