Just Hmmmmm....

I'm stuck to.... 8-(

especially lately i've been thinking about this b/c i don't have room for this, but these things come to mind, esp falling asleep or in the middle of the night...
i know that you don't considered yourself a christian, but i don't know that it matters re what i'm going to say is working for me, but i've begun to pray out loud for protection and healing at night. as thoughts come to mind - worries, replays, regrets....i mentally say i relinquish this thought...as opposed to dwelling or trying to resolve it. it may take dozens of times of mentally saying this for me, but i've had more peaceful sleep and no nightmares in the few days i've been doing this...
don't know if this will work or help, but it is for me.
hope you find what works for you!

I let it come up, sometimes force as much as possible to just flow like air. There are times when it seems like it will never ever end but it always does.

Each person has to look at their own life to decide if they are wallowing or actually just letting feelings flow.
In general, the longer you have stuffed and the more stuffed, the longer it takes to let it out.
My sis might take 8 years to get rid of the four she has stuffes. It seems that the energy of stuffing causes anger to build.

Sorry, each person is unique here.

Thanks, Serenity..
I kinda do that with the serenity prayer ( ha..funny coincidence there)

This comes to mind sometimes on the boards for me, too..
Like..when is it empathazing with others..and when is it just wallowing with them.?

I'm really asking here..do others ask themselves this?

I ask myself almost every day. Am I just angry or am I in self pity. And I think the answer is more anger than self pity, but I definitely feel both. I think of the life that I used to have and the dreams of mine that have been crushed and I get angry and start to fell a bit sorry for myself. Sorry for the things I never got to do or I put off for another day and the realization that another day is now not going to come. Then I get angry again. I think I definitely switch between the two right now. It's a fine line, but I have also been suffering for a major depressive episode which does not help matters either.

I got so angry the other day that I threw my walker at the wall and it made a whole in it. Nice right?!?! lol. I have been crying a lot more lately as I continually get worse and not better.

I think Sunny is right, everyone experiences it differently and has to go through their own process. What one person may get over in a matter of days, may take another person months. It's all a matter of individuality and perspective.

Gentle hugs,
Jenna

I think when we get stuck wallowing it is no longer health. Each person has to know for themselves when that happens.

Here's how I see it for myself:

I allow the negative thought or emotion first by recognizing that it is there, then I hold it next to my heart because it is the hurting child in me that is suffering, then if I need to, I may cry a little (or a lot) and then, I come back to the moment, whatever it is that is going on around me that I sense with my 5 senses. (like sounds, colours, the breeze on my arm, etc).

For a light emotion, it generally works but for a stronger one that has been there a while, I have to do this over and over. Eventually, the emotion loses its charge and gets lighter and smaller and becomes just a thought that I can catch pretty quickly before it escalates into a full blown emotion.

This is part of my practice in living in the moment and letting go of my ego. The important part is to be gentle in letting go of negativity rather than bashing yourself on the head about it.

I hope this helps somewhat. It certainly helps me a lot.
It's a very important question you are addressing.
hugs,
Ama

A challenge question. Very good advice so far.

I do say the "Serenity Prayer" a lot. I know I don't have a magic wand to make the problems go away.

I agree that we each have to judge when our negative emotions are causing us to stop functioning in our daily life. We have to accept the feelings as part of our life and go through the grieving stages, Sometimes we go through the stages multiple times. But we have to get back to functioning and moving forward. If the anger, self-pity, etc is winning all the time then we have to admit that we need help getting though the emotions that have stopped us in our tracks.

As I always say, we are entitiled to our "5 minute pity party" but then we need to move on and get back to living.

Only the individual knows when they have stopped functioning.

It is O.K. to get angry and throw your walker at the wall - not at a person :) it is a release of anger. I bought a punching bag for my boys to get their anger out on. A Cper can't do that so we have to be more creative. Punch the H*ll out of a pillow, scream, cry, let it out. Then find the balance for yourself.

Hang in there, we all hit a similar wall from time to time. Gentle hugs -RJ

Thanks for your replies..I'm listening..and, hopefully..learning.

This is not so much that I feel too stuck at this time..
But..do see myself becoming sad or angry more frequently...with it lasting longer than I like, sometimes.

It just seems it would be so easy to fall into patterns of self-pity or bitterness...

That's so the opposite of what I strive to be...I would hate for my family to have to remember me like that.

Thank you, again....hugs...jc

Well for me, it's very difficult..having cocommittant disorders of BiPolar and Chronic Pain, they tend to feed off each other and use me as the plate.

I am a Christian, and was raised a bible thumping, church going, Southern Baptist all my life, it was born and bread into me that if you take your troubles to God, he will give you the strength to make it through...

Okay.....I get that.....so why do I have 5 suicide attempts in my past due to a mental disorder that was also born into me, that I never asked for, never wanted and would do anything in the world to be ride of.

It's very hard for me to be in so much pain, mentally and physically each and everyday and not wander where God is. Because to think that God is here with me in this, is to believe that God gave me all this, and that's not a God I want to think about. It's incredibly hard to not just say screw it, I've had it, I'm done.

I've lost everything due to the crappy, lemon body I was given along with the lemon mind....everything....my marriage, my home, my children, my career..all of it gone. LOL...oddly enough I worked for very large churches most of my adult career life, and learned that big, country club churches are just like any other corporation, they are not church to their employees. I was fired from a 10 year position, a position that I gave my life to, for not being "happy" enough at work...I mean I was only going through a divorce after 23 yrs. of marriage, and there is the BiPolar thing, and the constant pain thing...not that I was trying to find excuses; but it's not like I was running around screaming at people, going crazy....I was just staying in my office, doing my job and keeping to myself, so I didn't go around screaming at people....and that wasn't good enough.

So in a 6 month period I literally lost everything, my husband (really no big loss) my home, my career and most of all my children. My friends who I thought were my friends were attached to my job, so they went with the career, my best friend who stuck around, finally got mad because I asked her to quit sending me bible verses and telling me to pray more, to quit telling me my circumstances were my fault because I didn't "believe" enough, have enough "faith" so she's gone to.

It's very hard to even want to stay positive when you have nobody. It's hard to find a reason too? Just for me? Well that doesn't make sense, I'm crud, I'm not worth that kind of fight..... My cell phone had 5 incoming calls last month, 3 were from telemarketers....

I worry some days that I'm not angry, because I'm not, most of the time I'm just very, very sad....it seems like I should be royally ticked off, but I'm not.....just sad, that at 43 my life is nowhere near the same universe I thought it would be when I was a teenager getting ready for college.

And it's not the "poor me" kind of sad, just the sit around and cry and not even know your crying kind of sad......I haven't figured that one out yet. I could talk to my pdoc about it and I'm sure they'd say well lets adjust this med or that....but I don't think you can "medicate" away every little thing, at some point we have to just deal with this crap that is our life.

When I look at the overall picture these days I realize I'm not bitter or angry or much in the "why me" anymore.....I'm just tired....so tired of having to do this.

LOL...so JC...I doubt that helped you at all...sorry...I'm brain fuzz today, those big hairy TX sized dust bunnies that roll around under the darkest corner of the bed.

Kat

Kat..
I almost never present a thread with the sole purpose of helping myself..
We're all in this together..
I hope it helped you to speak your truth here....hugs...jc

Anger. Bitterness. I had thought I had resolved these things in my past. unfortantley I totally haven't because when talking to my therapist I told her thinking about what my father and mother and other's have done to me pasks me very anxious, my chest tightens and I feel mad. One thing when I was a child, my father didn't want anyone but himself be angry so I shuffed so much anger from even dumb things deep inside. I am now trying to write down. It very difficult doing this in correct order. I will do the best I can. I have to call in the skill's I learned in behavior therapy.Also if I feel too upset I am going to stop writng and go back an continue another time.My grandmother has RA and she only takes Tylenol. She is in extreme pain. I know if my pain was as bad as her's I would be on narcotic meds. She is used to not gong to the doctor until she almost of deaths door. She has become so more aggressive and driven to scream and my Mother tells me that she hasn't changed much because this how she acted when my mother was a teenager. I don't know and I am not have the time to be my mother's therapist for her childhood.
I have my issue's. I don't want to turn out like my grandmother. Every one has there bad days. I find it easier to remove myself from people who want to egg me on. It very hard for me to not get in a fight when someone keeps verbal comes out me over and over again. My ex did purposely and when I told him I didn't want to fight in front of his son he would not allow me to go to another room, so I ended up not being able to leave. Sometimes I was pyshically restrained. Once was in the care when I was so sick and I needed to stay another day at my parents becaue I had a awful migraine and I got so made that he slapped his hands over my mouth to shut me up. I was vomitting, I have a repitorary infection. I did go nuts. But instead of pulling over or agreeing with the first time that during a storm I should have stayed at my parents I did go nuts. I don't like being trapped or held down. I don't think I was right that I said the nasty things I said but but it brought me really back to my childhood and only way I got home was if I did say another word back home. Of course there is alot more to that story. I need to deal more with the child hood issues in order to maybe ever having a real relationship with me and perhaps one day someone selse.

I know how you feel, also everyone is different. I am on 2 years of being disabled and it was time to leave my family, I went thru the whole gammet of emotions and was living in a house where no one cared how much pain I was in, that I probably will never work again and no one wanted to take care of me. I after 35 years of working my ass of was unable to provide.for my wife a 2 girls 24 and 18. Especially when the little one turned 18 it was time for me to go. I am on ss disability and i wasnt getting fed and was forced to drive kids around mow. A 3/4 acre lawn and take care of everything with diabetic neuropathy. I tried all the remedy even a cordial simulator and the last 6 months of working I had to take sooo muck oxycodone it was killing me. I had watched the same disease kill my father, and i diddnt want to go out that way. So now I am forced to rent a room from a complete stranger and am all alone. But I had no choice. Now I live at my own pace its been all most 2 months I am beginning to adjust. So now after 35 years I am alone, I pace myself my drug use is way down. And I have hope that someday I will carve out some kind of life for me. I live in Florida and its not easy to meet people, but I am trying. My stress is way down and I hope to live out my days in Panama or Costa rica or some where. I wish you luck we all need it the straight world as I call them do not understand