World Mental Health Day

Monday the 10th of October was world mental health day. In the spirit of the day it's time that I confess I have a mental illness.

Most of my life I've suffered from anxiety and depression and I have a mild case of OCD that mostly presents itself in an obsessions with routine. None of the three are particularly debilitating in that I can function with the normals even mid depression or anxiety episode, and my OCD doesn't really present in a way that would impact my work.

Nonetheless, all three conditions do effect me greatly. Mostly in ways that hurt me, and the people I love the most.

When mid episode, particularly depression, I take my lack of...sense of self...out on the people closest to me. I react in ways that could only be described as ridiculous to the simplest of discussions. A mildly different tone in a reply and I'll scream for awhile and then end up sobbing til I vomit on the bathroom floor. The bathroom floor being the hard cold refuge that I seek during episodes, as I've done my whole life. I don't understand the comfort of cold bathroom tiles, but that's the only place that makes sense when I'm really losing my shit.

It's something that, right now, I understand and can see objectively. I understand when outside the moment, and even sometimes when I'm in the moment, that I'm unstable. I know that I need to pull myself back and be reasonable, but I can't find the coherent part of my mind and bring it to the forefront. It is a heartbreakingly painful place to hear the concern, hurt, and uncertainty in the voice of the love of your life as he tries to find the right words to make you come back from the bad place and start making sense again.

And I don't have any advice for him when I'm in a good mental place to help him find his way through the minefield of my mental illness.

I don't even understand my mental illness, for all that I've had it my whole life.

I recently found the strength to admit I need help, thanks to a podcast I listen to called Sex and Other Human Activities (many thanks to Sara Benincasa and Marcus Parks) where they talk quite regularly about their struggles with mental health and medication and such topics. It was, after listening for a couple of episodes, that I realised that many of my day to day experiences were making me so anxious I couldn't sleep at night. Simple things like reading my email would make me cry, and sometimes I'd sit in my car at lunch afraid to go back to work. I finally did the smart thing, after a month of total exhaustion and go medicated for anxiety.

It was a tough decision for me because I have a family history, not only of mental illness, but of serious addiction. My sister is addicted to both valium and codeine, and it's done irreparable damage to her kidneys, not to mention her relationships with her family and friends. My father also had an addictive personality, which made the idea of taking anything very confronting for me. Despite all that, I talked to my doctor about it, and she found me a very mild anxiety pill that's primary purpose was a sleeping pill.

And it's helped me. I sleep at night. And that alone helps me get through a lot of the things I couldn't do before. But I still struggle. I'm still having days where nothing makes sense. I'm still overly emotional to the point that I sobbed like a child in my managers office last week because I couldn't cope with my work.

And I hate it. I hate the lack of clarity in my mind. I hate the emotions I'm feeling around my own confidence and self worth, which are both far lower than they've been in years. I can't look at myself in the mirror because I'm struggling so hard with my anxiety that I can't see my own value.

It's been very confronting for me to be this off kilter.

But I'm coping. I've become a gym junkie, after a fashion, simply because it's the only time I can get out of my head. Sweating, for whatever reason, allows me to stop thinking and let my day go. I suppose the added bonus to that is that I'm far fitter now as well. Two thumbs up for endorphins.

And I've come to the realisation that I probably need to get myself to some sort of therapy, because I know I'm not coping. And that's not a failure. That was the hardest bit, realising that asking for help is not a failure. I am not a failure simply because I can't do this on my own.

The other thing I've realised is that just because I'm unhappy with where I am mentally, doesn't mean I need to take that out on other people. Sometimes I can't help it, but I can't learn to try and control it, because I don't need to drag other people down here with me. That doesn't, however, mean I push away everyone I love simply because I've been ashamed of feeling this bad.

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, and it's about time I really started to learn that.

Tempus fugit

This time last year I was packing for a 3 month trip to San Francisco. I was winding down at work, getting my new assistant ready to be hurled in the deep end, and stressing more than a little about what it would be like to not work, not have responsibilities for 3 months. And oh lord I was anxious about how I'd fit in with Americo's family.

As this blog will attest, it was an amazing trip. Looking back on the photos, and the occasional real post, is a reminder that I had the trip of a lifetime. I met amazing people, spent a grand amount of time with my dear friend Amanda, had a Thanksgiving of a lifetime with a wonderful caring family that have inspired me for many years, and I got to wake up with Americo every day. And not like we do here, with my alarm going off at 6.20, but with knowing that for the most part we don't have to do anything but what we want.

There is nothing quite like that joy of knowing that you get 3 months of paid play time with someone you love.

A year later, and it feels like loneliness has taken over my life. I live in a mild despair that I don't know when the next trip is. For him or me. We don't know when we'll see each other next and it's a constant pain in my mind, a constant hurt that I can't fix.

It's turning me in a cold bitch and more than occasionally a sobbing mess.

And I don't know how to fix it.

And so, the temptation to take this blog down is huge. The photos are a painful reminder now, of when things weren't so tough and I was full of hope about what 2011 would bring. 2012 looms large on the horizon, and it doesn't feel like hope it brings with it. It feels like it is bringing more loneliness and depression, with only a sprinkling of "your time will come".

I wish I could find it in me to cope better with this, but as it turns out, I'm kind of bad at coping.

The soundtrack to my life

In 1994 a guy I was involved with went to see a band he liked called Pearl Jam. He asked me to go, but my fear of crowds made me stay at home, but when I saw him the next day he played me their album, Ten, and I just though "fuck this is great" but didn't really get hugely into it, they didn't change my life or anything.

Cut to maybe three years later and I was in this relationship with a guy who smacked me around some. A friend decided I need a wake up call and made me a mix-tape of various "fuck that dude" songs, including Pearl Jam's Better Man (repeated a lot).

That did change my life. 

I walked away from the relationship because of my friend, and because I knew I did, in fact, deserve a better man. 

Years later I received apologies in the mail in the form of handwritten letters of nothing but the lyrics to Black. 

And when I was 19, maybe 20, I finally decided to let my dad know what he meant in my life. I gave him a mixed 'tape' of my own, a CD containing Daughter, and photos of me growing up, all the moments he'd missed in my life.

Every moment of my life where I stopped, and made a choice, and decided my future went there was to a sound track provided by Pearl Jam.

The great moments, the terrible ones, the days of my early 20's where I locked myself in the bathroom and played those songs over and over again until I could find a place where I didn't want to give up. All of it is tied to this band, these songs, these moments that I used to remember and cry, but now, I can smile fondly at these moments that changed my life.

These songs that took me from one place to another, these songs helped me sleep, helped me have the confidence to get off the plane, these songs take me through the last 2km of my workout, they take me away from the awful days at work as I crank them up to 20 backing out of the car park and sing along at the top of my lungs and everything is ok.

My adult life, who I am, what I want to be, has been defined by the memories that have Pearl Jam playing in the background.

I don't know when these men were born, where they live, what they do when they're not being Pearl Jam, but if I could meet anyone in the world, it'd be these dudes that changed the course of my life, just by doing what they love so much.

I'm a better person 'cause of the memories made to your music.

I'm here, he's not, and fuck the whole world.

Everyone that knows me is probably pretty sick of my long distance relationship whining. Which is fair enough, because about every 3-4 months or so I do one of these posts about how despondent I am after leaving my fiance at an airport.

This post is no exception.

I picked up Americo at the Sydney airport on April 4th this year. It seems completely impossible that three months have gone by in the cliched heart beat and I've had to take him back to Sydney to see him smile at me sadly before he goes around the corner into security.

I had thought, this being our fourth adventure into this particular piece of heart break, that this time might be easier, and for most of the trip it was. I was holding it together so well, no tears, super tough, til 3/4 of the way home.

And then there was a guy singing on a podcast I love and shit totally went south. I had no idea who he was, since as far as I know we don't get the Voice over here, but this guy was singing solo and it killed me. The simple start of Water to Wine and the tears started, by half way through the song I had to pull over, and had to stay on the side of the road sobbing for a good 30 minutes. Damn that Nakia (songs are available on iTunes, check them out).

Anyway, made it home safely, did the groceries, and sobbed my way around an empty house which is too quiet, and smells like his cologne.

The couch is too empty, the bed too big, and the whole fucking world is stupid and I hate you all with your husbands, wives, partners in the same city as you. Even the same country as you. The same continent. I hate you all.

It's all cliche that you appreciate things more if you have to work for them, and it seems to be true in this case, since every trip, and every absence makes this both easier and harder in equal measure. And it's more worth it every day, because I love this guy, from his stupid ass jokes (you really have NO IDEA just how stupid they are) to his dumb notes on the pantry telling me to eat vegetables.

One day soon we'll figure our shit out, he'll sell a movie, I'll pay out my debt, and I'll move to California because he's there, and I'm here, and that's just stupid.

I am mine

I turn 33 tomorrow. It's nothing spectacular, it's not a land mark, it's really just another day in which I grow older, and I hope, wiser.

Since I celebrated my last birthday my life has been pretty fucking good.

On my 32nd birthday, for the first time in our three year relationship, my fiance and I celebrated my birthday together. We spent 3 months living together in the same house, and it was pretty good.

I got an incredible promotion, which was recognition for two years of hard work and for years of public service, which I'm incredibly proud of.

And I got to take long service leave, a reward for my eight and a half years of serving the public. I got to spend three months living in San Francisco, experiencing a whole other life of pleasure, relaxation, and getting to know the life my fiance lives.

The greatest thing I've gotten out of the last 12 months, though, is the sense of self that I've been trying to develop over the years since my separation and divorce. And I've decided I'm pretty awesome, and more than that, I can say "I am mine" with delight and pride.

I am strong. I am self aware. I am me.

Body Image Gone Wrong

Body dysmorphic disorder, as defined in this study by the British Journal of Psychiatry, consists of a preoccupation with an ‘imagined’ defect in appearance which causes significant distress or impairment in functioning.

Wikipedia has a slightly looser definition, which coincides with the view of my former psychologist and friend, who is intensely concerned with the increasing rate of body obsession in young people today. And by young I mean starting as young as 4 and 5 years old.

Wiki defines in this way:

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) (previously known as dysmorphophobia is sometimes referred to as body dysmorphia or dysmorphic syndrome is a psychological disorder in which the affected person is excessively concerned about and preoccupied by a perceived defect in his or her physical features (body image).

A person suffering from BDD could regularly complain about one, or a range, or features about themselves and will often become so obsessed that it starts to impact on them socially. They may feel uncomfortable going to work, or school. They may constantly obsess on their physical shape. In some cases what can appear in the beginning as BDD can transform into a greater over all body obsession, eventually turning into Anorexia Nervosa.

While in its technical definition BDD is only ‘real’ when there is clear evidence of the obsession impacting socially or physically, it is becoming apparent that there is an ongoing and dangerous obsession with body image throughout the western world that is having an enormous impact on young people.

In this article (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mom-year-daughter-botox-young-young/story?id=13580804) from abcnews.com a mother gives her 8 year old daughter Botox, and she’s happy to receive it because she perceives that she has wrinkles that are corrected via her Botox injections. And 8 year old believes that she needs Botox to smooth out the lines in her face.

An 8 year old.

I had coffee one day with a dear friend and her 4 year old girl. Mummy asked her little girl if she’d like a babycino and the dear little sweetheart said “no mummy milk makes you fat”. It was just heartbreaking. Some folks will say she was just mimicking her mother, and they’d be right, but does that make it any less horrifying? She had heard her mum say that time and again, and made a strong connection to it. At 4 she had made the connection to drinking milk, turning fat, and that being bad. To the point she’d miss out on a previously loved treat for the fear of getting fat.

A 4 year old.

This is the horrifying reality of the world we live in and its dangerous obsession with body size.

Every day people see images in magazines and on the television that project a totally unrealistic body shape and size. A body gained, generally speaking, through a very strict diet and many hours of exercise with a personal trainer. Something the average Joe can’t afford to do around work and family.

Every day the news, in a variety of formats, tells us that eating this will make us fat. Eating that will give us cancer. We’re constantly bombarded with how the evil fat is ruining not only our lives, but the lives of friends and family who have to live with this dreadful awful imposition that is being overweight. And in addition to the evils of fat we constantly have affirmed that wrinkles and getting old are a fate worse than death. So is dry skin, boring flat hair, freckles and pale skin. Get tanned, get toned, cover those flaws in your skin, and give your lifeless hair body. Every part of our bodies is critiqued and analysed with solutions being offered by magazines and cosmetic companies until we can be assured that if we use X moisturiser we’ll be as gorgeous as the models that grace the covers of our favourites magazines.

The result of this never ending focus on how you look and the fact that no matter what you do you’re just not good enough is resulting in babies believing they need to avoid dairy and making children that should be playing in the mud believe that they need a toxic poison injected into their face.

And so much more.

The instances of eating disorders in young women, and lately more young men, is rising very rapidly. In a study in Victoria (http://www.eatingdisorders.org.au/media/key-statistics.html) it was found that a very alarming 1 in 10 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 exhibited symptoms of a serious eating disorder.

And worse, a 2005 study commissioned by Dove, surveyed 3,300 girls and women between the ages of 15 and 64 in 10 countries. They found that 90% of all women aged 15 to 64 worldwide want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance, with body weight ranking the highest.

90% of women were dissatisfied with their bodies and wanted to change something about themselves.

In the spirit of this topic I must confess that I’m one of the 90%. When I sit down and think about it I have a laundry list of things that I’d like to change about myself. I’d like to be healthier, I wouldn’t mind being a bit smaller, I’d really like my calves to fit into normal size knee high boots, and I wish my finger nails didn’t break all the time.

The thing I like about me, though, is that I have to force myself to sit down and think about these ‘faults’. Day to day when I get ready for work in the morning I look in the mirror and I like what I see. I know my size, I know my ‘faults’ and I think they add overall to the greatness that is me. Most women think about and obsess on those things about themselves they don’t like, and it becomes something to focus on, work on, change.

I should acknowledge, however, how long it took me to get to this place where I’m happy with me and my body (for the most part).

As 16 I was a compulsive eater, in that I watched every tiny bit of food that went into my mouth. This was the start of my eating disorder. From about 12 I started to be a curvy girl. I got hips and tits pretty early and it was a source of amusement for those I went to school with. Although I was a tiny size 6, my busting boobs would cause quite the stir with the fellows, and made the girls quite catty. As a result of constant mocking about my size I decided to fix it by not eating unless forced. I’d have breakfast with my mum watching, and dinner when forced, and nothing in-between. And I’d drink enough water to drown a small child. The result was a gradual loss in body size, and a reduction in both hips and tits. My weight at this time was about 50kg or 100lbs.

At 17 I met up with a boy who quite liked my tiny frame, and we moved in together. Working in a lolly shop and eating out quite regularly, as well as a feeling of safety and contentment lead me to gain a wee bit of weight back. Boyfriend did not like that and teased me about being chubby. The result? Living on jelly beans and obsessively exercising until the weight again plummeted. This time to just under 45kg or about 90lbs. You could see my ribs, my collar bones, and my hips jutting out of my body.

And it was awful and I hated myself.

At 33 I have only just found the self-awareness and strength to understand that my body, flaws and all, doesn’t define me. I’ve discovered many great things about myself that have nothing to do with my appearance, and with that understanding have come to learn that what I look like, weak nails, lifeless hair, big thighs, bad skin, it has nothing to do with what kind of person I am. And that allows me to read through a beauty magazine and not feel self-loathing. Instead I feel anger and disgust that we, as a society, can allow these all pervasive messages of ‘you’re not good enough’ to impact our tweens and children to the point of them adopting harmful diet practices and injecting themselves with toxic poison.

I look through the latest celebrity trash mag and feel sad for the people whose job it is to write about Jennifer Aniston’s latest diet secret, and the 10 ways to get smaller thighs. And I feel worse for the ladies that read it and feel like it’s oh so important that they must work on having smaller thighs to feel better about themselves.

Or must know the 20 ways to get better skin.

Or the best tips for better hair.

Because at the end of the day, what does it matter what your hair looks like, or how your manicure is, if you can think about yourself, what you do, what you give to the world, and know for sure that it’s far more important that the way your skin looks.

So the question is, what can we do, as people, to try and combat this world we’ve made for ourselves? How do we teach kids to feel better about themselves in a body obsessed society? How do we fix this? What can you do to stop this malicious trend of self-loathing that is becoming a dangerous disease impacting children and young people world over?

For a start, look in the mirror and instead of listing your flaws, how about you just say “fuck I’m awesome” and walk away just feeling good about yourself. It’ll change your life.

tl;dr

For those of you that missed the last 10 years of changing technology including sms messages, twitter, facebook and internet message boards, tl;dr stands for "too long; didn't read" it's a abbreviation common to message boards along with the likes of "lol" (laugh out loud) "rofl" (roll on the floor laughing) and occasionally "u'r" (you're).

These little gems, along with various other abbreviations make me want to do bodily harm to society in general, and social media in particular.

Back to tl;dr.

I've seen this as a response to posts that are no more than 4 or 5 paragraphs long. Something that 5-10 years ago would have been a normal starter post for an online conversation is now considered an essay that people don't want to bother with. Are we, as a society, so lazy that we can not longer read through 200 words to be able to have a virtual conversation? And worse, are we so inconsiderate of peoples feelings that not only will we not read the information put before us, but we'll announce that we can't be bothered reading it?

I will happily admit that I'm constantly optimistic about the way people approach the internet. I'm part of only one online message board, and for the most part, I think it's a more intelligent group of people than you'll find in other places on the net. This results in me having a fairly high expectation of people. Add to that I'm pretty smart, and I surround myself with pretty smart people, it makes me even more disappointed when society at large demonstrates it's gross stupidity and casual rudeness.

In real life, would you respond to your boss that the email was too long and you couldn't be bothered reading it? Would you tell your doctor to tweet the advice in 140 characters? Would you, with casual abandon, rudely announce that someone's hard work is a waste of time because it's 5 paragraphs longer than you want to read right now?

Of course you wouldn't. You'd read the email, you'd read the 5 pages of advice your doctor gave you because it might save your life, and it's doubtful that you're going to say to someone's face "I can't be bothered with you".

So why do we feel free to be aggressive, abusive, and flat out rude on the internet?

Because of the anonymity, of course. Because you don't have to be yourself and who the hell is going to know better? I could be a 60 year old man from China posing as a 32 year old Australian woman. You have no way of knowing any different. And that anonymity allows me, or you, the ability to be rude, dismissive, lazy, and annoying without any consequences.

Because it's just the internet, it's just words on a screen, you can walk away any time, don't take it so personally.

Except, in this day and age of kids killing themselves because of being bullied online, and legislation being developed around cyber bullying, are we really able to say "it's just the internet"?

Sorry, that was an unexpected tangent.

Back to the laziness. What's to blame? Social media? Sms? Are people becoming so accustomed to communicating in 140 characters because of sms and twitter that we can no longer read anything longer than a paragraph? Or type in complete sentences?

And what does that mean for the future? Are we going to start teaching kids abbreviated words because they're too lazy to learn proper spelling? Kids are handing in assignments written like a facebook post, full of abbreviations and non existent grammar. I get emails in txt spk from people that have been working for the government for 10+ years, simply because they too are too lazy to type out a complete sentence.

Why are we so lazy?

I ask, having not going to the gym in weeks, hours after driving to the shops a 5 minute walk across the road.

Is it because we have so much technology that we feel pressured to be constantly responding to things, but don't feel like we have the time to do it? Are we too connected to the world?

I have too many questions, and no real answers, and at the end of the day this post is far too long, and nobody will read it.

Things to think about.