It happens less often than it used to.

[Sela]

Thanks TT.  I'm sure tomorrow will be better.

Moon, I'm glad to give you any support possible and so glad you see the light.

CB, you're probably right about piling it all up and dealing with it at once.  The only good thing about that is if I dealt with each bit separately, I might spend the rest of my days....dealing.   Added together it's a lot worse than each individual trauma tho.  On the other hand, it feels all added together now. 

Thanks for saying I'm not a bimbo and for using the word, friend.  That really felt good.  I don't think one can have too many friends and I feel very grateful and want to thank you also for being my friend.  It sure feels better to come here and read rather than be alone with all this and then to feel the fellowship of a friend.....thanks CB.

You too Bigalspal.  For the longest time.....I couldn't watch tv.....nothing on it at all.  Even the commercials made me cry.  I just could not stand it.  I couldn't listen to music.  Same thing.  I couldn't go to familiar places or or do usual activities because I'd break down.  It was tough.  The only thing I could do was sew.....so one day I went to my sewing room (and I always used to put on music when I sewed but I had quit as described above).  Well, this day I went to the radio and turned it on and quickly scanned, tuned in a jazz station (the only music handy that I was not very familiar with......didn't listen to and knew nothing about).  It was so soothing and now....I love jazz.  It helped me back into the real world......jazz and sewing.  What a weird combination. 

Janet, you must have embroidered the clearest message that that client of your hypnotherapist could not resist buying and then passing on.  That is so strange but wonderful, at the same time!

Ha!  Hi Hops!  Just reading now and you posted the words....strange and wonderful about Janet!!    I think so too.

Well, I do feel better.  I dug in my garden, which helps me work and sweat my troubles away.  I do smell rather like an onion now.  If it's poison....it's coming out in a big way, let me tell you!!

Thankyou all for your wonderful words of validation, encouragement, insight and suggestion/advice.  I will not wake up crying tomorrow!!  And you all have helped me through today, which I can't say how much I appreciate and how much it all helps.   I don't like these days but at least they are happening less often than they used to.    I am happy about that.   I feel blessed every time one of you bothers to post to me.  Thankyou.

Sela

[Ami]

Sela,
  When you mentioned jazz as a way to re-connect with your emotions.Ever since I watched Paul Potts sing opera--- I feel that way about opera. It shows me that  humans   must have the same emotions if opera has survived over the centuries.
   I am feeling like I will enter the world of my own emotions and the real world --soon. It has been reading and opera-- so far-- but I know that other "passions" will   show themselves  as I heal .  Love  Ami

[lighter]

I agree with Write:

Getting better is about feeling crummy less and less often.  It's not something that just ends.  You can feel hurt and mourne the losses but it's still there, at least until you've finished mourning and replaced it with other things.

I still have terrible moments of feeling loss..... over things that happened 10 years ago.  I cried a terrible heartbroken cry last night.... once for a lost love and one just for myself and my awful circumstances.  I haven't cried enough and I haven't cried in a long time.  I was surprised when it welled up and just came out.  I really really really felt sorry for myself and I must have needed to, ya know?

I didn't fight tit.... in fact, I would have liked to have cried longer and harder than I did.  I know crying helps me and I sometimes can't cry bc I'm wrapped up thinking about how to do it right and then I lose the sandness and the crying stops. 

I don't beat myself up for feeling blue.  I do less when my energy is down and try to do more when I'm having better days. 

It think it's perfectly human to have good days and bad days.  Perfectly human to hear a song or smell something that takes us back to another time.  I suppose we could avoid sadness like the plague (like society teaches us to) but it will find us anyway so..... why not face it and see what it has to say?

It will bother us less if it feels understood..... get's to speak and be heard.  That's my take on it anyway. 

[Hopalong]

((((((((((((((((((((((((Sela)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Dear kind friend
here is one
mohair
softer than butterfly wings
your favorite colors in shades you've never seen
light as air
warm if you're cool
like a breeze if you're warm
around your shoulders
with much love

Hops

[Confounded]

Sela, I can soooo relate to your feelings.  The endless pain.  Or so it seems.  'Til the bad times pass, or lessen, temporarily.  Then I'm always on the lookout.  When will it all turn to poopoo again?  Too soon.  It seems inevitable.

I almost think I could put people into two categories.  Those who are positive factors in my life, smiling, supportive, cooperative...  And then there's the other sort.  The negative ones, whining, complaining, demanding, irrational, time-wasting pains.  Literally.  They give me migraines.

Frankly, at this point, I blame myself.  Sometimes, I FORGET to ignore them.  It is the most pathetic thing!  I get sucked into caring about the BS they spew at me.  There is no reason for me to listen to it with any concern.  I know who they are.  I know they're going to bumm me out.  They're The Bummers.  But I never planned to live a life where I would have people around me that I had to ignore on a regular basis.  I learn over and over again, the same lesson.  Then I proceed to forget that things are going well because I'm not taking certain people seriously.  I start caring what they say again.  Then I get hurt all over again.

I have never thought of getting a tattoo.  But I wonder if I should have it tattooed on my arm, so I can't forget.  What would it say?  Maybe, "Remember to ignore negative people."  Thoughts of boundaries...  So hard to keep them up.

I'm just starting to read "Reinventing Your Life."  I have high hopes that it is going to enable me to make some kind of changes in my own thinking that will make it easier for me to keep it all straight and not get hurt by The Bummers anymore.  I hope that I may have said something her that is helpful to you.  I feel your pain, and I want everybody in this situation to get to a place where we don't have the tears, nor the lumps in our throats, nor even the fear of the return of that pain.