Complex PTSD

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C-PTSD

typically the result of exposure to repeated or prolonged instances or multiple forms of interpersonal trauma, often occurring under circumstances where escape is not possible due to physical, psychological, maturational, family/environmental, or social constraints.

Judith Herman, 1992

Yes!

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It’s All About the Money

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benefits, budget, council tax, finance, housing benefit, loss, money

I thought I was having a bad day when I just read a Facebook post from an acquaintance who announced the loss of his son in an accident this morning. There is nothing like genuine bad news to make you realise that your problems are totally surmountable and irrelevant.

Having said that, I’m going back to me, whilst feeling for a family in grief.

Over the last few weeks 3son has revelled in his work and getting paid for the first time. It was late and he’s still waiting for a payslip. Housing Benefit have been most interested in his apprenticeship and have informed us that he now owes £98 odd a week in rent. The facts suggests the figure should be more like £75 but when have facts got in the way.

Today I got the announcement from Tax Credits about my current entitlement which has now plummeted after having lost 2son and now 3 son. It’s not quite in single digits but it’s close.

I also received Council Tax bill which has swapped from my having overpaid by £300 to being under by £600 as they seem to have wiped my single person discount for the entire year rather than when he started work and by charging the full whack, which I’m not sure is correct.

3son threw a bit of a hissy fit when I said his portion of the rent was £100. I didn’t expect it to be that much. He’s calmed down but it doesn’t exactly incentivise him and I haven’t mentioned council tax as well. I now feel churlish if I ask him for a financial contribution towards food and bills, which was the rent he was looking forward to paying.

I also, quite frankly, feel scared about the reduction in credits/benefits. These are the sums I will have to sustain us on over the next two years while I complete my training as a counsellor and can get a proper job. I’m also thinking of ditching one of my part time jobs now, because I can’t get motivated about it enough to do it properly and I can’t make myself care. I may have to get myself a part time job to make up but I only don’t see how I can fit it in. I haven’t sat down and really looked at how much I will have coming in and what I can cut. I was allowing myself an evening of feeling a bit sorry for myself before facing up to reality.

I knew this would happen but it seems to have happened all at once and housing benefit have got it wrong yet again but we have to pay first and argue later. I feel that I’m getting so close to almost starting a new life with a proper job and independent children and all that jazz but all of a sudden I am wondering how I’m going to make it financially. I don’t want to have to go back to penny pinching and I do know that I’m really lucky not to have been that badly off for the last however many years but I’m tired of fighting my case and arguing for benefits and tax credits that I am entitled to. Bank errors are never in my favour.

It does however all fade away in comparison to losing a child. I feel bad for writing all this but this is what is making me feel bad right now and the whole “my pain is lesser than your pain” argument might be true but it doesn’t actually diminish my pain. But still, my heart goes out to a family who will not sleep for many a night to come.

Another Fine Mess

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beds, project, swept away

Well here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.

…says Laurel to Hardy, on more than one occasion.

I’m not even sure how it started really but all of a sudden I end up buying new beds and mattresses and I’ve committed to helping paint our large bedroom. All of this will necessitate re-organising furniture in bedrooms and performing a three-way desk swap. And the temperature is going back up so doing any of that is going to be fun, fun, fun in the sun.

However one set of bunk beds we got shortly after we moved in here 16 years ago, passed on by a friend who also had 4 boys. I can’t remember where the other set of bunk beds came from but they weren’t new either. They did all get new mattresses at some point but they weren’t expensive. It feels like an extravagance but it’s not really and it’s well deserved.o

So 4son who has the largest bedroom in the house that all four used to share, and now only has to share with 2son in the holidays now gets a triple sleeper, which is a single on top of a double, as well as a reasonable mattress. 3son gets a small double and his big brother will have to sleep on the sofa bed when he comes round. 3son was moaning that his bedroom was inadequate, failing to remember how excited he was to first get his own bedroom, which was my study.

I didn’t need a project to take me through the holidays. I have got enough to do and wanted space to do nothing but that seems to have gone. On the other hand these are changes that will do us all good and it’s not as if anyone is leaving home anytime soon.

A Drop in Temperature

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heat, motivation, work

It is amazing what a drop in temperature does. I think I only woke up once last night and managed to get some proper work done this morning that desperately needed doing. Yesterday afternoon 2son tried to teach me a game and I really struggled to make any sense of it as I was tired from the day and the heat. Also I didn’t really want to spend an hour or two focusing on something that didn’t interest me, even though it is really important to him. I managed half an hour before I had to go out for the evening.

I have done some work which felt good and it got me to thinking about work. I had three nasty things on my mind this summer: 2son’s funding, which is sorted; benefit dispute which is actually progressing; and lastly a work project I don’t want to do. I still don’t want to do it. I considered resigning and then I thought about the hours I do and the fact that I need to keep a minimum of 16 hours work a week to qualify for tax credits and I couldn’t do that without this particular job as well. So I can’t unless I go to the trouble of finding something else and I really can’t be bothered.

I need to get my head round it, accept that I need to do it and get on with it. But I’ve been saying that for a few months now and nothing is happening. I finished my course two months ago and I’ve still done bugger all on this project. I can’t blame it all on the heat. There is a hump I need to get over after which it will be all right but I can’t quite find the motivation to get to the hump.

Ten Drops

Tags

heat, rain

This is possibly the hottest day since the last hottest day. But it was all right as there would be a thunderstorm at the end of it which would hopefully cool things down. It didn’t happen. There were about two claps of thunder and ten rain drops. A few hours later there were another ten. Then we had a good five minutes of rain. This did not make up for the month or so without any.

I’ve discovered that the best thing I can do in these hot evenings is to retire to the garden and watch a film on the tablet once the sun has gone down. I don’t have any garden lights as I don’t really sit out in the dark but inside is too hot.

I noticed my American expatriate explaining to her American friends back home that we don’t have air con as we don’t really have heat like this for more than five minutes. This summer is clearly different and it is affecting all of Europe. Not that climate deniers will learn from this. It is certainly bizarre being in England and knowing that it will still be hot tomorrow. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, but still hot.

If I didn’t have to do anything that required thought then it would all be fine. I’m sure that brains actually melt in the heat as my capacity for rational thought just goes out the window. Well, I’m blaming it on the heat anyway.

A Barbed Moment

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letting go, moment, repeating scene

I did something silly which marred what was otherwise a splendid day.

I’d planned for some spare time before collecting 2son and went for a walk on a small moor which was lovely. On the way back I got side tracked and caught up with a couple of guys and didn’t overtake them.

I was feeling slightly concerned about direction but sort of assumed they knew where they were going and we ended up back at the main road with a fence topped with barbed wire in the way. I was going to walk alongside it but they decided to help me over.

I should have just said no.

I didn’t because they were being nice and I didn’t want to seem like a wimp. But there was no way I could clear the fence and I didn’t. I now have cuts on the back of my legs that are not nice.

More to the point though I feel like a fool for not just saying no thanks, I’ll walk on. Plus of course I haven’t quite let go of it and am replaying it in my head. It happened. I wish it hadn’t but it did and it wasn’t the end of the world. Let go.

Moving On

Tags

benefits, gratitude, progress

Finally a positive result from benefits people. I got a woman who acknowledged that it would be quite nice if I got calculation sheets and after investigation discovered that the option to produce the missing calculation sheets I have been asked for was turned off over two years ago. She apologised profusely and said she would produce them for me. I also asked about the Disabled Child Premium that is supposed to apply to housing benefit after claiming DLA. Anyway she will send me a massive envelope through the mail and then I will have to sit down and go through it all seriously which will bore me rigid but after having spent a year asking for these I better go through them with a fine tooth comb.

Other than that, a lazy afternoon as it is too hot to think or do anything. I had a positive therapy session. We talked about the changes I am making now and the transformation in me since I started with her which is over two years. I inwardly preened when she said I had made most progress of all her clients and had to remind myself that it wasn’t a competition and I didn’t need a pat on the back from anyone as I know how much progress I have made. I still do not acknowledge it enough or feel grateful enough for where I am. Today’s Daily Calm was about gratitude and it struck a chord as I spend more time bemoaning lost years and less time feeling pride in where I am now. I am improving which is at least in the right direction. Improving is the wrong word though. I am becoming better at being me. I am unsquishing myself.

Calm

Tags

calm, mindful, quotation

In the evening it is cooler outside than in, when the heat is like this. After last night’s mammoth efforts and a mere five hours sleep I didn’t last long today but didn’t really want a kip. So I watched a film on the tablet in the garden as the sun set. The air was cooling down and there was a bit of a breeze. The table tennis players had gone to bed and other than two people watching videos there was little noise other than the rustle of the leaves.

It felt so good I did a spontaneous silent meditation, only ten minutes, but it felt important to acknowledge that peace inside me. Tomorrow I have therapy and this benefits meeting where I’m hopefully going to wrap things up one way or another. On the day after I go to get 2son from this school for the last time and there will be some emotions there.

Tonight however, right now I feel chilled and at peace. I’m even writing this on the evening rather than the morning after.

Earlier I discovered a lovely description of being mindful by Christopher Robin:

What I like doing best is Nothing… It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.

Lost in Concentration

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benefits, concentration, focus

I was watching a film in the background my son was watching. That finished. I put on some background to listen to and all of a sudden I realised it was half past one in the morning. I had been focused on a spreadsheet for five hours or so.

If only it had been a really exciting spreadsheet I was working on, but alas I had decided to really see what I could glean together for my benefits meeting on Tuesday. It wasn’t enough time but I do have a clearer picture. I still don’t know whether their calculations add up to what they say they do and I’m missing most of the figures but it is looking more likely to be correct ish.

It is of course the “ish” that annoys me. I should be able to source all the figures and make them all add up to the balance owed. I can’t. I got lost trying to work out the difference between current rent and arrears owed which is the point at which I switched it off. So many questions to ask and which ones will actually be worth asking?

It also begged the probably more important point of focus. I did get lost in the paperwork and the numbers. I haven’t got lost in paid work like that for a long time, or indeed anything else much. I flitter here and there and get bored very quickly. I’ll have to think about whether that is my just being bored with work or whether my ability to focus has just plummeted. What makes me so able to focus on some things but not on others?

We are All Diminished

All of us who had stayed until the bitter end of the course, apart from one who couldn’t make it and with the addition of one who didn’t finish got back together for an evening out. It was fun and it was interesting.

One of the men started to irritate me. He never has done before but this time he did not sit well with me. There has always been a bit of a joke as all the other men vanished from the group that he was the only man and he was surrounded by women. He is single and looking but he slobbered over the thinnest women and pretty much ignored the rest of us who are fat or just average.

It didn’t make me feel diminished, just angry that he was openly admitting that slender beauty was it and that men were incapable of looking further than the surface. If pulled up on it I’m sure he would have said that he was just jesting but I didn’t as I was reluctant to be the one to spoil the mood. That sort of attitude diminishes all of us, men and women, whether in fun or not.