Fandango’s flash back friday, an old post about one of our therapy sessions!

I am participating in fandango’s flashback friday, where the objective here is to repost a post you wrote on this exact date over the past few years!
I am reposting a post from the 21st of February 2017!
This was one of our therapy sessions! It was incredible to just look back on this now!

Click below to read it!

https://therapybits.com/2017/02/20/working-with-our-therapist-on-managing-the-overwhelm/

http://fivedotoh.com/?p=40706

Fowc: Making progress

I am making progress slowly with my symptoms. They are improving a little bit. The dissociation hasnt been as bad the past two days. For that I am so grateful. I am still not sleeping great though. Last night I went to bed at 10:30. I read a few chapters of my book, turned it off at around midnight. Fell to sleep almost right away, but woke up again at 3:45 and couldnt go back to sleep until 6 AM. I went on the computer for a while, then I just lay there thinking. Not good. I dont like doing that as my mind starts racing. I start thinking all sorts. Which is what happened to me last night. My anxiety went skyrocketing. I was listening to Nitro snoring softly. He was so cute. Listening to him and reading eventually calmed me down enough that I was able to get 2 more hours of sleep. I woke around 8 AM. I got up then. I am hopeful that I will make further progress this weekend. I’ve started to see improvements in my thought processes too and in the amount of amnesia we’ve been having. This is all positive. I’m not working today. I decided to take this week off of work. I needed a break. I’ll be much more able to do the job after a few days off.

http://fivedotoh.com/2020/02/21/fowc-with-fandango-progress/

Can you believe this? My mom was refused disability!

My mom got her letter this morning from the disability office. And, they refused her claim.

Can you believe it? My mom has stage 3 COPD. She only has 50 percent lung function. She cant walk hardly at all, only very short distances. She is in the gold category for obtaining disability, according to the website. And still they’ve refused her application.

She’s going to appeal it. I told her I’d help her over the weekend to write a letter of support.

Its absolutely awful that this has happened. I wouldn’t mind but a ton of supporting evidence went in with her application, from the hospital, from her GP, and from specialists and consultants.

I doubt however that any doctor looked at it. I think a person who works there came upon my moms application, looked over it and just said, well, I am going to not pass this one. That is what I think happened. She had a decision about it back within a month.

She’s appealing now, and she said if the appeal isn’t successful she’s going to go to a politician to see if they can do something. I hope her appeal is successful.

What are they waiting for anyway? For her to be too sick to even be on it?

I mean my moms never claimed welfare benefits in her whole life. This is her first attempt at claiming. She’s a very honest person. Even when I was a kid, she never claimed carers allowance for me. She worked for 12 years. Now they said in the letter that she was fit for work. That she isn’t medically sick enough to get disability.

The thing is though she cant work. How can she work when she cant walk that far? If she was to go to work she’d be out of work more than she’d be in work!

Its a bloody nightmare trying to get approved! I am left with my mouth gaping open at the fact they’ve refused her even though their website lists COPD as a gold standard category for qualifying.

I muse, and muse some more!

Let me chit chat
about what
I muse as I sit here
well, lets see
Lets muse, shall we?
I could tell you
How my days been
Shall I?
Well, its been so boring!
What about the weather?
Hows that been?
Stormy, wet, windy
Musing about the weather is always fun!
I could muse about my latest read
I’m only 3 chapters in
and I am already hooked
On this new book!
Oh but wait
Oh my, oh my
Look at the time!
Night time already?
Will sleep come for me tonight?
As I sit here tea in hand
I muse on that thought for a bit
Suddenly before I know it
The tea is all gone
I drank it
Ooooo shit!

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2020/02/20/muse/

Book review: Bleak alley, stories from the margins, by Shane Dunphy

So this book by Shane Dunphy was really good!
Shane dunphy is a social worker, or he was. He’s now a journalist, I think he got burn out so he quit being a child protection worker. He lives in ireland, in the south east of ireland.
He has written a lot of books, but there are only two on audible at present. This one, bleak alley, is his latest book. Its superb!
Its six hours in length!
It tells the story of Mikey, who lives in black alley, which is nicknamed bleak alley. Mikey had a bad upbringing, and has gotten involved in a gang. Shane tries to work with Mikey and get him to see that being in a gang isnt the only way.
Mikeys mother is schizophrenic, and his dad is an alcoholic and regulary beats both Mikey and his mother.
There are many twists and turns in the book, I wont spoil the story, but it is well worth a look, if you enjoy true stories, and authors like cathy glass, maggie hartley, casey watson etc.
Plus another thing that makes shane’s book special is that he reads his own book. I love when authors do that. It really brings a personal touch to the story knowing he’s reading it.
He’s a great reader too!
I hope if you check out the book that you enjoy it as much as I did! Its on audible, in paperback and on kindle.

Saw Dr. Barry yesterday

So I saw Dr. Barry yesterday. We had a really great appointment. I hadnt talked to her in six weeks! I didnt realise it had been that long since I was out during our appointments! I mean not out in the body, but out in the appointment with dr. barry!
We talked about how dissociative we’ve been lately. How we’ve been really switchy and very off. Very very dissociative during the day and at night, and its actually getting to a point where it feels unmanageable and unsafe to me.
Dr. Barry was wondering what has us so off? She wondered if it was the recent contact from our abuser, I said I wasnt sure if that was why we were so dissociative, but I told her how We’ve been unable to stay grounded and in the present lately, and we’ve been working in therapy with Eileen on keeping the adult alters in the present.
That hasnt been going well for us. The adults in our system arent really able to stay focused enough to be out for long periods and stay out in the body when we’re at home. Its tough because most of the time I dont know what we’ve been doing and most of the day when I am unable to be out I dont know what has been going on when I am not out!
So Dr. barry said she wanted to try upping our clonadine, to deal with our anxiety, because she said if we get our anxiety levels down, the dissociative stuff may lessen. But she didnt up it this week. She wants to do some more reading up on the med and its uses, especially its uses in treating ptsd. She also wanted to look through our chart and see what other meds she’d thought of trying because she said we do have options and we should look into all of them before adjusting the medication.
So thats what we’re going to try, and in the meantime she told me to keep taking the fenergan for sleep because I told her we arent sleeping too good still. She said keep using all of our coping techniques that Eileen has taught us, and she encouraged us to use our blog to get support. She knows how much our blog means to us and how supportive all of our readers are and how helpful we find that in our healing.