Starting Sydney

When you return to the place where it all went wrong, there is a very good chance that you can fall back in to old habits and watch it all go wrong again. The thing is that life is not something for me to watch happening to myself, like rubbernecking a multi-car pile up.

Last night, I celebrated my 34th birthday with a bunch of Sydney friends. It was a typical crazy night that leaves us with plenty of stories and much to deny. There were glamourous shoes on beautiful people, who were saying intelligent things in sophisticated accents. The French champagne flowed freely like the shouts of laughter in retort to someone's witty comment. The extroverts took their positions, claiming their audience and executing tried and true enchantments to hold the watchers captive.

When this is the world you are used to living in, it is very easy to collapse back in to your usual role. The one that people know and almost expect. The closest thing I can compare it to is getting dumped by a big wave, in to the hard sandy bottom of a beach. You can struggle and fight and push up and refuse to swallow the water but the wave is king and it is going to take you down with it. Slamming in to soft sand still hurts. Being winded is never nice. The wave takes you where it always takes you.

My friend Cathie McGinn said to me this morning... "I think you can live a new life in a familiar city." She does have a way with words. One of those people who you can blabber on and on to for five sentences with all the wrong punctuation and brain dump disorganisation of a forming thought and she will summarise succinctly in response. You know she isn't just listening to you but also hearing you.

My life is blessed with these sage like people who for some unknown reason are willing to spend time with me... this jagged little pill. I've always said that you can best judge a person by the company they keep. Your pedigree is the sum of the quality of your friends and the depth of your friendships with them.

To escape the wave and avoid getting sucked in and body slammed, this chapter of my life must be approached in a different way. No more talk of things "happening to me" but instead more talk of "making decisions". Less thinking of regrets and more living life in a way that leaves me respecting who I am.

These are 3 things that I vow to do to make life different:

1. Take life slowly. Absorb each moment and take from it only what is worthwhile and positive. Mistakes will be made. There will be failures but that is a normal part of the journey. Being mindful of each step will allow for better decisions and more favourable life outcomes.
   
   
2. Respect yourself and others. Give the same consideration to yourself as you do to others. Be aware of boundaries and limits with each different person. Actively show that people are important and valuable. Do not take anyone for granted. Set boundaries and limits for yourself and honour them.
   
   
3. Improve your mind. Spend more time reading, learning and listening. This life is short and there is so much to do and know. Chose carefully what you will spend your time absorbing and focus on goals that will bring you closer to a beautiful mind.

Wish me luck and remind me of this if I start surfing that wave again.

Grrrrrrr

Of late, I have started many conversations and left my friends pondering "What is this thing Beauty?" There have been answers; suggestions; theories; disapproval; disagreement; confusion; and much silence on the topic.

The first definition you get when you google it is...

Beauty: the qualities that give pleasure to the senses.

I like that definition but it leaves so much open to interpretation. That is the point though. Beauty is open to interpretation. What I find beautiful is not necessarily what you will find it to be. Instead of searching for a definition or an equation, I should have been trying to work out what you do when you find it.

Have you ever seen three Pomeranians chase a kitten? They run and bark. The kitten runs for it's life. The pom poms spread out and circle it. The kitten stands still and puffs up it fur to look as scary as possible. The doggies move in. They have done it, caught the kitten. Then they look at each other and think "what do we do now?" The oldest and wisest dog and pack leader decides that the best plan is the lick the kitten. He licks it. The kitten holds still. The pack of dogs happily grooms the kitteh. The cat learns that you don't have to fear the dogs. They just want to play and then lick you.

What the hell is Damana talking about?

Well, beauty is the kitten. She's often a little unaware of what the pursuers want and feels a little insecure. They come at you in groups. They approach alone. They pursue. Beauty isn't sure why they are and tries to accept and deal with it. When beauty is finally caught, she stands there wondering what will happen next. An experienced pursuer knows that this is the time that you show her that you like her, so she knows it is going to be ok.

I know so many beautiful women who are actually stunning on the outside and lovely on the inside but they have no idea. They stand there wondering what you all really want from her, if anything. We often look at beautiful people with brilliant minds and assume they know they are amazing and that we love them. The lesson the alpha Pomeranian teaches us is that it's best to tell her why. Tell her it's ok. It's not necessary to lick anyone. Thought I should head that one off early.

If you know someone who you consider stunning, beautiful, hot or amazing then you should tell her so. Odds are she isn't as aware of it as you think.

Be your inner alpha Pomeranian.

Going Tidal

There are rolling moments.
There are vastly significant occasions.
There are those waves of unspeakable sadness.

Three things happened in the last two months that changed the tide of my life. Maybe you can take something from this if you are looking at changing direction.

10 Days in Surry Hills
Around a month ago, I spent ten days in Surry Hills. It used to be my neighborhood. Luckily, I am gifted with a good friend who lives there at the moment and is willing to tolerate me stealing her couch for periods of time. There is only one rule - Don't leave things in the way of the path to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Oops, I broke that rule this time. Sorry A.

During my time there, I got to see my closest friends multiple times. It was also my chance to meet a lot more new people and walk away with a new friend or two. There were a few people who I clicked with and quite a few who either bored the hell out of me or ended up being not what they promised to be. Oddly enough, being the kind of person that is "what you see is what you get" means that I often expect that of everyone else. Of course, this is not as naive as it sounds. I guess, I expect the best of people and like to respect that they are who they say they are.

Those ten days changed the way I saw the world, people in it and most importantly... myself...

If you go out and meet a whole lot of people and walk away with one friend then you've done brilliantly.


Selling the Lawn
The second world rocking thang was the lawn sale that Mum and I put on. It took three days to set up and 5 hours for the neighbors and crazy lawn-sale-aholics to clean us out. It was not the selling that changed me. I mean, getting rid of all that stuff I'd accumulated over the last decade was freeing but it wasn't quite that. It was the Friday night before the sale that did it. Unpacking the Christmas decorations that I'd collected and been given as presents over the years was bloody difficult. There were tears... gasps... and finally a self-inflicted bitch slap. That is when I learned another thing about life...

It's just stuff. It can be replaced. It doesn't make you who you are.



Sporting Analogies Aside
The third was a moment. It came and went before I even realised it had happened. After coming back from a night of indoor beach volleyball, feeling awesome from the exercise, socialising and endorphin rush, Mum pointed something out. She said "You always liked sport. You were always good at it."

That is when I realised that I had surrounded myself with people who didn't like sport (individual or team) and it became too anti-social for me to continue with it. Now that person is not around, I can go back to enjoying having an active and social outlet that suits me.

The realisation here was...

Remember what made you happy when you were younger and go back to doing that. We are more honest with ourselves as children than we ever will be as adults.


That is it. Those three things helped me find direction. Now I haz it.

Presents Presence

People have been asking what I want for my birthday. I'd prefer your company at one of the Festival of Damana events. If you feel you must get me a present then something virtual is the best bet. I've just ridded myself of all my possessions and minimised my life. No more "stuff" is needed.

iTunes vouchers are the best option, if you must.

My 34th Birthday Cake

Maria of Made by Maria, baked me a 3D Tetris cake and I love it! It was a huge hit. It tasted delicious and looked fabulous. Made my night.

Do talk to Maria if you need a cake. She has great prices and is an artist.

When you simply need me

My good friend David K sent me this picture of a printer at his work. Awse!

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.

Love the way you lie

Although this song rips at my heart, I can't stop listening to it. It's too much like my marriage. It will pass.

Love the way you lie by Rihanna and Eminem
Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

I can't tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now there's a steel knife
In my windpipe
I can't breathe
But I still fight
While I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right
It's like I'm in flight
High of a love
Drunk from the hate
It's like I'm huffing paint
And I love it the more that I suffer
I sufficate
And right before im about to drown
She resuscitates me
She fucking hates me
And I love it
Wait
Where you going
I'm leaving you
No you ain't
Come back
We're running right back
Here we go again
It's so insane
Cause when it's going good
It's going great
I'm Superman
With the wind in his bag
She's Lois Lane
But when it's bad
It's awful
I feel so ashamed
I snap
Who's that dude
I don't even know his name
I laid hands on her
I'll never stoop so low again
I guess I don't know my own strength

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

You ever love somebody so much
You can barely breathe
When you're with them
You meet
And neither one of you
Even know what hit 'em
Got that warm fuzzy feeling
Yeah them chills
Used to get 'em
Now you're getting fucking sick
Of looking at 'em
You swore you've never hit 'em
Never do nothing to hurt 'em
Now you're in each other's face
Spewing venom
And these words
When you spit 'em
You push
Pull each other's hair
Scratch, claw, bit 'em
Throw 'em down
Pin 'em
So lost in the moments
When you're in 'em
It's the rage that took over
It controls you both
So they say it's best
To go your separate ways
Guess that they don't know ya
Cause today
That was yesterday
Yesterday is over
It's a different day
Sound like broken records
Playin' over
But you promised her
Next time you'll show restraint
You don't get another chance
Life is no Nintendo game
But you lied again
Now you get to watch her leave
Out the window
Guess that's why they call it window pane

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

Now I know we said things
Did things
That we didn't mean
And we fall back
Into the same patterns
Same routine
But your temper's just as bad
As mine is
You're the same as me
But when it comes to love
You're just as blinded
Baby please come back
It wasn't you
Baby it was me
Maybe our relationship
Isn't as crazy as it seems
Maybe that's what happens
When a tornado meets a volcano
All I know is
I love you too much
To walk away though
Come inside
Pick up your bags off the sidewalk
Don't you hear sincerity
In my voice when I talk
Told you this is my fault
Look me in the eyeball
Next time I'm pissed
I'll aim my fist
At the dry wall
Next time
There will be no next time
I apologize
Even though I know it's lies
I'm tired of the games
I just want her back
I know I'm a liar
If she ever tries to fucking leave again
I'mma tie her to the bed
And set the house on fire

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

Alone

Don't be afraid of being alone. It is just hanging out with yourself.

My most reteweeted Tweet recently

"Never believe a man who tells you that you are enchanting, unless you live in a fairy tale and he is the narrator. #lifelessons"

-- Damana Madden

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!

Holy shit!

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "...holy shit...what a ride!!!

-- courtesy of Dave Cameron

Bubbles

"I only drink Champagne when I'm happy, and when I'm sad. sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. when I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty" -- Lily Bollinger

Dear Friend

Dear friend,

I hope this letter finds you well. I write it on the upward swing of my current mood tide. The last week or so has been particularly difficult, especially in that we are not able to speak. Since things shall continue this way, I decided that a letter to the air is in order. If you never read it, that is ok. Having written it will help with my turmoil.

We always spoke about all kids of crap, from time machines to the perfect breakfast. It helped me more than I ever knew. It distracted me from the ache of living. Kept me laughing when breathing was not so easy.

You never miss anyone. It is what will always make you autonomous. As you know, I miss everyone and that will always make me seek out people. I keep looking but have not yet found the conversation we had, with someone else. Hopefully, it will pop up somewhere soon.

I miss you.

Love, Mana

On My Own

On My Own - Les Miserables

And now I'm all alone again,
nowhere to turn, no one to go to.
Without a home, without a friend...
without a face to say hello to,
but now the night is near and I can make believe
he's here.
Sometimes I walk alone at night.
when everybody else is sleeping..
I think of him and I'm happy with the company I'm keeping,
the city goes to bed and I can live inside my head.
On my own pretending he's beside me,
all alone I walk with him till morning,
without him I feel his arms around me
and when I lose my way I close my eyes and he has found me.
In the rain the pavement shines like silver,
all the lights are misty in the river,
in the darkness the trees are full of starlight...
and all I see is him and me forever and forever.
And I know it's only in my mind,
that I'm talking to myself and not to him.
And although I know that he is blind,
still I say, there's a way for us.

I love him!
But when the night is over,
he's is gone, the river's just a river.
Without him the world around me changes,
the trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers.

I love him!
But every day I'm learning,
all my life I've only been pretending.
Without me his world would go on turning,
a world that's full of happiness that I have never known.

I love him...I love him...I love him,
but only on my own!

Magician Kitty

No matter how dark the day, kitties make me smile :)

Bling - The Shop

We have set up shop at the Fantasia Indoor Markets in Yarrawonga. The weekend was insane, in a good way. Customers loved the unique fashion jewelry and adored the hand crafted Papua New Guinean gold and silver pieces. We made a LOT of sales and had repeat customers over just the two days we were open.

Here are some photos from the opening day, taken while setting up...

The shop standing completely empty. We have an ottoman now

Katrina setting up the PNG jewelry in a secure cabinet

A shot of the open shelves with the less expensive fashion jewelry

A glass cabinet holding the more high end pieces. We were opening and closing this all day

The solid pieces and pearls are locked away in here. It was nearly empty by the end of the weekend

Bling - The Website

My sister now has a website for her jewelry business Bling. Check out the fashion jewelry and the beautiful hand-crafted gold and silver imported from Papua New Guinea. In a couple of weeks, she'll have Paypal on there and will start selling online as well as in Darwin.

Selling My Sole

Here is a guest blog post I wrote for a good friend's shoe blog.

Best Intro Yet

Your Royal Highness, Your Grace, My Lord Bishop, Your Excellencies, Honoured President, Academicians, Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, artists, art lovers, friends, trustees, donors, distinguished guests and assorted media scum.

-- Stephen Fry when recently giving this speech

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.

Intervention

I need a favour from you. Yes, You.

Having spent many years as a giver in a relationship and not learning how to prioritise myself and my well-being when making decisions has left me in a disadvantaged position. When I enter a relationship with a guy, I end up giving so much that I forget to think of getting anything for myself in return.

That is what I need help with. I need to look at a situation and realise that I shouldn't be wasting time on someone who won't waste time on me. I can not be the only one who gives and changes and adjusts to how the other person runs things.

You, my friends, must remind me that it is far better to be alone and be myself than to live a life pleasing someone else and never being valued in return.

It's nothing wrong with the guys. It's me. I just have to pick different kind of men. A nice guy who likes me and treats me well. Surely, he exists. Now is the time to do other things and if he turns up then good. If not, I still have you all.

Don't let me fall in to another HE-IS-EVERYTHING-I-AM-NOTHING trap, please.

Why I stayed

Now that I am hitting my stride or at least not falling over my own feet, people are feeling more comfortable asking me questions about the mental breakdown that resulted from my depression and separation from my husband.

The thing people should know firstly is that it is ok to ask. There are few things that have happened in the last year that I am ashamed of. In fact, I'm proud of the way I have handled what has so far in my life, been the worst part of it. I did not just learn from the experience but I blossomed and came out of the muck a better person than she who entered.

Would I wish the last few years of my life on anyone if even just for the learning? Gawd no! No one deserves to suffer the abuse of a narcissistic spouse and the ensuing pain when you are left high and dry to pick up what is left when someone throws an hand grenade in to your life and leaves.

But shit happens and if you don't learn techniques to cope then life is going to eat you up and puke you out. One of the best tools I possess now is the ability to clearly articulate my thoughts and communicate the issues I face with people around me.

Often, a person believes that to be strong you must solve your own problems and by that they mean keep it to yourself... suck it up... deal with pain on your own.

Yes, happiness is intrinsic. You make it and you make it go away.

Yes, mental illness is in your head. No matter how many people try to help you and tell you what you need to do to fix it, the will to do the fixing lays in your hands.

No single other person but you is going to turn the tide. The gun is being held to your head but the trigger is yours to pull. The weapon can be moved away from your temple and the safety flicked on. The thing is that it is you shooting yourself otherwise. It sure as hell feels like it is happening to you but it is you happening to you. Medication - Therapy - Lifestyle Changes will all go towards improving your situation and each one of those alterations are up to you.

You can not wait for someone else to save you. I had to be a self-rescuing princess!

So, the question I have been asked the most lately is one that I expected much earlier on. I guess people didn't push it because they thought I would take it as criticism or judgement... and to be honest... yeah, I probably would have. Now, I feel removed from that pain as if it happened to someone else. I can listen to the question without bursting in to tears. I can try to form the answer. In responding to their queries, it resolves in my head. This could be because I'm the kind of person who talks my way through the problem space and sorts it in to some semblance of sense along the way. Not all of us work that way so I do not write this to give advice but to talk it through with you... with me... with my brain.

The question is "if your ex-husband treated you so badly then why did you continue to stay with him?

It is a damn good question and one I had to ask myself once I realised that I was better off without that destructive influence in my life. It is hard to remove that uncomfortable feeling of looking at the skeletons in a friend's closet but come for the ride.

There are many reasons not to list all the things that were done to me over the final two years of my marriage. One of the last things he asked me was "Do you think I liked doing those things to you?" and to this day, I don't know the answer. Knowing what he was thinking then or now is not something I shall waste my time and thought power on. If you are not that kind of person then you will never be able to truly understand the monsters who are.

What I can explain to you is why women stay with men who destroy them. It may sound like cliches but let me work my way through them for both our sakes.

He wasn't always like that Of course he was. It just worsened slowly over time and I didn't see it because at first I was blinded by puppy love and then I was blinded by loyalty. An abusive person is just that. They start with minor verbal abuse then mental abuse and it escalates to breaking things and people. You convince yourself that he was once loving and the kind of person who would never hurt you but if you really think back, you remember how controlling he was and the consequences worsening over time when you pushed back against his will. It takes time, distance and exposure to other people who are not cruel to see the difference. To see how you should allow yourself to be treated and how you definitely should not.

I loved him and knew he loved me Someone once said that love is pain. Do not listen to that idiot. Love is joy for everyone involved in it. There are tough parts but it should not be painful. Love stories with suffering and sacrifice are all noble but don't think that it should be like that. I thought putting up with the misery of his moods and tourment was part of what I needed to do to prove I loved him. The lows were so low but they made the highs feel so high. In reality, I had to realise that true love is a calm ocean that has stormy days once a while and not the other way around. If he loved me like I loved him, he would not have treated me the way he did. If I had realised that then I would never have allowed it.

For better or worse Marriage is an important institution and so is the Supreme Court. At least the latter does not allow cruelty to persist. Marriage for the wrong reasons, like me thinking I might as well or he'd move out, is really not right. It is about love and forever and babies and forever. It is a decision to be taken seriously. Especially the part about "for better or worse". Unlike me, be sure that there is far more better than worse before you even enter in to the contract. I thought marriage meant enduring through the hard times and it does but you better make sure you are agreeing to hard times with the right person because if they aren't going to stick around for your bad bits then they aren't worth it.

So, I stayed because I thought that was what love was. What life was. I was wrong. If you are being abused or hurt a lot by your partner then you must walk away or at least get help for both of you. Don't stay and be a cliche like me. Be stronger. You can survive on your own. I didn't think I could because that is what he taught me. Now I know that I can and I'm a much better and happier person because of it.

Old Endings

All my possessions that have been in storage for six months since I moved up to Darwin, are coming out today. It feels a bit like the beginning of the Blue Brothers movie.

"We're getting the band back together."

For the next month, I have to sift through everything that was once mine and my ex-husbands and sell or donate it all. Amazingly, I have not missed a single thing except the juicer that Rob gave me for my last birthday. It is a revelation to see how little things mean to you when they are missing. They are just inanimate objects that are replaceable or easily forgotten.

It is a freeing feeling.

I bought two heavy duty insanely secure padlocks for the self-storage lockup and am awaiting the delivery guys as I type this blog post. There are butterflies in my stomach at the thought of facing it all again. Facing it alone.

It will all be fine. It will be a busy month of reacquaintence and disposal. Expect many oohs and ahhs as I go through the lucky dip of stuff that I already own but totally forgot about.

Wish me luck.

People

I don't understand people.

I have spent my whole life trying to work out what they are doing and why they are doing it. Over time, I have learned that the majority of things that I witness and that may affect me are not actually aimed at me. Most people don't mean things personally. It is the rare moment when you meet a truly vindictive person and they deliberately hurt you. That has not happened to me many times and I hope to continue the trend.

With me only working for myself at the moment and not doing the usual 9 to 5 gig at a work place with a manager and people I am forced to call peers, time is a surplus in my life. This is not a complaint in any way. My declarations of semi-retirement are basically true. I may never work a full 12 months in a row ever again in my life if I have a choice. Not because I'm not well enough or don't want to but more because I don't have to. Life is not about money and stuff and working yourself to death for something you do not care so much about. Life is about passion and contentment. Find that inner peace and meaning in the work that you do end up doing and you will find happiness. That is my plan.

Recently, I realised that I no longer yearn for Giles anymore. My heart does not trip and fall when I hear his name or think a thought of him living his life without me. Driving around Darwin triggers wonderful memories of my past with him and I often catch myself smiling and then smile some more. For all the pain he caused me in our last two years together, there were nine plus years where it was wonderful. That is what I choose to remember now.

For all the bad bits that happened to over the past years, I can no longer complain. My life as a whole has been filled with so much love, happiness and success that I guess the Universe had to take a little back. I have given enough now. Time for good things. Time to forget the bad bumps.

I have a best friend. I love him as dearly as I could any person on this planet. He is a very different person to me. We often don't understand what the other is thinking, at all. Not on just a few things but on pretty much everything. We frustrate each other sometimes but always try to understand so it doesn't cause tension. In getting to a point where I see some sense in the way he thinks and am able to articulate my thoughts and reasoning to him, I have discovered many things about the human condition.

He recently made the decision that "it's more important spending time with people that understand you than getting upset with those that don't." And there goes another friend of mine off in to a world without me.

Each day, I try to understand more and more about what makes me the kind of person who people finally walk away from. What makes me not worth the effort? I'm obviously the common denominator but I am unaware of what I am doing.

My current theory is that I think about it all too much. That too much introspection is never a good thing. With this thinking, I have decided to leave my deeply dug hole of analysis and embrace superficiality and spontaneity. At first I thought of sitting down and planning how to do this. Instead, I'm going to live like I blog. I am just going to put it out there and not read it again. Do what is to be done in life and not over think it.

You will see much more writing from me now. More outside and less inside.

Keep up. OK?

Kitteh Philosophy

Oh, so true.

Happily ever after

Disney's Desperate Housewives...

A good lesson to learn

Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

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.

Chickens

Olga: I can't stand KFC.
Me: I won't eat their chicken because their chickens eat their chickens.
Olga: Yuck.
Me: I thought chickens were herbivores or whatever a vegetarian bird is called.
Olga: Maybe they are like vegetarians that still eat chicken.

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.

Whoever you are

“Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don’t do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill.”

- Jacob M. Braude

My mother told me

You must have your own interests, your own life, your own self. Otherwise you will wake up one day, your kids will be gone and you will be left with nothing.

-- @Gabfran

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.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Happy Mother's Day

This year, it was hard to decide if a I should get Mum a cake or a bouquet of flowers for Mother's Day.

I got my friend Maria to make her a bouquet of cake.

It's an amazing art. Mum loves it.

My New Project

I'm writing fiction now. My first project is to write a short story in 7 parts in 7 days.

It's here, if you are interested.

Feel free to suggest ideas for the plot or anything else. I have some idea of where it is going but it's already very much crowd sourced.

I am playing with Photoshop on a trial license at the moment, in order to decide if I want to shell out all those dollars for it. There is but 30 days so I better get to it.

Expect lots of experiments on flickr.

Women abusing women

Nothing stuns me more than hearing about women hurting, exploiting and tourmenting other women. For some reason, I expect the default female empathy to kick in and stop such cruelty.

I thought people usually hurt people who weren't like them. It made it easier not to empathise with the victim and allow the destruction to persist. Obviously, people hurt people who are like them and who are not like them. It's the problem of the person hurting them.

Hearing that mothers will assist in holding down their daughters while their genitals are mutilated, with full knowledge of the consequences since it happened to them too, I can not fathom the rationalisation that makes that ok. For me, I can stand back and say I don't understand the cultures in which these happen. That it is something that should be stopped but maybe the women participating have some logical reason for doing so. Of course, that reasoning escapes me but I put it down to culture.

When the crimes by women against women occur in the belly of a culture I fully understand, that is when my mind can not allocate it to the us and them way of thinking.

Mistreatment of women in Papua New Guinea is rife. Men beat their wives while drunk or sober. Men beat their mistresses. Women beat their husbands mistresses. Women beat their sisters in law. This is standard behaviour.

Only recently, shelters for women have been established to give women and their children some way to escape the violence and constant threat to their lives. There aren't many shelters. Certainly not enough to help all who need help. Even if there were, would you end up with a generation of women living in quasi refuge camps away from their oppressors who are also their families. I don't know about you but there is a hell of a lot I will tolerate from family. It's the way we were built as human beings. No one wants to be alone. Being without family in a society where that is your only social safety net is unthinkable. So, where do you go? What do you do?

The most recent tales to sadden my ears are of village girls who are basically used as slaves in the big cities of Papua New Guinea. Where I was born, education was not a right but a privilege. One that you studied hard for and paid through the teeth for. Yeah, there are public schools but the fees are high. They are equivalent to public school fees here except that people there earn a tenth of what we do and their money is worth less. Every year of primary school and high school has an important exam at the end. Students must receive a passing grade for the exam or they will not progress. If there is space in the next year, they can repeat the grade. Every year school fees must be paid upfront or the child can not enter the school. The usual outcome of a failed exam is for the child to drop out and let their siblings continue in the hope the the concentrated investment will allow the next one to do better. Just one successful member from a family can ensure the survival of the entire family, over it's multiple generations.

In the village, there is never much money. They have food from fishing, hunting and gardening but that doesn't enable much more than subsistence. The term village girl or boy is given to young adults (usually mid-teens) who have not passed school or were not able to pay for school fees. They stay at home in the village and wait to marry and continue a village life. There is not often an escape from this. The taste of the western world is given to them in their school years and then lost to them for the remainder of their natural lives.

Keep in mind that one years school fees for a student would be around A$50-75. Yes, for the entire year. For the amount of money I'd spend on a bottle of champagne, the life and lifespan of a Papua New Guinean can be limited to the hardship of living village life.

Previously, I mentioned the social safety net of the family. A Papua New Guinean talks of family in the same way we speak of an entire community. Imagine if someone in your suburb was out of a job and couldn't eat. You and your neighbors would take turns in cooking and delivering food to their house. You'd take them in to one of your spare rooms when they couldn't pay the rent. You'd lend them your car to act as a taxi and make some money. Everyone looks after everyone else.

That's the theory. Of course, any Papua New Guinean will tell you that this system can be abused. This is the wantok system. It is the basis for the social organisation of the entire country. Those connected by language are family. Corruption is a disease in that country and when it's explained to me, it always seems to sound just like the wantok system and what is so wrong with that?

Now, village girls are useful to rich city girls. They are cheap baby sitters, maids, cooks and all round helpers. It is common for city families to bring their village girl relatives out of the rural areas and in to their homes where they live for no cost as part of the family. They are asked to help out with children and housework. It is a much more promising option in their lives and often results in education, introductions to their new partners and an easier life than the village. It often feels more glamorous with mobile phones and modern hair styles. Everyone benefits and the social safety net is working.

Then comes the misuse of a reasonable system. Here comes my story. Educated city women bringing poor uneducated village girls in to their homes with the best of intentions (so, I am told). These girls then become the equivalent of wageless labour. They are now distanced from their immediate families and alone in a big city where the only people they know keep them poor and belt them if they don't obey or work hard enough.

You can sugarcoat it by saying that this is rare or that they are still better off but I think you should call slavery just that. If these young women don't have anyone close by to go for help or any money to escape back to the village then they are trapped in a life of servitude.

This is unacceptable. The fact that women are the abusers of other women leaves me heartbroken. If the most empathic members of our species start kicking the weaker versions of themselves then what hope is left.

I want to help but I feel helpless.

The good ol' days are now

“People so seldom say I love you
And then it's either too late or love goes.
So when I tell you I love you,
It doesn't mean I know you'll never go,
Only that I wish you didn't have to.”

-- I don't know who said this

You just start

People keep asking me how you start blogging. It's not a question that I asked anyone when I started. It was a time when everyone was getting online, erecting a pedestal and taking their place on it to rant at the world.

Of course, that produces so much noise that you might as well have your Twitter stream read to you by a speed reader, in Flemish. How the hell do you sift? People stopped writing blogs and found others to follow. Some kept writing. I think they all should have kept writing.

The joy of user generated content is in the search for what you can find out there to learn from; agree with; or fight with. That is the point. People with differing opinions and new ones. If we all accept that there is a certain way to produce content and that hour voice is represented mostly by what is said then we are going to encourage mediocrity and group think.

The Internet is an orchestra. At first everyone is learning and tuning their instruments and if you walk in and hear it, you think "what a mess!" If you hang around a while then you start to hear the music and maybe one day, you'll join in.

How do you start blogging? Just start.

You will find your voice and your audience. Or if you are like me, they will find you.

Tick Tocks

There are not too many things in life that are a certainty.

I do know for sure that time will pass. It always does. Things will change and we will be taken on the ride no matter how much we protest. Accepting this does not mean surrendering to it.

When I look back on life, there is no year that I would rather go back and live again. Every new day is better than the last and ever birthday marks the end of an amazing year of life and starts the new journey around the sun. This is not about optimism. It's about acceptance.

Acceptance is also the last stage of grief. We go through all the rest and come to the point of peace when we can say that we accept that what is... just is.

Today I deleted my photos of Giles from my phone and anywhere that I may run in to them, while going about my daily business.

Most of my posts hold a photo at the start but in honour of this moment, there will not be one. Instead consider it the absence of the pictures of Giles. The acceptance that what is lost, is lost forever and new paths must be walked.