Tears

[Neil_1]

Dear all (or dear anyone who reads this ... no bugga it, dear all ... why should I discriminate against anyone);

This is a simple post.

I want so much to cry.  I need to cry.  But I cannot cry.

Could anyone tell me, "Why can't I cry?"

Neil

[Mares73]

Good afternoon special one, this is my 4th checking so you may be sick of me but given your on my mind so much I may as well let you know & ask how you are feeling-if that's possible-or if you don't want to discuss how your feeling that's ok too. You know id love us all to meetup & maybe it isnt impossible-maybe an opportunity may arise-and yes youd be fearful but we would all have a blast-and youd get so many hugs you wouldnt need to worry about talking. Anyway im just hanging in there today & i feel like i wish i had the energy to respond to people but writing my post just wiped me out so ill try offer support tomorrow. But I couldnt help reminding you your special & I think one more candle tonight will be shining for you. With you in spirit, Lve Mares xxx

[Neil_1]

Hi all,

Wowee ... the messages of support ... they just blow me away.  Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you ... GA, Mares, Jo ... you all keep popping up and you've got your battles ... MAJOR battles.  The words you write, are truly beautiful.  I mean that so much.

And you can post me all you like ... I'm not sick of any of them.  🙂  It encourages me and helps.

But can I just please say to Maresy ... I may have your solution why you're so down and in a bad place ... 'you're worrying about me too much'.  🙂  That's said half tongue in cheek, but half true.  Maresy, I can look after myself ... I'm not nearly at the stage where you are (or others are).  I just had a minor little cry yesterday and to cry is to heal, yeah??

Mares, you're in a deep dark place and you're the one who needs everyone's support ... and I'm going to say it again, I simply cannot get over what your psych did.  That as it would have for you and all of us, infuriated the hell out of me.

Dear all, I'm going ok today.  Had a big downer yesterday ... after the ant invasion this morning, I ended up staying home and me and Jack (our dog) are doing hourly patrols of the kitchen and its surrounds to make sure that all is as it should be.

I'll will be venturing back to work tomorrow ... why I don't know, cause that's never a good thing;  oh yeah, now I remember ... money.

Thank you ALL again so much ... but Maresy, please read the responses to your wonderful new thread that you started ... you've been receiving wonderful messages, support and advice there.  I so hope that something positive can come your way AND SOON.

Kind regards

Neil

[Guest_3712]

Dear Neil,

 I just lost my post, so not sure when you'll see this but I just wanted to add my thoughts to everyone else.

I can so feel your pain my friend and I hope you continue to see a little blue sky amongst the grey clouds of your life at the moment.

I think it would be so therapeutic to see all of our BB friends in a group setting and Hey I have back pain so what's a few broken ribs amongst friends.

Neil you owe it to yourself to take all the time you need to focus on you! Like everyone else I eagerly await you posts not only for your succinct, insightful and humorous slant on things, but so I know you are doing ok. At least ok enough to post.

So now I know even though you are battling, you are looking at your friends sending all their collective support on line and hopefully take strength from that.

Be kind to yourself

Stressless  

[Scott_Depression]

Dear Neil

It's with absolute humility I will try and offer a few words of advice.  I say this as I'm pretty 'wet behind the ears' on BB but I have the greatest admiration for you and your colleagues.

I've tried to read much of the posts on this thread - I only got onto it as Jo mentioned on her thread that you're having a tough time - being a skeptic at heart I thought maybe it was another Neil!

Loved the ant patrol story!  Might have a career as a future exterminator!  ha ha

I'm truly sorry you're having a down phase - know the feeling all too well.

On the up side, it sounds like you're doing everything humanly possible - seen the psych, revisiting medicines, posting on BB...it's often easy to give advice and then not follow it yourself - you're doing it well!

Rest assured the words of support that are being posted here are only a very small fraction of the kind wishes being sent your way by the community - I really mean it when I said I admire guys like you - you must have improved countless lives & you should be so proud of yourself

Sorry I'm late on the scene - hope to read about your getting well again over the coming weeks

Kind regards

Scott

[Jo3]

Hey Neil my friend

I'm off to work this morning and just wanted to check in on you.  How are you today?

I hope you are a little better than yesterday.

Pls stay strong, you are my inspiration!!!

Take care, I'll come back on after work tonight to see how you are going

Have a good day

Jo 🙂

[Mares73]

Morning my friend, how are you today? Of course I care & worry about you-but I wish it was as simple as worrying contributing to my current state. So be assured yes I'm experiencing my worst battle with depression to date (in that I can't function at all & I wish I didn't wake up). But I still have space in my heart for you and for others. I have a big heart & I'm an emotional, trusting person who gets easily attached to people & I genuinely want to help. My husbands often said I'm too vulnerable & trusting & he can't understand how most of my life-the people in it had experienced some form of difficulties. I relate to people with a soul. Anyway the point of all that was to explain my care for you & our bond which I treasure & to let you know I've checked my candle supply & picked a large one & put the initial "N" on it so we know its yours & light it as necessary. I could start doing that for others too-hadn't thought of it-but your candle is the brightest & has been shining the last 2 nights for you. What are you doing today? How are you feeling? Are you able to share some of the weight holding you down? Or are you keeping it under lock n key for now? Neil- ill try say this in the way I feel it but if it comes across in a way you don't like-please forgive me & nudge me to leave the subject alone. I kinda know there's many layers to "Neil". I kinda sense the pain & guilt & low Selfesteem that is under the surface. I kinda get that it may be too much to try & have a peek under the layers because you don't know what you'd be unleashing & that's a scary thing to do. I know we'll about "masks" & how we feel they protect us. And there are so many types of masks we can always find the right one depending on the situation or the people we are with. I'm 40 now (hate that, much prefer 39) & I have a whole range of masks & they are so good-they are as real as can be. And they protect me from the insecure, fearful, person I've accepted I really am. But the few times in my life I've relaxed the mask a little, I've been amazed at some of my personality traits, and feeling things I've never felt or experienced before. I know the masks also protect us from our vulnerabilities but a question-can you think of any times in your life where you even tried to have a sneak below the top layer & not have a mask on? How did it feel?  Also you get so much admiration, gratitude, care & friendship on this site. You try to help as many people as you can, you give so much of yourself through your dedication, support & inspiration to others. I wonder how you get support or inspiration & advice (apart from here) because I can count on one hand the number of times you have reached out for yourself or talked about yourself. And as I sat watching the candle in the dark last night-I started thinking-and I had a number of thoughts re you & one was "Where is Neil really? And is he really ok in the way he projects that he is? And no mask can hide your genuine, warm, caring & generous personality. They are core elements of who you are & they all add up to defiant the beautiful, strong, compassionate person that you are-there is no doubting that. You truly are an incredible person. I'm not referring to or questioning any of that, I truly have pure admiration for you. It was thoughts & questions I had on a deeper level. For example how truly comfortable are you sharing your tough times with us? Or do you mostly think there's people in worse situations so you don't feel comfortable in sharing & in thinking that-you are kinda assessing yourself as not as in need, or devaluing your own feelings & experiences. We can't rank people according to need-well we can I guess but when it starts to get to the point where you very rarely feel your feelings are worthy of our support & care-that is sad & it kinda results in you being buried in everyone's problems without rarely thinking you & your feelings are as worthy to share. And you have a massive fan club who would be honoured to listen to you for a change & provide support, compassion & gratitude. Ill stop I think. I'm seriously extremely sorry if I haven't expressed what I was hoping to, I'm very sorry if I've upset you or made you feel judged & exposed. I have no right to make comments that appear as though I'm assessing & criticing you as a person. And I have no right to judge you or make opinions about you as a person. I'm worried that's how this will appear but in truth my sole intention was to let you know that you are worthy, that you are special, that you are an incredible person in so many ways such as the significant time, care, support & advice your always providing others. And that I just wanted to somehow say that you are as worthy of our care, support & compassion. And I guess I did write about questions I wondered such as how you really are & that we want to be there for whatever your going through in the same way you have been for us. I'm going to send this now as I really fear I've overstepped the mark & you may read this & take it in the wrong way & be angry at me & think "who the hell is she to be so intrusive". And if that is how you react to this then I will be as sorry as humanly possible. I wrote in from the heart but I don't know how it may be interpreted. I just was thinking about how much lies below your top layer & whether you are able or ready or wanting to face the depth of emotion under the surface. i sense you have low selfesteem, insecurities, selfdoubts, feelings of not being as worthy as others, fears, selfblame & a load of guilt-and thats just a few off the top of my head. Many of us would relate to those feelings but have experienced them in individual ways. I worry those feelings have created your sense of self & who you are. and that you are still battling to find, accept & value who you really are-and that would involve learning to accept yourself, questioning your self-perceptions & challenging the negative persona that you have learnt to define yourself with. its a big challenge but maybe in your diary you keep you could draw up 2 columns-in one list all the feelings you have about yourself-straight off top of your head ie insecure, unworthy etc. and in the next column list what others have described you as & any positives you feel you have-even if you find them hard to believe-maybe you could start with some of the positive ways people describe you as on this forum. then perhaps you could look at the negatives & if a situation or trigger has contributed to you feeling that way about yourself-write it next to the particular negative feeling it concerns. then in the positive column do a similar exercise-but try to go beyond the positives expressed on this site-look at each positive & try come up with a few examples of each that contribute to that feeling. just a little exercise to perhaps start help you building a sense of yourself that is diffrent to the current way you see yourself. because in many ways we construct our sense of selves through experiences we have had & theres many layers to who you are & how you perceive & feel about yourself & i wonder if it may just be too overwhelming, frightening & challenging for you to get past the surface to explore the many great qualities you have or even to confront who "Neil" really is-and that is a complex makeup of many things-but if you could start with the selfperception & compare it to others perceptions then thats a start to perhaps identifying some positives about you & therefore helping you on your journey of a new sense of self & hipe. im not even going to reread this im just going to hit send. Neil I'm nervous my friend about your reaction to this but my intention really was meant to be good & if your mad with me just say so & ill never raise such issues again. Please remember how special you are to me & that your in my thoughts & I'd never ever mean to intentionally intrude or upset you. Lve Mares xxx

[Jo3]

Hey Neil

How did you go today, how are you coping?  Did you go to work?

Just wondering how you are

Jo

[Neil_1]

Hi Jo;   yep, I went to work today.  It was the usual ... so nothing to email home about.  🙂

Hi Maresy  

Wow, your post was wonderful.  And you know, YES, I read (devoured) every word.  And I’ll say this straight up so you don’t have to worry at all … it was a beautiful post, insightful and it really got me thinking.  In NO WAY did it upset me and it didn’t make me angry at all. 

Mares, I get angry with myself.  Not other people, well especially now that I don’t play cricket anymore … I used to be a fast bowler and though I didn’t “hate” them, I really detested batsmen, and I would do anything I could to get them out … even hurt them if I could.  I’m sorry, but I released a little bit of info about me there … a nasty side.  But that nasty side has no where to unleash anymore … perhaps in the gym.  Wow, didn’t think I’d say that about the cricket side of me. 

In the early days of me playing, I would be quite scared when it was my turn to bat, cause I thought that all bowlers had the same mind-set as me … hurt the batsman first AND THEN try to get them out.  

Whoops, another digression, but Mares, thank you for your post.  Don’t be nervous or worried … it was really great to read.   I think I’m like everyone though on this site … where I feel that no-one ever gets angry with another poster.  Well, that’s the way I feel.  That’s another thing that is so brilliant about this site.  

You mentioned what’s underneath my top layer … there’s a world of hurt and guilt and sorrow and more things that align with those words.  Hurt that I don’t have my brother and father with me anymore.  Guilt that I couldn’t save my brother.  Sorrow for then causing my family to split into pieces for what I wasn’t able to achieve.   Oh and acceptance.  Acceptance that I cannot stop feeling these things and knowing that time isn’t healing me. 

This is one of the sad clouds that hover above me.  I remember all the key moments about that day in 1991 so vividly and reminders bring me back to that place much more regularly than I guess I’d care to visit.  

My brother and my dad are both buried next to each other in my home town … but when I go back, I cannot go to their gravesite.  They are dead.  They are no longer here.  Everything about them is dead.  Final.  If I go there I would be simply looking at a piece of nicely mown grass and a small plaque with their photo and some words listed next to it.  That’s the sadness I feel.  I cannot change that.  I can see why people go out to cemeteries, but I can’t really understand it.  They are dead.  They do not know that you’re there.  I guess it helps them but to me, all it would do would be to just assist in tearing open the wound that I have … and to bring all the hurt back again.  

You know, playing cricket (I did so for 30 years) was about the only thing I was ever good at.  I was an opening, fast bowler … well fast for the grades/level I played.  I never made it to anything huge in the levels … but all games were competitive and I loved this.  I also turned out to be a reasonable middle order batsman … and sometimes I opened the batting also.  I’m trying to build a picture here, and so without wanting to sound like a big-head or anything, I thought I went pretty well with both bat and ball.  I sometimes was able to win the game for the team by either scoring a large amount of runs in quick time or to take a stack of wickets and sometimes I was lucky enough to do both.  And to have that kind of presence in a sport is an exhilarating thing.  It’s very hard to describe – the feeling.  You walk on a high, kind of thing. 

But that feeling and anything like those feelings haven’t happened for such a long long time.  I can sometimes capture a small piece of it when I’m in a bodybuilding competition … but that’s a small piece of it for only a small amount of time.  

There’s been studies taken (and still being done) about sports-people who excelled in their particular sport, who used to have that ‘adrenaline/endorphin surge’ whilst competing … it’s a feeling that is so difficult to describe – but as you can imagine, for the particular sport that you’re playing, it was able to last for a long time. 

Back to the study taken and for those sports-people who no longer are able to play for whatever reason (retired, injury, etc) the findings are that they suffer from depression due to this.  I definitely have that feeling.  

Ok, so there’s a little door that has been opened about me … I know I know, there’s many more doors.  But that’s why I’m in the process of putting it all together with the purpose of writing a book – where I’ll go into every door – open it up and then describe everything that confronts me in that room.  

As usual, I’m always happy to receive feedback on my posts - and of late, I've been overwhelmed by the support that you wonderful people give to me.  I mean it when I say that it means so much to me.

Thank you Mares for prompting this.  

Neil

[Mares73]

Hi Neil I'm just  checking in  on Wednesday night. Gee this thread is getting very long. I see you haven't posted today-I hope your ok. I won't be going to my mums until Monday after I've seen my Pysch as I need to be here for the kids. But I'd say I will need help next week whether my Pysch changes my medication or not. As I fear I may not get the support & help I need going by her attitude to date. So meanwhile I need to get the strength definitely no later than tomorrow to look up Psychologists on here & see if I have any luck getting an urgent appointment with someone because its hard to hold on when your as desperate for help as I am. And I really do question my Pyschs lack of care or consideration. And thinking about it I've been seeing her a longtime & really can't identify any therapy or help she is supposed to provide & she hasn't helped me to move forward in any way. So I basically pay $270.00 to get scripts when necessary. So tomorrow I really ned to get a couple of Pyschologists details from the Beyond Blue list & phone a few & explain I'm in a cris with no support & could they possibly fit me in. As I'm waking in tears every day feeling so fragile & having bad thoughts. And I think that given I can't identify any of my usual self, it does frighten me that I could do something I'd never even ever normally consider-because I don't recognise me at the moment. Sorry Neil this is your post so ill get back on track. I'm wondering if you've read all the support msgs that are waiting for you here. And I do want to apologise for maybe crossing a boundaries in my last message. I hope if you are able to-that you can give a short update of how you are. I'm thinking of you my precious friend. X Mares xxx

[Mares73]

Hi Neil thankyou so much for your beautiful response. It was great to learn about your career in cricket etc. but it was also great to know that the way you described yourself was pretty much in line with the description I had written above. I've been thinking of you & your inner conflicts. I'm sorry I haven't slept for 48 hrs & I'm exhausted yet unable to sleep. So I don't feel able to offer much support. I need to sleep, my head is pounding. I just came on to see how you were & remind you of all the people that are thinking of you. And I especially send my support , care & compassion. Neil-you are in my heart today. Talk soon, Lve Mares x