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Hi Dellea,

Your SharePost says it all about how you feel so I won't try to put it into my own words.

I'm sure you were a good mother and you wanted so much for your children to forgive you.  I want to tell you that I understand it is hard, when someone asks us, "What is the pain like?" we have no answer because it just is the way it is.

In time, as you make your way, I'm sure you'll find pockets of sunshine that outweigh the pain.  I also want to tell you that I believe you are not only helping yourself, you are inspiring other people by what you write in here.  I'm sure others can relate to what you're going through, as I certainly at times feel the way you do.

Cheers,

Christina

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Dear Dellea,

Thank you for sharing your post. I sense a depth to your pain. I feel to offer you my love by way of this response; I hope you will accept it as such.

Although, over the years, I have felt lonely many, many times I realize now that it's due to wrong understanding. Would you consider that there is a difference between being lonely and being alone?

Our feelings are based on our understanding. Changing our understanding automatically changes our feeling. It is possible to be alone without experiencing loneliness.

While there are no effective ways to hide from mental illness, there are ways to heal it.

One pathway of healing, that has greatly helped me, is to realize that one of my symptoms is to superimpose things that are not there. This includes communication. I may project a belief I have about a circumstance. (Such as, "Why is he being so ungrateful? I was only trying to help!") Sometimes this belief creates associations between things that are unrelated. (Such as, "Last time I tried to be helpful, this also happened. Everything I do is wrong. Why should I even bother? My love is obviously not wanted. He must not care about me.") After realizing that I often do this, I began to take greater responsibility for my communication.

One of the things I did is to ask the other person for clarification to either validate my association of thoughts or to disregard them as false, simply as part of the illness. If I deemed they were false, I ignored them. Even if the thoughts bothered me in the moment I forced myself to ignore them over and over again. Eventually, the ignored thought goes away. The more I practiced this approach, the easier it was to put into effect next time and the more control I gained over directing my thoughts. Eventually, this meant I made less and less false projections and wrong associations.

This helped me in many ways. In one way, it helped me to understand, care about and take responsibility for how my illness affects others instead of feeling overwhelmed and ill equipped.

This led to a profound shift in my life... I was able to hear and accept the pain that my mom felt due to her experience of my illnesses. As a result, we were able to close the gap between us. There were a lot of tears in the process but it lead to a heart full of forgiveness and an eagerness to share love. Because of this one act, we are very close now and have been for several years. We each have the willingness now to work through whatever comes up.

You may wish to consider if any of this applies to you and if there is some similar approach you can take with your loved ones.

For what it’s worth, I also want to share an observation of myself that may or may not apply. I used to seek someone to validate me by liking and accepting me, and at the same time, I deeply feared being so unlikeable and unacceptable that hardened and kept people at an arms length away.

Eventually, I accepted myself. Now, I am not lonely because I am no longer looking to fill something that I think I lack. I know I do not lack anything. I recognize that it was my firm belief in lacking something that caused my feelings of loneliness. Although I may find myself alone, I no longer feel lonely.

In order to heal, I have had to see and accept many things about myself that I wish just weren't there. The truth isn't always pretty, but it truth is always freeing. :)

With Supreme Love,

SpandaDevi