Originally Posted by lurioosi2
I occasionally visit a forum for people with bipolar disorder. I can't take going there very often. Most of it is a dissection of obsessive thoughts, detailing over and over what they all did while manic, and a lot of online crying.

I can so relate to this. When my son was killed I was pushed into an online forum for grieving parents. I RAN FOR MY LIFE!! The devastation, the reliving of the trauma triggered me so bad that I knew I would be an emotional cripple if I stayed there.

I discovered years later that the people who stayed there were just as torn up and dysfunctional YEARS LATER as they were when it first happened. They are emotional cripples. My solution to the grief was to throw myself back into life and stop talking about it all the time.

In the book I recommended above, they cite studies that show that folks who participate in grief counseling,[for traumatic events] support groups, etc, actually DO WORSE than those who DON'T. They stay depressed and grief stricken much, much longer than those who have no counseling whatsoever.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101