Trigger Warning

It has been a long time since I wrote anything other than a book review that I'd share any more publicly than instabookchat. That is because it is hard to voice vulnerability when you are so far from home.

There are many reasons for that: Upsetting family who are too far away to help you; Worrying that your thoughts may scare the natives; and being publicly shamed for opening up on the whipping ground that is the Internet.

There are more but those are most certainly the top three that hinder my thought sharing.

What triggered this and many other things was waking up this morning to hear that Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide.

Truth be told, I had seen a few episodes of his different shows, read a little of his writing and knew he was dating a fabulous woman 20 years his junior. I wouldn't call myself a fan or a hater. He was the sarcastic loud American travel guy who managed to avoid being cringeworthy while educating Americans on the world outside their small untravelled world.

There are a few things that have bothered me about this whole situation that I feel must be addressed. Surely others will articulate it better but if I don't say it now, I will feel negligent. Negligent to those who suffer from depression; negligent to those who don't; and most certainly negligent to my own mental health.

Having suffered sever clinical depression for 3 years in my early 30s, Bourdain's and Kate Spade's deaths have triggered my biggest fear.

That fear is that I could find myself in that dark place again feeling that there are no other choices to escape the pain than to quit the whole game. I have too many tools now for that. I know when to ask for help and when to voice my pain to others so that the darkness never returns. But, and it is a loud and cautious but, what if there is a situation so dire that I don't get to catch myself before I fall?

News reports keep saying he was happy (even giddy) a week before his death so he can't have been depressed. That is the most naive nonsense I've heard in a long time.

Triggers don't take time to build up to make you snap. They are stressors that happen in an instant and cause you to immediately return to a mental state where you were at your worst. It is as if you never left the dungeon and the darkness. It feels like nothing else good has ever happened even if you were smiling last week.

Therapy teaches you to be mindful and catch yourself in those moments and then apply your tools to stop yourself from spiralling. Those tools may involve asking others for help, negating the lies your brain tells you or not making any decisions until you are safe enough to do so. There are many tools to help a depressed person but sometimes, Sometimes the pain is so overwhelming that you can't even breathe let alone catch yourself.

For all the education out there, those who have not suffered mental illness (and some who have) don't get it. They don't understand how it works and how you don't.

We live in a society that wants to talk about it but we also don't want to because those who understand are afraid of triggering their demons.

This is hard to write. This is hard to say. But the pain is real for many.

You don't get over depression. Not really. You just learn to function and not be frozen in time by the pain. The fear of returning may be irrational but when you watch someone who rebroke and didn't escape it, the fear feels real.

Talk about it. The world is a better place for having you in. Me too.

When Depressed, Don't Be Strong For Others

I was mugged at 10:30pm-ish on a Tuesday night. An ambulance took me to hospital. I spent 6 hours sitting on a bed being observed for concussion. Not allowed to sleep. Not up for bothering anyone to tell them I was there. Not overly fussed about anything other than my iPhone going flat. Gawd, it got boring.

At 4:30am, I was allowed to leave. Still an outpatient in ED meant that I didn't even need to sign any paperwork. Just called a taxi and went home.

When I arrived home just before 5am, I facebooked that I had been violently mugged and had only now returned home. Then I crashed. Exhausted, I fell in to a deep sleep fully unaware of how many people were panicking. 100+ missed called and 212 text messages greeted me when I awoke on Wednesday morning.

As I scrolled through the plethora of contact, the phone rang. I hit ignore. Another person called, I ignored that too. Then my sister called. A single thought ran through my mind... "she won't make this about her. I won't have to make her feel better about this having happened to me."

That summed up the entire morning. I didn't have the energy to make other people feel ok about me being mugged. I'm sure they were calling because they cared but they were also calling for themselves.

I didn't have the strength to tell them how ok I was. To tell them how I'd be ok. To not cry or let them hear the waver in my voice. I just couldn't give that at the time.

It reminded me of something. When you are going through things, some people will come to you to find out if you are ok but they want you to say yes you are. They want to hear that it will all be ok and mostly for themselves. They aren't selfish or mean. They just can't see passed what they feel to what you are going through.

When this happens, you have every right to choose not to give them anything. You are within your rights to not give them the little you have left to let them know you are ok. Don't answer the phone to everyone. Answer to at least one person who won't make it about them. They are a valuable friend because they won't take from you.

It is ok to give that energy you have to yourself.

Retrospection brings Revelations

My mate Jim and I are doing Dry July. At a sober dinner and subsequent Koko Black chocolate inhalation session tonight, we had a mini retrospective. I just realised that it has only been 2.5 years since I moved out of my parent's house. I'd spent 3 years prior suffering clinical depression. It was so bad that my mother gave me two tasks in the day that were all I had to achieve: Make my bed and check the mail box for mail. Those two things would exhaust me. Some days I couldn't do one or both and I'd sob at my failure. Some days, I'd do both and we'd celebrate the success.

When I left Darwin at the very end of 2011, I wasn't quite sure if I'd be able to feed myself, work an entire 5 day week or stop myself crying if I ever started. Since then my failures have been vast but all lessons learnt. My heart has been broken once since but it kept beating. My brain chemistry has kicked my arse several times and I kicked it back.

I don't cry randomly anymore though. I don't wish to die. I pay my own bills and cook my own meals. I finally forgave myself for not being perfect. These are major achievements for me.

It has only been 2.5 years and I'm functioning quite well now. Even I'm impressed.

Thanks, Jim. You made me articulate it. This isn't an affirmation. This is surprise and pride mixed with slightly too much chocolate.

Comfortably Numb

It has been a long time since I shared the workings of my mind and what state I hold after recovering from clinical depression.

I still speak about my depression without shame or discomfort although I often see that in the eyes of those listening. It is still not understood that depression is an illness and not something that anyone would choose.

I would no longer consider myself someone who is suffering depression. It is something that I sometimes fear returning but I don't see myself ever returning to those dire straights. There are now too many tools under my belt to allow that regression.

There is however something very different to me now that never existed before my illness. I have a higher pain tolerance. I am happy but there is an undercurrent of chronic pain that exists as part of who I am now. My pain threshold does not allow it to overwhelm me but like chronic back pain, it is something I have learnt to live with. Unlike chronic back pain though, there are no pain killers or anti-inflammatories that will ease the constant ache. And no, antidepressants are not my friend because I am not depressed. This is an ingrained hurt that is laced between the atoms that make me. It can not be separated. It can not be dispersed.

I described my life recently to a friend as though I live on a super yacht that is my current happiness. This yacht is sailing on a giant lake of pain where at no point you can see all the edges. There is a thin film of sadness that reflects pretty colours and is often left in my yacht's happiness wake. However awful that may sound, it is a state that I understand and survive in quite happily... if not relatively.

Recently, I experienced immense happiness. Not just happiness but a spark of hope. Hope is something that was beaten out of me a long time ago and although I hold optimism in life and the future, I do not hope for more than what I am gifted with now... which is a lot.

Today that happiness fizzled and whisked away in the wind. I was left on my yacht on the lake, relatively happy.

The problem with this is that relativity has shifted. From the joy of beautiful hope to a sweet pensive sadness and down to what now feels like a comfortable numbness.

There are still endless reasons to smile. There are still reasons to be optimistic. There are still great moments to be sailed. The problem is, the numbness leaves me feeling it all as if I were floating outside my body watching someone else pilot me. Being John Malcovich with me as the puppet.

A part of me knows that the numbness will recede and I will sail my yacht of happiness again but the yacht will feel smaller and the pain lake bigger and the oily film of sadness slicker and thicker.

This all makes me wonder why I'd ever attempt or accept a happy state again if it ever presented itself because when it rejected me and left me floating unmoored, the vessel I travel in will be smaller.

I shall ponder this as I ponder many things, all the while feeling comfortably numb.

Dealing with Rejection

This appeared on Facebook a week ago. It resounded with me as this is my one triggers that I still work on dealing with.

This mental conversation tool has been very effective in the the last week that I've been using it.

"
How to deal with rejection:

1. Do you want something you don't have? - Yes.
2. Did you get what wanted? - No
3. OK - Nothing has changed then. You are exactly where you were before you decided you wanted this thing.
4. Were you OK when you didn't have it? - Yes, I was RAD!
5. Excellent... moving right along then.

"

Some days

Some days, so much of me hurts that I don't quite remember how it was to not feel the deep persistent ache.

People ask if it has a cause, a name, a reason. It does but it is not one that they will be happy with. It is not something or someone that they can fix or heal or tell me isn't worth it.

It is that darkness that looms always. The promise of a sinking lead that pulls you under and so far down that even if you free yourself there won't be enough time to get back up for air.

Part of dealing with depression is accepting that when you are well, you may still plummet into that abyss again. Rudely, it is often at short notice and with an assumed RSVP.

Little things can add up and to be honest, it is more likely a culmination of many tiny pushes than one big ka-thump.

Nah, let me explain that better.

An event can't knock me down on it's own. Triggers don't work that way now. People can't push me over the edge even if they explicitly... harshly... deliberately... knowingly try. I'm too strong for that now.

What can bring me to the point of pain is me not looking after myself.

If I get sick and it lingers. If I get tired and don't sleep. If I get mentally exhausted and don't rest. If I let myself go and not reel it in then I'm in danger.

Depression is what happens to you again when the balance is lost. When the pace is no longer sustainable. When you don't have the energy to hold it back.

It is not about weakness or loss of control or neglect but more about forgetting that it is waiting. Thinking that you're fine and always will be is an error on your part.

Once you've truly suffered from depression, you must always watch your back. Although that sounds awful, being aware that you must does empower you. After all, you know your enemy so well and have defeated it before. If you see it coming this time then it has zero chance of getting anywhere near you.

The best quote about depression I have ever read

“Then there is this: in some way, the quiet terror of severe depression never entirely passes once you’ve experienced it. It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and renewed energy, waiting to slither back in, unnoticed by others. It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at you, keeping you from ever being fully at ease. Worst of all, it honours no season and respects no calendar; it arrives precisely when it feels like it.”

- Daphne Merkin on her forty year battle with depression | Life and style | The Observer

-- via Alice Boxhall

Coming Home

I used to write with such passion and conviction.

Things made me angry. Things made me happy. Things made me feel feelings.

Of late, that has petered out. Somehow lost in a Prozac haze and over-shadowed by real life and responsibilities and... stuff.

It's not that I miss the roller-coaster of emotions that came with depression. Hell no! It just got far too mellow and numb to be on the anti-depressants.

As I emerge from the mist of depression and the auto-tune of being medicated (which did help massively), the passion for life is returning. It's not a hypo-manic ride of good and bad. It is more of an absence of numbness. Being alive again.

Do you know that point when you've eaten a yummy dinner and you feel perfectly full and content? That is how it feels.

Damana is coming home.

Intolerable Cruelty

There is a guy that I broke up with. Let's from this point forth refer to him as Mr X. He and I have shared friends. We have stayed friends and hung out over the last few weeks.

Last night, he invited me out with our mutual friends. Told me where we were meeting and when. I was happy to go since I'd been working hard for the money, all week and wanted to get some time with my besties.

I got ready and grabbed a cab in to the city. Arrived exactly on time, as promised. No one was there yet so I grabbed a Bellini and a comfy couch, to pass the time. The party arrived one hour and 15 minutes after I got there. In that time, I'd slowly sipped my drink and read the text messages promising they were on their way "right now".

When my friends walked in, I only recognised two of them. Mr X and another woman who he hangs out with a lot. She's a bit of a groupy of his and has been a little aggressive towards me in the past. With them was another rough looking woman with tattoos. I did noticed all her tattoos were spelt correctly if that counts for much.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. I played it cool and tried to work out how I was meant to react to the situation. I grabbed a drink and agreed to sit and chat with them. After all, I'd just taken a $40 taxi ride to be there and was in a happy mood, despite the confusion clouding my head.

They then proceeded to tell me that he was a player and that I had been played. That he never wanted to see me anyway and I hadn't dumped him since he never liked me. It felt very high school. The three of them admitted to "being together" and I didn't bother to ask them to elaborate. They are a rough bunch while sober and they were doing shots by now. I was holding on to my second Bellini and still wondering how I should react. It was a bit like facing a lion who is mauling a friend. You want to save your friend but you don't want to get mauled. Unfortunately, this analogy sux since I was the friend being mauled and the friend watching. [Work with me here, guys]

After they started laughing at me and calling me naive and gullible, I drank the rest of my drink and excused myself. I got straight in to a taxi and headed home.

I was still in shock when the text messages started flooding my phone. They were ridiculing me and attacking me like a bunch of snapping hyenas. He had shared my number with them so they could hurl abuse at me in a howling unison.

As I emerged from the mental haze, I realised I was upset. I felt foolish and afraid and isolated and sad. That made me angry. I retaliated and said some mean stuff then realised that they are the type of people to walk up and glass me, to express displeasure at my excessive use of the word "bogan".

I turned my phone down. Once I stopped reacting, they stopped attacking. I got home, said hi to my Mum and headed straight to bed. I lay awake in silence - still shocked - from when I got home at 10:30pm to 2:30am, when the phone started ringing. It was Mr X. I didn't answer. Then the voicemail messages started coming. I listened to them. They called me pathetic and a loser. I was upset. I didn't understand. It felt like being bombarded with small pellets. Each did no real damage but in total, the bruises were forming. I turned the phone off.

This morning, I changed my number. This time, I'll guard that number. Next time, there will be no next time.

Interesting thing is that I stopped being upset once the phone was off. I couldn't sleep. In fact, I didn't sleep all night. Tried but no go. Got maybe 15 minutes this morning. It's been more than a day since I slept properly.

I know this feeling. This lack of all feeling. That numbness that comes when my brain turns off the feelings. When the sleep won't come, no matter how long I wait. I'm aware of what is happening to me. It's a slip back in to that depression. Luckily, I'm in a good place and know how to deal with this. Let it run its course. Let the moments pass in a safe place - at home and at work. Let the emptiness fill again with normal feelings. Let people I know and trust know that I need someone to look out for me at the moment. Let the rain come down.

It seems I'm dealing extraordinarily well with the situation. In the past, this would have devastated me. People I've spoken to this morning have said they might not cope so well. Me... I'm doing ok. It's a bump in the road. It's a blip on a radar. It's a learning experience from hell. It's all going to be ok.

Depression does not own me anymore. In fact, no one does. Not Mr X and his harem of banshee bogan skanks. Not the cloud that once engulfed me and made the air so hard to breathe. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Nuts.

Yes, it was cruel what they did. The world has some really nasty people in it. I am naive and a little too trusting at times. I'm learning though.

Journeys

The J part of the ENTJ that Myers Briggs indicates is my thinking preference, says that I am a person who is more about the destination than the journey.

Maybe I should sit down and re-test myself and see if this still applies. These days, I think life is more about the journey than the destination. The point of termination simply gives me a focus.

Being pretty good with my depression now means that I need a new self-project. For me, that means improving something in my life. Getting it to a standard that I find acceptable.

With depression, I took treatment very seriously. I did all the things that I was advised to do. Instead of simply letting it run it's course, I forced it through to a quick end. Held it down with my knee in it's back and it's hand in a wrist lock, until it submitted to my happiness.

So, what does a Mana do when all the doing is done? She finds a new self-project. Another way to improve her life and her contribution to the world around her.

For me, that new journey is getting physically healthy. It's not about being thin or a supermodel but more about having that energy I once had. Having that zest for life. Having that easy breath.

Expect to see a few posts about my progress. This is day one of many. "Enjoy this trip... and it is a trip."

You Want Some Advice?

No one else can advise you on what you have to do as a depressed person, to recover from the funk you are in beit passing or constant. You have to find that balance or focus or whatever it is, yourself. You are not alone though. People will help you. Other people do understand you. You must talk to them and sometimes let them talk to you.

For me, a realisation dawned last night that made me feel much better than I have in a long time. I did not beat myself up or think horrible things about myself. The words "useless" and "abandoned" didn't enter my mind at all until thinking of writing this blog. It's not because I somehow realised they weren't true. Of course they aren't. That's the depression pushing the painful thoughts to the front and burying the positive ones in a black sticky ooze at the back of my brain.

This realisation was that I have to stop thinking I am selfish and actually be selfish. Most of my day is spent trying to work out how the hell I can make everyone else feel better about having to put up with me. How taxing I am on all those around me. How it is a matter of time before they all leave me and I am abandoned and alone.

Screw it. If it happens, it happens. If they leave, I make new friends. If there are no more people in the world left to be my friends, I'll get a damn dog. If the dog leaves, I'll get a fish. If the fish jumps on to the carpet and commits ritual suicide rather than be with me then I'll start Internet dating.

See! There is always some kind of alternative when fit hits the shan. People come and people go. They call me all sorts of stuff and most of the time they are right, at least with the information they have. I can't think of them at the moment. When I'm strong and able to stand alone without rocking then I'll start prioritising others. For now, it's work and me. Work so that I can afford the time to look after me.

Me. Me. Me.

For once in my life, I'm going to stop joking about only thinking of me and do it.

See you all on the other side of this "getting better crap". Or, see none of you. Whatev...

Tonight I told my mother

People don't actually understand what it's like to be mentally sick. They don't understand that it's not as easy as it seems. Some days I try so hard to be normal that I have to go home and sleep for 4 hours just to recover. Other days I sit on the floor and cry. Some days I explode and kick at the world. Push everyone away. Fall apart. Those days are fewer and far between and I recover faster. All I can do is survive and live every day until the days are easy to live :)

Manic Pain

I wish I could find the strength to explain the pain at the aftermath of a hypomanic episode to you.

Mine are usually fueled by drinking for a few days in a row but can come upon me without any help, if they choose. This the opposite to the low of depression. It is not like being fully bi-polar. That usually involves mania and full loss of control.

This instead is like being so drunk or drugged that you have zero inhibitions. The thing is, you don't have to be drinking or drunk or drugged at the time for this to occur. It's just the result or precursor to a depressive low.

You feel invincible, mighty, incredible and bulletproof.

In the same way that a depressive state can drive you to self-destruct, so can a hypomanic state.

Usually, I don't have any idea of how much damage I've done. Usually, to friendships.

The worst thing is the shame you feel after it. The loss at destroying another friendship. The fear of what you've done or said. Although mine are few and far between, they are there.

I'm sorry if you have suffered at my hand when this is the case. I will not blame anyone else for it as it is me. I am it. There is no excuse good enough for the person it happens to.

I am sorry.

Recover

Imagine if everything you ever did in your life amounted to nothing because for 6 months of your time on Earth negated it all.

At the beginning of last year, I was the sickest I have ever been in my life. If I'm granted no other wish while I live, may I have this one. The wish that I will never see as dark a time and feel as much pain in my soul as I did then.

Through it all, I tried to hang on to my work. Ines told me to work through it and that would help me focus and deal. Lindsay said that anti-depressants would take the edge off and I would then be able to cope. In the end, it was my mother who was right. She gave me a place to go and rest where my existence was peaceful and my soul had the time it needed to heal.

Coming back to Sydney has taken a strength that I never truly thought that I possessed. For all the years since I learned to read, I have lived in books with magical tales of amazing people who faced struggles that none of us would surely survive and they damn well survived them. My path to 2009 was quite a tranquil one. Life went as planned by my parents and then my ruling husband and I plodded along it sublimely happy.

Then reality struck. The hardships that I only read of came to visit. They stayed as unwelcome visitors and would not leave me. In the end, I packed up all my belongings and went away to the one home I knew I would always have. Over the last 9 months in Darwin, I have tried and failed and tried and succeeded and then tried and failed again. There was a point I reached when I realised that it was time to go and try again but in Sydney. Oh Sydney, the place where I did not only fail but watched the life I had wash down a vomit filled Surry Hills drain. There was no way in hell that I was going to let the past defeat me... to scare me away from the life I want and the way I wish to be. Who I am, I guess.

Today marks one week back in my old stomping grounds. In this manic city, it feels like a life time has passed in only 7 days. I've succeeded, celebrated, rejoiced, cried, been picked up, loved, hated, ignored, kicked and finally failed.

The option of running back to Darwin has entered my mind. Will I ever get a job and a chance to work again in this town? Will people forgive me for the horror that was my last six months living in Sydney, last year? Will anyone ever understand how hard it is to try again when you know you stuffed up big time?

If your life has fallen apart, really really fallen apart at one stage in your existence then you will understand what I am saying. All I want is a chance. A chance to stand on over a decade of proving I am a great engineer and a good person. A chance to make up for the time when I could hardly find the strength to get out of bed.

The problem with this world is that we are all pretending that we are ok. A lot of people aren't. I am one of the few lucky people to say that I have had the chance to truly get to know myself and like who I am. I'm not pretending to be ok because the truth is, I'm pretty damn well. Life will kick and trip me but I will persist. One day, I will be back at my best. That day is not far away.

The people - be they friends; employers; strangers; or whoever I meet - who give me a chance now will benefit from the even more amazing person I will be when I fully hit my stride again.

Those who choose not to take a chance and turn away are going to miss out. Life is there for the taking but it belongs to those of us who risk appearing ok and actually strive to be better than that.

On the cusp of this difficult week of adjustment and the good week that lies ahead, I will keep going on in a positive direction. Upward and onwards.

Stick around.

Unhelpful Thinking

We all go through a whole lot of bad situations in our lives. There are the really horrid ones that you doubt that you will even survive and then... shock horror... you do. Unless you go and jump off a 42 metre high building (yes, that's the minimum certain fatality height) then you should be ok. Ruling out accidents, freaks of nature and bad company, you are left as the one thing that can hurt you.

We have all seen it. The friend who is so expectant of the Universe ganging up against them, along with Gaia, the Grim Reaper and the most evil of all - the ATO. Every single little thing that happens is awful and was bound to happen to them. They focus so hard on it that when it happens, they are almost happy.

Do you remember that song by Garbage that starts with the line: "I'm only happy when it rains"? That is what it is to watch these people in action. The funniest thing about this is that I watched one person do this so often that the only thing that could change her mindset was going to cognitive therapy and finding out that "the universe being out to get you" is a form of negative thinking. There are ten main types of negative thought. It took one look at the list to make that girl aware of the fact that the first thought to enter your mind is not always the right one.

That silly girl was me. She is much nicer to herself now. Very positive and kind. She has her moments but on the whole, that thinking has stopped.

Here is an excerpt from the Happiness Institute's "Unhelpful Thinking" publication.

1. Overgeneralisation: Coming to a general conclusion based on a single event or one piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen again and again. Such thoughts often include the words “always” and “never”.
   E.g.
   I forgot to finish that project on time. I never do things right.
   He didn’t want to go out with me. I’ll always be lonely.
   
2. Filtering (Selective Abstraction): Concentrating on the negatives while ignoring the positives. Ignoring important information that contradicts your (negative) view of the situation.
   E.g.
   I know he [my boss] said most of my submission was great but he also said there were a number of mistakes that had to be corrected...he must think I’m really hopeless.
   
3. All or Nothing Thinking (Dichotomous Reasoning): Thinking in black and white terms (e.g., things are right or wrong, good or bad). A tendency to view things at the extremes with no middle ground.
   E.g.
   I made so many mistakes. If I can’t do it perfectly I might as well not bother.
   I won’t be able to get all of this done, so I may as well not start it.
   This job is so bad...there’s nothing good about it at all.
   
4. Personalising: Taking responsibility for something that’s not your fault. Thinking that what people say or do is some kind of reaction to you, or is in some way related to you.
   E.g.
   John’s in a terrible mood. It must have been something I did.
   It’s obvious she doesn’t like me, otherwise she would’ve said hello.
   
5. Catastrophising: Overestimating the chances of disaster. Expecting something unbearable or intolerable to happen.
   E.g.
   I’m going to make a fool of myself and people will laugh at me.
   What if I haven’t turned the iron off and the house burns down.
   If I don’t perform well, I’ll get the sack.
   
6. Emotional Reasoning: Mistaking feelings for facts. Negative things you feel about yourself are held to be true because they feel true.
   E.g.
   I feel like a failure, therefore I am a failure.
   I feel ugly, therefore I must be ugly.
   I feel hopeless, therefore my situation must be hopeless.
   
7. Mind Reading: Making assumptions about other people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours without checking the evidence.
   E.g.
   John’s talking to Molly so he must like her more than me.
   I could tell he thought I was stupid in the interview.
   
8. Fortune Telling Error: Anticipating an outcome and assuming your prediction is an established fact. These negative expectations can be self-fulfilling: predicting what we would do on the basis of past behaviour may prevent the possibility of change.
   E.g.
   I’ve always been like this; I’ll never be able to change.
   It’s not going to work out so there’s not much point even trying.
   This relationship is sure to fail.
   
9. Should Statements: Using “should”, “ought”, or “must” statements can set up unrealistic expectations of yourself and others. It involves operating by rigid rules and not allowing for flexibility.
   E.g.
   I shouldn’t get angry.
   People should be nice to me all the time.
   
10. Magnification/Minimisation: A tendency to exaggerate the importance of negative information or experiences, while trivialising or reducing the significance of positive information or experiences.
    E.g.
    He noticed I spilled something on my shirt. I know he said he will go out with me again, but I bet he doesn’t call.
    Supporting my friend when her mother died still doesn’t make up for that time I got angry at her last year.

Do you think like this? I did and still do sometimes. You have to identify that these are negative thoughts and learn to negate them by using techniques like evidence gathering and safe checking.

My suggestion is that if these thoughts dominate your thinking then you might benefit from similar cognitive therapy to what I had. It's hard work to change how you think. When you start, it's tiring to even try but try you must.

Actually, Yoda said it best: "Do or do not. There is no try". I always liked him better than Garbage anyway.

Momentus Moments

When I arrived in Darwin, I unpacked all my computer gear first. Laptops, hard drives, routers, hubs, routers, modems, gaming consoles, hand-held games devices and everything else collected over years of geekiness. With that came the rats nest of cables for networks, power and machine to machine connectivity.

With all the spare time that I had ahead of me, I decided to sort stuff out and re-establish that level of order that only someone with OCD can truly understand. Before life went to poo, I was very ordered and organised. There was a place or everything and a moment for it all to exist in. Then

and... well, read all my previous posts if you missed it.

On Friday the 30th of July, I went upstairs, dug out and dusted off my Apple Time Capsule. For those who don't know, it's purpose is to act as a drive to backup my Mac every few hour or so. That way, if any of my devices fail then I have an easy to restore backup. In the past, it has saved my electronic soul on a few occasions. Setting up new machines has been a breezy dreamy chocolate-coated easy occasion.

Who cares? I do. There was this huge mental block there. Something that started when I arrived at my Mum's house and continued for a long seven months. I just didn't have the get up and go to get up and go and set the damn Time Capsule up. It seemed so hard and impossible at the best of times. Of course, I knew it would take me plugging in the power and an Ethernet cable and that was it. Oh yeah, and turning on the Time Machine software on my laptop. How hard is that?

With my past state of mind, it seemed heavier than a train to lift; tougher than a mountain to move; and harder than water to breathe.

I did it though.

Damn, that's a huge achievement. I celebrate all the good things that happen these days. This is one of those moments when it hits you

that you've changed... recovered... healed to the point of usefulness again. It has been a long time coming.


Take that depression! Take that ex-husband! Take that world!

Suicide is Painless

On this blog, I have explained a lot of the thinking involved in what has been the hellish and amazing journey through and hopefully out of my clinical depression. You will always hear me refer to it as "my depression" because it is completely intrinsic and can be lived through and overcome by just one person, and that is me. Aid is available and mostly welcomed but the final say in all of this is mine. This is a tug-of-war between My Depression and I.

Most battles are won by me, these days. However, the war wages on.

In this life, I am gifted with eternal optimism and unwavering confidence except when the chemicals in my brain decide they will make me feel something else and be someone else. There are people on this planet who may never see all the light and beauty in the world, for even one moment in their life. There are those who constantly doubt their worth, meaning and purpose. Some believe they have none of those things. That saddens me because from as far back as I can recall, I have always felt my life has meaning and that my existence is to add to the collective well-being of those around me. I am NOT only here to add to entropy.

This is a level of confidence that is not based in arrogance. In fact, arrogance is a lack of confidence that manifests as insecurity negated by outward superiority. True confidence is not pushing others down or even seeing people as being in a different sphere to you, but instead it is the ability to know who you are and be ok with whatever that is. That does not mean never growing and thinking you know all there is to know. Those who are "too cool for school" often aren't. Their facade of strength betrays their obvious weakness and self-awareness of their own flaws. Fractures in your character either define you or give you something to work towards fixing. If we were born perfect and all knowing, what fun would that be?

Be careful not to believe everything that those around you portray. In the end, life is a play as ol' Will proclaimed.

Now, on to that self-inflicted certainty.

When the path you walk is straight and narrow, there is no reason to doubt that it will always be so. The yellow bricks will endlessly shine, glisten and call to you to follow. Life is sunshine and frangipanis until the horizon and surely passed it. The best thing about happiness is that you forget that it ever wasn't there. Happiness is heroine for the soul. We seek it. We yearn for it. We will go out in to the world and do anything within our power to obtain it. I, like you, am a happiness junky.

Depressed people on bad days are junkies without a fix but they are so strung out that they can't even go out and mug someone to make the cost of recovery. It's a terrible analogy that I have used before. Depressed people often bitch slap me at the mention of this comparison but if you have truly felt that loss of control that comes with a down day then you will understand how it feels for your brain to control you and tell you what you will be doing. This exhibits as a 100% feeling of whatever your individually selected depressed emotion of choice is to be.

Imagine feeling sad. Of course, you can do that. Sad happens to everyone. Now turn up the sad ten fold and then another ten fold. Your sadness would be 3 on the Richter scale, while a seriously depressed person would be shaking Chile to rubble. This doesn't underestimate the severity of your feelings. Instead, I mean that if a normal people feels a tremor in their life then the magnitude of that in a depressed person's life will roll the Earth and move continents. Having felt both, I can vouch for the irrational and terrifying relativity of the latter.

The feelings may vary from time to time between sadness, loss, loneliness, emptiness, worthlessness and anything else a person can feel. The positive feelings can also be felt in the same way for people who are bi-polar but that is a post for another Sunday.

Whatever I feel when I am down, it is all I feel. Nothing else exists. There is no room for it. When you suffer extreme emotional trauma you can have a very similar reaction to severe physical trauma (a car crash for instance). The pain is enormous and overpowering. Your brain does the only thing it can to help you cope and to give it time to fix you. That often involves shutting down what isn't vital. Like a physical coma, you can experience what I can only describe as an emotional coma. You feel nothing. You are conscious though. You can interact, have all senses and move but your ability to feel emotions is dissociated. You are disconnected from who you are because you are so overwhelmed that you must be shut down to stop the awareness of suffering.

I have experienced this only a few times during my depression and those moments followed huge life stressors - like my ex-husband walking out on me, calling me to him and then telling me the world was a better place without me. This was at a time in my life when I was isolated and alone, without anyone to ground me. Alcohol never helped the situation either.

My blessing in this case is that my depression is referred to as behavioural and not chemical. This disorder was caused by a combination of abuse from my husband, environmental poisons like alcohol and social isolation (an effect of the abuse). These factors compounded to produce my slow degradation in to a severe depressive state. Unlike people who have chemical imbalances that cause their illness, mine is much easier to overcome. I am lucky... relatively.

The point of this whole post is to make people aware that the effect you have directly on the life of a depressed person is much more exaggerated than the same event enacted upon a healthy you. Empathy will never give you an inkling of what the explosive exaggeration of depression on what would be a normal reaction, may actually be.

The consequences are often drastic but not always visible until something awful like an attempt or successful suicide occurs.

Think twice before you ignore, attack, react negatively to or even bump in to a depressed soul. Tread carefully. They are more fragile than you may ever truly know, until it is too late.

Sail Away Sail Away Sail Away

Life moves upwards and onwards as my friend Cathie always suggests it should. Alice tells me not to underestimate the difference I've made in the past year. Candace reminds me often that I am a good person and should stick around. Kellie says that I should be somewhere that I belong. Allison makes it clear that I am never alone as long as she is around.

My mother has always promised to be my tether to this world, no matter how lost I become. My sister's strength means I am safe from the horrors of my past. My father is always there, always.

I spent ten-ish days in Sydney, Melbourne and in-between the two on a road trip to visit a friend's future university campus. Seeing a campus with all the brilliant young minds and their hopeful eyes made me remember how much I knew the world was mine when I was their age. That hasn't been lost. There is still so much to do. Many things to try at and succeed or fail. It's all part of this journey. Turning 34 this year means I'm part way along that path but that comes with benefits of experience, knowledge and strengthening war wounds.

The recent holiday and time spent with friends in two cities that I love gave me a certainty. A knowledge that I will have to leave this safe sanctuary of Darwin and head back sooner or later.

So the plans have begun. I will be in this city for the rest of the dry season and then head off back to a semi-charmed kinda life. Until then, I'm unpacking and selling the stuff that once belonged to Giles and I. I don't need those possessions to own me anymore. He is gone. They will never be "ours" again. Holding on to them means nothing but holding on to the past.

It is time to move on. To sail away in to the sunset and await whatever life brings. Let it be love, work, friends, family and fun. I shall accept no less.

Crazy Bitch

This weekend has been the best of what has already been a pretty damn good year. It's hard to pick which bit made it that. It's hard to explain how it started with a low low moment that involved not wanting to walk this Earth anymore. That passed. I had some alcohol and didn't do anything ridiculous. No mania. I went shopping for hours with my sister and friends then a night of dancing with 18 year old girls who were in their mother's tummy the last time I went clubbing in Darwin.

It wasn't a few days about that man I was once married to or any other man. It was just normal and fun. Reminded me of the last few months in Canberra before Sydney when life had a perfect pace and anything was possible.

I'm not 29 anymore but I don't want to be. I'm 33 years old and feel more fabulous than I ever have. Sure, I'm a crazy bitch on the best of days but that's ok. I don't think I ever was completely sane so going for that would be a waste of the awesome that is me.

Ahhh, I shall have a good week of work and then head down to see my Melbourne and Sydney crew. The other geek girl I work with, Jess will be there in Melbourne so you all have to meet her. She is one of the wonderful friends I've made up here.

Life can be anything. I can do it all.

Set me free

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I had all the time in the world to sit and contemplate what my mistakes are.

Over-think, I do.
Punish myself more than anyone else ever could, I do.
Find answers, I often do.

Today's over-analysis involved trying to understand how giving too much and living for someone else and not yourself could possibly be a bad thing. No matter how progressive the society we live in, women are told to live for their husbands or their careers or their children or all three at once. One thing I know we are not openly encouraged to do is to live for ourselves.

There is a haunting pain that shadows me daily. Some moments are blocked by distraction or entertainment. Some days I punch a volleyball so hard in the hope that I will tire it out and it will recede. Nah, it doesn't.

It is impossible you see, to run from yourself. When it is your existence that causes you to ache then continuing to exist means learning to harness that hum and use it for something else. For me, that is creativity. Slapping paint on a canvas and over some of the floor. Drawing a character that escapes my imagination and filling in outside the lines. Writing a morbid tale of reflective inner sadness is my way of putting it outside myself. Saying to that pain, if you are going to stay around then at least be useful in some way.

As far as I can see, me and my pain are on this journey together. One day we may part ways but while we are here there has to be some way to live with each other.

Unlike my failed marriage, one of us can not run away and think only of ourselves. Unlike my past broken friendships, one of us will not walk out and tell the other that they can't be bothered by them anymore. Unlike leaving a job you agonise about attending when you roll over in the morning, there is no peaceful resignation.

Life gives you one of those suck-it-up moments. Tame the beast or allow it to break you. Trust me, if I didn't allow that monster of a husband to break me then I'm sure not letting some negative thought tear me limb from limb.

You guys have to let me write my suicidal fiction and paint my horned demons without fret. Let me explore the darkness in search of the light. Support me if I fall and celebrate me when I don't.

I know it is only because you love me. I love you dearly too. You are my foundation. My family and friends. I will be ok but I will do it my way. That is Damana.