Image by miki** via Flickr
Self-Care Tip #225 – If you can’t choose a better perspective on your own, it might be time to choose it via a medical route.
Feeling trapped? Overextended? Used and neglected by others? It might be true. But why do we get in these impossible places?
In the Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle, towards the end of the story we find ourselves in a room with Charles and It. Charles is trapped by It. He has disconnected from his own thoughts and has given himself over to the control of “It.”
Charles’ sister, Meg, comes in and reminds him about Love and that changed the perspective of everything. It reminded Charles about why he wanted to choose for himself, to have his own thoughts, to love and receive love. And then, with that, Charles was reconnected with himself again, whole and sharing space with Love.
The changing perspective turned what seemed an impossible bondage into freedom.
When we feel disconnected from our personal journey, impossibly overextended and trapped, remembering our freedom to choose, freedom because of Love can make all the difference. The perspective shifts. The impossible becomes possible. Magic.
Sometimes, choosing is thwarted by brain disease. When we can’t extricate ourselves, when guilt plagues us, when we feel like things are about us that really aren’t, when the emotion jarring us is inappropriate to the context – we need to use that as a cue to choose to get “free” via medical help.
Questions: When have you felt trapped? When you did feel trapped, how did you find your freedom? Please tell me your story.
Related Articles
- Be Willing to Stick Your Toe In The Water of Self-Care – Just Start. (friendtoyourself.com)
- Love – Take What is Already Yours. You Have Been Given Love. (friendtoyourself.com)
- Does My Butt Look Fat in These Feathers? (bethparkerart.wordpress.com)
The only field of reference here, personally, was when I felt trapped in a corporate environment. It clouded my decision making. One day it dawned on me that I could carry on doing the work I loved, but without the constraints imposed by the ‘suits’ around me. I resigned and went freelance, best decision I ever made.
not the suits! ahhhh! so happy u r the free bird we have enjoyed watching in flight for this time. u r beautiful. keep on.
I felt trapped in many ways over the years. My 12-Step sponsor has been helpful. My therapist has been helpful. Simply speaking we are clouded in our perspective and someone outside the bubble can show us a different take, how to modify, how to cope and most satisfying of all , how to escape from the trap. I am astonished how often a solution was so obvious and I could not see it. It may not be easy and may take courage and may not be resolved to our optimum liking, but it can get resolved and closure achieved.
outside the bubble – nice
I became trapped in 2002 and it took me five years to become free safely. I now have a council of about six hundred people..honestly it is a village..who will hog tie me before they allow me to do that again!
too cool. (i am suppressing the image of you w a hog tie on though… hm. 😉 )
Just got a copy of Molecules and Mental Illness by Samuel H Barondes. Comments?
I haven’t read it. give me your take and let me know. i’m interested to hear your reflections.
I feel trapped every time I want to say “no”. I don’t want to stay in choir; I don’t want to have to be somewhere at a given time every week; I don’t want to have to run every time someone calls. I’d like to be comfortable enough in my own skin to say “no” (with no excuses necessary) and not feel so incredibly guilty afterwards. It’s an up-binging thing, but that was 70 years ago. Time I grow up and learn that it’s not about how others will feel if I say “no”. It’s about how I will feel. Others can deal with whatever their issues are; I’ll feel free – and adult – and self-cared-for. How great would that be!!!!! Now I just need to convince myself…….
i read this 2ways – “it’s an up-binging thing” and it’s an up-bringing thing” – both of which i thought would apply nicely ;).
nancy, u inspire me. i’m sure many of us feel that way. u r tenacious and full of hope. thank u for sharing these insights. let us know…
It’s up-bRinging – and please don’t be inspired. Tonight I just feel trapped in my life and it’s not a good feeling. I’m sorry but O God sometimes it hurts so much.
sorry to hear that nancy. i hope this AM is better and every moment u have the courage u have demonstrated so often w us. bless
im traped ever day of my life so far i never managed to keep my own home not only that my small little world isnt really living its surviveing and i seem pretty good at that one i have tryed to venture out of my little world but when i do that i get hurt so i go back to my world quite evill in way history repeating itself right enuff of that negative stuff anyway i am going ice scating next week no i have never done this its a bit of a relese form my world what will happen is unknown i know my best firend kev wants to drag me out to the pub tomoro but i refuse i can leave my world but only at my speed going ice scating will be my first attempt of getting out i seem to of been traped in this little world i live in for quite a while and its starting to hurt becuase i cant do things that most people can do or a bit news on america it dosnt look like its going ahead looks like the lord has chosen for me he so cheats some times there is but a glimmer of hope but you never know i do these runaways quite a bit but anyone who knows me they know they never go right i cant keep hiding away from people and avoiding people its not doing me any good im getting more trapped and it my own doing plus another thing kev has started to beocome a trigger it might be time to start looking for a propery again if i had one wish it would be for the people without mental conditions or issues could actualy tell how you are felling and know what to say and what not to say the week after that i am going to the cinema so i am trying to escape finding my freedum now that one has to be the ace card and very unlikely but in a pack there is a chance of picking it so i allways live on the hope that one day i will have my freedum
hope mixed in w it all – that says a lot kevin. hope is a great focal point i see u returning to over and over and it a lovely thing about u. if u want to start saying what “most people” are about, i don’t see your courage in many of us and u’ve got it going. keep on.
Pingback: trapped with BPD « BPD borderline personality disorder and me Blog
I become trapped in my own guilt. Yes it is about perspective but what to do when even changing your perspective provides no relief, only a different source of constraint?
anyone listening respond?
I can relate to Cathy. My mother was wonderful at making me feel guilty about anything and everything. Nothing was ever done well enough. If something happened it was my fault. When I became an adult, she told me, as my beloved grandmother and my almost equally beloved father-in-law were dying (within two weeks of each other), that I was not to grieve because I had a husband and children and I was responsible for them so I shouldn’t let them down by crying about the loss of my loved ones. When my daughter got married, I had just been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and couldn’t walk without the aid of a cane. My mother told me I was ruining my daughter’s wedding by using a cane to walk down the aisle at church.
Oh, yeah. I know about guilt. And, trying to change the perspective hasn’t worked a lot, either. Unless I really talk to myself, I can feel guilty about anything. And I guess that’s the point. I really have to talk to myself. Becoming my own best friend has helped SO much!!! And, finally, after years of feeling guilty about being emotionally ill, I DON’T feel guilty about taking the time to be a friend to myself on this blog.
laughing heartily w joy. thank u nancy. i wonder if you could turn your natural ability to en-guilt (neologism by dr. Q) into a productive aspect of yourself? why not, huh? u might b a genius ;). thank u so much for sharing this w us though really nancy. after years of slogging through that, here u r and here we r w u. what a blessing. keep on.
i dont really ever feel guilty i dont know its one of those things i dont feel maybee i should might make me a better person
hm. not sure kevin but i am not saying i know. just suspicious about all that personalization u tell us about. i think u’ve mentioned shame too in the past and i suspect those things might have a relationship to guilt. what’s your take?
hello Cathy! i’ve been thinking about your comment and wondered where u r at now in all this?
I am trying to figure out how to retrain my brain. No easy task and I wonder if there is any way to really do that. Some things have been wired for so long.
i think i just think guilt i dont feel it if that kinda makes sense i can feel bad and maybe that is guilt but hidden and i dont fully understand guilt like when kevs stuff wnet missing i should of felt guilty insted of felling bad i dont think i have felt guilty maybee for long enuff so maybe i cant remeber it and its something very short lived
that makes sense kevin.
on further discussion, do you think semantics r playing a role in your perspective?
can you define the question a little bit easyer im kinda getting the just of the word semantics quite a big word for me and a totle new idear first time i have heard of it quite perplexing to me anyway
no prob and sorry bout that kevin. semantics in this refers to our choice of words. we might be saying the same words as each other, but the meaning of those words between us is different. for example, “hot” could mean a lucrative idea or the temperature… and so on. i’m sure i could have said this better. it is a little more than the words “synonym and antonym” imply, but i think they are family 🙂 to semantics. what do u think?
This is very sound advice, Sana. Sometimes we need someone outside of our social and family circle to give us an objective perspective on our perspectives, as it were, particularly on emotional issues. It is sometimes very difficult to see one’s way clear. Psychiatry provides a very useful service in this area because it provides a safe environment in which to explore the hard questions that might need to be asked. bb
hey bluebee!
i luv what u said, perspective on our perspectives. (why do u think i’m dancing and jumping up and down right now when i saw that u stopped by! 😉 )
“third-party” opinions can be great self-care. keep on.