Hi again October:
When a therapist asks me that question I never answer, because they are not able to hear the answer. But just for you, I will answer it.
I want to be dead.
Well, thankyou for answering it and in that case, I'm glad you're not giving yourself what you want.
What's your second choice?
Happy now??
Why would you ask that? I'm just curious. I would never be happy to know that you feel that way. Did you think I would be happy to know this?
But that is not me. That is a symptom.
I think you're saying that you're wanting to be dead is a symptom?
Same as the vision of the future.
I'm not convinced that these two are the same. You may be right, but in that case, that would mean you have absolutely no control over what you think, what visions are created, etc in your mind. Sometimes, we choose not to dream.
It is these things I am fighting to escape from, rather than making happen. If I do nothing, they happen.
Yes. That happens to me too, believe it or not (some thoughts just happen, I mean...especially if I do nothing to try to counteract that process). But.....do you ever just lie in your bed and try to imagine yourself happy....doing something you like......or remembering something you enjoyed from the past? I bet you do that sometimes?
I have not yet given up trying,
I'm glad to hear that! Good for you October.
It is very easy with illness to blame the patient for the symptom. It does not help the patient. But life is not an ATM machine, and to suggest that it is puts the blame on anyone poor, or unwell, or disadvantaged, for the life they have. This is medieval thinking, where the person stricken with plague was reckoned cursed by God and therefore getting what they deserve.
Is that what you think? That I am blaming you for your illness/symptom? Do you feel like I'm putting blame on you by asking if you realize you have a great power? If you don't have that power, who does? This isn't to suggest that you can rid your mind of unhelpful thoughts. It just means pretending a little, sometimes. See what I mean? Maybe not. Maybe I'm not saying it right.
I appreciate that you care, but I am not sure your comments are helpful.
Sorry October. Sorry if I annoyed you.
For one thing you picked up on the negative at the end of my post, but ignored the positive at the start.
Very true. Do you always pick up and comment on the positives in people's posts, all of the time, first? I don't always do that.
You can't have it both ways; either I am an optimistic person struggling womanfully with a desperate situation, or else I am bringing it all on myself by negativity. I would suggest that the former interpretation is nearer my own truth and that of anyone who truly knows me.
For me, some days I'm one and other days, another. It varies with my mood, hormones, how many people get in my face, how positive I feel, and how hard I try, and how determined I am to focus. I'm not always one or the other.
I acknowlege that positive thinking has a role to play,
I'm glad you agree and really, this was all I was trying to point out and I do appologize for not doing it more gently.
... but if you can see no evidence of that kind of positivity in my writing, then that just amazes me.
Wait a minute October, did I say that? I don't think that. Are you thinking up stuff....negative stuff and then deciding that's what I see? That's not what I see, October.
But you are, of course, entitled to retain your own view, against the evidence, if you prefer.
Yep. I think I annoyed you. Sorry October. Not what I meant to do at all.
GFN