Beginnings

You gotta start somewhere eh? This, I guess, is my starting place.

So, many of us at one point in our lives I suppose, have read a "self help" book of some kind.  Probably alot of us who suffer a mental illness can probably raise their hands and say 'yep, I've done that'.  I've read MANY self help books and thought 'oh dear god, this is shit'. One of those was Feel the fear and do it anyway. Can't remember the author, and really couldn't be bothered digging it up to find out.  On the other hand though, one of the really good books I read was 'Don't sweat the small stuff'. It was a great book and helped me at a time when I really needed it. At the tender age of 18.

The book at the moment that I am reading is 'Power over Panic- Bronwyn Fox'. If there are any of you suffering from PTSD or Anxiety and enjoy reading, I couldn't recommend this book enough. It's fantastic.  So unfortunately for you guys, the next few posts will be referencing this book alot, sorry lol.  In all seriousness though, I feel like I have to post about it. Not only because I hope that it will help other people in the same boat as me, but because I read things in this book that I want to elaborate on myself to get it out of my head.  So here goes I guess... Lesson one ...

You know those times when you have what Oprah calls the 'A-ha' moment? When you're reading a book or watching a show and its almost as if something jumps out and punches you in the face as if to say 'DUH'.  Well, I have had MANY A-ha moments whilst reading this book. (almost sounds like I am getting some sort of kick back for mentioning this book doesn't it haha! I'm not, honestly). So I pretty much have to jot down some of the stand out moments for me. One of them was;

       The ability to dissociate usually begins in childhood. Some people with an anxiety disorder have a history of childhood abuse, and the ability to dissociate enabled them to ‘escape’ from this abuse. People who do not have a background of abuse learnt to dissociate in other situations, such as being bullied at school or during lessons that they were not interested in, disliked or could not cope with."

      For me personally, this was the part in the book when I realised, I know this! Subconsciously, I know alot of what she is saying in this book.  And funnily enough she talks about emotionally vs. intellectually in regards to our anxiety.  Intellectually we realise 'this is not right' and we know what we need to do. But emotionally we can't get our head past the thoughts of 'what if'. Its like we're stuck IN the actual anxiety.

      One of the other major things I have been struggling with lately is NOT helping everybody else!!! I've always been the person who is there for everyone. You need someone to talk to? for 3 hours? sure I'm there. Never mind the fact that when I get off the phone from listening to your problems I am absolutely exhausted. And who is the one that suffers after that? Me, my partner, my children. I can't be everything I need to be to my partner and my children and my self if I am being everything to everybody else!  I always thought that my reasons for being like this was because I didn't have anyone to 'help' me or 'save' me from my problems growing up.

·         Even before our anxiety disorder developed, we did not know or feel any sense of self, any sense of who we are. Our identity is based on the roles we assume in our life. We are a wife, husband, father, mother, daughter, son, friend, work colleague.  Our identity is based on our own, and other people’s expectations and perceptions of who we think we should be. We think we need to be all things to all people, so that people will love us. To accomplish this, we suppress our feelings, needs and wants- in essence, ourselves. As a result, our sense of self is ‘externally’ based rather than centred within us.  Trying to be all things to all people takes an enormous amount of energy. It also takes an enormous amount of strength to continually hold ourselves back, to not show our feelings and not feel our feelings. To always be pleasant, smiling and helpful. To take responsibility for everyone else, and to make sure we do all the above perfectly!  We feel inferior and we worry that we will be ‘found out’ and exposed as being less than perfect.

I've always known that I am a people pleaser. I want and need people to be happy with me. Not strangers obviously, but friends and family. I go out of my way to make sure they're all happy and looked after. Always making sure if they need anything I'm there etc.  This would have to be one of the biggest things I struggle with. Learning that it's OK to need to look after myself and MY family (my children and my partner). It's not selfish.  Even typing that 'its not selfish' I scrunched up my face. Because it still feels selfish!  I know that it's something that is going to take time.  But I need to develop the art of being able to be there for someone and giving them advice but not getting emotionally invested every.single.time. To the point where I am not sleeping at night because I'm so concerned with how such and such is because she's having a marriage problem or because this person is fighting with her friend or this person is struggling getting pregnant etc (and please if you fit into one of those categories don't think I am talking about YOU personally. I just needed some examples off the top of my head). 

I could type forever, but I need to do it in parts. So I shall leave this post with one last quote. 

·         Recovery is like peeling an onion. As we work through the recovery process and peel away the layers, we discover these inner resources within us, and we find they have been there all along. We just didn’t know it. 

Supermum!!!

Tonights post was going to be about a book I am currently reading. "Power over Panic- by Bronwyn Fox".  But that post is sort of a work in progress, so rather than rush it, I've thought of something I'd much rather write about instead.

The past few weeks has been, well,  just bullshit really, that's the only word I can think to describe it. I'm not going to go into detail, because this for me is going to be a positive post.  But there has been drama's with my 'newly found' adopted sister and it's been stressful and trying, to say the least.  After a discussion with the Bman on Thursday night about certain things that were going on, I decided to leave facebook for a week.  Just so I wasn't seeing snotty, childish remarks. But also because my head is just not in the right place I need to step away because I just am taking everything so personally.  I want to save the world, and fix everybody elses problems and give everybody else advice. When really, it's me that I should be looking after.  Anyway, this post isn't about that, but rather about how I am feeling being off it for a few days already. It's actually quite refreshing!  I've been playing guitar and reading and just enjoying pottering around the house.

Lately, the past few weeks though, I have felt as thought I'd lost my mojo.  Just not feeling my Stay at home mum mojo, to be honest.  Doing the bare minimum housework wise, just so its not a crap-hole.  Of course the kids have been looked after, being fed and clothed and what not.  But the rainy weather hasn't helped either. I have learnt that it really affects my mood, having days and days of rain.

So Friday afternoon, got all the kids stuff ready (was in MAJOR anxiety attack mode) and Bman got home from work and we were off to his mum's place for the night. (Miss A was having a sleepover till Monday). This was the first time in 3 weeks I'd been OUT.  So I was really really off tap. Took a valium and slept the 1.5 hour trip to my mother in laws house.  Which was really frustrating because I had been soooo loooking forward to seeing them. They'd been away on holidays, then we'd had sick kids etc. The usual Murphy's law kind of stuff I guess. But we'd not seeing them in about 2 months. Which is probably the longest we've not seen them for, in well.....ages!  But by time I got there I was fine, glad to see the in laws. Miss A unfortunately was feeling off and didn't say much or do much. I suspect maybe she'd had a sore ear as I'd been trying to get her to eat and stuff during the day and she'd not really taken part in it.  So as a result she ended up putting herself to bed at 5.30pm Friday night!!

So what's the title 'Supermum', got to do with anything I hear you ask?  Well, over the years, my parent in laws have come across to me as over bearing and just too much in my face.  When in reality, that hasn't been the case. It's just been something I haven't been use to. You know, complete unconditional caring. Nothing expected in return, doing it because we love you kind of stuff?  I knew that going to my mother in laws house, I would gain my mojo back. I'd even said it to my sister a few days before (not the adopted one).  We get there and my mother in law has Pumpkin soup on the go, plus a stew, plus a cake she'd just pulled out of the oven.  So it was basically a 3 course meal for dinner. Nothing is ever too much trouble. She just does it. Her kitchen looked like Beirut in between doing all of this. But she wouldn't let me help her clean it. Made me, the father in law and Brendan a cup of tea and brought it out to us while we sat around the lounge room and fire and just chatted about random things - what the kids had been doing, Bman's work and what not.

It wasn't only the 3 course meal that made me just love her all the more. It was just everything.  I'm actually feeling teary just thinking about it. Which probably really sounds stupid to people reading this, but I've never known a family, a mum, like this.  Woke up in the morning and miss A woke up feeling better than ever!! Which was great. But at 5.30am wanted to go in and see her 'Ma-Ma'. Of course, mainly due to my upbringing I was like noooo way! Trying to shush her to stay quiet until Ma - Ma and Grandad were awake . No sooner though, was Grandad coming out and coaxing both me and miss A into my Mother in laws room where we all sat on her bed and had a cup of tea.

This may be to alot of people, 'normal'.  Without going into my life story though, this is NOT normal in my parents household. To cut a long story short, miss 4 has, since birth, had 1 sleep over on her own at my parents house, and 2 or 3 sleepovers WITH me. They live the same distance away from us as Brendans parents. Before we moved to the Sunshine Coast we all lived within 20minutes away from each other, so distance has never been the issue.  When there have been sleepovers at my parents place, if the girls woke up at 6am I was hurrying them down the hallway and out into the lounge room constantly shushing them so they wouldn't wake up my parents. Cause that was really something you didn't want to deal with. Mum would maybe get up about 1/2 hour or so after the girls and I were up, but then she would be there as well shushing them so they didn't wake dad.  My parents don't randomly call up and say "hey we were wondering if we could have the girls for a sleepover this weekend". They don't even come to see the girls, unless they are already coming up the coast.  I could probably count on one hand the amount of times they've seen miss P since she was born. She's 18 months old now.  These are just a couple of examples of why there is such a wow factor about my Mother in law.  I mean, her house is just gorgeous. She doesn't by any means live in a mansion or anything. She's lived in the same house for the past 20+ years, but its just what she's done with the place and the way she keeps the place.  I mean even her Linen cupboard is absolutely immaculate.  Mine on the other hand, shambles.  And that's not me being down or negative on myself, its just an observation.  She's just the definition of house-wife. And she's always been like that and always been so good at it. And it shows! you just have to meet her kids and know that SHE did that.

Last night, whilst pottering around my kitchen. Yes- I know it was a Saturday night and I was cleaning my kitchen, but it was actually really peaceful and cathartic.  But I was thinking about certain ways that I do things as a mother or as a housewife.  And how when Miss A was a baby, I played so many games with her. I mean she wasn't even 2 and she could count to 15. I just loved reading with her and playing with her and teaching her things. Nothing made me happier than seeing her say something I'd taught her for the first time.  And then when Miss P came, life became more hectic and stuff slowed down and now they play together and I just do whatever it is I'm doing.  I haven't done crafty things with the girls in ages. Or just sat down and read books with them. Or did playdough with them.  I've come to the realisation that I need a routine. Not something I write on the fridge or anything time by time. But I need to have some sort of routine for me so that my house doesn't get chaotic and messy and I spend days cleaning it and the girls entertain themselves. I need to be able to get up in the morning, do an hour or two of 'housewifey' things and then I will have the time to go for a run in the yard or play on the swings or do paintings or whatever we want to do.  And instead of leaving what we're having for dinner until the end of the day, think about it in the morning and prepare it, so when it does get to that hectic time of the afternoon where the girls are just over it and start playing up, it's not hard to put dinner on and keep them entertained at the same time. I *NEED* to be a better housewife and mother. And it's funny because I am doing exactly what my mother did. Of course she obviously didn't have facebook and internet back then, but my mum just stopped being 'a mum'. We got to a certain age and mum just, not gave up, but something changed. We went to school and on school holidays we went to vacation care. We were never ever home. 6 weeks of Christmas holidays and we were at Vacation care EVERY day. And no, my mother didn't work. She just wasn't the stay at home mum type.   But up until a while ago, I loved being a stay at home mum. No my kids aren't in kindy everyday. Miss A only goes to kindy 2 days a week and Miss P doesn't go at all yet.  But the point is, I don't remember mum doing things with me. I don't remember doing crafty things with mum. I remember doing craft things with my vacation care teacher.  I don't want to be that mother. I know all kids have their naughty days, but I reckon miss A wouldn't be as naughty if I did more things with her, it's attention seeking behaviour, and I know that.  I'm so excited for her to come home tomorrow cause I've done up her room and have written out some recipes I want to do with her tomorrow.  Feeling like I've definitely got my mojo back. And am determined to make it stay.  There have been times where I've thought I should be doing 'xyz' but I fight it cause I think 'christ it's a Saturday night and I'm folding washing, or I'm ironing' etc.  And I fight it because I think geeze I'm 26 years old, this is just lame. But at the end of the day, who is it lame to?  This is my life. I am a mother. Would I rather be out clubbing until all hours? No, because i've been there done that and I'm glad I'm not crawling out of a cab at 5am. I'm tired just thinking about that lol.  Anyway... babbling .. Just had to get everything out. It's been a great weekend. I'm glad I went.