Group therapy time
 

I have been living a completely untenable daydream for a good four days now. I mean really living it--thinking about it constantly, playing the story out years into the future in my mind, planning out a variety of imaginary conversations I would have in this imaginary series of events.

Before you go all, "Live the dream!" on me, let me reiterate that this daydream is not just unrealistic, it is completely and totally impossible. I understand that it's typical escapism, and not surprising for a person under stress... but knowing the origin hasn't stopped me from focusing on it yet. How unhealthy is this, and how long before I ought to be concerned with the obsession?

How completely and totally impossible is it?

Hmm...is that really wrong? Does it affect your life?

LB's question is the whole thing.

As obsessive thoughts go, this is probably one of the better ones. There are the hoarders, the counters, the hand-washers...

my thought is that if you are concerned about the obsession... aware that it is an obsession then isn't that the first step in getting control of it?

doesn't AA say that the first step to recovery is awareness and admitting to a problem?

now then... onto the more important matters.......where did I leave that vodka?

Daydreams are just escapism.
Indulge yourself.

I do.

Clod, no matter what you do, Dana will NOT have sex with you. Oh wait, that's my obsession. ;)

Seriously, though, is your daydream harmful to others? If you're dreaming about what you would do with your powerball winnings, it's no big thing. If you're dreaming about running away to join the circus or shooting someone, you probably want to move on.

It is somewhat similar to this. Except somehow I would take my kids with me and their medical care would not be adversely affected in any way. :)

Just reaching, buttttttttttt...

If it's a crush on another one or another way of life, it'll pass. And it's normal. Especially for someone with the challenges you face.

Keep thinking about it.

Eventually, like everything else, it'll lose it's allure.

Clod,
It is a choice and an indication. You can take small steps toward it and stop before the point of no return and see if it gets better or worse. You can also choose to put your mind and attention somewhere else.

When it just won't go away then you need to look at what it is saying to you.

Find a moment or two of quiet (I know, easier said than done) and listen to your heart, not your head. If it is the right thing, then the universe and FSM will underwrite your actions. If it is the wrong thing then you will be swimming upstream.

Not sure if that makes sense or helps. :hug:

She was beautiful as southern skies
The night he met her
She was married to someone
He was doggedly determined that he would get her
He was old, he was young
From time to time he'd tip his heart
But each time she withdrew

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it's true

Well eventually the boy and the girl get married
Sure enough they have a son
And though they both were occupied
With the child she carried
Disagreements had begun
And in a while they fell apart
It wasn't hard to do

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it's true

Two disappointed believers
Two people playing the game
Negotiations and love songs
Are often mistaken for one and the same

Now the man and the woman
Remain in contact
Let us say it's for the child
With disagreements about the meaning
Of a marriage contract
Conversations hard and wild
But from time to time
He makes her laugh
She cooks a meal or two
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it's true
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it's true

What is the point of this story
What information pertains
The thought that life could be better
Is woven indelibly
Into our hearts
And our brains

--Paul Simon

Philip Larkin
An Arundel Tomb (cropped)

The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

It's not true of course. Love dies before beauty. And the survivor loves again, so it trascends death, if not in the way poets mean. I love to read about love, and cry about it, but it doesn't mean anything to me in real life.

I too have a recurring daydream of stepping into the past and then living this alternate reality where all is well and the worries of my "new normal" (as its called) are gone. Where I can choose the future I wanted without the restrictions and responsibilities that I now deal with 24/7. . .
It comes and goes for me now. I cannot think about it much - it depresses the hell outta me knowing it cannot happen.

I try to focus on the little things, the positive things and just go from there.

this

Yep, still thinking. Still hasn't lost its allure. Still want to get the hell out of my life.

On the other hand, it also still hasn't become any less impossible, and I'm getting better at internally acknowledging that. I'm just crushing my soul back into its box, rather than realizing that the box was so great to begin with.

Four days ain't enough. We all want to get the hell out occassionally -and occassionally doesn't necessarily mean fleetingly.....

Thread was started on the 3rd, had been going on for 4 days at that point. We're up to 2 weeks now... but I know 2 weeks still ain't bad for a midlife crisis. I'll let you all know when I buy the Porsche.

sry, I meant to check that and got distracted, but rly, you only need panic when it gets to years

Give it until a week from Tuesday.

Are the daydreams getting in your way of say ... doing the washing, feeding minifob, or dealing with other and sundry responsibilities?

Not unless those sundry responsibilities require me to act like I care while I'm doing them. Nah, that's hyperbole, I'm actually quite good at putting on the smile when I need to. It's all internalized.

then dream on...

It's at the extreme of unhealthy when you contemplate suicide because it's so impossible and you can't bear to not live the dream.

I know. This is me.

would a brief torrid affair with an overweight, but undeniably sexy and amiable Yankee help alleviate the doldrums you suffer from? I only ask because I care. And because I'll be in Charlotte in early September.

How does the Porche drive? They ain't really all that are they. Get a 280z.

If her answer is yes, then I would probably fly down there. Just sayin.

Clod, it sounds to me like you're skirting around the edges of depression. Don't let it go on for too long. Might be time to have a chat with a doc. xx

Depression? Don't go to the doctor! It's a lot more fun to self-medicate

Yeah, but the right doc can give you a script for some really good stuff to self-medicate with! ;)

Pshaw--I'm not skirting, I've been in the middle of it for 2+ years now. Actually though, escapism is better than despair, so this probably ought to be seen as a step on the way up. Read a study awhile back claiming that 80% of the special needs moms examined showed multiple symptoms of PTSD. A majority of my friends are on some type of antidepressant or anti-anxiety med (or both,) but it's not so easy to mix those with the anti-seizure meds I'm on. Those do double-duty as mood stabilizers though, so I guess I could talk to my neurologist about upping the dose if I can't ride this one out. The more I take the better I sleep, at the very least.

Autism is a great killer of marriages and mental health. One of my little dudes is doing some unofficial hippo-therapy, seems like that could help Moms too.

Interesting idea. I rode horses every summer for 9 years as a kid, and haven't really done it since. Both of us have been trying to find respite activities for ourselves, but I hadn't considered going back to horseback riding. Might have to look into what it would cost to "rent" a horse around here.

ya know.. I was thinking of me, but you ARE a better fit for that description.

ha ha. It is not lost on me that she has not dignified with comment our suggestion.

"And then she fainted!"

that says fainted, not farted

:thumb:

That only makes us love you all the more.

I absolutely believe that.
Yeah, but what about hippos?

That's kinky.



Also, I could never quite figure out this line:

hmm - this could explain some things in my life as well.

As far as the special needs go especially for Autism, I can add a few cents.

Jeff is an adult now. In a lot of ways we are very lucky. He was able to find a part time job in high school and has been working there for 10 years.

I sometimes get depressed when I see an elderly woman in the mall with her 40-something special needs adult and wonder what my situation will be when I am 70+.

I also daydream, usually when the office lottery pool kicks in.

On a day to day basis, Jeff fits into our schedule the way any live-in child would. I take him to work on the few days he works and Marci picks him up. He mostly goes with us wherever we go, but can stay home for short periods by himself.

There are some special challenges with Autism, but raising a child is raising a child and a lot of the challenges are the same whether special needs or not. The issue with many special needs is knowing that the relationship will never change. There will be no marriage, moving out, occasional visits, etc.

During our IEP's, I always stated the goal that Jeff would be in a group home environment by the time he was 25. I did this mainly because with bureaucracies, setting a goal is important. I don't know if it will ever happen and I am not pushing it. With a part time job and supports, the answer is maybe, someday.

The point is that stress is normal and so is daydreaming. If it doesn't impair your functioning, it's a lot healthier and cheaper than drugs. But what is even more important is doing things for yourself and your spouse. There used to be funding for 'respite' care, which simply meant separating parents from children for some downtime. This usually meant babysitters, but it could also mean summer camp.

I doubt this support exists anymore, but the principle is sound. All parents need a break. Finding a good babysitter, be it from an agency or family member, and checking into a hotel for a weekend is probably the cheapest and best therapy.

In the military and sports, there is a concept called 'target fixation', where someone is so focused on something that they disregard obstacles and threats. In pilots this meant almost deliberately plowing into the ground.

With our children, particularly special needs children, there is a lot of pressure to be a 'good parent'. We are not conditioned to be selfish, even though sometimes being selfish is the correct answer to keeping ourselves mentally capable of parenting. Sometimes this means being so fixated on giving that we forget to maintain our own mental health.

When Jeff was growing up, we would sometimes sit down and ask ourselves how long it had been since we'd had a night out by ourselves and be shocked at the answer. I'm not any kind of health care expert, but you just might need some R&R.

Marci is the real expert on a lot of this. She does not have a Cellar account, but PM me if you have a question for her. She's been giving a lot of advice in this area lately. The 'official' supports for special needs parents in PA are not stellar and a lot of people do not understand respite, IEP's, services, and other issues.

Thanks Rich. I needed to read that. I too look into the future and it scares the hell outta me. Knowing he will be dependent upon me for the rest of MY life is overwhelming.

Probably not worth a new thread... but this is the sickest headline I've see in a long time.

More than one in 10 Americans use antidepressants
Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:55pm EDT
(Reuters) - I'm appalled that the US could be this far into the pill culture.
It is indeed time for Group Therapy, and time for medical schools
and the AMA and the government to get on top of this.

TV ads and physicians wanting to please their patients have made it too easy.
It is the physicians responsibility to diagnose and proscribe accurately,
There is no way that 10% of the population actually suffers from depression.
As a first step, free speech be damned... get the Rx ads off TV
.

I just finished listening to an interview on the radio... a similar statement struck me. The subject said "Americans represent 5% of the world's population, but we consume 65% of the world's psychoactive drugs."

I can't find a cite, but I'll keep looking. The program I listened to was on KUOW from 8-9pm 19 Oct 2011.

Legal or illegal?

I think it has something to do with our attitude of happiness as a "right" --- we are going to be happy, goddamnit!, no matter WHAT we have to do to achieve it! that sort of thing.

The CDC and NIH did the survey, and the way the remainder of the article reads,
I would believe these are legal Rx's from private physicians for their patients.

This is via Reuters, and tho not really suspect in itself, I could be a tiny bit leary. It is being picked up by other news services.

The positive flipside to this story might be that there is less stigma attached to depression in the US, making it more likely that those who do need help will actually seek it.


The entitlement to happiness thing is also a likely factor. Or, rather, an assumption that if you aren't happy then there's something wrong with you.

Another factor might be work culture. Mild depression may not really need medication, but if someone is struggling to keep their head above water, they may feel they need it in order not to end up taking time off work, or otherwise fucking up their job.

I heard in a piece that 1 in 25 American kids from 12 to 17 are on antidepressants.

Absolutely.

Our jobs (or lack thereof) depress us so we need the Rx to:

1) Keep going at our soul-crushing, inhumane work place

2) Keep going at our quest for a soul-crushing, inhumane work place.

We need $$$$ so we can buy their drugs.

welcome to Utopia! it's a brave new world!!

Give that chick a scooby snack.

I do believe this is true, actually. They've done studies showing the more affluent you are (not in pure net worth terms but in lifestyle,) the less likely you are to be happy. I saw another study showing that most people are actually happier and more optimistic after a natural disaster takes everything they own than they were before it.

I also believe, and I know this is a surprise to no one, that a large portion--if not the majority--of mental diseases are due to chemical imbalance in the brain, not experiential trauma (either a single large event like a death, or built up chronically over years like 'my mother never really loved me.') And I think we have brought these chemical imbalances on ourselves with the things we eat, breathe, and have otherwise consumed as a population over the last 100 years. Every single person I have met who is actually on antidepressants very much needs them (not that the pills are the only solution, but they very much need something to help their brain chemistry.) I've never met anyone who takes them on a whim.

You said what I would have said had I been able to say it.

Also, I'm not surprised that 10% of Americans are on an anti-depressant. It's a chemical imbalance, folks. Do I believe that for a few SSRIs are a "happy pill?" Sure. As with anything, some are looking for a quick fix.

But for some, they make the difference between living and driving your car off a cliff.


I am the 10%. ;)

I am Sparticus... I mean the 10%. ;)

I liked your post clod.

Spexx, you ARE Spartacus (I say that having no idea what it really means.) I luvs me some Spartacus Spexx.

When I opened this thread earlier, I thought someone had started one so we could all get our problems out in the open and talk about them as a group.

Then I realized the link for that one was www.cellar.org