10 Oct 2014
A couple of months ago, I cried for almost five days straight. I cried. And cried. And cried. In the morning, during the day as I sat at my computer, through the evening TV and into the night. I cried.
On about day 2, I thought I’d try and talk to somebody when they happened to call one morning and after I tried to explain how I was feeling they said “Well if you’re just sitting on the couch feeling miserable that’s not going to help anything.”
And that was it. I didn’t bring it up again. Depression, or as I tend to refer to it “the blues” (because deep down I think I’m Elton John), isn’t feeling fucking miserable. It’s not like I turn my face to the sun and oh look at that my soul destroying blanket of blah has lifted. It’s not like the crying for five days was the whole episode, just part of a particular shitty bout of depression where it was definitely winning for a while.
‘The blues’ come and go – yes. Now that I know that I need to be more vigilant than some – I work hard at keeping myself in a good place – I keep positive company and avoid people that aren’t good for me, I eat, I drink, I laugh, I talk about my feelings, I take anti-depressants and I have a hugely supportive partner who gets on with the business of being supportive.
Until I was diagnosed with post-natal depression and PTSD, well actually, when I accepted the diagnosis of post-natal depression and PTSD (the dates do not coincide because people like me don’t get depression), I had had bouts of the blues all my life. I just thought I was shit at life. The self harm as a teenager, the tendency to self destructive behaviour in my mid 20s, the bits where life seemed all too much and I’d be better off gone, they were part and parcel of being me and because I couldn’t articulate the darkness nor did I understand where it came from, it was better off ignored as far as I was concerned. I sure as fuck didn’t talk about it.
The great thing about post natal depression vs regular depression is that it’s socially acceptable. Once I started banging on about having PND, the amount of friends I found who had suffered depression even just as a once off was startling. I wasn’t shit at life – my brain was just a bit fucked up and took the whole life thing too seriously. I was living in a state of high alert, raised emotions, naked sensation all the time. So periodically, it’s knickers got twisted.
It wasn’t until I had PND and gave some serious thought to injuring myself badly enough that I could step out of life for a while, perhaps permanently, and I spent a fair bit of time in genuine distress one week because my daughter was about to grow up motherless that I went back to the doctor and said “perhaps there is something in this diagnosis of which you speak’.
Therapy my friends is the bomb. You should all do it. A good clinical psychologist will literally change your world. I love mine so much I wrote a testimonial and told her to use both my first and second name and give my number out to people if they wanted a verbal reference.
She didn’t heal me. She doesn’t conveniently give me somebody to blame. She doesn’t insist on my wearing black and spending my life hovered funereally in the corner. She gets that depression for me is something I’d still rather ignore but I am keen to sort it out. So I work with her, she works with me and I keep banging on about it so that people talk about it. I might get better at managing my brain but I have to accept I live with depression. Not always do we sleep together, but we’re familiar.
There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in a mental illness – I get that now. My extended family has an award winning collection of schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, brain injury, OCD and a healthy smattering of general arse-hats as well. And the only ones that I try to avoid are the arse-hats. My friendship circles full of people who ‘have a mental illness’ or ‘have had a mental illness’ or flat out lost the battle with ‘mental illness’. And that sucks most of all.
So, it’s not a pretty subject. It’s not a sexy subject. For some it’s not ongoing. For some it’s periodic and for some it’s a battle they fight every single day. So even if you don’t get it – be kind. Be there.
And if you can’t be kind – get off the internet, got to bed and work on improving that tomorrow.
In the meantime – own that baby people. My name is Alison and I am not Elton John. But for some reason – I still call them ‘the blues’.
And remember if you need to talk to somebody call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Because they are lovely and helpful and they do get it. They really do.
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7 Oct 2014
Back in 1988 my older brother was one of ‘those young people’ chosen to open one of the doors for the Queen during the opening of the New Parliament House in Canberra. It took years for it to just be known as Parliament House rather than New Parliament House but it got there.
And when my brother got a bit older he even worked there for a while as many do that work in Canberra. It’s almost 30 years later and he still dresses pretty much as he did in 1988 and is infuriatingly, still exactly the same size. However, his hair has greyed and his glasses are on trend now in a way that neither of us really got the hang of during our teenage years. He’s a father, a husband and most surprisingly of all, quite a decent chap- which I could never have imagined all those years ago.
Canberra has grown quite a bit since 1988. Those that live there have to pay for parking most days now and Sammy’s Kitchen became the kind of restaurant which sits aside Jamie’s Kitchen without looking out of place. Braddon is full of hipsters rather than hippies looking for climbing gear. Shiny glass buildings fill spaces that were formerly car parks or paddocks. They’ve moved the Wig & Pen, and made ‘Belco Pride’ into something people actually tattoo on to themselves non-ironically.
I left Canberra in 2000 and about the only thing that still seems the same to me these days is the stunning view of Black Mountain Tower during sunset that greets you as you drive in from the north. I still have family there. Friends too. But while we’ve all been growing up – Canberra has too.
And in those 26 years – not one person in a Burqa has ever entered New Parliament House. Not one.
We just spent a week buying into hysteria based around something which isn’t even an issue. We spent a week filling our media streams, arguing our right to protect something which has been attacked by cranky white men in white fucking utes three times more often than it has been threatened by a woman of faith.
When white men in white utes were idiots – we put in bollards. Bollards people. “She’ll be right mate – we have bollards to stop those turkeys.” When women in burqas went grocery shopping in a different bloody State, we stopped the fucking country and demanded our RIGHT TO PROTECTION. It’s the principle of the thing apparently. We’re not racist – just, you know, PROTECTING OURSELVES.
And in the meantime nobody is cranky about cuts to education; the tax changes which penalise everyday Australians but make rich ones richer; the ravaging of the aged care and disability support structures; the abolishment of the carbon tax which was lauded internationally as one of the best things ever; compulsory chaplains in non-Christian schools; human rights violations so significant they are mentioned regularly by the UN; the gagging of public servants private voices through the manipulation of employment rights; and more. So very much more.
We’ve been distracted by the government in exactly the same way you distract a toddler from having a tantrum. Ooooh – shiny things! Wookie wookie widdle people – it’s a shiny thing.
We fell for the shiny thing. And we don’t even seem to care.
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2 Oct 2014
All my life I’ve heard the two words ‘too much’ added to descriptions of me or about me. I talk ‘too much’, I swear ‘too much’, I drink ‘too much’, I do ‘too much’, I yell ‘too much’, I laugh ‘too much’, I can be ‘too much’
‘Too much’ is never added to descriptions people mean kindly. ‘Too much’ is always meant to convey that the thing you do ‘too much’ of should be toned down, curbed, even eliminated.
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| Me being a teenager in the 80s |
And then this one has cropped up lately, a lot. You care ‘too much’.
I was initially a little hurt. How can you care ‘too much’? Surely, caring is a good thing. And I’ve been sitting on it, pondering, stewing. And then I had my light bulb moment.
Not my problem.
It’s taken me almost 40 years to get to the point where I like myself. My self confidence and self esteem are never going to be like trampolines, bouncing back no matter what lands on them , and I’m okay with that. I am always going to be a worrier. I’m okay with that too. Not everybody is going to like me – and while that bites a bit, I’m okay with that.
You see generally – I’m rather nice. I’d even go as far to say ‘mostly likeable’. Even ‘fucking hilarious’ on occasion.
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| Being low key at my own hen party |
But the ‘too much’ bit of me? I take that to everything. I’m not too much on occasion, I am too much all of the time. If you think I’m being too much on the outside, try imagine what I’m like on the inside.
I take too much everywhere. To every friendship, to every relationship, to every job, to every conversation, to every cause, to every gathering, to every adventure, to every book, to every experience, to every bus trip if the truth be told.
I don’t have another way to be. I can’t be somebody that does something ‘just a little’ or ‘kind of maybe’. I don’t have that in me. And 99% of the time it works out very well for people. Very well indeed actually.
My ‘too much’ means that I’m living life as honestly as possible. Yes I care. Yes I yell. Yes I drink. Yes I swear. Yes I do stuff. Yes I laugh. Yes I cry. Yes I am me. But I’m ‘too much’ of a lot of things that people consider positives too. Those things though – nobody throws those around with the cautionary ‘too much’ tacked on the end. And I’m not just ‘too much ‘about me. I’m ‘too much’ about everything. And I am ‘too much’ about everyone.
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| Me being someone else with Nick being somebody else |
I don’t have the energy or inclination to be somebody who is parsimonious with feelings or time or life in general. Trying to be somebody that is more polished, more conservative, more middle of the road didn’t work out for me. Because it’s not who I am. I am me.
And I’m really rather good at being me. In fact, I’m better at it than anybody else.
Fact.
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2 Oct 2014
Okay – I get that my brain is on high rotation at the moment, I’m not sleeping and when I’m trying to sleep my children are not – I know that when your brain is like that – weird stuff goes down in subconscious town.
And last night was an absolute pearler.
I featured in my own dreams as cleaning expert, dressed suspiciously like Jo Frost from Super Nanny, who was brought in to sort out people’s cleaning emergencies.
Firstly, I was flown into the Clooney/Alamuddin wedding to demonstrate how to use Woolworths Fragrance Free baby wipes to remove a poo stain from her dress just before the wedding started. And as a result of saving the Oscar La Renta dress and the good woman herself from certain death by media – I was invited to the reception but I turned down the invitation because I had to pick the girls up from childcare.
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We are all aware that this is not a woman
who would need ‘that wipe woman’ |
I’m a committed parent, what can I say?
Then, I get invited on the Ellen show and end up with my own spin off training show demonstrating the superior powers of baby wipes for pretty much everything EXCEPT cleaning baby bottoms. People with babies already understand how living without wet wipes now seems inexplicable and probably impossible.
So for the vast array of people that we call ‘public’ I had video tutorials on cleaning grills, jewellery, car windows, computers, make-up stains on clothing, silver fridges, bicycle spokes, BBQs, public transport hand rails, champagne glasses and even a special one for that Nick Cannon fellow who just bought the world’s most expensive shoes. You name it – I could clean it with baby wipes and was willing to show you how you could too.
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| Nick Cannon’s shoes |
I was doing all this in high heels, a bun, spectacles and a dress that did nothing for the va va voom curves I’m sporting.
They called me ‘that wipe woman’. And I was thrilled, a little proud even and I had BUSINESS CARDS made up with ‘that wipe woman’ on them.
I’m still feeling slightly discombobulated not least of which is due to the fact that Clooney had ‘that wipe woman’ in his favourites list on his iPhone.
And then I was jolted awake so I don’t know how the dream ends or what I was supposed to learn from it. All I know is that I woke up with the blog title stuck in my head. Maybe that’s supposed to be the title of my best selling book – or maybe I’m destined to have a television career demonstrating the usefulness of wet wipes and the Jo Frost imagery was a dire warning to ensure I get a decent stylist before filming starts?
Who knows. Not me. But one thing is certain – it’s making Hootsuite scheduling seem a little bland this morning.
What about you? How did you sleep?
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29 Sep 2014
So on the weekend, because I read everything, I somehow got lost in the vortex that is ‘the facebook group full of mums from a certain area’ where people were discussing how they do their laundry.
I’m not joking. Hundreds of participants in this conversation and every single one of them with a VERY FIRM VIEW on how to do their laundry. VERY VERY FIRM VIEWS.
It all started because one woman found out that somebody puts their tea towels in with their bedding or their jocks or something and basically I think they will never eat or drink at the friends house again because the dishes may have been wiped with a tea towel that has mingled outside it’s proper place.
And then the discourse spiralled into a long list of dos and don’ts for washing things. Separate whites from coloureds; towels from lingerie; green from plaid; socks from jocks; hot water vs cold water vs filtered water; softener vs no softener; adults from childrens; sports from suits; girls from boys; delicates from jeans; bedding from towels and so on. Actually I made up green from plaid. But you get the drift.
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| Even I know you hang t-shirts upside down. Der. |
Here’s how I do laundry.
1. Take pile of dirty laundry.
2. Dump in machine until it’s full.
3. Put in powder.
4. Turn on machine.
5. When it has beeped for about four years, take out of machine and hang on line/put in dryer.
6. Repeat until all the laundry done or I die. Probably until I die because there is always laundry.
In fact I think there is something very inclusive about my washing habits that is represented in my general world view. #justsaying
Of course if there is something a bit delicate like a pretty bra or an Anna dress – I shove it in a lingerie bag. But nothing more than that and only because ruined bras and Anna dresses will result in tears. And aint nobody got time for that.
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| Never tumble dry children. Never. |
And you know something. It works out fine. Not once in all my 39.75 years has somebody asked me before they had a glass of wine at my house if it was dried by a cloth that had bathed separately from the wool of a toddler’s dress.
Actually, that could be because everybody that visits me is aware that we don’t dry dishes. We just leave them there until we need space to wash some more dishes.
(Unless my mother or baby sister are coming to visit and we know it physically hurts them to see undried dishes so we put them away so they can focus on the state of our floor or the dirt on our skirting boards)
Of course, now that I’ve confessed to my lack of laundry etiquette people might just bring their own glasses, cutlery and dishes to our place every time they come over but we won’t even be offended by that. I mean we really really wont. Because that means they have to take them home and wash them which is completely fine by us.
But I have been mulling over this laundry mania. I just don’t know how people have time to think about such things when there are so many more interesting things to think about. Like anything basically is more interesting than laundry. Even the football is more interesting than laundry.
I normally never give laundry any more thought than ‘Bugger it, should do some laundry so I have clothes to wear’. Which if I was my sister would be about maybe once very two years but because I only own four outfits means about twice a week.
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| Not even joking |
Is it just me? Is everybody else actually obsessed with laundry? Is this why I can’t get people fired up about anything world changing because the only two things that people care about are football and laundry? I mean they featured a lot on my Facebook feed this weekend? Is doing our laundry ‘the right way’ the actual road to world peace?
Anybody? Am I doomed? Like really really doomed?
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25 Sep 2014
Having two daughters quite close in age, who basically find each other perfectly AOK company, means we don’t often do things with them separately. Mainly because they like each other and we’re okay with being perfectly mediocre parents who force their children to hang out together until they mutually discover a love of music and become a musical duo which makes us a fortune as parentpreneurs and get our retirement funded long before they go broke, develop drug addictions, marry the wrong people and become tabloid fodder.
So when recently I got the opportunity to go and check out the new indoor skydiving place iFLY and I could take a child aged 4 years or older, I took it as a sign to have a day out with the Tullinator and do something with her that neither of us had ever done before. And because of the 4 year old rule – I wasn’t even choosing between them. It was THE RULES. I love being able to pass responsibility along in solemn tones.
So I told her we were going on an adventure. We caught the bus into town and she loved that adventure. She loved being able to have Maccy Dees for lunch and walking around the block killing time. She even thanked me for the adventure and said she loved me.
I obviously don’t take my children on enough adventures.
So when I told her we had one more bus to catch to the actual adventure, she yawned and slept the whole way. Which is good because having to explain what we were doing the whole way to Penrith might have stretched my knowledge of how humans fly.
While she slumbered beside me, I listened to the iFLY bus driver Christian talk about about wind and tunnels and energy grids and the history of iFLY and how it helps train dinky di skydivers who do the fancy routine stuff so by the time we got there and she asked how we were going to fly I was able to describe it thus:
“You know Tinkerbell?”
“Yep”
“Well we can’t hear it because she’s on TV but she needs wind to fly”
“Why do we have to wear helmets and overalls and she doesn’t?”
“She’s had more practice sweetheart. That’s all”
So if you’ve not heard of iFLY, it’s basically indoor skydiving. You get all of the wind, adrenalin and what not as you do with outdoor skydiving but without having to step out of a plane. You step into a big tunnel of wind, assume the position and go bouncing around like you’re James Bond – just fatter and less coordinated. Or in the case of the four year old, twice as coordinated and not even a quarter as fat.
And after wrestling with the instructor to start – she was just great at it. She’s four and flexible so she initially bent in half which was slightly alarming for me but once she got that she needed to resist a little (unlike adults who have to relax A LOT), she pottered about with a determined look on her face and a gritted smile whenever she caught sight of me through the window.
She flew on her own. My first born baby flew.
I love my girls for no reason and every reason – but one thing I love about them is their extraordinary capacity ‘to try’ and with such fearlessness.
She came out of the tunnel telling me it was “FUN BUT WEIRD” which is a pretty darn accurate description of skydiving I think. Afterwards she told me that flying was harder than fairies made it look. She didn’t want to have a second go – more than happy to sit and hold the hand of the girl next to us while I did – I even had a go at spinning up to the top of the tunnel with the instructor and back down again. It was such amazing fun and something I’ll do again.
In addition, it’s got me all fired up again about trying outdoor skydiving. Which I’ll definitely be doing tandem. Out of all the people who were in the group – I was the only one to almost fly out the door backwards. I like to consider it a special talent but not one I want to try as I hurl myself from a plane.
Even better – the Tullinator thought it a much more awesome adventure than the bus ride into the city.
Parenting win.
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***
THE FINE PRINT WRITTEN FINELY AND ITALICS
The #iFLYdownunder experience for both of us,
plus the photos and the video footage, was gifted to us by a PR agency
to enable us to experience #iFLYdownunder
and hopefully write something positive about it.
Luckily, we both loved it and it provided me with a great opportunity for a girls’ day out.
We thoroughly recommend it and appreciate that blogging allowed us this opportunity.
If you want to know more about #iFLYdownunder
