Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • A little bit of insanity is a good thing

    We all want to be normal. Completely average and exactly the same as everyone else. No one wants to be called the weird kid, or the one who is odd at inappropriate times. We all want to be brilliant, but completely unrecognisable.

    I struggle with this, because when I’m writing fiction, the inside of my head feels more real than reality. Children needing food and drinks, attention and cuddles, snap me out of my world and I’m left with one foot on either side of my realities, wondering which one I’m actually meant to be in. Then I wander around distractedly, too firmly implanted in this reality to write, but too far into that reality to think clearly.

    It feels a little like a waking dream, as I hold conversations inside my head, with potential characters and flesh out worlds and plots.

    Having small children means that I don’t write as much as I want to, because no one copes very well when I’m stuck in the alternate reality in my head.

    I admire Amanda Palmer, with her ninja gigs and amazing clothing. I admire her brilliance and her music and her VERVE, in going out into the world, dressed however-the-fuck she wants to dress. She is brilliant because she DOESN’T want to be like everyone else. I admire that she does what she loves in the biggest, loudest way possible.

    I don’t want to be like everyone else, but I find myself getting squashed into the box that society prescribes for us. The small square box of normality , where creativity is correctly partitioned off and exercised at only the right moments.

    I want to be brilliant and different and amazing and I need to realise that being brilliant and different and amazing, means that I need to stop being so fucking scared of being different.

    Don’t be controversial, you’ll make yourself untouchable.

    Be sure to stop swearing, so that you appeal to brands.

    Don’t speak out about anxiety and depression, because then you’ll be forever labelled.

    Write what everyone wants to hear, so that everyone likes you.

    I mean, CHRIST. The list of things we should and shouldn’t do (the unwritten list, that we all hold close to our chests and read from every night, so that we remember how we’re meant to behave) gets longer every day and I’m drowning underneath it.

    When I start feeling a little insane, I write things. I also wander into walls and forget to cook dinner and feed everyone pasta with butter three nights in a row, but I’m busy having ideas and the sparks inside my head are flying. I just wish I could stop feeling so guilty about fucking pasta and go with the insanity.

    A little bit of insanity is a good thing – I’m not seeking out a psych because of the insanity. I’m seeking out a psych because of the anxiety.

    The anxiety that stops me doing what I want to do. That makes me question wearing rainbow tights in public, or glitter eyeshadow, or a dress just because I want to.

    I want to break the mould and embrace the different.

    After all, we’ve proved over and over again that difference is enviable, and coveted. We just don’t want to be the ones considered different.

  • The hardest posts to write are probably the ones I need to write the most

    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?

  • Feedburner is being weird

    No, I haven’t switched to partial feeds and no, I didn’t just republish the headlines from my last 10 posts on purpose.

    I promise, I won’t do the partial feed thing. Ever.

    Proper post to come. If I can find the energy.

  • Showcase Tasmania: Bonorong Park

    As part of my Showcase Tasmania series, I was lucky enough to head out to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary last week with the kidlets in tow. Bonorong is a local wildlife park/animal rescue, with various native wildlife, kangaroos to feed and things to look at.

    Oh, and if you’re Amy, there are ICECREAMS, nothing but ICECREAMS, oh god, why won’t mummy and daddy hurry up with the sight seeing because YOU GUYS, ICECREAMS.

    We should have bought an icecream at the beginning is what I’m saying, rather than waiting until the end.

    We saw lots of different animals and I am pretty certain that Isaac would have been happy to wander around in circles looking at everything again, but Amy was being herself and well, you know how that goes.

    It was a gorgeous day.

    Isaac loved the rainbow lorikeets. Loved them.

    Whereas Amy loved the Koalas, despite the sleepy nature of them.

    We played spot the spotted quoll. Shortly after I took this photo, the quoll was kind enough to run past the front fence and show herself (himself?) off to the kids, but I didn’t photograph that bit.

    Three Tawny Frogmouths, all in a row.

    I would happily have watched the Tasmanian Devil and joeys for a lot longer than my children cared to. Baby devils are amazingly cute.

    The wombat got himself tangled in his bedding and dragged it around for a while before working out where the exit was.

    A pink galah. Isaac was also a fan here.

    And the peacock adamantly refused to shake his tail feathers for us. Total shame.

    The rest of us had a lot of fun. However, because we were there at 11am in the morning, the wallabies were more busy sleeping and didn’t want to be fed – which is probably okay, as Isaac didn’t seem terribly keen to get up close to them.

    I’ve been to Bonorong quite a few times now, trips as a kid and back again as an adult and I do highly recommend it. That said, I’ve only ever been during the day and nowadays they offer a Night Tour, which I would LOVE to do, as a lot of the animals are nocturnal and asleep during the day.

    ***

    Showcase Tasmania is me showing off some of the places in Tasmania to visit with children, or Tasmanian produce. I was given a free pass into Bonorong in return for this post and I approached them as a business I wanted to work with, not the other way around.

     

  • Sunday Selections

    So, the lovely Frogpondsrock asked me to host Sunday Selections today.

    These next two are from our trip to Bonorong Park, which I’ll talk about properly soonish.

    Three Tawny Frogmouths, all in a row.

    Tasmanian Devil and her joeys.

    Sunday Selections: The Blurb from Frogpondsrock.

    The Blurb

    I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

    I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

    So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

    Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

    Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

    Link back here to me.

    Easy Peasy.