Any suggestions appreciated.
If you are on Facebook you could try looking them up on there.
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Sorry BarbieBF, Maybe I caused confusion with my initial question, but this is what I meant to say…“Im trying to get back in touch with my soul, the caring person I used to be”. How can I do it? Sorry for any confusion.
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You could try making a list of all the qualities you used to have and then try to work on doing some of those things again.
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If your emotions are being shut down and you caring for people around you is being stripped away by this illness, and negative symptoms are chilling your heart, you might have to talk to the doc about some anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. Please, this is just my head talking. I’m not a doc, but I would mention it to him/her and get some ideas.
If your scaring away family and hurting peoples feelings due to positive symptoms… When I did that, I found myself writing a lot of letters of apology when I pulled out of it and I made it my focus to try one small thing every day. Just a quick note to someone saying… “I’m still in here, and I do still care about you.”
It sounds like you do still care. But you had mentioned this anger that has been getting in the way. Once you can get that under control and it fades, you will probably have an easier time because it won’t always feel like your rebuilding that relationship every single day. Which makes life easy to not wake up with the guilt and self dislike over what happened yesterday. I did a lot of letter writing and I did a lot of leaving when I felt my anger coming on.
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No worries. I think I read it wrong.
Do you think its just a case that I should volunteer, probably volunteer with a religious organisation like the Legion of Mary, as this rubs off on you and brings the the good in you…
I think volunteering could be a good thing. It doesn’t have to be a religious organization. A local community center or food bank. If helping others makes you feel good about yourself then it’s a good thing. The caring person you are looking for is still inside you. Maybe connecting with that part of you is hard right now as negative emotions are getting in the way but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there.
You are reaching out on here so it is in you. Maybe try doing something like once a day, for no reason, walking up to someone you care about and giving them a hug. Not a quick passing pat on the back but a full hug for a couple of seconds. See how it feels. Those feelings are in you and maybe they just need the opportunity to be brought out. I don’t think you need to look outside of yourself for this but if it will help then go for it. Believe that you are the caring person that you want to be and try acting like you are that person. You just might surprise yourself.
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I lost many good friends (for below reason).
As someone already said i can’t go back to them.
It makes me sad when my mom says where is the daughter I used to have, she was so caring and kind. I feel my illness caused my attention to go elsewhere towards my problems and not my loved ones. I would love to volunteer at least I would do some good with my time. I’m really depressed. Things, my personality, habits, interests, even appearance used to be so much better back then. I really want to please my mom the person who went through my battle with sz. The person who took care of me through my worst bouts. I want to be an even better person than I was before for her.
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I’ve been thinking about this more and I also had to relearn some emotions and relearn appropriate responses. So even though this illness stripped away some stuff from me, I was able to learn it back through CBT and other therapies.
I’m still relearning emotions and conversation. I will come back once it’s gone if you work on it. Sort of like a muscle in atrophy. If we don’t use what little positive and loving emotions we still have, we will lose them.
Even if they don’t get expressed in a way you remember, expressing them somehow is half the challenge.
Hope this even made sense.
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I lost a good sense of humor when I was last depressed and for a while psychotic. Now my life is getting better and I can very slowly see it coming back. However, I also learned to enjoy being alone due to circumstances and I’m fine with keeping that one. Talking for long periods of time use to be fun but now I get tired of it. Kind of an irritating feeling. Being desperate for conversation and friends got me into some bad situations.
I had no humor when I was at my worst. I didn’t understand humor any more. When I was in negative symptom, nothing was truly funny. But as I got better, I found humor again.
I’ve also read here that a few other members judged their progress on the return of their humor. Maybe a good laugh is just as basic as a any other function.
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