Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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As we go through life we develop skills and creativity. Sometimes skills are developed by a need or enjoyment through a hobby. What's your secret talent?
I had to really think about this question. My secret talent is baking and decorating cakes. I can put together, birthday cakes, wedding cakes, themed cakes, icecream cakes and even cakes with logos. I started baking with my aunt when I was 8 years old. One of the most creative cakes I put together was for my sister. I told her I would bake her a cake for her birthday. My sister found this picture in a magazine of a tiered cake with an igloo and penguins holding gifts on the top tier, the cake had an open center with ice skating penguins and snowflakes on the sides of the cakes. I laughed when I saw the picture and said that I was thinking of a cake with Roses or flowers and my sister said, you promised you would bake me something special and this is what I really want. It took me several days to make all the penguins from royal icing. I did it and she was thrilled.
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89FNo energy, just going to do whatever. Sandra, It's hard to move at a certain time in life. You've been in your home forever, at least you'll be able to travel to the beach and enjoy. Oh, we did hear Boris Johnson's tenure ended due to a series of ethics scandals, accusations of dishonesty and a final collapse of government support that forced his recognation. What he didn't do like the...
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My cat is going on trial for crimes against skink-anity. SIX in six weeks. Three this last week alone.The crack is maybe 1/4 inche wide. Maybe. Skink skitters past, her paw shoots out, her claw hooks in, she yanks, and somehow, having defied physics... WHAM. Skink-o-rama.Now, don't get me wrong, it's nice that she's a pesticidal maniac, but OMG. Skinks do no harm. They don't come inside. WTF.So,...


I have no idea if I have a hidden or undiscovered or unmentioned talent. I used to (fill in blank) but with deteriorating eyesight (I'm nearsighted anyway, throw in middle-aged far-sightedness, and the world is a big blur to me!)...
I guess it's a hidden skill, not necessarily talent, that I can turn old t-shirts into a rag rug. That's just something I grew up doing, however. Old clothes = new things. ...
OK, now I'm totally stumped, LOL!
Me, I developed a talent for adapting to new homes as a kid with a mentally ill dad who was an untreated bipolar with PTSD. Instead of getting treatment and addressing his restlessness, he would lock himself in a room in the house moaning loudly for days at a time every year. When he'd come out he'd tell us God had spoken to him and we were to pack up everything and move to ______________ . (Fill in the blank).
Notably, this message to move usually was triggered by some conflict he couldn't face at church. It's clear now that it was his PTSD fight or flight response that was triggered and enhanced to either manic or depressive extreme of moods by his bipolar mood disorder. But obedient to "God" we all packed up and moved every time.
That's how I came to attend 13 schools in three countries and three languages from K-12. It made me adaptable to suddenly learning math in a language I did not know (Spanish) when we moved to Mexico for our language school. Then I suddenly had to become adaptable when we moved as missionaries to Melo to live in a chicken coop (no kidding) near the Uruguayan-Brazilian border where Portuguese is spoken. Then when to save money I was sent to a British boarding school in Uruguay, I had to adapt my American English to British English (they were insistent as to that point). And on and on.
I still found a way to be popular in each new school. In high school I starred in the school play even as the new kid, and I was made deputy head boy prefect (a British equivalent to vice president of the student body). I ended up getting a doctorate in Spanish with a minor in Portuguese and I've taught Spanish along with psychology for 40 years now, so I really got good use out of those chameleon skills of mine to adapt.
The downside has been that I look on every home as so temporary that, anticipating moving on, I never fully unpack my bags. That did not sit well with two spouses so our marriages ended in divorce, not from the usual arguing, adultery, or any of those causes. They simply ended because I was not fully present to my mates, I never unpacked my emotional bags and put down roots in our relationship that would anchor and nurture it for life. I really regret venturing into marriage and hurting myself and my partners before I'd resolved that issue. But I only learned of in retrospect in therapy when we did my divorce autopsy of why a nice guy like me was twice divorced.
I learned, then, that the same talent that gave me a wonderful teaching career also was what would cost me intimacy in relationships. As they say, "the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away." So it is with our talents, too, they cut both ways.