I wrote yesterday about being at the bottom of the well and finally realising why I'm so miserable. With acknowledgment came a measure of energy and I immediately turned that to good use with some cleaning. And discovered that the key to successfully decluttering your life is to dial your care factor down to about zero and your apathy up into the extreme range.
Generally I'm a thrifty girl and I hate waste. I still darn my socks, take in clothes that are too big and generally repair before I replace. Unfortunately my thriftiness goes a little too far sometimes (like hanging onto my maternity pants for mowing the lawn and just clipping all the excess wastage together so they stay up) and as I put away the washing last night I realised that I've reached an intersection where changes must be made and a new direction sought.
Because no girl who struggles to get out of bed in the morning is ever going to win that war if she has to put on underwear that's too big for her or a bra where the underwire is sticking out. And thus commenced an epic purge. Underwear that's too big. Gone. Bras that need any kind of repair - turfed. Jeans with rips, ruined zippers, etc...binned. Then I went further. All slacks for work - tossed*. Any clothes I've ever been dubious about, out. Unless I feel super comfortable or like a million bucks when I wear it, see ya later alligator.
Now I feel a shopping trip coming on...
* I always feel better in a skirt when I'm at work. Charles perked up at this one and tried to get me to toss all my jeans and cargos so I never wear pants of any kind again but the stars were, unfortunately, not aligned in his favour.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Greetings from the Bottom of the Well
It's been a long time since my last blog post and that's because I've been at the bottom of the well. I've written before about my husband's depression. I wrote about how much better he was doing. There we were, sailing along blissfully for the first time in three years. I was remembering why I'd fallen in love and married him in the first place and things were good. Really, really good.
And then, almost overnight (in my eyes at least), it all went horribly pear-shaped when a back injury he suffered two years ago exploded with the fire of a thousand suns. Suddenly he couldn't walk without a cane, had to drive an automatic and was back to spending all day in bed and snapping at me all the time. I did my best, I really did. But it felt like I was circling the drain and then suddenly I was going under for the third time and the light was winking out above me. Clinically depressed for the first time in over ten years. Huh.
Generally most things in my life have a 24 hour limit. I can't do misery for long. But this time it's well and truly got me. I start my day pep-talking myself out of bed, drag myself around while I get the kids ready, slog through work, collect kids, make dinner, feed them dinner, get them ready for bed, put them in bed, attempt to clean and crawl back into bed. I do most of it alone and occasionally I do it with Charles whose pain has given him a terrible knack for making everything that comes out of his mouth sound derisive and deprecating. The whole shebang is like water on sandstone and I can feel myself becoming permanently worn down, the sharper of my features dulled until I don't even look human anymore.
Since I constantly bang on about accepting limitations and not being stupid when it comes to depression, I finally went to the doctor, 'fessed up to my misery and self-destructive fantasies and unsurprisingly was put on medication. The meds make me too nauseous to eat but haven't seemed to do a lot for my mood. I figure their theory is to make me anorexic until I have the body of a supermodel and BINGO, almost instant happiness along with $$$ modelling contract. The one other thing the meds did was remove any care factor I had about most other people, their feelings and opinions of me. The filter on my mouth is completely gone. When people ask me how I am I usually just go with, "pretty fucking crap actually". And I don't bother asking how they are because I don't care anymore.
Kat pointed out to me recently that I need to start showing more restraint because once I start coming out of this thing and caring again, I am going to be horrified by the things I've said and done. I lay awake almost all night mulling this one over, trying to imagine how I would have done things differently, if I wasn't currently ruled by apathy and a total disinterest in what anyone thinks of me. But since I don't care, I couldn't conceive of what caring might be like and this led to an internal philosophical battle along the lines of "do we exist or do we just think we exist". In the end I had to conclude that I lack the capacity to even pretend I care because I've forgotten why I used to care about things like other people who are not my family and who treat me like crap anyway. Infuriatingly it was almost five in the morning by the time I realised this and way too late to try and sleep*. The only positive thing I concluded was that philosophy ought to be crossed off the list of things I spend time and thought on because it is largely useless and lacks practical application.
Anyway today is Boxing Day and I spent it with my cousins, who I do actually care about. In fact, I care enough that despite not wanting to even get out of bed, I packed my kids in the car, drove to Goulburn and pretended that I'm okay. But at a certain point I had to go inside and get away from the people and the talking because maintaining that facade was killing me. And there my cousin Wendy found me and when she asked I told her everything, because all the energy I had had already been taken up pretending I was okay enough to socialise with more than one person for longer than thirty minutes.
Wendy has always had a knack of asking the right questions at the right time and as she asked me about what was going on and why, I suddenly realised why I'm at the bottom of the well and why I haven't been able to pull myself out of this.
For three years I pulled my mouth up into a smile every day, bullied my husband out of bed, pretended that everything was fine so my kids wouldn't notice how broken we were, pushed my way through the day, pulling everyone along behind me. I cried often, raged at the world a lot but I never gave up, I never left and I never stopped hoping that my husband would come back to me and love me again the way he did before that black cloud came down and took away the sun. And when we finally managed to fight our way back into the light all we got was a lousy couple of months before this next God-damn catastrophe landed.
In the end, it didn't matter how strong I was or how hard I tried because something beyond my control landed us back at square one anyway. And the most terrifying thing of all about that is what if we can't pull through this one. What if the surgery next month doesn't work and it's like this forever? What if it's worse? What if something else happens to us that is worse than this? These are not words you're supposed to say out loud when something like this happens but I have to because the fear of it is growing while I pretend it's not there and it's slowly killing me from the inside.
Somehow admitting to myself that maybe it won't all get better made my fear of the future shrink. I have survived. I have come this far. I have no faith in myself but that's completely unwarranted. I am strong and I am capable. I've held it together this long and there's no reason I can't keep holding it together. God and Zoloft willing we will make it through this next challenge, just as we've made it through the challenges so far. We have an amazing family who have stepped in to help us now that we're down. We have friends that care enough to check on us and help us when they can**. There are a thousand different ways that this could be worse but it isn't. It's not brilliant, but it is okay and a slight attitude adjustment will make it even better.
No matter what, I'll keep being me and I like myself better when I'm happy. That thought is like a life jacket I've strapped around myself to try and rise back up to the light and the air where I'll be able to breathe again.
* Actually I think the reality is that my brain realised I was stuck in a circuitous line of thinking I had no hope of ever escaping, short-circuited and my last focused thought was I like purple! It's SO PRETTY!!
** And ignore my filterless mouth.
And then, almost overnight (in my eyes at least), it all went horribly pear-shaped when a back injury he suffered two years ago exploded with the fire of a thousand suns. Suddenly he couldn't walk without a cane, had to drive an automatic and was back to spending all day in bed and snapping at me all the time. I did my best, I really did. But it felt like I was circling the drain and then suddenly I was going under for the third time and the light was winking out above me. Clinically depressed for the first time in over ten years. Huh.
Generally most things in my life have a 24 hour limit. I can't do misery for long. But this time it's well and truly got me. I start my day pep-talking myself out of bed, drag myself around while I get the kids ready, slog through work, collect kids, make dinner, feed them dinner, get them ready for bed, put them in bed, attempt to clean and crawl back into bed. I do most of it alone and occasionally I do it with Charles whose pain has given him a terrible knack for making everything that comes out of his mouth sound derisive and deprecating. The whole shebang is like water on sandstone and I can feel myself becoming permanently worn down, the sharper of my features dulled until I don't even look human anymore.
Since I constantly bang on about accepting limitations and not being stupid when it comes to depression, I finally went to the doctor, 'fessed up to my misery and self-destructive fantasies and unsurprisingly was put on medication. The meds make me too nauseous to eat but haven't seemed to do a lot for my mood. I figure their theory is to make me anorexic until I have the body of a supermodel and BINGO, almost instant happiness along with $$$ modelling contract. The one other thing the meds did was remove any care factor I had about most other people, their feelings and opinions of me. The filter on my mouth is completely gone. When people ask me how I am I usually just go with, "pretty fucking crap actually". And I don't bother asking how they are because I don't care anymore.
Kat pointed out to me recently that I need to start showing more restraint because once I start coming out of this thing and caring again, I am going to be horrified by the things I've said and done. I lay awake almost all night mulling this one over, trying to imagine how I would have done things differently, if I wasn't currently ruled by apathy and a total disinterest in what anyone thinks of me. But since I don't care, I couldn't conceive of what caring might be like and this led to an internal philosophical battle along the lines of "do we exist or do we just think we exist". In the end I had to conclude that I lack the capacity to even pretend I care because I've forgotten why I used to care about things like other people who are not my family and who treat me like crap anyway. Infuriatingly it was almost five in the morning by the time I realised this and way too late to try and sleep*. The only positive thing I concluded was that philosophy ought to be crossed off the list of things I spend time and thought on because it is largely useless and lacks practical application.
Anyway today is Boxing Day and I spent it with my cousins, who I do actually care about. In fact, I care enough that despite not wanting to even get out of bed, I packed my kids in the car, drove to Goulburn and pretended that I'm okay. But at a certain point I had to go inside and get away from the people and the talking because maintaining that facade was killing me. And there my cousin Wendy found me and when she asked I told her everything, because all the energy I had had already been taken up pretending I was okay enough to socialise with more than one person for longer than thirty minutes.
Wendy has always had a knack of asking the right questions at the right time and as she asked me about what was going on and why, I suddenly realised why I'm at the bottom of the well and why I haven't been able to pull myself out of this.
For three years I pulled my mouth up into a smile every day, bullied my husband out of bed, pretended that everything was fine so my kids wouldn't notice how broken we were, pushed my way through the day, pulling everyone along behind me. I cried often, raged at the world a lot but I never gave up, I never left and I never stopped hoping that my husband would come back to me and love me again the way he did before that black cloud came down and took away the sun. And when we finally managed to fight our way back into the light all we got was a lousy couple of months before this next God-damn catastrophe landed.
In the end, it didn't matter how strong I was or how hard I tried because something beyond my control landed us back at square one anyway. And the most terrifying thing of all about that is what if we can't pull through this one. What if the surgery next month doesn't work and it's like this forever? What if it's worse? What if something else happens to us that is worse than this? These are not words you're supposed to say out loud when something like this happens but I have to because the fear of it is growing while I pretend it's not there and it's slowly killing me from the inside.
Somehow admitting to myself that maybe it won't all get better made my fear of the future shrink. I have survived. I have come this far. I have no faith in myself but that's completely unwarranted. I am strong and I am capable. I've held it together this long and there's no reason I can't keep holding it together. God and Zoloft willing we will make it through this next challenge, just as we've made it through the challenges so far. We have an amazing family who have stepped in to help us now that we're down. We have friends that care enough to check on us and help us when they can**. There are a thousand different ways that this could be worse but it isn't. It's not brilliant, but it is okay and a slight attitude adjustment will make it even better.
No matter what, I'll keep being me and I like myself better when I'm happy. That thought is like a life jacket I've strapped around myself to try and rise back up to the light and the air where I'll be able to breathe again.
* Actually I think the reality is that my brain realised I was stuck in a circuitous line of thinking I had no hope of ever escaping, short-circuited and my last focused thought was I like purple! It's SO PRETTY!!
** And ignore my filterless mouth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)