Topic : Coping with Stress

Hi everyone: 

I am male, married for nearly 16 years, and have two daughters, both in elementary schoo. The past ten months has been a wild ride. Perhaps its been even longer.  

A year ago this past October I was accepted into an MFA in Writing Program. This was very exciting as it is extremely competative to get into programs like this. In May, a lump was found on my wife's thyroid. For three months we didn't know if she had cancer or not, although the way the testing was going it was leaning toward not. We found out in September she did not have cancer. Two weeks later, however, she was in the hospital getting a blood transfusion; she needed four units of blood as she was severely anemic. After four more months, sometime in early January, and after multiple tests to try to find the cause of the anemia, nothing was found. Iron supplements are doing the job quite nicely. As a matter of fact, her bloodwork is near perfect at this point in time. During all this, I ended up deferring my entrance into grad school twice because we didn't know what was going on. 

As you can imagine, this was a stressful point in time. What it did for me was make me realize how lucky I am to have her. I never take her for granted anymore. I help out more around the house, I do more with our kids. I planned two family vacations this year.  

Now the danger seems over, I am gearing up to enter graduate school. Here's the problem. I no longer have a desire to go. I haven't had the desire to write either; I'm going for an MFA in Writing. I did have a short story  and a poem published about a year and a half or so ago. I have tried jump starting my writing by starting a writers group, regularly interacting with others on writers websites, and attending conferences. But the umph just isn't there. My job is okay, but I don't want to be there forever, and there are changes in the wind that may indicate a limited future there anyway. In addition, when my wife was going though these medical issues, my performance at work started going downhill to the point where I was nearly put on probation. 

I spoke to a psychologist several times duirng my wife's problems to get me through it, and thought I was headed right for grad school, but now...I just don't know.  

So now I'm wondering what to do. Any body have any thoughts on this? 

Darren 

TO:  15 year old Egyptian/Dutch girl: 

Sweetie, 

I have three grown children, 5 grandchildren, and I have days when I feel sad.  And I have felt what you feel now at verying times in my life.  But thanks to a great female therapist, I have learned to "choose to be happy."  I have learned that the things that went wrong only made me stronger; it took going through the bad times and coming out on the other side and saying TO MYSELF:  "I did it!"  And you can, too! 

The good news for you is that you MUST keep your power over how you feel about ANYTHING that  happens in your life.  Do not give others the power to make you sad.  By taking what they say and checking it over, you'll see that they're not always right!  YOU choose to not feel bad about anything they say; then, you go on living.  You are not bad, ugly, or anything awful.  You cannot control what others say, do or feel; YOU CAN CONTROL WHAT YOU DO, FEEL, SAY AND CHOOSE.  Isn't that wonderful?  It is so freeing to be free of the control of others' determining how we feel at any given time of day.   

When you feel sad, try to do SOMETHING that makes you feel really good:  would taking a walk by yourself and just enjoying your own company work?   Would doing an arts and crafts project excite you - making something beautiful and you can then say, "I did that!"  Or when someone says something that hurts you, ask them directly, "It is not nice or acceptable to me for you to talk to me that disrespectuflly."  And mean it!  You are standing up for yourself when you confront gossiping people.  You know, people who gossip about others are unhappy inside and saying bad things about you or others is their "cover up" because they're too scared to be who they truly are.  They try to feel good about themselves by knocking others down. 

Why are you so sad?  Why has your life turned around in a direction that you do not like?  Can you do things that will turn your sadness into joy for you?  Ok, now: I want you to feel good about who you are!  Sweetie, I hurt for you.  Find the good things about yourself and focus on those things.  

Love you, Miss "Half Egyptian/Dutch! 

Keep in touch.  Write to "JeanChat."  I want to hear how you're doing............ 

Darren, 

I was saddened by your story.  I am a mother of 3, grandmother of 5 and have had my personal emotional struggles on the way.  (I will spare you the details!) 

I have learned that when we go through an emotional struggle, sometimes our own personal emotions get turned around, such that we aren't sure of things we used to be very sure of.  What happens during these stressful times, is that we somehow go through internal changes that are worth examining and learning more about ways in which we are changing and growing.  It's a chance to get back in touch with our true selves.  Your emotions had gotten tangled up with your wife's health situation and were put "on hold" and deferred until your family situation got settled. 

Now that your family's situation has improved, I hope you will give yourself permission to think about yourself and what you personally want and feel free to explore what was your original enthusiasm for your degree and see if you can tap into that feeling and recapture it.  Even if you truly find out that your goals have changed, then you can find peace about it.  And then you can be free to move on and enjoy the life you now fully appreciate like you didn't before.  Examining your original motives and feelings around those motives, re: why having the degree meant so much to you back then, might relieve the confusion I can hear you stressing over. 

 I wish you peace as you move forward.  Keep us posted on your progress.  Others care....... 

JeanChat 

hey miss jean, im so suprised that someone actually cared for what i said...but i had this weird thing that i wanted to write it down in any place so i wrote it here on the dr.phil site(altho i somtimes get erritated from him hehe)...thank u so much for caring and making me feel better, i know that i have to do anything to be happy and to only do the things I want to do. But i have so much depression it just wont work and everythin that made me happy is gone. I live here in a closed minded country, so i mostly have all my friends not pure blood egyptions. But they all left the country so i feel kind of lonely, and my brother left too cuz he has to work now cuz hes like 22. My brother was so close to me, and whenever my mom and dad faught...he would end it! But now, the both fight with me, or they actually try to force me to do somethin. My parents and other people think im aneorexic, but i think im fine i really wanna lose weight cuz i HATE how i look...it gets on my nerves, looking at the mirror, i just feel like stabbing my self! i wish to be anyone else but ME...thats the way i feel all the time. Now its not only me whos stressed, its also my parents cuz i know they care...but i cant be forced to eat cuz i don wanna gain weight and look like an elephant. i'm losing weight for myself not for anyone else, so i can be proud of my body and it will make me happy too. I also hate skool cuz guys last year tried to harrase me by force, and they touched my inside my clothes(thank god im still vergion)and i said "no no leave me alone"...but i said it by a smile, cuz i can NEVER defend myself in any way or be too serious to ppl, cuz i never like to hurt anyone! so then, they tolled every1 that im a hoe...and now the whole skool hates me and are all giving me the dirtiest looks=(...they dont know the REAL me, only my real friends that left and my brother knows who i really am. But im gonna do my best to enjoy life...although the ppl tthat made me smile no matter what, left! Well anyways thank u so much for caring miss jean, for real! i hope i can have youre email and if you are intrested my email is loli_cherry@hotmail.com OR hippy_chicky16@hotmail.com thx for everythin...kisses and hugs 

bubyeee=) 

Hi all. I am new to these message boards but have experienced something rather interesting these past two weeks. Just wanted to see if anyone else had heard of this or knew of anyone experiencing this. 

I am a 35yr old mom of 3kids, with no family history of heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure... you name it we don't have it. A picture of health. Exercise reguraly and eat well. But March 31, I experienced a heart attack called a takotsubo cardiomyapathy...otherwise a "stress induced Heart Attack".  Not much research done on it except that it is mainly in postmenopausal women, ages from 60-80...to say this the least I don't fit in this category. It is just kinda weird, I do have some stresses in my life, but I am seeking help in those areas. Just curious to see what people thought. 

Thanks 

My husband has panic attacks and what triggers them is he will see a illness or diseas on television and then he believes he has it. I want to help him but I know nothing about this. He is to embarrissed to go to the doctors. Does anyone know what this would be called.? 

 I will be turning 26  this sunday. I am the type of person that love to go out , and be with friends doing things that are fun, horesback ridding, picnics and so on. I have a degree in Performing arts. I make freinds easily. I spent the first 3 years of my life deff, and curintly have  Audio Central Processing Dissorder. But have had a good suportive life. I have moved to the Northeran Ontario and have a great boyfriend.  My entire child hood  and most of my adult hood I have been over weight.  Now that that's out of the way here's my problem. Since August of 2005 I have been throwing up  at the sight of any stressfull situation I'll throw up. In about 4 months i went from 175 pounds down to 127 with out changing  my diet or exercise. i continue to loose weight no matter what i eat. I am on sick leave because i spend most of my time in the washroom throwing up.  Doctors have looked me over again and again, yet nothing seems wrong. I am taking anti Depressents and Anxiety pills but still nothing. I find myself worring about my weight loss to the point were i make myself physicaly sick. (not that i don't like being thin.) My friends and family are very concerned. I find myself not being able to sleep at night because im constanly think about when the next time im going to be sick. Please if anyone can help me out let me know. Im confussed and the doctors are no help.   

Is this a mental thing?   

Hi. I don't know what the name for it is, but its a mental condition. A lot of people have this problem. I too will see something on TV and think i have it, I have lost weight and throw up a lot, I saw a commercial about HIV and those are two of the symptoms of HIV so i autimaticaly thought i have aid. But its just not true. This is a big problem with some people. with all the bad things u hear about  out there its hard not to think that you have that certain problem.  Bring him to the doctors. There is absolutaly nothing to be imbarrased about.  You might want to take him to a councellor as well.  I wish i could remeber the name of this problem.  But it is real and should be taken care of.