Hi Jen and everyone,

I've been thinking some more about the intrusive thoughts problem.

I had this really bad, about 2 years ago, maybe 200-300 hurtful thoughts per day. I decided to work hard on making a place in my mind where I could live. I could still hear the thoughts of course, but I was able to get on with something else.

I think it is vital that we are able to do something other than focus on the thoughts. I don't think of this as a distraction, but as actually getting on with our lives at some level. It helps if we can choose something that we find important, as that makes it feels less like a distraction.

This is what I did.

I posted supportively on the web.

I put together a collection of psychology and philosophy books, buying off the internet and at auctions (I would go to auctions and hang out at the back, never speaking to anyone).

I wrote up my life history (the good and the bad) and sorted out all the photos etc. I also kept a daily diary of the illness, keeping that separate from my own diary.

I took some holidays and forced my boundaries - flying on airplanes and stuff.

I wrote poems about the illness and about my painful childhood, which I now perform publicly (to my own amazement).

OK - I know it's sounds a bit braggy to say that I still did things while I was ill, but believe me I was very ill - lost my job, lost three stones in weight, could hardly eat, locked myself away in my room for months on end, stopped watching TV - all that kind of stuff.

Anyway, that's how it worked for me, I just knew that I had to hold on to something inside myself or I would go down, it was like that for me - sink or swim.

I truly believe that we are all stronger than we think we are, if we can find that place where our strength comes from and tap into it. Yes, there were times that I didn't think I would come through, but I'm still here and that's the aim IMHO, to survive and make something of what's left.

Peace to us all, M