The Place Where Health Resides

Is about a million bloody miles away from our house.


How I'm Feeling Right Now

ARGH! Can I just have a gigantic whinge please? OK. As of today, we have ALL been ill consistently and without a break for 14 sodding weeks. 14. I am not exaggerating. I am currently hacking and wheezing my way through my THIRD chest infection (complete with flu like symptoms) and am enjoying the many and varied psychedelic effects of my third round of antibiotics. Lily is over her ear infection (and her recent fever) but is still partially deaf and snotty. Finn has just finished his second round of antibiotics (for his chest infection) and, as yet, has not caught this latest bug. Michael went away to Brisbane for work on Monday and by Monday afternoon I was in the grip of this latest delight. So over it. So not fun caring for two children, one of whom refuses to sleep for more than 20 minute stretches during the day, when all you want to do is take enough panadol to floor a rhino, and sleep. Hah! Fat chance of any of that!

Oh I do love my boy. His smiles light up my life and when he chuckles, ye Gods, it doth melt my foolish heart. Still, the little beggar makes me cross and shouty when he cries (and cries and cries and cries and cries) and nothing I do makes it better. Not picking him up, not putting him down, (heaven forbid I do that), not lying down, not sitting up in his chair, not his dummy and, drum roll please, often not even the beloved boobie. He is, at the moment and probably due to everyone's prolonged illnesses and mummies antibiotics, a grumpy little fecker! 


In truth, it's sheer slog at the moment and not much of the joy of the newborn or anything else for that matter. Beanie is still in her oppositional and defiant stage and increasingly I am resorting to threats and time outs, neither of which are much fun for either of us, to get her to do ANYTHING. Still, I can see that our power struggles are only going to get worse unless I change my approach. I just don't have the energy to do it right now. Not with a sick baby and a sick mummy and absolutely no energy for anything. 


If anyone has any natural remedies for viral and bacterial infections that might help us plump up our immunity and get past this, then please share. I am open to anything that might help and stop us passing it back and forth between us.


Yesterday was the worst. I started to feel increasingly ill in the afternoon and I think the antibiotics are having a very strange effect on me. I felt faint and all jittery inside, so I rang my mother-in-law and she came and cooked us a roast and took Lily off my hands, so that I could just cope with Finn. I am blessed indeed to have such a fantastic supportive family of in-laws and I was grateful for the break. However, leading up to Nanna taking Beanie to hers for the night, Beanie and i just had fight after fight after fight. When she finally left, she was subdued and I was beside myself with grief and guilt. All the hugs in the world don't feel enough after one of our spats. And I hate myself for being so easy to anger, so irritable and so impatient with my beautiful girl. When they left I broke down in tears and felt worse than I have in quite a long time. I felt PND low and seriously anxious. I phoned my mother-in-law and asked her to call me when they got home, so that I would know Beanie was safe. Always when I hit this low, I am convinced that the Gods will punish me for my many mothering sins by taking her away from me and I am anxiety ridden until she is returned to me. It's made worse by the fact that I am occasionally intuitive/precognitive in my feelings about things and events, so I never know if I'm feeling so crazy because I am, in fact, crazy or because something bad is going to happen. 


I know. It's not healthy. It's not even particularly sane. But it is possible and it is because of that possibility that the fear is able to get in. The thought of losing her is... well, in all honesty, there aren't words adequate enough to describe how it makes me feel. So I did the only thing that makes me feel better at times like these. I called my hubble. He has this way of calming me down, of making me feel less like a basket-case and of making my head less frenetic and punishing. I don't envy him his task. I am not the easiest of people at the best of times, (and I do wish I was more sunny of personality but intense and feeling and anxious is the best I got, sorry), and this is certainly not the best of times. Anyway, he talked to me until it got a little quieter in there and then I slept as much as my wee boy would let me and felt slightly better this morning.

Beanie - what seems like a lifetime ago.

I live in fear of the PND returning in all it's repugnant fulsomeness. I was only just freeing myself from it's frozen grasp when I got pregnant with Finn. Now, I am watching myself and yes, there are signs. There is the anger and frustration that I am all too familiar with. Those bitter, twisted emotions that take all the colour from my life and mar the bond I have with my children. I am awash with that. Yet, I still find joy in the moments in-between and I take comfort from that. I see the soft-hearted, empathetic nature of my girl  and delight (and suffer) in it, even as I see how easily it will be for those she loves to break that bright heart of hers. I see how brightly she shines with intellect and wisdom far, far beyond her years. I am awed by her spirit, her humour and her ability to  make me laugh with her funny comments and actions. 


And my little man? Well, it's all about the gummy grins and the little chubby thighs. And, of course, those rare chuckles that are making more of an appearance as days go by. I watch as he grows bigger and stronger by the day, despite all the sickness that has plagued his young life so far, and I delight in his daily accomplishments. Bringing his hands to his mouth, trying to swallow his entire fist, filling his nappy with great gusto and reaching out and grasping things with more ability every day. He almost rolled over today and I clapped with joy. It never gets old. It simply reminds me of how Lily did these things too, how precious they are and how quickly these times are over. I don't want to miss a thing. I don't want to look back, as I often do at footage of Beanie as a youngster, and only be able to remember the anger, the grief and the guilt and all the mistakes I made. I don't want to miss the opportunity to revel in these moments. I don't want to be that mother again. I want and need for something to change.  And it has to be me. And I am trying. I have been trying. So hard and for so long. And yet here I am again. I am trying to remind myself that my 'word' for this year is 'Compassion', and show some to myself.

Cuter than any real puppy

How I long to come and write something that is jolly and bright and humourous and full of hope. I can do it. I have done it, but it all seems rather far away right now. I am sure much of it is illness but then there is a lesson in that too it would seem. Asthma after 15 years is certainly something to think about. As are three chest infections in three months. Guess where the seat of grief is in the body? Yup - lungs. 


Anyway, the hubby is back late tomorrow night, so I'll hopefully be able to spend Saturday and Sunday recuperating and being gathered up into his long, warm arms for a much needed hug. This is the longest apart we have been since we met. And as someone who has spent only one week as a single mum to two kids, can I just say that I have nothing but utter respect for single parent families. I can't imagine how hard it was for my mum to raise the four of us alone as she did or for my sister to do it with six, one of whom is autistic. And on nothing. I send out a big hug to all those women (and men) who are doing this alone for whatever reason. It takes a lot of heart and a lot of courage to raise children but it's so much harder when you have no-one with whom to share the joys and the sorrows, or to just get a cuddle from at the end of the very long day. So take one, over cyber-space, from me. Cos I get it.

Me. Sick and Tired. 

I need to go now. I need to sleep if I can. I only came to empty my head and my heart for a while. To make sense of the fragments all swirling madly about and to connect, if only anonymously, with those of similar heart. 


May all the things that lay us low tonight, be gone by morning.

The Girl in The Bubble

So, I've been having a few problems with our neighbours. They like loud music played late at night. I don't. We have an arrangement where I ring and tell them to turn it down and they do. And they are usually decent about it. The trouble is, I am beginning to get very anxious about it. My highly stressed nature is anticipating the problems to come. I am already fed up of having to phone them every weekend to tell them what they must surely realise - that they are playing their music too loud. Again.

So, I went to see my psychologist yesterday and I mentioned the problem I was having with my neighbours and how anxious it was making me. We then proceeded to have what I felt was a very combative session. She basically said that I was not dealing with the problem and that I was being 'too reasonable'. I disagreed. I AM dealing with the problem, every week actually, and as I said on many occasions during our session, I had every intention of trying to find a better solution with our neighbours, the next time I spoke with them. I was merely expressing my fears that it could all end badly. I found the session quite stressful. Rather than helping, I felt she added to my already stressful situation.

The problem is that I CAN see things from other people's point of view. From a very basic perspective, it is MY problem because I'm the one that doesn't like the loud music. Sure, they should be aware enough to moderate their behaviour and take other people's needs into account - but they don't. I can't change them. I can only change myself. My psychologist thought it was silly of me to think about having triple glazing put in when I shouldn't have to. Well yes, I SHOULDN'T have to but, as I can't really see this situation getting better over time, I need to think about ways to keep my sanity and not have to move house. This is a solution. It may not be a great one given the cost and inconvenience and it doesn't replace my need to talk to the neighbours honestly about my concerns but what it all the talking doesn't produce a change? What then? That was when she suggested that I was trying to 'control' my environment. (Well, duh!) And that I was living in a bubble.



Personally, I think that whatever gets you through the night (without being adrenalised and upset) is a good solution. Bubble is fine with me if it means I get to live my life undisturbed. I will still continue to dialogue with our neighbours but I have to do what keeps me stable and able to sleep at night. Am I wrong?

I spent all day yesterday looking into soundproof windows and triple glazing and acoustic technicians to help me figure out the best solution for our problem. It could be costly and yes, I do resent having to think about these issues at all. Before they moved in, I didn't have to. All was well. However, I am dealing with the 'what is' of the situation. Or trying to.

This got me questioning the nature of reality. Mine to be specific. Warning: This may rub people up the wrong way.

I have always believed that we have a reasonable amount of control over our own reality in a 'create your own reality' type of way. I have seen it work time and time again in my own life (for good and bad) and I have clearly seen the way it works in other people's lives. I do not, though, believe in Destiny necessarily. I think that we all have free will and that we can choose to work with or against or in spite of, the prevailing winds and/or the gentle ministrations of Spirit. Now, I am a bit of a pessimist by nature. Actually, this is not true. It is not by nature. It is by experience. Anxiety, fear and constant dread were the prevelant emotions for the early part of my life. This has definitely affected the way that I view the world when the shit hits the proverbial fan. I get into disasterising, even though I know it won't help and isn't healthy. Yes. It's annoying. I know. It's also frustrating because it's like I can't let go even though I know I need to. So, the anxiety levels rise and the body gets flooded with adrenaline and I go over and over and over the problem until I want to scream. That is what I mean when I say that I am pessimistic. I know that I can't accurately predict the outcome of this current difficulty. But I can look at it logically and say if it was going to improve, it probably would have with the first of the numerous phonecalls I have made.

I have run the entire gammut of emotions really. I have felt punished by adding yet another noisy neighbour to the two we already enjoy. I have felt totally depressed by the thought that my every weekend will be peppered with stress and anxiety as I anticipate and then deal with the inevitable noise pollution. I have felt unbelievably wronged and angry. I am concerned that my whole philosophy of life is completely wrong and that has caused a somewhat existential crisis. Well, perhaps that's a touch over dramatic, but that's what it feels like. Like I am in crisis. I feel like I should be able to look for the lesson and ask myself what I am supposed to learn by this. Why have I attracted this situation into my life? And I am asking that daily, believe me. Maybe it IS all about sticking up for myself and my needs. Maybe it is all about learning to ask for what I want and being prepared to be unpopular in order to get my needs met. I know other people who would just call the cops. However, I think that in order to get a good result for everybody involved, their has to be dialogue. There has to be at least an attempt to resolve the situation to everyone's satisfaction. I don't want anyone to lose. Least of all me.

Then there is the whole 'what if I'm totally wrong about life, the Universe and everything?' dilemma. What if I AM wrong about the way I view life. What if I am just shit out of luck. If it's just bad luck that I am living in a noisy beautiful area, then what do I do now? My belief's help me to deal with life, the shit and the good stuff, they give me an understanding of things, they help me to make sense of it all. That's normal for a spiritual belief system isn't it? So, if I AM right, I do create my reality, then why did I create this? Why couldn't I learn this particular lesson in some other, less stressful way? Like I said. Existential crisis. Oh deep and unadulterated joy.

So, as Michael directed, we are dealing with it nicely first off. We have met them, we have introduced ourselves and our daughter to them, to let them see the 'real' family that they are impacting. I have explained our needs and asked them to keep the noise down after midnight. I have since phoned on three occasions to ask them to turn it down and they have been sweet about it but it doesn't stop them from banging up the volume every weekend. So, now I have to think about how to approach it when it inevitably happens again this weekend. I have to be much more direct and explain about the impact it is having upon me and upon us as a family. I have to do all of this and it causes me great anxiety. I hate confrontation. I still do it but I hate it. It stresses me out and taxes my already tired adrenals. I don't want any of it and yes, I'm bitter about it right now. Tired and bitter and not very hopeful.



Anyway, I just needed to get that off my chest. And if anyone has any suggestions on how to tackle this problem constructively, i.e. not just reporting them to the police (that may come later!), then I'd love to hear them.

I'll post Day Seven of my 30 Days of Happiness in another post. There's not much happy in this one!

Screams, Screeches and the Dark Road In-between

12th April 2007


I was just lying next to my sweetly sleeping plump cheeked little daughter watching her sleep and wondering how it is that she can sometimes make me want to throw her over next doors fence. Like most mothers I am aware that sometimes motherhood gets very overwhelming. All mother’s sometimes feel like they could throttle their beloved child when things get too much but as I lay watching her I realised how easy it would be for me to slip into the patterns of abuse that were used to control me when I was an child. That was a sobering and frightening thought.

The thought stemmed from one of those frustrating times in our relationship when Lily is tired but won’t sleep and I need to get something done in the office (when will I learn this is futile with a crotchety baby?) and so she starts to screech and screech and whine and I get more and more crabby until, today, I threw a small rubber at her. Now, don’t get me wrong – if the rubber had hit her it would have only shocked her for a moment, it certainly wouldn’t have hurt her but it’s the fact that I could do it at all that shocked me. In the moment that I threw it, I wanted it to hit her – just to shock her out of the godawful screeching she was in the middle of. I wanted, just for a moment, to shut her the fuck up using any means at my disposal. As soon as I’d thrown it I knew that I’d crossed a line. No matter how small or indistinct that line is I had crossed it by lobbing something at my child.

I then wrestled with her in bed for about 40-minutes until she finally fell asleep after some crying in my arms while I held her. The crying was not related to what I had done but was due to the fact that she was very tired and not able to let go. It was while she slept that I thought about how much I loved her. I always feel such tremendous guilt when I shout at her or finally lose my temper because she’s doing something (usually screeching) that shreds my last nerve. Today started out that way and dealing with that constant noise is no way to start a day. However, what struck me was that maybe this is how abuse starts in families. First comes the shouting at the noisy child, then comes the smacking, shaking or – in my case – the lobbing of the rubber. After that it all gets very dark indeed and I don’t even want to think about the other atrocities that are dealt a child.

The reason I thought about abuse at all is because of my abusive upbringing. My sister stayed with me recently and we were sharing stories about our respective upbringings (if you can call them that!). She shared some stories with me about my mum which were a little eye-opening – one involved her shaking me when I was screaming because of teething and Elaine genuinely feared for my life that day. Lily is teething. She was screeching before she ever got teeth but it stopped for a while and she babbled happily instead. I can easily cope with excessive loud babbling. The screeching is the trigger for me. Screeching and screaming. Maybe I respond in the way that I do because that’s somehow what I remember being done to me. I don’t have any specific memories of anything my mum may or may not have done to me when I was that small. Elaine’s memories are all I have to rely on in many ways and they are unreliable as they are the memories of a terrorised, angry and petrified adolescent who was made responsible for my life up until I was 4 years old. Too young to be a surrogate mum.

Anyway, it made me think that there may be, lurking in my psyche – all subconscious and twitchy, some horrible abusive patterns that I am in danger of repeating. Not terrible violent patterns like beating my child or mentally berating them but subtle abuse like shouting at my bub when she screeches or yelling at her to ‘shut up!’ or lobbing a rubber at her to get a moment’s peace from the noise.

I would never in a million years have thought of myself as an abusive person. Far from it. I am a woman made timid by years being surrounded by violence and abuse, watching and hearing it until I cannot remember much of anything about my childhood except one or two terrifying incidences that I would much rather forget. So why then does it worry me so much? I guess it’s because I know now that the possibility is there. Maybe it’s present in everyone just as I suspect that the ability to do many horrible things is present in everyone – we just don’t act on those urges. The question is what urges WILL I act upon? Given my history I think I am just that little bit more likely to give in to an aggressive urge and I need to know that now so that I can take some steps to avoiding it before it happens.

I don’t believe I am one of those women capable of shaking their child though I have had moments where I can see how it happens and I know that I handle Lily more roughly when I am angry than I do when I am calm and happy. I guess that’s a no-brainer though. Who wouldn’t? It’s just that I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be more at risk of smacking or shacking or even just shouting aggressively at my child and yet I know that I am. I am capable of dark and horrible things because I have been a victim of dark and horrible things and they live in my psyche. What then do I think of as normal?

There are days when I want so much to have just a little peace from the constant demands that she places on my time and I know that this is just me struggling to find myself in the role of mummy. And then there are days when I long to be attached more to my child, when I never want to stop breastfeeding her, when I think I should be holding her more, wearing her in a sling more, playing with her more and then I feel guilty that I am not focused on her 24/7.

I am trying to be a better parent to my baby girl than my mum and dad were to me. It’s not that difficult when it comes to my dad – I just have to not belittle them, punch them or make them feel inferior – oh and I have to not drag them from their beds at 4am while the hubble and I have a punch up in the house.
With mum it’s more tricky. I don’t really know what bad patterns I have internalised there. I can name a few of the more obvious patterns right off the bat such as:
Not pushing my child to compete with other children or to be ‘the best’ at something.
Not making my child do all the things I wish I had done as a child.
Not being so controlling that I don’t allow my child’s own personality to develop normally.
Not spoiling the child out of guilt for the start that I gave her and the horrible upbringing I allowed my other children to have inflicted upon them.

The subtle mum stuff is more difficult because I only just realised today that the capacity for violence is in me and there is nowhere else that it can have come from other than my parents and my upbringing. The blame lies squarely with them for that but the responsibility for Lily is mine. I will not do to her what was done to me – no matter how impossible the circumstances may have been. I will not allow myself to give in to these horrible snappy moments when I do things like this – no matter how small they are in reality. They are a sign of a much deeper well of dark matter that I must now start to scoop out in order to fill my parenting well with clear, nourishing cool water. How I do that I don’t know but it is my responsibility and I guess my leanings towards attachment parenting and aware parenting are all part of my desire to iron out the kinks in my psyche and be a good mum to Lily and her siblings when she has some.

I am a good person. I truly believe this. I just have a dark half, a bruised shadow that waits in the wings trying to show me, to teach me, how to do things better. How to be a better mummy. How to undo some of the damage so that I don’t pass it on.

What realisations come – huh?

Kitty
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