Posted by Pfinstegg on August 22, 2004, at 1:00:54
In reply to Re: The real Dinah, posted by Dinah on August 22, 2004, at 0:00:33
I know this sounds like a too-simple answer- but I think the reason to allow yourself to be genuine is that you'll feel happier. But when you feel really down on yourself, it doesn't seem like there's any worthwhile person inside you that you can be. The people who love you know that there is, but maybe you can't know it yourself right now.
I think, from what you've posted, that you've got more things stressing you than you have for quite a while. Harry has had an additional loved and loving year that he wasn't supposed to have, which I feel sure you gave him with your love and care, but now he isn't doing so well. And it sounds as though you have been forced by your father's illness to have more interactions with him and your mother than you may think is right for you.
To return to a neurophysiological way of thinking about it: more stress= HPA axis overactivity=cortisol overproduction=less new neurons and less serotonin, nor-epinephrine and dopamine in the your hippocampus= getting depressed. I know I make these irritating excursions into the neurophysiology of it all; if you hate it, just ignore it! Having definitely been severely depressed myself in the past, I know that I don't think normally then- I start to dislike, disapprove and hate everything about myself. I seem like a totally bleak landscape to myself, although I go on acting as though everything is "fine". You don't sound as depressed as I know I've been, but you do seem to be thinking more negatively about yourself than you usually do. It's so worthwhile to take every step you think might be beneficial right now, while it's not too severe. I don't know for sure what helps the most- but, maybe more visits to your T per week, less time with the parents, more undemanding cuddles with your husband and son, any self-soothing, self-nurturing thing that helps- I'm not sure what your most comforting things are.(for me it's warm baths and moisturizing every inch). I think the hardest thing is to do good things for oneself when one doesn't feel at all valuable.
This is a non-sequitur, but in some of the reading I've been doing getting ready for the conference I mentioned, I read how people who hoard have specific abnormalities on their brain scans. It's considered a very tough thing to have, not so common, but very difficult to overcome. I never knew before that it was so specifically brain-based; I thought it had a more purely psychological cause. It must be awfully hard to go into their house and see all that stuff piled up. It would feel to me like they had stopped living, and were just existing- sort of dead, really. I hope it doesn't upset you that I say that.
Let's be sure we keep a dialogue going. I never came out and said so directly, but the support I got from here when I was extremely depressed a year and a half ago really did help me. Now that things are better, i still think about that, and am grateful.
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:380351
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040821/msgs/380685.html