I’m now DRUG FREE!!! Its been 5 days and I haven’t taken any anti-depressants.
I have been sleeping well and eating (sometimes) well.
Its great, I’m excited about the idea of being a healthy person.
Please don’t read this and think that I am saying medication is bad, far from it, I think its great and I am glad that I had it to help me through the years of my illness, but I don’t believe I need them long term so I am happy to be off them.
I was on medication since late 2004, its now August 2009 and I am looking forward to my life. My mentally stable, medication free life 
I was in counselling for years, one of the recurring themes was that I needed to eat well and exercise. That advice bugged the shit out of me at the time, as if its that easy. But now, now that I am well, I’m going to try to eat well and exercise to avoid my life falling that far off the rails again.
Of course, I know that life isn’t going to always be easy & that I won’t always be happy. Everything always changes, I think I am better able to adapt now.
Well, Its decided. I am doing a quick trip to Lithgow over the holidays.
Im not sure how its going to go. I am looking forward to seeing my cousins and my nan. There are just parts of my family that are really hard work to be around, and especially after the fiasco with mums birthday weekend. I dont know if I am ready to face them, its going to take a lot of energy to be civil.
Really, I should only be in the same place for a few hours. I think I can handle that. The problem will occur when Warren decides to start a conversation about Muslims. Im not going to say anything except ‘I would really appreciate it if we dont talk about this’ They can be as horrible as they want so long as I am not part of the conversation. Its embarrassing to me that they are my family and thats what they think, but I cant do anything about it.
It will be good to see some of my family though. I do tend to cut them all off when I dont really need to. The worst part is that I dont even have any valium left. My anxiety levels have already risen dramatically, its only going to get worse.
I am just not getting enough good sleep at the moment.
While I was away I was getting to bed early and waking up fairly late, then exercising a lot during the day. It meant that I slept well.
I had the time and concentration to read, I could think about things logically and rationally. At the moment neither of these are happening.
I need to get back into a routine. I need to exercise again. I need to eat more fruit and less processed sugar. I need to make sure I dont fall back into all my old habits.
I am coping quite well not having any set activities. Usually I load myself up with things to do and responsibilities so that I don’t have any time to be still. Here I have no responsibilities at all, I can spend my days and nights doing almost anything I want. I have been taking it quite easy, Im not loading myself up like I usually would and its good.
I joined a gym and have my snowboarding pass so I am doing a lot more exercise than I am used to, I have been eating better too. Making sure I have 3 meals a day and im snacking on almonds and cashews and pistachios.
Its really good and peaceful. Im not used to feeling relaxed.
I have been thinking quite a bit, I was trying to remember I time I was happy. I think I was thinking that I could try to mimic that again, but I cant remember being happy. The last year, year and a half, have probably been the best of my life when it comes to that. I want more though, I want to be happy without the feeling like I need to be better or do more.
I have also been thinking that it might be useful for me to go and visit the farm that I grew up on, the last time I was there I was 15 and scared. Maybe it would be good to go and have a look around and decide that I am stronger than all those memories and that the place itself isn’t ‘bad’. Not sure about this one, it could be a bad idea, plus I don’t even know who lives there any more.
I haven’t found a Church here that I like, they all seem to have services in the morning but nothing in the evening and I have been sleeping in.
Now that I have accepted that the cost of this might be a bit over what I had originally planned I am feeling a lot more settled and calm. This is a big learning experience for me, not to have structure, and I have to take it seriously.
I have been stressing about where to stay and how much money I am going to spend. I have to keep reminding myself that it was a deliberate decision to not be here at the start of the season so I would get my bluescope bonus. So if this trip costs a bit more than planned or I cant get a job its really not the end of the world.
Its only money anyway. It comes and goes.
I had been tempted to get a 10 day ski package and then go home, but what would that help? not much. I dont have a home, a job, or anything close to direction. So I may as well stay here and snowboard for the whole season, lose some weight and not stress out.
Im planning to go to a community meal at a church on Friday night. Not sure what to expect, not even sure what to hope for. Everything is just seeming quite pointless at the moment, im not sure if that is a depression thing or what. I have just been thinking that all we do is plan and act out the next few steps in our lives, there is no point or purpose to it. People grow up and worry about their lives then have kids and spend the rest of their lives worrying about their kids. Sure, in the middle of all that there are jobs and friends and mortgages, but when it comes down to it there is no reason.
Well, that was a bit morbid. I think I will feel better when I have some more money to play with.
I haven’t been sleeping well. Not too sure why.
I have heaps of stuff left to do, like sell my car, finish packing up my room, that kind of thing.
The problem is when you dont sleep well you end up tired all the time, it makes it harder to do everything else. I spent most of today trying to sleep because I was too tired to do anything else. Im still tired now, but I dont know if I will be able to sleep.
People keep asking me what my plans are. I really have no idea what I am doing, it scares me. I am leaving or have already left everything that is safe and I dont even have any plans. I have heaps of options, but no plans.
The options are: 1. Move back to Wollongong after the ski season. 2. Go to the UK for a couple of years (including spending some time at iona) 3. Spend some time with nuns (either Catholic or Buddhist)
I just dont know. Im not good at looking after myself, not in any sense. I want to be bailed out, but thats not going to happen. I need to learn to be an adult.
I dont understand why I find living so hard.
I saw the doctor today and found out that Im all good to go. My lungs are back to normal, but I still have to keep taking the yucky asthma medication, even though I am not asthmatic.
I really didnt like being sick, so weak and tired. Now I dont have anything to hide behind. Its just me, if I am lazy its because Im lazy. If im unreliable same thing.
I almost liked having the shield. No one expected anything of me because I was sick. I guess now I am leaving I can set my life up so that Im not in the centre of things, so people aren’t relying on me. I dont want to be isolated and alone, but I dont want to have to worry about anything except looking after myself.
Filed under: God, afl, anxiety, church, family, life, reflection, travel
Its been a crazy few days. Yesterday I went to Sydney to say goodbye to my family. It was OK, no fights and I managed to have a conversation with my Mums husband without getting into an argument. It was good.
Today I watch the Swans play. We won! It was raining the whole game and quite cold but im glad that I went.
Tonight was my last night in Church. Its a bit weird since I dont know how long I will be gone for. Sarah’s sermon was really good. About simplicity and small things. I really liked it. Im the big gesture type, for example, I need to change my life so I am moving to another country. It made me think about all the small stuff I never bother with that would actually make a difference to my life and to the communities that I am involved in.
It has motivated me to find the time to do the things I never bother with.Things like praying, reading, yoga, stretching, breathing exercises (I dont breathe properly and it helps to make the anxiety issue bigger). Also things like cooking and cleaning.
Maybe I dont need to travel the world to be able to understand my place in it. Maybe I can do things on a smaller scale and it will be all good. I still think I need a year to straighten my mind out, I just dont need to be doing expensive or elaborate things during this year.
I went to have my eyes checked today. Mainly because I want coloured contact lenses, but also because I am getting everything sorted out because I don’t know when I will be back.
He was an interesting guy. He said that my pupils were larger than average and I told him it was because of my anxiety disorder. He then went on to tell me all about how the focusing system works and that it is directly tapped into the fight or flight response. Which was interesting, but then he said that with my eyes being alert all the time and wanting to look around to focus, working in an office looking at computers all day is not the best job for me. He said that it takes extra energy for me to focus on the screen and on reading a book because my eyes are wanting to look around, wanting to check that things are OK.
I found this really interesting. He also said that this happens to a lot of people and they just stay in the same job getting progressively worse for years. So its a good thing that I have left my job and am going to spend more time outdoors.
I am gradually realising how connected everything is, especially the human body. We respond so much to our environment and in so many subtle ways that its not surprising that we dont notice most of it. We are all too busy anyway.
Filed under: POD, anxiety, depression, health, life, reflection, understanding
OK, so the idea is to spend some time focussing on being healthy and doing nothing.
Im thinking that there is no way that I can get away from this anxiety and depression stuff if I dont deliberately do something about it. So I am going to go to New Zealand and have some fun get a casual job and work on getting fit and eating well. Im not setting a time frame on that, but I dont think I will stay for the summer too. After that I am thinking that I will spend some time ‘on retreat’, living somewhere learning to have no specific goals or things that need my immediate attention. Learning to just ‘be’
It has taken me a little while to convince myself that this is not a waste of my time. I think its going to be frustrating, especially the second part, but worth it. Maybe this will help me be less scattered and more able to be happy.
