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I had some help finishing making a herb bed on Monday. It's quite shallow so not ideal but that's where LL said I could put my herbs. He plainly doesn't want me digging up lawn to make myself a proper new deeper bed. While my help was there, we went to the local DIY/garden centre and got a bunch of bags of soil, more than I could ever carry on the cargo bike in one go, plus 2 fairly small plastic raised beds. I know people make their own out of wood, but forget that, it would probably take me about 2-3 years to get round to that, or quite likely never get round to it. My help also removed my flowering plants from part of a bed that's in part of the garden that's in the process of being sold and will be a building site at the latest next spring, but maybe even this fall. I really needed help with that because I can't yet dig on account of my ankle which is still healing. Most of those flowers are now in my herb bed or in a mini-bed just beside it.

It's now Thursday and I've been doing more gardening on my own both today and yesterday. Actually apart from the necessary watering of newly planted or re-planted herbs and flowers, housework would have been much more important, but I prefer gardening. Must have been last week or so, I discovered a mini-plantation of wild strawberries on the property of the empty building next door and I've been picking and eating them, as well as the wild strawberries on this property. Nobody else uses them. Today I also picked some raspberries, since they're beginning to ripen. They're basically wild as well. They're mostly in the part of the property that is in the process of being sold and will be a building site. I like having berries to pick - good for my inner (hunter/)gatherer. I've done quite a bit of work in communal parts of the garden, mostly small jobs which LL tends not to notice and/or he notices only what I haven't done. Such is life.

My newly planted/re-planted herbs and flowers are doing well, which was not a given. Moving them in the middle of a heatwave is not the best time, but that's when I had arranged with my help to do so. Actually a self-employed guy who can help with handyman stuff, and did so for me after my move, as well as gardening plus some other stuff I fortunately don't need help with (yet). Anyway, filling watering cans and lugging them over has paid off. And LL had better be happy that that part of the garden looks much better now! I'm certainly happy, it was worth finally paying somebody to complete it. There are still some free spots including in most of the raised beds, where I can plant/sow more flowers or herbs or maybe even one of the quick-growing lettuces whose leaves you keep harvesting rather than the whole plant. It's probably not too late in the growing season yet.

Welcome to the forum! It's a good supportive place. I think we do more empathy here than sympathy.

You could possibly start saying something like this to your T?

I'm very shy when it comes to talking about intimacy and I even don't really like to say words like 'sex' around others

plus add the weird comments from your father.

If you're shy about intimacy and wish you weren't, that's a legitimate topic for therapy, whether or not there is/was abuse. If you start exploring the topic very gently with your T - I mean just talking - it may become clear to you whether there's likely to be trauma behind it, for ex. if your mind goes blank or you have other reactions of that sort or go into an EF, then it's probably not just you being 'normally shy'.

You don't actually have to have been assaulted to have been SA'd. 'just' being touched counts, as do inappropriate sexual remarks, being forced to watch inappropriate behaviour / films /magazines etc. There may well have been assaults too, you could have forgotten them or they're hidden in your subconscious for protection. You wouldn't be the first for that to happen to.

How much you say when also depends on how much you know and trust your T, how long you've been with your T.

There is CSA in my past, but it's not the most obvious kind and I was disbelieved by some Ts, particularly a couple of decades ago. So, my advice is to go slowly, not unpack everything at once.

maybe those lovely conversations kind of blew your circuits, blueberry.  things might have simply been too much 'good' for you and you're needing some time to process, allow the good feelings from them to sink in, and finally be ok with them. 

That is possible, you know. I used to act quite strongly that way. Probably goes back to FOO being very disapproving of anybody being kind to me or supporting me in any way that they considered dangerous to the status quo, or sometimes more than FOO being disapproving, sometimes they were downright emotionally abusive and/or neglectful.

it's more related to not feeling like my body is strong enough.

I agree with Armee that that makes perfect sense.

I have a lot of problems with my body when triggered, but different from yours which is why I didn't respond yesterday when I saw your post. I think I'd better not try and list them now, my body is getting itchy at the thought, so triggered mildly at the thought.

I don't think I have ever mentioned a symptom of mine here on the forum without at least one person saying they have that too. So I'm sure there'll be a least one other person with your symptom here, even if they don't see and respond to your post.

So what changed? What happened? Nothing feels worth it this morning. I just want to go back to bed.

Showering would be a good idea, it would even help my skin not feel so itchy I think. But showering is often difficult. Not sure if that alone makes me want to go back to bed.

  Armee

Thank you for your support asdis.
No, I haven't noticed citalopram making me more dissociative.

Other than to say "let it go" isn't really very easy to do in fact what I think "let it go" means in practice might be more akin to "process it" cause then and only then can something be let go of. Otherwise it stays right where it currently lives in our brains to popoff and haunt us at any moment. But "processing" things can be difficult, long, unclear, and you might be missing pieces you need right now that need to be processed first before whatever this one is can be processed and let go. Like doing a complicated puzzle in the dark and not knowing if you are even missing key pieces. So UGH to the mess cptsd causes in our minds. But please don't feel bad that you can't let it go.

 

My M has been getting worse too. It turns out to be partially because of some form of dementia.

The conversation in the library sounds like it was a good and safe-feeling conversation for you. I hope my impression is correct.

Yes, that's correct.

This evening I had a further unexpected but good conversation with some people I got talking to briefly. Nothing like the personal level of yesterday's conversation, but still nice.

Speaking of my disability (visual impairment), please don't use emojis, they are meaningless to me, and I don't know if my screen reader can interpret them on this bulletin board. Also, Please don't use ALL CAPS because I find that harder to read than upper and lowercase.

I'm one of these strange members who will actually remember your needs here but forget my own password. But if you start a Recovery Journal you can stipulate at the top of it that you don't want to see emojis or all caps and all members should certainly follow that, since it's your journal, your space, your rules. Then you wouldn't have to repeat your plea every post. Hope to see you posting more on the forum some time.

Sounds like an EF to me and I can't let those go either, not at the drop of a hat. I find they suddenly go on their own. You are not your mother or like her. Sending care and compassion, Bach

Happy to hear of this progress CactusFlower! Take care

That is super interesting. I've always wondered why I'm super motivated to do my own stuff when I'm working for someone else. And when I have time for myself I just sit here... like today... :|

I don't know why that would be Chart, though I'm sure there's a reason somewhere. However I don't quite see the connection between what you're experiencing and my tendency to feel activated when there's something wrong with me physically. (Unless it's something like having a fever, which doesn't activate me, fortunately, because a body needs rest at that point.) If you want to discuss further, please copy over to your Journal, thanks.

It is verrrrrrry hot today and I'm not feeling super-motivated to do tons, tho I have maybe done more than on some days. I went to the library in the early afternoon to read the newspaper but ended up talking to the woman sitting next to me (the library has a little café where you can read newspapers but also talk). Though we didn't know each other, it ended up being quite a deep, personal conversation. I didn't feel dumped on at all though. She was sympathetic to some things I mentioned too, not really trauma - maybe contributed a bit to my childhood trauma. As I'm still mulling what to write to a friend I'm in disagreement with, this encounter helps me realise that I'm not this terrible egoitistical person only interested in my own 'stuff' and not caring about other people's feelings or that they also may have rough spots.

Welcome to the forum, Flyinglove. Just send Kizzie a PM (DM).