Update

It's been a while since I posted on this blog and I think (?), possibly that's a good thing.  I do find summer (what little we are having with all the rain) so much easier to cope with.  There is more light for one thing and I'm not cold.  When it isn't raining, the back yard is another room for playing in, whether that be gardening or watching dragonflies.

I've had the odd moments of despair and anxiety during the lead up to Christmas and the past week or so, but overall I'm travelling o.k.  School holidays are nice for me as Miss G. is relaxed and not bringing her stress home.  I'm quietly contemplating how I will manage this year with her being in her last year of school.  This is the big one.  I guess it will be managed by remembering to take one step at a time, not panic and not take on her stress. 

This Sunday I will be going to visit my parents in W.A. on the farm where I grew up.  I'll be there just over a week and am looking forward to seeing wide open spaces, lots of sunshine, plenty of hot weather and of course my family.  I might even take a walk to look at my "Standing Up When Falling Down" tree in my blog photo if I can dodge the snakes and not enhale too many flies. :) 

I hope everyone else is going o.k. and hopefully I might come back with some nice photos to share.

Bye for now,

Anne

Where's the sunshine gone

This weekend is really a bit off a fizzer as far as sunshine goes.  That's not only weather wise but for me too.  I really dislike waking up with that heavy feeling in my body and the immediate thought that goes with it, oh no, it's going to be one of those days.  Well I have to say that rather than wallow in my I don't want to get out of bed feeling, I now try to think this is not a good start to the day....but it may get better.

When my lovely hubbie asks me if I'm o.k., I can say "Today is not a good day for me, but I'll be o.k."  And I will be.  Isn't it nice to have reached a place where I can say and think that?  This morning being Sunday I have the luxury of not having to be out the door to take Miss G. to school, my family is home and we are all relaxing or pottering around the house doing bits and pieces.  I have decided to spend a little extra time in bed this morning, just slowly working my way up into the day, not pressuring myself to get on with the laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, the baking that needs doing or tidying up my never ending mess.  Instead I've had a cup of tea, breakfast and morning coffee, all in bed :-)  And of course reading the blogs I follow (laptops are wonderful as is wireless internet connection), making a few comments here and there, and dealing with a few very NASTY hot flushes.  I'm taking the time to think about creative ideas that are running around in my head, being inspired but other people's creativity and making a list of things I'd like to make.

Last night I made some Christmas baubles for the girls to hang on their bedroom doorknobs.  If you follow my other blog, you will already know this, sorry.  The enjoyment I get out of having an idea in my head and then actually bringing it to fruition is so rewarding.  A huge part of the joy of creating is sharing it with others.  I really love the internet and blogging for this very reason, the sharing and caring with heaps of wonderful people.

On a slightly different note, I would like to mention an experience I had late Friday afternoon which brought home to me how fortunate I really am and in comparison to some other people.  I was at the local pharmacy to pick up my happy pills (as I call them) and bumped into an acquaintance of some 15 years or so.  Some of our children were at primary school together so there is a connection of sorts.  We were asking how our respective families were going and I learnt in this particular family, the son who has just turned 20 is suffering a rare and aggressive form of cancer which needs to be treated with an equally aggressive type of chemo for a year.  The young man who is sick only has one kidney, so there are many things to be concerned about.  The mother suffers extreme anxiety and depression and has been very unwell for two years and is basically housebound.  Her illness started before the son was diagnosed with cancer.  The father, whom I was talking to, had two years previously been suffering a digestive disorder which now thankfully is under control.  The father is the sons carer and a daughter is the mothers carer.  So you see, in comparison what do I have to complain about?  Very little.

Tomorrow the sunshine will be out and as I'm typing this I can see out my bedroom window the clouds clearing and blue sky is showing.

Anne

I've over done it

Do you ever feel good, so wonderfully good that you think you can conquer the world?  You do too much in one big hit and then you pay for it, coming down with a resounding crash.  That's me, I've gone and over done it, again.  You would think I would have learnt by now to pace myself, but no, my enthusiasm gets the better of me and off I go doing goodness knows what. 

Perhaps I'm subconsciously making up for a long cold winter spell of achieving zilch and all the sunshine has gone to my head.  I feel like I'm coming out of hibernation when the sun shines and I need to go and fatten up for any lean times ahead, figuratively speaking.

I think tomorrow I'll be slowing down my mind and body, going about the business of housework slowly with many cups of tea in between the bathroom cleaning and the vacuuming.  Perhaps if I think calmly, I'll be calm and not worked up into a flurry.  Sometimes this works for me when I'm running a bit late.  I'll be driving in a highly anxious state and when I think about it, being anxious and uptight isn't going to get me to my destination any quicker so I might as well lower those shoulders that are hunched up around my chin, take a big breath and just breathe.  Easier said than done isn't it?  I'd love to know how others handle tendencies to over do things and how to slow down the mind and body.

Anxiety, panic attacks and depression - a triple whammy!

Anxiety is in my opinion is on a par with depression.  Depression is like a big black hole of nothingness, anxiety is a never ending whirlpool of terror.  Depression makes me sleepy, lethargic and I burrow to avoid the blackness.  Anxiety is gut wrenching, hand wringing, shoulders near the ears, stomach roiling, mental anguish, rocking back and forth kind of stuff.

Depression and anxiety is a double whammy, throw in a panic attack here and there and you've got a living hell.  Fortunately for me medication has taken the edge of most of the severest symptoms but they lurk very close to the surface if I'm not careful.

There are times when I wonder if I'm being a bit too precious with myself, it feels like I'm making excuses why I can't or won't do something.  However I've learnt from experience if I don't look after myself and only do what I can manage, I suffer.  There have been a number of occasions where I have committed to something only to discover that I just couldn't follow through.  That to me is worse than if you decline to do something in the first place.

When Miss C started kindergarten many years ago, I volunteered to be on the fundraising committee.  Come the school year I pulled out, I just couldn't do it.  More recently (and I'm  not proud of this), I wanted to do some volunteer work at a local hospital, I felt I could be of help.  There were vacancies for volunteers in the emergency room and after the interview, I was taken through what I would be doing and I thought to myself, what on earth am I doing here.  As I learnt more about what would be expected of me, I knew I couldn't go through with it.  I didn't say anything at the time as I was too embarrassed and ashamed to admit how I was feeling.  Walking back to the car my stomach felt like it had a lead weight in it.  I've learnt to take very close notice of my feelings and have relied on my intuition a great deal when making decisions.  I waited a few days and finally plucked up the courage to phone the person in charge of volunteering saying I wouldn't be able to volunteer due to reasons beyond my control.  Needless to say they were less than impressed.  But when I got off the phone, my relief was so great I knew I had made the right decision.

Some of the worst depression I've suffered was when I had my two babies.  Of course it was post natal depression but with my first child it wasn't diagnosed until she was 10 months old.  I still grieve to this day that I was unable to give my beautiful little girl the love and attention she deserved.  I was isolated from family as they lived on the other side of the country so I had no support networks.  My hubbie was an absolute darling be he didn't know what was wrong either.  Miss C never went hungry, she was physically looked after but I wasn't in a place where I could give her all those wonderful things mums give their babies.  I am proud that I managed to breastfeed her totally for 10 months, at least we had some bonding.  The breastfeeding was hard for me as I struggled to maintain supply and this caused me huge anxiety.  Just thinking about it now makes me feel anxious.  One day I might be brave enough to share with you the responsibility I feel for contributing to Miss C's difficulties, but not yet, it's still too raw even after 20 years.

I have a phobia which causes me extreme anxiety and once again I'm grateful to medication for keeping it under control most of the time.  It's not a problem now unless I'm directly confronted but I remember years of metal agony trying to deal with the anxiety it caused, the fact that it controlled my life completely.   I absolutely hate that I have no control over this area of my life.  I can tell myself everything I need to but it makes no difference, the thought patterns are so deeply ingrained I react immediately.

Then there's the panic attacks.  The first one I ever had was in the middle of the night.  I woke up out of the blue feeling terrible and actually thought I was ill.  I have never, ever felt so bad in my entire life.  Some people say they feel like they are dying, I felt so bad I wanted to die.  It was such a frightening experience because I didn't know what was happening.  After I had returned to some measure of calm, I was too scared to go back to sleep because I was afraid it would happen again.



Another time I was helping a neighbour carry a mattress up to her house and I had a panic attack.  Unbelievable!  Why did it happen out of the blue?  That's something I find frustrating, a panic attack for no good reason.  Most of my anxiety is low grade now and I keep it that way by not having too much on at one time.  It's frustrating because I really feel I should have more control.

Even though I've rambled on here about depression, anxiety and panic attacks, you'll know if you read my other blog Ungardened Moments that I strive to fill my life with happy and enjoyable things I love.  I'm just so grateful to have access to medication, knowledge, counselling and support.  Not to mention a long suffering husband that truly loves me, warts and all.

I don't know why I'm prone to these things but that's my lot in life and I'm trying to make the best of it.  I thank you for your patience with this very long post and for taking the time to read it.  I hope that by sharing some of my ugly stuff, it might help someone else realise that there are many people dealing with similar things, that we are not alone and it's more common than we realise.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Anne  :-)

I did it!

It's nice to sit down, take a big breath and say I did it.  I pulled off hosting a 50th birthday party which is something I certainly wanted to do but wondered how I would manage.  I had moments Thursday through Saturday when honestly I wanted to crawl into my bed and go to sleep.  I wondered how I would get through the organising, the cleaning, the timing, the baking and all the preparations that go into such an occasion.  I knew I was capable because in the past I organised my own 40th, did all the catering etc.  I've hosted 16th and 18th birthday parties too but perhaps at those times I was in a slightly different frame of mind.

So what did I do?  There was an incredible amount of self talk going on in my head.  You can do it, one step at a time, concentrate on doing one thing at a time, check your list.  The other thing I did was take regular small breaks, you might say it was a kind of reward I gave myself for achieving tasks on the list.  I had my laptop on so I could do a bit of a browse through blog land while I had a cuppa.  It seemed to do the trick.

Saturday morning was probably my most difficult time as I had such a lot to do.  There was a point where I felt myself teetering on the edge of extreme anxiety so I sat myself down on the bed (didn't crawl in, yay) and did my best to do some yoga breathing and meditation for ten minutes.  The small mental break was quite helpful and I was able to get on with it.

We all had a wonderful evening and I was so happy to see everyone enjoying themselves and my cooking.  :-)  Getting through those moments of anxiety was an achievement and gave me a bit of confidence that I can use strategies to get through.

In a future post I want to talk about anxiety and panic attacks as they seem to go hand in hand with my depressive episodes. I'm wondering if other people suffer this too and and how they handle it.  But right now it's time for some Zzzzzz.