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Worrying about the past and fearing the future

Question
Vraag

I have been though a lot in the past: traumas, abuse, unsafe attachment addiction, personality problems, and depression. At the moment I suffer the most from depression. I worry about the past and I miss contact with myself and the people around me. When it gets too hot under my feet I tend to walk away and close and isolate myself. This feels like a relief for a while but then I feel lonely and depressed again.

The relationship with myself is therefore very annoying because I try to keep everything going, but actually lie to myself about what I need. I feel like I don’t know what to choose: the right choice, the best choice or the safest choice! Then I get lost in my head again worrying and then I think: “Never mind, I’m going to watch TV for hours as a distraction”. My ideal situation is to be able to participate, matter, build a good life, know what I want, and know who I am. Occasionally, that has been the case when I went out with someone, a relationship gives me a strong feeling. Being single, I now feel like I’m searching again and I’m thinking: “help!”. I never really built a life of my own, because I was always and still am with another person.

Finally, I would like to relax. The depression makes me so tense that my muscles are all tight and tingling. I am also ashamed of my behaviour and internal mess.

Answered by NiceDay Psychologist Wouter Schippers
Answer
Antwoord

Thank you for your detailed story! I'll try to offer some advice, but I'd also like to state that I feel your requests for help deserve more than just my response and brief advice. That is why I would advise you to get professional help so that you get the support you deserve. It sounds as if there is a diversity of things that deserve more attention than just my written response. You could register with Sol Psychotherapie at https://sol-psychotherapie.nl/.
For now I would like to give you the following:

  • Tension is often caused by a lack of relaxation. Tension can arise on the one hand from physical exercise, but also from internal processes such as worrying. It can therefore help on the one hand to reduce physical exercise (think of a balanced working day, a warm bath, massage), but on the other hand to promote relaxation through enjoyable activities (visiting friends, exercising, reading).
  • Of course you can also train yourself to relax. Take a look at our Relaxation library! https://niceday.app/library/relaxation/
  • What also connects to the part that you don't really know what you want and choices, is making a life balance. With this exercise you can indicate how important you find certain parts in your life and figure out how much energy and time you invest in them. You can use any contrasts as a starting point to change something. You can find the exercise here: https://niceday.app/library/in-behandeling/algemene-informatie-nl-in-behandeling/oefening-levensbalans/  

I hope this helps you get started a bit!

Regards,

Wouter

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