Brief vent on depression and the peeps who don't get it.

I have no idea where this came from. I am non-clinically depressed and anxious at the moment. That is, I have reasons for both!

When you’re depressed every act of will requires an extra push, like a low impact excersie routine done in water because the water provides resistance. With depression everything requires more effort, only you’re not wading through water, your universe has taken on the viscosity of a gel toothpaste. Everything you do is pushed through that medium, taking orders of magnitude more effort than the same actions when you’re not in a depressed state. But how to explain this to the happily unaffected?

It is very hard for those who are unaffected to related to the experience of having a brain that is not under their control. But I’m nothing if not tenacious so here is my attempt to explain…

Almost every one has had a crush on another person, right? It seems that everything they do is perfect, you are besotted, and most importantly, you can’t seem to stop thinking about them. Everything you see or do seems to relate back to them somehow, they are the last thing on your mind before you go to sleep, they may provoke stalking behaviour (especially since it is so easy to do these days!), their presence may equate with dizzying happiness accompanied by bouts of invincibility, they may also cause crushing anxiety and the misery associated with unrequited love. During this experience, you probably could not stop thinking about them even if you wanted to, the thought of the person interferes with your work and play. If you are lucky, this interference is painlessly seamless, if you are unlucky, you are unable to concentrate at all. This person, whoever they are, seems to have hijacked your thoughts, taken some of your mental liberty away.

The same could be said for worries, ever lost sleep because you could not switch of your brain for worry? That is an example of your mind being out of your control, you want to sleep, but you can't for worry. Surely if you had control over your emotional state this would not be a problem?

The main message is: Normal folk do suffer from periods when their mind/brain does things that they cannot control. That is a no brainer really, but I claim that it is these experiences that may help them relate to people with mental illness. So, assuming you believe me that normal people can suffer periods where their mind seems to be out of their control for some reason, try to imagine what that would be like without an object, that is without a crush on someone, without a worry to occupy your mind, without a reason to be sad.

Try to imagine a perpetual state of worry without an object of worry (this can be called anxiety).
Try to imagine a perpetual state of sadness without a reason to be sad (this is called depression).
Try to imagine extraordinary happiness, so happy that you believe nothing could ever hurt you, but without a reason to be happy (this is a symptom of bipolar disorder).
Try to imagine that switching off this worry, sadness or happiness is not an option, try to imagine that these feelings do not shift according to what is happening in your life. This is quite like the times when switching off for you is not an option.

What makes you different from the anxious or depressed person is that you have the comfort of a reason. We think you are so, so lucky. But please try to understand how unlucky we are. We have by accident, injury or design brains that will plunge us into the depths of despair, engage a dire apprehension that will gnaw at our guts or provoke swooping episodes of happiness where we become a danger to ourselves and others. Our brains do this for no reason at all and it can be terrifying.

Please also believe that we do not want to be like this, that we would not wish this state of being upon anyone. But we are tired of the labels of self-absorbed, or lazy, or paranoid, as though we were doing it on purpose. We are tired of the lack of understanding.

So next time you hear about or meet someone with a mental illness, when you read about suicides in the paper or are unfortunate enough to know someone who has attempted it. Try, try, try to remember the last time your mind was out of your control, and try to imagine what kind of hell it might be to be stuck there without a reason. Please.

What do I want?

Good food, good drink, to be warm in winter and not too hot in summer, to have moral, well-rounded and content children, to have a small circle of good friends who get my jokes, a devoted partner who can make me laugh even in my blackest moods, a vegetable garden and to figure out what makes humans, well, human. I want to have all this while living in an equitable society.

I’ve very nearly got them all. Australia is slowly getting there. I haven’t planted anything this year but planning to be raring to go for autumn and the 3yo is slowly getting the all important “Do unto others” maxim. It’s the penultimate one that’s going to be the corker. What makes humans human? What are humans anyway? What are we? WHO are we? What on earth are we for? and most importantly (for me anyway), how do we work?

I’ve done a science degree majoring in biological molecules, I’ve explored the world of plants, microbes, insects, reptiles and mammals and it still amazes me that something as complex as an ant could emerge from an exquisitely organised cluster of molecules let alone a thinking, feeling, acting human being capable of immense wonders, dire atrocities and love that makes my heart flip every time I encounter it.

When I crumble homemade compost through my fingers I wonder: how can we be made from essentially the same stuff as this? It is naught but luck that some of the carrots in our house turned into compost and some into human via hungry kiddie tummies. No wonder people invented a divine creator (apologies to those who don’t think the creator was an invention) - something to stop the wondering that could drive most men mad. Fortunately for me I’m not most men (I don’t envy them their genitalia to be honest and seriously, if there is a creator, I think they’ve got some explaining to do in that area) but the question is driving me mad. Not because I don’t like the wonder, but because (despite my husbands Herculean efforts) I get to spend so little time devoted to it.

Parents simply don’t get to swim in entrancing questions the way people can when they do not have caring commitments. And when the question is one of human consciousness, there’s a great deal of swimming needs to be done. So what do I want? I don’t want a Nanny, I like my children most of the time and they need their parent around. Maybe I’d like an extra 72 hours a week just for me. Yep, that’s what I want. A little speedy time capsule so I could nab an extra 72 hours while the others slept. I might age a little faster than my husband, I might use some of those extra hours for sleeping, who knows? The point is they would be just for me. Some guilt-free hours just for me, that’s what I really want.

Wow, I used to write train poetry!

I came across this in an old notebook... the Snippets from my notebooks Label is now reborn :-)

Tic, toc, this line is so slow!
The minion of my boredom shouting "Go! Go! Go!"
Yet, my pen is stationary on the stationery...
So what? Should I care if it rests unaware?
Drips from my fingers, my mind elsewhere?
Ah, me, I mustn't berate myself.
'Tis the trains terrific.... soporific... effect....

Bad Mummy morning and the screaming to-do-list.

I’m writing this for my husband. I’m writing this for a plethora of reasons (work avoidance, getting the writer’s juice flowing, venting) but mainly for my husband who oft complains that I make unreasonable knowledge demands of him as he can’t possibly know what goes on when he’s not here. Fair cop.

This article is written to cure ignorance. It is written for those who think that keeping house for five (if you include the dog), rearing children with widely disparate needs, while writing a thesis is easy. It is written to call out those parents who are making it look easy by pouring their remaining energy into a blissfully happy facade (STOP it will you? you're not helping!). And finally, it is written for those of you who will GET it, those who know that more thought goes into seemingly simple tasks than those who don’t have to do them can possibly imagine. Also, that there are MORE simple tasks than anyone can possibly imagine, and for those of us who wander around awake, these simple tasks can take over our heads, berate our brains with their need, and whip our conscientious bodies into actions that are not, necessarily, the ones that we would most like to be doing.

If this stream of consciousness account of my morning gets boring, that’s because HOUSEWORK is boring - plough through, that’s what I do, you may find there’s a reward at the end. Oh, and this is the truncated version.

6.45am My alarm goes off. I groan, rip out my earplugs (I wear these so I can sleep through the rumblings of the walrus), remember that I don’t have to get the 12yo to school today and roll over for ten more minutes of blissful snooze while the other half showers.

6.55am crawl into my clothes, most of which are too small - can’t afford bigger ones at the moment, solving the problem with the more economical strategy of eating less.

7.00am Toddler wakes up chirpy and cheerful (thank goodness) I spend the next 45 minutes negotiating clothing and breakfast. Resisting the urge to shout, “What is WITH you? Your brother didn’t care what colour socks he wore!! He didn’t even care if he wore socks! Just put on the blue ones for FUCK’S sake!!!” No, all of that goes on quietly in my head while I calmly wait for her to navigate the minefield of colours that is her underwear drawer.

745am Getting ready to go, checking shopping lists (because it’s Tuesday and there is no other shopping day), checking that the banks have all done what they were supposed to do overnight, organising to pay the most urgent bill - “first notice… school excursion…. second notice…. final notice…. they won’t REALLY take me to court…. disconnection - Bingo!”

7.55am Ready to walk out the door only I forgot that the dog was getting clipped, impatiently wait for him to finish his breakfast before loading everyone into the car (this, just on its own, can take fifteen minutes).

8.45 Catch all the horrible traffic due to getting out of the door late so treated to half an hour’s worth of whining about childcare from toddler instead of the usual twenty. Fill in the forms for medicine at childcare (toddler has a runny nose) and attempt to disentangle myself from the lady limpet - thank goodness for childcare angels who manage to extract her without a tantrum today! They are under-applauded and under-paid.

9.15am Dropping the dog off. At least he likes the groomers, no separation issues there. Forget to rebook his clips so will have to do that at the other end of the day. Bleah.

9.30am Finally make it to the shopping centre an hour later than usual and debate the pros and cons of having a coffee now. Stomach solves the problem by announcing to all and sundry that it’s empty. Breakfast is a gourmet mocha made with real chocolate and served on a Bunsen burner. Worth every penny but the decorative melted chocolate down the sides of the mug drives me nuts (being a non-handle type of person).

I try to alleviate the pausing for coffee guilt by reminding myself that it’s a rare day when I can have a coffee in the morning without the toddler present. Also, I get out my to-do book and start to write down all the nagging clutter in my head. The list of things still left to do… it runs to three A5 pages. Not bad. This tirade wasn’t on it, by the way.

10.00am I finally get to Coles and find to my amusement that they have solved the problem of consumers having accurate information (the price per unit info under the actual price) by making the UNITS different. That is, one brand of tissues is priced per tissue, the other brand is per 100 tissues. Nice one Coles. Very clever. Respect. This is the highlight of my shopping trip. I still take the time to buy the cheapest thing on the shelf.

11.00am Home again. The plan was to dump all the stuff that needed to be refrigerated in the fridge and leave again for Uni so I can get a draft to my supervisor who is lucky enough not to have read a draft of mine yet, and so demonstrates some enthusiasm for them.

Instead I think, “It’s only a small shop today, and you’re only making soup to freeze, you can cook while you put away the shopping…” I’m powerless against that nattering, nagging, get it done now you won’t regret it voice… so I do it.

Chop onions, remembering to put peelings into our new compost pile as I go, retrieving the large saucepan from the *dishwasher that needs emptying* (“Oh, I’ll just get that out of the way too…”).

Set the onions to caramelise, find the herbs, waste time looking for a special chili mix that seems to have evaporated with the move. Disappointed I settle for chili powder. Get out cans for this amazingly easy vegan soup. Stir onions, unpack shopping, stir onions… add herbs… stir onions…

Open the cans of cannellini beans (organic, whatever that means) and tomatoes (whole tomatoes because the factory uses the better quality fruit for those that go whole into the tin - damaged stuff gets diced or pureed - see how we think about every little thing that goes into the cupboard and hence your bellies?) run a small experiment to see whether the visual effect in the blender is more pleasing to the eye with the cannellini beans on the top or the bottom (bored am I). Cannellini beans on the bottom definitely wins. I will forget this and run the same experiment next time I make this soup. Pour the resulting pink slop over the onions and muse that if I were ever to write this recipe down I would need to reassure the gentle reader (why are readers always gentle? I’m not!) that the resulting soup is a rich red. Set it to boil. Realise I forgot to buy tuna, go through the shopping list to see if there’s anything else I forgot, while I’m at it go through the receipts in my wallet to see if there’s anything claimable on them. Fix the permanent shopping lists in my permanent list book (that's why I forgot the tuna).

Time to clean up (“you might as well get that out of the way”). Rinse out all the tins with the same bit of water, run it through the blender then add it to the soup. There’s nothing meaty or dairy on the blender so that gets a quick rinse and goes straight onto the *dish rack that needs emptying* so you empty that in order to be able to put the new stuff on it and remember that you were going to empty the dishwasher… (“Might as well get it out of the way…”)

(“Might as well finish off”) the shopping job by putting the shopping bags back into the car… Also collect rubbish from car and check mail while you’re there (“might as well”). Reflect that if you were a better parent you’d make the kids clean up their own car mess so that they didn’t think fairies did it.

Reward: When I come back inside, the house smells amazing.

It’s now 12.30pm and I’m starving. Time to make lunch and start moving things to the study…

(NOTE: With a toddler in tow, this morning would have taken until 3pm to complete. After which I would have started the after-school run. Today was a rare and magical day with my son away and my daughter in an extra day of childcare. To complete my Tuesday tasks in record time is a treat.)


Retrieve draft notes from the bedroom (because you fell asleep berating yourself for your crap prose and disorganised exegesis last night) unsuccessfully ignoring all of the post move clutter in the hallway that screams, “You’re at HOME!! Might as well do ME too!!!!” I give in and put away one umbrella on my way through. In the bedroom I also retrieve an empty champagne bottle from my side of the bed. Husband has cottoned on to the fact that it will be disposed of if he leaves it on my side and he’s not wrong. Bottle magically fills recycling bin which gets put by the door for my next trip outside which will be during my study break when I will also check the mail and make two dozen roast chicken sandwiches to freeze.

Make lunch, high protein, low carb as is the norm for the new dietary regime. I compromise with avocado dip and crackers, squeezing the lemon juice through my fingers to catch the pips Lebanese style and because handling the food is how you get the love in. Run my lunch and notes to the study while ignoring the outdoor jobs that scream at me -
the conglomerate of pot plants the broken easel begging to be measured up for some new dowel pins, the weeds in the path, none of which seem to bother my husband.

I check my mail and read the news, resisting the urge to berate a commenter and tweet about her inflammatory ignorance instead. Nice break.

It’s 1pm. Time to change hats from Mummy to Scholar. And can I? No. That’s why I wrote this, seething with resentment because I can’t shut all of this stuff out while the rest of my family can. I’m surrounded by animated tasks and objects and the chatter is deafening. My environment is a visual to-do-list, and in the current climate it is overflowing. I am, you might say, constantly perceptually overwhelmed at home. This is the reason one of the traditional Dad’s jobs was to “get mother out of the house” on occasion.

So, dear husband, that’s why I’m snarky and jittery when you come home after I’ve had a day at home. I’ve spent the day trying to shut out the chorus of a to-do-list that is impossibly long. That’s why I snarled when you used to refer to my days at home as “days off”. And THAT’S why I’m so protective of my one little sterile room. My one room with no jobs in it but scholarly jobs, my little grotto. THAT’S why I snap when you ask if I really “need” it, or when you ask why I can’t have the household paperwork here too…

But now I feel fantastic, sometimes having a good old whine does the trick beautifully. I’m going to go into the house to get another cup of tea, and when I do I’m going to tell the chorusing to-do-list to go and get stuffed.

Bleah, ick and blah.

I feel bleah. Could be the heat. Could be the toasted cheese sandwich I had for breakfast. Could be that I'm rereading my thesis and finding all the horrible misplaced commas and beyond shite errors of expression. Could be that I'm supposed to be doing yet more tidying and the thought makes me want to vomit. Could be that I'm just full of nervous energy and can't settle to anything.

I need to get my heart rate up and my muscles moving but I can't decide how. I'd take the dog out but it's too hot. I'd go for a ride but for the same. Maybe I should swim. But our pool is ten metres long which means four strokes and I'm across if I swim properly, there's hardly any point to it. Though, come to think of it, I can increase that to ten strokes if I breath because I have to practically stop in the water and roll over to do it. There's really no point being able to shoot like a dart through the water (not my words) if you have to screech to a halt to take a breath....

*sigh* it's either swimming or star jumps.... which which which....

Lazy Sunday dinners in the 'vents household...

This should be read by any mother berating themselves for feeding their hungry hoard fast food. We've normalised it :-(

Tonight I'm distracted by my own activities (in this case morosely quilting, moaning that it must be over soon or I shall expire 'neath a mass of brown and yellow cotton) and vaguely thinking that I'll make pasta and salad to feed the hungry hoard, when my son (11yo) requests a "Last Hurrah" dinner because it's the last day of the holidays. This is his code for "some form of fast food". I relent (too easy in this heat) and send him off to negotiate the precise form of fast food with his step-father. I couldn't care less myself, I won't eat much of it because my appetite takes a dive when the temperature gets above 30 degrees or so. He comes back and reports that my husband wants vegetarian and he wants hawaiian. I correctly deduce that this is code for pizza and add some meatballs for myself to the order. By the time I get to the phone my husband's order has changed to vegetarian pasta - lucky I indulged in some communication before I dialed.

We eat in front of the Fraggles (they have taken up permanent residence in our living room). I'm not hungry but manage to down one meatball and some snow peas. 11yo tries my meatballs and finishes the lot, shunning the humble pizza on his plate. 2yo is feeling sick and only eats the pineapple on her slice of pizza. The only person truly happy with his choice of food is my husband - this place creates a fresh kind of vegetarian pasta for him every time we order and it's always excellent. I reconsider my omnivourusness for the nth time this week.

Now the kids are still in front of the TV, 2yo sniffing intermittently and 11yo rousing himself occasionally to say, "I can't believe it's school tomorrow!". I don't know where my husband has got to but he's about to be galvanized into dish duty while I get some drugs for the 2yo. My grand aim is to get my study cleared out so that we can turn it into a living room and the 2yo won't swallow any more staples. (Long story.)

Update: Where was my husband? Apparently he'd just saved his captain by dragging him to safety behind a ferris wheel...or maybe it was the enemy soldiers that were behind the ferris wheel... and I think there was something about a rope...either way it was high adrenalin and he was about to save the world from something. Definitely worth postponing dish duty for!