To a neighbour

[Blueberry]

 Ms. R,

I'm really angry . Yesterday you were removing "just" one branch from that tree. Now I see that you are taking over that whole area of the garden! You're like some colonial power - you move in to "uninhabited territory" taking it over for more and more vegetable plot without caring that it's not uninhabited. It's just used differently from the way you see as useful. FYI I sit in that part of the garden in spring and autumn when there is sun only down the bottom of the garden. You have 3/4 of the bottom of the garden along the wall already! You could leave the remaining 1/4 for me (and anybody else in the building who wants). Mark my words, when that turns into your new garden plot, I'll be putting my lawn chair in the middle of it anyway. I don't care anymore about that. Though I will have a bit of trouble putting the guinea pigs' run out so that they get the last of the warm sun too. But I know you think my little furries are a waste of space, that they don't have any right to be in the garden, that your plants are more important. They aren't though. Everybody in the building can use the garden. Before you moved in, we had the concept of shared space and individual space. We didn't always agree but some of us at least talked about it, talked about plans. You don't. You just move in and bulldoze down, take over. 

I have every right to question your plans when you're in the garden! I don't need to be ashamed of that, or feel guilty. Your actions show you either don't know or don't care about other people's rights or space or boundaries. Nor does your mother, and she doesn't even live here. I'm sure she's not listed on the rental lease. But still she comes and moves my stuff or moves your stuff into my space, like potted plants into my personal garden space, claiming it belongs to the other business premises in the building. Years AFTER you persuaded the landlord of the time to ban the people from that very business premise from the garden. It's just so  unfair.   
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  Yeah, it's an IC. Well, T tomorrow where I can try and heal the IC so as to be better able to deal in the present with this situation, though we will discuss how to deal too, not just the past.
Now that I've got that out of my system a bit, I can get on with my translation again.

[Three Roses]

  I'll join you! 

[Blueberry]

Thanks 3Roses!
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Oops, I'm still working on the final part of my contract job, very slowly and inefficiently now because my stamina has run out but I need to get this thing completely finished before I leave for my T appointment *today*. It's the morning here already .

At the same time as completing my paid work, I notice that I am processing this problem with my neighbour and I'm making progress already. Yesterday I tried to do a trauma-informed imagination exercise that used to really help me 'put down a burden for a while' so that I could get on with something else. I noted that it simply didn't work any more. I don't want to put this process away until I have 'time' for it. I made time for it yesterday because it is important. It goes way beyond this garden dispute with my neighbour. Although she is no innocent bystander, she's not just a stand-in for FOO members! No, no. She's playing a role here irl.

Here's the sequel today:

Ms. R,
I have had enough!!! You have turned at least a third of the garden space into your private space and you are in the process of taking over more. I say "NO!". That is ENOUGH. You have more than your fair share and you are encroaching on more and more of the sunniest parts of the garden. You like to use huge swathes of communal space when you need it too e.g. to dry out your plant-cover sheets or spread your washing around. So where are you going to do that when you've taken over more and more communal space? I don't need to ask because I know: you'll just encroach more and more into other areas of the garden till when you're using communal space, there won't be any left for anybody else on that day. You're crowding the garden space. And I know how others react to that, they also move ever closer to my space, e.g. right next to my beds. 

You always complain about not having enough sun though you have the most. Not content with your sun complaints, you moved into an area of shade next to my composter last fall, though till then it was communal space that I quite often used e.g. when sorting compost or bringing stuff into and out of the garden. I even harvested wild plants from there. They grow well next to a composter. It was space I quite often used, but at the end of my day in the garden, I always removed it e.g. because I took all my 'stuff' back inside again, things I didn't want to leave in the garden overnight.

You just ignore the fact that I use areas intermittently. You take them over. You seem to have no idea of intermittent use.

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I wrote above that my neighbour is crowding the garden space. There I note I feel crowded, as if there's no space. I imagine how my shoulders are hunching up to make me small. Though when I imagine saying "NO! That is ENOUGH!" to my neighbour I notice I immediately sit straight with my shoulders back, no hunching, I don't feel crowded any more.

My T has been intimating for a while that it's good for me to stand up for myself, to say "No!", to set limits. I think this is a further step, even if other people would say I should stop already because of all the arguments I have with people. I think I get into arguments partly because people don't respect my personal boundaries or don't respect my space (said neighbour is very talented at that, not just in the garden) and although they may be used to me ineffectually saying something or getting on their nerves by coming back to the topic and questioning their actions, they don't know a Blueberry who shows via body language and tone of voice that their encroaching is not OK! They're in for a surprise. That Blueberry is developing now.

[SharpAndBlunt]

Hi Blueberry,

I just want to say that I think it's great that you feel able to enforce boundaries more effectively than before.

Invalidation by disrespecting boundaries is for me such a large part of cptsd that I wanted to say well done to you for being aware of how important those kind of infringements are and how they affect you and more importantly how you don't have to stand for it  . 

It's something I'm working on a lot and it takes a lot of concentration and practice.

[Blueberry]

Thank you so much for the validation SharpAndBlunt. I hadn't thought before about it needing concentration as well as practice. Concentration is tiring. No wonder I often used to be exhausted at the thought.

May we both move forwards on this one!

[SharpAndBlunt]

May we both move forwards on this one!

Definitely 

[Blueberry]

A letter to another neighbour:

To A'k:

According to Ms. R., you were always complaining about me. Maybe she is lying of course, or distorting truth. However, I helped you and your wife to settle in so much, I did so much for you - helping you with language, helping you with bureaucracy, accompanying you to appointments, explaining to you how to sort garbage, telling you how and where you could obtain various objects cheaply, patiently explaining things about this country and re-explaining. I sat and listened like a sounding board, I printed letters for you on my office printer, sometimes I even helped you write them, copied other documents. Occasionally I refused to print letters (it may seem small but that's all coming out of my overhead). I didn't want to listen to any traumatic stories of yours from war, bombing etc.  I have every right to refuse.

I was also generally friendly towards you and your wife and your baby. I showed interest in your life and customs, I was open to your experience from your home country.   And this is how you thank me?? Complaining about me behind my back!?! Why didn't you talk to me? You certainly mentioned Ms. R. saying that whenever you asked her for help, she responded with "No time, no time." I made time for you. Not the whole time of course, sometimes I refused and sometimes I spent time encouraging you to do something on your own. Once I even got help for you from a religious association - your religion - but you refused to go.  I asked you in advance if it would be useful for you and your command of the language was enough to understand my question. You agreed. I wasted my time. Sometimes I suggested you speak to one of the other people in this building, but I don't think you did. You'd just come back and ask me again in some other way. Mostly I'd still refuse. That is my right! You could've asked the other business in the building, but I know they're foreigners too with no good command of the local language. I on the other hand at more or less native-speaker level am so much more useful! You could have asked P.K. upstairs but?? Maybe you thought he'd refuse.

Possibly you complained to Ms. R. about things like me keeping my office chairs where they are instead of giving you the space for your baby's push-chair. IF you had bothered yourself, you could have had the space beside my chairs. That would have involved persuading the landlord to remove that other object. Not my job to do that for you, or for anybody else in the building.

You didn't move on the mice till I threatened to complain to the landlord, since they were getting out of hand. When they turned up in my office, that was the last straw.  Actually you wanted me to deal with the mice or contact the landlord. That's not how it works in this country. You either deal yourself, or inform the landlord yourself if it gets out of hand. I did actually trap one mouse in a home-made bucket trap, but it quite simply wasn't my job to deal with them all. I did not cause them. Trying to trap them with a real trap triggers my trauma!! The live bucket trap was a little triggering but more or less manageable. Why on earth should I be the only one in the building to deal?? You and your wife are traumatised too, but as adults. As soon as you got going with the mice, I could see it wasn't a trauma issue. You didn't start doing SH because you were trying to set up some gadget (the trap). I would've been doing SH or dissociating or both and then terribly destabilised for days, possibly even weeks. After you moved out, I saw droppings all over the place next to your door, so it seems you caused them. I'm a bit annoyed about that. Anyway, back to Ms. R.: did you ask her to help you? Thought not. Would she have done so, if you'd asked? I can guarantee that she wouldn't have. You know that too, that's why you didn't ask her anymore. But then you complaining to her behind my back. Lovely. 

[Hope67]

Hi Blueberry,
I read your letter here, and I think you have expressed yourself very well.
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thank you for validating   It did help me to write it, got some of the annoyance out. I can let the situation go better. Originally I'd been thinking of dropping a real letter in their letter box - I know where they moved to. But now it's like: what would that achieve?? Nothing.

So, try to learn something from it and make myself less available to other people.

[Blueberry]

To my business neighbour, the (new) tailor,

How dare you leave your window wide open on the ground floor all afternoon and refuse to come and close it for the night!! How dare you ask me what my problem is when I phoned again after it was dark!!

You seem so two-faced. When I give you something of mine to mend, for which I pay you, you praise me as being a good person, but when I ask you to do something very reasonable like close your window which is wide open and level with the lawn, first you said you'd come in 5 minutes, then you suggested I close it, but I refused because it wouldn't work, I wouldn't be able to close it all the way from outside the house. Then I explained that your window being open is not just an invitation to burglars but also to any animals roaming around the garden at night and also that rat behaviour has changed since lockdown - they're becoming much more of a problem, coming much closer to human habitation, and a wide open window at lawn level is a super-invitation. Then you said you'd come in half an hour and I said "Whatever, so long as it's before it gets dark". An hour later it was dark and you still weren't there so I phoned again and what did I hear: you asking aggressively "What's your problem?" and then your insinuation that it's none of my business. But it is my business! Once any kind of burglar or just somebody looking for a place to kip for the night gets into the building, it wouldn't be too hard to get into another part of teh building. When a rat moves into your business premises it's going to be in the rest of the back of the building really fast or moving into my apartment which is just above your premises.

And I know from experience that it will be up to me to deal with it if there is a rat problem, because everybody will say versions of: "If you have a problem with the rat, BB, then you have to deal with it." As if trying to keep a rat or mice (as it was last year) or even burglars or strangers out of the building is somehow an option or a problem for people with too much time on their hands, as if it would be a non-problem for all of the rest of you in the building. I'm annoyed that I had to threaten to report it to the ll to get you to move on it. You ask favours of me and I do often help you, but not always. This evening I was not asking a favour of you, I was telling you what is not OK, not normal to do in this country (there's probably even a clause against it in the rental agreement) and that you had to come and deal with it before nightfall. When I was inadvertently causing you a problem and you complained, I apologised and dealt with it immediately so that it can never become a problem again. I didn't come up with a bunch of excuses and then try and persuade you to see yourself as being too picky or too sensitive or...

Yours sincerely

[Blueberry]

And to the new couple using the garden,

I feel a bit like laughing, but beneath that there are other feelings which I hope will become clearer as I write. I feel a bit like laughing because you seem to think everything is so easy with the garden, you just have to ask the ll or you just have to communicate properly with people and also that everybody has the same idea of what constitutes an ordered garden or in fact that that is what everybody wants. It's as if you think I haven't tried all sorts of stuff before, from what you said you both seemed to assume that nobody has ever cleaned up and cleared up in the garden before, whereas I've been doing that on and off for years and there have been phases before when lots of people used the garden and it was in better shape. You said yourselves you wouldn't clear up anything in the garden that wasn't the area you used but yet you and the business in your building have both complained about the weeds and disorderly mess in a part of the garden that one person sits in but otherwise doesn't care for much. Go tell him! He even lives in your building, one floor down.

In two points you've been proved wrong already - ...
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I'm not getting at the feelings, probably I need to do some EFT, and maybe write about it elsewhere, rather than directing it at them in a non-sender letter. 

[Not Alone]

I have every right to question your plans when you're in the garden! I don't need to be ashamed of that, or feel guilty.


  Yeah, it's an IC. Well, T tomorrow where I can try and heal the IC so as to be better able to deal in the present with this situation, though we will discuss how to deal too, not just the past.
Now that I've got that out of my system a bit, I can get on with my translation again.