Revamp

 So I'm sort of revamping the old blog by jumping ship to WordPress (Link below) I finally sort of figured out how the layouts over there worked and it seems to be an easier medium for people to comment with etc. I have moved some of my more recent posts over there too so that the site has a bit of content to it. Let me know if you Love it or Hate it!

www.thecolourofmadness.wordpress.com

Yesterday

I’m typing this from my bed. I am supposed to go out in an hour, to pick up Miss 8 from her Nana’s house where she has been staying the past two nights. I want to get up but I am dizzy and nauseous, trying to recover from what did and didn’t and might of happened yesterday.

Hubby and I were supposed to be going on a naughty weekend, or rather a naughty weeknight away over Monday & Tuesday to coincide with a trip my Garden Club was taking to a large open garden in a small town 3hrs away. The plan was a leisurely drive, nice dinner, romantic night at a quaint little B&B catch up with the garden club the next morning for the garden tour and then a nice drive home enjoying the scenery and picking up the kids from the various places we had farmed them out to.

Best laid plans. Mr 11 put his foot through a glass door resulting in stitches that needed to come out while we were away, so the romantic B&B got cancelled and hubby said he would stay home with Mr 11 so that I could at least drive up on the Tuesday and see the Garden since it was one of my bucket list items.

I’ve been feeling pretty crappy lately, physically and emotionally, I have all the symptoms of Peri-menopause, except I am about 10years too early and I am having some trouble working out which of my issues are psychological and which are physical or at least which came first. 

I have been nauseous and exhausted to the point of not being able to go on the treadmill. If you have been following my story for any length of time you will be aware that I have been running for an hour every single day for two years, rain, hail or stress fracture. So to be rendered run-less from something as pathetic as being a bit tired, is not normal for me and not something I am coping with very well.

The very last time I ran about 20min in I had an intense pain in my lower abdomen, it was so bad that it felt like a late stage labour contraction that just wouldn’t stop. At one point I even considered calling an ambulance – but for fear of being labelled a hypochondriac and the distance between myself and the phone at that moment, I didn’t. Which I decided was the right decision as the pain did indeed dissipate to tolerable after about 40 minutes as long as I kept lying still and didn’t sit or try and walk. After another hour I had to pick up the kids from the bus and managed to crawl to the car, collect them and tumble back into bed where I slept until morning.

The next day the pain was gone and all was fine again, except for the tiredness but I had to go to the doctor for a new script the next day anyway so I told her what had happened. She did some unpleasant examinations, made me do a pregnancy test even though I was 110% sure that wasn’t the cause and sent me for an ultrasound. Of course, then the school holidays started so I can’t get in to see her. I got a copy of the report back and apparently I had a ruptured Ovarian Cyst and need to get a follow up in 6-8weeks. According to Dr Google that could account for my symptoms, particularly the sudden pain, it should now resolve on its own and apparently many women do go to emergency when that happens – that knowledge made me feel a little less like a total wuss at least.

The trouble is the fatigue hasn’t left me, nor the nausea and the depression is escalating – which brings me back to yesterday.

So, I woke up feeling fucking awful, in terms of depression anyway. I honestly felt more hopeless and suicidal than I have in a very long time and the biggest part of me wanted to cancel my plans to head up to the garden and just stay home and write or sleep.

But I also know that sometimes forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to can be the key to feeling better, at least for a while. So, feeling rather surreal and odd I got up, fed the animals, filled my travel mug with coffee and went to walk out the door, at that moment I spotted my magic 8 ball sitting on the table and I picked it up and quickly shook it asking, “will I die today?” this was it’s answer:

 I left the house wondering if it was for the last time, as I drove the 3 hour journey with my most depressing music playing, yes I know I that probably makes matters worse but I couldn’t handle anything else so I sang along with tears leaving mascara stains on my cheeks as I played chicken with the log trucks passing down the other side of the narrow country road. 

Normally I try to distract myself, to box my feelings away but my therapist has been encouraging me to feel the feelings so this time I let myself cry thinking that maybe that is exactly what I needed and at least that would hopefully get most of it out of my system before I met up with the garden club.

It was a really long windy road, I get motion sickness, but normally when I am the one driving its fine. Perhaps this time it was more emotion sickness but either way I spent the last hour trying desperately not to throw up and being very aware of the lack of any plastic bag or vomit catching receptacle in my car. The car-nausea triggered flash backs of a past suicide attempt involving attempting to drive while projectile vomiting from an overdose and that image coupled with my current state of mind was utterly overwhelming.

Every big tree, big truck or steep hill side now felt like an opportunity, I just didn’t want to do it anymore. How could I make it look an accident?

As I rounded the next bend I caught up to a familiar looking car, it was one of the other garden club members. Crap. I couldn’t turn off now, my car is fairly distinctive and they would have recognised it and called to check on me if I suddenly disappeared. There was about half an hour of the journey left so I focused on breathing, singing along to my music and thinking of excuses to explain away my red eyes. I really did want to see this amazing garden.

When we eventually pulled into the parking lot I pushed the last of my emotions down and donned my hat and sunnies putting on a happy “yay we are finally here” face, one of the ladies who reads people a little too well for my liking asked me if I was ok straight away, luckily that question didn’t immediately set off the waterworks as it so often does when I am in that state, so I played the ‘car sick’ card and had a coffee as we waited for the rest of the gang to arrive.

The garden was great, I got on top of my crazy and was feeling a heap better then we decided to head into the local town to have lunch at the pub. We played follow the leader there and as we entered the main street that final straw landed on my back, the whole street had reverse  45degree angle parking. That’s not an issue to the rest of the world but unfortunately when I got my licence I was 9months pregnant and couldn’t physically turn around properly so my driving instructor let that lesson slide – 15 years later and I never did get around to learning, frankly it hadn’t come up that entire time. At first it was funny as hell, I was laughing to myself as I passed everyone else neatly parking and even tweeted that I knew it would come and bite me on the ass one day. 

I decided I would just go a couple of streets up park in a normal spot and walk down, but life had other ideas, there were no normal spots, EVERY SINGLE STREET IN THE WHOLE FUCKING TOWN was reverse angle. I went to a spot where there was nobody watching and gave it a few goes but no dice. Then I pulled over to the side of the road laughing until laughing finally gave way to crying. Such a simple fucking thing and I couldn’t do it, it felt like a metaphor for my life. I rang my hubby with the intention of finding out if he had any tips and ended up in heaving sobs instead while he tried to comfort me. 

Even if I could figure out how to park my stupid car it was too late now, I couldn’t face everyone looking like a blithering mess so I started heading home instead sobbing like someone had died, in a way I felt like someone had, and that someone was me.  

I ignored the repeated missed calls from the other garden clubbers inquiring to my whereabouts, after I gained enough composure to pull off the road without also taking out a gum tree, I sent a text reply saying I was feeling quite unwell again and perhaps it was a tummy bug so decided to head home.

Back on the windy road my excuse was fast becoming fact, I started feeling nauseous as hell, my head ached from crying so hard and I still didn’t have a vomit receptacle. Soon the dizziness took over and I was driving through tunnel vision, I should have pulled over but I was too scared someone I knew would catch me up, I probably would have been safer on the road with a bottle of tequila under my belt. I decided I just needed to make it to the small city 40km away from my town and grab something quick to eat. I needed to buy cat food anyway and I hadn’t eaten all day so maybe my blood sugar was low or something. 

I made it to the city, parked outside the little shopping centre, turned off the car and lay on the steering wheel for around 20 minutes trying not to pass out. I managed to get out of the car and stumble into the supermarket, I felt like I was in a bad dream, I just grabbed the first bag of cat food I saw and a bag of pears that was at the front and somehow made it back to the car.

I ate half of a pear put my head back on the steering wheel and waited around half an hour before driving off again, I just needed to get home. 

When I did get home I stumbled into bed followed by my concerned looking husband, “sick” was the only explanation I could offer before dissolving into delirium. At one point I felt him lay down next to me and then he took a big breath and asked slowly, “…did…did you take something?”

Right then it hit me what this must have looked like to him and I felt so guilty. I replied “No. But that’s what it feels like” and he paused for a minute a he decided to trust me and sighed in a relieved kind of way before leaving the room to let me sleep. I’m glad I couldn’t see his face at that moment, I didn’t want to witness that hurt in his eyes again.

I slept until morning. Now here I am, feeling a bit better after writing it all out. The nausea is improving but the dizziness and difficulty getting air in won’t go away even with my asthma puffer. I feel exactly as I did after overdosing those first few times and now I have started to question myself. What if I had actually taken something yesterday and simply forgotten about it? I have been losing time again lately, just little bits here and there but enough to concern me. God knows how much I wanted to die. I don’t like not being able to trust myself, not knowing what I have done. I didn’t think anxiety could cripple me like this and it’s frightening. 

I don’t want to keep hurting my family.

*update* Managed to retrieve my daughter, still feeling off and dizzy and unable to walk around for long. E-mailed my wonderful psychiatrist & she is going to see me on Monday.

Dear Hubby, I'm Sorry I Tried To Kill Myself

This is my latest article over at The Mighty, I hadn't shared it here before but as you may gather from the title, it's a letter I wrote to my wonderful husband apologising for my 2015 suicide attempt.
He has never actually read the letter, for some reason it feels easier to share my thoughts and feelings with the world than to tell him directly. Perhaps it is because lately I have had those familiar thoughts come back to me with more darkness and intensity and I want to protect him from that, or perhaps I just want to protect myself. Seeing that look of hurt in his eyes destroys me inside and I don't think I can handle that right now.

Here is the article

Flowers and Distractions

Part of me trying to force myself to be happy at the moment is distracting myself even when I can’t really be bothered. A friend had a baby shower that I had to drive into Canberra for on Saturday afternoon anyway and since Canberra is also currently hosting the annual flower show spectacular “Floriade” I thought I could go in early and have a look around and wander through the daffodils. It’s something I went to as a kid and I have fond memories of (even though I nearly drowned their once when I fell in the lake while showing off to my friend.) 

Hubby was working and had Mr15 & Mr13 helping him out to earn holiday pocket money, Mr11 was at a friends house. None of them were remotely interested in seeing a bunch of flowers en masse, anyway, but since I hadn’t been in so many years I decided I might as well make a day of it and drag Miss 8 along with me for the ride. She wasn’t overly keen on seeing a bunch of flowers but she was super excited at the chance to spend the day out of the house and without her brothers.

We drove into the city, spent approx. 3 months looking for parking and waited 45minutes for a very overloaded double decker bus to take us to the flower show, Miss 8 was starting to look very sceptical about the whole thing. It was already an unseasonably warm 30 degrees at 10am and we were packed into the bus like sardines with poor Miss 8 forced to sit on my lap, we were overdressed and I’d also forgotten to bring hats & sunscreen so we were very glad to finally burst out of the stifling bus and into the fresh air.

First stop was the giant Ferris wheel where we got mild nausea and a great view of the city. It was cool to see the funky patterns that the flowers were planted in, which you didn’t really notice so much looking from the ground.

 There were little food shops and market stalls set up everywhere actual flower part was much smaller than I remembered it from my childhood but that was probably good as Miss 8 could care less about flowers and her little legs tired out quickly. We had the obligatory $5 streets ice-cream as we wandered around the market stalls and were even able to pat a cute little baby crocodile at the reptile exhibit before we had to head back to the bus stop so that I could get to the baby shower at 2pm.

The Ferris Wheel was windy, but a great view!

The bus was due at 12.30 and by 12.55 it became apparent it wasn’t going to come anytime soon, so we hightailed it back into the city on foot. It was only about 3km but to an already tired, hungry and hot 8yr old that is 3km too far and by the time we made it back to the car she was red faced and on the verge of tears. I appeased my guilt about dragging her hatless and sun cream-less in 30 degree weather by buying her an oh so nutritious drive through cheeseburger Happy Meal before depositing her at Hubby’s workshop and just making it to the baby shower on time. I even remembered to bring the present!

Later on I asked her if she’d had fun and she said “Yes! Remember the Ferris Wheel? And how I got to pat the crocodile?” thankfully she’s a glass is half full kind of person so the being forced to walk 3km in the heat was already long forgotten amidst the joy of her ‘getting stuff’ and ‘the boys missing out.’

Kicking Down Doors

It’s the start of the spring school holidays here, and depression seems to be trying to descend upon me which feels ridiculously inappropriate because its finally warming up, trees are growing leaves and there are blossoms everywhere. This means I should be happy now, doesn’t it? But the black cloud is thickening and I am trying to fake it till I make it, resisting the urge to just lie in bed binge watch seasons of “Love Child”. 

Mr 11 seems to of inherited his temper from his mother, which is unfortunate for him and very unfortunate for our glass sliding door. In a momentary fit of rage on Sunday night he kicked the old plate glass sliding door shattering it and sending shards of glass into his bare toes.

The emergency room visit triggered the hell out of me, I hadn’t considered the fact that that might happen when we decided who would take him to the hospital, I was preoccupied with my bleeding child and just drove there. But as I carried him through the doors into the waiting area it suddenly hit me, the white walls, the smell of antiseptic. The last time I was there was back in 2015 when I was forced to declare, out loud, that I could no longer stand being alive and needed to be locked up for my own safety and I almost never came home again.

We were sent into the triage office, the same triage office where I had previously been rendered mute with anxiety and fear of judgement, where I had looked around furiously for anything I could use to end my life right then and there rather than face the torment of being hospitalised for my own safety, forced to live against my will. I stepped into the little office, took a deep breath as the sensations and memory flooded over me and tried desperately to push them down, back into their box in the back of my mind, to become a problem for a different day.

I managed to explain the situation at hand and the smiling nurse quickly ushered us to the only available bed, the bed, of course, was the same one I had been placed into that day two years ago, the one that is in a separate room with a lockable door, a video camera in the ceiling and nothing you could use to hurt yourself. Every hair on my body was raised as I tried to force closed and lock that little box in the back of my mind as I felt myself disassociate slightly, now wasn’t the time.

I brought myself back to the present using the ‘5 things’ technique and concentrated on talking to Mr11 and trying to get his mind off the situation. He chose that moment to suddenly notice my semi-colon tattoo for the first time and ask it’s meaning. I have had it since April and it’s not exactly hidden, I swear my kids are so unobservant. I deflected and said I’d explain it later, I couldn’t cope with talking about it in that setting at that moment.  

Mr 11 got 3 lots of painful local anaesthetic injections as shards of glass were removed and 6 stitches were put into the awkward underside of one of his little toes, it must have hurt like hell, but he was very brave. He has always been a stoic child even as a two yr old I remember him walking up to me calmly saying “Can you take this out? It hurts a bit” pointing to a pulsating bee stinger stuck in his finger. Miss 8 on the other hand screams blue murder over a slight bump.

When I was signing the paper work to leave Mr 11 asked me how much this visit had cost and I was thankful to be able to answer $0. I told him how lucky we are to live in Australia and that in America the government doesn’t pay. He nodded, then said “but in America, if they don’t pay for healthcare, doesn’t that mean all the people who are sick can’t work? If they can’t work, then they aren’t paying taxes and they are getting money from the government for being too sick to work? Wouldn’t that end up costing even more money eventually?”

If he is 11 years old and he can figure that out, I sure hope that one day the American government can eventually come to the same conclusion.

He is now learning the pitfalls of trying to get around on a pair of crutches and a valuable lesson about kicking inanimate objects but it’s a shitty start to the school holidays for a kid that likes to build forts and play outside. I managed to face my fear a little and put my anxieties back in their box so I could be there for him when he needed me, so I guess that we were both kicking down doors that day. Now that I know I still have some unresolved feelings about being at the hospital, I can start to work through them with my therapist along with some healthy coping strategies.

How do you cope with flashbacks? 

Do you kick things when you’re angry?