Hmmm been reading a lot of other blogs which can leave me feeling I have nothing much of note to say. However.
Things are still good with me and mine. I had a phone call from my son last weekend. It was great to hear from him, he seems to be doing well. It rained solidly all last weekend but that was an excuse to cosy up to the One I Love.
I’m blogging from work, which I am sort of enjoying again after going through a ‘bored’ phase. It’s World Mental Health Day today by the way. There’s info about our charity down in the local shopping mall…we are ‘charity of the year’ down there you see.
This evening I have been invited out for a meal to celebrate someone’s ‘Clean Time’ (anniversary of when they gave up drugs). A Chinese in Soho (the restaurant not the person).
Tomorrow I’m going to Forum 3, a charity and volunteering event at the Business Design Centre in Islington. I went last year, there are loads of stalls and some very interesting seminars.
The other day I dragged myself halfway across London to a support group meeting of what used to be called the Manic Depressive Fellowship. I really wished I hadn’t bothered! There was only five of us there and three of those had very little to say and the fourth far too much, alas! I don’t think of myself as a wildly talkative person yet I felt garrulous in the extreme compared to these others. But it isn’t worth going all the way to Gospel Oak to listen to the sound of my own voice.
I am struggling with my affiliation to Overeaters Anonymous, but have decided to go along next Tuesday to my local meeting, having missed the last two weeks. Unless I am inspired in a different direction I will ’share’ with them that I am dropping out for the time being and therefore cannot continue to be Group Representative. A few complex reasons as to why. I could maybe sum up by saying I am not convinced I have an eating disorder or even an addiction to food or compulsive eating. Even if I do maybe it’s not severe enough to warrant being in OA. However I have some guilty and conflicted feelings about saying this, so may well change my mind. There’s also the fact that my mental health problem impacts on my life far more than any food issues and yet when I go to OA I feel I have to dredge up something concerning food, instead of just talking freely about my mood, depression and how I feel.
Also complicated by my absolute passion for food and cooking! Many people in OA have a tortured and torturous relationship with food, whereas I love it. I sometimes think my eating issues such as they are stem purely from greed. Hmm. What to do.
Well, it’s ten to five and time to pack up. Love you dear readers.
3 comments
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October 18, 2008 at 2:28 pm
DeeDee Ramona
Yes the problem I find with bipolar groups is that there is always at least 1 person there who is manic or hypomanic and they talk non-stop. I found depression alliance’s groups very helpful. Quite a few bipolar people go to them.
October 21, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Paul
I think the bottom line with support groups is that you’re able to get something out of them to improve your life.
I go to a support group where we can sort ourselves by mood so the more talkative members can attend a small group where the other members are similarly garrulous.
As to whether or not we think a specific diagnostic label is appropriate for us, I think we need to evaluate whether we have the symptoms and whether or not they’re causing us distress and dysfunction in our lives to the point we’d like to make changes.
Denial of negative circumstances can certainly be part of what we might need to address, though by the same token we shouldn’t second guess ourselves too much. If we have a set of friends we can trust, they can often help us to sort through what’s going on when things may appear murky to us.
I hope you’re enjoying yourself,
Paul
November 4, 2008 at 9:50 am
beetrootsoup
Thank you Dee Dee. It’s good to know it’s not just me and that’s a useful piece of advice about the Depression Alliance.
Thanks Paul, great to hear from you again, as ever the voice of reason, balance and common sense!
A few weeks have wore on since I wrote this post (sorry for the delay in replying to your comments) and I am now quite happily attending OA again, while giving the Bipolar Support group a miss for the time being. I also have some good friends both in and out of the Fellowship (as it is so cultishly known!;))