Awareness of Women's Mental Health

[Owlunar]

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@Appleblossom wrote:

We are all so different @Former-Member

@Sophia1 I am with you ... on the learning thing.  What I have found is that the best educated people I have met are not that arrogant, it is the one's trying to compete...

@Shaz51 You and your mum are special.

@Maggie

@Owlunar

I am heavily study oriented whether or not it is in a formal course matters not a jot.

Just the way I am shaped.

Important conversation.

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I agree @Appleblossom - I have done the formal study bit through life - the kind that gives people a certificate as proof they did the formal work which is find and necessary to get work in the areas we might chose

But since then - I have been into reading and researching whatever I am interested in - terrific because nothing has time limits - there are no essays or exams and I don't have to read something I am not interested in

It seems to me that private study is really great to pursue - we do it purely for self-interest and at any point and for as long as we chose

Until I started this with the help of SBS - NITV and Viceland - and of course the internet - what was often a lot of unrelated data coelesed into a huge database - I have found European History interesting though I never studied it formally

Dec

[Maggie]

@Owlunar I've thought on and off about this topic for a few days now. I have so much trouble getting things out of my head, lots going on inside, not much outside, very frustrating.

My family had no interest in education, especially for a girl. We were to have babies, clean etc. sounds like I've been dropped off of the ark, in some ways that's true. My convent year opened my eyes to my first books and education. First HSC then nursing. I have done other associate diploma study. Churning out assignments was a huge struggle as I'm a thinker, but today, like you, I do a lot of research online and love it. Learning opens our eyes to other worlds and people, to ourselves. Together with life experience, it's a pathway forward.

[Owlunar]

Hi @Maggie

I am really glad you have found the world of private research so interesting and rewarding - thanks for sharing - it's great to read

My family was convinced all I would do was have babies - well - get married first of course - but it really did seem that as having a family proved difficult when I did have children my family lost interest with the drama of my life - and this was such a blow - this is what turned me toward education and this has been a life-time pattern

When it comes to getting things out of your head it might be helpful when I start writing something on Life Traps - I am still thinking about this to work out the best way to present  it and it is an important area to analyse. I want to find a way I can share what I have read with other women

We hear the negative voices in our heads from infancy - and they stick like a jammed DVD - I am hoping to find a way of defusing our Life Traps. The tough thing is that other people put the ideas into our little child head and we are the only ones who can overcome the negativity

And another thing that puzzles me - and I am affected too -  how is it that we believe the negative comments so easily and disbelieve the positive comments 

That is a strange thing and I have only recently started to ask myself the questions

Dec

[Maggie]

@Owlunar Just a little info I've picked up regarding the negative voices. Small children seem to take the blame for things going wrong. I'm not sure if it's a developmental malfunction, or just a normal process to be worked through. So if it's not worked through, it's gets stuck there, the DVD jamming you mentioned. I've been doing a little research on abuse and brain development. Interesting to say the least. All I know is, I'm wired wrong.

Your new thread sounds interesting. Look forward to it when you are ready to start.

I just had another thought regarding the negative voices, sorry to jump all over the place, have to go with the flow as it doesn't happen too often. Once the negative voices are there, it seems others pick up on the lack of self esteem. That's how it is for me anyway, the paper thin doormat syndrome, so negativity reproduces in other relationships. Hard to get out of when being reinforced from almost every angle.

[Sophia1]

Hello @Maggie@Owlunar

I zoomed straight in when I read both of your recent posts...

past negative programming I often refer to it as...

This came up only the other day in my therapy..

We both came to the conclusion that the negative self-talk that I have is so deeply ingrained from what must be a very early age...ongoing..

I think that you touched on it perfectly too @Maggie in discussing early childhood development...lack of reassurance...support...explanations in early childhood can also create a reaction in a child to internalise the wrong...I refer to it as badness ...the rest is just a blur...neglect although a harsh sounding word comes in many forms and many different levels...having varying effects...

This is a very good subject...

I welcome the idea to be able to talk at such great depth on subjects also..

@Shaz51 thank goodness you had such two kind, loving uncles...one who gave you away as well...a very proud moment..

@Former-Member@Appleblossom

we all seem to have had varying upbringings which further highlight in my mind that nothing is black and white...

looking forward to further discussions with all involved...

[Shaz51]

yes @Sophia1, after we left dad , mum and I lived with 3 uncles and their families until I was 16 when we moved down to look after grandma until she passed away

and then my aunty and her 4 children moved in with us for the next 3 years

lots of memories and ups and downs xx

[Sophia1]

yes @Shaz51

that would have been an upheaval for you in your growing years...

hopefully all of the children got on..

we moved around from country to country so much and then emigrated to australia..

we only were around family for one year in one sitting...

spent little time with one grandma

met one grandpa once briefly

did not meet other grandparents as in my dad's parents they passed away before he met mum...

sounds as though life would have been very busy in your houses growing up...opposite for us...very quiet...too quiet...apart from sister and I squabbling...

[Appleblossom]

@Shaz51 & @Sophia1

In some ways I had more of the busy constantly changing experience when growing up.  It is only in these last 15 years where I have had some control that I have deliberately quitened my life down.

Yesterday I saw "Ladies in Black". It was a lovely charming take and set in an area I lived just 7 years later than the film was set.  Funnily enough the cinema had a blackout 10 mins before the end, so I cant do a spoiler alert.  The gave us a refund and a free ticket.  Also an extended family member was in it, so I can start talking about my genes being related to celebrities ... ha ha .... instead of only parnaoid schizophrenics ... a very different ball game indeed.

I actually prefer not to talk about negative and positive mood states.  I believe it can be misleading. I like to unpack it more thoroughly.  Situate the mood state in context ... When I was a young girl, mother treated pop radio and tv as evil and so I gained my concepts of valency, from my physics class, doing circuits and electronics with my brother.  Its not that I dont have feelings.  I have always felt very deeply, but I had a different vocabulary.  Later on they started trying to make psychology more sciencey ... to give it more cred ... but I think there are a few thing lost in the translation.

Bottom line ... calling out a negative can be an assertive thing to do.  To invalidate it and demand, expect, hope that all is happy  la la ... can be destructive.

Mind you, its great if we do feel happy la la ... some of the time ...

and then there is the feeling and thinking dichotomy.... it plays a huge role in notions of being a woman .... but at last I have found enough thinking women not feel so alienated and weird ,,,

Cheers Apple

[Owlunar]

Hi @Maggie@Appleblossom@Sophia1@Shaz51@Former-Member@outlander@utopia

et al

I get what you wrote Maggie - about children feeling that whatever goes wrong in the family is their fault and although I have searched my mind I don't think I had that one but I have read about it so often - children blaming themselves for their parents marriage breakdown etc - totally impossible that a child could cause such a problem but yes - it happens a lot and I have read so much here in this forum it is really sad that children grow up with such a life-script - surely that has a profound effect on a person's self-esteem and problems with making adult decisions when they carry an unbelief that everything that goes wrong is their fault

That is truly heart breaking - and although it is not part of my upbringing the opposite can be bad too. My siblings had no control at all over my parents' decisions and they forced life-changes upon us that in retrospect were wrong - and even into adulthood we were not told anything about what they were planning and also - we had no preparation for being adults ourselves - chucked out into the world with few life skills

I guess I was lucky - I had an accounting diploma years before I married and that provided skills to manage but still my siblings and I had it hard as young adults if our decisions didn't please our parents and that was when I started to break away from the family

My sibs didn't - maybe their life choices pleased them but at least I know the mistakes I made were my own

So the question is - where does either plan leave us

If we feel as if we are at fault when we are children our life-script has to be that we can't get anything right and when we make mistakes we must feel helpless and angry

If we are not prepared for adult life we still make mistakes and hey - the same thing happens - when things go wrong we still feel helpless and angry

Aw - this projest might be getting massive - but I am glad I started it

I took time out over the weekend - a virus - sore throat, sneezing, giddiness and hot and cold shivers - like my body couldn't make up it's mind - I seem to be okay today

Dec

[Owlunar]

Hi @Sophia1

I think a lot about families who immigrated - it is a huge part of our experience here in Australia - I think about my grandparents - being so young with my father who was still a toddler - packing their few possessions and getting on a ship in England and migrated to Australia for a better life after WW1 - I imagine my great-grandparents standing on the wharf and waving goodbye forever - they never saw each other again and I know this happens in families over and over again and it strikes me as so hard and yet so necessary - of course this is my story

Somehow all my ancestors found their way to this city - and at some point everyone has the same story and I wonder about things like fate and destiny and how it all works out but it does remain that young people have left their families and homes and culture and come to this multi-cultural country and made up new rules as they went along - some people clinging to the past to death and others defying their families and doing their best to establish themselves as Australians and hearts have been broken and families broken by this massive on-going culture crunch

Me too - my daughter has had this great thing with family and is pleased to be descended from a First-Fleeter - I couldn't care less - all my recent ancestors are British - and my grand-daughter has known many great-grandparents and we all have a different story

I hear you - not meeting your grandparents much at all - and grand-parents have such a powerful effect on our lives - and it being so quiet in your house - no one hearing the great loss of family - and you and your sister squabbling - I hear you - somehow - over the sounds of me and my sister squabbling - alas

I have a couple of friends from Central Europe who feel like second class citizens in their families because they are female - this must crush attempts to establish self-awareness, self-esteem - self-recognition

I get it - I hear you - it's difficult - and something I didn't read in the great magazine I borrowed

But it certainly does add to our life-scripts - and this thing has a life of it's own already - I could stop it but I don't want to - I am learning something all the time and since I started this thread I am learning still more

Dec