allowing oneself a good moment in a bad life

talked to our T today.
we don't allow ourselves many pleasures. we are poor, and sometimes there is a little money left, but we can't convince ourselves to spend it. especially not on something nice. what if we got used to a good life, but we are still poor and things will probably not start to look better any time soon. it feels irresponsible to encourage people to build themselves a better life when the bad life is all there will be for the next years, maybe decade. how could be survive when we are thrown back into misery? how could we find courage to live and keep living when we tasted some freedom and then it is taken away again? How could we not give up and drown in pain after we had a period without it.

What the T says is that it would be easier. Because we have reserves. Because we collected good memories and then being back in a bad life won't hurt so much. how? like, how can she says that. how can she know? it doesn't sound safe at all!! the bad life would hurt even worse! it would kill us, I am sure.

any... uhm less fatalistic thoughts or experiences?

I have felt like that, how can I dare to enjoy anything. But 12 years ago in therapy I learnt the same thing. I have to say the therapist is right. Allow yourself happy, OK and good moments. I had many over the ten years before I came here in crisis.

So much so I'm very tempted to continue back to that and abandon seeking healing because they are healing. Having nice memory and moments are healing. We all have some. But I can smell, so to speak, that going through facing the absolute worst which I will have to face when I get to a specialist therapist will be good for me, I feel it will exorcise the memories I know about and now hold a little and the ones I know nothing of as yet.

I'm hoping that what I learnt of how to make good memories will allow that I can still make some during this therapy and help healing.

Allowing yourself small pleasures is healing - that's the simplest best way I can put it. Sarah.

Pleasures don't have to cost lots of money. I find doing water colours relaxing and you can pick up cheap water colour pencils and water colour pad to do some pictures and teach yourself from free youtube videos if you were interested in that.

Even sketching with just a regular pencil and paper focuses the mind, loads of free pics online to copy/learn to draw.

How about something like knitting? wool and needles would be cheap and you can work up to making yourself stuff (a hat, scarf or jumper for winter so practical too) Having a hobby that made you feel relaxed could be seen as a luxury. It might also help you focus on something else in more difficult times.

Not sure what country you are in but in the UK there is a shop called 'The Works' it sells lots of books and art stuff cheap, (also craft stuff like knitting and other crafts) popular with students! You may have a similar discount store in your country too if you are outside the UK?

Taking a walk in a park with nature can be relaxing. Pick a time when its quiet and no-one else about. I like to visit small local lakes, take photo's then turn them into sketches and watercolour pictures It's definitely helped me get through lockdown as I'm not going near any shops right now and all entertainment places (pubs, theatres etc are still closed anyway).

I don't need ideas for fun stuff.
and money is actually not the issues right now.
I have the money for fun stuff. but we hesitate to spend it and enjoy ourselves because we are afraid that this will not last and then we have to go back to living a small life after we got used to living a big one and I think it would break us. so I would prefer to keep things small, even if they could be a bit bigger, so we won't fall so hard once the privilege goes away.
and our T insists the having memories of a bigger life would make it easier to return to a small one and that doesn't make sense to me at all.

Hmm. Maybe it can be like how Christmas is special and then the rest of the year there are less presents? Then it's okay, because you had that nice Christmas and can think back to it and have photos/souvenirs that last longer.
(That is kind of what she is saying, right?)

It sounds to me like your needs haven't been met for a long time. I recognize it with food for me. If I haven't had enough for a while, then once I do eat something dense in calories, the hunger increases. For some time I will eat more than normally would be needed. And then after consistently meeting the needs for a longer time, the body/mind calms down and there is less hunger.

Maybe you can start by making things nicer that you know you would be able to continue to provide for a longer time?
Have you had periods of more good things before? How do those feel to you? (Does it work in the way the T is proposing?)

I think there are some false equivalences going on. It is not always true that little money = no pleasures = small life, and that spending money = pleasures = bigger life. And freedom is also not necessarily related to or equal to having money.

Being able to enjoy things and to collect good memories to help with future bad times is an issue unrelated to money. The first thing to figure out is whether you feel like you deserve to enjoy things. Are there "small" inexpensive or no-cost things that you take pleasure in? Maybe start by practicing with those things and see how you feel.

And then maybe pick one thing that you can agree to spend money on to enjoy and make lots of good memories from, and then see what happens with that. Do you feel worse after the experience is over, because it might be awhile before you can do it again, or do you feel better? Or if it's an item, do you enjoy looking at it or using it while you have it?

After all, one nice thing doesn't suddenly mean that you have a "good" life now and have been plucked from the depths of misery, only to be dropped there again when the nice thing is gone. You still have the same life, but now maybe there is a little bit more pleasure in it because of the nice thing.

I'm going to quote back to you something you told me over two years ago that was very helpful:

birdsong wrote:I had to think of a book I recently read. the author said that his thoughts are like cows. and he gets to lead them to eat. they have been eating brown gras and thorns for a long time, but he is slowly leading them to green pastures. with some thoughts I guess it is like that, teaching our cows to feed where it is green and positive...

...our brain often learns thru experiences. and making new experiences can change the way we think and experience stuff. so ... we need to take risk. it is the only chance to make a new experience and not be stuck with the old one.

And then I talked about two simultaneous reactions we had:

What if we taste the good stuff and believe we can have it, but then it disappears and then we feel even worse when we have to go back to the thorns? vs. These are thoughts--we can make/find our OWN green pastures and water them; we don't have to wait for someone else to offer them to us or allow us in. This is really the essence of optimism or looking on the bright side--it is really all in how you look at things and what positive use you make out of your experiences.

So there are two ways of looking at what will happen if you allow yourselves to spend time in the green pastures. One is that the experience is solely dependent on money--you need it to be let in there, and without it you're kicked out and the gate is barred. And the other is that once you have the experience of having been there, then you have it within you and no one can take it away.

I realize it's not quite that simple--to some extent money does buy freedom, and comfort, and easier access to certain things. But plenty of people who don't have much money live what they consider to be a "good" life.

I wonder if some of this also relates to family issues--aren't there negative associations to wealth and living a "big life?" There might be parts who have an all-or-nothing feeling about this and feel like you're not a good person unless you're poor--that there's some virtue in depriving yourself of things and not being similar to anyone in your family who might be or have been wealthy, and that one "nice thing" will turn you into that. And at the same time there could be a feeling of not deserving to have more.

For me, therapy is definitely helping with that process trying to allow myself good moments. Some of it is because our T is such a good model of being optimistic and appreciating the good things in life, even in the face of difficult times. So we see that being demonstrated. And he values us, and thinks we're worthy of good things. He often says, "I want good things for you."

But it takes practice and repetition, because trying to enjoy a good moment and stay in it is often interrupted by noticing how rare they have been, and therefore how bad most of the moments have been, and then starting to think about all those bad moments...etc, etc, etc. It's a tricky ongoing struggle.

The Gang is wise. I'd be miserable even if a billionaire right now. There's so much more.

birdsong87 wrote:I don't need ideas for fun stuff.
and money is actually not the issues right now.
I have the money for fun stuff. but we hesitate to spend it and enjoy ourselves because we are afraid that this will not last and then we have to go back to living a small life after we got used to living a big one and I think it would break us. so I would prefer to keep things small, even if they could be a bit bigger, so we won't fall so hard once the privilege goes away.
and our T insists the having memories of a bigger life would make it easier to return to a small one and that doesn't make sense to me at all.

I has this. And I know its not what you want to hear but memories are healing. I have some photos up, i fondly remember times and although my life did go quite small again I'm glad I have the memories. Sarah

-- Sat Jun 20, 2020 7:03 am --

Gangs right, nobody can take experiences away from you.

Eg. I had enough saved to go away for the weekend just before the lock down. Instead I did a week of things I'd thought about doing but not done and spent a day out with my children. Those week of experiences and memories are worth more than a weekend in a hotel. The hotel would of been good, nobody could take that either if I did that.

Good experiences are worth more than numbers in a bank even if you then have no numbers in the bank.

If I was a billionaire right now I'd go to therapy and go on weekends away and do fun things I want to try. Money makes life easier, that's my view and if it goes it goes.

There's a Romany Gypsy saying "today we feast, tomorrow we starve"

It's life, its natural course of life. Letting the food rot won't stop the starving same as leaving the money in the bank won't eventually mean you spend it on something less soul nourishing. Sometimes you got to nourish your soul with something that costs money when you have it. Sarah

Even if it does not last "physically" it will last in your memories. And the more happy memories you have, the happier you will become on the long run. Why would you deserve to be unhappy forever? What will you gain from being unhappy? Keeping a comforting habit, maybe. But, what else?

We know that it is comforting to stay in the situations we are used to. New situations, new feelings, are scary. But, sometimes, being brave enough to face novelty, is the first big step towards recovery.

Start small. A small nice thing. See how it lasts. Another small nice thing. Are you happier? Another small nice thing. And so on. It does not have to be big at first, to avoid feeling guilty once it's used-up. Just, one small step. One small nice thing. Then, another.

Don't feel guilty for being happy. You deserve it as much as any other. And no, it won't last. Nothing lasts. But, is it a reason for never trying?

_S.H._

I regret asking
we are not in the condition to discuss things right now