Recent Posts

1

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Farm Doin's - 2020

« Last post by Hopalong on Today at 03:42:51 PM »

Welcome home, Buck!!!!!

I'm very happy for you both, Amber.

And especially glad for you that you see the over-thinking for the impediment it is, and are working not to get stuck there. Bravo. Not easy to undo long habits but nothing like falling in love to upend a lot of autopilot stuff.

It sounds to me as though you both have such positive impacts on each other, overall. And what a relief that B is now aiming for a safe, secure military retirement (if I remember the bureaucratic weirdness right).

Hol moving out? Oh that glorious day. No disrespect to her and I hope she'll be very self-sufficient and healthy in her own nest, which you have beyond-generously made possible.

Heading to Baltimore as the pandemic surges again? Dunno about THAT....

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: When it's SHAME

« Last post by Hopalong on Today at 03:37:22 PM »

Nobody envies my clothes, but I've been given quite a few nice things from friends. I enjoy those surprises, even when they don't suit! (We give each other stuff with the caveat--pass it on if it's not for you.)

I favor natural fabrics, relaxed drape, neutral OR jewel tones. Pastels make me disappear (white hair, pale skin, etc.). I still fit into most Mediums but often pick Large for comfort.

Have fun swapping! I bet Hol has a great feel for texture and color.

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: What's New for 2020?

« Last post by Hopalong on Today at 03:34:03 PM »

Soooooooo cool, Tupp. It makes so so so much sense.

If they're cheery, you could run a tiny notecards biz on the blog too, selling son's art.

We have great online printing services here, cheap (like VistaPrint).

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Coronavirus

« Last post by sKePTiKal on Today at 03:20:37 PM »

I don't think this can be contained - anymore than the common cold virus can be. Too many doctors & nurses observing the strictest protocols are getting ill. So many of the tests are coming up false positive or false negative... asymptomatic as a descriptor may not even be accurate. Drives me a bit nutz. But even the docs I know are hard pressed to nail down a diagnosis - with thorough testing. And there are - from the same docs - lots of head-scratching questions about why some of their elderly patients with underlying conditions are recovering, while heathy younger people are quickly succumbing.

Makes me think this virus is mostly harmless - UNTIL there is certain genetic feature that is the switch for the virus to turn deadly. But no; no one knows yet if there is such a thing (the researchers ARE looking; genetic research takes awhile).

The only thing I know for sure, is that our location/lifestyle has been preventative. Exactly what variable it is - number of people in a smaller geographical area or what - that makes the probabiity for getting sick go up, I've not no ideas. And I DO think about it a lot. Masks don't seem to be a guaranteed preventative; but I still wear mine in certain places. After working for years in a large campus building with lots of students/faculty in and out of it - and also open to the public, I've suspected HVAC systems of spreading germs for a long time... but no, there's no proof of that either. Maybe it's just a higher percentage of oxygen exchange in our rural location that's helping my state keep our numbers so low.

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: DeCluttering: Inspiration, Success Stories, Tips

« Last post by Hopalong on Today at 03:19:39 PM »

Thanks for that heartening story, G!
I feel so good for your friend.

Inspiration taken!

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Farm Doin's - 2020

« Last post by sKePTiKal on Today at 03:04:45 PM »

Hol still enjoys other people's little ones immensely. Yes, I think she'd still like to be pregnant and carry to term. She is more than wary about miscarrying again - which is understandable. But she tried some fertility Rx's (stuff for age; at 42 she has some peri-menopausal symptoms - that was about the age I started that mess too) and has since forsaken them. Like most things that affect our basic hormonal balance - she didn't like the effects and she also wasn't pregnant. She's not going to pursue things like that any further.

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Farm Doin's - 2020

« Last post by lighter on Today at 01:57:40 PM »

There are some parallel plots going on in the farm story right now. Different streams of activity... like different wet weather streams in a downpour - which we might get this week. Not the trop storm so much - but what the storm is going to run into; a weather feature coming out of the upper midwest/great lakes.  Thunder storm just rolled over us, Amber.  I do love the rain.

Hol has been working at the Hut; removing the wrong color of grout in her master bath shower so it can be regrouted. Heat gun and utility knife work - miserable but not physically difficult. She's just about done. Plumber has been busy connecting kitchen sink & bathroom stuff. Electrician worked Sat, too. This week looks to include moving her appliances down so the gas ones can be hooked up. Interior doors going up; trim getting finished; painting the few odds & ends left. Then, she's headed to B'more to help one of co-workers move. His wife has been going through chemo - and they are moving her and the little one first, as a virus precaution. Then the assembled crew - mostly people from the production crews - will dive in on the bigger stuff. The tv series that was postponed by the virus has been cancelled, so it's a good thing all those people have side jobs. Hol wasn't sure she was going to go back to work. The next weekend - my house will get emptied of her stuff.
You so often hit all the high points, IMO, and leave me feeling I have the big picture... and need nothing else from your posts to feel informed and caught up: )
 
Over the weekend, she invited out a friend & his wife that she hasn't seen in a long time. They live out of the city - but jumped at a chance to go somewhere for a change of scenery. He builds garden structures - ike greenhouses, solar systems, etc. And have a homesteader mentality. He and I hit it off and talked late into the darkness; I'm covered in mosquito bites... but we were trading his ideas & my long decades of being interested in this life. Years & years ago, I remember being on the first homestead - and telling Hol I could see her becoming the cliché farmwife with chickens, dogs & cats, & kids running around the yard. I smile to myself, seeing her make that transition - her way of course.
That warms my heart.  How kind of Hol to lend that hand.  I hope she stays safe.I hope being around a little one doesn't jerk her emotions around too hard for wanting her own.  Is she still talking about having a baby?

B had a very productive week on his training mission. One student reminded him, of him at that age. He spent a little more time with him - just as he did, with the guy who'd trained him. It was his first - and last - deep dive (100 ft or more) since his injury. And he got closure on that whole part of his life. Some of the diving gear got an appropriate "burial at sea". 17 to 65 is a pretty big chunk of someone's life. He called me a couple times over the weekend. Once when the dog, Seth (Hol's friend) & I got stung by yellow jackets.... LOL. I didn't see the nest when we walked around the deck. No major problems; B was just being protective. That can feel really new & strange to me; but I LIKE it. Sometimes I do remind him, I can take care of myself, though.
I so get that being able to take care of yourself, but also having a place where care and concern are welcome.  It's a delicate balance, IME.  I don't know why it sometimes brings up reactivity, but it does.  Well, I DO know, but it has nothing to do with your stuff,  thank God.

I didn't get TOO stuck in overthinking all these new feelings and the "knock you on your butt" intensity of them. I asked for, and got, the reassurance that I wasn't imagining how he feels about me. We are doing the trade, I described in the SHAME thread... so that our individual puzzle pieces of self are coming together to form a new picture. I had to transfer the one text he sent me, to my journal. So I flipped back, to the beginning marker - about my first weekend at the little cabin back in spring '16. Before I bought the farm. It was 6 months after Mike died.

The comparison is interesting. What happened as a result of that experience for me, was beginning a journey back into the whole world of Pre-Twiggy emotional intensity. All the stuff I had to "put away" to get all of my cognitive synapses firing in functional order after the trauma. Hops mentioned shame... I was shamed for how emotional I was as a result of all that trauma. I was expected - it was demanded of me - that I pull up my boots and keep on truckin' somehow. As if what had happened was just a minor insult. Those feelings were the full panorama of emotion, in living color.  I think I get that too.  The stoicism.... the need to get through and not feel weakened or weak or vulnerable or allowed to have normal human emotions while there's so much to be done.  Does that make sense to you? And it was ALL shutdown, in an attempt to keep my anger under wraps... because that emotion and it's intensity wasn't "comfortable" for other people around me. (Nevermind, it was a direct cry for HELP.)Familiar too. Funny I did meet other people in those early days who completely understood it... and started to help me figure it out. But the people I counted on the most just made things worse. Neighborhood people, teachers, my step-dad... they all helped...

and countless boyfriends and 3 husbands. LOL. I mentioned my stubborn persistence, in the other thread. LOLOL. I never stopped LOOKING for someone who could understand and accept that part of me. It would appear that B was on the same quest... and needed what I can give him too. A whole nother B is waking up too, in this process of working to be together. And communicating that between us... just blew the overthinking, doubts, and uncertainty right outta the water (why do I think I'm going to use that analogy a lot more??? LOLOL). This is real & it's for all the marbles this time. It's "what you see is what you get"... simple. Happy is now a new flavor in both our lives - and we're not clinging to any one particular moment of it... instead we're creating ways to manifest that as often as we can.  IME, it's a rare and cherished thing to be loved, even when speaking a less than popular truth.  It's a rare thing to be with people who respect your views, even though they don't agree, or don't get what they want in the moment.  It feels like a good marker in relationship.  Does this person treat me with respect and kindness, even when receiving sometimes painful information?  Can they hear it?  Can they process and discuss it, and accept it, without trying to change it?

I feel kinda like I'm designing myself a new life role... and I think I know where I got the idea from; but of course, it needs to be tailored to me. And Buck.  Yup.

And I'm going to weave a new balance between left-brain competence and right-brain emotion & processing. It's already starting... and some of it, I'm not even directing. That's OK too.

I just love it when a plan works out. LOLOLOLOLOL.

The difficulties and challenges will lead to more strength and understanding, IME. Sometimes disagreement and discomfort are messengers....
something has to change. 

Nothing has to be broken.  A tweak is just a tweak and all relationships are navigated and morphing, as a matter of healthy course, IME.  You're surin'real good, ((Amber.))

Lighter

8

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Farm Doin's - 2020

« Last post by sKePTiKal on Today at 08:46:41 AM »

There are some parallel plots going on in the farm story right now. Different streams of activity... like different wet weather streams in a downpour - which we might get this week. Not the trop storm so much - but what the storm is going to run into; a weather feature coming out of the upper midwest/great lakes.

Hol has been working at the Hut; removing the wrong color of grout in her master bath shower so it can be regrouted. Heat gun and utility knife work - miserable but not physically difficult. She's just about done. Plumber has been busy connecting kitchen sink & bathroom stuff. Electrician worked Sat, too. This week looks to include moving her appliances down so the gas ones can be hooked up. Interior doors going up; trim getting finished; painting the few odds & ends left. Then, she's headed to B'more to help one of co-workers move. His wife has been going through chemo - and they are moving her and the little one first, as a virus precaution. Then the assembled crew - mostly people from the production crews - will dive in on the bigger stuff. The tv series that was postponed by the virus has been cancelled, so it's a good thing all those people have side jobs. Hol wasn't sure she was going to go back to work. The next weekend - my house will get emptied of her stuff.

Over the weekend, she invited out a friend & his wife that she hasn't seen in a long time. They live out of the city - but jumped at a chance to go somewhere for a change of scenery. He builds garden structures - ike greenhouses, solar systems, etc. And have a homesteader mentality. He and I hit it off and talked late into the darkness; I'm covered in mosquito bites... but we were trading his ideas & my long decades of being interested in this life. Years & years ago, I remember being on the first homestead - and telling Hol I could see her becoming the cliché farmwife with chickens, dogs & cats, & kids running around the yard. I smile to myself, seeing her make that transition - her way of course.

B had a very productive week on his training mission. One student reminded him, of him at that age. He spent a little more time with him - just as he did, with the guy who'd trained him. It was his first - and last - deep dive (100 ft or more) since his injury. And he got closure on that whole part of his life. Some of the diving gear got an appropriate "burial at sea". 17 to 65 is a pretty big chunk of someone's life. He called me a couple times over the weekend. Once when the dog, Seth (Hol's friend) & I got stung by yellow jackets.... LOL. I didn't see the nest when we walked around the deck. No major problems; B was just being protective. That can feel really new & strange to me; but I LIKE it. Sometimes I do remind him, I can take care of myself, though.

I didn't get TOO stuck in overthinking all these new feelings and the "knock you on your butt" intensity of them. I asked for, and got, the reassurance that I wasn't imagining how he feels about me. We are doing the trade, I described in the SHAME thread... so that our individual puzzle pieces of self are coming together to form a new picture. I had to transfer the one text he sent me, to my journal. So I flipped back, to the beginning marker - about my first weekend at the little cabin back in spring '16. Before I bought the farm. It was 6 months after Mike died.

The comparison is interesting. What happened as a result of that experience for me, was beginning a journey back into the whole world of Pre-Twiggy emotional intensity. All the stuff I had to "put away" to get all of my cognitive synapses firing in functional order after the trauma. Hops mentioned shame... I was shamed for how emotional I was as a result of all that trauma. I was expected - it was demanded of me - that I pull up my boots and keep on truckin' somehow. As if what had happened was just a minor insult. Those feelings were the full panorama of emotion, in living color. And it was ALL shutdown, in an attempt to keep my anger under wraps... because that emotion and it's intensity wasn't "comfortable" for other people around me. (Nevermind, it was a direct cry for HELP.) Funny I did meet other people in those early days who completely understood it... and started to help me figure it out. But the people I counted on the most just made things worse. Neighborhood people, teachers, my step-dad... they all helped...

and countless boyfriends and 3 husbands. LOL. I mentioned my stubborn persistence, in the other thread. LOLOL. I never stopped LOOKING for someone who could understand and accept that part of me. It would appear that B was on the same quest... and needed what I can give him too. A whole nother B is waking up too, in this process of working to be together. And communicating that between us... just blew the overthinking, doubts, and uncertainty right outta the water (why do I think I'm going to use that analogy a lot more??? LOLOL). This is real & it's for all the marbles this time. It's "what you see is what you get"... simple. Happy is now a new flavor in both our lives - and we're not clinging to any one particular moment of it... instead we're creating ways to manifest that as often as we can.

I feel kinda like I'm designing myself a new life role... and I think I know where I got the idea from; but of course, it needs to be tailored to me. And Buck.

And I'm going to weave a new balance between left-brain competence and right-brain emotion & processing. It's already starting... and some of it, I'm not even directing. That's OK too.

I just love it when a plan works out. LOLOLOLOLOL.

9

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: When it's SHAME

« Last post by sKePTiKal on Today at 07:42:32 AM »

Honestly, there is something big & important in those clothes party swaps Tupp. It's an idea.

Clothes are often an expression of our identities; at least the bits we want to show the world. It's like those characteristics used to describe people's personalities: cheerful, compassionate, helpful, contained, strong, quirky, etc. Swapping those back & forth with other people is almost like sharing those inner traits... kind of a way to say:

"Oh? you need a little of Lighter's sorting power? Here's some that fits... I'll trade X amount for your ability to put complex feelings into words". You want to trade me some peaceful flow for my stubborn, hard-headed persistence? Here ya go..."

Ideally, this is something we do here. I know Hops' "release the outcome" has been added to my stash of valuable goodies. One of my favorites ways of dealing with frustrating impasses. Maybe she'll take on a little my ability to take a big job that requires more physical strength than I've got... and chunk it down to what is manageable; accepting that it'll take more time BUT it WILL get done.

10

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: What's New for 2020?

« Last post by Twoapenny on Today at 07:07:12 AM »

YESSSSS to a Tupp blog!
Oh
happy
dancing
wowee
wowzers
whoopee!

This is in so many ways, in my opinion, an incredibly positive idea. (No judgment if you choose to abandon it, it just is making me really happy for you NOW.)

You are such a great writer, so verrrry attuned. You notice details and nuances and more. I think it'd be absolutely a fabulous place to put those great talents that you haven't had the chance to attend to respectfully before.

Oh BRAVO!

hugs
Hops

Aw, thanks, Hops   No, I know no-one on here will judge if nothing comes of it, that's why I feel comfortable mentioning it - I'll not mention it to anyone else just now though

I've been doing quite a bit of work on it.  I think what I'd like to work on (and I'm doing all of this offline so I can decide whether I think it works and if I'm going about it the right way instead of launching it straight away and then getting myself into a muddle) is to have it primarily as an account of places we visit, taken from the viewpoint of a disabled person and their carer, but with some educational input and just practical information (parking's easy, train links are good, disabled toilets easy to find and so on).  But what I'd also like to do is link that to some more in depth information - about disability in general, home education information, managing on a low budget, applying for benefits, dealing with the public sector, recovering from abuse - these are all things that have made up our lives and I do know a lot about now, just from experience.  But I don't want it to be some great, labouring read so what I'm working on is something that's easy to read and fun just in relation to where we go and what we do but then also says, "for more information on sensory processing difficulties follow this link" or "I've written a guide to making your money go further here".  So the additional info is there but people don't have to wade through it if they just want a fifteen minute easy read while they wait to be called for their doctor's appointment.

I feel excited about it.  Son writes a journal and it's hilarious a lot of the time, so I can mix in things that he's written, partly so that it's a shared work but also because I think I would have felt so much more comfortable when he was little if I'd known someone who was an adult version of him and they were having a good time.  I felt so worried that he'd never be happy and I think I'd have worried less if I'd had access to all the information I've accumulated over the years from someone else who'd already done it.  I can also put in pictures, some of son's videos he makes (he's got hundreds), some of his artwork and that sort of thing.  I've had self filmed travel documentaries on in the background and some are really nice - just someone filming as they walk around going, "ooh, this is a nice castle, here's a field with a beautiful view, look at that big magpie".  It doesn't have to be television standard to be watchable so son could do that.  It feels good to be creating something rather than feeling I'm constantly dealing with the things other people have done that they shouldn't.

Anyway, we'll see.  I might give up.  I was filling in a survey today about people who don't finish their projects which made me laugh as I looked at my bookcase full of things I started and didn't finish.  But it feels like a nice hobby to get into, regardless xx