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I know disapointment is a part of life but argh I just need to figure out what to do to calm myself down right now. I know this is so not a big deal, it just feels like one right now.

I was really looking forward to spending some time with friends that I'm used to seeing all the time. Because of her work schedule, one of these friends hasn't been around lately too much. Anyway, we had planned to do a mini roadtrip tomorrow that I was REALLY looking forward to. We were all going to go to this concert. Anyway..I just got a call from my friend, the one who planned it, saying that she was sick and can't go. She was the friend I was really looking forward to seeing. So I called her back and left her a nice message saying that I hope she feels better. She sounded horrible on the voicemail that she left me but I am still SOOO disapointed.

I know disapointment is human and that I will be fine in a few days or hours, but I just want to cry because I was looking forward to this for so long. I think I just really miss my friend and though she doesn't live that far away, she is really contagious, so it's not like we can all go over to cheer her up.

Argh! I was looking forward to it so much.

I can so relate to how you feel! We are having a party tomorrow night and I learned that some of the people I really wanted to attend cannot be there. I posted about it - I was really bummed out! I learned I needed to use Radical Acceptance to accept that this is the way things are.

Maybe when your friend gets better you can plan something else. It won't be the same exact circumstance, but if you plan something you'd both enjoy, maybe that would help.

Another suggestion would be for you to do something really nice for yourself this weekend - something to cheer you up that you would enjoy doing. Even something like pampering yourself - get a massage, get your nails done, go shopping. Something just for yourself!

(((lbcgal)))

Hope and fear are both equally hollow emotions because they are based on expected outcomes in the future.

Disapointment is hope (expectation) being changed to reality.

You'd really be up a creek if you were afraid to hope.

Thanks, Bordergirl! Yeah..I remember your post about your party and I totally feel your pain. It's hard when you want to see people but circumstances make it unable to happen. I'm feeling a lot better about it. It is so not a big deal now. I made other plans tomorrow so it'll all work out. Thanks. :-)

Terrabus..thanks for your response, too. I like what you said.

lbcgal - yesterday the weather was HORRIBLE! It snowed all day! The roads were terrible! My H and I went out (he drove) to buy the rest of the stuff we needed for the party. At about 3:00 my very good friend called to say she wasn't coming. I was sooooo disappointed! As I was getting ready, I was just waiting for "more phone calls" of people possibly cancelling. But to my relief, no one cancelled. Everyone else came! I was so happy!!!! So even though she did not come, our party was a huge success and everyone had a great time! I know I should not project or assume. It is not good.

I'm glad you made other plans. I hope you have a good weekend!!!!

It is hard missing people we care about. When my almost 18-year-old daughter ran off with her runaway boyfriend, I would have been happy to have had her locked up just to know she was safe and protected. Now that she is an involuntary patient in a psychiatric hospital, I miss having her home so much that I have had many sleepless nights worried about her mental health and blaming myself for being so "mental" that she would end up in a psychiatric hospital at her age (I was 18 the first time I was hospitalized but I never expected my daughter to ever have to deal with the mental health system).

I have been able to visit my daughter a couple of times in the past few weeks but it is a 7 hour trip by bus to visit her for an hour (since my car is still broke down and I still don't have money to fix it that is the best option I have for seeing her at all) and I can't always get the travel time to work with my younger daughter's schedule. I took my younger daughter to see her big sister yesterday and I have to go back tomorrow for a meeting with her case worker and her doctor to find out what they recommend. If they don't let her out when her two week hold is up, she won't have another court hearing for 6 months (adolescents do not get a 30 day hearing like adults do).

My daughter has always been so well-adjusted that I never expected anything like this but apparently I passed on a predisposition to becoming an alcoholic and addict and she was hanging out with a crowd who supported her substance use. I am hoping she can be home for Christmas but I am losing hope that she will be out before then because her being transferred to the psychiatric hospital from her inpatient chemical recovery program (they won't even take her back again, ever) disrupted her 35 day treatment so that she may have to start over again at another treatment center if she is using to the extent that she has told people she is using (I have a hard time believing she is drinking two bottles of hard liquor a day without showing signs of intoxication but that is what she told them so something must be wrong whether she is telling the truth or lying).

I suppose the only comfort we have is that we will see them again in the future, even if we can't see them as soon or as often as we would like. Being separated will not change the relationship and there are other ways of keeping in contact, such as phone calls, that are as close as we can get to having any contact with them. We can offer encouragement and express how much they mean to us until we have a chance to visit again. We also have to accept that they have a life away from us and we need to appreciate whatever time we get with them when we can. I was not emotionally prepared to cope with my daughter's situation so it has been a challenge using coping skills in place of self-injury. I have some tally marks on my arm that I will continue until she is home again but other than that and some other wounding I have been able to use medication to keep me from feeling too suicidal (the "they would be better off without me" line of thinking always gets me into trouble but at least I recognize that trap now, although I can't help thinking that if I had succeeded in killing myself in the past that my daughters would not have had to grow up with a mother who has mental issues). Hopefully you have better coping skills than I do. It sounds like you have already done a great job of calming yourself down since the initial disappointment.