Need Support

hey, you are not alone. and you managed to reach out, thats great.
is there one small thing you could do that could make today better?
thinking of you

BeccaBee wrote:hang in there MDs. The stars will be shifting soon.

Thanks. We can only hope.

We wish we lived near you so that we could pet your dog.

MDs

-- Sun Feb 12, 2017 10:18 pm --

birdsong87 wrote:hey, you are not alone. and you managed to reach out, thats great.
is there one small thing you could do that could make today better?
thinking of you

Thanks, Annett. We're going to eat dinner. Grilled chicken salad that we already prepared. We don't like cooking, so the less prep work the better. We buy salad in a bag, enough for three nights, and we add some pre-cooked grilled chicken, some tomatoes, and some shredded cheese. When we're doing well, we're eating the salads nearly every night. When we're not doing well, we're likely to eat things that aren't as healthy, because we don't have the mental and/or physical energy to prepare healthy food.

MDs

totally get that. friday we had 6 chocolate bars for food...
glad you can buy salad in bags. sometimes its so worth it to keep things together for a few minutes, just long enough to make something pleasant to enjoy.

***TW for Ideation***

We don't want to write right now. We would rather be miserable. Rachel wants to do whatever she can to perpetuate the torment inside. She also wants to irreparably destroy our relationship with our T. So that we destroy ourselves.

It makes no sense. I have never been one to favor logic over feelings. But it makes no sense. Does Rachel want to destroy us or simply perpetuate the torment? The latter, I think. To hang by a thread at that fine line of constant suicidality, to make our existence as painful as possible without actually ending it, so as to continue our torment into eternity.

Why?

Why?

So much of the emotional sewage that we carry dates back to gestation, infancy, and toddlerhood and is rooted in the poisonous effect of our grandmother upon our mother, and the former's presence in our own early life. The meddling. The invalidating. We heard it all and felt it all. And Rachel wants to perpetuate it, because that's all that she knows.

The rest of us are at a loss to be able to handle this. Mary feels helpless. Even Allegra can't pull us out of it. The others feel far away but likely are not. Aurora13 insists that there is pain where the others are, even if those who are out aren't aware of it.

I do not want to be in charge. None of us do. Our foundational paradigm is governance by committee, the committee being all of us adults, an odd number, therefore avoiding the possibility of a tie vote. No one wants to be in charge of the committee. We've tried all of the five of us, except Deborah, over the years. None of us want the responsibility.

Allegra is saying that maybe we should put aside the larger issues now and focus our energy on establishing and maintaining stability in the moment. I can't separate the larger issues from the present moment. The former determine how we handle the latter.

We need to not let the pain silence us. We have to feel free to connect with each other. We need to support each other rather than tear each other down, tear the system down, or tear our life down. There's always an obligation somewhere; there's always responsibility. It feels like a burden. Living feels like a burden.

We need to thrive. We need to buy into thriving and embrace it. It's a tall order, and we're not perfect, not able to get from Point A to Point Z in one simple step. I don't want to be trapped by the pain. I want us to work together to resolve it.

Charity

Hi Charity,

I hear you. Support each other. Someone take the lead. Rally the troops.

Colin

Thank you for hearing us, Colin.

Charity

Hi Charity this is Terrin. I am like your Rachel but I can only speak for me. I don't recognize myself without crisis. I don't know who I am in this moment because I don't feel like hurting the body. Does Rachel have an identity besides one of despair?

If no one takes the lead you are left with the committee. Can you be functional that way?

Allegra seems to have an idea at least. Would letting her take front be helpful right now?

I know what it's like when everything feels like a burden.

Wishing you ease.
Terrin

Hi, Terrin. Thank you for writing.

ColouredLeaves wrote:Hi Charity this is Terrin. I am like your Rachel but I can only speak for me. I don't recognize myself without crisis. I don't know who I am in this moment because I don't feel like hurting the body. Does Rachel have an identity besides one of despair?

Rachel's identity isn't centered in despair; it's centered in anger, and it's centered in perpetuating the effect of our grandmother's presence in our lives, as well as our grandmother's effect on our mother, and thereby our mother's effect on us. She detests being likened to our grandmother, yet she perpetuates the cycle nonetheless.

ColouredLeaves wrote:If no one takes the lead you are left with the committee. Can you be functional that way?

That's always been our intent. For the committee to govern without a specific leader. The notion is ultra-idealistic and difficult to hold up against the more traditional notion that somebody has to be in charge.

ColouredLeaves wrote:Allegra seems to have an idea at least. Would letting her take front be helpful right now?

Allegra has already had too much of a burden placed upon her throughout the years. Despite her aptitude, at 17 she is still a minor. We welcome her efforts to advise, but we're adamant in that no minors be put in a position of overall responsibility. Besides being contrary to our core values, ceding responsibility to minors has caused too much harm to their individual well-being, and therefore to system well-being.

ColouredLeaves wrote:I know what it's like when everything feels like a burden.

Thank you again for your empathy and support.

Charity and a few others

we hear you.
with similar thoughts about the grandma and her influence thru the family. makes me feel rage.
we do have someone like Rachel but i dont know what migh thelp yet. its getting so much harder when someone like her tries to destroy any effort in getting better.

is Rachel fully aware of today? because today is the day of possibilities. the day that you can step out of the old influence and create something new. even if its late in life it is still plenty of time to create your own. and time is spent so much better with creating your own, especially when you are angry about the old...

i believe in you guys. you will find a way to make it thru today.

Hi L,

It's the "creating something new" that we have trouble with. A number of us believe that once we have painful experiences, particularly formative ones, that the effect of those painful experiences is permanent and cannot be changed, because history can't be rewritten. Those painful experiences are like painful scars that no medical treatment can remove. Nothing positive can make up for the damage.

Our beliefs won't change until the pain stops. Our T sometimes says that if we change our thoughts, we can change our feelings. Feelings are our foundation, and for us, the feelings have to change before the thoughts change. And when we don't want to let go of the feelings, it's even harder.

Thank you for your support.

Charity and others