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A moment in time

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My hours spend on gaming often might be thought of as a waste. For me it is a way to let go. To relax and to escape the stress my trauma’s bring me. In a way I can’t anywhere else sometimes.

People seem often to think so light about it and I can but only wonder if they have even a clue what’s going on really and what trauma means. Its not something you can put aside or leave behind, you carry it with you anywhere and anytime. The inability to controle the fears inside me and the emotional pain I have to overcome everytime. The shame and desperarion I feel after I have been triggered. I keep moving forward but my past keeps pulling me back. It’s a constant struggle. Ignoring it leads to nightmares and more anxiety attacks because it simply does not go away just like that.

Sometimes I can easily tell what triggered me but I often can’t even tell because I simply don’t know and it’s a combination of things. I have been developing anxieties due to surviving techniques I have adjusted myself to, to live with my trauma’s and past. These survival techniques I developed myself according to my abilities and the situation because it is in humans nature to survive.

Someone who can’t swim will struggle and fight to survive. These struggles triggered by panick might eventually be the reason that they won’t survive. Simple floating would be a life saving technique. But when you have never learned this then you most likely don’t know how to use this.

My self taught survivingtechniques have lead to all kind of other issues and now they are not useful anymore they harm me and even makes me disfunctional at times. Self destructive behaviour for example is something I need to be really aware of. My self esteem, many people who know me would not even understand it or believe it but it’s zero. When playing those games I can relax and relativate and evaluate. It gives me a moment to let go of stress aside of the fact that some games are just fun to play.

Time passes and is something you don’t get back once it’s passed, so we should be very careful  how our time is spend. Wasted money can be regained. Wasted time is just that, wasted. Sometimes that’s ok. The time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted. It’s time well spend. My hours spend on gaming often might be thought of as a waste. That’s ok it’s my time and not theirs. They don’t live my life and I dont live theirs. They can’t have my time and I don’t want theirs my own time and life is difficult enough as it is.

It’s also about treasuring moments you enjoy and creating time to enjoy and allowing yourself to enjoy time spend on something. It’s part of self care and allowing yourself to be who you are. Acknowledging is the beginning of change. Understanding that being ok is sometimes good enough, that failing is part of life and is alowed. I don’t have to be what other people want me to be, and that learning costs time so I need to allow myself this time. It took time to get where I am now so it will take time to come where I’m heading at as well.

With Christmas when my mom was here I had asked her to make some carrotsoup like she used to make  as long as I remember. I just love that soup and we had bought our selfs a new refridgerator with a freezer with 3 drawers so I wanted to  put some in the freezer too.  And ofcourse my mom made a load of soup and it was delicious as always. We froze in a few liter soup that she had made extra. But all that soup.. well… its all gone.. we ate it all in January and February allrdy and  a few weeks ago it started itching again.. I wanted to have carrotsoup.. Now our normal grocerystore where we always go was doing a redecorating that would last till half april so I was going to wait till then… And this week it was reopened.

So I bought  all the Ingredients I needed and today I made that famous carrotsoup myself.. for the first time.. And it was delicious, just like my mom makes it. Good job eh? Thank goodness I made a lot of extra so next time when I want  some carrotsoup again, all I need to do is open my fridge n get myself a pack of frozen carrotsoup out. Since that soup turned out so well when I tried to make it by myself, I wanted to share the recipe here. So you guys can try it for yourself :). I am using European/Dutch measurements so you might want to google up to converse to your own country.

Carrotsoup  (+/- 8 portions)

• 500 gram Wintercarrots (those are like the biggest carrots u can find XD) fresh ofcourse.
• 1 onion
• 2 toes of garlic (I used garlic paste thats rdy to use)
• 4 beef bouillon blocks (make sure its for 2 liter bouillon)
• 40 grams margarine (butter)
• 40 grams flour (all purpose)
• 2 liter water
• 3/4 teaspoon curry powder
• 150 gram grounded beef)
• 1 thin leek
• parsley hacked in small pieces for finishing touch.
• salt and pepper

Clean the carrots and cut them in  big slices. Peel the onion and cut it in tiny pieces. peel the garlic and  use a garlic press to make 2  toes into paste.

Use a BIG soup pan thats large enough for  all ingredients to fit when the soup is finished.  Put in the pan: 2 liter water, the carrot slices, the cut onion, the pressed garlic and the bouillon blocks. Bring it to boiling and let it boil for 15 minutes.

Take a large bowl (or 2) and a sieve and pour the soup  thru the sieve into the bowl(s) so u have a clear bouillon left over. The carrot and onion and garlic that u catched in the sieve you going to have to mash completely (I used my kitchen machine with blades for this) U can put all the bouillon back together in the big pan and keep the mashed carrotmix seperated for now.

In another pan you melt the butter and stir the flour through it when its melted. Then little by little you add some bouillon as you keep stirring till you have a lightly bound soup.  Add this lightly bound soup back with the rest of the bouillon int the large pan and add the mashed carrotmix aswell. Now its time to test the taste of your soup first time. add a lil bit of the currypowder and try again.. then add  a little more if neccesary and some salt and pepper just the way you like it.

From the ground beef you gonna have to make tiny lil balls. Bring your soup back to boiling and add the lil meatballs. let that boil for about 10 minutes. In  that time  you can cut the leek into  small/thin slices (rings) and let those boil aswell for 5 minutes in the soup. (If you want to freeze in the soup then seperate what you going to use right away and add the leek to that so the part you going to freeze dont have the leek. You will have to add that when you going to use the soup.) Last but not least, when serving the soup sprinkle a little bit of the  hacked parsley after pouring the soup into bowls/plates.

Make sure the soup has cooled down before you freeze it. enjoy 🙂