Seasonal/anniversary Stuff Bringing Me Down

[digger]

Sorry didn't mean to make you worse :(

It's fine. It's something I know a lot of people find helpful. It was my choice whether to try it or not. I haven't for a while so it was worth testing the water again but yeah, I think I need to look at different ways to actively occupy my head. The difficulty I've had with this in the past is that I have a limited amount of energy to be able to throw into distractions and when I stop, my head then tends to flood with the stuff I've been trying to distract from and I end up feeling burnt out and overwhelmed.

So on some level, I do probably need to get to that point where I can just sit with it. I think it's always useful to figure out where you need to be even if you don't have the solutions for how to get there yet.

 

[Jane.l]

Yes avoidance is all well and good until it turns round and bites your butt - do you have a T session coming up?

 

[digger]

Tuesday.

 

[Jane.l]

sometimes it helps to write down all the stuff that's going on in your head - I call a mind spring clean - in that if I get it out it doesn't go round and round so much,sometimes it works but of course that's the opposite of avoiding it so you may rather not go there.

Hope your T helps Tuesday - be kind and look after yourself till then.

 

[digger]

I think I will try that tomorrow. I will need to get it down on paper anyway if I want to be able to try and discuss it with T on Tuesday.

 

[digger]

My T's take on it is that trying to distract myself to try and keep this stuff from completely taking over my head is good, but that realistically this time of year is going to be harder and to cut myself some slack on it and give myself permission to feel shit sometimes.

The connections are there. She doesn't think I'll be able to completely remove those connections but that we can work on them not being so strong over time and not having the power it feels like they have at the moment. Beating myself up over those connections being there isn't really helpful. Acknowledging that they are there and that I can try and find ways to work and live with and around them might be.

Avoidance isn't really working. I understand that. In some ways it is what keeps me stuck here. That I need to be able to let myself feel this stuff. It gets too much though. Too quickly.

So much stuff coming up. I get confused. So many conflicting feelings about it all. My head hurts trying to untangle it all.

 

[Lucycat]

but that realistically this time of year is going to be harder and to cut myself some slack on it and give myself permission to feel shit sometimes.

Yep! My Time is the week before Christmas. I know that I will go down then, so I have to make plans in advance. Not to do anything stressful. Keep work short and simple. Have no worries about last minute shopping - oh it is all so easy to sit and write today about how organised I will be. However come The Week Before Christmas and I will probably be in the usual mess!

Can you reflect back on how you were this time last year? Are you faring better or worse just now? What has made the difference between then and now?

 

[digger]

Can you reflect back on how you were this time last year? Are you faring better or worse just now? What has made the difference between then and now?

I did try to approach it from this angle. I thought it would be good to look at it from how much progress I might have made since last year, but then just ended up getting stupidly depressed instead because all I could see instead was how much of a mess I still am and thinking how far away I still am from the life I had before it all went bang. None of it feels very positive really. I don't think getting back to the place I was before with my mental health feels achievable. I feel like I'm just trying to claw my way to somewhere that will at least be bearable, but that's probably all. Sorry, I just end up on a downward spiral with this stuff at the moment.

It would be nice to be able to look on the anniversary with how far I've come since then. But it doesn't feel like I have. I don't honestly feel like I'm doing any better this year than last year, but possibly for different reasons. It's hard to remember to be able to compare properly. I think though this year I'm probably at a stage with therapy that's making it harder to switch off to feeling this stuff. Like a lot of the stuff I've avoided feeling or thinking or looking at too closely is hitting me. So it's just raw and painful.

 

[Lucycat]

I wasn't really thinking about the progress over the year, but the snapshots in time. A year ago. Now. You have just answered that with differences in the stage in therapy. It is good to acknowledge why it feels different.

I think your time span is similar to mine. The lid blew on my life 5 years ago in December. Before then I was in total denial, and thought I was doing very well, thank you very much. I was very confident and a totally different person.I don't ever see myself going back to the 'before' me. Rory gets quite cross sometimes, saying he wants the 'old me' back. But that will never happen. This is what I am - take it or leave it.

By facing the really hard stuff in therapy right now, just maybe this time next year will look very different. I know that feels like forever away, but it will come round soon enough.

 

[digger]

I wasn't really thinking about the progress over the year, but the snapshots in time. A year ago. Now. You have just answered that with differences in the stage in therapy. It is good to acknowledge why it feels different.

Yes, sorry, I was trying to answer that. Trying to look at if this October is easier/harder than last October. My head just goes off on side routes at the moment. I honestly don't know. I can't work out whether it feels more bad or less bad, just that it feels bad.