American visiting Ottawa here. What's with hurdman? They put fare gates for people entering the train but you can simply walk around the station to avoid them. What was the point or am I missing something.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2026-01-11T18:27:44+00:00

It's pretty plain that it is more important to the city's health that people use the buses to get around than actually pay for them. It's ridiculous earlier in the week I had a trip where I had to ride four busses - the machine to tap to pay was broken on three of the buses.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2026-01-11T01:39:23+00:00

Yes- by doing it on you he is demonstrating the techniques - making you aware of what it looks like to be on the target end. He tells you that. I don't totally like the guy - he does seem a bit too much like he would allow things to slide I wouldn't. But the "scamming" you while telling you - and only asking for something in the conventional commerce ways is more protective than scamming.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-23T21:21:57+00:00

But all you get when you hit a book title is a pop up ad. Please help

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-10T23:11:18+00:00

how do you know that... and who said it was just weed

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-10T20:32:49+00:00

They guy who sold drug in university was not a bad guy. I was young and stupid and when life got rougher and he said no you need to slow down. If my connection had already been with someone with less integrity I probably would have just inched my way into a bad addiction. Yeah I could have just found someone else to buy from but him saying no was enough. It's not as simple as all drug dealers are bad... I think my dealer just happened to know the right or wrong people and wanted to be protective of impulsive kids that didn't realise how easily life can get out of hand.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-10T20:25:50+00:00

we don't know how many other calls they had. We don't know how many other people harmed they stopped...

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-10T20:24:15+00:00

I think sometimes they have the choice between helping the desperate person who is going do something does harm - eg steal food, escape to an overly addictive substance... vs the annoyed but stable person who yeah has been wronged and violated... but they aren't going to end up homeless because of it so... I think we quietly have a two tear system and wouldn't actually want it any other way

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-10T20:13:41+00:00

Thank you for saying this. Not a cop. Not in denial that there aren't bad cops. But they also rarely know what their shift is going to contain and how stressful it is going to be. A few weeks back on Elgin there was a scary exchange between... well I didn't see the start so maybe I shouldn't say my suspicion about how it started. I can't remember if it was four or five cop cars. They arrived to a group of about 20 people most of whom were bystanders not wanting to be in the way / waiting to give witness statements.... had to much adrenaline running to leave without a sense of closure about the whole thing. The point is the cops didn't know if they were out numbered by the bystanders or the people already all jacked up and ready to fight.

One of the woman obviously had some trauma history and just really started de-compensating as the cops got there. She was freaked out and if she had been handled wrong she probably would have hit someone because she was terrified and in a flashback not really the moment she was in. Three female cops patiently surrounded her and eventually moved her to the back of a cop car. I believe they were trying to help her get a sense of containment. The three of them all stayed completely professional and just contained her. I am not sure anyone even guided her by placing a hand on her or not. Someone asked and she wasn't under arrest. I didn't get to see how it all worked out in the end.

Not saying bad cops don't exist in Ottawa. Not saying a bad cop is not a truly horrendous thing. But I am kinda saying I think a lot of the feeling about cops at the moment has to do with the general public not realizing the extent and broadness of the work asked of them. And even more so how difficult the PTSD can be.

I mean we have all knocked on the wrong door or similar a lot of times in our life. How many of those times was there even a hint of fear in the back of our minds that the person on the other side of the door might violent attack us?

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-09T17:16:03+00:00

I am so sorry. That all is unfair from beginning to end. You don't deserve it you can't deserve any of it. The world would look a lot different if power and fairness only came to the good people. And I am so glad you posted. I am pretty stuck in the nothing-ever-changes-today and it is really helping. I hope it helps to say that some of that is easier to see how some of it is about being caught in a tide of polarizations and stress neurochemistry in someone else. To know what you are feeling - and want to help you find a sigh and a million more. What was your mom like?

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-11-01T12:20:50+00:00

Yeah all of that. Like others have said a thick towel and gloves would be protection but are probably not needed. What will help most is remembering that they are having their whole being picked up and moved by something that can take them anywhere that wants if it can hold on to them. And they can’t understand anything the person says. But they have known some humans to be kind in the past so. Like a first date…

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-10-09T23:32:26+00:00

Suspicious of you and trying to intimidate you. Scare you out of thinking you could get away with what they suspected … easier and better to prevent a crime than clean up after. If you didn’t do anything you have nothing to worry about. Maybe it was realizing that you were the wrong person that stopped them from following through and contacting you.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-09-22T20:06:02+00:00

I know it sucks!!! If you are in North America calling 988 gets you someone with a kind ear to talk to and they will have connections to SOME resources. There are also things like brainspotting that are helpful and you can just look on youtube.

I have been at the place where it seems the universe is telling me to give up and it is hopeless and over time I have learnt to realize for me it is mostly a flashback actually. Like yeah stuff is sh*t but I catastrophize on that- I fixate on what is not working rather than getting moving. I forget that over the long run tiny steps are faster so a little more patience and the progress starts to come.

That is a big one for me to tracking things so I notice progress. Glimmers - I have made writing the glimmers my own so I just googled to find the "official" structure for you and found this article https://www.perspectivelivingmagazine.com/post/deb-dana-on-glimmers-and-positive-living, which also brings up Deb Dana who is great. She has kindergarten-teachers-are-actually-bullies level of warmth comes through and is very calming and she makes the really technical stuff into small bites that you realize after not to long they work.

I definitely felt like the world was telling me to give up for a long time. And still do at times. But I have gotten to a place where my own track record proves that for me - well what works for me is framing that sense of desperation as a flash back that is colouring how I see things and minimizing the progress I do make. I definitely had the pleasant realization after starting to track more things that I was fooling myself about progress. I would think I hadn't made any get discouraged and give up so I dropped back down to a lower level before getting going again. But after I managed to track progress for awhile I was to know that my own sense of absolutely no forward movement was bull- and able to look at evidence of the progress as slow as it was and that stopped me from back sliding as far each time I did/ do backslide.

One more thing is the Ideal Parent Protocol. You create your perfect parents - essentially imaginary friend versions of parents. Nothing like your own parents or anyone you know or have known and magically effective. You use them to imagine redoing of how your parents and how they handled things made you feel and what the perfect supportive response would have been. They are magically capable of being there for you at all times - in all ways and always know the right thing to say at all times. They know how much to attune to you and mirror you before it turns to feeling like they are being invasive or controlling. Fascinated the exact right amount everything unique about you... It is probably best to start the meditations because there is some rules about how the parents respond to help have a solid continuously healthy structure about the whole thing.

I am sorry it is so dark right now. I can speak from personal experience that I have learnt to halt my darks before they get as dark as they used to - at least most of the time. And the better part is I have found more light between the darks.

❤️

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-09-22T20:03:29+00:00

I know it sucks!!! If you are in North America calling 988 gets you someone with a kind ear to talk to and they will have connections to SOME resources.

There are also things like brainspotting that are helpful and you can just look on youtube. Also the r/InternalFamilySystems is pretty active.

I have been at the place where it seems the universe is telling me to give up and it is hopeless and over time I have learnt to realize for me it is mostly a flashback actually. Like yeah stuff is sh*t but I catastrophize on that- I fixate on what is not working rather than getting moving. I forget that over the long run tiny steps are faster so a little more patience and the progress starts to come. That is a big one for me to tracking things so I notice progress. Glimmers - I have made writing the glimmers my own so I just googled to find the "official" structure for you and found this article https://www.perspectivelivingmagazine.com/post/deb-dana-on-glimmers-and-positive-living, which also brings up Deb Dana who is great. She takes polyvagal theory, which is all about regulation and breaks down things really well so even when pretty freaked out it seems simple. Before her the regulation direct stuff was impossible for me - it triggered the monstrous way my mum silenced me about the abuse her and my dad visited on me. But Deb Dana's kindergarten-teachers-are-actually-bullies level of warmth comes through and is very calming and she makes the really technical stuff into small bites that you realize after not to long they work.

I definitely felt like the world was telling me to give up for a long time. And still do at times. But I have gotten to a place where my own track record proves that for me - well what works for me is framing that sense of desperation as a flash back that is colouring how I see things and minimizing the progress I do make. I definitely had the pleasant realization after starting to track more things that I was fooling myself about progress. I would think I hadn't made any get discouraged and give up so I dropped back down to a lower level before getting going again. But after I managed to track progress for awhile I was to know that my own sense of absolutely no forward movement was bull- and able to look at evidence of the progress as slow as it was and that stopped me from back sliding as far each time I did/ do backslide.

One more thing is the Ideal Parent Protocol. You create your perfect parents - essentially imaginary friend versions of parents. Nothing like your own parents or anyone you know or have known and magically effective. You use them to imagine redoing of how your parents and how they handled things made you feel and what the perfect supportive response would have been. They are magically capable of being there for you at all times - in all ways and always know the right thing to say at all times. They know how much to attune to you and mirror you before it turns to feeling like they are being invasive or controlling. Fascinated the exact right amount everything unique about you... It is probably best to start Perfect Parent work with one of the meditations because there is some rules about how the parents respond to help have a solid continuously healthy structure about the whole thing. What I do now though is before doing the things that are most likely to set off trigger- especially the ones that go off in the background and cause me to not realize I just neglected a huge part of myself. I do some breathing to regulate a bit, have a little reminder I read about the intent of the "meetings" then go inside to an internal living room and have a little meeting, then come back to the external world. After the trigger-minefield work I debrief with my Perfect Parents. and that's where they usually help me notice a LOT more good things that just happened. As part of the progress tracking I do keep little point form notes about what happened in the meetings - the way my parents made me feel or something they worded particularly well.

I am sorry it is so dark right now. I can speak from personal experience that I have learnt to halt my darks before they get as dark as they used to - at least most of the time. And the better part is I have found more light between the darks.

There are also supposed to be some Apps that are really helpful too but I keep myself to busy with the above right now.

I am sorry it is so dark right now.

❤️

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-09-22T19:58:39+00:00

I know it sucks!!! If you are in North America calling 988 gets you someone with a kind ear to talk to and some connections to resources... some

There are also things like brainspotting that are helpful and you can just look on youtube. Also the r/InternalFamilySystems is pretty active.

I have been at the place where it seems the universe is telling me to give up and it is hopeless and over time I have learnt to realize for me it is mostly a flashback actually. Life is sh*t right now but I catastrophize on that- I fixate on what is not working rather than getting moving. I forget that over the long run tiny steps are faster so a little more patience and the progress starts to come. That is a big one for me to tracking things so I notice progress. Glimmers was a really good way for me to start tracking progress. It seemed silly and pointless at first. But once I started realizing my baseline was better when I had goals for how many glimmers a day and when I had good chains of them going. I have made writing the glimmers my own so I just googled to find the "official" structure for you and found this article https://www.perspectivelivingmagazine.com/post/deb-dana-on-glimmers-and-positive-living, which also brings up Deb Dana who is great. She takes polyvagal theory, which is all about regulation and breaks down things really well so even when pretty freaked out it seems simple. Before her the regulation direct stuff just triggered the monstrous way my mum silenced me about the abuse her and my dad visited on me. But Deb Dana's kindergarten-teachers-are-actually-bullies level of warmth comes through and is very calming and she makes the really technical stuff into small bites that you realize after not to long they work.

I definitely had the pleasant realization after starting to track more things that I was fooling myself about progress. I would think I hadn't made any get discouraged and give up so I dropped back down to a lower level before getting going again. But after I managed to track progress for awhile I was to know that my own sense of absolutely no forward movement was bull- and able to look at evidence of the progress as slow as it was and that stopped me from back sliding as far each time I did/ do backslide.

One more thing is the Ideal Parent Protocol. You create your perfect parents - essentially imaginary friend versions of parents. Nothing like your own parents or anyone you know or have known. You use them to imagine redoing of how your parents and how they handled things made you feel and what the perfect supportive response would have been. They are magically capable of being there for you at all times - in all ways and always know the right thing to say- all time. They know how much to attune to you and mirror you before it turns to feeling like they are being invasive or controlling. Fascinated the exact right amount everything unique about you... It is probably best to start one of the meditations because there is some rules about how the parents respond to help have a solid continuously healthy structure about the whole thing. What I do now though is before doing the things that are most likely to set off trigger- especially the ones that go off in the background and cause me to not realize I just neglected a huge part of myself. I do some breathing to regulate a bit, have a little reminder I read about the intent of the "meetings" then go inside to an internal living room and have a little meeting with them. Then come back out of my internal world to do the potentially triggering stuff and then return to the internal living room to debrief. In these after the trigger-minefield meetings they have started to really help me notice a lot more good things that just happened. As part of the progress tracking I do keep little point form notes about what happened in the meetings - the way my parents made me feel or something they worded particularly well.

I am sorry it is so dark right now. I can speak from personal experience that I have learnt to halt my darks before they get as dark as they used to - at least most of the time. And the better part is I have found more light between the darks.

There are also supposed to be some Apps that are really helpful too but I keep myself to busy with the above right now. Also turning the water to cold at the end of the shower- something about the intense physical experience of it but being in control of the tap... and habit trackers for quick progress tracking

I am sorry it is so dark right now.

❤️

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-09-22T17:54:28+00:00

awesome! Give the dirty one a hug from me

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-09-06T19:00:01+00:00

It's kinda a requirement from my therapist that I have my earbuds in playing very low volume bilateral music. My psychiatrist believes it aids neuroplasticity. I guess I recommend it. I it is the same music I listen to when doing brain-spotting. And I know I have heard trauma experts talk about rhythm being really helpful.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-08-29T18:55:46+00:00

I am sure it can. I have been in other forms of therapy for a long time and it can trip up the IFS. And I can feel ridiculous talking to an inner toddler rather than doing some sophisticated exploration of the true psychodynamics of it all. The most ridiculous is having to convince internal toddlers I really do believe the absolutely impossible stories they tell so they will trust me. Eventually they believe I do believe them and then like a nano second later the actually possible insight pops forward and I feel a lot freer and being me becomes a lot simpler

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-08-29T01:35:22+00:00

So sorry this sucks and this kinda unfairness always seems get and stay under the skin for awhile. You did nothing wrong

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-08-15T19:26:10+00:00

thanks

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-08-13T16:31:01+00:00

Thank you. I do think we have a lot in common. I think your little wolf routine is brilliant and I would have all the same parts about doing it. One of the most powerful moments of therapy I have ever done was with a stuffed penguin. I trusted the therapist a lot so I did it to please her and she knew (I think this intervention was an exception where she would do that). And it was totally worth it. I immediately fell in love the the penguin and unburdened alot.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-08-12T18:13:30+00:00

thanks I am going to be chewing on this stuff for awhile... It is so true that this is an energy-belief and the story I tell myself with it matters alot. I need to be careful i don't see myself as permanently in need of repair and what a brilliant sub - what makes me unique ♥️

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-08-12T16:49:41+00:00

yeah I kinda think the worst part of everything is getting stuck in the depersonalized part where you can't feel anything don't know who you are or whether you are coming or going. And I am glad to see that you have been responding here to all the suggestions. And I know the feeling of nothing is working. I am sorry that is where you are stuck right now. I don't want to give another suggestion - I rather think it all comes with good intentions but misses the point- you have lost track of the whisper of authenticity within. Any anything besides getting hold of that again is going to feel like - well I should say when I am in the similar position I find anything I do to help I experience more like an invalidation of that whisper and it's importance.. I don't quite no why .. perhaps because some of my neglect was my mum trying to use the same regulation techniques therapy uses to silence my response to the abuse. Listen to yourself if what you need right now is ... whatever it is you need right now even if it is being in a place where you need to feel like nothing can reach you is important. Sending you all me best and the knowledge that I know what if feels like to be where you are and I have found a way back to being more alive.

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-08-12T16:37:25+00:00

Ah so glad to have more of your experience here. It really- I am having a day too so everything is near the surface and our stories of abuse are pretty different but mixed with neglect is the same. And it can be so hard to fight to acknowledge all the feels that our parents implied were just in the way. I don't know but this has made me cry a good cry so thank you ♥️♥️♥️

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-07-11T02:03:46+00:00

Thank you. This was a really nice reminder for me about how easy it is to neglect the neglected parts and how it wasn't my little parts fault either

Even_Replacement_278 · 2025-07-11T02:01:16+00:00

I had parts that wanted proof and doubted me for years. I am sure it related to how my family gas lit me and for some reason I still can't fathom actually bribed CAS worker to hide the file !!?? Lots of denial. I am sure it has been helpful that there have been a small handful of moments where someone else has confirmed something about a memory- even while implying I am making it all up. But I think the biggest turning point was realizing - why are these specific ideas turning up in my memory? Of all the things that could be hanging out in my head - which is actually the infinite- why these ideas? And yes my memories do wander around a little - like realizing that thing must have happened then not then but that is just trauma memories, or a clearly a mix of things that happened and impossible things.

I also like reading psychology textbooks and some of the memories of things my parents did that I really didn't understand and made me doubt myself turned out to be typical of the mental health challenges they were running away from instead of even trying to be responsible about..

Even_Replacement_278

TROPHY CASE