Yes, she was very helpful. She gave me helpful advice and clearly explained her thinking. She was very direct, but I appreciate that (my doctor is too, but he is -- like the psychiatrist -- also compassionate).
She had a good sense of humour too. Opinions may vary but I find it helpful to laugh looking back at the things I've done at times. And cry. The psychiatrist and current psychologist are places where I feel comfortable doing both.
edit: a medication change, or addition, helped too
I’m glad it is working out with the psychologist. I prefer directness too, but as you say, it needs to be done compassionately.
I find studying really helpful as part of the management of my mania as it gives me something to focus my thoughts on, an outlet for the constant discourse in my head as it were. I was trying to explain this to my manager yesterday, who was concerned that I might overcommit.
I can identify with that. I haven't done formal study for a while but doing my own studies or a language (or other) in-person class has been a good outlet and focus for me.
I have found it helpful for settling and focusing my mind to write out the text of an Italian novel, reading it out loud as I write, and looking up the words I don't know, and writing them on top in a different colour.
The best I've ben offored so far for depression is access to certain websites ...... nothing alas 'face-to face'. Oh well.
My equivelent to the creative, 'write out the text of an Italian novel, reading it out loud as I write, and looking up the words I don't know, and writing them on top in a different colour' is to design and make (yet another) another model aircraft.
And then, when I have more energy, fly it.
Mind Over Mood by Greenberger & Padesky is a good basic CBT self-help book aimed at supporting folk with depression.
The issue with a lot of primary care stuff is it tends to ignore that shit has happened.
There’s an academic article called: Moorey, S. (1997). When bad things happen to rational people: cognitive therapy in adverse life circumstances. In Frontiers of Cognitive Therapy (pp. 450–469). Might be worth ordering from your local library - though will be somewhat heavy on the technical language.
Does anyone have advice for dealing with a well meaning friend who is convinced your mental health struggles are caused by generational sins or not being baptised in the holy spirit? I tend to always have mild to moderate anxiety and have had some more severe anxiety at times this year.
Unfortunately I had an anxiety attack in front of a very Pentecostal friend late last year and now she is convinced the problem is spiritual. It doesn't matter that I am calm in front of her the rest of the time. Explaining there is a family history of anxiety and bipolar hasn't dissuaded her, especially once she asked and I truthfully answered that members of my family were masons.
I had a lot of anxiety, worst case scenario thinking and negative self talk after a stressful work day last week and skipped the bible study we both attend, letting a couple of more understanding friends know why. Today I'm catching up with my extra Pentecostal friend and am worried she found out my anxiety is bad and will bring up spiritual issues again or world events we disagree on politically (she thinks Kirk was a saint and martyr, while I abhor violence but was not a fan to say the least. I also worry she is going down a rightwing rabbit hole despite being Asian herself).
I don't want to end this friendship but may have to limit one on one time if she won't respect my boundaries re my mental health.
I am seeing a doctor next week to try to find a cause or treatment/therapy for my increased anxiety. Could be due to hormonal changes in middle age as I also suffer from moderate PMDD that has responded well to the contraceptive pill, but lately I feel similar emotionally to before I had treatment, but at any time of the month.
In the meanwhile how do I deal with my friend and her not understanding that judging my faith or family is not helping matters?
Just re-read your post, Mili. Seems to me that this friend might be best avoided right now as she is fundamentally unsupportive. Is there any possibility that you can attend bible study at another time? You aren’t obliged to catch up with her otherwise and she sounds as though she would not understand that her religious and world views are doing your head in. You have all the right in the world to make your excuses without trying to explain why to her.
Reminds me of a Sydney Anglican acquaintance who many years ago had very disabling post natal depression bordering on psychosis. Her husband was then an ordinand at a well-known Sydney institution and not a few of the other ordinands’ lovely wives made it clear to her that her illness was due to a lack of faith and that all she needed to do was pray it away.
Thanks for your advice. I met my friend for a chat at her place and then we were meeting a few other friends for dinner. I managed to keep the conversation on neutral topics of shared interest for most of the time. Unfortunately just before going out I mentioned feeling irrationally guilty about something. That led to the topic of me feeling guilty over things I shouldn't (which I am 'guilty' of) and somehow to my immune system.
So of course my unwarranted guilt and autoimmune arthritis must be down to spiritual oppression causing stress and shame. She was supportive and offered some helpful advice, but still insisted a doctor would be no help, which could be harmful to someone more easily influenced. At least I realise I am strong in my own beliefs that health problems need medical professionals, even in they can't always cure them.
I forgot to mention earlier she also believes that because my paternal grandparents were cursed by a traditional healer when they were missionaries (true story) that could be the cause of my problems. I have only told that story as an example of God's protection and my grandparents went on to live very successful lives. My grandmother is still alive and pretty healthy at 99. But apparently the curse could have skipped them to me. As I obviously find this a humorous idea it made me less upset by her spiritual pushiness.
At the dinner with friends there were only happy and positive conversations. So perhaps limiting one on one time a bit could work, but I don't want to snub this friend completely as she is mostly a supportive friend and I am a supportive friend to her too. I don't think I will be able to change her spiritual views though.
On a good note, on the way to dinner she got a text from a right wing friend inviting her to a memorial for the American mentioned earlier, which for some reason was on tonight in Australia, but she laughed and said she would rather go out for burgers. So hopefully she will stay on the centre side of conservative. The rest of the bible study is centre right with myself and a couple of others centre left or perhaps just neutral on politics. My Sunday church is more progressive.
I'm sure she's a good sort really, but her belief system seems to border on superstition. The entire universe is booby-trapped with unforseeable consequences: your great-aunt rode her bicycle on the Sabbath and that's why you're allergic to marmalade.
I think you'll have to accept that this friend ("friend" ?) is simply unsafe for you, and after that, decide on the limits within which you are willing to tolerate her. Assume she isn't going to change, because people usually don't--at least, not without a great deal of force applied! Which is a thing you can't bring about, unless you can talk the Lord into speaking audibly to her, and even then she might not listen. I have a relative like this, and had to stop chasing the goal of getting her to see the light, because it wasn't a thing I could control.
Anyway, so once you accept the fact that she isn't changing, then you can start setting limits that you think you can handle. For instance, I will see X in company, but not for one-on-one conversations (where she might cause me more pain by getting onto subjects I don't want to discuss.) Or, I will only continue to talk with X as long as she avoids discussing crackpot Christian explanations for trouble in my life; at the first word she says in that direction, I will immediately excuse myself to the toilet, without worrying about how fake it might sound--in fact, the faker the better, in terms of training her not to.
I discovered with my own X that, after a couple of years of the conversation immediately ending the moment she started on that subject, she learned not to bring it up. It took her two years because she was very stubborn; some people are faster learners.
I wouldn't have put up with the two-year learning period and its discomforts if she hadn't been a relative--for a mere acquaintance or friend, you might decide "Trying to retrain her is too much pain for me," and just end the acquaintance outright. Which you can do either by ghosting her or by telling her honestly, "You cause me too much pain every time you try to diagnose some problem in my life as the result of a sin or a curse; let's stop being friends and go back to being civil strangers." If you can bring yourself to go the honest way, you may do the world a favor, as it's a shock to be told bluntly what you're doing wrong, and who knows, she might actually repent and learn from it. But if you can't bring yourself to do that, then ghosting is understandable.
Thanks Lamb Chopped, it sounds like you have been through a similar situation! I'm feeling more positive this week so am able to brush off her comments more easily. I certainly will make excuses if I am in a low mood as she is not a friend I can confide in about health issues.
It's so hard to brush that stuff off, at least for me! I would find those comments sticking in my memory and coming back at me days later. One thing that helped me was when a good friend told me to look up "spiritual bypassing"--one of my Xes was saying this stuff because he wanted to convince himself he was in control and none of my bad stuff would ever happen to him. 🤣
Yes, I think this is the main reason people come up with spiritual or other reasons why others are suffering. To avoid believing bad things could happen to them and to explain why bad things happen.
There's a secular version. I have a friend who, if you have any illness, wants to know a Cause - which has to be some aspect of your lifestyle. Then she can console herself that she avoids x or doesn't eat/drink y therefore she's not going to get it.
I'm sure she's a good sort really, but her belief system seems to border on superstition. The entire universe is booby-trapped with unforseeable consequences: your great-aunt rode her bicycle on the Sabbath and that's why you're allergic to marmalade.
That really made me smile - thanks! (It's the kind of thing Adrian Plass used to write about - Mili, have you read any of his stuff? It's light, and I think helpful, from a bloke who used his own mental health issues to empathise with people and deflate 'spiritual' BS). Comments under about concern / control issues sound really sensible too. @Mili , when you mentioned 'generational sin' my mind went immediately to Larkin's 'This be the verse'. To me, this 'and yea, unto the 6th generation' stuff is just that - at least, that's how I see it working out in my family, and it's pretty sharp psychology for a bunch of bronze-age nomads, the kind of thought which strikes me often when reading Proverbs or Ecclesiastes! As my Dad approaches the end of his life, age and the start of dementia have got him to open up about all sorts I never heard before, when we didn't speak for a long time. His Mum made him burn his teddy bear...her Dad used to fight people for money on the street when the pubs chucked out... I think the bible is sensible about this kind of thing, if you look at it that way.
I don't think I will ever really know my family history. My mum has died without ever going beyond the authorised version, and having opened up a few years ago, around the time his mother died, my father has re-edited things to put an even finer shine on them than previously. The mental health stuff, on the other hand, I know all about - what I have seen first hand in myself and others anyway.
Yes, I think this is the main reason people come up with spiritual or other reasons why others are suffering. To avoid believing bad things could happen to them and to explain why bad things happen.
When I did some training in chaplaincy, I told the trainees that they should always examine their motives for the responses they gave as chaplains. It is easy to want an outcome that makes us feel we have achieved something, which is actually doing something to satisfy the needs of the chaplain, rather than the person they think they are trying to help. This can even be what is called toxic positivity.
This is exemplified in the story of a chaplain/pastoral carer who asked if the person would like to end with a prayer. To which the response was "I don't need to, but you seem to want to. So go ahead if you want to." !
I wonder if that is the motivation for your friend.
When my father was dying of cancer, some members of his church said if he had enough faith that would cure the cancer. This was stressful and unhelpful for him.
My parents were members of the Christian Science church and believed that paying a practitioner would relieve a 12 year old of depression. No, it didn't. Much later, a psychotherapist was helpful in giving some relief, but a couple of later experiences with prescription medication were extremely unhelpful. Oddly, an encounter with cancer not so long ago was, irrationally, quite the opposite, and the fast paced excitement of the whole thing didn't leave time for depression. The follow-up chemical warfare was damn near lethal and the ensuing 'chemo brain' was something nobody should ever have to deal with.
The one sure thing to lift the spirits is total immersion in a live concert or even a good Sunday service, where good preaching and strong music take over. It works a whole lot better than anything out of a bottle.
Me- no more drinking. So I learned is drinking is a thing that makes you feel better. Then I learn thinking about drinking me feel better then feel worse, its both and a mess. Best is get right off the bottles then stop thinking about it too, and got help from good counsellors for that. Then I learn to get me to think about other things. Mostly wanting to help other people. Which we need more of in the world. When I get stress out, then I talk to other people to help me back. But its not church people mostly sorry to say.
Me I got to recommend to go and see nature if you can. Lake and forest for me. When I do a walk then I sing a bit or we go fishing. Someone with me can sing too. Can be together and can be taking turns. Leave phone at your house. Singing is pretty good sometime then is bad so funny other time. So thats what I do.
I like singing too Burgess - the really old hymns often move me, which is a bit odd as when I was a teenager I didn't really get much from them. I'm very lucky that we still have an organist (though I am afraid we are really borrowing her from the Lord, these days!) and that the church hierarchy leave us alone to sing old hymns, since I am with an elderly immigrant congregation who are allowed to like that kind of thing .
Thanks for all your advice and comments everyone. I went to the doctor and am getting some blood tests to check for any underlying cause and she can also recommend a psychologist if it turns out I need talk therapy again.
I also like nature, musicals and spending time with animals and find they help with my anxiety, as well as using various thought strategies I have learnt from therapy or other reputable sources. Lately these strategies have not worked as well though.
I have rarely drunk alcohol as there is alcoholism in my family and I recognised as a teenager that it wouldn't be healthy to use alcohol to override my anxiety in social situations. I made a conscious choice to learn healthy strategies to socialise and get out and achieve my life goals, instead of running away from things I was afraid from. But I know sometimes I and other people need more help than just toughing it out.
On 1A today there was a discussion about how doing acts of kindness seem to lift people's spirits better than medication or therapy. Takes a couple of days for it to post online. I will watch for it.
Also saw a newspaper article today about how local animal shelters are now lending their dogs out to people for a few hours in a day. The interaction between both species increases oxytocin, the love hormone. An interesting read.
Something that has helped me is CPTSD theory -see Pete Walker 'Complex PTSD from surviving to thriving'
Basically the theory is - if you have CPTSD you get 'emotional flashbacks' which are feelings you had at the time as a child or when you were being traumatised ( not the visual ones of PTSD).
If I have a negative voice in my head about something I look at the feeling underneath and there's usually a CPTSD flashback.
This book by Walker at chapter 8 has a practical guide to managing those which I have copied out and keep on my phone and smartwatch and when I start feeling bad or criticising myself I work the steps.
I also pair this up with checking for triggers
( hungry, angry, lonely, tired etc.) and doing anything I need to do to take care of myself.
In my case these voices generally came from a critical parent or bullies I'd experienced- so getting to the underlying flashback memory that's been triggered and working the steps relieves that.
Part of them is step 8
Resist the Inner Critic’s Drasticizing and Catastrophizing. [a] Use Thought-stopping to halt the critic’s endless exaggerations of danger, and its constant planning to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self- attack into saying “NO” to your critic’s unfair self-criticism.
Use Thought-substitution & Thought-correction to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments.
But working the whole set of steps is what helps - it releases the underlying feeling and makes you realise it's something in the past and that you're now in a very different place where you can comfort yourself and seek safety and be safe.
I usually use a journal and do this as a written exercise. Because I am AuDHD I also include a sensory checklist for myself to remind me to do all the things I need to make myself feel comfortable and comforted (put on noise cancelling headphones, make sure I am warm, I use aromatherapy just for the scent as nice scents help me feel relaxed and happy etc.)
I've been doing this since early this year and it has really helped. Bad feelings and negative messages go away more quickly than they did and I feel more confident. I find it seems to cut rumination by getting the thoughts down quickly on paper where I can see and contradict them.
If you buy a nice journal and have a nice pen that in itself can be a comforting act.
I'm not depressed or unhappy, but in one very specific area I need to get a negative voice out of my head, and get some confidence.
Is there a known straightforward solution to this?
Thought challenging, as described in most CBT self-help books might help.
Also, you can’t think and speak at the same time, only one after the other. So reading or reciting aloud - pretty much anything, but preferably something that you find positive - can give you a quick break.
It's a very small but annoying thing. I wouldn't describe it as anything as serious as "trauma." It's just something that's holding me back through lack of confidence.
Basically, at the point at which I was starting to use my computer for more than just word-processing, about 20 years ago, I enrolled in a class to do the ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) My husband thought that the course was very basic and he found it funny that I was going to classes to learn something so trivial. He said that most employers if they saw the ECDL on a CV would reject the person because of the implication that only a hopeless person would bother with it as a qualification. He spent the whole course mocking whatever I was doing. End result was that I got the ECDL, but lost my confidence.
I am fine doing the stuff I know how to do, but I'm nervous about trying anything different without my son to take me through it step-by-step.
Comments
She had a good sense of humour too. Opinions may vary but I find it helpful to laugh looking back at the things I've done at times. And cry. The psychiatrist and current psychologist are places where I feel comfortable doing both.
edit: a medication change, or addition, helped too
I find studying really helpful as part of the management of my mania as it gives me something to focus my thoughts on, an outlet for the constant discourse in my head as it were. I was trying to explain this to my manager yesterday, who was concerned that I might overcommit.
My equivelent to the creative, 'write out the text of an Italian novel, reading it out loud as I write, and looking up the words I don't know, and writing them on top in a different colour' is to design and make (yet another) another model aircraft.
And then, when I have more energy, fly it.
And then glue it back together.
The issue with a lot of primary care stuff is it tends to ignore that shit has happened.
There’s an academic article called: Moorey, S. (1997). When bad things happen to rational people: cognitive therapy in adverse life circumstances. In Frontiers of Cognitive Therapy (pp. 450–469). Might be worth ordering from your local library - though will be somewhat heavy on the technical language.
Unfortunately I had an anxiety attack in front of a very Pentecostal friend late last year and now she is convinced the problem is spiritual. It doesn't matter that I am calm in front of her the rest of the time. Explaining there is a family history of anxiety and bipolar hasn't dissuaded her, especially once she asked and I truthfully answered that members of my family were masons.
I had a lot of anxiety, worst case scenario thinking and negative self talk after a stressful work day last week and skipped the bible study we both attend, letting a couple of more understanding friends know why. Today I'm catching up with my extra Pentecostal friend and am worried she found out my anxiety is bad and will bring up spiritual issues again or world events we disagree on politically (she thinks Kirk was a saint and martyr, while I abhor violence but was not a fan to say the least. I also worry she is going down a rightwing rabbit hole despite being Asian herself).
I don't want to end this friendship but may have to limit one on one time if she won't respect my boundaries re my mental health.
I am seeing a doctor next week to try to find a cause or treatment/therapy for my increased anxiety. Could be due to hormonal changes in middle age as I also suffer from moderate PMDD that has responded well to the contraceptive pill, but lately I feel similar emotionally to before I had treatment, but at any time of the month.
In the meanwhile how do I deal with my friend and her not understanding that judging my faith or family is not helping matters?
Reminds me of a Sydney Anglican acquaintance who many years ago had very disabling post natal depression bordering on psychosis. Her husband was then an ordinand at a well-known Sydney institution and not a few of the other ordinands’ lovely wives made it clear to her that her illness was due to a lack of faith and that all she needed to do was pray it away.
Best of luck!
So of course my unwarranted guilt and autoimmune arthritis must be down to spiritual oppression causing stress and shame. She was supportive and offered some helpful advice, but still insisted a doctor would be no help, which could be harmful to someone more easily influenced. At least I realise I am strong in my own beliefs that health problems need medical professionals, even in they can't always cure them.
I forgot to mention earlier she also believes that because my paternal grandparents were cursed by a traditional healer when they were missionaries (true story) that could be the cause of my problems. I have only told that story as an example of God's protection and my grandparents went on to live very successful lives. My grandmother is still alive and pretty healthy at 99. But apparently the curse could have skipped them to me. As I obviously find this a humorous idea it made me less upset by her spiritual pushiness.
At the dinner with friends there were only happy and positive conversations. So perhaps limiting one on one time a bit could work, but I don't want to snub this friend completely as she is mostly a supportive friend and I am a supportive friend to her too. I don't think I will be able to change her spiritual views though.
On a good note, on the way to dinner she got a text from a right wing friend inviting her to a memorial for the American mentioned earlier, which for some reason was on tonight in Australia, but she laughed and said she would rather go out for burgers. So hopefully she will stay on the centre side of conservative. The rest of the bible study is centre right with myself and a couple of others centre left or perhaps just neutral on politics. My Sunday church is more progressive.
Good job you have a sense of humour.
Anyway, so once you accept the fact that she isn't changing, then you can start setting limits that you think you can handle. For instance, I will see X in company, but not for one-on-one conversations (where she might cause me more pain by getting onto subjects I don't want to discuss.) Or, I will only continue to talk with X as long as she avoids discussing crackpot Christian explanations for trouble in my life; at the first word she says in that direction, I will immediately excuse myself to the toilet, without worrying about how fake it might sound--in fact, the faker the better, in terms of training her not to.
I discovered with my own X that, after a couple of years of the conversation immediately ending the moment she started on that subject, she learned not to bring it up. It took her two years because she was very stubborn; some people are faster learners.
I wouldn't have put up with the two-year learning period and its discomforts if she hadn't been a relative--for a mere acquaintance or friend, you might decide "Trying to retrain her is too much pain for me," and just end the acquaintance outright. Which you can do either by ghosting her or by telling her honestly, "You cause me too much pain every time you try to diagnose some problem in my life as the result of a sin or a curse; let's stop being friends and go back to being civil strangers." If you can bring yourself to go the honest way, you may do the world a favor, as it's a shock to be told bluntly what you're doing wrong, and who knows, she might actually repent and learn from it. But if you can't bring yourself to do that, then ghosting is understandable.
As I say, it's a form of superstition.
That really made me smile - thanks! (It's the kind of thing Adrian Plass used to write about - Mili, have you read any of his stuff? It's light, and I think helpful, from a bloke who used his own mental health issues to empathise with people and deflate 'spiritual' BS). Comments under about concern / control issues sound really sensible too. @Mili , when you mentioned 'generational sin' my mind went immediately to Larkin's 'This be the verse'. To me, this 'and yea, unto the 6th generation' stuff is just that - at least, that's how I see it working out in my family, and it's pretty sharp psychology for a bunch of bronze-age nomads, the kind of thought which strikes me often when reading Proverbs or Ecclesiastes! As my Dad approaches the end of his life, age and the start of dementia have got him to open up about all sorts I never heard before, when we didn't speak for a long time. His Mum made him burn his teddy bear...her Dad used to fight people for money on the street when the pubs chucked out... I think the bible is sensible about this kind of thing, if you look at it that way.
When I did some training in chaplaincy, I told the trainees that they should always examine their motives for the responses they gave as chaplains. It is easy to want an outcome that makes us feel we have achieved something, which is actually doing something to satisfy the needs of the chaplain, rather than the person they think they are trying to help. This can even be what is called toxic positivity.
This is exemplified in the story of a chaplain/pastoral carer who asked if the person would like to end with a prayer. To which the response was "I don't need to, but you seem to want to. So go ahead if you want to." !
I wonder if that is the motivation for your friend.
When my father was dying of cancer, some members of his church said if he had enough faith that would cure the cancer. This was stressful and unhelpful for him.
The one sure thing to lift the spirits is total immersion in a live concert or even a good Sunday service, where good preaching and strong music take over. It works a whole lot better than anything out of a bottle.
Me I got to recommend to go and see nature if you can. Lake and forest for me. When I do a walk then I sing a bit or we go fishing. Someone with me can sing too. Can be together and can be taking turns. Leave phone at your house. Singing is pretty good sometime then is bad so funny other time. So thats what I do.
I also like nature, musicals and spending time with animals and find they help with my anxiety, as well as using various thought strategies I have learnt from therapy or other reputable sources. Lately these strategies have not worked as well though.
I have rarely drunk alcohol as there is alcoholism in my family and I recognised as a teenager that it wouldn't be healthy to use alcohol to override my anxiety in social situations. I made a conscious choice to learn healthy strategies to socialise and get out and achieve my life goals, instead of running away from things I was afraid from. But I know sometimes I and other people need more help than just toughing it out.
Also saw a newspaper article today about how local animal shelters are now lending their dogs out to people for a few hours in a day. The interaction between both species increases oxytocin, the love hormone. An interesting read.
Is there a known straightforward solution to this?
Basically the theory is - if you have CPTSD you get 'emotional flashbacks' which are feelings you had at the time as a child or when you were being traumatised ( not the visual ones of PTSD).
If I have a negative voice in my head about something I look at the feeling underneath and there's usually a CPTSD flashback.
This book by Walker at chapter 8 has a practical guide to managing those which I have copied out and keep on my phone and smartwatch and when I start feeling bad or criticising myself I work the steps.
I also pair this up with checking for triggers
( hungry, angry, lonely, tired etc.) and doing anything I need to do to take care of myself.
In my case these voices generally came from a critical parent or bullies I'd experienced- so getting to the underlying flashback memory that's been triggered and working the steps relieves that.
Part of them is step 8
But working the whole set of steps is what helps - it releases the underlying feeling and makes you realise it's something in the past and that you're now in a very different place where you can comfort yourself and seek safety and be safe.
I usually use a journal and do this as a written exercise. Because I am AuDHD I also include a sensory checklist for myself to remind me to do all the things I need to make myself feel comfortable and comforted (put on noise cancelling headphones, make sure I am warm, I use aromatherapy just for the scent as nice scents help me feel relaxed and happy etc.)
I've been doing this since early this year and it has really helped. Bad feelings and negative messages go away more quickly than they did and I feel more confident. I find it seems to cut rumination by getting the thoughts down quickly on paper where I can see and contradict them.
If you buy a nice journal and have a nice pen that in itself can be a comforting act.
Thought challenging, as described in most CBT self-help books might help.
Also, you can’t think and speak at the same time, only one after the other. So reading or reciting aloud - pretty much anything, but preferably something that you find positive - can give you a quick break.
Basically, at the point at which I was starting to use my computer for more than just word-processing, about 20 years ago, I enrolled in a class to do the ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) My husband thought that the course was very basic and he found it funny that I was going to classes to learn something so trivial. He said that most employers if they saw the ECDL on a CV would reject the person because of the implication that only a hopeless person would bother with it as a qualification. He spent the whole course mocking whatever I was doing. End result was that I got the ECDL, but lost my confidence.
I am fine doing the stuff I know how to do, but I'm nervous about trying anything different without my son to take me through it step-by-step.
I use my computer a lot, I want to get past this.