Celebrate the tiny victories, no matter how small. I'm in a similar stage and it's difficult to deal with the work stuff - I have done what I can do allow myself this time to rest and remove or limit what I'm surrounded by that reminds me of what I'm NOT doing. The worry about recovery is part of the process, it seems, and perhaps it's more about a metamorphosis. Spending time reminding oneself that this entire journey is about changing - the way we think, letting go of the old ways of coping, and living in a state of flux and the unknown that is meant for healing. You will get back to doing things - I keep a running list of little activities because the healing is slow and steady, and can't be noticed at the time. A month ago, I couldn't even get the dishes washed and now it's something I do every morning. I didn't even notice until I looked back. Same with other small tasks.
The only way I'm getting through this "what is my path" process is to concentrate as hard as I can on change being good, and the unknown being a place to heal. I write it on little pieces of paper and look at them a million times a day.
Shame is a process with me too - it's also getting a little better. Accepting the feelings, learning self-kindness...none of this is easy. It looks like we're not working, but we ARE working: a whole new way of life in which we come to value ourselves and be kinder to ourselves and realize that life is a constant metamorphosis...some of us just face it more abruptly, more directly....
I have a set of tiny things related to "moving on" and I locate their arrival in the indefinite future and I allow myself to think about them when I'm feeling grounded or ok. Sitting with the feelings - there are lots of tools. Imagining a magnet sucking the worries out of you. Imagining them as flocks of birds flying past on migration. Establishing a support network that reminds you of incremental progress.
There are others who probably have more insights - I'm in a similar stage as you are and the best advice I got was to just try to take one day at a time, take notes on anything that is successful (getting through a panic attack, folding a towel) and try to do it again a second day... find a support network to call (or come here!) and tell them what you need to hear is the truth: that you are brave and courageous, and you are improving steadily even if you can't alwys see it, and that this is a journey with stages we pass through one at a time, and each is necessary. And that above all, we're doing great by getting to the root of our pain and letting it out, so that our true selves can shine through after the cleaning process is completed.
you'll get through this. it is a stage. I think it's hard to move on when we really are being reminded by our psyches that we also need to get through some difiicult feelings first before we will see clearly what comes next.
here are some allison nappi quotes that help me:
Consider your depression, your bi-polar disorder, your DID, your ADD, your PTSD rites of passage. They may feel disorderly, but they are not without order. In fact, they are perfect road maps designed to bring you through your shadow valley and into the promised land.
I am willing to stand on the precipice of the greatest adventure of my inner life, and liberate all that I am from the lonely, dark , forgotten places within me. I am willing to risk all that I am for all that I might become. At least then, I will know. I am willing to leap madly into my destiny, and meet myself
“If I had not created my own world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.”
Don’t be afraid of the wreckage. Don’t be scared of the dark. You are the dark, too, and in the beginning only the tiniest spark will light your way. It’s in your belly.
You will see almost nothing but the tips of your shoes and you will straighten your ankle and sweep your foot out in front of you to be sure there is ground there, before you move: just one step. Sometimes, just a half step. And somewhere, in a world you can’t yet perceive, your greater self will step toward you 10,000 times.
You will learn to become decisive as you come to realize what’s at stake. You will find superpowers you didn’t know you had. You will pick up rings of power and rubies and emeralds that you steal back from ogres and sorcerers and creatures your ancestors wrote myths about. You will use them later to pay back the gods of karma or to cross the River Styx with Charon. Stay long enough to be reborn.
You will bump into your selves again and again, and most of the time you won’t recognize them: they will be great glowing angels, they will be raving red-eyed demons, they will be priests and will be star-dusted. You will fall out of time and space. You will tumble down rabbit holes inside of rabbit holes.
You will do impossible things. You will summon your weapons from air so thin no flesh could survive it. You will make things disappear and reappear. You will scream, and topple cities. You will cry and the mothers of mercy will come to you when you are on your knees, begging. You will shape a new earth this way. You will write your plans here, so you can live them later.
As in every hero’s journey, you will find the resources you need along the way, so don’t worry if just yesterday you were a peasant sheering sheep. You’ll remember where you left your dragon when the moment of truth is upon you. You will remember all kinds of magnificent things you’ve forgotten.
