I'm in a nest

[Phoenix_Rising]

@CheerBear I can only imagine how tricky it must be thinking about going to hospital when you have three LF. I am assuming you have some sort of strategy that you can use to look after LF, like you did when you went to the break place - even if it is a strategy that you super don't WANT to use. I agree that you being in hospital is probably better for the LF than having you lying unconscious on the floor. 

Yay for getting eaten by a sofa! 

I super super super hope you don't have to go to hospital CheerBear, but if you do, then I am 100% certain that both you and the LF will get through that ok. 

[CheerBear]

I've been working on that strategy this afternoon @Phoenix_Rising. I have a plan that's so incredibly awesome and helpful for planned emergencies (like break place stays) but not really any kind of strategy for "I need someone right now" moments (aka actual emergencies), aside from the safety plan I have re the storm. That's the unnerving stuff.

Yesterday when I picked up the LF, one of the other school mums made a comment about how unwell I looked and offered to help out if I ever needed it as she lives around the corner. I said thanks and kind of tiptoed around it, but I might have to do something I totally do not want to do and ask for her number in case I ever need it when I see her today. I don't fit in to the school mum village here and haven't really tried to which is my bad, but maybe this is an opportunity to play suck-it-up a bit, and start rebuilding the village even if it is not the one I want it to be (this is the nice version of me cursing and ranting @Sans911 😉 ). It was really kind of her and I do appreciate it.

There is also a neighbour who comes with way too many intrusive questions about what happened with my partner, and brain popping comments about needing to find a husband, or needing to smile because it makes him sad when I don't smile. I think his heart is in the right place though and he high-fives the LF whenever he sees them and throws their balls back over the fence when his dog doesn't eat them. From the little I see/hear of his wife, she is lovely too. I think I might ask if it is ok if the LF knock at the door if they ever need to, and give him some contact details just in case. I have a gut feeling they are safe someones. They're not the someones we used to have next door and that makes me sad, but maybe I can kind of suck things up a bit more.

Plans are good. It'll be ok even when it isn't really ok 🙂

[Faith-and-Hope]

Good to hear you considering stretching yourself a little beyond what has become your comfort zone @CheerBear ..... wtg ..... baby steps.

🤗💕

[Teej]

Hey @CheerBear im so sorry you are doing it so rough just now. I haven’t been without a village before so I can only imagine how hard that would be. My village these days is very small but I’m passed really needing one. In fact my kids are most of my village.  I’m really thinking of you and know all those swear words are probably well earned just now. It would be incredibly hard.

I think there is a little bit of truth in that it’s really hard to build a new village when the old one was great. It makes it hard to start again. In fact beyond the forum I’ve not started to go beyond my four walls unless it’s for the kids either. I know it’s not fair but I know you’ll be able to do this. Try not to be hard on yourself too (haha what’s that we say). LF also have a great way of bringing some unexpected people to our village too. One of my biggest regrets when my kids were much younger was not accepting help when it was offered. I always saw it as a sign of weakness and that I should be doing better as a mum. I now (in my old bag age 😜), see it as a sign of strength. For me personally it means lots when I offer help and someone takes me up on it. 

I hope you feel better soon and only have to use this as a planning exercise. Life has a way of throwing curve balls when we least expect it. Sometimes they end up being helpful and sometimes they are just crap. Here’s hoping this ends up being a helpful one. 

Sending healing hugs. 🤗💜

[Faith-and-Hope]

I had to build a village @CheerBear @Teej .... because my family was too far away, and local family were undermining and destabilising as much as they were “supportive” in crisis times ..... they ticked the box of being there, but that sense of being cared about was missing.

We have one diagnosis floating around in the background that helps to explain why that was .....

My friends are my family, beyond my kids.  They have been there for me in the true sense.

[frog]

Oh @CheerBear sorry you're so sick. I'm thinking of you and wishing you well.

[CheerBear]

Thanks @Faith-and-Hope ☺ There are some pretty positive influences around here that make baby steps seem like ok things to try and it feel like there are safety nets of sorts if steps turn out to be tumbles 💗 Building villages is hard work. Building villages after they've been knocked down is soul crushing. Buuuuut it can happen. Hugs for your building Faith-and-Hope and for the things missing from your life that you needed to find elsewhere.

@Teej thank you heaps, for your words and for your understanding and for sharing your wisdom in the Teej way that has given me a smile since I 'met' you. I so appreciate it (you) ☺ Totally want to ask how you're getting on while you're here, but don't want to scare you away 😉 plus I can now hunt down a thread over that way ➡️. Am interested if you'd like to share though. I have been thinking of you lots.

I did the thing that I didn't want to do and now have a person to call upon if we need to. It would have to be a really big giant need to for me to, but it feels a little like reassurance that the LF would at least have a semi-familiar face if something bad happened. Big also has a set of numbers clearly written on the fridge to run next door if we really need. Yay. Good has come already. (And I am going to omit the part here where I say something about even if it isn't the good that I want it to be 😜)!

Thanks forumites for being here today. It's massively helped pull me out of a giant sinking pit of sadness ☺

[CheerBear]

@frog thank you ❤ I hope your day was ok-enough in the end. Thinking of you with your wobbles also.

[Former-Member]

Hello nest. 🌷

Sorry but I’m going to put all my responses here, instead of putting them in the right places ⬅️ ➡️. (They’ll probably be incomplete due to melty-brain, so I apologise in advance for anything I’ve missed.)

Hi @Sans911, @Pepsimax, @Teej, @Faith-and-Hope and @frog. I hope the week is being kind to you all so far. 🌷

@Phoenix_Rising, I am so glad that TTT sounds like a really helpful helping person. I super appreciate that you would want to clone her if she’s awesome. (And she really does sound awesome.) I’m sorry you’re in the waiting place again, but it sounds so much like you're heading in the right direction now (finally! No thanks to the peanut practice manager.) I totally understand needing to feel safe (I know that’s what I need, but I have no idea what that would even feel like—I hope I find out one day). Oh, and I am super impressed with your GP’s sneakiness. She’s definitely got your back. 😊 I hope your appointment with your turtle whisperer went well today. 🐢

@CheerBear, I’m really worried about you. I’m sorry you’re so sick. 🙁 I’m also really proud of you for taking steps to have an emergency safety net/action plan in place. I know it wasn’t easy. I’ve never had/been part of a village, so I can only imagine how hard it is to have a great one and lose it and have to build a new one. 🙁 You did so good today, @CheerBear. 🦄 You really are an awesome mum. 💚 I hope you are feeling as okayish as you can tonight. (P.S. I also super appreciate that you wanted to clone your great get it person.) 🌷

I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. I’ve been reading your posts, but I'm finding it so hard to post myself. I’m feeling quite useless, really—and super sad and super anxious. I hope you don’t mind if I do a bit of bucket dump.

My brain is very much not my friend—even more than usual—at the moment. My lease here ends in a couple of weeks and it’s making things extra messy in my head (which makes things tricky in my body too). I have another semester of uni, so I’ll be here (in this area and hopefully in this unit) for another six months. My goal has always been to move to Hobart, and I was hoping to do that after I (finally) finished my degree. The reality is though that moving across water is super expensive, I am poor and I am also extremely unwell. My anxiety is hitting new highs and I am terrified of everything. The idea of having to take Edie-Cat on a plane … I can’t breathe just thinking about it. (And it’s silly really because I took her on a plane from Perth to Melbourne which is a MUCH longer flight. But if something happens to her, I will be over, done, gone.) Something happening to Edie is only a tiny fraction of my fear about it all. I am just suddenly terrified of absolutely everything and I don’t understand why (and I hate not knowing why). Anyway, the point is that Hobart is looking like it’s not really an option. It will be another year at the very least before I can save enough money to move, which means yet another year living with no furniture. I really just want, for the first time in 38 years, to have a home. Also, if my NDIS application is approved (not holding my breath) I really want to start intensive therapy so that maybe one day I will actually want to live. I don’t want to put that off for another year or two or three—and I also don’t want to start therapy with someone then have to start again with someone new. It is so hard for me to trust people and that means it takes a really long time to get anywhere.

My other option to move to a cooler regional area in Victoria. The problem is that, even though it is cooler than here, it’s not as cool as Hobart. It will still be much too hot in summer. 🙁 I’m also not sure if I can make a ‘home’ there, knowing it’s not really where I want to be. I struggle to belong anyway/anywhere, but I have the teeniest-tiniest spark of hope for building a life. Maybe one day I can be part of a village? I just want/need something to be worth it. 🙁

Of course, none of this is urgent because technically (at this point at least) I don’t need to move until mid-2018 at the earliest, but I don’t like the unknown. I want to know what the plan is, what I’m working towards. Also with the lease ending, the agent will want me to sign another one and I don’t know that I want to (even though I don’t want to move out just yet). If I had a proper plan, I would know whether I should sign a lease. If I don't sign a lease, they might put the rent up. I’ve been here almost three years which is well and truly the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I was 15. I pay too much rent for a unit with fairly major issues, but better the devil you know, right? I don’t know. I just wish my brain would settle down a bit. This house/moving thing is only one tiny part of the mess that is rushing around inside my head. I’m so tired. I just want it to stop. Is any of this even worth it?

I have my phone appointment with my psychologist tomorrow and I’m feeling so sick about it. 🙁 She did send me an email tonight (in response to one I sent her) saying that she understands that I’m anxious about it, that we can make it a shorter appointment if we need to, and reminding me that we’re working together. I wish it really felt that way. I just feel like my brain is working against me.

Anyway, sorry. Sook over. I hope someone finds the wand or genie or eleventy million dollars soon. 😕

🌷

[CheerBear]

Good morning in the nest ☺ Hope the night was ok for all. My night ended and day started at early 3 something this morning. Not ideal but fighting to go back to sleep didn't work so I got up and enjoyed the stillness of the early morning.

@Former-Member - remember that time @Phoenix_Rising went all Kermit the Frog when you appeared? I think I probably looked a bit like that when I saw notifications that said you had arrived in forumland yesterday. You're missed when you're not here, but there's no need at all to be sorry for not being around. Thank you for the things you said 😊

I hope it helps to have picked up that bucket. For what it's worth, I think it's really cool that you did because I can imagine it is maybe scary/funny feeling for you to. When I was reading your post I kept thinking about a theme that comes up around here a bit and that's a lack of stability/security. The financial stress you have, being in the writing place with your NDIS application, a missing SF, no village, changes with your psych appointments, the end of your lease, even maybe a 'then what?' that could come with the end of uni not too far away - it seems like a whole lot of uncertainty. From my experience, those feelings are a breeding ground for anxiety. Things seem to bounce off each other and merge into one giant fear of everything. Everything that is a bit 'what if' can turn into a huge totally worst case scenario and all of a sudden everything feels terrifying. Then it turns into an "is it worth it?". How could it not when the world feels like that? It is so tiring and so hard to live with a brain that is not a friend.

I would quite possibly flip out about the idea of Noodle and Mouse being in the sky. Actually, not quite possibly, absolutely certainly. Even thinking about plane travel makes me shudder. The LF want to go away on a plane one day and, aside from the cost, one of the things that stops me is that I only have two sides and there are three of them. Who has to sit one person away? How do I choose betweeen them? And I don't think many domestic planes have rows of four so would we go two plus two (but then I have two away from me) or do I go three plus one (but then one really is far away)? Not-together with those who mean everything is yuck. To have to put Noodle or Mouse who are are furry versions of LF, totally away from me and not at all together with us - nope. I get plane travel is safe etc but it's a classic case of feeling brain overriding any form of thinking brain. I don't think any of what you said is silly (at all).

I feel really sad to think that you know where you want to be and why but getting there seems so hard/not possible 🙁 Same with the feelings of belonging. Struggling to belong is painful. I will be forever thankful for having landed here in the forum as being here has restored a sense of belonging that was so much missed and has given me hope that maybe I can find my people I belong with in the world beyond here again one day. It's not the same as belonging in the world we have to live in, but I hope maybe you can feel even a teeny bookish version of something similar.

I hope your appointment today goes well (or not terribly). Listening eyes ready if you'd like. And eyes always looking for a eleventy million dollars, a genie and/or a wand.

Ps Vance Joy? The Lumineers? Xavier Rudd?

🦄