Sage's Journal

[sanmagic7]

CF, your involvement in those meetings and step groups sound excellent.  from my experience, i don't know if you ever have to 'name' your higher power (altho yours sounds wonderful!), so no pressure there.  sorry your candidate for sponsor didn't work out - hopefully another will come along.  and i love that you get chips for length of attendance.  great work, my dear! 

i'm a turmeric fan myself.  nature's anti-inflammatory!  love and hugs

[Armee]

You're life sounds super full to me! I'm so impressed with how much you are putting yourself out there. Congrats on your 2mth anniversary!

[CactusFlower]

Thank you, rainy, san and armee!

Today is family dinner day, BFF was busy yesterday.  He's gonna make posole and I know he has a great recipe. (a type of green chile and hominy stew) Then sugar free apple pie and sugar free coolwhip for dessert. YUM It's about lunchtime, I think I'm a little hungry. ha ha.

We had our first Writer's Critique group meeting yesterday. They'll be 1st & 3rd Saturdays. It went well, we're still figuring out how we want to do things and who goes when. I submitted a couple essays from my memoir for the next one. I still feel a little reticent about sharing that so far, but these essays contain the least... detail about the abuse, if that makes sense.  Hopefully, people will critique well. I mean, they will, but I did give a trigger warning in the email, so it's on them. We've agreed to not censor any topics or anything.

I'm rambling, so I'm gonna go find lunch.

[Papa Coco]

Catcusflower,

What a nice, positive post. I'm glad to hear of your successes!  Also glad to hear you're being careful not to let too much come at you too fast. Moderating your calendar is great balance.

Good luck with the Turmeric. I can't take it myself, but my wife has great success with it. She deals with adrenal depletion, arthritis and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. She had to start slow with the turmeric. Too much too soon can make you jittery (it drives me completely insane), so she started with half a dose each day until she built up to a bigger dose. So, if you get nervous or sleepless from the Turmeric, you might need to start slow like she did and ease into it. The body often gets used to it, and from what I hear, Turmeric is a good, good supplement to take. Wish I could take it myself, because inflammation is a chronic problem for me. But from what I hear, most people do very well on it. Luckily, I can still take Cod liver oil in capsules. (I think the best brand on the market is Carlson's out of Norway) It's also very, very good for inflammation. That one I can take.

Congratulations!

[CactusFlower]

Thanks, papa coco, good to know. I'll ease into it.

https://psarahjohnson.com/matchstick-theory/    This. This is just brilliant and makes even more sense than the spoon theory.  I love it.

[Armee]

It really does explain it well.

I've teetered on the edge of FM. I knew my doc would diagnose it instead of looking harder so I loaded up on pain medicine before my appointment. But I have not lived with it as a disabling condition so I really appreciate you sharing this so I can better understand.  I think a lot of us didn't learn to stop when the matches run out instead lighting our own fingers to keep going as we thought we should be able to do more.

On a funner note....how was the pozole? Probably hands down my favorite meal.

[CactusFlower]

Fibromyalgia is so different for each person, I think that's the main problem with it. Someone might have more pain, others more exhaustion, some find things that help, some don't...  Mine is mainly the pain *what hurts today? let's roll the dice!* and exhaustion. Add in the sleep dysfunction and it's an unending loop.  Sleep isn't restful or healing, so you hurt more, are more tired, etc. When you hurt more, you might not sleep as well. It can be rather frustrating. There are other issues, but those are the big ones. And no, normal painkillers don't do anything for it. Anything stronger than Tylenol just makes me sleepy. Well, you can't sleep at a job, so that doesn't help. I've gotten to the point where I just can't anymore, that's why I'm in the process for disability. Combine that with the problems of CPTSD and I'm done for. And yeah, the matchsticks make more sense. If I choose to burn up a few matches by going to the international grocery store, then the lack of matches means laying down for a few hours. If I have to put in ear plugs to deal with fireworks at night on a holiday, then I have more pain tomorrow due to disturbed sleep patterns. and so on.

On another topic!  The posole was utterly delicious. My BFF is a really good cook. if we hadn't had bread and dessert too, I'd have had more than one bowl. Surprisingly, the focaccia bro made went with it very well. The cherry pie with whipped cream was all sugar-free from the local "natural" grocery store as they make a really tasty one. I'd never know it was sugar-free if no one told me. Then we played a dominoes-style game and chatted for a couple hours.  Wow, did I lose horribly, LOL. You're supposed to have the lowest score. I asked BFF after the end, "So, what... 400? 500?"  He just grinned and said, "Trust me it was bad."  LOL I just love that I have people in my life again that like tabletop/board games. Between he and I, we have quite a good size game library. Even though my aches and such meant getting up every so often and moving to change position, it was worth it. So all in all, it was a decently happy weekend. I'll take it.

[rainydiary]

CF, I noticed balance in what you wrote - difficultly with living with and managing fibromyalgia plus CPTSD yet joy in relationships and finding moments of ease as you find what works for you that day. 

[CactusFlower]

Thank you, rainy! I didn't even notice that, thank you for seeing that. I do try to balance things rather than focus on too much negative, so I guess I looked at that better than I thought I did.   HUGS

So, in all that Higher Power thought processes, I guess you could say mine gave me a sign. A blinking, 20 foot tall neon sign that I'm on the right path. So, I joined this facebook group last month for people in ACA. It's got just over 7000 people in the group. Not long after I joined, someone posted about starting a Step study group to work through the 12 steps together, as it can be hard to find a sponsor. Cool, great timing, I thought. So I joined. We meet Monday evenings and agreed to do a step a month. Good energy, 4-6 nice people.

Now, due to many many issues, I don't like pictures and videos of myself, so I tend to not have my camera on in Zoom when with strangers. My avatar is just a little image of a stained glass dragonfly. Tonight as we start the Step Two work about our Higher Power, (anonymity) "L." stated that she felt a little triggered because I hadn't been on camera yet and she didn't feel safe or comfortable with just a little piece of art and not a real person. She also has CPTSD. I can totally understand needing to feel safe, so I chose to turn on my camera even though I had no makeup on and my hair's a mess, etc. It's a holiday in the USA, so there were only three of us today. me, L, and the host. I turn on my camera and she notes I look familiar. I thought she kinda did, but whatever. So she asks if I used to work in (state, city).

I'm stunned. Um, yes... I worked at "X" company. Oh My Higher Power, people. She worked at the same company around the first few years I was there. In fact, she sat several cubicles away from me. So she knew me before I legally changed my name and realized I was nonbinary. She then mentions "Yeah, so-and-so was the best boss I ever had."  Get this... SHE WORKED FOR MY BFF. We were both weirded out and laughing so hard. I mentioned he lives next door and she gave me permission to say hi and all from her. I'm still blown away, honestly.

Thank you to my Higher Power, that can't get more obvious of a sign I'm on the right path with this. Out all the people in the world, All the people in this organization, the 7000+ in a facebook group, and I end up in a group with someone who used to work with my BFF at the company we all worked for. Those odds are astronomical, aren't they....  BFF is going to laugh his butt off when he hears this tomorrow.

[Armee]

Whoa! I'm so relieved that felt like a good sign!

Mmmmm that food sounds amazing!!!

[CactusFlower]

Much anxiety today and tomorrow.  After all the good yesterday, I got a voice mail from the old guy who owns the triplex I live in. He wants to have someone come "just look at the units" Thursday (tomorrow) between 10 and noon.  Didn't say why.  He's already had his daughter and son in law look at them last year because he was supposedly giving them to her. He's 88, so... yeah. But I get anxious af when someone has to come in and I don't know exactly why. I start thinking about the worst possible thing and freaking out. I literally cannot afford to move anywhere. Higher Power, if this is a test, then ok.  I can't control it, so I let go and give it to you. All I can do is clean up before the person comes.

Which is also annoying, because I have a mammogram follow-up today at noon.  So there's an hour or two taken out of the cleaning availability. I'm just gonna do what little I can and try not to overdo things. We straightened a little yesterday, so it's basically sweeping today and cleaning off the dining table. And trying to relax, ha ha. Bro can't help much as he's gone most of the afternoon in class. I get it, the lesson is to let go of what I can't control. Dang, that's hard.

[Armee]

Ugh that IS stressful, on many levels. Good luck with the mammogram and cleaning.

[Bach]

I feel you.  I HATE having people come into my house!  I struggle to feel comfortable even having friends come in, much less people who have any kind of power over my living situation.  And mammograms, ugh!  The less said about that the better, really. 

Hoping everything is going okay for you today

[Blueberry]

I feel you.  I HATE having people come into my house!  I struggle to feel comfortable even having friends come in, much less people who have any kind of power over my living situation.  And mammograms, ugh!  The less said about that the better, really. 

I struggle with a lot of those types of things. 

[CactusFlower]

Thank you, armee, bach, and blueberry! 

It went fine, I even got there and got in a little early. Nothing to see, so they didn't even bother with the ultrasound part and I was free to go. BFF took me, so we had a lovely lunch afterwards. I'll finish sweeping either later today or in the am when I get up. I'm choosing to let it go.