Waking Up

It's hard to love someone, to care for them in the blackest hours.
The songs and the poems and the flowers and the pink hearts... they're all symbolic of the romanticism of love. I mean the rougher parts of love, the tooth and nail of it.
It's genuinely hard.

It's difficult to watch someone you care about go through something tough. When their health fails them and despite all the therapists and the medication and the professional teams, in the end you feel like you are the only person keeping them alive simply from the fierceness of your love for them.

It's terrifying to watch them peer over the edge into the void, the chasm calling them in. You tug at their sleeve and lose your cool for a moment even at their lowest ebb because you are simply petrified that this is the end, so close you can breathe it in.

It's hard to watch them suffer. You are helpless against the hopelessness. All-consuming as your love for them may be, you know you are both but a tiny coal in the hurricane. One gust too hard or squall too quenching and the fire fizzles.

It's exhausting to love someone.

Then, without warning, my lady is given back to me from the brink. She looks at me with eyes that are finally focussed and clear, her features are once again full and warm with joy where they had been dull and slack.

I realise I am staring into her eyes and she is actually there.
"Oh!" I exclaim in surprise. I stupidly add "Hello!"
She giggles. She hasn't giggled in weeks.
"Hello!"

My heart dissolves in my chest. I am drowned in relief and grief. I weep like she had died and was resurrected. I pull her to me and hold her tight and whisper to her that I missed her. We kiss like it's our first kiss again.

"Are you back to stay?" I ask, willing myself not to hope too much. "Or is this.... just a visit?"
She smiles weakly and tells me honestly, "I don't know."

Later, she tells me it is as though she had been asleep. I tell her that in truth it was much, much worse than that. Her being asleep all this time would have been easier.
She apologises. I wipe the words away from her lips with my fingertips. I tell her it's not her fault, and that truthfully I don't care, I'm just so happy to have her returned to me.
She holds me and I feel strength in her embrace again.

I empty my tears into her chest until I exhaust myself. She listens and runs her fingers through my hair. The gesture is so gentle and caring and full of everything I had mourned the loss of that I break again and cry a reserve of tears I didn't know I had. She makes pitying noises as she kisses my hot forehead.

Some mornings later we tentatively decide to celebrate her waking up. We spend almost all day with our hands and fingers interlocked, we tell each other we love each other, with forgotten sincerity and intensity. We talk and I spend some time filling in the gaps of the weeks she missed. There are days she has no memory of, conversations that are deleted from history. I slowly and gently bring her up to speed. My patience is lengthened.

The hard part is over for now. Until another storm hits we walk through foggy, dreamy swirls of the easier parts of love, like the end credits of a fantasy film.
I reflect on what I've learnt, and tell myself to try to remember it all: The night's rainfall can be weathered, with strength. I wish myself strength, because this is the part that's worth it:
Waking up.

.

"Is there something someone could have done?"

Recently I had a friend contact me asking for advice. She is a teacher and has noticed a girl in one of her classes displaying behaviour that fits into the category of anxiety/depression traits (gloomy, not achieving within her abilities, noticeably 'down' body language and facial expressions, negativity, poor self esteem etc etc). My friend asked "Is there something you wish a teacher had done for you?" She added that as part of the health curriculum, the students are addressing things such as self-regulation, resilience and conflict resolution strategies, body language and leadership skills, but she wanted to know if there was anything more that she could do. Was there more than being available to listen, and giving her extra time and support to complete tasks etc?

Firstly, I was surprised to be asked. My friend excused herself for the personal nature of the question, and allowed me the option to decline discussing it, but truth be told I was moved. Someone had recognised someone struggling, and had thought of me, thinking I could help. I have always been open about my struggles, in the hope that this very ripple effect could take place. Now that it's here, though, I'm not really sure what to say.

I didn't know whether I could make any real valuable additions to what was being done, but I offered the below response:

I’d love to be able to say that someone saying or doing any one thing (reminding me that there are people who love me, challenging my negative thoughts) would have pulled me out of the gloom, but the reality is that her brain is likely going to reject any evidence that you give her that says she is liked or capable etc, and it won't be a quick, transformative moment of "Oh. Right. Good point. Thanks." and skipping into the sunshine.

It’s a strong as hell voice in those dark corners of the mind.

Even when the rational side of your brain makes logical and evidence-based arguments that 100% disprove the ideas of ‘nobody likes you, you’re just a failure anyway, everything is pointless’, 9 times out of 10 that tiny, imperceptible voice will override them.

It’s like a gut feeling.

Ever had that sliver of a fear when you’re walking in the darkness of the hallway, and you know, truly and rationally, that you are safe and no one is there, but that little gut feeling says you need to quicken your step and get to the next lightswitch… just in case?

That’s the override.

BUT

That doesn’t mean that your efforts will go unnoticed.

I can vividly remember being called out by another student who gave me a firm but caring ‘not everyone is out to get you!’ and I hear her voice often, even as an adult.

And getting some kind of piece of paper that we had to pass around and write on, and discovering at the end of my school time that so many of my peers actually did like me and found me funny. I remember thinking why the hell did no one say anything before??

Because they felt I wouldn’t hear them. 

I would have heard them. Even if I dismissed it at first, I’d have shelved it.

It's common that your own gloom makes others uncomfortable, and they don't really know how best to approach you, especially if you've knocked back their efforts before. If the voice has spoken through you, biting back at their kindness, dismissing their offerings of any kind of light, it does make people think twice about reaching out again.

So, I guess the only thing I can suggest, as the girl on the other side, is to keep on reaching out. 

Teachers and other school staff were actually the people I took the greatest comfort from during that time.

If she says ‘nobody likes me’, a gentle ‘I think you’d be surprised’ could go a long way.

I was surprised in later life to find out that that inner voice had been lying to me all those years.

The depression and the anxiety go hand in hand. They lock you up and exhaust you, and encourage you that everyone has an agenda, and tell you that the only way to survive is to build walls even if those walls keep out the flowers with the arrows.

Anxiety can say "There are enemies at the door. Lock the windows, be on guard."

Depression can say "This is somehow your fault."

They're best friends, but not to you.

Keep reaching. 

Even if the hand is left hanging, keep it out there.

It will be frustrating, and exhausting, and it will seem like you’re wasting your time. But keep doing it. 

Remind her that you are there. Remind her that you will listen if she needs you to. Remind her that its okay to not be okay. 

I had a teacher who would tell me to smile, to cheer up, to put on a happy face. That last one was done via song so it did make me crack a smile briefly, but no it did not ‘cheer me up’. 

It made grumpy: I was allowed to feel down, I was keeping to myself and not bothering anyone goddammit, and these people were telling me I couldn’t/shouldn’t.

Having permission to not be okay has possibly been the greatest, most helpful thing about this journey. The growing awareness of these types of conditions today means that as an adult, I can now say to my boss or my friends or some of my family “Sorry, I’m not doing okay, but I’m safe.”

And both they and I know it will pass, to give me support or distance if I need, but most importantly, permission. I'm not allowed to apologise to the people who truly understand. Even if I try to, because that voice is saying how much you've disappointed everyone, those who really get it tell me put my apologies away. It's been a long and hard lesson to learn, but permission is a key pointer.

It takes a layer of stress and guilt away. 

Especially as a kid, I felt weighed down by people telling me about how I shouldn’t feel this way or that I didn’t deserve it because someone else had it harder. I found myself saying a friend had died, or it was the anniversary of a death or something similar just to get some peace from the questions. Only then did people say 'oh okay, yeah that’d suck, I’m here if you need/until you stop feeling so down, okay?' when that was all I'd wanted.

So I guess all I can really say in response to the question is:

I wish more people would have kept reminding me that they were there for me, should I ever feel the need/motivation to accept the invitations, and not been discouraged by my initial dismissals. Nothing more than a small reminder, stating that the offer was still open. That voice is quick to interpret the passage of time as a waning interest from others. Sure I probably would have gotten sick of hearing it, but when the time came that I wanted someone, I knew who I could approach.

I wish more people had said that it's okay to not be okay, that they wanted me to be safe but didn't demand that I be happy when I wasn't.

And I wish more people were brave and gentle and tactful enough to call me out when I was being ridiculous in my self-loathing. It's a delicate tap-dance of a kindness, but if the right person can find the right time and do it the right way, then it's something that can be useful down the track, and I thank the girl who first took the time to gauge where I was at and poked a hole in my defensiveness. 

I can't say that all or any of these things will be applicable to the student in question, but these are the things my reflections have brought to mind. 

I wonder if my healing would have started sooner had they been in play.

Musing over.

Related: Four Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Struggling With Depression

Crossroads

I am a polymath, a scanner, a renaissance soul.
It means I have not, and likely will not, settle on one career path. I sample at the tapas of life's dinner table.

The great thing is that because I've done a lot, I can do a lot.
But it means that once I've found a niche and I am no longer challenged, I grow bored and listless.

Now imagine that with the looming threat of occasional bouts of depression on the horizon: the lingering laziness and stolen motivation, where even changing from dressing gown to daytime outfit seems daunting.

It means that while I'd like a role where I can constantly be challenged and feel like I'm worth my salt, I know my eventual limitations when the inevitable knocks on the door. The inconsistency of it means it's challenging to navigate. I could fly in my work, and my life, for months with nary a bump in the road, but at some point in the future the black dog invites himself home again, for some undeterminable amount of time.

It's things like this that draw me to factory work. The repetitive mindlessness of it all; it appeals to the safety-seeking moments when I need nothing else but steady work to pay the bills.
But when the days clear up again. I seek challenge and conquest.

I am becoming very good at playing dodgeball in this life.

I have been playing with the idea of this post for a while: mostly what I want to say but also whether it needs saying at all.

Some people who read this may already be aware that I have, in the past, been involved with a person who did not treat me very healthily. It has taken many years to actually recognise and correctly name this relationship as abusive. I suspect most people in similar situations have trouble identifying such until later. It's easy enough to dismiss oneself as being silly or oversensitive, but when you are being actively conditioned to do so, it's a lot harder to acknowledge in the moment.

The situation has been on my mind a fair bit recently for a few reasons. Perhaps the most striking to me at the moment is that I am fast approaching the anniversary of our first meeting. A decade has past, and I am so changed from the 'me' that became involved with this person that I am barely able to relate to any old diary entries or blog posts that I read. After moving house, I have been able to dig up old materials of this nature and read back over the period in question.
I don't really want to detail the exact specifics of the abuse, but I have some hindsight, context, and rueful wisdom.

The first thing I want to get off my chest is an apology.

I am sorry to all of my friends and family who were also affected by my relationship with this person.
I know they will say that the apology isn't warranted, but still I feel the need to impress upon them my sincerity: I am so sorry.

I'm sorry I didn't listen; that I dismissed your concerns; that I allowed myself to be shepherded away from your genuine and protective love; that I deprioritised you even in the days when I could see that I was being influenced, but decided to choose the easier path because continuing to fight to keep you by my side drained me of any energy I had left for myself. I remember some of the decisions I made out of self-preservation that hurt you and I still struggle with it.

Secondly, and I cannot stress this enough, I want to implore anyone reading this to make a concerted effort to stay mindful of their situation. There were a lot of warning signs and gut feelings that I ignored. There were also positive things I ignored too, like the concerns tentatively voiced to me by others that I cast aside; I fiercely defended my unhealthy relationship, even against my own inner qualms.

It is only now, with the strength of retrospection that I am able to see that I would have had support, but I had slowly been isolated. I was, whether consciously or not, cut from my herd.


People have often asked me why we got together in the first place, or at least stayed together after the first concerns were raised. The answer is somewhat two-fold itself: I was in a low place when we met, and this person could be very charismatic and good at saying what I wanted to hear. I can even remember a conversation we had after a group outing, whereby they accused my accompanying friends of not caring about me like they do. A case was presented, and I was swayed. Their debate was convincing, their evidence sound. Of course they knew what was best for me, after all they were my partner.

I don't necessarily believe this behaviour was deliberately malicious. I actually believe that they believe they were doing the right thing by me. I was slowly convinced that I owed them my dedication, my defence, my protection; after all isn't that what I also receive from them?

Possibly the most dismantling harm was the effect this had on my sense of self-assurance. Whenever I would gain enough confidence and felt the need to stand up for myself, my partner was very good at martyrdom and victim-playing. Again, I have reason to believe this wasn't a conscious and deliberate action, but simply a result of having no other emotional maturity or capacity to do otherwise.

It meant that I would eventually apologise for my moments of self-defense. They were held against me in a mental ledger, and I was confronted with the tired adage of "If you really loved me..." more than I had prior.

Eventually, this taught me that my indignation at unfair or unhealthy situations was disproportionate. I had been convinced that I was the one overreacting; that my outbursts of emotion or rage, the result of compacted and repressed frustration or a sense of injustice, were standalone incidents: I was the powder-cake.

I was not completely broken down. There was enough resilience in me to occasionally want to rally and say my piece, to voice that I was not happy with our circumstances or relationship. I had the inner fire to defend myself occasionally, but unfortunately in that relationship, and perhaps because of it, I also had an inability to do this more effectively than simply letting all the anger and hurt and frustration pour out of me in verbal and emotional tidal waves.

My partner did not lash out like this, my partner did not rant with a whirring mind and racing heart at me. They were a measured and quiet presence, with a withdrawn and sometimes unwavering air. Surely, of the two of us, it was I who was unstable? If anything, my partner would openly cry and become upset because of something I had done out of momentary inability to emotionally regulate. To the outside world, with my stronger personality and fiery volume once at tipping point, I seemed the dangerous one.

And that's how it felt.

I was singlehandedly being manipulated into believing myself to be the sole instigator of disquiet. I am not claiming, by any means, that the outbursts mentioned above were appropriate, but simply a result of months and eventually years of emotional games, and the need to demand respect when I felt confident enough to do so. As I said, I wasn't as well equipped to emotionally handle the situation more appropriately than to sit on my frustration in an attempt to keep peace until it became too much and resulted in an argument.

My partner was very good at being upset. There was always some issue or problem, whether emotional or functional, in our relationship or just in our home, that needed attention to 'make them happy'. I spent countless hours and immeasurable energy on trying to 'fix things'. I was constantly baffled why the exuberance I was expecting never came. If something in the outside world had gone wrong, I was hysterically and tearfully approached to deal with it. Someone sent you a nasty message? I'll handle this. You lost your job? I'll put your resume together. Can't afford your rent? I'll pay half. Favourite band isn't coming to town? Let's fly interstate to see them.
They were very good at making me feel needed.

And that was half the initial enticement. I was needed and wanted, at a time when I had craved the feeling.

In my diary of the time, the last entry before this person enters my life, is two lines. It reads simply:

I feel so unloved. Unloveable.

I was a sitting duck for any charismatic character to enter my world and begin making me feel these things again. I ended up in a worse place because I started a relationship, with an emotionally immature person, from a bad place.

The diary, and my personal blog at the time, details events that my memory has shelved. It starts positive, written in coloured pens with scrapbook items. Then gradually introduces more and more negative recounts of the days.

Some years later, my diary sees another succinct entry, which is incidentally the last entry in an unfinished notebook that grew less and less embellished and decorated as my creativity and motivation waned over time. It is written in plain black ink, and reads only:

I'm getting very tired of fighting. Very tired.



Judging from the timestamp, that was a few months before I was freed.
But I was not released entirely...

In the years that followed, living in small city meant that we had mutual acquaintances. We also had shared interests which meant occasionally I would find myself at the same event as my former partner. This in itself would be fine, but on numerous times they would seek me out and stand nearby apparently oblivious and coincidental, trying hard to be nonchalant. It happened more often than coincidences would have one believe. I was trying to move on with my life, and they were actively trying to reinsert themselves into it in any manner in which they could pass off as chance if confronted. Plausible deniability.


Another reason I find this topic on my mind lately is new information that has come to light about others who came after me.

I was not the last to be subjected to the manipulation and emotional & psychological abuse of this person. I have discovered other parties who were also subjected to it, some of whom are lucky to still be alive.'

I'm torn by this news.

On the one hand, I want to be proud of myself that I was strong enough and resilient enough to not have my mental health pushed quite this far. Perhaps that fire that would be used against me helped keep me safe?

On the other hand, these other relationships with my former partner and these parties were significantly shorter. Whilst I feel like I may have gotten away unscathed in comparison because I did not require hospitalization or need to be put on suicide watch, these events helped them recognise the unhealthy place they were in.
I feel somewhat stupid to know that I remained in a situation that was hazardous to my mental and physical and social health for so long.

It's challenging to process, because the journey I've been on since having the relationship removed from my life has allowed vast progression and growth, and I keep judging myself in the past by my wisdom of the present. I have to remember to be kind, and forgiving, to the person I was.

Big Anxiety in a Small Person

After reading this link about kids with anxiety, I have some thoughts that have been in the back of mind for a while now.

Firstly, I wish this kind of awareness was around when I was a kid.

I remember my mum telling someone that I 'worried a lot' and I remember 'feeling worried' about random things that I couldn't always articulate.

This was the only word I was ever given for what I felt.

I also remember watching some movie with my family and there was a scene where someone was called to the stand in court and I told my mum that if that ever happened to me I would just cry. Even if I had done nothing wrong and wasn't in trouble, I just knew I'd instantly burst into tears under that scrutiny. Even recalling that memory threatens to overwhelm me, I can place myself exactly back into that kid-me's emotion.

Whilst I've come a long way, that 'worried' kid still kicks around sometimes. I had no idea that it was anything real; I always thought I must be broken for worrying... about nothing. I was always wise enough to know that these were irrational anxieties, even if those 2 words were unknown to me at the time.

On the flipside, we always (lovingly) tease my dad for being a 'worry-wart'... So I guess the argument of genetics vs learned behaviour can kick in there. I've always maintained that it's a little bit of both - especially evidenced by the fact that as I grew older, I've stumbled and learnt my way around my anxiety depression. At least to (more recently) lessen its grip on me than the incapacitation I vaguely recall as a smaller person. But the DNA is still there, and it still raises its head when my methods fail.

Dad was/is prone to anxiety (over being late especially) and we all just learnt to accept that if there was a crisis, he was not the person to count on because he would simply panic. He would visibly reduce into a muddled, flustered being full of breathy exasperation. Meanwhile, precious seconds could be ticking by. Writing that, I am thinking of an instance when I wrenched the phone from him as he struggled to relay information from my mother, bent over the crumpled unconscious frame of my grandmother on the floor, to the 000 operator on the other end.

I also remember when I was very small, I slipped outside and lacerated my leg on a piece of metal. It was bad. I still carry the thick, fat scar on my upper thigh. 

I called out for my brother to help, since my mother was not home and knew Dad would rapidly turn into a useless ball of stress. I was young but sensible enough to have recognised this (and to know that walking inside was probably a bad idea since I'd get blood everywhere!). I was in shock and pain but I tried to keep my voice relatively even so Dad did not know there was any kind of emergency. My brother did a brilliant job of patching me up and although neither of us mentioned it, we knew to keep it from Dad. 

Even when he came into the living room later, as I laid on the couch, bandaged up under the blanket I was wrapped in, resting... He asked what was wrong (had he heard me in distress after all?) and I simply said "Nothing" as innocently as I could. My brother and I went back to watching TV. Mum came home after I went to bed that night and she was informed when I woke up in the middle of the night due to bad dreams, and I went to the doctor in the morning.

 

This. This is in my blood, my genes. And whilst I ruefully comment that today's kids have more resources than I did growing up, I am suddenly struck with the fact that he had less. None, even.

I don't envy the increased anxiety in our young people in this world, but I do envy the fact that due to its (ever increasing) widespread reach, at least anxiety (and depression) is slowly becoming more recognised, treated, and reduced in stigma. I may have missed out on the early help that I would've perhaps gotten (or not, who knows?) but at least I know that before we teeter too far on the border of becoming too much of an over-sensitive, coddling bunch -as the media an others would like to paint us as a society- there are other kids in pain who are getting help.

long time between drinks

I remember the last time I was about to write here, it had already been quite a while between posts.

Ironically, the reason I never got around to writing that positivity-filled post updating you all on my world is because suddenly the fragility of it all became apparent and the mind-world crumbled for a few days or a week and my motivation to check in subsequently died.

And here I am, between smooth sailing once again; caught in the shifting of tectonic plates as I try to calm my racing thoughts and stay grounded amongst my erratic emotions. Right now I am a little down. Winter is officially here and I'm cold and tired and it doesn't help things. I sit with a mindful smile and try to keep the negativity from sinking in.

This the most important part: knowing that how I feel right now is but temporary.
It too shall pass.

This is just a wave and I will ride it out.
It's a long way from where I started. And I guess that's something to be proud of in itself.

On that note, I will update you on one thing: I recently just passed my first year of working in a steady job. That's a big accomplishment for me in recent days. I am lucky. I have good people around me and am part of an understanding team there.

Customer service is involved too. Who'd have thunk it? Me back in the saddle.

So I guess amongst these dreary feelings I nurture a small flame against the wind. It is a tiny, ember of hope and pride and sanity. I am stronger than I ever suspected.

the dark is where the demons are...

It's nearly 3am and I have work 'tomorrow.'
I sit here on the couch in the darkness, thinking about nothing and everything; just a still, quiet meandering mind in the night.

It conjures up two memories, which revisit me not infrequently.

The first: a brief, fleeting image of being holed up years ago in a roadhouse motel alone by some interstate highway, listening to the trucks drone past as sleep escaped me. I stared into the moonlight and took dark 'artsy' photographs to pass the time, waiting for morning and the new workday, a sentence repeating over and over in my head - the answer to a question I hadn't bothered asking about why I could always sleep better in the daytime:
"The dark is where the demons are..."

The second memory is one from childhood.
I'm at a friend's birthday party. We're all perhaps about eight years old. Maybe younger. We've been playing in the backyard, and I've not been hugely interested in the games but joining in regardless.

Presently we're called inside: the party food is ready, probably cake too.

The other kids, maybe another 5 or 6 children, bustle through the back door to the kitchen and I linger at the back of the single file line. When I get to the door I let it shut in front of me and veer to a chair propped just alongside. I sit and I ponder without pondering - as I am right now - looking out over the now empty yard drenched in sun, and listening to the clamour of munching juveniles just within.

Someone notices I'm missing - the birthday girl, or perhaps her mother, and she opens the door to look for me. Seemingly startled to find me just outside, she asked "What are you doing??"

I reply, distracted "I'm just ...thinking".

Before she can respond her mother calls out to find out what's going on, and my friend relays over her shoulder: "She's thinking"
"Thinking!? What about?" the mother hollers, and my memory lets the rest of her words trail back into my mind and as the image fades to black I recall that I got up then and joined them, embarrassed.


Just being. Just seeing and feeling and thinking without thought. Numb, without the hopeless undertones, - though, she's still there somewhere.

Earlier this evening my partner and I had argued, and I suspect I am simply drained as always after such a challenging time. So I just sit. And am. My body claiming to want sleep, but my mind not surrendering to it, and my body only mildly convincing anyway.
I am not exhausted, I am just being. Just thinking.

A third commonly recounted memory surfaces:
I am in early highschool and the deputy principal has become a sort of mediator between another student and I in the midst of an emotional quarrel. She asks me what I do when I go home, after the conflict at school, and I reply that I do nothing: I do my homework and what tasks needs doing, but otherwise I just sit and think about things. Perhaps I include that I stare at the ceiling and think, I don't remember.
"Hmm" She nods slightly as she considers this. "That's dangerous."

I didn't reply at the time, and don't recall anything else as clearly from that conversation in her office.

"Is it?" my head still asks her today.

Are the quiet moments like this really dangerous? Do they really cause me as much harm as being emotionally heightened sprawled on the floor? Or kicking furniture and yelling?

Usually this type of quiet is the shell that's left when I'm tired and I've spent all the fight in me. I'm not depleted of anything but some energy, and lots of fight.
I'm submissive, passive, pliable.

If my partner is patient enough to wait for the objection to burn out of me in the form of tears and fists into floors, sometimes for hours... in this quiet time, even after the flares of shame and guilt if there's any to spare, I will do whatever it was I was rebelling against to begin with. Whatever tiny, insignificant last camel straw set my balanced brain on fire in the first place.
I become obedient, for the sheer reason that there's nothing left in me in this moment.

Dangerous?

Sometimes I agree with her. But this is not one of those times.
I think she means those times when the darkness is like a vacuum. When your head is not quiet, but full and noisy and repetitive. When the broken record tells you how hopeless and useless you are, and how selfish you are for feeling hopeless and useless. When the dark is where the demons are.

But this is not one of those times.

The demons are still here on nights like this, but they sit beside me. Not tormenting me, but not ignoring me either. We sit together and gaze out into the shadows like two strangers watching the same sunset on the same park bench, in polite silence.

Quietly appraising and respecting each other.

It's as though we have a truce this night: I don't try to stifle my demons, and they don't try to suffocate me.
This must be a sample of what living in peace with your inner demons must feel like.

I pause from finishing this post on that note as one last thought strikes me:
It's not as though I am scared of the dark, but quite the opposite. The night makes no demands. It is peaceful and quiet, and so, so many people are asleep. The day, however, brings harsh light to renewed worries. People and their demands awake. The world stirs.
It's easier to sleep past it all. With a bonus of a soul-lifting charge that only sleeping in sunlight can bring.

Perhaps I've had it wrong all these years, where my demons sleep.

Re-stitching

On the weekend we camped at a holiday park for a couple of nights. It was part of a retreat organised by my partner's 'church group' (their Facebook group description reads: "A gathering of same-sex attracted Christian, Post-Christian, Not-Christian-but-not-opposed and etc. Womyn - for social, spiritual, educational, meaningful, nutritional, conversational and "otheral" stuff.").

So they're a pretty open and inclusive bunch, and calling them a 'church group' doesn't really seem to fit, but I don't know what else to call them. Whilst not being hugely religious these days (I've always identified more as 'spiritual' as I became more my own person) I decided to go with her as I'm friends with some of the others, and we both needed another short time-away.

A bonus was that the rural area was close to an old friend's area, and we were able to catch up with her for lunch in the nearby township. My friend occasionally can be reclusive and it meant a lot that she made the effort to meet with us. I love her and miss her often, and I hope to make our catch-ups more frequent after a couple years of 'estrangement'.
I managed to meet with another long lost friend after camping, and I'll touch on that later.

After lunch we walked around the small town and spoke with some of the local shopkeepers. Our favourite was perhaps a new age store offering readings, healings, crystals etc. It was the kind of store that I (ashamedly) would ridicule whilst I was a blind, over-zealous, religious teenager.

As I grew older and slowly began living my own life and making my own thoughts and belief-systems, I was fortunate enough to meet some wonderful people who opened my eyes to a more spiritual and holistic way of thinking. This is where my 'spiritual' identity was born, although in the recent past as I've struggled with these various mental barriers noted in this blog, I admit that my soul needs a refresher. I wish I could keep on studying Complementary Health on the other side of the city, the staff there were pretty in-tune and I liked their approach of the mind, body and soul being interlinked. Perhaps one day when I can commit to on-campus learning again, I will pick it up.
I also think this is why I like my psychologist and chiropractors - folks who understand energies and that I am sensitive to them.

Anyway I digress as usual...

It was a lovely store, and the ladies there were lovely and nearly made me cry a couple times with their kindness and intuition. We bought some gemstones (2 or 3 each) and my partner also picked up some spirit cards which sound nice too: I'm looking forward to flicking through them.

It got me thinking about stones again and how I haven't really picked up any of mine for some time (excluding when I put them on my windowsill amongst my piratey things which would have charged them nicely, but it wasn't really 'using' them). I remembered I had maybe 4 at home on my bookshelf.

When we got home from campy times I set about looking up how to cleanse our new stones of their energies (since folks handling them instore would leave residual energy. We were advised to hold them under running water) and thought I should do the same for the few I knew I still had.

After refreshing my memory from Crystal Gems I decided I would gather my old stones and do a deep cleanse in saltwater before rinsing in the running water and smudging, since I knew I had a couple stones somewhere and they'd been on a shelf for a long time.

I went around my study collecting my stones and found out that I actually have 14 in total!
So between my own buying, and giftage from 3 of my aforementioned in-tune friends, over the last 10years I actually have acquired a heap more than I thought!

Now to go about the task of re-learning what each stone is. I wanted to re-centre, but first I need to re-educate.

This is kinda a testament as to how by-the-wayside I've left my focus on spirit and soul. I've been so concentrated on the mind and occasionally the body that I've forgotten the importance of the whole package.

Even the fact that I was laying in a tent listening to the wind and the birds, warm with my partner beside me, I felt myself loosen and my chest a little less tight.

I've been feeling nostalgic for how things were within me in the past - whilst acknowledging my rose-coloured-glasses-memory could be working against me here. That said, I've been making an effort to make contact with some old friends again. Mostly those who don't have/use social-media often.

The morning we packed up the tent, we drove back into the city to meet with another friend whom I hadn't seen in quite a few years (2 rekindles in 2 days - booyeah!) and it was one of those wonderful moments where the time hasn't diluted your dynamic.

I feel like I'm very slowly re-stitching torn pieces of my tapestry back together.

My Black Dog

It's been a few months since I've been motivated enough to write here. Even my personal diary hasn't seen a pen for a while.

A quick recap before I get into the flow of what I want to write about.
In the past 3 months:

• I got the job I was interviewed for last time we spoke. My manager is nice and they are flexible with my hours, since sometimes of late I haven't been up to working (more on that later). The work is simple and repetitive. I excel in the tasks, to the point that it irks me somewhat because I see a lot of coworkers doing the same thing alongside me, but sacrificing good results for speed. It's frustrating to see products going out the door that are woefully put together, yet I've been passive-aggressively told I'm too slow. Sigh. Well, screw you. At least I can see the art in what I'm doing, and I will never be dragged over the coals for creating something sub-standard.
• My second shift in, I was carpooling a workmate and I home when a man using his mobile phone rear ended  my car and shoved us into the back of the car in front of us. My car was a write-off, and after much back-and-forth between the insurance company and myself, I have finally only now bought myself an acceptable second-hand car.
• I started anti-depressants, which is much of the reason I will rant later in this post. I have tried 2 variants of pain-killer/anti-depressant drugs, and aside from having my joint pain reduced I am not thrilled with the results.
• I enrolled in an online course studying Training & Education. It's a field I've been curious about for a while now so with my leftover dollars from the purchase of my new car, I signed myself up to an at-your-own-pace 12month run. The 6month course was cheaper, but I'm a realist. I'm probably already behind schedule.

So that pretty much brings you up to speed.

The weather is slowly turning Springward. I have been feeling the winter a lot more than usual this year: trouble getting and keeping warm, more joint pain than usual, and the to-be-expected Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Today I took the day off work due to a few reasons; my hip is very sore and I need to see my chiro again, plus I had a rough night with a lot of tears and a foot through the wall, plus my partner has had some bad news regarding one of her clients at her work also. So we've declared ourselves unfit for anything too taxing today.
She currently has a workmate over and they are enjoying a cup of tea in the almost-spring weather, talking about the unfortunate events. I took it as a good opportunity to gather my thoughts here, since I was overdue.

When I started working again, we made a game plan. It involved who was responsible for which bills and financial obligations, whilst also outlining what self-care measures we each must apply ourselves to. Mine were to continue to see my chiro, GP and psych, as well as trialling medication to improve my moods and mental state. Aside from the chiro visits, which were on hiatus while I predominantly relied on public transport, I have been keeping up my end of the bargain.

I have never taken anti-depressants before. I was agreeable enough to start taking birth-control pills to counter the PMDD symptoms brought on by my menstrual cycle, but I have been resistant to anti-depressants for as long as I have known about them.

If you had asked me a year ago what I thought was 'wrong with me' I would have listed PMDD, then Social Anxiety, then Anxiety, but I would have bitten your head off if you included Depression in the suggestions.

I was/am swamped in self-stigma about Depression.

"No, I DON'T have Depression"
"I'm just tired/sore"
"I was fine until *insert reason here*"

Depression, in my mind, was/is the unkempt, dressing-gown draped, sad-and-sorry moocher who sits on the couch and watches TV all day. 'Every second person has fucking Depression. I don't have that!' I would spit the word out, as if it were a sour dob of snot on my tongue. My denial would/does frustrate me into a rage, lashing out at the label, fighting with all my strength against being associated with the pathetic images of Depression my brain held.
At the same time, I was ignoring every other day that I had spent in my pyjamas eating biscuits on the couch, staring blankly at the television watching movie after movie after movie. I was raging against an image I was filling nigh perfectly.

Some days are better than others, like the adventures in Depression themselves. Some days I exhaust myself into a sullen acceptance, and I retrospectively recognise all the signs from the past 15 years that undeniably pointed to the black dog* but I had looked the other way. My first clear memory of being depressed I was about 12 or 13, but I'm sure it even pre-dates that.

I came up with a story to cover my inexplicable 'down days' growing up in a close-knit school: Someone had died, it was the birthday of a lost loved one, I had a cold, I didn't sleep well, etc etc etc. I knew that if I just said 'I'm feeling a bit down' the next question would be 'why?'... and I didn't have an honest answer. I knew that was crazy, to be sad for no reason.

Other days I lock myself up, numbing out everyone around me as much as I dared. I kept up the facades to friends and family, so that they wouldn't pry. It's something I've noticed a lot since those years: my motivation for keeping it together was/is simply to avoid all the probing questions that would follow if I didn't.

I ruefully chuckle, even now, and think "What a reason! The only reason I don't snap completely is because I don't want to have to deal with the aftermath? Meaning, were there no aftermath, I would let myself go entirely?"

It's a sad realisation, to know that you're only passing for okay because you're not committed enough to the crazy label.

I feel like I'm in a painful purgatory. The good days taunt me with the possibility that this could be a reality: a happy, normal life, I'm capable of so much. Then the bad days swamp me and my brain laughs at having imagined anything so foolish.

The anti-depressants aren't working, and I go back to the doctor in a few days to discuss another option. They are actually making me worse. I have been lower in these last few months, on these pills supposedly designed to do the opposite, than I have ever managed by myself. I had been reluctant, but had been swayed into giving them a try, if nothing else, to at least write off the possibility that this could be what I need to feel better.

It's horrible, to have to feel so bad before you can say with certainty 'I knew this wasn't the answer.'

I had rebelled against them for so long, and the possibility that I may indeed need them, and now that I had finally been convinced by my partner and my health team to give them a try, they turn out to exactly as I had anticipated: a waste of time, a waste of money, and filling my body and brain with chemicals that alter me.
I have seen too many people I know and love become completely different people whilst taking medications and it had frightened me to think the same could happen to me... and yet here I am, on the end of a 3 month rollercoaster involving meds and withdrawals and moods like any crooked ferris wheel.

I tell myself to snap out of it. The stigma and my self-talk get together and tell me that I'm just weak, and a normal person wouldn't be reacted to the things I do the way that I do. It doesn't matter what anyone else says to me to make me feel better, my spinning thoughts command my attention far more than any outside voice.

My partner tries to help, but her voice simply adds to the constant noise in my head and I am quickly overwhelmed and get snappy. All I want anyone to do is to hug me, regardless of what good advice/intentions they may have.

I am an audience of one to a very loud disharmony. Like trying to listen to a live band play a song while wearing headphone that are playing a different genre of music entirely. The constant duality is tiring, and it's hard to explain thoroughly because no one hears it but me. The word 'hear' doesn't even seem to fit because it's not how I imagine hearing voices to be, just thoughts. Like when you get used to playing a particular album, and you expect the next song before it even starts playing, so much so that your brain actually starts playing it in your head... and then something else starts playing because this is a mix-tape not your favourite album, and for a moment you get confused because your brain is singing one song and your ears are hearing another.

Sigh.

And this is where the exhaustion settles in.

I'm tired of explaining myself, tired of trying to find the magic formula to 'get well', tired of labels, of justifications and explanations, of the black dog and all his friends. I'm tired of battling myself like I have these nearly-two decades.

I forget what my initial point was. Or if I had one.

For now I will simply leave you with the hardest words I have ever spoken:
I have Depression.

Black Dog Institute - What is Depression?
 

A booster (and thoughts on work/working)

I'm happy to report that between my lovely campy weekend which, as you may've read in the post prior, I enjoyed greatly, and being invited to a group info session and subsequent individual interview for a new factory/store opening in town: my self-esteem, and consequently my mood, have improved greatly.

My girlfriend has noticed it too. This week I've been more like myself and less like the angry Hulk monster that comes out at the slightest provocation, simply because I'm over all the stress and the worry. It's good to feel like I'm back in my own skin again.

The mix of having some time away from the house, which my comfort-zone and finances can sometimes trap me within, and feeling like a company is wow'd by me and thinks they'd be stupid not to ask me onboard - yes, I really am that cocky that in a few days I will have a job offer - has been a much welcome change of pace.

Even if I don't get the job (another processing factory style which I do enjoy), I won't mind toooooo much. I'll be surprised yes, as so far they seem thrilled with my application, but really what I'm enjoying right now is simply the feeling of being (highly) considered. I know that for the right roles, when they're available, once I get to the interview stage I can all but walk into a job. But the challenge over the past year has been getting to that interview stage. I haven't changed much in my jobseeking or even application process/approach. I think it's just a horribly accurate demonstration of the job drought right now. Remember, I was looking for different work before I even left the call centre. That means 18(ish) months of barely anything more than a sporadic booking.

I couldn't keep up the brand ambassador stuff long term. It was almost the same vein as what I was trying to leave - high customer interactions; face-to-face this time making it worse for my anxiety. I occasionally pick up bits and pieces with them still, but it's very low key stuff.

I was offered a role a few months ago (I was one of 2 people chosen from about 20) but it was practically starting a franchise and I had absolutely zero money to spare to even start up (or even hire a lawyer to look over my textbook-length franchisee contract). It wasn't going to be good for my stress and money-worries, but it was certainly a healthy boost to my ego to even be offered.

The role I'm going for at the moment is mostly back-of-house, with (quite literally) a window to front-of-house operations. One of the nice fellows informally asked why I didn't go for a more retail role given my natural exuberant personality. I gave a half-answer, since I was around people I didn't know. I'll go into more detail when I have my one-on-one with them. But basically, the bottom line is that I am not sustainable when dealing with customers constantly. I can entertain them, I can educate them, and I can give them a great experience... but I can't do shift after shift of the 'service' part of Customer Service.

I blame my time working at a casino dealing cards, where 98% of customer interactions are negative. It has nothing to do with whether you're a good worker or a friendly person or a nice employee - there's something about casino customers that destroys your soul, like they don't have one of their own so they need to feed on yours. This is at any casino, not just my local. I've seen it in every one I've been to on holiday, or heard about from others. Career gamblers are, typically speaking, not a friendly breed.
To add insult to injury, most of the time your superiors will take the customer's side in a disagreement to save face and to keep money coming in. Basically, you're devalued right in front of your customer... and then you have to keep serving them until they leave or until you are relieved from that table.


Fun, huh?

So if you ever want a reason why I have moments where even a simple customer request can seem like the straw on the camel's back? I'd say my time there is amongst the top ten. Not quite PTSD, but enough to make me want to avoid high level customer service. I'd rather focus on quality, not quantity. Again, Customer 'Experience', not Customer 'Service'.

What sucks is that my resume basically screams that I can do such service roles with my eyes closed. And I could.... for a few weeks or months. But eventually the stress will slowly grind me down.
And here is where my loooooong time of looking for proper work drags out: a resume saying I'm suited most to one field, and me trying to apply for another. If I delete certain jobs from the work-history/experience section, I have empty years in my CV with no explanation. So the only thing I can do is/was to try and put a relevant spin on them. "I've done this high-level customer service role for X years, so you know I'm fab with my communication skills... wouldn't that be handy when you hire me? We'll be able to... y'know... talk n' stuff."

Sigh.

So now I wait, and enjoy the long-lost feeling of confidence.
It's like having an old cocktail you haven't tasted in years. You used to have it so often but then your favourite bar stopped serving them. Suddenly you come upon a place that does them again! You order one and you sink into a comfy lounge, listen to the background music, close your eyes, and sip your drink, and feel the tasty warmth travel through you.

For now, that is more than enough. It's what I've needed the most, beside the job itself.
Even if this role doesn't come to fruition, the confidence boost will carry me to the next one.
I'm tiring of that part of my brain telling me that I'm a bit useless. Times like these are a very welcome reminder from the outside world that this is not the case. It's easy to begin doubting your own positive self talk, or that of your immediate support circle when it's all you've had for a while. You almost acquire a routine response in your mind: "Yeah, but you're supposed to say that."

Ye Olde Campy Weekend

This past weekend was pretty fun. It was a good time away from it all, doing something different, and good for everyone's soul and mental health.

The Medieval Fair was on in a town about 30-40mins away from the city and up in the hills, and a couple of friends invited us to join them. Regulars to the fair for several years now, they camp every year at a nearby park on a powered site near the river.

My partner had never camped out before meeting me, and on our first anniversary I took her to a Scout campgrounds (mostly I wanted to use the cool obstacle course equipment there as a bonus adventure, but on the weekend we went it was covered in Scouts doing their activities - naturally - and we had to miss out). It was hardly roughing it - there was an undercover shelter with barbeques and sinks and we were the only tent there, so we set up near this and the adjoining toilet/shower block.
Still, it was something to ease her into the experience and she enjoyed herself (despite learning the hard and confronting way what a koala sounds like grunting away into the night).

This weekend was still less hardcore than true camping, but it was a next step up, and we were due for another outdoor adventure since the first anniversary was about 18months ago.

I made the mistake of doing half the organising and assuming my list of written and verbal instructions for the other half would be followed correctly. Next time I think I'll just suck it up and do it all myself, hehe.
I guess I was asking a lot from someone who has never really needed these skills before, but some common sense would have saved us some bother (that's 'a-whole-nother' rant).
But still, nothing too drastic. We were dry, we were fed, we were (mostly) warm.

I'm running the risk of just writing a recount of the weekend when I don't really want to do that. I just want to sit and reflect about some things from the trip. I don't really have an ending to this post, either. So here is my list of things, in no particular order.

• Sitting by the open campfire, cooking delicious things in stages so that the evening was a string of good company and conversation - punctuated by many small courses of tasty campfire treats like baked potatoes, corn on the cob, cheese and crackers, banana boats, and of course toasted marshmallows.
• Drinking from my water bottle, crisp and cool and refreshing yet never once being in a fridge. The Autumn air was plenty to keep our drinks at the perfect temperature.
• Sitting in the clearing weather and taking in the natural beauty, especially the turning deciduous leaves. The hillside was awash with damp, shining yellows, oranges and reds.
• Even though we were on a powered site, I made sure to set up the tent so that we weren't right beside the outlet. While this did mean borrowing an extra extension cord because mine was jusssst too short to reach the tent for the air mattress pump, it meant that things like phones and too much artificial light (or other non-essentials) were used minimally. I hung a lantern from the top of the tent and phones took turns being charged in the weatherproof box that surrounded the power outlet. This mix of not-readily-available-charge plus not-overly-reliable-network-coverage meant that phones were only really used to take photos, or whilst at the Fair and we were arranging meeting places/times etc. Bottom line: vacant staring into the screen of a phone was drastically reduced.
• Laughing at something random with a friend, and neither of us remembering the next day what started it. All I remember is that something was said, we agreed and fistbumped on the matter, then giggled. What followed next was an avalanche of increasing laughter, until we were only laughing because we had been laughing. It was a good feeling, and my partner said the next morning that it was good to see me laugh like that; she hasn't seen/heard me laugh like that for a while. I paused and thought for a moment before answering "I haven't."
• All the wonderful costumes and setups at the Fair. I haven't properly been before (the brief visit with my brother when I was 16 at the end of the last day when folks were packing up, and I'm told it was a much smaller and less impressive affair, doesn't count). I also bumped in to a few people from my old job as some them were presenting on the battle field, so it was good to briefly exchange words and hugs.
• My last minute decision to purchase rainboots. They are pretty and bright and obnoxiously-coloured and they meant that I fearlessly strode over the mushy terrain at both the Fair and the campground after the rain in the days leading up. I got my partner a pair too and due to the limited choice (albeit bigger than I was expecting) at the local department store, we now have matching rainboots. Can't decide if that's cute or not.
• Purchases at the Fair: we were rather sensible and only really bought food/drink for our lunch and two affordable splurges/souvenirs. A beautiful medieval dress that my girl looks absolutely enchanting in, and a pewter brooch of two Scottish thistles that I now proudly wear on my coat.
• Seeing my partner having a good time despite the few hiccups we encountered, and just overcoming challenges in general. We made a few n00b mistakes in our camping prep (or lack thereof) but were thankfully not completely roughing it survivalist-mode so we could either find solutions by either inventing/adjusting something, borrowing something, or returning to town and buying something. Whilst challenging at the time, and my brain telling me that the more seasoned campers were probably chuckling "ha! rookie mistake!!" at us, I walked away feeling like I learned something. My prep list has already grown since being home.
  Also, successfully erecting a couple of tents, especially one you're unfamiliar with, when the sun has already set does give one a feeling of accomplishment. I also made a makeshift rainfly using a tarpaulin and bungee cords for my tent, so that was something else I'm proud of.
• Enjoying a warm homecooked meal when we emerged from the hills, thanks to our friend's family inviting us over at the journey's (almost) end. Whilst I can't say that we didn't eat well over the weekend (the Fair had wonderful spit roasts and cobs of corn and soup in bread rolls and meat pies and lamb shanks and even an evening feast for those who wanted to join - plus our own meals at the camps), that was the tastiest meal of the trip... simply due to the kindness of the invitation, the warmth of both the food and the people offering it, and the exhaustion that was slowly taking me over would mean preparing dinner when I got home was not an option.
• The stars. Only 30mins away from the urban lights and you already see so much more than in the suburbs. I love country stars. If I could camp in a clear roofed tent at times I would literally be a happy camper.

Our friends were happy to see that we had enjoyed ourselves so much and have invited us to join them on another trip. So I guess that means stay tuned for another camping ramble. Much like my bicycle posts, it may just be a shortlived appearance in my blogging habits, just to say 'hey I tried this new-ish thing, or new to me for the first time in many years, and here's what happened and here's how I got better'.

Yeah, like I said. I have no ending.
My hair smells like woodsmoke because I lit my backyard's firedrum this evening and I'm in a sleeping bag sitting on my couch. I think I just needed to finish processing my good weekend of camp times.

Unmedicated.

For reasons I won't go into, a few days ago I stopped the pills I had been taking. Whilst I didn't consider them 'a cure', I had been noticing that since beginning them a few months ago I had had less outbursts of frustration and anger and tears.

This mix of having the drug fully out of my system by now, and the return of chronic backpain since last week, has led to a relapse back into the above. Yesterday included abruptly pulling over in the car and walking down a main motorway, headed for the nearest sidestreet, to escape the circular argument I was having.

Whilst the day was punctuated with moments and outings and friends that broke the tension and provided distraction, the storm inside me continued to rage. When we returned home my irritability rose back to its high level again. I tried to strike a deal. My partner wanted me to stop shouting at her, and I wanted her to stop talking at me. Her afterthoughts kept coming, so I sought refuge on the couch for about half an hour.

Painkillers and exhaustion led me to drift off for part of that, and afterwards I returned to the bedroom and we slept.

After a sleep in this morning and phonecalls and appointments to arrange an end to my pain, I tried to lay low (literally), but almost everything my partner said to me set me off.

About 20minutes ago she left me. No, not for good. For the rest of the evening to just us some time apart.

Although the space is something I thought I had wanted at the beginning of the day, or yesterday when I was having a worse-off time of it, there's an empty feeling that she made the call.

I had gone out this afternoon to see the chiropractor because of the immense pain I've been having over the last couple of days, exacerbating things, and she had gone out to do the shopping.
I was glad of the break, and the treatment taking the edge off my pain and therefore my mood. When we were both home again, we had reset. So it came as a surprise to me when she announced that she was going to a friend's house to get out of my hair.

I'm split-minded on the matter.
Part of me is relieved: we can have some time to ourselves and not worry about bothering or hurting one another.
Another part of me is sad: sad that my mood has made it come to this, that she feels this is the right move - uncharacteristically so, and that my evening is now going to be spent with my guilty reflections.

My trademark guilt hasn't yet overwhelmed me, but I expect it to hit me later on. Probably as I grow more tired.

I walk into the kitchen to start preparing dinner, missing my partner, and I look at the chart on the fridge. It lists a wide array of human emotions with little faces showing the expression.
During the day I'm supposed to move a magnet to the one I feel represents me best at the time.
My therapist has also encouraged me to do a similar exercise at various points throughout the day where I identify how I'm feeling without naming it as positive or negative, assign it a shape and a colour, and identify its location in my body.
For example "I feel sad: it is a blue square in my throat."

This is supposed to ground me and tune me into my feelings, and the magnet chart is to help my partner observe where I am on the scale. But the problem is on days like this, I don't really feel much at all until the boiling point. It's like on a scale of 1 to 10, everything below 7 is 'indifferent', and anything above is 'pure raging frustration'.

No gradient.
This is kind of why the colour/shape exercise is something I need to do.

But first things first:
Since the last 36hours is a clear indicator that they were doing something, let's get back on the meds. I can't do this until tomorrow morning, and even then it will take a while to have any effect. My partner said she will aim to come home when I'm already asleep.

I feel lonely. It is a pinkish maroon hexagon in my chest.

Some info for you

I usually don't really like a lot of the stuff Huffington Post put up, but I think this article 10 Things People Get Wrong About Anxiety is pretty fair.

It's also fair to say that even folks who suffer from anxiety are occasionally deluded by the same misconceptions.

Also, while I'm throwing links at you. I also like this theory about the high depression rate in my generation from Sub-Cultured. Just for laughs.

Toil & Trouble

Sometimes, without warning, reason, cause or justification...

I just want to sit and cry.

Two sides of my mind start warring:

"It's okay, cry a little if you need to. No one minds and it will make you feel better."

"Just WHO do you think you ARE? What possible right have you to cry now? Nothing is wrong, you are safe, how dare you?!"

I usually don't. Because I don't want or like to, or because I'm in a public place. And because the latter rationalisation usually wins out.
Instead I just get a headache from the inner conversation, and I worry that all I've done is delay; adding some more steam to the pressure cooker so that when I eventually do cry, it will be for that much longer, that much harder.

On the other hand if I, on the rare occasion, decide it's okay to let it out, I end up feeling drained. Most times I still get the lecture about having no right to cry. Berated by my own guilt yet again.

True to the self-perpetuating nature of this mental state, I get stuck in a loop. Overthinking, overloading, overcomplicating, overwhelming.

I want to cry.
I debate whether or not to succumb to the feeling.
I question whether the choice I make is the right one.
I do a lot of positive and negative self talk.
I notice that a lot of thoughts are subsequently and simultaneously running through my head right now.
Repeat step one.

My only saviour in this is distraction, but again this is only a delay switch.

As much as I hate them at the time, I think those pressure cooker days are necessary. Empty the pot of emotions so it can refill over the next undeterminable amount of time.

That's me (or, rather, my mind): The Bubbling Saucepan. The Emotional Cauldron.

It's somewhat comforting for the moment to objectify it all. I sense it appeals to my creative nature to imagine a wood furnished room and to assign.

For now, the cauldron bubbles steadily on the fire in the corner, as it was.
Neither simmering down nor boiling over.
As it was.

My Treacherous Past

After spending some time on my laptop reading travel blog posts of a friend-of-friend, and looking at some of my old photos, I decide I've had enough.

I close the laptop briefly to gather my thoughts, a chance to reflect on the sudden disgust and regret that's bubbled up in me.

The photos flash before my mind's eye again, and I realise that I was feeling taunted by them. They represent memories that frolic about and tease me about happier times. I had looked at the photographs -either taken by me, or of me, or both - and ruefully grimaced "That feels like the last time of my life I was ever truly happy".

I tell myself that I know this is not true.
I know what my mind is like: it has an uncanny ability to summarise over-positively. Unless speaking of a particularly turbulent time of my life, my mind recalls everything as rainbows and sunshine and happiness, and glosses over (or leaves out entirely) any negative feelings or experiences that were present at that time.

It's a survival mechanism, I know. I am a healer. If I could make visible how well and how often this trick has put me back together, I would look like a patchwork doll. It probably accounts for the lifelong feeling of never really identifying with past versions of my self - I am remade so often, I'm not the same person for more than a group of years.

And it's this very lifesaving thing that bothers me now.

I look around me at my nest, something a past-self would have envied, and I make a face.
"Is this who I am now? Is this what I represent?"

I feel weak, and wasted.

Less than a decade ago I was - felt - remember feeling - seemed fearless.

I try to brush it off as a side-effect to my recent 30th. But I've never really been bothered by age or numbers, and I know this is just a convenient excuse; a way to avoid explaining my dysphoria should another person question it.

I recall adventures of recent times: physical challenges, and mental and emotional ones. I remember feeling uncertain and afraid.

"Was I always so hesitant?"
My memory fails me as I try to answer myself. It spits out the usual list of victories and triumphs and happy memories. When I try to force it to focus on something I know must have been hard, but not quite life upheaving, it refuses to give me any more than a cursory acknowledgement of tribulation.

This is where my diaries or old blogs play a part, and it is shame that I fell out of the habit for some years. When I read back, especially those entries that are so vague they only really depict my bad feelings and not the particular issue I was wrestling with at the time, I am amazed to see how anguished I had been... for I have no recollection of it now.

It's frustrating.

But it's also hopeful.

I sit and think about what this means, and how am I feeling now compared to half an hour ago.
Still bummed, but calmer. At least I know that when I do pull myself out of this rut, I won't have much memory of just how low I felt at the time until I read my own words back.

I look at the scars on my body and soul and think about how they came to be; how the bad things have failed to beat me, whether I remember them properly or not.
A fond proverb floats to mind and I smile ruefully at the fact that I only ever remember it in times like these:

This too shall pass.

Melting

A heatwave is hitting the country this week. We are slaves to the sun. Scurrying from it like mice from the human who enters the kitchen for a midnight snack.

Maybe it's the heat, maybe it's hormonal. Whatever it is, I've not been quite right the last couple of days.

Today I broke especially hard. The trigger conversation was relatively significant, so I don't feel quite like I've popped-off at something undeserving like I can do, but the level of my reaction shows I've been burying this oncoming storm for a little while.

I've been struggling to find extra work for some time now, and each rejection - or day gone past that I do not succeed in being able to bring some extra money in to alleviate my partner's finances - weighs heavily on me. I'm full of guilt. A little tightly woven ball of shame.

A couple of days ago I trawled through job opportunities and open positions and applied to everything I thought I had a shot at until I was drained. Then all the energy I had left for was to curl into a ball and wait until my partner got home. Then she had the tiring job of piecing me together again.

I tell myself that I'm letting her down, that I'm being selfish and lazy. On my good days I've proven that I can function to a tee, so why can't I drag myself out of the haze when I, when we, really need it?

Right now I have a list of phrases, that have slowly been becoming more prominent, circling my head. Their content is made slightly comic when placed with the background noise my brain is also providing.

I have recently noticed that I always have a song in my head. Always. Whether I'm aware of it or not.

"Put On A Happy Face" from 'Bye Bye Birdie' is the tune my mind has latched onto tonight, prompted by a resurfacing memory entailing a highschool  teacher launching into a revue of the song, in an attempt to cheer me up in homeclass. It didn't really work, but it did illicit an in-grin for a flittering moment at her approach.

The darker part of my brain is repeating the black mantra. I hear it a lot on down days.

I'm hopeless. I'm useless. I'm worthless. 

Now, put the two bits of 'audio' together. Quite something isn't it?
Sometimes the sheer irony that my low mental health states can manifest in are enough to make me laugh out loud. I must have yet a third stairwell of the mind somewhere that houses a smirking clown at a record player.

He cues up an LP and yells down the corridor: "You think that's crazy? Listen to this!"
And we both laugh.


To lightly touch on the subject again of needing cheering up in highschool: I have only recently admitted to myself that this is something I've struggled with for over 10 years.
I vividly remember someone using the term 'depressed/depression' and I was very fervent in brushing it off. The stigma. The pointed stigma stick jabs at me with every syllable.

Everyone has fucking depression. I'm just one more fucking loser whose life is seeming unnecessarily shit when it's not and we're all of us too goddam nuts to realise it. People with depression struggle with stupid things that aren't hard and now I'm forced to see that I'm fucking one of them after all.

Years I denied that possibility. A whole decade on and off. Even very recently I would bite your head off if you even hinted I had depression-anxiety, not anxiety, social anxiety, or PMDD.
Right now, I don't know what I am. Or if I care about the label so much. It could just be that this is one of the drops, the troughs, of the PMDD... or that could just be the wishful thinking of the stigma talking again. Who knows? All I know is I hurt, and I'm hurting the people around me.

Tonight to escape the warmth of the house we went to the beach and sat as the sun handed over his shift to the moon. We sat, my partner and I. Not quite communicating, but talking in a tip-of-the-iceberg kind of way.

Then something gave and sometime later saw us intertwined in a huddle on the dark, cool sand, moonlight on our backs, and me sobbing from my stomach into her.

My self esteem is down, and that in itself is highly uncharacteristic, but all these layers bear down on top of that. This shame, this guilt, this fucking frustration.
I'm a weird mix of being so angry and frustrated I want to punch the wall, but so unmotivated and lethargic that I don't see the point of doing so. It keeps me acting normal, which is a plus, but drains me to no end.

I hate playing on the fence. My good days tease me with a taste of what it would be like to be fully functional and having a grasp on my emotions and thoughts. To be chief of my state.
The days that this is taken from me, it's like I've been robbed. I could cope so much better with the unnecessary despair if that were all that I knew, if I were not taunted by the memories of what I could be, what I could do, when the veil was lifted.

Sometimes I'm a tiny bit jealous of those who crash. The ones who fully give up and let the spiral take them. But it's not in my nature to go down so easily, even if I could.
I remember lamenting in my highschool journal that I felt like one day I was going to snap in class and hit someone, or simply storm out of the lesson, or maybe even just shut down entirely... but the thought of the aftermath (not the punishment, but the questions, the probing, the trying to ascertain what was going on inside me) just seemed too much bother, too daunting.

What an odd motivation to keep yourself in check.
Not because you should, but simply because you're lucid enough to just not want to deal with all the explaining. Like a cop letting an assailant go simply from dread of all the resulting paperwork if they arrested them.

I have too much of a grasp left to let it go entirely. I can't just snap and go catatonic and live in a padded cell happily never after.
And so I'm stuck in this kind of limbo. This feeling of imminent breaking looming over me at times, and the small regular meltdowns that take the edge off the pressure cooker inside my mind.

It's pressure cooker days that are the gambles, and usually when I try to keep to myself. I have too much guilt as it is, without lashing out at someone (else) that I care about, or embarrass myself by having a complete crying fit at a party or dinner out.
So, I send in my apologies, and nurse the injured bird of my mind, and watch and wait to see which side of the edge I teeter to.

It's tiring, being mindful of just how mind-full you are.

Jekyll

I have begun a hardcopy journal again. This is something I haven't done for many years, and this kind of medium is probably the reason, but I'm using it for the cracked-pavement-honesty that I can't bear to have linger in the cyberworld for an undetermined amount of time.
Things that I know about myself, the unclear-label condition of my mind, and how I need to face these issues/how they affect my relationship.

Today I had a job interview. The first in a long time that was any kind of work I know I could do. I will know within the week whether I'll be offered the job, and I shall have to knuckle out if it is indeed right for me. Even if not, it feels good just to have the maybe.

I have been feeling very unlike myself for quite a while, and I've been trying to reconnect with that sense of 'self'. Doing things the 'old' me would  (journals, job interviews, performing onstage) has felt very akin to sliding on a long-lost but well loved pair of old favourite shoes. Relief.
The sheer relief to feel like me.

I am looking into the possibility that my anxiety is not a cause, but an effect, of my upside down mind lately. Right now my doctor and I are working on finding out if Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) may also be a factor. The more I learn about it, the more I see similarities in my mother's traits. I used to think she was just a little nuts as well as having nutty hormones, but I'm learning (both via this research, and in my physiology classes) that hormones can very well be the culprits that drives one nutty. These things deserve way more respect than we initially imagine.

They mess with my state of Jekyll.

When we were first discussing it with a new counsellor (since the last blog post re: my counsellor, I have not returned to her, instead my partner and I are seeing someone else together), I told them that once the clouds of the condition have passed and I am released from these personality-changing imbalances, I feel just that: released.

The cool, soothing wave of cold water that floods over me, like a shining, silver, fish that has had that searing hook removed from its mouth, and handed back out of the burning, dry air... slid back into the stream.

That is the feeling of finally waking up after a week or more, and finally feeling back in my own skin. It lasts only a moment, but it has built up... making the short transition something to savour as much as can be done.

Until then, I simply watch from the shadows, as the Hulk smashes and yells and sets fire to the forest around me. I barely choke on the smoke. I'm cloaked in apathy, straining against a chain as a tiny sliver of me tries to scream and tell the Animal to stop. I see my hands but they are not my hands, I hear my words but they are not mine, I feel the anger but I know that way back here in the shadows I am not angry. I try to plead with the Monster, and tell it to stop, to look at who you are hurting but it shouts back at me that it does not care. It douses me in apathy again and numbs me down as best it can until only the innermost core of me mourns.

And this is the unfair part. Between the rampage of the Hulk, and sweet release of the Silver Fish, that innermost core - the one most like myself, with my values and my beliefs - has her shackles removed and is finally allowed to see and feel and touch the damage. She dips her hands into the embers left behind and cries like her soul is ripped out. As she picks up the remains and tries to mend all that's broken - and it can take some time... at any point Mr Hyde can re-erupt - she slowly turns into the Fish, and hopes that the stream is not far away.

Then that morning comes. A brief release as the Silver Fish swims away. And Dr. Jekyll is back.


This is me every other lunar.
At this stage there's not much else I can do but to know what's coming and prepare for it, stay as conscious as I can, and plod forward.

If it's not the best help, it's not really much help at all...

If you don't think you're getting the best help for you, then shop around. This paraphrased summary of my last 3 sessions with my current counsellor (that I used to demonstrate to a friend what it's been like) is why I'll be moving on to another:

'hey Doc, I have problem A... but now that we think about it, B and C are hanging around too... and in many ways are probably more the root of A in the first place for reasons X, Y Z.' 

'now hold on, problem A, you say? well let's see... hmm it seems you have tricks up your sleeve for A so I'm at a loss as to why you're here...' 

'okay well B and C sometimes...' 

 'yeah but you said A is your problem... let's focus on that. Except you don't seem to need it' 

'right so can we please look at...'

'A... this says A.'


She's not bad, she's quite lovely. She's just not who I need right now.

I have only gotten 2 useful things from her, which is more than I had before:
a) my frustration caused from the inability to separate sounds may be due to Audio Processing, and I can be tested/undergo treatment if necessary.
b) "You can be kind to yourself, you know."

Checking In

So, it's a new era. I guess. Of sorts.
I figured it's time to update some folk.


* Still at school - albeit new subjects to break up the boredom. I was doing sign language. Now picking up the complementary health course I started in 2009. Had tried for a few weeks, but was still a nightshifter and in too shitty a mindspace to really do it. (Kinda strange that I choose to pick it up again now, but less mindfuckery and more support this time around).


* Working as a casual in Promotions. Basically this means working a few shifts here and there as a brand ambassador for different client companies. You know those people who hand out free samples at the shops? That's me. I'm also doing one assignment where I spend three hours chatting to the cashiers, ignoring the customers, and simply noting down the details of transactions in a particular chain.

The good thing about this job? Everyone likes free samples, the shifts are short and close to home, I bring free stuff home, and the company/client companies think I'm fab.

The bad things? I'm so not used to being on my feet a lot after more than a year of being an officebitch but that will improve, I've been warned that work can dry up in the future so I need to prepare for that, I had a random lady decide to tell me all about the second coming of Christ while I was stuck being a sample bitch in Coles yesterday :P


* Getting my house slowly in order now that I'm home more. This involves finally giving the place a goddam good clean, and preparing for a new arrival!
No, you fools I'm not pregnant. A new kitty will be coming in join our family. She's a rescue who loves cuddles. And a ginger, so I'm sold already. Hopefully existing older kitty will integrate well. We're going to set up her own room so we can slowly introduce them.


* Working on my Social Anxiety. I'm going to start seeing someone now that I have a referral to someone who's been highly recommended. Keeping things in check by using the "Irrelephant".
Concentration Meditation: a tiny metal elephant that I focus on when I can't handle situations. If there is too much noise or stimuli for example (which a main trigger of mine), I pull out my elephant (or any other small object on hand if he's not with me) and focus entirely on it. I turn it over in my hands and take in every detail, ignoring the fact that I already know him implicitly, and maintain that "Everything that has nothing to do with him is 'irrelephant' (wordplay on irrelevant)".
It's something I learnt a while back, and it helps. But leaving the call centre was definitely a good move, much as I loved my team.