angry, sad and confused person

[bear41]

Hi, I am a single Mum who is not coping with a lot of things. I am angry all the time and I don't know why, but then I don't want to be around people at all, I get sad and I have a lot of regret from when I was 19 and made a decision that has wrecked me. I am also confused about my feelings toward a friend.

I am seeing a psychologist but I find it hard to talk about things in person and I am apparently afraid of my emotions and don't let them out.

Thank you

[bear41]

Hi Mary,

Thank you for your comforting insight, yourself and Geoff have been very kind. I haven't written on any other threads as I find myself holding off from doing this. Not because I don't want to help but because I don't feel that I have anything to give when I can't sort my own stuff.

Everything that yourself and Geoff have said thus far makes perfect sense and is reasonable. My therapist is saying the same kind of things. I want to do all of these things and I want to move forward but the more I try to dig into it the more I feel as though I am spiralling out of control. The sadness and wallowing in self pity seems to take over any desire to move forward.

I think I have been holding onto everything from a very young age, I got so used to no one being around that I just got very good at bottling it up and putting on a front that I don't know if I am even capable of letting it out. I certainly don't cry about anything, I get teary but again I have gotten so good at sucking it up that that never happens.

I feel a bit like an old broken record, can never quite make it to the end. I have been going around in circles like this for at least 25+ years and there are plenty of people who say, hey we are here for you and if you ever need to talk but I have never felt like I could just rock up at their houses in those times when I felt like I was really going to explode and say hey I need you. You know 21 years ago I made the decision to have a procedure done for a few different reasons. I went through with it and on the day I had the procedure and I went home and laid around the house with my cousin, and the next day it was back to work, back to life as if it never happened.

There is never a right time, you know, I have a daughter, my friends have children, husbands and all that stuff going on and even when I want to talk or think hey this is coming out life always offers up a road block for that to not happen. Like the other day I had way too many drinks but I felt like I could let it out and talk to my friend but we both have children and I never talked or let it out because the children were there.

I'm sorry I am rambling a bit.

Take care both of you.

Mel

[White_Rose]

Hello Mel

Thanks for your reply. Letting go of all the 'stuff' is hard. Don't expect it to happen all in one go. I think this would be completely overwhelming. Start with the small things and allow yourself to talk about them. If you become emotional it's OK but do not worry if it appears not to affect you. Your thoughts and feelings have made a nice little hidey hole so coaxing them out may take a little while.

Talking to someone can take a bit of organising, especially with children around. Why not start with asking your friend to drop round while the children are at school? It would at least make the conversation private.

I will write more later as I am very tired atm. Look after yourself.

Mary

[bear41]

Hi Mary,

Thank you I appreciate all of your input especially when you are tired. Unfortunately organising a get together with my friend when the kids are at school is not possible as we both work and we are both single parents. It is all good, I know that I probably need to talk to my therapist more than anything. My friend also has enough of her own stuff going on anyway.

It is all a bit frustrating even though I know I will get there in the end. Today was a reasonable kind of day, however I can't do days like today all the time. You see I took the day off work and had some alone time with no distractions, unfortunately I can't have time off all the time to do this. It kind of bit me on the butt also, as I ended up having to go out and finish the day for my relief person as they didn't have a very good day.

Anyway it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was also accused of hacking my aunties facebook account and she was even talking about going to the police which would not of ended well for me. I wasn't hacking her account and I fixed up her problem but that was a bit of a rush. I can't have any issues with the law or I will lose my job.

Anyhow I hope that you have caught up on some rest and take care.

Mel

[White_Rose]

Hello Mel

Sorry not to reply earlier. Thank you, I am less tired. Must make a mental note to post in the daytime instead of evening.

I can appreciate how it feels to have everything bottled up for so many years and now you have the opportunity to let it out it becomes too hard. I've been there and there are still things I cannot speak about except to a very few people. As I said above, write some of these events down. Start with the least painful and give a short list to your psych. I made an appointment with my psych not long ago because I was having a bad time. She kept asking about my parents and family until nearly the end of the consultation when she said time was nearly up and what had I come about. I was so cross. When I next see her I will tell her I went last time because I was upset and had specific things to talk about but kept being put off. Can't spend that time and money discussing something I feel is irrelevant, especially when I had some very distressing stuff to deal with. Won't make that mistake twice.

It was my second appointment with her so I will presume she had not noticed and wanted more background. Still not good enough.

Whoops. Talking about my difficulties. I wanted you to know I have some understanding of where you are. Not the same but similar emotions.

Did your aunty ask you to fix up her FB? Probably not the best thing to do without her knowledge. Do you do this sort of thing often? Step in to help people I mean. Probably best to wait until you are asked.

Taking time off work can be a good idea. It gives you time to let all the irritating stuff out of your mind. When weather permits I like to sit outside on the patio. I take my CD player, coffee and a book with the intention of meditating then reading. Most of the time I end up doing none of this. I simply look at the garden, enjoying the plants and birds. Slowly the peace envelopes me and even the few traffic noises fade until I am at peace. I make no effort to push thoughts away, just let them drift away. For me these are such valuable times. I feel refreshed and at peace. Too cold lately to do this.

I feel I have talked about myself and not helped you. However it sometimes helps to know how others cope.

Mary

[bear41]

Hi Mary,

I am sorry that you are also struggling and I hope that you can overcome these issues. You seem to me as though you are a very strong and capable person. As for my aunty she had asked me to set up a facebook account for her which is what I did and then she rang my mum yesterday and accused me of hacking her account, which I did not do especially since she had someone else change her password for her so I was unable to get into her account anyway. I am certainly not that tech savvy that I know how to get in without knowing the password.

Anyway all it was, was that she was putting the password in wrong and I went up there to sort it out and had it fixed in 2seconds. Don't worry I won't be doing anything more with her stuff as I don't like being accused of something I didn't and would never do. I also don't like the fact that she upset my mum. And yes I am quite often helping people with their technical issues and other stuff, mostly my family as they are all older and not as tech savvy. I am limited as to what I can do but I do what I can when they ask me to.

Thank you for the advice on writing things down, I am slowly doing this. It does however seem like a very big list already, but that's ok. I hope that on your next visit to the psych you can discuss what you are wanting to. On the topic of sitting outside I have been doing similar things of late by going out and watering my Grandmas garden and then just sitting there afterwards not really thinking or doing anything just sitting. It does clear the mind and is rather relaxing.

Don't feel as though you haven't helped, you have it does help to hear that someone else is in the same place as me and you are working through it.

Take care.

Mel

[White_Rose]

Hello Mel

Thanks for your reply. I hope you are now feeling OK and that the stress has eased a little. I must remember to call you in to fix my computer problems. There are times when I feel like throwing the whole thing out of the window. Cannot do that. It would cost too much to replace the window. Actually I manage quite well but since the advent of NBN I have problems with my phone. So annoying.

It's a bit of a shock, I have found, to list all my difficulties. Now you have identified some perhaps you can concentrate on a few and write about these. If another difficulty comes up you can add it to the overall list. Always good to run these things past the psychologist. It gives some focus to the therapy and helps to feel difficulties are being addressed.

I have also felt I have dealt with a problem only to find it returning. So frustrating. I see your psych believes you are afraid of your emotions and letting them out. Join the club. It's a no-brainer to know we enjoy being happy and being sad or angry is not our preferred feeling. Unfortunately we do need to explore this area of our lives and put it to rest. The question of course is, when is enough, enough?

When these situations happen in my life I try to look at them and tell myself I have been there and worked through it. I can do it again if necessary. It seems to me that this recurrence is more a symptom of another difficulty. When we feel unworthy in some way or sad about something it's easy to point to a past problem as the cause of our present distress and to believe that settling this will put everything right again. The problem is we have settled the problem several times. It's our pesky brains that tell us we need to go back and start again.

It seems to me we can be forever on a feedback loop instead of looking for a deeper and probably more broader cause. For example we can remember how we managed, or not, our interactions with several people and how they always go wrong. Maybe we need to recognise these all stem from low self esteem. Admitting that can be confronting so we hide under the somewhat lesser problems. Then we beat ourselves up for not managing these problems properly and go through the whole thing again.

Just a thought.

Mary

[bear41]

Hi Mary,

Thank you for your reply, all of that makes sense and I quite often wonder all of these things. I do feel as though I have calmed a little until this morning at least. I am still feeling ok, just a bit jittery and I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, I have put this down to the fact that I am currently trying to change my medication as I don't feel like it is helping me a lot at this point. I know that medication is all too often only part of the cure but I just need it to work for now so that I can perhaps think more clearly and shush the battle in my head. If that makes sense.

So I know that it is my choice to change the medication and by making this choice I have to come off of it slowly before I can go on another type. It scares me to think what the next few weeks are going to be like but I need something that works.

At the moment though even with the medication change I do feel a little more positive and I don't feel as sad, I am a bit nervous at the moment but that seems to happen every Wednesday when I take my daughter to tutoring and I am pretty sure that I know why I feel this way. This is completely off the topic of everything else but I am having feelings and thoughts that scare me half to death for my daughters tutor, who is also my friend and who has been absolutely lovely to me even though I have been a lot off lately. Something like this wouldn't normally make me nervous except for a couple of things which are that one, this person is married, two, this person is of the same sex, three, I have never thought of myself as gay but these feelings and thoughts seem pretty strong and persistent at this point.

I know this is probably not a topic for this thread but I am not sure whether I am gay and only just realising this or whether I am just plain going crazy and confused in this department. Apparently a lot of people around me have wondered whether I am gay or not. I have always flat out said no, but I am seriously questioning this.

I will be touching on all of the things that you have mentioned in your message and what I have just brought up with my psychologist, or at least I am going to try. I have been doing my job the last couple of days giving myself a pep talk on the fact that I need to push myself to talk about these issues with my psychologist otherwise what is the point, right?

Thank you again and take care of yourself

Mel