Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

I could not find a copy of this online, so I cannot link to it. I have a print copy.

Someone did upload a copy to Scribd, but you have to have a subscription or whatever to read past the first few paragraphs

Girlfriend Power

Excerpts:

February / March 2022

It was the first Valentine’s Day after my marriage ended. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a party with a bunch of single ladies

Girlfriend Power by Jennie Ivey

[The author opens the piece by explaining that she and her husband George were divorcing after 35 years of marriage.]

… For the first time in decades, I wasn’t part of a couple. For the first time in my life, I was living alone.

… Why oh why had I said I’d go to my friend Pat’s Valentine’s party? “Celebrate with other singles at a girls’ night in,” the invitation read. “Food! Music! Games! Fun!”

[Initially, she called her friend who was throwing the party to decline. The friend told her the reason for the party started years before, when her husband served her divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, and her father died on Valentine’s Day a few years prior. The friend replied,]

… “instead of moping around because we’re not coupled up, we get together to have a good time.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“And one more thing, Jennie – you have to wear pink or red. It’s a Valentine’s party rule!”

[She mentions that her ex husband George was a surgeon, and while he wasn’t the greatest husband, he did okay on Valentine’s – he’d bring her flowers or candy in heart shaped boxes and so on]

Before I left for Pat’s I said a quick prayer. I hadn’t done a whole lot of praying since the breakup of my marriage. Sometimes I felt mad at God. Furious even.

Did he care that I was suddenly single at 60, an age when most couples were looking forward to retirement and spending time with their kids and grandkids together?

My prayer that evening was short and to the point: God, please show me how to be single.

To Forgive Or Not To Forgive Your Abuser – The Unintended Fallout: Possible Emotional Abuse or Exploitation Of Your Codependent Friend or Family Member

To Forgive Or Not To Forgive Your Abuser – The Unintended Fallout: Possible Emotional Abuse or Exploitation Of Your Codependent Friend or Family Member

I was watching a video today by psychologist Dr. Ramani, who I like very much, and I agree with her most of the time.

I even agree with most of her comments in this particular recent video she made that I will be discussing in this post, but it brought to mind one over-looked aspect pertaining to volatile or abusive relationships.

In the video (link to that video here, and I will embed it below, the title is, “Is there virtue in forgiving a narcissist who doesn’t apologize?”), Dr. Ramani expressed that she pretty much disagrees with the concept that people should have to forgive others, or that forgiving others makes a person stronger, etc.

Dr. Ramani rightly points out in that video that continually forgiving pathologically narcissistic persons is a waste of your time, for various reasons I shall not explain here (you can watch her video for explanations). I do agree with her on that.

If someone in your life keeps hurting, abusing, or mistreating you, no matter how many times you’ve forgiven them and given them a second, third, etc, chance,
you need to accept the fact this person is more than likely NEVER going to change and that they merely view your willingness to always forgive him or her as a weakness to repeatedly exploit.
So cut that person from your life, or limit time around them.

It’s not that I disagree with Dr. Ramani’s comments in the video on the face of things, but, I am concerned for Codependents.

On a similar note, in years past, I’ve also read books or seen videos about how people can help their abused friends.

I’ve seen videos by women who divorced their abusive husbands who reel off a list of tips on how you, the friend, can be supportive towards the friend in the abusive marriage.

These videos, books, and online articles, contain lists of things to say or to avoid saying when trying to help someone who is currently in an abusive relationship or someone who was abused in childhood.

Many of these books, videos, and web pages (most by therapists, psychologists or recovered abusive victims) often stress that you, the friend, should just sit and listen to the friend – just validate the friend, do not give advice, judge, or criticize.

I am a recovered Codependent (I wrote a very, very long post about that here).

I am also an Introvert. Introverts naturally make better attentive listeners than Extroverts.

So, as someone who is an Introvert and a one-time Codependent, I was very adept at giving the sort of emotional support a lot of troubled people seek out and find comforting.

For over 35 years, due to the parenting of my mother and the guilt tripping-, sexist-, Codependent- pushing- teachings under “gender complementarianism” of the Southern Baptist church I was brought up in, I had no boundaries, I was not assertive, and it was implied it is my job or responsibility in life to rescue or help other people, whatever format that came in.

All of that was taught to me as I grew up under the false, gender complementarian assumption (and my mother and father bought into some of this thinking too) that God created women to be more caring than men, it would be un-feminine or selfish for a woman to have boundaries, and I was taught that it was women’s “duty” to be care-takers for the hurting.

For me, most often, the support and care-taking my Mom and church taught me to engage in came in the form of “Emotional Labor,” and it made my already bad mental health in years past even worse.

(I was diagnosed at a very young age with clinical depression, I also had anxiety disorders and had low self esteem for many years. I no longer have depression or low self esteem.)

If you are an abuse victim, or if you’ve been bullied at a job, or you were abused in a marriage, or you were sexually or physically abused as a child by a family member (or by a neighbor, or by whomever),
I know it can be helpful, now, as an adult, to sit and talk to an empathetic listener about it, it can feel so good for that listener to sit quietly while you do most of the talking, and for that person to validate you and your experiences.

It can be very healing and feel like a tremendous relief for that listener to refrain from victim blaming you, offering advice or platitudes.

It can help in the healing process for another adult to believe you and just offer non-judgmental emotional support as you relate your trauma and pain to them.

I realize all that.

But have you ever considered that the caring, non-judgmental, empathetic person you keep turning to, whether it’s a friend or a family member, might be highly codependent and your repeated use of that person as your emotional support system may be damaging to THAT PERSON?

Because I was that person, for over 35 years.

I was the sweet, caring, understanding, supportive listener that many people – co-workers on jobs, family, neighbors, friends –
would call, e-mail, snail mail, or text with their problems, because they KNEW I would always listen to them rant (for hours on end, if need be, over months and years), I would NEVER put time limits on their rants, and I would ALWAYS respond in a timely fashion to ranting or sad e-mails or texts.

I spent over 35 years giving a lot of non-qualified, no-strings-attached emotional support to a lot of emotionally wounded or abused people over my life.

Some of these people called or e-mailed me over job stress, health problems, troubled marriages, financial issues, or, they were single and were lonely – they couldn’t get a boyfriend (or girlfriend).

None of these people who called or texted me to complain or sob to me ever once considered how their regular, negative phone calls (or letters or face to face chats) were impacting me. For the ones who considered it, I suppose they didn’t care.

If you choose not to forgive your abuser, that is your choice to make, but…

Be aware that if you choose to not forgive but to also hold on to your hurt and anger, and to choose to ruminate on the abuse,
and should you choose to deal with and vent that anger and hurt by regularly calling your Codependent friend to listen to your rants or sobbing – you are abusing your Codependent friend or family member, which is not acceptable.

In all the years I granted emotional support to hurting people (including but not limited to co-workers who’d stop by my cubicle during work hours to bend my ear for an hour or more about their divorce or health problems), I was never once thanked.

The non-stop support I gave was never acknowledged. And giving that non-stop support was exhausting and taxing for me, as I know it can be for other Codependent persons.

A “thank you” once in awhile from these people who came to me to dump their problems on me would’ve been appreciated. I never got one.

Reciprocation would’ve been appreciated and helpful too, but the people who were abuse survivors, or assorted chronic complainers who used me to vent to, very rarely to never asked about ME and MY struggles in life.

More Thoughts About ‘The Toilet Function of Friendship’ – Avoid or Minimize Contact with the Rachels and Fletchers of the World

More Thoughts About ‘The Toilet Function of Friendship’ – Avoid or Minimize Contact with the Rachels and Fletchers of the World 

I did a blog post about this about three weeks ago:
((Link): When You’re in Imbalanced, Unfair Relationships – You’re the Free Therapist, The Supportive, Sounding Board Who Listens to Other People’s Non-Stop Complaining, But They Don’t Listen to You – re: The Toilet Function of Friendship).

I had more I wanted to say about this.

This guy’s blog post – Joseph Burgo’s post – about “The Toilet Function of Friendship” that I blogged about previously really hit home with me…

 especially since I am a recovered codependent who, over 35+ years during the time I was codependent (and used to have clinical depression and had low self esteem), kept attracting abusive, mean, nasty, self absorbed, pessimistic, depressed, emotionally needy and psychologically wounded or personality disordered people to me,

…and the comments left by people at the bottom of his post were also very eye opening or informative.

I wanted to discuss a few comments visitors left to his post, above all, a post by someone calling herself “Rachel,” and a comment by “Fletcher.”

I’ll probably save Fletcher’s and Rachel’s comments for last.

I notice a lot of the people who left comments below the post on Burgo’s blog say that they have been on the receiving end of this situation, where they attract negative or hurting friends who cope with life’s stress by “dumping” and venting about their problems to a sympathetic listener.

I too was in that position for many years, and it left me resentful, exhausted, and with nothing to show for it.

I’ve always been a very good, attentive listener.

I’m not the sort of person who attempts to pivot every conversation back on to herself, so… meaning…

If you’re my acquaintance or friend, and you stop by my cubicle during the work day or call me at home to confide in me about some problem you are having, I used to just sit there and let you talk for how ever many hours you wanted to rant and confide.

Even if I was wanting to get off the phone after 20 to 40 minutes, I was reluctant to end the phone call, so I’d sit there while the emotionally needy friend or family member droned on and on and on (or ranted and ranted in anger) about whatever problems they were having.

(I used to never, or very rarely, put time limits on people when they would complain to me, which left me utterly exhausted.

In my codependent years, I felt guilty if I tried to end people’s “complain and gripe” fests prematurely (because I was getting physically tired listening, or they were interrupting my work or whatever the reason), and I was afraid they’d break off friendship with me if I refused to allow them to use me as their “emotional toilet” or “free therapist.”

Only in the last few years, as I reflect upon my past, do I realize HOW UNFAIR this was to me.)

My habit was to just sit and listen thoughtfully, to nod my head in sympathy as you would rattle off your life’s stress to me, whether it was about your lazy, selfish boyfriend, or your ex-husband who wouldn’t pay child support, or your jerk boss making your work life awful – whatever it was.

And when I would finally speak up, after listening to you vent, I would only make empathetic, non-judgmental comments.

Back in my codependent, people pleasing days, I would tell you I was sorry you were under so much stress, and I hoped your situation would improve. I would validate your feelings, validate your situation, so you would feel heard and understood.

I rarely, oh so rarely, would give people who talked to me to complain to me, advice, judgement, criticism, or platitudes.

All of those relationship habits and qualities of mine that I had for many years made me very, very attractive to needy, angry, depressed, narcissistic, pessimistic, or unhappy people.

I now know better.

I think it does take a lot of life experience to get here, to be able to look at my past, to see where my Mom and church were in error to teach me as they did, (with their teachings being largely responsible for turning me into an attractive target for hurting, angry, or emotionally needy people), to see clearly the patterns of behavior.

Most of the people who used me to get their emotional needs met (but who seldom met mine in return) had very deep psychological problems or maladaptive coping skills.

Some had clinical depression (which I also had myself for over 30+ years), some may have been Covert Narcissists, some choose to cope with pain, disappointment, or anger in life by complaining to someone else – and I was often that “someone else.”

Some of these people have deeply entrenched psychological issues, and there is no amount of me listening to them and consoling them that is going to heal them. That concept took me much later in life to figure out, and that point was confirmed in various articles or books I read by psychologists and psychiatrists in the last few years.

These types of people really need to see a psychologist or licensed therapist over a period of weeks or months to work on their inner problems and relational styles that lead them to cope with their frustration or anger in life by constantly “dumping” them verbally on to a trusted friend for months or years.

If you are a people pleaser, an empath, or a codependent (whatever label you use for yourself), you need to accept that you will not get your needs met by ignoring your own and running around meeting other people’s needs, if that is one of your secret motivations for why you help others or act as their “emotional toilet” or “free therapist.”

(Some codependents think it’s not acceptable for them to get their needs met; they got the message from their family or church while they were growing up that it’s supposedly “selfish” for one to get one’s own needs met.

And no, it is not selfish to get one’s own needs met, or to expect people who say they are your friends to sometimes meet your needs in return. It’s part of a normal, healthy childhood or adulthood to get one’s needs met.)

If you’re a people pleaser, a codependent, you will have to be more intentional about when, to whom, under what circumstances, and for how long you will show someone else care, compassion, concern, or give them financial assistance.

Because if you do not learn to get comfortable with putting limits on your time, compassion, finances, and energy, you will be exploited and taken advantage of by many people who never (or rarely) meet your needs in return. All these people over decades will drain you dry and leave you exhausted.

I do think there are some times in life where it’s appropriate to grant people more emotional support than usual and not expect much in return.

But such occasions should be exceptions, such as, if your friend is in the grieving process over the death of a loved one, in such occasions, it may be acceptable to allow them to complain to you for hours over two to four years as they process the loss.

But if you have a friend who more or less contacts you regularly to complain a lot about every issue (and I mean the non-exceptions – just to rant about how they hate their job, their boyfriend is inconsiderate – your more tedious, normal life situations that are not as stressful, as say, a death in the family) – or maybe the same two or three (trivial, mundane) issues repeatedly – you really need to put limits on that person.

Most people who do this venting are only using you to get their emotional needs met, and they will NOT return the same non-judgmental emotional support to you that you granted them for weeks or years.

SAMPLE COMMENTS

From the (Link): Burgo blog post, some comments left by some of his blog visitors:

Tracey

by Tracey
Dec 10, 2020

Wow! What a powerful article and one I, too needed to hear and to equally recognize both sides.

I have ‘friends’ who dump on me that I should un-friend, but I have been loathe to do so for myriad reasons.

Woman Who Lost Leg to Rare Cancer on Track to Complete 102 Marathons in 102 Days

Woman Who Lost Leg to Rare Cancer on Track to Complete 102 Marathons in 102 Days

You’ll notice that rather than sit around indefinitely feeling sorry for herself, sliding into resentment, bitterness, spending every day griping, complaining about her situation, or blaming God (or whatever circumstance outside of herself) for her ordeal, or rather than trying to get attention via wanting others to endlessly pity her, she eventually decided to go on and live life – she enjoys running now.

Every one has bad things happen to them in life, and when those bad things happen, we do need to permit ourselves some time to grieve and feel anger about those things, but at some point, whether you sit in self pity and hold a victim mentality, or go forward to enjoy life in spite of that bad thing that happened, is a choice you make.

And nobody can force you into it.

(Link): Woman Who Lost Leg to Rare Cancer on Track to Complete 102 Marathons in 102 Days

April 15, 2022
by AP

BOSTON — Jacky Hunt-Broersma runs like a woman possessed. And in a way, she is: The amputee athlete is trying to run at least 102 marathons in 102 days.

Last month, a little more than two-thirds toward her goal of setting a new world record for back-to-back marathons, the South Africa native posted something on Twitter that got people talking.

“The first thing I did after my run today was take off my leg. Felt so good,” she tweeted. “Marathon 69 done. 31 marathons to go.”

…All on a carbon-fiber blade that’s been her left leg ever since she lost the real thing below the knee to a rare cancer.

“You make peace with pain,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I think my pain threshold is probably quite high at the moment. It’s one step at a time.”

Are You Stuck in the “I’ll Feel Better When” Cycle? by Diana Hill, phD

Are You Stuck in the “I’ll Feel Better When” Cycle? by Diana Hill, phD

This article (below) makes a lot of sense. I sort of stumbled on to this sort of thinking on my own in the last few years.

It helps to be content in the present, and to live in the present, too.

If you sit around with the attitude that you cannot be happy unless or until “X” happens in your life, well, if “X” never comes to pass, you’re condemning yourself to a life time of misery.

If you worry too much about the future or sit around feeling sad about things from the past, you’re never going to be happy. I’d rather enjoy each day, rather than worry or fret about the past or the future.

I don’t want to arrive at the future, look back with regret, and see how much time I wasted each and every day ruminating on past disappointments, or that “X” never happened for me.

Of course, I still fail at this at times, but as I’m getting older, I’m getting a little better at living in the present – not worrying all the time about the future or feeling sad or angry about the past.

If you’re someone with depression, or a tendency to have a pessimistic personality or attitude, if you want to guarantee you’ll never move that depression or sour attitude even an inch and actually ever enjoy life, then, by all means, continue to fixate on what you don’t have in life, or feel like you were owed and never got – that will keep most people trapped in a bad attitude, or depression, rather than enjoying life.

(Link): Are You Stuck in the “I’ll Feel Better When” Cycle? by Diana Hill, phD

Excerpts:

October 2021

KEY POINTS

• • When it comes to big aspirations, it’s beneficial to reflect on the good within more minor accomplishments along the way.
  • Often people’s “feel better when” comes from their mind’s capacity to imagine what will happen in the future.
  • Know when good enough is good enough. Try not to waste energy on maximizing things that don’t matter.
    

    ---

    We are often caught in the trap of believing that we’ll feel better at some point in the future when life circumstances change. Clients will frequently tell me (and I’ve told myself):

“I’ll feel better when…”:

I’m done with school
I find my life’s partner
I have a baby
I’m less anxious
I lose weight
This work project is done
The pandemic is over

But what happens when that future never arrives, or if it does, you’ve already moved on to the next “I’ll feel better when?”

Emma the Ex Friend, Part 2 (I Won’t Play the Codependent or Rescuer Anymore)

Emma the Ex Friend, Part 2 (I Won’t Play the Codependent or Rescuer Anymore – Some Life Lessons Learned)

January 27, 2022

All names have been changed below.
I have also omitted or changed identifying details as much as possible so as to keep people’s identities anonymous.

---

Point 1 (Intro)

This post will stand to correct some of the false comments made to or about me by the crackpot, who calls herself “Donna Hazel,” (🤡) that visited this blog about two months ago, who has no understanding of what transpired between myself and my ex friend “Emma” (not her real name) over a several year period
((Link): Re the Crackpot Part 1 and (Link): Re the Crackpot Part 2),
and also to correct some of what Emma told me – some of which I briefly covered in this previous post, (Link): “Emma Responds“

Emma did not want “emotional support” from me, though she framed it that way to me. As time went by, it became apparent to me that she was seeking pity and validation for her victim mentality.

“Emotional support” is not the same thing as pity. Enabling someone in their victimhood mentality is not healthy for that person.

I cannot save someone who does not want to be saved, nor is it my job to save someone else; each person has to take action to get help for himself or herself.

This lady approached me for friendship after she found my blog and my social media; I did not approach her.

This “Emma” person didn’t want a normal or healthy friendship, but rather, a relationship based on bonding over negativity, and further, one has to support her in her belief that she is a helpless victim in life. If you’re not willing to do that, she has no use for you.

The relationship I had with her felt transactional in nature at times – so long as I supported her self pity and agreed with her in some fashion that she’s a helpless victim and that life is always terrible…..
She was fine with things, and she found me useful – but once I began gently asking her to take more responsibility in her life, or ask her to consider if maybe doing so would help (something I did for myself, which helped me quite a bit), she quickly became angry and wanted me to defriend her on social media.

That is not normal behavior, nor the behavior of someone who wanted to have a normal friendship. She didn’t value me for me, but rather, what I had previously been doing for her – which was, feeling sorry for her. She was looking to have her negative and self pitying attitude validated by me – that was my value and my role.

Preface.

Years ago, when I was still very codependent (because my mother raised me to be codependent), I had a boss at a full time job who was a bully, and this woman boss, Lilly (not her real name), used to make my work life hell.

For the first year to year and a half of Lilly’s workplace abuse of me, I did not defend myself from her abuse in any way.

I did not so much as even politely verbally hold Lilly the boss accountable for her abuse of me, because I was raised by my mother and the evangelical, Southern Baptist culture I was raised in, never to be assertive.

Speaking up and having boundaries was considered by my mother, and the faith I was raised in, to be inappropriate, unloving, unfeminine, and selfish.

I also had extreme anxiety about confrontations for years.  I usually would not stand up to bullies because I was afraid of retaliation from them.

So I endured my supervisor’s workplace harassment for about a year, or a bit over a year, in silence. No push-back from me.

In the second year of the workplace abuse, when my anger finally out-weighed my fear of the boss, fear of confrontation, and whatever codependent brainwashing from my mother and the Christian faith, I began standing up to Lilly the abusive boss.

I was never mean-spirited, cruel, or unprofessional when confronting Lilly, but I did begin firmly yet politely pushing back and letting Lilly the abusive boss know I did not approve of her mistreatment of me.

Lilly did not like me finally standing up for myself, and she began depicting me as though I were the problematic one.

Lilly began acting as though I was in the wrong and she was the innocent victim – all because I merely finally began practicing normal, healthy boundaries with her, rather than sitting there quietly and enduring her bullying behavior towards me.

Once I began standing up to her, Lilly began speaking about me in front of others in the office as though I were a “trouble maker” who “has problems with authority figures.”

The truth is, I stopped being a doormat with Lilly – I had not become a “trouble maker” or a “problem employee” and so on, but she deceitfully began spinning my new-found boundaries and courage to confront her as me being a bad worker or a bad person.

I found myself in the same situation as that one a couple of months ago, when I did a blog post about how clinically depressed people can make decisions for themselves, and they can make choices.

I mentioned ex-friend “Emma” (not her real name) as one example of that situation in that post.

I was then torn apart by a visitor to this blog calling herself “Donna Hazel” (🤡) in the comments under that blog post (and in other replies that I did not allow to be published to this blog),
where Donna Hazel acted as though Emma is a poor, innocent, widdle lamb of a victim, and I was the villain and the “great big meanie” who was just being so heartless to Emma, and I was taking advantage of poor, poor, put-upon Emma.

Not only was that all untrue and a very weird mischaracterization of the post I had written, but the actual situation was flipped around.
(I will explain what I mean by that as this post progresses.)

Life Lessons After Recovering from Codependency – I Can’t Save You, and I No Longer Want To

Life Lessons After Recovering from Codependency – I Can’t Save You, and I No Longer Want To

This will be a repetitive, somewhat rambling (and very long) post, because this involves a huge pet peeve of mine.

I very much resent any one lecturing me or accusing me of not being compassionate enough, or not giving enough “emotional support” in some situation or another, when they refuse to factor in what I’ve been through in my life and why I now do what I do.

I refer to this highly pertinent fact:

I spent over 3 decades of my life being very codependent. I was pathologically un-selfish, giving, and supportive of and to others to my own detriment.

It’s absolutely perverse and demonic to accuse a recovering codependent (such as myself), who has finally begun developing healthy boundaries, of being selfish or not being “giving” enough in relationships.

You’re accusing a former codependent of the very opposite things she spent decades doing, behaviors which caused her setbacks and harm in life.

I have since learned what a huge mistake that is (to live codependently), how toxic it is, and how much harm it caused me over my life.

I am now more picky and choosy about when, to whom, for how long, and under what conditions, I will grant other people non-judgmental emotional support or other types of help.

And it took me into middle age to figure out – just upon thinking things over, noticing patterns in my relationships, and from reading some books by psychologists  – that a big reason I kept attracting so many damaged, depressed, hurting, self absorbed, strange, or angry people is precisely because I was so giving, loving, and I didn’t put limits on anyone in any fashion.

For years, I was a very shy, people pleasing, undemanding, compliant, kind hearted, sensitive, caring person, and by my late 20s to early 30s and older, I kept wondering why when I did finally make a friend or two, that I seldom attracted normal, mentally healthy, fun, well-adjusted individuals who would meet my needs in return.

Attracting Disturbed, Angry, or Miserable People for Over 35 Years

Instead, I kept attracting selfish people, abusers, bullies, constant complainers, pessimists, self absorbed people, people with personality disorders, or people who were depressed, and while I was giving all these people a lot of my time, attention,  affection, emotional support (or sometimes money), they never thanked me for this, and the vast majority never met my needs in return.

It took me years to figure out why I kept attracting so many mal-adjusted or emotionally injured people into my life.

The ‘Paralyzed in a Wheelchair’ Analogy – Regarding: Clinical Depression – Also: The Cynical or Victimhood Filter

The ‘Paralyzed in a Wheelchair’ Analogy – Regarding: Clinical Depression – Also: The Cynical or Victimhood Filter

How accurate is it for the clinically depressed, or those who think they are allies to them, to use the “paralyzed and in a wheel chair” comparison to explain how supposedly helpless and incapable the depressed are? I will discuss this topic as this post goes on.

I was diagnosed with clinical depression at a young age by a psychiatrist, and proceeded to see three more psychiatrists until my early 30s.

(I had to move often, which is why I had to change psychiatrists – as to my next- to- last psychiatrist, I dropped her for a new one, because she was terse and grouchy, which I did not like.)

During those years, and even now, I do see a lot of people who have never had depression and who don’t understand what it is.

A lot of mentally healthy people think that clinical depression is the same as regular sadness, and they believe most people can “snap out of” every day, regular sadness within hours or days – which I’d say is probably true.

When people have clinical depression, however, they can’t just “snap out of it” in days or weeks.

Depression doesn’t just dissipate on its own over time, and depression is not always triggered by a single, identifiable event.

If you’d like more background about clinical depression, what it is, how it can be treated, and some information about  its symptoms, I invite you to visit this page about it at the Mayo Clinic:

(Link, from Mayo Clinic): What does the term “clinical depression” mean?

As for me, clinical depression (as well as suicidal impulses) run on both sides of my family, and anxiety is on the maternal side, so I take it that it’s genetic in my case, and not purely situational or due to personal shortcomings, sin, etc.

I lived with clinical depression for 35+ years.

I saw psychiatrists and took doctor prescribed anti-depressant medications for it, which never helped.

During the years I was a devout Christian (I’m not altogether sure what my spiritual beliefs are now), I prayed, read the Bible, had faith God would heal me of the depression and anxiety, but God never did.

Doing good deeds for others, attending church, etc, and so on, never did take the depression or anxiety away.

A Bike Accident Left This ER Doctor Paralyzed. Now He’s Back At Work by J. Hobson and C. Bentley

A Bike Accident Left This ER Doctor Paralyzed. Now He’s Back At Work by J. Hobson and C. Bentley

The guy in the story below says he “doesn’t like the idea of being called an “inspiration” by people who hear his story.”

Well, I’m sorry, but yes, I find his story inspirational, or at least instructional.

(Link): A Bike Accident Left This ER Doctor Paralyzed. Now He’s Back At Work

June 2018
by Jeremy Hobson, Chris Bentley

…It’s a typical doctor-patient interaction, but one thing is unusual: Both the patient and the doctor are in wheelchairs — the patient because he’s visiting the emergency room, and the doctor because of a spinal cord injury.

Grossman, 37, lost the use of his legs less than a year ago, and he’s already back at work.

The New Normal

Grossman’s memories of the accident that left him paraplegic are fuzzy. He was mountain biking with his friend Ron last September in the Cuyuna trail system of northern Minnesota.

[He had a biking accident]

…He was airlifted to North Memorial Medical Center in Minneapolis, where he learned he had suffered a spinal cord injury between his seventh and eighth thoracic vertebrae.

Being Bitter and Blaming Others Can Ruin Your Health by Elizabeth Cohen

Being Bitter and Blaming Others Can Ruin Your Health by Elizabeth Cohen

(Link): Being Bitter and Blaming Others Can Ruin Your Health

Excerpts:

August 2011
By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent

…Feeling persistently resentful toward other people — the boss who fired you, the spouse who cheated on you — can indeed affect your physical health, according to a new book, “Embitterment: Societal, psychological, and clinical perspectives.”

In fact, the negative power of feeling bitter is so strong that the authors call for the creation of a new diagnosis called PTED, or post-traumatic embitterment disorder, to describe people who can’t forgive others’ transgressions against them.

“Bitterness is a nasty solvent that erodes every good thing,” says Dr. Charles Raison, associate professor of psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine and CNNHealth’s Mental Health expert doctor.

What bitterness does to your body

Feeling bitter interferes with the body’s hormonal and immune systems, according to Carsten Wrosch, an associate professor of psychology at Concordia University in Montreal and an author of a chapter in the new book.

Studies have shown that bitter, angry people have higher blood pressure and heart rate and are more likely to die of heart disease and other illnesses.