a warped view

Working with my psych has made me realise that one of the biggest mistakes I make is invalidating my own feelings by explaining away other people's bad behaviour. I've spent the majority of my life rationalising, its something that I think I learned from my mother. It's something that used to make me angry at my mother. She is a big believer in seeing both sides of the story, and consequently so am I. Seeing both sides of the story is not the issue though, I still think that's a great ability to have. The problem comes when you are so good at seeing the other persons side of the story that the feelings they caused with their actions become secondary, or get lost completely.  I realised today that I now do it to my daughter and I want to stop. When she comes to me to tell me about something that has happened with her friends she doesn't want me to be objective, she wants me to soothe her hurt feelings. She doesn't need help seeing why the other person did what th...

When you look at me do you see a girl who is rude, unapproachable, snobbish? Who thinks she's too good for everyone else? Do you see a mum who just drops her kids at school and runs away because she doesn't want to be involved? Or do you see that I am afraid and anxious. That I try and avoid social interaction because I don't know what to say, because I'm convinced no one will like me. Do you see the scared little girl who was bullied so badly she didn't want to go to school, the scared little girl who was called names and teased and picked on, who had her things stolen and destroyed, who spent more time hiding in the nurses office than she did in class? Do you see the lonely girl who had no friends to call her own? Do you see the desperate girl who sat in her mother's car and begged not to be sent to school, with tears streaming down her face and sobs choking her words? Do you see the woman who still becomes that scared child when she enters a school. Do you ...

I am feeling down. Have been for a while. That's why I haven't been posting. It's not an all encompassing downness, I have moments and days where I feel fine, but the thought of blogging (along with numerous other to-dos) have left me feeling tight chested and anxious. I've also been avoiding people, avoiding social situations and I've been crap at communicating with the people I love. I've stopped tweeting, stopped texting, stopped calling. I'm hiding. It's impossible however, to hide from yourself. Today, right now, I am feeling particularly down. I was fine this morning, I had a lovely day with the HSP and saw a movie I've been desperate to see (Oz). Yet this afternoon the cloud descended around my shoulders and I suddenly felt the darkness wrap it's fingers around my heart and squeeze. I suddenly and instantly wanted to bury my face in my pillow and cry. Not just cry, sob, that physical crying that involves your shoulders, your chest, your ...

There's some pretty special things about me. I have depression, anxiety and ADHD. This gives me some pretty special super powers. It gives me the ability to speak without thinking, to over share when I shouldn't, to get carried away with things rather than staying level headed and in control. It makes me think things are a good idea when they aren't. It gives me an extra special ability to piss people off. It allows me to feel especially shit when I fuck up and leaves me feeling like I want to crawl into a dark hole and stay there. Can you tell I'm having a special kind of day?

Growing up in Darwin we always had very laid back routines. In my early years my mum, dad, nanna and grandad worked in a family business and so there were long days spent at work with dinner time often being after 7 or 8pm. This kind of laid back attitude to dinner time continued through my childhood and into my teenage years. This meant that I would regularly get to bed quite a lot later than other kids. It was a shock to us when we moved to Perth in my 16th year and discovered that the weirdo southerners would sometimes eat dinner at 5:30 or 6. Ridiculous! I don't know if it's because of this laid back start to life but I have never really had a time that was my bedtime, even as an adult. I have a time that I know should probably be my bedtime but it comes and goes with little notice most nights. I'm also what is generally classified as a night owl, the later at night, the more productive I feel. I can often be found on my computer until 2 or 3am. Sometimes this is b...

Do you remember this poem from when you were young? Mondays child is fair of face, Tuesdays child is full of grace, Wednesdays child is full of woe, Thursdays child has far to go, Fridays child is loving and giving, Saturdays child works hard for his living, And the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. This poem has always pissed me off a little because you see, I was born on a Wednesday. As a youngster I was adamant that this poem was quite frankly full of shit. I was a perfectly happy child, my face was fairish, I had a small amount of grace, I was both loving AND giving. Why did all those other days get awesome things and I was stuck with woe? *kicks dirt with toe* But now I'm older I see that this was really just some sort of scary prediction about my depression. I mean what else could it be?! (What do you mean there's no meaning at all and someone just made it up a really long time ago when people still said g...

Dear Norms, I'm writing you this letter because there's a few things we need to get straight. For a start, you might be wondering who these Norms are and if you're one of them. Norms are people who haven't had an atypical brain function diagnosis (i.e. depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, PTSD, cognitive issues, etc etc). They're a bit like muggles, if people with mental health issues were wizards. I've addressed this letter to all of you because you might be guilty of some of the things I'm going to talk about without even realising it. So here's a list of things you need to know/understand 1. Just because my illness(es) don't produce physical symptoms you can see (like bruises, broken bones, hair falling out etc) that doesn't mean my illness isn't real. I can one hundred percent guarantee you that while it is classified as a mental illness there are physical symptoms that I deal with every day and this is on top of the emotional and psyc...

a habit that you wish you didn’t have the 2010 Day Four post can be found here where to start?! I have quite a few bad habits that I wish I didn't have and I can think of a few that other people wish I didn't have as well! My worst two habits are biting my nails and eating when I'm bored. I had stopped biting my nails for a while but I always go back to it when I'm feeling particularly anxious. Apparently the new drugs for my ADHD will help me get the eating thing under control though so that'll be one less bad habit. My mum would probably consider my swearing a bad habit (despite the fact that I love it) and she probably would also like me to be slightly less argumentative. The HSP would have a pretty long list of bad habits/annoying things I do including forgetting the washing is in the washing machine (sometimes several times), singing loudly and out of tune, not paying attention to what we're watching and then asking lots of questions ab...

So I have spoken about my suspicions that I have ADHD both here and on twitter. I went and had my first appointment with the special ADHD doctor two weeks ago and because I was unable to find my school reports I had to go back for a second appointment with a letter from one of my parents talking about how they noticed ADHD symptoms in me when I was younger. Apparently the Health Department are quite strict about who they let doctors prescribe ADHD medication to (surprise surprise) and it is their requirement for there to be some evidence of childhood symptoms. My first port of call was my mum, surely she would be able to write a letter containing a list of things I had done as a child? This proved to be slightly more difficult as she expressed to me her belief that I didn't have problems concentrating at school. When I pointed out to her that every single one of my school reports contained something along the lines of "Tiffany talks too much", her reply was simply th...

one of my most favourite people in the world wrote a blog today about how she feels like she isn't doing anything significant with her life but more importantly, she feels like she doesn't have a best friend, a close friend. this made me so sad, and it made me stop and wonder about the subconscious messages that i am sending my friends. when i am feeling down or dark i hide myself away. i struggle to interact with the world, even with those closest to me. i refuse to talk on the phone and am struck down with anxiety every time it rings. my once safe haven, twitter, sometimes feels too big, too loud, too much so i even hide from that. this makes it hard for people to be friends with me i'm sure, its hard to be friends with someone who is absent a lot of the time. sometimes i feel that i must appear like a ghost in people's lives, they know i'm there but they can't see me. i don't mean to shut my friends out and a part of me thinks i am protecting them. ke...

So last month I wrote the post " There's nothing wrong with you " about being told by well meaning people that I couldn't possibly have depression. That is one side of the depression coin, the people who don't believe you have it because you manage to smile sometimes. The other, much darker side of the coin, is the people who try to use your depression against you as a weapon. I have one of those people in my life. They may be in the peripherals of my life, but sadly they have enough impact for their archaic, biggoted and uneducated views to affect me. In fact this person even tried to use this very blog against me. Using my own words, my own outpouring of truth and emotions, my own confessions of difficulty as a way to hurt me. They tried to turn my truth, my confessions, my words into a sword and to cut me down with it. Taking advantage of my own moments of weakness, my own doubts, my own irrational fear of not being good enough, they attempted to kick me wh...

Twice in the last couple of weeks I've had well meaning people tell me that I shouldn't be taking anti depressants as there is nothing wrong with me. I mean everyone feels a bit sad sometimes right? That doesn't mean they have one of those mental illness things. Neither of these people meant to be offensive, I'm pretty sure that they both quite like me, they just don't understand and belong to a way of thinking that is full of stereotypes and misinformation. Neither of them has any experience dealing with mental illness, neither of them know what it's like to have a constant black cloud hanging over you. Sadly, they are not the only two people who think like this. Despite the struggles for greater awareness, understanding and acceptance, mental illness still has a very special stigma all of it's own. "Normal" people seem to believe that only specific personality types suffer from depression, that depressed people are lazy, that they want to b...

So this morning I got a completely random email from someone I used to consider a good friend (we had a thing, I was a bitch, it was a little bit awkward but he's pretty awesome). Apparently he is a reader of my blog and I didn't even know it! He wanted to know why I hadn't blogged in two months. A valid question, one I ask myself every day. My answer was a very pragmatic one, I currently have two jobs, do the admin for our business, study at uni and have to manage a house full of two and four legged mess makers! But I know there's more to it than that. I had started to feel a bit like I was always complaining on my blog, that I made it seem like my life was terrible because I tend to write more freely when I'm in a bad mental place. That couldn't be further from the truth. I have a wonderful life full of amazing people. I am very lucky to live in a country that allows me freedom of speech, access to health care and education for little to no cost (but let...

Let me start this post by saying that I love my mother shaped person to absolute bits and pieces. She has always been the things I aspire to be as a mother and woman, strong, independent, loyal, loving, courageous, caring, compassionate and an optimist. However there are some things that we just don't see eye to eye on. One of the biggest differences between us is our view on sharing personal stories, emotions, hurdles, etc. I think it is 99% a generational thing. She was raised with the belief that you didn't talk about personal problems, you just got on with things. Mental illness was considered a weakness and weakness in any form was not something that other people should know about. Serious issues were always discussed behind closed doors and were never, ever talked about in polite company. It is ingrained in her and on top of that she is a very private, reserved person any way. I, on the other hand, am seriously lacking a filter (as if you hadn't noticed already). ...

Sometimes I meet people and I know instantly that they are awesome! They laugh at the same things I laugh at, they share similar views to me on things, they are clever, sassy and generally pretty neato (I'm mostly talking about other ladies here), and I think to myself, you're pretty fantastic and I would love to have you as my friend and do stuff with you and hang out and talk about life and love and stupid things we've done. Then comes the kicker. How, as a thirty something grown woman, do you ask another grown woman over for a play date or out for dinner, without seeming like a weirdo / lesbian / desperate / friendless / loser? It's much easier for kids to make new friends, they just say stuff like "I like He-Man and you like He-Man and I think that makes you totally the best and we should be best friends forever until we're like, old and wrinkly and  our butts sag" then they piss themselves laughing and the friendship is cemented. But that just doesn...

So do you know what is super duper awesome? When you spend about 20 minutes writing a blog post and then you publish it but forget to use tags so you go back in to add them but then your blog eats your blog post! That's what just happened. This was a post and then suddenly it wasn't. Well now it is again. Well it will be soon when I've rewritten it. *grr*

"Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?" "The same thing we do every night Pinky -  try to take over the world!" Two things are clear to me , I love that cartoon and Brain never suffered from depression. You see it's much easier to try to take over the world if you don't have to use every ounce of motivation and determination in your body to get out of bed each morning. If Brain had suffered from depression it is likely he may have given up his plan after the first failure. For even the smallest hurdle can, to a depressive, seem like an insurmountable barrier. Now don't get me wrong, there are lots of depressed people who have achieved all sorts of amazing things. World domination while depressed is not completely impossible its just a hell of a lot harder. Before people start accusing me of being a whiner and making excuses I would first ask those people a) do you currently have or have you ever depression? and b) can you shut your stupid...

Dear Arsehole, I want you to know that you forcing me out was the best thing that ever happened to me. I loved the people I worked with and I loved my job but it was consuming me. It wasn't ok that I was working 14 hour days, coming in on my day off, thinking about my job every second of every day. I am happy that I now get to pick my kids up from school, that I'm not a stranger to them. I am happy I don't have to deal with your hypocrisy and politics. That doesn't make what you did ok. It's not ok that you told me that if you wanted someone to quit that you could make them, what a thinly veiled threat that was. It wasn't ok that you manipulated people I thought were my friends against me. It isn't ok that you treat people like pieces in a game, a game where the sole purpose is to get what you want. It wasn't ok that you took advantage of the fact that I was going through a hard time in my personal life and used it to make my working life hell too. ...

I have been having "one of those days" since Saturday. I have been taking my tablets so it's not that causing a low. We had a birthday party on Saturday for one of my favourite little girls in the whole world, the daughter of friends that I love like she was my niece. I almost didn't go to the party. I was sad, I felt like crying, I felt like getting into bed and pulling the covers over my head until the sad went away. Luckily the HSP was wonderful and convinced me to go, because I would have been disappointed in myself if I had missed it. I made it through the party, I know that sounds terrible, like it was some huge chore (which it wasn't). Well it wouldn't have been for a "normal" person. It wasn't anything about the party that required a huge effort, it was me, my state of mind. The effort needed to put on the happy mask, the mask that hides the darkness inside. I don't hide my depression but I don't want it to be in every one's...