The Love Thief: Bipolar, Depression, Anxiety

Hi @june

I'm sorry to hear that it feels like things are unravelling for you!

Marriage is a work in progress for most...I think it's positive that your husband has agreed to go with you to counselling, it demonstrates a willingness to at least look at things.Your marriage may have taken a series of bumps, but it may not be as broken as you feel. I believe things will become clearer once you have the chance to discuss your concerns.

In the mean time I thought you might like to read a previous topic Tuesday's event on 'managing relationships' below;

http://www.saneforums.org/t5/Special-Events/Topic-Tuesday-Managing-Relationships-Closed/m-p/32216#M1002

Can I say I love your reference to mental illness being a love thief, maybe grief is the love thief?

You may see it in the future on our page as quote

Welcome to the forum @june

Grief as a love thief ... oh yes.

Sometimes people with the actual MI diagnosis are more sensitive and take on responsibility. Unfortunately I had similar but different experiences with my mother making a mess of my marriage and relationships. I can only encourgae you to keep reaching out but try and distinguish between supportive and toxic people.

In my case I am not sure I will ever experience marriage.

I have been single my whole life - anxiety, agoraphobia, social phobia..

I am struggling - I had some 'strange thoughts' a few days ago when I was in a fish and chip shop

and had trouble with my breathing..

It took a few minutes for the anxiety to go away...

Hi @june - welcome to the forums, so sorry to hear you are going through hard yards. While it is always hard to hear from others we love how they might think (in extreme conversations) and how easy it is to say something that reverberates through us... Separating ourselves from other's opinions is important. What he said to you is just his opinion (at the time he said it, he sounded frustrated and as you say insensitive) it soesn't make it true, or even always true - it just make sit what he thought and said at that time.

I am fortunate to have a loving , supportive partner, we made an agreement very early in our relationship (now over 20 years together) that we will "always be on the each other's side" even when we might not be on our own side due to illness, anger or stress. This gives us a circuit breaker in tense and difficult times and conversations - we take into account each other's viewpoint, try to walk a mile int he other person's shoes. This has helped us immensley get through some very hard parts.

Getting to a counsellor is a great move. Wish you all the best with it. Your family dynamics and difficulties create another whole layer of complexity and dificulty and I am sorry your experience with your Mother has been so very hard.

We can all only do our lives one day at a time.

Hello @jamesle2015

I havent seen you areound for a while. I also get intrusive thoughts. I am not sure what you think are strange ... sometimes thoughts are symbolic or metaphorical for our emitional realities.

@june Take care

I still get intrusive thoughts - a bit hard to explain -

I have had them before and I wish I could get rid of them - permanently.

I visualise the world - as we know it's round not flat

Then the thoughts start spinning in my head - thinking of how the countries are stuck on

and it all doesn't make sense -

Australia is on the bottom - we are Southern Hemisphere

it can get scary - if you think too much about it

I posted a joke in the other forum

Hope you like it

@jamesle2015 - you explained this really well, chasing rabbits like this down the hole can lead to real anxiety. It's a case of us not having our thoughts but our thoughts having us at that point isn't it?

I wonder if thought/image substitution might help to stop the thought in it's tracks. Kind of like a variation of the "gain control of the rerun" using a remote control idea that really helped me get a handle on flashbacks. It goes like this.

The Remote Control
As the thought/image starts to run, imagine it is on an old TV with a DVD attached.
Pick up a (mental) remote control that has FWD, RWD, PLAY and STOP/OFF on it.
Let the thought/image run for a few seconds then deliberately pick up the remote control and in your mind's eye FWD the 'tape', then, rewind it, press play again and let it start to run at normal speed.
Keep doing this, FWD, RWD and Play, concentrating on the remote and controlling the image/story.
Once you feel you have a good control via the remote, press STOP/OFF.
Practice this every time the same thought/story starts to run.
After a bit of practice - just pick up the mental 'remote" and press OFF.

Then: In the moment after the OFF button has stopped the story...

Come into the room/place you are and for a few moments concentrate on things in front of you - that picture in a frame, that bookshelf, that rug, that chair, naming them in your mind.
"Chair", "Bookshelf", "Pot Plant"
and concentrate on the sounds outside... "Bird", "car" , "Siren".

That tends to break the nexus of the intrusive thought pretty thouroghly for me and allows me to go on to do something else.

I need to think of some way to 'stop' the thoughts

Do you have agoraphobia?