Monthly Archives: May 2016
Spring Cleaning The TinyTrainHouse – RRSAHM
Spring Cleaning The TinyTrainHouse
I am one of those truly odd people who take great pleasure in cleaning my house.
It’s right up there with doing laundry in terms of smug satisfaction– while there is no smug satisfaction that competes with bringing in a load of freshly washed, sun dried cloth nappies (diapers, whatever); the cat–in–a–bird–cage–glow that accompanies freshly mopped floors come a very close second place.
It’s Spring Cleaning time in the TinyTrainHouse.
Either by means of brilliant management or the intervention of the gods, I’ve managed to have a spring clean every year since I moved out of home at the age of eighteen. (The years that I remember, anyway– few in my early twenties that remain somewhat hazy.) Back in the BC (Before Children), I had heaps of time, so I cleaned as I wished or as living with flat mates determined. And, being a natural hoarder with minimalist ideologies, I have always taken great pleasure in sorting, culling and storing piles of possessions (which is certainly useful when you have two little kids who own every plastic moulded plaything ever produced).
Being pregnant was awesome for cleaning. Forget nesting in the last few weeks of pregnancy– I had the cleaning bug from about 12 weeks in, and it took a good four months after I gave birth for it to wear off. I remember my husband once telling me that I was going to “mop the damn enamel of the tiles if I attacked them again”, and that was probably not an entirely unfair thing to say. I think, at that point, thirty weeks pregnant and with way too much spare time, I was mopping the kitchen floor of the Purple House on a twice–daily basis.
There was no way I could keep that up. Hello, post natal depression and a massive case of useless anxiety. Pregnant the second time around, I actually relished that fervent, all consuming nesting instinct. ‘Sparkle sparkle’, said the glass doors and the floors and the car and the bathroom and the dog and whatever else would sit still for long enough to be drenched in white vinegar and scrubbed to within an inch of it’s existence.
About this time last year, we moved here, to the TinyTrainTown, from another small town that goes by the name of Paradise. Living in Paradise for six months made the spring clean and un–clutter almost disappointingly easy– anything that I hadn’t used, looked at or thought about in six months was more than likely not useless and could be scrapped, recycled or redistributed. (For those of you who have hoarder tendencies without the ruthlessness minimalism requires, pay careful attention to this next sentence– of everything I got rid of when I moved, I can honestly say I cannot think of one material thing I have genuinely missed or wished I still owned. Really.)
And the year before that… well. Life, into boxes, same as last year. But without nearly as much direction or purpose.
This year, with the weather beginning to warm and the heaven scent garden slowly blooming, it feels as though it’s time to clean. To open windows wide and let warm dry air blow through the house, taking dust and mold and mildew and winter and worries and stress away with it. To shuffle through and pick at boxes of toys and books, to delve into bathroom cupboards and builtin wardrobes and rid the house of the accumulated junk of twelve months worth of day to day in’s and out’s, fifty two weeks worth of life piling up on top of itself.
And it’s just mundane life piling up that leaves the most junk behind. There’s a filing cabinet full of papers to be culled, a storage cupboard stocked with Christmas presents, hoarded over winter like chestnuts, that need of be sorted and eventually wrapped. There’s a hot water main valve that requires relieving, a cat that needs to vaccinated, insurances to be renewed, spiders and other creepy crawlies to be poisoned, a sadly neglected vegetable garden that is just itching to be turned and planted, to stretch tiny seedlings towards the spring sunshine.
I only have myself to blame for so much of that boring doldrum falling right now, all at the same time of year. But, in truth, I don’t mind it at all. It feels like a life reboot, a clearing of the slate. Getting things in order before our birthdays and Christmas– the party season for our small family, all the festivities falling at once– begin and the New Year rolls out again with the best of intentions, before the days trip all over one another and life piles up again.
A thorough clean is a spiritual necessity in order to vacuum up the existential cobwebs and complement the Spring life–refresh.
Force me to choose the task I prefer from all the possible cleaning activities available (laundering of cloth nappies not included), there’d be very little hesitation before I answered ’vacuuming’. There’s something morbidly and perversely fascinating about sucking up particles of dust, dirt and the ever–present Cheerios through an appliance that has more horsepower than my first car. (What is it with small children and Cheerios in every conceivable nook and cranny of the house? Like carrots in vomit; they are omni–present, independent of last consumption).
So I vacuum during a Spring Clean. A lot. I vacuum lounge chairs and picture frames, bookcases and the books within them. I vacuum shelves and drawers and smoke detectors. I even move things, big heavy things like lounges and tables, and vacuum underneath them. I strip sheets and flip mattresses– and vacuum them as well, of course– wash linens and pillows and hang them out in the warm sunshine to dry. If you are of the uninitiated and have never vacuumed a mattress and stared in horrified wonder at the pile of white–grey skin cells formed into the finest powder that results… You should. Likewise if you’ve never machine–washed and line–dried your pillows back to their original fluffy whiteness. The only real drawback being that other people’s inevitably unwashed bedding is going to really start grossing you out.
Being the big suburban hippy I am, I swore off bleaches and chemicals that smelt almost–but–not–quite–like–apples–or fields–of–flowers when I was pregnant for the first time, struck with a sudden awareness that bordered on paranoia at the way bathroom cleaners seemed to literally burn and singe the tiny fine hairs at the back of my nostrils. These days I stick to bi carb soda and
white vinegar, eucalypt and lavender and tea tree for cleansing, deodorizing and most other household purification purposes.
I mop psuedo–wood floors with boiling water and essential oils to make them shine. I scrub my bathroom, removing a ring made up of hundreds of days of the washed off dirt and play of two small children. I wash windows and wipe down a dozen or so random surfaces from sink to shelf to dollhouse.
And I wash. And wash, and wash, and wash. A week’s worth of washing to two days of hard cleaning… I’m guessing that’s why spring cleaning is done in spring.
After all that’s finally been done, after the hidden places of the house are tended to and tided, vacuumed and scrubbed; the actual satisfying part begins. You return things to their respective places, tweaking and reconsidering their arrangement as you go. You stock cupboards with clean linen, fresh from sunshine that feels to be blooming along with the garden’s flowers, a heat too big for itself that spills it’s excess into the deepest layers of your skin.
Light incense. Burn sage. Run an ionizer– ironically, plugged straight into the power source itself– to smooth out the constant electric buzz of your life.
And relax… relish. Feel your soul–self come into some essence of alignment, as if it’s had it own spring clean, subconsciously shuffling away junk no longer needed in sync with the cleaning out of a house.
It’s wholly satisfying and self–congratulatory and feels like dark secrets and baggage that was just beginning to rot… cleared. Everyone needs a fresh start, occasionally. Spring blows in a new one every year.
It’s like life’s Get Out Of Jail Free Card. The Universe’s way of saying all bets are off, table clear… get yourself set and prepared to start all over again.
*And before anyone mentions the FlyLady… we’ve covered her before.
Previous post: Blogging Is Just Weird.
Next post: Spring Clean, Part Two- White Vinegar
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Jeans and Stuff.
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: A Test Post For the Stupid Posessed Commenting System
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: A Test Post For the Stupid Posessed Commenting System
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Crowning.
The Recipe Book- Part Two – RRSAHM
The Recipe Book- Part Two
Namas day,
And welcome back to Part Two of my great-grandmother’s recipe book. More interesting than it sounds. Here’s Part One, in case you missed it..
As I mentioned last time, the most interesting part of this book was not the recipes themselves, but the articles and ads inadvertently collected at the same time. Like this one, the cover of a Women’s Weekly, that was kept because of the ‘Recipe of the month” club on the back.
Sadie also kept “How-To’s”, like this one on how to make not just a hat, but the stand for it as well. Crafty!
Kinkara Tea ran a whole series of tiny cards with recipes- just small enough to fit in the tea packets, I’m guessing.
There were ads for things we know and love (the Aussies, that is. For the ‘Mericans- what’s a Milo?)
And articles that show how much things have changed, like this with a question from a women who wanted to know why she was not able to purchase a stove with a glass door?
Some of the other ads show a positively alarming side to life in the late 1940′s. Like this one for wringers. I don’t care how automatic it was, it was still a wringer!
Or this one, encouraging women to contribute to the planning of their new homes, so they could choose where they needed power points, and how many. Too right, electricity makes your house easier to run!
But I think the ones that really made my eyes pop were these…
One for ford Pills (that’s laxatives, people) claiming it to be a cure-all for everything including headaches and backaches. Bloody addictive too, from what I’ve heard. But even that is not as disturbing as this one.
“It destroys all desire for alcohol.. can be given secretly or voluntarily..” OK, then!
Incidental history at it’s absolute best. (On a side note, from what I’ve heard, Sadie herself possibly could have done with a good dose of Eucrasy, secretly or voluntarily.).
Oh, and a very happy Good Friday to y’all. It’s the second most-shops-closed day of the year. Enjoy!!
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
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April 3, 2010 at 7:29 am -
Heathens.
- April 3, 2010 at 1:51 am
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That's funny, none of the shops close here for Good Friday (considering we're practically a theocracy, we're still a consumerocracy at heart); which means that we can all run out and buy our Eucrasy today. Yay us.
- April 2, 2010 at 7:45 pm
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I had a wringer when I first got married, popped a few plastic pants (they were what you put over cotton nappies disposable weren't around then). Was always scared I would get my fingers caught. Like the ad for Ford Pills – and the other on was for have a cuppa and a Bex Powder and then lie down. Bex (asprin) caused a lot of deaths as people ended up with bleeding ulcers.
- April 2, 2010 at 1:14 pm
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Oh goddess of blogging how I love this post and and all the snippets. Off to scourge my granny stash now, in search of some 40's stuff. And I need to know if Eucrasy is still available and if it works……
- April 2, 2010 at 8:40 pm
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it is so special you have these things Lori!! Thanks for sharing. Your blog is the best!
Previous post: The Recipe Book- Part One
Next post: Why I bleep out all the f**king swear words in my blog.
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Milk
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Washed Away.
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Falling Into Place
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Not Speaking About Just Everything…
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Fuck You Too.
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: For Any Mother Who May Pass This Way (Nothing funny about this post, folks)
Fairies and Things
Fairies and Things
The Bumpy Fashionista.
Many, many moons ago I wrote a blog post (the last blog post, actually, before the whole world changed for good) confessing my anti–fashionista status. Complete with embarrassing photo.
Not an awful lot has changed, really. I’m still a massive dag. I’m getting slighter better as I get older.
Kind of.
The Bump, however, has taken to dressing up with a totally different attitude to her mum. I’m not sure where she get hers fashion sense from… but it rocks.
Given the ‘choose your battles’ mentality that I employ most days, the Bump is now her own stylist, and picks her own clothes. Which leads to some absolutely glorious outfits. Friday’s choice, for school drop and daycare, was this stunning bridal ensemble.
Veil, party dress, gummies. As you do.
The Bump taken to raiding my wardrobe as well, of course. To her frustration there’s only two or three dresses that “spin properly, Mumma!!”. And she’s not allowed to wear my dresses out of the house, which causes many teary tantrums. (My pretty girl throws herself dramatically only the floor, only to bump her head in her melodrama. “Mummy!!” she screams, rubbing the rising swell of her eyebrow, “I have hurt my frown and I neeeeeeed it!!!”)
The Bump’s personal favorite.
This dress courtesy of one of the Bump’s many stylists, Tegan.
I’m not sure if she gets her fluffy, frilly pink girlishness as a result of having so few male influences, or if she’d inherently be this way anyway. I find myself encouraging it without really meaning to… feminism aside, she is just so damn cute.
But some days are better than others. Some days she’s beautiful, even color coordinated.
Some days she’s even color coordinated.
Other days… well. Other days, I guess she just takes more after me.
And other days… she takes after me.
***
This Bumpy Fashion spread bought to you by Little Woods online shopping. Miss Fashionista has reviewed their collection and assures me that this one is “the very prettiest”.
LadyBird BrushStroke Dress
{ 10 comments }
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: The ‘Yay For Spring’ GiveAway
What Do You Really Need For A Newborn? – RRSAHM
What Do You Really Need For A Newborn?
I wrote this article a while ago for a parenting site. It.. erm.. wasn’t picked up by them. But I like it, so I’m blogging it here on RRSAHM instead. Enjoy.
***
Being pregnant for the first time can be a minefield of insecurities, decisions and, potentially, shopping guilt. Entering a baby product store can be a mind blowing adventure- there are literally thousands of products to choose from, all serving a different purpose, all with different benefits. Some you need, and many you can really do without.
Shopping for your first baby is so exciting, and can be overwhelming. Do your research, talk to other parents and keep your eye out for specials. But, most importantly, don’t get duped- many baby products are total unnecessary and a huge waste of money.
Often, couples expecting their first baby are on the brink of losing one income for an indefinite amount of time, and having an extra mouth to feed- it’s probably not the time to be spending up big. Despite that, it’s easy to spend a few thousand dollars setting yourself and your baby up with products that will only be used for twelve months or so.
So, to avoid being ripped off and ending up with a growing toddler and a garage full of dusty baby products that have never really been used, follow these tips for shopping economically for a newborn.
• Have a list. And try to stick to it. Keep it handy so when friends ask what you need, you can easily let them know.
• Don’t buy until after your baby shower, if you’re having one. You’ll be amazed at how much stuff you can cross off that list after unwrapping your gifts.
• Keep it simple. I know- tiny tutus, vests, suits and shoes are super cute. But honestly, they are a pain to keep on a curly squishy tiny baby, and you won’t get much use out of them. So….
• Have a ‘fun shopping’ limit. Set yourself a limit of, say $100, depending on your budget for ‘fun stuff’. Not for practical needs, but for gorgeous clothes, sweet soft toys and maybe one or two itty bitty pairs of shoes. And a tutu.
So with those hints in mind, what is it that you really need to buy for a newborn baby? Start with these basics. Keep it simple- there’s plenty of time for over organising later.
• A car capsule. Consider hiring one of these, because you may not use it for long- but you will be grateful every time you lift the whole capsule, sleeping baby included, out of the car.
• A maxi carseat. This is for after the capsule. Research car seats well, and buy one that will last as long as possible- preferably right up until your child is of school age.
• Jumpsuits, singlets and socks. The basic newborn baby wardrobe. A safe bet for size is 000 and 00, with a handful of 0000’s thrown in in case bub is really little.
• Nappies, wipes, nappy bags and nappy cream. Unscented wipes are best for newborns, and a nappy cream that provides a barrier is essential.
• Muslin wraps. Lots and lots of them, as big as possible. For wrapping tiny babies tight and removing tiny spew stains from your shoulder.
• Sorbolene cream. Sorbelene can replace shampoo, bath wash and baby moisturiser, all of which aren’t really necessary and can harm sensitive skin.
• A cot. A cradle or crib is smaller and less bulky, but optional- don’t spend hundreds on one when your baby will only use it for a few short months. Most babies can go straight into a cot from birth, following SIDS and Kids Guidelines.
• A good pram. If you are going to splurge on anything, make it your pram- it’s one thing you will use almost every day. Purchase one that is durable and converts from newborn (lying flat) to toddler (sitting upright).
Save your hard earned cash, and buy minimally for a newborn. Above all, remember that a baby is a baby for only a few short months, but they’ll be a child for much, much longer- and they’ll be much more expensive.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
- April 12, 2012 at 10:09 pm
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Thanks so much for the tips, am in my last week! Lisa Newborn Baby
- February 21, 2012 at 10:05 pm
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I never bought a pram, just accepted an old hand me down from friends which I've used maybe half a dozen times. The Dude hates being in the pram so it's ergo or nothing. I'd also never use sorbolene cream, especially on a baby! It's petrochemical based and therefore leeches vitamin E from the skin. I've never once used a nappy bag, not really sure why you'd need them. And most wipes are full of toxic chemicals, good idea to check the ingredients. And don't buy big brand stuff, it's all toxic. Baby doesn't need extra chemicals to process. I totally agree with you on the less is more aspect, people buy so much shit and most of it is unnecessary and just about marketing. Which explains why your article wasn't published, as others have noted!
- February 21, 2012 at 5:19 pm
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I can see why the other site didn't want to buy it, you didn't name any of the outrageously expensive and non-essential items that they want you to.
One really awesome wrap for the baby, one that they can't get out of. It's the only way that I could get 3-6 hours straight sleep. That's the only thing that I give people these days.
Also, I would say hold off on the pram until you get the baby home, use a sling instead (not one of those well known ones that wrecks your back). We bought our fancy pants pram well before our baby was due (who was subsequently stillborn so we didn't get to use it for 18 months until our second baby was born). Knowing what I know now about prams/strollers, I would have gone for a stroller with a capsule option for the newborn stage. Also the sling will help during the crying period which lasted almost 14 weeks for us.
- February 20, 2012 at 5:31 pm
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I'm with Nelle – the last thing those magazines want to hear is common sense! x
- February 20, 2012 at 5:15 pm
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You don't even need the nappy /barrier cream. Cornflour out of the pantry works better than any cream on the market, and at $1 for a cheap bag and $2 for a flour shaker to put it in, you'll never have to worry about nappy creams.
- February 20, 2012 at 4:41 pm
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Haha! Of course it didn't get picked up – 'You don't really need all that crap' is not what the magazine's sponsors want people to hear. It's true though – get the basics and then wait and see what else you need.
- February 20, 2012 at 2:02 pm
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I honestly find you don't need much at all. I wouldn't even have a stroller on my *must have* list as I prefer to use a baby carrier (the type you get from BigW, Target, Kmart etc. are shit, invest in a good comfy carrier).
My must have list is a carseat, obviously, a cot, a comfy place for feeds be it a nice rocking chair, or something else, and then your clothes etc.I agree with the point about the baby shower. Have it before you hit the 30 week mark, because once you hit that mark you tend to freak out about what needs doing, so it's nice to know what you already have covered.
We did the straight in the cot thing with both kids. For feeds I curled up in our recliner which was next to the cot, it was so so comfy I could doze off during feeds, and in winter I would bring Greenie back to bed with me, feed him there, and then get up and put him back in his cot.
- February 20, 2012 at 11:22 am
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Great advice. My fourth lived on me begging and borrowing and lots of handouts! After an 8 year gap i was not going to spend much. I invested in the best pram I could find. Everything else was given to me and she is the best girl ever!!
- February 20, 2012 at 11:10 am
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So very true!!!!!
- February 20, 2012 at 9:50 am
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I really enjoyed this, sweetie! Great tips.
- February 20, 2012 at 12:19 pm
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Lori, thankyou for including the SIDS link.
People, PLEASE don't be complacent about those guidelines. As a SIDS mum, I can tell you, the risk is not worth it.
Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Food on the Un-Foodie Blog.
F*ckwits and Practical Kindness – RRSAHM
F*ckwits and Practical Kindness
Dear Lord, I have no Internet. Again. And no 3G reception. Evidently, it’s near killing me. Telstra promises three days at the most. Here’s hoping.
Please enjoy this post I slaved over in Word.
***
Two things happened rather successively the other day. I decided, with the assurance of my shrink, that most people are fuckwits. Charlie the shrink assures me that this is not only true, it’s a common conclusion reached by people who have been bereaved, especially traumatically.
Charlie the shrink did, however, warn me against getting bitter. Warned me to remind myself that there are good people out there, who are not fuckwits. People who are brave, and good, and loving and strong and awesome.
He’s absolutely correct. So it was a very good thing when I came home and read this post, Practical Kindness, by the lovely Seraphim. It restored my faith in things a bit. And reminded me Ive been meaning to blog this for a while now.
What is real, practical kindness? What helps, when nothing helps? Are words as good as acts, is the sentiment as good as the practicality?
As Sera mentioned, sometimes it’s the offers of help, that help. Just knowing that there are people around who have made that offer can relieve such a burden. You smile, and say “thank you, but we’ll be fine”, and you mean it.
Ans then there are times when you say “No, I’ll be fine,” and you don’t mean it. But you don’t want to take people up on those offers of help, and be a burden. You don’t want to call on people for help, and feel the humiliation of them saying no.
And sometimes, you just don’t know what to ask for. What can I do to help…? People would ask me. Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. All I knew was that was not I was not functioning, but I didn’t know what would be of assistance. And even if I did pinpoint those things, I would never know if I could ask, or not, if what I was asking for was too much trouble.
And that’s where certain awesome people came in. People like Aunty Mickey, who I’ve blogged many times before, who took me in and took care of me for a month after Tony died, doing simple things. Driving me around. Washing my clothes. Hugging me when I cried. Making sure I slept.
And then there is Sarie, who some of you know may know from Twitter. She showed up at my house every few days after Tony died, with food and love and open arms. She bought me boxes when I was packing, made me cocktails when I needed to get drunk. And just last week she sent me a bunch of flowers for no reason at all, other than she cared.
When I moved from the Purple House to Paradise, it was a quick decision. I made the call and moved within a fortnight. The task of packing and moving was enough to drown me. And so in came people- my mum, brother and his girlfriend, my friend the Kitten. hey packed the things that were too difficult for me to look at.
And two very special people named the Pixie and the Bear magically moved me.
Not really, obviously. But it felt that way. The Bear organised a truck, packed me and moved me. Just like that. No stress, effort or worry on my part.
I wish I had the words to explain what an act that was, especially with a baby and house move of their on the way at the time. They took a task that was way too huge for me to even comprehend and made it easy and doable.
As I left my Purple House, the Bear looked me straight in the eye and said “Don’t look back.”
I didn’t. And it remains some of the best advice I’ve ever been given.
As I’ve said, so many times before… the help that is offered, it’s so often lip service that means nothing at all. Real help, practical, proper help… it’s much harder to come by. And it’s very difficult to ask for.
I know people worry about intruding, or stepping on toes, or insulting people by ‘barging in’, giving assistance where it’s not needed or wanted. But maybe that’s part of the problem, why we’re all so disconnected all the time. I couldn’t have asked for the help I needed… I didn’t know what I needed. It was the people who judged the situation, didn’t push the agenda, but offered help without expectation of return, without conditions or judgement… that was the best kind of help I could have been given.
I know it’s hard for some people who are close to me- some have ceased being close to me altogether (fuckwits). Charlie the psych had more to say on that, and I’ll blog it soon. These people- Sarie, Auntie Mickey, the Pixe and the Bear…. they were perfect. In the background, coming forward when they could sense I needed someone.
It was the best practical help anyone could ask for.
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
- September 14, 2011 at 11:10 pm
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hi lori, it's georgi
i so know what you mean here. I know two examples. One day was a sad day and I was watching some beautiful music and started crying and one of my closest friends didn't say anything, just massaged my shoulders for about an hour. Another was when I was writing my dissertation, the last night before it was due, a friend of mine brought me a hot dinner. he skated down from his flat and brought it to me still hot because he knew I wouldn't otherwise get a chance to eat. it's those things – those things you don't have to ask for but someone, some kind soul, just sees its what you need. and they get it so right. much love. x - September 14, 2011 at 9:03 pm
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My relative did it. The day after World Suicide Day. The week of R U OK? Day. The same way as Tony. When I heard my natural reaction was to just swear. Within hours my thoughts turned to you. I was reading this blog when Tony did it. I'm on the computer much less often these days and read less often but I remembered still. You are so open about it all. Why couldn't we all be? She warned someone, she told them. They talked to her, felt she was ok. She tried to call others who were sleeping, not aware their lives were about to change in an indescribable way. The person she talked to attempted to warn others. There was no answer. He thought she would be ok. She wasn't
All of a sudden R U OK day has much more meaning to someone like me, who only ever heard of suicide, was never affected by it. I wish it was different. - September 13, 2011 at 10:23 pm
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O.M.G – What on earth is a Tim Tam Cocktail and why has noone ever told me about them before????
- September 13, 2011 at 10:20 pm
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when my nephew passed away unexpectedly I felt like the world was full of fuckwits that were there just to drive me nuts. But like you, I had amazing friends and family who just did things, simple things and were just there for me.
There are still plenty of fuckwits I feel like slapping cos they whinge and whinge and whinge about the most irrelevant things, but I just have to let it go.
- September 13, 2011 at 10:16 pm
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I'm so glad they were there for you. They took care of what so many of us desperately wished we could have.
So even if they never read this, Huge, virtual kisses and hugs to them for being your peeps.
- September 13, 2011 at 9:16 pm
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Love you Lori… And while I didn't really do anything except loan you my husband for a weekend, I am so glad we could do what you needed when you needed it.
xxxxx thepixiechick - September 13, 2011 at 8:30 pm
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Yes, lots and lots of people are fuckwits. I totally agree. But those who aren't – well they are priceless. I'm so happy you have real, true friends standing by and supporting you.
- September 13, 2011 at 7:53 pm
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I know you would do the same had the roles been reversed. I love you to pieces, you know that & anything is not too much trouble. Though I might protest if you need cocktails in the next six months cos I can't share, either that or make you drink mine too
- September 13, 2011 at 6:56 pm
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Sarie, she is one AMAZING woman. And i'm glad you have other amazing people around you too.
It's sad that you've lost some friends, but I guess that's life. If they can't support you at your worst, they were never true friends anyway were they? And it does suck to admit it.The offers of help i've ever mentioned, they were meant. I know we are yet to actually "meet" but I truely have meant every single offer. I have never wanted to push too much though being a "stranger" and not sure if you're comfortable with pushing or me asking personal questions. I could be some old dude with a rockspider moustache afterall.
But I just wanted you to know, I meant them. It sucks I don't drive and can't just come around like that, but I do want to help, whether it's someone to come around and hug you, or listen to you, cry with you or be strong for you. Someone to take the kids off for the day and give you some time alone (some days that's just NEEDED isn't it?), or just someone to text in the middle of the night because you can't sleep and you don't want to be alone with your thoughts. I'm especially up for someone to drink with. Alcohol is my "happy drug".
Love you, and I know many other people do more than you know xx - September 13, 2011 at 6:55 pm
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It was a pleasure – you so clearly needed to be somewhere else, and it was good to be able to do something constructive about it.
Bear
- September 13, 2011 at 6:55 pm
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And that's just it. You don't know what you need…you need people to just give. And don't get me started on Telstra. We apparently have no option here. Telstra or nothing. The same really.
- September 13, 2011 at 5:20 pm
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I haven't met many people who have truly been able to offer practical help when I've needed it. Even when I asked, not everyone said yes.
You are lucky to have the people you do in your life, which is probably a reflection of you, than of anyone else.
Now, if someone would like to volunteer to take my kids for a week, so I could breathe, or maybe check myself into hospital, that would be a true act of kindness.
- September 13, 2011 at 4:50 pm
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They are the jewels in our world – those that step in do what we can't manage to ask for, I'm glad they are there for you xx
- September 13, 2011 at 4:40 pm
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I think Suzi put it best when she commented, "Massive traumas and life changes tend to let you know who your real friends are…" and she's absolutely correct. (I think I have a lot of "fair weather friends" to say the least.)
I'm chuffed to bits that there are people who stuck/are sticking by you throughout the chaos. You're truly blessed to have those kind of people in your life.
- September 13, 2011 at 4:20 pm
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After losing my daughter ive experienced similar to you. It seems only the brave are willing to step up and be there for you. Often its the friends we least expect that are there for us in our darkest times. Like you said people are unsure of what to do or say. Im so glad you have people around you who really do care and at the end of the day thats what matters Xx
- September 13, 2011 at 4:08 pm
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Your shrink sounds fantastic. I'm glad you have somebody like that supporting you. It is freeing being able to acknowledge that other people are jerks, but he is right – there are lovely people out there, so don't let the bitterness blind you to that.
Good luck and I'm glad you have some great support. You deserve it.
- September 13, 2011 at 3:57 pm
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Massive traumas and life changes tend to let you know who your real friends are, and it can be quite painful to realize how few genuine friends you really have left. I'm glad your true friends shon for you when you needed them. xx
- September 13, 2011 at 3:37 pm
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pffft Sarie… she barely carried a box
But seriously, you know we are always here if you need anything at all, even if it is only a TimTam Cocktail
- September 13, 2011 at 11:52 pm
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So glad to hear you have those magical, wonderful people who offer help and MEAN it. You're right, there are a LOT of fuckwits in this world, but there are those gems who really know how to care. Hope you get your Internets back soon, and I hope the move went smoothly.
- September 13, 2011 at 9:00 pm
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Sometimes I wonder if f*ckwitism is something people are born with?
And a big WOO to the HOO to all those who helped you when you needed it, Lori. They're fricking awesome, every one of them.
Helping someone through grief is a hard task. Anyone who sticks around is a hero, in my book.
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Next post: The Things We Do For Our Kids…
Let's Hear It For The Boy. – RRSAHM
Let’s Hear It For The Boy.
I can be such a selfish bitch sometimes. (And don’t we already know it…?)
Three weeks we’ve been in The New House in Melbourne. The focus has been entirely on the kidlets. Obviously, that’s not the selfish part- that’s the way it should be done. I get them settled, sorted, organised, into a new routine that’s better for all of us.
But once my children are settled, I slip into ‘me, me, me’ mode. Again, not surprising- humans are inherently self-involved creatures, with only our primal biology ensuring we sacrifice ourselves so completely to our children’s needs. Beyond that, self preservation is instinctual and difficult to see past.
This is what I tell myself, at least. Biological narcissism seems preferable over selfish tunnel-vision. The truth of the matter is that I’ve largely ignored the emotional state of The Most Amazing Man, while wallowing in my own pit of worry.
This has been- still is, actually- just as difficult for him as it has been for any of us. His hip, unencumbered single life in Melbourne has suddenly been hampered by this instant family he’s found himself with. Time to himself has become almost non-existent. Lazy weekend sleep-ins and Sunday brunches have been replaced by Saturday morning cartoons and overly-energetic children. A disposable income has been replaced by Centrelink forms. It’s a shock to the shadows of life. He expected it to be different, of course. But he’s really had no way to prepare himself for the reality of it.
And being the gentle, unassuming person he is, he’s doing such a remarkable job of being everything to all of us that I sometimes, selfishly, forget how much we have turned his life upside down.
He is just here, a constant, calming presence. He washes clothes and dishes. He cooks meals and picks up the slack of the house. He plays with my children, answers a hundred questions a day from them. And does it all in good humour, with patience and understanding. He never raises his voice. He takes it all in his stride.
Sometimes I even forget to say thank you. I forget to tell him that I am okay, that I feel supported here. That I appreciate everything he does.
So, a round of applause, if you will. Credit where credit is due.
The Most Amazing In The Universe just continues to be… well… amazing.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
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November 8, 2013 at 4:40 pm -
Love, love, LOVE this!
Madmother recently posted…I think I may be heading on back in…
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November 9, 2013 at 4:03 pm -
Thanks MM
He’s pretty damn cool x
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September 21, 2013 at 12:02 pm -
I can only imagine what an adjustment it is to go from no kids to kids
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September 21, 2013 at 7:58 am -
The Most Amazing Man really does sound amazing. I hope he realises how rare it is to find someone who will love another’s kids like they’re their own and with patience and good humor too! I hear thousands of women’s hearts swooning right now.
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September 20, 2013 at 11:55 pm -
I’m so happy for you all, I was gonna suggest you clone him! I can feel how cherished you are just from your descriptions. My mum found her own TMAM when we were 3 little girls of 2, 4, & 6. Like your man, hers had never married or had children of his own and he slotted into our lives without question. 30-odd years and 4 grandchildren later…..
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September 20, 2013 at 6:55 pm -
Hooray Lori! Your most amazing man sounds truly special! As you so sorrowfully learned from the past… the partner you live your daily life with and choose to commit to will be the one you share in creating the narrative you live in. Sounds like you have chosen wisely….this one is kind, patient and sensitive to the needs of you and your children in the present situation.
I don’t think you’ve been the least bit selfish in the last few weeks by prioritising the emotional needs of the kids….having them settled and secure is absolutely necessary to make the environment positive for you and most amazing man to get on with consolidating upon those foundations…
soooo happy for you
Pearl -
September 20, 2013 at 10:10 am -
We are all pleased for y’all.
and ofcourse you are living in the best place.Best wishes and rah rah
Spagsy recently posted…Happy Mess -
September 20, 2013 at 9:55 am -
And Kristina, You are so correct.
Marianne recently posted…Boondoggle’s End
- September 20, 2013 at 9:53 am
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And, Hon’, I am sure he feels blessed to have you and yours there.
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September 20, 2013 at 9:53 am -
You posted, a while ago (one of the first about him, maybe?)… about trying to warn him off you, or maybe trying to explain that he needed to fix you. You wrote of a two-line conversation:
“I am broken.”
“No, you’re not.”And when I read that, I thought… here is what everyone should want. Women (myself included) so often want someone who can fix them, take care of them, pick up their pieces… those things are fine, lovely even. But to have someone who sees strength through pain, who makes you (and your kids) a part of his life because HIS life will be better for it? That’s stunning and rare.
So yes, applause, applause, for the The Most Amazing Man.
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September 20, 2013 at 8:25 am -
Oh dude, he sounds like such a winner. That patience, it’s so rare. Patience and good humour are so important.
Whoa, Molly! recently posted…When do you let it go? - September 20, 2013 at 8:22 am
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Yay for the most amazing man! Amazing men are hard to come by.
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Random Ramblings of a SAHM: For Any Mother Who May Pass This Way (Nothing funny about this post, folks)
The Tunnels – RRSAHM
The Tunnels
Many, many moons ago, when I first started this blog, I posted about being entirely sucked in by a ghost photo taken in the Picton Tunnels… which turned out to be made with an iPhone app. Nathan, the bloke in this photo with his arm around the un–ghost was, from what I remember, a friend of a friend of a friend.
Fast forward to now, this blog is a bit bigger than it was. Google Image search ‘Picton Tunnels’ and Nathan comes up on the third page.
And, bless him, being the damn good sport he is, he left me this comment a week or so ago…
Haha dude that’s me in the photo. I made this photo I’m
Nathan, yeah your right I did use the iPhone app haha but it was good fun while it lasted. Don’t worry I give you permission too use my photo it’s all good. Im keen too know what the ghost your physic said about it? If you wanna can email me its n.page@live.com.
P.s my mate said he types in picton tunnels and said I was came up in google so that’s how I found this so random
And I’m happy to admit I did panic there for a moment, thinking he was going to sue me or something. He’s not. Three cheers for Nathan. And his mate, the iGhost.
***
I haven’t been to the Mushroom Tunnels, or the Redbank Tunnel– depending on who listen to, both are local names for the Picton Tunnel– since I last went with my husband. As a very brief history, Picton Tunnel used to be part of the rail line in this area, over a hundred years ago, when steam trains ran through here frequently. It was put out of use when the train line was diverted and extended up into the hills behind it. Since then, it’s rumored to have been used as an top secret ammunition storage area in the Second World War. And, more mundanely, the owner in the seventies sealed it up and used it’s dank darkness to grow mushrooms.
It was the main attraction of the Picton Ghost Tours, which have been closed down thanks to the Council getting its nose out of joint about just about everything, including traffic lights (none) and Maccas (only if it doesn’t look like one, please). The Tunnel is currently open to visitors weekday mornings. It closes at two pm to prevent the local school kids using it as hide out to smoke pot after school (and I know this from first hand experience… I went to high school here, too).
The Council probably actually has reasonable right to be concerned– it’s a sandstone train tunnel, hundreds of years old, and apparently official reports say the structure is unsafe and unsound. It’s set back from the road about a kilometer, not marked on tourist maps; although there is a sign there now where there hasn’t been for years, more announcing the Tunnel’s closing times than the existence of a historically and archeologically significant landmark.
The house next door to the driveway into the Tunnel is known as the Rectory, and rumor has it that the owner’s objections played a large role in sounding the death knell of the Ghost Tours. But, really… who would want fifty people taking photos of their house every Friday and Saturday night? Especially when it was encouraged by the tour guides (“Fortunately, it’s not illegal to take photos of the outside of Amy property on NSW”). Last time I was here, I took photos for the sake of it, flash on, just to spite the owners of this house. Now, in the After, maybe, or maybe because I’m just a bit more of a grown up, I have more respect for their privacy.
The Tunnels, they say, are haunted by a whole lot of ghosts, spanning years, including a pedophile who used to bring his victims here; and an entity that is apparently more spirt than ghost, but nasty– male, large, strong, a black light sucking force that screams soundlessly in the faces of those who enter the darkness of the Tunnel.
And then there’s Emily. People speak of her as being young, a child or teenager, but records say she was older, maybe fifty. She was taking a short cut through the still-active train tunnel from her own house in Picton to her brother’s property in Thirlmere when she was hit by a steam train, and pieces of her dragged for up to a kilometer, right into what was then the center of town.
They say Emily’s ghost is playful and cheeky and energetic, that she enjoys having visitors to her Tunnel and showing herself off. I will, tentatively, believe that. If I have ever seen a ghost, an apparition, then I think it was her that I saw, years ago, on a ghost tour here with my husband. A sparkling, green phosphoresce in the shape of woman’s torso that flickered and darted across a black, dark space that had just enough light to give it depth. If it was a trick of my eyes, then it was playing the same trick on others; because we watched it, whispered of it, as it seemed to come twenty feet further up the tunnel… then we almost felt it giggle as zoomed fifty foot back in the direction it had come.
No doubt there are a thousand logical explanations for that, and while I’ve always been a cynic, it was a different ‘me’ that saw that, and I can’t argue the truth of it. But I do know that, while that cheeky, youthful spirit seemed to play with her tourist visitors, there is a much darker feeling in that Tunnel, something that creeps icy fingers up the back of your neck, makes it ten degrees colder not just in the Tunnel but around it,
and makes the wind rush through the place in a way that’s feels unnatural… a tunnel set in the lulls of a valley surely shouldn’t conduct that much velocity.
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| The hideaway hole, half way up the Tunnel. |
And they say that as apparently happy as the spirt of Emily may be now, there is no logical reason for her to have been taken by that train in the first place… a woman who had walked through that tunnel a hundred times before, who knew the train timetable off by heart.
A woman who knew exactly where the hidie-hole in the tunnel was, the indent in the sandstone where you could press yourself flat as the choking scream of a steam, train roared past, flinging burning ashes into your eyelids and coal dust into your mouth…
She knew where it was. It was just that, on that particular day, she chose not to use it.
***
I drive my car as close in to the Tunnel as I can– I want photos, but I don’t really want to be here. This place is creepy, eerie. It makes that sixth sense that tells you you’re in danger prick up in a bizarre way… it’s not physical danger, but there is something here that your senses are alarmed by anyway.
And it’s cold. Despite the sunshine, even walking up toward here it is freezing. It’s damp– the ground is mud, and moss and lichen growing on every available foothold. There are herbs that I could use growing everywhere but I pick none of them… They don’t feel as though they would heal anything, juts spread the dank darkness of this place into skin and onto their souls.
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| Boo!! |
The wind rushes out of the tunnel in an Arctic blast again, and I’ll admit I am scared. I don’t spook easily. I enjoy old buildings, abandoned places… I like the feeling of lives that have been lived, carved out with their memories left like burnt out light filaments, leaving a stain of energy of somewhere geographical. Even when somewhere doesn’t feel pleasant, it still doesn’t scare me.
But this Tunnel does. I venture half way in, quickly, breathing fast, palms sweating despite the chill, and with every rush of wind I scold myself for expecting to turn and see the lights of a misty, half-formed train looming at me from just feet away. I snap photos quickly, wanting to adjust the shutter speed but reluctant to pause long enough to do so.
I enter the Tunnel under the assumption that of course I will walk the entire way through… That’s what I do. I explore. Ten feet in and I have to force myself to go halfway to take some photos of the hideaway. I attempt to steel myself, look towards the small oval of light that is the far reach of the structure and apparently opens up onto a paddock behind it (possibly stocked with much–needed variegated thistles), and consider being brave enough simply hold my breath, think happy thoughts and run the gauntlet to it’s end.
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| Genuine goosebumps. Place is creepy. |
Then another thought strikes me– if I do that, I’d have to come back. And that alone is enough to unnerve me. I leave the Tunnel quickly, brave enough to turn my back on it’s darkness as I’m walking out… but I take photos with my camera behind my back and don’t look at them until days later, not sure I want to see what’s there.
There’s nothing, of course. Just childish fear and superstition. I’m not sure why it spooked me so badly- call it nerves or hormones or psychosis or whatever- but it did. Tim the Yowie Man– a paranormal investigator with impressive credentials, despite his stupid name- declares Picton as the most haunted place in Australia… and the Tunnel would be at the epicenter of that. (Although, really, being unable to find evidence of that, it may just be more ghost hunt propaganda.)
I don’t even know if I believe in ghosts, really… the scientific cynic in me argues both for and against them. But haunted or not, the Tunnels are dark in way that’s not even melancholy like the Maltings… the Tunnel is just black.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
- August 12, 2012 at 8:06 pm
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I grew up in Picton but I never had the guts to go explore the tunnels. Too many scary stories for me!
- July 28, 2012 at 4:02 pm
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I am yet to do a ghost tour of the area. Silly huh? I've always really really wanted to but I've never had anyone that's been interested. Maybe I will ask BFF, she probably would.
I haven't even been to Picton Tunnels. Not properly. When I was dating an ex I made him drive us up there once, but the gates were closed so we couldn't go - July 27, 2012 at 10:46 am
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This looks really creepy! I do believe in ghosts and have seen quite a few over the years.
- July 26, 2012 at 11:59 pm
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Hi Lori,
Thanks. Picton/Thirlmere is home to me (in WA these days)so I loved the reminder about the tunnel, I always meant to explore it but never did. We use to walk up hill near Jarvisfield to look in the Antil family vault, scary at night but just sad during the day. I always hoped that Picton really was haunted but never did 'see' anything :).
Thanks again,
Sarah - July 26, 2012 at 10:58 pm
- July 26, 2012 at 9:06 pm
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Haunted or not I'm glad you trusted your gut and got out of there
- July 26, 2012 at 4:57 pm
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Spooky. Proper spooky.
- July 26, 2012 at 4:54 pm
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LOL…Love the goosebump pic! LOL
These tunnels look like the ultimate DARE!
Even as a skeptic I wouldn't go inside. lol - July 26, 2012 at 10:46 am
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I wish there were still trains going through all the tunnels
- July 26, 2012 at 9:13 am
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I've been to the Picton tunnels several times, not on a tour, just as a curious spectator at night. The uneasiness that consumed me from the moment we turned onto the driveway had me certain there's all kinds of spirits in there. And the way the hair on the back of my neck stood up I also had a feeling there was someone rather sinister lurking. One night, we were there in my uncle's car, a late model Ford. We kept it running (you know, in case we needed to get away hastily!) and we were walking around… When we went back to the car, all of the doors were locked. The car had remote central locking, the keys were in the ignition, the 4 of us were standing next to it thinking WTF? There were a few minutes of panic, we were about to smash a window knowing that it would mean we'd never be able to take the car out again. Then we checked all 4 doors one last time, and one of the back ones was unlocked. Just one, that was previously locked, in a car with remote central locking. Now, while it is possible that this was some kind of technical fault, the dreamer in me likes to believe that it was supernatural tom-foolery at its best!
- July 26, 2012 at 8:54 am
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I had chills just reading this! I am the biggest sook around, I would have been packing it.
I did a ghost tour of Port Arthur 12/13 years ago, scared me half to death!
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Random Ramblings of a SAHM: Another New House In Paradise….
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December 2013 – RRSAHM
December 2013
I tell people I’m not well right now, and it tastes like a lie.
If this was a physical illness (and maybe it should be called just that), I’d tell myself not to push too hard. To be kind to myself. To fill myself up with nourishment, to rest and allow myself time to just sit and be still and heal. For fear of becoming sicker.
There’s a nagging voice that tells me this is mind over matter, this is all in my head.
Both those things are true, but not true. The depressive’s paradox.
From the Robot Hugs blog.
***
I remember Charlie the shrink asking me why I kept it all in, why I pretended I had this all under control, when clearly there was so much still to deal with.
Because I don’t want to do it alone, I told him. Because I want someone there to break my fall. Someone to fill in the pieces of my self esteem that I couldn’t resurrect myself.
And now I’m here. The Most Amazing Man is a constant. He holds me when I cry, makes me laugh when I hate myself. And he doesn’t stop loving me. Never once threatens to take himself away because the emotional fire of this onslaught is too hot and it burns.
It sucks for him. To have me, but not have me the way I was. The person he met is not the person I am now. The essence of me is still there. It’s just that all the strength has left me. I am a wasted wreck of the person I once was. I’ve found my safe space and I wallow in it, confident that when I breach the surface for air, he will still be there.
And he is. Every time. He supports the threads of our life, so I don’t have to. It’s not what he signed up for, we both know that. But he never complains, never resents me or the kidlets for it.
I trust him. I believe him when he says I will get better, and that he will still be here, no matter what.
***
One day at a time. Small things. Tiny goals. Touchstones with which to connect to reality. I shower. I take my meds. Today’s goal is writing this blog post. I try to keep myself busy. I pay attention to my thoughts, put up big red Stop signs in my head. Attempt to pinch off horrible thoughts before they spin themselves into a vortex I cannot push back out of.
I try to take control of my mind, one minute at a time.
***
If nothing else, I can do Christmas. The kidlets are so little. They deserve Christmas and all the good fun things that come with it.
It’s relatively uncomplicated and the process of buying, wrapping, listing, and caroling has very few horrible memories attached to it.
I mix things up. Occasionally I forget the little white lies that exist to keep Santa a real, believable concept. But the excitement of it, the magical element of the season… that allows me to fool my children with my shoddy, hard-won enthusiasm.
Our Christmas tree is a metaphor for my life right now. It’s lopsided, the decorations thrown on haphazardly. But it’s there, in all it’s symbolic glory.
It’s the best I can do right now.
It’s enough.
***
Thanks to everyone who left me a comment, or sent me an email. It reminds me that even when I can’t bring myself to care very much about me… there are other people who do.
{ 18 comments }
I’m still here. I’m just not… really.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Or, worse… I know exactly what’s wrong with me. I’m so depressed I don’t even want to cry. There’s not enough feel left in me for those kind of emotions.
I’m losing whole days and I’m not even sure what’s happening to them. I feel a bit like I’m walking through weightless, opaque fog. The world is a movie set. One tiny push of my finger will disturb it and the world around me will shimmer and crumble and suck itself down into a whirlpool of black nothingness. I wonder what that would be like.
Not much different to this, really. Existing in a black vacuum, where nothing echoes because nothing is real.
Some days it’s hard to follow conversations. Reality confuses me. I say things that aren’t quite right. I trip over my words, my tongue is useless and too big in my mouth.
I stop writing anything at all. I don’t want to sit and pull great big gloops of myself out of my head and onto the screen because that might hurt.
I sit in the office of my newly-found shrink, Luke, and I cry. I curl into myself and pour out pain and despair and desolateness. He tells me I have severe post traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, severe depression.
I knew all that. I just don’t understand why it’s so bad now. Why I’ve been able to be so strong for so long. Why I’ve been relatively functional the last few years and now everything’s a mess.
I don’t know how to fix myself. I’m just waiting it out. I make myself do things, little things. Luke the Shrink calls it ‘behavioural activation’. I think that means that I’m trying to trick myself into not being so stagnant. Remind my brain of the physiological benefits of activity.
So I wash my face. I clean my teeth. Some days I’m incapable of even doing that.
But I’m here. Still. Just. Kind of.
This too shall pass.
It has to.
{ 29 comments }
After leaving the lush decadence of the TinyTrainHouse’s backyard, it’s very lovely to have a garden again.
In the midst of all this blackness, it’s the Most Amazing Man who begins to build a veggie patch in the urban backyard of The New House. The very back edge of the block we live on was once a laneway. A ten foot stretch of land that runs along our back fence is raised by a foot or two, and was overrun with thick kikuyu grass and an ugly, greedy cactus when we first moved in.
The Most Amazing Man puts old rugs over the bright green grass to kill it, starving it of a sunlight for a few weeks. Then he attacks it with a pickaxe, turning up lumps of yellowed weeds until the soil is revealed, rich and dark and moist-smelling; filled with fat, happy worms.
We plant veggies. Tomatoes bought as saplings from Bunnings. Tiny chilli and basil seedlings. We rescue a small parsley plant from the corner of the raised section, making us think it’s not this patch of ground’s first incarnation as a vegetable bed.
We plant seeds to sprout- calendula, sugar snap peas, star and moon watermelons. The tiny chubby hands of the kidlets pushing dirt across freshly planted seeds carries whispers of everything that’s good in the world.
Gardening makes me miss my gran so badly. But there’s therapy in it too. Something about dirt under your fingernails, pulling stubborn grass from the ground as it re-grows and makes a mess of the garden bed… it’s therapeutic. It’s soul food.
It’s satisfaction. We weed and water and tend to it daily, the Most Amazing Man and I. We watch the slowly unfurling leaves,the flowers that bud and bloom. We watch in wonderment at what we’re creating here.
{ 3 comments }
Paroxetine. – RRSAHM
Paroxetine.
If my medication isn’t addictive, why are the withdrawal symptoms so yuck?
I take sixty milligrams of Paroxetine a day, and have been doing so since a week After the sky fell in. Apparently, that’s a ‘hefty dose’ of anti–depressants– the maximum recommended dose is fifty milligrams. I think we’ll just say I’m a special (head) case and i need every damn milligram I take.
Paroxetine is an anti–anxiety medication, and its generally the first thing prescribed for PTSD. Psych meds, when used properly, are awesome. Give me all the St John’s Wort in the world, and I doubt it will have the effect that these pills do.
It’s not that they even cause me to be particularly happy. But they take the burning edge off anxiety. They regulate my over–responsiveness enough that I don’t feel as though I’m about to die from the adrenaline surge a raised voice sends through me.
Meds don’t make me happy… but it feels as though they make it possible to be happy. Like I’m starting at the some kind of even place, rather than with a sadness and worry deficit to handicap me. The meds make it possible to have a good day, if good things happen. They take away the apathetic fatigue that depression sits around your shoulders, the metaphorical cotton wool that muffles your mind somewhere between your eyes and your temples.
While I’m being metaphorical… meds don’t make the sun shine. They do, however, thin the clouds considerably. So if the sun shines hard enough it may just burn the fog away enough for it to be seen.
Anyway.
Just as taking my meds doesn’t make me happy, missing a dose of them (through forgetfulness or willful stupidity) doesn’t always make me sad or unsettled or anxious. If I’m having a particularly good time, I may not even notice I haven’t taken them at all.
Until the physical withdrawals kick in.
Withdrawals are never nice. A metallic thirst. A strange rushing inertia. A fast flowing pins and needles effect that shoots through your extremities every time you move. Nausea. Sleepiness. Sleeplessness.
And with that, the agitation and useless anxiety about nothing in particular. Bad dreams. Restlessness. Picking and chewing at my poor, short fingernails.
The apathy is the worst of it, though. At university I heard about what the lecturers called ‘schizophrenic logic’. “I feel okay, so I can stop taking my meds”. Not “My meds are making me feel okay, so I should keep taking them”.
It’s even stupider the way I rationalize what I don’t do. I went to Melbourne last weekend and forgot to take my medication with me. I take one dose on Saturday when I return home, then forget again on Sunday and don’t take another until Monday afternoon.
I’m an idiot, and I know I am, even while my head says to me “I feel like shit. I cannot be bothered taking my meds” instead of “My meds will make me stop feeling shit”.
Paroxetine takes two weeks to reach it’s full effect when you first start taking it. It’s got an extremely short half life, especially at such a high dose- it begins to wear off after twenty four hours, and withdrawals kick in at forty eight hours. Coming off it requires a gradual, incremental decrease.
Long post, made short; forgetting to take my medication messes with my head. I need to get my shit together.
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
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July 21, 2013 at 7:12 pm -
We all make mistakes; hey at least this one comes with a physical reminder… some things don’t and then you can get a nasty shock.
A lot of psych meds are physically addictive, but don’t worry, if you get to the point where you don’t need them any more, you can step off them gradually (you’ve already been clever enough to figure out going cold turkey would massively suck!). Check with me if you get to that stage, I’m a massive researcher in this area and have got myself off Efexor and am stepping hubby off Benzos now in prep for stepping off anti depressants and anti psychotics. (Because he doesn’t need them anymore since he got off those nasty opiates.)
- July 18, 2013 at 1:22 pm
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Just that understanding that regardless of how you feel you have to take your medication because it is what is helping those good moments to be possible is such an amazing leap in the right direction Lori.
It is an easy connection to people when in the right frame of mind, but to have your head speak up and tell you this when you’re having a hard time, and not tell you that they aren’t working, or to tell you that you need to keep taking them when you’re having an easier time, that is so important. You are amazing xx- July 18, 2013 at 5:07 pm
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Thanks Pink xx
Lori Dwyer recently posted…The New Wiggles.
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July 17, 2013 at 7:32 pm -
My husband is on anti depressants and I’m all too familiar with the ‘I feel fine, so I wont’ take my meds’ logic. It must be hard to keep taking them though, given the side effects some of the medications can have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOKjkwKT0gc
<.< Hopefully you'll find it amusing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-8hrKb8SAQ
And hopefully that one makes up for it if you don't. It's dedicated to his daughter.
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July 16, 2013 at 8:11 pm -
Ugh, I always had a mental block about remembering to take meds, was on citalopram for a year or so. Hope they’re helping you.
Lisa@Circle of toast recently posted…Evil Ratbags- July 17, 2013 at 3:56 pm
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The definitely are, Lisa
Lori Dwyer recently posted…Little Kids and Material Possessions.
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July 16, 2013 at 1:31 pm -
oh hell… the week I go off coffee the NYT sends in the article of a lifetime telling everyone how beneficial the stuff is… prolongs life and brain cells and staves off the bad Alzheimer gig. So I sit there on that day wondering why I’m doing it but I was going to have to for a particular reason…
Now I’m thinking of going on medication the last two days and wanting to tell myself it is good and drugs will save my life and sanity. Then I read this. OMFG! I will suffer rather than deal with more hell by taking drugs.
- July 18, 2013 at 5:06 pm
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Oh Anne… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to put you off. They can do a lot of good, really- I don’t know where I’d be without them. They have their good and bad- I guess it’s just a matter of which outweighs the other xx
Lori Dwyer recently posted…Little Kids and Material Possessions.- July 26, 2013 at 11:22 am
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you really didn’t put me off… I know it’s a decision I have to make on my own and I can weight it out. Sorry for my silly outburst here. I would rather you share your best and most honest feelings than keeping it comfortable for those of us who might be in the process of freaking out about things… we need to hear the truth and we need to know we are not alone one way or the other. Thank you!
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July 16, 2013 at 7:41 am -
oh, god.
i miss being able to take meds. an unfortunate series of allergic reactions left me with nothing i can take until they invent something new and chemically unrelated.
i remember the last does i was able to take of the last med i had available. the reaction wasn’t so bad and i was able to stop it with benadryl but it was the end of life as i knew it. i went from “managed” to completely unmedicated and hitting horrible withdrawal in about twelve hours.
and i needed those meds to keep me a viable member of the workforce.
it’s a different life, and a pretty good one, but it’s not what i wanted to be when i grew up.
flask recently posted…the US in the international sphere: a short story- July 17, 2013 at 3:53 pm
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That really sucks flask
Lori Dwyer recently posted…Little Kids and Material Possessions.
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July 16, 2013 at 4:50 am -
*hugs* I went overseas and didn’t take enough of my drugs with me, so they ran out with a week to go. It was awful. I get loss of vision, nausea, exhaustion and have trouble hearing.
I tried stopping them completely and ended up with my sister visiting on a Wednesday as I was sitting on the living room floor with my 2yr old watching tv surrounded by grocery bags.
“How long have these bags been here, hon?”
“Since I went shopping. I don’t remember. Sunday.”
“Sweetheart, I think you might have to reconsider the meds. I’m proud of you for trying, but it’s just not the right time yet.”Really lucky I have someone who loves me enough to visit, and to talk me into seeing what’s around me so I can make a rational call about my meds. I really had hoped it would work that time, because it wasn’t that bad once the side effects wore off – it just wasn’t that good either. Not as good as I deserve to be.
- July 17, 2013 at 3:52 pm
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The thing with the shopping… I recognise that, too much. You’re lucky you have your sister
xx
Lori Dwyer recently posted…Little Kids and Material Possessions.
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July 16, 2013 at 2:29 am -
Trying to get off meds sucks. I like Kirsty am on 60mg a day of cymbalta and recently tried to get off it by dropping to a 30mg a day twas not a pretty sight :/ hoping to try and get off them again soon tho cause its made me fat and I want to go on diet pills for awhile to shift this weight. Cant do that till I get off the cymbalta tho. I’ve tried diet and exercise and its got me nowhere. I wish you luck in getting off them and hope its not too mentally stressing for you, you have a lovely partner to support you and help you get through it so just keep battling on xo
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July 16, 2013 at 11:48 am -
Oh my goodness I could cry, Tam! I am having problems with shifting my weight on the Cymbalta too! I’ve put on like 10 kilos being on them!! grrr silly drugs.
- July 17, 2013 at 3:48 pm
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I’ve put on a stack of weight, too. Most days I try not to mind, and I succeed… not today, though. Today I mind a lot.
Lori Dwyer recently posted…Little Kids and Material Possessions.
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July 15, 2013 at 11:37 pm -
Hi Lori,
I wonder if there is something about the planetary alignment at the moment, seeing as though last week also saw me on the adventures of being non-medicated.
Remember that you are special enough to deserve to take your meds.
Love,
Trisha
Trisha recently posted…Living with Depression: Some of my coping tips-
July 17, 2013 at 3:41 pm -
Seems it’s not even just us Trish… must be the planetary alignment, or something.
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- July 15, 2013 at 11:21 pm
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I was on a pretty high dose of Paroxetine (40mg) after all of the unpleasantness in April 2011…it was a life-saver in terms of treating the anxiety and PTSD. However, when my insurance changed this past January…I realized how expensive it was ($90/mo). I asked my doctor about changing to something else (also about reducing since things are so much better 2 1/2 years later). She switched me to citalpram (20mg). I find that I like it SO much better. I really didn’t have any depression, per se, to deal with…I was just a jittery, anxious mess prone to panic attacks at the drop of a hat. This new Rx seems to be even better than the Paxil…and if I miss a dose, the side effects are minimal.
Marianne recently posted…Can’t keep a good girl down - July 15, 2013 at 9:47 pm
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Dude, I am hearing you. I am so mad at the doctor that first prescribed me this shit. Why? Because it wasn’t even a discussion. No ‘you should try therapy first’ etc… So i’ve tried so many different AD’s and have come to the decision to finally come off my Cymbalta. Its taking a long time to do so because I’ve been through the withdrawals before and it sucks. I came off 150mg of Effexor xr, from the advice of a doctor. Lets just say. NOT.Pretty. So now down to 60 mg of Cymbalta.. im doing it little bit at a time. The only thing I know is that even coming off the minimalist amount of it, is going to suck. Lots of walking and lots of water is all I can suggest babe. And just ride it through till you’re clear. I wish I was warned of how hard this stuff is to get off… I swear heroin would be easier sometimes
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I took 3 months to come off Effexor and I think it was possibly the WORST 3 months of my (and my family) life. The withdrawals were just horrible. Had I known I was going to go through this I never would have started on it. Too many side effects of taking it too. But then again not taking it had side effects too. It’s a vicious cycle.
What I did find useful during withdrawal was fish oil. I’d take 2 a few times a day and it seemed to make it a bit more doable.- July 17, 2013 at 3:44 pm
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Yep…damned if you, damned if you don’t
Lori Dwyer recently posted…Little Kids and Material Possessions.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
House cleaning becomes very necessary in spring season.It is better to do it yourself but it is much better to hire a professional cleaning company to clean your house.House cleaning Sydney
I've spent the day cleaning and you've still managed to inspire me to start spring cleaning!
I totally get this post and may I say also your posts have bee fab this past week.
You sound lighter somehow. Happier.
I'm glad for you xo
PS: sorry about double post, not sure what happened
You're hired!
Seriously though, I get it. Have been doing the same here, and it's really settling me. I don't enjoy ordinary cleaning at all, but a spring clean is a fairly spiritual thing
You're hired!
Seriously though, I get it. Have been doing the same here, and it's really settling me. I don't enjoy ordinary cleaning at all, but a spring clean is a fairly spiritual thing
Sorry. I went back and found the post about George. I had somehow missed that one.
Wait… did you find the cat?
Wanna come do my house??
Just discovered your blog through Blogher. Wow…Love it…
PS: Can you come to the US and clean my house???
Anne
http://www.allaboutelizabeth-anne.blogspot.com
Any way I can bribe you into sharing your household-cleaning-liquid "recipes"?
I read the first line and I'm sorry, but can we even be friends anymore? I HATE cleaning. Detest. Of course, I love the clean house, but getting it there makes me want to kick things.
Heh.
I've still been reading, but so sorry, so slack on the commenting.
It's not weird – I take immense satisfaction in vacuuming too! My best friend brought me a cyclonic vacuum for christmas one year and I was extremely delighted.
Okay, maybe it's a little weird.
Your posts have all been amazing the past week (not that they arent always great, but it's like there is some new level happening), and I haven't been able to comment to say it! It's like some thing has opened in you and all this awesome is tumbling out.