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Post by dayeanu on Jan 13, 2015 22:08:43 GMT -5
When I remove physical things, I feel exposed, vulnerable.
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Post by Unswamping on Jan 13, 2015 22:11:04 GMT -5
Kimmy in your honor, since you cant make the party tonight, i am throwing out the box for the water filter. Ive been looking at it for over a year. I put the instructions in the "instructions" box. I tossed in a few extra small boxes too. I put a lamp in the donate box, which is getting dropped off tomorrow. Dont worry about missing this weeks party, we can do another one next week. I like the suggestion to sort the items, like with like. I think that definetely helps. On sorting in a neutral space helps too. About a week ago, i set up a tray with flameless candles in the living room. They are vanilla scented, pleasant, not overpowering. For some reason, ive found it easier to work through the living room when i can smell them. As for photos, i have taken them. Ive just not been brave enough to post them here. Maybe if i can get one photo of the living room below the 1mb limit, i might post it.
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Post by cyn on Jan 13, 2015 23:07:17 GMT -5
Hey Kimmy, guess what: I've got a mobile phone box sitting around here too - I'm adding to my party pack, just for you!
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Post by Unswamping on Jan 14, 2015 0:53:20 GMT -5
dayeanu i feel the same way. Since i changed the locks on my door, i feel a bit safer. Im working on purging my living room right now, i keep reminding myself that im safe and no one can get in. Ill see how it goes. i know that it does take some adjustment because we are used to having the stuff around. Can you get rid of just one thing? One small thing that would be hard to notice?
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Post by phoenixcat on Jan 14, 2015 12:09:34 GMT -5
Maybe I should call it my "Extra Goodies" room, and celebrate my wealth of crap, . ! Someone on SooS used to name her "piles of stuff" - I think she called her utility room Howard. So, Howard was always up to something. It was really amusing and since she "personalized" it - I think she wanted to "help Howard". Someone else "hired herself" as a professional organizer who complained about the "lady of the house" and what unpleasant task was in store for her that day. Both threads/blogs were very funny and motivating. Of course, as typical of us, everyone else joined in on the fun. Maybe Lion remembers these threads. But hey, whatever works. My trauma corner is basement cupboards full of boxes of memorabilia. Since I just moved, it was a stack of plastic bins that the cats peed on!! I transferred it all to moving boxes (fortunately the pee didn't get in the plastic boxes!) and shoved it into the cupboards. It will be the last thing I look at because it doesn't affect my daily living. My mom has a trauma corner too - it is a huge closet. I moved all her "trauma" items into the closet last year. Frankly, I don't think she will ever deal with it which is OK and why I moved it out of main living space. She is working on pictures now which is probably all the trauma she can handle. At this point, I'm just hoping that I can deal with my memorabilia before I inherit her memorabilia - actually it is my grandmother's too - family legacy - keep all letters, cards, photos but don't do anything with them I think part of the problem is that everyone is well and busy when you are collecting this stuff and no time to deal with it. Then when there is time - it is all tainted with sadness and loss and you don't want to deal with it anymore. Good luck everyone!! PC
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Post by cyn on Jan 14, 2015 12:25:25 GMT -5
Oh, what a great idea, to name the room! Mine will be called "Griselda" meaning 'dark battle' OMG, how fitting.
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Post by thedreadedknock on Jan 14, 2015 13:26:26 GMT -5
Just saw this thread and read it all. What great stories and advice. My first thought was "I don't have a trauma corner. Wait... what's the worst thing that has ever happened to me? Oh... oh yeah... I do." I'd buried the memory and the things that reminded me of it. Literally- buried the stuff. They are in a back corner of a walk in closet that is only accessible by carefully walking over mounds of useless crap. So I conveniently forgot about the ghostly things. Now that I've remembered them I can try to work up the courage to go in there.
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Post by Warrior Kimmy on Jan 14, 2015 13:46:36 GMT -5
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Post by angela on Jan 14, 2015 14:23:57 GMT -5
I wish I could stop ADDING to the trauma! Not only is it all the past stuff, it is the ongoing shame that I accumulate from my neglect of myself and my possessions, AND the fresh traumas of deaths and firings and family stuff, etc., etc.
It's like I can't get a break!
Just as an example, now piled on the old trauma stuff (clothes that were from the GOOD job that I lost), now there are the clothes from the STUPID job I just lost! I have not done the usual summer to fall/winter clothing switch-over even yet because I don't want to deal with these clothes!
In the disaster of a kitchen...food still in the fridge from this summer, housemate's last meal. I'm not kidding. His whole side of the cupboards. I can hardly bear to touch it. To even write this makes me cry.
Ghosts everywhere, I'm telling you...squalor from pets that are no longer with me, now all of housemates things, my own dead dreams and the associated stuff, in, around, over, and under the accumulated flotsam of daily living.
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Post by cyn on Jan 14, 2015 14:34:42 GMT -5
angela, everything does sound so overwhelming for you right now. I wish I could come help you. I'm sorry that the kitchen is a constant reminder, and makes you cry to talk about it. I know so many people here love you, and they're going to wish they could rush over to help and comfort you too.
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Post by angela on Jan 14, 2015 14:39:22 GMT -5
Aww cyn you're sweet. I'm going through what so many of us here are going through, just trying to live functional lives with some cleanliness, dignity, and order while feeling and processing overwhelmingly difficult emotions. Really, the only way around it all is through it, and if I have to weep and rage while cleaning out the poor refrigerator then I should just do that instead of putting myself in this position where I have more and more of my house that I avoid and find myself boxed into my bedroom because that's the only untraumatic place. I had an interesting experience about this sort of thing from a couple of years ago. I did this in chat. I had some rooster skins that I had saved in the freezer with the intention of tanning them for craft use. Well I had never gotten around to it and had taken them out of the freezer where they were sitting on my back porch in a grocery bag. They were gross. I couldn't bring myself to throw them out. I had no real clear idea why. I had processed the roosters with a dear friend of mine who had since moved far away. In chat, I got wonderful coaching to throw away the rooster skins. As we talked about it, I started weeping, hard. It wasn't about the rooster skins, it was that I was mourning my friend. I actually hadn't really processed the loss. And those emotions were all wrapped up in these things that really needed to be thrown away. It was an incredible lesson for me in how subconscious links can occur and how I/we can imbue possessions with emotions and attachments that are completely illogical. There is no way I could have guessed that just throwing those things away would unlock that grief. So I guess for me, thinking that deferred grief is somehow gone is really not accurate. But that's denial right?
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Post by cyn on Jan 14, 2015 14:44:53 GMT -5
I'm actually pretty fond of that office room of yours, with the greatest windows ever. Besides, what's wrong with weeping and raging? You can carry on, and give a great performance, get it all out...there's nothing worse than keeping it all inside. JMO, but that's how I deal with the crap life hands me.
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Post by Warrior Kimmy on Jan 14, 2015 23:37:38 GMT -5
I am with Angela, too, I can't seem to get a break...trauma, trauma on top of trauma. It is so unfair. I think of every Squalor thing as similar to the stages of hearing about a death...shock, denial, anger, then acceptance. We attach to these physical things when our balance is upset and it gives us the status quo almost to continue denying and not facing it. It has taken me 20 years to face some things. After 19 years, I will still stuck in shock mode. Because my body was protecting me and my mind was protecting me. Had I faced it last year, it probably would have killed me. Only this year did I have a breakthrough and very quickly almost in an instant I went from still being in shock straight to acceptance. I was freed! Ummm, but now I have all the remaining "things" to deal with, but hey I am able to face those demons now with a clear mind and yes memories, but the tears can come afterwards and the anger, too and the denial... Trauma can freeze us for 20 years. For a good reason. Now I will organise that aspect of my life and create a shrine to it, and honour it. It destroyed me for long enough. Time to take back that part of my life and create something useful from that experience. I admire parents whose child is murdered and they get straight into a memorial and honour them with a public cause. But many of us don't have that strength to do so. My child didn't get killed, but this is an example. It is like I was killed and I couldn't live on.
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Post by Warrior Kimmy on Jan 14, 2015 23:48:47 GMT -5
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Post by cyn on Jan 15, 2015 8:39:53 GMT -5
Ooooh, Kimmy, I totally agree with you! Picture this conversation: Crappy boss (at crappy job) says, "You're fired!" and the response from the now-ex-employee is, "Why, thank you!" with a tremendous grin. Ha! The only thing about losing a job that's worrying, is losing that income. So when you need that money, losing the job is very depressing. But not because of the job! Ewww, I've been so happy to lose jobs. I'd definitely thank my current boss - probably give her a big hug too - if she told me I never had to go back into that pit of mental anguish again. But for $$$, I'd cut the cord myself.
Interesting comment on being stuck in one of the stages...I never thought of that before. Right now, I can see that I've been stuck in anger for a loooong time. I can temper it, I can hide it, I can use it (my favorite, ha) but it's undeniably there. Huh. Maybe those idiots who told me I needed anger management weren't such idiots after all. I though they were just saying that because they didn't like to hear me rant. I thought if they stopped acting like idiots for a change, they'd see e better side of me. I'm *still* like that, rotfl.
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