My therapist said I need a hobby - help me to think of one that will actually help

[prufrock]

To cut a v. long and painful story short, I am having therapy after a year on AD's (now finished) afer a pretty terrible depressive episode. I now feel well enough to attack my underlying issues, which are basically obsessive negativity caused by my need to be perfect, caused by my mother (doesn't it always come down to the mother) and other aspects of my childhood. I am very self-aware - so much so that I get into terrible cycles of beating myself up because I'm beating myself up because I'm beating myself up because I'm beating myself up because I'm being negative - you get the picture. We both agree that I need to be easier on myself, but breaking the habits of 29 years is difficult.

Horse riding
Cycling
Archery
Fencing (not the garden variety, although I suppose that could be considered as an option )

Genealogy. Well as a significant number of my issues centre around the death of my biological mother at the age of two and the resultant lack of contact with her family and lack of knowledge of my genetic heritage I think you win the award for least appropriate suggestion nonickname (I really don't mean that horribly - it made me laugh. We have decided that particular can of worms is best left unopended for now)

Reading - again I do it, but mostly trash, so doesn't really fit the effortless self improvement. And the village book group contains the only woman at school who I actively dislike and try to avoid, and if I joined a different one it would show that my excuses when asked to join this one were crap.

Geocaching and meditation sound good. Could you e-mail me the url's Rubberduck (I'm glad I now know who you are btw)

I find singing very therapeutic.

When you sing, (in a choir) you can't really concentrate on anything else.

Exercise can also be helpful, as long as it was non-competative?

It sounds as if you really do just need an enrichment type of activity then. Art or music appreciation, book club, wine tasting, languages, travel.

Although, in reality nothing is completely devoid of at least relative measures of success.

Perhaps the real way to tackle it is to find some kind of restitution in the battle with your critical voice. Do whatever you want to and do it as badly as you can - pin it on the wall for all to see and write underneath - I am not my mother and I really don;t give a fuck stuff how wonderful or not this is

I'll do it too

should we do a mumsnet chocolatier course

www.buyagift.co.uk/Chocolate_Making.html

I do find helping other people is key to making me feel better ... I do it for incredibly selfish reasons .. and unfortunately there's an awful lot of desparate situations around me at the moment

god we could use someone like you on pta of nursery.
How about volunteering for something like that,you would be really appreciated.

Do you think once we've done the chocolatier course we'll all be qualified enough to go into Hotel Chocolat and squash all their truffles

I'll post them here in case anyone else would like them:

The Meditation Podcast - a pretty professionally made meditation with nice imagery and a really soothing track in the background (faint sounds of babbling brook, birds then later morphs into evening/night sounds... cicadas, dog barking... more soothing than it sounds )

Meditation Oasis not as good as the first, imo, but still very relaxing.

Neither have any affiliation to any religion and they produce new ones about once a month? But they do have their entire back catalogue available for download so you can reuse over and over as required.

If you like podcasts in general, there are a load of really interesting ones I listen too at the moment, including science & technology ones, a skeptics guide to the universe one which is fab (and you may enjoy if you're listening to Richard Dawkins)...

Could you get a very cute new pet who will stay small and adorable so no competitiveness about how big s/he gets?

... and best of all they're all FREE!

(I'm a big podcast fan, can you tell )

Juggling, dancing, fencing - I am so incredibly mal-co-ordinated that I punched myself in the face last night as soon as my personal trainer introduced two different moves into the boxing routine I was doing

Other voluntary activities - maybe, next year, after I give up the pre-school. I was thinking of becoming a magistrate. It would supply validation and give me the respect of others as well (though I'm not sure if I should be accepting and fulfilling my pathetic needs or confronting them - must ask therapist next week)

Singing. Miaou. Think of the worst auditions you've ever heard on X-factor. The chicken guy, the barry manilow one, the screeching wannabe rock god. Got them. Put them all together and you are still nowhere near approaching the awfulness of my singing voice. Whilst it's good for me to do something i can't be perfect at singing is just a step too far.

HOw about art appreciation or music appreciation or literary criticism or something like that. That way, you are not really producing anything at all, but diverting your critical faculties towards people you will never meet and so won't mind what you say about them? You could end up lecturing ....

Bees - I'm an apiphobe and spekiphobe
Chickens - would love to but dh will not hear of it. And realistically garden, designed as it is, just doesn't have an appropriate space for them

Scummy - dh won't have chickens because of the smell and theshit - could you really see him accepting those. And I'm actually quite OK at the moment - this is about making trying to make the hypercritical voices go away for good., rather than popping up every 5 minutes to be told to "fuck off mother"

www - I'm just slightly worried that 'what did you do today?' 'oh I went to the Velaquez exhibition' would make me feel "Oh no, am I being to smug about being inteligent and arty". because along with my need to be perfect comes a need to never let others see that I'm either striving to be so, or that I am in any way thinking that I am better than them.

what about taking part in a parenting forum?

How about good, old-fashioned walking?

Do you live near anywhere thats good for walks? Coastal or hills? Quite often you get groups that meet up for regular walks and chat as you go if you prefer company.

Couldn't sailing work? I can see you skimming the waves in a little dinghy sporting a charming hat.

"what about taking part in a parenting forum?"

Perfect!

More like broad beamer chugging along the broads near here scummy. I did actually learn to sail on holiday a few years ago, and loved it, until a f-off huge wasp found me (how - I was 400 yards offshore) and I panicked so much I capsized.

barnstaple - the overacheiver part of me likes your train of thought.... The in therapy part fo me says no. I don't need to be good at it.

Clandestine - not yet at the stage of being able to want to do something deliberatly badly. (I walked out of my 2nd session thinking of things I could do by next week to prove to my therapist I could be imperfect). And she counted today and in 50 minutes I called myself ridiculous 27 times!

Twig - pmsl. Unfortunately this falls under my mother's definition of time-wasting. (Did I ever thank you for the mothers pushing/installing buttons quote btw - pure genius)

I think that there's probably no activity that it's impossible to be results driven over. Maybe you need to try and look at existing activities you enjoy in a different way? Can you consciously take some time to enjoy the feeling of kneading dough or using clay for a while before you give into the urge to make a masterpiece? Can you rip bits off your garden spreadsheet and add them to the compost heap and tolerate the panicky feelings that brings while admiring your sunflowers because they are yellow and beautiful and tall? When you are running or exercising can you take a few minutes to feel your body moving along and think my God I am alive and my body is moving purposefully and strongly, I'm breathing and sweating and my heart is pumping? I think trying to build these kinds of thoughts into your daily activities might be helpful rather than trying to find a non-results driven activity. it's funny that we're all trying to find the right answer for you in a who will win type way, isn't it? We're reflecting your world!

There is something immensly satisfying in taking your model airplane out for a spin. Fresh air, Process oriented, you focus entirely on your airplane there and then.... No goals at all.

What about dancing? I did flamenco for about 9 months recently.

Life drawing? Calming (and possibly amusing)

I filled the hiatus after resigning from my job post-incredibly hideous miscarriage and cancer-scare by doing a two week-long papier-mache workshop at a local museum.

And I'm not normally one for joining in, or for self-improvement. I've never done anything like it before or since. But there was something about making a huge object from wood, chicken wire, newspaper and glue that was incredibly therapeutic. There were lots of other people in slightly in-between situations as well, which was pleasingly distracting. And most things you make from papier-mache look like the work of a 6yo anyway, so expectations are necessarily low. You can paint it all in bright colours at the end to make it look a bit less crap, which is fun. After it had lain around the house for a few years gathering dust, I finally chucked it.

Heartily recommended.

I still think assisting less able people to aprticipate in a hobby would be good. It could help on 3 levels. It's fun but not goal orientated for you. You will witness other people managing to enjoy their activity without caring what the end result is. You'll naturally feel better that you're able to do something worthwhile and help others.

You do seemt o be putting obstacles in the way of most people's suggestions. Is it that you don't like to do new things that you aren't already good at? What are some of the things you currently enjoy or enjoyed in the past? Maybe we could think of different ways for you to approach those activities.

I think you should join a choir and maybe have some singing lessons too?
it is very therapeutic (in the widest sense) to learn a piece of music, and to immerse yourself in the process of learning it. but in a choir you are part of a communal experience. it isn'tjust about you
if you take singing lessons at the same time, you can get some helpful technique to make the experience more enjoyable.