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It's been ages since I've written anything in here, I've been reading bits of other peoples posts but haven't got round to writing myself.
Most of what I've been writing about recently, for my own well-being? Is about situations that happen now bring up echoes from the past.
For example, I started a new part time job, and the lady I work with is a very dear friend. Only I'm slightly scared of her.
And that brings up all sorts of stuff from the past.
The work involves looking after livestock, and as a kid I was used as unpaid labour by my grown up sister who kept goats and sheep.
This sister was a mother figure, but was also quite abusive and so I hero worshipped her and was afraid of her at the same time.
So even as a grown up now, this feeling of wanting to impress someone, while being scared of them while surrounded by livestock...it really takes me back.
The other day, I got flustered over a task, and fearing anger I started to get the shakes....and I know it's an echo from the past, which produced a spike in anxiety..
But it still feels bad, that even after all this time I'm still tripping over triggers all the time!
However. At least nowadays, I can identify the problem. It takes several hours and isn't helpful at the time, but I can write it down to discuss in my next T appointment.
Anyway, hopefully I'll manage to write a bit more in here later.

Thanks Phil and Armee for the hugs.
Funny thing is as soon as I was away from the situation, I started to do the thing I've done for all the childhood abuse etc....'well, was it really as bad as I thought?'
'Am I overreacting?'.....all that stuff. But this time, I was with my kids....they witnessed it.
Awful thing is my bright, confident fifteen year old daughter, now is scared to take the bus in case it happens again. ...and because I don't want her to develop a bus phobia like I had, I'm going to have to make sure we catch the bus together....keep doing the scary thing together till it's ok...but it's the last thing I want to do honestly.
I also just cannot believe how ill I've felt over the last couple of days.
My neck is still absolutely killing me.
The other weird reaction I got from the bus incident is that because I responded to these teenagers
(I wasn't verbally abusive like they were....but I did respond)  I had an awful feeling that I was going to be in trouble. I got to my safe place, my friends home and I couldn't calm down, I was convinced that something bad was going to happen, and that it was my fault....honestly I felt like I was eight!

Thanks Hope, son seemed to be setting in ok, thank goodness.
I may have mentioned it before, but I've only just recently been comfortable catching busses.
I've had to overcome the fear, and learn to do it to help my son who is on the autism spectrum learn to get to his college independently.
I've been really proud of this new skill, and it's opened up things for me, as before I biked everywhere!
Well, last Wednesday a dreadful thing happened.
My son and I were on the bus, alone on the top floor, and two young teens got on.
They were being pretty disruptive and shouting out of the windows at people outside.
When our bus stop approached, my son got up to leave, but these two kids had bridged their feet across the aisle, and wouldn't move for him., even though he asked.
He stepped over them, and they still wouldn't move to let me past...they locked their feet and just sat there grinning. I barged through them, because I had to, and I made sure I wasn't careful about my feet as I did.
Seriously they weren't going to let me off the bus, and they were trying to trip me up.
At this point I said to one of them ''Aw did I catch you? Well you should have moved your legs then'
The other one then produced a bottle of juice and started throwing it at me.
As I went down the stairs he poured the juice properly onto my head.
Of course I made a complaint to the school....they were horrified and urged me to report to police as it's assault.
The very next day, I was on another bus with both my kids, and it happened again with the SAME kids!
I moved to keep away from them, but they literally followed me to where I sat, and approached three times, to hurl abuse and homophobic slurs . They accused me of telling lies about them to school, and the girl said I sprained her ankle...
In the end after one of them threw an empty Fanta can at me but it hit my son in the face, and I told the driver. He tried to get these kids off the bus, but they wouldn't move till he was about to call the police.
As the bus drove off leaving them on the pavement outside, they ran behind it making  wrist slashing gestures at my daughter!
Awful.
One of the reasons I struggled with busses is, though I wasn't allowed to use them as a teenager (when it would've been appropriate) as a small child I'd had awful experiences of severe bullying every day on the bus to school.
This was in the eighties, it wasn't an actual 'school bus'...it was a public bus, but it was crammed with pupils from my school. One day when I was around eight, I was beaten up by a much older child, but everyday I was kicked, spat on and pushed over. Because no one would let me sit down, I often had to stand in the aisle and if I held the back of a seat for balance, some kid would bash my hand with their fist.
It wasn't a good time for me.
I chatted to the staff at school after the first incident, and I explained I struggle to use public transport because I suffer with cptsd, and now this will really set me back.
It will also set my children back because they will lose confidence now.
Anyway that was Wednesday and Thursday. Now im ill.
Im getting lots of pain in my ears and neck, I've had a high temperature all night and I keep having to run to the loo, because I've got a horrendous bad stomach. All my joints are aching.
Logically, I assume I must have  some sort of infection....
But I actually think it's the stress. It's like I've physically and mentally had to come to a halt.
I've not got a cold or flu or anything like that...but honestly I feel so rubbish.
Not been sleeping, because anxiety beast massive.
Now my kids are off for half term. I planned to do some nice stuff, spend some time together...hope I still can. I usually work today, but I've had to phone in sick....really couldn't feel worse.

Thanks so much for sharing this.
Beautiful words, and I especially love the line about riding a wave of forlorn.

Well, it's been a while.
I've got a lot of stuff crashing round in my head at the moment, I'd like to be able to write about it but I'm struggling. I wish I felt better than this, but I just feel heavy, sad and sleepy...I can't think...and that seems to be how things are these days for me.
I went away for a few weeks holiday, and it was nice, but virtually every night I had bad disturbing dreams which left me feeling uneasy the next day...I'm used to weird dreams at night, but not so frequently.
My son started college this week...(sixth form) it's his second day.
My friend is away this week.
It's been a scary few weeks and I didn't have any where I feel comfortable.

So, news wise....I'm due to start emdr next week.
I'm also enjoying the writing group I joined....I submitted one of my poems (well a recording of it) for a poetry slam, and it was used so I'm glad about that.

Growing towards the sun
————————————


Humph...you'll never get to do that
Do anything..not when you come from THIS family
And I listened to Mum,  I heard, absorbing it
Mutely, like osmosis it crept and spread
Those words threading through
My being, like letters shot through
Blackpool rock, evidence of where you've been
And what your means are limited to.

You like THIS...don't you?
He said, And I did, I liked it,
The way a starving child
Likes a spoiled, crumbling pork pie
Feeling it's tainted, unwholesome
But lacking anything else
She eats it, and is grateful
So I welcomed his touch, that would made me sick

You'll never be anything,
Not in THIS family! Maybe?
I am nothing...but my children sleep safe
My daughter is confident, unacquainted
With the fear of men
My son  does not apologise for life.
They unfurl towards the sun laughing,
Fizzy and refreshing as lemonade

You'll never be anything,
Not in this family!
Maybe. But I am better than YOU were
My childhood, my suffering, my life
Is but a rich loam mixed...churned..  with
Anguished rumination, not a memory
I can bear, but when my children blossom
Who cares if the soil feels dirty!

You'll never be anything, not in this family.
And what am I? I'm not sure,
I'm better than THEY were...Im not nothing
My children are happy and young by right!
Unfettered by the weight of adult wrongs
I don't like me, but my friends do
So I try to absorb, soak up any drops of love
And inspired by my children, I grow towards the sun

I've spent today feeling tired, and spacey...till late this evening.
I'm irritable, I feel so much nasty, I hate my life, I hate people, and I despise me.
My heads just circling a whole load of horrid, awful memories and I just want to destroy something.
I resent my husband, I wish things were better than this, but I feel powerless to change anything.
I'm angry at people, but I'm paralysed with fear of them too....I very seldom get angry.
I have nothing to say, I can't say what I need to, I just hate how my life has been and I don't see anything getting better. It's my own fault, because if I was braver and told people how I felt, or stood up for myself more then things would go better for me. But it's hard. Im not brave. I just don't want to be here today.

You deserved so much better.
I wish you could have had a nice ordinary Mum and dad.
Thanks so much for sharing your poetry, it's really appreciated

So, I've not been writing in my journal for a while.
Ive had a really bad chest and I'm not sleeping much.
My son is about to leave school, he's doing his exams.
I don't feel anything. I'd like to write, or talk, but I just can't think or speak, or be bothered with anything.
It's like my head doesn't belong to me anymore.

So glad you had a good time with your friends
Doing a spur of the moment trip away sounds great too...nice to be spontaneous sometimes. Really hope you enjoy it and it goes well.

The years the memories oozed back
Like raw sewage on cream carpet
Reluctantly I said the thing out loud,
In my head, tried it on for size, uneasily
Un comfy like a new-old  coat
Ever conscious of its shape
I catalogued how I'd been hurt
By who and when
Charted on the map of my body
And mind, the few places
I HADN'T  Suffered


The years the feelings swept in
A tsunami of trauma
A destructive waterfall
Of  despair and grief
The surge of fear that took my breath
My unaccountable urge to speak
To tell, throw my bitterness
In peoples faces, like sand
Till shame took over, squinched my face
Eyes tied, gaze lashed to the ground
The sickness of having said too much


This year I swept together
The broken pieces of my self
The shattered shards of my feelings
Acknowledged the things that are broken
And lost, beyond finding or repair
The birds are singing more now
It's a side effect...a result
Of the pills I hate to have to take
But so is the fact
I cant feel it, or anything else
I'm receiving the birdsong
As information only, it's spring, 
But it does nothing in my heart
———————-
Again, not sure if this is quite finished, it may need a little rejigging at some point. But I wanted to share,

Just wanted to drop in and say I admire you for taking the memoir class, and memoir writing, it sounds really rewarding.
Also Cadbury chocolate is the best!

Thanks so much
I can't tell you how exited I am about doing something new.

Thank you 😊