Posted by chdurie2 on October 22, 2000, at 14:26:53
Everyone:
Just a note to let you all know I'm still here and was not scared off by recent postings prior to my departure.
I went on a much-needed vacation to a warm, sunny place, the first "real" vacation I've had in five years. Although I can ill-afford it financially, i needed i psychically. i really was a crispy, burned-out french fry, like that last little one left in the pan after all are done. I can only say I wish I'd done it a couple of years ago when my stress became traumatizing - I wanted to, but wouldn't let myself- and my p-doc thought i had much work to do before vacationing. i left before dawn on oct. 14, and only 36 hours before, I was crying to my p-doc that i didn't deserve it. but after my recent stage one bout with breast cancer, he told me he thought i ought to go. (Why I need my p-doc's approval to go on vacation, and why he and i differ on the question of whether "baby" breast cancer is any more stressful than depression and my avoidance of life are issues he and i will deal with.) anyway, before i left, he said he'd rather hear me obcess about which bathing suits to take or my repertoire of suntan lotion than whether i deserved a vacation.
but anyway, back to the point. i thought of posting a note that i was going away, having seen similar notes from people, but i thought i was too new to have made my presence matter. It was nice to see from the postings and my e-mail from some of you that that wasn't true. but i hope i didn't worry you that i had been scared off.
so anyway again, i'm back, and took a few hours to try to catch up on everything, but boy, this has become a very busy board in the week i was away. maybe all weeks have been like the one that has just passed in terms of busy-ness, and i didn't notice. or maybe this has been a real active week and/or this board has become more popular.
anyway, anyway, not to be glib, but at least in the short-term, the vacation was a real antidote to my depression. not to say that it worked magic, and i hope its effects last longer than the 22 hours i've been back, but at least today, i feel much stronger. we'll see what happens when i really meet up with real life.
most of the time i was not depressed while away except the first day when i cried because a warm, sunny beach could not make up for the gloom and doom in my life. i also cried a lot one day after talking to a couple who seemed, both in talk and in action, "to have it all." and i cried again on the plane, feeling that a warm, sunny beach was just a cover-up for the glaring deficiencies of my life.
but as i said, today, thinking about my gloom and doom doesn't seem to hit hard at all, but i am nervous about my ability to take things more in stride and work up my courage to go back to work and clean up my house and all the other disasters i have to clean up in my life.
even now, as i sit here writing, i have seen several times that i have been at this board too long and must start life by going outside and raking up the positively zillions of leaves i have in my yard.
bye for now.
caroline
poster:chdurie2
thread:1443
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20001011/msgs/1443.html