Hi

Hi welcome to the forums, its a great place for support. Hopefully you can find support here and feel like you can chat with others.

Hi Jazz

Hi petrichor

Sounds like you've had more than most to deal with.

Loving ourselves is the most challenging task, especially when there's stigma and shame from early/late learning. Being informed of our nothingness through commonplace conversations, gestures, body language, tone of voice, media output, thoughtless ignorance doesn't exactly make learning to love oneself a cruise in the park, not to mention, fires, covid, gendered issues.

I'll be 64 this year. I'm still learning to love myself. I've learnt the hard way, especially with BPAD, that in order to keep my valued realtionships through times of stress and unwellness, I need to be very aware of my self talk and to do the things that keep me whole, like reaching out for good support, living quietly mostly, being super conscious of how much I have to give others, not taking crap lying down, in the nicest possible way!

Once I went to this workshop more than 20 years ago, and the facilitator asked me to imagine how much love I give, and to describe that as though it was a circle centred at the front of my heart. It was from my throat to my hips. Then he asked me to imagine and describe the love I recieve as though it was a circle centred at the back of my heart. It was as big as a pinhead.

I've since learnt we can draw love from a myriad of aspects of creation. I love nature, my cat, my garden, music - independent of my valued relationships. I work on the attitude of gratitude with varying results. Life encroaches and I'm floored and have to start again. That's the price I pay for my creativity, my empathy, my, at times, fragile perception of great beauty.

Nurture your nature.

Hi Grayhorn

nice to meet you. I have bpad, complex ptsd, anxiety. I'm in my 40s. I don't understand what you're saying about love. I get confused with relationships. Do you get support at home?

I understand what you're saying about having to start again. I've been fighting and starting since I was a little child. When I start feeling unwell I feel so lonely even if there are people around me. I don't want to exist. I don't like it when my thoughts get too fast for me.

Hey there @petrichor,

It's great to have you here and thanks for telling the community a bit about yourself and where you are with your mental health journey. It can be a lonely journey so I hope you find some connection and support here.

If you ever need some one-on-one support I encourage you to contact our help centre to speak to a counsellor- SANE: 1800 18 7263 (Mon -Fri, 10am-10pm).

There are also 24hr helplines-

Lifeline: 13 11 14
Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467

See you around,

Sphinxly 🐣

P.S. I wanted to add, you can tag forums members in your posts so they get a notification of your message by using the @ function. It will bring up member's names to click on 🙂

Thank you for that. I feel there is a big gap between being scheduled and being home again. I feel like I don't have the right to be upset, because I did wrong, others suffered. I keep having memories and feelings coming up from icu. I felt like a criminal with the guard etc and not being allowed to leave. Then the doctors come on their round and talk as if I was a plastic object, not even saying hi. It was scary and humiliating.

Hi @grayhorn

Since last month I have thought a lot about your message and the pin head at the back of your heart and my heart. I read your message again and I'm grateful you shared your experience with me. Thank you.

Hello @petrichor

Your words reached me in my own dark place of similar, yet vastly different, experiences of aloneness, loneliness and lack of support. @grayhorn 's words about love also resonated with me.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a tiny light of something that reaches us from the unknowns who resonate with our individual stories that helps keep us keeping on. I hope so.

On that note, I love, love, love the smell of rain on dry, dusty ground. The magic of petrichor never ceases to amaze me, and to bring me a tiny bit of brightness no matter how bad I might be feeling.

Petrichor, what a wonderful word that is, so filled with mystery and promise. And at the first drops of rain that promise becomes real.

Please look after you for your own sake.

Hi @Last-Lament

It has just started raining here. I love the smell as well, there is something so liberating and nourishing in the rain. Sometimes I stand in the rain, take my shoes off and feel the rain drops until I'm soaked and cold. We're having a wet summer and I appreciate the rain so much more since last years bushfires.

Love is a difficult concept. I read the other day 'show me all the parts of you that you do not love, so I know where to begin'. It is a quote for lovers, and it is a quote for myself to love all the different people / parts in my head. That quote makes me feel overwhelmed as I don't know where to begin, the hatred and disgust towards myself is strong. I have lived so long ignoring and bashing down my other selves but I know they come out, in various ways. Learning to love them might take the t of my lifetime.

Thank you for sharing with me. Take care.