Hi everyone,
A belated Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. I have been popping in to see what everyone's been up to and I'm glad to see you all.
I've been thinking a lot, largely spurred on by Dr G's book. It got me thinking about, not only other people not hearing us or recognising what we think or feel, but also how - for me, anyway - I don't listen to myself or how I feel.
Or to put it another way, what I've realised is that I don't allow myself to see or hear my dark side. Negative emotions don't feel nice (we all know that) and I feel that there is a societal attitude towards certain feelings or emotions not being nice or okay.
I also feel that there's a big emphasis within the self help/therapy/getting better market on things like positive thinking, gratitude, mindfulness and so on - taking control, other people only spoil our day if we let them, it's up to us to create our destiny and so on.
That has got me thinking about why we don't engage with our dark side more and why it isn't considered a favourable way to deal with problems (or perhaps it is and I just haven't discovered that yet). But it led me to pondering an experiment, as quite honestly, the approach I've been taking for the last twenty years clearly isn't working. My life feels like it gets worse and worse, I feel worse and worse, and then on top of that I feel guilt for not feeling/coping the way I feel I ought to. So I've decided to plunge in to the negatives and just accept them. I'm trying not to label them or attribute them as good or bad. I'm trying just to sit with the feelings and not keep trying to make them feel better. I wonder if I ought to think about them as people, or little angry children who aren't being heard or seen or noticed. But I feel like I need to focus on them being there, rather than trying to banish them constantly.
So I'm going to start a thread of negativity

Just something where I can write down things I feel angry about, sad about, frustrated with, resentful of and so on, without context or trying to see the bright side, or looking for a way to change it. Somewhere that I can let those emotions and thoughts be heard and just be themselves. If anyone wants to join me in a festival of grumpiness than you are very welcome

So - my resentments so far today (there have been a lot!).
Having to do everything for my son. It's his first day back to college so we are back to micromanaging the mornings. I get him to do as much as possible for himself, but almost everything has to be supervised, prompted, reminded, supported and so on. So it's a lot of work and I find it stressful, especially first thing in the morning when I really don't want to be doing it at all.
Getting ready for the evening before going out in the morning. One of the things I wanted to try and do this term was go for lots of long walks. There are lots of beautiful places around here, but they aren't walks my son can manage. I thought I would try to spend the time he is at college outdoors, exploring beautiful places that he can't get to. If I'm out of the house all day, I need to get the washing out before I go, get the dinner ready (or I will just eat crap when we get home later because I won't want to start peeling veggies).
Realising that, having rushed around this morning because I wasn't going to come home during the day, I wasn't going to have time to go for a walk because I had jobs to do in town (that I can't do with son in tow) and then I had to come home to wait for the shopping to be delivered. By the time that was done there wasn't time to go off trekking before I have to go and pick him up.
Parking up in town, looking at the beautiful sky, the gulls on the river, the church spire in the background and feeling sad, angry and resentful that I can't spend the day photographing it, or writing, or just being out walking in it with nothing else to do.
Having a nice chat with the guy in the health food shop and coming out wishing I had someone to love and have nice chats with, every day.
Getting home and just wanting to scream, "I hate this house!". I do hate it. I've cleaned and bleached, I burnt scented candles and sage, I've rearranged the furniture a dozen times, I've put bright posters and wall hangings up, hung drapes of fabric across doors and it is still hideous. It feels like a grotty student multi let that I'm being forced to put up with and I hate it.
Still having a never ending stream of paperwork to deal with, all of it tedious, unpleasant and upsetting, all of it necessary because other people don't do what they're supposed to. I am apocalyptically angry at the public sector workers who keep creating more work for me and the lengths I'm having to do to to counteract it.
I feel both angry and sad that I felt my only comfort earlier today was to eat. I didn't feel there was anyone I could see or speak to who would just hold me and tell me everything's going to be alright (even if it isn't).
I felt huge anger, resentment and disgust at the number of homeless people I saw in town today. One is one too many, particularly in this area where most of the housing is holiday homes and much of it stands empty for many months of the year. I feel sick that the popular view seems to be that stuff matters more than people and that some people should have more than one home while others don't even have a room in a hostel.
I feel enraged at my mum for choosing her husband over her kids and it makes me all the more angry because he is such an unpleasant little man. She didn't even pass us over for someone incredible and charming - just whoever was happy to move in and pay her bills.
I think that is all for now

I have to say I do feel better for just writing it up and not trying to cure it, rub it out or justify it - or needing to have someone say it's okay? So maybe embracing the negativity will help.
If anyone else wants to jump on the grumpy train then do, and I will start catching up on all the other threads (Skep has probably built another house over Christmas

). Best wishes to all of you for 2019 and thank you for still being here xx xx