Ok, I know I am isolating myself again.
This weekend, all that happened was I went outside to get my pizza from the pizza delivery guy (and it took me 4 hours to finally make the phone call to order it) and I took a shower. I did make one phone call to let someone know I was still around. Other than that, nothing was done.
I had a gathering on Sunday I really wanted to go to. I had been excited about it all week and been collecting/buying stuff during the week for it. It is all in a bag ready to go. And I watched the clock and knew I was playing avoidance games. I knew it would be good for me to have the social contact and I couldn’t make myself do what I needed to leave. Mostly it was the showering and getting dressed that was more than I could face. Or at least it seemed that way since I didn’t get past it to find out if the other stuff would be hard or not. Before I am in the situation, I feel like there isn’t a problem and everything will be fine. Then it isn’t.
I have been feeling the lack of connection and I know I have built my life around me reaching out to others for my connection. I know this is not a useful technique when I don’t feel like I have the ability to reach out. I have been trying to see if I could build my life for it to be ok for others to reach to me. The sad thing is that I did have two people call me over the weekend and I didn’t talk to them. I have to return their calls sometime. I didn’t want the connection. I need it but I don’t want it.
In the growth that I have had over the last year, I have learned to have good and bad times together. It used to be that there was only bad or there was only good. Having the two mixed together was inconceivable. I have also gotten to the point where I KNOW that the depression will lift sooner or later. Before, it was always endless from inside of it. There are two very large steps for me and somewhat amazing.
But I have been in this depression I think for the entire year. I have worked hard and I don’t feel like I am getting better. I feel like I am getting worse. I don’t see how I can get better when the things that are good for me are the things I won’t do because I don’t wanna. My ability to override my wishes and do what I need to is shot. I really need to be enthusiastic to do anything but it seems that if I am too enthusiastic, I over shoot the mark and don’t do it either.
My therapist did say she is proud of me putting this information out there and letting people see it. This was a major component to the good parts I got out of Loscon. People knew what was up without me needing to tell them and they could give me whatever attention they had to give without cost to them or me. Then I come home to an empty home and all my friends are distant and have to be reached out to connect them.
I have also noticed that I will connected with a friend and I don’t let go. It is like hanging out with someone moves them to the top of my list and I will keep getting ahold of them again until I figure out to stop and then I let them lie again until something comes up.
This sucks. Blech
(BTW no need for a filter yet. The people I was concerned about appear not even to be lurking so if they aren’t reading, then they can’t be over-inundated with personal details.)
But I have been in this depression I think for the entire year. I have worked hard and I don’t feel like I am getting better. I feel like I am getting worse. I don’t see how I can get better when the things that are good for me are the things I won’t do because I don’t wanna. My ability to override my wishes and do what I need to is shot. I really need to be enthusiastic to do anything but it seems that if I am too enthusiastic, I over shoot the mark and don’t do it either.
This is why I’m presently looking into NLP therapy, as it’s helping a dear friend of mine, and it seems to be the thing that might provide a solution for this exact sort of thing.
NLP – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_use_of_Neuro-linguistic_programming
Oooo, I have a lot to say on this one, not really something that fits in a comment. It is a good idea and one I have thought of. But not at this time. Below is probably more than you bargained for when you suggested it.
I am aware of NLP. One of the schools (http://www.thechangeworks.com/)of the enneagram includes NLP as well. I have attended a seminar by the head of this group, Thomas Condon. Very informative and smart man, very disjointed. I got a lot of good out of it but nothing related to what I attended the seminar for. Still very worth it.
I do a lot of what is involved in NLP. That method runs very parallel to my natural defense structures. I am ever so good at reframing. Especially for others around me. The big difference between what I am working on now and NLP is the focus on the past instead of the future. I have lived most of my life focusing on the future and making what I wanted to happen happen. Still didn’t work all that well. When I started on the path I am taking, I found out I was running and hiding from so much of my past that I never dealt with.
The therapies I am in are Body therapy and Bodynamics both focused on learning to deal with the trauma I have had and shut away. I am learning to live with pain for the first time instead of hiding from it by focusing on the future. That is my path of growth.
I know I have had tremendous growth and what is going on now is growing pains. Doesn’t mean I know how to deal with what is going on now because I am blazing new territory.
Even when I was focused on the future, I never really wanted one. I was just treading water until it is all over with and I can quit. I believe that the path I am on leads to actually being involved in Life instead of running from it. Don’t know if I will make it. At this time I don’t wanna. But I am still working on it.
The sad bit is that part of what I think I need (and am learning I desperately want) is contact with other people. And that is something I can’t make happen. It depends on others and I can’t control that bit, only count on those that have hurt me over and over again. I am trying to learn how not to be hurt because in some way I am the one setting it up to happen.
Right now I am reverting to method that have worked in the past, which is isolation, but they have been changed due to the path I am on and they don’t work with my current goals. This is one of the reasons I am so messed up. I want candy and I think it will make me fell better but it only makes me sicker.
That makes sense actually.
I went thru something VERY similar about 18 years ago… and then again about 12 years ago.
And I go thru lesser variations of it every few years.
For me, it’s not quite the same now – because of M & K. Finding M changed my life on levels most people don’t understand, but I know you would – for the first time in my life, there’s someone there who is there every day and I don’t want to run all the time, and he fills that ‘need for others’ that no one else ever did reliably, including my family.
I can’t tell you how much I wish we lived in closer proximity right now. I really AM looking forward to getting to spend time with you next Fall. I’m even hoping I can swing seeing you before that.
I do get it. I’m just going to put my foot in the pool of the NLP/therapeutic hypnosis for a bit to see if the water is warm enough and where I want to be.
I’ll email ya more on that… (((hug)))
Assuming I’m still not dead from Day 2 of the Bataan Death March at work, shall I give you a call tomorrow night and we can do dinner?
Dinner!
And thanks.
So if one wishes to get ahold of you, what process is permissible before it goes from prompting to harassment?
Do I poke you here, then email you, then call, then show up on your doorstep?
–Ember–
poke here is good, email is good
Phone calls can be good depending on who, why and what state I am in.
Certain people can show up at my door (with advanced warning please).
If anyone shows up at my door without warning, then it takes a lot for me to deal because I am probably running a different paradigm and have to translate between the two.
Far is I know right now, you fit into the group that is welcome at all levels. I feel like you get it and I don’t have to defend.
Okay, good to know. I will send you email
–Ember–
Go Ember!
I have to agree with your therapist though…you are admitting and facing the problem, which is something I, and a lot of others have difficulty doing.
Yeah, I am good at the facing the problem part. Can’t solve anything if you don’t face it.
A defense structure I have is to move through things quickly. I probably have pulled up and tried to take care of too many of my problems all at once and it is more than I can handle. And since I have picked it up, being me, I can’t put it back down.
And me being me and my tendency to face problems end up chasing people away because then they tend to be show their problems. And being isolated right now is not a good thing.
But I do forget that what I consider normal is something that others consider hard and I appreciate having that pointed out to me. I have other areas that are hard but on this one, I have had great progress. Thank you.