YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I imagine if I could be a cheerleader inside of you guy's heads.

Cheering you on, being a positive, helpful voice in your head.

It would be easy to do, it would be an honor to do!

So if it is easy for me to do for another, why not give the same gift to myself, with the same energy?

So that is what I am doing, not judging or asking questions, just doing it.

It is going very well! Will post more later!

Such a lovely post, Manuel Moe. Thanks for sharing!

I am fueled by resentment. Not because I want to be. Because that is the feeling that is naturally welling up. It’s the strongest force. I’m not sure anymore it’s a bad thing though. I’m not giving up some moral centre. It just feels like the best thing to do is say, “Okay, show me what you got…”

There’s a feeling there that bursts through regularly as resentment. If I don’t stifle it though, it doesn’t hurt me as much. The same feeling can also burst out as gratitude. It doesn’t make sense.

I guess I’m saying, it’s not under my control. I do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to bend it to my will.

Thanks, Oak! Like I said, it would be such an honor to live as a positive, cheering voice in your head.

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Beany, I hear what you are saying about resentment. I, personally, cannot count on resentment as fuel. Like almost everything, it just leaves me broken on the jagged rocks. I resent somebody, the feeling builds and builds, it finally comes out as explosive anger, and all that remains is a crater of shame.

That is interesting that there is a well of <something> in you that can spring forth either resentment or gratitude.

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Today was pretty good, less positive than yesterday, but on the whole my idea of being a cheerleader in my own head is working. I have to remind myself not to judge myself harshly, still, but that is to be expected, can't turn an ocean liner on a dime.

fwiw, I could take your “resentment” ideas and do a search/replace with “anger” or “rage” and it would be 100% accurate for me.

I get it.

Apologies MM

Fuel is the wrong word. It makes it sound like I have some kind of well to draw on. It’s more the case that resentment controls me at times. I guess it would be better to say, that resentment in my eyes, is a primitive defense mechanism; when you have no other way to keep people out, resentment gets engaged. It’s ‘designed’ to overwhelm the intellect; to be the last resort in protection.

Gratitude seems to come from the same area in the brain. How you migrate from resentment to gratitude is still a mystery to me. I have noticed though they to grip my brain’s attention with similar intensity.

spoke with therapist today, hard for me to sustain being a cheerleader for myself, will re-double my efforts and enhance the feeling with touch (resting hands on chest), smell (think about that alive smell of an Asian market), imagination (magic green thread connecting my heart to my daughter's heart and my heart to you guy's hearts)

"Try something try anything"

Your words from a post some time ago came to me, Manuel Moe, not a half hour ago:

I was spiraling with anxiety and grief: my at-risk tooth (from grinding) began throbbing, and I realized I might lose that tooth if I don't take myself back, immediately. I began taking action, and repeating your advice.

Which is a long way of saying "thank you" for posting; I like the think the thread reached out and comforted me and prodded me to action.

What more could we ask of our friends?

I love the image of the green thread. Sometimes I feel like all my green threads have been severed, but then I get a glimpse that some remain, although they may be frayed.

I was thinking today that my life may well have been saved by my therapist and this group.

I wish that the love and compassion you show to others will return to you x 10, Manny.

rivergirl wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 6:30 pm I was thinking today that my life may well have been saved by my therapist and this group.

We and your therapist are just helping you become an abuse survivor. You’re starting to experience recovery.