@muppey Mark,

I just now saw your message. I think Jim's advice below was good. A call back was not necessary but OK, it you did call her back.
If it was important she will probably call back.

Teresa

@muppey Thank you for sharing here. I agree that it is good to get everything out in a safe place and I am glad we have both found this forum. I have tried other groups that did not turn out to be supportive or understanding. I think t has a great deal to do with the moderators and this group, in my opinion, has great moderators. I have no suggestions today, just a pat on the back for keeping yourself busy and clearing out to make the place more "yours". You continue in my prayers and today I am sending you a big panda hug! Blessings.

@2011panc,
This is a great site and it's helped me a lot. Hope you are doing well and/or better anyway.
It's interesting to monitor my heart rate when I go to my meetings. I'm very conscious of this as it goes a hundred miles a minute and there's nothing I can do about it. When I get to a meeting my heart gets quiet and rests, how about that, I just may need to do that more often!

A few weeks ago I told my brother I'd get rid of this now if it was possible. I know everyone on this forum would like to be rid of the pain but it doesn't seem to go away.

Yesterday Mary called and hung up when I answered the phone. When I got back from a meeting she had sent me an email which I read and deleted. The trouble is it started me back to Feb 1 and I can't stop it. I had a job set for 10 am today but now I have to cancel it. It's not an emergency job but I could use the money. It's electrical work so I need to be a bit sharper than I am right now.
Not getting much work anyway but these heart, mind and spirit (attacks???) seem to come at the wrong time. This is the second job I've had to cancel.

One of the ladies here, can't think who, wrote that this thing goes in zig zag. Guess she's right! I was doing well after posting the pictures because that was fun and made me laugh and Jim's pics were nice. Oh well, I'll see the doc next week, probably say "Ok everything looks good! Have a nice day."

I'm going to get better.
Thanks
Mark

@muppey

Knowing how expensive it is to mail things, I had a thought that I'd just throw out. Rather than mailing things to Mary, and spending money you don't have, you could consider laying things out and taking a picture of them, and sending the pictures in an email to see if she wants any of the stuff she left behind. If she'd cooperate with that, you could only send her the things she actually wants, and she might agree to have you toss or donate the rest. Just a random thought that paused on its way through my mind.

I'm trusting that the day will soon come when the pain associated with the ghost event will have less traumatic impact on you. I hope you can move forward with your life more quickly than I have.

I visit a lady who is 104 every Monday. This week I took a boombox and played a tape for her of me playing some hymns on the piano. We sang along with a couple of the songs - Holy, Holy, Holy and How Great Thou Art. I'm trying to find a microphone to record more songs for her. She enjoyed listening and singing along. She's a faithful Episcopalian believer who's looking forward to seeing Jesus in Heaven. She has an amazing memory and I enjoy hearing her talk about her life. She lived in McCloud for awhile - her family had several mills in which her husband worked, and they had one up in the woods near McCloud, as well as one that they started here in central Oregon in the 30s. She loves it that I can Google so many things that are part of her history. I wish she weren't too blind to see the pictures I pull up.

I started knitting a scarf yesterday that I'm going to give to my therapist. Unfortunately, it will be awhile before it will be cold enough again for him to wear it. It takes about a minute and a half for each row, not taking into account any redo's I have to do. I get distracted too easily and lose count of the stitches in the pattern. Sometimes my wife has to bail me out when I do something wierd that I can't figure out how to correct.

I hope you'll soon be able to do those jobs that are waiting for you.

Jim

@jimhd,
Hi Jim, Thanks for your advice! Hope you're doing well. I attempt to not go into being depressed but sometimes people act funny.
Maybe I'm acting funny now but I don't see any reason to allow her to poke me.
The stuff I'm sending to her is personal to her only and has no ties to me. I've sent about half of it and the other stuff I'll sort and send in May.
I'm not in contact with her for good reason, so I won't ask her permission for anything. The old family pictures I'll take out of their frames and send the photos only, pictures of her great grand parents, and other things which mean nothing to me.

I know these things take time to heal over or at least stop bleeding.

I'm trying to make friends with some guys but it isn't easy because I've learned to distrust people and more so now. Can't believe they'd treat anyone that way, they have an idea in their heads that they are Christian. I know wrong and I know right, I've been wrong on many things but they think all they have to do is baptize dead people and they can discard their sin. Because of this they don't think they need to apologize. Think I'm crazy? Look up 'The God Makers', YouTube will work for that. It's weird!

Is that lady in a rest home or at her own home? It's good to visit with them because I know they get lonely. My grandmother live to be 106 and I used to visit her at the rest home on Wednesday after work. I'd bring those small bottles of wine, some chess and crackers and we'd have a little party. One day she accused me of giving her the wine so that she'd go to sleep and I could leave. Funny lady. Sometimes she did fall asleep but that's not why I brought the wine. Earlier, when she was at home she'd be having a spell and Dad would go over there and call the Doc and he'd tell Dad to give her a shot of brandy. Guess it worked. Says so in the Bible.
Keep on knitting and have fun. Life can be mean and little niceties help smooth things over.
Maybe in twenty years I will be nice to Mary but I don't expect to ever see her again. I'm not going down there and they have no reason to come up here, besides, I'd tell them to go away...not nice I know. Sue me!
Mark

@muppey

Mark,

The lady is in a nursing home, never out of bed anymore. A few weeks ago I printed and framed several pictures that the archivist from her high school in Seattle sent me, and hung them in her room. She was excited about that and said she's been showing them to friends and caregivers. I take communion to her every few weeks - that means a lot to her. I have a small communion set that my wife gave me years ago, very useful for this purpose. It has 4 little communion glasses, a little brass tray for the bread, and a small bottle for the wine or grape juice. She would prefer that I served wine, but I don't drink it, though I suppose I could buy a bottle for the purpose.

I'm pretty familiar with the Mormon teaching. I grew up in upstate New York a few miles from the place Smith allegedly saw the angel. His high school English teacher said that he was a very creative writer as a child. One of my aunts grew up just across the road from the "sacred" hill. Was it Gomorrah? I think he wrote about the angel Moroni. It's been a long time since we lived there, so my memory is pretty vague. We have a good book written by the daughter of one of the high bishops in Salt Lake City. She separated from the group (I find it hard to call it a church), and is quite explicit in what she says about their beliefs and practices. Some pretty amazing stuff. "Leaving the Saints" by Martha Beck. It's a very good book.

Depression entered my life in a significant enough way to need treatment around 2000. It's been a long journey back to what I call my new normal. Recovery has been made more difficult by being a pastor, especially where I was at the time, in a small (247), remote village where time had stood still for 50 years. People hung on to some archaic concepts about mental illness. The stigma lives large in places like that, but certainly not limited to the small rural areas. Our society has a lot to learn when it comes to mental health issues. I know I've learned a lot over the past 18 years. It can be rough learning it from the inside out.

My therapist wishes that I would talk about the issues with my wife, but I don't want to cause her more stress than necessary. It's enough that she has to live with me.

Time to get to sleep. I'm glad to have these conversations with you and others here.

Jim

@jimhd,
"It's enough that she has to live with me." I know it's easy to be self deprecating but maybe use that in a humorous way about yourself. I Bbt your an easy guy to live with and I'm pretty sure women, your wife, would like to hear what's on your mind. Talking and sharing was one thing which I did a lot with Mary but looking back it makes me crazy because of the trust issue. I trusted her with what goes on in my mind and she betrayed that and we should never do that to anyone. If it's already common knowledge it's no big deal. For an example of a possible mistrust issue...yesterday I was looking through some old writing I have dating 1977. I wrote some prognostication down and today the USA is facing what I wrote. This came from study and nothing much else other than figuring and knowing about nations and human nature, greed etc. I wouldn't want a distorted version of that getting out because that stuff can make people think you're nutty. Just saying.

I know I keep secrets! If I need to discuss something which confused me I can formulate it away from any identity of other people so it stays anonymous. When I did this in past I used to leave identifiers but learned to think ahead and stopped doing that. I don't like gossip. Simple identifiers would be a place of employment for instance. I once said "the guy was a chiropractor" and that was a mistake because of the small town nature of things and that identified the person. I wasn't saying anything bad about the guy I just didn't want to identify him.

It always bothered me that some people would demand the "Who are you talking about?", I'd work around that. Why do people need to do that? Give me some ammo???

Jim, bring your lady friend some wine, probably give her a thrill. She's not going to become an alcoholic at 104 years old. Just me thinking of how lonely and boring laying in a bed can be. I'd never spent a night in a hospital before Feb. 1-2 and I can attest that it's boring. The night nurse came in around 2am and I was wide awake and I said, "This is boring!" The nurse told me to watch tv, "boring". LOL.

The name of the hill is Cumorah which is apparently in New York but later their scholars decided that there was another hill in Mexico or some other inconvenient place. I suppose they don't want any exploration to prove their fiction. Weird.

I think Gomorah would be OK but that's next door to Sodom, they wouldn't like that. Hah!

Thanks for writing back I do appreciate it a lot. Brain is still foggy but getting better. I actually did a job yesterday.

Mark

@2011panc, @jimhd, littleonefromohio, and to whom it concerns or not!
The other day I complained as usual, but this was about a Leaning Pine, leaning towards my bedroom. I met this guy over his lost dog and they're together again. Cool!
This morning around 9:15 the dog owner, Cole, and his buddy Rayme came by and within 20 minutes had that tree lying on the ground. I was impressed and told them both. "I'm impressed! That's amazing!" We shook hands and they left. Now I don't have to worry about that tree coming down on my bed. It's going to storm this evening into tomorrow so we'll be happy here in this nice little home. (We'll?) Slow today, no one else here.

This morning a bit of humanity drove into my yard. I'm very grateful for their kindness and all. Thank God Almighty a lot.

Good things happen!

Mark

@muppey Mark: Thanks for sharing that good story! Teresa

@hopeful33250, Ok hopeful! I just got back from the doc office, took the meds, felt tired and lay down for 30 minutes, fell asleep, woke up at 1:30 pm and it's snowing. I'd like to see a few inches drop but it's April so it's probably just a passying little flurry.
I like the snow as long as I don't have to shovel it. I'm at 2000 ft so it doesn't snow much down here, but have had almost three ft. before.

Was it you who mentioned that this stuff comes and goes and after a good couple days you'll wake up with it all back? Anyway, whoever said that is right. Good things happened while I was doing better so maybe we get a chance to charge the battery and then get sent back to deal with it. Just a guess, "...won't give you more than you can bare!"

Do bare's hibernate to get away from it all?