Ditto to what everyone else has said. This has been the most frightening, confusing, isolating and lonely journey and there is nobody in my immediate world, save for my professional support network, who understands or can relate to this experience . Hell, there are relatively few people in my immediate world at all.
As someone who finds it enormously difficult to trust and disclose in person, there is an amazing sense of comfort and empowerment in being able to do those things here, with the benefit of anonymity, but still in a way which helps myself and, I hope, others, in some small way. I lose count of the number of times I feel almost disorientated with shock and relief to read what others write and to realise how applicable it is to my own situation. It makes me think about things I wouldn't otherwise think about and feels like the continuation of therapy in between sessions at times, but with the added benefit of hundreds of supplementary therapists. It even gives me new ideas of things to discuss in therapy and helps me articulate a thought or concept that I want to relay to my T later on.
The only downside is that I probably spend too much time sitting here and not enough time doing other things, and part of me wonders sometimes if I don't stray over the fine line between support/sharing and overindulgent emotional wallowing. Can you think/talk/write about this too much I wonder? Is there a point at which it stops being healthy to spend so much introspective time in your own head?
Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread with a negative spin, just find myself playing devil's advocat with myself again.
MD
