Life on the hill: 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

Perfect or honest?

I don't have a perfect relationship with my children. Its hard to have a perfect relationship with anyone when you live with a mental illness (PTSD and Acute Anxiety Disorder) is there really such a thing as a perfect relationship anyway? But I know unequivocally that I have an honest one with my children. For me that is far more important then "perfect". One thing that I have told Laura and Nathan (and will do for Aston) is that if they ever find themselves in a situation where they or a friend...

Adrift

I read my stars this morning and it described so perfectly how I have been feeling ... "adrift on the ocean". I have been frantically looking for shore, scrambling from side to side of this little boat that I'm in. Its been dipping wildly, taking on water, starting to limp... and the ocean isn't even turbulent. I'm creating my own waves, rocking my own boat... Its time to be still. All my needs can be taken care of in this boat. Lie back, look at the stars, the moon. Make shapes,...

tears, accomplishments and the black dog

I got into the car, and tears came unbidden. I struggled to keep them from overflowing. I looked out the window, and tried to surreptitiously wipe them away, desperately hoping that she, or anyone else for that matter, would not notice. __________________________________________________________________________________ A few days before, Nathan had asked me what was my greatest accomplishment. Without even thinking about it, my answer was, "You guys, my children." "Oh." was his response. Then...

5 years in Pictures

Today five years ago, a little ray of sunshine entered the world. Some days he is like a thunder cloud - but most days he is sunshine and joy. Happy Birthday Aston. I love you ...

Breathing through it

I have been out of sorts since my last post.... initially mentally and then physically. Early on the Friday morning after connecting with the linkup for Speak Out, I proceeded to read through other peoples posts. As I progressed through each one, my skin started to feel prickly, my heart rate increased, and I became increasingly more agitated. As is usually the case, with out realising until I was right in the middle of it, I had been triggered, and my anxiety was amped. I had a friend...

Shaking off the shame

I had mixed feelings when I saw that Wanderlust was speaking out against Domestic Violence. I admired her confidence in speaking out... I tingled with shame at my own story. You see, I grew up in a family where domestic violence - in all its categories... physical, verbal, mental, emotional, sexual - was the norm, not the exception. And I swore as a young adult that no-one would ever treat me like my mother (and every other woman that the sperm donor brought into my life) myself and...

old habits die hard...

Some habits take a while to stop. Well they do for me anyway. Especially ones that involve my psyche, guess it comes from having PTSD. My brain automatically goes to the programmed response - even though that response hasn't been required for quite a while now. Last week a girlfriend text me asking us to a trivia fund raising night for the local scouts. My internal dialogue went something like this: "M won't want to do this, he'll think its lame, stupid, dumb (any other adjective that is used...

when life was still pregnant with possibility...

I saw my daughter on Saturday for the first time since mid September... since everything tipped upside down. It was so good to put my arms around her and hold her - even if initially she was reluctant. Its the longest time I have ever not seen her in 15 years. It hurts still. I miss her terribly. I don't miss the fighting. But I feel like I've picked a scab, and it stings. Seeing her - well my internal dialogue is rampant again with the words failure. I wish I could rewind time... back...

My Pandora's box... part 1

The saying "opening Pandora's box" gets thrown around a lot. It comes from the myth of Pandora, and the box that she was given by the gods and told to never open it. Pandora tried to tame her curiosity, but in the end she could not do it; she opened the box and all the illnesses and hardships that the gods had hidden in the box started coming out. Pandora was scared, evil spirits sprung from the box and she fiercely tried to close the box as fast as possible, enclosing the only thing...

Celebrating feeling good

I wasn't going to do a Grateful post this week because... well I'm feeling great. How silly is that? Instead of celebrating feeling great, and writing about it, I was going to let it slip by, acknowledged only by me. It was only after reading other grateful posts that I decided that feeling great is a very very good reason to be grateful. The fact that I didn't have to dig deep to find wonder and gratitude is by itself something to be grateful for. So I'm celebrating feeling good. The...

Ticking off that list....

1. finish the teachers aide course and have a job ( are rethinking this one - not sure I want to do the teacher's aide course... the job thing I still want to do though) I have completely rethought this, and decided not to do it. I have enjoyed having the time to "completely recover and live with out trauma in my life" as my therapist wisely put it. 2. sold some of my paintings. This is still a work in progress. I have done several more paintings, and have been asked if I can do some more....

The benefits of eating an elephant

One of the benefits of eating this elephant is not only am I chucking out a whole lot of accumulated "stuff", I have been finding things that I had forgotten I had. And me being Frugal Vicky they are things that can be re-cycled, re-used, re-gifted... I found five beautifully simple glass cylinder vases that I had brought to put candles in for Aston's naming ceremony 4 and half years ago...(how does one forget that you have five vases - obviously have had lots of flowers NOT). Gift boxes that were...

Spring Stylin' on a budget

Once again I have to thank my styling guru Nikki over at Styling You. Recently she reviewed Big W's new range of clothes Emerson. Me, being the ever conscious budget -hunting- but -still- want -to- be stylin' mumma, checked it out when I was last in Big W. I took another leaf out of Nikki's book, and went right through my wardrobe, made a list of basics that I needed, and took a trip to the op shop to drop off things I no longer wear. While I was there I also happened to find a couple of pieces...

faking it 'til you make it...

... that's me at the moment. Faking it 'til I make it. I get up, have a shower, get dressed, put on some make up, and try and pretend. However that gets a whole lot harder to do when you have to change medication. The process of coming off one anti-depressant/anti-anxiety med and going onto another is particularly unpleasant. Make that FUCKING unpleasent. Well it is for me. Coming off one by reducing the dose by half made me agitated, anxious, angry and down right revolting to be around. (I wanted...

being a fruit cake

This week has been more then a little manic. I'm changing medication for anxiety. And it sucks. But because I'm desperately focusing on keeping going - faking it 'til I make it, instead of crawling under the covers and disappearing, I will look out of myself and see that amongst the mania and shakes, and agitation there have been many moments to be grateful for.... my daughter and I are communicating again, online, but hey its a start. Baby steps. having my mother here has literally been a...

How do you eat an elephant?

Maxabella loves grateful posts always arrive at the most appropriate time for me... even at 3.20am when I can't sleep because my mind is buzzing. To quieten the buzzing I thought I start thinking about the things that I have to be grateful for this week. A change in perspective - looking outwards instead of in. After coming back from holidays, I walked into this house, and the overwhelming sense of wanting to flee washed over me. I need to leave. Its time. I have given my self until...

ch..ch..ch..ch..change

Where did September go? Oh that's right, it was fraught with change and heart ache, so it passed in a blur. The last week of September was good. I went to Daydream Island, via sleep train, bus, then boat. I scuba dived, para sailed, jet skied, tube rode, snorkeled, had a couple of massages, cocktails, loads of sunshine and lots of swimming. Going was one of my 42 things before 42, and achieving it on the limited budget I have felt pretty good. Unfortunately it was bittersweet,...

I gave away my heart...

11 years ago, as my world started to unravel, and in a desperate need to try an understand what was going on inside of me I went away for a week to a healing retreat Mayumarri , a safe place to explore the effects of childhood abuse. For me it was the place that I stopped trying to keep the lid on my Pandora's box that I had held and hidden deep deep down inside, and let it burst open, letting all the secrets, fear, hurt and tears out. I wish I could say it was the place where...

digging deep

I'm finding it hard to write at the moment. My heart is sore, and all I want to say is Life is fucked and continue on in my little pity party that I'm having. My head said to me this morning "suck it up princess - you have more to be grateful for then a lot of people"... which made me think about gratitude, perspective and not giving in to the black dog. so out of the heart ache that I have been feeling for the last couple of weeks what do I have to be grateful for.... - my...

knowledge is empowering vs ignorance is bliss....

heart sore, body sore, head spinning - exhausted... physically, emotionally, mentally... in a state of disassociativeness This will probably make no sense - but it does to me. I've been pondering this all day. I'm not sure what is worse.... having a panic attack, being triggered into trauma and cognitively understanding what is going on, or having those things happen and not understanding why or where it was coming from. case of knowledge is empowering vs ignorance is bliss.... because right...

15 years...

The year I turned 15 I moved from living with my paternal grandmother - who started the day with a vegemite jar full of brandy, and would continue consuming the bottle through out the day - to living with my abusive father and his new wife and her children. Frying pan to fire.... I had hoped that because he was newly remarried that the history of abuse would cease... how wrong was I. He loved an audience. Comes with the territory of being an entertainer I guess. Him and his wife would come home...

12am my eyes shot open. My skin was prickly, crawling. I ripped off my jewellery in the hope of some relief... none came. The prickling, the crawling of my skin intensified. I was wrapped up in the arms of M, and even this didn't provide comfort. I didn't want to be touched. I wanted to run... get in the car and drive. Where - it didn't matter. I untangled myself from his embrace on the pre-tense of having to go to the toilet, where I sat, reached into my bag of tricks to try and stop myself...