Dear Bear,
It is safe to talk to us.

Your family and your support team can help you more perhaps if you reach out to them.

Mari

Ms. Bear, so sorry to hear about your accident. I will say a prayer and light a candle for you tonight.

Bless ya,
Sandy

sounds as if you are an imperfect perfectionist too....were you nurtured as a child? were you put in a hero's role? this accident I think might turn into one huge giant step forward if you can use it and get at the sources of why you are so self critical and so unforgiving of yourself. if you were to imagine you were another person looking at them, where would your standards be for that person? How come you are so good at nurturing others and so bad at nurturing yourself? when you start beating yourself up you should ask that question rather than continue to beat yourself up.
Crying leads to healing.....acknowledging that you are not made of steel but are flesh and bones leads to healing. I am really beginning to think this accident was a gift because it penetrated some of your defenses and you are ready for big time change.
Did I write that six months before my explosion, I wrote a short story about a little girl in an explosion and the explosion was meant to get her out of her rut rather than to maim or kill her. I remembered the short story a few months after my explosion. Pretty weird right?
Being gentle to yourself is really scary....nurturing yourself at first is pretty lonely and scary...the illusion of feeling like steel and I can handle it is pretty safe but it really robs you big time.
I am sorry klonopin doesn't help you. There are loads of times it doesn't touch my anxiety.
You are so very special...if only you could feel it.
Bobby

I was a caretaker as a child. "The Hero". My mom has myasthenia gravis and my earliest memories (if any) are of picking her up off the floor and putting her to bed, careing for my brother and sister. When I was 15, my little sister had a stroke and was in ICU at the childrens hospital for 5 months. Then rehab, then on and on. My mom was too ill and my dad was tied up completely with careing for my sister. I had to raise my brother. (and in some ways, my mother as well.)

My dad was my best friend until I hit puberty and then he retreated. He is a very cold man to start with, but I don't think he knew how to handle a young woman. He was not nurtured as a child. Alcoholic parents with a habit of abandoning him. I know he loves me. He has gotten better at showing it as we both get older.

So much of my life has revolved around careing for others and putting my own needs aside. It was what was expected. I am a soldiers daughter. Strap it on and do your duty. Of course I rebelled and made horrible choices. I was so angry. But those choices forced me to grow up very fast.

Even as a small child other children would comment that they couldn't understand me because I talked like a grown up. Adults would tell me I had ancient eyes. In my 20's I would hear how young I looked but I didn't act my age. Old. Older.

So, I believe that as fragile and failable as I feel, I have no choice but to push my self beyond my limits. To endure things that I shouldn't have to. I have made huge strides at standing up for myself-I no longer put up with crap that isn't my problem. But I still make myself do the things that scare the crap out of me. Because that is just what you do. You strap it on and you walk into the battle because it is your duty.

I know it's screwed up. I know it hurts me. I don't know how to make myself change. The guilt kills me worse than the action.

OH! and I call myself a lazy perfectionist. If I can't do it right the first time, then I don't do it at all.

this accident was definitely a Godsend and a wake up call. If you use it right you will eventually be so free of so much pressure in the future and doing things that you shouldn't be doing and also you will become far less hard on yourself and a lot of guilt will evaporate...yippeee....
I am so glad you were able to act out when you were younger. That probably saved you so much depression in your later life. You should congratulate yourself for being so bright rather than being self deprecating...Just think if you use this experience right you will be less self deprecating. You can start now by measuring yourself how you would judge other people and use that yardstick on yourself. The yardstick for yourself is probably way off the chart.
Also imagine the child you were but just think of her as a child and see if you can feel empathy for her and all she had to go through.....that might be the beginning of self nurturance. The stress of the accident will slow you down now from your usual iron self...what a grand opening when your defenses are down. I hope I don't sound crazy but at last, you will begin to be free and be able to take the steps to be gentler and finally nurturing to yourself. At first it is going probably to be very very lonely and painful but there is a rainbow at the end.....
Bobby

Dear Bear,
Now I know why you have your name, Mrs. Bear.
You are the protector of your family.
I admire you.
It takes unimaginable strength doing what you are doing and how much stress you have been under.
I like what bobby said about taking this time to heal yourself.
This is such good advice...
((((HUGS))))
bizi

Dear Bear,
You can do this. You really can. Look at all the other amazing things you have accomplished.
You can change your way of dealing with the world.

My accupunturist told me to say this often through out the day:
I release. I let go.

She thinks that I hold on too tight to responsibility and control....then I end up with anxiety and other health issues.

I release. I let go.

We can change our patterns.
You know this because you have changed other patterns in your life and you have helped your sons and other loved ones.


When my hubby was going to a pretty good counselor re his parents, the counselor reminded him that he had learned behaviors as a 5 year old. As a five year old he HAD to do these things in order to live --that's how the five year old sees it and that is how it gets imprinted/ tattooed into his being.

Now he is free from there strictures, criticism, scary behaviors.... and can live without carrying out roles/behavior that they shaped. Mainly, he is not 5 any more.

OK. I am really not trying to over simplify.
Sorry if it comes out that way.

You and I have talked here before about what I call the "responsibility gene." My parents used to put me "in charge" of the other ones (4 of us). And Dad was military...Mom was.... nearly always in dangerr of freaking out over something.....We children were responsible for keeping the peace in the house... and so on.

I am learning that I can be less responsible, even in dealings with myself.
At work, I am getting better about passing on responsibility to others.

And with myself, I let myself off the hook more about what I need to do or what I have to do. Because, really, I don't have to do anything.
I release. I let go.
I release. I let go.
I release. I let go.

I say it. I feel good while I say it.
And guess what? Typing it works too.

Mari

that is a neat expression Mari....I am going to add it to my repetoire...do you ever feel as if you are holding your breath? I do....
Bobby
the imperfect perfectionist

Oh geeze. Mari posted in Sandy's thread about vitamins and Omega3's and it totally reminded me about my pernicious anemia. Duh.

If I don't have enough B12, I get very depressed. Actually the first symptom that I am getting low and then comes the exhaustion and the pain.

Oh thank you thank you thank you Mari. Once I head that part off, I can be better capable of working on the other issues I need to address.

{{{Mrs. Bear}}} you are an amazingly strong person, whether you realize it or not. What a 'child'hood you had to endure. I can't imagine what I would be like had I had that type of past....

Mari, I love it....

I release. I let go.

I will pass that on to my daughter, because sometimes I can actually SEE her building herself up into a frenzy. Maybe that can help her, too.

Hugs, Jacquie