Scared because I'm on the slippery slope.

Hugs to Rose

Thank you, Fuzzy. You are a kind bear.

I have a feeling that you are describing my situation: being at a "slippery slope". I was sitting here like as if I was glued to my sofa, not able to raise and do something. Suddenly I got the though that I should look into "My support forum". And here I am ... Like you, I also have it the way that it helps to start taking care of dirty dishes and more. It make the focus shift from self to something else. I don't have the time to do the dishes today, but I will try to jump into the shower in a little while ... Hope to get started tomorrow morning with bringing myself into a better condition, slowly. No selfblame, only start and let myself slowly, slowly feel that I master something. To be able to see that I don't function well, is also a talent, I think.

I hope you will be able to start on your recovery from too many triggers as well!

Hi Rose, it’s good you’re spotting the signs and reaching out here too.

I’ve been taking part in a thread here where we can set ourselves 3 things for the day:

Three is a charm

They can be as big or as small as you like, and if you don’t complete it doesn’t matter, you can roll them forward if you like. You’d be very welcome to join in. Even if you just do one thing it’s still a positive move.

Thank you for understanding so well. It does sound like we are in similar boats. I'm encouraged by your decision to move forward with getting order re-established. I do have time to wash the dishes today. I need to get up and start. I hope we both make some progess, even if it is slow-going for a while. Once we get some momentum going, it won't seem so hard.

Thanks for inviting me. I like the idea of your thread. Setting small, short term goals has worked for me in the past. Anything that makes what I need to do seem less overwhelming.

It’s Tart Cherry Jam’s thread but everyone is welcome to join in

I also find breaking tasks down is helpful and if we feel we can do a little more then even better.

I'm feeling a bit less defeated.

I'm about 70% improved. It was very hard to get started. But, once I did, it got easier. If I keep active tomorrow, I'll feel much safer . . . safe that I won't slide into that hole.

A year ago I was in the midst of a long episode of depression. It was one of the worst and longest I've had. I even told my doctor and went to a therapist. I dread getting like that again. At least, the fear motivates me to try to pull up out of a tailspin early on.

I hope that you will not fall into such a dark place again!

I'm doing ok now. What a relief.

Back on the slope, sliding down. Tired of fighting it. For today I give up. I'll do better tomorrow. Emotionally, this past week was hard. Days ago, a phone call went in a bad direction. Yesterday, a conversation went badly. Today, I just want to be a hermit and not deal with anyone.

Thank you. I know it's really up to me. It's either force myself to put down the tablet and actually do something, or slide further down to where it will be hard to climb up from.

Tomorrow I absolutely must get out of the house. That tends to help. I have an overdue CD from the library to return. I need a haircut. I need to work on my patio garden. Those are my goals for tomorrow. At least, today, I made dinner and did the dishes.

I'm sorry you feel like that @Rose76
I send you all my support 🫂
Just try tiny steps you don't have to put much efforts first and then take bigger and bigger steps
Good luck

Thanks for the encouragement. It helps.

You're welcome @Rose76
I'm glad it helps 🫂

This upset started on Saturday, when I had an encounter with my landlord that kind of shocked me. We've gotten along great for years. I put in a maintenance request for my cooling system. It was blowing hot air. He came out, checked it, and said there was nothing wrong with it. He had me turn it on, and it was working ok. So he thinks I put in a request for nothing. He did replace some parts that he said looked worn. I can't account for why it stopped working last Monday, but did function ok on Saturday (before he did anything to it.)

I have a vacuum cleaner that sometimes just stops working. If I shut it off and leave it alone for a few hours, it will generally come back to working ok. A mechanic once told me that, sometimes, just turning off a machine and then turning it back on may solve an issue. I tried that Monday. It didn't work, so I left it off all week. I was afraid I might hurt something, if I kept switching it on and off.

For him to act angry and annoyed really made me feel very bad. That's because I am a good tenant and had excellent relations with him, up till now. He and his wife had even given me a card at Christmas, saying how much they valued me as a tenant. Where I live is in a declining neighborhood. There's been a couple of murders on my street. Getting good tenants is not easy in a low rent neighborhood. They've carried out 3 evictions, since buying the property a few years ago. I really liked this couple, who have made nice improvements to the property. I've complimented their good management and have been praised by them as a desirable tenant. I was almost starting to think of them as friends, not that I would expect any special treatment from them. The way he snapped at me was something I never expected.

I realize that a tenant-landlord relationship is a business relationship, and not a personal friendship. I keep my appropriate distance, but I've generally had very nice relationships with anyone I've rented from. Maybe I took what he said the wrong way.

I live kind of isolated socially. So the few connections I have to others mean a lot to me. I try to keep on good terms with the few people I deal with. Maybe that's why this little incident looms larger in my mind than it should. I know I'm being ridiculously over-sensitive. I just can't seem to control my emotions.

So I've slid down into being depressed. I tell myself that the passing of a little time will cure this. Certainly, I'll get over it. I've gotten over far worse things. If this is the worst thing that has happened to me in the past week, my life is quite blessed. Much worse things happen to people all the time.

The only thing to do is to stop moping and take care of things I should be taking care of. I just can't get rid of this hurt feeling. It's after 3 p.m. and I've not even gotten dressed. I want to take something to make me fall asleep. I just want to escape. I sit her all teary-eyed, feeling rejected. I even started thinking they might evict me.

Feeling secure where I live is very important to me. It's dumb for me to feel insecure. As tenants go, I'm a pretty good catch. They evicted one of my neighbors for dealing drugs out of his apartment. Addicts were climbing the gate to get in to knock on that guy's door. I guess that's why I expected to be appreciated as a good tenant. Well, life moves on. That's what I need to do.

I understand why his annoyance upset and hurt you, but please don’t internalise this, from an outsiders point he was probably already in a bad mood, maybe he’s even got a tendency to snapping easily. This very likely had very little to do with you, because it’s not reasonable to snap at someone over something as simple as a intermittent boiler fault, a reasonable person would understand faults can come and go and not snap over it.

I’m quite sure you are a great tenant and he probably knows this.

@Discombobulated - thank you so much. I appreciate that you understand how this incident could be upsetting. I know I'm thin-skinned. But I didn't deserve him snapping at me. Thanks for validating that.

I am a good tenant, and he is a good landlord. Realistically, we should both be able to get over this, and logic tells me that we both will will. I just have to stop listening to the neurotic part of my brain that blows this up to be some big deal. I am real good at torturing myself with wild fears. It helps a lot for someone sensible to offer a calm, more sober perspective.

@Discombobulated - thank you so much. I appreciate that you understand how this incident could be upsetting. I know I'm thin-skinned. But I didn't deserve him snapping at me. Thanks for validating that.

I am a good tenant, and he is a good landlord. Realistically, we should both be able to get over this, and logic tells me that we both will will. I just have to stop listening to the neurotic part of my brain that blows this up to be some big deal. I am real good at torturing myself with wild fears. It helps a lot for someone sensible to offer a calm, more sober perspective. Toxic self-talk cripples me at times. I tend to need help rejecting bad thought processes.

You are so welcome Rose, I do understand your reaction, I share that trait, in fact I think it’s a very human one to blame oneself.

You know I work in customer service and sometimes we will get a customer who is angry, Will not be placated and it feels in that moment like it’s my fault. Our team leader is good at reminding us that the person came into the store angry and was ready to blow and there was very little we could do. It still feels awful but it helps to know it wasn’t anything we did.

I can relate to this, Rose! It's about security. I would have become sad and afraid as well, if this had happened to me.

I may have a suggestion for you if you haven't tried it yet and found that it does not work for you. I suppose you know something about mindfulness. That (total) method is not helpful to me, but a part of it is. It is to focus on describing something. I f you have a plant with three leaves and two red flowers, you do not describe it as a plant with three leaves and two flowers. Instead you look at one of the leaves and describe what you see: "It is green, looks round but is not quite so. At the right side it has a sharp edge and at the middle it has a little bump, only big enough for a little wasp. The left side is rounded and give the impression that the leaf is round. The leaf is thick. When I move from the one leaf to the next I see ..... "

To describe a plant so detailed means that focus slowly shifts from inner private thought to the describing process. One can choose weather one wants to focus on, like, as an exaple a family picture and then describe the look on every person in detail.

I really do understand this feeling of yours when it comes to security. As I said, I would have reacted in some similar way, if I were in the same situation. This describing process is something you can use when you become aware of that something pushed you down, a little building oneself up again. It works for me, but of course I cannot guarantee that it will work for you.

Whatever "method" you use to try to help yourself, I hope it is helpful for ovecoming this experience. All the best!

@Singer2 - I really wasn't expecting much validation on this recent incident. I figured I'ld come across as a whining baby, but I just posted it for the sake of venting in a coherent way. Well, it's been nice to read a kind post like yours.

Your method of shifting focus through mindful observation is interesting. Someone once told me that the mind can't really focus on two things at the same time. I've been obsessing over this for days. If I get my mind occupied with something else that engages my attention, it could probably crowd out these obsessive thoughts. The mind abhors having nothing to do. If I don't give it something good, or at least harmless, to do, it will chew on itself, like a cat chasing its own tail. Living alone makes it easy to stay in my head too much. I'll try to take an interest in something besides this obsessing to no good end. I really drive myself nuts.

On Wednesday, I improved a lot. I pushed myself and got things done. But yesterday I had no push. Today I feel very low, with no motivation or energy.

Self-help gurus say that you can't wait to get motivated before you do things. They say the momentum will kick in, after you apply yourself. They are right. It's either fight the inertia, or accept being defeated. I've had no fight in me today so far.