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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 219 total)
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  • in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #368436
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    Yes I know something’s changing inside me but I also often go back to the same patterns, but I guess that’s normal. My therapist says I burst with anger and that the anxiety disorder is a way for me to have control of myself. She says I’m so afraid of myself and of my emotional reactions and that’s how obsessive compulsive manners get triggered. I never tied the ocd to the anger, that’s some food for thought. Unlike my psichiatrist she also thinks I’m depressed and I do agree with her

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #368304
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how my expression is going lately. Yeah, when you have an anxiety disorder is very important that the people close to you are a soothing presence, instead of disturbing and I kinda tried to make my parents understand that. Guess this is a significant time for them, to learn to change the dynamics in our family a little, or at least I hope

    Tonight it struck me as a realization, an image or symbol I have of myself after all these years. The confusion, the obsession-compulsion, the weird or random mental habits, the daydreaming, the numbing scrolling, the fact I don’t know how to “live” and then, after all this I look myself in the mirror and I have no glow, no matter how well dressed I am, my eyes are so tired. In short, it’s another analogy like the ivy (remember?) And this on is about my brain being a mash. Harsh I know, but like a fried be 1800s style: h electroshock. There’s a poignant scene in a very crude movie Requiem for a dream, this lady goes crazy after abusing prescribed pills but her brain basically ends up as a house plant after being carelessly electroshocked. The movie starts with her looking like the classic lady next door to a shaved, pijama-ed, empty eyed shadow of her former self.

    This is an extreme example of how I feel about myself, at 22. Ocd, daydreaming, routine, god knows what, electroshocked me and turned me into mash

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #368217
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    It gives the child the message that her parent is not in control, that her parent can collapse (and die, perhaps) at any time, or that her parent can harm the child.

    I actually like this analysis because that’s really how my child self felt when my mother expressed strong negative emotions, there’s really a threat of her collapsing or dying. I guess that’s enough for a child not to feel safe and anxiety disorders follow, because the internal self lacks a foundation of safety. And yeah, it’s also interesting you saying that “i desperately need to feel safe around my mom”. Actually, she can express herself as a soothing presence when she wants and she definitely is a more responsive and helpful presence than my father, he just gets nervous and anxious if he has to “watch over” me without my mother there

     

     

     

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #368173
    Gaia
    Participant

    It’s interesting because my therapist asked me the same question yesterday. Yes, my mother often showed anger but in a way I’d define more as “exasperation” rather than anger. so yes, she showed very often exasperation throughout my life and in daily life

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #368141
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    Are you interested if my mother was angry throughout my whole life or in this time, more specifically?

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #368091
    Gaia
    Participant

    My therapist thinks my anxiety expressing itself so forcefully and through the need of reassurance is a subliminal way for me to feel like a child again and reach at my parents. I agree with her because I can’t eat without my mother near to me, since she’s the one who knows how to act if someone chokes.

    I remember the magnifying glass, and I explained to my therapist that I actually don’t like to express myself with my mom because 1. She has to put herself at the center of the emotional show going on

    2. She tends to magnify while I need reassurance

    Note: lately I’ve been reading what I consider an amazing article on suffering from addictive daydreaming. It hit me right at the core. And that’s what I need. To feel seen, heard, to be able to relate to. Remember how I used to say that I felt like a weird creature no one could relate to? And you used to tell me that a significant need missed from my upbringing: the relational need, well it hit me how I actually use my daydreams to “exist” somewhere (like everyone else suffering from it does) and cope with that lacking need at the foundation of my upbringing.

    I do have a theory that I obsess and daydream on distant crushes and people (remember?) cause my inner child feels familiar with that and gets really vulnerable and scared when people don’t react to me. Yeah, that isn’t a verb I choose randomly: react. People who are irresponsive disturb me and make me feel like a child again, and make me obsess over it and over them

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #368039
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    Currently neither my psychiatrist or my therapist are focusing too much on the phobia itself, more on getting at the roots of my anxiety and struggles you know so much well since we talked so much last year and even before that.

    I try to be rational and telling myself that eating is safe but some days are better than others. I feel kinda regressed to a childlike state. I used to be very independent and liking to rely on myself, live by myself and minding my stuff but now I can’t eat unless I have someone else soothing presence near to me, eating alone frightens me. I constantly need other reassurance on many things.

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #367943
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    By “letting it go” I mean just stop obsessing and checking that everything is under control and… What happens, it happens. I do believe in masks and in science and I’m hating people who are trying to make all this a conspiracy, adding anxiety and confusion to people. On the other hand, the “pandemic fatigue” is real. I feel like our lives revolve around the virus and how not to catch it. I try to limit my news intake and see the situation from a realistic (the virus exists and we must act accordingly) without allowing others to instill psychological terrorism in my mind.

    For me, this is a very particular time. I always distracted myself with pleasure to cope: food, alcohol, vanity, daydreams. But I noticed that now, it’s that escapist pleasure that I’m losing. I can’t drink, because I take meds, I can’t enjoy food because I fear from phobia of swallowing and chocking, I’m slowly letting go of daydreaming and vanity because I want to face my struggles instead of cope like this, the same old way… I’m limited in many ways but at the same time, I try to see it all as an opportunity to embrace coming to term with myself truly and dealing with stuff, instead of running towards escapism and distraction.

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #367911
    Gaia
    Participant

    I look forward the day where we get our freedom back. Physical freedom and mental freedom from fear. I’m tired of hearing about death all the time. I struggle to make long term visions and dreams because globally it all look so dark and menacing: pandemics, revolts, climate crisis, conspiracy theories… I think the best way to handle it all is just let it go, and whatever will have to happen, will happen.

    On a personal level, I still struggle with certain coping mechanism and turmoil but I accept it all way more. I understand that this is my way to cope with toxic in and around me, I am enough and I have the intention to stay on this course and to not longer abandon myself, or let myself in situations that kill me internally

     

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #367908
    Gaia
    Participant

    Yes, I’m glad too that I’m currently in therapy and and getting the help I need. I wasn’t on meds since my teens, and I just started again. I’m in such a bad place that anything that can relieve my mind and restore some sanity to my ocd is more than welcome. It’s a stressful, ugly year. Hope you’re doing well in the midst of all this

    My name is Giorgia, by the way

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #367905
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    I just started the journey with my therapist, she seems willing to explore my life story in depth and interestingly, wants me to stop downplaying my struggles just like you wanted. I’m excited to see where the road will take. Not gonna lie, this covid situation is incredibly depressing and fuels my anxiety and emotions, it’s hard to stay hopeful but yeah, wish health for each one of us

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #367895
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    It’s been 7 months since we left this thread.

    Currently I’ve started both psychotherapy and meds, since my health anxiety has reached peaks so high that I’ve stop eating for fear of swallowing. Remember when I used to say that I would have loved to do therapy but didn’t know how? That’s how I was feeling. I knew that what I needed most in life was therapy (and yes, meds) but was at a point in life that even talking about the fact that I was struggling wasn’t realistic, in my mind. Currently they kept my ocd diagnosis.

    Don’t even know why I’m saying this here but I must confess that I never forgot about this thread and that, in your own way, you tried to help me and hear me. Your opinion was that I needed to keep my emotional and mental health in check and that’s what happening lately, just wanted to let you know

     

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #343420
    Gaia
    Participant

    Anita

    I know you wrote that you don’t want me to reply further but I can’t just read this and close this thread without saying anything.

    I get how you feel, I get that my lack of progress may feel frustrating and that you no longer want to spend energy or work no me. I respect that.

    I’m closed in my home since the start of march like everyone in my country, tell me how can I talk with about how I’m practicing assertiveness? By the way I’m doing it. I’m practicing making myself more respected with the few people I can interact daily now, you may no longer have heard about the Magnifying Glass by me but this doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about this. Or that I don’t use it by myself whenever strong emotions arise, especially when triggered by my mother.

    You find my lack of progress frustrating, you have no idea how even more frustrating it is to me, since forever. And about psychotherapy I’ve already expressed why I can’t seem it now, but I’ve also said more than once that it’s the first thing I’m considering when I’ll be financially independent.

    You don’t have to write to me, you don’t owe me nothing. I won’t ask you to keep being in touch if it’s a frustrating experience but the fact I’m being abandoned this abruptly is not a pleasant experience, it’s hurtful.

    Goodbye by the way, I won’t disturb you no longer

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #343402
    Gaia
    Participant

    What I need is to hear is that I’m not in danger and that the best is yet to come, by the way:)

    in reply to: My extreme feelings kill me #343400
    Gaia
    Participant

    Dear Anita

    You’ve considerably helped me. You help me firstly by being the sole person I can say private things to in my life, you helped me not seeing myself as a monster and in opening my eyes about a lot of things in my life.

    I imagine how miserable I must be, that another person across the ocean asks what else she can do for my pain (by the way, you’re a very generous person, sometimes I wonder if you’re an angel!)

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 219 total)