Need a hand hold -Part 3

Beautiful carpets and flooring Laura! Love that ❤️.

night night xx

Oh those carpets looks so lush and squishy. Love new carpet smell.

Night night my lovely spoonies. Xxxx

@Imbluedalale Im so sorry about the nightmares, that sounds horrible. But yay for lovely brand new floors! It’s so stressful having a house full of workmen but so worth it when they finally go away and leave you in peace! I’m also so sorry you’re still dealing with the stress and fall out from the stupid VP. What on earth was she thinking, pulling your daughter out of class to discuss your email?? So inappropriate and so stressful for you both.

Do you like horses? There are places that do a thing called equine assisted therapy, I’d never heard of it before but someone I know started working in one, they use various combinations of therapy and contact with horses to build confidence and reduce anxiety. I thought it sounded lovely and wondered if it might suit you and help with your recovery when the time is right.

@Apolloneuro that’s a great description of EMDR. Glad you made it home safe!

@BeNavyCrab your medical memories sound extremely traumatic and distressing, I’m sorry you have been having such a hard time. My neuro consultant referred me for an 8 week mindfulness course for people with chronic health conditions a few years ago, it was brilliant and really helped me see things differently and get out of the stuck state I was in after being diagnosed with a degenerative disease. It was funded by the LA mental health budget I think, and based on this programme that was originally developed for people living with chronic pain. https://mbsrtraining.com/jon-kabat-zinn-mindfulness/

Hopefully the VP will carry the bedbugs into work on her clothes and have a meeting with Laura’s husband, who will take them home and they will take up residence in his underpants.

Also @BeNavyCrab - that card is gorgeous!!

Massive hugs @BeNavyCrab. I hope that your brain can find a way to process all the awful stuff that happened without making you relive it at night. And I hope your family member recovers too.

@Imbluedalale - you are continuing to be very wise about the cockwomble VP! I hope that she worries so much about whether you will report her that not only does she bite her fingernails but she also tosses and turns so much at night that the bedbugs are flung into every soft furnishing she has!

Oh that’s a lovely card.

Here's a picture of today's card. I did some of the work previous days but it's all together ready for the post. I've watercoloured the flowers and leaves. Stenciled the snowflake shapes around them. Then used metallic gel pens for the "flourishes"

Wow that's a brilliant explanation and sounds like it could be incredibly useful. I've had a tiny bit of support for coping with a long-term illness, which was useful but not really dealing with the subconscious. I've had the occasional flashbacks before but they were diminishing, until this latest out of the blue news. I'll look into it, thanks for letting me know. It's always great to get recommendations for things that helped someone else. Xx

Sorry @Imbluedalale I'm going to watch Bake Off and will probably be asleep by the end. I'm teaching at 8am tomorrow too - I work 3 long days then have 4 days "off", except I spent 3 hours writing reports yesterday and will no doubt do stuff this weekend too.

I may try to have a quiet work with our DSL as he is a friend and see what the set up is in colleges if he knows. Don't hold your breath but I will see if I can find anything out. I hope all Spoonies have a nice evening.

So sorry I have only just caught up now but I've been teaching all day and only just got home. Didn't even manage a coffee it was so busy.

Anyway, the VP is so wide of the mark, I can't believe she is the Safeguarding Lead. I did Level 3 Safeguarding a few years ago as I was the Lead for a music group my kids were in. Most teachers need Level 2. You learn NEVER to ask leading questions such as "did Dad do that?" but rather "tell me how you got that bruise". She should not be discussing your injuries with your DD and her backtracking confirms that to me.

You have a couple of choices: definitely escalate this to the Principal and the Governors or Trustees. The Governor/Trustee with the responsibility should be identified on the website. Also, in your local authority, there should be a LADO which stands for Local Authority Designated Officer. Google it and give them a call. I have called my local authority safeguarding team for advice about a student who was known to them and they were really helpful. Also as another Spoonie suggested, speak to your MH team. They too will have relevant safeguarding training and may be able to advise you.

As @Apolloneuro says, we have to be really careful about messaging students. In my school they all have school laptops so I use email (school email address only) or Microsoft Teams Chat which is monitored by school. It safeguards ME - a kid cannot say "Malbecfan wrote X" because it can easily be checked. Having mobile phone numbers is incredibly lax but I work in an 11-18 setting and things may be different in college. More later xx

It changed the game for me!!!

@BeNavyCrab so sorry to hear about your family member's news and also it triggering your PTSD. That sounds so hard . Hope some christmas card making helps occupy your mind a bit. I'd love to see pics if you get some done. That sounds hard work being the Christmas present ideas person although hope it's fun choosing things as well as making sure your mum doesn't get scammed.

@Apolloneuro I'd heard of EDMR but never heard what it actually does, that's such a great explanation. And a big HOORAY for finally getting home! Hope you're having a relaxed day and enjoying some home comforts.

Big hug for the nightmares Laura @Imbluedalale . Hope you're OK now. Exciting about the flooring though! Send us a pic? I think you were having wood laminate? I'd really like to get that all through my downstairs. Glad you finally got to have a wee! It sounds really stressful having to have all your doors open though. Hope you're relaxing in a nice warm house with doors closed now.

I'm procrastinating and not doing either work or painting! Ex just asked if he could take DS on a little holiday over Christmas so I'm feeling a bit sad about that as we've always shared the day. I'm not sure if DS will want to go or he might just say yes he does to please his Dad. I don't know how he'll feel about missing out on his little sister opening her presents. Maybe we can do 2 Christmas days.

I wore this scarf for the first time today and realised I can't do "artfully draped" like the pics online and ended up looking like the scarf was trying to eat my head 😂www.next.co.uk/style/su393919/b62885

In my extremely basic way of explaining as I’m no expert, brains have a left side and a right side.

Every day, the brain receives information in the left (I think) side - conversations, sounds, smells, the way you jumped when a car horn went off etc.

At night the brain filters this info and chucks out trivial stuff and processes info into the right side, where things are stored like little jigsaw pieces of memory.

In the case of big trauma, the right side of the brain sort of goes ‘That’s awful info, I’m not accepting that!” therefore the info isn’t processed.

Unprocessed info then stays in the left - here and now - side, so it continues to feel like it’s happening now.

The consequence of this is that you feel the same sense of danger/fear etc you would have at the time of the trauma.

EMDR is a method whereby this trauma is processed into the right hand side. Here it becomes a memory. You don’t forget it, but you no longer feel the emotion about it (or as much)

It involves talking about the trauma whilst either tapping your shoulders or following the therapists fingers going left to right, with your eyes.

In my experience it works xx

https://www.bacp.co.uk/about-therapy/types-of-therapy/eye-movement-desensitisation-and-reprocessing-emdr/#:~:text=EMDR%20(Eye%20Movement%20Desensitisation%20and,a%20specific%20and%20structured%20format.

It’s an accepted therapy and used by psychologists. There are different levels of training for it and, like lots of things, best to use someone with the highest level of certification (can’t remember what that is off the top of my head) x

@Apolloneuro No I've never heard of that! I'd be interested to know a little about it if you can tell me ❤️