What did you do today?

Thanks for asking,
I took two of my older chooks well one is a rooster for a spa treatment.
Blue skies, and not a breath of wind, in a thick top (winter here) I walked carefully down into my chook run, it was slippery with frost/dampness.
Marshmallow my faviourite hen. She has little if any vision in one eye, however do not let that make you think she is not a strong and feisty hen! She is mighty and feared. Roopert my white and faviourite rooster. I had neglected their legs, and noted that both had very gnarly looking legs, Scaly and I realised shit they had mites! I also noted one of her feet was swollen.

She is a sweet gentle hen and settles in my arms easily, she became used to this when she was a house hen due to her eye being hurt by another chook. So I carried her to where the spa awaited. I soaked her feet in warm salty water with a little dish washing detergent. To soften the deformed scales mites had created on her legs, I then gently removed them and I did apply a diluted apple cider vinegar solution which was understandably a shock and a little painful but it helps against infection. Finally a genourous application of paw paw ointment. Vaseline based which stays in place for ages and reduces the risk of dirt entering any open wounds from the descaling process. Prior to this I also was relieve to see no bumble foot she did have a clump of dirt in a fold of skin that was beginning to fold over, (and this would have potential to become infected and bumble foot) so I gently cleaned her feet and dried them completely. Also applied paw paw ointment to them rubbing it in.

Roopert was less desirable of his spa treatment. He managed a few scratches, but I wear them in acceptance as a sign I need to check everyone’s legs and feet more often. Roopert seemed to enjoy the warm water, understandably not so keen on the descaling nor the diluted vinegar application. He did have a lump in the underside of his foot thankfully it was not infected but a small rock had embedded itself in his foot and skin had grown over it, I guess like a splinter that is not painful. I was able to remove the stone, and clean and again apply the diluted vinegar solution, to the indented skin and cut the skin that had folded over the stone. There was no blood, it was just new skin thankfully. The paw paw ointment finished the spa treatment.

I am very happy to say that in my observations; now 2 days after their spa treatment both Marshmallow and Roopert are showing no signs of infection. Their legs look great and they both appear to be moving better and happier which makes sense if you have mites under your skin, very disconcerting to think about.
Who knew as a ‘homesteader’ I would also be offering spa treatments for chickens! The scale is a bit like old long toenails..and generally does not hurt to remove it and it takes effort.

Both Roopert and Marshmallow are much happier with their treated legs and all healed now.

Blessings to You, Tazzie

July 12, 2022 6

Insight

I have had a beautiful day today until mid afternoon.
I was in my kitchen cooking, (yes I do cook in amongst my hoarders mess). I happened to look out my window and it looked like someone was standing in my paddock, which borders the road. Sometimes I can have trouble with my eyes playing tricks on me with depth of field. As I was not certain, as anyone would, I moved out side to where I could ascertain if they were on my property or not. At first I had no idea who it was and it was just about the moment I was about to ask what the fuck they were doing when I realised it was a neighbour.
Taking photos of the sky. I said Hi (instead of screaming what the hell do You think you are doing on my property), and even though I felt some disquiet about someone being on my property; knowing it was my neighbour felt better and I decided to just leave it.

As the afternoon progressed into the early evening I found myself angry and becoming fixated on a particular post (on a couple of pages ) on facebook and basically was very negative and questioning everything that the organisation did. When I wrote my own post putting my personal opinion on this organisation and all its ‘faults’, and then responding to comments I began to see I was angry and fixated. I was placing my anger in the wrong direction and I was feeling so overwhelmed and frustrated. I deleted all the posts and comments I was able too. The original post had been removed by either the admin or OP. I had not been abusive, or sworn it was just the person who comes out in me when I am triggered. Not an excuse I am owning up to my actions that can result from being triggered.
Taking the dogs for a walk and returning home, I was still feeling full of something, anger tension and frustration, and then I began to realise I felt violated, disrespected and a bit abused. Big sigh as I write this, and when I began to realise what was really happening.
I understand the desire to quickly grab your camera and capture the few moments of beauty, I do it myself all the time.
Difference being I respect peoples land and homes.

I really noted how bad I was feeling my anger tightness in my chest and head, I even recall saying I was feeling a headache coming on as I said hi to my neighbour. I did not remain outside and chat in a pleasant and friendly way as if I had seen her across the fence. I returned inside and finished getting my baking underway. I noted feeling so increasingly something..frustrated angry disrespected…sigh all those things. I was not OK I was struggling and had been triggered I was struggling for a while to contain the feelings. It was pressure cooker building inside of me.

I did not desire to have a face to face dealing over the matter. As in my current hyper aroused situation I would have been potentially volatile. NOT physically but certainly verbally.

I did stop, collected myself and full of nausea and heart beating so loudly I could hear it reverberating my mouth dry shoulders and hands tight I opened messenger on Facebook. I wrote the following:-
the first line was their name and it was supposed to read I was not going to say anything(my typing perhaps shows how I was feeling at the time).

Right now I do not want to know the response. I do not want to look at it, read it or have to deal with it. I am thinking it will be an apology, and then I think is that enough! Is that what I want. The real answer is NO I do not want an apology, I do not need an apology, or what ever the response will be.
I can not imagine this would have happened on someone else’s home, (of course I may be incorrect) but my feelings now are why disrespect my personal boundaries my property, my privacy, my home. I am not OK with it. I am not traveling well with it. I want YOU to hear my words, to feel what I am feeling and now to KNOW I WILL NOT ALLOW you or anyone else to do what you wish in regard to me and my home. I will worry and try not to imagine how often this may have occurred previously, and how much of my privacy is real!
That last comment hits me like I have just hit a brick wall. As well as I am and as well as I am doing off my medication I have to acknowledge I DO have a mental illness. I have to stand up for ME and MY NEEDS, regardless of what others may think or feel. I am the only person who knows what is best for my well being and what makes me content and happy.

I do not believe that valuing my personal space, my home and land as my safe and secure place is about my mental illness in total. I do believe that most people are the same. For me my home and land is like my total security, a fortress and perhaps the only place where I have control over some things. I also feel and believe most people would feel somewhat affronted in having a person just appear on their land or garden taking photos. (recall I did not know who it was for a while).
Perhaps tomorrow I will read the reply if there is one. I do fear that my neighbour may attempt to make personal contact with me and that would be another trigger for me. tonight I am not in any place to deal with face to face or written response. Tomorrow I am planning to leave take the dogs and have time away from my sanctuary. The place I come to when I feel triggered and need safety. I am struggling and am thankful I do not have any funds as I have been tempted to flee this afternoon to a dog friendly accommodation to avoid any potential face to face. Yet we are friendly we are good neighbours and they have had me over and treated me as family over the years. I do not want to loose that. I do have desire to run away..flee. I am thankful I can not. I am thankful I can post here and share this real life experience. The reality of life with CPTSD, with anxiety with my mental illness. I am so proud that off my medication I have managed to make myself find a way to express my feelings and redirect them to the appropriate situation/person. I am so happy I was able to realise what my anger and posts on Facebook were actually about. Removing them and directing a resonable message to the right person.

I am proud I have achieved so much this evening, I will try to redirect the angst I am still feeling over the what ifs and future contacts. I have not reached for high sugar simple carbohydrates to stuff the feelings and hurt down. That is something to be proud of. I am thankful I can write about this experience which is sort of a debriefing for me. I am proud in the knowledge that I have asserted myself well and wisely to the person involved.

blessings to You, Tazzie

April 10, 2022 5

To Do or Not to Do

I am not encouraged to write lists by my psychologist as when I do they can become a fixation of all that is too do about here. Interesting not writing any list is actually achieving more than having lists. I see why my psychologist made this suggestion to me now.

Let me explain what I am beginning to understand happens for me when I compile a To-Do List. I write all I know that needs to be done for me to feel that my house, meets some unwritten expectation a standard of acceptable that is in my mind.

Then add to that expectation that is hidden, yes hidden deep in the recess of my brain my own quirky need to feel that the house is not completely finished until everything is alphabetised or colour co-ordinated. Wow heavy stuff there.

Not only can I begin to get a feeling why I am basically frozen in place in regard to getting the inside of my house completed, well lets be totally honest here begun. I totally understand where and why this compulsion to meet ‘OTHERS EXPECTIONS’ in what is ‘MEETING THE ACCEPTABLE STANDARD’ of how my house must be before visitors could ever come inside. Or I could possible be happy to live here.

Two things hit me in the face immediately having written this in black and white. Every time I have referred to where I live in relation to this is my house, and not my home. Ponder that for a bit…

Second thing where the hell and who declared that houses had to meet a standard of acceptable.

Family yep from my maternal side. Interestingly my Grandmother was a cleaner in Motels/Hotels for many years. (I have cleaned houses and government offices).
My mother has always been a snob. Her world was always about having only the best and she would struggle to save and get it, fair enough and then when my parents business grew successful it became a much bigger issue. It was also the times I guess too.
Both of my parents families were poor, and my parents worked incredibly hard to give us kids a very different life with opportunities they could never have had. I am exceedingly grateful for that.

The really interesting things I recall from my younger years is that both sets of Grandparents always seemed so much more content than my parents.

My fathers business was all about image. He lucked out with me I could not really care about how I look or appear. I did play the game for many years, until I realised that I was really miserable and dying inside. So in my 30s I began to live more a life I found was right for me.

I still struggled with my two worlds and the power of parental indoctrination and severe punishment towards me for not meeting these ‘unknown acceptable standards’ in how a house has to be have been a massive issue all through my life.

Strangely I could only begin to see this clearly once I stopped seeing and speaking to any of my family. That was not that long ago. It has empowered me and has been a huge part in my moving forward I know.

The time is right for me to let go of the shackles of indoctrination and it is not just from my family, but media, those home renovation shows, the how to be successful concepts, movies, and uuugh celebrities and stupid reality TV shows. Advertising real estate agents magazines the morning shows. Even shows where people are building their own homes create this expectation in I am sure not just me.

I know what and how my home is going to be one day. It will be clean but not sanatised, there will be dirty dishes in the sink, but just that mornings until I wash up after dinner. There will always be books and stuff by my chair where I sit, knitting or crochet projects near bye. Plants and seedlings growing on shelves and in windows, dog hair, dog toys and dog blankets about the place. My photographic items and my paint and drawing items, along with my meditation and relaxation items.

There may very well be some muddy doggy paw prints on the floor as you come in (if it has been raining). Your clothes if you visit will have dog hair on them when you leave.

It will not have a big screen TV or a incredible sound system (no judgement you make your home as you desire). It will most likely have bread or a bikkies ( biscuits/cookies) in the oven, a home made cake. Good coffee and tea, but very simple food. It will be eclectic what many would think of as bohemian, to weird to ‘um very individual’ it will be me.

You would not be stepping over stuff on the floor, or moving about things hoping you knock nothing off. As it is currently. I can live with how it is right now as I have but it is gnawing at me. There is an feeling of the time is coming to begin.

As I type that I feel tight in my chest and neck a bit nauseous. I know why I am reacting like this. I am growing more and more attuned to why my somatic symptoms occur in regard to my thoughts of the inside of my house.

It is not as over whelming to me these days, it bugs me,

There is a lot you may have seen hoarders homes on TV, mine is nowhere near as bad as many of them but it is medium level I feel. There are no tall piles of stuff. I did have a few spots where there were and over the past few months have been very mindful to just take some things out and put them in the bin. So they are gone. Brilliant.

My kitchen is perhaps the worst area it is pretty disgusting. No it is really disgusting. I am being honest here.

I did decide for some reason to bring all my clothes into the living area, and they had been sitting on the lounge for months. They are all clean. I would just wash my clothes and chuck them on the pile.

I decided last week to begin on the living room. I wanted to position my lounge so that I could see the view and watch the TV plus be fairly close to the fire, (I will need to redress this most likely but that is another story). So the clothes were put on the stairs, and I was going to fold them up. Well that did not happen, and so the clean clothes have been siting in a pile on the table and chairs oozing over onto the floor. But the lounge it clear and the dogs and I all can sit on it together. Priorities may be skewed to some of you, but this is my journey.

I did throw a few items of clothing away. Yeah! I also created a pile of clothes to mend. Sigh, I can mend them, but will I. I cant afford to buy new things and these mended clothes extend my choices. Stop StOP. do not think about that now.

Ooops I am begining to make lists, even here and then I tend towards over thinking and exhausting my brain as it all just becomes too much and I freeze again. We have come complete circle now and perhaps it is clear to some of you reading this that my mind works in a interesting manner.

I still have a sort of fluid list stored in my brain. It does not cause me distress or angst, and interestingly as I said in the beginning of this post, things are getting done.

I am proud today as I have noticed grass growing in several places of my guttering, for months today I decided it needed to be removed and I did it cleaning out the gutter and now the forecast heavy rain will not back up and flow over potentially into the house. I am smiling as I write this.

A simple and small step, as I keep moving forward. I have not walked today as I have been doing some things in the garden and the gutter in preparation for the heavy rain, I did take the dogs for a drive and they ran. I aim to go for a short walk up the hill. If I do not I will not beat myself up.

I am thankful that I will be able to relax now and not stress about potential damage from overflowing gutters. I am thankful for how much better I am feeling since following my routine of regular bed lights out time, exercise and eating healthier. I am thankful for the sunshine today. I am thankful that many of my seedlings on the deck are growing well and looking healthy. I am thankful for my physical health and the improvement in my mental health. I am thankful for clean air, clean fresh water, more than enough food to eat. I am thankful for the roof over my head, the ability to be warm and dry. I am thankful for all the insects and frogs in my garden. I am thankful to have seen some honey bees about the garden today. I am thankful for a reprieve from the wind. I am thankful for my neighbours, and you.

blessings Tazzie

April 28, 2020 2

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