Nervous Girl

Recently, I posted about people I've either met at meetings or in my personal life who insist that their symptoms are far worse than mine and use that as an excuse to tell me why RI wouldn't help them. After I had posted it, I realized I made a mistake and that it could be hurtful to those people and so deleted it. Instead, I'd like to offer encouragement to anyone who feels that they could not be helped by RI because it seems too "simple" or "easy" and uncomplicated in today's world of complicated solutions to our problems or that it's not working quickly enough for them. For many years I attended a meeting led by a very dear woman who often spotted at meetings that "Recovery is simple, but not easy." What that meant to me is that though the method itself is uncomplicated, it is not easy to spot on our symptoms because it requires a certain type of introspection that can be painful. It can be difficult to admit that our symptoms are a...

I started this post a while ago, but recently decided to overhaul my diet. I know I am not the first person to use RI to help control my eating habits, but I rarely hear anyone talk about it at a meeting, so I thought I'd share my ideas here. When I started attending Recovery meetings, I was at least 40 pounds overweight. I overate because of depression and anxiety and also as a result of the side effects of some medication. I wasn't exactly moving my muscles, either. After attending RI meetings for a month or so, I found myself in another program's meeting. At the break, a box of cheap cookies sat on the table next to the coffee. I eyed it. They weren't my favorite kind (oatmeal with icing), but suddenly, I felt hungry. I started to reach my hand toward the box and then I realized that I could control my muscles and not take the cookie. I could bear the discomfort of not eating the cookie. There was no danger if I did not eat that cookie, which I really didn't ...

Hi. It's been a while since I last posted anything here. I've been busy with work, married life, child rearing, etc. This in itself is amazing because when I started attending RI meetings almost 13 years ago, I didn't have anything to keep me busy. I was recently married but my nervous symptoms interfered with the harmony at home. Shortly after getting married, I had a pretty bad setback that preceded a short hospitalization. My hubby and I were arguing a lot of the time, too. Enter RI. A friend of mine tried it and claimed she wasn't having as many problems with angry outbursts. So I attended a meeting. I hated it. That's right. I thought it was ridiculous. Nothing I heard made sense to me. What was this "angry temper" and "fearful temper" these people were talking about? What was spotting? To make matters worse, no one would answer my questions. They made me wait till the end of the meeting, and even then, I didn't get satisfactory answers....

Yikes. I noticed I haven't posted here in a l-o-n-g time. I've thought about it from time to time and didn't feel I had anything meaningful to say, but then again, if I wait for something I think is meaningful, I'll never post or write anything. Perhaps I feel my writing should be exceptional but isn't even average. I attended a meeting earlier tonight. I don't go to this one too often because it's right around dinner time on a Friday night and it's hard to break free from my family, but I also need to make a business of my mental health (for without it, I might not have a family). As it turned out, the meeting was exactly what I needed. However, when I arrived at home, my husband seemed a bit upset and my child, a bit needy. I gave my child a bath and then we brushed the teeth. Afterward, we read in bed for a while. I called my mother, hoping my kid would actually fall asleep if I took long enough, but alas, that did not happen, so I spent the next 45 ...

It's been a while, but I'm still around -- just really busy. I guess it's good to be busy because it gives me the chance to practice objectivity. Or at least it's a distraction from what I'm really upset about. So I've had a few events of what we in RI might call "unusual circumstances." I really never found a specific definition of this term. If I had one of my books with me right now, I'd look it up and I apologize in advance for being so vague about it. In my mind, however, unusual circumstances means events that are still trivialities but might not be average everyday occurrences for every single person. For instance, if I have the flu, it's a triviality but still, I don't have the flu every day. I'll get to the point: so I had some circumstances that to me seemed unusual but not in the realm of the nontriviality. A few people I know were ill and then I had a personal disappointment. I started feeling lowered tones and getting irrit...

Last May marked the eleventh anniversary of the first Recovery International meeting I attended. Back then, the name of the program was called Recovery, Incorporated. I only attended one meeting in May 1999 and didn't come back again until June of the same year. It took me a while to realize that the tools of Recovery could really help me and that I was not a hopeless case. That May, I had experienced a relapse of my nervous symptoms. My symptoms included anxiety, panic attacks, mood swings from deep depression (including suicidal symptoms) and hostile outbursts. I could not keep a job for more than a few weeks at a time. During the year prior to my first RI meeting, I had been hospitalized several times (I lost count but it was at least five times) for the above symptoms and even had ECT. After ECT, I felt marginally better and even started dating (I later married the man I was dating), but by May whatever relief I had received from the ECT had faded and I was just as depressed, ...

About 10 months ago, I wrote here about trying to conceive (TTC). I realized it's not a triviality, but it I thought the Recovery Method could help me with the nervous symptoms it generated. Now, I still am TTC with no success. And recently, I had another disappointment. Needless to say, I was worked up, depressed, discouraged. A friend who knows I'm in this program told me to spot, but I just couldn't. Everything just seemed bleak to me. For three days, I really felt hopeless about the situation. I realized three days is not a long time to feel bad, but since I've been in Recovery, it's been a long time since I've had three solid days of feeling so rotten. Then I woke up today and felt okay. I could see a ray of light was starting to penetrate the gloom (how's that for tempermental lingo?). Now, I can finally spot on my symptoms and even on the situation itself. I really believe that because of my Recovery training, the symptoms lasted a shorter time ...