Posted by Racer on October 3, 2008, at 15:04:44
In reply to Re: Bad thoughts ***trigger*** » Nadezda, posted by Deneb on September 27, 2008, at 23:26:08
> I was just thinking that it wouldn't because most people seen ok after deaths. I mean, they move on.
>
> > It's just there have been babblers who have died and things go back to normal.Here's a little reality check for you, Deneb: yes, we move on. Which doesn't mean that we forget, nor that the memories don't still contain pain for us.
For those of us who remember her, Gracie's death will always be a very painful wound. When I think of her, it still causes me pain.
Your death, from any cause, would cause me -- me, personally -- great pain. Should you die voluntarily, that pain would be tempered by a great deal of anger. My own, possibly selfish, preference is that I will never have to deal with your death. (I'm older than you are, so there's a good chance of that.) If I ever do have to experience that pain, I would rather it be pure, and untempered.
As far as that bridge is concerned, I will say this again: you, at your height, would not be physically capable of climbing over the railing. Get right over that worry, that you'll do it impulsively.
Everyone else has had very good advice for you. I'm going to give you two pieces, too. These are from me to you, and I hope you will accept them as having some meaning -- I hope that you have enough respect for me and for the time I'm taking to respond to this, to value these two pieces of advice:
1. It helped me a lot, when I was little younger than you are now, to think of those Bad Thoughts as being like a living creature which inhabited me. That creature was trying very hard to survive, while I was trying to kill it. I used the analogy of a parasite to explain why it was so hard to get past that sort of thing. Mine were a bit different from yours, but there are enough similarities I believe that such a metaphor may also be helpful for you. Think of your Bad Thoughts as a parasite you've been battling. You shrink it, but it's not quite dead yet, and it's trying desperately to grow back to its original size. The more effort you put into shrinking it, the less powerful it will be. You have what, eight months to work on this Beast? You've already shown us how dedicated you are to this work, and how successful you are in doing the work with your pdoc. In eight months? Man, you'll be the healthiest one there -- IF you decide to fight your Beast.
2. Before you even begin working on the Beast, ask yourself a different question: WHY now? WHY here? My guess is that you're looking for reassurance that people actually want to see you. Reassurance that someone will talk to you. Reassurance that we won't all sit across the room and laugh and point at you. And you're using older strategies to get that reassurance.
I'm not going to say, "Oh, Deneb, everything will be OK." I don't think that would matter one whit -- it might help for a few minutes, but then you'd need that reassurance again. Instead, I will offer you something else -- something I hope is more meaningful: Ask yourself what evidence you need to feel secure that someone will talk to you? Ask yourself what is the worst thing that could REALISTICALLY happen? Find the reassurance within yourself, because you've certainly got both the capacity to do so AND the skills to do so. Once you find that reassurance within you, you will have it with you always. If you need to hear your pdoc's voice telling you what you already know, that's fine. Hell, if you want to think of MY voice reminding you of this, that's fine, too.
Deneb -- I heard a great description of something else, that I think applies here:
"Say you're five years old, and your brother is four. He grabs your toy, and you smack him.
Now you're six years old, and your brother is five. He grabs your toy, and you go tell your parents. (And they smack him.)
It doesn't mean that you'll never hit your brother again, it only means that you've learned another coping skill which trumps the first one."
Right now, you're using the earlier coping strategies, the "I will hurt myself" messages, rather than what you're really trying to communicate. For some reason, you have reverted to "smacking your brother," rather than using a newer, more effective coping strategy. Maybe asking yourself why that happened would be a good counter-attack on those Bad Thoughts. Those pesky Unwanted, Intrusive, and Obsessive Thoughts.
Feel free to email me, Deneb. You know I'm in the area in question, and maybe I can help in some way.
poster:Racer
thread:854433
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20080929/msgs/855554.html