Author: Veronica

  • A confession. Or, a post where I fall apart a little.

    I have anxiety issues.

    Which is not much in itself, but after Nan died, my anxiety spiralled to the point where I’m anxious or stressed for most of the day. I have panic attacks and they’re getting worse. If Nathan goes out to get milk, I watch the clock and panic if he takes longer than he should. Worst case scenarios run through my brain most of the time.

    And really, I’ve always been a little obsessed with the macabre and the broken, but this is ridiculous you know?

    I don’t talk about these things, with anyone really, except to mention them in an understated way. Who wants to hear about how the inside of my head is all fucked up? Plus, my body is so fucked up that talking about any of it threatens to drown me with just how shit it all is. Not letting anyone pity me is my lifeline to not pitying myself and falling apart.

    Since Nan died I’ve stopped talking. I used to be able to talk about whatever was bothering me, but now, I’m repressing everything. Every.Thing. Which is annoying in itself, because the sensible part of my head tells me that talking about the issues would make them only half as annoying, but it seems to stick in my throat. I talk to myself inside my head, but I can’t make my mouth form the words. I have panic attacks and breathe through them, not letting anyone see that they’re happening. Or I hide, in the toilet, in my bedroom, in front of the computer. They pass and I resurface.

    It could be part of grieving, or, I suspect, the grieving has made it easier to repress everything. I don’t have time to fall apart. I pull myself together and go on coping and inside, something is curling up and dying because I can’t acknowledge just how badly I’m doing.

    Fake it until you make it, isn’t that what they say?

    Case in point:

    There is an abandoned house at the end of my street, about 400m away that I want to photograph (again). I live in a tiny country town, on a large highway. I can see the fucking house from my lounge room window, but do you think I can make myself leave the house with my camera and walk up there?

    No. I can’t.

    I can’t bring myself to leave the house alone and walk, 400 fucking metres away to take a photo. If Nathan stood outside he’d be able to see me the whole time and I cannot do it.

    When Amy was a baby, I used to walk into Hobart regularly. I lived about 40 minutes walk from the city and I would just walk. To the supermarket, to the Reserve, to my mothers group. I would walk, everywhere.

    Now, I struggle to leave the house and I absolutely can’t go anywhere by myself.

    And it’s stupid, it’s really stupid. It’s the little things like having a panic attack because I’m outside alone at 8pm in the dark photographing the sky. ON MY OWN PROPERTY. It’s not like I live anywhere dangerous.

    It feels like I’m at the bottom of a well, with the walls closing in on me, telling myself how fucking stupid I was to get in here in the first place and why don’t I just climb out? But I can’t.

    I went to a rheumatologist yesterday and left feeling good about the appointment. She’s worked out a new pain management regime for me, including something to help me sleep. Something that in a larger dose, works as an anti-depressant. And all I felt was relieved because now, maybe the anxiety induced insomnia will ease and at the very least, I might be able to sleep.

    Last night, I fell apart. Everything culminated and I sobbed for hours. Nathan didn’t know what was wrong because I couldn’t tell him and honestly, after 12 months, it feels stupid to be falling apart because I miss my grandmother. I know it isn’t stupid, but it feels it you know? Like there is a set time for grieving and then we’re meant to be okay. Nathan ended up falling asleep and I sobbed more because dammit, can’t you read my mind?

    And funny, I don’t feel any better today. I just feel heavy and tired and sad.

    As I sat in the dark silently screaming and letting myself feel the pain that the grief brings, I contemplated running a bath, or going for a walk. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because I’m fairly sure if I’d laid in a bath, I would have slipped under the water and not been able to surface and the thought of walking, even around my property in the dark triggered another panic attack. The dark parts of the night are funny like that.

    Instead, I kicked Nathan because he was snoring too loudly and went and snuggled my sleeping daughter for a while.

    So this is me, writing about it.

    I’m not coping.

    I’m sad and heavy and broken.

    I’m stressed and snappy and probably damn unpleasant to live with.

    My panic attacks are getting crippling.

    I can’t talk about it at all, out loud, but I’m hoping that I can write about it – and the people who matter most all read my blog anyway, so I won’t have to talk about it.

    And at the very least, the new pain management regime will help with the peripheral issues and make me feel less like I’m only holding onto my sanity by my fingertips.

    It’s been 52 weeks since Nan died, exactly 12 months tomorrow and I think I’m falling apart. I think I’m going insane.

    Note: I’m going to give the new painkillers and stuff a go for a month. If I’m still not sleeping/falling apart/having panic attacks, I’ll go and see my GP to talk about it. So please, don’t worry about me too much!

  • God, I am a terrible guest blogger.

    A week? or so ago? I was asked to guest post on Adventures with Kids and I totally forgot to link up when my post went live.

    So, if you’re interested in things to do in Tasmania with kids, including some of my neurosis, then head over and check it out.

  • Everyone needs sentinels.

    Nope. Sorry, can’t come through here.

    Seems I’ve suddenly got guard ducks. Maybe they’re reacting to a rooster being introduced to the mix?

    Who knows.

    Or maybe they’re guarding against these guys who have moved in next door.

    It’s a Cattle Egret. A beautiful bird.

    Sadly, I was outside with only my 50mm lens and not my zoom lens, so getting a closeup was harder than you’d think.

    ***

    In other news, scientists have discovered why women think they are fat.

    I’d love to know how I would score in one of their tests, seeing as how my brain thinks my body is actually half a step to the left of where it is, leaving me regularly walking into doors or walls or tripping for no reason.

    Seems I’m not the only one with fucked up proprioception.

  • Blogging means I make amazing friends.

    When I started blogging, I’m not sure what I was expecting. I know that I loved reading blogs by other women, blogs that meant I didn’t feel quite so alone.

    I didn’t expect to make such good friends, and I have. Plus, I’m still making them every day.

    Like minut’d’automne who lives in France with her twins.

    This morning a box arrived at my front door and I was thrilled. I mean, look how it’s packaged!

    (never mind the disembodied hand, that’s Isaac)

    Isn’t it beautiful?

    I felt like a kid at Christmas actually, rummaging through a box, discovering treasures through the whole thing.

    There were books – lots of books.

    As well as some french caramels (probably the reason the box was searched by quarantine, however, everything was deemed safe, thank goodness) a pair of pants for Isaac and a lovely top for Amy.

    Plus lots of stickers, which Amy promptly claimed and stuck everywhere. Hehe. Isaac still has a glittery horse on his cheek that he hasn’t noticed. I can’t bring myself to peel it off.

    So thankyou so so much. I love it and I’m looking forward to immersing myself in books for a while.

    Blogging is fantastic. I’ve made amazing friends.

    ***

    While we’re talking about friends, I met with a bunch of Tasmanian twitterers last night for drinks and cheese (or, in my case, mineral water). That was good fun and I’m looking forward to hopefully doing it again another time, so that I can meet those people who couldn’t attend last night. You can see Mum’s recap blog post for that here as well as links to all the twitterers and their blogs.

  • Frozen

    It takes a brave woman to purposely put her hands in iced over water.

    At least that is what I told myself when yesterday, I found myself using a watering can to carry water to the ducks pen.

    The hose had frozen solid, a fact I discovered as I knelt in the frosty grass and leaned through the fence to turn on the tap – only to have the hose burst off, covering me in a fine spray of icy water. We won’t talk about how I tried (and failed) to reattach the hose to the tap, leaning through the fence at a right angle to the ground, supported by a strand of wire under my belly and unable to raise my head due to the live electric wires running a few inches above my head.

    So there I was, stuck half on my property and half on the farm, cows watching me intently as I tried to wrestle an ice filled hose into submission.

    After the first 3 fingers on my right hand had gone numb, I gave it up as a bad joke and carefully extracted myself from my perilous position.

    I am proud to say I didn’t electrocute myself even a little. Which is good, because the position I was in, it would have been doubtful that I would have been able to stop electrocuting myself once started and I’m not sure that would have been any fun.

    The hose dripped a little at my feet and so I kicked it. Stupid frozen thing. It retaliated by merely crunching, like a hose full of ice is apt to do.

    And so I gave up and went to get the watering can instead.

    There is a bathtub at the back of our garden fence, full of water. Likely a few more weeks will see it full of frog spawn, but at this point, I use it for animal water when the hoses are too frozen to work properly.

    I found the watering can and headed to the bathtub, only to find it full of ice. Thick ice.

    I smashed the ice with the watering can (ha! take that winter!) and then discovered that the ice was too thick to get the watering can in still, despite the smashing.

    That is when I told myself, it takes a brave woman to purposely put her hands in iced water. And then I put my hands into the water and picked up the largest chunk of ice and removed it.

    By this stage, all of my fingers were numb and I still had water containers to fill.

    The watering can was full of ice too, an inch solid block in the bottom of it, but no matter. It was going to get filled dammit, because my warm house was calling me and I was cold.

    The ducks peeped at me as I emptied their muddy iceblock that was their clean water the night before and filled up their containers. Done! I was done!

    Only I wasn’t, because I hadn’t fed them yet and they were looking at me reproachfully.

    I practically skipped back to the house to grab wheat, figuring faster was better.

    I was brave when I put my hand into the frozen water.

    I was even braver when I plunged my already numb hands into frozen wheat as I scattered it around so no one got bullied as they ate.

    For the record, wheat is bitterly cold when it’s been outside all night and you should probably not put your hands in it.

    I raced back to the house and fumbled my way inside, only to plunge my hands into lukewarm water.

    Ow ow ow ow ow.

    Defrosting hurts.