Hello @Emelia8 , @Bow , @Anastasia , @Mazarita , @Mumi , @Snowie , @Clawde ,
and other visitors to the “Hangar”
A Few Thoughts About Progress, Pacing and Rest.
Your comments @Emelia8 seem to vary between sometimes wanting some company, more often, offering company to other members but also relating, through your own experience, to the pain of the people with whom you are speaking. Then feeling the almost over-whelming pain of your own recent events, recent and past experiences and associated trauma. Such feelings may possibly be precipitated by your own awareness and connection with the pain that others are experiencing or have experienced and the descriptions that we each share, with difficulty, both in presentation to each other and acknowledgement of each other's situations.
Activity in the forum can be rewarding but also painful. Sometimes, when I am feeling really low, it seems like there is no escape. “Damned if I do and damned if I don't”. If I move away from the forum, I take myself with me, if I talk about how I'm feeling, I question whether I am just reinforcing and increasing the unpleasant feelings that I have at any given time. If I relate to the way others have conveyed their feelings, sometimes there is some relief in knowing that another or others and I can share and understand, through words, how we each feel to some degree, expressing those feelings and what we are thinking, in writing on the screen.
When I started to respond to your expression of self on the “My Mosaic” thread, @Emelia8 , I felt stumped, just couldn't think. Among the first few words of the commencement of the post was the statement;
“Unfortunately, I feel, somehow lost for words.”
I started writing in my word processor, just trying to connect the descriptions you had used with my own feelings. And something comes through. I just hope that what I am writing conveys meaning in ways to which you and others can relate, share and provide some element of understanding and mutual support between us.
When I want more inspiration, I look back through the posts in a thread or threads, to see what others have written of their thoughts and feelings. This may be for a specific response to one person, or a more general response to a number of members, or members of the forum in general. Sometimes, memories of what people have said, with whom I have had a fair deal of contact, “feed my thoughts”. In this way, I try to maintain a mental connection with other members, not just about the last comment, but about how people have presented themselves in words; their online characters. It is in this way that I try to get to know members and relate to them in ways that are appropriate for me to do so, and others to do so with me, in the forum.
There are times when I/we feel as though our personal resources are as empty as a dry fuel tank. Those are really frustrating and severely challenging times, because not only do we feel unable to extend ourselves to assisting others, we are at such times, feeling unable to help ourselves. Physical limitations combined with mental health issues can also have the sensation and applied effect of reducing our range and capacity in such away as to be a barrier to being able to even meet our own immediate physical needs. When we are on our own, these sensations, feelings and limitations can also be overwhelming, as it can also feel when we feel responsible for the welfare of others. This can particularly be so if we have previously been accustomed to being independent and at least to some degree, self-sufficient.
@Bow made a comment yesterday about flashbacks to which @Jynx replied:
“Hope you can find some ways to practice self-compassion whilst you are dealing with all of this @Bow, even if it is just trying to say to yourself 'It is okay to be exhausted and tired of this and have no energy for much of anything...' “
Which is something that we sometimes need to do, without beating ourselves up about it, or trying to force ourselves on without putting some more fuel in that 'dry fuel tank'.
With those thoughts, I present this post for your consideration.
With My Very Best Wishes
@HenryX
