[Rose76]

On TV, I heard a good saying this evening: "Failure should hurt, but not too much." Failure should hurt enough to motivate a change of approach. Too much accumulated failure that has been too harshly hurtful motivates nothing. It just beats down. That's where I am. I used to have compensating successes. I used to, but not lately and not for too long a time. A bunch of wracked up failures can get insupportable. There is no one by whom I am regarded acceptingly . . . no one in my three dimensional world. So now I stay in my apartment day after day. When I can stand to risk it, I go out for the mail and hope not to encounter any neighbor. One neighbor labels me as "crazy" - a reasonable inference. As a youngster, I was warned by a parent that I was apt to become crazy eventually. The TCA and Restoril help me to fall asleep. 5 AM already, and I am sleepy. ECT was offered to me. I wouldn't do any good. I don't think I want to go back to this treatment place where it is thought that an electrical assault on my nervous system could bring comfort into my life. So here I stay . . . thinking "What will be the solution?" It seems best to not turn toward wherever rejection has been offered over and over.

[Rohag]

Originally Posted by Rose76

Too much accumulated failure that has been too harshly hurtful motivates nothing.

I find the same. In my case, "successes" no longer compensate; they have lost their power to uplift.

Rose76, if you don't want a certain type of treatment, then go elsewhere to those who will respect your desires and offer you other options. (Much easier said than done when you're depressed.)

I hope you can find strength and the path to those people.

[Rose76]

I don't have insurance and have depleted my savings. I don't know where else I can go. Where I go, at present, for my mental health care is the best that's available for low income persons. I think we're just guinea pigs for the psychiatric residents in training. This place was originally owned by the local college of medicine. It meets the needs of the medical students and newly minted MDs doing their residency. I have come to believe that benefiting the patients is just incidental and lucky when it happens. Also, the facility serves a large community, so resources there are spread thin.

[arcangel]

Rose76...I hope you are one of those lucky and accidental cases. I disagree with you that "crazy" is a reasonable reference to you. The word "crazy" is a silly word that gets tossed around casually. I wish you were my neighbor

[Rose76]

Gee Arcangel, I too wish were neighbors. My neighbor tossing off the term "crazy" was not vicious. It was kind of tongue-in-cheek. We have a few years of developing rapport and trust. She cares for my welfare, as I do for hers. She has expressed that she sees me as a nice and reasonably attractive person who would do well to get out and participate in live, as opposed to staying in my apartment for days on end with the blilnds drawn. She genuinely seems to feel concerned that I am wallowing in passivity that is only going to make things worse. She too has come through some very tough trauma. Her approach has been to keep productive and push herself to be proactive. She urges me to get dressed and emerge from my lair and join her for coffee and a danish at the mall. So it wasn't as mean as it sounded. She has sinced asked me if I was upset that she said that to me. I've told her that I wasn't.

The worse effect it has was that is wasn't helpful to hear. It would be nice to have a neighbor who better understands that the worrisome reculsive/isolative style in which I live could be that I am vulnerable and need to screen out negative judgmental remarks that aren't effective in spurring me on to better self help. That's why I find peer feedback supportive. Peer consumers, I think, are more open to the possibility that isolative behavior can be adopted to reduce exposure to pain.

Thanks very much for your reply. Kindness and acceptance helps be better than being admonished about how I better get in together and am being "crazy." Sometimes I tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully because it seems to be what I deserve.

[arcangel]

Originally Posted by Rose76

Gee Arcangel, I too wish were neighbors. My neighbor tossing off the term "crazy" was not vicious. It was kind of tongue-in-cheek. We have a few years of developing rapport and trust. She cares for my welfare, as I do for hers. She has expressed that she sees me as a nice and reasonably attractive person who would do well to get out and participate in live, as opposed to staying in my apartment for days on end with the blilnds drawn. She genuinely seems to feel concerned that I am wallowing in passivity that is only going to make things worse. She too has come through some very tough trauma. Her approach has been to keep productive and push herself to be proactive. She urges me to get dressed and emerge from my lair and join her for coffee and a danish at the mall. So it wasn't as mean as it sounded. She has sinced asked me if I was upset that she said that to me. I've told her that I wasn't.

The worse effect it has was that is wasn't helpful to hear. It would be nice to have a neighbor who better understands that the worrisome reculsive/isolative style in which I live could be that I am vulnerable and need to screen out negative judgmental remarks that aren't effective in spurring me on to better self help. That's why I find peer feedback supportive. Peer consumers, I think, are more open to the possibility that isolative behavior can be adopted to reduce exposure to pain.

Thanks very much for your reply. Kindness and acceptance helps be better than being admonished about how I better get in together and am being "crazy." Sometimes I tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully because it seems to be what I deserve.

Maybe I misunderstood what you said. So this neighbor wasn't seriously calling you crazy as in insane...just crazy as in you aren't doing what she thinks would be more beneficial and she wasn't very tactful in saying it? And she's been through some rough times also but carried on as usual? Some people are just better equipped for shrugging off emotional issues or life's tragedies. I don't think that means that they are "better" or stronger. Maybe they're just "wired" differently. Have a "thicker skin." Apparently she is one of those lucky people.
I think she may be on to something there though. Most days I have interaction with people but usually brief and it's kind of a ruse. To make a long story short I'm pretty reclusive and self isolated too. And I have a wall around me at all times. And it isn't doing me any good. Maybe your seclusion and isolation isn't helping you. But I understand why you're doing it because I do it too. Maybe for slightly different reasons but...maybe not all that different. My story is pretty long and complicated. I almost feel like I've lived several different lives. How you came to be in your present situation is probably complicated too. I'm sure you weren't always reclusive and isolated. If it's something you'd like to talk about this is as good a place as any. There are some very nice and understanding people here and you can PM me if you'd like.

[Rose76]

Thank you, arcangel, for your understanding posts. Yes, my neighbor did kind of mean well, in her own way. And, yes, she is definitely on to something . . . I don't disagree with her advice at all.

Unlike my neighbor, PC members do seem to better understand the quagmire problem I have and are not judgmental. It means a lot to hear from someone, like yourself, who has experienced having major emotional difficulty in life and finds that aspects of the problem are, and will likely remain, chronic. The most I ever hope for is to manage my disorder. I know it will always be with me. That's one of the things that I think people here do understand. I was really fortunate to discover PC.