I have experienced depression and anxiety on and off for most of my life from my teen years on throughout adulthood. I had a bad bout of depression and anxiety that started last Winter and lasted through late Spring. I was also finally diagnosed with Adult ADD and Fibromialgia. Finding this out and finally being treated acurately has helped dramatically! Writing and getting my thoughts and feelings out has helped too! This website has been a blessing in my life and helped me through a very bad time. Connecting with people and having reciprocal relationships even if they are on the computer and across the country has been a wonderful experience.
I have been slowly taking inventory and cleaning house in my real life. Years ago I had agoraphobia. I became a recluse and was literally afraid to go anywhere. I slowly overtime and with medication and therapy got better. I still experience anxiety when I go out, but I do it anyway. My fears are still there sounding off in my head. Each time I go somewhere new or do something new I feel that intense anxiety. I feel it when I come home and wonder if I said anything stupid. I think to myself they probably don't like you and are just being nice. I have to make myself do it anyway. I am walking through the fear. The fear doesn't go away, but each time I do something it doesn't feel quite as terrible as the time before it.
In the last month, I have gone to; a Mom's Night Out, a scrapbooking night, back to church, joined a bowling league with my kids and more. I will keep on getting out there in the real world and trying to live that three dimensional life.
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Comments: 23
You have made a huge step in sharing your thoughts, feelings, ups and downs with us here at Gather. Thank you for sharing a little part of your life with us.
hugs
hope whatever you do ...you find real happiness and peace..
Even in your poetry that I have read for some time, I see positive change and strength in your words. I told someone yesterday on Gather , I lived sixty miles from anywhere on my own for eight years. I very rarely saw people ,and I don't know if living sixty miles out in the bush up a river, could be described as agoraphobic. But I certainly became anti social, and felt very much as you describe when I came back to live in society. That is why I can clearly see the positive change you have made over time. You are doing all the right things from what I can see Anne Marie, and You will overcome these things eventually. God Bless.
Darcey D.
Sometimes i pretend i'm stronger than i really am, and that nothing bothers me, but lots of things do. i see people reaching out here on gather but am so scared that if i did too i'd end up even more lonely. i've been diagnosed with problems....since i was 15 or 16, i can't really remember. every day i walk through my own fears, but not because i really want to, but because it feels like i don't have a choice because the people in my life just think i'm being stupid for having those feelings. maybe i am. maybe i should be able to get over the stuff that has happend and i'm just weak that i can't. your the most confortable person that i almost talk to about anything really real that i feel, and even that scares me. cause .... oh i don't know why, mostly it's a lonely thing, which i really don't want to be, but i don't know how to put my hand out into the great darkness with out wondering, will anyone take it????
this is as close as i've gotten to that, because of you, and the things you write and all that you share with everyone. you are a truely amazing and beautiful person and thank you for every word that you have ever shared. i'm not sure if you really know how much what you've written has helped, but you open something up inside me that allows some of whats kept locked away under lock and key to escape and for that i truely thank you.
This year I had some fears, acted on them and lost... that happens. I'll change my mode some, reinvent myself AGAIN (whether I do it right or not Ren), and come back from another direction but there are costs.
One is simply TIME which over 50 begins to be a far more real consideration, another is energy/resources and sometimes like money you have to spend to make....
You seem on a workable path for you, I hope it leads you to what you want.
Sorry about the yellow flower comment, will remove.
Peace.