Month: January 2020

My Head Is Not A Safe Place Right Now – And That’s Okay

Bones

mr-tangent-UVEqiVdEkdQ-unsplash

I went on holiday last week to the most beautiful place on earth, the one place that has stayed with me throughout my life.  The one place that I truly feel at peace.

I had this grand idea that I would spend my days relaxing, spinning, and otherwise existing in a zen-like state.  In my head I was going to become one with myself and reach … while not quite a higher state of being, certainly a more peaceful state of being.

It, um, did not go well.

The first two days I was just so relieved to exist in my little slice of heaven that it filled me with a false sense of security and achievement, because I was almost zen-like.  I was decompressing, and I was able to spend a good 30-40 minutes just staring at the ocean in a state of quiet.  I think it was more that I was shell-shocked at the sudden change in stresses that my brain just blanked out on me, leading me to a false quiet.

Then my brain came back, and with it my anxiety, and oh boy it was not a nice place to be!  I hadn’t brought any reading material with me, so I vainly scrambled for some fanfiction escapism, but even that fell flat.  I had a burning need to be doing anything but what I am currently doing in my chest, and my brain bounced around the walls of the cabin maniacally.

But I continued to push for that zen aesthetic, that peaceful state of being.  I was firm in this belief that this is the state I should be in, it was the correct state, and I was wrong for not being able to achieve it.  It took me two days of struggling to correct my thinking.  My head is not a safe place to be in alone, and that’s okay.  With that admission, with the acceptance of this fact, I was able to relax once more and implement my distraction regime.

Distraction helps.  Depending on how bad my brain is depends on what kind of distraction I use – I have ‘high value’ distractions and ‘low value’ distractions.  I chose to hit it with all I’ve got.  I’m on holiday, after all, I want to be enjoying myself!

So I cracked out my gaming laptop and put on Two Point Hospital (the spiritual successor of Theme Hospital, my favourite game ever) and listened to podcasts.  With their powers combined I was not left alone in my head and all the bad thoughts ricocheting around quietened down.

Sure, I felt guilty about spending my time inside playing computer games instead of sitting peacefully and admiring the beautiful view, but I realised that my mental health needs were more important than my belief that I must make the most of my location.

I’ve just realised, as I’ve been typing this out, that I have a big Fear Of Missing Out.  It has been drilled into me that I must make the most of every opportunity I have been given.  If I am in a new place, I must always be out exploring it.  If I am in a beautiful place, I must always be out admiring it.  If I am invited out to dinner with friends (which never happens because all of my friends are students, so we’re either too broke or too busy), I feel like I must go to not miss out.

It’s all a lie.  Because while I may be constantly out exploring a new place, I am also missing out on wellbeing and ensuring my physical needs are balanced.  While I may be constantly admiring a beautiful place, I am also missing out on ensuring my mental health needs are met.  While I may be going out to dinner with friends, I am missing out on storing energy to deal with things the next day.

So I guess what I’m saying is – it’s okay to not be okay.  Do what you need to do, regardless of where you are.  If you can’t do the zen thing, don’t force it!  Work with what you have, rather than what you think you should have.

And anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Money Matters

Bones

jp-valery-mQTTDA_kY_8-unsplash

I just received news that the long awaited inheritance is now not far off – and that it is likely to be more than originally anticipated.

I freaked out.  Total meltdown.  Still am.  My brain is frazzled, I’m bouncing all over the show, and not all of it is delight.  A lot of it is anxiety.

While hand combing out knotted fur and rambling (surprisingly therapeutic) I realised that my anxiety with money and the lack thereof didn’t actually begin, as I thought, with Him, my narcissistic ex, but rather in my childhood.

I grew up lower middle class in a family of five – two siblings.  We were fed, we were clothed, we had school books and that adhesive sparkly wrap to make them more interesting than just exercise books.  We had healthy lunches.

We would walk to school, rain or shine, typically a 30 minute walk at a good clip.  Mum would walk to the green grocer to pick up veggies for our lunches, and to the butcher to get meats for our sandwiches.  She tried her hand at growing vegetables, but with her severe depression when I was growing up, it was difficult.  She would trawl op shops for clothing for us.  Once in a while I would get a new top or a new pair of pants, which were always from the cheaper shops.

I hated growing because it would mean new shoes, so I would wear the same shoes until my toes were curled in and it was too painful to wear the shoes.  We would drive for 30 minutes to the cheaper shoe shop and Mum would always be fussing over the price of things.  I would always pick the cheapest pair I could walk in.

It took me years before I finally asked to get a bra, and then it was only one.  Once I grew out of that, I would only ever have two bras, and I would wear them until they broke, because I hated shopping with Mum.  We would only ever go to the cheap stores when they were having really good sales.

I understand these are all sensible things to do, but to my growing brain, it was ‘you can’t get money spent on you, we don’t have enough’.  This has been emphasised over and over again in my life by people of great import.  If it weren’t for one of my oldest friends, I wouldn’t have a healthy relationship with money or spending at all.

Compound that with the last 13 years of being in debt with no savings to speak of and barely solvent, as well as, at some stages, barely having enough money to feed myself let alone my animals (they always came first), I have no fucking clue how to be a person with financial security and it scares the shit out of me.

I was gifted with a relatively significant sum when I was with Him from a family member passing.  I paid off my debt, and he insisted on going on holiday overseas and all these expensive things that of course he couldn’t pay for and I had the money so I should pay for them.  It was gone within two months.

I know it’s not going to happen this time, for one thing, I’m not with Him, and for another thing, it’s considerably more, but the fear is still there all the same.  Any sum of money I receive disappears.  POOF!  All gone, with nought but memories and a sour taste in my mouth.  And while intellectually I know it’s not going to happen this time, there is still the overwhelming terror of it all just disappearing.

And of the unknown, this mythical financial security thing that, at 33, I have never felt like I have had.  Even the idea of it is scary.  What do I do with myself?  How to I live without the looming fear of debt, the worry over whether or not I can afford to buy cat food this week?  How do I live if not paycheck to paycheck?

This is entirely new and terrifying territory.  Because I know I am overwhelmed and can’t process this information myself, I will book an appointment with my counsellor for the extra help.  There’s a lot going on here, and this should be an amazing and exciting thing, but it’s not.

How to Survive the Festive Season with Chronic Illness

Bones

paola-chaaya-QrbuLFT6ypw-unsplash

Now that I am through the festive season, I would like to extend my best wishes to all readers – whether you be transient or regular – for the holiday season, and my heartiest congratulations for coming out the other end.

If you could hear my hysterical laughter you’d understand that ‘surviving’ is about the only thing I can lay claim to for this past holiday season.  I managed to not yell at anyone.  I did politely snap a couple of times – when mum told me not to do a thing with the laptop that had to be done (I do know what I’m doing), and when my amazing human got salty about where we had coffee because we could have had coffee at the coffee place up the road (yes we could have, but we are not, because we are having coffee here, because you said you didn’t care where three times before as we went past cafes and I shoved us all into this one because you were getting grumpy).  But overall I managed.

Which is a fucking feat of perseverance if I ever did see one.  I went into it burnt out from the impromtu therapy session with mum wherein I was the therapist and helped her unpick and reframe a narrative that has been with her since she was two.  The good news is, she’s looking a lot happier, and she’s going to start looking into a therapist.  The bad news is it took so much out of me.

Throw me straight into two very long drives back-to-back (only one of which I had to do), my amazing human’s family arriving for two weeks, and the act of ‘running interference’ to ensure my amazing human doesn’t become overwhelmed by his parents, and you have a very stressed out and exhausted lady at the end of it all.

I rarely had time to myself to plug in my headphones and listen to anything.  I didn’t have time to do any of my self soothing routines.  I was out and about constantly, pushing myself to ensure everything went as smoothly as possible.  I was mediator, decider, herder of cats, support … the works.  My role in my family has always been as mediator and keeper of the peace.  My role in my amazing human’s family is apparently the same, with making decisions (because no one else does) and herding cats on top of that.

I failed miserably at implementing any kind of self care over the holiday period.  It’s hard to say ‘no’ when you’re trying to keep everyone else happy – and that’s a holdover from my childhood.  If I keep everyone else happy, no one will be grumpy, and I won’t be grumped at.  Well it only partly worked.  I still got grumped at.

But, in my rambling way, I survived.  I made it through.  The only incident was the dog eating a part-empty tube of cat laxative and having to clean that off the carpet (she’s fine).

And next year hopefully we won’t have two families combining over the holiday period.

Goodbye 2019, Hello 2020

Bones

jude-beck-bvTtUo04Nmg-unsplash

Well.  What a decade this has been.

I moved country.  Twice.  With a lot of animals.  I was married.  I was separated.  I am not yet divorced, but hey that’s coming this year.  I got more animals.  I moved city to pursue the career of my dreams.  I gained a weird older brother in my flatmate.  I met some truly amazing humans through my university course.  I met one of my truest and best friends to date through fandoms.  I met, and fell in love with, my amazing human bean.

I had a breakdown.  I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  I built myself back up.  I was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia.  I built myself back up.  I got rid of more narcissists on the way.

All throughout I was supported by the most amazing, kind, generous, loving and supportive humans I could ever have been blessed with.  My parents, for whom without which I could not have even begun my journey into my new career, let alone continued on it.  My nearest and dearest friends who have shouted me road trips and meals and yarn, who have given me hugs and cuddles and lent me their ears to vent and rage and cry.  My amazing human being who has stood beside me through ironing out my quirks, my panic attacks, my depression, my medication trials, my descent into physical disability, who has cooked me nutritious meals, has made spiced hot chocolates when things get tough (“I can’t fix it, but I can make hot chocolate!”), has enthused over anything I have shown interest in …

And then there are my amazing animals, three of which I will not get another decade with, who I cherish more than I can say and who have provided me with company, love, fur, poop, barf, and so many laughs.

This decade has, without a doubt, been the toughest I have lived through yet.  The physical, emotional, and mental toll of fibromyalgia and trigeminal neuralgia can not be understated.  It is brutal and it is every damn day.  And yet I feel very fortunate.  I have learned that the people I am surrounded by have more love than I could ever have imagined, and I feel truly honoured.

I am relieved this decade has, at last, passed.  There are many things I look forward to leaving behind.  While I do not ascribe to this ‘new year, new me’ (or ‘new decade, new me’) thing, I do find it is important to identify a ‘turning point’ so to speak, a point at which you can say ‘this situation did not go past that, and it is done’.  For me, the shift from 2019 to 2020 is that, in terms of freeing myself from narcissists (both romantically, and platonically), and the start of my journey into chronic illness.

Now bring me that horizon.