How do you find "social support"?

Okay I will give it a try. I just thought about it and wrote down what occurred to me, I assume that there is plenty of room to comment on what
I said or to add more.

Note: There will always be judgment involved, there is always a risk that one inadvertently asks "too much".

What strikes me as less risky:

I liked what Artley Wilkins said. Part of what is okay to ask for is what is within someone's nonprofessional skill set.

Asking someone infrequently.

Asking in a real pinch (as opposed to a crisis) where practical help is really needed.

Asking someone where previous help has been more or less equal in both directions.

Asking someone who has not turned you down recently.

Asking someone who (as far as you know) isn't overwhelmed/very busy with their own issues.

Asking someone who has given you good reason to think that they don't mind being asked, or even like being asked.

I really appreciate that! I find this helpful for sure. I do have some question too below where it's unclear etc.



Judgment by the person who I asked "too much" from?



Yeah, less risky stuff, I was definitely asking about that

Yeah, Artley Wilkins had a good summary of the topic he/she was talking about, just it was not for my situation, but that's okay.

It would have been very good advice to me though at the start of those 4 years when I got pulled into helping that "friend". Because I feel like the advice was from the pov and position of the person that's being asked to help/giving the help/support. And I was in that position then.


OK, now I'll have some thoughts on the list you wrote out.


Yeah I think that makes total sense. But it's kinda a general idea too to me because people would need to state pretty explicitly what is within in their skills. Unless it's like, I know them very, very well and they've shared a lot about themselves...but then they probably have already stated it pretty explicitly anyway lol


How infrequently in the case of family?


Yeah, makes sense.

I am not clear on the note on crisis though. What is different from this when it's a crisis?


Over what timeframe does it need to be equal? In a day, in a week, in a month, in the whole relationship overall?

How about when it is about family? Parents?

I noticed my mother has a er, propensity to first say "no" automatically.

Or to start up thinking aloud about what obstacles are in the way. Her mind immediately goes to other people, such as her husband, my sister, anyone else.

What do you think about this? I don't understand this thing of hers and that bothers me that I don't know what to make of it.


Yeah, that's OK.

Refer to "Asking someone who has not turned you down recently"

So basically I'm having issues there. That's why I said I don't want to fight or anything like that.

And I'm having issues with trust because of it. I don't want to start thinking in the wrong way about all of it. I feel like I really have to figure this out.

Specifically, I start feeling paranoid that family members are going to start to hate me and stuff like that.

...

I know this is from the "best friend" crap, the person I helped like that for 4 years. She started being hateful towards me in the end. I even had an unusually clear emotional flashback this morning about it, that involved family and I instantly understood that it was from my experience with that toxic behaviour of that "friend". The way it affected me what she did eventually, that traumatised me outright on top of the cPTSD I already had. That is what I had the flashback about. And then I was like I wasn't going to allow that to ruin family relations!! I had another flashback or something like that afterwards but I can't even remember it now, very tired atm.

(I don't know if you saw the post I deleted, I was writing about stuff like that in that too)

***

Anyway. I have another concern here regarding context. So this list, it's a list for general social support yeah? For people who are like... mildly depressed? Or worse than mildly depressed? Severe depression? cPTSD?

This is relevant for me so thank you if you can give me a context on that.

***

My own context/background:

I am really not going to complain here but I DID consider several times to go to an inpatient facility, I got a referral from my psychiatrist, and I was rejected in a sense when I went in for the first interview. I mean....they did say they can try to take me in for 2 weeks and see if that works. Because they work in large groups and my disability doesn't allow me to be able to work with that (not a mental disability, I don't want to go into details). But that wasn't the worst. The worst was that during the interview, the person, a clinical psychologist, refused to accommodate my disability. I found it truly ludicrous. Like he seemed like an intelligent guy? But does this anyway?

That isn't where the experiences end... This was pre-covid, and then during lockdown I got a referral to a trauma centre. I went in for the interview with a young woman who was still training to be a therapist or something, I'm not sure, but she not only did not accommodate my disability but she went as far as abusing it. In a very sensitive setting, after all, it was going to be an interview about trauma. I was given a form to fill out about my trauma symptoms afterwards, it had a question about how strongly on a 0-10 scale I got my trauma active in the moment while filling out the interview. I put a 10.

So, I just am not able to go try again for a while with professionals and I only want to see if I can have support from family.

And my situation is, well, yeah, recovering from cPTSD, and like I am in a really strange mindspace or whatever, ....... My brain easily overloads, I fight sleep debt, and extreme stress, and so on. I'm not going to get into details. Because like I said the point isn't complaining. I am giving all this for background information.

It was a background information for this: I have to make a decision whether I really am just going to rely on myself only and not look for any support, but that then means I'd be taking up the "karma" or I don't know what it is, from the "best friend" who added to my trauma and who did somehow learn to not trust anyone and just became really sh*** to everyone expecting them to do everything for her and being angry and hateful if they didn't, she was just unable to have any real relationship anymore, and I do not want to end up there!!

Also if I decide to just be 100% self-reliant and zero support or zero close relationships then it's like.... I was working for years for the opposite goal. Do I just change my goal all of a sudden like that ?? Then what did I work for so hard ??

No, exercising good judgment as to what is "too much" and what isn't. What might be "too much" for one person might be completely fine with another person.

Well I sort of think that a lot of the nonprofessional help that one might need are really for the most part within people's skill sets. Practical, day-to-day stuff. But maybe for example someone is impatient and not a good listener, you know? That sort of concern.

Not everybody wants to be involved in a crisis, and not everybody is calm and nonjudgmental in a crisis...

As to time frame well not in a short period of time like a day, week, month.

But now that you have brought this up I am thinking about it a little differently. (Thanks!) Now what I am thinking is that in each relationship there is a "normal". Normally perhaps we are overall givers to some and receivers from others. I think what I am getting at is that a request for help shouldn't be too far away from whatever "normal" is for that specific relationship. So maybe someone normally supports you and is okay with that, but if you asking for help for the fifth time in a week maybe that will get beyond their limits?
Including parents.

It sounds like she doesn't really want to be called upon for help, or is too busy, too stressed, etc.

Ah okay. I think in my case my inability to do personal conflict since cPTSD, that makes things harder even if I have good judgment about this.


Yes, I'm interested in practical, day-to-do stuff here.

I'm not really looking to have family listen to issues of mine at length. I get nothing out of that sortof thing myself.



I was involved/allowed myself to get involved in the crisis of the "best friend" in 2014. She wouldn't get involved in mine in 2018.


(2014: That was when I started helping her so much for 4 years.)



I'm glad if I had you think about it and if you got something out of that.

Interesting topic too. I don't know about the givers/receivers stuff. I think socially, for social relationships that are not deep, intimate, this is true, I will give to someone and will receive from someone else and so on. With close relationships, I think I prefer the giving/receiving to be balanced.

So much so that after the cPTSD started I was really uncomfortable with a person just wanting to play the giving role. I wanted a normal and balanced friendship with them and wanted to give back and she didn't want me to and it caused issues lol (also it was because for her it was social relating and for me I wanted it to be a close relationship, so she didn't mind it being not balanced and I did)

But by now I accepted that it's okay if I'm temporarily more supported maybe.... If I even want to be supported because it's like pulling tooth to try and find it for the more "close relationships" IRL. That's where the two IRL friends were gone too. Again, see my inability to do personal conflict



I don't really understand this limits stuff.

That "best friend" asked me for help more than 5 times a week. There were many weeks like that. I never felt it was past my limits. But I think I did get too involved and allowed it to take from my life. But it's a long story....

So yeah, I don't think I understand the limits part. Not sure why not.

It's like... if I asked a family member once and they instantly said "no" then I instantly feel like there is absolutely no space, that the limits are immediate, or something like that?


I instantly feel like that it's nonnegotiable or that it's impossibly hard to negotiate. And I was not like this before the "best friend" added to my cPTSD. cPTSD itself did originally not make me that way, it was something the "best friend" added to it that made me feel this way. It's a big problem for me with this stuff.

It....it feels like people are just not going to help at all. It feels like if I tried to ask again then they WILL hate me. Especially if an argument was going to start up on the issue. Then I feel like they WILL hate me, that they WILL think I'm too....too anything, I don't know. Like, rejecting who I really am.


All that's just irrational of course but yeah



She's not too busy or too stressed. She's a pensioner and enjoys life and is very happy with her husband. She has a lot of positive energy and vitality. She maintains herself very well for her age.

She is okay with some basic routines that she doesn't find hard to do and when I "came out" about being suicidal (this was 2 years ago), then she was instantly very concerned and she really helped me there.

Does any of this give you more info on placing what this response means?



And I have another concern here regarding context. So this list, it's a list for general social support yeah? For people who are like... mildly depressed? Or worse than mildly depressed? Severe depression? cPTSD?

Or mental illnesses aside. For people who are constantly in a pinch? Constantly overloaded?

Or more like for people who sometimes feel like it's nice to get a little help here and there?

I think this is an important question here.

Anyway my book is in Spanish so there are many possibilities that they don’t coincide in pages if you are using, for example, an English version.

I was only pointing out an example of an exercise where you get aware of your thoughts that freely appear in your mind for a limited time, in this case, along 5 minutes and you have to set them on a time line. From a remote past to a remote future.
To be honest, the book is pretty useful and go step by step, with practical exercises in order you to take conscious of how much our mind plays sometimes very bad games with us. Indeed, I’m thinking to give it another go. If I again stop it at the same page, never mind, I would like to refresh a little.

Then, the book propose some other exercises to help you disengage from the thoughts that may appear in your mind by using visualisation as picturing a train passing by and each one of the thoughts appearing are going in a wagon.
I don’t need that. I can see how my thoughts freely goes by when focussing on my breathing. I practise Breathing Mindfulness.
And sometimes I focus on the sounds I can hear from the outer. But, mainly I do it focussing on my breath.

I know you are not very fan of mindfulness, I know it for another of your threads. But, it has worked for me in many occasions.

I even think to remember that I wrote a thread here explaining the technique.

As I told you I never lived a deep limit situation that could create a trauma but I’m pretty sensible and let’s say that sometimes I haven’t been treat in the best way. So, I can’t compare myself with a person who suffered a trauma, this is the reason why I can’t tell you much more about how you can heal. Wished I could.

But, I love your attitude about being more open with people and trying to opening doors for them. I’m also in the same point as you.

I see this topic, the main one in the thread, so interesting. Because, in the end we are social animals as you said.
I do understand that the deeper and harder your experiences have been, the tougher you will find to trust people. As an extreme example, see these kids who have been neglected or even abused when kids.
How could they trust or even picture themselves that someone is gonna care?
Ok. Consider that even the parent who neglected his/her kid ( with only few and pathological examples), they are not a basket-case. They did it the best they could under their circumstances.

Each person deal with their life as best as they can. They may fail and even let you down but believe me they don’t do t on purpose. They react as they can as we do. You who knows much more about Psychology for obvious reasons and also because you love to study how others behave (as I do), you can understand them better than most of people. Use this skill. Make it matters.

Thank you. I rationally understand what you are saying here. My emotions do not understand it.

Interesting exercise. I think I'm always aware of when specifically something happened. So it seems like an easy exercise



Yeah I agree, the emotions in our mind can play very bad games with us.



Wow I think you've just explained more here about why you like the breathing exercises. I never understood why people like them or what works for them with that. Where you said "I can see how my thoughts freely goes by when focussing on my breathing". That. I do that by default, not sure why it works differently for me but I do that by default. I assume we are talking of emotional thoughts here though.

Basically what I do with them is I treat them as "working hypotheses". I entertain myself with having the emotional thought and then I put it aside and wait for more information to see how much truth it really has to it. I can have more than one such "working hypothesis" too

(Working hypothesis = "A working hypothesis is a hypothesis that is provisionally accepted as a basis for further research in the hope that a tenable theory will be produced, even if the hypothesis ultimately fails")


It's entertaining for me as long as it's about my own attitudes.


But when it comes to trust in people's attitudes towards me, that's something I'm having a very hard time with.



Thank you again. I'm trying to keep up this attitude, yes, but then I get like, I don't know, flashbacks and stuff, like I described above, so it's hard

Emotions are substances in the brain. That’s it.
This is the aim of Mindfulness, to disengage of these emotions and thoughts in order to see the whole picture, a more rational view.
You are able to see and understand the other person further more, because of your empathy. You have emotions. Some people (a few) don’t even have them.
You have them, in another way, you haven’t been hurt so deep. But, there’s a middle point in which you can begin to use these emotions as an alley by a balance with your rational mind.

If you give me to choose between a person who is emotional and a person who can’t feel emotions. I choose the first one by far.
The matter is to find a balance so your mind can’t lie you, even when it could try to protect yourself. Because your rational mind is also present.

It takes practise to get that.
What your therapist tell you? Or what techniques (s)he is teaching you?

@AzulOscuro You mentioned opening doors.....It's extra hard for me because I am trying to rewrite the most earlier models of attachment and relationship models I think....? You know, from very young childhood. AND I have zero guidance in it other than me reading up on a ton of psychology and a ton of observing myself and idk, stuff like that and sometimes posting on here.

And I don't want to fu** up like with my family, I didn't have a relationship with them from age 4-5 anymore except my brother and then my brother stopped paying attention too sometime around when I started primary school.

(My brother and my sister are several years older than me)

I don't know it's just ****ing crazy, the whole thing, I don't want to be like fu** it up totally

I've seen some change and it's been awesome but then it gets like it's going to threaten me with complete loss of trust, I don't know if that makes sense.

And I'm feeling like I'd better not even interact to make sure it doesn't get worse

Or I just shouldn't look for any support or anything from family either and just be 100% self-reliant and that's ok but then I'll definitely not be open to people at all lol and that's how it was before too and then why did I spend several years working on all this?!?!

Really there's a few basic things you have to pay attention to get better with depression too. And one of the things is social support and I don't even know what social support means anymore. Because I was never able to get it consistently.

And I wrote an email to my social worker last winter because we were only emailing because of lockdown. And I told her how I'm really low and worse than overwhelmed, and it's too many conflicts with family if I try to ask for help or if they expect too much of me because they would not want to recognise how bad and nonfunctional my state was, and she wrote back that I should pay attention to my mother's needs and should be open and I don't know, she listed my mother's complaints basically (they do talk over the phone sometimes with my mother), and I was like....please

I've never had an email from anyone as invalidating as that.

(Responding to the comment on not having been hurt so deep)

At age 18 I lost my emotions.

They are coming back but it's this mess. Like I described just now.

I don't even see part of the emotions well for now. I'm trying to look at it like, OK here's this picture of puzzles, each emotional thingy being a puzzle piece in it. And I can look at the whole picture and I can see some of the puzzle pieces are foggy, vague. And I can see other pieces are clear and I can feel them fully and as soon as I can feel it fully my rational brain is able to manage it, provided that I've read up on enough psychology to have the knowledge about what the emotion means.

I'm okay with some of the puzzles not being identified and being fuzzy. But since I'm doing all this without any real guidance outside myself, I have to pick up the pieces from everywhere myself, psychology books, articles online, psychology forums, talking with people on forums as well .


The only thing I'm not okay with it is if the fuzzy pieces jump at me suddenly

It also helps if I can actually get an emotional thought that talks to me loud and clear, because then the emotional puzzle is instantly more clear too and not fuzzy anymore. And then I can work on it with the rational brain



The issue with family now has too many fuzzy pieces. Both of my emotions and of their emotions.



I didn't understand about the mind lying to you. Do you mean emotional (biased) thoughts? Or do you mean the mind generating theories about the emotions that don't really amount to more than "working hypotheses"?



I don't have a therapist right now. I ran from the last one after a couple of years because I was about to be retraumatised

Not sure if I understood you.
It’s not about treating the thoughts (any thoughts without labels) as hypothesis and see which others are gonna come that may give a meaning to the other ones. It’s about letting them passed away. How? Accepting them, giving them a welcome and without judging them or the emotions that they may generate, letting them go by, when they want go. Without you engaging with them. Why? Because you are not your thoughts. And because many of them are there to make noise, only to put yourself in alert when is not necessary.
I’m gonna put you an example; a thought that uses to come to my mind, “you are rare, you are not as other people, you are less than them. Something doesn’t work in yourself” Something similar to this. Ok. I’m trying this thought stops being a belief, so I let this thought be in my mind and I treat it like something that it’s gonna be there and I’m not gonna fight against it. What I get if I don’t fight it, I’m diminishing its power over me. (I know it’s not easy, but it’s the only way I have to not feed it).
There’s another kind of Mindfulness that also add compassion. And it’s very helpful for people who are dealing with a difficult situation and have painful emotions. I also use it.

I meant about intrusive thoughts. I was referring to how we have kind of alert on our mind based on past memories (sometimes bad memories-that’s the problem-) and our mind works as a protector by generating messages that recall us of these bad experiences or based on the defence mechanisms create to avoid these bad experiences may happen again.

It’s curious. I also quitted therapy a couple of years ago. My psychiatrist always tells me that psychotherapy could help me a lot, much more than meds but I’m reluctant to go again.
Last time, I didn’t feel traumatised but I felt a big pressure and I couldn’t go faster. I had a depressed time and I progressed at the beginning but then, I felt I had to go to a different pace. And I felt pressure.

I feel I really am pretty mindful in a sense about the "hypotheses" I think to myself, yeah they are "hypotheses", let's work with them, and then they pass - and I may revisit them later and perhaps see and understand more then.

This approach helps me be flexible, not get stuck in an emotional thought. I accept it and consider it as, it must have a message for me, and I want to understand the message more, and I want to understand what the explanation for it will be (that's where the "hypotheses" come in).



What are "any thoughts without labels"? Do you have an example of a thought like that?






Hm well my approach is my rational thoughts are mine. My emotional thoughts are where I also try to use the rational approach and be flexible with the "hypothesis" idea. And yes, it means I accept them "as is".

Do you have an example of a thought that is not your thought and is just there to make noise? Putting yourself in alert sounds like you are talking about anxious thoughts.





OK so you mean the so-called Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) that CBT therapy deals with?

I see there could be a misunderstanding here then When I talked about the hypotheses, that wasn't thoughts about my own person...more like my attitudes to things in life.

I hate ANTs and I kick them out immediately if I ever was to have one but I don't often have them.

I remember I even had an angry rant talking with the therapist where I told them how much I hate this idea of ANTs and how much I just dont even wanna hear about them. Because what the fu** their use is? Rhetorical question lol.

She said okay, then we don't have to talk about ANTs. And we didn't talk about them again. Thank god : ))

That just comes out of instinct for me. I don't feel like being negative. I want to enjoy things instead


And I did read that you do have to fight this self-critical inner voice, not give in to it. Like be willing to say to it "you are bull****, go away". I think I agree with that approach, like I said that's my natural instinct too.

So basically yah I'm not very mindful there lol, I just push away bull**** negatives

I strongly believe in having self-respect and self-worth.

And I sometimes totally feel like that in therapies, they need to teach more of the fight mindset

And I like therapies that talk about building up self-esteem too so there is no such critical inner voice.




OK that's where this is interesting, so for you if you fight it, get angry against it, tell it it's bull**** and push it away it gets worse for you?

I think the one case where fighting and pushing it away can make it worse is when the message from the emotional thought is something that needs to be investigated, find facts, look at the objective situation, or simply understand the emotional insight from it. So for example if you feel you have low value then you want to build up your self-esteem, your sense of self-worth and self-respect.

So I agree that sometimes you can't just push away negative emotions because they have a strong message so if you fight it it will just become stronger. And then you have to work with that message and do something about it. If you are not sure initially what the message is, you can use a "working hypothesis" there too



Self-compassion?

I can sometimes do emotional imagination for imagining that I have a negative emotion - not one that comes with thoughts devaluing my self-worth, but just simply negative feelings, sadness, feeling low, etc - and then I give it a hug.

But yeah, emotional thoughts that devalue self-worth, I'm not playing around with those. Those simply need to go lol and the solution is proactively building up self-esteem

You lost your emotions at 18. I didn’t know. I closed myself up to the world at 17. But, I didn’t block my emotions, only they were all negative.

Wished I could help you but I don’t know a lot about it. I don’t have any advice to help someone to unblocked her/his emotions.
That’s why I asked you about a therapist but maybe someone else here can give you a clue.

Ah OK I see. Yeah, I try to process these memories and flashbacks. So that there are no distortions left from them.




Oh I meant I was going to her for a couple of years. I quit last November.

And yeah I think it can take some time therapist shopping to find one that "gets" you enough. So no pressure like that.

I just haven't really recovered from the experiences yet (trauma centre was in January + this thingy in November). I finally met the social worker as lockdown ended but I was having a hard time going to meet her. After those invalidating emails in winter. But I steeled myself alright and it was okay. But she's not a therapist, there is no way she can give me guidance on these things lol

That's OK. I've been working on this for several years and it's slowly getting better.

Interesting that you closed up at 17....was it due to a specific event?


And yes for me I think I block negative emotions too easily so that's why I reacted like that and then a lot of the positive emotions went with them

(Going to go now, will respond to posts later)

I see you are more advance than me.
You even practise self-compassion. It’s great. You walked a long way.

Clarifying:
I said “thoughts with any label” because along an exercise of mindfulness may appear any kind of thoughts, not only meaningful ones. Not only related to emotions. Any kind of thought, even non meaningful ones. It will depend on the moment you are in. You never know. You can’t force this. It’s your mind the one that generates them.

I like what you said here: I think I did get too involved and allowed it to take from my life.

That is what I am getting at. The other person, at some point, finds that to much is being asked of them, they don't want to devote that much of their life to being a helper.

Right, it could be that.

Right, you are describing when it is risky to ask, when you have those bad vibes from the other person. If the vibes you are getting are just the opposite of those, then it is less risky to ask.

At the moment I'm thinking of it as applying generally. These are the types of things (I am imagining) that anyone might want to consider when asking for help.

Right, and you don't have to end up there. You can get support from people without becoming demanding and angry.

I don't think you have to go to zero support. My thought is to be judicious about who you ask, and how often you ask them, by paying attention to the types of things that I brought up.

It sounds like she helped you when you were suicidal but in general doesn't help too much.

What if you ask her about her thinking regarding helping you out--why was she very helpful then but less helpful now?

Thanks It's very rare that I can call up my emotional imagination like that. It needs the right state or mood or something, I don't know. I noticed it's easier if I am reading a CBT book that describes examples/anecdotes and I am like, ready with a rational system to give me a safe space




I always know what thought I'm thinking, though that doesn't mean I know the solution right away to all problems

I am still thinking that maybe you are talking about anxious thoughts?

BTW where I said that I can only do the working hypotheses stuff about my own attitudes...I think I sometimes can do it about other people's attitudes too but it requires a lot more of me to be able to. For now it requires a lot, including a lot of control of emotions to keep enough flexibility about it, also the "psychoeducation" I've been doing is needed. But I've been able to do it sometimes.

Okay I think I'll need to clarify the situation/context more. I will do that more below.



Oh no no no that's just my own feeling. It's not the truth. It's when my brain/mind gets inflexible about the issue, when I'm not able to use a working hypothesis about it and keep flexible. It's just pretty horrible to feel that way lol


Again it's just my own feeling and my brain/mind getting inflexible. Luckily, because I was talking about family, and I know my family isn't like that!! It's the sh**ty "friend" I had.

Really I think people who act and respond in a constructive or otherwise non-toxic way don't give bad vibes like that even if they say "no", but in my case my past keeps sending me back into those feelings.



I see. These three seemed like for milder issues or about people who are not really close with you (general you) emotionally:

"Asking someone infrequently.

Asking in a real pinch (as opposed to a crisis) where practical help is really needed.

Asking someone where previous help has been more or less equal in both directions."

Actually I was really curious here again. What do you consider a crisis?

You mentioned not everyone is calm or nonjudgmental in a crisis. Again, what do you imagine as a crisis? The person being like suicidal? Or what does a person in crisis need from others in your definition of a crisis?



I was specifically talking about being hateful. And like, being unable to have close relationships or care about anyone.

Specifically, I wasn't talking about getting demanding. This is what I meant above by clarifying context more....

I'm more like, just don't want to deal with asking anyone for anything in a personal, close relationship if it's this much of a liability. I'm fine if it's not a personal relationship.

(But I'm not going to bother with hate. I don't even know why I said that I have that fear of being hateful. I don't have enough emotional energy to bother with being hateful plus it's just really NOT me)


Of course, this would mean not having any personal, close relationships at all, because you can't have one without asking for things (and giving things if the other person asks you).


And btw expecting things doesn't have to involve being openly demanding or openly angry towards the person who you expect things from.

So for example. My "friend" was not - openly - demanding at all. She never asked directly, never, ever. She would just talk at length about what she'd like....or get emotional and do emotional drama about her needs. But never asked, let alone demanded anything directly.

Yet she did have a lot of expectations and would get angry if I did not give her more money etc. I know this bc she talked about it behind my back...




I feel better right now but it's because I decided I want to just be able to do my days (instead of working at night) and find my old/real self fully again, and while I do that I don't want any too close relationships. Or atleast, not work actively on any of that.... I have some interactions/relationships with family members, but it's like I'll be like.... it's up to them, if it's little interaction then it's little interaction, okay, if it's more than little then more...... (and same for anyone else, not just family. Keep everyone at an arm's length specifically)

Dunno but this thought made me feel calm. But then I also feel like.... How long is it going to have to be like that??

I don't know how much I even want anything like that about relationships, yeah.


I don't think she would be able to answer that heh. She's not very reflective


But I asked her how many hours a week she spends with my sister. She was reluctant to answer at first, not sure why LOL, but anyway she seemed okay soon and I think we ended up at:

- phone calls 3 times on average for an average week, totaling an hour of talking. I've witnessed some of these calls, she's practically glued to the phone listening to my sister's complaints and worries and idk. Her husband isn't very nice to her and the 4 kids are a lot.

- once a week on average, she and her husband go and visit (50km travel by train) and babysit the kids. That's about 8 hours including travel there and back.

So, say, 9 hours a week.

I think my sister knows better how to share feelings than I do

They always talked a lot more with each other than with me. Like, we went once for a vacation in Italy together. And they'd talk to each other and not to me. I remember that very well.

Though, lately she's wanted to talk to me, even "nag" me "let's talk about stuff".

No I really am not good at this social support thing :P

OK so I realise the issue is that I would like to know about when I CAN ask and not about when I CANNOT ask. I focus enough on the CANNOT already. So I'd need to see this in a more positive light. In this list it was the last item that made me feel a bit good. But it was kinda vague and general to me

Oh well I do know I can't guarantee the interaction will be positive and that's what's a liability when I'm already severely overloaded in the given moment

Here I try to reframe them as needed in a positive light.

It is less risky to ask for something:

--within their nonprofessional skill set

--within your regular frequency of asking

--when you are in a pinch

--when you are asking someone who (as far as you know) has time to help

--when you are asking someone who has given you good reason to think that are okay with being asked

--when you are calm, or you know that they will be calm, and okay with you being upset

*****

What do I mean by a crisis? I guess that I mean when emotions (theirs or yours) are running high. So yes, suicidality is a good example. I tried to include this thought in the last item above.

Comments are welcome

With regard to your mother, can you say more about what she has been doing/proposing lately in regard to listening to/supporting you?