Thank you so much for your wonderful post (((((((((((ss)))))))))))))) Wow. It's a real treasure. I've just printed out this page. Actually, I think I may have printed out the entire thread. If so, so much the better! There is such a wealth of shared knowledge and insight and support here. I think I will start a binder. Because there are lots of valuable links in this thread too. I am not very organized and I get overwhelmed easily so I think storing printed copies of important information in a binder would help me. Especially if I highlight the really important bits.

Anyhow, THANK YOU so much for this post here in which you write so beautifully about your journey during these past 10 years. I am awed by how far you have come. And it makes me feel hopeful. Thank you for this inspiration! And thank you also for your encouraging words.

I'm so happy for you that you are now in a much better place. And though it must have been incredibly hard to do the bulk of the recovery work on your own, how wonderful to know that you and you alone had the strength and power to bring yourself back from the edge and to the point you're at today. At the root of all my fears and anxieties is a fundamental lack of faith in myself. It's also why I spend so much time seeking answers externally. Because I literally don't believe that I "have it in me". And yet, I am well aware that within me is the ONLY place the answer can ever lie......And your own recovery is such a striking example of that. At the end of the day, you now know that you are strong enough to handle "it", whatever "it" may be. Adversity, pain, suffering.....Life. You can handle it. And I believe that once you know you can handle it, THAT is what disarms fear. And that is what I'm lacking. The belief that I can handle it.

Not that you never feel afraid again. But you no longer have this awful self-doubt that eats away at you constantly and which keeps you on a state of high alert as you await the next emotional emergency, fearing it will be the one that pushes you over the edge because you have no faith that you can handle it.

Thank you so much for giving me hope that it might yet be possible for me to find some faith in myself after all