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Search Results
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Topic: Re-Finding My Center
Wow it’s been quite a few months. I stopped posting a while back. Plenty was going on, and I wasn’t expecting a miscarriage, a breakdown, more weight loss and health issues stemming from all of the above. I don’t really have anxiety attacks anymore, I faint. The doctor thinks it is due to the effects of long term stress and weight loss… hence the additional symptoms of constant loud ringing in my ears for months now and dizzy spells.
I need to find my way back. Several months ago I was on the right track. I was able to start quieting my mind and I was finding a peace I had never known before. Now that is difficult. I should also mention one of my fainting spells caused a pretty serious concussion. I’m finally able to multi task again and it’s getting better. Of all places, it happened in a hospital emergency room visiting someone I know, about two feet from a doctor and five other people. I’ve been irritable and frustrated at strange times… and that’s just not who I am. Due to my weight right now I am very restricted as far as exercise routines. I am thinking about taking up some light yoga again, but do so with the doctor’s warning that I am not to lose any more weight.
Can anyone point me please to a good books or practices that have helped you? I’m seeking something, anything, that I may learn that will help. What has helped you? I don’t like feeling so out of control.. and that’s where I am right now. I love to learn, however. Attempting to meditate and stay active just isn’t cutting it. I think it’s time to dig deeper. I don’t want to spend my entire life battling depression and chronic stress. I just want to feel more balanced and practice healthy habits.
Thank you in advance.
Topic: Resiliency
Tennis is an emotional game. No other sport quite like tennis makes my heart rise and fall at the plight of the two warriors on the court. Just today, watching Eugenie Bouchard battle Ekaterina Marakova, I couldn’t help but notice a strange feeling of defeat come over me when Bouchard was trailing Marakova 2 games to 4 having had already lost the first set 7-6. I was really cheering for Bouchard and couldn’t help feel pity for her struggle. I could sense frustration, shame, anxiety, and sadness. But was it mine, hers, or both? I had a hard time watching. I thought to myself, “Oh wow, why doesn’t she doesn’t quit now and make this pain go away?” But she didn’t quit. She continued playing. It wasn’t the best match of her career, but she regained some ground and eventually evened out the score to 4 games a piece in the second set. In the end, Bouchard lost in the end (7-6, 6-4).
Bouchard’s loss doesn’t bother me. What bothers me, is my own lack of resiliency watching her play. Putting myself in her shoes, I wonder if I would have fared so well. When the tough got going, would I have played on? My past experience shows that I don’t have as much resiliency as I would like when it comes to stresses of life. Too many times have I buckled under pressure only to exit the scene prematurely.
It’s all in your head, I know. With a game like tennis, it’s mind over matter. Even when I’m playing it myself, I can see myself feeling quite confident when I score a point, but then get very distracted and unfocused the moment I make an error.
Ideally, I would not want to lose focus or become distraught, but more importantly, I’d like to be able to have enough resiliency to allow me to stick through the hardest times. I’ve heard it say a million times, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” And to be able to regain your footing and composure and loose gracefully, that for me is a true mark of success.
What do you think? How would you rate your resiliency? How do you build more resiliency in life?
Topic: I've been destroyed
Two years ago I wouldn’t be thinking this at all, and I need help. I’m only fifteen, and yes I realize that’s apparently considered way too young to be mentally unstable and depressed, but that’s not true. Anyway, I need to get through this. And I need help. I’ve been close with people, EXTREMELY close, and the next day they just throw me away. This has happened repeatedly, and I’m not okay anymore. I’m just not, I’ve got anxiety, I used to love to cook now I can’t even think about going into the kitchen to do anything. But I have to because I can’t stress my parents out. I had a best friend of two years recently leave, he found a girlfriend (this matters because he and I DID love each other) and now he won’t really talk to me because she doesn’t want him to. It crushed me, how much I thought he cared and how much I thought I mattered to him. Though I realize this means he probably wasn’t worth it, I can’t get myself to think that. The next one happened just before that, he and I were close as close could be, we slept on calls each night (due to the fact that he’s in another state, we met over the internet,) we were constantly talking, each time he got off work he would call me and we would stay on calls for hours just talking about nonsense, he’d be the first person to tell me good morning and good night, I always loved hearing his voice. And now he’s gone. He found another girl, and I can’t stand going through this so much, it’s the fourth time it’s happened. I get close to someone and BAM, they have another girlfriend all of the sudden. Why? Am I not good enough? I just don’t understand, and it’s completely broken me. The friends that have stuck by me (which are not very few,) have noticed that I’ve changed. They tell me I have a negative attitude, that they feel like I don’t even care about life anymore, and the sad thing is, that’s how I feel as well. What can I do, how can I get myself out of this and get motivated, to make myself happier? I’m getting there with the first one, the guy that was my best friend, because I was falling out of love with him anyway and I realize I don’t love him anymore, so I’m alright with him. But the other one, the one I stayed on call with all the time, this is where I really need help. He made me feel so much better, I was me, I was getting up and cleaning the house randomly, I was waking up and not feeling tired, I was able to get so much done and be happy, and now I can’t anymore. And I want nothing more than to go back in the past and change what happened between he and I, because I really need him. I live in the middle of nowhere where I don’t have any physical friends, so I rely on internet to help me. I can’t get a job because there’s nowhere around, I can’t go on walks without dragging my sister with me because my mother doesn’t want me alone (and getting my sister out of her bedroom is some seriously hard work,) not to mention I can’t find the motivation or want to do anything. I only wish I could tell my mother I want a therapist to talk to, but that would stress her out. Please help..thank you to anyone that reads this.
I live in LA and I’m 23. My doctor recently prescribed me Zoloft to help treat my anxiety. I was on it for one week, and noticed improv in my happiness levels, but not really in my anxiety. I also was completely unable to reach orgasm. After researching that side-effect, I stumbled upon numerous other ones, including the painful withdrawal of eventually coming off of the Zoloft.
I stopped taking it after one week (25mg a day) and I feel a little down. I’ve decided to try to cut caffeine to help anxiety, but I’m wondering if I did a dumb thing by doing off the Zoloft. I’m trying herbal remedies as well, but they take a while to kick in.
Has anyone had any experience with Zoloft, or other anti-depressants? What was your experience?
Thank you.
Long story short, I had a very emotionally difficult childhood in which my mother, someone who had loved me deeply and fully, passed away when I was 10 and no one seemed to want to take her place. I felt very alone throughout my childhood/adolescence, and when I got to college I fell in love with an emotionally abusive man who ended up leaving me after 3 and a half years of an up-and-down relationship. From this (and other lesser experiences) I have apparently come to believe that I am not worthy of love and that everyone who I love will eventually leave me and hurt me in some way.
I am currently with an amazing, understanding and supportive man who has gone above and beyond to make me feel safe and wanted…yet I continue to mistrust him and sometimes my brain concocts the most horribly twisted and unbelievable scenarios of how he’s using me or cheating on me. I’m finding myself time and time again making mountains out of molehills and overreacting to the silliest things. I am so tired of feeling like the world is plotting against me when I intellectually realize that’s just not true. I know all of this is a fabrication of my mind but I don’t know how to stop it. When I meditate or practice mindfulness on a daily basis I feel better and better until something happens and I just explode with mistrust and anger. It’s like trying to better myself and rid myself of these thoughts just makes them worse.
I can’t live in this mental prison anymore. Right now, therapy is not an option financially (however in the past I have tried therapy many times, and usually it has the same effect as meditation/mindfulness…I feel great, awesome, and then something triggers me and I just erupt).
I just want to be happy and let myself experience the love that is right in front of me without constant fear and anxiety that it will be ripped away. I just want to be able to love him back in the way he deserves and not subject him to this roller coaster any longer. I want to be free from this but I just don’t know how.
Please help, TB Community. You guys have been so wonderful in my journey so far and I really look forward to your suggestions.