Solo travel is the besssst. I tried it tentatively shortly after my divorce, too, and it was a great experience. It’s really helpful in that you get to take some time to focus on being comfortable with who you are as a person (not someone’s spouse or whatever but who YOU are.) No work or other responsibilities to distract you, so you do a lot of self-discovery while exploring a new place.

I don’t have a lot of travel tips because I have always been not really able to afford international travel except for very recently, but I am so proud of you for stepping out of your comfort zone and taking that step. Now you get to start the countdown and planning for your comfort and safety during travel. I personally love that part, but I know not everyone does.

I’m sorry you’re stuck in this situation for a while. Yoga and meditation are definitely a good start but I feel like adding either journaling your TRUE feelings about what is going on or talking with a therapist or trusted friend about the things you really need to get off your chest–because leaving all these things you feel you need to say unsaid is obviously making your life harder.

Yes, I started working on my grief in therapy about a year ago, and I have a friend who is a counselor, along with some close friends and family I talk about my mental health with often. I have also been working toward being more of an actual Buddhist than an occasional meditator as this year progressed. It has been very helpful in understanding the fact that life is not easy but beautiful anyway.

I hadn’t heard of The Blue Zones, but now you have me curious. I will look into them. I am always looking for new ways to up my mental health game.

Thank you so much.

I agree with the part of you that says it’s self-care. We all need downtime, especially if it’s been a long time since you’ve been able to enjoy a whole day or real rest.

I just called that number and it was a9dorable! Sweet life advice and pep talks from little kids. I loved it!

When I used to work outside my house, I tried to do something every day that would really make someone’s day like that, too. Giving extra compliments or helping with something I knew someone was struggling with but probably wouldn’t ask for anyone to help them. When you work in a healthcare setting, it’s easy to find opportunities to do those things. Now I’m always at home and there are only so many things I can do. That’s why I spend all my time trying to get people to talk to me on Lemmy.

I agree! Some of my favorite things are petting dogs, smelling babies, and making comfort food in vintage or good-eough-quality-to-pass-down-to-my-chidren cook or bakeware. Making the most of the things I already have in my life always gives me a little boost.

Our rules prohibit intentionally annoying, mocking, or harassing other members. Please find a way to make your point without name-calling.

Sometimes I feel like we should change the rules in the sidebar to just that.

I’m so sorry you’re stuck in this limbo I’m glad you’re here and venting when you feel like letting off some steam. I hope you are taking care of your physical and mental health to the best of your ability,

I know not everyone can afford therapy, but it really seems like you may benefit from having someone to talk to who would have your back a bit–someone to help you bring out the person you are outside of all the noise–the pain, bad relationship;p, being out of work-- just who you are at the core without all the things pulling you away from your center. I feel like that might be someone who is a lot of fun to hang out with.

If you can’t make therapy happen, please find a way to work mindfulness and meditation into your life. It can be done for free (my favorite price) and if you find the right book, website or podcast that is inspiring to you, it can change your life. Honestly, my life is not a lot better than yours, but I have a lot more fun because I choose to every day. Some days it’s not that easy but it’s possible. If you want to know more about fee resources, I can point you in the right direction;

My mind is similar, and my process is just to let the thousands of concurrent thoughts come, put that on a mental to-do list to sort out later and move back to what I was trying to focus on, to begin with. No need to process it all right away. You can think about why you had those particular thoughts when you are not meditating, (if it’s something practical like “man I really need to vacuum this floor” you can take care of it), or the next time you meditate you can actually focus on the emotions or maybe memories that popped up if they are important to you to sort out.

I use guided meditations through a podcast sometimes, and I also just do some slow/even breathing and/or walking while focusing on my body and breath. I find it helpful to repeat some sort of mantra or phrase in my head at first in order to get me started when there is no podcast going.

Please keep all replies on topic. People should be able to have a discussion about the term without devolving into personal attacks.

I’m sorry you’re finding job hunting so difficult. I tried for about six months to market my services as sort of a consultant/assistant and though I knew I was more than capable of doing the work, finding someone to actually hire me was very difficult. I ended up taking a job with an agency that did the same work in order to bridge the gap a bit, and after I was done with that job I returned to traditional work because I decided that the “marketing yourself” part of freelance work was not for me. It’s difficult to even find a job because there are so many applicants for every position. For a traditional in-person job it’s not so complicated.

When I decided to go back to work I used a temp agency. I think it’s a good idea for you, as long as the person who is working with you understands your limitations. Here’s hoping they have something available that is flexible and has fun and understanding people at the worksite. It sounds like you could use a win, and a confidence boost.

Yes, it’s a little confusing when you read the instructions, but if you type a few letters of your home state or country in the search bar, it will start searching and then you can click the right state/country, and see the list of resources. It had quite a few in the few places I tried out just to see how it worked.

I sort of felt the same about my parents before I really did some reflection on who they were as children and how they were raised vs. how they raised me, and even how the generations before them handed down patterns of abuse that they worked hard to stop in their parenting of my siblings and me. It doesn’t mean that everything was perfect. They still made mistakes that I can see as an adult who has raised children, but they also didn’t have the benefit of all the knowledge I have now due to advancements in psychology and the decent education they didn’t afford themselves because they were very young parents, but made sure I got.

Now, when I look back at who they were as people and parents I can see that they were not the best role models I could have asked for, but good people in their hearts, who tried to make sure I didn’t suffer the same sort of childhood they had. My childhood was still not easy but it was better than what they had experienced because all they had to learn from were negative role models, too. We’re all doing the best we can with the information we have.

If you try to frame it as everyone making small bits of incremental progress away from those bad role models with each generational shift, you can see the progress you have made, and that your parents made from their bad role models.

I am glad you will be going to therapy soon. Journaling and meditation will probably help you to work out your thoughts on tough topics while you are waiting, too. I started a therapy journal while I was waiting, where I wrote down what had happened that had messed up my life enough that I needed therapy. It was helpful for both me and my counselor.

I enjoyed this speaker and the different take on slowing our anxious thoughts down. I’m glad I found it later at night, when I don’t have time to fall into a twelve-hour Ted Talk rabbit hole like I usually do when I come across one of these videos. Thanks for posting!

It sounds like maybe it’s time for you to see a pain specialist if you haven’t already done that. Mine are amazing. They help me manage my meds and any follow-up testing I need, and also work on hunting down the cause of any new or existing issues that could be managed by them. It’s so frustrating when it feels like your doctor doesn’t understand your pain, and a good pain specialist will not make you feel like that.

I have read some articles from chronic pain specialists saying that it’s possible what your doctor is saying has some truth to it, because long-lasting pain can cause changes to your brain that make you feel pain even after your original injuries have healed. I thought that was happening to me, and my doctors probably did too, but I had nerve testing done and it turned out I have a pinched nerve that hasn’t been addressed and it is somehow causing my body to experience pain at much higher levels than it should, and I tense up and become a ball of muscle spasms. The human body is so strange.

We have a lot of chronic pain sufferers in this community. You are welcome to join us. It’s definitely difficult to manage and detrimental to your mental health, but I don’t think your doctor was saying you are crazy. I think they were saying your brain is causing you to feel pain that you shouldn’t technically be feeling so strongly anymore, so the problem is still real, but neurological now.

That was a good one. I married my husband even though he was blatantly honest like that when he got nervous or stressed out at first. Once I realized he probably has some undiagnosed ADHD and talked with him about it he at least became more aware that not everyone blurts out their thoughts like that. Now we joke that he is just an out-loud thinker and make space for it in the relationship. He only has to work on masking it at work if he wants to become friends with people there, and not have people angry that he said something critical of them all the time, not with me. I can ignore offhand remarks that are just him thinking out loud for the most part, or ask him if he really meant to say that or was just processing an emotion and maybe we should revisit this later.

I have basically the opposite issue. I have social anxiety and constantly overthink every interaction Even on the internet I agonize before hitting the post button about whether people really want me to say that. I retreat inside my head to process my big emotions before I present them to anyone, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to just blurt them out all the time with no filter. Not that I am completely immune to that, but when I do I am horribly embarrassed by it. It seems like my own personal version of Hell to not really have the safety of processing things inside my head before I blurt them out. I think that’s why I can have sympathy for him when he says something that seems mean or critical. It’s not like I never have critical thoughts of my husband, I just have the safety of only letting them out when I feel it’s important to do so.

It’s tough when you have little ones in the house and everyone tends to get sick in batches. Make sure you are getting as much rest as possible and disinfecting the house as much as possible so you won’t all pass the same illness around over and over.

I appreciate it.