Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

[sanmagic7]

i love that hoarder border, SO!  so fun, so colorful, so individualistic.  a fabulous symbol of taking up space, setting boundaries, and claiming your plot as your own.  well done!  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

Yes to the whole enchilada. Yes to My Way. Yes to meta-therapy. Yes to making creative use of the trauma-related habits. Yes dolphins and bubbles. Yes to what grows in the wild excess of compost and rotting things and wood chips and worms. Yes to the emotional shrug of not caring what anybody thinks. Yes to life unfolding. Yes to post-traumatic joy.

[Marcine]

SO, on farms around the world there's that pile of stuff out back— broken equipment, unused fasteners, etc.— that's kept for future repair and construction.

I've never heard that called hoarding... =important resources kept on hand for essential needs.

Sounds like you know what you're doing!

[TheBigBlue]

   🟦🐠 🐟 🐡 🐬🐬 🫧🫧 🩵   

 

[dollyvee]

What a great border SO! Glad to hear your garden is going well. 

[SenseOrgan]

NarcKiddo, sanmagic7, HannahOne, Marcine, TheBigBlue, dollyvee

Thank you for your support! I'm sorry for being so absent. It's been a long sleep disordered stretch this time. It looks like I'm crawling out of it. Fingers crossed. I've had about three relatively okay nights in a row, I think. This morning I was finally able to run again and it went just fine. That's a good sign. I'll continue to be busy with the garden, but hope/expect to hang out here a bit more. 

[HannahOne]

Sounds like you've been getting busy living with the garden and other good things, and I'm happy for you! 

I also hear the struggle with the sleep disorder that makes everything so hard. It's wonderful you got three straight relatively okay nights and could run. Fingers crossed that that continues. It takes a lot to manage a sleep disorder and you're doing what you have to do to take care of yourself as best you can around that. I wish it would give you a long stretch of a break. 

[TheBigBlue]

😴 🤞🤞🤞 💛 

 

[SenseOrgan]

The doorbell rang. Very long. I rushed to open the door. "Ah, sorry, I need to be at your neighbor's". I'm almost certain it was the guy who had been blasting music loudly for years before I contacted the housing agency. We never spoke. But my neighbor told me he had had a conflict with him/them after he had dropped of a note, complaining about the noise. Prior to me moving in here.

The neighbor of the noise causing people is even worse. His dog is barking all the time. It has been a massive trigger for three years. I've been complaining about him with the housing agency, and recently had a meeting with them. They suggested me not to record audio, but video. That's evidence. Audio apparently isn't. I used to record audio from my bathroom window. I could just put my phone there while recording. Now I have to hold it and point it at the source of the noise. That captures both addresses and more, whether I aim for that or not. I had just been doing that before the guy rang my doorbell. I'm afraid he saw that and thought it was my neighbor.

My neighbor has contacted everyone he could think of to get the noise to stop. He also called animal control for the dogs from the guy who just rang my doorbell. Both my neighbor and I have been filing complaints lately. I only contacted the housing agency. I wouldn't be surprised if he called animal control again and the guy is very angry about that. This is the kind of situation I dreaded. The main reason it took me years to take action.

I don't know these people, but their mentality is very obvious. This is intimidating, and I'm reluctant to keep recording video. The housing agency is keeping me on the hook, I think. Recently I contacted them again, expressing my fear that one day I'll go to these people and things will escalate. The response I got didn't communicate a sense of urgency or concrete steps they were going to take.

Writing this, I hear voices. I walk to the door and there are two people from the housing agency talking with my neighbor. One of them I had a meeting with recently. He greets me. They are asking my neighbor if he did film the people in their garden, if he recognizes that story. Aha. I think I know what's going on. I'm shaking. I can barely think. At least they are involved now. I hope the folks from the housing agency won't want to come in. It's a total mess in my living room.

[sanmagic7]

SO, it sounds intimidating to me, too, and i'm not surprised you're shaking because of it.  i hope things went smoothly, and they didn't come into your house at all, but were able to speak w/ you outdoors, if that was their intention.  annoying neighbors are awful!  love and hugs

[TheBigBlue]

 

[NarcKiddo]

I'm sorry you are having to deal with this.

[SenseOrgan]

Thanks guys! I'm still shaking and spacing out.
The people from the housing agency didn't ring my doorbell. But my direct neighbor did after they finished talking. We had a chat. It turns out the angry guy was looking for me, but he thought it was my neighbor who filmed. So a near worst case, and a complete one that hoovers over me now. Thanks to the suggestion from the housing agency to film instead of record audio only. The angry guy is quite big, and according to my neighbor pretty worked-up. Lovely. Just what I needed.

I'm scared to go outside and to open the door if anyone rings the bell. I just e-mailed the housing agency to let them know, and to inform them about what triggered the angry guy. And then I did a search, which told me it isn't even legal to film someone's backyard. So that's over. I'm glad I never filmed anyone (which wasn't my intention anyway).

My neighbor told me the housing agency folks headed to the guy who is actually causing a lot of noise hindrance (so the angry guys's neighbor). His dog is going for it right now, so that has yielded the expected nothing at all.

I haven't had a truly safe space in 8.5 years. Granted, the previous two addresses that I literally fled because of the noise issues were worse, but I'm sometimes getting scared I'll snap one day. It takes a lot of effort to regulate, and to deal with this chronic trigger in my own house. I'm minding my own business, trying to stay afloat, and wherever I live there's scum acting like they own the world.

[Dalloway]

SO, I´m so sorry this issue escalated this much and I´m also very sorry for your lack of sense of safety. I have similar experiences to yours, me and my family dealt with very noisy neighbors that used to listen to extremely loud music, especially during summertime. The situation ended with us moving (not particularly because of these people) so it didn´t need more actiontaking from our side. But at this new place, there´s also a guy who does this and it´s very frustrating cause it keeps bringing back the old triggers. Also, he was once confronted by one of my neighbors and he physically attacked the neighbor (he was heavily drunk), but since he didn´t call the police, it was never investigated.
I don´t mean to further scare you with this story and if it triggers you, please let me know and I´ll delete the comment. I wouldn´t want to make you feel uncomfortable. What I wanted to say with this is that (I think) I get how difficult and triggering these situations can be. I, personally, feel a lot of helplessness arising when I have to deal with these kinds of things because in my mind these things can´t be dealt with, I´m seeing them as battles lost even without/before fighting them. But of course it´s only my interpretation of my experience.
Anyway, I want to say that I hear you and hope that things get better sooner or later, but preferably sooner. 

[SenseOrgan]

Thank you for sharing that Dalloway. I'm sorry you get this. It doesn't trigger or further scare me, no worries. It's good for me to chat about it. It helps me regulate. I have 3.5 hours to go before I go to bed. It would be very nice if I'm out of this triggered state by then. I may pop a benzo if I'm not. My sleep was just starting to improve a bit.

Helpless and lost battles a priori, yep. I know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately I have a lot of experience with this. It has actually spilled over into despair many times. And rage that can't go anywhere. Being stuck in such a situation for a long time is stored somewhere, and is brought up in the next one. I'm sorry you're in a place where this happens too. Do you feel safe over there? I mean noise issues are one thing, but safety is more serious.