Alexi,.. You found a therapist, I am assuming you made an appointment.
Not to long ago, there was a person who repeatedly made new topics and always centered the conversations around themselves and their self pity.
Whenever we gave advice, this person chose to ignore it and turn the conversation into one of simply woe is me.
This went on for some time, and although quite a few people responded with kind and informational answers, that person chose to ignore them.
As time went on, less and less people responded.
Eventually, their story became one of new topics that were simply woe is me kind of thinking.
Even then we kept up with very kind, yet firm answers of what we thought were the best answers we had.
No matter what we said, we were ignored and there were new topics and then simply post after post of feel sorry for me, yet no real response to our comments other than to turn them around and elicit even more self pity.
It's still pretty raw for many of us, it wasn't that long ago. We all have our problems, some worse than others, but we do.
Before this turns into another version of being jealous of our lives, know that we work with people on their problems and do have certain expectations of trying to move forward.
I don't want this to turn into another self pity kind of conversation, some of us gave all we had and in return had our lives, based on an assumption of living the good life thrown back at us.
Please don't do this, losing people to their own grief and problems can be to much on us.
None of us, very few can tell you that everything is just fine with their lives.
We can give you the best advice that people who are struggling themselves can give, we live it everyday.
Your very first comments and several since have been asking for pity.
We understand that, we feel the same way at times, for some, all the time.
But telling you 'hugs' and telling you things will get better do nothing to actually get you to a better place, it's simply a recognition that you are having problems as well.
The advice to see a therapist was given because of some of your first comments.
It sounded like you had found one.
My question is, did you make an appointment? And how far away is it from today?
Struggling with your presentation will not help the feelings you're having, no matter how much you wish they would.
You need a solid foundation to be able to build on, to better achieve the things you are having a hard time with.
Your frustrations are in your way. You need a guide, someone who can help you find your way.
We're not therapists. We are people just like you, trying to find our way.
Our success stories and advice that works is because we have been there.
You're asking, in a sense, what you should do for a presentation. It can wait.
You need to dig into just what your frustrations are and find a direction with a therapist.
Many of us do, I see one every week as I have for the last five years.
Invaluable to me, I couldn't get through each week without her.
I'm losing her in a few more weeks and will start with a new one, but I won't be starting over.
I have a good foundation under me and will use that to work with my next therapist.
There is going to be a learning curve for us both until we know enough about each other to move forward with therapy once again.
In short, we all have our problems and until we have a foundation and have learned on the curve of each others lives, we don't know what else to say.
This, as weird as it might sound, can be a trigger for things that are even bigger problems for us.
It's why we seldom talk very much about how hard it is and concentrate on what the problems are and how are we going to move forward.
It's not our choice to turn from pity, it is a necessary thing to keep our own problems at a level we can deal with.
We know very little about you, we have very little to go on.
You need to open up and understand we will help, but we can't stop our own progress and have a pity party for each person who comes here.
Have you made an appointment? How soon is it? You need to keep the progress rolling forward so ours can too, if you need our help.
I know it's hard to talk about your personal life, but just saying you feel this or that in a down way gives us nothing to work with.
We're more than just a place to find sympathy, we are about support.
Real honest to goodness support that has real honest to goodness results.
I understand you are feeling down, but you have to give to get.
Why are you down? Not the easy answer, the real look at yourself and explain it to us answer.
It's not tough love, it's the only practical way we can help. We help by giving the best advice we have as a group.
We've banded together to get over the pity me and choose to move forward.
We want to help and help is getting you to move forward.
The question of 'what's it going to take' is not meant to be hard, it is practical and keeps our own problems from becoming harder.
We can't get to emotionally invested in you if you won't let us help you move forward.
What's it going to take?
It's an honest question to how you're feeling, a question we need the answer to, to be able to honestly help instead of emotionally dragging ourselves down to help you.
And we really honestly do want to help. Help us to help you. It's how it works here, we help each other.
We don't have a therapist on hand to answer the questions you need to move forward, but we do have some pretty smart people who do understand problems in their own way.
Sooner or later one of them is going to be true for you, but please give us more to work with here.
I hear a cry of pity and think this person is going to off themselves. That hurts to the very core of many of us here.
Don't be the trigger that that can cause this, be the person who wants to move forward.
We'll help you to move those mountains, but we can't do it alone, without your help.
You'd be surprised at what can be accomplished here by opening up a little and working with us to help you move forward, to stay on track, to move those mountains of crap that life is sometimes about.
We've been there and done that, and want to share.
That's what support is about, and we're good at it.
We want you to be good at it to, we get the bad feelings, we have them too. Everyday for some of us.
We keep on sharing and helping, just the same.
You get out of this what you put into it.
When is your appointment with the therapist you found?
That person I was talking about? We haven't given up on them, we're waiting for them to move forward so we can help.
They're still here, letting us know they are thinking on this. It's hard for them, it was hard on us. We all have our work cut out for us.
What are you going to do today to help yourself move forward?
Ativan
