Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007
1100
Tue, 03-20-2007 - 10:32am

Hi Tziporah,


I am so sorry that this is such a belated welcome to you. I've been absent from the board for nearly a month - so many things have been happening in my life that it was difficult to also come here. The good news is that life has somewhat calmed down (but I'm still crossing my fingers and my toes), which means that I'm back on iVillage.


I am so very happy to see you here, participating and sharing in our conversations! I hope that we'll get to know each other better in the coming weeks.


Welcome again!


(PS: I love the sound of your name!)


Please visit these other great message boards:
Cranio-Facial Abnormalities
In Vitro (IVF)



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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Thu, 02-12-2009 - 11:26pm
Hi all,
Well, it wasn't a great night--i wrote the last message before i went to sleep. got about three hours of sleep and then just woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.
this old Beach Boys song, which I had heard on the radio a few days ago, just keeps on playing in my head--nonstop over and over.
then i started to think about this meeting i have on Sunday with a professional involved in one of my long-running clients' kids' treatment. she, my client, has a mental illness but is functioning. but both of her kids have serious emotional problems and learning difficulties. they are also in treatment in various therapies and remedial programs. my client told the guy who runs the center where her kids are being treated about me. he wants to consult. i have done this kind of thing before, so that's not the problem. it's the complexity of the situation and i feel a lot is riding on my assessment, since i know the family situation better than anyone else--been involved with it for about three years are a continual basis.
truth is, the mother is collapsing under the heavy burden of having to schlep bothkids to various treatments week after week, the father is absent most of the time, and when he is home does very little to help. realy abuses his wife--not physically, but emotionally.
and the kids don't really get affection from her. more like being with a cold caregiver.
just to show you how complicated it is: the older boy, 11, has dyxlexia, adhd, and still wets the bed.
the younger boy, aged 8, has communication difficulties, either throws an anxiety tantrum or hits the kids in school, has some learning disability, and also still can't control his bowel movement all the time and can't control his bladder when he gets up.
a real mess.
well, got to thinking about this and it set me off.
plus, the myriad business tasks i have to do with my website development, which is in full swing right now.
plus the fact that my cuticles ar slowly being ripped up again. no longer just two fingers--, but three sore fingers on each hand!
a real slow but steady slump.
i still don't want to go back on those meds again, but realize these are proably all symptoms.
i want to use relaxation again.
maybe it's still withdrawal.
then, in the middle of this, found a huge piece of hanging skin on my heal. pulled it off and chewed it. felt good doing that.
you all know what i mean. don't have to explain.
now i have to start preparing for the Sabbath with cooking, etc. and i'm starting to feel tired again after not sleeping half the night.
plus, i started cold meds again to dry out my nostrils and the cough so i can be as prepared for the eye operation next week. those meds just put you to sleep. short, intense deep sleep.
i should have put on the gloves when i started biting my nails. sort of "forgot" they were there. laugh.
maybe the meds would help--i've considered that, but want to give it one more try--at least till after the second eye operation. i will need antibiotics for that one to, so even if i were to decide to go back on the meds, the antidepressants, i figure it's better to wait until after the surgery and the anibiotics. otherwise, it could just get all screwed up--regulating the meds, i mean.
if i do go back, will probably look for another pdoc.
tired of working with a pdoc who doesn't respond promptly and return calls, never is on time for her appointments, and then apologizes as if nothing happened.
i don't take it personally. that's just who she is.
i can find more professional types.
there are doctors who run a good office as well as give good medical care.
her medical care was good, to her credit, but now i want a little more efficiency. so much is going on.
i can't afford to waste time.
well, everybody, pray i can overcome this slow decline in my cuticle biting and that the sores will heal--they're so stubborn, healing slowly.
that's what is so frustrating.
as for the therapy session, what i talked about in my last letter, the remark he made was sort of misquoted by me. he said that anger is germain to my prsonallity and that it gives me a kind of energy. when there is nothing to be angry about, there is nothing to talk about in therapy. i just remain silent--proof, when he said this, i was silent.
the rest of what i wrote in that message, how i think he misinterpreted my silence still stands. i was just really trying to absorb this formulation and felt there was nothing to say.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Mon, 02-16-2009 - 11:57pm
Hi everyone,
well, the consultation meeting i wrote about in my last message went well. it took a full hour-and-a-half. the person i had to talk to was very sympathetic and really wants to help this family, straighten out the complicated issues involved. he said my input was vital and i was giving him a lot of information.
i think i was really worried and anxious over the possibility that he would have asked me a question like: should we remove the kids? to be honest, i have sometimes wondered if, for everybody's sake, that would be the best thing to do. but i wouldn't want to be asked about my feelings on the subject by a professional involved in this family's problems.
nail-biting has slowed down. a tiny bit of haircutting and some picking at the rough skin on my heals--but nothing more than that.
sleep cycle still totally out of sync. i'm hoping after the surgery it will return to some kind of normalcy.
again, another cancelled therapy session yesterday. i didn't mind having the day off from that, but it makes it harder--long time between sessions breaks up the continuity and the flow.
working really hard on business-related things.
just got up and feel tired enough to go back to sleep again. that's how off-balance my sleep cycle is.
will probably lay down at some point, but i have things to do today--an appointment with my business coach and some classes.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-16-2001
Wed, 02-18-2009 - 1:29pm

I need to catch up with your thread, Tziporah. Let me do this when I come back from my trip this Sunday.

In the meantime, lots of hugs!

PS: is your website already up? The link you gave led to a blank page.














iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Thu, 02-19-2009 - 4:49pm
Hi Poppy,
I've been trying to write this message for two hours! important phone interruptions. feeling frustrated.
well, my website is still a blank page, but i signed up with a professional webmaster who will be developping and then putting up my website. so that is why my website is still blank.
had a day off from therapy on Monday--he was in an emergency meeting. then i had my second eye operation yesterday. stil in some pain, but surgery was successful.
i';ve been i n a bad mood for the last few hours. the therapy started with my telling the guy about how i felt he had misinterpreted my silence. typical of him, he said i had misunderstood it. decided not to argue the point.
then we started talking about the subject we had been working on, my anger. trying to figure out what fuels it,motivates it, causes such violent and intense reactions--much beyond the normal reaction for the situation involved.
well, then it happened--what you could call a therapist's dream--something occurred in thehouse which called for me to attend to right way and i told him to hold on a second. he agreed. well, i had put the cough syrup i am taking on the dining room table. the bottle leaked out, making a goopy-sticky mess of everything and mucking up papers, other meds, ect. i went bolistic--not really bolistic, but got agitated.
he must have heard the bakground noise, although he was too far from where i was--in the bedroom and i had been in the living room--so he could not catch the words, but he heard the tone of voice, the volume.
he called me on it. asked why i had reacted so violently to a really trivial situaion.
i could not act as if it had not happened0
--he had heard it. and he certainly wasn't going to just pass it off as nothing.
so i submitted to it. let him do his work.
what came out was the following: i have two main underlying causes for my excessive anger reactions, both related to feelings of being the victim in circumstances over which i have no control.
one has to do with people not complying with my requests, when i assume and expect they should.
the other is feeling that even when i voice reasonable requests ormake my feelings known the other individuals just ignore them.
it's easy to trace it back to my parents and early childhood: the times i had depended on people and was let down; the times, even after my miarriage, and certainly while growing up, when my parents would ignore my feelings and protests, and the ultimate victim of circumstances beyond my control--the original incubator mishpa that resulted in the blindness in the first place.
these are not new revelations. i have known about them for years.
i guess what is new is his linking them to my anger, the fact that he was/is able toshow how my violent reactions are really out of proportion to the situation, but that i react as if these things were major effronts and crises, just as they were in my childhood and adolescene, the fact that although i know intellectually this is not a mature way to react, my emotional response presses my buttons and i overreact.
so, what does all of it have to do with si?
i've just rippted my right thumb up again. must be a reaction to it.
the worst part of this incident with the meds is that, as i told the guy, it could hae been totally avoided, if i had only been smart enough to take the necessary precautions and preventative measures--i.e. put the meds on a kitchen counter standing upright. that just is oneexample of how i often feel angry at myself for doing things i could have prevented with just enough forethought and forsight.
so he got all of that out ofme, as usual. i just wanted to cry and am feeling emotionally spent.
well, that is why i am in treatment, isn't it?
i can't fool this guy, he knows me too much, too well.
i guess that this is why i started ripping up yet enough finger--that this is just one more cause for my si behaviors: the deep anger i have with myself. he said as much. if i could just lern to forgive others and be accepting of them, then i could learn to forgive myself and be accepting of myself. he had to explain that connection to me, but i finally got it. i guess deep down i still can't forgive myself for a lot of things: from major things to the most trivial, like spilling a stupid bottle of cough syrup. it wasn't a stupid bottle, i was planning to take that syrup and just got it today.
now i have to get some more tomorrow from the druggist--plus the cost for the taxi to go back and forth. i can't go out yet--in too much pain and face sloolen up.
if people are still hanging in here and reading this post, i guess what also struck me is how little people have written here about the part anger plays in si. i have read a lot about its connection with anxiety, depression, trauma, self-loathing and low self-esteem--all of which i can relate to in more or less degrees. but i an't really recall anyone talking about si in relation to their anger over themselves or others. or maybe i'm just missing it--i guesss you could call all those stories of abuse and being taken advantage of that people write about here as manifestations of anger. depression is certainly anger turned inward. but i'm really talking about the overreactions to trivial incidents.i've been told before that people are sometimes/often put off by my bluntness. i am sure that is connected with it.
i'm going to sleep now.
Poppy, have a great trip.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Fri, 02-20-2009 - 12:39am
Hi everyone,
wow--what a sloppy last message. terrible typos. oh, well, will forgive myself--i'm in pain, right?
didn't sleep good last night: pain, coughing, mucus gonk, etc. won't bore or gross you out with the details. laugh. you got them all already anyway.
well, woke up biting my left thumb and it bled. chewed the skin--felt good doing that. you all understand, of course.
kept thinking about how i am angry with myself.
still trying to want to prove i can be successful, instead of almost-successful.
example, not almost finishing college, but really graduating this time from coach school.
not almost having a career, but really having one and making money from it.
i'm still being pushed by those demons.
and inside myself, i know that it is against my faith to say something like: "my strength did it", because that leads to forgetting G-d, as is clearly stated in Deuteronomy, chap. 8 I think.
so i am angry i still am being pushed like that. that i am pushing myself like that.
still angry that i am still haunted by these old demons.
still angry i know what i have to do to change, but somehow can't make the change--bring it about. my former therapist would say: "can't gring it about yet."
before waking up i finally fell into a kind of sleep and had a dream, which i have forgotten now, in which things played out differently, in which i was forgiving.
then i woke up and bit that cuticle.
decided to write this email. then got distracted by another email and then it happened--i had a cup of coffee on the desk.spilled it and it wet all the machines. ran for a bath towel to clean it all up before the water seaped into any of the machines. a major cleanup job. cursed myself as usual--how many times has this happened before? i've lost count. but it's been enough that i should know better. by this time had a bad headache. chalked it up to that. then, you guessed it, after everything was cleaned up, made myself another cup of coffee and went back to work. put the coffee in the regular place. see what i mean? i am a confirmed creature of habit. bad habits, right?
well, i see what the therapist guy means by how the anger is connected with low self-esteem and that ihave to really work on forgiveness, forgiving myself most of all.
i am stil really angry inside, but mostly, not only, but more than angry at anyone else, angry at myself.
i told my husband i am working on this in therapy.
i sometimes shout at him for no good reason, even when his requests are relly reasonable and he asks for things in a very nice way. he is so loving and gentle and patient--it hurts me i treat him this way. sometimes he will ask: why are you shouting at me? he is right to ask.
he is my best coach. laugh.
where would i be, what would i be, without him?
angry i bite at my cuticles when i know i shouldn't.
angry i can't overcome the clutter, procrastination, and a million other things.
angry i can't make the internal changes i know i need to make.
well, i have got to get down to work for the Sabbath.
just needed to get this out of my system.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Sat, 02-21-2009 - 3:39pm

Hi Tziporah,


I've missed alot while my computer has been down! The one thing that sticks out is the idea of anger, and you commented that people don't write alot about the connection with SI. Personally, it was huge for me. I'd get angry at myself and SI, angry at others and feel that was unacceptable, so I'd get angry at myself and SI. I'd get angry about feeling angry, or feeling other feelings and take it out on myself. When I'd find myself in a depression rut and not doing anything, going anywhere or taking care of myself, I'd get angry that I'm not doing those things and feel like SI'ing. I'd punish myself with SI for all kinds of things. There was a lot of anger in my SI. One of the biggest things I had to learn was first, not "letting" others make me SI, since in fact they don't make me do anything, I am responsible for my own actions, and in fact they don't "make" me angry either. I choose to feel angry. Even though that remains a difficult thing, I am more aware of how I feel and react to things and people. Sometimes it feels like I don't have control over how I feel, but really I do, and if I don't like it I can try to change it. Last time I was really angry, I came home and put on the music loud and danced and sang and whatever it took to get the energy out and change the mood, since it is music I love. I also had to (still have to) stop beating myself up about things, i.e. punishing myself. One of the big things is sleeping in. So now I tell myself, "maybe that is what I needed and there is nothing I can do about it now".


Just so you know, I spilled coffee at my aunts when I was working for her and my uncle's company and got it on the work I was doing, and also went back later with a new coffee. I'm not going to stop bringing my coffee, I just put less in the cup this time and was very conscicous in my mind that it was there. Perhaps I could just have a coffee break instead of bringing coffee to the desk. There are some things that we continue to do, like you said, but not everything we do, even if we have an accident like spilling coffee, means we are doomed to repeat all of our mistakes or should necessarily be changed. You don't spill coffee every time, right? If you want to change the habit, it's up to you, and if not that is also your choice.


Amanda


cl of the Self-Injury

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Sun, 02-22-2009 - 4:49pm
Hi Amanda,
thanks for that messge. it really helped and soothed me.
i took out a book on anger management that i really like: Anger Kills, by Redford Williams, M.D. and Virginia Williams, Ph.D. I like this book because it gives very easy-to-follow strategies and a self-help program that is easy to use.
They also admit their own struggles with anger as a couple.
I had used it about fifteen years ago--that is how long I have had it. I haveother books on anger, but I always come back to this one, it is so easy to use.
I am starting to think that perhaps the antidepressants masked the anger. at least i wasn't so bitchy. it made my reactions less sharp, less pronounced. i could usually just shrug things off. since coming off meds--about a month ago--i notice my actions are more sharp, pronounced.
still, i don't think i want to go back on them. drugging myself into submission is not what i need right now. they sayin their intro that anger control is a lifelong commitment, and now, more than when i read it the first time, i can see that.
i really hadn't worked on it--anger control--for a very long time--severalyers at least. but i can see how i need to go through that again.
i can see clearly how it afects my relationships advrsely--which is perhaps the worst part of it.
oh, yeah, being angry at myself--wow, Amanda, can i relate to that! there are so many things i am still angry at with myself. for all the things i should be doing and am not.
as far as the coffee, you are right. i actually do enjoy having a cup of coffee or tea on the desk while i am working. and i always put it in the same place--so i should know better by now, right? usually, the spills happen when i am just too quick, careless, tired,not concentrating or preoccupied. after thinking it over, i don't want to change that habit, and as you rightly say, why should i?
i needed to hear that.
anyway, i realized i needed to start right away with this self-help program that is provided in the Anger Kill book and i am committed to doing that for the forseeable future. i guess i lax when i think i have finally conquered it. after awhile, with conscious effort, thought and work i can reduce it. it's then that i need to keep doing it, not be fooled into thinking i've conquered it once and for all.
i also am committed to talking about it in therapy--not easy. but then, i know that therapy helps in the long run, even if in the short run it hurts and is unpleasant. i know i have to face these things.
i know things aren't okay with my social support--i don't really have any, besides Shabtai, and i know i can be very blunt at times.
anyway, thanks for sharing this message. it really helps.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Mon, 02-23-2009 - 3:55pm
Hi Tziporah I can so relate to what you said about the meds - subduing the reactions and emotions - I have that effect when it comes to PMS although in that case it is necessary. In the past, though, I have been over-medicated and flat and we don't need that. Life is no fun when you are flat. We don't learn to deal with emotions like that either. I hope that going through that book again helps and you are not beating yourself up too much for things like the coffee because yes we do become unconsious of things sometimes and then we have to renew our consciousness of them. We renew our resolve, renew or self-awareness and move forward. It is always a step forward. Even a step back at the time can lead to a step forward - and you are doing that.

Amanda


cl of the Self-Injury

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Tue, 02-24-2009 - 12:56am
Hi Amanda,
thanks for the encouragement. you're a vry good friend.
I'll be darned if i'm going back on those meds! i would rather feel the intense emotions and deal with them--learn how to control them--than be subdued into mild reactions where all the feelings are dulled. i probably needed it then, but i don't want or need it now. i have to go back and do the work. don't worry--my t. is good at making me do the work! laugh. Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Tue, 02-24-2009 - 11:09am
Hi Tziporah. I know you will do the work. I just hope you will keep open the option for meds if the time comes. Not now, but "if"... Keep at it you are doing great.

Amanda


cl of the Self-Injury

Amanda

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