Lived Experience Forum

[Appleblossom]

I was still teaching when I started this thread. 

I have let that go, and adopted a mental health consumer persona, but still feel that I could do some more part time professional work one day.  Maybe??

Feeling the shame of no work, but it is not really a logical feeling. Though the endless oneupmanship and showing off in the circus of life can bring on a sense of shame I try and push it away. I am pretty busy and it is a balanced life.  Inside, outside, art, science, quiet, noisy, needing, caring and giving and sharing.

Anyone who would like to walk with me a little way???

@Former-Member @Faith-and-Hope  @eth @Mazarita @Teej @Adge @soul 

[eth]

I'll walk with you anytime @Appleblossom  I'm sure you contribute to your community in ways money can't buy.

[Appleblossom]

Thank you @eth

I am feeling through my own sense of shame a lot in last week.  Trying to work out what was fear and embarrassment and what was guilt and what was shame and what was just feeling attachments.  I dont mean to be brazen, but perhaps that is what it seems sometimes ??

A bit sad at moment but cant do more than try my best. Also try and keep my strong face for managing and keeping engaged with life.

Had a hard night last night, triggered badly, needed prn and cancelled zoo today. Still should be alright for singing tonight.

I am also wary that in adopting a health consumer persona, that I will be consumed by it.

Nor do I want to be in denial about my own problems.

SO often things flip flop for me.

Life has been so hard and complicated.

Walking further from both of these traditions Christianity and Buddhism that did help a great deal but also hinder.  When will I be free from my ambivalence??

[eth]

I missed this post yesterday @Appleblossom  Very much hoping you made it to singing and feel a bit better today.  I believe singing is therapeutic for us.

I get the feelings you describe in your first para quite a lot, especially when faced with my whole life story as has been happening with doing my statement the last couple of weeks.  I went through years being able to somewhat accept that I'd never know all the details and lately a lot more of them have been clarified for me.  And some I didn't know that I didn't know if that makes sense.    So fresh shame, guilt, mortification ...... they roll into each other and I can't separate them, but they do result in deeper sadness and regret. 

I respect your efforts to keep your 'strong face' - I'm not too good at that, I tend to withdraw when all these feelings come up anew.  I agree about becoming consumed by the health consumer persona - I've been that way most of the time for years now.  It's quite rare and feels like a blessing when I have the experience of 'coming back to myself'.  e.g. when I made a new and now very dear friend about 3 years ago, with lots of spiritual common ground.

You mention Christianity and Buddhism and walking beyond them ... I've never truly embraced the practice of either but see a lot of good values and lessons in both that I try to apply without labelling myself either.  I've never forgotten years ago reading someone's theory that in truth Christ and Buddha were the same spirit at different times. That when Christ went to the wilderness He appeared as Buddha elsewhere.............so many possibilities if we knew the true history, not what has been rewritten over and over again.  

[Appleblossom]

Thanks @eth I did have a good night singing.  We are doing a requiem and a stabat mater. I am also feeling accepted into this choir for BOTH my musicianship and my personality and life experience. I am making friends with another piano teacher/chorister, as my old friend starts to slide into dementia. Except she is also the only person who acknowledged my birthday .. SO her memory worked for me, which I am very grateful for. Also having lovely conversations with an ex country teacher librarian on the train on the way home.  

This is HUGE for me as I have found problems in some choirs where I have only been wanted as a musician and not for myself. Coming from a church musician mother and starting as church musician at 13 it has been an enormous part of my life.

I was attracted to Buddhism in my 20s as I found the Eightfold path clearer and wiser than the 10 commandments and meditation a very effective life tool.  The problems my church choir had with dealing with scandal of clerical sex abuse meant they hated me as they felt I was destroying their beloved church, when I was really trying to walk a very forgiving road.  It was their congregational guilt actually, cos the daft thing was that I was not abused in the catholic orphanage but the state one, and I was grateful for a lot of the charity I received throughout my childhood in the orphanage and through various groups or nuns etc, as my died when I was very young. It was my dad who was abused in the Catholic orphanage. But both traditions are ancient and evolved to suit human populations of their time, and there are other ways available to us now.  The Catholic/Christian presumptions in telling us what to think are essentially damaging. Anyway that is what I believe.

I am finally relieved not to have to keep walking that torturous path and am just singing beautiful sacred music in a very good secular choir with very good people in it.  Choirs are tricky as the closeness needed in physical and emotional communion to make the music work, mean that clashes and conflicts are disastrous.  It has been worth perservering.

I found your discussion about how cptsd and Bi Polar interfere with each other on the "rave" thread and sometimes escalate really relevant to me.

[eth]

Good morning @Appleblossom  Hoping today is a good one for you.

I just looked for that post about PTSD and bipolar being intertwined and impacting on each other as I could use what I said in my statement.  I can't find it on A Long Rave - I've gone back 10 pages.  Is there any chance you could help me find it?

[Appleblossom]

Sorry @eth I did not see your post til now. It was actually on my birthday and I was out and about, not waiting for anyone ....

I have had a look for it.  Sorry, but I cannot find it either. I think you were responding to somebody else's post.  

My hands are a bit sore because I have been playing recorder. They get sore when I type too.  So I just have to keep changing activities.

Hope you are getting respite from NDIS wrangling.

I have shame associated with not having lots of family to run around  with on Easter. 

Ridiculed for being overly nice to old people or as a mum. I I was doomed if I did .. called intrusive or doomed if I did not ... neglectful.  It was good to recieve a fb Easter msg from my nephew.  An uncle sent a fb msg for my birthday, but that was it. He has also made it clear it is a superficial relationship, lets people ridicule me and when he came to Melboiurne for 3 months did not have time to contact or visit me.  My son will spend a day out with me in May. He alone does care. That is my family, a couple of friends, and on here.

Or is it really their shame when all things are stacked up.  Once it was a big busy clan that were so big ... a gang of 6 foot plus blokes .. they scared my father off.  But never showed up when people were in need. They are all over the internet with selfies.  Now they give me the creeps.

[eth]

Wishing you belated birthday greetings @Appleblossom and hoping you had a good day.  

I reckon it's shame on them.  You are a kind and gentle soul and have put yourself out to maintain connection with them many times.  They don't deserve you in my humble opinion.

[Appleblossom]

Thank you @eth  Maybe its less about me than that I remind the family of things they want to forget.

A little old lady from my old old church just popped in for a visit.  I have known her for over 15 years in various choirs. She has been a gem.