Coping with life's difficulties

[Till23]

Yep @MJG017 I have had problems with losing stuff when I do it on my phone, and learnt the copy trick early on!

I'm glad things are looking good for your partner getting work, that's one thing off the plate.

That's very interesting about the people with more concerning cancer being the ones to drop out of the group. I was thinking they'd be the ones staying on. I can understand how that is difficult for you.

Over 2 years of supporting people is a lot on it's own, but in your situation it must be really exhausting.

I don't think you can take responsibility for the decisions other people make, so I do see it as any failing of yours.

Didn't you say you were doing some work with adoptees?

I'm glad you are getting the chance to go to WA and meet up with your friend.

I totally understand the chasing the feel of being Good Enough as I call it. It's sort of the same with me in regard to family but maybe not as extreme with regard to cancer and for the CSA, well it's just never discussed like it never happened.

You have raised heaps of money for prostate cancer, so no need to donate to me, I'm doing this one for my Dad and prostate, but of course the money goes to the Cancer Council as a whole.

You do heaps for prostate cancer, I'm honoured that I get to chat to you on the forums. 

I also wish I could do more with the CSA work and I wish I had started a bit earlier. Even though in reality I'd been not addressing really until I got cancer.

I've really used distraction as a way of managing my MH all my life, so retirement has been hard for me from that perspective, also because I feel like a lot of the things I do now are kind of for me, whereas work was helping other people, so it's definitely a shift in thinking. Which I'm also struggling with because of feeling I have low innate worth.

Yes I can get really distracted with sport and some of my activities while I'm doing it. Because I am a shy person and feel Not Good Enough I find the social parts a bit difficult. I find dropping the mask so difficult. I've been doing it so long, it's really quite automatic. It does depend on the people I'm with how much of myself I show.

I feel now I'm settling into retirement a bit, probably I will start to try and make some changes in my thinking and try to take the pressure off myself a bit. 

It's quite a different time in my life at the moment going from working to get enough money to survive myself without depending on anyone else to suddenly being (hopefully) at that point. Sometimes I worked 3 jobs, 6 and a half days a week, to make sure I wouldn't have to be dependent on anyone or not be able to afford living by myself. I recently got a little bit of money from Dad's estate which has helped me to stop constantly worry about money. So I can relax a bit from that perspective.

Anyhow, my cold has fortunately eased quite a bit, which is also good.

I better to get to bed though

Chat later

[MJG017]

Hi @Till23 

Yes, things have turned out for my partner.  That job interview she had offered her a job.  She just has to wait until the end of this week for the administrations to formally shit the place down, or someone offers to take the staff, to accept the new job.  Otherwise she would be classed as quitting and lose about $20,000 in redundancy payments. 

I know I can't take responsibilities for other people's decisions, but i just worry that there is a reason some of the advanced guys have felt like not coming back.  Maybe it was something I could change, or make easier.  But I also understand, being in that position, that it would be so easy for them to just want to distance themselves from anything cancer related.  It can get a lot when you know the fight is lifelong.  So i understand that there may be other reasons, but I'll still try to see if there's anything I could do better.

I attend a couple of adoptee support groups, so that's about it.  But i'd like to use my peer work training to do some more.  Not sure that would ever happen but it's ideally what i'd like to focus on.  Hopefully help others as much as i've been helped the past year or so with what i've learned.

That shift in the thinking we have about ourselves is so difficult to change, even a little at times.  I don't think I would have been able to do any of it without the cancer diagnosis.  But starting to doubt those thoughts has at least allowed me to improve that thinking enough to take on things I would have always found a way out of... or never even thought to attempt in the first place.  It's still terrifying as hell, but it's improve my life in many ways.  It's strange how even such a small change in my thinking and self-worth has had such big changes.  Maybe the change in thinking is more than I think.  I really don't know.  But I have people i've only known for a year expressing their surprise at some of the things I do and say now.  It's really very motivating to get feedback like that, especially from people who haven't known me that long.  It kind of reinforces how much i've changed and reminds me that it's something I should keep working hard on.  I guess that's why i'd like to work with adoptees to try and help those who had the same self-worth issues i had.  Not just adoptees though, anyone with those attachment struggles.

Maybe that's because we both seem to enjoy these chats so much.  We've experience similar things, and some very different things, but there's enough common struggles that are often not shared so I think we both find it helpful to talk to someone else who is willing to talk about these struggles openly and honestly.  And i've learnt so much from these talks that I feel like i'm in a much better place to support people with their own MH issues than I would have been without them.

It's great that you want to try and work on the masking and take some of that pressure off yourself.  I know it's not easy at all, and it's a slow process.  But so worth the effort.  And like I said before, you don't have to change that much before you notice changes in your life.  I really hope you can find some similar success in this to that which I feel i've had.  And of course, i'm always here to talk about it and offer and advice I can, or just listen.  I've still so much to learn and work on, that it's so helpful to have another person to talk to about this.

I can understand that resistant to be dependent on anyone.  I've always been the same.  To ask someone for help with anything always felt like such a massive failure to me. Like I was a failure.  It's one of the hardest things to change, but like the rest of it... small changes taking pressure of myself when there's a step backwards... or to the side.

I'm glad to hear your cold has eased.  Hopefully you're feeling close to 100% now, or soon will be.  I've just been told my dinner is ready so I better head off.  Chat later.