Never hesitate to post, and if some things feel too personal, I see a few PM invitations there!

Also, don't think that you *have* to immediately improve. From what I can tell, you are in a lot of stress, in a volatile situation, lots on your mind. Stress affects us on so many levels, even scientists are still amazed about it. It's not just a "feeling", there are so many hormones triggered by it, it can be easily measured with a simple blood panel. Cortisol- a hormone - is a prime example. Its production is triggered by stress, and to put it bluntly, too much cortisol makes us "stupid, tired, and fat"). I'm also pretty sure it makes PN (feel) much worse.

For a funny read-up on how that works, there's this. How Stress Can Make You Fat | Mark's Daily Apple Not saying I agree with everything he says, but it's a good primer to understand the role of stress.

I know, you can't just avoid stress like that. Stuff happens, and it drives us crazy with stress. But trying to find a way to handle that stress, carving out some time for you to relax, meditate (even 5 mins/day). That mood journal kiwi talks about often? It's one way of slowing down the day and look back to see what happened, how it made you feel, and how to deal with it better next time.

So, recovering (or simply not feeling worse) may take a bit longer for you. (or not, you don't really know yet). Remember, I was at my worst after 8 months sober. But I somehow used my stubbornness ("I will *swearword* beat this!") combined with acceptance ("Hey, but if it doesn't work, tough luck, I gave it my best") and slowly ... there were some (small) improvements.

Furthermore : don't forget, our mind plays tricks with us. When you get a bit better, and then have more pain again, if often feels like you are back to zero. Often that's not the case at all, it just feels like it. It is indeed, like kiwi says, a 2 steps forward, one (or even one-and-a-half) step(s) back.

Even I still fall for that sometimes. I get up, feel a lot of pain, and think "damn, it's just as bad as 6 years ago!". But then I think about it a bit more, about how much worse the pain actually was back then (like, 10-fold...) and realize I'm just falling for the old negative thinking again.

Your post is a good lesson for me as well: I should avoid inadvertently giving people the feeling that they *have* to immediately feel improvement, and somehow "fail" when they don't. Needless to say that is not the case. There is no fixed time line.

So in short: when you feel bad, post that you feel bad. This is not a good news show. We are not selling anything to anybody. We're just saying: don't give up hope.