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3 Good Things Today

1) Opening the window into the sunshine, feeling the sun on my face and looking down into the garden

2) Looking up names of flowers in English and seeing more photos of the flowers and information on the plants while I'm about it. I enjoy the whole process

3) Suddenly feeling the energy and general wherewithal to do a few things - phoned 3 friends to pass on some information and have a quick chat of whom I reached two + cleaned a couple of parts in my bathroom that really needed it and now I feel good and purposeful for having accomplished that rather than exhausted or otherwise triggered (as is often the case unfortunately)

3+ Good Things Over the Past Few Days

1) Working in the garden yesterday

2) Going into town centre yesterday morning and enjoying bumping into friends and having a quick chat, enjoying outdoor farmer's market, getting an enthusiastic greeting from one person at 'my' farm stand, doing a quick job for them that will help Sun/Mon whether or not I manage to go, enjoying the sun

3) Nice hot cup of tea
4) Getting the bus (free here on Saturdays) and walking as an alternative to cycling; I notice different things when I'm walking and go slightly different routes. Had a little waiting time and went to gaze at the river flowing deep and fast atm, not something I would normally do at that location if I have my bike with me

5) A friend's husband brought me the last remaining bulky item that he kindly took into his storage facility when I had to clear the storage area in previous building where I lived. It was in his storage room for 18 months   (tho there were reasons for that, mostly my exhaustion...)

6) Yesterday I got the call bus for part of my route and I was grateful that the person I spoke to when I was ordering it told me to go ahead and order because "that's what it's there for". I'd been thinking and said that if nobody else had ordered then it would be a kind of a waste so I 'should' just walk, since not really very far. Oh there's that 'should' again, so a doubly Good Thing that the bus co. employee said things that meant "Of course it's worth it just for you alone !"

7) I went to our local library's board games evening on Thursday. It was fun and sociable and I managed a good mix of mentally taxing game and a bit more relaxing and relaxed but not too easy

8 ) I have flowers in vases dotted all over my apt

9) Friday after trauma T, I managed about 12 minutes of the 15-min. meditation I'm meant to be doing daily if possible and it did help me settle better. It was good that I tried it when I felt it would be helpful and that I tried it at a different time from what I had been practising regularly (before stopping) which had been immediately on getting up.   

10) I feel more hopeful after trauma T on Friday

So friends in warmer parts of Canada are telling me about all the lovely spring flowers, trees leafing out, etc and here we are just growing snow.

How is your snow plantation doing?

[C]

I mentioned in my intro about MDMA assisted therapy, and my psychiatrist brought it up. He seems to shoot from the hip, so that concerns me.

I don't believe it's given often? Just once or twice and then not for a year? I'm starting to open to the idea. I think it helps 70-75% of people?

I don't know much about it myself. Coincidentally, I just saw somewhere that it does help a lot of people get over PTSD. But we have CPTSD so Idk how many of these cured people actually had that COMPLEX as part of the diagnosis. What helps ptsd doesn't necessarily help Cptsd.

Anyway tomorrow (Monday) a freebie online conference is taking place on this very topic. I linked it over on the Conferences/Courses board https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=16029.0
If you can't follow my link (some mbrs can't), then the path is Resources < General Resources < Conferences/Courses.  Note that freebie conferences are only free during the dates given.

I hope you can find some qualified and helpful information.

I bet this link isn't going to work

https://www.consciouslife.com/conferences/psc?affiliate=123&lid=436615&cookieUUID=bd37d601-d605-4c38-bf72-598ff43e9a95

However you can probably find it and sign up by googling 'conscious-life alex howard psychedelics' + start date.

I'm not actually very interested in psychedelics for myself but I did sign up when I saw there are a few other topics covered. There are also 6 talks you can access right after signing up, w/o waiting till tomorrow (Monday)

Did some work in the garden yesterday, mostly pulling up/cutting off things like stinging nettles, of which there are a lot, to let smaller wildflowers in and around them grow better and be seen better. For instance, water avens (Geum rivale) are now nice and visible, nodding away, with bumble bees bumbling in and out. Water avens just happens to grow there. They didn't grow wild in the garden of my previous place.

I can now also see some nice purply-blue flowers, apparently perennial cornflower, mountain cornflower, bachelor's button, montane knapweed or mountain bluet in English. Also something I dug up from the old garden and planted here last year. Once it gets a good hold, it'll spread, competing well against the stinging nettles and looking much prettier, especially against the dirty white wall of the building behind. They're a very good flower for bees. Less visible and less obvious, but still pretty and worth giving some space to: white deadnettles and one yellow deadnettle.

Then I cleared space (mostly taken up by the stinging nettles) around my remaining redcurrants, raspberries and one blackcurrant I saved last year from my previous garden and planted rather late last year here in this garden. I'm surprised to see leaves on the blackcurrant, I wasn't sure it was going to survive, it didn't look too good by the time I had the energy to clear some ground for it last year... Nor is the soil very good where all my berries/currants are. The raspberries are flowering already. It'll take all of the currants a year or two longer. That area of the garden looks better now and I have the impression that I'm getting somewhere with re-instating 'my' garden here.

My LL here has allowed me this little spot here and that little spot there etc so I've got little bits of garden scattered around, rather than all in one place, which has advantages and disadvantages. One part is hardly set up at all. I started last year and did quite a bit of work but then discovered I'd have to do things differently and need help with that into the bargain, so that's kind of on hold atm. It being on hold makes me feel 'weighted down' somehow, so it feels good to be managing to move forward with another area of the garden, it helps me feel a bit lighter and also as if I'm not always just treading water, struggling to keep up/not let things get worse. I also did some weeding in areas outside my own, where that's part of the agreement with LL. Inspite of everything, I actually enjoyed my weeding and clearing and other odd garden jobs. Going at my own pace instead of rushing helped me with that, as did enjoying looking at various flowers and enjoying their colours, and sniffing the roses 

Wow James!   That's great, I'm so happy for you! Thanks for updating us, and for the previous updates too which I mostly read, with interest, but I don't think I ever responded. It's really good to be able to read the success stories of mbrs who used to be on here regularly and struggling.

All the best as you go forward!
Blueberry

I am really bad at the tech stuff when it doesn't go smoothly - heart rate goes up immediately and brain fog takes over and I can't work it out. 

Ditto for me. CPTSD behind it in my case   Maybe in yours too?

Those people are definitely more accessible - they're hoping you'll sign up for the Premium event, which involves $$$ into their coffers

Welcome sunny! I like your name

It's good to hear you're in a better place than you were. Hope to see you more around the forum and hear more about you including your healing story.

A warm welcome to the forum, Pisa   Sorry you need us, but since you do, glad you found us. For me it was a relief to find out - oh, this whole thing is cptsd. It's not just incessant depression plus-other-stuff. And then since then tons of: seeing myself and my symptoms, thoughts, feelings all over other posts all over the forum.

I finally cracked when a kind therapist suggested CPTSD, which fit perfectly. But as I've pushed back, just opted not to attend/discuss/debate etc., the CPTSD has almost gotten worse not better. I have aquired OCD I think, where I can't stop thinking about the wrongs done to me and how there is no way out, ever. I feel my sanity slipping away despite continued therapeutic relationship and fantastic husband and 2 daughters. I have been yearning for a support group, and am glad to have found this one. Thanks for having me.

ime it can get worse before it starts to get better. And there are a lot of ups and downs and back and forths. One step forward, two back and then onwards again. Or maybe the backwards steps just feel that way (they do feel that way for most of us on here, I think) but are really sideways steps or little holes we fall into and come out of again. They don't feel too good putting it mildly but we're here as support for when you're in one.

I've discovered there's a difference between having OCD (or any other 'disorders') and showing some symptoms of those disorders. Not being able to stop thinking about it sounds like part and parcel of cptsd to me. It does get better!

Take care, L2N!

We'll be here if and/or when you want to come back  

Thanks Blueberry
For some reason the registration link won't allow me to register      Keeps giving me a forbidden code.

I'm sorry that registration is not working for you SigNature! If you can still sign up to mailing lists from Arielle Schwartz and/or Ashok Gupta on the Rewiring Brain Summit, they might send you a link for this coming conference   Unfortunately I'm not very good at all this Internet stuff, so might have somehow copied a wrong link or something.

I used to love freebie summits too, I did for a number of years - got a lot out of them!

[Armee]

16th May 2024
I didn't realise that I'd end up writing this - it wasn't at all what I intended to write when I came here - but my rule of not editing myself, I'll leave it there.

Good rule you've got there, Hope! I think what comes out in this form was meant to come out. I remember back to when it was so hard for you to express on the forum. So, I see again and again how far you've come all through self-work - you read what you need, you do or did online conferences, you think, you write, you feel into things, you support others on here, you integrate into your daily life, do things with your partner, partake in 'normal' life, day-to-day things but also do a lot of self-care     You do and achieve a lot, Hope

16th May 2024
I still find it very clunky to try to talk about any of this, and I've not done much of that verbally - I can write, but it feels clunky when I try to do that.  Sometimes I think that I might try some therapy to force myself to say things 'out loud' - as I feel that would be helpful, but I also don't feel I want to do that, as I fear how that whole thing would be.  I struggle currently to even see a medical kind of appointment, let alone face attending a therapy session.  I do know I could do it, and I could approach someone that I saw before, but somehow I don't want to.

A lot of wisdom and courage in this whole paragraph, Hope, and your own inner response and wishes very clear.   

I second Armee and woodsgnome, and lots from NK! And thanks Hope for writing because it's given me something to think about and NK's response to you contains some very helpful stuff for me atm.

P.S. I once read an opinion on our sister website OutOfTheFog that such FOO mbrs know exactly what they are doing, they just don't care.
Repeating that to myself helped.

Also keeping the Abusive Cycle in my head and the idea of those Flying Monkeys helped. Those terms are explained including a diagram for abusive cycle over on OutOfTheFog. Under Toolbox or similar, not necessarily on the forum.

I do want to say something.

I know this post of yours is from a few days ago and even though I've read further in this thread, I haven't picked up on whether you've said something or not. I have been reading this thread of yours plus responses for a few days...

Our cases aren't totally dissimilar I would say. In my experience it can be really hard not to say anything when you get this amount of denial and completely idiotic stuff said to you, but with the benefit of hindsight, I would tend not to say anything to FOO in response. I really understand wanting to but it seems not to get through to them anyway or if it does they don't care, it's like water of a duck's back and/or they use it as ammunition to get back at you later.

Or if you do decide to say something, be very clear in advance about why you want to say it and about what may happen. ime getting hurt again and again and again wasn't very helpful. What did help me was writing Recovery Letters on here, again and again and again. That helped direct the words and emotions and utter craziness at the FOO-in-my-head without making myself vulnerable to real present-day FOO. It took a lot of Recovery Letters but the pain and anger did subside after a few years. The FOO ping-pong I'd done for years was not particularly helpful because I stayed in reactive mode and because I simply could not win in my FOO. That's part of being family Scapegoat though as far as I understand it - you can't win because FOO needs you in that role.

It took me well into NC with my mom to realize he was also suspect. It's confusing because he is a gentle man, one who every thinks is so wonderful, great musician and artist, funny and attractive. So many of my friends over the years, when they meet him, tell me I am soooo lucky to have a dad like that, and I thought so too. I thought he was the good parent.

  (apart from the musician bit)

Apparently as children we need at least one 'good parent'. Two nasty, evil, bad ones is just too much for the child psyche. When I finally saw through this one as an adult in my late 30's/early 40's I suppose, the pain of it caused a massive re-traumatisation, dissociation and Horrendous FOO Event no. 1. I wouldn't wish that on anybody else. Anyway, I don't want to take over your whole thread here.

However you decide or already have decided and acted on, I'm sitting with you and wishing you strength and support.

I rescued a bee that was stuck on my window ledge far above the ground by giving it a dandelion I had in a vase. Apparently the nectar gave it enough sustenance to take wing and fly!
I don't think I was imagining it since the bee's movements looked more controlled and sprightly after it had spent a minute or two in the flower than the cumbersome lumbering around it had done beforehand.