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Hi @Faith-and-Hope

That makes a lot of sense - I have been practising or trying to practise those very things and I like your analogy to getting an infected tooth out - I have been through that one - also root fillings and because of my horrific bad bite my front teeth broke off at the gum-line - and getting the roots out was scary - and I am reallly lucky with my dentist

But yes - you are in a place where whatever you do is going to be stressful and I am amazed how you keep going but then - I stayed there with my son for the duration and I would not have done anything different - we can only do our best and it will back-fire on us with stress and it has to come back to practising stress related relaxation methods because I have found the habit became natural after a while

And I think that is an unusally long sentence

It's a long time since my son died but it is only a few weeks to the anniversary - and tonight I start different BP medication and the weather in Melbourne is glorious - when the anniversary comes to pass again I know spring is on it's way and I will feel better

But under it all is the practise and the method of caring for myself -

I really understand what you are writing there - everytime you post like that I find more to understand

For years my parents were most hostile about my activities with my son - I did not need there permission to do what I did and leaving them to their own understanding of whatever it was I was about with my own child was the only way I could deal with everything so yes - to do what is the main thing of importance in our own understanding of our position in the world - you have chosen your husband and children as I did mine - and people who don't want this and think their way is better come after the most important issues

I am still amazed Faith - that you stay with all of this but why should I be - I stuck with my son for the duration and in reality - he never recovered but I do believe he is at peace now

Thanks again Faith

Dec

@Owlunar

@Faith-and-Hope💞💗💜

@Shaz51💖💥💙

Hi @utopia

Psychosomatic - it feels as if we can't win with that one - it feels to me if the world of early medical through ganged up on women - we get all the rough stuff - did you know that having a hysterectomy means having your hysterics removed - imagine that - taking out a major organ so a woman could calm down

Obviously whoever invented that never had PMT - oh golly -

There were a few times when I had my condition blame on so-called psychosomatic reasons and had major surgery - twice emergency surgery - the cause was physical - once my illness was put down to my mother being too nervous but operations I had and I forget how many - and they were necessary

People can turn into a nervous wreck being so ill but looking back - psychosomatic seemed to be the easiest solution for the doctors but what about the patient. I seem to be alive now so I guess I won the game but no wonder I am sometimes emotionally fragile

What other fun can I have with this one - oh yes - it was after my son died and I was at home with horrific pain in the shoulder I had injured in the accident I had just before he died - my then-h rang our clinic and a young woman came to attend me and I had thought out what to say - I was at the end of my tether so I said

"I don't know what to tell you - if I am calm you might imagine I am not as bad as I am feeling but if I am tense might imagine I am making it worse by being nervous - the pain in my shoulder is driving me to tears and the loss of my son makes it all worse"

She put me in hospital for the weekend and I had strong pain medication and it gave me a break to manage to get on with it but some weeks later I the first repair done on my shoulder -

So what is that all about - presentation and interpretation - I feel in some cases the doctors were more focused on the signs and forgetting the patient knew more about the symptoms - but at times I felt the doctors were not really considering the symptoms

So being misdiagnosed a few times made me wonder a lot about psychosomatic problems and I don't think I ever had one seeing as the operations I had were so necessary so yes

I hate the term too

I read somewhere Utopia - further along on this thread I think that you had an idea that maybe thinking made the whole thing worse because you had the problem thinking about it - I kinda get that because in the past men didn't want women to read becaused it would cause their wombs to shrivle and of course that sorta did happen because women read about birth control and thought "What a good idea" and had less children - men started to lose control over the little women

I don't know if you have read Descartes but his great comment cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am gives us a good case for thinking - personally I like it - we are aware and we can become more self aware but reading and thinking and not accepting blindly what men thought in the past which can effect medical science today

I don't know if this state of my erudition makes any sense on a Sunday when I really feel tired but we can ignore what a therapist tells us if we feel it is wrong - they do not know our inner life that well - they only hear what we say and there is a wealth of common sense and academic awareness within all of us - a therapist needs to be careful with that word - psychosomatic - if it doesn't fit it doesn't fit

It's time to stop rambling here

I wish you the best

Dec

sigh

Hi @utopia

Sometimes I feel as if I am making my way through the maze and pulling the threads and the truth is in there somewhere - I just keep pulling the threads

Ah - I did study philosophy at university - it was the hardest but most important part of my course so

Your psychologist told you that major depression would always be part of your life and deep down you have known this but not wanted to accept it but you have to accept it if you want to move post this pain and learn how to manage it

It sucks because I sort of thought that what the psychologist said might be wrong but if you have known this then darn - there is work to be done and who wants to work like this - knowing one thing and wanting it to be otherwise - that's a hardie - is it ever

How does one heal the deep wounds inside? They have to be worse than the ones on the outside. You used to work and so much was taken away - it's hard to imagine what that does to someone though it happened to me too. It was different

Dec