Right, I'm over it.
I'm reading the blog of a father whose little girl has schizophrenia (here). I'm reading another blog, by a fantastic woman who is fostering children, some of whom have serious mental illnesses, (here). Today, on my way home from an appointment, I popped into Sainsburys to pick up some new dummies for Jazzpiglet and to grab a magazine in hope that it would distract me this evening. While I was queueing to pay, I realised the young girl of about nine years old who was standing with her father in front of me, had a prosthetic arm. This little girl was bright, smiling, talking to the cashier, making jokes.
These people show strength in the face of huge challenges. I know that I too, show strength, in my own insignificant little way, but it's not in any way comparable to the struggles that these inspirational people face every day.
I am a lucky person. My health isn't great, but I don't have a terminal illness, I have all of my limbs, I can walk, I can ride a bike (sometimes, when my joints aren't seized up, obviously!), I can go out for an evening and can manage to stand at the bar for a while if there aren't seats available...I'm pretty ok.
My own family life is a little chaotic, I didn't have a great childhood...but my new family, my fiance's family, are amazing. They're supportive, caring, kind and generous people and I know that I can call my future mother-in-law just for a lighthearted chat or to ask for babysitting assistance. We do things together as a family, we cook dinner for each other (siblings included), Drew's brother's girlfriend is so much my best friend that she's actually going to be my maid of honour...lucky. Very very lucky.
I'm at the tail end of going through a shitty divorce...but I'm getting married to the best person in the world next year. I wasted four years of my life on an asshole...but all of my experiences have made me who I am today, and now I've finally got it together with Drew, the cliched 'love of my life'.
My kids are great. Heather's a total diva, Charlie is aggressive and highly reactive, Jasper is the loudest baby in the whole world, but they're good kids. I have a relatively easy time with them...sure, they push boundaries sometimes (they wouldn't be normal if they didn't), but for the most part they're spectacularly well behaved, polite, quirky, funny little munchkins.
There's plenty in my life for me to be thankful for. I know that mental illness isn't logical; I am aware that depression doesn't listen to "but you should be happy" arguments...but knowing, and reminding myself, of how lucky I am to finally have a stable existence filled with wonderful people, it definitely helps.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
A Rare Grumpy Post
Oh, hey! It's not often I do these; it's not often I let people in and share what's actually going on in my noggin, especially when it's all crazy nonsense.
So. I'll own up before I start. I was diagnosed with severe depression when I was a teenager, and I've swung in and out of it since then. I had a fair amount of stuff happen during my childhood and teenage years that therapists have assured me will have definitely contributed - I'm carrying a lot of stuff around with me, and sometimes it gets a tad heavy!
When I was a teenager, I also became anorexic. I didn't know that's what I was...all I knew was that I developed a (very private) conviction that people would think I was fat if they saw me eat anything. So I stopped eating at school. Then I stopped being able to eat in the morning before school...I didn't know why, I didn't think about it; I just didn't feel like I could. Then it snowballed to a point where I was barely able to eat anything. I didn't do it to lose weight, I didn't have a set of scales, I don't know what I weighed at that point. I do know that I still thought of myself as fat, ugly and worthless, that I compared myself to everybody else constantly and that I simply couldn't eat. Eating felt like failure. Starving myself felt like success, something I could be good at, something where I was winning. Being hungry meant I was doing ok. It was uncomfortable, but it was something I could control, a control that nobody could take away with me.
I don't think you ever recover fully from anorexia; through support, therapy and lots of personal effort you can learn to control your behaviours and handle your thoughts so that you're not plagued by the demons, but it's a lifelong battle. I'm currently waiting for a letter telling me who my new therapist is, as my last eating disorders specialist has moved on elsewhere and I'm in between people. I hate therapy, but I'm committed to recovery, so I'll keep going.
Right now, I'm not doing so great. There's nothing much wrong with my life - ok, I do have suspected Multiple Sclerosis, which is a total ballache, and I'm still carrying the memories of a lot of crap with me...but I have three beautiful children, a gorgeous, caring, loving fiance who I absolutely adore, a supportive family and some fantastic friends.
But this is the nature of depression. There doesn't have to be anything wrong for it to rear it's ugly head. I'm struggling with it like hell at the moment.
People with eating disorders often talk about the 'negative voice'. It's a strange thing to explain - it's not like actually hearing voices (or at least, it's not for me)...but more like your own internal dialogue turned evil. You know how if you drop something, or maybe if you walk into a room and forget what you went in there for, or if you accidentally put salt in your coffee instead of sugar, or anything daft, you have an internal dialogue that says "Oh for God's sake you're so clumsy!" or "What did you come in here for?" or "Well, I'm not drinking that!"? My internal dialogue is loud, critical and relentless. I constantly hear, from within my own head, that I'm fat, unattractive, useless, stupid, dull, boring, a terrible mother, that my lovely fiance could do better and that he SHOULD do better, that my friends don't care about me, that I'm a burden on people, that there is nothing physically okay on any part of my body, that I'm too lazy, that I don't do enough to help other people, that I'm selfish...and so on and so forth. I also develop a paranoid voice; my fiance will leave me, people don't like me, I'm so hideous that people are laughing at me, everybody thinks I'm ridiculous. I have this all of the time.
When I'm quite stable, I can argue back against that voice; I can rationalise and figure out that my fiance loves ME, with all of my crap and wotnot, that I'm at the lower end of a healthy BMI range for my weight, therefore I'm NOT fat (the negative voice tells me that I need to be underweight to be 'thin'), that I have friends who call all the time to chat, that I have friends who make the effort to make sure I'm ok and come pick me up and take me places if I'm having a bad day (so NOT fair-weather friends).
When I'm not as stable with my depression, I can't argue with the voice as well. I'm on the highest possible dose of sertraline; an anti-depressant which works on anxiety. Usually, it works. Sometimes, it doesn't.
I know when it's not working when I start to feel hopeless...I don't want to get out of bed, I can't be bothered with doing anything, I can't focus on anything and I feel emotionally numb. I have to plod on - my children need me, they need me to be their happy, friendly Mummy who cooks their dinner and listens to their stories and helps with homework and bathes them and tucks them in with a smile on her face. It's harder with friends. Drew knows when I'm struggling because I go off into my own world - he often notices before I do, because the things that usually make me laugh don't seem to even register, and I space out while he's talking to me. Most of my friends know that if I have a quiet day, I'm not being off with them, I'm just trying to battle my way out of a dark place that depression has gotten me lost in. I still try to be bubbly and cheerful, but apparently it's pretty obvious that it's an act. I make the effort, but it's not genuine and true friends know this.
Unfortunately, knowing that I'm acting like that, that I'm not as responsive as I'd usually be, that I'm being quiet and spaced out, that I'm not able to take part in conversations as actively as usual, makes me feel dull and boring...which gives that bullying negative voice something to pick on. It's a highly inconvenient cycle that's very hard to break out of.
Drew's away with work this week. I've kept myself busy all week, but today Heather and Charlie are with their Dad. Jasper's having a nap...and I'm left alone with the contents of my defective noggin. I can't watch TV, because it's just not interesting me enough. I'm trying to re-read the Harry Potter series but, much as I love it, it's not holding my attention. I have a wedding magazine, but I haven't even opened it. I'm battling anorexia again and feel awful because I had a doughnut earlier...the argument is raging in my head that this is FINE - it's all I've eaten today - and that I should have dinner later...while the negative voice is telling me that I'm fat fat fat and shouldn't even go into the kitchen again today. I want to get better, but it's a tough battle to fight. It's bloody exhausting.
I'm so sick of the crazies...
Apologies for the maudling post - I promise you faithfully the next one will be happy smily again. Honest!
So. I'll own up before I start. I was diagnosed with severe depression when I was a teenager, and I've swung in and out of it since then. I had a fair amount of stuff happen during my childhood and teenage years that therapists have assured me will have definitely contributed - I'm carrying a lot of stuff around with me, and sometimes it gets a tad heavy!
When I was a teenager, I also became anorexic. I didn't know that's what I was...all I knew was that I developed a (very private) conviction that people would think I was fat if they saw me eat anything. So I stopped eating at school. Then I stopped being able to eat in the morning before school...I didn't know why, I didn't think about it; I just didn't feel like I could. Then it snowballed to a point where I was barely able to eat anything. I didn't do it to lose weight, I didn't have a set of scales, I don't know what I weighed at that point. I do know that I still thought of myself as fat, ugly and worthless, that I compared myself to everybody else constantly and that I simply couldn't eat. Eating felt like failure. Starving myself felt like success, something I could be good at, something where I was winning. Being hungry meant I was doing ok. It was uncomfortable, but it was something I could control, a control that nobody could take away with me.
I don't think you ever recover fully from anorexia; through support, therapy and lots of personal effort you can learn to control your behaviours and handle your thoughts so that you're not plagued by the demons, but it's a lifelong battle. I'm currently waiting for a letter telling me who my new therapist is, as my last eating disorders specialist has moved on elsewhere and I'm in between people. I hate therapy, but I'm committed to recovery, so I'll keep going.
Right now, I'm not doing so great. There's nothing much wrong with my life - ok, I do have suspected Multiple Sclerosis, which is a total ballache, and I'm still carrying the memories of a lot of crap with me...but I have three beautiful children, a gorgeous, caring, loving fiance who I absolutely adore, a supportive family and some fantastic friends.
But this is the nature of depression. There doesn't have to be anything wrong for it to rear it's ugly head. I'm struggling with it like hell at the moment.
People with eating disorders often talk about the 'negative voice'. It's a strange thing to explain - it's not like actually hearing voices (or at least, it's not for me)...but more like your own internal dialogue turned evil. You know how if you drop something, or maybe if you walk into a room and forget what you went in there for, or if you accidentally put salt in your coffee instead of sugar, or anything daft, you have an internal dialogue that says "Oh for God's sake you're so clumsy!" or "What did you come in here for?" or "Well, I'm not drinking that!"? My internal dialogue is loud, critical and relentless. I constantly hear, from within my own head, that I'm fat, unattractive, useless, stupid, dull, boring, a terrible mother, that my lovely fiance could do better and that he SHOULD do better, that my friends don't care about me, that I'm a burden on people, that there is nothing physically okay on any part of my body, that I'm too lazy, that I don't do enough to help other people, that I'm selfish...and so on and so forth. I also develop a paranoid voice; my fiance will leave me, people don't like me, I'm so hideous that people are laughing at me, everybody thinks I'm ridiculous. I have this all of the time.
When I'm quite stable, I can argue back against that voice; I can rationalise and figure out that my fiance loves ME, with all of my crap and wotnot, that I'm at the lower end of a healthy BMI range for my weight, therefore I'm NOT fat (the negative voice tells me that I need to be underweight to be 'thin'), that I have friends who call all the time to chat, that I have friends who make the effort to make sure I'm ok and come pick me up and take me places if I'm having a bad day (so NOT fair-weather friends).
When I'm not as stable with my depression, I can't argue with the voice as well. I'm on the highest possible dose of sertraline; an anti-depressant which works on anxiety. Usually, it works. Sometimes, it doesn't.
I know when it's not working when I start to feel hopeless...I don't want to get out of bed, I can't be bothered with doing anything, I can't focus on anything and I feel emotionally numb. I have to plod on - my children need me, they need me to be their happy, friendly Mummy who cooks their dinner and listens to their stories and helps with homework and bathes them and tucks them in with a smile on her face. It's harder with friends. Drew knows when I'm struggling because I go off into my own world - he often notices before I do, because the things that usually make me laugh don't seem to even register, and I space out while he's talking to me. Most of my friends know that if I have a quiet day, I'm not being off with them, I'm just trying to battle my way out of a dark place that depression has gotten me lost in. I still try to be bubbly and cheerful, but apparently it's pretty obvious that it's an act. I make the effort, but it's not genuine and true friends know this.
Unfortunately, knowing that I'm acting like that, that I'm not as responsive as I'd usually be, that I'm being quiet and spaced out, that I'm not able to take part in conversations as actively as usual, makes me feel dull and boring...which gives that bullying negative voice something to pick on. It's a highly inconvenient cycle that's very hard to break out of.
Drew's away with work this week. I've kept myself busy all week, but today Heather and Charlie are with their Dad. Jasper's having a nap...and I'm left alone with the contents of my defective noggin. I can't watch TV, because it's just not interesting me enough. I'm trying to re-read the Harry Potter series but, much as I love it, it's not holding my attention. I have a wedding magazine, but I haven't even opened it. I'm battling anorexia again and feel awful because I had a doughnut earlier...the argument is raging in my head that this is FINE - it's all I've eaten today - and that I should have dinner later...while the negative voice is telling me that I'm fat fat fat and shouldn't even go into the kitchen again today. I want to get better, but it's a tough battle to fight. It's bloody exhausting.
I'm so sick of the crazies...
Apologies for the maudling post - I promise you faithfully the next one will be happy smily again. Honest!
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Wedding Stuff and Children and Wotnot
I'm having a good weekend. An epic good weekend.
First, last night, was the engagement party for two of my friends. Okay, there was a girl there who used to be full-on in love with my fiance, who slept with him once, who was practically obsessed with him and came damn near close to stalking him...so I had to keep my bitchface under control and not watch her like a hawk all evening. I do not like obsessive fawning girls when they are obsessive about my fiance. Even though I trust him and KNOW that he'd never do ANYTHING like that, it rubs me right up the wrong way.
Grr.
But, other than that, a good night was had by all! And, I've discovered that a berroca before bed, followed by a few glasses of water, then berroca in the morning followed by coffee staves off a hangover admirably. I feel tired, but fine. Awesome.
Today, Drewfus and I are off to look at a wedding venue. The wedding venue we feel will probably be THE wedding venue. I am excited. That's this morning.
THEN (oh yes, there's more) I'm going with my Maid of Honour this afternoon to try on wedding dresses. There will be photographic evidence. Oh hell yes, the cameria (aka my detachable limb) is coming too. I may have to try on a meringue for the hell of it.
THEN (still going), tomorrow my little Jazzpod is being Christened. It should be lovely; the curate of my local church is taking the baptism - she's younger than I am and absolutely wonderful, I'm really pleased that she's going to be there. We've got family and great friends coming along, everyone will be together, my sister and brother-in-law and their little son (my nephew!) are coming up from Bournemouth...the tiny cousins will be able to play together again and I get to see my sister...and I can introduce her to my friends. I know she'll love them and they'll love her.
It makes me happy.
However; it's 9am now, the car's at Drew's parent's house (half hour drive away), Drew's still in the bath which is prohibiting me getting ready at all, and we have to be at a little village just outside of Worcester at 10.30. Bournville to Redditch to Worcester in an hour and a half...yep, he needs to get out of the blasted bath.
First, last night, was the engagement party for two of my friends. Okay, there was a girl there who used to be full-on in love with my fiance, who slept with him once, who was practically obsessed with him and came damn near close to stalking him...so I had to keep my bitchface under control and not watch her like a hawk all evening. I do not like obsessive fawning girls when they are obsessive about my fiance. Even though I trust him and KNOW that he'd never do ANYTHING like that, it rubs me right up the wrong way.
Grr.
But, other than that, a good night was had by all! And, I've discovered that a berroca before bed, followed by a few glasses of water, then berroca in the morning followed by coffee staves off a hangover admirably. I feel tired, but fine. Awesome.
Today, Drewfus and I are off to look at a wedding venue. The wedding venue we feel will probably be THE wedding venue. I am excited. That's this morning.
THEN (oh yes, there's more) I'm going with my Maid of Honour this afternoon to try on wedding dresses. There will be photographic evidence. Oh hell yes, the cameria (aka my detachable limb) is coming too. I may have to try on a meringue for the hell of it.
THEN (still going), tomorrow my little Jazzpod is being Christened. It should be lovely; the curate of my local church is taking the baptism - she's younger than I am and absolutely wonderful, I'm really pleased that she's going to be there. We've got family and great friends coming along, everyone will be together, my sister and brother-in-law and their little son (my nephew!) are coming up from Bournemouth...the tiny cousins will be able to play together again and I get to see my sister...and I can introduce her to my friends. I know she'll love them and they'll love her.
It makes me happy.
However; it's 9am now, the car's at Drew's parent's house (half hour drive away), Drew's still in the bath which is prohibiting me getting ready at all, and we have to be at a little village just outside of Worcester at 10.30. Bournville to Redditch to Worcester in an hour and a half...yep, he needs to get out of the blasted bath.
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