Struggling to be

[PeppiPatty]

Hello @MoonGal

When you are writing I felt quiet and I felt ....... like I wanted to sit up.

I was very lucky I have/ had a therapist. It feels like what's happening for you is that you just need to say hi to someone stable. Can you call lifeline or ..... So you have anyone who can just say hello to you ?
You are someone who has a lot more feelings than you think
I am very very proud of you. Just for being here and being honest
Anne

[MoonGal]

Hi @PeppiPatty (Anne) The sense of loss of all that could of been, the regret (what a useless emotion regret is!) and the tiredness I feel, comes when I try to make 'sense' of my long lived, roller coaster of a life. There is no making 'sense' of MI really, perhaps depths of understanding, perhaps accepting it as it is. When I write poetry or create artworks time stops, I am just in the flow, I long to be able to live life like that, in the flow.

Every now and then the sorrow washes over me with deep melonchlia, but I am learning to 'sit' with it instead of running away and jerking/ramping myself up into some false state of bravado. I am practising holding mySelf in these vulnerable states and witnessing all the myriad reactions and things I do to AVOID the pain (like getting all intellectual and pontificating/opinionating about some subject), perhaps all that avoidance, all that running away just keeps the pain boiling, pehaps, sitting with it in love and tenderness acknowledging it is the kindest thing to do. Thi sis all very new way of being and seeing, instead of the barrier of I KNOW - I am holding the question mark with love.

I foster greyhounds, and some come in a terrible state psychologically, I am very good at being calm and centred gentle and slow and loving for these terrified or locked in beings. I have decided to treat myself the same way. I am reaching out to myself with the same kind of gentleness. I want to be honest too about the knotted strands in my warp and weft, the knots that, running my hands over my life I find stitting as great lumps (of regret, shame, selfloathing) these are just as they are - AND maybe by loving them and dissolving them and making the weave smooth - I can come to rest in the field of myself. Not running away into the next Big Thing That WIll Help, not jerking myself up-by-my-bootstraps and hurtling myself into hypomanic DOING for 5 weeks to avoid the tender, hurt, crying spaces in me... but staying put and loving the hurt and jagged parts, which I am so good at doing for 'others'.

I am in the process of this different way of seeing, this different way of being, you are very perceptive Anne. And thankyou for the hand on the shoulder and the care. I am meant to be here.

.....I seek dissolving the barriers, like mountain ranges that I have built to protect myself, which have in truth become my own prison.....

[Appleblossom]

"Holding the question mark with love."

What a beautiful phrase.  I think that is what I have been cajoled into doing by my crazy life.  I am pretty cerebral and my ex husband and I bonded a little over that 30 years ago... but after a while his obssession with the children's cognitions was so obviously excessive that I learned a value in not knowing.

[PeppiPatty]

Golly. What an email. And you foster greyhounds @MoonGal

I've got to look up something in a book and will get back to you .....

But thank you. This Sane forums never ceases to amaze me. What people do and feel. But you are .....

Caring for yourself through greyhounds. 

I dunno @MoonGal. You are clever. Can you think about writing a page on the care of greyhounds and send it into someone?? Could somehow your story be shown? Or even better, could you do it for yourself? Can you write thinking on "I care for greyhounds because it teaches me how to care for myself??

PErsonally, I write papers all the time. Im catching up with my Psychotherapist for one in about two weeks. There is NO avenue for my papers to be shown.....

Once I wrote a 14 page paper on proper care for people who spend times of emental ill health and getting support. I sent it into what I thought was the right place, nothing happened. 

[MoonGal]

---

@PeppiPatty - I am caring for greyhounds and in that have seen with depth, that this is also a good way to care for mySelf. It is not so much that caring for greyhounds is therapy of any kind, nor the doing of it is any intention to care for me, I expect nothing of them, I just cuddle and cajole them into safety and trust. I do it for them, not me.

And in the doing of it, I have come to see what the condition of loving the frail and scaredy bits looks like. Usually I am so damned hard on those scarred and scared parts of myself - like 'buck up", "get over It", "oh, please, grow up" - I would never demand nor speak like that of any other damaged being, so why would I treat myself that way? It is a vulnerable time, I have committed to holding that hurt in myself, not running away from it, not trying to fix it. i hacve spent a life time trying to 'fix' it. Time just to love it.

I am sorry your paper went into the great abyss, sometimes these things happen and the lack hurts, doesn't it? Others can be thoughtlessly cruel in their disregard. 

[PeppiPatty]

Yeah ..... I worked  hard too 
I think I'm over expecting any type of accolades...... My joy is ..... Similar to yours but different
I went through a stage of making dolls ......

I cant cope with too much....

 I put my hand up to support a group of people in  public housing and writing letters for them. It's hard work ........jeepers, the most sad thing is that nothing may happen for them.
I try and push myself .....And other things but don't think I could do the greyhound thing ......Am I right in thinking that thousands of greyhounds get put down every week??

STrong.

[CherryBomb]

Hello my friend, @Aonaran 

I'm so terribly sorry it's been a while. I've been slammed with work. As you know it was, 'Mental As' week, a few weeks back, so there's been a bit going on. Tonight, I'm running short of time again, but I wanted to get back to you, as I enjoy chatting with you.  I apologise for how short this post is. 

I couldn't agree with you more about your concerns. There is a certain narrative that we see in the media, that of 'experts' - health and medical professional who are given the authority to say what is what. I agree, I would like to see more people with lived experiences talk about their own experiences rather than have someone else say it for them. 

I've started doing a bit of reading on critical disability. Although, it's a bit different to MI, what I find interesting is that critical disability suggests that disability is a social construction. 'Impairment' is the health issue, but 'disability' is the social response to that impairment. In other words, social responses impair people who are disabled. There's an interesting thought experient, that asks people to imagine what a city would be like that was made specifically and only for people in wheel chairs. It means that doors would be too short for walking bodies, and that they would probably need some type of medical intervention to fit into 'normal society'. When we look at things this way, we can see how social forces shape 'health issues' and disable people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-medicine, and I can see that there are some benefits for people. But I do think it's importnat to acknowledge that there often multiple stories, and sometimes alternative perspectives are hidden under dominant ways of understanding  - as you have pointed out in the case of HIV. Often the hidden narratives about people, are the stories told by the actual people themselves. 

What are your thoughts of critical disability? Do you think it's relevant to MI? I do..

I wish I could go into more detail, I real do. I hope we can carry on this conversation soon. How have you been anyway?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

CB

[Aonaran]

Hello, Friend @CherryBomb

Well, that was a deep dive.  I had no idea I'd been under so long.  My genuine apologies if it seemed like I wasn't too fussed about replying.  That's not it at all, but I am worried that I seem to be separating from ongoing life like an unmoored skiff drifting on a slow current.

And perhaps that ties in with ... OH CB, your comments on critical disability make so much sense to me.  I'm really grateful to you for sharing them.  My own response is that I think they go very much to the heart of the matter.

If I may, I'll share with you another one of my Moonwatcher moments that you once asked to hear about.  I think it's relevant here, and I don't think I've written about it before.

There was *so much* I learnt about Life from going to acting school.  A lot of it was from what were intended as principles or observations about stagework, and I realised for myself they were not only true, but True.  One of them was in the context of the old adage that "There is no such thing as a small role, only small actors" -- which in most senses sounds a bit trite, but in one sense I felt was profound.  Suppose you're playing a Queen (and I mean the actual monarch kind!) -- it doesn't really matter how you behave or what you say;  what tells the audience you're a Queen is how those around you behave towards you.  Their response may be positive or negative, but if it doesn't contain some acknowledgement of your position (even if it's only by defiance of that position), then for all the audience knows you're just some deluded person thinking she's something that she's not.

In other words, our realities can be defined more by those around us than by our own perception of ourselves, or the statement we try to make in our everyday being.  I've mentioned before my own perception that once we acknowledge to someone else that we have some form or degree of MI, we often cease to be a whole or self-determinant person in their eyes.  And while I can understand that it is (perhaps!) a "natural" human response, it ... no actually, I'm not going to say that.  Bugger it, I *don't* think it's a natural follow-on, and I *don't* think it's okay.  It's just wilful ignorance on many people's parts, and it (clearly!) makes me angry, and it's a large part of my anger over so-called "experts" as Talking Heads.  Their pronouncements often don't enhance people's understanding or ability to respond constructively to people with MI -- in fact, I think it does the opposite, because it actually emphasises the distinction and separation.  (As in, "Thank God I don't have that problem!")  As I said a few pages back, I think it gives people the false belief that they "know" about MI and what people grappling with that truly "need", and it gives people an utterly false perception of their own wellness and higher position in the hierarchy.  Now of course there are certain types or aspects of MI that do best with support from a specific perspective, but I believe it's all about how you balance the listing skiff, and concentrate on its sea-worthiness and hull integrity as its predominant characteristics, rather than the fact that it's listing.

OH CB, you've inspired my thoughts.  Thank you so much!  I have a lot to chew on, and maybe it'll give me the courage to answer @PeppiPatty's question of what I'm looking for in a therapist.  I can answer in three letters what I'm *not* looking for: C. B. T.

I hope you're doing well, CB, and also anyone else who reads this.  Please forgive me my repeated truancy.

Smiles,

A.

[MoonGal]

@Aonaran - This.... "Now of course there are certain types or aspects of MI that do best with support from a specific perspective, but I believe it's all about how you balance the listing skiff, and concentrate on its sea-worthiness and hull integrity as its predominant characteristics, rather than the fact that it's listing."

Resonates for me, thank you. I am a ship on the (often stormy) seas, and in sailing there is a term - *attitude (see below)

I like to think about my position in life in regards others... I ask myself the metaphorical Questions
how are my sails set?
am I crashing into the waves or going with them?
Am I being oppositional just for its own sake?
Am I foundering because of my own thoughts. 

So i check my own sea-worthiness of this skiff. When I can. Sometimes of course I am just both the storm and the boat. 🙂
_________________________

Definition

Attitude

(aeronautics, nautical, engineering) The orientation of a vehicle or other object relative to the horizon, direction of motion, other objects, etc.  [quotations ▼] The airliner had to land with a nose-up attitude after the incident

[Aonaran]

Hiya @MoonGal

I've just been reading with fascination your posts on this thread and discussions with @PeppiPatty.  You write beautifully, and -- to borrow your phrase -- what you have said really resonates with me.  I hope you, Anne, and @Appleblossom, and of course @CherryBomb, will continue to be part of the conversation in the thread.  (At the moment, It's I who seems to be letting the chain sag.)

Oh dear, I've tarried ... i was going to take myself off to the Flicks (and hold my hand in the dark cinema, and buy myself some Maltesers and wonder when I was going to make the first move) to see the new Bond film (before som,eone spoils it for me!), but I got caught up in reading all the posts on the thread I'd missed, and have missed the session I was aiming for.  And now i'll need to chew on the posts a little before I can make any cogent response.  Oh well.  The flick will have to wait until Wednesday.

I'll be back!

Aonaran