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

[geoff]

Hello Bear, and a warm welcome to the forums and sorry this reply has been a little late.

I am so sorry for what you have had to encounter in the past and for how you are feeling now.

If you don't feel comfortable talking with this psychologist then maybe you could try another one, your 'mental health plan' (if you have one) can be transferred over.

Another suggestion is to write down exactly what has happened, now and from the past, on a piece of paper, then you can hand this over to your psych, and if you like write down that you're uncomfortable discussing certain issues, then they will approach the topic with great care.

Please try not to be afraid of showing your emotions, that's how you feel and that's the pain you are hiding, I'm a big man and my psychologist was half my size, but I cried to her on countless occasions, too many to remember.

Maybe having a female psychologist could reduce this fear, and please remember that this is holding your recovery, there is no shame in showing your emotion.

Take care and hope to hear back from you.

Geoff.

[bear41]

Hi Geoff,

Thank you for your kind words, I do like my psychologist she is lovely it is just a very slow process. Which I am told is better if you go slow. I have always struggled with talking to people about things I have also never really had anyone that I trusted either. I know that I am not going to ever fully recover unless I let it out, it's just that I have been bottling it for so long that I find it very difficult to let out. I quite often feel like crying but just can't. I have no real close functioning relationships with anyone, I have been thinking about this and I have come to realise that since I was a kid I have been sabotaging all relationships whether it be friends or otherwise. Now to top that off instead of sabotaging a friendship I am reading more into it than is there. For one I am not gay and yet I am fantasising about this friend and she is married also. So you can see why I am confused,

Thank you and I hope that you are doing ok now.

[geoff]

Hi Bear, thanks for getting back to us.

If I can explain this with an example, if you visit a tourist area and drive down a road that has many attractions to look at, on both sides of the road and you speed down the road, then you are going to miss the opportunity of knowing what you are missing out on.

So if I can relate this to your counselling, if you take it too fast then you will miss important issues that you want to talk about, so take it slow, then other issues hiding behind the trees will emerge.

Best wishes.

Geoff.

[bear41]

Hi Geoff, Sorry it has taken a while to answer, life gets busy. I understand completely on what your saying and my therapist has explained the exact same thing. I do understand I do, it's just not easy when your feeling like shit basically all of the time. The worst of it is that it doesn't just affect me it also affects my daughter as I get angry all the time at the drop of a hat and not necessarily over something major. Once I get angry I let loose and then I feel guilty and sad because this is not how I want to be with my daughter. I am struggling every day with keeping my anger, sadness, confusion and guilt in check. I seem unable to keep it under control with my daughter and I am finding it harder and harder to keep in check in other areas of my life also. Including with my parents, co workers and friends. I don't understand my feelings as in reality my life has not been as bad as it has for others. I know that I have had some horrible times but they are really minor compared to what other people are or have gone through. Also at the end of the day everything that I have experienced has been the direct fault of mine only, no one else has forced me to do any of it on reflection I have been on this self destruct path for quite some time. This is not the first time I have come to this realisation and it is also not the first time that I have also realised that I am doing this on my own as everyone around me is either to busy to get involved or only get involved when they feel like it and I don't talk about anything to any of them as they are not really interested anyway.

Anyway sorry for the babble, I hope that all is well with you and I hope to hear from you soon.

Bear

[geoff]

Hello Bear, remember you're not well, so it's not your fault, at the moment, imagine yourself caught up in a balloon, trying to punch yourself free, but when you punch the balloon nothing happens, it only comes back to you, that's why it's a struggle.

Take this time to gather your thoughts and try to make small changes, because if you make enormous ones, then it will all be too much.

Take care.

Geoff.

[bear41]

So I get the whole balloon thing, and I know I am sick right. But how do you ever truly move forward and deal with things. Cause like I know what I need to do and I am doing these things and I have been here before on several occasions but I keep coming back to here, which is shit and I feel like I am a nutcase. I just don't get how you can truly move past everything and move into the future with a clear head or even somewhat clear head. I mean I keep putting one foot after the other but I keep stuffing up and I keep feeling like my head is going to explode and like I am going around in circles. I want to be a good friend and I want to talk to friends openly and freely, hell I would even like to talk to my therapist openly and freely. I get all geared up to do this and then I get there and I clam up and I can barely put two words together or I go to support someone and end up sitting on my own looking like an idiot because I can't possibly make myself walk in there and be there for that friend. I almost feel like I don't want to be here, because it all seems a bit too hard and I can't get past any of it. The only time I can talk semi freely is when I am drunk and I can't get around drunk every time I feel like talking about something and then I just end up feeling embarrassed and ashamed anyway cause I am like a broken record who cant move forward no matter what I do. I even find myself looking at other peoples posts in here and wanting to say something and maybe help but don't because what do I know.

Then I have this one friend who seems to genuinely care and seems to want to help no matter what she finds out about me and instead of feeling comforted, relieved or anything good, I am worried because I keep fantasising about kissing her and cuddling her and this is just shit cause she is married and even if she wasn't she probably doesn't see me that way. Hell I don't even consider myself to be gay but I keep having these fantasies.

[geoff]

Hi Bear, when I was having counselling, there were many troublesome fears, worries and plenty of annoyance that I couldn't work through or even solve, no matter how hard I tried, so there was no way I could get out of the balloon or slow my car down and realised that these problems were unsolvable and exhausting me too much.

I had to forget about them, so I bagged them all up, figuratively speaking, and that takes a bit of strength, and then turn a complete circle, by this I mean, do what I thought I'd never do.

To get better you have to change from what you have been doing, otherwise, you're still struggling to overcome the present problems, because they are just as likely to reoccur and get you having the trouble you first began with.

Best wishes.

Geoff.

[bear41]

Thank you Geoff

[White_Rose]

Hello Bear and a wave to Geoff.

Welcome to the forum. I think you wrote to me on another thread. Thank you for telling us your story. I am presuming you are depressed and your therapist is helping you with this.

Being angry so often is understandable. You have many regrets about your life and these memories keep popping up. Not a comfortable way to live especially when all you want is to forget them. Your psychologist can probably help you when you can bring yourself to talk about them. Geoff has suggested writing down these thoughts and memories which is a great way to go. He has also suggested you write a note to say how difficult it is to even think about these things let alone talk about them. Ask her to go slowly with you.

Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and dive in. The water will no doubt feel cold and scary but you will adjust with the help of the psych. Like you I get these flashbacks and all I want to do is scream out my anger and hurt. Fortunately I live alone. It is upsetting to have these feelings and it's easy to dwell on them. Not that you want to do this but they are so insistent and it is so hard to drag your thoughts in another direction. Perhaps you can add this to the list of feelings for your psych.

When you talk to your psych and want to cry please do so. Do not try to force any tears. This will happen when you are ready. It takes time to be finally able to grieve about your past hurts and mistakes. Please do not blame yourself about the things you feel were a great mistake. No doubt this is true but you are not alone in this. We all have regrets and have learned, to varying degrees, to forgive ourselves. No doubt it all seemed reasonable at the time.

Healing is a slow process especially if you do not want to keep going back over it again. I like Geoff's analogy of driving down the road and missing the best views because we want to get to the end quickly. When I first saw a psychiatrist I asked him how long I needed to see him, expecting the answer to be perhaps six months. He said about two years but in retrospect I think he realised I may run away if he gave a longer estimate. In the end I stayed for eight years. I remember how horrified I was at the thought of two years.

I hope you will continue to post in here.

Mary