Monthly Archives: June 2012

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My Front Door

As you know, I have been feeling a bit grim lately.

One of the things that has been really getting me down is my front door.  Since F1 came along, and especially since this bout of depression, housework is pretty much on a survival basis (as is everything else.)  Even at the best of times, a lot of housework doesn’t inspire me.

However, it has really been bothering me that when I arrive home, I go to the front door and it is dirty.  I put my key into a dirty door.  Yuck.

I am already feeling bad, and I know my house is a comparative bombsite, but to have it greet me before I even get inside – well it is just awful.

So this morning, I cleaned my front door.

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As you can see, our front door is a very cheery colour.  I love coloured front doors.  I grew up in a house with a green front door (number 32, just like Paddington Bear).  When we were house hunting I completely fell in love with a house with a red front door.  The house was totally inappropriate for our needs, but I still think about that house because of it’s door.

And now, I can see our lovely, coloured front door.

It just gives me a little buzz inside.

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Blood

Warning:  This post contains discussion of bodily fluids

I hate having periods.  I reckon most females do.  I hate the inconvenience.  I hate the mess.  I hate the pain.  I hate the dirty feeling that comes with it.  I hate the smell.

But these days, I see blood and I feel a wave of relief.

I know my hormone levels are starting to change.  I have survived this round.  In about a week’s time I will be back, to normal (whatever that is).

Ever since ovulation I have been starting to go haywire.  I have been growing more and more wild.  My temper has been getting worse, my fuse shorter.  I fly off the handle in a scary way, snapping without notice.  It is like I have no control, and, well, I don’t.  It frightens me as much as anyone else.  I have the persona I have kindly dubbed, ‘psychotic bitch from hell’.

But the sign of blood means that this is subsiding.  It is over for another few weeks.  In a day or two I can move into damage limitation mode.  It is a huge relief to know that the crescendo is over.

It is not much fun only having a week to ten days in a month where I am not fighting to control my emotions.

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Keeping Body and Soul Together

Sometimes I think about my body.  Ponder might be a better word.  And mourn.

I remember being 19.  I was young, I was fit, I was active, I was healthy.  I guess I was 19.

These days I am not.  I am flabby and droopy and stiff and tired and, well, cushioned.  I will not use the ‘f’ word or the ‘o’ word, although they would probably apply.  But I don’t think that of me.  I really still think of myself as that skinny, toned girl, and I get a shock when I see my reflection.

It really feels like that skinny girl is me and I am wearing one of those fancy dress sumo suits that I am not able, or not quite prepared to take off just yet.

And I think there is some truth in that.

Technically losing weight and getting back in shape is easy.  A few steps: eat more veg, go to bed earlier, eat less junk, be more active.  Boot camp it or little steps, whatever works, it all helps.

Right?

Or not.

Not so easy.  Yes, that is how I should look after my body.  I would like to look after my body.  I guess I want it to last, and I am getting to an age where I need to seriously think about that kind of thing.  I want to look good.  People treat you differently when you are large and frumpy.  You feel different, too.  Well, I do.  And of course there is also all that stuff in Corinthians about respecting your body and that your body is a gift from God.

Guilt…should, should, should…guilt,guilt.

Pass the chocolate.  And the cream, too, please.

The truth is that I just can’t do that at the moment.  I need to stop feeling bad about it.

What I have realised is that I truly believe that the world is a dangerous place.  People are demanding.  I am scared.  For me, anyway, this is true.

I know that I am no good at setting boundaries.  This is a major problem for me.  I have realised, recently, that I have set up an insulation system for myself.  I feel like the true me is buried deep inside, curled up inside a shell like a shiny, little macadamia.  (Funny, I always visualise the shell like that, but do you know how tender the flesh of a macadamia is?  Maybe the analogy is more appropriate than I had realised.). Around my little real me I see layers of protection, like the view across the countryside from a dun.  Way off in the distance is my skin.

Yes, my skin is part of me.  Some would say the edge of me.  Some would even, quite sensibly, suggest that my boundaries should be further afield than my skin.  But there you have it, it is my horizon.  And in order to protect myself a little more, I make my skin further afield.

I have come to understand that it isn’t a disrespect for my body, that has me in this physical condition.  It isn’t neglect.  It is USE.  At this point of time I do not have the skills to protect my emotional self, not in any healthy way, at any rate.  I am working on this – it is quite a project and that is why I have medical and religious professionals on board – but I am not there at all.  In the mean time, my body has protected me.  It is true that this has caused much wear and tear that would not have otherwise occurred, but it has protected me, none the less.

Has it been successful?  Well, yes, I guess it has.  It has kept me going, albeit, not always very well, but I HAVE survived thus far.

I need to go easy on myself.  Not as an excuse, but in empathy.

I do not have the skills to look after myself emotionally.  Some people do, but I don’t.  And that’s okay.  It is okay that I have been getting by the best I can.  I am learning how now, but I am at the beginning.  No one thinks a baby is useless for crawling, even though walking is more efficient.  So I need to accept that in me, too.

Maybe one day the world will be safe – or at least parts of it will be.  Maybe one day I will drop back into a healthy weight range.  Maybe one day that skinny, young girl will come out for a run again.

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2 Hours

Two hours sleep is not enough.

I am really struggling today.  Thank goodness the kids are being unusually good.  It might have been something to do with the talk I gave them this morning.  It went something like, “I have only had two hours sleep.  I am tired and cranky.  Your (insert behaviour) will not be tolerated today.”. Or it might be luck.  God giving me a small break.  A small miracle for us all.

So how come I only had two hours sleep?

My depression is getting worse.  I know the signs.  I have had that burst of energy, that keeps me up at night doing stuff.  I’ve been building through the insomnia that becomes less and less fun.  I’ve got to the point where it is almost impossible to take my meds.  My numbing drug of choice this time has been solitaire on my tablet (computer, not meds). I’m heading for a crash and I’m not sure where to cry for help.  Today I caught myself on online bookshops.  Soon I will be living off Cheezels.

I hate this.  Even after all this time, I don’t know what triggers these downward spirals, nor do I know what to do to stop them.  I know lots of my triggers, as in what causes my general episodes, but these whirlpools, uh-uh.   I know many triggers are in place, I am beginning to realise it is when things are also out of my control (like I can’t seem to get a break from the kids, even though I have been trying for months), but I think there is something else here, something specific.  If only I could figure out what it was.

So, that had me up most of the night.  I was going to go to bed at a semi-decent time last night.  I was.  Really.  But somehow it got to 2:15am, the infomercials were making me yawn and it was difficult to beat the deal on solitaire.  Oops.  So I went to bed.  It was freezing cold.  We have no heater in our room, unlike in the lounge.  And our quilt wriggles inside the cover so that sometimes you pretty much just have two sheets and nothing warm.  Last night was arctic, so it was awful.  I lay teeth chattering, trying to pretend my daughter would re-settle from the intrusion without me feeding her, yet again (ha! As if!). Eventually I drifted off – until about 4am, when the little banshee started up.

She was inconsolable.  I don’t know what happened, she doesn’t seem ill or anything.  She was probably just cold.  Whatever it was she stayed awake, screaming until morning.  Demanding milk continuously (I didn’t have the supply, so let’s add pain, guilt and inadequacy to those feelings of exhaustion and frustration, shall we?)

By morning I was shattered.  So was DH.  It was an unpleasant morning after an unpleasant night before an unpleasant day.

Unfortunately, she has had some good sleep today.  I hope tonight is not a repeat.

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Meds

So, just out of interest, what meds am I on?

Lately I seem to rattle.  This is what the daily regime looks like:
Multi-vitamin that includes various B vitamins, plus vitamins C and D, manganese, magnesium, zinc.  This is to supplement my tragic diet as well as targeting restless legs, anxiety and depression
Fish Oil 4000mg – this is for anxiety.
Glucosamine 1500mg – arthritis in my feet
Fenugreek 5000mg – increase breast milk
Lexapro 20mg – anxiety and depression.  I need this dose reviewed, but getting the energy to make a doctor’s appointment, and then facing it with the kids in tow, is so difficult.

Every day.

11 pills.

Ridiculous, huh?

And does it work?  Maybe.  A little.  I sleep a little better when I take the Lexapro, and my feet don’t hurt as much with the fish oil (even though that is only a side effect and not what I am taking it for).  Oh, and fenugreek at 4pm increases my supply for the bedtime rush.  So maybe slightly more than maybe. 

I am not sure I would swear by it all, though.

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Home

I have been out all morning.  We had Church, and then what is best described as Sunday school.  Today there was a meeting, so lunch was provided and it went on quite a while.

I was fine while I was out.  Mostly, anyway.  Sound like a weather forecast, don’t I?  “Mostly fine.”

Anyway, there is that nice hopeful feeling that when it is all over, I’ll get to go home.

Then we get in the car and everyone is tired and cross.  The kids are devouring lunchboxes (despite a snack box, morning tea of ice cream and biscuits and a hot lunch.  Then the high pitched screaming starts, someone can’t open something, someone might sprinkle someone else with their water bottle, this person put grated chess in that one’s lunch box, but he only likes cubed cheese… and so on.  Some of it is just random yelling, because apparently that is fun. *sigh*

By the time we get home I am shattered.

I walk into the house and a big shadow forms over me.  All the time I was out, there was the hope of home.  Now I am here, this is it.  There is no magical feeling, no relief. 

It reminds me of being a teenager, when I would lie in my room and cry.  “I just want to go home,” I’d sob.  Yes I was ‘home’, but it didn’t feel like home; it didn’t feel like a safe place, a sanctuary.  And neither does this.

As we have already eaten lunch at Church, I don’t have a job to immediately fly to, to drown out the feelings.  Just the despair of the endless housework, the feeling of being trapped, of drowning, the noise… a heaviness I can’t escape.

I want to hide in my room, throw myself face down on my pillow and sob, just like when I was a teenager.  But I can’t.  I’m a grown up here.  I’m not allowed to have feelings like that; feelings that I don’t belong; feelings that I need to get away.  Besides, two other people share my bed, so I have no place of my own.  Two other people feed off my body, too, so even that is not mine.  The boundary of me is very small, no wonder I need a sanctuary, a safe house.

But I don’t.

I want to go home.

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Funk

It so that time of day again and I feel like I am choking.

I have no idea what I am going to do for dinner.  I don’t feel up to preparing anything.

It has been a tough one.  I am in an awful depressive funk at the moment, suffering insomnia and playing game after game of ‘solitaire’ on the computer.  I think I am doing something repetitive and not to mentally taxing to soothe and blot out what is happening in my head and around me.  Close to rocking, but somehow more socially acceptable.

Then today, with rain streaming down outside F1 choked.  I think it was a piece of orange, but I am not sure.  She was breathing, although not clearly.  She was trying to cough, and she couldn’t speak.  I tried all the things you do, upside down, back whacking, fingers down her throat.  I was scared that I would move whatever it was and block her breathing completely.

So I made a snap decision to take her to the doctor.  Our doctor is slightly closer than our nearest hospital, but I know that hospital costs $300- to go through emergency.  (The doctor cost me $52-).  There is a free hospital, but it is much further to go in this situation.  I just thought that I would try my luck.  Besides, I think I needed the familiar faces.

I was shocked.  S3 was fantastic.  He grabbed his shoes and jumper and his sister’s bear and jumped in the car.  On the way to the doctor her throat cleared, so I felt like a goofball walking in in such a state.  The doctor (not mine) checked her and she was okay.  He thinks it was probably orange caught on her larynx.  Within half an hour she was back to normal.  I am still a bit shaken.

This afternoon when it was her rest time, a combination of exhaustion, feeding, cortisol etc, I fell asleep.  Of course, she did not.

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I had to take a break there… F1 crawled up on my lap and went to sleep.  Somewhat inconvenient at 4:30pm, as I know I will be up half the night with her again tonight, but I will take what I can get.  Of course she has subsequently rolled out of bed, so it probably isn’t the best day of her life, either.

Anyway, in the less than half an hour that I dozed, they managed to destroy both bedrooms, the hall way, both lounge rooms, the dining room, the kitchen and the bathroom.  It is going to be a long slow clean up, especially given my current state.

This was just before school pick up time for H6.  I tried to bustle everyone ready, not needing the confrontation.  S3, instead of a jumper, somehow put on an outfit that F1 has grown out of.  I finally got him out of that and back into his own clothes, got F1 into the pram and – he’s naked.  Excellent.  We eventually agree on a swimming costume with a jumper. *sigh*

At least he was helpful when it was life and death.

Then we got caught in the rain.

Dealing with kids life, and mess, and meals (the leftover chicken that I was going to use tonight still had too much fat on it and it wasn’t shredded, and  I just couldn’t face it.  I couldn’t face anything much, but I certainly wasn’t going there.). It is all just too much tonight.

I guess I haven’t exactly lost everything today,after all F1 is still alive, but I certainly haven’t won.

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How Many Times Do I Have to Say, ” No. Dinner is Almost Ready!”

It is nearly dinner time.  It has been freezing cold all day.  While I have been attending to F1, the house has been left open.  Somehow S3 has redressed himself in a swimming costume and a pair of sneakers still wet from the soaking they got a few days ago when he and some others got into the garden house.  Hubby is trying to assert his manhood in the garage with a pair of tinsnips and some corrugated iron.  I aren’t ask who is winning.

And so the litany starts.
“I’m hungry” as they try to devour any junk food in sight.  Not that they will eat their dinner when it is ready, anyway.
“You shouldn’t do x should you,” (insert some anti-social behaviour)
– No, no you shouldn’t
“Well he did that”
     No,not recently.  Just ever in his life.
And the tales really start.  Teary faces tattling on each other.  Not just things that are happening, but all the wrongs of  a  day with siblings – a week, a lifetime.

Thankfully, Hubby has reappeared, and, armed with a beer, is running a bath for the kids. Lucky him. I don’t get a beer.  I am still breastfeeding F1 and S3.  Not that I really have the taste for it after seven years, but the option would be nice.  The relaxation.

Dinner will not be a hit tonight.  Little frittata things with potato, apple and onion.  I really need to do the grocery shopping.  We haven’t had a proper shop in weeks, and any of the nice stuff I had lined up disappeared into stomachs before dinner time.

I can hear the yelling in the bathroom that usually welcomes the end of bath time.  I guess my reprieve is over.  I have enough food cooked to start the kids off, so we might survive.  Might.

Time for the next round.  I don’t think anyone will win that one either.

My neck hurts.