Accepting Myself

Started by Blueberry, December 10, 2021, 10:09:15 PM

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Blueberry

Thank you san. I am dealing with or actually meant to be dealing with a lot atm.

I'm doing round about zero and at best want to just give everything up. Not life, but more or less everything else. Somebody else deal with all this please.

LL came around today and it was more or less the last straw. He refuses 'to get involved with' the toilet dispute between me and business neighbour. It's not his business. If we can't 'agree', he'll block the room up. Plus he's going to mow the yard to his taste, which I'm not going to like, he says. I've already cut some stuff back, as in might as well put some flowers in my vases before I lose the whole plant.

LL asked to come into my office today 'just to look around'. I allowed that, though I wouldn't for my apartment because I know he has to give notice. Now LL is complaining about the mess in my basement section and in his head undoubtedly about my office. I feel spied on and as if things I care about are being taken from me.

I have a translation due next week and at least I've got a colleague to take it on for me.
I have a spot in a lit. translation seminar next week, one I registered for in March/April assuming I'd be well enough by now. But I'm not. I haven't even managed to work out the software though somebody is dropping by tomorrow to do that.

FOO celebration is on the weekend and tho I'm obviously not going just the knowledge of that is probably triggering.
Somewhere in my own mess, it would be good to pull forth the adult in me who's in charge.

I'm not going to do anything to myself, but I do feel like throwing in the towel. However. I am NOT going to do anything to myself. If I had an inkling that way, I'd go to one of my docs instead. Might go anyway. But the only thing they could do would be either say: OK, psycho hospital or 'let's see, what's the easiest beneficial thing you could do for yourself?'

Nobody on here needs to get worried, nothing you can do anyway except stand with me, as I do for some of you in bad times. I'll go to a meet-up now where we play games and drink tea etc.


Armee

Standing here with you, sad that your new LL is messing with your garden.

Having the impending FOO event occurring would be very triggering. Even though you are not going, they are imposing on your mind right now because of it. 

I don't know if your request still stands...to point out when you might be in an EF, as a result of these challenging and triggering things? It sounds like you might be very aware of that posssibility since you mentioned how helpful it would be to call forward the adult part.

Either way, thank you for letting us stand here with you through this very difficult stretch and going to the games and tea hangout sounds like the best way to care for yourself today.

(Gentle accepting hugs, Blueberry)

Hope67

Dear Blueberry,
I am also standing with you, and sending you caring thoughts and hugs, if they are ok for you.   :hug:  I hope you're enjoying the cards and games afternoon.
Hope  :)

Blueberry

Thank you Hope and Armee for accepting me, standing with me, sending hugs and caring.

You're right Armee, it's likely to be a massive EF.

Leaving it would require me to want to feel responsible for myself and take some steps and it's as if I don't want to be responsible! I don't want to be an Adult! But who is to be if I'm not?? I obviously don't want to go through what that entails - signing pieces of paper to say I'm no longer a compos mentis adult and somebody else had better come and make all my decisions. Anyway those rhetorical questions aren't specially helpful atm. 


Armee

Sending lots of hugs. There's lots of hurt and loss to be protected from right now..  maybe the parts that are putting on the brakes are just trying to protect you from the pain.

Blueberry

Good idea, Armee. Pain protection.  :hug:

I got an appt at psych doc's in 1 and a half hours. Which is good. Teaching an exam candidate this morning, before that.
Will manage but everything else is too much :fallingbricks: :fallingbricks: :fallingbricks:

Why oh why does LL have to come and start stressing?? Next he'll invent some excuse to see my apt, which is total chaos. I just don't think any of that (mess, chaos) is relevant when I feel like this.

Anyway, just got to hold out for 2 hours, some of which I'll spend teaching one-on-one.

CactusFlower

Gentle hugs, blueberry, and wishing you the energy you need to deal with stuff.

Blueberry

Thank you CF :hug:

Psych doc wrote an extra prescription and is trying to get me additional therapy. Idk if 'social therapy' exists in English, but it would be somebody to actually come to me in my apt and help me sort my priorities out. The inpatient place suggested that initially and I suppose psych doc now sees the need. That's OK with me because everything feels way too much atm.

Also I have contrary impulses. Partially I'd like to give up my self-employed status - I'm clearly out of my depth with everything that it involves. otoh that's likely to see me dropping into a big, black hole of: what am I going to do otherwise? Have fun? Stop struggling so much maybe. Do a huge clear-out and then see where I am or what makes sense to do?

On the plus side today, a computer guy came round and sorted some stuff out. Among other things he discovered what had been preventing spam emails from being filtered out properly. Since I was getting about 200 spams a day despite the 'usual things' you do to stop them, I was constantly feeling overwhelmed and missing important non-spam. It's not as if I hadn't tried before to find a way to stop them. Now finally :cheer:

I know you 'shouldn't' feel overwhelmed about spam but what if you do? And I did. It was just one other thing of 'too much'. I realise - and said to psych doc this morning - that if I wasn't ill, all these small things like LL and too much spam wouldn't get to me.

But it is what it is. I have what I have.

sanmagic7

blueberry, sorry i'm late to this, but, as always, i'm standing with you, supporting you.  you sound overwhelmed.  too much.  sending love and a caring, gentle hug :hug:

Blueberry

Thank you, san :hug: I am overwhelmed. Totally.

Good things today: Lying in bed dozing and gazing out at a big tall spire of flowers, called 'mullein' if I'm not mistaken.
Watching FurBabies.
I cleared out a few things e.g. books to neighbourhood book shelf.
I was outside briefly and noticed it was worth the effort. I felt better immediately.

______
I'm pretty sure I'm in a massive EF. Also that if I'm not a difficult person per se, that it IS difficult to get on with me so no wonder I always end up in a position of fighting and people are either trying to show me some truths or just laying down the law like LL. I don't think it's fair, what he is doing, but to point that out would sound childish. And it wouldn't help at all.

My blackcurrants are mostly ripe so I'm going to go and pick them.

CactusFlower

gentle hugs, Blueberry.

It sounds like nature is a very comforting place for you lately. I'm glad you're able to get outside and it feels helpful for you. I think it would be lovely to look out of a window and see lots of flowers. :)

Side note: Mullein has been used historically as an expectorant and for asthma. Those tall flower spikes can be dried and if the tops are soaked in wax, were known as "miner's torches". haven't tried that myself, but the tea has eased a sore throat.

Blueberry

Thank you CF :hug:

Part of me would like to put a large building skip outside apt/office and throw everything in. Everything, even non-objects like teaching. That part of me is probably a part who has been telling me for years that I just can't. That it is time to accept my disability status and go focus on things that take less out of me than teaching and translating.

Nonetheless I taught this morning and note I can do it. So I'm thinking that instead of throwing my teaching out now, I will agree to myself and Parts to give it up but I will see if I can keep going with my present students till - at the latest - the final weeks in my office. Among other things, I'll still be earning some money. Well anyway I've put it out there for myself rather than for anybody else.

On and off I remind myself that I am making these decisions FOR me. There's still so much FOO dysfunction in me, e.g. it's a fight and if you 'lose' as I have apparently done in the building where I live, then it's terrible, terrible and psychologically-annihilating. Since 'psychological' doesn't exist in FOO, it's just plain annihilating. But there's no loss here, as in 'I lost' because I'm moving out of this fight with LL and business neighbour. Whatever they think to themselves is irrelevant. I am making these steps FOR me. New thoughts, new ideas. Putting into practice what might have been touched on a bit in inpatient. I'm doing it for me! More thoughts and realisations that I can't put into words. Not yet.

Change is painful. But I will live through it and come out the other side stronger.

sanmagic7

i'm just loving your attitude, blueberry.  doing things for YOU no matter what others might think is, to me, huge.  i'm just so sorry you're still having LL problems - that's been going on for years.  one long battle by itself, let alone anything else.  exhausting.

i'm with you on the nature thing - it's a balm to my soul.  and those black currants sound yummy!  keep taking care of you as best you  can.  it's good enough, and so are you.  sending love and a  hug filled w/ acceptance. :hug:


rainydiary

I appreciate you sharing your journey Blueberry as I am finding myself in a similar place with the educating role I work in.  It takes a toll that I'm not sure is worth it in the long run.  It helps me to know others are navigating these questions too.  I resonate with the acknowledgment that change is painful, even if the change is positive. 

Blueberry

Quote from: sanmagic7 on July 02, 2022, 02:13:28 PM
keep taking care of you as best you  can.  it's good enough, and so are you.  sending love and a  hug filled w/ acceptance. :hug:

Thank you san so much. This is what I need at the moment. And I know that when it's written here on the forum that it's true and heartfelt.

No matter how much I've been contributing to my own pain by acting out of Parts, I'm accepted by people like you and then that helps me accept myself too.

I think the LL problems come partially because I'm acting out of a younger Part. In fact, I think business neighbour and I are both doing that. So LL thinks to himself "enough of this!" and takes steps to shut us both up. And I'm working on staying with "I'm doing this for me, what those two think is irrelevant."

I'm also focussing on what does me good? And taking steps to carry that out. Went for a little cycle and dropped in on a couple of people where I can do that. I didn't have the wherewithal to phone in advance. Looked at both their gardens, smelt their flowers and in one case just sat, being accepted. I went to church this evening. Singing does me good but also some of what I hear along the lines of forgiveness etc does me good. I grew up learning self-damnation for anything and everything and I'm now learning that that isn't the Christian message. Or I think it's a Part that's learning it. Cognitively I knew. Almost nobody condemns me as much as I condemn myself.

I have 2 books to work through recommended to me by my inpatient T and I need to make time to work through them. One is the mindful self-compassion book and one is on reuniting dissociated parts (or something like that). I did work with the latter a bit in inpatient but not much since I got home. Having collapsed again 6-7 weeks after I came home, I obviously need to do some major changes. One is: go through with closing business . Go through with it while I still can manage. Even that is a bit iffy atm. There's paper work still to do and to find as well. Every time I sit down to do something, I tend to leap up and start doing something else. Walk into a room but decide halfway there to go somewhere else etc. I've been in these phases before, but know that this too will pass. Another major change is really taking the time now to toss out what's not doing me good (whether material or otherwise) and keep going back to: What does me good? And then part of that is obviously: working, really working on self-healing.

I don't like to feel, but I'm managing now. And then move onto more healing steps. To my T of the past 5 years I once said that I have to work on myself, no choice. He said I actually do have a choice since lots of people don't work on themselves. But I now also have the choice to say: I want to really work on looking at things and changing things so I don't move more and more into a bitter, embittered, quarrelsome woman. Or I could say to not allow that particular Part of me to take control of everything and all my life. I need to accept that Part instead of pushing her away and then further steps which I can't even write down rn. But this would all be work in T anyway, or homework from T.

rainydiary, I think any kind of work is likely to take a toll on me until I've sorted myself out better. Done the healing steps instead of running away from them. And knowing that could take a couple of years.  I hope it's not that bad for you.