Grrr

I'm starting in a new area today - for 3-6 months - and I'm scared shitless. I know the people, i pretty much know the work, I know all the parameters, and yet all those stupid fears i have about my ability to do anything competently are banging around in my head and making me crazy.

Its been building up over the weekend and so I've done what I always do - play dead. Not really play dead, but become so paralysed by fear of failure at everything that I don't do anything. Except mope and make a nuisance of myself. Unfortunately my husband is so excellent that he stands in for me and is the only functioning adult in the house. I say unfortunately because if he wasn't so capable I'd have to get my shit together and keep going. But I don't. I sit on the couch while he does everything. And then when he's finished doing everything he brings me cheese and biscuits. And then I drink and don't feel any better (duh) and all of this is just more for me to get down on myself about.

What's worse is that I know how to fix it. I know I have to "fake it till I make it" but with all the energy I possess being diverted to unhelpful thoughts I don't think I can fake it.

Keep holding on

One of the most frustrating things about my depression (or MDD* ^) is my inability to fix it. Its not like my drinking ie drinking makes my life unpleasant, ergo if I don't drink then the unpleasantness caused by drinking goes away. I've mentioned this frustration before. I've read about my condition, I've tried yoga, relaxation, medication, homeopathy, naturopathy, psychology, psychiatry... just about everything I can do (except regular exercise - i can't manage anything regularly!).

I'm pretty exhausted to be honest. Trying to be 'normal' while looking through grey-coloured glasses puts me way behind the eight ball when it comes to dealing with all the other things in my life. And the thought of having to keep doing it for the rest of my life makes me feel desolate. So cross your fingers for me. I'm hoping that my new prescription of an SNRI will help.

My husband and my kids are what keep me trying. If not for them I'd be in a cupboard with a cask of wine right now. Instead I spent a blissful 10 minutes with the four of us dancing and singing to Glee. Those 10 minutes were worth trying for.

(from http://evenwhenyouresad.com/?p=19 - and here)



* I get the feeling sometimes that one can't truly be sick without an acronym or a wikipedia reference - this has both!
^ I'm a Canberran and public servant - I don't feel comfortable with a concept until it has an acronym!

Um.

I know it's traditional for us craft bloggers to do a bit of a round up of what we did in the past year. And believe me, I want to. But it seems I did very little this year. Not to say that that is a bad thing (I'm battling the 'pathological critic' here) but given that I went to Brown Owls 9 times I probably should have at least 9 partially completed things... I do have some things and they are below. Most of them were never blogged properly anyway. But sheez. I'm seeing a pattern here people. Let me illustrate:


So. A very blunt tool - but more drinking and depression = less blogging and crafting. What do you think my new years resolution should be???

Merry whatever...

We had quite a lovely Christmas Day, despite having Old Nana taken to hospital with pneumonia and our family 'drunkle' (that's a drunken uncle) having a go at us for turning in at 10pm. So after a very non-christian-or-christmas outburst at my drunkle this morning * we departed to Nowra to have a second Christmas day with Nath's family. The kids had a lovely day - a quality present which delighted Lily and lots of cars for Paddy which kept him enthralled for hours. Lil also got an Astroboy toy from my sister which was a huge hit. Those of you who've been around for a while may remember Lil's desire for an Astroboy during the "Front" knitting incident last year. Its cause a few sharing issues but they've generally been delightful.

*After he bought my mother to tears I said to him 'Nice to know that it not just your own family's Christmas' that you f*** up, and that you don't mind f***ing ours up either'. I then dramatically closed the door and the curtains so he couldn't respond. Not very mature. And I'm not 100% proud of it. But I'm sick of letting people do/say awful things and get away with it. As the other resident drunk (currently on the wagon) I was the only one that could say it and get away with it.

Me me me me me (A gripping case history of a narcissistic opera singer) *

1) What was I doing ten years ago?

I had just started my first 'real' job and re-moved out of home (I'd been asked to leave home at 18 and allowed to move back in at 23 after I got back from overseas).

Looking at it now, it was a significant year… that year I met some wonderful people who are still my friends, did a lot of stupid things, made some poor decisions, grew up a lot and learnt heaps about myself, and met the man who introduced me to my husband (he’s now my brother-in-law).

If you’ll allow me, I’ll just recollect for a moment (tilts head to left and looks skywards).

I was living with two people I went to Uni with – a guy and a girl. The guy was a frustrating individual (think OCD, HDD and Tourette’s all in one person) but a talented photographer and the girl was a twisted warped excuse for a human being who happened to be a rower. Of course I didn’t know this when I moved in. But the frustrating photographer began to grate on the twisted rower. So rather than moving out herself, she decided to begin a reign of harassment against him including playing loud music at 4am when she and her Neanderthal boyfriend got up to train, bagging out his job, making cruel and unkind comments for no apparent reason and generally being a bitch. When I asked her about it she said she had nothing against me, and that I was welcome to stay in the house (which ironically the guy and I had found). Anyhoo, it all came to a head one day – photographer was trying to vacuum and she kept pulling the cord out of the electricity outlet. He’d come to see why it wasn’t working. He’d plug it in and walk away. She’d unplug. Eventually they were facing off and she hit him. He called the police and she called her coach; petrified she’d lose her scholarship. Anyway, the police came and mediated and got agreement that she would move out in a month. Not before her Neanderthal arrived with a car-load of male rowers to try and intimidate us. Photographer didn’t press charges, knowing that she’d lose the scholarship (he was a sweet-natured frustrating photographer at heart). And for the next month the photographer and I lived with our parents rather than cross paths with her. Which was hard for me because my job was 100m from my door. SO she left – didn’t pay a whole lot of stuff and left the place filthy. I subsequently moved on, didn’t see the photographer, but was really close to his then girlfriend so we re-told the story often and composed what we’d say to her if we saw her. Which we never did. Which was odd being she still lived in Canberra.

Fast forward to late 2007 when I attended the inaugural (and so far, only) craftanoon held in Hackett. I had been looking forward to it for ages thinking how great crafting get togethers seem to only happen overseas. I knew that Kathreen Rickson (of whip up fame) would be there and it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to being a groupie. So I turned up, met Kathreen and her daughter and some other lovely people. And then the rowing skank turned up. She recognised me, smiled, then must of realised that I would not be similarly pleased to see her and her face fell. My immediate reaction was to get the hell out of there. But I’d looked so forward to it. And there was Kathreen. And people with sewing machines. And ideas. So I stuck it out for a while and tried to ignore her. I’d nearly bitten my tongue off from suppressing witty and catty slurs against her. I didn’t want to seem small and bitchy in front of godess Kathreen. But she’d sucked all the pleasure out of it for me. So I just left. Anyhoo. Hardly a story of hardship and suffering, perhaps more impotent rage management.

That year I also met (through internet dating – but that’s another story) a man called James Brown. Not the Godfather of Soul. In fact, he was a tall, muscular, fair-skinned, blonde ex-military type. James Brown loved to exercise, and did not drink or smoke. He was as close as I came to finding my complete opposite. But the thing that struck me was that he chose to stop drinking. I was at the height of my drinking then, and I couldn’t fathom how anyone could voluntarily choose to live their life sober. He told me some sob story about ‘losing control’ and I couldn’t understand it any more than I could if he were speaking Mandarin. Needless to say, the relationship was not long lived. But he was a lovely guy, and I wish I could meet him now and tell him that I understand. And that I wish I’d been ready to listen to him then and saved myself a few more years of alcohol abuse. Having said that, he also said I should exercise and stop smoking, which I've also chosen ignore.

2) What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today? Go for a walk (done), iron, fold clothes, clean the bathroom, cook dinner. I’m on maternity leave so they aren’t really ‘non-work’ as I consider what I do here at home to be work. I probably won’t do any of those things though. Just surf the net. Or watch Foxtel.

3) Snacks I enjoy? On-again-off-again chocoholic, hommus, hot potato with sour cream, cheese, mushrooms and chargrilled sweet potato, chocolate icecream – I could go on and on and on and on…

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire? Anything I want. Pay off houses and travel for me and family. Definitely not work. Lots of random acts of kindness. Sponsor guerrilla gardening initiatives. Fund programs for addicted mothers. Buy lots of plants.

5) Places I have lived? Canberra. Many suburbs, always Northside.

I had 10 months in England in 1996 where I lived for 3 months in Elton near Peterborough and in 2001/2 I lived in a hotel in Brisbane and Coolum for six months while working for PMC on CHOGM.

6) Jobs I have had? Retail (shoe shop), café staffer at Cockington Green, Carer for an elderly lady in England, Synopsis Writer at Media Monitors, Political Information Analyst, Public Affairs and Research/Information Officer for the Minerals Industry Association, Media Adviser to a Senator, Media and Publications officer for CHOGM, Public Affairs Officer at the Department of the Environment and now a policy officer for the Department of the Environment where I managed a database on threatened species information. Also currently the Minister for Treasury, Family and War at home.

7) Peeps I want to know more about? Everyone. Everyone has a story.

* From Frasier Episode "Dad Loves Sherry, The Boys Just Whine"

Tagged!

My goodness - my first meme. Thanks sadieandlance!

Here are the rules.
1. someone tags you,
2. you post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog,
3. you tag people you’d like to know more about.

1. I'm addicted to systems of organisation. I'm constantly trying to find ways to make my work and home life more organised through sites like Flylady and DIY planner and lifehacker and organized home and the best free organisation software around [Australian too!] Thinking Rock. I love the idea of being able to have a streamlined, chaos free life; structured so that everything gets done when it needs too. I even went so far as to create a document called 'traits of an organised home' [summarising many of the applicable features from the sites above] which worked beautifully for about a month. Then collapsed. My intentions are good, but I usually get sidetracked by craft or something that seems far more important than ironing and end up not doing all the things that would make my life easier...

2. I love reading. I'm ravenous when it comes to the 'right' book and snatch every moment I can to devour it. My favourite authors are Margaret Atwood and Marion Halligan (great Canberran author), but I'll go for any Australian fiction really. I could go on and on about books. But I won't.

3. I smoke. I hate it. I love it. I must quit.

4. I'm a recovering alcoholic. My drinking was bad just before I fell pregnant with Lily, but I didn't drink during the pregnancy so I thought I was 'cured'. Things got pretty bad after she was born, and culminated in one big night when I was so drunk and out of control that I shaved my head [I previously had shoulder-length hair].

I realised then that my drinking was out of control. I've been a AA 'boundary rider' for a while, and it was certainly the catalyst in helping me stop drinking, but I find much more strength in the behavioural management approaches to drinking. I found AA spent too much time wallowing in alcoholism - I'd got my life back and wanted to spend it doing things, not moaning about how bad it was 5 nights a week.

5. We have a cat named Rosie and my daughter's name is Lily. I often get them mixed up. I love flower names and would love to name other children Holly, Jasmine or Patterson, but am frightened of becoming like the women in Keeping Up Appearances who are Violet, Rose, Daisy and Hyacinth. My Nana is alot like Hyacinth actually, but that's another story.

So there you go. I tag, Shopping Sherpa, Miss Minnie and Taph. I can't tag 5 as I don't know anyone else that has a blog and reads this regularly!

Cheers
N