Re: Blueberry's Next Steps: beneficial, constructive and mindful

[Blueberry]

Thank you Hope   Just today I started ticking things off again on the list. Most things can be ticked off multiple times (like airing my apartment), or even daily (like taking my meds). Some things are a one-off, like moving some shelving back to where it really belongs, which I did a couple of days ago.

Whenever I take to thinking that I'm not achieving anything, I can look at the list on my wall, see checkmarks and realise that I am accomplishing things.

Today at the farm after I'd finished my Monday duties, I suggested I clean one of the bathrooms which is huge progress for me. This development has come directly from the work I was doing at the yoga retreat place. There I was helping with housekeeping, alot of which involves checking and cleaning bathrooms, or just washbasins, mirrors etc. in the bedrooms after people check out. The bathrooms are mostly communal and are done daily.

I don't actually want to really feel into my problems with cleaning. It's sort of a feeling of "Yuck, yuck" and wanting to shake my hands hard to get rid of something and then hide them up my sleeves combined with once the dirt is on the cleaning cloth and then in the bucket, the dirt/dirty water spreads and gets all over the place and I want to run from it. I can't explain it any better for myself atm and quite possibly I don't need to really understand it. The problem has obviously started to improve, this start may be enough. Sometimes the improvement comes in an unexpected way or place. I was hoping to become better at cleaning at home, but instead atm it seems I'm starting with being better at the farm.

I know in the yoga place I did some Screen Processing on difficulties with cleaning and GrM turned up, followed by GrF and M as 'bodyguards'. So that could be a separate issue to what's going on with my hands.

[Blueberry]

I didn't send enF a birthday card recently or acknowledge it in any way. This goes a little against the grain. I can imagine there may be some FOO members thinking/saying "she could have at least sent an email". But only a tiny little bit against the grain - mostly I just notice how good it is for me that I'm not engaging with FOO other than when absolutely necessary. As someone on OOTF pointed out to me, it's clear that any contact with FOO whatsoever ends up retraumatising me. So self-care involves putting myself first, protecting myself in a way that I couldn't as a child, nor as a non-recovering adult.

[Blueberry]

I didn't go to choir practice tonight. I didn't even go at the end to hand in my music from, um, Christmas.

The good thing is that around the end of choir practice time I started going through papers and throwing a fair number out combined with putting the other papers where they belong instead of back on some other pile. I probably wouldn't have started that if I'd gone to practice.

I also remembered just now after coming on here that when I'm stalling and not getting on with things I feel I ought to be, there's often something coming back up to the surface. It really was the case twice today that I had some realisations about past dealings with FOO where I accepted what they said in stunned silence, but today I came up with much different replies e.g.  and  . That is progress and more important than choir practice!! So, good to note. The replies weren't in my mind long enough for me to write them down in long-form but that may come too.

Also when I'm making progress in various ways, I tend to drop back in other ways. Atm I'm progressing again on the subject of employment. I'm noting ads for p/t jobs I could apply for in the future and old ads I didn't glance at maybe 6 months ago that I would think about now, if they were current. Even if they aren't current, it feels like real progress - I'm opening up to new ideas again. I also asked at the other farm and at least they haven't said "definitely not" but instead took up my suggestion that I drop by some day to discuss.

I also have a new student, an English-speaker who needs to learn the local language. I don't usually teach that, but this time on being asked I decided to. For various reasons I need to write up a different contract from normal and as usual that's difficult.

[Blueberry]

Being very unaccountable to myself atm. I didn't go to my doc's this morning though I was meant to in order to have blood taken. I even confirmed it on Monday with doc. I just know that it's annoying for my doc and especially his assistants when you don't turn up for blood tests and other jabs. So I'm sorry about that, but being sorry after the fact doesn't help catapult me out of bed on time. I slept all morning and kept ignoring my alarm until a parent phoned me to say her daughter was standing outside my office door, waiting.  My bad. Very bad.

Unfortunately, I also know that I tend to do this type of thing again and again when things are getting too much. Idk atm what exactly is too much. It might even be just my thoughts or conceivable plans are too much. ie. it might not even be anything concrete. Or it could be because of memories/realisations coming up, or being on the brink of coming up. Yesterday I wanted to eat and eat, so that was obviously an EF. It isn't much better today either, tho more understandable since I haven't actually eaten yet today. 

Time for some EFT.

[Hope67]

Hi Blueberry,
Just wanted to send you a hug of support   
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thanks Hope 

[Jdog]

Blueberry-

Good recognitions about ways to seek work without self sabotage.  Maybe you can just move forward without it being an "ought to" or "have to".  Maybe just do it without the labels??  My life is obviously quite different from yours in most ways and that being said, I do know that just getting started with something new can be a challenge but goes much easier if I don't sort of shame myself into it.  I find that If I give myself permission to try without being perfect it is a big relief and I actually move forward.  Just a thought, not a judgement toward you.

Blessings.

[Blueberry]

Thanks Jdog Useful thoughts. Of course it's hard not to shame myself into doing things but that's what my T has been trying to move me towards as well.  Good that you reminded me 

Try without needing it or myself to be perfect

______________________________________________________

Now I know why I'm being self-destructive atm. Two reasons: I need to contact my landlords, new ones at that, about a plumbing problem in my apartment. It's causing a slight noise but especially a waste of water, the longer I leave it the more water it wastes. I even want to contact them because I don't like wasting water at all and the longer it goes on the more likely my landlords are to raise the water bill for everybody in the building. No separate water meters. Contacting landlords - well ime they are either angry (at being disturbed) and blame me for the problem (whereas often it's just wear and tear in an old building not well-maintained) or they say "yes, yes, we will deal" and then don't. Both of which remind me of FOO.

The other reason does have to do with the contract I'm working on for the English-speaker coming to me for lessons in the local language. Just in the way that negotiating contracts is always difficult for me because standing up for myself and making reasonable demands is very strenuous.

Thanks FOO, thanks cptsd in both cases. At least I realise this though. Yesterday I was shaming myself again about depression (going back to bed or not even getting up looks like depression to me) as in "therapy for so long and I'm still having the most basic problems, still tripping myself up. Maybe I genuinely don't want to be self-accountable. Maybe I just am super lazy." So no, I'm not super lazy. Going back to bed and/or not getting on with contract fast is due to deep-seated fear from ICs. ICs need my help. Now I remember too that way, way back in T - maybe 16 or 17 years ago I figured out that my depression is there to cover up the fear, and the fear is there to cover up emotional pain. Sounds as if that could be the case here.

NTS: When I spend time reading about other people's problems and pain in the news or in fairly recent history (e.g. Holocaust - where there are real-life accounts from people as opposed to the Great Plague where there probably aren't) , especially rather obsessively as I've been doing of late, then I'm escaping some part of my own pain.

[Blueberry]

I've just spent further time dealing with that contract and emailing the student about it. It's really hard for me not to be perfectionist when writing up a contract. Partly because I teach language, I think my own written communication has got to be perfect. I make an exception on here and let minor things slip, though I do write huge long posts just to make sure there can be no misunderstandings whatsoever, sigh.

With a contract I'm also perfectionist because it's a legal documetn. It has to be watertight, otherwise I can and sometimes do have problems with clients. Not that I've ever been taken to court, and I've never taken anybody to court myself. But that's all conceivable.  Argh. The downsides of being self-employed. If I were working for a company, they'd be dealing with payments and contracts. I'd just have to sign the contract. I might question one stipulation on a contract but not the whole thing!! I might grumble and mumble to myself, but I'd accept most stipulations because that's just the way it is, e.g. if you teach at a popular adult education place around here, you get paid at the end of the course so after about 4 months, like it or lump it. The students pay for their course right at the beginning, also like it or lump it.

Accepting "That's just the way it is" has something to do with authority I think. I don't exude tons of authority, tons of "don't mess with me", so people do mess with me, and then I allow them to mess with my head. Not all people, but some. Back to boundaries, I guess. If my body language showed more "that's the way it is", I probably still wouldn't be discussing this issue with the potential student. 

It does remind me however that my T is perfectly correct when he reminds me that although I can and do work, it's not a reliable source of income, and so when my parents ask - as they have done  - how much money I need to live reasonably comfortably on, it's perfectly legitimate for me to give a figure based on my lower monthly incomes rather than higher ones.

It also reminds me that cptsd is something I can learn to live with but will probably never really heal from. Get a little better bit by bit, yes. Learn to deal with a bit better, yes. Learn to accept better, yes. Have 'better' phases, yes.  Become 'normal' with no noticeable problems, no, unfortunately not. Still have phases where I wonder if I really do have cptsd or I'm not just lazy, unfortunately yes.

[Blueberry]

Today another day of going back to bed and sleeping. Not the whole day. I was out and about dealing with a few things and chatting to friends I came across in the town centre but I haven't done everything I need to e.g. write and post birthday card for my godson. That needs to be in postbox by 9 AM tomorrow.

A few work-related things would have been good to accomplish today too. Sometimes I just have to accept that for some reason I go back to bed instead. Sometimes it's even to stop myself resorting to eating junk. Not that I get rid of my addicition problem, I just postpone it.

I know in the last little while I have had some bad dreams including concerning FOO e.g. that I was back with FOO in my parents' household and couldn't get away. I hadn't had a dream like that for a long while, maybe a year or longer, and had thought I was past that. Obviously not.

On Thursday evening I was at the AGM of a group I belong too. It's pretty unthinkable for me not to go, but still I get a bit 'riled up' sometimes. So might be some after-effects of that too. Though I did notice something pretty positive. Unlike when I was still battling away in the Local Exchange Trading Society, there are definitely people on my side of a particular discussion in the Thursday group. They show it by picking up and continuing with my topic: "As Blueberry was saying.." and then add own arguments, maybe a bit more succinctly or more detachedly. They're more used to listing their points in a discussion. I think they're more used to coming up with the most convincing argument instead of the one that's most emotional for themselves. But anyway, it seems to be easier for them and they're saying loud and clear: "Blueberry has a valid point here!" which was thoroughly missing in LETS, even though some people agreed with me in private and some even hoped that I on my own could reform LETS and they could just sit back and watch it happen

[Blueberry]

I've been on here for a long time now, reading back in my old Journals. What I'm quoting here for myself feels pretty pertinent atm.

I also feel now it's an anticlimax phase. I made my decision to stop looking for p/t employment and to accept that I do have certain limitations in the working world, and happy and healthy ever after. But  that's not how it works. Feel good for a few days at making this decision then go back to my normal struggles of even getting up, or seeing the good instead of the bad, or not giving in to depression, or just 'getting on with things'

It's other decisions I've been making recently, though there was the decision to apply somewhere too, the next stage in that process is next week. But other decisions - like protect myself, or NOT react. Hah! Maybe I haven't been praising myself enough or not enough in a way to reach ICs and ITeens? Probably.

I've had a new monitor on my computer since Thurs. This is good, my monitor was making very strange noises but my printer is still not working properly. The computer guy sent me a link but I haven't managed to work it out. Feel a bit useless.  Though really he probably sent it to me to help, so I wouldn't have to pay for him to come again. He knows I'm not well and earnings are slim. NTS - be brave and ask him to come again.

Wow, I've had my new monitor that long! I made a mistake when I bought it, I didn't think to ask my computer guy to ensure there's a loudspeaker attached, though I emailed him about it later. He didn't respond. For personal enjoyment, loudspeaker would be good, but for business reasons it's imperative atm. I have a student for whom I need to play something off a CD-ROM, she even has an exam soon!

Time to email computer guy again. It's less effort than trying to contact some new computer person I don't even know. Probably not emailing him is helping me feel  atm because there's "so much" I'm not getting on with.

[Blueberry]

I did email him and he even responded, offering to come at a time that doesn't work well, because I'll be teaching. Haven't heard back, probably will in an hour or two or four. So I'm feeling good that I got the ball rolling on that on Sunday afternoon

Yesterday while working at the farm I suddenly thought of the possibility of more occupational therapy to help me with some of my seemingly unsurmountable problems with the gas stove, and various things like that, as well as my slow-because-inefficient working mode! I've had occupational therapy before, mostly at the therapist's place but they do do house visits, so why not a farm visit?

I know that my problems with the gas stove are due to amygdala hijack / EF, not a practical problem. Much better if an occupational therapist can practise with me than a rushed person on the farm. Because in the safe space of having an occup. T there, whatever comes up can come up and undoubtedly will and then I can work with that - talking and reassuring frightened ICs. Occup. T allows things to come up that won't even come up when I'm alone at home, not even when I know what's going to come up. A bit like the airline air pressure mask analogy - before I can hold the fears of a traumatised IC, I need a psychologically and emotionally capable adult supporting me who doesn't think it's weird that I'm talking to my ICs and who allows me to take the lead instead of maybe insisting "it's not that difficult you know" or anything useless to counterproductive like that.

Whether or not I continue at the farm, getting over some of these seemingly unsurmountable problems will I'm sure help with other tasks as well. I could also add the mobile phone problems and possibly even printer cartridge and/or some very easy computer problems at my own place.

I mentioned that to a friend yesterday as well as how doing a few hours work every day at the yoga place made me think I'd like to do more work-wise than I'm currently doing and even think I could, at least in better weeks and she reacted  and also kind of  "Wow"  that things work that way internally for me. One semi-unrelated thing (looked that way to her) at the yoga place and then this whole healing chain of events takes place, at least in my head if nowhere else.

Yesterday at the farm I stood up for myself towards somebody who had it coming to her! She's not even from the farm, not any more than I am. She goes up regularly to do various cleaning jobs but she doesn't live there or anything. She spoke to me sharply yesterday. Her words questioned why I hadn't taken the buckets back to where I was going instead of just the jars and lids I was collecting for my work, but her tone of voice definitely asked why the &%§. I didn't take that lying down, no way. Firstly, it's not part of my job description to move those particular buckets anywhere, secondly if you'd simply asked me when I was in the kitchen of course I would have taken them, thirdly that tone of voice is totally NOT okay. She argued that one - "I only asked you to take them" Me: "No you didn't. You really said what I quoted to you and it's not acceptable!". She then sort of apologised by stroking my arm and saying something like "sweetheart if I'd know that would hurt your feelings, I wouldn't have said it" as if I were a 4 year old child. Cue: draw back and stony silence from me.

So even if she doesn'T understand my pov at all, I'm hoping she'll watch herself with me in future. This wasn't the first run-in with her but it's the first where I've really spoken my mind. I know she wouldn't treat most other adults on the farm this way, not asking them "why the %%§& they hadn't done xyz" nor trying to assuage them with any "sweetheart I didn't really mean it" nonsense. So to me that in a working environment where no harm can come to me i.e. I'm not going to lose my 'job' over it, I'm starting to stand up for myself. And I even had the words for it. Sometimes at criticism I've gone straight into EF / amygdala hijack and had no words to even describe to myself what was going on never mind have the courage to tell someone else 'where to go' on account of it.

[Three Roses]

So to me

I second that! 

[Hope67]

 
I 'third it' - if that is possible.   
Hope 

[Blueberry]

Thanks 3R and Hope

Today somebody connected to the other farm (see under Employment, if interested) talked the hind legs of the proverbial donkey and that was totally exhausting but I didn't quite feel like being able to say that I'd really just like some peace and quiet. She was doing me a favour - driving me most of the way home because she was coming this way anyway. I think she was partially trying to be friendly and partially doing it for herself. Some people just like to talk. If i'd still been concentrating on working I would've said something, but sitting in the car I grinned and bore it so to speak. I did ask a question or two to try and head her off in a different direction but it was her style of conversation - very intense - was hard for me, rather than the actual topics. A second time with this person I think I'd beg for peace and quiet.