Posted by leeran on April 25, 2003, at 21:06:10
In reply to Re: And now for something completely different....... » leeran, posted by Dinah on April 25, 2003, at 19:42:08
Thank you so much, Dinah, for "validating" me. I've been parked here for the last month trying to figure out exactly what's eating me.
I cried when I pushed the "confirm post" button. I felt like a seven years old calling 911 - but you're right, "911" didn't exist back then. And in my mother's defense (a position I've played well) there was absolutely never any physical abuse from her or from my father. It was just a pervasive chill that never really went away.
I felt the need to share all that with Paxvox, not to spook him, not at all! But I just always wished someone would straighten it all out so we could be "normal." Obviously impossible work without professional help.
I never anticipated spilling all that, but I suppose I started to feel safe here and I realized that maybe people wouldn't think less of me because of all this.
This thought hit me today -
Why is it I can feel such incredible empathy for the people on this board, or in life, or wherever - but I can't feel one ounce toward myself?
I feel the need to say to everyone - "will you always keep this (post) between us" but that's just part of my horrible fear, and ultimately part of my illness.
Do we have to hit rock bottom before we can bounce back up? Such an old cliché. I talk in clichés because it's easier than talking in truths.
Is it luck or fate that I found a message board where I would finally feel like I have "come home." Where every other post I read gives me affirmation that I am not so alone after all?It happened by doing a simple search for a medication on a day when I had gone off of another medication.
I feel like I've spent the last month in my own little sunshine filled, palm tree lined hell -where the only sound I've heard is static. But then, there were the posts on this board and they came through somehow. Maybe because I could read at my own pace and didn't have to try to listen.Two weeks ago I emailed Trouble and thanked her for something I had read in the archives that day. It relates back to the subject of my post. It seems like this month has been measured in Fridays. The first Friday I went to Las Vegas for a trade show and said "Hail Marys" the entire way there and back. The next Friday I read almost every one of Sar's posts - and that was when Trouble's post sparked a realization that I wasn't alone on that ancient "family bus." I even queried in my email to her - "if your paragraph made me feel like this, I wonder where I will be next Friday - or the Friday after."
I don't even remember last Friday. Oh yeah, it was Good Friday and I didn't even want to go out in public because my face was so broken out. My son was gone for Spring Break and when he's not here everything seems out of kilter. I guess people with A.D.D. need a schedule (something I've never been good at).
I don't know if this is all part of me getting better, or part of me getting worse, but I've felt so much better since Monday. Maybe it took robbing my system of one of the chemicals it apparently needs for a full month to realize just how bad (mentally) I can feel.Maybe I needed to see how rotten I could feel before I could start to feel better again. I don't honestly know and I have no idea where it's all headed.
I keep thinking of that movie "Awakenings," where the patients have a brief period of life before they fade back into their illness.
So many questions this week. But amazingly, so many answers. And answers that seem to make sense. My husband thinks I need the meds so I can clear my brain enough to deal. I guess he's right. Wellbutrin is the Hoover for my nerve endings.BUT, what is very clear is that I could never have told what has always felt like my dirty little secret if I hadn't watched so closely what goes on here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone. I don't feel so much like an only child anymore.
P.S. You're right, Dinah, I have never gone full throttle with therapy. I asked my psychiatrist about it Monday. He doesn't know any of this (my "life"). He says we should get the medications tweaked then see what's what. Of course, he sees the smiling, effervescent "Lee" who treats every situation like one big public relations campaign in an effort to try to get through it without freaking out or melting like the Wicked Witch of whatever direction it was. In any case, I think I have the start of my dossier to deliver to a potential therapist.
poster:leeran
thread:221860
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030421/msgs/222435.html