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2021-08-22 - 1:11 p.m.

I am having a lovely day.
I kinda feel badly that the oldest of the four kids of mine with my 2nd husband had to help me out to get my car that died towed to my mechanic.

It was hours of that project yesterday, but I did enjoy having time with her regardless. We got Chinese and ate it while waiting. It was funny and not funny at the same time that is was nice to be out of the house and relaxing as it was more pleasant sitting by the side of a dead vehicle waiting for a tow than being home amongst the screaming fighting siblings-but it was actually true in the moment!

After I got home it was an evening of listening to the rest of the kids.

I just sat and listened as they were triggered by something I said ( I forget what) then lit into me about how "abelist" I am to have certain household boundaries which they don't agree with.

It is both true and bullshit. True they all have PTSD and the simplest things trigger them. Bullshit that I am ablelist and it is my responsibility to not trigger them.

I reiterated the few boundaries I have of expectations of being in this household are not going to change. YES they each have their own rooms but the rooms DO need to be cleaned which includes vacuming and removing dirty dishes and stinky funky clothes or linens to be washed. If they don't do that I will do it on occasion.

One told me that my entering her room , which is her one safe place to feel safe triggers her intensely and that when I did that last ( four months ago now?) She then had four days where she was scared to leave her room. She said the PTSD is so deep that it took that long to recover and be functional.

I said that indicates that she should go to therapy.

I do appreachiate and have empathy for their trauma. I GET IT that their Dad did have absolute RAGE Episodes, waking them up AS LITTLE KIDS in the middle of their sleep - 11 pm, 1 AM in an absolute psycotic like anger rage that was absolutely INSANE and fucking scary and then got them up to RE CLEAN the bathroom or the kitchen or some other chore that was not to his satisfaction.

I GET IT that any seeking of housecleaning, or waking from a sleep in one's room is a trigger.

But the thing is- When I ask it is NORMAL and NOT crossing a boundary typically.

They acted like I have NEVER asked them to do the chore first.
True I don't NAG.
I don't go on and ask every day for weeks on end. I ask a couple times only then do it.

It is also true I don't do this OFTEN but only every few months-- say I notice a STINK or I see dirty dishes that were forgotton and potential health issue. (Truth be told none of them are that bad with the dishes.It is typically just when vacuming the house it MAKES SENSE to open the bedroom door and run through their rooms too once in a while after they have not done it).

I suppose fortunate these are the biggest issues. I think the trigger now that I recall was my trying to encourage them to watch loudness of voices and frequency of cursing as it is summer and our windows were open and the neighbors may want to enjoy THEIR porch in comfort with their small children and I would like my young adult and teen to be mindful not only of ME - to respect I don't care for constant cursing, but also be considerate of the neighbors quiet enjoyment without exposing their kids to such language.

They really don't think of others as I wish they would frankly. Far more self absorbed than I would have liked. They also resort to rather nasty tactics when arguing. It is not abelist to expect respectful language, not being cursed at and to not be screamed at.

They are however, despite those moments, not as BAD as they USED TO BE!

That is such an important thing for me to remember.

I heard today in one talk I listened to this morning that the neuroscience studies of how people learn show it takes and AVG of 66 days for a person to learn a new habit ( The 21 days is basically Bullshit, which is why most folks go to 30 day rehab programs and do not kick their bad habits that are physical addictions by that point.) 66 days on AVERAGE to learn a new habit-

but here is the thing

EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT

and it takes LONGER for many.


So when trying to learn a new way of being, of doing, of acting- there has to be both motivation and intention

AND TIME to try and fail and try over and over again for some (for many actually).

This was insightful to me personally as it took me FOREVER it seemed to actually PRACTICE guitar, to get disciplined EVEN THOUGH I WANT TO LEARN TO PLAY.

About 6 mos maybe?
How many parents would stop paying for lessons cause the kid won't practice? The reality is for some folks they will practive and learn in time but it takes more than 6 mos to get into a routine.

Many don't have luxury to keep paying for lessons that might not pay off...
but IF YOU DO and a kid or yourself has the interest and motivation sometimes that is not even enough.. there are still difficutties but with support and TIME they WILL GET THERE,

So I am proud of myself I stuck with it and was gentle with myself and now I know three songs. So what if it took me darn near a year and slow progress to get there! I actually know all the basic cords and can now, with practice, pick up music and learn any song I want.
I GET it now.
I always could play by ear but I can read notation and translate to play on the guitar, or read chord charts and play them. SURE it takes practice to sound decent but as my teacher said to me last week
" YOu came a long way! This sounds like music to me!"

We are finally beyond the basics of developing good HABITS of how to hold the guitar correctly and correct hand positioning and strumming.

So I think of the healing of trauma and learning new ways to interact to break old abusive family patterns the same way.
The fundamentals will come but be patient and take time in reinforcing even when it seems that it is impossible and litte progress being made.

One day it will fall into place.
One day the flow of communicaiton will be more noral and less echoing the traditions of dysfunctional family patterns.

But until then I have to be patient with the process. And the first step is for each person in the family to feel SAFE and SECURE and RESPECTED without fear. .

Even if I am Not WRONG in my actions and I am a trigger; it is not my responsibility really to teach the kids how to manage triggers and it is not my responsibiltuy to NOT trigger ( as normal expectations may be triggers) IT CAN ONLY HELP THEM for me to be willing to LISTEN and HEAR THEM OUT
as they put the blame on me for their behaviors. I can say I disagree but also listen and give them the space to vent and be,

There is a balance in this.

IT is hard.
I was affirmed listening to a lecture this morning to be patient. Progress is incremental and slow but it happens!

So the more my kids are in a peaceful home ( even if they disrupt it with blow ups as they were so used to them) the more they will eventually get used to being at peace. The disengaging from world to rest is their way of healing. They NEEDED That to a point and when ready come out of their cocoons and then will learn how to re-engage. It just takes time.
BE PATIENT

For anyone with kids with issues...I don't care if it is ADHD, or autism, or trauma from anything- chronic illness or abuse...
I think this is a great resource. The link might work EVEN after the event, but if not the curator of this event Seth Perlman is amazing.

https://executivefunctionsummit.com/?fbclid=IwAR0czvqLqcGl5ehfNxtVpatUGZgox-G5ruQLJ0SS23yQQnKcG3PuSobh48M

In other news I pulled out my bike this morning and oiled it and put air in the tires to be ready to bike to church. I ran to the store first to get breakfast food for the kids ( donuts among other things) and then I biked to church which felt SO GOOD.

It was not easy the first part of the ride, surprised I was out of shape and it was hard for a few minutes but then got in flow and it felt great. The ride back was lovely and I thought how silly I procrastinated all summer getting my bike out as I forgot how much I ENJOY To ride!

I will call the 1-800 KIA Number to arrange a RECALL REPAIR of my catalytic converter the local dealer gave me BS about.
Hope that goes well and they schedule a replacement appointment.

In the meantime, the bike will be my commuting vehical for the one day I have to go into the office. I am so thrilled my job is currently not as far as the former couple of them had been!! It should be a really nice commute actually ( I HOPE.. IT is on a busy main road but I am rather sure I can map on trail and have only a few back roads to get there... my task today is to map out the bike commute and pack a commuting bag to be ready and figure out how early I have to leave).

OH yeah... and the other task was try ONCE AGAIN To turn on my new work cell number.

I tried to port the work cell # from the old phone ( the one the boss told me has clicking sounds and white noise) to the new one and it failed. That was because I accidentally clicked a wrong number when listening to the tracfone prompts and clicked "Give me a new number" for the old tracfone! , meaning I had a NEW number accidentally issued to the old phone BEFORE the port was completed. IT was totally a mess up on my part.
If a number is not active it can't be ported easily
Tracfone is essentially a reseller of service from one of the big companies. The trouble is if you inactive a line that was with tracfone then one of those big companies hold the number and the problem is that if not associated with an account there is no way to verify the info to port that number, If I can[t prove the number is mine I can't make the number live on a new phone.

SO in my case, when I accidentally hit that prompt and got a NEW number on my old crappy phone with the clicking and background noise, my OLD WORK NUMBER which is the one I want to retain and keep live but move to a better phone ( and with a different carrier) , was just stuck in the limbo of being held by a big telecom but inactive and no way to port.

TRACFONE service actually is pretty good. They were able to pull the number back and re-assign it to the old phone and turn it back on live so I could continue to use that phone last week for work. I wanted to TRY to port the number to my new phone AGAIN over the weekend so it did not interfere with work if something more goes wrong.

I put in the request and hope all goes well this time around!
Patience....

Honestly I just do NOT want a new work number. I have used that number for every multifactor authentication process I use for work. There will be a number of systems I would have to change and re-set up and it would be a big PIA!! So I put in the request again today to port the existing work number to this new phone. I kinda hate that the new phone has all the bells and whistles of extra software. I will uninstall ALL I CAN. I don't want all that crap on my work phone. I want a phone line only for voice calls and text only. I don't want to comingle personal with work; and I don't even want internet access available on my work phone. I WANT to compartmentalize. I want clear boundaries between work and the rest of life. I am happy this company at least reimbursed for use of phone. That is decent. I found the cheapest phone and cheapest plan that will meet needs. Will see. "Transfer in Progress"


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