Memorial day

I am posting this the day after Memorial day because I didn't come across the article until late. 

I believe that those that live in the United States may benefit reading this about the Old Guard. 

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/sacred-duty-soldiers-tour-arlington-national-cemetery/

It is a bit long but it encapsulates the sacredness of the day. 

Pooh and friends

Love Eeyore.  They invite Eeyore along.  Accept that Eeyore is sad and don't expect him to turn into Tigger.  Somewhere along the line Eeyore is now unacceptable.  People would tell Pooh to ditch Eeyore because he will drag you down.  Fortunately Pooh is oblivious of the fact that Eeyore is any kind of a problem. To Pooh, Eeyore is his friend.  Full stop end of story. 

When did grieving become and illness?  When did sad become a crime?  When did emotions become taboo?  Then people can't understand where all this "mental illness" is coming from. 

Humans are emotional creatures.  From the time we are born we express those emotions from an all out wail to soft chuckles.  Parents around the World delight in bringing a happy smile to their baby's face.  Slowly over time expressing those emotions become a "Bad Thing."

Many of my difficulties centered on my inability to feel my emotions.  It is hard to be caring when you don't feel anything at all.  I worked at cutting off my emotions.  They only leaked out occasionally and were rapidly squashed.  I was trained to deny my emotions.  No small wonder why I became emotionally wounded and sp

lit.  I couldn't be their "happy little girl" if I expressed the deep sadness I was feeling.  I was teased for crying, punished for being upset or sad, accused of being a bigger sinner if I got angry about how I was treated....the list went on until I cut off my emotions.  Not that is sad. 

A World without emotions is Gray.....lots of gray or if in England, grey. 

I know a bunch about gray. 

Expectations clash

One of the groups on Facebook attempted to have mentoring.  I tried with two different people and discovered that our expectations of what mentoring means is quite different.  One gave me no information to go on and when asked what I did for mentoring I mentioned that it depends on the needs of the person and if it matches up with what I know.  Complete miss.  The other wanted someone online willing to talk on the phone.  I'm partially deaf and my children don't try to call me very often.  Another miss.  So I am throwing this out there to anyone that would like to answer....what do you think mental health mentoring would look like?


Thanks for any responses. 

Too hard too long

Equals collapse. 

Not only does my body hold a grudge, if I push too hard too long it completely collapses on me.  It does not work for me to compare to someone else.  I can't compare myself to the week before.  It is like each activity can have a hefty pay load or fade into easy routine.  For example, a week ago, thanks to parts from the computer class at school, I was able to revive a computer that sat around our house dead for about 6 years.  I pulled off all the files and will donate the XP carcass to the school since it is their parts making it run.  I was elated to get it up and running.  However, seeing some of those files is ripping off emotional scabs left and right.  The sum total - exhaustion. 

I try regular routines that I get fairly good at but life is anything but routine.  It is also nearing the end of school.  I have less to do which means too much time on my hands and my adventurous brain wanders off on forbidden paths of remembering.  I have to remind myself I am also putting my neck out on a few projects that I felt shut down when things went differently than I expected.  I am working at stepping back, surveying the chaos and picking out those pieces that are most useful. 

I believe that each of us have opportunities every day to move forward, sadly fear, habits in thinking, and general inertia keeps us where we are.  Pushing myself to my limits, reminds me fairly rudely that I have limits.  But if I hadn't pushed myself so hard for so long I would still be sitting on the couch 25 hours a day like I did when I was in my 30's.  The reason I am working full time and doing all the things I am doing know was because I refused to live the half life my body was giving me.  I fought back, hard.  Counseling for 10 years is no picnic.  Facing medical field and its overwhelming lack of knowledge about some things is extremely difficult.  Doing my own research instead of trusting their verdict was stepping way out of my comfort zone into a mind field of possibilities.  I learned when my grandson showed up with my physical symptoms, it really isn't all in my head. 

Today I rested...but I still feel tired.  Tomorrow another day of rest that is anything but restful.  Attending church is challenging for me.  So much peopling involved.  However, I really like some of the people.  I learned about being an introvert and it makes sense.  My challenges are physical, emotional and how I am as a person.  My limits are many and I push at them constantly, sometimes they push back. 

Assessing where I am.  

Why I hate Mother's Day

When I was a little girl, at church my mother was often sick on Mother's day.  They would give me the flowers intended for my mother to take home to her.  I knew that mother rejected things from me so I would leave it on the table not expecting her to accept this token.  As I grew older and it became clearer to me that my mother hated me...but no one would believe me.  After all every day in front of others she should would say, "Did I tell you today how much I love you?"  But her behavior didn't match her words.  I grew up confused and distrustful.  Every Mother's day was this same conflicted feeling. 

Teen years I was expected to fill in for mother when she was sick, including receiving the Mother day tributes each year.  She would have me cook without explaining things so I would burn it.  She would have me do more and more until I failed.  Should I succeed the consequences would be an increase attacks on my stupidity, clumsiness or other negative attributes.  At age 17 I swore never to have children if I was going to be anything like her. 

Well, Heavenly Father through a series of personal events softened my heart.  I met and married an amazing man and we have 6 wonderful children.  I still hate Mother's day.  I screwed up as a mom.  I made mistakes, some were real doozies. I would go to church on Mother's day and hear what all the other wonderful women were doing and I felt terrible that I was not doing all those things.  I fell into the horrible habit of comparing other people's best to my worse.  I felt even worse when they would pat me on the shoulder and say, "You are doing the best you can."  NO, I wasn't.  I knew lots of times I knew better than what I was doing.  I set myself impossible standards.  Of course I failed, I was taught to fail.  Should I succeed, my internal negative tape would castigate me for every single little and big mistake.  I messed up. 

Ten years of counseling taught me two important things.  1. People mess up.  It is like we are designed to screw up in some way.  2. I will never be like my mother because all along the way I made different choices.  I am much more forgiving of myself.  I still hate Mother's day.  It is painful for those women that want to have children but can't.  It is a brutal reminder to those whose children died.  It is infuriating for those with mother's that were their abusers.  A few years ago I made a decision.  Stop going to church on Mother's day.  DH (Darling Husband) comes home and tells me how wonderful and inspirational the talks are but he's not a mother.  He is not being weighed and judged by a brutal inner critic.  He doesn't sit their remembering past mistakes. He can enjoy the message without feeling the weighted burden of failure.  I shouldn't but I still feel it.  Rather than fight the feeling, I kindly allow myself to stay home. 

I enjoy hearing from my amazing wonderful adult children and their spouses.  I appreciate the gifts and messages of love.  I am learning to forgive myself for mistakes I made.  I enjoy not hearing how wonderful everyone else is.  I learned to scroll on by when a person shares how much they miss their mother if they have died.  I allow them to feel their feelings.  When I think about my mother, I remember our last conversation when she explained why she hated me and she had to make sure that my father hated me too.  She was twisted by fear and messed up thinking.  I feel sad for her that she made herself so miserable.  She's dead now.  Maybe she will find peace.  I don't miss her.  I am not sad she is gone.  Today the first Mother's day after her death, I stayed home and wrote this.  I hate Mother's day for many reasons.  Maybe in another 10 years my heart will soften enough to be able to go to church on Mother's day, but I won't hold my breath. 

Changing a car engine

I was trying to describe therapy to someone that has not experienced counseling.  I decided it was like changing a car engine while I was driving down the freeway. 

When I read this on Facebook my thought was this is great...Exactly what I mean.  It is difficult to explain what the problem is sometimes.  Hard to understand what you are asked to do.  Sometimes just to darn tired to do anything so I sit there for awhile, until I am tired of sitting and try again. 

https://www.facebook.com/InsufferableIntolerance/photos/a.268928783268247/1081108428716941/?type=3&theater

You deserve recovery

Found on Facebook..

YOUR Mental Illness/Negative tape/PTSD/CPTSD/Abuser IS LYING TO YOU:

- you are not stupid
- you are not ugly
- you are not worthless
- you are not weak
- you are not a burden
- you are not crazy
- you are not a freak
- you are not alone
- you are worthy of recovery

Every struggle is made a little harder with the mental dumping my brain does to me.  If I treated my friends how I treated myself, I would have no friends.  No one likes being called stupid, but if I make the smallest mistake I call myself stupid.  Plastic surgery is a multibillion business because people believe they are ugly.  Feelings of worthlessness push a person a little closer to the abyss of suicide.  Feeling weak keeps up us from seeing our strengths.  Feeling like I was a burden kept me from seeking help.  Crazy, I've owned this one but my counselor disagreed; he explained I adjusted to the craziness I was raised in.  Online I found so many others like me, freak is just a word people throw around when you are different than they are and they are afraid of those differences.  Online I learned how much I am not alone.  I also believe that Christ was alone so I don't have to be.  Recovery is an on going process and I am worth the battle.  

Bringing my 10,000 puzzle pieces to counseling to straighten them out.  

Delight!

I follow Carol Anne and she did the word of the day Delight!  Her blog is private so you need to ask for a password.  https://therapybits.com/2019/05/04/delight/

This is the challenge she took:  https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/delight/

Word of the day challenge of delight.  Wow, I love it. I often include gratitude as part of my daily routine, I think delight is gratitude amped-up.  Feeling of delight.

Looking up in the dictionary it is a noun and a verb.  Naming the emotion Delight, the action of feeling great pleasure, a verb. 

I felt delight today when a teacher told me she valued my help to day.
I felt delight today when my doctor told me I am doing very well and he doesn't need to see me for a year.  Woohoo. 

For me delight is a synonym for Woohoo.