Monday

Well, here I am on Monday evening, watching a bit of television, playing a bit of Farmville, pfaffing around with the Ipad and finishing off a cup of tea.

I had my fourth session today with the psychologist. Everytime I go there I am anxious beforehand. I think I have nothing to say and we always go over the time by about half an hour. Then, for ages afterwards I feel unsettled.

Right now I feel like a ten year old trapped in the body of an almost 47 year old woman. I cannot really go into the nitty gritty other than to say I have had to completely change the way I process certain things in my life. I have had to talk about stuff I thought I had long ago put to rest when, in reality, I had just kind of stuffed it down somewhere in a place in my head. Unfortunately, things got too crowded and messy and here I am, a kid in a grown up clothing.

I told my husband that it felt like I was a hermit crab moving out of a very ill fitting shell to find a better one and right now I was naked and exposed. I really did hit rock bottom on Saturday but, as we all know, the only way now is up.

So, onto a different subject. Walking. Yesterday my husband and I along with my three Oxfam team members met at 6:00 am outside my front fence to go for a 30km walk. I am not and never will be a morning person. You either are or you are not and I most definitely fit right into the "are not" category. I was borderline sleep walking up the street. I had not had breakfast because my digestive system does not wake up until about 8:00 am. So, there we started, walking up our street and on our way into the city.

The city being just on 14kms from my front door.

As we walked briskly along the rain welcomed us with open arms. By the time I was too far from home to do anything about it I realised that the light weight rain coat I had quickly put on was, unfortunately, only shower proof and a vague dampness started to creep into my clothes underneath.

Walk, walk and walky walk. Up the street, down the busy road and then onto the highway. Rain falling, wind blowing and me also noticing that the aforementioned raincoat (which was actually my son's school raincoat from primary school) was too short in the sleeve department which led to very wet sleeves.

However, if there is one thing that makes all that rain kind of irrelevant is walking with good company. Walking and talking makes the time pass quickly and the weather seem perfectly okay. We made it into the city in just over two hours so we set a good pace of just on 7kms per hour.

When we got into the city we had breakfast. Hot and strong coffee, fresh juice and lovely toast. Yummy, I was refueled and almost ready to go. My right hip was objecting strongly and I only managed another 3km's before I had to call it quits and my husband and I caught a train home. We were home by 10:15 am and I spent a few hours resting. I was very annoyed I could not do the full 30kms but I really had to listen to my body. Today the hip is okay and I think I need to get different shoes to walk in. Not sure.

One thing I did this weekend was to pick up a couple of routine activities I have not done for at least four weeks. I did some clothes washing. And I baked some cup cakes. That was it. Sucked the life out of me actually. But it did mean I could take a whole swag of tasty cup cakes to work which were welcomed hugely. So a little bit of normality seemed to come back into me.

Whatever normal is. Is normal baking cakes? Is it doing washing? Making the bed? Reading a book?

One thing I have not done is any home food shopping for weeks. Or cooked dinner. Or made my son's lunch. I think I cleaned my toilet a few times. Thank goodness for my husband or we would starve to death whilst wearing dirty clothes.

So, this morning I had to go to the local supermarket to pick up some food for work. Previous to today I had avoided that particular supermarket because I just could not face it. Instead I went to a supermarket closer to work. Anyway, I went into the old regular one and felt ill walking in there. I bought what I had to. Things had shifted around a bit. The place was full of Christmas gluttony and all those things that go with seasonal insanity. I had to stand in a line for ages and when I finally loaded the crap in the back of the car and then sat myself behind the steering wheel I felt like I had just run the gauntlet. I was surprised by my reaction.

And, by the way, I did not use my eco friendly bags. Guess what? Too fucking bad. Put that on my tombstone. "She was an eco vandal and even stuffed the plastic bags in the rubbish bin and she did not care".

Do I feel normal today? Not sure. I tell you though, I feel free in my head and I think that is a good sign.

The therapist said that it was a good thing that I was in "child mode" right now and to just go with it. Apparently it means I am moving forward.

I asked for a finishing point. Did it have a name? How can I move forward if I don't have an address to go to and could he please give me some sort of list or something for me to work with.

He said no, that is not his job. Right now I have to work on being less emotionally controlling. Embrace being free in my head. I find that concept very alien. It seems very hard.

Feels more like I am in limbo. Or just floating around in head space.

Like "2001: Space Odyssey".

I am disabling the Hal inside me.

Ciao
LC

Wednesday

On Wednesday the boss's wife and I took the day off work. We kind of had to as there was a training session in the office and too much talky talky meant that work was just not going to, well, work.

So we went to The Heidi Museum of Modern Art. This is the first time I have been here since the gallery was officially opened. The place had and continues to have a most significant role in the history of modern Australian art.

Having read many cohesive books on the place I am really, really into it.

The place was essentially started up by a wealthy couple by the name of Sunday and John Reed in the 1920's. They assisted many artists financially during the following decades.

The gardens were beautiful. The weather was perfect.

The original house where they held many artistic and intellectual discussions is now used as a gallery. Currently showing there was one of my favorites Mirka Mora.

Here I am outside the rear of the house.

Being obscured by a climbing rose.

Boss wife standing outside the second residence which the couple moved into in 1967. It was an award winning design at the time and used as both a home and gallery. When I went in there I felt very moved by it all due to the turbulent history behind Sunday and John Reed.

The lunch was unbelievably delicious. The cafe is part owned by an outstanding chef and the food was well priced and so fresh. Most of the fresh produce is grown at the gallery itself.

How is that for visual art?

More garden.

Me.

A great day out for me. I have an abnormal fascination for the history of this place having read so much about it.

Sometimes you just need to have a day off work, a day off home, a day off duties.

Just a good old fashioned day off.

Ciao

LC

Generation Gap

I work with two young project managers.

The youngest is twenty one and is a really switched on guy destined to do well.

However, here is the difference between my generation and his.

On an invoice there was the following;

C.O.D.

We all know what that means? Yes?

Cash On Delivery. Agree?

He thought it meant "Call Of Duty" when he first saw it and thought it was weird.

I laughed.

I am Generation X but he is Generation XBox.

Call of Duty.

Ha ha ha.

Ciao
LC

Pinky Ponky

At the outdoor exercise class I go to three times a week, the toning programme changes rotates every three months.

So, we have one month where each toning class involves using weights.

The next month we use resistance bands.

The month after that we use fit ball and weights.

After that it goes back to weights.

Fitball is a drag because I have to take this big bubble with me in the car. And nearly every time I do a fitball class it is either rainy and the ball gets dirty (which means I do) or it is windy and the ball gets blown across the oval.

In fact, in one class there were eighteen of us and when we went for a short run every single ball was blown way across the oval. It looked very funny as the balls were an assortment of colours.

Weights is my favorite. I just turn up, take out the weights, do the class and go home.

This month has been resistance bands. This class is a hard one. When you use bands you have to control the movement from start to finish. It just seems harder and I whinge about it the whole time.

Plus the band stinks.

Which brings me to the reason for this post.

I leave the band in my car all the time. Which is normally fine. However, after three or four hot days in my dark car the band has managed to make my car smell like a rubbery hot water bottle.

Or, worse, like a condom factory.

Or washing up gloves.

It is horrible.

Ciao
LC

Wrong Number

One of the phone numbers at our work used to belong to a shop that was a local shopping centre near where I live.

Not just any shop.

It was a shop that was part of a HUGE American iconic company. I mean HUGE. And not food related - more like entertainment related (in a wholesome kind of way).

Eight years ago the shop closed along with other outlets all over Australia.

However, the number is still listed on the company website and despite many emails we have had no response from them.

So, the phone calls come in every day. On average, about ten. In the eight weeks prior to Christmas it goes up to about thirty.

We refuse to change our number. Why should we?

So instead we answer the phone and tell the interested person that the company went bankrupt etc. (which is completely untrue). I am always polite to the caller.

I am not saying which company because I don't want to get fifty thousand hits a day.

One day I might just send the caller on a wild goose chase and give them a phone number to a brothel or something.

Just to be childish.

Ciao
LC

Cafe Weekend

For the past two weeks I have done nothing apart from go to and from work and to and from exercise class.

When I say nothing, I mean nothing around the house. No cooking, cleaning, laundry, bed making, food shopping, tidying or even making myself a cup of tea. My husband has done it all. I just cannot do it. I am in brain and body limbo.

However, this weekend my husband and I went out and just hung out. On Saturday we left our son at home to play Xbox. We made our way down to the trendy shopping precinct of Chapel Street in South Yarra.

We went to a little Turkish cafe where they were playing live music. We had freshly made dips with home made Turkish bread followed by strong Turkish coffee and baklavah. The weather was sunny and the atmosphere was happy. As for the food, honestly, it was the best I have eaten for ages.

On Sunday my son went out for a friend's birthday party. They were going on a chartered fishing boat out in the bay. This is the first time my son has done such a thing.

I actually finished a book I started yesterday. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. This was a fantastic book, the first of a trilogy and I will start the second one tonight. More importantly was the fact I could concentrate to read it as I have been unable to finish a book for months and months. I have been struggling to read a newspaper so I felt I made a breakthrough mentally.

After reading the book my husband and I went down to Acland Street in St Kilda where we went to the Readings Bookshop and meandered around. I love Acland Street. When I was a young girl I used to come down here a lot. Then it was known mostly for the cake shops that were open every day, including Sundays. Now it is busy with people out enjoying the variety of food and the open air cafes.

We went into a cafe where we had coffee and chocolate.

Walked past the open mouth of Luna Park where a busker was showing his stuff. People were everywhere. St Kilda is a strange mix of edgy and trendy. Years ago it was very seedy and well known for drug users and street prostitution. That still goes on, but you know, that is life everywhere. You might not see it but that does not mean it is not happening.

We walked down to the busy beach. When I was little I used to come down here with my parents. In those days it was not so busy and perhaps not so well groomed. I love it here. I love the beach in a way I cannot describe. No matter how busy it gets, it just seems so peaceful by its very existence. And empty beach has as much appeal to me as a full one.

The weather was windy but the sun was warm.

The sky blue.

Places to sit and people watch. The local council has spent a lot of time and money ensuring that everyone can enjoy this place.

I could have sat down there all day long.

So then we came home and I am about to pick up the second book of the trilogy I started yesterday.

Then I will go into the studio and do some painting.

What a perfect weekend. And the coming week is going to see every day hot and sunny.

I wonder if my son will come home with a fish!

Or at least a story of the one that got away.

Ciao

LC

Friday Movie Night

Tonight my husband, son and myself went to the movies with my brother and his oldest boy.

The movie was chosen by my brother. A science fiction genre.

Normally my husband would never go to a science fiction movie as he hates 'em and I love 'em.

Except for this one. It would not even make it to the B grade rating.

The movie was Skyline.

It was shite. Shite, shite, shite.

However, my son thought is was pretty good which tells you the target market audience. Teenagers. Even my brother said that it was not what he expected and I think he would have given it a shite rating too.

Maybe I am just a middle aged grumpy woman.

Nope, seriously, it was shite.

Ciao
LC

Don't Be Shy

So, heading into the week feeling a little bit closer to something that normal represents.

But it is a different kind of normal. Having been to the psychologist twice now, I notice my head is in a very intense state of thought. It is a good feeling.

Yesterday the hour turned into an extra half hour and I got so much out of it.

However, I am not going on about that except to say I am pretty comfortable with it all. Lots to think about.

Lately I have been listening to Cat Stevens (now known as Yusaf Islam). I listen to it in the car going to and from work.

When I was growing up Cat Stevens was pretty big. I was really too young to appreciate just how beautiful his music was both in melody and lyric form. I do remember thinking he was very lovely looking.

When he converted to Islam there was no doubt a big discussion about it in the media and every time he opened his mouth to speak the media took what ever he said in the context that media does so well and ran with it. I don't care what religion anyone is or isn't and I think, on the whole, that most people want to live a peaceful life.

I wonder what it would have been like to have been him leading up to the seeking of a place to find inner peace. Then to give up his music in the commercial sense. I know he continued to sing music that was deemed appropriate for his religion but, you know, it must have been hard.

He recently came out here. I did not get tickets (which I now deeply regret) because, like everything else, it just got put on the backburner and then suddenly he had come and gone.

I went on YouTube the other day and listened to the song "Don't Be Shy"



It is one of my favorites and not the most well known of his songs. I love the way he sings it in this clip because his voice has mellowed and he seems more at ease. He has a whole spiritual life behind him and it comes through.

This song reminds me of riding my bike on a sunny day. If I could ride a bike and spread my arms wide at the same time I think this song would go with that feeling of joy.

I drive to work listening to it. Sometimes more than once. Then on the way home I listen to it again.

It reminds me of freedom or something akin to that.

One day I might listen to it and the feeling it brings forth in me will be completely different.

Right now though, it just fills me with joy.

And I love to hang onto that feeling.

Ciao
LC

Wet Saturday

Well, part of getting into some sort of manageable place is to make the effort to reconnect with things around me. I woke up this morning feeling pretty shitful but am continuing to take the "just do what you do" to keep some sort of normality around me.

I went with my son to a shopping centre not far from us. The weather was just doleful. Raining non stop. It seems like every weekend we have deluges of rain and I am getting a bit sick of it. The car park was packed with people who were planning Christmas shopping. Nothing like the sound of Jingle Fucking Bells when you are feeling like Batman Smells. I took a deep breath and steeled myself into the hallow halls of consumerism.

Thankfully my wuvverly son was there to just deflect the low mood. I am a bit sick of naval gazing at the moment.
We had some lunch to eat. My son asked for Macca's and I said "yeah, why not". I bought sushi which tasted like cardboard (as has all food the past two weeks) and we sat playing scrabble on the IPad. I love the way one does lunch with teenagers.

My husband was playing Christmas music at the centre. He had to carry the sousaphone around. I have put him through the emotional mill this past week and he has been terrific support for me. It makes me cry to think about it. For the first time ever he realises how I hide (deny or don't see) my depression and how much work I have ahead of me. Also for the first time ever he read my blog and was so moved by my writing. He never used to read it because he thought it would invade my space whereas I thought he was not interested. Go figure.

Then when I got home I decided to take some photos of the garden. You can see the sad demise of the Halloween pumpkin. It did not take long to sink to an all time low. Well pumpkin, I know how you are feeling. At least no flies are on me and I have no intention of rotting into the ground.

Lots of weeds and flowers. I might pull them out. I might not.

Because we have had so much rain the gardens everywhere have just flourished. It has been so wonderful to see. The nasturtium fill the garden beds so well.

It cheered me up a bit to see everything so lush and green. I guess everything goes through dry patches.

The red flanders poppies are self seeding from seeds I put in the garden at least fifteen years ago. I might top them up a bit. Years ago the garden was a sea of red. It was beautiful.

The tree in the foreground is a recent addition. It is a pink flowering cherry. I have a few flowering cherries around the garden. They are so hardy and grow into beautiful trees over the years.

Another green photo.

So now it is about 7.30pm. My husband is on a music job. He has made a decision to cut back most of his weekend work (the day stuff) as he realises what an impact his absence has probably had on the family unit. Plus he is over it.

When I was in at the psychologists I realised that I had a lot of digging deep work to attend to . It was pretty confronting and highly emotional. He is a good person to talk to and there really is something great about being in a room with a person who has not a vested interest in me. Objective and professional and ready to listen. I have never actually sat in a room and just talked about my shit properly. I mean, I talk about it but I kind of compartmentalise it.

I feel incredibly wounded in my head right now but I am not negative. Just plain old fucking sad. Looking back, the major anxiety attack I had a while ago was a sign that something was taking a turn. You know, sometimes things are just not that obvious to me.

However, I am feeling calm and have long blocks of feeling okay before the intense feeling of shitfulness invades me.

And that is my day today.

Ciao

LC

Arisen

I am about ready to crawl out and up from the land of sad.

Although I am pretty tired and mentally fatigued I am in an okay place.

Went to a psychologist for the first time. But I won't say much about that except that I felt ready to sit in a room and talk to a professional.

There is a lot more to things (of course) but I am just making the effort to reconnect.

thank you, thank you so much for all your support.

Ciao
LC

Blogging Break

I am taking a break for a week or so.

Or however long I need.

Will be back once things are back to some sort of normal.

Ciao
LC

On A Light Note

After my dreary post of yesterday I thought I might talk about my new toy.

My IPad.

My fantabulous boss and his gorgeous wife gave me (and two others) an IPad for an early Christmas bonus. How wonderful is that.

So I picked it up yesterday and have been mucking around with it since, with the help of my son.

My husband has a deep aversion to the IPad and IPhone and any other thing that gets poked and pointed at. He is sick of people thinking he might find it fantastic to know the weather in every country of the world or where the nearest shoe shop is.

Nor does he want to see four hundred family photos. Or the GPS. Or the diary. Or hear the ring tones.

He hates them and does not want them imposed upon him.

So, last night after downloading the game of scrabble onto my IPad you can bet that he was none too pleased when I handed the thing over to him for his "turn".

"I prefer a board game," he muttered as he came up with a word. He added that he like to play around with the tiles.

"Oh, Bossman and his wife have played scrabble in bed with the Ipad until 2.00am in the morning," I told him with great enthusiasm.

"You cannot be serious. If I was up in bed with you until 2.00am in the morning I can think of better things to do that play scrabble with an IPad," he said.

Really?

I dunno. I thought that the scrabble was good fun actually.

Must be a generation thing.

Ciao
LC

Finished Painting

The upside of having a downside is that I can distract myself in the studio.

So today I finished off a painting (a bit rushed) which needed to fill a blank wall.

I called it Lone Turkey.

The turkey is me.

Ciao

LC

Stuff

When I was about 39 years old my doctor sent me to a psychiatrist as I had to change my anti depressant medication and the doctor was the sort who preferred a psych to assess a patient before making any medication changes.

I had never been to a pysch before. I am not the sort who can open up easily and I was very resistant to it. But I went. We did not hit it off at all. He was rigid and I was in denial I suppose. After a number of intensely uncomfortable visits I decided not to go. I was not ready for anything like this.

After the first three visits he said to me that he believed I was bipolar and he wanted me to not take anti depressants, he wanted me to go on Lithium. I said he was wrong and there was no way I was going on that, ever. He brought it up a few more times and then I stopped going. I ended up changing GP's and got a script for Lexapro which did me well enough until I came off all medication in 2005.

Since then I have managed my depression with exercise, behavioural changes, diet, sleep and all those things. It takes a lot of effort and I have to confess that I am often concerned about what happens when my strict routine is not able to be followed (holiday, illness or other things). It has happened and it sends me off the edge and I have to start all over again.

However, despite all my efforts, I do still have constant mood swings. And depression. I do weird food things when I am struggling. This year I have had a couple of things happen that triggered scary mood changes and I thought I was going almost mad. But because I am aware of the symptoms I can generally cope well enough and unless you really knew me well you would never know I was having an episode. My husband is very, very supportive but he does worry when I say "I am struggling" because if I say that he knows it is just the tip of the iceberg.

This year my younger sister was diagnosed with bipolar 2 which I guess you could say is a less extreme version of bipolar. She is on a mood stabiliser and goes to a psychiatrist. It took years to get diagnosed and she feels so much better.

This weekend I had a very bad weekend. I was totally fucked in the head and had a mood that changed almost every two hours. It was very tiring. This is not the first time and I am very good at functioning through these moods but I must admit this one was worse than usual.

I rang my sister and spoke to her today about it. Today I was okay and was talking at a million miles an hour. Racing words falling out of my head. Lots of what my sister and I call "white noise" in my head.

"I've told you this before. You need to see a professional Linda. I believe you have bipolar 2," she told me.

I told her I might one day but am not ready to.

I explained that my plate is a bit full at the moment with work, exercise and the Oxfam walk I have committed myself to. I needed to adjust and make allowances to reduce the risk of having a trigger episode. She told me to be open minded.

On the weekend when I was talking to my husband about it I said "I wish I was a more open person" and he said "So do I".

Now, on a normal day I would just hear the words "So do I" and take them exactly for what they mean. But on the weekend with the inside of my head I read those three innocent words as "I wish you were different too. I don't like the way you are. I want you to be another person. You are not open enough and I don't like you. You are never good enough". Blah, blah and blah.

I know enough to know this is very fucked thinking and I told my husband how I interpreted those words and he just shook his head. It is very hard for him when I am like this. But he thinks it is harder for me when I am like this.

The reason I am careful what I say during an episode is that I can say things that are really strange and I can talk myself into believing things that, in two hours, I am shocked I even said or thought. So I have taught myself to take time to speak or just talk trivia to bring myself down.

So today after my bad weekend (which had been preceded by a week of poor sleep, feeling unwell, intrusive negative thoughts and some other things) I was on a high and got loads done. But I talked non stop. I talked to my sister for an hour over the phone. I talked non stop to my book keeping client for over an hour and I also talked non stop through exercise class.

My husband thinks that if I can manage it and cope then that might be okay. My sister says that I have to be open minded to the fact I may have to see a psych one day as she thinks the episodes are getting closer. She may be right.

There is a lot more to it which is too long and boring to go into but you get the drift.

I am just going to take it day by day. It feels the right thing to do.

I really do not want to take medication. I don't feel I need it. I am managing the anxiety. Very aware of the ups and downs and feeling I am in control. But maybe that is part of the thing about mental health problems. You think you are in control but may well not be.

It's a difficult path to navigate sometimes.

Ciao
LC