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So, after a traumatic incident lost pregnancy, abandoned by husband and years of slow recovery and therapy, I had a brief moment of hope and faith, I started triathlon in that moment, and doing new activities, including cycling. Now a couple of years later, I still haven't had even a brief relationship and I just have lost hope or desire. I used to make an effort and ask people to set me up with a decent man, that never happened, now I am only interested in cycling, running, and swimming, and fulfilling the minimum of work duties. I am not asking for suggestions, I just want to vent that I just don't care anymore about almost anything, at my last tri, well, I actually was BORED during the race. Thanks for letting me vent.

I am sorry to hear of your sadness. I suffer, off and on, from depression and can sympathize with your feelings. This is a good place to vent. Hugs to you. I try to look for something positive everyday. Sometimes the positives just don't make themselves known readily, but at the end of the day, I try to find at least one thing to make me smile....

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Originally Posted by tribogota

So, after a traumatic incident lost pregnancy, abandoned by husband and years of slow recovery and therapy, I had a brief moment of hope and faith, I started triathlon in that moment, and doing new activities, including cycling. Now a couple of years later, I still haven't had even a brief relationship and I just have lost hope or desire. I used to make an effort and ask people to set me up with a decent man, that never happened, now I am only interested in cycling, running, and swimming, and fulfilling the minimum of work duties. I am not asking for suggestions, I just want to vent that I just don't care anymore about almost anything, at my last tri, well, I actually was BORED during the race. Thanks for letting me vent.

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This is not advice tribogota, just comments and personal stories:

1) I also get bored with my rides sometimes..awhile later I just ask myself: "Am I nuts? I can ride a bike, I'm not wheelchair-bound/bed-ridden. It's gift....a healthy, mobile body. Temporary of course, for we all become frail at the end..but not live for way down into the future, but live for now."

2) In my early 30's and no guy in sight, I got fed up and bought my condo. I wasn't going to wait around for Prince Charming. Well, he came into my life 6 months after I bought my home. Met via a computer course we were taking. I continued to live /own in my home, despite Prince Charming.

Now we're still together and loving it. But in my narrow mind at that time, I never expected I would be interested in a guy who was divorced with children.

3) Just last month, I learned via a good friend who is also a cyclist, of a woman that we both knew. She is also a long-time cyclist --has been running her own walking tours and local cycling biz. Very accustomed to a cycling, car-free life for 2 decades of her life. Heck all 3 of us, ran a volunteer group for women cyclists for a few yrs.

We found out she got married few months ago...within 1 yr. of meeting her guy. She is 48 and never been married/lived with a guy. They met via speed-dating. He is clearly not cycling-oriented and loves his expensive, nice car. They live out in the 'burbs...away from where her biz is situated and where she used to live when single which is downtown where in contrast there is alot of cycling-friendly routes/facilities.

She still runs her biz and plans to situate her biz office....at her parent's 2nd home downtown. Complicated.

He's (contemporary) Muslim...if I can use a naive term since after all they met by speed-dating, not by arranged. She is not Muslim/any religion. Or maybe she converted. Who knows.

Hope this marriage works out.. feels like a big hurry, probably driven by hormones and whatever else.
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Tribogata, is anyone aware of your triathalon triumphs? Except for my partner, my own family barely knows of my cycling "achievements". I guess they just love me for whatever I am..which is a good thing. But some of them, started to realize abit when some returned to cycling themselves..in shorter distances.

I'm impressed by anyone who attempts tri's. I can't even swim..ok..I hear some TE members just itching to suggest to me..

At a time when you're walking around going "what's next?" it might help you to do a little volunteer or charity work. Sometimes if you help some people that are less healthy or fortunate as you, it helps to put everything in perspective. And if you get involved in volunteer work, usually the people that you meet are wonderful, selfless and big-hearted. Who knows what could happen?

(((tribogata)))

{{{Tribogota}}}

Big hug - best wishes to you.

This sounds like a turning point for you - perhaps returning to therapy to understand yourself better would help. You deserve to to be happy and fulfilled. Wishing for you someone with insight and empathy to help you....Tokie

I'm sorry you're sad.

It's okay to not be in a relationship. A good coupled relationship is a gift, but it is not necessary to have one to live a happy and rewarding life.

It might help if you kept a gratitude journal. Each night before bed, think about something for which you are thankful, and write about it in a journal, even if just to say, "I'm grateful I saw a beautiful cloud today" or something else that is small.

After a week or month of writing in your gratitude journal, read through the entries.

Finding small happinesses in your daily life is a skill that you can learn and cultivate. This can help you grow your happiness, from little things (paying a toll for the car behind you, one of my favorite cheap thrills, for example, or smelling a richly-perfumed flower) into a collection of little things, into bigger things, into a happier life.

Or as someone else put it: happiness is a habit. Just as you trained for tri, you can train for happiness. You know how to train (that is something for which to be grateful right there!), and can tap into that wealth of knowledge to train yourself to find the small happinesses in your everyday life.

((((tb))))

:)

((((((((tribogota))))))))

I'll take it as a good sign that you posted that here. In your heart you know we care about you and want to see you happy. Obviously casual internet friends aren't the same thing as a close relationship (romantic or otherwise), but the fact that you're holding onto enough self-esteem to reach out to us is a good thing.

And I'll take it a good sign that you're keeping at the tris, in spite of your anhedonia.

Hang in there. I'm betting you know what you need to do, but the vicious cycle of depression is that it robs you of motivation to do it.

Take good care.

While it definitely isn't necessary to have a "significant other" to feel happy, humans are programmed for that connection. Healing from trauma and depression is a long, hard road. Please, please revisit your commitment to therapy. Find someone different. One suggestion I would make is to try to find a certified yoga therapist. This is someone who is a regular therapist (psychologist, social worker, mental health counselor) who is also a certified yoga instructor and has had lengthy training in using yoga to heal trauma. It is an amazing modality and I have seen it work with more than one person.
I also second the idea to volunteer. There's research that shows when we give to others, it actually changes the chemical composition of our brain functioning, which relates to depression.
Let us know how you are doing or shoot me a PM if you need more info.
Disclosure: yes, I am a counseling intern...

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Originally Posted by tctrek

At a time when you're walking around going "what's next?" it might help you to do a little volunteer or charity work. Sometimes if you help some people that are less healthy or fortunate as you, it helps to put everything in perspective. And if you get involved in volunteer work, usually the people that you meet are wonderful, selfless and big-hearted. Who knows what could happen?

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+1
Those were my thoughts exactly. When I've been really struggling and lost, I've found volunteering really helps me get through it.

I'm really sorry for your sadness. I can relate to much of it. I would ditto the suggestions for keeping a gratitute journal and volunteering. While I haven't kept a journal, per se, there was a distinct turning point in my own life when I started to focus on being grateful for things, rather than "happy" about them, mostly because it is actually possible to be grateful for bad things (to the extent that some of the best things in my life are actually derived from the bad). Beyond the obvious benefit to the community that volunteering provides, it's just a great way to feel good about yourself and to get outside your own mind once in a while.

For me, my long, long stretches of being single made me feel pretty unloveable. Couple my pathetic romantic history with a family (and, more speficially parents) that is, in a word, dysfunctional, and I felt very alone and lonely for much of my life. With the help of therapy, yoga (and a very spiritual yoga teacher), cycling, some great friends, and my own fierce determination to feel differently about my life and myself, I finally figured out a few things that worked for me.

Most significantly, I started to firmly believe that I was capable of loving myself enough to make up for my family and lack of a SO. That, in and of itself, was completely empowering. I also accepted that I was going to have to work at being happy. While it may come more naturally for some, I really had to make a conscious choice every day to do what I needed to do to be happy. Some days, that was as simple as going to a yoga class. Others, it meant really sitting with my thoughts and feelings. I had/have to be diligent about it.

Finally, I more freely allowed myself to have those sad and lonely moments without giving in to their full power. I used to try to stuff that sadness into a closet, for fear that it would simply overwhelm me. Again with the help of therapy, yoga, cycling and some good friends, I started to feel more confident in being able to go to those "dark places" without fear that they defined or controlled me. Interestingly, the more I allowed myself to feel lonely at times and to be "okay" with that, the less lonely I felt.

If my journey had stopped there indefinitely, I truly believe I would be a happy and content person. It certainly paused there there long enough that I can say that with a straight face. As it turned out, however, I ultimately did meet someone with whom I plan to share the rest of my life. He's truly been the icing on what was already turning out to be a darn good cake.

Anyway, that's my story. I share it with you to give you some hope that you may not always feel the way you do today.

All the posts have something great to say and I would again echo the volunteering and the journal...but besides the gratitude, you could put one thing about yourself that is good, too. There are so many neat things that only YOU know about yourself and you could remind yourself of those things.

You have already made the first, best step, and that is seeking advice from the wonderful group of women who frequent this forum. They are the best.

Revisiting the counselor is really a great suggestion and you may find that medication works for you. I have seen wonders worked for someone I know well, with meds and talking to an impartial third person.

Good luck and hugs from me, too.

Thanks all! First of all for sharing your own intimacies. The trust implicit in sharing is gratifying. Your comments made me smile.
I do volunteer and teach as my profession so I am surrounded by moments of change and am grateful for many things each day including pain free health. One of the groups I work and hang out with are parolympic athletes and that fits my own sports interest. I would like to say that while we should be grateful to have easy mobility, they do not see their lives as that different than easy mobility people's lives. They frequently feel sorry for ME, since they see themselves surrounded by family and friends and see me as lonely:) They have very full and similar lives, to those of us who move on two legs with good vision and hearing. It is gratifying to volunteer. If I were a faster athlete I would love to be a guide-athlete in triathlon, but alas, both the vision and hearing impaired athletes I know are WAY too fast for me.

I am working on accepting loneliness and just living with it. I really love TE's forum. Who would have thought that a virtual community could be so trusting, loving, and warm. Thanks.

Hey tribogota,

Sometimes we just need to reach out and touch someone. :) You're strong and independent, but sometimes we are just fundamentally social animals and want that human connection. I don't think it's fair to just "suck it up" and move on (not that anyone here is suggesting that), and you've got a lot of good advice here about how to cope.

I look forward to reading your posts in the forum, and wish that as with everyone in TE that we make connections with that we could all hang out in the same big room together one day. :)

Hugs here too! Sometimes it does feel like we are in a big room! I love your posts too!

((((tribogata))))

Quote:

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Originally Posted by owlice

I'm sorry you're sad.

It's okay to not be in a relationship. A good coupled relationship is a gift, but it is not necessary to have one to live a happy and rewarding life.

~snip~

Finding small happinesses in your daily life is a skill that you can learn and cultivate. This can help you grow your happiness, from little things (paying a toll for the car behind you, one of my favorite cheap thrills, for example, or smelling a richly-perfumed flower) into a collection of little things, into bigger things, into a happier life.

Or as someone else put it: happiness is a habit. Just as you trained for tri, you can train for happiness. You know how to train (that is something for which to be grateful right there!), and can tap into that wealth of knowledge to train yourself to find the small happinesses in your everyday life.

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Great advice!

I am a big fan of Louise Hay and per her advice I do positive affirmations before I get out of bed. I think of all the wonderful things that I have in my life that I might otherwise take for granted and I realize that what I have is much more important than what I dont have.

Hi - I am sorry for your current sadness. I have been there too. Fairly recently (well, it seems recent, but it was over 2 years ago now), when I went through a very tough time, I reinstated something my mother taught me when my father died. I will tell you what it is, and it is sort of my "magic bullet" but first, let me tell you how depressed I was. I would 'leak' tears all the way into work (and I lived 37 miles from town so the drive was pretty long). I would randomly burst into inconsolable crying and have to go hide in my car or in the cold room (I'm a scientist) or wherever until I could get myself under control. I thought at times that I would never be happy again.

My mom told me long ago what has pulled her out of depression in the past (it's pretty similar to the gratitude journal), but whenever you look at the the sky and see the blue of an amazing day or even the clouds of an overcast day... to smile. Force yourself to smile. At the same time, I thought about what I had to be grateful for. Now, when I am sad or depressed, I automatically look up. I notice the sky. I take a deep breath, and I thank the universe for the things that are good in my life. And, most importantly, I smile. Smiling felt more like grimacing for a while, but when we smile, we trigger muscles and neurons and our brains 'remember' happiness. By smiling, we begin to actually feel happier.

I know it's cheesy, but it works for me. Maybe it will work for you too. :rolleyes:

Tri - I'm sorry to hear about your sadness and I hope things turn around for you soon. Lots of good advice here, so there isn't much wisdom I can add other than to say that everything is temporary. In six months, who knows what will be happening in your life (something wonderful, perhaps)? Sending you lots of good karma.

Hang in there.

You're in Bogota? Like Columbia?