Oh goodness, what a great thread Bath. I'm mainly writing to subscribe because my thoughts are somewhat jumbled right now.

I was going to say that I exclusively self-sooth, meaning that I barely ever go to other people for support. That's probably why I've used BB so much in the past, because I rarely go to my partner or my IRL friends when I'm having difficulties. And I've found the last three years VERY difficult for various reasons.

But, when I reflect a little more, I think that I actually haven't self-soothed at all well until very, very recently. I've mainly just bottled things up with the odd vent on BB here and there.

I think the turning point for me were a couple of books called Buddhism For Mothers. They talk about living in the moment and also accepting how your life has changed and that now things have to be done differently (usually meaning not as fast). In terms of dealing with difficult times, I guess I allow myself now to 'find things hard' for a while and don't place as big an expectation on myself to jump through hoops finding solutions to problems or to find things easy all the time. I guess I've just accepted that I'm human, that I will make mistakes (particularly in regard to parenting DSD) but that I should be proud of myself for always trying my best. This is quite a big leap for me as the only trigger for depression for me is feeling that I've done something wrong/bad.