Welcome to Staple-Story
Hello and welcome!
Thanks for stopping by! My name is Sean, a veteran recovering from domestic abuse, severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression. I've only recently reached a point where I was ready or able to come to terms with this stuff, so I've created this blog as a way to talk about my life, issues, recovery, and hopefully be able to connect with others who might be going through something even remotely similar and open up some discussion. I'll be posting updates on my progress regarding recovery, some related personal insights, as well as videos and articles I find inspiring on the matter. Maybe we can recover together!
Right now I'm making the best of a shaky situation. My condition has devolved to the point of barely being able to go outside of my home on a daily basis, due to a combination of my mental illness and the very real circumstance of my primary abuser still exercising access to the local area where I live, and effectively convincing other family members to stop helping me. This has made working or even finding work extremely difficult/currently not doable, and has in-turn done the same for keeping up on most if not all of my bills and expenses. I'd been holding out and staying afloat as long as I could by starting up my own small business and cashing into my savings early, with hopes that I'd be able to stabilize things again before too long. After my therapist began discussing severe PTSD with me, I was convinced by my abuser for the last year and years preceding that because of factors like my race, gender, what kind of household I came from, and that I didn't fight in a "hard enough war" while in the service that I would be refused help and support at every turn, and would in fact encounter more of the same abuse I was working to properly cope with. And so, quite quickly, things became "too long", and I'm now broke, currently without retirement savings, and my entire apartment looks like an episode of Hoarders; just instead of random items I can't bring myself to get rid of, it's random boxes and clutter I haven't been able to just take out to the dumpster.
It took a night at the local crisis center after my first suicidal episode to learn that there does seem to be help for people like me. Things are hopefully beginning to look up, as that led to me getting in-processed with my local VA, who have been amazingly helpful and receptive at this early a stage. In fact, while writing this paragraph I was contacted in order to set up my first therapy session. I'm hoping they'll be able to help with the medical, financial, and psychological aid I need to get into working condition again.
And that brings me to the second half of why I started this blog: getting better after it all. Despite where I am now, I want to get better and live a normal rest of my life. I want to be capable of making a living again and sustaining my own household. So, while others are helping me, I will do what I can to help myself as well. And that's going to have to start by getting my place cleaned up; to bring some order back into my life by my own hands. So, to help keep me on track with that, and for science, I'll be posting updates on my cleaning progress so we can watch along as I steadily turn my hoarder's den into a home again.
To wrap this up, I'd like to include a video excerpt by clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, which talks a bit more about the idea of making "smaller" corrections to your life in order to eventually see the big changes you want or even need. Dr. Peterson's words have helped guide me through a lot of what I'd been going through over the past year and then some, so I hope I'll have the chance to share more teachings like his and discuss this all with you. I'll try to post something every week while I get more used to this. Hope you enjoy:
Right now I'm making the best of a shaky situation. My condition has devolved to the point of barely being able to go outside of my home on a daily basis, due to a combination of my mental illness and the very real circumstance of my primary abuser still exercising access to the local area where I live, and effectively convincing other family members to stop helping me. This has made working or even finding work extremely difficult/currently not doable, and has in-turn done the same for keeping up on most if not all of my bills and expenses. I'd been holding out and staying afloat as long as I could by starting up my own small business and cashing into my savings early, with hopes that I'd be able to stabilize things again before too long. After my therapist began discussing severe PTSD with me, I was convinced by my abuser for the last year and years preceding that because of factors like my race, gender, what kind of household I came from, and that I didn't fight in a "hard enough war" while in the service that I would be refused help and support at every turn, and would in fact encounter more of the same abuse I was working to properly cope with. And so, quite quickly, things became "too long", and I'm now broke, currently without retirement savings, and my entire apartment looks like an episode of Hoarders; just instead of random items I can't bring myself to get rid of, it's random boxes and clutter I haven't been able to just take out to the dumpster.
It took a night at the local crisis center after my first suicidal episode to learn that there does seem to be help for people like me. Things are hopefully beginning to look up, as that led to me getting in-processed with my local VA, who have been amazingly helpful and receptive at this early a stage. In fact, while writing this paragraph I was contacted in order to set up my first therapy session. I'm hoping they'll be able to help with the medical, financial, and psychological aid I need to get into working condition again.
And that brings me to the second half of why I started this blog: getting better after it all. Despite where I am now, I want to get better and live a normal rest of my life. I want to be capable of making a living again and sustaining my own household. So, while others are helping me, I will do what I can to help myself as well. And that's going to have to start by getting my place cleaned up; to bring some order back into my life by my own hands. So, to help keep me on track with that, and for science, I'll be posting updates on my cleaning progress so we can watch along as I steadily turn my hoarder's den into a home again.
To wrap this up, I'd like to include a video excerpt by clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, which talks a bit more about the idea of making "smaller" corrections to your life in order to eventually see the big changes you want or even need. Dr. Peterson's words have helped guide me through a lot of what I'd been going through over the past year and then some, so I hope I'll have the chance to share more teachings like his and discuss this all with you. I'll try to post something every week while I get more used to this. Hope you enjoy:
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