Why can't you have both close online friendships and your relationship with your husband?

Well, yeah, I can and do have both my hubby and online friends, but I was just saying that if he makes a decision I'm going to respect that or support that even if it conflicts with advice from my friends...again, unless it is very wrong.

Nobody here expects you to follow all the advice given. But there has to be some nugget of an idea that might help you. For example, distraction is a good coping skill. I am going through a very, very difficult family situation. I need to occupy my brain without obsessing over the situation. So I started learning Spanish from a free online program called Duolingo. It takes about 7 minutes per day (I can that you can make it less even). It really helps me a lot.

I'm not saying "go learning Spanish". I'm saying find a coping skill, just one for now, and use it when you get overwhelmed, or better yet when you feel you might become overwhelmed. Once you have one coping skill try to find another. (Or find other ways to distract yourself. As I try to come up with other suggestions I'm just coming up with distractions. Guess what my main coping skill is?). There are a million options out there and right now my clozapine is preventing me from thinking. Maybe someone else can add something or you can.


Now the idea of coping with distractions makes sense to me. Actually that is my coping method, I just never realized it as a coping method. My therapists only ever once made a coping suggestion, despite that being my primary question for them. She suggested I journal all of my thoughts, even angry ones and curses acceptable, and share it with her. Well, the fact that I struggle with attachment issues, or at least at that time did, I eventually told her I thought this wasn't a healthy approach.

But back to distractions. Well, forums are one of my distractions. Although, I suppose in the beginning, I didn't use this completely as a distraction. It was more about active research and understanding into my experiences. But now i distract with chat and the games section. But as far as this section, well i did the journal to keep track of how i was thinking and feeling on a regular basis. Guess it was more venting or just sharing at that point and maybe it was my mistake for not making that clear...although, occasionally I would have questions.

Why do you feel that you need to please people here?

I didn't use to think that folks would be upset if I didn't heed their advice, but when I kept getting same or similar advice and sometimes even from the same few people getting frustrated until they finally just gave up on me, made me worried and on edge that every time I'd say something and get constructive feedback, it worried me that I was going to get ignored and/or reported by everyone here. Its kinda a post trauma thing.

It's just my take that you get overwhelmed, you come here, you get more overwhelmed, you get more overwhelmed, etc. and that's just not going to help you. You really don't have to do anything big, just a little change for a few minutes per day can help.

Well, that's pretty accurate. I don't think I should be so nervous coming on here. Right? Although this seemed productive...at least from my end.