Showing posts with label lost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lost. Show all posts

Friday, 16 January 2009

Negative v.s positive



Yesterday my positivity evaporated - I got too close to a negative black hole - but it showed me as a reminder to keep myself away from negative energies and thoughts. I used to surround myself with negative people. I don't consciously seek it but they found me. And the thing about negative people, they don't build their esteem up, they knock yours down to their level, and zap your motive and energies. And it takes all your strength to stay positive around them - they are negative black holes and they leech your strengths out.

I chat and help others on a website for those recovering or seek to recover from mental illness, of which depression and anxiety (my original illnesses) are just a few. Together and separately, we each on the website and its portal are trying to find the ways that work for us to turn away from that black hole, and get some space between ourselves and it. And some ways will work, and some don't, but from each other we get new ideas or the fuel to keep moving away from the black hole, and sometimes we have to work alone, as we are the experts on our ups and downs. Something happened today, I found something I thought was lost (nothing really, just a phone charm I'd bought but which disappeared) and this revealed two things to me: 1. sometimes things/ideas etc are found when you aren't really looking for them or have stopped looking for them and 2. that sometimes light reveals much more than darkness does.

Advice isn't for everyone - it's for us to acknowledge that it is just advice and we can choose if we take it on board or discard it as not for us, but we do have a choice. It's what makes us us and not other people . Yesterday luckily there were people out there ready and willing to let me lean on them, and their words, compassion and empathy helped to repair the work negativity had done to me, as negativity is contagious, drawing you back if you’re not careful. In recovery I'm learning how to live with my illness, rather than it telling me what not to do. Keeping some positivity for me, but sending some out too, best wishes for today and the weekend, wherever they each find you, love xx

Monday, 12 January 2009

A Weight Lifted Update 6


Week 7 and a bit more lost. 17st has been left behind and now I'm 16st 11.5.

It is surprising me but perhaps it is determination or the emotional weight from my past is leaving me. I have all sorts of things going on in my life at the moment and today is the first day back for school for my son, which in the past has been a trigger day, as I used to feel that I'd lost my use, not being needed all the time by someone, being on my own again, and feeling that I had lost worth. That is still at the back of my mind but this time I have some strategies to distract me - blogging, fruit to snack on, sewing, some taped TV shows to watch, art course readings, organising, washing...


I have also been away from here as I had some issues to deal with. I saw a TV programme advertised and discussed in preview on other programmes about sexual bullying and it bought things to a fore. It put a name to things I had suffered from as a child and young adult and I've been dealing with the memories it provoked. I was bullied as a child and an adult, but now realise that some incidents that also happened to me would now be classed as sexual bullying. Having a name to give it gives some freedom, but it also brings the knowledge that my problems started earlier than I had thought, but bears out a thought that came out in one counselling session that between 6-8 years old were a difficult time for me, although at the time I said I didn't really know or remember why or what happened. Trying to lose weight and the thought patterns that I developed to defend me has meant trying to find different ways to tackle losing some weight and not self-sabotage as I go along. And with my right arm muscles problems and soreness, I've been resting, but still here, there for helping others, as much as I could.

I'm starting to see light again. I hadn't put the little incidents into the whole line of abuse (mostly mentally) and bullying that I had recognised as such in my past. But it is my determination not to be a victim, and I should be able to close the door again soon on those little things. It was just the trailers for the programme (Panorama) and discussions on breakfast television that brought some of the things back under my focus. And yet I've still come through.


Starting weight 17st 4lb
Total lost: 6.5 lb


xx