Actually I AM on my summer holiday, but it doesn’t feel like it. The weather has been awful. I think it’s rained non-stop since I arrived. Instead of spending the week on the beach with the magic of the ocean, I’ve spent most of it checking the weather, the flood warnings, road closures and beach closures. Sigh. Of course my heart goes out to the people who are seriously affected. I can’t imagine what having your home flooded must be like.

I never realised what an impact the weather could have on my mood. I don’t mind the rain so much. I mind missing the healing and recharge I came for. I’ve been to the beach a couple of times, but it’s just not the same. Instead of this:

I’ve had this:

And then this when the pool turned into a lake:

It’s just not the same. I’m not getting the cleansing I usually get, or the healing or the recharge or the … anything really. I didn’t realise the weather would do this to me. or may be its the stress of the floods distracting me too much.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the beach in winter, and the roar of a rough ocean. I guess I just haven’t been able to connect with myself in the way I had hoped and haven’t been able to release all the stress I’ve been carrying

Man what a whinge this post is. Sorry peeps. Just needed to vent I guess.

Through drawing, painting, or any other visual means, create an image that represents a major obstacle facing you now. You can do this any way you wish. With your entry, please also include a couple of sentences saying what the process was like for you, which will accompany your art.

As soon as I read this activity, I knew what I’d do. Here is my entry:

I’ve been facing some challenges at work lately, and this photo I took over the Christmas break seems to capture those nicely, in a couple of different ways. First, there’s a sort of literal representation. I work in a building that’s around the same vintage as this one, so there’s a physical resemblance to my place of work. Second, there’s a more metaphorical representation in that the building seems dark and gloomy, with the spire towering over me – all of it with the stormy sky, almost a sign, foreboding. I’ve been feeling this way about work for a few weeks now. It’s really challenging me not to be afraid of work and what will happen there. Challenging every healed (and unhealed) fibre of my being to walk in there every day. So far I’m managing ok

I was mildly hysterical when I saw her yesterday (over a triggering issue I’m not going into, sorry). She asked me to think about/take note of how I feel (physically, emotionally) when I’m having a “good” day, and how I feel when I’m not. She’s doing a lot of work with me on my emotions (ugh.) and on being “in my body” (double ugh. Though good for me, I know that.) So, here goes.

On a “good” day…

• On a good day I’m fully conscious. Mindful of things around me.
• I’m aware of my emotions. I can see, name and even feel their impact on me. I can even feel some of them come (and go).
• I can do that “self-talk” thing – you know, keeping myself upbeat, talking myself around any irrational thoughts that might come my way.
• I can see my progress over the last three years in therapy.

I know that’s a teeny weeny list for the “good” days. There haven’t been many of those lately, so I’ll keep this as a work in progress.

On a not-good day…

• I’m emotional. Tears spring forth at the drop of a hat. Sometimes I get really pissy, able to tear apart tall building with a single rrrrrip. Or tear someone a new orifice, if you use that expression where you live.
• I get a great lump in my throat before the tears leak out. Apparently this is common, but not everyone get’s this, which I didn’t realize.
• Sometimes I hold my breath… or, rather, I find it physically difficult to breathe out. I think because of the lump in my throat, but I’m not really sure.
• Often I bite the inside of my cheek to try to stop the tears, which generally hurts, but not as much as the tears themselves (which is kind of the whole point). Sometimes my cheek bleeds, but I’m not usually aware of that until afterwards.
• I get tense around my neck and the tops of my shoulders. My jaw is often clenched, too.
• I want to lie in the foetal position on the floor, or crawl under the doona and stay there all day. Alone.
• That’s another thing – I don’t want to be around other people, and sometimes I struggle to get out of the house and do the things I need to do (like go to work).
• I can’t bear noise. It feels like a physical assault. When I was little I used to vomit whenever there was unexpected loud noise. (I’m sure my mother was delighted by this – NOT!)
• Sometimes I think about hurting myself – putting my hand through the window, cutting myself, or stabbing my leg with the screwdriver. (Yea, not pretty, I know.)
• Afterwards, I’m completely and utterly shattered. Exhausted. My head hurts from crying (or from dehydration, or both). I get a tension headache around the top of my head, too. My neck and shoulders hurt. And the inside of my cheek generally hurts, too (not surprisingly). And if I’ve really been going for it, my eyes are puffy and feel like p*ss holes in the snow.

Wow, this has been difficult. I never realized how out of touch with my body I was (though I suspect T#2 knows!). No doubt this will be a work in progress, so stay tuned

For the first few days I had to keep reminding myself that my father wasn’t there and that wasn’t going to say something nasty. I have to admit this was a giant head f**k. I know he’s dead, but everything around me was just the same as it was when he was alive – his chair there by the TV, his other chair out on the verandah. I kept expecting him to ark up, complain, say something horrible, be nasty. He didn’t, thankfully.

My mother and I spent some time going through her things – working out what she wanted to keep, what she didn’t, etc. Part of this was hard – learning about things that had meaning for her, or had been passed down through the family. Although sometimes it was just downright funny, like when she *finally* threw away the half-done macramé projects that belonged to my grandmother. The one who died 31 years ago!!!!!

Despite the odd funny moment, Mum again proved that she’s an emotional cripple. Not only did she deny my needs the entire time we were there, but also several times invalidated what I was feeling. Just as an example, the weather was unbearably hot for much of the week. I don’t cope well in the heat. I wilt quickly and just want to curl in a ball and sleep. Mum just told me to “get used to it”. If I’d had some wits about me, I would have said, “No, Mum, I won’t get used to it, or get over it. I’m 41 years old. I’ve never liked the heat and I’m not about to start. You don’t like the cold – I don’t ask you to get used to it. It’s how I am. YOU get used to it.”

Most of her behavior was the same across the week. Instead of saying she was tired, or finding it difficult, or whatever, she just took it out on me in some sarcastic, acid-tongued way. I knew it was about her, but it still threw me back into the cesspit of negativity and criticism, and needless to say pretty much did my head in. I quickly felt myself slipping to the edge of the abyss.

On top of that was all the physical work – gardening (in the heat), painting (in the wee small hours to miss the heat), lugging rubbish to the tip, and second hand goods to charity. Of course my mother’s still not up to very much physically, so I did most of the heavy work. I have no idea how I did it – except by disconnecting myself, physically and emotionally. Not healthy, I know, and kind of scary to think how quickly and easily I slipped backwards. I feel like I’ll always be skirting the edge like this. It feels completely pointless. I know that’s not good, but I’m having trouble stopping.

I’m coming back, now that I’m home, but slowly. The darkness is still there, and the darkest of dark thoughts still appealing. I’m hoping a weekend of nothing much will help. I’m due to go back to work next week, and it’s just about the last thing I feel like doing. I’m wrecked.

2011 was such a whirlwind for me, it’s really hard to sort out what’s mine and what’s external. In some respects I feel I lost myself a bit this last year. Part of that, I think, is not spending as much time reflecting, blogging and working on myself. I got caught up in events in my life, perhaps not surprisingly. Anyway, here goes for a recap of 2011.

My year in review

I learned that some friends can be relied upon, and some can’t. And sometimes it’s not how you expect it to be, though perhaps if you’d looked harder you might have seen what’s what a lot earlier. Oh, the power of hindsight!

I learned we can’t have everything we want in life, no matter how much we wish for something or how hard we try.

I learned that I’m really cr@p at dealing with my emotions. I also learned this is why I have a well-oiled self-destruct switch.

I learned, and moved a step towards accepting that I may always be FITH. I don’t like it, but part of me’s just giving in to it.

I learned that my life is much nicer without my father around, but that he can still haunt me from the grave.

I think I also learned that it’s our relationships in life that really matter. More on that in a not-to-distant future post.

And that we should never take our loved ones for granted. The small stuff really doesn’t matter.

So, on to my hopes for 2012.

My biggest hope is that I get more (quality) time with Mum. This is obviously something I have little control over. I’ll find out next week what the prognosis is.

I’d also like to spend a bit more time on “me” – physically, as well as emotionally. So fingers crossed for more blog posts this year, peeps!

And I want to spend more time doing creative things – they’re great for my soul. Photography, and most recently knitting.

I’d like to keep my job. I’d like to get better at managing my job with a completely out of control and somewhat f***ed up life. Or give up completely.

I’d like a holiday. And world peace. Not too much to ask for, is it?

I hope each and every one of you out there has a Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukkah/Happy other festive occasion. I know this is a difficult time of year for many of us – perhaps not surprisingly, less so for me this year or differently, at least.

I hope each of you can take time out to cherish your loved ones (even those who drive you C-R-A-Z-Y) and take time out to do something nice for yourself. You deserve it.

Sending peace, happiness, love and other good things your way.

Kerro x

I confess I’ve spent much of the last week in tears. I’m not sure how I’ll ever come to terms with this. The PNT says I probably won’t. For a control freak like me, that’s hard to take.

Mum and I haven’t talked much about her new diagnosis either. It’s not her way; not our way. I have, of course, been reading endlessly to find out as much as I can about this new hideousness. It’s not good news. So bad, in fact, that instead of celebrating my first festive season without my ghastly father, I now fear this will be my last with Mum.

Mum, of course, hasn’t been reading and even if she had been I’m not sure how much of the horror she has understood and absorbed. I know she hasn’t been telling her friends the truth. Not the whole truth, anyway. She’s mentioned something about another cancer, but that’s about all. Not the ugliness of it being highly aggressive and incurable. I’m not sure if this is because she needs time to process it all, or is in denial, or both.

The obvious question, of course, is why don’t I ask her? Yea, right. How do you ask someone how they feel about dying? Do they want more treatment, or not? Is there anything they want to do before they go? How do they want to spend what might be their last few relatively healthy months? Is there anything I want to say to her before I lose that opportunity forever?

Of course, now is precisely the time I should be having these discussions with Mum. I’m not sure I can. Not only is it not our way, but I’m constantly afraid I’ll cry. And I’m afraid she’ll get snippy and cross and defensive. The Wonder Therapist said all of those things are pretty much guaranteed, but there are more serious things to worry about here. She’s right. I need to find the courage, somehow, to ask the unaskable.

The PNT spoke about this in my second session this week. About how having feelings isn’t actually “faulty”, but part of being human. An important part of being human. Go figure?!?

I have to say I’m not enjoying my sessions with PNT, though I am learning a lot and because of that I’ll keep going to see her. (The situation with the Wonder Therapist and potentially having two therapists is as yet unresolved. I’m playing ostrich on that one LOL) Anyway, PNT spent quite a lot of time trying to get me to just sit with my feelings, and especially to get in touch with the anxiety I was feeling. I didn’t like that one little bit. By the end of the session I wanted to run away and get completely drunk, though I also understood why that was, perhaps with a degree of clarity I’ve not had before.

Of course, getting drunk, taking drugs, eating, cutting or doing any one of a zillion other things is just about trying to avoid feeling that anxiety. But you know that already. Apparently I am the one who’s slow on the uptake here And who wouldn’t want to avoid it? It’s awful!!

When I wasn’t dissociating or trying to deflect her attention with vaguely humorous comments, I did feel the anxiety. It’s hideous. Why would I want to feel that?  Apparently because having feelings is normal, and unless you feel them, you can’t learn to manage them. Hmph.

But enough about that for today. I also want to share a couple of things with you. First there’s this scarily accurate poem about a fear of rejection over at Kellevision’s blog. Check it out. Amazing. It stopped me in my tracks.

There’s also this really awesome speaker on TED Women. What she says about being true to yourself or your body will let you down certainly resounded with me. Anyway, check it out. Really great stuff.

I saw the PNT for an additional session the other day, in a “crisis” you might say. It wasn’t really a crisis; just anxiety and panic about the maladaptive side, and some depression settling in around the edges.

I’m not even sure what we talked about, the PNT and me. It certainly wasn’t all these maladaptive coping mechanisms. We did talk about the anxiety, and about its sources, and then she got into a whole lot of family-related stuff that, at the time, didn’t make a lot of sense. Sometimes I think there’s more “madness” than “method” in her approach, though I seem to be learning stuff at the same time.

I realized afterwards what she was saying, though – that I probably come from a long line of people who don’t know how to deal with their emotions, so it’s hardly surprising that I don’t know how either.  Yep, she’s right there.  And that, as a child, I probably had to squish down all my emotions in order to survive. Yep, right again.

She didn’t say it, but I’m guessing it’s this business of not knowing how to deal with my emotions that brings the maladaptive side out. I probably knew that, but had forgotten. I’m seeing the PNT again this week, so will see what she has planned this time around. If nothing else my sessions with her make me curious about her process.