Advice on healing-journey

[Smurfinstein]

On 7/10/2019 at 6:26 AM, TheExplorer said:

And I think also through increased awareness of how I’m leading my life, my suffering/depression about my situation has been intensified during this time as well.

Lots of stuff to explore here, but an immediate thing that jumped out at me... multi-time use of word "suffering." I, too have had life-long ("diagnosed," for whatever that means) depression. I used to say "suffering from" or "suffering with," then I softened the language to "dealing with"/"navigating," and things got a little better. Now I don't really even use the labels anymore... it's all "observations" and "inputs." I have a hellacious cold right now, am I "suffering from a cold" or "observing that something's out of alignment"? I know "word tricks" can feel really surface and band-aid and sometimes even condescenting-- the observations you're making are realer than real, but what if it's your relationship to them that need changing. For me, it was a path of not trying to "fix" and no longer "suffering," but observing and acting accordinly... what I used to define as "horrible, excruciating Seasonal Affective Disorder" is now a cue for me that I need to do different things in the months of Nov-Feb. There is an ebb and flow to all things... that's my "rest and relax and recoup and plan" time, not my "go, go, go, do, do, do" time. Hopping into the stream and going with it has taken the suffering out of it. Social Anxiety? Panic Attacks? Oh, yeah!! But I was spending time with shitheads and a-holes and talking about crap that really rubbed me the wrong way... put me in the right situation, and I'm fine. It was all lessons.

I am so sorry you're going through this, and I wish you all the best in coming to friendship with all parts of yourself... here's to the next level up with this stuff! <3