Disconnected

[Guest_2350]

I am travelling in my home countries at the moment with a lot of friends and family and I am feeling so disconnected, it is weird to explain. This should be such a happy time and we have planned this trip for so long! I enter memory lane from time to time and I only sometimes feel present, when I hug loved ones. Then it is all gone again. I must make all the right moves, as apart from my husband no one has commented on my solemn mood. 

I just want the holiday to be over. I wonder where all the years have gone. I know now that I have run away from all the memories and I don't really want to be here. I want to be where I feel safe, where I feel no hassle. I have just stopped understanding myself. I just don't make sense.I have been feeling the clouds closing in the last few days, is there nothing I can do to stop this downward spiral?

[Guest_5218]

Hi Durras,

I've been following this thread for some weeks, and have contributed to it some time back.  Your recent posts have left me feeling very sad and concerned for you.  I know that you have your teenaged daughter staying with you today and into tomorrow.  And I know how you have been working yourself into an anxious frenzy about the thought of it.

I expect she is with you by now?  All you need to do is to be yourself with her.  Make sure she knows how you love her unconditionally, and will always be there for her.  She is at an age now that she is becoming, or will soon become independent.  Meaning that any influence that her father may have had over her with regards to you, she will see through.  She will make up her own mind about you.  You just to be there for her, and she will know what a truly wonderful and caring mother you really are, despite circumstances in the past which may have prevented you from displaying that to the full.  

Talking over the phone can be difficult, so I hope that you are finding it easier to talk to her face to face, and are making the most of this wonderful opportunity of remaining a vital part of your daughters upbringing.  

I hope you are enjoying this important time with your daughter and that it may become a turning point for you in your future relationship with her.

Wishing you all the very best.

Sherie xx

[Guest_2350]

Dear Durras,

please never feel like your problems are any less important than anyone elses. They are your problems and they are the most important for you and I just hope that you will have a couple of nice days with your daughter this Christmas!  

I am sorry I did not reply earlier, but I had promised my husband to spend time with him today and only briefly came here to wish Merry Christmas. I am glad Sherie send you a message and I have to agree with her. Your daughter will soon make up her own mind. She is coming to that age where she can see through manipulations and nowadays it is not that easy anymore to influence teenagers that badly. 

I just hope that you can be yourself with your daughter and show her how much you love her. I hope that you will have a nice Christmas with her and that you will be able to create a bond again. Please stay in touch here and let us know how you are getting on!

Take care, big hugs, Yggy x

[Guest_2350]

Dear Neil,

how are you and how was your xmas? Did you have a nice time with your kids and your wife? Did you go to the gym today? I hope you had a great time and it mad you smile. How are your shoulder and your foot now?

You told me about your daughter being brilliant with pets. A hand-reared parrot is surprisingly high maintenance. My parrot has bonded to me, he wants to be with me, as soon as I am home. He can scream heart breakingly when I don't pick him up, he can have fits of jealousy and he occassionally bites my husband - in an attempt to show him who is the boss. That always makes me laugh when he (the parrot) is trying to settle the pecking order - and normally ends up in his cage with the cover pulled over.

I did google the movie "Enter the Dragon" - I am sorry but I am pretty hopeless with movies and TV. The only extended time I watch the box is when I am on an overseas plane trip.

I am finding the thought challenge interesting, but also quite difficult and often confusing. For example a statement that I find myself fat - I do have a history of eating disorders so I know my body image is immensly distorted. Well medically speaking I have just crossed the BMI line to overweight, just out of the healthy weight range. If I measure myself against people around me, I am skinny, as a lot of my friends are "fatter". Should that be an excuse to not live healthily, which I currently am doing, or should I get my focus back on eating for health instead of comfort? At the moment everything is just too hard.

On the other hand I identify thoughts where I struggle to find arguments against and where I notice that the root is deeper. Since starting the thought challenge I have questioned my relationships with people more again and have started to go aggressively into defense mode. The "good thought brigade" seems to only scrape the surface and is not necessarily what I believe deep in my heart.

I thank you for your kind words. Unfortunately I can give you many reasons what I personally dislike about myself or even hate, but I am trying not to put these thoughts in writing. Or perhaps I should write them all down and then challenge them?

I am trying to look around in the forum more, but that feels overwhelming at times. Either I am too worried about replying to someone in need - I have deleted many responses - or the posts get so busy that I cannot keep up.

My xmas was very quiet, but pleasant. I am enjoying that I have more quiet time.

Take care, Yggy x

c

[Neil_1]

Dear Yggy

Thanx for your latest response and wow, there’s so much in
it … heaps of great stuff.

Firstly, Christmas was very good for me (and my own
fam).  Just the four of us;  all nice and quiet, just the way we actually
all like it.  My daughter said to me “Wow,
it’s so quiet here … I’ve got friends who are doing a big family Christmas and
others who are doing a street party like Christmas”.  I said, “I’m sorry that we’re not like that
or not doing that”.   She said, “No Dad,
this is the way I like it”.  That was
great to hear.

I still haven’t been back to the gym, as my “other shoulder”
is now not playing ball.  Not sure if I’ve
mentioned that before or not.  But it’ll
heal eventually and I’ll get back.

Ok, to the food issue and eating.  Now I diet seriously through winter in
preparation for my bodybuilding comps and I hear mates tell me, gee I should do
that as well.  I say to them, why?  Unless you’re planning on doing something a
bit extreme, why should you put yourself through something so strict.  So Yggy I say to you, you sound as though you’re
in a reasonable place with your body – as you gave accounts of pros and cons
and then you mentioned about eating more healthy.  Why not just try for a happy medium.  Do the healthy thing, but don’t be 100% at
it, so you can have treats when you feel like it.  Not all the time, but just as a reward.  I could have definitely explained that
better, but I haven’t been on computer for a couple of days, so my
thought-typing processes are a bit rusty.

I also think that typing down all your hates or dislikes of
yourself – not here, but on a document somewhere and then addressing them OR
taking them along to your psych will be a very good move.  Address them and confront them.  Don’t let them simmer under the surface.  Bring them out in the open and then beat them
down, one by one.

It’s awesome that I’ve seen your name on other areas within
this site.  But also remember it’s a
volunteer thing – to only do this as you feel ok to do.  Never let anything on here overwhelm you
because that’s not what it’s about.  If
you do feel that way, do take a break, but if you feel you can write to someone
else, please do so – you write so well and your thought processes are excellent
so your posts to others would be extremely beneficial to someone reading them.

Cheers

Neil

[Guest_2350]

Happy New Year Neil,

I hope you had a nice New Years Eve with your family. Did your kids stay home with you? We were at friends and it was ok, I took a lot of time out...

Your daughter sounds like she has a beautiful mind, I hope she can keep her love and innocence forever. I am not sure if I can explain that statement, but I will try. I have always loved animals. I never had a "pet" like my parrot, but always had farm animals - animals I loved but that eventually landed on the table. I was okay with that. We always tried to give them the best life possible. I used to walk the cow to the field, take my chicken for walks in the yard and fed it with cherry tomatoes. I played with the little chicks and my favourite place was lying in the food trough of our cow and have the cow eat hay off me. I let the lambs suckle my fingers and I cuddled with the stray cats. Then I grew up and food came out of the supermarket and I lost that innocence of being part of the whole cycle. I have started to go back to this by visiting and having meat from the local farmer or from our sheep, eggs from our chooks and veggies out of our garden. The more I am sitting back and look at my life, the more I believe that losing this innocence and engrained love has left a gap I cannot fill with anything else in life.

How was the gym and how is your other shoulder? What can you do to heal the other shoulder? I seem to have a bit of physical issues accumulating lately - I have been trying to address this since coming back from Europe.

Thank you for the tips on eating. How do you eat when the comps are over? I can understand eating for a purpose and I am trying to find a medium between eating for my physical and mental health opposed to comfort eating - which I have done a lot lately. I agree with letting go of the strict schedules and measuring, I want to let go of that part of my life and enjoy food again.

The holidays have left me calm. I would not say overly happy or sad, but calm. It is nice to be calm and step back. I had a look at a massive to-do list I have been dragging around for ages, always procrastinating, and decided to put some hours behind the tasks, only to find out it would take me 30 full working days to complete - no wonder I always feel overwhelmed!

I have enjoyed spending time on the forum, but guess I will not have time once work starts again. One day I would like to raise awareness for mental health in the outside world, when I feel better myself.

Take care, Yggy x

[Neil_1]

Dear Yggy

Yes, the Christmas – New Year time was great.  I barely did anything at all and we did spend
some really nice times together – just the four of us.  Played some board games at times and some
Mario Kart and also watched loads of Breaking Bad.  It’s so good.

I’m hearing you with the memories of the farm.  I used to help Dad with the poddy lambs
giving them their bottles of milk and how they used to really ‘go for it’ on
the teat and bottle;  always had to hold
on to the teat a bit tighter, otherwise they’d tug it right off.

And also the poddy calves from time to time;   and how they’d follow you around and if you
stuck you hand out in front of them, they’d launch their mouth over your
fingers and just suck away.  Just as the
lambs used to as well.

Memories that will never fade.  Memories that do make me sad as I can’t
reproduce those times for my kids – just not possible in the current situation –
ie:  suburban backyard.

I’ve been back to the gym once (Friday) and it went ok.  Very careful and did legs and it was all
good.  So am aiming to go again later
today.  Just ease in;  all signs are positive – thank goodness,
cause it has been a long time.

With my food, I cook up a whole stack of meals at one time
(around 15 or so) and I freeze them and that does me for about a week.

So our New Year is here and I really hope that you and I
(and a whole host of others on this site) can make some positive advances on
our mental health.  Doesn’t have to be
big ones – little steps forward is always good.

Neil

[Guest_2350]

Dear Neil,

my post just got eaten by cyber space. 

I am too exhausted to retype my post. I am worried about going back to work and I am worried to see my psychiatrist next week.

I am just gonna hide under my doona and hope the big scary ghosts of the past will leave me alone.

Talk soon, Yggy x

[Guest_5218]

Hi Yggy.  I understand.  I hope you are okay under that doona of yours  ( - :

Thinking of you, and hoping your psych appointment next week brings you some relief.

Sherie xx

[Durras]

Hi Sherie and Yggy,

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

I've just come back from holiday, well my husband has just gone back to work so here I am.

To sherie and Yggy thank you for your wonderful and caring posts within regards to me feeling disconnected from my daughter.

I had a lovely couple of days with her on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day however still feeling a bit lost with things to discuss with her but I'm starting to feel better about it all and going to research or find more ways for more involvement into her life for this year such as with her schooling, sports (I think she has a new boyfriend).

I have another opportunity this month as were going back to NZ for a week leaving 16th Jan. My husband and I are taking her to visit my family and then taking her and her cousin to Taupo for a few days, so I'm looking forward to that.

My biggest plans for this year is (1) Doing my name change as I was married in Fiji. My marriage is registered here in Australia but not recognised. (2) After my name change applying for citizenship in Australia, after this I hope to be able to apply for Aged Care training so I can pay for the course after gaining employment with Vet Fee help. Also I want to gain my citizenship or maybe find work in a government department call centre, I see them advertised often.

Wishing everyone a happy new year and big hugs to you all.

Again thank you Sherie and Yggy

XO

[Guest_5218]

Good for you Durras. I'm so pleased things are looking up for you, and that you are now able to start making some pretty major plans for the new year.  And thankyou for letting us know.  I have been thinking of you since Christmas and really hoping that everything went well with your daughters visit. I guess your relationship with her will remain a work in progress for a while, but its great that you've made such a  good start.  Keep in touch aye?

Sherie xx