still digging

[Larry]

 

[sanmagic7]

hey, armee, thank you so much for that anger on my behalf.  i know it's a crummy way to have to live, being poor, but i really don't know how not to live this way.  i'm pretty sick of it, tho, which is a thought that's only raised its head in the past couple weeks.  weird. by the by, my food/eating issues book is in the forum's resources section.  i also wrote a little something about trauma and eating which was also posted in the blog section. 

rainy, it sure is unfair, but there it is.  thanks for the sympathy.  and also for the well wishes.  much appreciated.

larry, thanks for stopping by!

reading another post this morning brought up the subject of saying 'no' to others, and i mentioned i still have a difficult time w/ that, especially w/ my D.  in this instance, i believe it's because i wasn't there for her like she needed when she was young, so i want to make up for it.  it's like she still has to give me permission to do something i want if it doesn't match up w/ what she wants to do at the time.  strange how many aspects of my past still have a stranglehold on me.

this morning the idea of finances spun my head around so badly i had to get up and out of bed, get busy, to chase them away.  i'm writing that here in the hopes i can leave it here.  i've been noticing, tho, that too often, when i finally feel like i can write about something that seems to have settled a bit with me, just having the words form in my mind and seeing them on the screen stirs it all up again.  don't know if i'm having containment problems or those things aren't fully resolved or need more work or what.  ugh!
whack-a-mole

[Armee]

That's a lot of trust. Thank you San. I read your blog post and it gave me a lot to think about. I don't identify as having eating issues, but of course I do, just like even though I didn't identify with SH that was still what I was doing. Seeing it is the first step to healing.

I can definitely relate to feeling like something is ok enough to write down or be done with and then finding out rudely through some intense reactions that it's not done with you. It's a slow complicated unraveling of all these tangles we've developed over the decades. Wish it weren't so. Stay safe, dear San.

[sanmagic7]

thank you, armee, as always for your kindness.  you have such a gentle soul. and, yeah, reading 'it's not done with you' truly resonated w/in me.  boom!  and i agree - becoming aware is the first step to healing.  how can we heal something we can't/don't see?   

[sanmagic7]

well, i'm taking a cue from rainy, one kind thing a day to myself.  all this stress over the past year has wreaked havoc with my eating.  i've become so uncomfortable in my body that i finally decided to do something different with my eating patterns and food choices.  did a kindness for myself last nite when i didn't reach for food before bed.  this is definitely one day at a time, sometimes down to one hour.  and i've been adding more water daily, which i know is good for me.  plus, all the times i have to run to the bathroom to pee is extra exercise!

altho my T is still gone another week and a half, i'm holding my own.  we've been going thru a lot of financial stuff lately, and that's unsettling.  plus, we're planning for farmers markets during the summer, which is taking a lot of brainwork.  still, all this seems mostly doable w/o extra meds or cigs, so i'm glad of that.  baby steps. 

[CactusFlower]

Baby steps are great! Good on ya for the kindness for yourself as well. gentle hugs if you want them

[sanmagic7]

hey, CF - i always want hugs.  being as how i've been starved for touch, even virtual hugs give me a sense of it.  thank you for your support.

this is the first time i'm giving voice, so to speak, about us leasing a car last sat.  we didn't expect to take this step until the end of may.  my D had tabbed 3 dealerships on fri., and we decided we'd just check them out, see what's going on daily.  as it turns out, especially because of the supply chain hold-ups, there are very few cars available.  the place we went, i've never seen a car dealership's lot so void of cars.  some places even told us they had nothing coming in until the end of june.

at any rate, one guy told us they had 2 new cars which fit what we were looking for, so we took a cab there and 4 hrs. later, lots of laughing and jokes included, we drove home in a new car!  unbelievable!  my D absolutely loves it - she's never had a new car - and it's all so new to me, incl. the knobbies on the dash, that i'm kind of starstruck.  still, what a difference it makes being able to come and go as we please.  i'm even hoping to be able to get my dr. lic. again - long shot, but we'll see.

the downside to this has been the crash.  it all happened so quickly and unexpectedly, we haven't had time to process, and we both went down the rabbit hole yesterday.  she felt a lot of pressure to move our schedule up a month cuz we now had a car for farmers markets and conventions and stuff, and it overwhelmed her.  as it did me.  we pretty much spiraled out of control all day yesterday.

today, for both of us, shall be a day of rest.  w/o my T around, i've missed the stabilization she provides.  it's such a weird feeling to get something wanted and needed, brand new to boot, in a thunderbolt such as we experienced Sat.  now we need time to let it sink in, process the possibilities it affords, and work to stop worrying about how we're going to afford payments.  yeah, there's always that.  we have a few months covered, but my D has already put it forward that she'd get a job if her books don't bring in enough money to cover the bills.  ugh! 

riding on a wing and a prayer.

[Armee]

 

Thats huge! So fantastic and also scary. Lots of pressure indeed now. Taking it slow is so important.

[Hope67]

Hi SanMagic,
I agree with Armee, that is huge, and I'd like to also send you a heartfelt hug, and I am sending a big one 

Hope 

[sanmagic7]

armee and hope - those big hugs went straight to my heart.  thank you both for those and for your validation and support.  you're wonderful.


i really appreciate these responses because sometimes i think i'm making too big a deal about something.  i constantly check in with my T as to whether i'm perceiving something to be as bad as i think, as disturbing as i think, or even which emotions might belong to a situation.  i'm so used to sweeping my 'self' under the rug to make way for someone else, it's awfully difficult at times to know which 'me' is a truth, and which is a construct.

still discombobulated over the whole car thing, but we can at least get to farmers mkts. as vendors now, so i began part of the process of contacting local fm's in order to get in line for being considered a vendor.  unfortunately, my focus and ability to follow online instructions isn't very good - i can't always locate a 'button', don't ever remember to refresh a page, etc.  in other words, i got stuck and stumped.  i was taking on 2 which are local as a means to help my D not have all the responsibility on her shoulders, but now i've given her more.

i don't hate growing older, but it can be a pain in the tush sometimes, especially with tech stuff.  i remember going back to college in my late 20's.  previously, i'd mastered the slide rule, could calculate pretty well with that (i just realized some people here have probably never heard of one!  lol!) i took a class - don't even remember what - where the instructor told us we could use scientific calculators.  everyone was jazzed, i was dumbfounded.  never used one, didn't know what all the symbols meant, had to drop the class after my first exam was a 'D'.

so, this kind of thing gets very frustrating for me, and i don't have the energy to learn much about it.  i'll be doing the books for my D going forward, and she's teaching me how to use an excel spreadsheet (i was prepared to use a ledger book!).  luckily she's so patient cuz i couldn't recall more than one thing she'd told me 3 min. after.  i don't doubt my mind/brain is so full of previous knowledge, besides being hindered by trauma stuff that i just need more time and practice, but it's difficult to manage the anxiety that comes with it.

all in all, still lots of stuff going on inside me.  even the good stuff, tho, brings up yuck, and i hate not just being able to enjoy something.

[CactusFlower]

Hugs, san! it can be very frustrating when something new flummoxes us. The only way I got through using that calculator in college Statistics was that the prof gave us explicit instructs on what buttons to push for what. (and we probably only used 1/3 of the functions)

A recommendation, if you're going to be using excel? I used to keep some websites bookmarked that had "tips and tricks" for using excel. They were helpful references for brain fog days. A good thing about the internet these days is that you can find simple tutorials for almost anything out there, computer or otherwise, and (most importantly) go at your own pace. Give it time, you'll get it!

here's hoping the farmer's markets are as profitable as possible while being as low on frustration as possible for you. HUGS

[Armee]

Oh I totally see the car thing as a big deal! It adds pressure to use it for all sorts of scary things like selling books, going to doctors and being productive in ways maybe that aren't as fulfilling. Adding to that the stress over paying for the car and yeah...it makes sense it has thrown you both for a spin.

I can't remember any instructions for how to do stuff and I'm not that old. Stupid brain fog indeed. I always wish my husband would write down how to use things like the remote or the coffee machine. No matter how many times he tells me it doesn't stick.

[sanmagic7]

CF, thanks for the tip.  i will definitely keep that in mind.  really, my computer-lacking brain doesn't think of tutorials and what-not which are online and available.  i appreciate this so much.   (love the word 'flummox'   

hey, armee, thanks for the validation on the car thing.  yeah, brain fog, one of the messier by-products of trauma.  it's so frustrating because . . .oooops, almost went down that rabbit hole of what i used to be able to do!  nope nope nope.  today is what it is, how i am, live and deal with it. 

very rough day yesterday, and a sore throat today (stress always brings inflammation for me).  setting up these markets, which i didn't do correctly, we had to start over, even tho i actually sent in an application for one, but my D didn't want to go that far yet -------- ugh!

i'm consciously noticing now how my mind gets on the track it thinks is best, correct, or expected, and follows thru it till the end.  like this mkt. application - when we had talked about me contacting 2 of them, my brain went to applying to them.  it's like i skip the middle steps which might be there, but what i'm focused on is the end goal, how's the most efficient way to get there. 

it's not always true (like when i went on road trips, i did get gas, check the oil and tires, etc. before starting to drive - or at least usually.  now i'm thinking of it, lots of times i'd fill 'er up and drive cuz everything was working fine the day before) but, yeah, usually.  how to get from a to b in as few steps as possible.  checking interim details just doesn't always come to mind.  it's always worked for me like that.

now, however, especially w/ so much of this done online and my sparse comfort w/ it, i really get disheveled brain-wise.  i started out the day yesterday w/ this, ended up having to do everything completely over and in a different way (don't apply yet, simply email them to see if there's room) and it completely knocked me for a loop the rest of the day.  i'd started exercising again, but yesterday, and today, i'm so weary i have no ooomph to do anything physical.

a tear just ran down my face.  this is so disheartening.

[Armee]

 

Give yourself a rest day, if you can....mental and physical.

I'm sorry things with the markets got off kilter. Easy mistake to make jumping the gun a little on the process.

The tear seems like an appropriate thing though, letting yourself feel that frustration and heartache.

You have done a lot. You do a lot.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, armee.  i do plan to rest today.  already told my D i'm broken, so not to expect much out of me.  i so appreciate you.