Hey @Rick 

Please don't do this to yourself! I am not easily disheartened by medical research findings. If it runs totally counter to what my experience has been then I just figure they're wrong, or don't have the whole story yet. After all it is we who have the lived experience, is it not?

I understand you were trying to help, and I think others see that too. So please be kind to yourself for sharing hope in your own way. I'm sorry if what I said in reply was a bit bald in naming the very black and white perspective of research. This is a bit of a science problem. They want to have conclusions and that rarely has a lot of room for grey (and let's face it much of liife is neither black nor white).

Please do not shut down and shut us out - not over this. We need you. I need to be able to talk to you, I know you get this stuff. Do not punish us all because you feel the overwhelming need to punish yourself for a perceived (but truly not) misdemeanour.

I understand how you are feeling because I have just been having the most horrible emotional flooding going on. Thankfully I was able to ring my best friend and she was in an ok space to talk. Mind you I could barely talk myself, but she knows all the background which helps. 

Here's part of it:

Mid year I contracted an underground services location business to find my buried utilities, and part of the contract was to provide a map of where these are. When they were here I naively mentioned that I have PTSD. I had been very careful about enquiring what the minimum cost for them to attend was and how they charged for time. I got told $210 for first 1.5 hours inclusive, NO call-out or travel charge. So I booked them. They found the services, but not any pipes running between neighbouring properties (one of the reasons for arranging it) - which we have good reason to suspect - this was fair enough as the ground is full of river stones and probably building rubble too if my backyard is anything to go by. They were here for 1.5 hours.

When I got the invoice (late on a Sunday night by email) it was over $600 dollars, including a 2 hour time charge & a 2 hour travel charge! I hit the roof, as you can imagine. So I made myself calm down and rang the guy to explain the basis I'd contracted for their services. He then reduced it to 1.5 hours for both so over $400. I refused to pay. When he started theatening me with debt collectors etc I paid the $210 into his account in good faith and sent him an email explaining that he hadn't provided the map yet and when he did so I would pay another $91 (for a different machine which he'd offered to use & not charge us for) as this was the cost I'd been told when I'd enquired. 

He proceeded to the debt collectors, they threatened to list it on my credit rating. I pointed out that the amount is in dispute, so they can't list it. They've tried to charge me legal costs (which I'm not liable for) and vary the terms of the contract by making me pay before I receive the map. I don't trust this guy further than I could throw him, so I want to see the map and make sure it shows the measurements he took before I pay for it (I also know where these are now, so I can check it). They've now upped the legal charges and are threatening me with the magistrates court. Through this the lawyer attached to the debt collector has been phoning me, as well as emailing and sending snail mail. At one point I heard nothing for 6 weeks, then the screws were back on (that was the beginning of December). It is such a triggering time for me anyway that I just began to shut down. My agoraphobia kicked into overdrive and I have been struggling at times even with going to my therapy appointments. I have stopped answering the phone if it's a withheld number, or just one I don't recognise. I am also struggling to open my mail.

My good friend who is a lawyer is on long service leave and o/s. He kindly gave me advice so I could handle it myself in the early stages. Now I just don't know where to turn because I need to fight this but cannot do it without legal support. My BF suggested a couple of options - I can try WIRE being one and also womens legal service. So I will call them tomrrow if I can.

I studied contract and trade practice law at uni. I know what this guy's doing is illegal. But trying to hold out against it is costing me hugely in emotional terms. However the reality is that even though I'm very triggered and earlier today I felt like my brain was bound in barbed wire - if I were just to pay up to settle this it would feel like being complicit in abusing myself. It would be saying "it's ok" and it's not. 

So I'm trying desperately to keep it together. I had a good cry on the phone with my friend, very hard to do when I'm in that space as I tend to numb out or get very angry, and that helped SO much. Such a relief. Then a cool shower helped more. FInally relenting and getting take away for tea, even though I have stuff in the fridge which needs cooking, I really needed to give myself some breathing space. I am going to try to head for bed at 10pm tonight, as I have been struggling with going to bed - and with sleeping once there.

In the midst of sh*te ...

hope continues to endure

Kind regards,

Kristin