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
Sun, 04-04-2010 - 12:47am
Hi Karen,
I haven't written for the last week because it's been Passover. It still is Passover, but now want to write.
I was scheduled for therapy last Thursday, but my t. wasn't picking up his phone. I called three times. Maybe he just forgot or misunderstood our pre-holiday arrangement. He is also an Orthodox Jew and is observing Passover. Some people work during part of the holiday, others do not. He said he was working for certain days of the holiday, including Thursday. Although my husband said I could get by without it, I told him I wanted the session. So I was very psyched up for it. Very disappointing when I couldn't reach him--or, more correctly, that he didn't answer. I put it out of my mind, but this feeling that he's withdrawing, pulling back, would somehow like to end therapy with me if he just could, keeps stalking me, keeps plaguing me. Shabtai, my husband, says it's just my negative thoughts. but I just can't seem to shake it off.
Anyway, I've been deeply depressed lately. Wondering if anything will help, anything can help--the meds, the therapy, anything.
Yesterday Shabtai started talking about how I have to replace the negative thoughts with the positive ones. Just what my t. has been trying to get through my head for the past few months. It's so hard.
I've been through all the expliration of the root causes of why I pick at my fingers, and also trying to replace them with better behaviors. It all comes down to thinking healthier more secure thoughts. At least that is what my therapist says.
I see my life stretching out before me and have no idea what I'm going to do with it. That is the main thought that keeps going through my mind.
Last week I watched the film, A Patch of Blue. It was made in 1965. It's bout a black man who befriends a white girl who is blind. They meet in the park. She comes from an abusive household and has been totally ignored, uneducated. Most people focus on the interracial part of the film--the romance that develops between them--and, of course, in 1965 that was a very controversial thing. I found the most interesting part the blindness factor. I could really relte to her total dependence on others and how he wanted to help her learn about the world around her. I am sure there have been blind people who were actually raised in such environments. It reminded me of my childhood, when I was dependent on people to take me everywhere. Of course, now that I use a cane, that is usually no longer the case.
Thanks for explaining why you don't like going to the ER. Maybe you could have your doc write you a note, so that when you do find yourself having to go there, you could just hand them the explanatory note and save yourself, and them, a lot of time and hassle.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Mon, 04-05-2010 - 11:55am

Hi Tziporah,


I’m in a very fragile state today.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Tue, 04-06-2010 - 4:39am

Hi Karen,
I wrote a long message earlier, but my internet failed to send it. now I am feeling tired again. So this will be relatiely brief.

So sorry you are experiencing suicidal thoughts. If it persists, you might want to talk to somebody about it.
I guess, like my depression, it waxes and wanes. Finally, it's on the wane--my depression, that is.

Anyway, I was about to burst by the time therapy was supposed to happen last week. Now, my mind just feels pulled in so many directions. And yet, I feel like I have come to a kind of resolution about things. This may sound paradoxical, but I prefer to see it as a kind of coexistence.
Anyway, my fingers are still a mess. I should really file them down.
Besides that, everything is okay.
As far as supportive husbands go, mine is very supportie. But even he can get worn out and exasperated with me. It is just plain hard to live with a depressed and anxious person day in and day out. A good book directed to spouses and other family and friends living with depressed individuals is: When Your Loved One Is Depressed, by Laura Rosen and Xavier Amador. It suggests strategies and explains the dynamics involved in living with a depressed person. I imagine this is what happened with your husband. He just got frustrated and tired when his efforts and help bore no fruit.
My husband would desperately like to make me happy. It is very painful to him and hurts him when he can't do that. Of course, he can't do that because it has to come from me. Only I can really, ultimately, make myself happy and that is not so simple--as we both know.
More than anything, loving husbands want their wies to be happy and when they cannot make it magically better it is frustrating to them and makes them become unhappy
You are probably right about my therapist--that it was just a human error, but I still can't shake off the feeling that he'd like to terminate with me, if he only could. I'll talk to him about it.
Tziporah

web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 04-07-2010 - 11:42am

Hi Tziporah,


I am feeling better today.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Thu, 04-08-2010 - 5:05am
Hi Karen,
Here in Israel, when the population had to evacuate settlements in the Gaza area several years ago, they were placed in caravans. Many are still in those makeshift homes, despite government promises that they would find them new housing. There are many people without work. A lot of broken marriages and stressed out families as a result. I'm not talking here about the rights or wrongs from a political aspect, but rather, the human factor. Losing one's home is rated as one of the highest stressors.
Similarly, over the years, many people here have had their homes wrecked or severely damaged through various rocket and missile explosions. Fortunately, I have been spared this agony, but I can imagine what it must be like.
So, I can sympathize with your husband's lingering depression. Is he working or not? From what I recall, you said your home survived Katrina. Right? Still, living through something so devastating, and the ineffectual government response at the time of the disaster and long-term, are certainly reasons for despair.
I have sometimes thought of going off my meds, but I know it's unsafe to do so. Even skipping one night. Sometimes I do that--very occasionally, but then I usually end up having a bad dream. This week I had a bad dream and I actually called out somebody's name. I remember doing that, but was surprised and embarrassed to discover that I had actually spoken it out loud. It happened when I was staying at someone's house for the last day of Passover. I found the dream frightening, but even more frightening, that I had actually been speaking out loud. And I had taken my meds! Wow!
Well, one sore finger is really bothering me.
Plus, I have a lot of work to do and would rather just watch a movie.
Did that yesterday.
Just not interested in the things I used to be interested in.
Fingers still a mess. One finger especially has a sore that is bothersome. But most are not in great shape.
My therapist and I are at the point where we cn speak openly. He'll probably just say it was an oversight, but I will mention it anyway. On occasion, he has made errors about bills and when I've pointed it out to him, he does check the account and corrects the error. So, it is a good working relationship.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Thu, 04-08-2010 - 1:08pm

My home had some damage but it was wind damage and not flood damage.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Fri, 04-09-2010 - 7:19am
Hi Karen,
Thanks for your message. To be honest, I haven't read it fully yet--it's Friday and I have to prepare a class to give on the Sabbath. But I scanned through it. Sounds like a lot going on.
I mianly wanted to write to let you know how therapy went last night. It was a mistake--as my husband, you,and everybody else but me--had thought. A simple misunderstanding. I don't even recall if I told him what I really thought--that he was withdrawing. If I did mention it, he didn't do the psychoanalytical probe of: "why do you think that?" nor did he go into the regular bit about how I read all sorts of inferences into incidents in which none are intended. Nor that I get anxious over nothing. Thank G-d he didn't put me through that humiliation!
I guess because I was so overloaded with thoughts and feelings it was easy to talk. I had so much I wanted to say.
After awhile, he focused in on a particular topic and started to work on it. If every time I had therapy I would be as open and pliable as I was like last night, like melted wax or soft puddy you could shape into anything, therapy would be a breeze! laugh. As it was, he asked questions that demanded thought and I responded. Toward the end of the session, he said something that triggered an emotional response. Perhaps because it was towards the end, he didn't get into it. Still, he got me to go deep.
Funny, afterwards i felt it was quite healing.
Still picking at my fingers. Made another one sore this morning.
Still reading that Mc'Graw book. very probing--the questions are really making me think.
Still realize my problems are mostly in the present--if anything, Mc'graw has made that vitally clear. I haven't een begun to work on that.
I have sooooooo much to work on in therapy! this focus on the past has been necessary, but it can lead to analysis paralysis.
Well, I gotta go.
Have a good week end.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Fri, 04-09-2010 - 7:59pm

Hi Tziporah,

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Sun, 04-11-2010 - 2:47pm
Hi Karen,
This message will be in response to your two latest messages--this one and the one you sent after my subsequent Friday message.
Well, I think I'd go hyper if I had to contend with the hurricne damage. It would put me into anxiety overdrive.
I think you and your husband are real heroes--especially the part when you had to spread the tarp over the roof and the fact that your husband, who is afraid of heights, conquered his phobia and went up on the roof to help. that's what happens in emergencies. the necessity of the moment makes us, forces us, to do things we normally wouldn't do. i can certainly attest to that. when my husband has needed medical care, i will do things that are usually hard.
I had this idea. Do you have a website on which you offer people opportunities for portraits? Or, perhaps you could link up with the tourist bureau in New Orleans and advertise yourself as a tourist attraction. From what I knowof such things, which isn't much, most artists and photographers have a portfolio which they show to prospective clients. Maybe you could get a portrait of someone interesting put on a New Orleans wall somewhere. My sister, who does art work in her spare time as a hobby, actually painted a mural that was put on some wall in Madison Avenue, or one of those really well-known streets in New York City.
Just some ideas to get you more well-known.
Well, the way you described it, feeling like a pressure valve ready to burst, that was the way I felt before therapy last Thurwday. Friday was a real bummer--a real downer. The Mc'Graw book, which I have on a cassette recording, was playing while I was doing Sabbath cooking. Touched on a lot of painful and core issues. Then I had a depressing phone call with my parents--asking me all the same questions they've asked a hundred times before. Almost went to synagogue Sabbath morning. Then, triggered by some thought or feeling, I started biting a finger and made it a bloody mess. Felt so ashamed of myself! so utterly disgusted! that just put me into a real funk and i went back to bed. i just couldn't do it--get dressed and go to services. husband was very idsapointed--rightly so.
today a bit better, but nothing terrific. Just feel so imobilized. so stuck. Cuticles/fingers a real mess. Not even trying to prevent it. Feel good when i do it--then bad that i've done it. does that make sense? well, i guess to anyone who's done si it would. laugh.
got therapy tomorrow. can't wait. laugh.
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Mon, 04-12-2010 - 6:39pm

Oh Tziporah, you sound like you need a great big hug.

 

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