Finally did it.

[GailJ]

Garages uggg. Glad my hubby fixes cars in his spare time, In the last week he rebuilt a engine, exhaust, did new springs on a truck, yesterday brakes and a new bearing on a Durango. Mr. Dodge and Mr. Tractor. Oh yeah fixed his haybine and put a new lift on it, Now if it ever stops raining we are ready to cut hay. Said I would clean out the bottom of the barn but still too exhausted and getting used to the effexors, So tired and weak, hardly managing to walk the yard. I know patience, give the meds their chance to adjust. I'll just go little bits at a time. Yesterday kept falling asleep all day, awake an hour, sleep an hour, and headaches, but that might be detoxing too. Don't know.

[SailorKaren]

Garages yummmm. Sorry, it's the engineer in me that's attracted to gizmos of all kinds. Before I moved to Florida, I lived in central Wisconsin, and I used to help out at an apple orchard. I loved to rummage around the old barns and tool sheds, and it was fun to hop on the tractor and mow the orchard. Speaking of Wisconsin, have you guys been dealing with excessive rain and flooding? Those news pictures of the houses falling into the river were from Lake Delton, not too many miles from where I used to live.

Sorry to hear about the discomfort from the meds. So much of our normal brain function relies on neurochemical transmission. I think our brain slowly adapts to a new chemical environment. Good luck with your appointment today!

[GailJ]

The uggg was for the prices they charge. We've had heavy rains all last week and thunderstorms evenings about three days now. Suns out now and about 30C high 80's I think. Our river is usually a foot and a half lower than it is now. Flooding isn't too bad where I live in Ontario because were high evelation here. Soggy feilds though.
Must admit the side effects from the effexors are one tenth of what I went through with the paxils. I can eat, am sleeping for the most part, It'll take time probably another four weeks yet. Such a strong dose, we'll see.

[GailJ]

Well I did it, Pretty much did a screening and really quick overview, she feels alcohol treatment right now I am not ready for yet. Would be too overwhelming but is willing to include it in with the counselling. Drinkers coming over today. Got rasberry juice in a water bottle. Going to cut grass and garden while their over at the shop. Hubby is already wound up with anxiety and I don't want to absorb his anxiety so I just pop in for a casual hello and right back out again. I can always say I am not feeling well and come inside if it gets to be too much for me.

[SailorKaren]

Ooops, misunderstood about garages. Yes they are expensive. I try to do what I can myself. I'm glad your session went well. You'll be able to give a nice report back to your workplace. Don't hesitate to post here if you start to feel overwhelmed by the drinking.

[GailJ]

I have to say I did have two. But is stopped after that, the counsellor said to keep a drinking diary untill our next visit. I don't want to chance more than two I think the binge urge kicks in at four so I am being very carefull and eating right after. Should have eaten before, BAC and all.
I did have lunch though so think I'll be OK, more awake today than yesterday. Found out I am only eligible for 14 weeks sick pay and that she gave me till October not September to recover. The guys have left and hubby playing with his godson outside. So a safe atmosphere. They dug out four weed wippers, gas powered to get one working. One with string, two with those plastic blades one and one with a saw blade on it. Of course the blade one is they got to work. That was it for me, anxiety took over and I came in the house. A good day, and I did cut grass for an hour too. My hubby millwright McGuiver. Can get anything to work.

[GailJ]

Karen did you go to Bay City High? I was there for grade 11, Such a culture shock, the prejudice, the drugs, the locker checks and the dope dogs. Never would we get that here in Canada. People don't realize how trully safe they are here. I miss the 4 of July fireworks on the beach and the Lightning Storms, even the sand crabs. LOL Funny how anxiety works don't feel safe in your own home no matter how safe it trully is. In comparison I don't lock my doors at night, I don't worry where the gun is if somebody breaks in, or the knife, I know where the neighbourhood are, Not like you, getto street, high class street, black no whites allowed neighbourhood. All mish mashed together. Sorry guess I'm flashbacking. PTSD and memories are such a cunfusing problem. Should of PM'd you on this. That was 27 yrs ago. I hope things have gotten better not worse.

[GailJ]

Good morning, went for a drive with hubby this morning, a coffee drive with the dog. We had a talk about money in which we are both maxed out. I have been trying to talk him into going into the bank to consolidate out finaces and make room for more useable liquid flow. He got anxious and won't here of it and turned it into it's an all your fault senario, show me something positive cause next year it'll be the same thing. This upset me and I just ended up saying yeah I know you think I'm a F*** up just like everybody else. Of course this finished the conversation and we didn't speak for the rest of the drive. It's frusterating even though he has good reason to think things are not going to change yet I'm trying so damned hard to change. I recognize that this kind of negative thinking whether it be from him, family, past friends or myself is a defeating attitude. Of course it affects my anxiety levels and I have to replace that irrational thought and emotion with a rational healthy thought. It's hard to do but I know I am doing my best.
He is entitled to his opinion, and I shouldn't have said that about myself even if I have good reason to believe it. I just will have to solve my money situation on my own and that means I can't afford certain things I have been paying for all along. I will talk to my own bank and see what I can do.

[historyteach]

Gail,
Since you only have 14 weeks of paid leave, and have a doc's note till November, sign up for temporary disability. You should be able to get it, and food stamps and perhaps even medical if you need it, too.

Glad to see you recognized your negative thinking. It takes a while to learn to stop it before it comes out of our mouth, but, you will, with practice and determination. Is your counselor doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with you? It's very useful for this type of thing. And for learning our triggers that lead to the negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

Shalom!

[GailJ]

She's going to take a rebt aproach. the ABC's Charts as on smart recovery. We don't have food stamps in Canada. There are food banks run by The Salvation Army. Used Them a lot when I was single and raising my kids without support,
Don't think it'll come to that. Might give up the sattelite TV for a while. He is anxious today but he should calm down, made up some fried egg sandwiches and there's a lovely rhubarb cobbler in the fridge. He's gone to work on tractors now, brought home a backhoe yesterday on loan. Needs work too. Heading out to garden. before the weather gets too hot. More sunflowers today.

[historyteach]

I'm sorry, I forgot you were in Canada!
I don't know anything about the system there. Sorry...

The cobbler sounds GREAT!

Ya know, I spent hours in the garden yesterday,
And I forgot to plant my sunflower seeds!!!
There's a soft drizzle today, so, I'll do it this morning.
Thanks for the reminder. :>)

Shalom!

[hippyhippy]

Hi hun (((gail)))

just popping by to say hello. Like you, I need to be getting my veggies growing in the garden. My tomato plants are taking over my kitchen windowsill!
Hippy
xxx

[SailorKaren]

Originally Posted by GailJ

[...] It's frusterating even though he has good reason to think things are not going to change yet I'm trying so damned hard to change. I recognize that this kind of negative thinking whether it be from him, family, past friends or myself is a defeating attitude. Of course it affects my anxiety levels and I have to replace that irrational thought and emotion with a rational healthy thought. It's hard to do but I know I am doing my best. [...]

Hi Gail, I like seeing your awareness of the rational process. I spent a little time yesterday over at the SMART Recovery website, and read some of the ABC info. It was neat to see that I'm doing some of that already. I'm going to read more as time permits.

No I did not attend Bay High here. I grew up in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, and got my BSEE in Tampa before going to graduate school in Madison, WI. It was definitely culture shock for me to move here from Madison, which is rather like San Francisco east. Living here is like living in southern Alabama -- deep, conservative values, lots of church attendance, military bases and their families in the community, good old boy politics, and a growing gang and wannabe activity that is downplayed or simply denied by local officials (can't scare off the tourists, ya know). If you feel safe enough, I'd be interested in hearing more about what triggers you as you remember being here. I could imagine similarities between life here and what you might have had to live with growing up with that religion. It's almost like a cult, isn't it?

I miss the friendly, open tolerance and acceptance I felt up north. I used to keep my country house unlocked all the time, and the canada geese and sandhill cranes kept me company. If only the water wasn't solid for 6 months of the year... A colleague where I worked used to live in Alaska, and his favorite bumper sticker there read "30 BELOW KEEPS OUT THE RIFF-RAFF."

You're doing great Gail, just keep doing your best every day. Your hubby sounds like a great guy for hanging with you in the tough times. My AW/SO apparently became fed up with boundaries I had set for my health, and made her decision without communicating. I was thrown out and threatened with the police the day after Christmas, and she is the one who abuses! So that has thrown me into PTSD. My hardest days are Sundays, where I am in the same space as her while I play in the band. It's like being in a room with my rapist. Your hubby will need time and continued good progress to regain his trust and comfort level. Do you think he would have any interest in a family forum here on SR? I have experienced some really loving and supportive folks over there. If he is reluctant about posting, there would be offline options too (we could talk about this PM)

Enjoy your gardening. I have to go in to work and check out a piece of gear that went down Friday night, 5 min before showtime. Yikes! My boss was working the show, and was able to hotwire things to work around it. I get to bat cleanup, but it's what I do well as a codie!

[GailJ]

PTSD alert, may trigger, SA issues



No problem speaking openly at all, actually I enjoyed my year in Panama City, but what did scare me was the drugs and the racism, from both sides, the amount of guns down there, the military bases didn't bother me at all. I missed my sisters in Canada and came back a year before my parents did. What triggers me most is reminders of sexual abuse and the fact that not one of the perpetrators ever came to justice. Yet here I am facing a second criminal conviction because a domestic dispute between hubby and I went too far and triggered my ptsd,

I smashed out the window of that car in a way fighting back. The perv who molested me two years ago continually tried to keep hubby as a friend and kept showing up in that car. My last sick leave he not only drove by several time a day, but broke into the farm and stole car parts when hubby was at work, I was fully agorophobic during that relapse, one of my sons was also charged and convited of a pedophile crime at the same time which triggered my CS abuse memories. I relapsed into PTSD drank 6 beer on two ativans, and only three weeks on seoxat which causes my depression to worsen to the point of being suicidal, anyway I fell asleep for a couple hours, woke up and forgot that I had drank at all. Took a panick attack fled the house in my car, blacked out behind the wheel, had a major accident and got a dui and have had no drivers license for two years. I didn't know that ativans could cause bouts of amnesia at that time.

Last year perv still kept showing up but knew he had been caught on the stealing so would stop at the fence to talk to hubby. His car was sold to perv number two who broke into my house while I was out of it on seroquels and four beer, made the pretense that I had to get up to meet with hubby who was not home. Convinced me I had to go, had been a long term friend to hubby and me and I saw no reason not to trust him, so I got out of bed and went with him. I kept falling asleep in the truck in the crew cab, he actually moved his mother while I was sleeping I couldn't even walk. After he moved his mom and dropped her off while driving me home he pulled the truck over on a back road got out came to the back door and raped me fully, I tried fighting him off and appealing to his conscience but I was to out of it and this guy was about 250lbs and not taking no for an answer. After he was done he drove me home and carried me into the house put me back in bed and had the nerve to say don't tell hubby. Because of my PTSD fears and self blaming it took me three weeks before I had the courage to tell hubby. The cops called me a liar to my face when I reported it and said I didn't want him charged because of his wife and three small children. I didn't think they deserved to go through the horror of it all. So once again no justice. This car I smashed the winshield out of was given to hubby free by perv number two. It is a rare convertable and hubby didn't connect the dots to my abuse because he has wanted the car for years long before either perv owned it.
So in a way I was saying enough is enough, no way either of these guys is going to come here ever again. That the fight which did get physical was completely unacceptable and I was not standing for any abuse in any form from anyone again.
I just snapped when I broke that windshield, I had only three beer to drink that night and wasn't drunk. Hubby had me charged cause he didn't know what else to do, he scared himself too in the fight. My binging was getting worse as time went on, I felt like a worthless, *****, and that this car was like a pimp prize in some way. I was severly depressed and thinking that all this crap was going to happen again with drunks showing up every weekend, perv number one coming back. The social anxiety and fear of people knowing about my son and blaming me in some way.

I am glad my drinking is back under control. I have no intention of binging again or letting depression or anxiety trigger me into binging again and worsening my symptoms. I have to be able to put the past behind me, I need to stop suffering and being haunted by all these traumas. My siblings turned their backs on me when I confronted them about the CSA and where my PTSD came from over 10 yrs ago. I lost my children after my son was convicted as our town is small and I couldn't make them go to the same highschool as the three witness girls who prosecuted him attended there. The boys say they will never come back here again. I suffer with that every day. I took care of everybody my whole life till my parents died and my kids moved away. It's all very hard to bear. I was always there and I still feel I am the one being punished. It rips my heart out that I have to go to court and be the criminal over this rapists car. I think that is the final straw that caused this fourth relapse into PTSD, extream anxiety and non-stop panick attacks and binging.

I don't think jehovah's witnesses are a cult, yet they do hold very strict religious beliefs and feel they should not stray from their own flock so to speak or you will not be saved, much too strict for me. In a way it would be almost an amish way of life only with a different set of what they call true christian beliefs. They instilled a lot of fairy tale beleifs about how people should act and behave when I was young and the real world is just not like that and I wasn't prepared at all. My father being an alcoholic athiest closet drinker. We were taught very young to not tell what went on a home or if you were in trouble.

The meds are calming me down, the panick is gone but the anxiety and safety issues are still very prevelent. There are lots more triggers and other stuff that happened over the years that haunt me too but this relapse those seem to be my main triggers. As far as I know???

[historyteach]

(((Gail)))

Just sending lots of love and

Shalom!

[GailJ]

Hi, still sleepy and still no energy, but a good day otherwise.
Hope my PTSD triggers didn't freak anyone out.
One day at a time sober and liking it.

[SailorKaren]

Wow Gail, I acknowledge your strength and courage in sharing at the level you have. I'm very sorry for all the hurt you have been through. So many traumatic experiences, and no acknowledgment from anyone involved. That makes it extra hard. You simply did not deserve to be treated with such cruelty and disdain. I entered my abuse therapy with the idea that I had been abused physically and emotionally, and then I had a hypnotherapy session. During the session, I recovered a memory of sexual assault by my father. It seemed impossible to believe, like I had made it up. I have never shared this with my family, because they would never believe it to be possible. Later, my mom wrote me that she was feeling guilty about an incident where she had hit me on my genitals with the leather strap they both used to whip us with. She said she will never forget the look on my face. I have no memory of it happening.

I think for me that it is these early traumas that set the stage for PTSD, and have left me vulnerable to relapses when traumatic incidents occur in the present. My hope is that the more healing I can apply to my earliest of traumas, the easier it will be to heal the later ones, and make me less susceptible to injury in the future. This is tough and difficult work, and I'm holding thoughts of compassion and hope around you Gail. I look at the picture of you in your profile, and I see a beautiful person who has every right to feel tremendous anger over what has happened to her. Please keep posting, and I for one am glad you wrote what you did with such honesty.
More later,

[historyteach]

No freaking out here.
I simply want to share my support.

Shalom!

[GailJ]

Thankyou Sk and HT, I was xonked right out today, sleeping on and off all day. Like you SK father was the very first pertetrator and only once when I was five, I think your right about it setting the stage, I think I became very vulnerable after that, and your right my family never was there for me. I need the strength to stop asking them for what they never gave to begin with. I was very angry for a long time, now I am just sad that even though I had such a large family that the disfunctionality of it drove everyone their separate ways. It's much easier for them to think of me as just a drunk as they did my father, I guess that was part of the binging, just giving in to these very unheathy, negative judgemental, critical assumptions about me that just are not true.
Somewhere along the way I've lost myself and I would really like to be able to live a day without trying to find ways to prove myself to them or why I'm worthy of love and support and acceptance from them. It should be the other way around. You can see a little bit why 12 step programs would not work for me. Especially step eight. No desire to drink at all, Wanna face this once and for all. We drove by the courthouse yesterday and I instantly got a hundred flashbacks over my sons jury trial and my own dui, was really hoping I would never have to see that place again. Wonder if thats why I was so out of it today mentally, I know I am only in the end of my second week on the effexors but I really hope I can cope with court on Monday. I can't afford it but somehow will have to manage.

I get my license back at the end of July, but still won't be driving untill I can get my own car, insurance which is going to be through the roof and my breathalizer installed. Have a car here I will be able to drive. Older one 92 fifth avenue, Nice car, loaded with options so that should give me hope at least. Missing my sons graduation the day after court is going to be a killer depression wise. I can't go where they live either. Huge, huge PTSD triggers from my 10 married years of abuse and ex's family denies their sons illness all together and always blamed me. He's severely bipolar, rapid cycling and delusional. Very violent. They I fear have turned my youngest against me. I fear I've lost my kids for good and have to learn to accept that too. I need to focus on healing, recovering, once and for all. I have a good hubby, a career, I hope doesn't go down the drain over this. I went from being poverty stricken and single to owning sixteeen georgeous acres and designing and building hubby's and my dream home. Focus on the sucesses right, be a survivor, not a victim.

Hugs right back to both of you, Karen I can identify with so many emotions you and I both share over our pasts, It's sad but still a comfort to not go through this alone.

HT you council is invaluble to me and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

[liveweyerd]

I have PTSD, have been raped more than once but I have gotten over that. I was a grown woman.

I understand you freaking out that these guys are still coming around, it is like stalking.
I would think that after you told hubby this guy raped you, he would throw him off the property?

In the US it is very, very easy to get a no trespass order served on a person, I think I would do that if I were you.

Domestic violence, if neither of you fill out statements against the other and the window busted does belong to both of you and you can bust it if you want to, it's your property, it sound like it could likely be dismissed....here in the US

[GailJ]

Perp one is all but gone now, he knows he is not welcome here. He's burnt all his bridges in the area, wife stealing, cheating, ripping off people, mooching, He's moving on.
Hubby himself is an abuse survivor, He's only now learn not to let people take advantage of his generosity. It took him a long time to accept this so called friend of twenty-five plus years did this. He is good at being self protective, but never dealt with a situation like this before. Perp two has never been back, I think he sent the car out of guilt knowing what perp one had done and dealing with his own guilt over what he had done.
Of course this never even entered hubbys mind. I don't know why but that is what he says. Cars are trully his passion and I believe him, the car had a long list of owners before them and hubby knew them all.

It is just a car, not the owner, an object and I will learn to deal with that and get over the triggers it causes.

It's more complicated getting a restraining order against people here, you need proof, video evidence and such, since I never pressed charges and never photographed him breaking into the farm the chances are slim. The cops are less than helpfull in that department with me to say the least.

Feeling more awake today, I cut my seroquel in half at bedtime last night and still managed to sleep eight hours, Just took my effexors so will have to see. Our weather is really cool today so I'm bundling up and going to finish weeding out the veggie garden
It's half done and I'd like to stay on top of it this year. Planning a grocery list too. My sick pay is coming in tommorow retroactive to when I left work so I want to stock up, I've been neglecting the meals department and have to get back into healthy eating for hubby and I. Hope I have energy today.

[GailJ]

I finished weeding my garden yesterday and filling in the gaps. Saved a life twice now, we had a day old chick given to us and he nearly froze in the cage. She was all but dead so I spent the afternoon after the garden warming her back up in my hand untill she was strong enough to drink, I pureed some scratch feed from the barn and put it in her water so she would have nutrients untill she learned to eat. I brought her in the house and put a heating pad in a box with a towel on top. I guess the heating pad shuts off automatically so again this morning she was weak with cold, turned the heating pad back on and she's back to life again. Some survival instinct. I hope she rewards us when she grows up with some lovely organic farm fresh eggs.

I'm concerned about hubby, I think he's resenting my sick time, he made a crack about it after work yesterday. Something about must be nice to have the whole summer off.
I asked him what that was supposed to mean. He said nothing and shruged it off.
Than again this morning he said I am going to WORK. On his way out the door. Made sure to emphasize the work part. I hope this doesn't turn into a big resentment problem with him. Guess my department is getting full hours with overtime this week. Means I'm losing 3-4 hu