new person

[ecomama]

Hi everyone
not sure what parts to disclose here, feeling very uneasy posting. I feel like a lot of people here, know that I'm socially isolated but feel it's safer this way. I have a lot of mixed feelings due to covid19; feeling freer or even happier that movements were restricted as I have had little choice but to live this way for a long time. Then I realised how odd this reaction is, opposite to what I was hearing at work. Simultaneously I felt huge grief for the world. I'm experiencing compassion fatigue from all of this.

my life has been wrought with trauma & grief, tremendous violence & loss. I desperately sought help from authorities to stop things over many decades. I have fought so hard through courts etc, I know it has cost me a lot of mental stability a lot of the time. At least my children and I are safe atm. Feeling safe is another thing entirely!

happiness eludes me. I strive for the happiness of my children. I don't know how to attain personal happiness, so have strived for contentment. I work hard physically but feel far more exhausted by my mind. flashbacks and memories often come back relentlessly in my waking hours and in my dreams. Working hard physically helps me sleep better 🙂

I used to be very sociable, quite athletic and had a large family. The abuse has taken its toll. My relationships were undermined by the abuser, so they are lost. My physical health was severely impacted by the abuse also. I have a counsellor but I was advised by a close friend who is studying psychology to seek a more intensive type of therapy. I have completed countless hours in therapy through books, online and in person over decades. My counsellor is very impressed by my persistence, resilience and recovery but I feel awful most of the time.

I have no relationships with extended family anymore which is very sad for me. I have basically given up trying since doors are constantly closed on that front.
Soon I plan to take leave from my work to support my children all struggling in their learning from home programs. I will have to take leave on far less pay, so this presents obvious issues to an already stretched financial situation.

I know there is no magic cure for all the issues I have at hand but I still have hope that things will improve and that I can feel happy one day. I pray there are answers within this forum for me.

Thanks for reading.

[ecomama]

Dearest Sleepy, my precious friend,

I'm so warmed by your joy about that link!
I was listening to the whole interview that couple did with each other and just FELT that I was sharing this with you!

I just kept thinking of you the whole time.
The way that beautiful girl was attempting to explain her experiences in words.... something that's SO HARD to do!
Something I know both you and I have had difficulties doing also.

The long lived experiences we've had.... like HOW does anyone put all that into WORDS?

It's virtually impossible.

The one thing about this that I know for sure, is that when people who HAVE experienced long term FOO traumas... we just get it.
We know.
It's nearly impossible to explain to someone who HASN'T.

I kept wondering WHAT has that beautiful girl gone through?
(Anyway both Alexa and I believe she may have been misdiagnosed and actually has autism...)

I'm earnestly trying to follow my instincts ALOT more now Sleepy.
As they're being uncovered, and remain unadulterated after the slow reveal lol, it's working well.

Abandonment... I'm so sorry for your brother and possibly yourself as a child and into your growing up and adulthood.

IDK why I didn't feel abandoned? Something to address with my Counsellor... I need to put it in my Diary for that appt.
Sadly we understand that long term abuse, trauma and neglect in children can create their having different schemas etc.
I can imagine this leading them into abusive relationships ongoing... it's what happened with me.

I need to investigate this alot more deeply, to try to make sense of it all.

I need some sleep, talk soon.

Love EMxxxx

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey EM,

I can certainly understand your desire to protect your family from any further sense of abandonment, it's not a nice thing for them to be feeling and you are not the sort of person to inflict harm on your loved ones. It's interesting you say you didn't feel abandoned by your parents despite the situation at the time. There are so many ways to process what we grow up in. Though there was emotional abandonment in mine, I didn't see it that way, it was just "normal" at the time. What else did I know? Sometimes the understanding of what it really is takes time to catch up with us.

I can understand your brother's anger in his situation, I imagine it would be emotionally taxing to feel unwanted by your birth parents. From that place, it would probably be quite difficult to get a handle on what they might have been going through to make a decision like that.

Your children have been through a lot, despite your best efforts to make it easier on them. If only we could protect our families from the ugly side of life, but there is only so much we can do. They have no doubt learned a lot about resilience and making the best of how things are from you, though, and that counts.

You're right that hurt people hurt people. It's so obvious all around us. I recognised that I was growing spiteful and cruel over time (toward him, at any rate) with the fertiliser psycho ex was putting down, and that was my primary reason for leaving. That recognition changed the course of my life, I knew I could do better than that. As you say, it's better to find something better to do than spew more poison into the world. And no, it's certainly not easy in the moment.

No-one could ever accuse you of being an ungrateful person, EM, even with all you have going on. It would be easy for you to be angry or bitter, but you're not. Heck, you hold up better than I do in that regard.

You said: "I'm getting a chip of the Blue block even more lately" in conjunction with a reference to some negotiations at work. Gotta say, I'm quite curious to have some clarification there! What have you been up to?

Yep, you're doing well with your challenges, and all the financial stuff. How you have the energy for it still baffles me, but here you are. Just breathe. And play with chickens. 🙂

Blue.

PS I have a puffball on each shoulder as I type.

[ecomama]

Hey Blue, thankyou, long time!

I laughed with the vision of a Puffball on each shoulder lololol, like a sweet Pirate!

You're not the only person asking, wondering etc about how I could keep up with so much physical activity.. I just thought I was normal but the more everyone around me comments, the more it confirms that I must have ADD / ADHD.
People more than 30y younger are asking 🥴 lol.
That must be it.

Putting pieces of stories together since my birth, even, I've never needed much sleep, like EVER. Was put into dance lesson as a toddler then attended up to 6 days a week and LOVED every minute of it. Played netball up to twice a week plus training. Gymnastics too.
I danced all through Uni (with a long commute) & the ACs pregnancies lol.

Thank goodness I found gardening! Multiple babies cut the dancing OUT lol. So I took all the babies into the garden in their strollers hahaha.

Atm I'm doing more than 3 hours gardening a day on either side of working, then up to10 hours on a weekend day and LOVING it.

I'm sleeping REALLY WELL!

Finances are going okay. Just saving for the roof, ceilings etc. It's a bit mental but nothing new lol, throw it on the pile right?

I honestly don't feel any abandonment issues whatsoever.
IDK why, I just don't.
Possibly because I felt SO LOVED by my mother's extended family; grandparents & great grand parents, aunties, uncles and great aunties and uncles laid on everywhere. It was a VERY close inter generational family during my youth right up till my 30s.

I remember sitting up straight in my 30s after having the ACs and being a single parent, buying my 2nd home and just realised wow... I'm the age my father was when I was BORN... what a dope he was not taking ANY responsibility for us AND putting our mother through absolute hell.
I knew 100% that I WAS 1000% a better human being.
I step up.
I SHOW up.
I'm there for my kids and ALL the other kids that need me, whenever I can possibly be there.

I have little respect for the person who called himself my father.
I call him by his first name!! Hahaha... his family don't like it but I don't care.
I was his only biological child and pfft, nothing.

I don't have the time nor the inclination to waste about that kind of crap lol.

Chip off the Blue block? I negotiated alot of ME consideration at work lately.
And I'm gonna keep going! So they better WATCH OUT lol. It's going well and they're all very grateful! That's working well hahaha.

Love EMxxxx

[ecomama]

Hi BB family,

I hope everyone's doing well?

I'm doing really well. Sure things are full on here, as per usual lol, but we're all communicating well and all doing well too.

I'm very proud of my children.

We had huge birthday parties yesterday for the grandkids. Went to an indoor climbing centre and all the kids and grandkids tried again and again to overcome their fears in it all. They did SO well and were able to get to the top of most obstacles and have LOTS of fun!

After this, on the spur of the moment, we made a trip further North to a fancy lolly shop!
It was AMAZING lol. All I felt like eating was a potato scallop so I left with p.son to order Fish & Chips for everyone. I left my atm card for all the others with instructions to "GO WILD" in the lolly shop and my grandkids are still talking about it tonight! So are my kids hahaha. So am I!

This morning I got to visit Bunnings and buy so many things I've needed - tools for my garden, plus a great storage container for them to store in the chook shed.
I'm so EXCITED about all my new tools!

I also got to spend some time talking with BF & the ACs about the erosion issues in my garden, the problem of where to store the bricks and pavers (for later use) and KNOW what I'm going to do now.

Out of all this came the idea for my Birthday, a Green Waste Skip bin oh yeah!! So I have a few months to cut trees, make decisions & get a huge amount of green waste taken away later in the year for my birthday lol. I religiously fill my usual Green Bin, I started burning off in the chiminea last week too...
SO IF I manage to get rid of all the green waste first, THEN I'm getting a regular waste skip bin for my birthday lol.
We'll see.

I also plan to hire a mini backhoe (and person to operate it lol), to remove the pool posts and old pool later on.

Spending hours in the back yard with the new chickens every day means I'm doing so much weeding, moving soil, creating composts & rubbish removal etc it's GREAT! I'm loving it, so are my older chickens lol.
The house is getting less attention but who cares at this point! lol.

Work is increasing in intensity, more meetings starting up this week, more responsibility, it's all good.

I'm sleeping very well lol. Maybe those lollies are helping!

Love EMxxxx

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey EM,

All I can say to that is "Yaaargh!"

If you have ADHD, you're way heavier on the hyperactive side than I am! That said, is it that you don't need much sleep, or that the things you're focused on have you so hyped up you just forget about sleep. Depression and fatigue have undermined me there, but back in the day, I'd pull all nighters regularly from being so heavily absorbed in my interests, and I'd still manage work and uni and driving all over the place. Honestly, I miss that, hyper-fixation on all the mundane rubbish that needs doing (without the time, motivation or energy to do it) really sucks.

Yeah, I know about the financial stuff, and throwing it on the pile. Plumbing for me. I've mentioned it on my thread, won't go into detail here. We persevere, I guess.

No sense looking for abandonment issues where there aren't any, I think. You had support from other parts of the family, so you weathered the bad bits well. I think that gave you a good foundation and you came out knowing how to treat your own family, leaving out the dysfunction closer to home, and as you moved through life you took the lessons re what your parents got wrong and did better. Give yourself a gold star.

Yeah, I get it about your father. The biological component of being a parent means little to nothing without actual parenting.

Ah, I see. I'm glad you're pushing for what you need at work. They get more than their money's worth out of you, it's only reasonable that you get some say in the terms of your employment. I guess it is a very Blue thing to do, I've been working on some of that, myself.

Love the sound of the indoor climbing, I'd like to do some of that myself some time. The lolly shop isn't without some appeal, either. 😉

Tools, garden plans, playing with chickens... Sounds like a happy recipe to me. You're doing well.

Blue.

[ecomama]

Hi Blue, thankyou.

I had Counselling last night and completely forgot to bring up the abandonment stuff that isn't there lol. Really early this morning I woke up remembering I forgot, then realised many other things.... lots of reasons in my story which I don't have room to detail, in the end I decided NOT to abandon my brother by leaving my mother's house to live with my father when this was offered.
I could see my brother's heart breaking, and my mother's tears too tbh and decided to stay.

When I COULD see and know my father's actions, I was able to detach from any responsibility for him. I didn't blame myself. I blamed him lol.
My parent's marriage was a violent hot mess.

Anyway lol... I got a bombshell last night from the roofing guy... I need to hire a person BEFORE he can do the work to remove the skylight by them. I had a slight panic, just made dinner, had important conversations with the kids and went to bed lol.

I've got this.
It's not a good situation but I'll get through it in one piece lol.

Life is BUSY!

Work is pretty intense atm. Juggling the kid's needs at the same time is a massive challenge atm.
But I want to enjoy it, as this time too shall pass, and I don't want to crowd out any possible joy and opportunity for growth with depressive thoughts etc.

I'm super pumped at the WAY I've compartmentalised my work in the garden.
I spend 1-2 hours in the garden before work every day lol... (yeah it's mental lol) but my chickens and I are LOVING it! Then at least 1 hour in the afternoons. MANY hours on the weekends.
Organising from the back steps DOWN is helping making it all look so lovely... it's taking a LONG time.

I'm filling up EVERYONE's garbage bins and I can see this will go on for years, there's so much.
That's ok!
I'm getting there which makes me smile so big.

My gardener will be shocked when he sees it lol.
Goes to show that baby chickens are good for us in SO many ways!

On a serious note lol, I cannot BELIEVE my fancy bright pink nails are surviving! hahaha.

Love EMxxxx

[ecomama]

Update: things going awry.

A few financial blows occurred this week, it's going to take a while to get things sorted.

The roofing man called and said I need another firm to take out the skylight first, grrr.

So that's even more money and I am seeing the costs skyrocket there.

With the other financial blows, I'm taking a breather from THAT for as short a time as I can.

Next thing, my pay was less than usual. I had zero clue why?
It took some sleuthing in moments here and there at work and about an hour today to get to the bottom of it.
The financial pressure was forcing me to sort it asap.

It was an Admin error so I HOPE the money comes next pay!

Next thing was today, basically I bumped into another person's car in Feb whilst I was driving p.son's car and neither she nor I could see any damage, it was raining so there easily could've been, so I drove away.
Yes I gave her my details.
I had to. It was my fault.
A Recovery Action letter was in my letter box saturated from the rain.
I was shocked, $1032 worth of damage - apparently.

Anyhow p.son has a $1000 excess to make Insurance cheaper, so there's no point in wrecking his chance of No Claim bonuses etc so that came out of the blue!

Then I completely forgot about my OWN Car Insurance omg... it was due around the time of mother being hospitalised and Alexa being so ill etc.

So I quickly transferred some roof repair money to my credit card to pay these things tomorrow or asap.

I also have to cancel my mortgage payments.... I think.... I'll see how I go but I can't see another way atm.... I will Pray on it lol!!

Fortunately I have extra money on the mortgage and can probably miss 6 weeks mortgage payments. Hopefully I only need to miss one fortnight.

And my Tax Return is more problematic than I first thought. Invoices missing ughhh.
Changed Accountants before my appt. They were STRANGE, didn't like their operation or the fact they're 2 hours away (not what I was led to believe).

SO I'm back to square one there and it needs to get in ASAP for p.son's sake.

Alexa's health is still pretty bad, she has specialists coming up.
Thankfully she's dropped some shifts, put some Art time in and is coping better.
She's still getting her Uni work in, I hope we lovely weekend coming up.

Love to everyone
EMxxxx

[Jstar49]

Hi Em,

Wow I can't believe your fancy pink nails are surviving either! All that gardening! My regular nails don't survive gardening so yours must be MAGICAL!

Sorry to hear that things are all messy and difficult - with finances and roofing etc. Hope things get sorted asap, esp that missing pay, and you can stop stressing. The lolly shop sounded fun tho- what a memory to make!

I'm too tired for much more rational thought, altho I love your birthday present idea.....And also think the ADHD angle MIGHT explain your energy...some ppl are just like that tho. (altho when I say that I think about my friend with bipolar, so maybe thats an indication that extreme levels of energy may have some explanation....)

Talk soon, hopefully when I can string more sentences together! Just wanted to let you know I'm listening...

Love

J*

[Guest_1643]

hey Em - just wanted to ask if you're okay? All that money stuff sounds veyr hard. Much love

[ecomama]

Hey J* and Sleepy my friends

Yes I'm doing well lol!!!

A rough and tumbling form of doing well but I am, so I'm good.
Thankyou for asking.

Yep my pink nails ARE magical lol... freaking miraculous!

I've got this weird feeling something's about to change UP for my finances in a big way... I had a dream early this morning and just knew I could relax.
Clearly that was BEFORE I opened up that next $1032 bill lololol... I'm sounding crazy right now but it is late at night!

Alexa called tonight and we got a Distinction for "our" video assignment, it wasn't the Hugher Distinction she's used to getting but she only needs a Distinction average to get into the next Scholarship program or something.

only needs a Distinction lol and p.son saying he was disappointed with 88% last week omg.... my average at High School was half all that if I was lucky. Cheeses my kids, seriously.

I have to keep remembering that my income has NOT stopped.
With the "stoppers" ie huge new or unexpected bills, it just pushes my dream goal of a cabin in my back yard further away.

But does it really?
I mean, I am REALLY open to all possibilities and opportunities, visualisation is a strong habit of mine.

SO I keep visualising WHAT I want and it comes.
Sure I work for it all (probably lol) but it does come to me / us.

I'm pretty proud of myself by being able to self-regulate through all this.
I haven't been able to talk to BF ALL week long. He's in a 10h difference time zone and it just doesn't line up with my lunch break, so that's that.

Doing well.

I wish there were more HOURS in the day but hey, no point in wishing for that hahaha.

I'm happy p.son is coming home tomorrow night, yay!

My dog is going mental barking like crazy at Lord knows what. Better go before he wakes up the whole neighbourhood.

Thanks for checking in!

Talk soon!

Love EMxxxx