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As children grow up, they eventually leave the family nest to pursue their dreams and aspirations, and that empty nest can encourage depression. Whether they go to college, explore the world, or start a new job, it may be a challenging and emotional step for parents. Therefore, by preparing for the empty nest chapter of life, parents can be proactive in not letting depression set in for an extended period. For me, the empty nest phase is creeping up quickly, and I am unprepared.
Finding comfort in chaos has been a pattern for me and my unresolved trauma. Especially before I sought treatment for my childhood sexual assault, and often without realizing it, I would feel somewhat "addicted" to emotional pain. In other words, I felt most myself when there was some sort of conflict in my life, whether it was a physical health condition or a relationship issue. While I didn't actively want these things to be happening, I did find comfort in the chaos they stirred up.
While randomly browsing the Internet in 2015, I came across a powerful phrase: Be who you needed when you were younger. At the time, I was a recent college graduate who had no idea what to do with her life. As a result, the phrase seemed irrelevant to someone like me. However, knowing what I know now, I am convinced that anyone can live by this motto if they want to. You can be who you needed to be when you were younger.
Trauma splitting (a type of emotional detachment) can be a common side effect after facing verbal abuse. This coping mechanism can happen to individuals of any age. However, children with verbally abusive parents will often develop trauma splitting to separate their normal personality from the traumatized one.
When I revert back to an anorexic mindset, it becomes all about earning my worth. Even if I resist the urge to act out eating disorder behaviors, I can still be susceptible to the anorexic mindset, which tells me I need to strive past my own limitations and prove that I am strong, capable, resilient, and valuable. I have a difficult time believing that my self-worth is inherent, so I force myself to achieve it—even if that means I hustle to the edge of burnout with no room to pause, breathe, and rest. An anorexic mindset is all about earning my worth, but l will be honest: This performance-based mentality creates a miserable existence at times.
One part of my treatment for schizoaffective disorder is an antianxiety medication I take as needed. I’ve been taking it for decades, but now my psychiatric nurse practitioner (NP) wants to ween me off of it. I have mixed feelings about this change in my schizoaffective treatment.
It's hard to deal with anxiety when you're going through change. Change can feel scary and unpredictable, and even more so when you are already feeling stress and pressure in other areas of life. This is something I have experienced recently. Over the years, this anxiety trigger has been something I have worked hard on learning how to cope with. Years ago, I would find that any time any major life changes occurred, I would feel extremely anxious.
Co-fronting with alternate personalities (alters) in dissociative identity disorder (DID) is something I only recently learned about. Sharing my mind with multiple identities, each with thoughts, feelings, and perspectives, lends itself to interesting conversations. These internal complexities can lead to co-fronting (when two or more alters are in control of the body at the same time) while significantly influencing how conversations unfold internally and externally, depending on the factors present at the time.
Everyone has habits -- both healthy and unhealthy habits. Healthy habits might be drinking enough water throughout the day. Unhealthy might be drinking excessively every night. Lately, I am finding that some of my past behaviors and thought patterns have contributed to some of my unhealthy habits today. To learn more about my discoveries and experiences with habits, continue reading this blog post.
In the pursuit of nurturing self-esteem, my journey spans nearly two decades of mindfulness meditation practice and affirmations. The profound influence of mindfulness meditation practice has allowed me to comprehend the potency residing within my own mind, transforming it from a tumultuous sea of thoughts into a serene sanctuary that nurtures my self-esteem. Affirmations have a power all their own.
When living with severe depression, it is so difficult to see any positivity about ourselves or the world we live in. I have been in very similar shoes as you. However, nothing will change until we initiate a change, even if it means taking our cognitative distortions and untwisting them. Healing/recovery takes a lot of time and practice - it is a lifelong journey. Unfortunately, there's no magic wand out there to make everything better about ourselves and the world (if only...).
One thing that keeps me going is taking life ONE DAY AT A TIME. I wear a bracelet with those exact words to remind me when I start down a dark road. One day at a time... because that is all I can expect of myself, and it's all that others can expect of me. I know it sounds cliche, but you genuinely are not alone or alone in how you feel.
Also, check out the resources and assistance at https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/suicide/suicide-suicidal-thoughts-and-behaviors-toc
We continued talking and I learned a lot more. His husband had cheated on him and he was heartbroken. They live in the same condo in separate bedrooms and were basically married on paper only. Since I was already developing feelings for him, I allowed our relationship to continue. We’ve since spent a lot of time together on dates, he met my family at Christmas, etc.
In January, we chatted and I said, “Ok, what’s the plan?” and he freaked out. While he says he loves me, and does not love his husband, he’s stuck and doesn’t know how to move forward. His therapist says he needs to go to the doctor for new meds and hasn’t. And now it’s been three months of basic texting good morning and good night, and we don’t see each other and don’t talk on the phone.
Do I just move on at this point? Every time I try to talk about us and our relationship, he just shuts down or doesn’t respond.
Help! Thanks.