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Post by Fivecat on Jun 19, 2013 17:56:24 GMT -5
I am SO glad to meet you! I.m a longtimer here but been offline for a long time, too. I.d not seen your story before. It. Is. Riveting. I hope you will continue with updates. You have a HUGE fan base here! Fivecat
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Post by gottaproblem on Jun 20, 2013 13:11:30 GMT -5
Happy Birthday Clutterpunk!!!
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Post by wynken on Jun 20, 2013 21:21:40 GMT -5
Happy Birthday ClutterPunk There are as many ways to have complex PTSD as there are suffers, and developing it in a scary childhood just happens as a way of coping in an unreal environment. Its some time since I read your story, but it seems like there was enough trauma, and you were forced into unreal roles that complex PTSD developed and gave you both the ability to survive and to get out. It might seem like a wonky survival method but it is just that - a survival method - even if it makes things difficult at times. I am so glad you are away from your father, and now you are back posting. That is really great that your friends got you to help when the situation was overwhelming. Now - at last - it is time for you to get help. That you are living with supportive friends and have access to a good therapist there is help for you.
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Post by Serendipity on Jun 21, 2013 1:01:25 GMT -5
Happy Birthday Clutterpunk! i hope you had a great day.
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Post by clutterpunk on Jun 29, 2013 15:12:02 GMT -5
Thanks guys! Sorry I didn't reply to this, outpatient group has kept me super busy.
I've been kind of slowly sharing my story, as I have the chance. I'm contemplating printing out my posts to this thread to share with my psychiatrist, maybe with a few of my group members. I'm definitely still considering the idea of someday trying to adapt it into a book, but I don't even know how I'd go about that...
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Post by lula on Jun 29, 2013 16:28:07 GMT -5
I learned long ago that daily journaling can be therapeutic. I was working my way through The Artist's Way at the time. I no longer journal, but I suppose these boards also serve as journaling of sorts.
clutterpunk, you have a lot of fans here who are always very glad to have your updates. Count me as one@
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Post by 60isolderthanithot on Jun 30, 2013 11:10:48 GMT -5
These boards are definitely electronic journals for many of us! It's a way to make concrete fleeting thoughts you might not pay attention to during the helter skelter of normal daily routine.
We're all pulling for you, Clutterpunk! Please remember that. You can say whatever you need to say.
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Post by clutterpunk on May 3, 2017 6:39:46 GMT -5
I have a facebook memory from 8 years ago today to thank for realizing that it's been EIGHT YEARS since I wrote my first post in this thread. Eight years since I started my first trembling steps out of the landfill that had become my life.
It's been four years since my last update. In that time, I've moved through three different houses, in as many states. I'm now in Texas, been here three years last month. Moving across the country from my father was hard. Listening to him deteriorate through a series of brief, mostly drunken phone calls and text messages was harder. In August of 2015 I finally got the call I'd been dreading since moving out of our apartment after my mom died; he was in critical condition in a hospital thousands of miles away. Brain dead, after he'd collapsed and had cpr done for the entirety of the thirty minute ride to the bigger hospital. After two days, they took him off the machines and he passed immediately. In four years, I had to make the decision to effectively end both my parents lives, by way of machines.
A year ago, the situation I'd been living in with my best friend and her husband, came to a head, when she realized two things, rather abruptly; one, she was transgendered, and two, the relationship (s)he was in, was abusive. After 3 years of living under the tyranny of that man, who treated me in almost every way very much like my father had, and constantly threatened to "put you on a bus and send you back to your dad" before he passed, I was able to admit how miserable I was, and got my friend to realize the truth of our situation. We moved out and into his sisters house almost immediately, and I helped support him through his transition into a man. We've been living here since, but it's far from ideal. We want to get our own place eventually, but things aren't easy.
I was able to work as a vet tech for about half a year, the first job I'd had in a decade, before my body gave out on me. I'm on disability now, facing a major ankle surgery, and struggling to get a proper diagnoses of the auto immune disorder I know I have.
But things aren't terrible. This house is messier then I'd like, because I'm too ill to clean it and the girls who own the house are pretty piggy. The back of the house has a definite cat odor and many times my laundry has come out smelling bad. It's very triggering for me sometimes, but then I remember how my life used to be, and this may well be a goddamned crystal palace in the sky compared to those days.
I have a dog now, a beautiful big blonde mess of a dog with the scars to prove he had a hard life himself, before we crossed paths. I fostered him off the euthanasia list for a local shelter, saved him just hours before he was to be put down, nursed him through major knee surgery, and adopted him. He's become one of the biggest reasons I've continued to go on, through some of the darker times over the last couple of years.
And there definitely have been. I started self harming, even wound up in the psych hospital last year, but since then I have been doing a lot better. It's never going to be easy, but I know that the darkest, most hopeless days are behind me. I remind myself that once, not as long ago as it seems, I would sit on the edge of a moldering couch in a sea of trash, waiting for the microwave to cook whatever I was going to have for dinner that night, warily gazing up at the ceiling that always threatened but never quite made good on it's promise to cave the rest of the way in, and thinking "I will die in this house."
I didn't. I got out. And for every time I feel like I'm trapped in another bad place, I remind myself of just how much worse it could be, once was.
On my left arm, along the inside, are four words inked onto my skin that I have repeated as a mantra for longer then I can remember;
This too, shall pass...
It's harder to remember, some days, then others. But it's the truth.
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Post by ohblondie on May 3, 2017 7:01:26 GMT -5
So good to hear from you clutterpunk! Good words to remember. ....this too shall pass.....
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Post by CourageouslyLion SeeksSerenity on May 3, 2017 7:52:45 GMT -5
clutterpunk , it's great to hear from you, you awesome courageous being you! Your story has inspired so many people in the past 8 years! Your post from today with your recent update ... brings tears to my eyes, reading about the past few years of your valiant spirit and beautiful heart. Love to you and everyone you care about, and I include gentle hugs to your dog.
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Post by def6 on May 3, 2017 12:14:36 GMT -5
clutterpunk I'm so happy to see you! You are a true survivor. Look into becoming a writer...I think you are talented.
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