Introducing mmMekitty

[mmMekitty]

I am mmMekitty, named for my cat, (my avatar), who lived 7 years. It has been five or so years since, but I still miss her. Mekitty an I had a simpler relationship than any I have had with people.

The photo is the one I to retrieved after my hard drive crashed. She had wandered off, was away for six days, when she turned up again in the middle of the night. I cried with relief. This was the photo I used for her Lost Cat poster I put up around the neighbourhood at the time.

As for me, I cannot see the detail of the photo nearly as well as I did then, and then my sight was poor. I am now using text-to-speech software, zooming on my pc, voice over. Since I find this stuff difficult, I get really frustrated.

I used to keep all my emotions in check, so much so, I thought and said I did not have any feelings or reactions to anything. That changed and I could not deny the existence of my emotions. It was a terrifying time. What was happening to me? I was falling apart and all this unidentifiable stuff was pouring out.

I have had to learn so much since I began seeing the Psychiatrist I saw back then (1993 - 95). From learning I had to put words to the experiences, name, own, accept them. Still uncomfortable. I beat up on myself too much, I know.

I used to do things I can no longer do to my own satisfaction. I still sing, but not like I used to. I cannot paint like I did. I cannot use pen and paper to write, so have managed to adapt to keyboard. That is something. I have been working on being more sociable, less isolated, but last year, when COVID-19 retrictions required face masks be worn, I found I could not - which is what brings me here.

I have had to curtail so much of what I had been doing. I am feeling the isolation now. How ironic! I resisted even thinking I needed anybody, then I try to have some friends, join a writers' group, get help with things like housework and shopping, going to places for fun and entertainment, only to have to withdraw again because I cannot wear a mask. It bites, like a scorpion.

I will make a thread, now I found the place to click to create one! I think my problem was with how I have my desktop appearance. It looks like any ordinary link, hiding below another, for creating a feed link. Now I know.

I suppose I will get around to talking more about myself. I will need to be careful about how involved I become, so please, don't expect me to pop up everywhere. I would burn out if I did that.

(Purring) mmMekitty

[Croix]

Dear mmMekitty with a wave to EM~

"Humble penguins"? Ha! They are noisy, argumentative, pugnacious and their beaks can give you a nasty nip if they feel so inclined -plus they leave 'squits' behind everywhere. At least inebriated kiwis snooze gently in corners and you'd hardly know they were there (except when they get the munchies and raid my nice new refrigerator)

I'm not sure I get why you are no longer reading hearabooks. Is it becuse you need to listen live as you stream and the internet drops out, or have you simply got sick of doing it?

If you wanted to download first onto your phone or computer I did mention a free site before

https://librivox.org/

Actually I'd think wihtout the thoughts left behind when you cease your reading at night it might leave room for more current worries to surface in dreams

Croix

[ecomama]

Hey Kitty, definitely ask your GP about the referral to the Community Nurses network, OH I forgot to mention that THEY visit YOU. You don't have to go anywhere, just be home when their scheduled appointment was made with you. 

I can't explain why no one else has made suggestions such as these about Community Nurses and such. Tbh I get a tad angry hearing this time and time again about suggestions I make grrrr. But giving everyone else the benefit of the doubt as I used to do all the time (apparently it's a loving thing to think lol), we can just think, they only know what they know. Hm. 

Another reason to be grateful for these forums is the networking potential. 

Perhaps? Possibly no one else has told you the following either? That you can actually PUT in your next NDIS application, the COST of having someone else write your NDIS application! This includes the time sitting with you to develop your goals and write the activities to reach your goals. I always include statements like "to maintain my independence" because I'm sure they LOVE statements like these, people having a smaller amount of Govt funding as opposed to huge drains on alternative Govt funding by being heavily "dependent". 

My brother finally got around to apply for NDIS funding which I help him write. I completely rewrote his application with goals like those above, but for him things like "to support maintaining my full time work in the building trade". He applied for $9,000 and received a grant for $39,000. Most of this will be returned lol. This goes for every application I've written BUT please know I write hundreds of different kinds of reports per year as part of my work. 

Croix has given you a free site for audio books. 
There's also YouTube to tap into. 
I've also put a CD into my laptop to sleep to. Ones by Dr Joe Dispenza venturing into the quantum field are my favourites lol. 

Yes, I've found that when I'm in a "wobbly state" with PTSD, in the absence of any sleep stories, I can have rolling intrusive dreams (aka nightmares). 
NB: in the absence of replacement thoughts, our brains will often slip gears to the default feedback loop we've thought about many times before.

Replacement is the active verb /activity there. 

Love EMxxxx

[mmMekitty]

Hello Croix, EM & everyone

I had been downloading books from Vision Australia, but the downloads were slow, the website is tedious too. I've been using YouTube, without subscribing. It's great when I find books with no ads interrupting the reading & so long as my internet connection is stable. It is difficult because the longer books are spilt into parts, 2 & 3 parts are common, but I've some split into several parts, & then the book may also be only one in a series the author wrote, so locating the other books in the series can be difficult. They don't always show up in the 'what's coming up next' list, & if they are, they are not shown together, nor in order.

& of-course, not paying for subscription, I can't save lists of my own.

I have heard some books from Librivox on YouTube. Pretty good, usually. They have a way interrupting with an nouncements about themselfves at the spaces between chapters. No YoutTube/Google ads; that's a tick tor them. I will see if books directly from them have their self-promotions still in the books.

They are older books, too. I would like to read books published more recently. I've not even kept up with who the modern sci-fi writers are.

Well, that's this post... next post, different topic.

mmMekitty

[mmMekitty]

I went to see a physiotherapist yesterday, who can write up a report, with the recommendation, that I do need to have an exercise machine, (told him about the eliptical cross trainer I'd like to get for my home & why). He also would offer more physiotherapy too.

He gave me some treatment yesterday, too, even though that's not what I had specifically gone to to see him for... & I'm skeptical about the electrical stimulation to my upper arms, not even where things feel worse.

He recommended some more exercises, & if I can find 1.5 kg weights, he thinks I should be using them - not the 2kg weights I have been using lately. Personally, I think I am fine using the 2kg weights.

We'll see.

*

After my helper & I went to a retail store to actually, physically check out eliptical cross trainers, & to get a quote to send to NDIS, too, along the with physio's recommendations. One there I think seems quite straight forward as far as basic settings fo, although the buttons are not easily felt at the edge of the screne. Other buttons were less distinuishable by feel than those, but there is some speech feedback, so maybe.

I've been offered the sale price, even if NDIS does not get back to us quickly, & the sale has officially ended. They included that in the quote.

We'll see.... 

Like I'm still waiting for that person at the NDIA my helper spoke to last Thursday, to send us the forms to do with having my NDIS plan reviewed. & another form to confirm that my helper can speak for me, when my anxiety & memory make ti too difficult.

In the meantime, I'm continuing to what I can here.

Thank you for reading/listening.

mmMekitty

[mmMekitty]

Thanks Paws. [LRC nosebops with Woofa, & Paws too, if welcome] [LRC has cheeky grin]

[mmMekitty]

Hi everyone,

I realise sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself, or to the wind.. I notice I sometimes don't even think to write "Hello everyone" or to any specific person. Noticing that has brought this feeling into focus. Too often I am aware how this place is definitely NOT like having a face-to-face conversation, or a conversation with someone whose voice I can hear.

I have also realised, having this place, with the sort of random feelings of connection with others is better than having none.

I am grateful to anyone who responds, or quietly supports my posts - that gives me a feeling you are out there.

*

Tonight, I was eating my dinner while watching the news. I had an awful feeling of guilt, eating what I have while so many have nothing. I have some trouble purchasing the healthy food I am wanting - but that feels like such an arrogance, I suppose, to be here getting cranky about the lettuce as big as my head, because I want a smaller one, so none will be wasted, while so mo many people are starving, with not even the food available to go buy, even had they the money... I felel shame having so much food, I can choose, not have no choice, but not beg because no-one around them has any food - & not starve, not watch my babies starve, or think I could starve before them, leaving them alone.

It's got me down, thinking how little I could do. Send some money (& wonder would it get there & help anyone)? I feel sorrow, which is useless to them.

It dismays me that such awful circumstances with huge numbers of people lost, still happen. & they will happen again, & whether I know or not. If I don't see anything in the media, for a while my mind can push such stuff to the back of my mind, where it is quiet, & I get on with what I can in my life, in my comparatively privileged bit of the world.

What horrible magic we do in our own heads.

mmMekitty 

[Paw Prints]

Hello mmMekitty,

Being able to push things out of our thoughts isn't horrible lass... (even if the things themselves are)... we are sentient beings & need to be able to do this... it is a survival strategy... we would quickly be overwhelmed mentally if we couldn't do it... that would help no one.

I think it is fine that you are getting cranky about not getting food that doesn't force you to waste most of it... so much of the food grown is wasted... Not all of us are able to buy at farmers markets or independent stores... a small thing you can do is put in a customer complaint where you shop about them not having fresh food of a size to suit single person households... the latest census says that nearly a third of all households are single person households... if enough people do little things like that then we will force them to change which will help the farmers who at the moment have to grow food to a certain size wasting so much good food that the big supermarkets won't buy. No it won't change the world... we can only do what we can.

I assume copyright has to do with limiting how many modern books are available as free audio books... I was looking at my sci-fi books to recommend a modern writer you might look for & I've realised the most modern books I have are still more than a decade old... whoops. But if I'm honest I love reading the older books.

hugs

Paws

[mmMekitty]

Hi Paws & Woofa.

The most recent Sci-Fi I have bought (because I don't want to wait, hoping they would become available), was Margaret Atwood's The Testaments & Ann Leckie's Ancillary series. I'd very much like to read more of Ann Leckie's books.

I find it is really hard to keep up whith who is writing things I'm interested in.

The old books are sometimes really good stories, but often some of the attitudes, which don't get challenged, rather give me the creeps!

My father particularly liked reading Isaac Isimov, Robert A Heinlein, & others, & reading them now, I recognise my father's attitudes seem to have been directly influenced by the books he read, even some phrases, word for word.

*

I understand what you say about being able to block so much from our minds, to protect ourselves. I think what I'm dealing with is a product of our modern times, with so much coming into our awareness, which simply would not have done before public media, ie newspapers, radio, tele, computers, & the internet were invented. Before I was born, people only had word of mouth, gossip about mostly local events. & the population was much less than it is now.

Happy nose bops, Woofa. Wanna play with my kite? Could be windy enough around here tomorrow for it.

mmMekitty

[ecomama]

Hello Kitty! nice to see you again. 

I read back a bit here. I saw you were distressed and went down a rabbit hole with your feelings of guilt about us having what we need and want to eat etc. And what to DO about it. 

Btw I saw chopped ice berg lettuce in a small bag for $2 tonight at the supermarket, just FYI. 

You CAN replace your thoughts if and when you choose. 

Also if you wanted to, you could seek out a Food Pantry that offers food to people & donate money if you wanted to. Local Churches here run Food Pantries weekly or more. Run totally by volunteers so every single cent goes to buying from "Second Bite" & warehouses. Volunteers even pay their own petrol to drive to these warehouses with their trailers! They take donations of FOOD and money. 

People ARE making things happen out there. Soon, VERY soon, I know that no one will ever need to go hungry in Australia at least. As long as they can REACH OUT to services, they will receive food. 

I'm Praying this will be the case for housing and am working towards that goal here myself. 

Rest assured it's happening all around me more & more with Food Pantries BUT ALSO with Community Gardens where any one at all can go in and take whatever they need to eat. They are multiplying, it's WONDERFUL! 

You can replace all guilt and shame with powerful thoughts of LOVE and ABUNDANCE for all. 
And if you want to send money, then do. 

Love EMxxxx

[mmMekitty]

EM, I was thinking globally, about the many people who have nothing & very little chance of getting ANY food - as it is in Sudan lately, becaususe of a 4+year drought ... & myself, definitely not rich, on a pension, living city/suburban with heaps of choice, even when some things on the supermarket shelves are not available, or the prices have gone up - I AM able to make choices & have pretty much what I want. In my effort to eat healthier food, (not just whatever food I might be given, if I'm lucky), it may be more expensive, but I CAN get good food.

& then there's the people who have so much, who may think nothing of spending $100 or more at a restaurant, making so much money & using it to buy THINGS that do no good in the world. Who am I to judge, eh? It's hard not to.

It's the inequity that gets to me, sitting & complaining about the size of the lettuce, when having a lettuce at all is wonderful & the prices have been resonable lately, too.

Some things are consistently more expensive now than even six months ago. It's hard, thinking, while I know I've got to cut out the 'useless calories' as much as I can, which means cutting out the treats, & deciding to get the basic salad stuff & good meat, some dairy, as my staple needs, I KNOW I'll be able to buy my food.

It'll be a healthier diet from now on, because I NEED to do this.

Yeah, I miss my coffee, but do I NEED it?

Miss my chippies, but do I NEED them?

These are not useful things to me. My daily fruit is my sweets. 

For me, higher prices are helping me make these choices. Convincing myself my health is worth paying some more money to get good food, & leaving behind the cheaper, not so good, food.

Aren't I lucky I get to choose? I don't have to trudge for days or weeks to come to a place in the hopes of finding some sort, any sort, of food to keep me from starvation.

As for the other end of the wealth spectrum - it's rather unimaginable for me.

I wonder why humanity has such a wide spectrum, seemingly built in. 

& in this country, there are some poverty, health & education gaps to fill.

mmMekitty