Recentring

It's the start of the morning here so I thought I'd  make a bit of a start on this weeks entry working through the various things on my mind.
I think the first thing to say is I feel more vulnerable emotionally today than I have for a good many years between the feelings brought out from the previous week, the never ending inter communal supremely childish discourse on Tumblr losing a couple of followers, having a remove and I'm blocking you for being in the "wrong" community as defined by them order and having our age regression  questioned by an exclusive group of ...age regressors!
Toss in the English FA youth soccer investigation into abuse by a man who lived but 100 yards away from me from whose face I can still recall with a shudder and you get the picture,eh?
I just feel very much in need of a hair rustling and a hug, just to know everything will be okay and in fact I'll just colour and play with my stuffies I think cos that'll help recentre me to a point I feel good rather like the "Restore" point on a Windows computer helps when the software don't work right you restore the operating system to a earlier point where it does!
That for me always was and is where age regression was at rather than anything really adult and why generally things had been running that much better for me over the last few years cos I worked more with what's right for me rather than performing an act of impersonating others and falling badly when the real life developmental issues plowed into reality, leaving me an emotional mess.
I may not be around some sites as much as had but I think this is really what I need right now.

Chilling little style V - A change of colour and intergration

Sometimes it can seem with this life you can easily end up a load of clothes that don't slot into the non-littles world but with a bit of care you can find ways around of this.
First off and subject to some delays with the Royal Mail is a maroon sweatshirt with a rounded top which was available from a well know ebay school wear supplier even in 'adult' sizes although it is school wear and is clearly  branded on the tab inside as such.
It can easily be worn with black or beige pants or a slightly more adult skirt outside of being a part of uniform with no one being the wiser.

One reason for buying was I have a few sweatshirts in need of replacement and I do wish to merge my wardrobe.

This wine coloured pleated skirt has a similar story being also from a school wear supplier but isn't so far removed from what you may wear in some working environments being supplied by work wear companies for offices except where girls may of worn knee length socks, adults generally would wear hose (Brit speak: Tights) usually with plain blouse.
Putting the two together and adding the long socks either white or grey makes for a school/college uniform for when I'm at home or away with friends.

Triggered and trying to pick up the pieces.

The week was due to end on something on high and anyone that read the post on Friday  on the other blog may well of been forgiven for thinking that  as I looked at how over the years I had actually developed and as a result of that the blog had reflected those changes in me.
Some of those things included people who were going to have a more parental input in my life to help me better manage it because I was struggling with it providing guidance and oversight and also by consent, spanking me which has worked well.

 It's perfectly true to say emotionally and psychologically, many of us carry some baggage around with although for most it's something they have control over but for some of us it goes much deeper than that.
You might think you have it safely contained where it doesn't cause you any problems however this sort of traumatic events can jolt you back back very much in that moment reliving those raw terrifying emotions, freezing you, leaving you shaking badly.
For me personally I do go 'mute' in stressful situations, I stare out oblivious to what is going on around, I just shut down and curl up. It's a vulnerability I have to live with when I'm so overwhelmed I can't act to look after myself.
That's what makes a triggering episode like the one I had on Thursday really bad bring back painful memories of witnessing verbal abuse and physical violence at home and of inappropriate physical contact outside of it. It goes that much deeper than just something you'd rather never happened.
I supposed in a way it had to happen at a site very much for adults because with my mixture of learning/developmental disabilities I don't really slot into sites well because I do need generally a higher degree of moderation and 'hand holding' than most sites expressly for adults offer but either that sites that do are strictly under 18 or more general ones where some topics would (understandably)  be off limits.What I need more - an more older kid style of site -  but for over 18's doesn't exist.
It just happened that in innocuously questioning a part of the main site entrance,  it opened up discussion things that directly triggered emotions from those experiences that left me shaking in my tummy  just even typing it.
I just feel at the moment typing this I need  to try to get this under some control and a part of that is to take a break from the site in question until I feel ready to log back in seeing posts without all these memories flooding back.
I think the whole topic that lead to this needs to resolved, "put to bed" so the thread and everything in it can just float away or be closed off.
For me at some point when I feeling better than I am presently, I would like to work toward some permanent closure  with the individuals concerned and  not just from a personal point of view  that's obviously a very important for me but also for them to try to work through their feelings on what happened and how it's left things.
To me it is that within my limitations, I do need when I'm better to resolve all of this in a mature way rather than just avoiding people who I did really like and mostly likely never saw where things would end up.

Post 700

This blog seems very much to have been going for an eternity from the earliest days of literally grabbing all the material on a really old computer, typing at home and while for once we had some spare time at work over a few weeks, the works one too(!!!) which was a bit quicker.

Rather like me, it's been evolving over all that time as I began to try to understand what  made me, well me, how the more child-like side slotted in with the bits that deal with the adult world because with me this is less playing a role I can just click my fingers and be out of so much that it comes out of me from The Child Within.

It's seen me interact initially with people online in various forums and sometimes going through forums as I realized they were not really for me to getting to know people face to face, spending time with them for several days at a time. 

In that time with support I have been working on some of my difficulties such as Math and English finding time to study, reading either by myself or  sometimes a shared book learning to discuss it with others.

As well, this time has seen me become more confident as this adult little/middle girl as I started to get that whole life working better with additional support and structures routed very much in meeting the child-like needs I have properly so I'm well grounded, learning to do more and be more responsible.

I have been tidying up this blog a little, correcting odd mistakes, changing the odd image while preparing a couple of new entries ready for the next hundred  editions.

At the more techy side only 49% of you use Windows with Chrome followed by Firefox being your preferred browsers showing just how far we've moved from the early days of blogging.
Here's to the enduring success of Joanne's Dorm.

Away day schooling

It's a bit of a while since I wrote anything around the re-creation of schooling a form of words I'm now a bit more for as "school based role play" for me implies in part I am role playing the child at school and with me this whole whole thing is more like I have that child running 24/7 in me.
Effectively you've created a school with all the things I recall of my education that I just attend.
One of the things I did involved having a math  lesson taught to me by a person being  a teacher doing what was called "chalk and talk" where they would talk away but write important concepts and any questions on the chalkboard for you to do.
For my part I was dressed in a traditional black tunic (Brit speak: "Gymslip") with tie and school socks at a equally traditional wooden desk with a  hole for in, grooves for your pens and a lift up slightly sloped lid that before flat "Go-Pak" stacking school furniture such as tables became popular you had together with matching wooden chairs with an S shape bottom.
Like most I was taught metric units as my home country went metric during this period  although for somethings imperial never went away like road distances and part of this lesson covered an introduction to Imperial weights and measures that I had to sit and write down from the chalkboard including the questions set on each unit.
This covered ounces, pounds, stones, hundred-weights  and tones when it came to Mass, inches, feet, yards, cubits, chains and miles in linear measurement.
I also had set some multiplication and division work too that I had to copy, answering all the questions.
The work from the point of view of presentation, neatness of writing and showing of workings out was examined in addition to marking the answers to questions set and my attitude toward studying.
My work was then written on in red pen.
Overall I hadn't done too badly but I had made a few mistakes down to not being as careful as I should of been as when asked to show how I got the answer where I had made mistakes, I did get it right first time so it wasn't a question of not knowing or comprehending.
Because it was that and nothing to do with my actual learning limitations which are NEVER a reason to, I was instructed to bend over the desk at each unit where this had occurred to be spanked either by hand or for one which was more around not paying sufficient attention to the work, the tawse.

This needless to say did hurt persisting for some time but to be honest, it is what lead to it that really is more the problem: I don't take the care I could to produce work that limitations aside I am actually capable of, that reflect my abilities rather than my disabilities.
In that sense what might in the past of been called "school based role playing" has real benefits in helping to change because it identifies in real-life situations those attitudes and behaviours that need correcting and delivers the lessons that in all honesty people who were less centred around the dis in my disabilities excusing me and more on abilities and training me to use them properly in same way my peers were really should of done.
For me then this bit of the weekend away was really beneficial.

Fall 2016

Slowly waking up here after the overnight rain.
This time of the year give or take a few weeks is one of my personal favourites not least for the rich colours that vary by the hours, something living here I really appreciate being able to literally just stroll on over to the woods and fields.

Around of this time of year  I often see the local grey squirrels leaping across the trees branch by branch carefully balancing , going across the road and into our gardens burying their Winter store.
I find it really keeps my spirits up.

Malory Towers revisited

After all the excitement of last week and writing up all the adventures on Monday I'm writing what in some ways is a continuation piece from a 2011 entry of mine that kind of gives you an idea of just how long I've been blogging.
When I wrote way back in more or less exactly five years ago about Malory Towers, the  six part series of novels by Enid Blyton, I remarked about a couple of things I had noticed since originally encountering them in childhood.
One was about the illustrations which I feel is relevant not least in the Country I presently reside in because for a school based series, you see, you may well have personally even worn, the uniforms many schools have so have a mental image of what a school boy or in this case a school girl generally looks like. The tendency for cartoonish illustrations in particular used on the  first decade of this centuries editions of this series  particularly made them look cheap and detached them from their era.
I'd never of bought them as a child cos I wanted something that looked presentable and clearly hooked me into the story.
I saw the paperbacks with those images and bought at the time a nicer looking set of softbacks from 2004 that served me well until something else came very much to light.
Like with a good number of her books, the text had been altered with no clear indication and so I did pick up a 1987 omnibus edition of the first four novels published by W H Smith but printed by Methuen Children's books under license.

I didn't actually realize Dean's who were an imprint of Methuen's  did a complete  set in the form of two hard back books until very recently and given these were from the early 1990's was a bit concerned about those troublesome alterations and updates.
The first volume not so imaginatively titled Malory Towers came out in 1991, a year later than the separate six volumes issued in their Rewards series with more modernish but generally tasteful front covers.
I did check the text over as in the first novel, First Term at Malory Towers, there are clear references both to Darrel's behaviour that are toned down in modern editions and the threat to spank with a hairbrush common enough when first published but removed completely in newer editions. That was big shock I found moving to the 2004 set to that incomplete omnibus late 80's edition because it does alter the feel of those schoolgirls in a boarding school, like I was, and makes the adults responses more understandable.
This 1991 set surprisingly uses the same text as if they had used the same typesetting as that and had carried it over to the 1990 Rewards too and keeps a good number of the original black and white illustrated plates by Jenny Chapple.

While the cover looks slightly too contemporary to my eyes, the advantage of having the second volume over the 1987 is in part less weight for having just three novel per volume compared to four and again it uses a less modern so-called politically correct text.
My suspicion are that actually these three in one omnibus editions and the 1990 separate ones are just repackaged editions of the versions Methuen  had out during the 1980's with newer covers for sale by certain book sellers who specialized in discounted hardback books aimed at adults buying for children.

 Now that is the original hardback dust jacket from Third Year at Malory Towers which I feel sums up the feel of playing sports together at an all girls school wearing era specific uniform.
While to be honest I'd sooner they had used front covers more in that style for these two three in one omnibus editions, they do make for a good way to get relatively recent pre-political correct text versions often been found for just a few pounds each in good condition.
They do match my St Clares and The Naughtiest Girl Dean's omnibus editions being from the same era with their vanilla coloured spines.
I was very glad to spot these just before I went away.
Original entry: Malory Towers

The A to Z of Jo staying with you

When you get to see this I will be almost ready to go away for a few days so in the intervening time I have been super busy organizing my transportation, making sure I take what I need and that it is all been properly washed and any outstanding business is taken care off.

 

When it comes to going away things are always different with me compared to most in that in the first instance whoever I stay with assumes some responsibility for me because of the limits on my abilities not just physically but also when it comes to my abilities to exercise responsibility and make quick judgments.

In a good many respects I have the position and all the authority of a teen girl staying with relatives because while I do have a say, the higher level decisions are made for me and I am subject to house rules in a direct way.

This is for a number of reasons such as I struggle with options, often getting confused around implications and consequences to the point of just freezing over, often I require supervision to make sure breaks and get to bed at a reasonable time so I have a no later than bedtime and can be sent to bed if I'm tired.

I do wear uniform when I am with them at all times except if we're going in a place where regular folk congregate such shops and the like.

Also I am scolded and spanked by them should I be dishonest, disobedient or disrespectful to them or anyone else during that period as most adult ways of dealing with this just don't work with me but that does.

To be honest, I find this actually quite a lot better for me not least for it is a less anxious experience, that if I do mess up (and I'm prone to it) at least everything is over and done with and as necessary I'm helped to put things right to other peoples satisfaction where whenever I had been with people before I just messed up and we just got to the point I was dead nervous about going and they'd be left feeling they'd 'have' to take me or I was for a forever kind of punishment.

That it ties in with my little/middle side and its needs helps to keep some inner tensions down between trying impersonate a grown up and in many ways the lack of such a side in me which just added to the difficulties following higher level discussion of the sort you expect of adults.

It is also helping me more deal with my emotions, sorting some of my attitudes out which people just faced with a potential meltdown in adult company didn't deal with.