Totally not over-reacting @Captain24 😊🤗. I am glad that it has helped you reflect and process. 😊. I would have also found it distressing and difficult. I think most people would.
Your story about being followed in the car in the post has me as: 😮, 😬, 😱, 😰, 😲. I can't believe (but I do believe you, I am just astonished at them!) they did all that to give you their number?! Wow, that is... just wow. That would have been so scary to be followed like that for so long - and for them to be waiting for you when you got to the pick-up window! Very smart thinking about the drive-thru, because you KNOW someone will be at those ordering & pick-up windows and you could even ask them to call the police if you feel threatened. Actually, the person following you is probably pretty lucky that the police weren't called -- I think it would be quite understandable if someone in your situation had asked for a "side order" of "please call the police, this car has been following me for an hour and I'm scared!"
Was "Joe" the bird's name? If so, I love that he was dobbing the dog in. 🤣
I'm now on my laptop, so I can multi-topic comment lol.
I am just imagining in class....
" @Captain24 , what is your favourite colour?"
C: "My mum says my favourite colour is pink."
" 😐😶 ... but what is your favourite colour?" (A shame that probably most people in general conversations don't pick up on these little "clues" 😢.)
😂oops my addled brain and memory is showing eh, @Captain24 😂. Prime example of how I can't hold too many replies in my mind at once any more 😂, getting "who posted what" mixed up 🤕. Sorry @Flutterbug9 ! I hope you can have a laugh at that also!! I am sorry that you weren't allowed to go fishing with him, @Flutterbug9 😤.
Its only as I am an older, calmer adult (and not living with him!) that I am able to safely assert myself with my father @Captain24. I wasn't able to do this as a child, teen, or in my early 20's. Sometimes my mum wasn't able to either (even on trivial things like whether I could get my ear pierced -- his belief that upper ear piercings represented "dropouts" was the final say, irrespective of the fact that I was starting my senior years of school - not dropping out!). Instead, I mostly tried to avoid him. He, also, has come a long way himself in his acceptance that we are individuals and it is OK for us to have different opinions (with 3 topic-exceptions lol - that is still not something he can ... process). If he had not gone through this processing himself, then it would not have been safe for me to "talk back" (as he would have seen it) to assert myself. However, the trigger for him to realise that he needed to "accept" that we are not under his control was that 1) we were no longer willing to live with him, and that 2) if he continued to "tell us what to do/think" and judge us then we would not meet/communicate with him anymore. It took him some practice, and at times he would sometimes still do it - but we were able to remind him when it happened that such comments will result in us not being willing to meet with him (I generally had a monthly dinner with him at that time, which for me was very stressful but for his sake due to his loneliness after having to move out).
@Flutterbug9 this is why it is hurtful for me (not sure if i have actually mentioned this aspect before) when I see my dad investing more in his step-children (he has known for 6 years only) rather than in myself or my sister, who have suffered during our childhood, teens and early adult life with his behaviours but "stuck by him" through that, and now that he is finally not-negative & not-judgemental we have been "demoted" in importance in favour of the step-children that never had to experience his prior behaviours. This is on top of the stress from trying to communicate with him that I mentioned after Christmas 😅. Adds "insult to injury", as they say.
Re: your sleep, was it you who mentioned the ADHD medications @Captain24 ? Could that change of dosage (within the pdoc guidelines) be a possible contributor to the sleep timings?
I hear a lot of people say that the more they think about needing to sleep the harder it is to fall asleep. I know i feel frustrated when I have insomnia but know I have to get up the next day for something - makes it a lot harder to sleep when I am feeling that I need to. I wonder if a 10minutes "get up and do ..." would help to reduce the mental focus on "need to sleep" as well as give a bit of a physcial-muscle-tiredness? (or maybe it's my chronic fatigue that makes the 10-minute "do something" exhausting lol)
I listen to audio podcasts to help me unwind and fall asleep. I know some people find a warm heatpack with a calming scent over their eyes (like at a relaxation massage) an aid to sleep. just thowing around ideas incase something sticks.
Wishing I could sprinkle some magic pixie dust to help you drift away to a peaceful, deep sleep.
@MissGremlin - celebrating your "win" of going to the shops and not forgetting anything! 😁
So nice that your colouring books arrived 😍. I love how @Flutterbug9 was able to share this with you and that now you are also able to enjoy it too! Yay for community! @tyme
@Captain24 I'm genuinely confused about what you think you said to @MissGremlin that was the "wrong thing"? i am assuming something must have been deleted/removed, because I honestly can't see anything that i can imagine to be of that category. Holding you in the pain you are feeling though. Sounds like the depressed-and-anxious brain is popping its head up strongly and giving you these thoughts about yourself.
For this reason, I will re-state that:
- I do not think you are horrible or self-centred.
- I do not think you deserve to be alone or lonely.
- I think you are a really nice person, who has been hurt so deeply by people in the past (and present).
- I think you deserve care, empathy and healing.
- I think you have experienced trauma that is likely feeding a lot of these self-perceptions; and I think this is understandable and a common result of trauma. This is not your fault. This is not your "doing".
- I care about you (and @MissGremlin and @Flutterbug9 ).
