Totally bereft at misplacing my camera

[hateflying1]

Yesterday was dd's birthday. I used my camera to take photos in the morning. I was rushing round because my teaching agency had phoned with a teaching assistant job. I remember wondering where I had put the camera down and seeing it in a particular place in dd's bedroom.

I went to work and when I came back went to look for the camera there. It wasn't there. I looked around for it in dd's bedroom and other rooms and it was nowhere to be seen. I have tidied dd's bedroom and I still can't find it. Is it possible to move something somewhere and completely forget doing it and where you put it?

This is all complicated by the fact that someone has been painting in our house and part of me is thinking he has taken it (?).

I cannot explain how bad I feel. As if everything is now pointless and as if I have been violated. There were photos on there from last August onwards that I was very attached to and that I was going to use to make a 2015 album.

I feel anxious to the point of not being able to eat or think about anything else. I have asked the painter if he has seen it (had to use Google translate) as it is possible he might have come across it and he shrugged his shoulders and said no disinterestedly. It's not as if he is going to say "oh yes I took it home" in any case.

Do I carry on looking in other rooms like an idiot or should I assume it has been nicked . It is not as if it is that small - surely only small things go missing for days as bigger things are easier to see?

How do I stop feeling so awful ?

I really hope you find it in your house somewhere but to me it does seem dodgy.

I don't get why it seems dodgy at all. The OP says she was rushing around when she saw it last. And that she can be disorganised (can't we all!)

Things are probably messy because there is painting going on.

She's really distressed and feels like nothing is worth anything anymore. So she probably hasn't looked properly for the camera.

Also it was in her mind that she should maybe hide her valuables as the painter was coming.

The likelihood of it being in the house somewhere are much greater than it being stolen.

It just seemed dodgy to me from reading it but I am a very overly suspicious and cynical person to be fair!

Like I said before I've put stuff away in the most random places before my latest one was an empty tablet packet on top of the fridge instead of in the bin. Hopefully it will be something similar and the camera will be found.

I lose things all the time, I find things where they never should be. I lost my purse the other week and after fratically searching the house I found in it a toy caravan in the girls' play room. I have no idea how it got there, I must have put it down without realising. Either that or we have fairies in the house that move things!

I hope you find it hateflying

hateflying I just wanted to say that you being in an anxious person in no way stops you training to be a counselor - in fact it can make you a more empathetic person and therefore a better counselor!

I would suggest tidying up the house as I actually find this quite a calming thing to do, and it's the one productive thing you can do to try and find it. Then if it is genuinely not there, you would feel justified in being more assertive with your husband/the painter. I'm so sorry you don't feel comfortable in your own home xx

Thanks for all your messages. Everyone on this thread has been so kind and your words have really helped.

Will follow your advice and report back once I find it / don't find it. That I am this anxious however has been a real eye opener.

I'm an easy going person in general OP but I've lost photos several times in the past and it's been like a kick in the heart! It's a really awful feeling- like the memories have been lost almost.. I know that's melodramatic but my memory isn't the best and I love looking at pics to remind me of lovely moments. And if I thought someone working in my house had taken my camera- I would be very anxious too. It's like the camera is possibly so close yet so far away because you can't talk to him and he's unlikely to admit to it.
But since becoming a mum, there have been loads of occasions where I've misplaced something in a weird place. It drives me nuts and I stop searching because it could literally be anywhere, and end up coming across it at a later time. I blame DS and his brain mushing effect!
I really hope it turns up for you

I really feel for you, this is a disconcerting situation. One thought: your Dd might have hidden it? When DS was around her age he hid my phone and kept up the pretence for days. He didn't know why he'd done it and as his hiding place was somewhere sandy on a very sandy beach.......

Is it a particularly expensive camera?

If not I'd be surprised if anyone would have taken it, don't most people use their phones as cameras now, it's not like they have any second hand value.

You need to take a deep breath and start a methodical search. Start in the room you last remember seeing it, check everywhere, in pockets of clothes, under everything, in everything, don't make any assumptions, it'll more than likely turn up.

I found it .

It was in the wardrobe in dd's room. In my panic (which really was a panic) I had looked at the front of the pile of clothes on the shelf inside it and not at the back. Today I stuck my hand at the back of the pile and felt around a bit and there it was . So all the people who said that my panic was blinding me were right .

So this proves that the mind is a really suggestible thing, I am very attached to photos and should download them, I am/can be extremely anxious, my relationship with H is rubbish, and that I don't like having strangers in the house and I am batshit crazy.

Also that everyone on this thread has been so kind and I hope you don't all think that I am a fraud because really I have had the week from hell due to my anxiety over this.

I also know what is really important to me and am going to spend more time doing the things that the photos represented and none worrying about how much affection H doesn't show me because I no longer care. It feels quite liberating.

Thank you so much again .

Please don't shoot me .

hugs!

I'm really glad you found it. Fingers crossed that this is a good moment for you to take stock.

Bless you OP, so glad you found it.

I'm glad you found it OP but it seems that you have more serious things going on in your marriage that you need to resolve.

So pleased you've found it. Now you can download the photos and deal with your relationship.

I'm very glad you found it :)

For the future, as photographs are so important to you, would it be worth considering a WiFi camera/camera phone that automatically uplads any images to the cloud, sonthat it matters less if you lose it?

So pleased you found it, brilliant!

Brilliant news. Now buy an external hard drive and back everything up on there, your computer and somewhere online like Googledrive! And get the special ones printed :-)

Awwww this is brilliant. Genuinely happy for a stranger on the internet! Get into the habit of downloading pics the same day of taking them, it's what I do now so I never have to worry.

Often with near disasters like this, it ends up being a good thing that it happened because it's made you look at everything with new eyes. Hope you can sort the other stuff OP x

I am so pleased for you. You must be so relieved!

My dh bought an external hard drive ages ago and hasn't backed anything up yet. After your thread I will be pestering him to sort it!

Thank you.

I do have an external hard drive so will be putting the photos on there as well as making the photo book I wanted to make. What happens though if your hard drive goes missing - I suppose that's where cloud based storage comes in, will look into that too.

Re. my marriage I am not really sure what to do as trying to deal with it in any way would effectively mean separating IMO. At the moment I am trying to get back into work after years as a SAHM so all my energy is going on that. Am working as a supply TA but the money is not enough so I either have to find a way of supplementing it or train to do something else - have a few ideas. I don't feel that I have the physical and emotional resources to get divorced.

So I suppose that for the moment I can be happy that I can see through H's self absorption, negativity and "controllingness" and no longer feel that I am not good enough and have to "do better" for him to "like" me. After 20 years together I also think we are not really compatible any more. We tried counselling about 3 years ago but that did not really help at all I blame the counsellor and H stopped coming after about 4 sessions. Once he has decided something he is EXTREMELY stubborn so there was no discussing it.

We are not really talking at the moment - the whole camera thing knocked me for six and H was no help (though of course he was right that it was in the house) and had no inkling of how I was feeling.

In the past if he has stopped talking (which has happened several times and for weeks at a time, only stopping when I send him emails practically begging him to talk) I have been distraught. This time I suppose I stopped talking as well as I had no head space for anything except what felt like grief over the photos, and H carried on with his usual behaviour - getting annoyed about me being out of the house at certain times when he needed to leave (and couldn't because of the painter whom he had organised), even though I was at work and then had to collect dd (I asked my friend to pick her up from school as H doing it would have meant leaving the painter alone but H sulked about that too asking dd who she would like to be picked up by ). (The other 2 dc walk home from secondary school). One evening when I was at home for about 50 minutes before going to a course I do, he had a go at me for not feeding dd (who is 10) enough while I was there (I normally give them a meal when I get home but she had stuffed her face with a banana, crisps and biscuits and I left the house at 5.30pm so assumed that H would be feeding her while I was out) telling me that she had been STARVING and that my commitment is to her (he did then give her more food). All this in a climate of not taking any interest in my TA work and behaving as if it's a petty whim of mine (he has told me many times that the money is terrible and that not many people would accept it) which is inconveniencing him as of course HE was then trapped at home with the painter .

Anyway - happy days..... I could go on about my relationship for days but I suppose that it's for another thread...

Thanks to all again .

Fundamentally I think we don't know how to communicate with each other. But if someone never touches you (as H doesn't touch me) it means something doesn't it ? Have finally stopped caring really as I suppose it's partly because we are incompatible and he has possibly known a lot longer than I have? And also why would I want to touch someone who can be controlling and unkind at times and who is completely unable to have an emotional relationship with me (he is very affectionate with the dc but I suppose that that's easier). I minded the lack of affection for a very long time, feeling somehow humiliated that he touched everyone except me (and yes I did try to be affectionate giving him hugs etc) and wondering what was wrong with me. Miraculously however I now realise that there is nothing wrong with me so that feels a lot better.

Very pleased to see you found the camera, I hope you can sort something out with your relatioship too

I am so happy for you, I felt your anxiety! I lost the first 12 months of DS's photos due to computer dying and no back up. Some were retrieved but I know your pain! Very pleased it turned up xx

So glad you found it!

I really recommend cloud storage, I use it religiously since my phone-down-loo disaster and it is hugely reassuring. I keep a backup on an external hard drive too.

Hope you find the strength to tackle the issues in your relationship.