still in struggle town

Welcome back

I think the questions you ask here @stayingsane about, 'why do i sabotage myself?', are good questions to explore with your psychologist, possibly you feel that you are not worthy? Or perhaps it is the fear of success that prevents you from moving forward?

These questions are the more difficult ones, but once you are able to explore these honestly, and come to some conclusions, or at least hypothesis, then you will be closer to addressing the sabotaging. I see the sabotaging as a symptom of an underlying cause...would you agree?

I once heard depression described as anger turned in on ourselves, a repressed anger if you like. So perhaps feeling angry is movement, it's allowing that anger to breathe and have life, and hence addressing it, that will hopefully assist in a resolution.

Hey topic Tues is on tonight about unresolved trauma...i'm not sure of your situation, but you may find the conversation useful, check it out on the topics page.

Hi staying sane,

I like your image of "struggle town" - it seems to explain so much about how you feel. I am visualising you stuck on a round about in the suburb of anx and it is dame hard to get in the right lane at the right time to get off the round around to head somewhere else. It may help to have a better understand of where you want to be, I am guessing that driving around and aroud the same round about might feel a bit like sabotaging your journey. If you think about what we do when we are lost in a strange town perhaps this can provide something to think about for example, if you could describe your next destination you can then look out for the appropriate road sign and know where to turn off.

When I get stuck in my thinking I try and create "games" / "stories" to play with to help me problem solve - if this works for you - have some fun creating your own town map of "struggle town" and track you journey - not for the purpose of judging yourself but rather as a way of just acknowledging where you are and what might be in the next suburb which might take you 1 step closer to a journey to a different town. Maybe anger is the fuel you need.

I know this story approach does not work for everyone (some people think is is very strange) but I find it useful and I am just sharing it is an idea - if nothing else it can be a bit of health fun.

take care - Crystal

@stayingsane

Hi Sane,

Yep, know this dynamic well. Isn't life a peach, that you know is tasty, is good for you, it fits nicely in your hand but sometimes you are just too full to take a bite?

That's kinda what anxiety and depression does. It makes us full. Too full of "what might happen" to be open and see what will happen. So where are left starving with a piece of fruit in our hand.

This may well be the way things are, but does it need to remain this way?

I've come to the conclusion that if I don't move, the world will spin on and I won't know where I am. Why me? I used to think, sometimes still do, but it's a question which has no real meaning.

I remember many years ago, I asked Why Me? And I felt this voice say to me, Why not you? What I got fromthat was a rationale.

Ok, I'm in pain, I;m depressed and suicidal, I scared and anxious, I'm angry, I feel like these emotions are scooping an enormous channel through the middle of me. and it really hurts.

Then I look around me, I see folk who though they aren't mental, they are feeling hurt, fear, sadness and are scared to live life to any kind of fullness.

Hmmmm. A paler version of what I'm living with. Yes, they periods in their life where they are happy and content and all that good stuff but when they have these challenging feelings they appear so very lost.

I hit upon it.

They felt what I'm feeling but at a minus of 300%. Still they were kind of lost in it, not knowing what to do, and here i am with this channel you could float a luxury liner through and dang! I realised I could provide them with a measure of comfort because I knew their discomfort but at a factor of ten. I could help.

This was a big realisation for me, I could indetntify using the damage of my mind and my "self" to ease the burden of my fellow humans. For me, this was the WHY!

Did this conclusion heal me, make the bad stuff go away? Was I mentally healthy, did become symptom free?

No. None of that. But suddenly I had purpose. Suddenly I had out sight. Insight was old hat, I could see myself better than a narccissist in a mirror shop. But now I could turn that sharp insight outwards and suddenly I understand that people everywhere have pain and are alone in it, and I could actually help them not be alone.

Fear became a signpost. it indicated that change was coming. Every time I felt fear I was fearful of change. Therefore fear itself was no more than a tool to recognise the coming change.

Fear is the sign post to change. Do I want to change my life? Oh yeah. Is a better life a change? Oh yeah.

This simple observation transformed my whole life. I still felt frightened and often it was almost overwhelming, but I kept seeing the notes I'd written to myself and blutacked to the walls in my house.

"FEAR IS THE SIGNPOST TO CHANGE" "CHANGE HAS GOTTA BE BETTER THAN THIS CRAP"

And that for me was the secret. It has flowed over most parts of my daily life. I am always frightened but I view it now not as an animal trying to get me, but as a tool that God uses to get my attention, to ready me for something different.

I am still mentally ill. I am still neurologically unsound. I am often powerless in the hate I feel for myself.

But that deep channel has allowed me to empathise with almost any type of person, even the feckwits, and I know that by feeling that fear I am prepared to run toward change. Blindly and sometimes stupidly, but something new can't be as bad as that old stuff. That bad stuff was the worst.

So I guess what I'm saying is it's ok, natural even to be fearful, but it could be a tool to new and better things.

Hope I think is what led me to this conclusion , and as I might have said once or twice before

Hope endures

Prayers for you,

Rick

@stayingsane

Hello Stayingsane

Yep, know this dynamic well. Isn't life a peach, that you know is tasty, is good for you, it fits nicely in your hand but sometimes you are just too full to take a bite?

That's kinda what anxiety and depression does. It makes us full. Too full of "what might happen" to be open and see what will happen. So where are left starving with a piece of fruit in our hand.

This may well be the way things are, but does it need to remain this way?

I've come to the conclusion that if I don't move, the world will spin on and I won't know where I am. Why me? I used to think, sometimes still do, but it's a question which has no real meaning.

I remember many years ago, I asked Why Me? And I felt this voice say to me, Why not you? What I got fromthat was a rationale.

Ok, I'm in pain, I;m depressed and suicidal, I scared and anxious, I'm angry, I feel like these emotions are scooping an enormous channel through the middle of me. and it really hurts.

Then I look around me, I see folk who though they aren't mental, they are feeling hurt, fear, sadness and are scared to live life to any kind of fullness.

Hmmmm. A paler version of what I'm living with. Yes, they periods in their life where they are happy and content and all that good stuff but when they have these challenging feelings they appear so very lost.

I hit upon it.

They felt what I'm feeling but at a minus of 300%. Still they were kind of lost in it, not knowing what to do, and here i am with this channel you could float a luxury liner through and dang! I realised I could provide them with a measure of comfort because I knew their discomfort but at a factor of ten. I could help.

This was a big realisation for me, I could indetntify using the damage of my mind and my "self" to ease the burden of my fellow humans. For me, this was the WHY!

Did this conclusion heal me, make the bad stuff go away? Was I mentally healthy, did become symptom free?

No. None of that. But suddenly I had purpose. Suddenly I had out sight. Insight was old hat, I could see myself better than a narccissist in a mirror shop. But now I could turn that sharp insight outwards and suddenly I understand that people everywhere have pain and are alone in it, and I could actually help them not be alone.

Fear became a signpost. it indicated that change was coming. Every time I felt fear I was fearful of change. Therefore fear itself was no more than a tool to recognise the coming change.

Fear is the sign post to change. Do I want to change my life? Oh yeah. Is a better life a change? Oh yeah.

This simple observation transformed my whole life. I still felt frightened and often it was almost overwhelming, but I kept seeing the notes I'd written to myself and blutacked to the walls in my house.

"FEAR IS THE SIGNPOST TO CHANGE" "CHANGE HAS GOTTA BE BETTER THAN THIS CRAP"

And that for me was the secret. It has flowed over most parts of my daily life. I am always frightened but I view it now not as an animal trying to get me, but as a tool that God uses to get my attention, to ready me for something different.

I am still mentally ill. I am still neurologically unsound. I am often powerless in the hate I feel for myself.

But that deep channel has allowed me to empathise with almost any type of person, even the feckwits, and I know that by feeling that fear I am prepared to run toward change. Blindly and sometimes stupidly, but something new can't be as bad as that old stuff. That bad stuff was the worst.

So I guess what I'm saying is it's ok, natural even to be fearful, but it could be a tool to new and better things.

Hope I think is what led me to this conclusion , and as I might have said once or twice before

Hope endures

Prayers for you,

Rick

thankyou all for the time and your words.

i am being challenged by my psycholgist and it is hurting my brain but i think its good.

i think, i know, that i have to feel the fear and DO IT ANYWAY and this is the way to have a good life and do the things i want to do. and BE with all those fear feelings.

this is all terrifyng! fear is so scary!