Wednesday, May 21, 2008

worth mentioning

I don't think my Dan Zanes link was working on an earlier post, but all should be revealed now. Watch and learn (at least once a day if possible).

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Yay! (verily)

And yay, verily, the anti-happiness wall began to crumble, and it fell, and life strode in with great purpose and renewed vigour and deep, fulfilling mirth ensued. Thanks, Eckhart Tolle, for handing me the world's quietest, most powerful jackhammer. I will treasure it always.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

more about me

It's a shocking admission for a person with a blog, I know, but just lately I'm getting sick of talking about myself. It's been an enormous reawakening, that much is true, but I think I'm at the point in my 'process' where I just need to focus on something else. So hooray. Now what could it be? In my ideal fantasy world, I'd quit my hideous, unfulfilling but ridiculously well-paying job and become a freelance journalist specialising in home and lifestyle articles for those glossy magazines that have me salivating with covetous intent. I'd write a book about trying to live with depression. My blog would be read and admired by lots of people in all different countries, and I'd be on a first-name basis with like-minded individuals on the opposite side of the globe. I'd learn to cook, and my family would learn to eat. I'd become a vegetarian. I'd have another baby, when the time feels close to right.
Two things have become apparent: 1. I'm still talking about myself. Old habits. 2. None of these things are technically in the 'fantasy' realm at all. They're all quite achievable, in fact. Who knows what might happen?

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

mummy's here

One of the things that came up during my visit to the kinesiologist last week was my relationship with my youngest child, Freya. It came up a lot, actually. Maybe because on any given day it feels like it's taken over my life. I love her deeply, innately, but there are times when I despair of her behaviour, her aggression, even her anger, which seems so out of place in such a tiny soul. I go through blaming myself for not being emotionally available or for just being a bad mother, because that's always such an easy guilt trip to take. But Marlene came up with a different theory, one that rang painfully true. I was taking anti-depressants during my pregnancy with Freya, up until just before she was born. She suffered severe reflux as a baby, and I suffered what was almost certainly post-natal depression for a second time but was too busy trying to think positively to see it. So my darling child was taken from my womb and from the drug that I'd been providing her and into the arms of a mother who could not fully bond with her and clearly could not cope with her precarious temperament. Any wonder separation from me is so frightening for her even now. If someone had told me that even a month ago, I may well have curled up into a ball and never got back up. But being newly empowered by my energy balancing, I felt it was a gift. I looked on our mother/child relationship with different eyes, and because I felt stronger, she related to me quite differently. It was like we were both tuned to the same frequency for the same time. Channels open.
I've been thinking, and telling anyone who'll listen, for about a year that it seems like Freya is hypersensitive to everything, to sound, to emotions, everything's amplified by about 100. And today I found out I was right. We had a meeting with a child psychiatrist, who diagnosed Freya with regulation disorder. Basically it means everything I just described. Sensory overload, and no way of dealing with it. The daughter of said psychologist has the same thing, so tell me that's not the universe handing me a great big merit certificate for being on the right track.
So it's day one of dealing with this newfound 'problem', but knowing what it is and that there's ways to approach it makes it so much easier to face the future. I just want to hold her and tell her it's all going to be alright. Mummy's here.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

emotional rescue

You know what, it's such a long story but I really just wanted to put something down. To see it written.
I went to see a kinesiologist on Tuesday, having read a bit about the therapy and its use in treating depression. Basically it harnesses the energy in your body and uses it for good instead of evil. That's the simplified version. Anyway, having it rock bottom and revisited my depression, I made the appointment. I tried really hard to stop myself thinking this woman could 'cure' me, make everything alright again. But at the time that's exactly what I thought because that's all I felt I had to hang on to.
Then there I was, crying, sobbing, wracked with despair and uncertainty and fear and sitting in this stranger's room hoping to hell she could help me. And somebody did help me. Somebody who was also in the room, but not the one I thought it would be. It was me. The will, the energy and the emotional rescue I'd been waiting for was right inside me all along. She 'balanced' my energy and did some relaxation and muscle memory work and I left feeling so much stronger, and so much braver. I know it's not the end of the road, not by a long shot, but I feel like I have the tools right here should I find myself in another ditch. I know there is happiness, strength and wisdom deep down within me, and that knowledge has come to me like a mid-summer rain storm, washing away so much self-doubt and self-loathing.