Talking about building emotional resilience

I think it is important to discuss these things @Appleblossom , and I love the fact that I have witnessed you becoming more vocal about your feelings, and processing things that confuse or upset you, here on the forums across these last theee years.

We all have working out to do, and this was all new to you. I think my hubby struggles a lot with hidden feelings of guilt, and being deserving of bad things happening. I am hoping he will be here one day, helping to work it all out, and in positive ways.

We do have rage issues in him, but the involvement of specialists pulled him back from the controlling, raging position he had taken over our youngest son ..... and from things I am starting to hear in the wider family about his own dad, I think a lot of it has rolled forward from there, after he spun out with the eating disordered behaviours ...... it seemed to bring about a tipping point with a whole lotta other things that were bottled .... and / or genetic as well

as environmental.

Need a specialist or two to work all that out with him, but while he is in no-insight (as opposed to denial) and hiding the symptoms and behaviours, it’s a huge, difficult waiting game. But yes, the races are generally short-lived, and likely fuelling other self-harm type behaviours as a coping mechanism.

@Faith-and-Hope @Appleblossom in being optomistic I agree that we need to be realistic and not overestimate benefit or risk.

Bernard Mayer wrote: "Realism puts boundaries around optimism" and I think that summarises it well.

Maintaining optimism in the face of a lack of diagnosis has been hard-- yes I agree @Faith-and-Hope

and then to have many diagnosis that can be confirm but others are marked on mr shaz`s forms as a ??? ( even mr shaz thinks he might have SZ too as well as OCD )

yes my mum has always instill in me that " it will Pass"

@Former-Member, @Appleblossom , @Ali11 , @Owlunar

I re read you initial post @Former-Member

I consciously journalled about the positives and it really did help.

I have not journalled about the negative ones yet. I wrote a few brief poems and I began with a therapist who was supposed to be into narrative therapy. Every now and then I attempt it and have lots of partial pieces of writing. No longer sure what I want to say and I dont want to retraumatise myself, so I am mostly being active and positive, but maybe like your quote about realism, it best doing brief limited memory trips.

Most important is building and maintaining social connection. Thank you forum buddies.

"For us as carers I think being optimistic means that we engage in healthier behaviours irrespective of the clinical status of our loved ones" - That's a great reminder @Former-Member. To care for others effectively, you have to also be caring for yourself.

It sounds like you are working really hard on your decision making methods @Appleblossom - not easy - and "tacking" is a good term to use for getting through stormy situations - what will work one way in one situation one day will maybe good but then another day and another situation will need a different method - we need spare ideas up our sleeves - and it takes time to work them through and then put them into action

You are doing the work though - and sharing - this is really good

We need our free will as well - we are entitled to our own ideas and opinions and although they may need refining - and it can take a life-time to do that - we can learn to respect ourselves and not let people make us change ourselves to keep them happy

I have noticed this - if we are doing something a family member or friend doesn't agree with they can tell us how unhappy we are making them - they make the choice to be unhappy - my mother couldn't be upset - pity about the rest of us - and upsetting her became some kind of crime - but she chose that path and insisted on it - I went on with my life not requiring her permission to make my choices

Hard work - yes - but the storm quietened in time and I am happy I made the choices I did though Tough Love has some really tough consequences - I am glad I didn't let life and other people overwhem me more than they did

All the best Apple

Dec

You do need resilience @Shaz51 - with Mr Shaz not co-operating with any kind of dx and wanting you to do all the work then something fighting you all the way or just going to bed - aw - I do not know how you do it -

I had no patience with my ex-h - when he would not take headache tablets but would moan gently everytime I walked past the door - I got so frustrated

But I had not read anyone else's story then - and my way of being resilient was to get in my car and go somewhere else.

It must be so frustrating not having a dx - and I guess you are not alone because on Mr Shaz's forms there are there ??? when it comes to items - he is not into co-operating and I wonder who puts up with the consequences of OCD, Sz and anxiety undiagnosed he must feel very frustrated to just take himself to bed when life gets unpredicatable

You do a lot Shaz - I am glad you are starting to share the hard parts - you have so much to cope with with your own health - your Mum and Mr Shaz being such a pill at times

Resilience - yes - I have a lot to learn - I guess you have plenty of it - I bet it wears thin at times

I am glad we all have each other

Dec

You seem to have a lot of resilience too @Faith-and-Hope - I have never put it into that expression but I have always thought so and wondered how you cope with so much happening all the time and with Mr and his position of superiority with his condition etc - and I am glad to hear - really glad - that he has pulled back from controlling your youngest son.

That must have been really hard for you to manage

I don't feel guilty that I didn't have patience with my ex-h - his mother told me he would never change and now - all the years later it is sad but not my business that my daughter never or rarely sees her father and my grand-daughter doesnt know him

I wonder if anyone ever knew him

And resilience comes in different forms - for me it reached a point when I had to be resilient enough to go it alone which was hard too

It's a huge subject

Dec

Yes @Owlunar , that is hard too .... and it is a large subject.

The word "nurture" implies that active attention needs to be paid to help build optimism which often starts with something someone said that gave us hope, a quote we may have read, success in setting a boundary, speaking up and being heard ...

Is there something that you can share that was a "seed" of hope for you?