I’d like to say that the reason I haven’t been blogging much lately is because life is so abundantly filled with exciting and fun and happy things, that things are so smooth and easy, that I simply haven’t had the time to write. I so wish that was the case. But we know that’s not how my life works, don’t we? It’s becoming a bit of a joke between me and my friends that my life just lurches from one big stress to another, and the times of calm never last all that long, or certainly not long enough to regroup and regain my footing, or heal the past. I literally feel like I am endlessly running barefoot through a war zone being shot at and trying my very best not to sustain any more wounds and actually, let’s be real here, just trying very hard not to die. Sometimes I feel like just stopping, giving up altogether, and admitting defeat. Maybe I am just not cut out for this life and this world?
It’s hard navigating the day-to-day fall out of complex trauma: the endless hypervigilance, the lack of a felt sense of safety (both internal and external), the exhaustion that comes from the black void inside, trying to keep all the little parts inside from melting down, feeling broken… but most of the time I am able to manage that – that’s why I go to therapy. Therapy is basically the scaffold I put around my week so that I am able to get on with my adult life and manage all the responsibilities I have as a wife, mother, teacher, friend…blah blah blah… but then sometimes, oftentimes, life throws and extra-large dump of shit on me and I just don’t cope.
That’s where I am right now.
Not coping.
I have spent the last week in a freeze.
I have so many things piling up around my ears because I have literally only managed the most essential tasks- i.e my job because…money (but not enough money). Everything else has fallen apart. My house is a colossal mess. I started putting up Christmas decorations a couple of weeks ago and it’s all ground to a halt midway through, I just can’t find any oomff to do the rest… and yet I have kids, and I want to at least make it look like we are functional even if I feel a million miles away from it. I don’t want me children to be burdened by my failures.
It took everything I had to go to the supermarket this week to buy food, cooking it has been a trial though, and for three days I just didn’t/couldn’t eat at all. I fed everyone else…but stress and anxiety had taken root so deeply that I couldn’t put anything in my mouth without gagging so in the end I gave up trying. I had to be so very very careful not to allow that to trigger the anorexic part of me because when things stressful and out of control anorexia has always been a go to and right now everything is out of control and stressful.
What’s up?
Last week we had a car accident. It was horrible. Noone was hurt but it shook us up, terribly. I keep getting horrible flashbacks and it’s really upsetting me. The car is being written off by the insurers and living rurally there’s no back up for transport with buses. We are in a privileged position that both my wife and I have (had!) cars but it’s meant that I have been doing an hour round trip twice a day to get her to and from work as I also need mine to get around.
We’re in that crap position where the car isn’t worth much because it’s a few years old now but it’s worth a lot to us. It’s reliable and in good condition – or was! What the insurers are offering is nowhere near close to be able to buy a replacement of the same age or mileage and so we’ll have to take out another loan to get another car whilst still paying the loan on the one we had for another three years… of course this is all debt we hadn’t accounted for and really can’t afford…and with my wife’s job being very volatile it feels extra scary as there’s not guarantee her job will be ongoing although she is looking around for something else.
Money.
So yeah.
2025 problems.
It’s always money.
But money = security.
But nothing feels secure when there is no financial buffer. When you live from month to month as it is and still struggle, the idea of not having an income is terrifying and it is filling me with dread and anxiety. I am waking every night with anxiety and last night it escalated into a full-blown panic attack. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart was racing. It was terrifying. And yet I simply don’t know what to do to make things better.
Even when employment is stable, it seems like no matter how many hours you work, or how many promotions you get the cost of living is accelerating so fast that it’s almost impossible to keep afloat – it’s not even treading water, it’s trying not to drown. All my millennial friends are in the same leaky boat. We’ve all got degrees, we all have professional jobs, we have smaller families than we would perhaps have liked, both partners are working, we don’t lead extravagant lifestyles, and yet we are in a cycle of propping life up on personal loans and credit cards just to cover the basics. Kids feet grow and they need new shoes, trainers, and football boots for PE and that knocks you back.
It feels soul destroying to be perpetually chasing our tails and trying to figure out what can be cut to make ends meet in our forties. Like this isn’t the deal we were sold. We were told that if we worked hard at school, got the grades, got the degrees and the professional jobs, that we would be set. Our parents had the luxury of being able to support a family on one average income, buy a house, a car, have a holiday even, and now that is simply impossible.
I fear for the future too. Savings? Pensions? Will we ever be able to retire? Elderly care? I feel like we’ll be on suicide pacts with our friends at this rate and our student debt and loan and credit card debt will be there forever. Like I just feel thoroughly beaten down in the here and now and as I look forward into the future.
I don’t know what the answer is. But it isn’t about cutting coffee and avocado on toast, or Netflix – let’s be real people have already cut that. The issue is bigger, far bigger than the media would have you believe, and it’s frankly insulting to suggest that to anyone struggling. It drives me insane that older people tell young people that that’s the way to be able to afford a house or whatever. I honestly feel like after working all these years I didn’t ought to have to think about buying a treat here and there. But I do. It’s Christmas and my budget is minimal. I will buy for the kids but that’s it because I still don’t know how to sort out the car, the insurance and all the other things that have now hit as a result of the accident.
I get I am moaning and it all sounds like first world problems. And I also get that there is one expense each month that is crippling us: therapy.
But what do I do? Quitting therapy would significantly ease my financial worries but how would that work for the rest of my life? I am barely hanging it together with my rubber bands and chewing gum as it is. As I have said, therapy is the scaffold I have around my life to make my life doable…but then life is not doable right now and the money worries I have are making me ill.
This is the very real cost of trauma. I’ve talked about this before. Not only do we carry the debt in our bodies and nervous systems, we continue to pay for it financially for years and years in the therapy we need just to be able to function enough to work and exist.
I honestly, don’t know what to do. I have a feeling that before too long my circumstances will force my hand and leave me no choice but to quit therapy or significantly reduce my contact with Elle. That fills me with absolute dread and panic… but…what can I do?
At the end of the day my relationship with Elle is a paid for relationship. Without money we do not/cannot exist. And that is reality to swallow. Because whilst we, as clients, have money to pay our therapists we can keep up the masquerade that the relationship is ‘real enough’ to do the healing work we need and that we are safe and not going to be left (ahem!!).
So much of our wounding comes from the early experiences of being emotionally and/or physically abandonment and not feeling worthy enough to be loved and cared for in the way that we so badly needed as children, so it’s totally shit that the moment we can’t pay for therapy we are abandoned. It is cruel really, that we have to once again endure the feeling of an attachment figure leaving us (even though it’s not quite that) because we aren’t allowed to stay unless we have something to offer other than ourselves. And of course it makes sense. Therapy isn’t a friendship. Our therapists are not our family. Therapy is transactional. And that completely rams a knife into the wound when it ends for financial reasons. Because so much of our system needs to believe we matter in spite of the money.
So yeah, right now I feel angry.
And upset.
And deflated.
And lost.
And just really really sad. Because had things not gone so terribly wrong with Em and then Anita, maybe by now I would be far closer to not actually NEEDING therapy. The damage that has been done in the decade with Em and Anita is huge ON TOP of the damage there already was that sent me into therapy in the first place…and the financial cost of all those years of therapy means I am not in a strong financial position now… because let’s be real £500 a month for a decade…is…eye watering. Not only would I be debt free had I not been in therapy, I would actually have some savings…
So yeah.
I feel flat.
And money is only one thing dragging me down right now… but rather than bleat on about the rest of it. I’ll end this here and maybe speak about therapy and the two year anniversary that happened back in August, and the ongoing repair of the rupture that Elle and I had, and the anxiety about Christmas break coming up, and you know…all the attachment stuff next time.
I feel like this is the biggest depressive post I’ve written in a long time. But that’s the reality. It’s all been too hard for much too long.
2025 can do one.
Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum 
We hear you. It’s unaffordable to live, and terrifying to think of the future. The suicide thing honestly sometimes feels like what we’d do when life resources we have run out, and when we’ve exhausted everything.
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It’s so depressing. I feel like I’m being really negative but I’m just so over struggling and stressing and worrying and mentally calculating every penny. This isn’t life. Capitalism is on speed and it’s wiping us out. Big hugs to you x
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🫂🫂 we’re still too disabled to work (we don’t even attend school full-time) but our spouse does not treat us well. We’re therefore constantly stressed about how we’d survive if we leave. Late stage capitalism is driving everybody we know (other than the extremely class privileged) into despair like you describe. It’s the endless struggle where it increasingly feels like there’s no future.
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I can’t like this comment because it’s so bloody unfair that you’re going through all this. I am so sorry that you aren’t better supported after everything you’ve been through. You so deserve a life of calm and safety and feeling cared for. Huge hug 🫂
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🫂🫂 wish so much that you & everyone has what they need to heal and thrive. Big hug.
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so sorry to hear about your car… it truly is a struggle to not feel completely run down all the time and wonder if it’s time to give in… my therapist that I just started seeing said my frontal cortex shut down in childhood. it’s just so demoralizing. and I still feel shattered from my brief experience in therapy over the spring and summer so I can’t imagine what you are feeling. hope it begins to look up soon.
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Thank you 💜. I think so many people are really struggling right now and can’t really see a way out of it and I find that so sad. Life is hard enough but trauma on top really makes it agonising. I’m so triggered all the time. Take good care of yourself x
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I have a dream of just naming the whole ‘anti-capitalism’ thing is great. For the mentally and physically well. For the able-bodied. For the rest? It’s just one more guilt to add on on top of all the rest of it. Being able to have a support system I have learned is yet another axis of privilege. One I never had my whole life. Until weirdly I did exactly once. Now I’m trying *really* hard (probably harder than I should) to attempt to work towards some sort of anti-capitalist support network of giving each other things we need in a disabilities, neurodivergence, and trauma-friendly way. In what I hope maybe will end up some sort of…something. Physically. In where I live now. But that’s the only solution I can find. Is we have to form our own networks of ‘we the disabled, traumatized, neurodivergent and otherwise broken have to stick together.’ In a very real economic sense. Unfortunately, no one listens to me. Not in any real sense. But you aren’t wrong. We’re all struggling, and it’s those of us who lived through it as children and adults that at least can name it. I have no idea how those who *haven’t* lived through systemic trauma handle it. I think they don’t. They hide and think it’s their fault. And that keeps us from being able to act collectively.
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I hear you. My funding for my therapy was cut, my therapist offered to give me sessions at a reduced rate, instead of 80 euro per session, she’s letting me pay 40. It is so difficult, I am so thankful to her but it is still a struggle for me, as on top of the 40 euro for the session I have to pay a round trip cost of 40 euro for a taxi to and from her office. X
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Oh love. I am sorry. I really hear how tough it is. It’s such a lot of money to find. The cost of living has made things feel impossible. The insane thing is, a decade ago our family income was way less than it is now and yet our standard of living was better then… and therapy was manageable. Even parking the car for sessions is crazy in the city. I don’t have any answers but I do very much understand x
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😭🫂
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Hearing you loud and clear, I have had similar conversations recently, I’m too unwell to work and private fees cripple me, but charities and low cost services won’t work with you as soon as you say complex trauma and DID, so you are completely stuck.
Sending a solidarity hug 🫂🫂
(would looking at PIP be an option for you, or I vaguely remember one of your kids had a new disability/ medical diagnosis, would they qualify for DLA? Just thinking out loud, it’s such a crappy situation)
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I’m sorry things are excruciatingly hard with money for you too. It’s just exhausting and endless trying not to drown. I think with all the bloody cuts any chance of benefits would be slim and I’d have to go on record with gp about all my struggles and tbh I’ve been through that hellscape before. Yes, my kid has got a lifelong condition that will have them on medication for life but it seems that the meds are doing a good job right now so I doubt they’d get DLA …and obviously praying that they remain well enough to live a relatively normal existence. My friend suggested looking into it – but my god- the pages and pages and pages of forms. Right now all I want to do is give up and run away – it’s too hard and too painful and just endlessly triggering. Because I feel so awful my brain is now in ‘Elle is not safe and doesn’t really care and why even bother?’ So it’s awful. I get I’m emotionally cutting and running before I get left… but I don’t need it on top of everything. I can see all sorts of shit hitting the fan this next month: Christmas, anniversary of Em and ‘like a tick’, and ending… what could possibly go wrong?! Big hugs to you x
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When you’ve got spoons it might be worth having a look, if they have a life long condition and you are supporting them in managing it for it to be so well controlled, then it’s worth applying. (I used to fill them in with families as part of my work)
Really, really understand the want to pull away from Elle, that protecting part will be so very strong after everything of before. 🫂 ❤️🩹
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I will certainly look into it in the new year. Right now I am barely functioning. Everything is just going down the fucking toilet. 😖
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@Laura I hope I am not overstepping, but if you are in the UK it might be worth contacting the complex trauma and dissociation service at Cheshire psychology https://www.cheshirepsychology.com/ they are one of three UK clinics specialising in the treatment of DID and they are very good at getting NHS trusts to pay for long-term therapy for people. They take patients from all over the UK. The clinic director has a YouTube channel which may be of interest: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCzH2zZ12Atjmy4l2ewu7unw
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Not at all Pink I really appreciate it. 💜 My GP won’t refer, they basically said they don’t do that sort of thing. It’s crap but not alot you can do to fight it. Specialist care means specialist money which is understandable but not exactly affordable for any of us. It feels so deeply unfair, but at least there’s good company in this boat
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It makes me so mad. It’s such an impossible bind. Too complex for basic services, and once you’ve exhausted the time-limited stuff on NHS that’s it. Goodbye. I was ‘lucky’ and got sixteen months on the NHS back in 2012…but look at me now, still stumble tripping my way through life and thinking about selling my soul to pay for therapy. We are all in good company though – although I don’t like boats much. Big hugs x
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https://www.powertolive.uk/ this is a charity offering low cost therapy- I appreciate you are deep in the work with your current therapist but wanted to post this in case it felt helpful to you to access additional low cost support between sessions or so that others here could be aware of it.
I’m still reading and following but this often doesn’t allow me to post for some reason so I’m not sure if you will see this but just to say I’m thinking of you and I’m so sorry things are so hard just now
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I think sometimes it sends comments to check so they don’t always show up immediately until I say they are approved. Thank you for still being along for the (bumpy) ride. xx
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There is not enough awareness or writing in therapist circles about how excruciatingly difficult life is when you are financially struggling and have mental health needs. It’s more trauma on trauma and mirrors the same powerless feeling that we survivors have endured before. I wish I had practical solutions or even some motivating words, but there are none. It’s grim and I am sorry you are experiencing this.
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100% this. I totally get that therapists can’t work for free but I also don’t think people truly understand what it means to fork out £40-60 an hour…long term. Like I am sure if people need ten sessions to troubleshoot something it would be money that can be found and not feel too debilitating. But long-term multiple sessions a week type therapy… it’s just not doable unless you are rich. I think too, that therapists don’t understand how stressful money and lack of security is destabilising. I feel like I do good work with Elle but the pay off is another kind of deep stress and panic… can’t win. x
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