picmaestress, that is exactly how I feel, like music unlocks emotions in my brain I've never met before. will investigate your recommendation, thank you.

Actually music can be a really big key - it sort of accesses the bits of your brain that get locked away as you get older.

Try Imogen Heap, her latest album is brilliant.

Thank you for the suggestions Orm.

So my list is now looking like:

singing lessons
driving lessons
compose a wish list of attributes of the ideal me
get fitter so I can take up running again
explore what music I like

It seems daft but I really have been in suspended animation all my adult life, in and out of asylums, trying to take my own life, in between doing complicated jobs that require a high level of skill. All my energy went into either disintegrating or pretending to be high functioning but I was a fraud when in latter mode.

Now I am finally well (and I really do feel it is a permanent healing, I have a metaphorical limp but I am all whole, they tried but my parents didn't break anything to the point of me being a permanent write-off) I genuinely am starting from scratch, as the thread title states. So all ideas and inspirations are welcome

Funnily enough I rarely listened to anything modern for many many years after the age of about 17. But that was my choice. I preferred classical and found pop music insanely irritating! SOme of it I still do but generally I am more open to all types of music. Give Muse a go first - I'm a new convert and I love it!

Never heard of any of them except the classical stuff! When I was a teen my mother used to scorn any 'popular' music I'd buy and (showing my antiquity here) would put her heel on any records lying around my room to break them, so I 'switched off' from exploring music about 26 years ago and have never reopened that particular box in my head again. I really switched off as a person and all the usual stages people should go through of discovering their tastes and interests never happened with me, which is why I'm looking for inspiration on this thread as I really am starting from zero knowledge and ideas.

Loads of different stuff. Muse, Green Day, Clash, Arcade Fire, Vaughan Williams, Black-eyed peas, Bach, Mozart, Schubert..... bit of a music tart really.

what music do you lot listen to to give yourself a lift? OrmIrian, what do you listen to while running?

Heehee, I haven't worked out who you used to be yet, I'm thinking about it

Don't be hard on yourself, you sound so strong and like you have been through so much! Could you feel better by 'reframing' your own qualities so that they seem more 'cool' to you? Eg. You have been through a lot and you are a Survivor and have been Strong enough to pull yourself out of a 'pit' and decide to not let crap people break your Inner Spirit. Your Inner Spirit is now breaking through and you are finding your true self. I think you find your true self by doing more of the things that you enjoy (or finding things you enjoy if you don't know what those things are already) and living up to the moral standards you look for in others. As you become more enthusiastic about living because you are enjoying yourself more, this will come across to people as a positive energy, and the more you interact in a positive way, the more confident you will become.

I know what you mean about your DH, I think it is less about looks than lots of people think and more about mannerisms and ways. Have you ever been out and seen how some women aren't spectacular looking but seem to be chatted up by men more than the other women, even women more physically attractive than them? And have you ever thought a man was quite attractive, then when you heard him speak and saw his facial expressions etc when he talked it put you right off him?

Hello AN I admire everything that is the opposite to me - confident, non-procrastinating, gutsy, bold, people who create their own luck and their own opportunities and aren't defeatist and a navel-gazing moan bag like me.

I asked my DH the other day why he never seems attracted to me, even though I have regained my hourglass figure and I used to model spectacles (of all things !) in my early twenties to pay my way through graduate school, so I know I have good-ish bones. He said if I could be happier, it would make me attractive once again to him. Which was very interesting to me because we women (I think) tend to presume men are all visually driven but clearly this is not the case. They are in actual fact complex beasts like us. DH has had a lot to put up with me drivelling on about my parents. I think I need him to parent me less and husband me more and I need to not sulk or be disappointed in him not wanting to listen to me drone on, but work out ways and networks and means to off-load to others and reserve much more calm, confident, happy me for him.

When you look at other people and judge how much you respect them, what qualities about them, or achievements, make you respect them and like them? You could list those things and then think of ways to become more like that ideal person?