I am embarrassed

[kato]

@Rick
I really enjoy reading everything that you post, your perspectives on certain subjects is amazing. I have no idea personally how to research or compute these topics the way youand others do.
you have always come across as humble and honest and in everything I have read of yours
in truth I admire and respect you for being so up front regarding your findings
you word things in a way that makes the information absorb easier for me.
I usually don't comment on your posts as and I have said it before the topics don't relate to me petsonally but I still enjoy your posts.
I read them to learn about things and get a first hand perspective of what it entails
please do not be dissuaded to the good you do.
I often find myself thinking the same when I post a venting post of my own self centered which embodies no research and sometimes I feel I should shut up
your posts are always enlightening please keep it coming

[kristin]

Hey @Rick 

Please don't do this to yourself! I am not easily disheartened by medical research findings. If it runs totally counter to what my experience has been then I just figure they're wrong, or don't have the whole story yet. After all it is we who have the lived experience, is it not?

I understand you were trying to help, and I think others see that too. So please be kind to yourself for sharing hope in your own way. I'm sorry if what I said in reply was a bit bald in naming the very black and white perspective of research. This is a bit of a science problem. They want to have conclusions and that rarely has a lot of room for grey (and let's face it much of liife is neither black nor white).

Please do not shut down and shut us out - not over this. We need you. I need to be able to talk to you, I know you get this stuff. Do not punish us all because you feel the overwhelming need to punish yourself for a perceived (but truly not) misdemeanour.

I understand how you are feeling because I have just been having the most horrible emotional flooding going on. Thankfully I was able to ring my best friend and she was in an ok space to talk. Mind you I could barely talk myself, but she knows all the background which helps. 

Here's part of it:

Mid year I contracted an underground services location business to find my buried utilities, and part of the contract was to provide a map of where these are. When they were here I naively mentioned that I have PTSD. I had been very careful about enquiring what the minimum cost for them to attend was and how they charged for time. I got told $210 for first 1.5 hours inclusive, NO call-out or travel charge. So I booked them. They found the services, but not any pipes running between neighbouring properties (one of the reasons for arranging it) - which we have good reason to suspect - this was fair enough as the ground is full of river stones and probably building rubble too if my backyard is anything to go by. They were here for 1.5 hours.

When I got the invoice (late on a Sunday night by email) it was over $600 dollars, including a 2 hour time charge & a 2 hour travel charge! I hit the roof, as you can imagine. So I made myself calm down and rang the guy to explain the basis I'd contracted for their services. He then reduced it to 1.5 hours for both so over $400. I refused to pay. When he started theatening me with debt collectors etc I paid the $210 into his account in good faith and sent him an email explaining that he hadn't provided the map yet and when he did so I would pay another $91 (for a different machine which he'd offered to use & not charge us for) as this was the cost I'd been told when I'd enquired. 

He proceeded to the debt collectors, they threatened to list it on my credit rating. I pointed out that the amount is in dispute, so they can't list it. They've tried to charge me legal costs (which I'm not liable for) and vary the terms of the contract by making me pay before I receive the map. I don't trust this guy further than I could throw him, so I want to see the map and make sure it shows the measurements he took before I pay for it (I also know where these are now, so I can check it). They've now upped the legal charges and are threatening me with the magistrates court. Through this the lawyer attached to the debt collector has been phoning me, as well as emailing and sending snail mail. At one point I heard nothing for 6 weeks, then the screws were back on (that was the beginning of December). It is such a triggering time for me anyway that I just began to shut down. My agoraphobia kicked into overdrive and I have been struggling at times even with going to my therapy appointments. I have stopped answering the phone if it's a withheld number, or just one I don't recognise. I am also struggling to open my mail.

My good friend who is a lawyer is on long service leave and o/s. He kindly gave me advice so I could handle it myself in the early stages. Now I just don't know where to turn because I need to fight this but cannot do it without legal support. My BF suggested a couple of options - I can try WIRE being one and also womens legal service. So I will call them tomrrow if I can.

I studied contract and trade practice law at uni. I know what this guy's doing is illegal. But trying to hold out against it is costing me hugely in emotional terms. However the reality is that even though I'm very triggered and earlier today I felt like my brain was bound in barbed wire - if I were just to pay up to settle this it would feel like being complicit in abusing myself. It would be saying "it's ok" and it's not. 

So I'm trying desperately to keep it together. I had a good cry on the phone with my friend, very hard to do when I'm in that space as I tend to numb out or get very angry, and that helped SO much. Such a relief. Then a cool shower helped more. FInally relenting and getting take away for tea, even though I have stuff in the fridge which needs cooking, I really needed to give myself some breathing space. I am going to try to head for bed at 10pm tonight, as I have been struggling with going to bed - and with sleeping once there.

In the midst of sh*te ...

hope continues to endure

Kind regards,

Kristin

[Rick]

@kristin 

Kristin

I am very confused atm. Hypervigilance it seems. I desperately don't want to do harm to anybody. I feel I keep getting into trouble for things. I am used to being in the wrong. I don't know that I could ever be right. I'm sorry. I can see you have much on your plate right now and I'm sorry if I disturbed that. I may not be rational it is too difficult to see through. All I want to do is support folk .I don't have anyone to support me and it's lonely and it gets confusing and I must do everything on my own  there is no one else there  so I try to be supportive of others. I may be just a fake I dont know I thought it best to maybe withdraw any toxicity I bring withme may be a little psychotic right now cant be sure of anything very clouded everything has slowed down too slow the voice in my mind is screaming obscenities at me not hallucination but doc calls it the rearguard action memory imprint thing bad woman

i will try again to morrow maybe

[peace]

@Rick Oh please do not go away. I love what you post and I respect your views and I need your knowledge. Mostly I am grateful to have your support and the fact that you share some of your research is so appreciated.
Please do not give yourself a hard time. You truly don't deserve it. ♡♡♡

[kristin]

Hey @Rick 

I understand what that feels like. We get so used to being the whipping "boy" - you I think were literally so and I was emotionally - for anything and everything that went wrong.

This is incredibly trigger producing, and can have two opposite reactions in us. One is to blame ourselves for everything, finding or magnifying problems or believing our part in them is far worse than it is. The other is to be extraordinarily defensive. I don't know about you - I've only seen the propensity for self-blame - but I have struggled with both of these (the defensiveness was learned from my mum, she never really fully learned to take responsibilty altho she got a bit better at it in later life). At times I've experienced both reactions over the same issue (been very defensive to others but self-blamed internally).

What has taken me ages to learn, and I have to keep working on it because it's still a head-knowledge not a heart-knowledge at the moment, is that neither reaction is truly taking responsibility for consequences I have caused. When I take responsibility for someone else's stuff I deprive them of the opportunity to grow, if I don't take responsibility it feeds into my self-hatred big time and either way I don't grow. But these are not simple or easy things to untangle, even if the actual issue at hand seems to be straight forward. Untangling the mess often takes far more clarity and insight than we can possibly have when we are fully triggered. So if at all possible when that's where I find myself I will try and hold it for a while (in a mental box if necessary), until my arousal levels come down and I can sort through it more dispassionately.

Can I make a suggestion for the forum please? If you feel like you've "messed up" in some way then please don't assume you definitely have - either post it as a question, or maybe even email the mods and ask them about it. I suspect they wouldn't mind, what do you think @NikNik @CherryBomb ? Then we can respond to your concern and you don't need to tear yourself up unecessarily. We care about you Rick, I promise that if you stomp on an important boundary we'll tell you (gently and clearly) for everyone's sake - including yours. In my bbook that is what friends do. From what I have seen when this has happened on the forum you were extraordinarily gracious about it in your response (and felt incredibly triggered by it too).

I know this is acutely painful learning, but at the moment it's all we've got to learn better ways of relating. I'm pretty sure that, like me, you opt for that refiner's fire rather than staying in the same old emotional straight-jacket we were made to grow up in. So in the midst of turmoil...

hope for change for the better endures (& virtual hugs)

Kindest regards,

Kristin

[kristin]

BTW @Rick you are not a fake, or if you are then NO ONE is real. you may well be filled with toxicity from all you have suffered, but it is not what you share here. What you bring to the forum is care, interest, support and a lively intelligence in mental health which is encouraging quite a few of us to learn more about MI. 

So peace be with you my friend.

K

[CherryBomb]

Hi @kristin,

I like your idea! If people feel uncomfortable posting something themsevles, please feel free to email us mods, and we can post the question up for you. We will probably mention that it was an issue brought up by an anonymous member but we won't say who. We'd do this so the community knows that we are asking for a fellow community member rathern than asking from a mod's position.  

[kristin]

Hi @CherryBomb 

That wasn't quite what I meant. Although that might work. I meant that if Rick or anyone else feels theyhave really stuffed up big time on the forum that they can send you an email asking for another opinion, rather than beating themselves up for self-punishment.

Regards, 
Kristin

[CherryBomb]

Oops, sorry for the misunderstanding. Sure members can email us if they have any concerns about the Forums and/or if they're feeling triggered. That's what we're here for! We want to create a space where everyone feels safe and respected. So please feel free to drop us an email. 

[kristin]

Thx CB!