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Asking tricky family for help + unresponsive & expensive moving companies

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coraxxx

Policy Enforcement
So, I’m caught in a rather unmanageable situation.

I have a room storage in the UK that has to be emptied. This thing is costing a lot, and it runs every month.

I also have a racing bike that is stored in my ex violent partner’s mom.

This woman has a flip flop love hate relationship with me and it’s mega triggering to speak to her. Also since I threatened her son to go to court if he didn’t pay me back for the equipment he broke, she might be difficult to deal with, but at least she’s responsive. This I think I can do. It’s gonna take one hour or so but I’m confident it can be arranged. As she had a husband of the sort she ends up teaming up with me more than with her son… but it’s triggering nonetheless.

The thing is that my family offered to pay for the moving in exchange of a big work of art I made. I’m okay with that. But since they said that they aren’t doing anything. They didn’t send the money or didn’t help out with the moving companies. They aren’t in the country I’m living in.

The moving companies are difficult to reach and mega expensive.

This is a knot with many triggers. Feeling ashamed of having let my stuff there, but damn it was the f*cking covid.

Feeling ashamed of my violent relationship, for which my family judges me and infantilizes me. They’re clearly playing inertia until I let it down. But they even called a week ago, I missed the call but can’t bring myself to call back.

Actually that call sent me to a spiral of shame and paralysis.

What I have to do, in the order, is:

- call a moving company and have a definitive quote
- call my family to pay the quote
- call my ex mom to define a moment they can pick the things
- call the company back and inform them

On the paper nothing is impossible but I’m procrastinating this since September. It’s driving me mad. I just can’t bring myself to do it and don’t know what to do. My pdoc who’s also a therapist told me to make a sort of algorithm plan of what I’d do and say in every case and see what are my options. A bit DBT like.

But even this, I block. I start making a list and all of a sudden I prefer to look after fluffy socks. There isn’t anything wrong with fluffy socks but I see the avoidance screaming hard here.

Every time this problem comes back to my mind I shut down or panic or get resentful my family isn’t helping with this conundrum. And I fear speaking to them and being lectured about bills, because that’s what they do.

I also really do have a problem with the simple concept of money. Bills are triggering.

Anyone has tips to do this? I really have to do it and time not only is running, but has overrun.
 
Can you take yourself out of some of the equation? Maybe have someone in your family contact ex mom and set up their own day/time? This leaves you to deal with the moving companies which may be less triggering for you.

Or... Do you have anyone close to you now who would make a couple of calls to the moving companies for you? I know how hard it is for my guy to make these types of calls so I always offer to make them for him. He doesn't always accept my help though and because of what I have learned from this forum I am always impressed when he "makes the call".

Just thinking off the top of my head. It all sounds stressful. I'm sorry you're in this situation.
 
I know how stressful situations like this can be. I often leave things to the last minute but usually I take one of two stratergies. 1) be really brave and attack the whole situation and do it all in one go or 2) take it one step at a time, step by step. Good luck!
 
Thank you @LuckiLee . Actually, I’d be really relieved if my family could make the damn phone call. I’m for now living in a third country. So I don’t have anyone to do that for me.

So things have to go from the UK to the continent country A, and I’m in neighbouring country B.

Weirdly enough, arranging things with my ex’s mum is triggering, but at least I can envision myself doing it. I know what to say and how. She can be antagonizing but she’s very clear in what she wants and what she doesn’t. So it’s a pain in the ass but she doesn’t leave you pending in the air. Also she’s a WhatsApper so at least I don’t have to literally speak with her. I don’t think my family would be capable to speak to her because their English is bad and her English is bad too, and she’s scared of strangers. She also already suffers from horrible PTSD. I feel I’m capable of handling her and adding someone else to the equation will complicate the whole thing.

But for the rest, I blank out with the order of things. I can’t envision myself calling my family. They’re vague and oblique. My T says that I have to find a way for them to be positive/assertive, by being it myself. But I don’t know how to do it with obliqueness.

They sort of warped me into "we’ll help until you’ve done everything but paying." And I feel completely overwhelmed by it. I blank out. This is where I get stuck, it’s that I can’t even affront anything. They’ll swipe out unless I persecute them.

I wonder if instead of calling a moving company I wouldn’t find a man and a van and go myself do the damn thing.
 
I wonder if instead of calling a moving company I wouldn’t find a man and a van and go myself do the damn thing
But for the rest, I blank out with the order of things.
Break it into pieces.

Calling moving companies for quotes? DOES NOT MEAN you have to call your family, or relay info to your family, or make any decisions about moving... whatsoever. There’s no domino fall. Because it doesn’t start a chain reaction you have to be steeled for.

It’s just calling for quotes. Research. For me, if you like. I have rather a lot of things I would like packed and moved. Could you find a few companies that pack out, or pack AND move, local for me? That way I can decide if I’d rather have packers and movers, movers only, or should do it myself.
 
Yeah I guess the solution really is to take them out of the equation cuz this is causing me to whirlwind. I’ll try to apply your advice and break it down.
 
I have to do the "break it up into pieces" thing a lot. Kind of often, it happens that once I take the first ridiculously small step, I get momentum enough to finish the project. (Although I NEVER go into it with the idea of doing more than one ridiculously small step.)

Consider whether or not finding a friend with a truck and doing it yourself is a real option. Maybe it is. (I own a pickup truck, and I can't tell you how many times I've helped friends move.)

Another option is just walking away from everything. It might not be the best option and it might not be something you're willing to do, but it's there, as an option. (One I've taken from time to time myself.) You can always tell the storage company that you don't want the stuff, they should sell it and move on. My own thought process would be, "I've gotten along without it this long, do I really need it?" What I find is that sometimes it's freeing to just walk away from stuff. Sometimes just knowing it's an option lets me feel less trapped and better able to work on other solutions.

Good luck!
 
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