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Avoiding prepping my laptop to pawn it (which I need atm)

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I need to do something practical for my finances/work situation- pawn my laptop. Although I do plan to get it back it's still hard. And for a second there I was thinking I am insane for being so codependent on something material (although I work on it, which will make fixing my situation a bit more complex.

A-a-anyway. After I had my pity-party yesterday, today I made a list of what to do before pawning it. Like the practical removing info just in case and all that. And then I wanted to sort out why I keep procrastinating on it and then it really hit a PTSD trigger. When I got PTSD I was away from home, and also didn't have a smart phone at the time, my phone didn't work in the country I went so I was using payphones (yes in this day and age). I had thought I would find work easily as well as a place to stay... ended up having to do a lot more than I thought on a phone or computer, borrowing electronics from my later abusers, using 30min library computer use a day to look for jobs and... well anyway, that summer was the closest I've been to many messed up scary situations, experienced many of them, got multiple traumas and had no resources to get out of it. I mean I got out but ... I hadn't taken my laptop because I somehow thought all will workout and I will earn enough to get a new one. I didn't. I felt cut off from options, I was cutoff from many options, because I hadn't known how the city worked. I hadn't known I would need to search for the place of living and the job more online than offline. I hadn't known how wrong things would get and how helpful it would have been to not be constantly cut off from my friends and relying on my abuser for the first month and a half to relay messages for jobs from his phone. I didn't know how many comforts my laptop had provided them and without them in the middle of life-threatening situations I had no clue how not to lose every layer of what or who I thought I was. I thought I was shattered so bad that I'd never get most pieces back.

I know I'm giving up a material thing for only 30 days, and I still have my half-broken, slow-working but still working old laptop. That I will still somehow do everything, just slower. That this time I'm not away from my friends and not cut off from family and NOT in danger. I know all of that.

But for some reason giving it up stirred that old trigger, that hurricane of memories, which made me cry for 2 hours straight. I can't get rid of that feeling I guess. That if I hadn't been this stupid to assume things and leave my laptop at home- maybe I would have found another place to move away from those people, or found a job faster or something, anything, instead of being cut off from the world without books, music, internet, my email, my friends, my parents, and OPTIONS. Giving up this laptop will be for a short time(I hope so) but it does dig into that feeling. That if I had my laptop it would have changed the variables to my side and maybe I wouldn't have been in that HELL for 4 months.

I know it's a stupid trigger, but it got to me.

So I'm letting it be, and I will enjoy this last night with this laptop (for now), and I will journal. And then I will do what I have to and give it up for a moment/a month/etc. And cope. It just hit me hard for a second. And just when I start thinking I know my triggers so very well... PTSD does not seize to surprize you. HOPEFULLY realizing all this today will help me?? I'm so scared that I'm going back rather than forward...But what must be done must be done ...eventually. Just caught me as surprise that something so material is so triggering.
 
I'm sorry things have been so difficult for you lately. You impress me with your hard work and determination to make your life better. 💪

Where there's a will, there's a way. 🌼
 
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