The last morning of the group.  I wake a bit "troubled".  This is the ebb and flow of the group.  Feelings tend to be more intense here.  As the "group river" flows its four day course, I know that I'm likely to move through a series of different emotional states.  I lie in bed for a bit sensing what I'm feeling.  What's it about.  The overall "smell/flavour" of my mood seems contributed to by a mix of things.  One factor is that I feel, what seems to me, a low key grumbling unease going on between me and one of the other people in the group.  A second factor is a discomfort I have about how another person expressed themselves for a while in the group yesterday.  A third is a concern I'm feeling about another person seeming to get too "isolated" in the group.  And there's something too about the group ending - both saying goodbye to the people and saying goodbye to this four day, magical, oasis in my life.  There are precious, good me

Here are half a dozen studies on the long-term effects of various forms of abuse & deprivation.  Paras et al systematically reviewed the association between a history of sexual abuse and a lifetime diagnosis of a somatic disorder.  They found significant links with functional gastrointestinal disorders, nonspecific chronic pain, psychogenic seizures, and chronic pelvic pain.  When analysis was restricted to studies where sexual abuse was defined as rape, they also found an association with fibromyalgia.  Abstracts and links, for this research paper and the further papers described, can be found lower down this page.   

In blog postings earlier this month, I've talked about supporting my Mum after her recent couple of strokes.  She's been shipped through three different hospitals and now is more peaceful in a nursing home.  It's sad - very sad at times - and it's great that she seems more comfortable, better looked after, and more content.  I definitely feel easier too.  Less weight on my shoulders, less emotional aching.

Yesterday and today are a check-in time with my friend Larry.  I've written in a previous blog post how Larry and I have met every three or four months for many years specifically to review how our lives are going and to plan and prioritize our goals for the next few months.  "Taking charge" of our lives in this kind of way makes huge sense.  For example the self-determination literature (S-DT)  highlights the importance of making autonomous decisions about what we put our energy into.  This S-DT research and much other work (e.g. a recent study on goal-setting) also emphasises that this kind of approach is a core component of growing wellbeing in one's life.  Yeats wrote something like "A friend is someone who sees the potential in you and helps you to live it."  Meeting with an old friend in the way Larry and I have done, is certainly an example of what Yeats was talking about.

Sadness.  I woke feeling sad ...