MOANING MINI

It has been a very difficult time for me recently. For quite a number of months. I just don't seem to be able to shift this depression.

Oh I can still put on my act when I go to the supermarket and dog shows. A lot of the time I just do not want to be there and would rather be under my duvet.

Yesterday went for my swim and I did consider whether I'll to before I went but decided I was only feeling down and that swim would do me good. I was wrong. I only just managed to do half of my normal session and practically had to be carried to the changing room. The good side of this is once again it shows how good the staff are at the pool that I use. And it was made very clear to me that if I was not out within 15 minutes they would be coming in. I was extremely wobbly and my balance mechanism was extremely dodgy. Once I'm in the car I am perfectly all right because I'm sitting down and I don't have to balance anything. Twice I have had the police called on me because a good minded citizen and I'm not being sarcastic, has called the police because they have seen a staggering man getting into a car and driving off. Of course they are going to think that I'm drunk.

I just feel very fed up. Just going to the bathroom is a major event. If we go out for any length of time like to dog show or to visit friends or to spend the day in a mall I have to take tablets to stop my bowels working so that I do not need to go to the bathroom and, this is really weird, a diuretic which you would think would have me peeing all day long but it has the opposite effect. Ever since I started taking the diuretic I have been so relieved because prior to that I was having to go to the loo every 20 minutes or thereabouts and waking up in the night several times. Now when I go I pee  at least a litre at a time and therefore much less often. This really is a good thing for me. It is not what I expected from taking the pill.

And then there is getting out of bed. If the post arrives early and they need my signature and I'm still in bed there is no chance that I will get downstairs in time to answer the door. I press one button to get my back completely upright I turn and then press another button that list my bum up until my feet on the floor and I'm stood upright. This is pretty amazing really but it can also be very frustrating.

I feel guilty for moaning about all this. I want to be able to do the things I want to do when I want to do them.

I've been worried a lot about the dog shows recently. I wonder how much longer I can deal with them. It isn't the dog show itself but the aftermath which is extremely painful on the day after dog show and the day after that I still have to do laze about and do nothing.

Yet I look at how lucky I to have all of the things that I have starting with John and the dogs,  a house that suits us very well and the state-of-the-art hi-fi system and computers that we wanted. I do try and concentrate on that but recently it has been very difficult.

I am worried about my dogs.  I have got to the point where I need to amalgamate my two lines. This has been the whole point all along.  yet at the moment I only have one bitch, Megan, and one of these puppies that are not old enough to tell how good they are. But keeping puppies from this letter already gives me enough dogs to take care of and I can't show all of them. I realise that I can show one and when it is either made up or I give up with it I can then take out the one that's been waiting at home for its chance and it will be mature so go straight into open..

I know there are people who think I have too many dogs because of my disease but they don't take into account the time here all day and I have drugs and now that I have changed my grooming routine it is very much easier. I have gone back to the old-fashioned way of daily grooming and at the moment I only have to groom four day and it really doesn't take very long at all and most of all it doesn't hurt. I have yet to see how long I can go between baths with those that her groom every day. Of course I use a spray on their coats because one must never groom a dry coat. But I'm not stupid and I know when I have too many dogs to cope with. And then it will be a matter of trusting others with my  line.

I am of the opinion that if you sell a dog to somebody then all the decisions regarding that dog belonged to the person who bought it and it is no longer my business so I would never sell a dog expecting that person to breed it the way I want it bred. So  high would have to be sure that I have done what I wanted to do first. But anybody who would be looking for a suitable show dog come breeding dog might well strike lucky with me.

I would love to get to the point of the breeder I know who keeps just one bitch and reads a letter and gets a champion every time because they have worked for very many years developing their line. I'm speaking of the Kutani line. I don't have that many years left to get to that point but I'm producing really well in each letter I am getting high quality stock but as I say I have to amalgamate first before I can cut down.

It amazes me what I end up writing about. I did not do myself any favours last night by eating wheat products. I very rarely do because I know the trouble it causes me but sometimes when I feel bad it's very hard to not reach out for comfort and that the time I'm eating it it is very comforting and it also makes me fall into a stupor and I sleep very well. I needn't tell you the effects  it causes me the next day! You'd think I had been out drinking all night because I feel so hung over.  still I will feel better later in the day and I have no one to blame but myself. O

SEARCHING FOR PEACE

A little while ago when I was having delirium at night-time part of that delirium was believing that two members of my family lived in my house-my mother and my younger (appropriately my voice to type wrote anger instead of younger …) brother. Since then I have had several dreams about him so I did a web search and found out that he is still very much alive and still pushing his lies and running away from the truth. He believes themselves to be some high spirit from another dimension and is here to heal the world and his specialities family healing. Yet he hates me and denies me. And that would be quite funny if it wasn't for the fact that he's ripping people off and many hundreds of dollars. Yes he has become a Guru that people follow and give away their money to in their desperate search for healing of the pain that they suffer not realising that no person can do that but themselves.

I understand people who do this because I was one of them although I never followed any gurus because I knew from a very young age that they could not be trusted I just read an awful lot of new-age style books all of which basically come down to blaming oneself for the pain that others caused one. In other words if you were sexually physically abused or emotionally neglected as a child and as an adult were suffering it was your fault. These books are very clever because they lead to long to yet another book and then another book and then another book. If any of these books also called healing gurus worked you would only need to see them once or you don't need to read one book. But now they real you win and they take advantage of your pain. The fact that my brother does this embarrasses me. I feel sad for him how could I not we had the same sort of upbringing.  He is still wandering the world trying to find his peace.  In doing so he has taken on this altar ego and is damaging other people. We all have our own paths to take and many of us choose pass the ultimately leave us in more pain. I cannot say that this is the wrong path for him because it may well lead him to himself where he will find his ultimate peace.

His way of dealing with our childhoods is to blame me and not parents. We have had two contacts in the last 25 years both of which ended up with him screaming how evil I am.

It makes me realise how lucky I that I did do the work and that are found the right person to help me do that work. The man I saw was far from a guru. He never told me where to go, led me, or told me what was wrong with me. He just gave me the space to tell my story. He did speak because he first needed to undo the damage that religious indoctrination does. I'm sure you've heard of people who leave cults who need the programming. This was the work he had to do with me first because it was preventing me recovering from my abuse as my religious beliefs were making it impossible for me to be truthful and therefore to heal.

I remember for a long time into my sessions with him I was extremely fearful that I was going to be struck down dead because I was speaking out against my family which is something my religious background told me was a wicked thing to do.  For Christians this comes in the  form of honour thy father and my mother.  It was not until I was free of that sort of thinking was able to heal.

One is never completely healed and that was one of the first things I learned. I went into therapy expecting that after a few months I would be healed and that my past would no longer matter and it would no longer have a negative effect on my present. It was one of the first illusions he destroyed. It actually drew me closer to him and made me trust him because he didn't promise me anything. The only thing he did promise me was that he would be there for me 24/7 for as long as I needed him.  he kept his word. I was extremely fortunate. Up until that point I had met a series of quacks and also  legitimately qualified psychotherapists. However none of them committed themselves to helping me heal. I vividly remember one of them digging out a very painful experience which finally got me to cry and fall apart. When this happened the 50 minutes is up and he threw me out. Quite literally. I sat outside in the dark in the rain in my car shaking and crying unable to move and I sat there for almost 3 hours until I was in a fit state to drive. I never went back to that person.

This sent to me looking through various self-help groups wearer was further damaged by strong individuals who thought that they were "there" and had the arrogance to think they could heal others when all they did was cause them more damage.

So I do truly understand the search for peace and the places it can take us and the money it can cost us. I was once full into a three-day seminar by very famous woman at the time. I was doubtful but I was full of hope that perhaps she really did have the answers. She didn't. She was a fraud. How do I know she was a fraud? Because she was abusive. She had stopped me halfway through a question in the public forum and shamed me because she wrongly assumed she knew the rest of the question.  later in private I asked her why she had done that and told her that the questions she thought I was going to ask  wasn't it. And spite in her voice when she replied was all I needed to know that she was a fraud. (I have altered slightly this story because I do not want to identify the person because I do not want any lawsuits!) 

It is an extremely wet day and dark.  By remembering that I need to use my light for at least 20 to 30 minutes every morning it has also made me  remember to write on my blog.

Life for me this last 18 months has been the both very good and not so good. I have been plagued by depression and flashbacks. I could not understand this as everything that was happening around me was good.  Fantastically good.  We were having our house remodelled, we were getting married.  What could I possibly have to be worried about?  People pointed out to me that both of these activities were very stressful and somebody else suggested that having my house torn apart even for a very good reason would affect me very deeply because it was my safety my safe place, almost like it was me that was being torn apart.

During this time it has become obvious that my disease has progressed. The neuropathic disease is much worse and still no name. The neurologist can only say that there are many people who have the same neurological disorder but I have but that as yet research has not come up with a cause or a name because the symptoms differ so widely. I get the most odd sensations in my body of suddenly feeling like something hot has been put on me usually on my legs, or something really cold. I fall over backwards. All of the time backwards. This is I am told one of the reasons that they know it is a neurological problem. I had a three-hour session of being examined and  answering questions.  Various things were done to my body and I was asked to report where I felt the pain all rather just what I felt. The results proved that I wasn't faking which I had begun to wonder. I know that seems weird but as a child I was constantly told there was nothing wrong with me and it was all in the mind and most of the doctors I have a source said the same thing. The tests also showed that my body reacted the way a body with a crumbling spine would. Although I did not know the purpose of the tests I was very pleased to the results. From a non-emotional point of view it was very interesting. Being touched in one place yet feeling it in another. It was also fairly painful examination because it involved lifting my arms and my legs and having them being put in various positions. 

So in the last almost 2 years now I suppose I have done very little in the way of dyeing and hence not added anything to my shop. I have also done very little in the way of knitting. This is partly because I have had a lot of trouble with my hands and there was a period of several weeks where I just could not knit at all. Fortunately I am able to again. I still cannot handwrite but that is no great loss and doesn't cause me a problem. People are very kind and if I have to fill out forms I tell them that I can't write and say they fill out the forms for me and I just do my squiggles signature at the end.

Life is very good for me right now which may seem a strange thing to say to those that know I have still been battling with my depression. Actually battling with is a really stupid thing to say. I dealing with it is more accurate I don't battle with anything.  I get annoyed when I hear people say that such and such a person battled bravely with their disease. I certainly don't I just get on with it. There is nothing I can do about it except live the best I can with it and in that I am successful most of the time. Being a human being I have short periods where I am less able to accept it and just get on with life.

Anyway this is gone on far too long today. 

LIVING DESPITE PAIN OR GIVING IN AND EXISTING IN FRONT OF THE TV.

 For some reason I have been having flashbacks a lot recently.  I have had three very disturbed nights where I have actually been sleepwalking but talking and sort of behaving normally but nonetheless asleep. I know this because of what John tells me. 

However, I had one whilst here on my own on to stay night. It was very disturbing to me. I dreamt that people were after my puppies and that they had been messing about with my baby puppy bottlefeeding kit. Eventually I went to sleep but it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. When I got up I was shocked to see that my bottlefeeding kit had indeed been messed about with. Clearly by me. 

I cannot really see a reason for all of this. The following thoughts  may be part of it. I had been waking in the morning absently convinced that my mother and my younger brother were in my house living in my house. By the time I was fully awake I realise this was nonsense. My mother is dead and my anger brother may also be I suppose. I mention that because perhaps that's why he was included in the dream.  I really don't know all I know is that I have been experiencing a lot flashbacks to very painful periods of my life. I do think that much of this has been brought about  by the constant references on the news to the child sexual is abuse scandals in the 60s and 70s for which the men involved are now being prosecuted. This was the period that my abuse was being experienced. 

I'm growing more concerned about my ability to continue to show my dogs. I am certainly much worse the day after the show than before. The pain is unbelievable.  What has grown worse is the pain in my legs. He used to be in my hips and it still is but my legs are waking me up because they are so painful and yet I couldn't really explain why they are so painful or describe how painful they are. In other words describing the pain would be very difficult.  I don't get up until very late which today was gone 1 PM. All I can say is thank goodness that John has retired  and is now always here the day after a dog show  because otherwise I would have to be dealing with the dogs and when I can barely move.

I refuse though to give up living. I didn't fight the effects of the abuse only to end up sat in front of the TV day after day.  Even after a day in a shopping maul where I in my wheelchair all day, I am very tired and sore. Nothing like being a in a dog show.  Although even at a dog show if I have my wheelchair I do very little walking apart from my time in the ring. I have just had an image of what I have to do in the ring and the walking parties very short. John and I measured the time and it is less than a minute and a half. However, I spend a lot of time on my knees and getting up from my knees and getting back down again and all that sort of thing. This is extremely difficult and if I'm going to fall it is usually when I stood doing nothing in the ring. I always fall backwards. I don't know why or rather I do not understand why but this is part of my neurological disorder and the fact that I always fall backwards is a well-known symptom of neurological disorders. At least I think that is what I've heard from my doctor. I may have misunderstood but for me definitely the falling backwards is what convinces them that a major part of my difficulty is neurological.

 I think what always trying to with my blog posts is showed that life can be very good for abuse survivors.  it is so difficult to believe that when we are caught in the grip of its pain which causes us  to self harm to have OCD and PTSD and any number of truly painful and disturbing symptoms.  it also makes relationships very difficult because our worlds were very different to the world in which those who are not abuse survivors is live.  we have so much mistrust and so much shame that we keep most of ourselves hidden and relationships with a person like us can be very difficult and I can now see why many people choose not to have us in their life because they just do not understand our worldview. Of course some of them are just plain unkind. 

Gradually if we put the work in over the years we develop good relationships that last. In my own case my good relationships that have lasted have been this very special people whose compassion stopped them from rejecting me.  Now the time to place where I understand myself and how I used to be I can see why I had a quite lonely life for a long period of time.  The most painful relationships I had were with friends who knew that I was holding back something from them and they both promised me that they would not reject me once they knew what it was because they'd believed they might be able to help me. I trusted them and I told them and they rejected me.  however, and this is really importantly it you understand, I eventually did tell others who remain friends today. And of course my husband  of nearly 33 years who did not reject me.  he did seriously think about ending our relationship about 18 months into it and he began to see how disturbed I was but I was lucky that he had met my family and he knew why I was the way I was and he also felt that rejecting me might be crushing the only chance might ever have. I believe he was right. I do not believe that without him I would have survived. He does not like to hear this but he knows it's true because of his explanation as to why he didn't leave me at the very beginning.  My behaviour must have been incredibly difficult for him to deal with. Receiving phone calls at work from hospitals demanding that he come and get me all telling him that I was in hospital and would be staying for a while. You have to bear in mind that in those days gay relationships were not respected at all and in fact some of the medicos thought that John was the cause of my problems!

I have never given up hope except for once when I tried to take my own life it should have worked as I knew that I would be undisturbed for at least 12 hours and that is exactly what happened. Unfortunately I was barely just still alive and I was unconscious nearly a week and I remember very strange symptoms after that like how my taste changed and foods I previous enjoyed I found foul and cigarettes became disgusting to me. This lasted about three months and I knew it's to stop the day the person next to me later up cigarette and it made me want one and hence I carried on smoking again so I basically smoked from the age of 15 to 49. I love the fact that I don't smoke any more. That I'm not controlled by the craving cigarettes which I no longer have. I find the smell of cigarettes repulsive and people who smoke have a very vile smell to them. I'm sorry to see you who still smoke but it's true people who smoke smell disgusting.  However I stopped smoking because I wanted to not because I was frightened into not smoking all shamed into not smoking. What actually enabled me to stop was John's diagnosis of COPD and he had stopped smoking 18 months before I did. I could no longer continue to smoke around him and so I would go outside when I wanted one. This became intolerable and so I stopped and it still amazes me to this day that I stopped doing something that I never thought was possible for me to stop.