what is love?

Love is:

• accepting the other person for who they are;
• remembering their favourite snack when you’re grocery shopping;
• apologising when you’re wrong (none of this, ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’ bullshit);
• caring about their opinion on things, unimportant and important;
• being kind to their family;
• sneaking out to the couch when they snore, rather than irritably rolling around in the bed so they’re disturbed (it’s not like they can help it!);
• being there for the good times and the bad times;
• facing the world together;
• being their best friend.

weekend update

It was a good weekend.  This is partly because I had a holiday on Friday, which was a bonus.  Seeing L at dinner on Friday night was really great.  Afterwards, SO said to me, ‘Now I see why you miss her so much’.  There’s just something about being such good friends with somebody that you can slip back into that perfect naturalness and relax.  Time and distance doesn’t affect it.  Nothing does.

I was a good girl, and actually did some significant work on our taxes on Saturday.  It’s a miracle! <roll eyes>.  While I loathe paperwork, my understanding of the taxation legislation is better than SO’s, so doing the hard yards to get the info ready for our accountant is my job.  Still, I’ve done the majority of it now; I should be able to finish it off this week if I do some at night after work.

And today, I actually got outside!  I had exposure to the great lightbulb in the sky!  I did some weeding of the front garden and lawn.  It desperately needed it.  There was one weed in the lawn that was about a metre by a metre.  This is a single weed.  We were starting to become scared that we were being colonised.  Hence, my gardening efforts.  I spent three and a half hours out there, and made a reasonable dent in the work that needed to happen, so I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.

And, incredible though it may seem, I also cooked dinner both Saturday night and tonight.  Last night was chicken and corn schnitzel with lots of salad, and tonight was spaghetti bolognese.  Poor SO.  He never gets homecooked meals.  I realised how much he missed them when his little eyes lit up at the sight of the salad last night.  He hoovered the majority of it down, making little happy noises as he ate.  This is the man who, when I met him, didn’t eat vegetative matter unless it was cooked.  No salad, thank you!  So the fact he was so delighted to have it for dinner makes me feel really bad.  Either he’s learned to love it in the last few years, or he was on the verge of scurvy.  I suspect the latter.

Anyhow, it’s been a good weekend.  And in a few weeks’ time, we’ll actually have a week off, together, and we won’t have any renos planned.  It’ll be like Heaven.  I’m not sure what we’ll do with ourselves, but I don’t really care either.

depression: things I miss

SO and I went out to dinner with my closest friend L and her husband M last night.  They’re over from Canberra for the weekend.  Seeing L after such a long time reminded me of how different I am, and my life is, since I’ve been depressed.  So, I thought I’d cheer myself up and do a list of all the things I miss from my pre-mentalist (to borrow an expression from mentallyinteresting.com) days.

1.  I miss feeling invincible.  Now when I get up in the morning, it’s like there’s a question mark over everything.  Will this be a good day?  Will I cope well?  Badly?  Not at all?

2.  I miss having a sex drive.  And so does SO, I’m guessing.

3.  I miss being effortlessly good at my job.  With the depression, I have good and bad days.  But even on my good days, I don’t function as well at work as I used to.

4.  I miss having the energy to do stuff.  Even though I’ve always loved my sleep, I still was able to power through a working week, then spend all weekend running around doing stuff.  No longer.

5.  I miss seeing my friends.  I’ve really become reclusive since my mental health went downhill.  My friends have been wonderful, but there’s only so much contact you can have with somebody who doesn’t go out, won’t respond to emails, doesn’t pick up the phone, etc, etc.

Ugh.  I think I’ve managed to further depress myself.  But I really wanted to make a list of the stuff I miss, because it is important to me, and if I can’t vent here, where the fuck can I?

ah, the weekend

Oh yes, it’s that favourite time of the week.  How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…

1.  I can sleep as much as I want.  Hello, noon!  This, of course, does not negate the desire for an afternoon nap…

2.  No makeup.  I have no shame, I’m happy to do food shopping with all my acne scars showing.  What will they do, refuse to sell me groceries?

3.  Visit my mum.  Now, much as I love my mother, I must confess that this wouldn’t be considered a highlight if it weren’t for her two adorable little dogs.

Mum's dogs

Awwww!!!

4.  Get around to organising the house so it’s less of a shithole.  While the process itself isn’t riveting, I do like a clean house.

So yes, the weekend is much beloved. 

I’ve had a good start to this weekend so far.  Slept til noon (hee hee!), then got up and accomplished a fair bit in a short space of time – changed the bedsheets, did three loads of laundry (and hung it all out), cleaned both bathrooms (sans showers) and did the essential grocery shopping.  I also managed to put away some of the mountains of crap that we accumulated over the last few days.

Basically, things are currently going well.  Let’s hope it all continues.

food budget

Yeah, I know, boring title.  Still, it pretty much describes what’s happening on the home front at the moment.  Basically, I’m becoming much more aware 1) of the food I’m buying, and 2) of the food I’m eating.

I have an awful tendency to buy beautiful, fresh, organic produce, then let it rot in my crisper drawer of the fridge until it’s a slimy, unrecognisable mess.  I don’t like cooking, and while I buy food with the best of intentions, I rarely actually convert it into meals.  However, I do like fresh food.  And I love my fruit and vegies.

I also really resent paying a lot of money to buy something I know would cost a fraction to actually make.  Not a good combination with the whole ‘hate cooking’ thing, I know.

So, as I do periodically, I’m reforming myself.  I came up with a cold pasta salad thing, which I made tonight, and which I’ll take to work for lunch for this week.  I’ll team it with actual salad, so I can ward off the threat of scurvy.

Anyhow, the recipe is:

PETRONA’S COLD PASTA SALAD

Cook approx. 350g short pasta (I used penne) for recommended time, and drain.  While it’s cooking, chop up 100g semi-dried tomatoes.  Add tomatoes, the oil they came in, and a small can of corn kernels to cooked pasta, and mix well.

Voila!  I’ll have mesclun with mushrooms and snow peas with it as well.  It can all go in the one container, and the remaining oil from the SD tomatoes will give everything a bit of flavour. 

I’m also being good when it comes to the home front.  I bought ham and the smallest piece of silverside available on the weekend.  So on Saturday we had ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, and last night we had roast silverside and vegies.  Tonight we’ll have the rest of the ham, and tomorrow night we’ll have the rest of the silverside.  Boring I know, but it’s cheap and relatively healthy.  And SO is just happy at this point if I stand in the kitchen, let alone actually do anything like prepare foodstuffs.

recap

What a week.  All the good stuff happened (dinner at the in-laws’ place, lunch for Dad’s birthday, night out with friends last night) and it was all very enjoyable.

Last night was particularly good.  While the dinner at Wagamama’s was not really a success (the food was nice, but it was too noisy to hold a conversation), it was when we all came back to our place that the night really picked up.  L had not seen our house before and was full of compliments, which are always nice to hear.  We all talked, laughed, ate and drank for four hours, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  And as I said to SO afterwards, L was a very welcome addition.  We have always got along extremely well with G and V, who are lovely people (and the only witnesses to our wedding, apart from the celebrant and photographer – we eloped).  But L fit right in to how we all interact.  It was a really lovely evening. 

It’s funny how, even when things are going well, depression can reassert its presence.  For example, this was a really social week for us.  I enjoyed all of it.  But, by yesterday, I was really tired.  I could feel how tired I was.  I did enjoy last night, but when we went to bed, I was so tired I didn’t even put in my earplugs – and I slept like a log.  (I always wear earplugs to bed.  Not only does SO snore like a train’s coming through, but I’m a light sleeper at the best of times.)

Anyhow,  I woke up this morning and, after breakfast, was surfing the net, when I started to feel really sleepy.  Not a problem, I thought, I’ll have a nap.  Now, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m a napper from waaaay back.  I can nap for three hours in the afternoon, then sleep for twelve hours that night.  I love my sleep, and without enough sleep, I’m feral.

So, off I toddle to bed.  When I wake up, it was because the phone was ringing, not because I’d naturally woken up.  Anyhow, I answered the phone (it was SO, working on the reno) and got out of bed.  When I looked at the time, I did a double-take.  I’d been asleep for six hours.

Even at my most anaemic, I’d never napped for six hours before.  Even when I had double pnuemonia, I didn’t nap for six hours.  Okay, it had been a long, busy week, and a late night, but six hours?!  The only thing I can ascribe it to is the depression (together with getting to bed just after midnight the night before).  Amazing.

So yes, it is incredible how a mental illness like depression can have such a strong physical impact.  That said, this week has been worth it.    I love feeling like I can enjoy socialising again.

good week ahead

As the title states, there’s lots of good stuff on this week.

Tomorrow night, we’re going to SO’s dad and stepmum’s place for dinner.  This is something that is unbearable when I’m badly depressed.  However, my current main emotion about this is one of happiness.  There’s just something about a delicious homecooked meal that I can’t argue with.

On Thursday is my dad’s birthday.  Since he died, my Mum, my brother and myself have made sure we go out to lunch to celebrate it.  It probably sounds morbid, but it’s actually a really nice thing to do.  So that should be good as well.  Plus, Mum always picks up the tab.  This is handy given the depleted status of our current finances.

Then on Friday evening, we’re going out with some of our friends, G and V, and their friend L.  L has just recently gone through a horrendous divorce from her horrendous ex-husband.  We’re planning on meeting at Wagamama’s at 7pm, then afterwards back to our place for tea, coffee, and lots of naughty stuff like TimTams.  Yum!!

And the best part of all of this is that I’m actually looking forward to it all.  This is an incredibly good sign.  Perhaps even the start of things looking up, mental-health wise.  Who knows?

a personal bill of rights

I have the right to ask for what I want.
I have the right to say no to requests or demands I can’t meet.
I have the right to express all of my feelings, positive or negative.
I have the right to change my mind.
I have the right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.
I have the right to follow my own values and standards.
I have the right to say no to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe, or it violates my values.
I have the right to determine my own priorities.
I have the right not to be responsible for others’ behavior, actions, feelings, or problems.
I have the right to expect honesty from others.
I have the right to be angry at someone I love.
I have the right to be uniquely myself.
I have the right to feel scared and say “I’m afraid.”
I have the right to say “I don’t know.”
I have the right not to give excuses or reasons for my behavior.
I have the right to make decisions based on my feelings.
I have the right to my own needs for personal space and time.
I have the right to be playful and frivolous.
I have the right to be healthier than those around me.
I have the right to be in a nonabusive environment.
I have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.
I have the right to change and grow.
I have the right to have my needs and wants respected by others.
I have the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
I have the right to be happy.

Source: The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook

weekend roundup

It’s been a reasonably good weekend, if too short (of course).

I had a good morning yesterday.  I finally got SO some work pants that are the correct size – 97S (that’s 38 inches, to those of you unconverted to the metric system).  Poor darling, even though they were short length, I still needed to take them up.  This is something I loathe doing more than you would believe.  I actually did start on them last night.  It took me over an hour to change the thread colour on my overlocker, and I broke four needles along the way.  Enough said about that, I think.

I also bought my friend a few presents for her newborn girl, and her other two children.  For the older kids, I got them a hardcover book each (‘Disney Princess Stories’ for the four year old girl, ‘Winnie the Pooh’ for the two year old boy – not bad at $8 a pop).  For the baby, I got a couple of towels with hoods, an all-in-one, and a cute little bib.  Now all I need to do is wrap and post everything, and we’ll be set!

I visited my mum today.  After telling her I was fine, I ended up crying.  She’s worried about me, and about SO, as we’ve had to borrow a significant amount of money from her to pay our rates.  The money isn’t a problem for her, but she’s worried about the stress it’s causing us to have to borrow it.  If we didn’t have a five-month ongoing reno project which is costing us money instead of providing us with an income, it wouldn’t be an issue.  Sigh.  As she keeps telling me, it’s only money.  We have our health.  Well, our physical health at least.  Our mental health is somewhat tenuous.

funny shit

It’s amazing the stuff that can make you laugh.  I have a morbid streak (something to do with my mental health, I suspect) and so I regularly look around to see how others blog about mental illness.  Some posts are eloquent in expressing the blogger’s misery and sense of futility.  Others are just fucking funny.

For example, today I came across a post which contained a poem, with the post starting off something like, ‘This is what it feels to be depressed.’  Uh, no.  If you’re depressed, you can’t string your thoughts together well enough to write anything, let alone a poem.  So that was my initial reaction to the post.  Then I noticed the title of the poem.  ‘Oasis of Death.’ 

I started giggling.  You get the idea.  Basically, the title was the high point.

Maybe I’m a picky sarcastic bitch.  (Okay.  I’m definitely a picky sarcastic bitch.)  But seriously, who airs their fifth-rate poetry in a public forum like the internet?  That said, I praise the Gods for the poem.  It’s the first thing I’ve laughed at all day, and it’s after 7pm.