[theave]

I hope it's ok to post in this forum - I'm pretty new and it's all a bit overwhelming, this seems the best section to start with - you all seem friendly.

I feel a bit lost generally. New to the US and all that entails. I have been seeing a therapist for the last couple of months - I like her, I think she is good at her job - but then I know I am always pathetically grateful for any sort of support, and I found it an almost impossibly hard task to find a therapist in the first place - the thought of having to do it again would be just awful. So I will stick with her for the foreseeable future.

The reason for seeing her initially was to have some kind of support in place, as I had left the UK with a fair amount of input from MH services (cpn, pdoc, psychologist, occupational therapist) and it was scary going from all that to nothing.

I suppose now that the dust is beginning to settle from our move, it is maybe time to start thinking what I would like to achieve from therapy. I have also changed meds recently which is always a hard thing to do, and my therapist did suggest that there was still just too much going on to think about tackling other issues.

One of the big things is how overweight and unfit I have become. A lot of it is due to the depression and meds. It seems such a huge task to start tackling that. I still have a great deal of ambivalence about it - when I was much more depressed I saw any opportunity to harm myself in even roundabout ways as a good thing - so I might not be able to commit suicide (I have children and I do recognise that is the worst thing in the world I could do to them, and they don't deserve that) but hey, if I dropped dead of a heart attack... It's still hard to move beyond that ambivalence and fully embrace getting better - perhaps it's self-preservation, that I have tried and failed to get better for so long, that I always expect to head back down to the pits of despair.

Hm, just trying to pinpoint how I am feeling - sorry for the waffle.

Hope everyone here is having a pleasant Saturday evening

Welcome, theave, to PC and to the US!

I'm glad you like your T, that's a great place to start!

Funny you should say you want to work on the fact that you're overweight - I am struggling with that bigtime right now, and that's something I want to bring up to my T on Monday. We've talked about it here and there but never spent an entire session on it - it may be time.

[theave]

Thanks dreamseeker. I've always struggled a bit with my self-image, remember hating myself physically from a very young age. Of course now looking back now I can see that actually there was nothing very wrong with how I looked - whereas there really is now, I have never been this overweight. Maybe it's a good sign that I care a little now. My kids wanted to see my wedding dress the other day and it was quite sad wondering where that person had gone.

Hope it goes well for you talking about it with your T on Monday. I find it quite scary talking about my weight (and other things too), because if I say how much I hate myself to others, there's always that possibility that they agree, and then I really am stuffed.

My parents were supposed to be arriving today but they missed their connection and are still in the UK - hopefully they will make it tomorrow, and we will be able to pick them up (lots of snow here and more forecast for tomorrow). It will be good to have them here, to be able to show them what life is like here - our first visitors since we moved. It's been tough on them, we lived about 30 mins away from them so they have been really missing us, and their grandchildren particularly. They were really upset about missing the flight. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Welcome to the US, theave! I think you've come at a good time; at least a better time than lately. I hope you like it here. I've been to the England a few times and really enjoyed it.

I'll be interested to hear how you adjust to life here -- Mike

[theave]

Thanks! So far so good - we are very lucky to live in a beautiful part of the country, and the weather is certainly better! (the snow this weekend notwithstanding).