Setbacks

One day, years ago, my mother (also named Treasure -- see first blog) wrote a woman on the east coast about handling a setback. The letter was passed around so much that it became tattered and worn. I believe that she finally wrote something for the "Recovery Reporter" . If she did, this may be it. There is no date on it. I found it upon my return from a long vacation in CA. Most everything I type will be done exactly as it is on paper except I will change the font to italics.

Setbacks

Believe it or not setbacks seem to serve a purpose. We learn from them and, of course, they are pretty grim reminders of the fact that we must not indulge in sabotage. The setback also seems to help us to acquire a better balance by teaching us, I suppose, the art of spotting. It is so easy to work up temper against our symptoms when we are in a setback. This starts the vicious cycle. Our old set of symptoms, panic and all, return for some unknown reason. We notice them and instead of accepting them calmly we start thrashing around in our minds with the sabotaging thought of "The permanent handicap" and so we discover that our will to bear discomfort is not as strong as we thought it was when we were feeling well.

One of the things I always did, would still do in a setback is to start over again at the weakest point. It seems like you go back quite a way to do this but then think of the very word, setback. I would have to start first thing in the morning -- handling irritations with the children and spotting my performances every minute of the day, most of it being done through the muscles as usual. This method seems to bring me out of it the quickest.

One of the most important things to remember if not the most important is "waiting", because when you feel fearful, you have the sense of fatigue and don't handle yourself the way you would like with people. You feel that you are worse than ever and can't seem to look forward to the time when it will lift. Don't you agree? No doubt you know from experience that the whole picture can change for you and you will again feel secure and spontaneous. I have had it happen overnight.