Posted by mair on December 17, 2001, at 14:15:03
In reply to Re: isolation » Mair, posted by wendy b. on December 16, 2001, at 23:16:19
Wendy - As usual you've said some things that really resonate for me.
I do think PSB has made it alot easier for me to accept my illness in a way that I have not before. I remember saying something to my husband once about how having depression felt to me like I might feel if I had cancer, but couldn't (or felt I shouldn't) tell anyone about it. I'm reminded daily that i have it, and at times, it has seemed every bit as life threatening as cancer, but since no one knows about it, I never get the kind of support people sometimes get who are more obviously sick. I don't think that part of it has changed, but I do feel more comfortable with this disease - not the feelings it brings certainly, just with the fact that I have it. I think it's helped tremendously to hook up with the people on this board, who function to a greater or lesser degree depending on the swings of their illness. Although many of us might not believe it about ourselves (certainly I don't) there are alot of capable and competent people here who just have to overcome some things that other people might take for granted. I discovered lately that while I still don't go out of my way to talk to my friends about it, I also don't actively try to hide it either.
The other thing I agree with is that I think I can express myself (verbally) more easily, at least to my therapist, because I've already expressed some of what i need to say to her in writing. Correspondingly, some of the things my therapist has said to me are reinforced here either by someone else or by me in my response to another poster. After enough repetition, you can't help but have things sink in to even the hardest of heads. Recently I had to deal with a rather unusual issue that arose with my therapist. I went over it in some detail in a series of email exchanges with a person from this board and that process really helped me clarify my own thinking and helped me push myself to raise it in therapy. Maybe because I don't feel that I express myself very well verbally and because I am not comfortable talking about feelings, I have to first process things myself. Once I have explained them to myself in a clear enough fashion, I can then explain them to someone else. I think my therapist would like me to be a little more spontaneous, and would like me to feel that I could work through things with her alot more easily. Sometimes I get a little hung up in the circular reasoning that I apply when I process things myself, so it's not always productive for me to do that.
I don't think PSB is that addictive for me. How much I come here varies from time to time. My therapist tried to get me to see if there is a pattern to when i come. I see none. Right now i just happen to feel comfortable here and that I have something I can offer. That's certainly not always the case. Right now the biggest problem I have is that I have such a hard time competing for computer/internet time at home so the time I have is during the day when I should otherwise be working -like now. -:) Bad thoughts tend to flow from the feeling that I'm not being productive.
BTW - have you tried to email sar? She gave us an email address last week in one of her posts but I can't get it to work.
When you said you could feel xmas coming was that a positive statement or a forewarning?
Mair
poster:mair
thread:15516
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011216/msgs/15698.html