I might be a little insane

After the death of Amy’s cat last week, Frogpondsrock soothed her soul with two new additions to our family.

cute tabby kitten

kitten with feather

They’ve settled in nicely. Nathan was dubious, in a grumpy kind of way. He’s right – you can’t replace a dead cat with brand new kittens and make it better. But I’m a big believer in animals helping to fill holes in our hearts, whether that sadness is related to the death of a pet or not.

So we got kittens and I got grumbled at for saying yes. Then I caught him scratching the little tabby’s ears, so I think he’ll come around. My husband is a giant soft hearted marshmallow and for all his grumbles, he loves children and animals. Probably why I’ve been so successful in filling our house with both.

dog and kitten

Being sisters, they’ve settled in really well. Amy has named them Rosie (black kitten) and Alley (tabby kitten) and I must admit, I rather like kittens, especially when they get the hang of a litter tray immediately and I don’t have to clean up after that.

For that, I can forgive them for attacking my feet as I walk past them.

kitten being hugged

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The depths of uncertainty

by Veronica on January 29, 2013

in Evelyn

Some days I wake up and I’m sure everything is going to be terrible. Plagues of locusts; hordes of zombies; houses imploding – that kind of terrible. Those mornings are the easiest in a way, because when everything fails to go wrong then I can be pleasantly surprised. I’ll look around and realise that I’ve drunk an entire cup of tea before it went cold and my toast is still warm; that the garden is still intact and everyone under my watch is still alive and realise that maybe it’s all going to be okay.

Other days, I’m wrapped in the warm cotton wool of certainty. Everything is going to be fine. Of course it is. Nothing worse than spilled milk and cereal on the floor is going to happen and we’ll all make it to bedtime happy and healthy.

And then there are the days that crack like eggshells, going from everything is going to be fine to holy fuck, nothing is ever going to be the same again.

I’m talking about Evelyn of course. I’m always talking about Evelyn lately. All I ever fucking talk about is this baby and whether her issues will resolve and what those issues are and how we can help.

I get smacked in the face sometimes by her issues, because it’s easy to forget, wrapped in this warm cotton wool, that everything is not okay and that our future is not certain. It’s easy to forget that she is six months old [oh god oh god, she’s six months old and look at her, will someone just fucking LOOK AT HER and tell me with their magic crystal ball what our fucking future is like please] and that she is not progressing as normally as we’d all like.

Sure, she’s not missing everything yet, but she’s not rolling over anymore and so that milestone doesn’t count because it’s not something she added to her repertoire. She’s not babbling. She’s not using both her hands effectively. She’s barely using her right hand at all. She only manages to put things in her mouth 30% of the time. Her right leg kicks repeatedly. She has very little control over her body.

And yes, I know that the optimists in the audience will point out that at least she is doing some things, some of the time. Trust me, I know how to count my blessings here. I also watch her and worry and it’s a hard worry to push down, because I mention small things she’s doing to her Paediatrician [her tongue trembles sometimes, and not in a feeding flutter, but a tremor] and he looks worried, but also pleased that it doesn’t happen all of the time, but still, he was worried and her tongue still trembles and I think it’s getting worse, but who knows? I spend so much time just WATCHING this baby that I don’t even know what is important anymore. Her desire to be a starfish [jerk all limbs outwards, arch back and screech because that is NOT what you wanted your body to do] or her twitching while she’s asleep [non-epileptic paroxysmal episodes, that look like complex partial seizures] or her jerky movements or or or or….

It’s just, enough already. I need a crystal ball and to stop being smacked in the face by the possibility that none of this will be okay.

I mean sure, it might all be perfect in six months, but you’ve got to give my brain props for showing me that it might just get a whole lot worse.

Thanks brain. I couldn’t do this without you.

003

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I confessed that I was not okay during the week of RUOK day. The irony there was that despite the lovely comments, not one person actually asked if I was okay on the day. It seems from my circle of friends, I was not the only one having a minor breakdown that week.

Despite the mental unloading that I did on the blog, I am still not okay. Mental wellness doesn’t seem to be a tap that I can turn on at will, which is a shame. I’m sure we’d all be lining up to fill our buckets if that was the case.

It feels like I’ve been fighting for a long time. Fighting to have professionals believe that I was sick, fighting for a diagnosis, fighting to be treated as a human being instead of a teen pregnancy statistic, fighting (again) for a diagnosis, for help when we were having issues with secondary infertility, to having someone take me seriously and finally, when I was diagnosed, fighting to be believed again. Full circle. Fuck me.

On top of that, there was cancer, death, autism, behavioural issues, and on and on and on. It’s like herding cats, every time I get a handle on one, seven disappear on me.

[Digression: When I was 41 weeks pregnant with Amy, aged 17, I developed a chest infection and couldn’t breathe. Living in the city, having quit my job months before, I didn’t have a regular GP that I could visit easily, as he was an hour drive away. Nathan was working nights and by the time I realised how sick I was, he was asleep.

I rang the pregnancy assessment centre for advice – something I had been told over and over to do, for any issues. I was a high risk pregnancy as it was and so, I expected advice, if nothing else. The midwife who answered the phone was short with me, got all of my details including the overdue nature of my pregnancy and asked me to hold please.

Unfortunately, she didn’t press mute on the phone and I could hear her bitching about me to her colleagues. “She’s 17, says she can’t breathe properly, she’s 41 weeks pregnant, of course she can’t breathe properly. She’s been down here on and off for the last couple of weeks, attention seeking. God. She says she can’t even make it to her regular GP. I don’t know what I’m expected to do about her issues.” She then picked up the phone again and I was crying by this point, unwell and very pregnant and also very sick. “Are you there? I’m sorry, there isn’t anything I can do for you.” I replied “Maybe not, but next time have the decency to press mute on the phone before you complain about me.” She swore and hung up on me.

You say that young mothers aren’t treated any differently? I beg to differ.]

Anyway: Issues with medical professionals, I have them.

I was coping. I was doing well, I was smiling and working and laughing and then I woke up one morning, and I wasn’t coping anymore. I sobbed for hours, had a minor breakdown and hid myself in a book for the rest of the day.

I am decidedly not okay and I’ve learned that it is okay, to be not okay. That said,  I am sick to death of bouncing from one extreme to another, from abject depression, to panic attacks, to manic behaviour and wanting to frantically FIX everything, because surely things would be easier if the inside of my house wasn’t purple.

The roller coaster ride has turned my stomach and I would like to get off now.

I rang the psychology clinic today and asked for an appointment. Despite being quite busy (their words), I now am the proud possessor of an appointment on Tuesday afternoon and since receiving the phone call back, I have been fighting off waves of panic.

Despite what every single medical professional I have seen has put me through, I am holding on to the fact that this person will help me. That I won’t be discarded as too hard, or too broken, or too complicated, and sent home to cope on my own again.

I am sick of coping on my own. I would, for once, like someone else to help with this. To come up with a plan and insist that it will work and tweak it if it doesn’t. Not delete the plan altogether and leave me without any safety net.

Surely that is not too much to ask?

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It was after I dropped Amy off at school that my hands started to hurt, badly. We were on the way to the supermarket and I’d already had to talk myself out of vomiting a few times this morning, so my head really wasn’t up to ignoring the pain in my hands.

By the time I was 3/4 of the way through the supermarketing, I was unable to push the trolley and the pain was at the front and centre of most of my thoughts. Luckily, with the help of unlimited lollipops, Isaac was being practically angelic and just following along behind us, as Nathan pushed the trolley and lifted the heavy things, like milk and rice.

(Side note: It takes three lollipops to get the supermarketing done without meltdowns or screaming. What I need now, is to find lollipops without artificial colours.)

I held on, until I got to the chemist, knowing that I had scripts for regular tramadol (that doesn’t give me insomnia) and panadol oesto for the arthritis pain. Only, when I went to fill the script, I discovered that it was out of date and I was out of luck. Fun times, you guys, fun times.

By the time we made it home, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind and Isaac deciding to have a meltdown over toothpaste wasn’t really something I wanted to deal with.

I managed to take some slow release tramadol (that does give me insomnia) and now, two hours later, it has kicked in and while I’m still in pain, I’m rather stoned and I don’t care quite so much. It was a choice between stoned, or knocked out. Sometimes there are no good choices.

This Winter has been really bad. I’m coming out of the other side of SAD, smack into depression and anxiety, but I think that if I can hold on until the weather warms up, I might be okay. My soul is screaming for long hot days spent laying in the sun, letting the warmth fix my joints for a little while.

***

I was outside using the pitchfork to poke holes in the swampy patch in my back corner. I had a bag full of mint that needed to be planted and Isaac was helping me, by tipping out the roots and running away with them.

Three holes in, the pitchfork handle snapped in my face, as the bottom (metal) end threw itself up into my forehead.

“Mummy! It hit you in the head! MUMMY!”

Funnily enough, I realised that.

My forehead still hurts, but the cut is healing, at least.

I can’t say that it’s helping either my mental or physical states to be beating myself up with a pitchfork, however.

On the upside, with some help from Nathan, I got 20 currant cuttings planted out (not sure what types – Mum had forgotten) and a bag full of mint plants planted. And the raspberry canes survived being transplanted and are shooting up.

Finally.

***

It’s been dark inside my head lately. I keep putting one foot in front of the other and trusting to the fact that eventually, this will change. It might not get better, or easier, but I can count on it getting different at some point.

Different is good.

I’m discontent with my house, with my lack of garden, with a paddock full of nothing, that screams its nothingness at me every time I see it. With the clutter and the lack and the excess and everything. I am discontent.

I need to work on getting things inside my head sorted, so that I can work on getting things outside of my head sorted.

And until then, I’m going to keep dreaming of moving house and living somewhere that isn’t falling down, that has a garden to sit in and just be, and storage space and cupboards for everything. I hear that they exist, somewhere.

Until then, I’m going to keep planting things and hoping that they grow and help sort my sanity out.

***

I don’t think this post makes much sense. Sorry about that.

 

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My last few years have been … eventful. Starting with a pregnancy that didn’t look like it was going to end well, cancer, death, family fuckwits, autism x 2, early intervention, Ehlers Danlos, a falling down house, debt and depression. It hasn’t exactly been the time frame that I would hold up to the light and dissect, more the time frame that you force to the bottom of your closet, stomping on it as you go, so that you don’t have to deal with it anymore.

I signed up to participate in RUOK Day and then promptly decided that I would be better off stabbing myself in the eyes.

I am not okay. I am so far from okay, that okay is the distant shore that I left some years ago, before doctors told me that things were “all in my head” and tossed around words like anorexia and problems at home to explain why I was sick and exhausted, why I threw up every day and why my joints hurt so badly.

You tell me, how are you meant to trust the medical professionals to help out with mental issues, when mental issues are what they thought your major, genetic, connective tissue disorder was? I don’t trust them to help anymore.

I watched my grandmother die. I dealt with the fallout that rewriting a eulogy caused. I read long winded rants about myself on the Internet, written by a family member. I dealt with the trolls. I helped clean out her house, knowing that it was never going to be okay that she was dead and we were parcelling up her belongings.

I went to a doctor to discuss anxiety medication, only to be told that it would be better to sort out WHY I was anxious, rather than just medicating. You can’t cure grief by wanting it to hurt less, any more than you can make a broken bone heal faster than it does. I left with medication, that didn’t work anyway.

My son was diagnosed with autism and while it wasn’t the worst thing to happen, it was the straw that broke the camels back. Really universe? Autism and Aspergers ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE? REALLY?

Fuck you.

I would like to be okay, in the same way that I would like my joints to stop dislocating and to stop vomiting all of the time. To stop having to deal with meltdowns and the assumption that I am okay, because I tell everyone I am. I would like people to notice, without having to be told, just how far from okay this whole mess is and to stop assuming that they know how they would handle it.

I would LIKE for the Pain Olympics on the Internet to stop and for people to stop negating what I am dealing with, because it could be so much worse. Sure it could be worse, but stop trying to fucking jinx me. Last time I thought that nothing else could go wrong, everything else went wrong.

And you know what? I DON’T want to talk about this. I don’t want to cry anymore, or have to talk about this, or try to explain. Writing it is hard enough. The last psych I talked to about my anxiety and grief, seemed to think that it was nothing to worry about. Obviously I downplay things, really well.

RUOK?

No. No I am not.

Now excuse me, while I get off the Internet, before I am tempted to swear anymore.

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