Where will you be this time next year?

[Cleo]

I know from the manner I've squandered my life, how quickly the years and decades go by.

Where do you think you'll be this time next year? Is your SA, or other illnesses better controlled? To use a cliche, can you see light at the end of the tunnel. Better some days than others, I know. But overall, are things better for you as you mature?

[Progress]

Yes much better, but it's been a rollercoaster journey. The thought of my younger years is horrific.
Next year I will be blissfully happy with a wonderful girlfriend and lots of plans.

[Mr. Nobody]

it's really hard to say where I'll be next year,

will I even be here ?

I think my recovery from SA etc. is going quite well, but I also seem to be precariously balancing on a knife-edge too sometimes and can be quite quick to throw the towel in,..

If I'm not silly and don't throw it all away, I'd hope to be quite happy and healthy by next year, and maybe SA will be a distant memory ?

[mike]

I don't know, sometimes I think I am going around in circles and not getting anywhere.

[Toxic]

knowing me

in the exact same spot doing the exact same thing and still hating my life but unmotivated to change

..well at least i got my honesty

[Sea]

Barring some kind of miracle, I expect my life will be much the same as now this time next year. I really REALLY hope that I have found a house, moved in and have my own space again though. Apart from that, I don't expect my SA situation to change/improve and I don't expect life in general to change/improve. I will probably still be sitting around waiting for my life to start...

[Last Chance Undies]

I stopped guessing at such things Cleo. This time last year, my mum was still alive. Just when you think you have life sussed, it throws a curve ball your way.

Being alive would be good.

[Mina]

Originally Posted by Last Chance Undies

I stopped guessing at such things Cleo. This time last year, my mum was still alive. Just when you think you have life sussed, it throws a curve ball your way.

Being alive would be good.

Last Chance Undies I'm sorry to hear about your mum.

Your post explains how I feel about recovery from my anxiety in a way. I want to feel like when the unexpected happens I can cope better than I do now. These days, even little thing that go wrong seem overwhelming to me and I want to stay at home and hide. So it would be nice to feel more like I cope with things in 12 months time. I'll also be at the end of my 2nd year at uni and hopefully own a car!

I'm an optimist at heart

[Cleo]

It was marvellous to read Progress' optimistic post, and I must confess to being a tad envious that he is, as they say, in a good place. There were one or two others as well.

I must admit LCU's post struck a responsive cord, but she seems so altogether that I feel any curved ball will, eventually, be dealt with.

It is so easy, as my doctor once said to me, to allow the days to become weeks and years, etc., I thought it might be a thread that could, hopefully, motivate those, like me, stuck in the same groove into positive action. I can't bear the thought of being here at Christmas, which I love for some inexplicable reason. I never ever enjoy the day itself: total anticlimax. So the idea of being in this place for another year is unbearable. Today is unbearably hot, but some days you can almost smell autumn coming along and it makes me stop and think that I must do something. Loneliness, isolation can almost become a perverse pleasure. Then I think, what's the point and endless excuses as to why I shouldn't bother creep in: I'm too old; wherever I go no one will like me. And so it goes on but do we really want to exist in a vacuum, a tunnel, and not try to get out of it?

Now I've bored you with all that, try and find somewhere cool and sleep. Another day gone.

[Progress]

Originally Posted by Cleo

It was marvellous to read Progress' optimistic post, and I must confess to being a tad envious that he is, as they say, in a good place. There were one or two others as well.

I'm often loath to post positive things because I know it can make many feel bitter and jealous (I know that because I do it myself). But I think it's wrong to keep quiet all the time. I hope it's encouraging to some.
I'd say I'm in an OK place. I wrote it highly optimistically because I think it's good to try and talk up the positive side sometimes. I still have an underlying negativity but try and give it a good kicking when it rears it's ugly head. I'm trying to brain-wash myself into positive thinking.


The past is gone. It may be littered with bad times and failure but that does not mean the future will be the same. Think positive that it can be better and there's a good chance it will.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Progress

I'm often loath to post positive things because I know it can make many feel bitter and jealous (I know that because I do it myself). But I think it's wrong to keep quiet all the time. I hope it's encouraging to some.
I'd say I'm in an OK place. I wrote it highly optimistically because I think it's good to try and talk up the positive side sometimes. I still have an underlying negativity but try and give it a good kicking when it rears it's ugly head. I'm trying to brain-wash myself into positive thinking.


The past is gone. It may be littered with bad times and failure but that does not mean the future will be the same. Think positive that it can be better and there's a good chance it will.

I think it is genuinely encouraging to read of someone on the upward path.

I agree with Mark 101, that we are all different and what might help someone will not another. I suppose there are those that enthuse like 'Born Again Christians, I am not being intentionally offensive here - what floats your boat and all that - could make you sceptical but not your post, or some of the others I've read.

Long may it continue for you.

[Progress]

Thanks mark and cleo.
I feel slightly embarrassed for some reason. Just realised that maybe I'm uncomfortable with people saying nice things to me.

[Neotrinity]

Don't know, hope to have made at least one GENUINE friend by then, but I doubtless had the same target last year!

[Last Chance Undies]

Originally Posted by Mina

Last Chance Undies I'm sorry to hear about your mum.

Your post explains how I feel about recovery from my anxiety in a way. I want to feel like when the unexpected happens I can cope better than I do now.

Thanks Mina,

I would say that in the long run, my experience on how to cope with anxiety will help me but I have to admit that initially, I fell apart. In my opinion, nothing can prepare you for the moment that you know you've lost someone you love, whether you know that moment is coming or not and I've experienced both with my parents.

Originally Posted by Mina

These days, even little thing that go wrong seem overwhelming to me and I want to stay at home and hide. So it would be nice to feel more like I cope with things in 12 months time. I'll also be at the end of my 2nd year at uni and hopefully own a car!

I'm an optimist at heart

When you are in a sensitized state, the most trivial of things really do seem like major issues. This is all part of anxiety but you have a goal (end of uni and a car) and you are optimistic. If it was me, everytime I wanted to hide, I would imagine myself in my car with my dangly dice and the glove compartment full of 80s music that I can inflict on society hehe. I will never achieve that goal by hiding away. I have to act on it.

All the very best

[Cleo]

...nothing can prepare you for the moment that you know you've lost someone you love, whether you know that moment is coming or not and I've experienced both with my parents.


This will shock you, but I've never been able to feel that loss of anyone...except perhaps when I was very young. Certainly not of my parents. I remember my mother saying, 'You will go to my funeral won't you, or else it will look bad.'

So perhaps reacting in the manner in which you did, LCU, was normal in itself, especially if it was unexpected and relatively young. It is not being able to feel that is troublesome - or should be.

[Last Chance Undies]

Originally Posted by Progress

I'm often loath to post positive things because I know it can make many feel bitter and jealous (I know that because I do it myself). But I think it's wrong to keep quiet all the time. I hope it's encouraging to some.
I'd say I'm in an OK place. I wrote it highly optimistically because I think it's good to try and talk up the positive side sometimes. I still have an underlying negativity but try and give it a good kicking when it rears it's ugly head. I'm trying to brain-wash myself into positive thinking.


The past is gone. It may be littered with bad times and failure but that does not mean the future will be the same. Think positive that it can be better and there's a good chance it will.

Progress, you're a man after my own heart...

I love reading your posts and I get what you say because I feel embarrassed sometimes.

I know that my posts will annoy the shit out of some people. I can imagine some most saying 'Oh when will this annoying bint shut the hell up' but I know that there are a few who get something out of my posts and that makes every second that I spend on them worthwhile. I learned more from people who have suffered from anxiety and depression than from any 'professional'. In making my posts, I am also fending off my own negativity. I get days when I just want to stick my head back under the duvet and say feck it but I can't because I have a little boy who needs me. Then I log on here and I see people who are suffering like I've suffered and I want to try and help them. I went through the long period of self pity and rejecting the inevitable because it meant that I had to do something that I feared. I got really annoyed at people who kept telling me 'You've got to go out, you've got to go through the door' I clung to my comfort zone like a child clings to it's blanket and each day that I convinced myself that I was better off where I was, I slipped down a little further until I couldn't see any way out. Unfortunately, the way out involves facing what you fear. I think that each and every one of us on here knows that, deep down. If it annoys people to hear it, it's because at some level, they know it's the truth. Yes. there are many ways of doing it but they ALL have the same goal. Facing what you fear and learning to control your anxiety instead of your anxiety controlling you.

Keep posting your stuff Progress, and I will keep posting mine. Lets see who can get iggied the most!

[Last Chance Undies]

Originally Posted by Cleo

...nothing can prepare you for the moment that you know you've lost someone you love, whether you know that moment is coming or not and I've experienced both with my parents.


This will shock you, but I've never been able to feel that loss of anyone...except perhaps when I was very young. Certainly not of my parents. I remember my mother saying, 'You will go to my funeral won't you, or else it will look bad.'

So perhaps reacting in the manner in which you did, LCU, was normal in itself, especially if it was unexpected and relatively young. It is not being able to feel that is troublesome - or should be.

Forgive me Cleo, I want to reply to this post but I'm being ousted out the door to go to Costa Del Blackpool for the day by an excitable 3 year old...I will return. I hope you have a good day too.

[Cleo]

The three-year-old has the right idea. Get mummy way from the PC, laptop whatever and enjoy the fresh air and, hopefully, a nice breeze. Usually it is cool in my house and there is always a breeze but not today. Everything is still, including the anals. I am 'glowing', as they say.

I know that a lot of people get so much from your posts and Kathy Burks'e no nonsense face always seems to go with whatever you are saying.

[Mina]

Originally Posted by Last Chance Undies

Thanks Mina,

I would say that in the long run, my experience on how to cope with anxiety will help me but I have to admit that initially, I fell apart. In my opinion, nothing can prepare you for the moment that you know you've lost someone you love, whether you know that moment is coming or not and I've experienced both with my parents.

When you are in a sensitized state, the most trivial of things really do seem like major issues. This is all part of anxiety but you have a goal (end of uni and a car) and you are optimistic. If it was me, everytime I wanted to hide, I would imagine myself in my car with my dangly dice and the glove compartment full of 80s music that I can inflict on society hehe. I will never achieve that goal by hiding away. I have to act on it.

All the very best

Thanks for your kind response LCU

I agree that even when I have recovered from my anxiety that it wont prepare me for the loss of loved one, grief is something even healthy people cannot prepare for.
It's the trivial events of life really that cause me to feel the most useless at the moment - such as problems are work or a letter from the bank. My inability to cope with life's little stresses is what really gets me down about my anxiety, and that's what I want to improve on first

I love the image of me driving my car and blasting the tunes, but not 80's music I have a phobia of 80's music and fashion

I love reading posts by you and Progress, you are both insightful and are honest with people about what needs to be done to improve SA - I certainly don't feel bitter when I read about someone who's doing well, although as Mark said, I'm suspicious of people declaring themselves cured by doing/reading one thing - it's a work in progress for each of us often 2 steps forward then 1 back over a fairly long time scale.

[Last Chance Undies]

Originally Posted by Mina

I love the image of me driving my car and blasting the tunes, but not 80's music I have a phobia of 80's music and fashion

A phobia of 80s music and fashion?

Really?

Can't think why.

Originally Posted by Mina

I certainly don't feel bitter when I read about someone who's doing well, although as Mark said, I'm suspicious of people declaring themselves cured by doing/reading one thing - it's a work in progress for each of us often 2 steps forward then 1 back over a fairly long time scale.

Well 'cured' cetainly doesn't apply to me Mina. I can only ever say that I learned to control my anxiety in order to function in society. As you say, it's work in progress, all the time. But I would rather keep working away than let it control me again.

[Last Chance Undies]

Originally Posted by Cleo

The three-year-old has the right idea. Get mummy way from the PC, laptop whatever and enjoy the fresh air and, hopefully, a nice breeze.

Er,

T'other half was a bit optimistic when he said a few light showers, turning scorchio later. Not sure what forecast he was looking at...

Costa Del Blackers~ Northos Pieros



Spent a small fortune in the slots, fended some seagulls offa me chips, walked in the Tower and straight back out again after seeing the admission prices, fended off a few Gypsies and their lucky heather, fended off a few people and their flyers and was back home for teatime.

On the plus side, little man loved it and I was warm in my cardi so all was not lost.

Originally Posted by Cleo

I know that a lot of people get so much from your posts and Kathy Burks'e no nonsense face always seems to go with whatever you are saying.

Thanks for that Cleo.

[Mina]

Originally Posted by Last Chance Undies

A phobia of 80s music and fashion?

Really?

Can't think why.

Noooooooooooooooo! it's making me feel ill!

[T]

Prob doing the same thing as i'm doing now but i've made a slight improvement for the better of late... like going out without a hat on... maybe not be a biggie for some but i always wear hats no matter where i go and went on a date a few weeks back which i prob wouldn't of done last year... so yeah maybe it will be different who knows but i'm feeling like my life is going the right way for a change...

[wowser]

Sitting in a hot tub in an exotic location with a sexy man & a glass of bubbly with any luck :D

[DarenA37]

I really can't look that far forward

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Last Chance Undies

Er,

T'other half was a bit optimistic when he said a few light showers, turning scorchio later. Not sure what forecast he was looking at...

Costa Del Blackers~ Northos Pieros



Spent a small fortune in the slots, fended some seagulls offa me chips, walked in the Tower and straight back out again after seeing the admission prices, fended off a few Gypsies and their lucky heather, fended off a few people and their flyers and was back home for teatime.

On the plus side, little man loved it and I was warm in my cardi so all was not lost.



Thanks for that Cleo.

You should be a writer. Perhaps you are!

Loved the picture. I'm hungry for the sea in any mood.

Sorry it didn't work out how you would have liked - it was blistering hot here - just to rub it in.

Those seagulls were plucky to attack Kathy Burke. How did the 'little man' enjoy it, bearing in mind he was unaware of your near bankruptcy on machines.

Neighbour at the back, who has always tried to keep me sweet but no genuine liking there, says I should 'move on': talk to the neighbours, 'just an hello', but don't get involved in a conversation!! Its not her life they've managed to ruin. Has arranged for a friend of hers to take my conifer hedge up and replant another for £200.00. I take it that just the labour. He will then take me to a nearby garden centre to choose something 'nature friendly'. Which is kind of her, I suppose, but I can't be ar..., as they say. My hedge, which I have tended with TLC since it was a stripling, and pruned into small bushes linked together, is virtually dead. I like to think it is just a virus that has caused this. I said I was thinking of moving. To my amazement this seemed to bother her. Possibly the idea of youngsters, with loud music, etc. plus I am good with the cats, was a worst prospect.

She then told me about the awful neighbours she had experienced until it almost became a farcical competition between us as to who had the worst. Admittedly, it could be worst. They do seemed to have eased off. It's now as good as it gets. I would like to to be able to walk about with my guts doing a competition in knot tying and have some kind of social life. In fairness to myself, I think the idea of communicating with me, even on a superficial level, would horrify them as much as does me. There is only so much that is forgiveable from my view point.

I have bored you with this as I know I will get sensible advice, like or lump it, from you.

Cheers

[Vanessa]

Originally Posted by wowser

Sitting in a hot tub in an exotic location with a sexy man & a glass of bubbly with any luck :D

Ahhh that sounds nice..

Personally I have a hard time looking forward. It would be funny to see old posts, blogs, journals etc. speculating on my own future.

In a year I might be in this country or elsewhere. might be with BF or not, due to our own separation or being kept apart by borders. Might be working a well paying job or slaving away as a customer service grunt somewhere. Might be living alone still, or with mum. I'm not yet settled in life and I have no plans, so it's hard to predict things.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Charlotte87

In a years time, I will hopefully be living in Cornwall with my lovely partner, after selling the house (provided we get the right amount for it)
My partner will be a Grandad for the first time by then, by his son and his girlfriend.
My little business will be making more money (hopefully!)
Hopefully, how I feel, will be a lot less disabling and I will no longer be on this site, because I feel a lot better
I need more reality and less virtual, and hopefully that will happen. I find that sometimes, sitting tapping away on a keyboard is depressing and lonely, and I have noticed I feel a lot better when I am not online so much, probably because I tend to do more.

I am very envious of your positivity and hopeful future. I understand too, how you feel about being on the site. Although, at the moment, I find it a lifeline! I know that you used to be on here a lot more than you have recently. Lost701 - I love these names - has disappeared completely from the site. I know that she too, had a CPN and I wonder if they disapprove slightly of the time spent on them.

Good to hear that you are so well.

[Sid]

Some really positive things replies on here. I really envy your positivity.
Charlotte, yours sounds so lovely and ideal, like something from a book.

Originally Posted by Cleo

I know from the manner I've squandered my life, how
quickly the years and decades go by.

Where do you think you'll be this time next year? Is your SA, or other illnesses better controlled? To use a cliche, can you see light at the end of the tunnel. Better some days than others, I know. But overall, are things better for you as you mature?

I haven't matured, I got old all of a sudden. I relate and feel more comfortable around old ladies than I do anyone in my life including my family. Maybe is cos I too am just waiting to die. I don't have friends. I don't have pm aquaintances. I don't even have work mates any more. I am there for my kids and that is all. I survive. I go to work, notice all the whispering that goes on. Accept the comments "you are a very quiet private person" and accept that they probably see me as a weird strange person, then I come home.

I try to see a future and dream it, but there is no light at the end of my tunnel. Mine is a long tunnel without an end. It teases me with cracks, respite if you like, there is just enough light to keep walking.

I have always been scared of the dark. I am a coward. I can't see that ever changing.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Sid

Some really positive things replies on here. I really envy your positivity.
Charlotte, yours sounds so lovely and ideal, like something from a book.



I haven't matured, I got old all of a sudden. I relate and feel more comfortable around old ladies than I do anyone in my life including my family. Maybe is cos I too am just waiting to die. I don't have friends. I don't have pm aquaintances. I don't even have work mates any more. I am there for my kids and that is all. I survive. I go to work, notice all the whispering that goes on. Accept the comments "you are a very quiet private person" and accept that they probably see me as a weird strange person, then I come home.

I try to see a future and dream it, but there is no light at the end of my tunnel. Mine is a long tunnel without an end. It teases me with cracks, respite if you like, there is just enough light to keep walking.

I have always been scared of the dark. I am a coward. I can't see that ever changing.

Well, here is one old lady who is always pleased to hear from you.

I've just replied to your pm, by the way, but apparently you are not accepting incoming calls as it were, so will quickly recount anecdote from my extravagant shopping spree in Oxford.

Received so many generous, unsolicited compliments from a lady in one store - NOT a sales lady, I was like a child high on E numbers - then I went into Levi's.

They found a pair of jeans that amazingly - always have problems with jeans/trousers -fitted me perfectly: demi curve, waist 26", price £85.00. Having taken the price on board, I struggled out of them with as much dignify as I could muster and asked a yummy mummy who had just bought her daughter a pair if they were worth the money.

'Oh, yes, she replied enthusiasically, 'my husband wears them for work every day. Not my size, I would imagine.

'So they'll see me out', I ask, laughingly. 'Oh absolutely'! Then she rewinds and face reddens. We all laugh - including manageress, quite hysterically in fact. I didn't even know she spoke English that well.

Came down to terri firma with a resounding bump.

As long as there is light at the end of tunnel, there is always hope. Philisophical moment there.

Where to they sell jeans, reasonably priced, that actually sit on the waist with a very slight flare at the bottom? Back, very quickly, to my naturally shallow persona.