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]

Hey all, 

Thankyou for your well wishes. Apologies for MIA. 

My explanation?  Complicated as per. 

Media attention which, with some digging, could have identified me. So I kept schtum. That's passed. 

It's been a long hard challenge trying to survive this time without my BB family. I have thought of you all. 

So on to other sectors of my life in point form lol... 
* Counselling stepped up to weekly as I didn't have many people I could truly open up to about all the media stuff - seldom even my IRL friends.
* kids & ACs are good. Managing their trauma responses as a group at times which is comforting.  

* I got the garden looking WOW for Yvette's Surprise Birthday party months ago and she LOVED it awww... this took me all my Leave and grew muscles I didn't know I had lol...

* Pets are good 🙂
* work is amazing, I've received a "small" promotion (mainly for the insane amount of work I did during lock down), slight wage increase yay.. 
* still working on my repairing my home, maintenance, patching walls, painitng blah blah lol.. lotsa work,

* roof is still leaking profusely which is arghhhhhh... so I've decided to...

* start a 181 Day Savings Challenge. 

* doing Return & Earn containers for our pup's grooming costs. 
* "Barefoot Investor" ing, SO PROUD of myself. 
* beginning renos downstairs for my children; putting up walls, getting a builder to install windows so it's safer etc
* saw my Bank Manager this week and she was blown away by our progress, us too, it's good to be on a more even keel even with the demands). 

MISSED YOU ALL
EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Dear EM,

I can't begin to tell you how glad I am to see you here. I had some concerns for your safety with you absent for so long. Sadly I was unaware of your post above from May, I got no notification in My Threads, and I am saddened that you must have felt very alone posting that and having no response. That really sucks. I don't have many words right now, things have been difficult for me recently, I may make a new thread about that. Just know I am glad you are here.

Blue.

[ecomama]

BLUES! Hello my friend and major huge HUGS! I've missed you so much. 

I've come back to a NEW BB, that post from May you mentioned is the opening post to my thread.. it's kept at the top of each page, funnily enough.
My last post was my only one, so you were RIGHT ON TIME! Thankyou. 
We must be connected thru the ether, you knew... we are physically safe atm, it's not been fun tho. ALL the uglies from my past reared like they were timing it, then months on end of it. One I hadn't even mentioned here bec I can't, probably the most famous name(s) in the world (not mine thank goodness!)... Praying it all remains calm. I can't mention anything which is rough. 

I'm sorry you're going through a rough time (since when has it been SMOOTH? crikeys)... if you do begin a new thread, please let me know as I have no idea how to navigate the new site ughh. What's going on? 

Grounding, setting boundaries & compartmentalising has been even more important recently. It's HARD. I'm almost 100% isolated all over again but if any of those uglies thinks I'm beaten, whatevs lol - I have a special dance I do when appropriate that involves middle fingers 😇. I'm too seasoned, all authorities are in my contacts. 

Take care of your wonderful self Blues, 
Love EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey EM,

Hugs to you, I've missed you, too.

D'oh, you're right. I knew about the first post at the top of the page but managed to misread the year and lost track of where on the page the post was. Brain isn't doing brain things so well lately.

I'm afraid I can't claim a connection through the ether, I just made sure to add your thread to the ones I was following when the new forum launched - I always have one eye on it when I log in. Mind you, notifications seem a bit random, I'm still checking my followed threads manually as I'm not getting notified about important posts.

Sorry to hear things have all been coming back to haunt you, it is so unfair you are dealing with that. I'm here to listen about the things you can talk about, and just sit with you in coping with the ones you can't.

No, I guess I've never had what I could call a smooth time. Unfortunately it's grown markedly worse, recently. I did make a new thread. Best way to find it is to just click on my username at the top of any of my posts (footnote: I'm trying to get my username changed, they don't allow spaces or apostrophes any more and did their own thing with my name - I hate having bad grammar and a number in it!). Clicking that will take you to my profile and a list of all the threads I've started. They seem to be in order of creation date, so the new one's at the top and my main one near the bottom.

All that stuff is always important, but I hear you. I'm so sorry you are feeling so isolated, you don't deserve that. I have some familiarity with how that feels, albeit for different reasons. I couldn't help but laugh at your special dance, I've missed the humour you bring to this mess we call life.

Kind thoughts as always,

Blue.

[ecomama]

Dearest Blues

I found your new thread (by accident as I fumble thru here), I had lots of tears. 

It's all quite unbelievable and I am so deeply sorry for your loss of Mr Precious Pecks alot, my dear friend. 
Also for the trials for LM in yet another marathon of issues with transplants and stretching to wish and hope this can work out for him. 

And you too ofcourse. 

Know I'm thinking of you and your beautiful family during these sad and challenging times. 

It was difficult to know what to write - whether to be open about the grief you're feeling and then I remembered it was you I was writing to. I hope my post wasn't too invasive of your deep personal grief. 

I feel like we know each other so well. 
I hope it was appropriate in acknowledging our gorgeous boy's passing. I felt such joy when you talked of his / their shenanigans in previous posts!
I felt so comforted by you when I lost my precious girl last year whom I still miss. Whom I still visit and will never forget.  When these precious creatures are so much a part of our every day, our moments in our homes shared with them, the smiles they bring, it's so nebulous when they're gone. 

It's a seemingly impossible, intangible, very vacant space. 

Here as I sit watching the second night time possum visitor to my balcony to eat the cut up apple pieces I leave on the railing. I can smile knowing I'm helping. They know me. Sometimes a possum will come to my chair and walk behind me or over my lap "hey mama where's my food?" They are so gentle with me and I love them. 

Almost 2am, crazy time lol. 

Thinking of you
Love EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey EM,

I'm glad you found my thread, though not so much for the tears that came with it.

You said: "It was difficult to know what to write - whether to be open about the grief you're feeling and then I remembered it was you I was writing to. I hope my post wasn't too invasive of your deep personal grief." No, your post wasn't invasive at all. We do know each other well, and you have shared so much of this journey with me. I know you were touched by Sir Pecks, he was such a Cassanova, everyone loved him. He has brought joy wherever he's been, and I'm glad he inspired joy in you. That's what I want to remember. He has given so much good in his almost ten years. I want that light to continue to shine. I have tentatively poked at my old blog as a space to write about him and everything going on, in a more open capacity. It's "Blue's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day" on Blogspot, if you're interested.

I'm glad I was able to give you comfort when you lost your sweet chicken. I felt her passing too, she shone a light not unlike Sir Pecks. That's what our angels do. That's just it, they fill our lives so much with their needs and their personalities, of course the loss is enormous when they are gone.

Your possum friend sounds lovely. I'm glad you have that bond with the animals that live around you.

Kind thoughts,

Blue.

[ecomama]

Hey Blues, dear Sir Pecks, YES! His antics and cheeky personality has made me smile on far more than one occasion lol... larger than his precious little body. 

I couldn't help but cry again reading your posts. "I cry at ads" has been a personal quote, don't worry, I'm a complete sop when it comes to ANY animals, any children and any vulnerable people. The rest I can leave. 

Apparently tears are cleansing and good for us.... APPARENTLY. There's some type of helpful hormone released by tears, apparently, so wow my body has had floods of that hormone then. 

Hugs and more hugs. I've missed you so much and so many people here. 

I felt totally gagged and binded by not being able to come here and talk about what was going on for me / us here. I still do, it's absolutely crazy and if my kids hadn't been present and known most of the ppl doing it all, they wouldn't have believed it either. It's actually impossible to believe. 

So that in part is my heartfelt apology. I was concerned that you and others may have felt abandoned by my absence, saying that without meaning to come across as arrogant. You and others have been such an integral part of my life for years now. Know I missed you. I missed hearing all about your life and what was going on. 

I came back to BB without my Counsellor's "approval"(she would say I didn't need it ofcourse), we've been working on me being able to compartmentalise and not share specific things. 

So it's hard because I just want to scream it all out to the world. 

Your loss is felt by me. Smudgy screen again. Angels indeed. The void is numbing. 

Talk soon
EM

[ecomama]

HI BB, my Diary of set backs and progress also, 

Today I hope the repairs my children & I have done to the roof will, at least, keep the rain water at bay.. I've been saving like crazy for a new roof (quotes between $35 - $50k). Shaking like a leaf on Sunday with major rainfalls again, having around 30 buckets and containers to catch the water then walk around with crutches to empty the buckets... it's been hard! 

Just when you think there's no more "the Universe" can throw at you... now an added set back. Blast from the past becoming present requiring $10k - the stuff I can't reveal, can't quite believe evil is so prevalent. It's cost us so dearly for so many years, here we go again grrr!

Plus my dear car I've had for near 20y is failing. Mechanic's tomorrow. Trying not to stress too much over any of it! Only 1 working car here atm and MANY drivers / Learners. 2 cars are booked in tomorrow and I have their loan car to drive around all day to get stuff done. 

We're prepping to sell anything to raise the funds. Been here before too many times! 

I rejoined FB (under a false name) to join an International Closed Group for survivors of specific crimes. I've loved being part of this, their focus is on sharing & healing. BUT I also want to access FB Marketplace to sell our stuff.  

We'd booked a Council pick up for tonight which was also pressing. Broken wardrobes, mouldy stuff from the flooding. What a mess. 

When I dared to share with ONE friend PART of what's going on... their only real response was about them needing me to help grow food at their place, when can I do that. Wow. Sometimes I wonder... basically I didn't respond after that.  

SO it's all back on Numero Uno: WASH & clean stuff to sell, use the clothes line at ALL times, no heating still, change elec companies, convert points to dollars, the list goes on... 

My Counsellor is away for a month, so it's ALL on you BB lol! I wonder about my sanity sometimes. 

Love EM

[ecomama]

Fancy posting twice in one evening... 

After my previous post, I realised I needed to ground myself from the "out there" anxiety over all this urgent stuff all at once. 

There was nothing left to do but Pray! So I prayed as I limped around to keep working lol.

Pray pray, make dinner, pray, clean the kitchen, pray, leaf blow. I also haven't told you that I was formally diagnosed with ADHD which is seriously no surprise at all. 2 of my adult children (ACs) have also been diagnosed with same. 
About an hour later a phone call came from one of my ACs. 
One of their relatives has a great car to sell to P.son (remember him? He's still recovering from his awful experiences down south) who's been looking for a car, we believe his current car has seized it's motor but we find out tomoz. He's still on his Ls, so many more hours yet to do but we'll get there... 

They came over straight away! 

They're out for a test drive now but P.son could NOT get the smile off his face! 
He's been promoted at work to a Management position and has been saving like crazy. So hopefully he has the money for this car with the money he's been saving against my Home Loan (bless him lol). 
He also deferred Uni... oh did I tell you all? He got Early Entry into a reputable Uni in a major city but when he begins next year, he plans on commuting by public transport. He'll be studying Accounting (lol story of our family, we all seem to go in to 1 of 4 professions for the past 3 generations).

Another son got an ABN to do NDIS support work but has Courses to do, WWCC and all sorts then he begins his own business! He's planning to apply to Uni to begin 6y there, a bridging Course then planning to do a teaching degree. 

Yvette, Bless Her, is training for management too, but with the view to begin in Management the day she turns 18yo. She wants to get a car and do paid food deliveries WITH me to get her Learner hours up. Multi tasking much? 

SO what a whirlwind again. 
I PRAY the repairs hold up on our roof! 

Talk soon
EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Dear EM,

I'm afraid I have few words in me tonight. LM is back in hospital and I am running on fumes as far as sleep goes. Whilst I had the time/energy to write to you more fully, the forums were down. Sigh. Know that I am listening, I hear you, I'm taking it all in and thinking of you as you deal with the roof and the car and the (admittedly not too surprising) ADHD diagnosis, and the things you can't speak of openly. Sitting quietly with you I guess since I am so very spent right now.

I guess we can expect the forums to be down quite a bit as they work the kinks out of the new design/features. I'm glad I revived my aforementioned blog, I think I'll be using that space a lot when I can't write here, it is a good space to talk about the things I talk about here when that option is not available to me. It gave me an outlet when I could read your posts here but couldn't answer you. That was very frustrating.

Kind thoughts to you, my friend. I'll write more when I have rested, but I am here.

Blue.