BS: Trapped for life?

Subject: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST,No Houdini
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 04:46 AM

Can my condition be cured? I seem to have a psychological need to be trapped. Relationships, work, I seem to assume that everything depends on me, and even though my job and relationship are crap I can't bring myself to leave them. Am I a coward? Is there a cure for being a coward? Or am I trying to make up for something in my past, something feeling that I've betrayed someone and must not do it again (I can't recall any such event)? Or am I just self- obsessed and selfish?

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 05:24 AM

Take a break, have a sabbatical, stop and think, etc etc. Sounds like you need to stand back and think about your situation, which you can't do objectively while you're actually involved.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 05:28 AM

Just a self-obsessed shellfish, I reckon.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST,houdini
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 05:35 AM

Hi NH,

It's hard to tell you what's wrong with your life, based on the little information given. It occurs to me that it might help you to read up on codependency. There is lots of stuff on the internet and some good books available.

It IS possible to turn your life around, but hard work.

Good luck

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Gizmo
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 06:49 PM

oooh that sounds like the complete opposite of what I have

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 07:34 PM

Sounds like a mid-life crisis in the making.

Change your name.
That will free you to purge what you consider unnecessary from your life and reinforce those things with which you choose to identify.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 09:08 PM

Take a guitar and a fifty-pound bag of brown rice to a remote cabin and don't come back for six weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Naemanson
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 09:23 PM

Move to a tropical island and leave it all behind. Go swimming once a day, buy an old car, and eat lots of fish. That's what cured me... kinda.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 09:28 PM

blow up yer TV
eat a lot of peaches
try to find jesus
on your own

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: bobad
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 10:39 PM

Change your shorts
change your life
change your life
Change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy
get rid of your wife

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 11:41 PM

Been there, in a way its a kind of comfort zone - better the devil etc.
You need to take the first step forward. find a new job, take up a hobby, go to a spiritualist church, go on a diet. Do something to take control of your life. Be proactive not reactive. Just do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 12:10 AM

and he's changed his name from Frank to Valentino
he's growin' out his sideburns, and he's wearin platform shoes
and he's drivin on the midnight road from Medford down to Reno
and he thinks he's found a way to cure his workin blues

- Dave Carter -

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 08:41 AM

Left for work one fine morning after kissing my wife goodbye, went to the office do get some files and hit the road for a meeting two hours away. Never got there. Instead I had a walk in the woods near a place I love up north, had a nap on the forest floor (in suit and tie)...Never did return to that job. To "untrap" myself the brain had to take an unscheduled and unannounced holiday, followed by stress leave of about a year, give or take. Finally started working part-time at a menial job, then a better job, but always supplimenting my income through music. All I do now is music, and I have absolute control...no trap.

The point is this...you recognize the problem now so act now to make things better. Waiting doesn't work. There may be a period of pain-in-the-ass-ness but in the end it will be better.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 09:38 AM

a well-stated problem is half a solution! cool Mooh!

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 10:56 AM

By Rudyar Kipling

The Beginning of the Armadilloes


I've never sailed the Amazon,
I've never reached Brazil;
But the Don and Magdalena,
They can go there when they will!

Yes, weekly from Southampton
Great steamers, white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down—roll down to Rio!).
And I'd like to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm old!

I've never seen a Jaguar,
Nor yet an Armadill—
He's dilloing in his armour,
And I s'pose I never will,

Unless I go to Rio
These wonders to behold—
Roll down—roll down to Rio—
Roll really down to Rio!
Oh, I'd love to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm old!

Another ditty to mull over when life seems stale.

Was it Peter Bellamy who set this poem to music?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 11:05 AM

We sang it at school in the early 60s, so at least one setting wasn't by Bellamy.

I must say I sympathise with NH. My own life is increasingly disappointing, I'm getting seriously old and nothing to show for it. A fool at fifty....

My own comfort is that we'll all be dead and rotten and forgotten in a hundred years, if not fifty.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 11:24 AM

I think we all feel a bit like this - and on bad days, a lot like this.

This is because we get told from being very young that we have endless opportunity - compared to our parents.   a bit like that Bedford song, I could have been an artichoke said the tomato. Its all our parents , or our wives' fault, or husbands - they held us back, dammed up the wild torrent of our endless ability.

Complete bollocks of course - given our slender hold on reality most of us make the best decisions we are capable of.

I wouldn't have suspected you of feeling like that paul - you always seem so sure of your opinions on Mudcat, and what you're doing.

I don't think being dead is the solution. I find a certain amount of comfort in Friends reunited. As soon a you get talking to all the successful guys, you realise there are stark choices to be made in life. And you end up thanking God, you didn't make their choices.

Ashes to ashes. Everybody's life disintegrates into shit at some point. You just have to hope you make the most comfortable choice for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: number 6
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 11:45 AM

I'm a very happy fool at 55.

I'm one of those rare ones (I guess) who can say I'm not only happy with my current position in life, but have been happy with the road that has delivered me here .... even with the pitfalls along that road.

What have I got ... a headfull of good memories, a life of meeting good people, hearing good songs, seeing country fields, a wonderful wife of 34 years, 2 good kids, 1 grandson ..... hey I even have a job (ok I'll have to work 'til I drop) that's ok.

What's the secret .... I dunno, don't feel trapped, sorry can't help ya.

BIll

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: John O'L
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 07:30 PM

It's an ongoing thing. You have to renew your commitment to life every day. Maybe every week. At least every month.
OK, once a year should do.
Ho hum.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 07:56 PM

Yo, Trapped....

Most folks that end up feelin' trapped set their own traps...

Maybe you entered into the current relationship forwhat you think were noble and righteous reasons because you may have a "care giver" personality and, well, that's great for whomever is recievin' the care but...

Same with the job... You go "balls to the wall" and I'm sure that you do a great job but maybe too great a job...

Hate to say it but it sounds like there's an insecure person in there who wants very much to please others so that you can feel all warm and fuzzy about what you are giving but...

...there's more to livin' than givin'... You need some balance...

Think 'bout it...

Doc. Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Linda Goodman Zebooker
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 01:02 AM

Don't remain in a rut -- life is too short! Make one about-face from the way you've always done things, and bigger changes will follow and feel natural. If you feel you are being led in new directions - go there. It's not selfish to want your life to be happy. If you set yourself on a good path, you'll be able to give MORE and that will be returned to you manyfold.
--Linda

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 02:08 AM

Well perhaps some of us just can't do happiness.

My advice is to try for....occasionally comfortable.

works for me ...occasionally.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: skipy
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 06:52 PM

Pull the black & yellow handle or crash & burn!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 09:12 AM

...So your relationship is crap eh? why's that? maybe YOU are not putting enough effort into making it better, same with your job and everything else and what's more I think you know the answer because you said as much in a subtle way in your self pitying introduction. You daren't even use your own name in the heading, grow up and sort yourself out and stop this bloody public whingeing!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 03:16 PM

Make a change in one area of life and it will spread to others. Do you have physical clutter in your house and garage? Start with cleaning that out. Then look at your job situation. Perhaps you need to change jobs, or if you are past a certain age etc. it might be best to stick with it but certainly take some classes etc. that would allow you to branch out a bit either now or after retirement. Then perhaps some honest conversations with your wife, followed by marriage counseling...and perhaps some fun vacations...or local hikes or whatever. It is not hopeless. You are not in chains. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:28 PM

The trouble is that existentially speaking......some of us ain't existentialists.

Some of us are locked into situations that would make maximum security look like a GAP year backpacking. The shits a mile deep and we are most definitely under it.

I would hazard a guess that goes for an awful lot of us. Probably the guy who posted this thread.

What you have to do is examine the points in your life where the shit drifts in, and see if there is ANYTHING that would make it more tolerable.

There are valid reasons why we don't all look as good as Tony Robbins.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:40 PM

Mg - not the MG! Love to ya Baby!

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: freda underhill
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 07:03 PM

No Houdini, that cleaning out clutter idea of mg's is a really good idea. I was feeling pretty stuck a few years ago, and wondering what to do about it. I felt like cardboard, stuck in a rut, doing lots of things because I had to and not because i enjoyed them. One night I dreamt that I cleaned out a lot of stuff I didnt need, I had put old wardrobes etc on the footpath out the front of the house for people to take.

When I woke up, I cleaned quite a few things out of my house, including over two hundred books which I took to various second hand bookshops (still have heaps more). I got rid of old artwork (kept the best) dried up paints & art equipment, clothes that had had their day, clutter in the kitchen (jars, old plastic containers, gave away CDs that I didn't listen to. The whole house felt clearer and simpler.

Something that took more thought and time was getting out of a "dead" relationship - kindly, fairly, firmly. It was tough but years later we are still friends with no bad feelings. Despite initiating that change myself, I found it very hard on my own for the first couple of years, however it was the right thing and I have no regrets.

I have spent four years moving out of one career and into another. I'm now working in a great workplace, though I travel to another city during the week to work. This is the best compromise to achieve a happy working life, at present.

another thing I did was think "what were all those things I wanted to do when i was 19?" and i went out and did a lot of them. (this project is still underway!!)

I agree too, with mg's suggestion to make a change in one area of life and it will spread to others. I joined a choir and got back into the folk scene. These two things had a wonderful impact on my life.

years later I am leading a pretty happy life

good luck

freda

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 07:04 PM

Most people lead lives of quiet desperation.


(I just made that up. Describes my life, anyway.)

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: bobad
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 07:18 PM

That's very Thoreau of you to say that.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: paddymac
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:13 AM

Naemanson may have given you the key. Many things can lead to depression, but one of the most easily resolved is a dietary deficiency of Omega oils, especially Omega 3. Go get a jar of fish oil capsules and take them as directed. Give it about a month's trial, and see how you feel then.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: GUEST,No Houdini
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 04:50 AM

Thanks all. You've given me a lot to think about. I need to look for a tin man and a scarecrow, and find the road back to my courage. Perhaps it is dietary deficiency, but that clear-out sounds promising. I can start by clearing out my clutter, then clear out the dead past. At least it's doing something instead of just whining about it -and thanks for saying that too.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 05:27 PM

Happiness is not noticing the trap.

Or you can move to another city/town/place and start again.

Been there, done that.

Subject: RE: BS: Trapped for life?
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 06:28 PM

Having been thru the following mill myself to know how beneficial it can be for anyone willing to take the trip, I'd recommend seeing a Gestalt therapist (as I am). Or at least a therapist or counsellor.

    i don't say it holding out too much hope because I don't really like giving advice. What comes from you,GUEST No Houdini, is worth infinitely more to you than anything that comes from anyone else.

    One reason I do recommend it, nevertheless, is because we all have axes to grind in doing it on our own. An advantage of the presence of another who has no axe to grind and is trained, is that they won't be drawn into your 'stuff', and can help you uncover and see what you might not want/be able to do alone.

    Lastly, we all have all of our answers within ourselves already, along with plenty of obstructions to accessing them, and reasons to avoid them.

    best wishes, especially as you've moved already,






       Ivor