Wendy � I�m so glad you found this wonderful soft place to fall. You will find very knowledgeable and compassionate people here. You need to give yourself some compassion, too! What you have experienced has certainly been more than enough to make anyone angry and depressed. As a caregiver, I was SO angry for all my son had to endure � being angry I think is what put the fight in me and also in him to get on with the business of recovering! I think most people get angry and depressed. Do check with your doctor re any meds or therapy that could help, though.
Here are some things I did:
1) Deep breathing � 10 in and out breaths while only concentrating on the breathing � if other thoughts interfere, then start over (Tell you cells to cut the chatter).
2) Have a Mantra, something positive and meaningful to you � a short sentence that you repeat while doing the deep breathing, i.e. �Every day in every way, I get better and better!�
3) Password: Take the first letter of each word in your mantra and include it in your password so that whenever you log in to OCF or anyplace else you will have many opportunities to think about the positive statement you�ve chosen as your mantra. To make each PW different, you could include 3 or 4 of the first letters or the place to want to log into. To make it really different, at the beg or end you could pick a meaningful (for you) number. If your mantra were �Let�s Make Oral Cancer History� that part of your PW would be LMOCH. How about that?
4) Keep busy. Help someone else on OCF or anyplace else.
5) Exercise � even if you have to start with laying in bed and placing one foot on the floor with several minutes before the other leg gets over into the floor. Walk to the mailbox, then down the block, etc.
6) Listen to music. Dance, or move to the music, even if you are all by yourself.
7) See a funny movie � I did this with my son and it made a world of difference for both of us during his recovery!
8) At one point, my family doctor did prescribe something but It wiped me out so much I had to quit so I could function and drive my son to his appointments.
9) Do something nice for yourself. I like raspberry filled dark chocolate.
10) Take care of, or get a pet. Six years later, I'm still foster mother to my son's cat who was supposed to be with me just "temporarily".
Stay with us and let us know how you are doing.