Hi, Oobe! I have a small practical suggestion to add to Polly’s (excellent, of course) big existential and emotional advice: gentle/beginner yoga. It should dovetail nicely with your mindfulness practice. I had chronic back problems through my thirties and well into my forties. When I started doing yoga, I chose a style that was punishingly difficult and intense and (shocker) it made my back pain worse. I kept pushing harder because, duh, yoga is good for you so I just needed to WORK HARDER at it. I quit after an episode of pain and muscle tension radiating out of my back through the rest of my body that left me bedridden for a week (while on vacation, no less). Eventually I found my way to a much more forgiving studio and style, and over time it did wonders for my relationship to my body generally and my ability to treat my back like a beloved but fussy little pet, which helped a lot. Something about the slow, deliberate movement, and the occasional gentle hand of an instructor helping me find a new alignment, allowed me over time to inhabit my flesh in a much fuller - and extremely non-intellectual, non-mental - way. Warmly recommend.
I really relate to this letter! I also have small-t trauma that still haunts me, even in my middle age. For very similar reasons. It's annoying how much it haunts me. Why am I 56-years-old and still mad at boys who bullied me in high school??
I absolutely agree with Polly's advice (as usual), the key is to commit to a few things that bring you joy (in my opinion). For me, those things are: yoga, collaging, creative writing, and baking.
I went about it the wrong way for many, many years. Since I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and feared failure all the time (and was also ashamed of my big emotions, as Oobe mentioned), I thought the remedy was to make my life as small, bare bones and empty as possible. Then, with a minimal existence and no scary challenges, I'd finally feel relaxed and free. Right?
Wrong, it turned out. After years and years of trying this (and it not working), it finally dawned on me that the opposite is true. You need to ADD things to your life to get more energy. The key is to add things that you love - those joyful activities will release the energy that fuels your life.
But, as Polly pointed out, you may not feel like you love or understand those things consistently. You need to commit to them anyway, because doing things like showing up for a yoga class, or submitting a piece of writing to an online magazine, or taking the time to make a collage and post it on Instagram or to bake something and share it with someone you love - all these will re-connect you with who you are and with your life source. Every time I do these things, I feel my world expanding.
Adding to Polly's advice, I would say - take a few days to ponder what things bring you joy. It could be spending time with dogs or cats, or walking in nature, or feeding pigeons, or playing games with friends, or really anything, as long as it feels joyful to you. Then take small, maybe even tiny, steps towards adding them into your life, every day or nearly every day.
Oh! One last thing. You don't have to be GOOD at these things. I kind of suck at baking. Sometimes I utterly fail at it. And I am always, always, by far the worst person in my yoga class. But yoga instructors tend to be incredibly kind, accepting people who support inclusivity. This isn't about achievement, just about adding joy to your life in daily increments.
Regarding big feelings not being allowed except in isolation, associating them with loneliness and abandonment … we often focus on the “bad” ones being treated this way (anger and sadness). It can be a little less intuitive to notice that “good” big feelings are also not allowed. Joy, wonder, love, pleasure may also be met with intolerance or shame, in some family systems. Instead of looking for the tension and pain in the body, try gently looking for the softness, the comfort, the pleasure. This can be SO much harder of course! We are wired to monitor for danger, which discomfort can signal. Giving onesself patience and permission to appreciate a warm sensation or delicious taste or stroking on the skin … seems like it should be obvious and easy, but in fact cptsd can condition against that just as strongly as suppressing anger. It’s a shockingly slow and incremental process to shift this. Little bit by bit.
Oobe, i related to your letter a lot. When i began my healing journey i got obsessed with all the things i could do to get “better”. All the meditations, therapies, mindfulness practices, books, diving deeper and deeper to get to the “bottom” of things. I kept wondering when i’d be fixed… i became miserable cause here’s the thing, there is no “bottom”. You have to intentionally pick a stopping point or be doomed to infinitely swim deeper and deeper into your subconscious for eternity. The truth is there is ALWAYS more to heal or work on, we will never be PERFECT, but we only have one life and if you wait for perfection to begin allowing yourself pleasure then your whole life will waste away.
You’ve done SO MUCH!! Like seriously, i hope you give yourself credit and feel proud. I think you have definitely reached the inflection point and are now swimming infinitely deep down. It’s intellectualizing and trying to be logical which i totally get. I had the same problem. But to echo Polly, i think it’s tome you start having some fun! That’s the only counter balance. Not fun that you think you SHOULD have, but fun for funs sake. Let loose and be wild and free. That’s how i got out of my spiral.
Then i realized life is a delicate balance of both. Arts, crafts, parties, late nights, creativity, mess and then meditation, books, yoga, therapy, all that good stuff. Both make life feel meaningful.
The fun things heal in ways you wouldnt imagine. Its not always just the therapies. For me, i had to focus hard on finding a balance between what i call “inward” and “outward” energy. I was really type A and allergic to mess and making mistakes and failing and feeling stupid but i found some hobbies that caught my eye and i did exactly that. I didnt do them with the intention of healing- just to have fun -but the results were both <3
You are allowed to exist and live exactly how you are right now. You dont have to be perfectly healed and free of any trauma or grief to go have some fun!
The puppet story here is really good - the idea that making something with your hands, even if its hilariously bad, can be a way back into yourself. I've seen this with people who started small creative projects not because they had talent but because they needed something tactile to hold onto. The part about commiting to something embarrassing without needing it to be meaningful right away is underrated advice. Sometimes the things that feel most pointles are exactly what we need to do, not in spite of their absurdity but because of it. I tried pottery once and my bowls looked terrible, but the act of shaping something that kept collapsing taught me more about letting go than any meditation practice.
Oobe sounds eerily like someone I know – a fear of feeling his feelings so intense it feels like a death sentence. That instinct to suppress one’s true nature because it had no place in childhood homes does often show up later in the body, in chronic tension, in existential despair. What struck me is that Oobe can name this and is actively doing the work. That’s no small thing.
This part of Polly’s response really stayed with me:
“You need to throw yourself into something you don’t understand, in order to strengthen your blind-faith muscle… You’re being asked to commit to your weakness, your softness, and your never-ending needs.”
I relate to this deeply. Putting yourself out there, whether emotionally, creatively, or by admitting you care about something “ridiculous,” requires committing to the process with no guarantee of relief, resolution, or reward. For me, that’s meant music and writing: battling the brutal self-doubt, choosing to show up anyway, even when it’s uncomfortable and uncertain when I fear it’s pointless.
And this, too:
“Your needs make you lovable. Your pain shaped you into someone soft.”
Exactly. Pain doesn’t just attune you to sorrow. It sharpens your sensitivity to beauty, meaning, and other people. I’ve found that the cognitive dissonance of suppressing one’s true nature creates a low-grade, ever-present stress that quietly erodes the spirit over time.
The hardest thing in the world really is to be who you are, especially when who you are feels like “too much.” I’m just coming around to this accepting life phase now. I love how Polly celebrates this, and reframes that softness not as a liability, but as the very thing that makes connection, creativity, and love possible.
Another practical suggestion to add to Moonstruck’s excellent advice. In addition to gentle yoga (Yoga with Adriene via YouTube), if you have not already done so, consider Dr. John Sarno’s book Healing Back Pain.
Julie, I came here to say this! I listened to the audiobook, and I felt pain that had been there for years flare up to an unbearable level and then poof, gone, like water had been poured on a flame. I recommend this book to anyone who feels things deeply and has lower back pain.
Oobe, a huge game changer for myself (as someone diagnosed with Fibromyalgia aka I hurt and nobody knows why), was somatic therapy!!! I have done EFT tapping, brain spotting, and EMDR, and it has been leaps and bounds of improvement in so many ways - mental, physical, emotional. Looking into the concept of "regulating your nervous system," it can sound kind of "woo woo" or nonsensical, but it works! By God, does it work.
Somatic therapy is mostly geared towards healing trauma, and being a victim of bullying can definitely be a form of trauma. I loved the CBT and DBT I did before, but it only felt like a "halfway" point. Somatic therapy has helped me so much to connect my thinking and my feeling. If you haven't looked into it before, I absolutely recommend it.
This one made me cry too. Your answer, Polly! This is the heart of it for me: "I can commit to sharing EVERY SINGLE THING I HAVE with LITERALLY EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE." Only by being real, which means showing my soft underbelly, & by giving everything away all the time (embarrassing, foolish, vulnerable: aspects that terrify me!) can I receive what I need, which is abundant love for my true self.
Good luck Oobe! I like you a lot from this letter & I'm here to tell you you don’t have to be physically relaxed to do cool stuff, most of the time I'm forgetting to even breathe! The trick is to tinker around until you're giving / getting a self-sustaining flow of the hearty goodness that makes your body feel safe— there is no shortcut or hack to this, it has to be real— but as Polly says, there are plenty of fellow weirdos out there in the world who will love your genuine complex messed-up striving self.
What a nice letter and response. And so I hate to be like, "yeah, that's nice, but have you considered taking pills?" But I also had a similar problem of lower back pain that was resistant to all manner of treatments, and what finally helped was low-dose tricyclic antidepressants, which you would usually only get with a fibromyalgia diagnosis. A lot of doctors are weird about the f-word because it's a vague condition and easy to over-diagnose, so I feel compelled to mention the possibility in case your doctors haven't.
4. Kefir, Kimchi, and Kombucha every day (I keep my stress in my guts, ok????)
5. Making weird sculptures out of clay
6. Singing and songwriting
7. Weekly meetings with interest groups at clay studio and rainbow-flag church.
8. 2 hour long hot baths when I get overwhelmed or overstimulated.
LW, all of this became a lot easier to schedule when my son transitioned from last-year-of-high-school to first-year-of-college. You're almost there! :-)
Mini workout trampolines are wonderful for that "feel like running but don't wanna run" energy. It also taps into feeling like a kid, in a good way. Look up Rebounding if you want more info on the whys and hows.
I started going to weekly dances at the local community center (okay, the dances are weekly but I have Not been going there weekly) and it's been so grounding! It's contra dance, so there's a lot more physical contact than I get from strangers on a daily basis, but there's still rules around how to hold each other so no one is made uncomfortable. It's such a chill and accepting space, it's stated at the start of every dance that anyone can say no to dancing with anyone for any reason and it won't be a big deal. I know dancing isn't for everyone, but I think anyone who gets stuck in their head all the time like I do should at least give it a try. (Plus there's live music!)
I felt this letter so deeply. I’m currently over a year into EMDR and it sounds woo woo as hell but something it working. I threw myself into improv as my weird creative thing and I’ll tell you why it’s great:
Failure is opportunity
Acting is emoting
Laughing is healing
Singing is healing (I do musical improv)
Bringing your unique self is needed, is demanded, by this form, rather than conforming
You can’t plan ahead so it gets you out of your head
Yes, and: accepting and adding
Yeah it’s scary but like, who cares? It’s so freeing and it opens up other things to not be scary. You can play an old woman or a young boy or a cuddly dolphin all in the same evening.
I’m so sorry for your struggle and so impressed with your progress, Oobe!
I also suffer from chronic pain, and have only, at 37, begun to take it seriously (and find doctors who take it seriously). In the past, I tried to ignore it and numb it by being both an alcoholic and a workaholic. The interesting thing to me is that once I took it more seriously, it's become more present in my life. There is a lesson there, I think. It taught me to slow down. But funny enough, you've already learned this.
I think my pain has made me a better person to myself and others. I have far more compassion for folks who find themselves disabled later in life. I have had to dig up all of the emotional pain I've ignored for years, entering into a similar programme (for me, it was IOP), and completely rebuild my mind and my body. From scratch. I understand what it is to wake up every day and wonder why. For me, it was also wondering why I should live at all. I don't really have the answers to any of this, but somewhere along the way the trying every day became instinct, and I have found myself more willing to. Try, I mean.
I don't know this for sure, but I think you must be an incredible father. You are so attuned to your emotional world. It must make you attuned to others' pain and secret tremblings. I think you are becoming a better person faster than you realize. Practically, I have gone to a rheumatologist, after seeing many specialists who told me I was crazy. These were the first doctors who didn't. I was diagnosed with hypermobility. At the moment, they are testing my blood, prescribed me stronger pain killers, muscle relaxants, and are suggesting lidocaine injections and GLP-1s, because I've gained so much weight from antidepressants and an inability to exercise that it's causing inflammation and pressure on my joints. But in the strangest of ways, I no longer feel sorry for myself (well, not as often). I don't know why. It's not as banal as saying "my pain makes me feel alive!" Mostly, it makes me feel to throw up. But I think the decision to finally take care of myself in the way I deserve --- and remind myself every day that this is what I'm doing, literally, while at therapy, or PT, or even deciding I need a break from my mom and that it's okay to leave the conversation --- has helped. I think maybe it's come from the fact that I've resolved to live no matter what, day by day, one step at a time. I think the act of writing this letter is a step, too.
Hi, Oobe! I have a small practical suggestion to add to Polly’s (excellent, of course) big existential and emotional advice: gentle/beginner yoga. It should dovetail nicely with your mindfulness practice. I had chronic back problems through my thirties and well into my forties. When I started doing yoga, I chose a style that was punishingly difficult and intense and (shocker) it made my back pain worse. I kept pushing harder because, duh, yoga is good for you so I just needed to WORK HARDER at it. I quit after an episode of pain and muscle tension radiating out of my back through the rest of my body that left me bedridden for a week (while on vacation, no less). Eventually I found my way to a much more forgiving studio and style, and over time it did wonders for my relationship to my body generally and my ability to treat my back like a beloved but fussy little pet, which helped a lot. Something about the slow, deliberate movement, and the occasional gentle hand of an instructor helping me find a new alignment, allowed me over time to inhabit my flesh in a much fuller - and extremely non-intellectual, non-mental - way. Warmly recommend.
I really relate to this letter! I also have small-t trauma that still haunts me, even in my middle age. For very similar reasons. It's annoying how much it haunts me. Why am I 56-years-old and still mad at boys who bullied me in high school??
I absolutely agree with Polly's advice (as usual), the key is to commit to a few things that bring you joy (in my opinion). For me, those things are: yoga, collaging, creative writing, and baking.
I went about it the wrong way for many, many years. Since I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and feared failure all the time (and was also ashamed of my big emotions, as Oobe mentioned), I thought the remedy was to make my life as small, bare bones and empty as possible. Then, with a minimal existence and no scary challenges, I'd finally feel relaxed and free. Right?
Wrong, it turned out. After years and years of trying this (and it not working), it finally dawned on me that the opposite is true. You need to ADD things to your life to get more energy. The key is to add things that you love - those joyful activities will release the energy that fuels your life.
But, as Polly pointed out, you may not feel like you love or understand those things consistently. You need to commit to them anyway, because doing things like showing up for a yoga class, or submitting a piece of writing to an online magazine, or taking the time to make a collage and post it on Instagram or to bake something and share it with someone you love - all these will re-connect you with who you are and with your life source. Every time I do these things, I feel my world expanding.
Adding to Polly's advice, I would say - take a few days to ponder what things bring you joy. It could be spending time with dogs or cats, or walking in nature, or feeding pigeons, or playing games with friends, or really anything, as long as it feels joyful to you. Then take small, maybe even tiny, steps towards adding them into your life, every day or nearly every day.
Oh! One last thing. You don't have to be GOOD at these things. I kind of suck at baking. Sometimes I utterly fail at it. And I am always, always, by far the worst person in my yoga class. But yoga instructors tend to be incredibly kind, accepting people who support inclusivity. This isn't about achievement, just about adding joy to your life in daily increments.
Good luck out there!
Regarding big feelings not being allowed except in isolation, associating them with loneliness and abandonment … we often focus on the “bad” ones being treated this way (anger and sadness). It can be a little less intuitive to notice that “good” big feelings are also not allowed. Joy, wonder, love, pleasure may also be met with intolerance or shame, in some family systems. Instead of looking for the tension and pain in the body, try gently looking for the softness, the comfort, the pleasure. This can be SO much harder of course! We are wired to monitor for danger, which discomfort can signal. Giving onesself patience and permission to appreciate a warm sensation or delicious taste or stroking on the skin … seems like it should be obvious and easy, but in fact cptsd can condition against that just as strongly as suppressing anger. It’s a shockingly slow and incremental process to shift this. Little bit by bit.
Oobe, i related to your letter a lot. When i began my healing journey i got obsessed with all the things i could do to get “better”. All the meditations, therapies, mindfulness practices, books, diving deeper and deeper to get to the “bottom” of things. I kept wondering when i’d be fixed… i became miserable cause here’s the thing, there is no “bottom”. You have to intentionally pick a stopping point or be doomed to infinitely swim deeper and deeper into your subconscious for eternity. The truth is there is ALWAYS more to heal or work on, we will never be PERFECT, but we only have one life and if you wait for perfection to begin allowing yourself pleasure then your whole life will waste away.
You’ve done SO MUCH!! Like seriously, i hope you give yourself credit and feel proud. I think you have definitely reached the inflection point and are now swimming infinitely deep down. It’s intellectualizing and trying to be logical which i totally get. I had the same problem. But to echo Polly, i think it’s tome you start having some fun! That’s the only counter balance. Not fun that you think you SHOULD have, but fun for funs sake. Let loose and be wild and free. That’s how i got out of my spiral.
Then i realized life is a delicate balance of both. Arts, crafts, parties, late nights, creativity, mess and then meditation, books, yoga, therapy, all that good stuff. Both make life feel meaningful.
The fun things heal in ways you wouldnt imagine. Its not always just the therapies. For me, i had to focus hard on finding a balance between what i call “inward” and “outward” energy. I was really type A and allergic to mess and making mistakes and failing and feeling stupid but i found some hobbies that caught my eye and i did exactly that. I didnt do them with the intention of healing- just to have fun -but the results were both <3
You are allowed to exist and live exactly how you are right now. You dont have to be perfectly healed and free of any trauma or grief to go have some fun!
The puppet story here is really good - the idea that making something with your hands, even if its hilariously bad, can be a way back into yourself. I've seen this with people who started small creative projects not because they had talent but because they needed something tactile to hold onto. The part about commiting to something embarrassing without needing it to be meaningful right away is underrated advice. Sometimes the things that feel most pointles are exactly what we need to do, not in spite of their absurdity but because of it. I tried pottery once and my bowls looked terrible, but the act of shaping something that kept collapsing taught me more about letting go than any meditation practice.
Oobe sounds eerily like someone I know – a fear of feeling his feelings so intense it feels like a death sentence. That instinct to suppress one’s true nature because it had no place in childhood homes does often show up later in the body, in chronic tension, in existential despair. What struck me is that Oobe can name this and is actively doing the work. That’s no small thing.
This part of Polly’s response really stayed with me:
“You need to throw yourself into something you don’t understand, in order to strengthen your blind-faith muscle… You’re being asked to commit to your weakness, your softness, and your never-ending needs.”
I relate to this deeply. Putting yourself out there, whether emotionally, creatively, or by admitting you care about something “ridiculous,” requires committing to the process with no guarantee of relief, resolution, or reward. For me, that’s meant music and writing: battling the brutal self-doubt, choosing to show up anyway, even when it’s uncomfortable and uncertain when I fear it’s pointless.
And this, too:
“Your needs make you lovable. Your pain shaped you into someone soft.”
Exactly. Pain doesn’t just attune you to sorrow. It sharpens your sensitivity to beauty, meaning, and other people. I’ve found that the cognitive dissonance of suppressing one’s true nature creates a low-grade, ever-present stress that quietly erodes the spirit over time.
The hardest thing in the world really is to be who you are, especially when who you are feels like “too much.” I’m just coming around to this accepting life phase now. I love how Polly celebrates this, and reframes that softness not as a liability, but as the very thing that makes connection, creativity, and love possible.
Another practical suggestion to add to Moonstruck’s excellent advice. In addition to gentle yoga (Yoga with Adriene via YouTube), if you have not already done so, consider Dr. John Sarno’s book Healing Back Pain.
Julie, I came here to say this! I listened to the audiobook, and I felt pain that had been there for years flare up to an unbearable level and then poof, gone, like water had been poured on a flame. I recommend this book to anyone who feels things deeply and has lower back pain.
I also recommend reading Nicole Sachs’ book “Mind your body” - she trained with Dr. Sarno. I read both and found them quite helpful for chronic pain.
Oobe, a huge game changer for myself (as someone diagnosed with Fibromyalgia aka I hurt and nobody knows why), was somatic therapy!!! I have done EFT tapping, brain spotting, and EMDR, and it has been leaps and bounds of improvement in so many ways - mental, physical, emotional. Looking into the concept of "regulating your nervous system," it can sound kind of "woo woo" or nonsensical, but it works! By God, does it work.
Somatic therapy is mostly geared towards healing trauma, and being a victim of bullying can definitely be a form of trauma. I loved the CBT and DBT I did before, but it only felt like a "halfway" point. Somatic therapy has helped me so much to connect my thinking and my feeling. If you haven't looked into it before, I absolutely recommend it.
This one made me cry too. Your answer, Polly! This is the heart of it for me: "I can commit to sharing EVERY SINGLE THING I HAVE with LITERALLY EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE." Only by being real, which means showing my soft underbelly, & by giving everything away all the time (embarrassing, foolish, vulnerable: aspects that terrify me!) can I receive what I need, which is abundant love for my true self.
Good luck Oobe! I like you a lot from this letter & I'm here to tell you you don’t have to be physically relaxed to do cool stuff, most of the time I'm forgetting to even breathe! The trick is to tinker around until you're giving / getting a self-sustaining flow of the hearty goodness that makes your body feel safe— there is no shortcut or hack to this, it has to be real— but as Polly says, there are plenty of fellow weirdos out there in the world who will love your genuine complex messed-up striving self.
What a nice letter and response. And so I hate to be like, "yeah, that's nice, but have you considered taking pills?" But I also had a similar problem of lower back pain that was resistant to all manner of treatments, and what finally helped was low-dose tricyclic antidepressants, which you would usually only get with a fibromyalgia diagnosis. A lot of doctors are weird about the f-word because it's a vague condition and easy to over-diagnose, so I feel compelled to mention the possibility in case your doctors haven't.
Like Polly, I need a LOT and what I need is:
1. Qi Gong (slow and gentle)
2. Trampoline
3. Lonnnng walks
4. Kefir, Kimchi, and Kombucha every day (I keep my stress in my guts, ok????)
5. Making weird sculptures out of clay
6. Singing and songwriting
7. Weekly meetings with interest groups at clay studio and rainbow-flag church.
8. 2 hour long hot baths when I get overwhelmed or overstimulated.
LW, all of this became a lot easier to schedule when my son transitioned from last-year-of-high-school to first-year-of-college. You're almost there! :-)
Mini workout trampolines are wonderful for that "feel like running but don't wanna run" energy. It also taps into feeling like a kid, in a good way. Look up Rebounding if you want more info on the whys and hows.
Plus one to mini trampoline! When you're bouncing it makes your muscles find a natural balance between relaxing and holding gently.
I started going to weekly dances at the local community center (okay, the dances are weekly but I have Not been going there weekly) and it's been so grounding! It's contra dance, so there's a lot more physical contact than I get from strangers on a daily basis, but there's still rules around how to hold each other so no one is made uncomfortable. It's such a chill and accepting space, it's stated at the start of every dance that anyone can say no to dancing with anyone for any reason and it won't be a big deal. I know dancing isn't for everyone, but I think anyone who gets stuck in their head all the time like I do should at least give it a try. (Plus there's live music!)
It got me deep and i appreciate your article! :)
I felt this letter so deeply. I’m currently over a year into EMDR and it sounds woo woo as hell but something it working. I threw myself into improv as my weird creative thing and I’ll tell you why it’s great:
Failure is opportunity
Acting is emoting
Laughing is healing
Singing is healing (I do musical improv)
Bringing your unique self is needed, is demanded, by this form, rather than conforming
You can’t plan ahead so it gets you out of your head
Yes, and: accepting and adding
Yeah it’s scary but like, who cares? It’s so freeing and it opens up other things to not be scary. You can play an old woman or a young boy or a cuddly dolphin all in the same evening.
I’m so sorry for your struggle and so impressed with your progress, Oobe!
I also suffer from chronic pain, and have only, at 37, begun to take it seriously (and find doctors who take it seriously). In the past, I tried to ignore it and numb it by being both an alcoholic and a workaholic. The interesting thing to me is that once I took it more seriously, it's become more present in my life. There is a lesson there, I think. It taught me to slow down. But funny enough, you've already learned this.
I think my pain has made me a better person to myself and others. I have far more compassion for folks who find themselves disabled later in life. I have had to dig up all of the emotional pain I've ignored for years, entering into a similar programme (for me, it was IOP), and completely rebuild my mind and my body. From scratch. I understand what it is to wake up every day and wonder why. For me, it was also wondering why I should live at all. I don't really have the answers to any of this, but somewhere along the way the trying every day became instinct, and I have found myself more willing to. Try, I mean.
I don't know this for sure, but I think you must be an incredible father. You are so attuned to your emotional world. It must make you attuned to others' pain and secret tremblings. I think you are becoming a better person faster than you realize. Practically, I have gone to a rheumatologist, after seeing many specialists who told me I was crazy. These were the first doctors who didn't. I was diagnosed with hypermobility. At the moment, they are testing my blood, prescribed me stronger pain killers, muscle relaxants, and are suggesting lidocaine injections and GLP-1s, because I've gained so much weight from antidepressants and an inability to exercise that it's causing inflammation and pressure on my joints. But in the strangest of ways, I no longer feel sorry for myself (well, not as often). I don't know why. It's not as banal as saying "my pain makes me feel alive!" Mostly, it makes me feel to throw up. But I think the decision to finally take care of myself in the way I deserve --- and remind myself every day that this is what I'm doing, literally, while at therapy, or PT, or even deciding I need a break from my mom and that it's okay to leave the conversation --- has helped. I think maybe it's come from the fact that I've resolved to live no matter what, day by day, one step at a time. I think the act of writing this letter is a step, too.