Has C-PTSD changed your life?

What’s it like to live with C-PTSD? Has C-PTSD changed your life?

The best answer to those questions is in the image above that’s an amalgam of my appointment calendar for January 2016 and this month’s. The crisis that led to my diagnosis occurred in April of 2016; pressure/symptoms had been building for thirty years.

I find the juxtaposition of the two calendars rather profound. I revere the simple powerful language of imagery.

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Sunday was a classic west coast rainy winter day and I loved it. I love every day here. I had a nice warm fire, great music and some decent TV to watch while I worked on The Manor. Plus I had the pets to play with.  It was so dark I had to have the lights on all day. In the city, I’d have been in first world despair. Here, not at all. It was delicious to be cozy in the cabin.

I went into the village to get a bunch of Mason jars into which, today, I’ll put my craft supplies. I can hardly wait to stack them on my new shelves on my studio. The rest of the day I worked on Mertz Manor and thought about my next project. 

Beth and Dwight have both emailed encouragement about the marionette theatre idea. Their faith in my plan chuffs me and I’m grateful for it. It’s a nice benefit of this blog that I can post my ideas and get feedback from my friends.

While I was working on the Manor there was a program on the Knowledge Network about the Stikine River canyon in Northern BC and the goats that live there. In one scene there is a stand off between a mother Goat and a Raven over her kid. I had no idea. They’d told me about the Ravens and cats here and I took heed but I had some skepticism. No more.

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Darrell is building my worktable in his workshop today while we wait to hear about the floor tiles. We are so close to finished now; I’m itchy. I, meanwhile, will continue with Mertz Manor because it, too, is close to finished.

I’m happy with it because it has given me something to do and the cats love it — especially Fred. Fred may destroy the whole thing.

But I’m keen to get back to the fence. I got some more Aspen branches yesterday that will allow me to finish the first panel and I’m going to use Arbutus on the second and central panel. I’ll incorporate pinecones somehow, but in the background. The third panel, like the first one, will feature pinecones but a different design.

One good thing: All my work to date on the fence is still there. It’s sustained snow, wind and lots of rain but endured intact.

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I have a growing list of materials on my fridge where I record where that material goes: Green Bag, Yellow Bag, Blue Box, garbage, GIRO (for recycling materials that cannot go in the blue box), or Nanaimo (for Styrofoam, batteries and flammable liquids such as oil, turpentine).

I’m just in from the shed where I prepared my garbage and green bin for pick up. I’ve been diligent about my garbage sorting and so I really hope to see my garbage accepted today. I’ve actually left the garbage collectors a note enclosed in cellophane imploring them to take it all. It’s been rejected for the past two collections so if it’s taken today it will be the first time in six weeks!  I’ve had to buy a permit to have more than the limit accepted because of past problems

I enjoy recording all my garbage woes but I’m not complaining! I am proud to do the work; it doesn’t bother me one bit. It’s the responsible thing to do.

Come Springtime I’m going to conscript Jay’s help. He has a truck and I have a ton of wood, pipe, nails, screws, nuts, bolts, sheet metal, wire etcetera to donate to GIRO and the tool collective — all left here by the previous owner.