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Cannot deal with stress and anxiety

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  • November 18, 2015 at 9:41 am #87842
    LoveAndLive
    Participant

    Hi everyone,

    So for the past few years, life has been some what tough for the family. Earlier in 2014, my father was facing certain health issues which thankfully got resolved, post which I had a hard time getting through graduate school and I was facing rejection almost everywhere. Ultimately I did manage that too and had issues with my room-mate. Things changed for the better when earlier this year I changed rooms and found much nicer people to live with and even nicer people as friends. During March this year, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatitis suddenly and was hospitalised. I had my end-semester exams then in which I obviously could not fare too well given the unrest at home. Within a span of a few months, though, my mother recovered completely and got back to her job. Everything was fine till I began interning with a leading multinational and spent a beautiful summer in agony thanks to my horrible mentor. Soon after when my father got his regular health checkup done, he was advised to get an angiography done. Good thing is that the reports turned out to be fine. Now when everything was at last hunky dory, my mother is now facing gynaecological issues. We went to see a doctor today and she had to get a pap-smear done. We are waiting for the reports. But the problem she is facing has not been resolved and she has to get a few other ultrasounds and under severe circumstances even a biopsy done. Though I know there’s nothing that I can do by worrying about the situation, all this stress and anxiety is driving me insane. I’m extremely attached to my family, especially my mother and cannot bear to see everyone enduring so much pain and struggle. These bad times have been around for way too long and I simply am failing at keeping my nerves strong any longer. The situation has now become too much to handle. I don’t know what kind of advice or consolation I’m really looking for. Perhaps, I just need a place to vent it all out, for someone to lend me a patient ear. Any advice of any kind would be immensely appreciated! Thanks, in advance!

    November 18, 2015 at 10:33 am #87847
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear kasushambi:

    Your father is important to you, this is why you worried about him. Your mother maybe is most important to you (you wrote you are especially- and extremely- attached to her), so you worry about her. You put yourself and your life on hold until she is okay. Then maybe you will have time for yourself….?

    When is Kaushambi important enough to attend with full attention and concern? When will you be number one?

    It is best for you- and for all concerned sooner or later- that you place you as your highest priority in your life.

    One day you will not be so healthy; one day you will be no more-n your time is short too; you too are vulnerable to the same pains and temporary life span that your mother and father are vulnerable to.

    Make yourself priority number one in your own life, you owe it to yourself and to the principle and nature of life itself. This is my advice to you.

    anita

    November 18, 2015 at 10:43 am #87848
    LoveAndLive
    Participant

    Thank you for your wise words, Anita. I do realise what you say, and it is also something that I have tried telling myself and something that my mother has also taught me, only that I haven’t learnt it. I inherit this a bit from my parents really, this habit of keeping everyone else over self. At this point I am ready to endure any pain that comes my way if only that would take away the same from my mother. My levels of pragmatism are abysmally low and it is definitely something that I need to work on. Perhaps it’s the way I have been brought up or the environment I live in. The culture I belong to is extremely family-oriented to the point where you don’t even differentiate between yourself and others in your family. But, having said that, I am also naturally a very sensitive and emotional person. I don’t have nerves of steel. I get so excessively worked up about every little thing that goes wrong that I am actually considering getting therapy. Maybe I just need to be really strong and also learn to prioritise. I shall keep your advice in mind. Thanks a lot for your time; I really appreciate it! 🙂

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by LoveAndLive.
    November 18, 2015 at 4:29 pm #87863
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Kaushambi:

    Regarding this post above and your post in the other thread:

    It is easier, way easier for you to set boundaries with strangers, such as flat-mates. The problem is with people you are close with, a best friend and with people even closer, the closest being your mother. The closer a person is to you, the less of you there is. Isn’t it so?

    This loving TOO MUCH and perceiving that you are loved so very much, this too much love concept- this is in reality strong attachment, strong emotional attachment. Loving someone is being interested in promoting his or her welfare.

    If your best friend like you wrote, loved you too much, then she would be interested to not burden you with so much talk. If you told her that you need your space at any particular time, she may be disappointed but HAPPY that you take care of yourself and more than happy to give you what you need: space.

    I am pointing out the distinction between attachment and love. Loving relationship are WIN-WIN. Every single one. When you find yourself consistently in the LOSE, it is attachment you are entrapped in.

    I hope that over time you will promote the loving relationships in your life, with your mother and with your best friend and with everyone else and discourage any and all LOSING propositions for yourself.

    anita

    November 18, 2015 at 9:12 pm #87896
    LoveAndLive
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    You are very insightful and what you say here does make a lot of sense. I don’t know if I am actually entrapped in attachment with my friend. I might be. But, with my mother, I can’t say the same. I love her way too much and it’s probably not the attachment bit in this case. My mother keeps saying that to keep her happy and healthy I must first learn to keep myself in the best possible condition. She’s a much more practical person. So, with her going through so much, it is obviously affecting me adversely similarly as in the past when I have been through adversities, she has been equally affected. This is just the kind of bond that a mother and her child share with each other. I hope I’m able to make the distinction between love and attachment, though, as it is a very important aspect that you mentioned and I’ve never really thought things out that way. Thank you very much! 🙂

    Kaushambi

    November 19, 2015 at 8:26 am #87908
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Kaushambi:

    There is no question in my mind that you are extremely attached to your mother. That does not mean there is no true love between you. The evidence in true love on her part is that she told you that you must FIRST learn to keep yourself in best possible condition. How you show yourself true love is to keep yourself in best possible condition … because you believe that you are very important. Believing that you, Kaushambi, your own well being is as or more important than anyone’s.

    If you believe that you should keep yourself in best condition not so you can be more helpful to your mother but because your well being is AS important -or more important, in your own mind- as the well being of your mother.

    This is an important point that if you take it in slowly, can make a big difference in your life: when your mother is in distress, think not only about HER distress, think also about YOUR own distress (at being distressed about her) and feel empathy not only for her, but empathy for yourself.

    Your first responsibility is to yourself. If you lose yourself, neglect yourself, sacrifice yourself on an ONGOING basis in the name of LOVE to another, it is not love. If it takes AWAY from you, on an ongoing basis, stop IT, whatever it is.

    anita

    anita

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