Send 'smooth-sailing' sentiments to Spirit_Healer!

Welcome home, @tyme !

I am postponing my return to dancing for when my ability to fall asleep at night improves. I have been slowly weaning off my sedating antipsychotic, under the supervision of my psychiatrist. The decreases are very slight, somehow my body still notices them. I'm still taking the usual doses of another antipsychotic as well as mood stabiliser.

I've been surprised how tired I am getting even working half-days. Some days, I struggle more than others. It seems to depend on me getting to sleep relatively early - on the nights I'm out at Bible study or support group, I get home later and my mind is too active to fall asleep straight away.

And, guess why I've been excited the last few days? I was chatting to my fitness instructor last weekend, and he invited me out to eat. When I declined, he suggested we go for a walk together the following weekend. We discovered that we live around the corner from each other, and we both have the same day job. We also have similar cultural backgrounds.

I explained this encounter to my MH worker, asking her if she thinks this guy is interested in me in a dating sense. What do you think, @tyme @MissGremlin ?

That's so interesting @Spirit_Healer 🙂

Well... let's just say, fitness instructors don't usually invite their client out for dinner 🙂

Enjoy!

@Spirit_Healer I'm sorry i really can't reply in much detail tonight. But know that I've read your post and you are doing amazing at working out what your needs are at the moment and managing things the best you can. Super proud of you, keep up the amazing work ❤️.

Not sure what to make of the whole dating sense, I'm not really great at reading into that sort of thing myself.

No worries, @MissGremlin I appreciate your reply, anyway! Look after yourself and we can message at length when you're up to it.

Thanks @tyme !

@Spirit_Healer i will see if I can reply properly tomorrow, just didn't want you to think i was ignoring you.

It's been a long day and I'm emotionally and mentally drained. Just taking some time to try and recover a bit.

Sending you hugs. Hope you have a good night's sleep ❤️

@Spirit_Healer , I hope the endo surgery went well and you don't have anymore pain now.

I went through it and it did get better after endo surgery.

Hope all is well and the ex is not causing you stress.

Hugs 🫂 🤗 🥰

Hello @Healandlove , thanks for your message.

I haven't had any laproscopies for endo yet, it's just been suspected based on external ultrasounds and my symptoms. I've just been suffering every cycle and taking pain relief to make it somewhat bearable. I have also been prescribed medication to slow the flow, haven't always been using it, as it may prolong the period itself.

In some ways, the tension I feel before it comes is almost even worse than the period itself.

I haven't been out dancing yet, I keep delaying it because of how it mucks up my sleep routine, so I haven't yet bumped into my ex.

I have just returned to work five weeks ago, and so that is my priority.

I haven't heard from you much lately, how are you going?

Hello @Spirit_Healer,

I think it's good that you are allowing yourself time to return to dancing while your body is still adjusting to the medication decrease. It's funny or maybe frustrating how the slightest increase or decrease in medication can really affect the body.

Think it's very normal to be getting tired especially on those nights where you have other activities on. Whenever the routine changes slightly it can really impact on many things. But it's just a matter of things taking time to adjust, you will get there.

As I said yesterday I'm not great at reading into the dating side of things. But I think if anything it's a good opportunity to have a friendship with someone especially if you live near each other and share things in common. If anything more comes of it then that's just an added bonus if that's something you are looking for.

As always I really am so proud of how far you have come and I love sharing this journey with you. Sending you hugs ❤️

Good evening @MissGremlin @Healandlove @tyme @Jynx @Shaz51 @rav3n and everyone else!

How are you all?

I'm getting more and more used to these half-days at work, although I still struggle with tiredness at times. Trying to think kind thoughts to myself and show myself self-compassion. Very early sleeping times at night seem to help as well.

The walk with my fitness instructor went well and he agreed to make it a regular thing. I'm a bit stressed about the next one because I think I need to ask him some personal questions to gauge where we're both at. Things like: 'have you been married before' and 'do you have any kids'. He didn't mention these, so I kind of just assumed the answer was 'no', but I know I can't assume. He's a fair bit older than me, too. After my last relationship, I have decided I want to communicate more openly with potential partners in the future, but I'm so scared of saying the wrong thing. And 'face' is such a big deal in my culture.

@Blackcloud

@Spirit_Healer Hmmmm, I guess my questions for the last paragraph you have mentioned would be: how long have you known this fitness instructor for? Does he also come from a cultural background where marriage/family is a big deal?

I guess the more you guys get to know more about each other depending on how often you’ll see him and such, then perhaps you guys might possibly end up forming a connection with each other & probably consider on dating each other in the future?

At the moment, I’m not too worried about what was going on for me over the past month with regards to relationships, as I’ve managed to firmly tell my mum (and I have to keep doing so whenever she makes me stressed out about this) to stop making me date/be with a certain someone that she wants me to be with, and not even in my 20s. Her response was like “ok, no worries”..

But yeah for me, I too have my own preferences on what I want for a partner. I just hope that he’ll be the right guy for me in the future, and most importantly - someone who was born and raised in a primarily English speaking country, like Australia, America, NZ, Canada, the UK… because him and I are likely to share the same values and perspectives on certain things, compared to someone that comes from a country outside of those countries listed.