Back From The Brink

I’m back. It was a close call there for a bit but I managed to pull myself out of the dark. Or get pulled out by those who didn’t want to see me fall down something a lot more gruesome than Alice’s rabbit hole.

I had a breakdown. Nervous/mental exhaustion they call it these days. Sounds very PC doesn’t it? I guess breakdown sounds far too brutal a thing for anyone to go through…as if you’re a vase knocked off a table that might never be able to be glued back together again.

Everything just became too much for me. It’s been quite a year but what pushed me to the brink thinking my only option was to JUMP JUMP JUMP were two things.

First of all my axe-wielding, firestarting, fish poisoning brother-in-law got out of jail on an appeal and straight away without even drawing a breath or acknowledging what anyone in the family had done for her, my sister decided she still loved him and moved back in with him. To say I was speechless was putting it mildly. I still don’t know what to think about it all.

Then my Mum had some tests done and it looked like she might have inoperable uterine cancer and might only have a year to live. I was devastated because cancer – it’s such a scary word – but also, my Mum and I have just found each other agan after all those years of estrangement and to lose her so quickly just when things were starting to go so well…..it just seemed so cruel.

So I fell. Down, down, down. I couldn’t get out of bed for ten days. I just lay there in a semi-vegetative state. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. It was close to what I imagine being in hell would be like. I was put on anti-depressants and Valium. It was a mother-freaking nightmare.

But slowly, ever so slowly, the sun began to come out again. Maybe it was the sound of the birds singing in the trees. Maybe it was the fact that I was growing sick of missing out on the latest episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians by lying in bed all day….but something began to pull me back from the brink.

I saw this on I Can Read and I just loved it. It says everything I want to say at the moment.

Because we all fall, don’t we? At one time or another, but it’s how well we get up again that counts.

My Mum’s prognosis is not as bad as originally thought and my sister seems happy enough and as of yet has not been subject to any violence. That will do for now. For today.

Thank you to all of you who emailed and called. I am sorry I haven’t responded to all of you, but I will. You helped me more than you could possibly know. I love you all. Heaps xxxx

Don’t Give Up

A lot of people say that you shouldn’t talk about negative stuff on your blog. I completely disagree with that as you might expect. I want to talk about real life here – the good, the bad, the raw, stinking guts of it.

Last week I didn’t feel like blogging at all. I felt incredibly disenchanted. Disheartened, possibly disillusioned.

It’s tough to make a living in Sydney. I’ve talked about it before. The economy is really bad right now and anyone who says it isn’t is probably in one of the ultimate, tea and slippers stages of denial or is high. Maybe both.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about when people give up. What is it that takes them to the point where they simply cannot go on, where they can find nothing at all to cling to that will give them hope?

I have been in some terribly dark places over the past few years; so dark I was afraid I would never see the light again. Depression will do that, stress will do that, debt will do that. I have had people I thought I could rely on turn their backs on me not because I am a bad person but because they can handle my situation less than I can. Some people cannot face really bad shit and that is the truth. I’m not saying that as a criticism because I understand how heart-wrenching it is to see someone you know in the depths of despair.

I read this story in the news last week and it really upset me.

A man shot his wife and three beloved dogs before killing himself due to money worries.

It upset me so much because I had just learned that a friend of our family who runs a cafe in the city took an overdose of pills last week due to financial problems. I had no idea until last week that he was in any kind of financial trouble but as it turns out his debts exceed a million dollars. The economy has been so bad that in the past six months his turnover has dropped by more than 50%. He refurbished his cafe about 18 months ago (hence the large loans) expecting his turnover to pay the money back; but the turnover is gone and the loans remain. It is a very common story.

Our friend is alive but he doesn’t want to be. I saw it when I visited him in hospital last week. There is nothing you can say in a situation like that. Nothing. You just have to stand there and hold that person’s hand.

Money. It causes so much trouble. It really is the root of all evil. It’s so hard to fight it because it just takes hold of everything. I am steeling myself because I am going to do all that is in my power to ensure our friend can regain a sense of hope – even the smallest sense – I am going to try and make him see that you can claw your way up out of the pit back into the light. That it’s not the debt that will kill you, it’s the giving up. It will make me really happy if even the tiniest sliver of light gets through to him. But it’s going to be a hard road.

Life. It doesn’t get any easier, does it? But what the hard times have taught me is that there is always a solution, that you can deal with the things you thought you couldn’t, that you can open that closed door.

The hard times have also taught me that the beautiful things in life, the most blessed things, are all around us. And guess what? They are all free. All you have to do is open your eyes and look. And they will sustain you – like the city turning pink and glimmery at sunset.

Say it to yourself every morning……

…… and every night.

Don’t Say Anything Negative

Mama said there’d be days like these. Or weeks. Maybe even months. She also said : ‘Don’t say anything negative. It’s Christmas.’

Sometimes the blackness can hit in the middle of a bright, shiny day when the sky is clear. It hit me on Monday afternoon like a battering ram to the chest, knocking the air right out of me.

I discovered my son after school, crying in his room. His shoulders were shaking with sobs. I suspected friends being unkind, disappointment experienced at not getting an award at the final school assembly (actually, it was me who cried over that), maybe even being rejected by a girl he liked. But no, it was his teacher telling him that basically he would never amount to anything, that got to him.

‘She meant it, Mum,’ he said.

As I thought how out of order it is for a teacher to say such a thing to a sixth grader and I felt the rage grab hold of me, I noticed birds singing outside. Their song was so sweet it was as if a little avian choir had come down from the heavens.

The anger left me all of a sudden. It was an odd but fitting switch. But the black dog, that fuzzy little creature I love and hate in equal measure, began barking at the end of the garden path, and he’s been barking ever since.

How can someone say they love the black dog, their depression? It goes without saying that one would hate it, but to love it at the same time….that’s just sick, isn’t it?

When you’re in the depths of depression, when it seizes you, when you capitulate, it has an almost narcotic quality to it. You don’t care about anything. Nothing.  The world is grey-washed. You are numb.

For me there is nothing despairing about a depressive episode, rather there is something affirming about it. It confirms my faithlessness, my belief that things go wrong more often than they go right.

A depressive episode indulges my appetite for self-destruction. And there is comfort to be had in that.

So I went to see my doctor. She was concerned at the level of anger I am experiencing. She should be concerned because I am mad at the world for the appalling way we humans behave. It is shocking, shameless. If we’re not careful we’re going to fuck everything up. Completely.

‘You need to alter your world view,’ said my doctor. She thinks I have compassion fatigue. She thinks I worry too much about things I cannot control. ‘Stop watching the news,’ she said. ‘Stop reading the paper.’

Easier said than done. I just need to step out into the street to gain an understanding of the state of the world.

So I did what I have to when the blackness strikes. Retreat, sleep, walk. Walk, sleep, retreat.

In the park I saw a grandfather with his grandson. They were picking clover. They had handfuls of it, inhaling it the way a chef does a handful of parsley to check for freshness. The grandfather pulled faces and the little boy laughed and laughed. A tinkling sound like the high notes on the piano.

I saw a puppy, all floppy-eared and floppy-footed, gambolling like a spring lamb. Happier than any creature I have ever seen, just to be walking. Such joy to be had in simple things. It brought me close to tears.

I did what I always do when am close to weeping. I counted the boats rounding the bay. There was one with pale blue sails, the same colour of the sky I saw once in a painting by Monet. Try as I might, I couldn’t take my eyes from those sails. Or from the name of the boat.

Mistral wind.

A tiny suggestion of a wind. Soft as whispering. A wind that gently rises from the world of fairy.

As I walked home I caught sight of three birds on a television aerial. Looking as if they were conversing. I wondered what they must think of this world we have built around them. I wondered if they scoffed at the humans they fly above who are capable of so much but deliver so little. I wondered if they would fly away to a better world if given the chance.

The birds twittered and flew off, straight towards black clouds gathering over the gum trees. Without fear they flew, true as arrows. Valiant, sure of wing. Inexplicably, their courage cheered me.

How must it be to be aloft, looking at the world from such a steep height, seeing the black heart of a storm but still flying into it?

Maybe the birds know more about life than we do. Maybe they know that if we trust in ourselves everything will be alright.

Maybe Mama was right. Don’t say anything negative. For the lights are on, guiding, drawing us forward. There will be days like these. Oh, yes. But we plunge and twirl and plummet in the wind, not afraid, for it is only a matter of time until we level out and step once more onto land.