Family Memories And A Downward Spiral Where to start. It's been a really rough week filled with tears and overwhelming emotions. We have a family facebook group on messenger where we post news everyone needs to know. The topic of family tree …. who's who …. came up and with it some painful memories and new information. Whenever the 'stepmom' comes up in conversation, so too does the memory of how awful she was to her step children (of which my mother was one) and her own children. One of my cousins disclosed that in addition to being physically abusive to them, she also withheld food and other resources. Particularly to the stepchildren. She would put out food but the stepchildren were not allowed to partake. And now at 90+ years of age, and in a nursing home suffering from dementia, my uncle Danny is asking “is this food? Is this for me? Am I allowed to eat this food?” I find that absolutely heart wrenching. It made me so sad. ...
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Traumatic Event Memory I'm not sure what brought this into the forefront of my memory, but I suddenly remembered an event that happened when I was about ten years old. My dad had found a cottage to purchase. I'm not 100% sure but I think he might have found it through a work colleague … maybe a friend of a friend type thing. At any rate, before purchasing the cottage, the property owner offered for our family to spend a weekend there to see how we liked it. My dad got the keys and we packed up for a weekend away from the city. The first night that we were there, someone broke in, in the middle of the night. An imbibed individual and his girlfriend. This man was shouting at us and threatening us saying that this was his cottage and we were trespassing. He threw us out in the middle of the night. I'm not sure how the police got involved. No one had cel phones back then and the cottage didn't have a phone. I suspect my dad drove the 2 m...
Canada Day 2020 This is the first Canada Day in 25yrs that my dog sport show has not been performing somewhere. It feels really odd to have nothing to do. At one point I used to have three venues and three teams booked on Canada Day. The last few have had us double booked. And this year nothing. Everything canceled due to the pandemic. Pandemic Paranoia Tonight for the first time I felt a real sense of panic with regards to covid 19, and had a minor meltdown. Still kind of freaked out. I was getting water at the water refill station and a man came in while I was there. Now the entire inside standing area of the station is 7fr x 5ft. So no possibility of people being 6ft apart. This man wore no mask, came into a tiny indoor space, and started talking. I stood as far away from him as space would allow and when t...
Religion I get one television channel where I live so I see whatever is on. Normally I'm at the training hall on Sunday mornings for Sniffer Club (scent detection dog practice) but due to the pandemic stay at home lock down, I've been home on Sunday morning for the past few months, and I've discovered Joel Osteen. At first I'd see the show come on and I'd think, “ugh .. bible thumper spewing propaganda”, and I'd turn it off. Then one morning I was so tired that I didn't have the energy to get up and turn it off. I was raised with religion but it never sat well with me. I don't know what the Roman Catholic church teaches today. I only know what it taught me. We were taught that we were born with Original Sin. Born with sin. You haven't even been alive long enough to have done anything wrong, yet you're born with sin. And you spend your entire life trying to atone for that sin. The church used punishment and threats...
Another Day Of …... Nothing A saying I heard growing up was , “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. What it means is that you have the desire or intention to do something, but lack motivation to do it. I feel like I've been living in that space for a long time now. And as a result, there are so many things that need to be done, that have gone un-done. And now there's too much to be done. What used to be a molehill is now a mountain of chores to be attended. I look around and I can see that A, B, C, and D need to be done, and yet I can't seem to activate myself to respond. My get up and go has got up and gone. Today I can't even read an article because it's too much effort. It's so frustrating and I feel like anyone looking in from the outside, would just see “lazy”. “Sloth is a sin” … heard that growing up too. But it's not laziness. It's not a choice. It's an actual inability to motivate to actio...
June 23/2020 I'm exhausted from doing nothing today {sigh} Feeling really drained and like I need to nap. And that lingering feeling of downheartedness seems to be haunting me. Phobia Symptoms Yup. Got 'em all. This is all too real in my life. an immediate feeling of fear, anxiety, and panic when exposed to the source of the phobia or even thoughts of the source an understanding that the fear is atypical and extreme but, at the same time, an inability to minimize it a worsening of symptoms if the trigger isn’t removed avoidance of the situation that causes the fear reaction nausea, dizziness, trouble breathing, heart palpitations, or sweating when exposed to the trigger
Isolation It's been about 15mths now since I was diagnosed with anxiety/depression and complex trauma, after years of struggling and not knowing what was wrong with me. I'm still working my way through trauma recovery if that's even what it can be called. You can't undo trauma but you learn not to live "in" it. That's the goal. It can be a vicious cycle though. The trauma causes anxiety and the anxiety intensifies the trauma. And you feel alone in the world because of the isolation. People who once included you in activities, parties, get togethers, don't even realize that they've forgotten you. The isolation is gradual. You wake up one day and realize that outside of "work" activities,...
Saturday June 13/2020 Had a strange dream on Thursday night. I was walking somewhere with both my parents and I was walking behind them. It was my birthday and they had forgotten. When my mom was alive she would remember and send my dad out to buy a card and put $20 in it. That was it. No fanfare. No celebration. No fuss. After my mom died my dad never remembered my birthday. It came and went without acknowledgement. If it weren't for facebook reminding fb friends, no one would remember. I don't remember it ever being a special day. Not even on traditional milestones like Sweet 16. Somewhere along the line my birthday was celebrated though, because there is a photograph of me at about four years of age, at a table with a cake and other children. This would have been in England. I have no recollection of the event. Last year my friend Bev remembered my birthday and surprised me at a show we were doing. She had organized the team to put...
What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? What do you want to be when you grow up? Or what “did” you want to be when you grew up? When you were a kid and adults asked you this question, what did you say? What dreams did you have? For most of my young life my answer was “a dancer”. Because that was what I was told I wanted to be and was the only acceptable answer. Growing up I was never encouraged to explore different possibilities. Life was geared to one thing ..... dance. All music in our house was classical, ballet scores, or from musicals (movie/broadway). And we watched all the old movie musicals on television. Carousel, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. Oklahoma. Sound Of Music. White Christmas. To name a few. The movie personalities I knew were the likes of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly , Donald O'Conner. I wasn't familiar with any tv personalities or popular music, which added to my alienation from other kids my age....
Connections Lately I'm feeling really “alone”. Trauma impacts our lives. It creates anxiety and depression, things that I now realize I've suffered since childhood. It creates isolation. Isolation isn't just being physically alone. It's being emotionally alone. It's being around other people but not being connected. I was just watching an episode of the tv show Bones and in it Booth and Brennen are leaving the Jeffersonian. All the characters are connected. They are like family and their friendships make them family. They all really care for one another and they are both saddened by their colleagues leaving , and happy for their future. I've never felt that kind of connection in my life. I think the closest I've felt was when I worked at Bathurst Animal Clinic. I was there for nine years and we (the staff) had a good camaraderie, and socialized outside of work. But those friendships didn't maintain when I left the clinic. ...