Need help with a complex situation with depression

I think the thing @Faith-and-Hope is that I was so emotionally repressed until I had my breakdown not that I didn't react to emotions but I didn't feel them if that makes sense. They were buried. Now they just explode out of me and when they are too intense I SH to shut them out/make them stop.

At the moment something or someone has been shaking and awakening those emotions.

I'm not sure I have the same confidence as you have that I can do this but today I had the biggest reality check yet. It was the point where I realised I had to learn to deal with this but the step my therapist needed me to do was too big. I guess right now I know I have to learn to face this or remain stuck and get swallowed up. I still couldn't have done what she needed me to do but I was saved by something just as emotional and equally difficult. Sorry for being vague. I can't spell it out yet. Maybe in a few weeks but not now. @Faith-and-Hope But it has triggered my mother instincts for the first time in a while.

Thanks @Faith-and-Hope. I guess I just needed someone to listen to vague conversation. I realised after you had no where to go with it. I thank you for listening though. I think I'll look back over these posts again. I should copy and paste some of them into a file so that everything is not so scattered.

today I also spoke to my therapist about how I was worried the forum was making me more unwell she assured me it's not the forum but the things in real life and that once I dealt with them my fears about the forum would disappear. I'm still not ready to come back on properly though.

on a side note I just got on my computer and opened photoshop for the first time in years to try to make Nik a birthday card/picture. I'm losing a big battle. I'd hoped it would be like riding a bike but apparently not. I can't remember some basic stuff 😬.

I hope your celebration and cultural day has been enjoyable. How did WH go?

It's ok @Faith-and-Hope. I know you must be tired. I'll leave you to it. Speak soon

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Just allied back from the coffee bar @Former-Member ... about 15mins .... then settling everyone for bed. Got you to myself now for a while .... 😊

A lot of our church / cultural celebrations (closely entwined) involve a degree of pageantry, which is attractive to someone as visual as me .... and our churches are quiet, reflective places decked out with iconography, which is traditionally stylised in the Byzantine tradition ... that was around 300AD, when Christians could come out of hiding and not be thrown into the Colluseum ....

Greeks are very social creatures, and the cost of living is relatively low, so you can go out and eat, drink and be merry on a shoestring .... so if you trip over you will fall through the door of a coffee-bar or restaurant with amazing organic food - they hardly know any other way. And nobody gets drunk, apart from some smallish enclaves of disaffected youth, who are generally into substance abuse in any case ....

Crime rate is really low, apart from pick-pockets in very touristy areas, but you never feel threatened at a personal level, just affronted if something is stolen without you having realised, but it means it's safe to walk around at any time of day or night, and there is a strong sense of ettiquette and civility.

All of that is a bit of background FYI ..... 🌷

Usually we go out here and soak up the social life that is not so available where we are in Aus, but to mark this occasion with some family time, WH ear-marked this afternoon for a movie marathon. He then feels the need to remonstrate until the kids comply with his time alotmwnt ... :face_with_rolling_eyes: ... and will get very narky if he is crossed over it, so that's walking on eggshells time till everyone is settled in .... then he sets himself up with pillow and blanket and dozes on and off through the movie ... so in his thinking he is there and part of it, but to the rest of us of course he is only part-there ....

Then it was off to the coffee shop downstairs for his coffee-stop (regimen) before returning for the second movie .... wherein he set up to do some work on his notebook at a desk in the corner of the room, thinking that nobody was noticing him c / s .... D3 text me that he was .... harder to hide these things in the confines of a much smaller living space, but he does a good job of it generally. I do worry sometimes about the long-term effects on the kids, but I'm guessing there will be a d-brief and scanning of the kids emotional health at some point, and I'm just trusting that we will all end up relatively okay.

S2 has taken to playing backgammon with WH in the coffee bar at night, and tonight D3 joined us there and played too .... all of us trying to weave some happy memories and sense of normality into this strange reality we are living.

Hope that's not too much info for you .... never sure about other people's triggers here, but we are pretty good at letting each other know I think, mostly ....

💜💕

Sorry @Faith-and-Hope. Not sure what I was thinking. I was stressed and trying to distract but no thinking clearly. I think I'll take at break I need now :face_with_rolling_eyes:

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Hi @Former-Member ....

I really appreciated your reply.

I woke up, "liked" it then dozed back off .... which is good. I can see I managed another couple of hours sleep.

It was supposed to have snowed overnight, but I haven't been near a window yet. I want to go for a walk this morning, and we have to pack a bag for this spa town trip, but WH is a bit iffy about driving in the snow, and the area we have to pass through has received heavy snowfall, and will do so for a couple of days. Gonna see what we want to do ahead of leaving tomorrow.