Being an adult was hard this week, toffee hard, crack your teeth and pull out your crowns hard. But as always, I chew on, whacking a bit of super glue in to hold it all together. Firstly, we had Mother’s Day and I’m not a fan of Mother’s Day. I’m a single mumma, so there isn’t much fan-fare, I did get the book I asked for from my youngest which was sweet, but the actual day was the same as every other. It’s a bit like New Year’s Eve for me, I feel the pressure to ‘have a good day’ to be indulged, taken care of, spoilt even. But that is not what happens for most single mums. We still have to do all the things, no one else is going to cook, clean, manage the pets, manage the stupid fucking laundry or deal with any other ‘chore’ that needs doing and half the time we buy our own presents from the school Mother’s Day stall. The other reason I dislike Mother’s Day is that my mother died on Mother’s Day 23 years ago. She had the Big C, I say it was big because it was all consuming, it consumed her body, her happiness and in the end her life. Cancer is a motherfucker, let’s be clear. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, or maybe… well no not even then, because I believe in karma and I hope I am a good person. I also have healthy dose of medical anxiety, that means basically I think everything is going to kill me. As I get older the chances of this happening increases, in my opinion anyway. I’m needing tests for things I had never thought about when I was younger, back when we were all invincible. I didn’t think about colonoscopies and mammograms, skin checks, eye tests, hearing tests and pap smears. I was blessed with good health, not good mental health, let’s be honest, that’s dodgy as shit, but my body worked okay. These day’s my body breaking down, falling apart, needing more servicing than ever, but I am still here, I am lucky. Speaking of needing a service, my car overheated this week, my radiator had died, so I got that fixed. Then once I got my car back and went on my merry way, my car started shaking like it had been possessed by a wicked car demon and smelt like it was burning the souls of car now passed. I got home safely and had the NRMA tow it back to the mechanics and of course they found nothing wrong with it, so said demon had moved on - hopefully to a Tesla. I have decided one day I would like to replace my car with a Peugeot. My Dad drove a Peugeot when I was a kid, back when our butts stuck to the plastic seat covers and we didn't have seat belts. I loved that car and was crushed when he sold it cheaply to a neighbourhood kid and replaced it with an old BMW. Having a Peugeot of my own will allow me to indulge myself in some nostalgia from my youth, minus the sticky seats and with more safety options, hopefully it won’t be open to possessions either. (PS Peugeot – hit me up) As I said being an adult was hard this week, besides Mother’s Day kind of sucking, missing my own mum and car demons, I have had several appointments with psychologists and psychiatrists, and not even for me, but as the parent of the child requiring these professionals and I was given homework. I don’t do well with homework. I get the logic behind the assignment I was given to work on with my child, but it just piled another layer of stress on me and when I asked for clarity on the homework I was told to, ‘Just do what I said.’ Righto, fucking brilliant that is. Our homework will be checked tomorrow at our next appointment, I hope I got at least 60%... but honestly, don’t give tired, overwhelmed single mum’s homework. I am also trying to sort my health out and have a zoom call in an hour with a potential coach that might be able to help me get on track, but that probably means more homework right? I would really like to tame the medical anxiety beast by at the very least looking after myself a bit better. You see, I don’t look after myself. I haven’t put myself first in decades, I still can’t really, but I can do better than I am. Physically I’m twice the woman I used to be but inside I feel like half… I have to fix this, sort this mess out. I can talk about getting healthy until the cows come home but they never come home. So I am ringing the cow bell and calling them in. I hope your week has been kinder, I hope Mother's Day was nice to you or if it sucked like mine, you have support. Let see what next week brings? Peace
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I’m scared of needles, I loathe them, I can’t even look at them but will happily go and get tattoos. I’ll even go voluntarily, I pay good money for them, tattoos I love. But needles for any other purpose, forget it. I went to see a new acupuncturist this week, I haven’t seen one in over 13 years, because needles… My newly acquired acupuncturist asked why I was so terrified of getting acupuncture but will happily get tattoos, apparently this is not uncommon. I had no answer. I’m crazy? She only managed to put two needles in before resorting to Moxi. Moxibustion is something I love, its warm and smells divine. But only two needles? What a wimp. Two weeks ago, I sat for over two hours having my cats angry face inked onto my arm and am planning to go back for touch ups and another tattoo? And it hurts way more than acupuncture. There is no logic here, I must be mad… Perhaps it’s the fact you have to lay there with the needles sticking out of you for a period of time. You have to lay there and ‘relax’ as if! When I am getting a tattoo, I happily growl or swear in the painful bits and laugh too, but lay there serenely with needles poking out? My brain says, ‘Nope, not okay.’ And my anxiety, the sinister little fucker, whom I call Maude, laughs her head off. I have a deep fear that I will bump one of the tiny little needles, sending it plummeting into my skin and piercing a vital organ, leading to death and catastrophic injury. I explained this (irrational?) fear to my acupuncturist and she explained it was impossible and then showed me a needle. By this stage Maude was cheering, ‘Yeah show her, that’ll fuck her up!’ She, my acupuncturist, not Maude, wanted me to see how it had a handle and how pretty the handle was (huh?), but more to the point that the handle prevented it going further in… To me the non-handle bit still looked long enough to stab me to death. I’ll also mention I have an out of control fear of knives, can’t look at them, can’t watch someone hold one, can’t handle slasher flicks but can cut vegetables? Weird huh? I do wish my daughter would stop asking to watch Scream, she has a love of horror I am slightly disturbed by. I on the other hand, never want to see any type of needle (or knife), I don’t watch the tattoo gun, I don’t watch when I have blood drawn and I certainly didn’t watch when I had two epidural needles plunged into my spine followed by a spinal block chaser. No Thank You. That’s the thing about anxiety, it always sends you to the worst-case possible scenario. My anxiety, Maude, loves to send me spiralling, she always makes me believe it is going to be far worse than it actually is. Except for acupuncture then Maude’s right. When I was trying to conceive my first child, I tried everything, including acupuncture. I went to see a lovely old Chinese Acupuncturist who not only stuck oodles of needles in me, but then attached wires to them and ‘gently’ electrocuted me. Perhaps this is where some of my trauma lies? But it worked, I got pregnant and had my first child. By now, if you are still here reader, you are probably thinking, why the fuck does she go then, if she is so scared, well I go because I believe it works. I’m heading in for some tests next week and Maude has me thinking worst-case again, so I am getting this old body of mines immune system pumping. If Maude is wrong, then at least my immunity has had a jump start, if she is right, then acupuncture will become a regular part of my life, so I better give Maude a Valium and settle in. Did you miss me? Huh? You didn't notice I was gone. Never mind, here I am. Back, refreshed, newly medicated and ready to dive in. A lot has happened in the years since I was last here, (No shit Sherlock - you think you're the only one with stuff?) Seriously though, how have you all been? I have been busy starting my son off in high school, juggling all the appointments and business that comes with having a neuro-diverse kiddo and supporting my daughter she she enters her final year in primary school. I restarted my garden for the nine hundredth time, got a new deck built so I can sit with my tea admiring the veggies growing ferociously, while dodging the branches the cockatoos hurl at me from the tree above. I have been in the studio recording several new music projects, all of which excites the fuck out of me. Can't wait to send that shit out into the world. What else? I got a new psychiatrist. Now that is exciting. New psych, new diagnosis, new meds, new me. Bloody Brilliant. And lots of writing, always lots of writing. Oh and I turned 50! Not even sure how I got here so quickly. Today is a miserable day here, even though it's summer, it is foggy, rainy and shit but I love it like this. The world quietens down for me on days like this, there is less business. Although I do have to go get some food, unless my son wants cat biscuits in his lunch tomorrow. My daughter is on camp, her first big camp. She is off snorkelling, bloody proud of her, she's an anxious kid so it was a big step going to camp. I'm hoping 2023 is a good year for us all, it's already the end of February, time keeps moving too fast for me. I'm hoping I have another 30/40 years to get all the shit done I want to do. I better get moving. Let me know what you're up to? Anyway, thanks for reading, thanks for being here, I'll be around a lot more now. Elizabeth By the way, I want to get Quails, anyone have Quails? any tips? Happy Belated New Year everyone.
I know I’m late to the party but I’ve been hunkering down with the fam, planning a very different looking 2021 and avoiding the chaos. Covid is still with us, and I guess always will be in some way. Each day greets us with a new border closures, lock downs, mask rules and vaccine updates. All of it makes me weary. My feed is full of broken people, front liners asking for everyone to follow the rules as they are the ones dealing with the misery of it all and on the flip side too many conspiracy theories that bore me stupid. The USA has gone completely mad, well the Pro Trumpers have. When he said, ‘Make America Great Again,’ did he mean send it into absolute chaos and violence? Does inciting a coup make it great? He has been banned from social media which is very late in coming but at least it finally happened. I’m anxious about inauguration day. Are you? Not long to go now. Despite the great pile of steaming garbage that has clung to 2021 from the awful 2020, I am full of optimism. We have had rain instead of fires, my family is healthy; we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, animals running about and are more privileged than many. I am grateful. I am about to start home schooling my eldest and am studying again, I am a forever student. This year is full of changes, re adjustments and new ways of living. I think it’s going to be ok. What do you have to be grateful for? Do you have people you can reach out too? We must look after each other. Mental Health Matters. I’m here if you need a chat. Peace I had my first Covid test this week. Came down with a cough and a sore throat. I’ve been careful - masks, hand sanitising, social distancing and really not going out at all except for groceries and occasionally visiting a friend. Had to isolate completely until I had my results, ran out of cat biscuits… how privileged that that was my biggest concern. I am so lucky, so many others are struggling, so many others are not with the same privilege I enjoy. The Australian Government has increased the subsidised therapy sessions to 20 a year instead of 10. I hope this helps people struggling with their mental health throughout this pandemic. It will certainly help me. It will take a long time to recover. I doubt life will ever go back to the way it was pre-covid. Do we want it too? People seem to be reassessing what is important in their lives, moving out of cities in mass exoduses to quieter towns. Working from home, focussing on family. Thinking about what they want out of life. Some people are mad. I get it. There is great suffering. The planet has been given some reprieve but so many losses. Unbearable to consider. We need to care for each other more than ever. Do you have someone to talk too? Sharing a coffee with a friend is my mental health staple. My results were negative. I am fortunate. I hope you’re ok. Peace. I have been fumbling around in the darkness for over month now, maybe two. I’ve lost count. I am trying to be patient, waiting for the sun to peek through and lighten things up and yesterday I had a glimpse. The day was warm, the sun was out, I sat beneath it soaking up the rays whilst reading Sarah Wilson’s new book, ‘This One Wild and Precious Life.’ It lifted me up and stoked my curiosity, which made me feel a little better about my world. In my mind, I trekked with her, sat in the warm pubs eating, drinking and chatting to strangers. I would love to do that right now, but the world is closed. I am so grateful that Sarah wrote about her bipolar and anxiety in her book, ‘first, we make the beast beautiful,’ and will return to that one after this. She is a wonderful writer, nomad and I find her work so inspiring. I am thankful for her massive contribution to destigmatising mental illness. Back to my day, eventually the sun went down, my daughter put away her Harry Potter book and I put away mine and the darkness returned. It lurks and swallows you up. That is until the mania comes, or with Bipolar 2 ‘hypomania.’ So what do I do? I drink my coffee, write my words, do some housework, read books, play with the animals, love and nurture my kids and reach out to friends. My instinct is to go further inward but I know that I need to reach out. I need to keep moving so the darkness doesn’t close me in completely. It is a bastard. Those of you who feel this, you are not alone. I’m listening. |
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