rape

[sara]

Hi,I found this site yesterday as I wanted to find if there were others who have had a similar experience to me.I was raped 8 years ago,and somehow repressed it as i was in shock.I have been seeing a counselllor since january this year about other things,when I uncovered the memory of what happened to me.I was talking to my counsellor about my relationships I've had,when I started to remember what happened to me.It hit me so hard I was in shock.I had such strong feelings,it was like it happened yesterday.I couldn't go out for several weeks,I was scared everytime a man looked at me.I got really depressed and thought about suicide.Its been really hard to deal with and to understand.I also had flashbacks to what happened,and felt terrified.Has anyone else found themselves asking themselves questions like why did it happen,is it my fault,did i provoke it.I felt so much guilt and still finf it hard to tell anyone.Has anyone else repressed their attack and not dealt with it at the time?I hope this makes sense as i've spent the last 5 weeks since it was brought up trying to make sense of it.

[diana_holbourn]

Sorry to have taken so long to respond. I didn't notice your message before. I hope you're still checking back to see if anyone's replied.

Some counselling! I'd seriously question whether it's worth taking the risk of continuing with it if I were you! Counselling that encourages people to dwell on the past can be seriously harmful, because the more people think about bad things, the more upset they get. The best counselling focuses for the most part on trying to build hope for the future.

Don't feel guilty about what happened. Most rapes are premeditated, so it doesn't matter how a person behaves; it still won't be their fault. While it'll probably be upsetting to know he may well have planned it, at least you don't have to feel guilty. It might have had far more to do with his selfish and abusive personality than with you. Maybe it would give you a bit more understanding and reassurance to look into the personality types of abusive men.

It's good that you're getting over being scared to go out. What are you doing that's working to help you do that?

If you look to the future, it may be that you will discover you have a lot to live for and it would be a great shame to waste your opportunities by committing suicide or being too depressed to function. It might help if you ask yourself how things would be if everything was going right in your life, and then when you've built up a detailed picture of that, ask yourself what would be the first small steps you could take to get there, and the next, and the next. And then very gradually, so as not to take on too much and be discouraged if you don't succeed, work towards building your dreams, bit by bit.

There are various ways of dealing with flashbacks. Here's an extract on them from the self-help page I wrote, Healing From the Trauma of Rape: [I've recently improved the layout of that so it's easier to navigate)

(The self-help advice is being narrated by a character in the self-help scenario. If you'd like to understand the idea better, or to pick up other suggestions, follow the link and have a look at the whole thing)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>... She says the therapist told her that a lot of people can get rid of flashbacks by a technique where they first find a comfortable place where they won&#39;t be disturbed, and then they write down everything that happens in the flashbacks, reading it aloud to a supportive friend, or to themselves imagining they&#39;re reading to someone caring; and then they tear the paper into shreds and dispose of it in the most final way they can think of.

She said that if the images we had in our flashbacks are replaced by other nasty ones, or if we get the same ones again, we can write about those, and then read what we&#39;ve written out loud to someone compassionate or to ourselves imagining we&#39;re reading to someone who cares, and then tear that bit of paper up and dispose of that one as well. Reading about it and then disposing of the paper is a symbol for ending what happened. ...

Jessica said the therapist told her that we can sometimes get even better relief if we do other things after we&#39;ve done that, a good one being a drawing exercise. She said it&#39;ll take about an hour of time, where we first get some paper, coloured pencils, crayons or paints, to draw three pictures. Then, first of all, we can draw an image that represents our intrusive thoughts or feelings, either a literal image of something that happened, or something that symbolises it.

I&#39;ll think about what kind of image to draw. It&#39;s an interesting idea about thinking of a symbol to represent what happened or what our thoughts are. Maybe I could draw a crushed flower, or a newly-budding plant being trampled on, to represent me being hurt.

She says we should use the colours that we think best represent our flashbacks, but it doesn&#39;t matter how we represent them, because whatever way we choose will be the best one for us.

That&#39;s nice.

She says that then, we should use another piece of paper to draw something that represents what we would prefer to be thinking or feeling instead of the flashbacks. Again, she says it doesn&#39;t matter how we represent it, as long as it feels right for us.

She says that on the third piece of paper, we should draw a picture that represents a description of how we got from one state of mind to the other.

Er, I&#39;m not quite sure I understand that. Maybe it means that supposing what we&#39;d like to be thinking instead of a flashback is about how we&#39;d like to make new friends and visit interesting places, which we can maybe represent on the second piece of paper by drawing a picture of ourselves looking happy somewhere nice with people of our own age around us, we can draw an image on the third bit of paper of anything that was important in helping us get hope for the future and a desire to move on. ...

Jessica said that when we&#39;ve decided what to draw and drawn all three pictures, we should get the first one, the one of the horrible images we had in our flashbacks, and tear it up. Then we can keep the other two to look at if we think they might comfort us sometimes, if we like.

Jessica says that another thing she&#39;s heard we can try to get rid of flashbacks, if we still get some after we&#39;ve done the other things, is to distract ourselves when we get them. So, preferably as soon as we think a flashback might be coming on, we should start focusing on things around us instead, using as many of our senses as we can, trying to give attention to five things with each sense in turn. That way, hopefully our brains will stop focusing on the flashback and making it worse, and come right back to focusing on the present again, and we&#39;ll hopefully be able to reassure ourselves that we&#39;re really in our current environment, rather than back in the situation where we were being abused.

So first, we could use our sense of sight, and try to concentrate hard on what we can see. So, for instance, if we were indoors, we could pay a bit of close attention to what the pattern on the wallpaper looks like, or if we&#39;re in the bathroom, count how many tiles are in one row. Then we could quickly move on and look out the window of whatever room we&#39;re in, and focus hard on what we can see; then we could look at the floor and quickly try to decide whether it needs hovering or washing; then we could look around to quickly see if the room needs dusting; then we could focus on the colour of the curtains or the door; and then we could count three or more items in the room that need electricity to function. Or if we&#39;re outside, we could maybe pay a bit of close attention to the colours of things in shop windows; or repeat back to ourselves the names of things we can see in a window, or the names of the types of shops around us; or count how many things are in the nearest shop window; or look at the colours of six cars passing by and see if we can remember the colours in order, and do that with a higher number of cars if we can; or look at any flowers in people&#39;s gardens; ... There are probably lots of things we could give attention to.

After we&#39;ve paid attention to five different things we can see, we could quickly move on to counting and focusing on five things we can hear, if there are that many. So if we&#39;re indoors in or near the kitchen, we could maybe focus our attention on the fridge motor if we can hear it; or if we&#39;re in the room where our computer is, we could focus on the noise it&#39;s making. Then we could listen to see if we can hear the neighbours or anything outside. If we can hear cars outside, we can focus on the noise they&#39;re making. We could tap something, and listen to the noise it makes. If we&#39;re outside, we could try to distinguish words the people around us are saying, and listen to the noise cars are making, or if it&#39;s quiet, see if we can hear any birds, try to hear anyone&#39;s footsteps as they walk by, or listen to any music we can hear. If we can&#39;t hear one thing, like the footsteps of someone walking by, we can quickly move on to trying to give attention to another sound.

If we can&#39;t hear many things, we shouldn&#39;t spend any time trying to hear more, because if our attention isn&#39;t focused on anything much, it gives more of a chance for the flashback to get worse.

After we&#39;ve paid attention to as many things as we can hear, we can quickly move on to giving attention to what we can touch. So we could shuffle our feet and notice the texture of the floor or ground beneath them, think about whether it&#39;s rough or smooth, and what it might be made of. We could notice the pressure on our feet from standing on it. Or if we&#39;re sitting down, we could think about the texture of the chair we&#39;re on, and notice the pressure of our contact with it. We can touch it so we give more attention to it. If there&#39;s a desk or table or wall or something in front of us or within reach, we can touch those and think about their texture. We can touch part of our clothing and think about its texture.

Then, we can go back to looking at things, and then to hearing them, and so on, until the flashback isn&#39;t trying to bother us any more.[/b][/quote]

The distraction technique also works if people can learn to catch panic attacks before they come on badly and then start it.

[scared]

Hi diana,I&#39;m not sure you understood what I said about my counselling.I don&#39;t think I&#39;d be around if it wasn&#39;t for my counsellor.It was me who brought up the subject of past relationships during counselling,as my last partner who died 6 years ago was abusive in a different way.He told me lots of lies,including that he was dying of cancer.That was the relationship I needed to work through in counselling,as it was also very damaging to me.It was between sessions that I wrote how I felt about relationships in the past,and just started to write about my rape.It was wierd,as I wasn&#39;t thinking about what I was writing,it just came from my unconscious.Then I have been working through my feelings in counselling for the last 6 weeks or so.

[scared]

Thanks for your advice.I don&#39;t know how I&#39;m less scared to go out,I guess I just forced myself,and tried to go out with family or friends rather than on my own made it easier.I forced myself to get on with life as I have a child,and am studying part time,so have a lot of things I need to do.I have just had 3 weeks off from college and my college placement (I&#39;m a student counsellor),so that helped a bit.Although the hard thing was that I had more time to think,and to dwell on things,which was really difficult to deal with.

[scared]

The thing I&#39;m finding really hard to deal with is the fact that I know I will never forget what happened to me,and that it will always be with me.And that the way I see things has changed so much.I can&#39;t bear to watch anything with sex in it on the television.If i see a man telling a woman what to do when I&#39;m out,or a woman dressed sexily on the tv,I think doesnt she worry that men would want sex with her.Just the idea of a man wanting me sexually or looking me over makes me feel sick.I&#39;m thinking it might be easier as I&#39;m gay,and have no interest in men anyway,than if I was straight.I just want to feel like me again,the me I was before my life changed forever.I feel I&#39;m beginning to feel a bit more like me,but I&#39;m wondering if I&#39;ll always have these thoughts and get such strong feelings about what happened to me.Its wierd because I feel I&#39;m getting better at carrying on with life,and distracting myself from my thoughts,but when I stop rushing around and doing things,the feelings seem to come back more strongly than I expected,and it really scares me.Can you help me?

[diana_holbourn]

One thing you could try is looking for as many heart-warming stories as you can find of where men have been kind and considerate to others, or where they&#39;ve been vulnerable and displayed weakness and a need for help because they&#39;ve been in some kind of trouble. It might help you change your thoughts about them. I heard about one person who had a bad image of men and was advised to cut as many stories about men doing good as she could find out of the newspaper. She ended up finding several. I&#39;m not sure a newspaper would be the best place to look, because they thrive on bad news, but if you do happen to come across any there, it might be worth cutting them out and keeping them to remind yourself of them. Also, there may be other places where you can find heart-warming stories of men behaving in a caring way, or expressing feelings or needs that make them appear more human. There&#39;s one website I can think of off-hand that might help. You can subscribe to a mailing list and you get sent a story a week about an act of kindness that someone&#39;s done. It&#39;s called Heroic Stories.

Actually, another website you could try, where they have many heart-warming stories online, is Afterhours Inspirational Stories.

Another thing you could try is relaxation exercises. When people are relaxed, they can see things from a more balanced perspective than they can when they&#39;re anxious or depressed, when they can let exaggerated worries run away with them. So as well as hopefully calming you down, they&#39;ll hopefully help you stop getting such upsetting thoughts.

One relaxation technique is to slow your breathing down to an even, regular rhythm, perhaps counting to four sllowly while breathing in and out, breathing through your nose so you don&#39;t take so much air in in one go as you would breathing through your mouth.

I&#39;ll quote from another of the self-help things I wrote about another relaxation technique. Again, it&#39;s being narrated by the main character in it:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>It says that besides slowing down the breathing, one thing that has helped some people to reduce their tension is called progressive muscle relaxation. It&#39;s where we tense up groups of muscles in turn and then relax them.

It says that we should find somewhere quiet and comfortable to do the exercise, where we&#39;re not going to be disturbed. It says we should do most of the relaxation exercises we do in a place like that.

It says that ideally, we should find a place to sit or lie on that isn&#39;t hard enough to be uncomfortable, but isn&#39;t soft enough to send us to sleep. It says that we should make sure our clothes are loose enough not to be a distraction to us, and take our shoes off. It says we should try to make sure nothing distracts us, like television, radio, the phone, or children, and so on.

It says a good position is lying on our backs if that feels comfortable, and for some people, especially if they&#39;ve had lower back strain, it might be best for them to put a small pillow under their necks and a small cushion under their knees, or bend their knees upwards slightly if they haven&#39;t got one. But this can be done just sitting down.

It does say that anyone with physical problems should consult a doctor before deciding whether to do this exercise.

And it says it doesn&#39;t work so well if it&#39;s done up to two hours after a meal.

It says it isn&#39;t relaxed muscles in itself that reduces our anxiety, but focusing on the feel of them as we relax them. It says we&#39;re supposed to study the sensations we get as we tense and relax them.

It says it doesn&#39;t matter what order we tense and relax groups of muscles in, as long as we have an orderly plan, like feet to head or head to feet, to make it easier to remember to do all of them.

It says that sometimes, irrelevant thoughts will intrude on what we&#39;re doing, but if they do, we shouldn&#39;t get bothered by them, but should just try to dismiss them from our minds as if they were cars going past that we&#39;d notice and then stop thinking about. And then we should bring our minds gently back to focusing on the muscle relaxation.

It says that if we think we just have to deal with the thoughts we&#39;re having, we can tell ourselves we&#39;ll deal with them later and plan a specific time that we intend to set aside to think about them, and then bring our minds back to the muscle relaxation. It says that the thoughts will probably come back, since thoughts tend to do that with everyone, but if they do, we don&#39;t have to get annoyed about them, but we should just remind ourselves again that we&#39;ll deal with them at the specific time we&#39;ve set aside later to do that, and then set them aside and carry on with the relaxation exercise. It says that as we get used to doing the exercise over the weeks, the irrelevant thoughts should intrude on our thinking less and less, as we get better at relaxing.

It says the more we practice, the better we&#39;ll probably get at it, and so the more deeply relaxed we&#39;ll get by doing it. If we&#39;re patient, it&#39;ll help us relax better.

It says that what we&#39;re supposed to do first is to clench our right fist, while keeping all our other muscles as relaxed as they were before, and study the feeling of tension we get in it, focusing on what kind of sensations we&#39;re having. It says we should hold it tense for about ten seconds, and then slowly relax it, all the while focusing on the feelings of gradual relaxation we&#39;re getting in it. It says we should untense it very slowly until it&#39;s totally relaxed, and then gently shake our hand around wiggling our fingers to feel the sensation of relaxation in them. It says that as we relax our hand, we can whisper the word "Relax" to ourselves if we like. That can help us focus on relaxing more. It says that then, we can imagine it&#39;s getting heavy with relaxation.

It says that after that, we should do the same with our left fist, clenching it, studying the sensation of tension in it for several seconds, and then slowly relaxing it, focusing all the while on the sensation of it as it gradually relaxes.

Then, we can work our way around the body. We can tense each of our arms by bending it up, holding it like that for several seconds, studying the feeling of tension in it, and then relaxing it slowly, studying the feeling of gradual relaxation in it. Then, we can tense them another way by holding each of them in turn really straight for several seconds, focusing our minds on the feeling of tension in each one, before very slowly relaxing it, paying attention to how enjoyable the feeling of gradual relaxation in it is compared to the feeling of tension.

Then we can tense our shoulders by hunching each of them up in turn, and then let them gently relax, all the while focusing on what the sensations feel like, and then imagining them feeling heavy with relaxation if we can.

It says that then we can concentrate on the muscles in our face.

We can start by raising our eyebrows high and relaxing those.

Then we can tense our tongue by pushing it against the roof of our mouth, and then relax it .

We can tense up our lips by pushing them together. Then we can relax them slowly, remembering to focus on the feeling of them as they relax.

Then we can tense the muscles in our chest, by taking a deep breath and holding it for several seconds, before gently and slowly letting it go, and focusing on how much nicer the sensation we feel becomes as we gradually breathe out.

Then we can pull our stomach in to tense our stomach muscles, and then let them go gently, enjoying how much nicer they feel as they relax, and whispering, "Relax" as we do so if we like.

It says that then, we can tense our lower back, by arching our back and clenching our buttocks, before gently relaxing it.

Then we can tense the muscles in each of our legs in turn, by straightening each of our legs and turning our toes down, and then slowly relaxing them, focusing all the while on what they feel like tensed and relaxed. We can whisper the word "Relax", and breathe out as we relax them, if we like. Breathing out as we relax the muscles can help us relax.

It says that if we&#39;ve had a history of getting cramps in our legs, we ought to be careful about tensing those up.

We can tense our toes up by curling them up, and then we can slowly let them go, focusing on how they feel all the time, and whispering the word "Relax", if we like, breathing out as we do relax the muscles.

It says that if we&#39;re worried about not being able to remember what order to tense and relax each group of muscles in, we can make a tape to remind ourselves. We can decide what order to do them in before we start recording, and then give ourselves step-by-step instructions on the tape to tense each group of muscles, each time waiting about ten seconds before telling ourselves to gently relax them, reminding ourselves to whisper "Relax" if we like, and reminding ourselves to gently breathe out as we relax for the ones where it&#39;s practical, which would be most of them except perhaps the tongue and the chest.

I won&#39;t remind myself to do that every time I tell myself to relax if I do a tape. I think a lot of the time, I&#39;ll just pause for about fifteen to twenty seconds on it, to give myself the opportunity to relax muscles very gradually and enjoy the sensations in them more and more as they become relaxed.

The magazine article says that regardless of whether we&#39;re going anywhere that day, we should make time to set aside half an hour a day for a month to practice that relaxation exercise, since it can help us feel less tense. It says we might not be good at it at first, since it usually takes time before we discover how it can work best for us, and so it&#39;s best if we do quite a lot of practice, and not give up if we don&#39;t think it&#39;s working well at first.[/b][/quote]

There&#39;s another relaxation technique that you might find useful in part five of another self-help thing I wrote called Getting Cured of Agoraphobia and Panic Disorder.

When you&#39;re more relaxed, and when you start reading material about men being kind or showing they have a sensitive side, which will hopefully start changing your image of them, it&#39;ll be easier for you to challenge the negative thoughts you have about them. For instance, when you wonder how a woman dares dress sexily, you could try stopping those thoughts in their tracks, maybe by saying, "Stop&#33;" to yourself, and then saying to yourself something like, "Many men are more considerate than to want to use her." And so on.

[scared]

Hi,to be honest,I&#39;m not interested in reading about men,good or bad,as I realise not all men are rapists.I have a good male friend who is not a rapist. (although did try it on with me when he was drunk a long time ago,but it was not meant agressively).The last thing I want at the moment is to read about men,due to me being raped.I don&#39;t feel I need to change my image of them,as I am gay I will not be getting into a relationship with one.I appreciate that you are trying to help me,but I&#39;m very angry at your suggestion that I need to change my image of them.I understand what you mean,but feel the last thing I want t o do is read about them.I don&#39;t know if you understand what I mean.

[diana_holbourn]

OK, fair enough. But these things are about families really, and women, and all sorts of people, not men specifically. What I meant was that it might help you lessen your anxiety around them. People can know in their minds that not all men are rapists, but still have anxious thoughts in the manner you mentioned, and reading wholesome material about nice things can change their thought patterns to more healthy and less anxious ones.

Maybe just reading one or two at first to see what you think would help you decide whether you think that might work.

Anyway, whether you do or not, relaxation techniques will hopefully help, because as well as relaxing you, they&#39;ll hopefully divert your thoughts, so you won&#39;t be dwelling on bad things so much.

[diana_holbourn]

OK, here&#39;s another idea. Nothing to do with men. It could be a good distraction technique, as well as cheering you up.

Incidentally, the person I said had a bad image of men had been in an abusive relationship, and the idea the therapist had in giving her the task of finding good things about men was not to make her feel more willing to engage in a relationship with another one, but to lessen her anxiety, just as I wasn&#39;t suggesting it to you so you&#39;d want to have a relationship with anyone, but so your thought patterns might change when you&#39;re around them. Still, it probably won&#39;t work for everyone. But some of those stories I linked to are quite moving, so they&#39;d affect feelings as well as thought patterns, and it&#39;s feelings that really drive antagonism, although the two are obviously closely interlinked. And as I said, men aren&#39;t a special part of the stories; if it&#39;s men who are made to look good, it&#39;s incidental; the stories are about all kinds of people.

Still, here are some ideas that might work for you better. They&#39;re part of a new thing I&#39;ve written, again narrated by a character in it:

Thinking About Achievements and Positive Characteristics We Have:

The book suggests we spend fifteen minutes thinking about and writing down all our positive qualities, and all our achievements in life.

Well, I must have some, but I&#39;m sure I wouldn&#39;t be able to think of them if I just sat down now and tried. I&#39;ll give it some thought over the next few days.

It asks us to imagine what a kind friend who&#39;d known us all our lives, seen how we coped with difficulties, and witnessed our successes, would say.

It says that if we can think of our achievements in life, and anything good about our personalities, it&#39;ll give our mood a lift and encourage us. ...

It asks us a question to help us think of them:

"Which of our positive personality traits would we like to continue to influence us in the future, and which of our values or beliefs do we want to carryon having?"

Kate said she had to think about the question for a while, but in the end, she came up with several positive things about herself. She imagined a friend who&#39;d been with her all her life might say:
??You&#39;re a good listener who cares about other people&#39;s feelings.
??You can make people laugh with your jokes.
??You do your work to a high standard and I can tell you put your heart into it.
??You obviously have courage and determination, because you were abused and yet you&#39;ve gone on to build a new life for yourself.
??You&#39;re willing to go out of your way to help other people.

Making the Home Nice to Look At:

The book recommends that we make our home as nice to look at as we possibly can. So it suggests we decorate it in our favourite colours and textures, and have favourite objects on display.

It asks us to consider what our favourite colours are, which ones we find soothing or uplifting, and whether we like different colours at different times of the year.

It says we don&#39;t just have to paint things to introduce new colours into our homes. We could get plants and flowers of different colours, for instance.

The author says someone got lots of fabric in her favourite colours and draped it over things in her house, and sewed it into clothing and other things. She put curtain rods up around her house in other parts of it as well as above the windows, and draped beautiful materials over them. And as well as giving her more privacy, they give her pleasure and bring more variety of colour and decoration into the home.

The author says that someone else found a lovely-looking piece of glass in her favourite colour on the beach that had had its edges rounded down by erosion. She took it home, and started looking for other bits on the beach. She found several over time, and now her house is decorated with lots of them.

The book mentions someone else who likes different colours with the changing seasons, so she puts different-coloured covers on her furniture at different
times of the year.

... It says that someone else wanted brightly-painted furniture, but knew it wouldn&#39;t be wise to get expensive stuff because her children might ruin the paint on it by playing on it. So she bought cheap, decrepit-looking furniture, and painted it with different designs herself. It
says as she got more skilled at painting and designing, she painted some of the first things she&#39;d done again, till her house looked the way she&#39;d always wished it would. And now, she doesn&#39;t worry about her children damaging the paint-work, because she can always re-do any damaged bits.

It says that someone painted little patterns in his favourite colours in unexpected parts of the house and on the outside, and now it looks really cheerful.

Bringing Things from Nature Indoors:

The book suggests that if we like living things, we bring a bit of nature indoors, perhaps getting a pet, perhaps plants, or something symbolising somewhere we enjoyed going. For instance, a cactus plant could bring back memories of the desert for anyone who, (for some strange reason), enjoyed a holiday there,
or likes the idea of visiting one. It says plants purify the air, and a leafy environment can be soothing.

The author says she knows a couple who have shelves in their bathroom covered in seashells of all sizes they&#39;ve collected on holidays, and they remind them of times when they&#39;ve enjoyed themselves.

Actually, Kate loves the sea. She&#39;s got little ornaments of fish in her home and seashells around the place. And she&#39;s got a fish tank, and she loves to watch the different types of fish swimming around. She says she finds it soothing. The book says that someone else hung a picture on their wall at work of when they went swimming with dolphins, and that cheers them up because it reminds them of it.

It recommends we have a think about what we could bring in from outdoors or take pictures of there to bring indoors that would make us feel happier, or what plant or animal life we think we&#39;d enjoy more of around us.

Finding Nice Pictures for the Home:

The author suggests we fill our homes with nice pictures. She says we can get them cheaply if we&#39;re inventive. She says you can get mass-produced replicas of paintings by famous artists, or it can be nice to have posters of nice things around the house. She said she used to stick colourful pictures on the wall that children in her extended family had painted or drawn.

She said one person built up a collection of postcards with nice pictures on them that he bought at art museums, and he sometimes found picture frames that were the right size in second-hand shops, and put the postcards in them, and people thought they looked really nice.

Actually, Kate&#39;s got lots of postcards with funny sayings on them on the door of her bedroom. I think I&#39;d enjoy starting a collection of my own.

The book says that often, colleges and universities have art departments, and students sell what they&#39;ve created at the end of the year, so we could look out for sales at places like that, and we might find some good things.

The book suggests we move our pictures around in our homes every so often in case we&#39;ve stopped noticing them that much because we&#39;re used to them being there. If they&#39;re in a different place, they&#39;ll catch our attention all over again, so we might start appreciating them all over again.

Writing a Letter to Ourselves to Read when we Need Comfort and Encouragement:

The author suggests that when we&#39;re in a calm mood, we write a letter and carry it with us reminding ourselves of good things we can do when we&#39;re down
and might not think of them. She suggests a number of things we could put in the letter:
??A list of activities we find comforting.
??The names and phone numbers of supportive friends and family members.
??A list of good qualities about our character.
??A list of our talents, abilities, and interests.
??Some of the things we&#39;re hoping to achieve or do in the future.
??Any advice or words of comfort we can think of that we think will do us good.

It says we can write the letter in a chatty style, as if we&#39;re writing to encourage a friend.

[diana_holbourn]

Here are some other quotes from the first self-help thing I quoted from in this thread that you might find helpful:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Re-Thinking Harmful Things we were Told About Ourselves

She said that another thing the therapist said could help is if we re-write in a better way harmful messages we&#39;ve taken in from other people about ourselves in the past, anything that makes us feel less confident, or stops us getting on with life in the way we&#39;d want to because it makes us feel bad about ourselves. She said we should write positive messages to ourselves instead to replace the old ones.

So, for example, if we were told we were worthless in the past, but we know it&#39;s not true, we can write reasons why we&#39;re worth something after all. ?

She said we should write the new message several times with both hands, both the one we&#39;re used to writing with and the other one, because writing with the left hand means the message gets processed by the right side of the brain, that implants messages in our subconscious better.

What? Well, I&#39;m not sure if that&#39;s true, but writing the message several times till I&#39;m really familiar with it sounds as if it could be a good idea.

I could stick it on my wall so I see it every day, as an encouragement.

I think I&#39;ll write more encouraging messages for myself like that. She said that even if we have some doubt about the messages at first, writing them a few times every day for a while will probably make us feel more sure about them. ?

I&#39;m going to write myself a new message to replace the horrible old one, and I&#39;ll keep writing it, and stick it on a wall in every room in my house. Then I can look at it wherever I go. ?[/b][/quote]

You shouldn&#39;t really have any trouble thinking of positive things about yourself to write. After all, I can think of at least two, and I&#39;ve known of your existence less than a day:

Being well on your way to being a student counsellor seems quite an impressive achievement given what you&#39;ve been coping with; and forcing yourself to go out when you&#39;ve been scared seems to show you have determination.

This is really working on the same principle as the idea of reading moving stories involving men, among other people, displaying higher instincts than they&#39;re best known for: Just as you might know intellectually that you&#39;re talented and have good personality traits, you might know intellectually that men are not always preoccupied with instinctual behaviour; but in both cases, since the unpleasant thoughts are linked to distressing feelings, they&#39;ll have a more powerful influence over the way you think than your intellectual beliefs. Well, at least, that&#39;s how it works for a lot of people. So doing something that will engage emotions that will counteract negative ones, in the first case feelings of greater confidence in yourself, and in the second case feelings of empathy, perhaps, will be more powerful in overcoming the negative feelings that can help to spark off distressing thoughts. That&#39;s often the way for people anyway.

Another thing, which you might think it&#39;s too soon to do, or unlikely to work for you, but you might feel like doing if you think it&#39;ll be helpful at some point, is an exercise to get bad feelings out of the system. Again this is quoted from that self-help thing, which is based on books by a couple of therapists:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Getting Feelings Out of the System by Writing Letters Imagining Things are Different

Another thing Jessica said her therapist said can help us feel better is if we write letters to anyone we have any kind of feelings towards that we can&#39;t express to them, or that might not be safe to express to them because contacting them again might just cause problems. They&#39;re not to send, but just to help us get our feelings towards those people out of our systems.

She said that even for people who do feel able to contact the people again, the letters can be a good rehearsal for that. ...

She says we&#39;re supposed to address the letters to the person concerned.

She said we should write whatever we want, so that&#39;s another reason why it&#39;s best not to think about sending them while we&#39;re writing them, because that might stop us saying what we feel like saying.

She said we should write four letters altogether, the first one at a separate time from when we write the others, the next two one right after the other - and it&#39;s important to write them together because if we have too much time to think about the one we write first, it&#39;ll just upset us. And then we can write the last one at a separate time. She said we should spend about an hour on each letter, so when we write the two together, we&#39;ll be working more-or-less for two straight hours.

She said her therapist said that most people do one letter-writing session a day so they complete them within three days, but it won&#39;t matter if we take longer; we can take the amount of time that feels comfortable for us.

She said that if we want, we can repeat the letter-writing exercises as much as we want, writing other letters to make us feel as satisfied as we can that we&#39;ve finished expressing all the feelings we&#39;d like to express to the people.

She does say that if writing the letters triggers off feelings in us that we find hard to deal with, we should seek help from other people.

Jessica says that in the first letter, we&#39;re supposed to tell the person we&#39;re writing to all about what effect what they did and said to us had on us, like what it did to our feelings, how it&#39;s damaged our lives since, and how we feel about the person we&#39;re writing to now. She said we should tell the person how we would like them to respond to what we&#39;ve said, for instance that we&#39;d like them to apologise and stop denying what they did. She said the purpose of writing the letter is to get out into the open any thoughts or feelings we still have that upset us.

She said that in the second letter, her therapist said we should write an imaginary letter to ourselves from the person we&#39;ve written to, saying all the horrible things we&#39;re scared they really would say, about how they don&#39;t care about us and don&#39;t want to listen, or the worst things we&#39;re worried they&#39;d say about what they think of us. That&#39;ll hopefully get our fears about what they&#39;d say and all the bad things they made us think about ourselves and horrible things they said in the past that we started to believe about ourselves out of our systems.

She says that after we&#39;ve written the letter, we shouldn&#39;t dwell on it, but it&#39;s important that we move straight on to writing the third letter, which is another imaginary letter from the person, but this time, we imagine them saying all the things we&#39;d like them to say, like that they&#39;re really sorry, and how they realise now how terrible what they did was. That will hopefully soothe our feelings, because we&#39;re imagining the relationship ended well, and that the person we wrote to changed his behaviour and attitude.

So it could say something like:

Your letter made me think a lot about what I did. I realise now that it was very cruel, and I should never have done anything like that. I didn&#39;t realise it would have such a terrible effect on your life. I think if I&#39;d really thought about what effect it might have, I wouldn&#39;t have done it. I feel bad about myself, and I&#39;m deeply sorry. If there was anything I could do to make amends, I&#39;d want to do it. But I know there&#39;s nothing I can do to undo so much damage, and that makes me very upset. I hope that despite what I did, you can do well in your future.

Jessica said that in the last letter, we should write an imaginary response from us to the person after they&#39;ve told us how sorry they are, telling them we&#39;re glad they&#39;ve changed their attitude and they&#39;re sorry, and how it&#39;s changed our feelings towards them, and anything else we&#39;d like to say. She said we can write that letter straight after the last one, or the next day, or even weeks afterwards, or whenever we like.

I wonder why we&#39;re supposed to take an hour for each letter. Maybe we don&#39;t have to take that long, but they say that so we don&#39;t take longer and upset ourselves by thinking of bad things all day or something.[/b][/quote]

[scared]

Hi Diana,thanks for your advice.Funnily enough,the thing about adding things to my home etc does seem to work.I have just been decorating my bedroom,which I&#39;ve waited 5 years to do as I couldn&#39;t afford it,and it is not becoming more how I want it.I got a huge satisfaction from doing this.I also several months ago started putting affirmations about myself on my mirror.I haven&#39;t been able to look at them since my recent traumatic memory,but maybe I&#39;ll try it again.I feel that I have been stuck in the middle of this trama for 6 weeks,and used to get impatient with myself for feeling like I do.But I&#39;m trying to give myself a break,as I&#39;m very hard on myself.I find at the moment,I am of two minds.That is part of me is really strong,as I am a strong person,and wants to try and move on with my life,and part of me still hurts so badly I can&#39;t bear the pain.I want to find a way to try and not let myself get so upset by things I see on tv,or in the papers,or things people say.I have to keep reminding myself that its ok to be upset,but that I should try not to panic.I was very scared last week as I had a nightmare that I was pregnant with my rapists baby.And my panic attacks are sometimes really bad.Thankyou for saying I am doing well to do my course.It has been extremely hard work,both intellectually and emotionally.I have had a lot of problems with the people on my course.Basically most people dont like me,because they think I dont say enough in our personal development sessions (where we all sit there and r supposed to say how we are feeling).So I have had to battle all the way through,as I am the kind of person that sits and thinks about thinks,before saying things.To them,because I dont think while I &#39;m speaking like they do,I must be wrong,and I am not accepted.I have had to be strong and kept explaining what kind of person I am,but they won&#39;t accept it.They even all walked out one week to another room to discuss me&#33;Things at college are now improving a little bit,as they have hopefully given up trying to make me be someone I&#39;m not.Anyway,I&#39;m knackered so Ill go now.I think if other things in my life start to improve I will feel more positive,its all a muddle at the moment.Although I have got a date weds night&#33;

Hi,i did write a letter to my first abusive partner,and set fire to it&#33; It was most satisfying.Maybe Ill try writing to the man who raped me and then destroying it.I was really upset this morning,as when I was clearing my bedroom I found a book the rapist had given me,so destroyed that

[scared]

by the way,when you say men are not always preoccupied with instinctual behaviour,do you mean preoccupied with sex? do you feel that if sex is instinctual to a man that that justifies him asking a woman for sex,or trying it on with her?or do you feel that if it is instinctual,that they cannot be blamed for pressuring a woman to have sex? (i dont mean rape).

[diana_holbourn]

It sounds as if the people on your course were being very unprofessional by treating you like that, especially saying so many things about you behind your back&#33; I don&#39;t think people should feel pressured to talk about themselves. I know on some courses, they insist that people need to be counselled themselves before they can become a good counsellor, but I read that research has found that that doesn&#39;t make them any better at all really, so they don&#39;t have to do that and shouldn&#39;t be made to.

I heard a funny story yesterday about someone who went for a job as a school counsellor, and they asked her what good qualities she had, and she said she was a very good listener. Then they asked her another question, and she started to answer it, but then her mind went blank. After a while, she said, "sorry, I&#39;ve forgotten what the question was". She said she was sure they must have thought she couldn&#39;t be such a good listener after all then if she didn&#39;t pay attention to their questions. But she got the job anyway. :-)

I think you ought to try not to be hard on yourself about being so upset, because traumatic memories and things always take a while to get over.

One thing that sometimes works with nightmares is if people keep a notebook by their beds, and as soon as they wake up after one, they think about how it could have a happy or untraumatic ending, and write it in the notebook.

Sometimes, doing relaxation exercises during the day and last thing at night when they might lull you to sleep can help prevent them.

If you catch panic attacks coming on as soon as you possibly can, like even as soon as you notice even a slight anxiety sensation, and then do those distraction techniques I put on here that can work if people catch flashbacks early, then the panic can go away again. Sometimes, it can be caused because when people get a sensation that feels like panic, they worry about how horrible it&#39;ll be if it is a panic attack coming on, so that makes them more anxious, so they are more likely to have a panic attack. But if they can stop worried thoughts in their tracks and focus hard on what&#39;s all around them instead, it can make the panic sensations go away again.

One thing that might help you not to get quite so upset about things is if when you get a horrible thought or feeling when you see a man telling a woman what to do or whatever, you can try not to attribute much significance to it but just think something like, "Oh, there goes another one of those thoughts again; I expect it&#39;ll go away soon", and then try to move on to thinking about something else. That&#39;s because one thing that can cause a lot of anxiety and upset for people is if they start worrying about what their thoughts might mean, like worrying that they mean there&#39;s something badly wrong with them and they might not recover. All kinds of dreads can come into the mind. But if you can try to just accept the thought and then think something like, "Oh, there&#39;s another upsetting thought. Well, it&#39;s normal to be upset this soon afterwards and it&#39;ll probably pass", and then try to move on to thinking about other things, then hopefully they won&#39;t bother you so much.

When I used the word instinctual, I didn&#39;t mean that I think that behaviour&#39;s the norm and should be expected, or they can&#39;t help themselves or anything like that, but that it&#39;s one of the primal urges we have in common with animals like eating and sleeping; only it&#39;s not quite like that, because people can go without it for a lifetime and be happy. But then, people can choose when they eat and sleep as well. Even if they&#39;re hungry,they don&#39;t have to have food right then and there, or it won&#39;t mean they can&#39;t be blamed for stealing something from a grocery shop or something. Instinctual behaviours are still under the person&#39;s control and they have responsibility over them.

I&#39;m glad you liked the idea of making your home more cosy. There&#39;s also something in that thing I quoted about making your working environment more cosy, which might give you some interesting ideas when you get a job. So I&#39;ll quote that as well, to see if you like it:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Making the Workplace More Cosy:

The book advises us to make our work environment as relaxing and refreshing as we can.

Well, it would be nice to liven up my boring little office space.

The author says that when she first started work, she enjoyed going to one particular office, because there were large pictures of nature scenes on the wall.

And she said in the office she shared with a couple of people, they had a picture of a film star looking as if he was inviting them to a party. She said it made them laugh, because the environment he was in was so different from theirs, because theirs was such a cramped little place.

The book asks us to try to think of one thing to start with that would be easily achievable and would increase our comfort at work.

The author says one person she knows bought a teddy bear for her nephew&#39;s birthday, but ended up keeping it for herself, because she found that when work gets a bit stressful, it soothes her to open the drawer where she keeps it and stroke it for a little while. She can do that several times a day sometimes.

...it says she bought another teddy bear for her nephew.

She says a receptionist in another place keeps a collection of tiny stuffed animal toys on her desk. She said she asked her employer&#39;s permission, and they like the idea. The funny faces of the toys and their cuddly bodies make people smile when they come in.

The author says another person keeps three little bean bag balls in the shape of televisions on his desk and juggles with them every now and then. He says it clears his mind and he can concentrate better afterwards.

The book asks if we&#39;d like any toys in our working environment.

It says if we quite like the idea of putting a few toys in our working environment but aren&#39;t sure what, we could get some ideas by thinking of anything that might have comforted or amused us when we were children; or we could visit a toy shop and look around it. It says anything that makes us laugh could be a good idea.

It says if we don&#39;t think our boss or work colleagues would appreciate toys on display at work, we could keep them somewhere private. But it says a lot of people will most likely find them amusing.

Bringing Plants and Other Things that Remind us of Nature to Work:

The book says it can be nice to have living things like plants in the office as well, if there&#39;s enough light to keep them healthy and people take responsibility for looking after them. And it can also be nice to bring in photos or paintings of animals. She said she knows of one workplace where there&#39;s a fish tank, and people enjoy the sight of the colourful tropical fish swimming around. She said she likes to keep at least one flower on her desk in the summer, and a plant in the winter.

She says some people prefer a silk plant or flowers at work, since they last much longer and don&#39;t need looking after. ...

The book asks how we could best remind ourselves of nature in the workplace, how we&#39;d enjoy doing that and what the easiest way of doing it for us would be. Actually, it could be nice.

Bringing Photos of Loved Ones to Work:

Well, I haven&#39;t got any. But the author says that some people take photographs of their children and loved ones to work, changing them as they get new ones. She said one person she knew had photos of her family on her desk, plus a photo of her best friend, and a favourite teacher who had encouraged her at school. I mean a photo of the favourite teacher, not the teacher himself. She said they made her feel the environment was more friendly, and helped her believe in herself, especially on days when the general working environment wasn&#39;t as supportive and friendly as she&#39;d have liked. Their smiling faces made her feel better.

The author asks us to think of people we&#39;d like to be reminded of at work, saying looking at photos of them will bring us the same good feelings as we get when we&#39;re with them. ...

Taking Food and Drink to Work:

The book suggests other things we could do to make our work day more pleasant.

It says one person took her favourite bottled water to work with her, and kept it in the fridge. And in her previous workplace where there wasn&#39;t a fridge, she had bought her own drinks cooler to keep it in. She said it stopped her over-indulging in coffee and fizzy drinks.

It says that herbal teas can be calming, and the teabags don&#39;t take up much room.

It says some people snack on combinations of seeds, nuts and dried fruit. That sounds nice&#33;

The author says someone she knows always keeps a bit of fresh fruit on her desk to eat if things get a bit stressful. She says someone else she knows keeps soups for times like that.

Actually, Kate said she eats fresh fruit for lunch now whereas before she had sandwiches, and she likes it.

The book asks us to consider what food or drink would make our work day more pleasurable.

Making Work More Comfortable:

It says we might be able to think of other things that would make work more comfortable for ourselves.

It says one man was getting a pain in his neck from the tension of holding the phone in the same position for too long, so he bought a headphone attachment from a telephone shop, and that helped, and allowed him to have both hands free to take notes, and to do other work while he was on hold.

The author says another person she knows has a collection of silk pillows in the corner of her office, which she loves the colours and texture of, and which make the office look more homely. she uses one as a cushion to support her back when she wants to.

The book asks us to consider what special comforts we could introduce into our working environment.

The author says she and her husband travel around with their work a lot, but always like to take something with them that reminds them of their family or a home comfort, to make the places seem more reassuringly familiar.

She says for people who work at home, maybe they could work in a separate part of the house from where they eat and sleep, so they won&#39;t be constantly reminded of work outside working hours; or if that&#39;s not possible, she suggests people have a little ritual they enjoy that they do when they stop working to mark the significance of it, like luxuriating in the shower or having something nice to eat, and so on.[/b][/quote]

There&#39;s a little bit more in it about making the house nice:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Deciding How we Want the Furniture:

The book suggests we arrange our furniture in the way we like it arranged best, even if it might look eccentric. The author says her sister moved her couch into the kitchen one winter because it was warmer in there and the cosiest place to be while spending time with her young daughter.

The book asks what kind of furniture we prefer to sit on, for instance chairs, or lazing around on beanbags or cushions. It asks whether we like furniture with fancy designs or plain, and what else we&#39;d choose about our furniture if we needed some more.

Finding Nice Things that are Affordable:

The author says some people feel sure they need to be richer if their lives are going to improve, but she says that isn&#39;t true. She says that one of her sisters is a counsellor, and often asks people what they&#39;d do if they won the lottery. Often, most of the things people say they&#39;d like to do don&#39;t cost that much at all. She suggests we think about how we could be creative and change things without spending much money.

She says one person she asked how things would be different if he was more wealthy said he&#39;d buy an expensive sports car, put fresh flowers on the dining room table, real butter in the fridge, and drink a glass of wine with dinner. But he realised that although the sports car was out of his reach, he could achieve all the rest. With a bit of planning, he could grow his own flowers in a garden he had outside his kitchen door, keep a little packet of butter in his fridge, and drink a glass of wine with dinner when he felt like it.

She says another person associated the good life with having velvety textures around her, dark carved woods, and silver candlesticks, none of which she thought she could afford, since she was still studying. But she went to several car boot sales, flea markets and other places where people might be selling things cheap, and she managed to find some aristocratic-looking imitation old-fashioned chairs, and an elegant but very worn dark wood sofa that she draped in velvet bits that were left over after people made things that she got from discount fabric shops. She also managed to get an impressive silver candelabra for almost nothing at a sale of things from a posh house. It was so cheap because it had scratches and dents all over it, but she spent an afternoon cleaning and polishing it with old rags and a toothbrush while watching a favourite video, and it looked much better. Now the cracks only seem to add to its design and people are impressed with it. She says that even though the things she has aren&#39;t quite what she&#39;d choose if she had the money, they give her a sense of well-being and satisfaction with her home.[/b][/quote]

[scared]

Hi,thanks for your advice.My dad has nearly finished painting my bedroom and its looking fabulous.I bought a lovely candle today to go in it.I have decided it will be my chill out room,full of crystals,incense and candles.I went to see my counsellor today,and what she said made sense.I feel that I now believe that what happened was not my fault,he raped me,and I couldnt have done anything to stop it at the time.I don&#39;t need to feel guilty anymore.I have discovered that I really need to trust my judgement and memories of what happened,and to stop questioning myself about the situation.I think if I carry on questioning I will drive myself mad&#33; I need to focus on how to handle my panic attacks,and when I feel depressed,and I think relaxation is a good idea.I think I will be able to handle my panic attacks by telling myself everything is ok,and to stop.It is ironic that the person most hard on me is myself,and the person I needed to convince of what happened is me&#33; I think I&#39;m getting over that now.I will try and look to the future and to ditract myself if I get negative thoughts.I think i will stay off here for a while,as I&#39;m fed up with talking about it,as it only makes me feel worse,and i want to move forward.I hope i can.

[diana_holbourn]

I&#39;m glad you&#39;re feeling more optimistic now and coming to feel more at peace with yourself.

If you ever decide you&#39;d like a structured way of looking to the future, there are some suggestions in that thing I quoted about that as well. I&#39;ll quote some more of it:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Another Technique for Improving Our Future:

The book says we might not have any idea how we can get from where we are in life to the place we&#39;d like to be in the future. But one thing that could help us is if we first think of how our lives would be different if in the middle of the night one night, a miracle happened, and all our problems were solved or we were dealing with them better, and life was going well. It says it doesn&#39;t matter whether we believe in miracles; we can just imagine one happened for the purposes of this exercise. It says that since it&#39;s in the middle of the night, we&#39;re asleep and we don&#39;t know it&#39;s happened. So we find out gradually by noticing what&#39;s different the next day. So we have to think about what would be different.

It says it&#39;s most helpful to think about what positive signs would tell us things were different, rather than what we wouldn&#39;t be doing any more. It says one person eventually came up with several things: She said she&#39;d look forward to going to work, which would mean she was in a different job. She said she&#39;d always be back by 5.30 PM, and play with her little daughter when she got home because she wouldn&#39;t be so tired. And she&#39;d be losing weight.

The book recommends we try to think of what the first smallest observable sign would be that a miracle had happened and things were different for us. It asks what other people would notice about our behaviour that would let them know things must have changed for us.

It says if we have trouble imagining small signs that it had happened, it might help if we imagine a video recording what&#39;s going on from the moment we wake up, and asking ourselves what the video would show that would be different from what it would show if it was recording us on a normal day.

It says we can then start to make the miracle happen in our own lives, by behaving in the way we imagine the tape would show us differently, but one small step at a time, so we wouldn&#39;t try to change our behaviour dramatically at first, since that might be too ambitious and if we failed we&#39;d be discouraged. But it recommends we choose what we think would be the easiest thing to change first, and try it for a few days to see how it works out, and then try changing one more little thing, and gradually working our way up to changing more and more.

It says the person who imagined having a new job thought the first sign the miracle had happened would be that she&#39;d go and wake her daughter up in a better mood and kiss her and be more playful with her. She said she already did that sometimes. And she said that since she&#39;d be in a good mood, she&#39;d have got up earlier, so she&#39;d have time to exercise on her exercise bike for a while before work.

The book asks us to consider what first step we could take towards our miracle, or if it&#39;s hard to think of one, to think of anything we&#39;re doing now, even rarely, that goes partway towards it. It asks us to think about what effect it would have on us and others if we did it more often.

The author says she asked the person who said that one of the first signs that a miracle had happened in her life would be that she&#39;d wake up in a better mood, if she could behave in the way she&#39;d behave if the signs she mentioned were already happening during the following week, getting up early, waking her daughter up playfully, and having a go on her exercise bike. The person thought that would be easy, especially since she said she already woke her daughter up playfully sometimes, and she asked whether in that case, perhaps she ought to do more. But the author advised her not to, so she wouldn&#39;t take on too much and be discouraged if she couldn&#39;t manage it.

Once she managed the first things she tried all week though, she did go on to trying more things, like going on a diet, breaking that down into small steps so as not to become overwhelmed with the task and discouraged. For instance, one of the small tasks she chose to do first was to find out where Weight Watchers held their meetings, since she&#39;d found them helpful before and decided to try them again. The next task was to go to a meeting.

She started losing weight, and she found that waking her daughter up playfully put her daughter in a good mood which made her own mood better, and even later in the day, they were still feeling like being more playful with each other, telling each other jokes and being happier.

She started doing more and more things over the weeks that improved her life, till she had more energy and was more confident, and decided she could face looking for a new job, even if that meant getting some rejection letters. It took longer than she expected, but because she was more confident than she had been, she carried on looking, and eventually she got a better job where she was more respected.

The book says that we don&#39;t have to stick to making really small changes if we want to do a bigger one, as long as it&#39;s realistic and not so daunting we might not manage it. But we should remember to take the changes bit by bit.

It says if we have someone to encourage us and feel pleased for us while we&#39;re making the gradual changes, it&#39;ll help us have the confidence to continue. If we choose someone to confide in about what we&#39;re doing, we ought to try and find someone who won&#39;t be critical, because that could set us back. If we can&#39;t find anyone, we could draw a line in a notebook across a page, with one end representing where we were before, and the other end representing where we&#39;ll be when we&#39;ve made all the changes and life&#39;s much better, and we can encourage ourselves to carry on by making marks on the line to signify where we&#39;re up to in our progress.

The book says we can ask ourselves the questions about the miracle whenever we have a problem we don&#39;t know how to solve, working out how we could go about making it better in little stages.

Making a Collage Representing Hopes for the Future:

The book says that when we&#39;ve imagined what our future could be like, we can make our dreams more real to ourselves and fix what we&#39;re aiming for more firmly in our minds by making a collage of things that represent what we&#39;re dreaming of in some way. For instance, if we want to see more of nature, it could have dried flowers and twigs or shells in it.

It suggests that it could have photos, pictures we&#39;ve drawn or collected from magazines, or postcards that symbolise things we&#39;d love to do, or coloured bits of fabric or paper to remind us of things that give us a sense of well-being. The pictures could be images of things we&#39;d like to own in the future, perhaps, or hearts to symbolise hoped-for loving relationships with people, or a picture of someone looking happy to represent ourselves, or whatever we like. We could also write words on the collage, like telling ourselves we deserve good things, for example.

It says that when we&#39;ve collected together various objects to go on our collage, we should get a piece of thick paper or card at least eight by ten inches to glue them on. It says we can create a picture or abstract pattern the way we want it, with the things we put on the collage overlapping if that&#39;s the best way they&#39;ll fit on. It recommends we take at least an hour for the exercise, and either be on our own, or with someone who won&#39;t judge us.

It says that afterwards, we should take time to dwell on what the things symbolise for ourselves and our future.

It says we shouldn&#39;t worry about being messy while doing the collage; we can behave like a child, just doing what our imagination tells us. And it says it&#39;s fine if we think of new ideas while we&#39;re working on it.

It says we should keep it somewhere where we&#39;ll see it often, maybe every day.[/b][/quote]