Invisiblity

I started this post a while back now and like many things at the moment, I just never finished. The good thing about that is that it has given me time to think and reflect. What’s really going on here?

I have got the distinct feeling that I am invisible.  I could have got a role in Harry Potter or similar, because somehow it seems that while I think I’m there in reality, I’m not there at all.  I am invisible to all those around me.

A visit to my doctor (my GP) was the start of all this a couple of weeks ago.  He was seemingly uninterested in my reality.  While I talked of having trouble getting to sleep because of pain, all he was interested in was that I was apparently using too many sleeping medications.  I wondered why he couldn’t take interest in my pain.  I wanted him to ask about the type of pain I was experiencing, and how bad it was for me.  In over a year of having a chronic pain condition he hasn’t once asked me to describe my pain.  That seems odd to me.  Maybe he could suggest some ways of managing it.  But as usual, there was no apparent interest.  I guess his bigger interest was getting me out of his office so he could move onto the next person.  So I left, invisible…

My mother has been in hospital over the past couple of weeks, and somehow I have turned into her next of kin.  The night of her operation the hospital staff rang me to ask if I would come into her during the night if she continued to be confused (a side effects of her anaesthetic).  I felt I had little option but to say yes.

Actually I find going out at night difficult.  I guess you could say I am a little ‘scared’ of the dark, so the idea of driving across town in the middle of the night was daunting.  It also meant that I would have to go without my night-time medication, because I would never to drive.  That was all okay except that no one was actually interested in how I felt, and how I would cope if I had to do this.  Invisible again, this time in favour of my mother’s needs and the hospital’s needs.

As the week went on, there were more and more demands on me.  And that’s okay, because my mother was not well and needed my support.  I guess it just felt like it would be nice if my needs mattered somehow, somewhere.  Instead I was just a daughter, serving a purpose.

At the same time as this, I have been reading a very good book about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) called The Buddha and the Borderline by Kiera Van Gelder.  One of the things I have picked up in reading this book is the Borderline’s tendency to all too easily feel abandoned.  The lack of a stable sense of self see us take all these things as a kind of rejection of us.

When those I am in relationship with have other priorities, or simply can not be there when I need them, I think that I have lost that relationship.  They have abandoned me.  And so when I am not the priority in my mother’s care, I also feel like no one cares about my needs.

I can choose to go down the track of believing that I am invisible and that no one is there for me.  I can choose to believe that the relationship is gone, simply because I can’t always come first.

Or, I can recognise this as Borderline thinking.  I can tell myself it’s not necessary to think my world has ended because I feel invisible.  Even as I write this I can see that is an extremist view, as well as one that will destroy me if I let it.

I am not invisible.  Sometimes I might need to remember my own needs so that they don’t get lost in other’s needs, but it doesn’t mean that my needs are not important.

If that sounds easy, it’s not.  Especially for a Borderline.  We are constantly trying to hold onto a shaky sense of self, and we have to work hard to see ourselves, rather than believe we are invisible.  Even if others don’t have the ability to give my needs priority, I can work on doing that for myself.

It doesn’t mean I get walked on, or ignored.  It’s just that I recognise that it’s okay for me to put my needs first, even if other’s don’t, or can’t.  A Borderline is likely to tell you that they can’t do that, but I am one who is determined to find a way.  I’m not going to give into my Borderline insecurities.  It might be the natural response for me, but it doesn’t have to be the way.

I remember in psychology lectures at University, object permanence was discussed.  At a certain stage of human development we learn that even though we can’t see something, doesn’t mean it no longer exists.  It’s something that I need to remember in my relationships with others.

Even if they can’t, or won’t be there for me, doesn’t mean they don’t still love me, or care for my needs.  Maybe just for now, I need to take care of my own needs.

♦

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” 

―    Donald Miller,    A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What
I Learned While Editing My Life

When Your World Turns Upside Down (reposted)

A few weeks ago I published this post but removed it shortly after, when I felt uncomfortable having shared what is contained in it.  I now feel more comfortable with sharing it, and so am re-posting it.  I apologise to those who read the original post and commented, before I deleted it.  I did appreciate your comments.

Today has been the second anniversary of the worst earthquake we lived through in Christchurch, NZ.  185 people weren’t so lucky and lost their lives.  Many more were injured.  And yet many more have suffered health problems (and for some death) following the quakes.  For me, my father died six weeks later, my mother is a completely different woman and my own fibromyalgia is attributed to my trauma from that experience. 

Our lives literally turned upside down.  While recovery, repair and rebuilding slowly take place, for about 450,000 residents life will never be the same.  This post is about what came to matter.

My world has literally turned upside down in more than one occasion. It has been frightening, life changing and heart stopping (both literally and figuratively when I look across my family who also experienced this). It happened, for me, by way of massive earthquakes, but for others it might have been tornadoes, hurricanes, bush fires, floods, tsunamis or a number of other events that we know as ‘natural disasters’.

It might be ‘natural’ but nothing seems ‘natural’ at the time. Everything is totally unknown and shocking.Out of nowhere, comes complete devastation. The question that repeatedly came into my mind as I was in a number of major earthquakes in Christchurch, NZ was “how can the earth do this?” It was simply beyond my wildest imagination that the world was capable of moving like this, yet now it was my reality.

If you have read back through my posts you may have read some of this before, but this is a different angle than that which I have shared previously.

In a few weeks it will be two years since Christchurch experienced its worst (although not biggest) and deadly earthquake. On 22 February 2011 a 6.3 earthquake, centred just 10 kilometres from the central city, hit on a busy, summer Tuesday. It wasn’t the first, or the last quake to devastate the city.

Nearly two years on, it seems that finally the after shocks might have died away. There are still occasional ones just to remind us of our terror, but mostly now it is about concentrating on rebuilding ourselves, our homes and our city. Or waiting. There is so much waiting. In early days for supplies of fresh water, now we wait for the Government and Insurance companies, and of course we wait at the thousands of roads-works holding up traffic as the repairs to roads, water pipes and sewers go on.

Five months earlier on 4 September 2010 at 4.35am I was woken by our first quake. It was a 7.1 quake centred just out of the city at Darfield (about 30 kilometres away). It was dark, and I woke to this incredible violent shaking. Initially I had no idea what was happening. In New Zealand we are used to minor quakes but this was far beyond anything I had experienced.

As children we had been taught that in an earthquake you make your way to a doorway or under a table. Instinct somehow kicked in. Moments before my cat had been asleep by my feet, but I couldn’t see or hear where she was. That instinct saw me grab my teddy bear and try to make it to the doorway. It was only two metres but it seemed like miles because the cupboard doors on one side, and the bed on the other, were being tossed and thrown around the room. I literally had to fight to get past.

I clung to the door frame, and as I did I realised that there was an old doll on my bedside table. I had grabbed the teddy bear but I hadn’t grabbed the doll, and now I wanted her. I wanted to go back. For a moment, she was everything in the world, but then I knew I wouldn’t make it back. Right then I wasn’t sure if this was the end of the world, or was it a very bad earthquake. I just hung on and hoped it would end. I hoped my doll would still be there when it stopped.

When these ‘natural’ disasters strike they tend to be life-changing in many ways that one would never have expected. What is important takes on new meaning and you find that things you thought were important, don’t hold the same value you thought they did.

On that dark September morning, all that mattered to me was my cat (who I didn’t see for another two days) and the teddy bear and doll. I thought my world was ending. It would have been useful to have my mobile phone from the bedside table, but I didn’t think of that until it rang a few minutes later (what became a regular ritual of checking on other family members).

There wasn’t much logic to what was important but in time I would repeat the same choices. Five months later, when the February quake struck it caused much more damage because it was closer to the city centre, it was very shallow and it was lunchtime on a busy work day. My parents lived in an apartment building in the city centre, and when they (and I) struggled down the damaged stairs some time after the quake, they were leaving the building forever. I was with them that day, and while I had time to grab my bag, they had no time to grab anything. Dad had his car keys. That was all.

Their experience made me question my priorities again. What really mattered? Actually a lot didn’t matter. Mum was understandably upset because she hadn’t put her wedding rings on that morning.

We were fortunate that my brother and I were able to go back into the building for a short while several months later. By then we had worked out what really mattered. There was mum’s rings, my grandfather’s World War Two medals, and family photos. Of a houseful of possessions we had narrowed it down to that.

It seemed a little crazy to walk past broken china on the floor. Items my parents had got as wedding gifts and had been part of our family for my whole life. They didn’t matter. They just weren’t important. I’d like to say that what mattered was that we were all alive, but by that time my Dad had died. The stress of everything had beaten his heart.

But we do have everyone else, and some families weren’t so lucky. We are fortunate. We found mum’s rings and Granddad’s medals (although they mysteriously disappeared later). We retrieved most of the family and ancestor photos that couldn’t have been replaced.

For me, I lost precious items in my home too, particularly gifts from friends. Smashed on the floor. But two years on those things don’t matter. The things that did matter, which were of my heart, were my cat, my teddy bear and the doll. Oh, and I never take my rings off now. I learnt that lesson from Mum.

“You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.”

― A.A. Milne

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A Band Of Warrior Women

I was sitting in a medical waiting room this morning; waiting while my mother had a blood test. This was the second waiting room for the morning, and we had one yet to come.  Looking around the room I noticed something that I had seen before, in other waiting rooms.  Here was an older person sitting next to a middle-aged woman.  The combination was repeated around the room, and was there to be seen in all the other waiting rooms my mother and I have recently been in.  Presumably often a mother and daughter, occasionally father and daughter.  A band of warrior women, presumably supporting their parents.

I don’t mean to be sexist, but in all the times I have seen this happening, I have never seen the middle-aged woman replaced by a middle-aged man.  Occasionally it is an older man accompanying the older woman, but mostly this seems to be the domain of middle-aged woman.  There to support their parent.

My mother is due to go into hospital to have an operation next week and since she has taken to wanting me to take her, I have learnt a routine.  From my mother’s perspective it is easier for her if I drive, and have to worry about parking.  And it is easier on her if I navigate us through buildings to where she is meant to be.  From her perspective my role is then to sit quietly and be the dutiful and supportive daughter.  Often it seems from the doctor’s perspective it is good to get another opinion of what is happening, and even a slightly quicker answer.

As an aside today my mother chose to tell a nurse all about giving birth to me, and then about her last job (some 50 years ago).  All this when actually she was meant to be saying how well (or otherwise) she managed around the home.  When I stopped and thought about it I imagine that it made mum’s day to have people so focussed on her and what she has to say.  Usually I’m the only person she sees.  And with that, I relaxed a little and decided the nurse could handle the time management.  Let mum enjoy this a bit.

In the back of my head I guess I’ve always known that it is often the female off-spring who end up providing more support to elderly parents.  Especially single females have often been expected in the past to give up their own lives to look after parents.  I’m not sure that I had ever given the whole thing much thought.  Perhaps I should have.  I am the only female and have two brothers.  Neither of them are in positions to support mum this way.

I guess I take it on because I am available, but I suspect there is a sense inside of me that this is what I should do as her daughter.  And my guess is that all these other middle-aged woman in waiting rooms have had the same sense.

What I’m wondering is the difference between the sexes.  I know there are men who look after elderly parents, although it’s not what I see while I’m sitting in waiting rooms.  I’m wondering do men feel some sense that they should be supporting their elderly parents in these practical tasks?  And how do you deal with it that sense if you simply don’t have the time or flexibility to do these things?

And what happens to the elderly people who don’t have a warrior woman (a middle-aged daughter) to help?  I know (and she commented) that mum would have really struggled this morning to go to all the appointments that were necessary today.  She would also have forgotten most of what she was told at the appointments, had she not had me there to listen.  That said, she would never admit to that.

It makes me think that elderly people who don’t have family able to help must really struggle.  It must be a very lonely and isolated life if there are not people there to help.  I’m inclined to think that I have never stopped to think how hard everyday life can be when you’re old.  Instead I just get frustrated when stuck behind them in a queue.

As I think I said recently I admit that I’m too taken with old age right now.  I hate the term middle-aged (because I still think of myself as in my twenties) but it is much preferable to what is to come.

♦

“I would like to believe in the myth that we grow wiser with age. In a sense my disbelief is wisdom. Those of a middle generation, if charitable or sentimental, subscribe to the wisdom myth, while the callous see us as dispensable objects, like broken furniture or dead flowers. For the young we scarcely exist unless we are unavoidable members of the same family, farting, slobbering, perpetually mislaying teeth and bifocals.” 

―    Patrick White,    Three Uneasy Pieces

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Not Sissies… Or Paupers

The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.”
Said the old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
I do that too,” laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man nodded, “So do I.”
But worst of all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
I know what you mean,” said the little old man.”

― Shel Silverstein

A few days ago the picture below sprung up on my screen, from my friend Sue’s Facebook page.  There could have been no better timing for me, for the issue of old age had been sharply thrown in front of me through my own family relationships.  “Old age ain’t no place for sissies” is so true that I think we are mostly inclined to try to ignore this truth.  Another friend’s elderly (and wise) father later added that “it ain’t no place for paupers too“.

Image credit: FB – Sue Fitzmaurice (used with permission)

I couldn’t tell you exactly when it happened, but sometime in the last perhaps five to seven years, my parents aged to a point where their welfare and health became almost more important than my own.  Remember that I don’t have children, and the most I have had to be concerned about someone else was my cat (who passed away last year).  Now I had elderly parents to worry about.

Until some (usually) undefined date on our adulthood I think it is easy for us to exist in our own worlds, and tending our own needs.  Somehow there’s a kind of “they’ll be okay” approach applied to older parents, and we know (in the back of our minds) that sometime in the future, we might have to pay a bit more attention to their needs.

For me, this probably happened for with regard to my mother’s well-being about seven years ago when she started to have a number of falls.  After that I found that if I was walking with her, I was watching the surface she was walking on for her safety.  It just happened.  She didn’t ask.  Actually she would never ask as she has always been fiercely independent.  I simply found myself looking out for her, consciously wanting to avoid another fall for her.

As for Dad, who died nearly two years ago, my change in attitude toward his well-being came at the time of his heart attack, about four years ago.  Dad was in the city one day and got accidentally knocked over by a cyclist on the footpath.  It triggered a heart attack.

Amazingly Dad drove himself to my home (about 10 minutes away), and came in saying he felt a bit off colour.  I assumed, at most, he might need me to drive him home, as I wasn’t aware of the severity of his symptoms.  He looked fine.  When he eventually told me that he thought I should call an ambulance, I admit I thought he was being dramatic and we would be ‘told off for wasting their time’.

It wasn’t a ‘waste of time’ at all, and it was the first of several ambulances that would come to my home, for Dad in the next few years.  Again, like with mum I found myself wanting to check if Dad was okay.  Sometimes he was, and unfortunately other times he wasn’t at all okay.  Dad later died in my home.

It almost felt like I had lost my parents, and that I had become the parent to them.  I said that once to someone and they told me not to be silly because my parents weren’t children.  That’s not what I meant to imply.  What I was feeling was that I now had responsibility for them.  It just happened, as they aged.

My mother is now 85 and widowed.  She is facing some major surgery in the next few weeks.  Because I have been the main family member to provide daily support for her since Dad died, I now find myself dealing with what is ahead for her.

While I am particularly concerned with how she might cope with the surgery, I find myself missing my Dad even more than usual.  Why?  I admit it is because if he were still alive he’d be the one making decisions and arrangements with her.  I’ve ended up the ‘parent’ (or my therapist tells me ‘the spouse’)and while I will do everything I can for her, I seriously wish I didn’t have this responsibility.  I desperately want to go back to when my parents were young, healthy and going to ‘live forever’.  Yet it’s not like that, and it is really hard.

The reality is that my mother is doing pretty well for her age.  Out her dining room window, in the apartment she has at a retirement village near my home, she can often watch residents of the secure dementia unit (across the car park) pacing.  They’re basically walking in circles, within their confined space.  Confined by fences, walls and locked gates.  It’s hard to watch, even at my age, without wondering, ‘is that how I’ll end up?‘  I don’t need to wonder what my mother thinks.  She’s told me, and told me what to do about it.  Another weight I don’t want to bear.

Yesterday I happened to come across a blog by Chris Curry at Healthy Place.com.  I quite like his blog about stigma, and was challenged in my thinking by his title, Remembering the Forgotten: Your Response to Dementia.  It seems that most of the elderly end up with some form of memory loss and/or confusion, on a scale of ‘nothing major’ to ‘residing permanently in a secure dementia unit’.

Who would want this for themselves, or for their parents?  Not me, that’s for sure…  but then off-spring don’t generally get a choice of what they will have to deal with.  No one gets a choice.

In his blog Chris suggests that the stigma associated with dementia is perhaps the greatest of all mental illnesses.  I don’t think I had stopped to consider dementia as a mental illness, but it is an illness of the mind.  And how many jokes do we choose to laugh at about dementia and the memory of the elderly?  It’s easy because no one is going to fight back like we might choose to fight against jokes of say, bipolar for example.

It makes me think.  When I say that mental illness is okay and shouldn’t be the subject of stigma, then I need to include in that dementia and other illnesses related to the degeneration of the mind in the elderly.  If we fight for ourselves, then we fight for those who ain’t sissies too.  I wouldn’t like to have to choose one mental illness over another, but I’m sure getting the feeling that old age ain’t much fun.

Maybe that’s pessimistic, but then I look back at the last say, five year of my parents lives and I wouldn’t have wanted their health for anything.  And actually they’ve got off pretty lightly.  I look at the final years of my grandparents too.  I wouldn’t choose that either.  I think that actually the aging process deserves more respect than we often give it.

♦

“In one thing you have not changed, dear friend,” said Aragorn: “you still speak in riddles.”
“What? In riddles?” said Gandalf. “No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.” 

―    J.R.R. Tolkien,    The Two Towers

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What’s Happening To Her?

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Yesterday, after a particularly difficult time in therapy, I was thinking about my family who had to stand by and watch me try to self destruct over and over again, as the years went by, and I struggled with mental illness.  At the time the relationships in my family were a bit different from they are today.  In addition to that my father, who was perhaps my staunchest supporter has died, and there is a whole new generation of nieces and nephews, who actually are still too young to know what pain my family went through.  I know that it is not just my pain, they bore theirs too.

I also know that while I pushed many friends away, there were a few who also had to stand by and watch me in my determination to self destruct. I admit I don’t really know what they went through.  I have been in the same situation of watching others go through this journey, but I have always had my own experiences as a kind of backdrop to understanding what was happening.

This morning a friend posted some music on Facebook. Often I pass by other people’s music post but the title caught my mind and I chose to listen (and watch) this time.  It’s amazing.  It is from Ashley Jordan

I was fading away… right in front of my family and friends.  They had no idea how to make a difference, and I know that I made it difficult for them because I was so intent on destroying myself that I didn’t want them to get close.

My fading away took the course of a physical fading as I starved myself through Anorexia.  But I was also fading away as the heavy doses of medication took from them, who I was.  I was different to the person they had known and loved.  They didn’t know how to be with this new, angry but desolate me.

As I repeatedly tried to kill myself, they were left wondering just how long it would be before I achieved my goal.  I know this because one of them had the balls to tell me that he wondered how much longer he would have a sister.  He even said in a letter that in some ways he wished I would achieve my goal…  and then at least my nightmare would be finished and there could be peace.

In addition to the anorexia, heavy medication and suicide attempts, my nightmare journey also consisted of constantly worsening self harm, reliance on drinking and over-medicating to get me through the day… or the night, not to mention the repeated rounds of Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT).  The ECT also saw their sister, daughter, grand-daughter, wife, friend fading away as my memory was badly affected and to some extent just never returned.

Cate was fading before their eyes, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.  Those that could, poured money into treatment but it produced no results.  Those who I allowed, tried to let me know they loved me.  But then I was pretty determined to not let anyone near, and I had a husband who enabled that to be in his thinking that he was doing the right thing.  He kept them away.

And as for the husband, now an ex, I have little idea what was going through his mind.  While he wasn’t the right person for me, he still was an essentially good person who had somehow landed himself in the situation of loving someone who was fading away fast.

There is a chapter in my book, Infinite Sadness, about the role that family and friends took.  Of course it is written from my perspective, and not theirs.  Their perspective is hard for me to even imagine, but I know it had to have been rough.

“…It is strange how when I most needed people I couldn’t bear to be with them.  I hid from many phone calls.  The answer phone and Dave proved very useful.  When people knocked on the door I hid and pretended to be out.  I couldn’t stand myself or my feelings and I couldn’t handle the thought of others seeing me like that and maybe agreeing with me. What if they couldn’t stand me either? I maintained that I was not lonely but rather just very alone.  There is a difference and being with people wasn’t going to help me.  Many times being with people left me feeling totally out of the real world.  I didn’t fit. I didn’t like what I saw of myself and I didn’t want others to reject what I knew they would see….”

“…So why did I push them away?  Part of it was what I didn’t like about myself, that they might see if I gave them a chance.  But more so it was because I didn’t think they could understand.  Perhaps too, at times, I felt it was partly their fault that I was suffering so much.  Of course it wasn’t their fault.  There were definitely things about my life growing up with my family that were now affecting me, but equally there were things that had happened since I had become an adult.  I couldn’t blame my family for those things – but I did.  For a while everything was their fault.  I didn’t want to see them or hear from them.  Dave, thinking he was doing the right thing, made this easy….”

(p. 174,5 Infinite Sadness, 2009)

So why am I choosing to write, and cry, my way through this today?  Because when I listened to that song I heard, and thought about my family and what perhaps they felt as they watched me self destruct.  I know for me I constantly thought they didn’t get it.  The truth is that they probably didn’t.  How could they?  They had never faced this before and they were seeing me fade (mentally and physically) before their eyes.  To watch someone you love do that must be devastating.

When I was caught in that nightmare there was little time or even inclination to stop and think how what was happening to me, was affecting those around me.  I will never know how some of it affected people, but I know now that I am not the only person who suffered as a result of my mental illness.  Somehow for me, it is important now to be able to look beyond myself a bit.

I don’t have the perfect family.  Not at all.  Aside all of this, most of us have been through some very traumatic experiences in the past couple of years, what with earthquakes, deaths, health issues and more which have taken their toll on us.  We’re like any other family and some of my family actually had roles in the causes of my illness.  My friends are just like anyone else’s friends.  Human, with feelings and limits.

The good news is that I came back from fading away.  I know plenty of families don’t get their loved one back.  We are all different now, and the scars are clear, but I guess what matters is that we are here.

It’s worth thinking about sometime.  How it might be for our friends and families to watch.  They are pretty much helpless and generally don’t, or won’t understand for their own reasons.  Writing this has made me cry a lot today, because there have been losses.  Isn’t it amazing how a random piece of music (and video) can take our thinking down tracks we weren’t expecting?

And on a slightly lighter note…

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” 

―    George Bernard Shaw,    Immaturity

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Peace on Earth

Merry Christmas

from New Zealand

New Zealand’s Pohutukawa flower (the NZ Christmas Tree) Image credit: Sarang/Wikipedia.com

Christmas in New Zealand arrives right on time for a summer celebration.  While I see pictures of Christmas celebrations in the snow from around the world, that seems completely foreign to me.

We have the usual pine Christmas Tree in our homes, but the real tree of Christmas (and probably the most well-known symbol of New Zealand Christmas) is that which produces the flower above.  The Pohutukawa tree.  If there are plenty of the red flowers out in time for Christmas, we know that summer will be a good one. Most of these trees are found in the North Island, where I spent my childhood, so I have lots of good memories of them, although they’re not that common down here in the south.

I grew up having a hot Christmas dinner of roast turkey and ham, but really it always seems a little crazy considering the warm weather outside.  Now days, and today’s plans with my family, will be around the barbeque outside followed by pavlova and fresh berries for dessert.

So that’s my Christmas plans, but I have to admit that I’m not big on the whole Christmas theme.  The reason I think I struggle with it is this expectation that everyone will be on their best behaviour, and we are cheerfully ‘nice’ to people who during the rest of the year, we perhaps don’t want a bar of.  If only we could use Christmas to find peace in our world and in our families.

I wish for a Christmas that spells the end of war. 

•

I wish for a Christmas that spells the end of hate, and a return to loving our neighbours.

•

I wish for a Christmas that contains no crime.

•

I wish for a Christmas where we all stay safe from harm.

•

I wish for a Christmas of love, especially for those grieving as a result of crime and war.

•

I wish for a Christmas of peace.

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There are no doubt millions of people in this world who wish for the same, regardless of any religious beliefs they may or may not have.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could take those individual wishes and turn them into both an individual, and global reality?

Santa Claus, presents and singing Christmas Carols are simply not what matters, in my mind.  What matters is working out what each of us, as individuals, can do today to turn this planet towards peace.

Image credit: FB/ONE HUMAN FAMILY

Two years ago my family celebrated Christmas with a new child, my niece L.  She was born about six weeks before Christmas.  It was to be our last Christmas with everyone there, as my father died suddenly four months later.  It was a stressful time for us as the earthquakes had started to hit Christchurch and while we were all together, it was a difficult time.

A baby in our midst lightened the mood and promised of good to come.  She bought hope.  We had no idea of what trauma we would go through in the months to come, how much we would lose, and how much pain there would be.   But somehow L’s presence in our family gathering offered us hope and joy.  And no doubt today, she will continue to provide that to me.

And that’s on my mind as I’ve picked out this music (complete with snowy scenes for those who need that to connect with Christmas).  The lyrics veer towards a Christian understanding of Christmas but I don’t think that needs to exclude anyone.  We can use Christmas to celebrate new life, regardless of our religious beliefs.  That’s what I’ll be doing anyway.

I wish you all peace, love and hope as you celebrate your Christmas.  Enjoy the young.  Take joy in their lives.  And most of all, find a way to be at peace with yourself, and with our fellow beings.

♦

“Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special!  How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer…. Who’d have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? ” 

―    Bill Watterson,    The Essential Calvin and Hobbes

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• What Matters To Me This Christmas Eve (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

What Matters To Me This Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas Eve here in my part of the world.  I have a list of things I need to get done before the day is out, but for now I want to stop, and think about what matters, what really matters to me this Christmas.

Christmas is will be about family for me this Christmas.  I am expected to be part of the family Christmas by some, simply because I don’t have a family (I mean a partner and children) of my own.  But that is small stuff compared to what matters to me.  I play along to meet expectations but really my heart is some place else.

Yesterday I went to a family Christmas lunch.  The whole family wasn’t there, but those I wasn’t going to see on Christmas Day were.  I arrived on time armed with Christmas gifts for the children, only to find they had all started the meal without me.  When I asked why (calmly and politely), there was no explanation forthcoming, and really all it did was tell me yet again, that to those people, I don’t matter.

“Family isn’t always about blood.  It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are.  The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.”

I am fortunate to have some family members who are blood-related and fit this definition.  They weren’t there yesterday, sadly.  The people who were there simply told me by their actions that I didn’t matter… and yes, that hurt like hell.

I’m not going to get bogged down in how that hurt, but rather focus my energy on those people who do matter to me, and I know I matter to them.  What is difficult is that this Christmas I am cut off from the people I would prefer to spend Christmas with.  People who would want to include me and want to show their love for me.

I also want to be with my friends who are struggling this Christmas.  Christmas can be a time of hurt and depression, and I hate that.  I really hope that somehow those friends can find some peace tomorrow, and know that they are loved (even from afar)

Those I want to be with are thousands of miles away, and so today I will place them in my heart, where they belong.  And I will take them with me as I celebrate Christmas tomorrow.  That way they are with me, in my heart and the physical distance doesn’t seem so harsh.

And to finish, a quote from my favourite wordsmiths.  Not because it necessarily fits with what I have said, but simply because I like it.

“CALVIN:   This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn’t make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery?
If the guy exists why doesn’t he ever show himself and prove it?
And if he doesn’t exist what’s the meaning of all this?
HOBBES:   dunno. Isn’t this a religious holiday?
CALVIN:     Yeah, but actually, I’ve got the same questions about God.” 

 - Bill Watterson

Honour Thy Parents

English: “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12 (King James version), illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently I’ve started to wonder what this is all about when we are instructed in The Bible ‘to honour thy father and thy mother’.  While I’m not sure that I’m going to reach a definitive answer, I am realising that I get a clearer impression of what it means as I age, and as my parents age.The place I learnt this instruction from as The Ten Commandments.  They were one of the first things I learnt at Sunday School as a child, and I remember having to be able to recite them.  I even at a silver charm bracelet which had 10 charms representing each commandment (in a shortened form).  What I learnt as a child included the reason why I should do this.  The commandment in Exodus 20: 12 says:

“Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your
God is giving you.”

Actually even when I looked at the whole commandment I still never really knew what it meant.  I assumed I would die young if I didn’t honour my parents, but then I was never sure what honouring meant anyway.

The Free Dictionary defines the verb honour (or honor) as:

vb (tr)

1. to hold in respect or esteem

2. to show courteous behaviour towards

3. to worship

4. to confer a distinction upon

5. (Economics, Accounting & Finance / Banking & Finance) to accept and then pay when due (a cheque, draft, etc.)

6. to keep (one’s promise); fulfil (a previous agreement)

7. (Performing Arts / Dancing) to bow or curtsy to (one’s dancing partner)

Even from there, it’s not very clear exactly what is meant.

My mother will be 85 in a few weeks, and my father died suddenly, at the age of 76, in April 2011.  A number of things since his death and even in the couple of years before Dad died have led me to realise that we adult children have a responsibility for our elderly parents.  I guess the issue for me is how does that apply to me and my family.  That time appears to have arrived.

Early this year (before I started blogging) I published an article about my father’s death and how that related to the Christchurch Earthquakes of 2010/11.  A member of my family was very upset with what I wrote, and said I had dishonoured both my father’s name and our family name.

I was pretty upset by that accusation and had to do some serious soul-searching.  Even though I wasn’t totally sure what was meant by the word ‘dishonour’, I was mortified at the thought that I might have done this.  My father was very special to me, and I would never have wanted to put something bad on his name.

Eventually I decided that what really mattered was what my mother felt about what I had written.  Actually she was happy with what I wrote, and so I concluded that while I would have liked to, it’s just not possible to please all the people all the time.  As long as my mother was at peace about what I wrote, and she felt that Dad would have been okay with it, then I wasn’t going to lose more sleep.

I don’t generally write a lot about my mother in my blog for a number of reasons.  Firstly some people who may follow my blog are friends/family/people who know her personally.  It’s simply not fair on her for me to be  saying all kinds of things about her in that case.  She is also a very private and reserved woman.  If she wouldn’t be saying these things, then I don’t feel it’s my place to say them either.

And finally Mum and I have never shared a close relationship.  Anything but.  Our relationship has always been strained, for as long as I can remember.  We are simply two very different people, although my brother reminded me recently that we have some similarities (which I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know about).  I guess that’s family for you.

All that said, she is my mother, she is ageing, she is now widowed and alone, and I am the family member who is physically closest (just five minutes down the road) and the one who has the time and perhaps inclination.  That has been the case now for the past 10 years so we have already been through a lot.

At the moment my mother needs support from me and it looks like that is going to increase significantly in the coming months ( contact me directly if you need that explained).

I don’t have a problem providing the support she needs because to me, that is what honouring her is about.  It’s also about honouring what my father would have wanted me to do, and perhaps because I was closer to him, that is the stronger thought right now.

My therapist and I fall apart at this point because he considers that I’m trying to replace my father.  I’m trying to be a husband for my mother.  I don’t agree.  I simply see a woman who raised me, had a husband for 53 years, and now finds herself alone and with failing health.

Dare I say it, I expect it will all go down hill from here in terms of her ability to maintain her independence and mobility.  Quite frankly, it puts me off old age.  I see what she faces and I see what some of her friends and relatives face, and I’m inclined to think I’m not interested in being old.  Perhaps I’m not meant to say that, but hey, I’ve said it.  I’m sure I’m not the only one with elderly parents who is thinking the same.

What I have yet to work out is how I honour my mother (and my father), and provide the support she needs while still looking after my own physical health and needs.  I suspect that is actually going to be the biggest battle.  The past few days have not been easy because I haven’t been well, but Mum  needed me.  But it was manageable and we have got through.

I’m also not sure how I protect my mental health through this, although I am fortunate to have a couple of close supports who are simply wonderful.  It’s difficult though, because our relationship has always been rocky and often my mental health has suffered.  I can’t afford for that to happen.  If I don’t maintain my own health, then I won’t be able to be there for her.

I’m wondering though, what do you think honouring your parents means?  And how do you do that, if it’s at all possible, when your parents have caused you harm in the past?  If honouring your parents isn’t important to you, how do you view your role in their old age?

♦

“I want to grow old without facelifts… I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I’ve made. Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.” 

―    Marilyn Monroe

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Serious Attitude Problem

The Pohutukawa Tree, also know as The New Zealand Christmas Tree, because it flowers right on time for Christmas.
Image credit: Wikipedia.com

I realise I might be in the minority, but why should that stop me?

Why have we been ‘celebrating’ Christmas in November?

Christmas is not November, even if those of you who are American think it follows directly after Thanksgiving.  It doesn’t.  Christmas is not until December 25 (do you like how I wrote that the US way?), so let’s put all the decorations, trees, special music, gift-wrapped parcels and reindeers, and stress away for a few weeks.  They are surplus to requirements.  Really, they are.

And yes, I have a serious attitude problem when it comes to Christmas.  No apologies.  It’s just how it is.

We’re just into December now so I can almost live with a few of these merry things (although not in my house) but really… do we have to have a whole month of Christmas?

You can partially blame my brother for my aversion.  He’s a ‘Christmas 12 months a year’ kind of guy.  Gotta love him!  He’s perfectly ‘normal’ apart from that (he paid me to say that!) but he’s thinks it’s perfectly normal to have Christmas music on the radio all year round as well as have a decorated tree (and not a small one either) in his lounge all year.  You think I’m joking?  I’m not, although thankfully that little addiction got knocked out of him soon into his marriage.  It was ‘me or the Christmas tree’… and thankfully she won (and I love her for it to this day).

All that aside though, I admit I come into this time of year with complete dread.  It is all about stress.  Here’s some of the things that Christmas seems to be about:

Holidays

Kids

Family

Money

Food

Isn’t that enough?.  All those things put together spell molotov cocktail to me, and I hate it.

Holidays

At my end of the world, Christmas spells ‘the great New Zealand shut down’… of everything.  It is summer here now, and schools finish for the year in a couple of weeks, through until the end of January.  Everything shutting down is fine if you’re one of those ‘shutting down’ but my life just carries on.  I don’t have a holiday.  Some people choose to think that my life is one big holiday.  It’s not, but wouldn’t it be nice to take off for the beach for a few weeks?  I can’t actually remember the last time I did that.

Kids

Christmas is all about kids, and that’s great… for the kids, and maybe their parents.  For me, apart from a wide range of stuffed animals and vintage dolls, I don’t have kids so tend to go through the season feeling like a square peg in a round hole.  It’s not that I want to have kids (I written about that before), but I just don’t fit in a celebration that is about kids.

Family

I love my family… individually, and in small doses.  On mass, I’m not so keen.  Actually I have felt anti-family celebrations for as long as I can remember.  I thought for a while that it was just a teenage fad and I would grow out of it, but actually the older I get the worse I feel about such gatherings.

One thing is that there are general conversations about what we have ‘achieved’ since we last saw each other.  Plu-eese!  That’s all very nice if you have the typical type of achievements, but writing a blog about mental health recovery while supporting peers with mental illnesses just doesn’t seem to be up there with the big pay rises or the latest acquisitions, let alone what your off-spring have managed to achieve across the year.  I try not to measure myself against others, but it does seem that what I count as an achievement (like actually making to Christmas dinner and not suffering in bed for the day with fibro fog) just doesn’t seem to cut it.

I should say that my family aren’t great capitalists who only value monetary achievement, but still I just don’t think I belong.  Actually I would much rather me helping out at the local Christmas Dinner for the homeless.  That would suit me perfectly, but there were huge objections that last time I tried to suggest that’s what I was going to do.

My Dad (who died last year) used to be my ally in family gatherings.  For me, he made them bearable (although he was also the one that strongly objected to the homeless Christmas) and actually often the only reason I went was to keep him happy.  Now he’s gone and I struggle.  This year I am likely to be required to drive my mother to Christmas dinner.  Hmm.  That seems my role in the family now.

Money

Last week I went without groceries because I mis-calculated my budget, thanks to a few extra visits to the doctor, and didn’t have enough to pay my therapist for November.  Groceries were one thing I could be flexible on, and I got by, and the bill got paid.  But this time of year is simply horrendous in terms of money, and my stress levels are mounting already.

For some years now I have limited myself to buying presents for my nieces and nephews only.  There are only six of them but still…  So far I have bought presents for two of them, and I’m trying to work out what I can get away with for the others.  I am fortunate that some of my family understand this, but I think others struggle to understand the realities of living on the smell of an oily rag.

My only hope at this stage is that ‘the great New Zealand shut-down’ I mentioned applies to my therapist too.  He gets to have a holiday.  The only good thing about that is that I do not have to pay him while he has his holiday, and with some careful juggling and balancing I might just be able to pull through.  Please God!

Food

And if all that weren’t enough, anyone with a history of eating disorders will tell you that Christmas is a complete nightmare for us.  Everything revolves around food.  Whether it’s a Christmas barbeque on the beach, or a full turkey Christmas dinner with trimmings, there is no escaping the focus on food.

Let’s not forget the presents of food.  If you learn nothing from this post, and I accept that’s a possibility, please learn this.  Never give presents of food to a person with a history of eating disorders.  Never.  YOu thik it encourages us to eat?  It doesn’t.  It just worsens the nightmare battle in our heads to have to deal with these gifts.

♦

So am I completely negative about Christmas?  Not really.  I can see other people love it.  I think it’s a love or hate thing, and I come down on the ‘hate’ side.  For those who enjoy it, I say go for it.  Just leave me out of it.  And do we really have to have a whole month of it?

To lighten things up, I’ll finish with what is probably my favourite of all ‘Christmas music’.

“Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special!  How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer…. Who’d have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? ” 

―    Bill Watterson,    The Essential Calvin and Hobbes

I Want It… And I Want It Now

It’s generally known that Preacher’s Kids (PK’s) have the worst reputation on the playground.  There were homes I wasn’t allowed into because I was a PK, as I was assumed to be a bad influence on the children who belonged in those homes.  That was a few years back now, and actually I’m still waiting to try out some of the things I was supposedly reputable for, but I admit that I wasn’t the perfect child either.

Crisis occurred in our house, when I was eight.  It’s one of those moments that stands in my memory as a pivotal moment in life.  It was huge.  Well I thought so anyway.

I was eight, and at that time (in the early 1970′s) that meant I got eight cents a week in pocket-money.  My brother who was nine, got nine cents.  I’m guessing by now you can work out the rational.

I was never really a big chewing gum/bubble gum kid, actually I don’t know that my parents approved of such things, but I loved lollies (candy).  Onto the market came a new chewing gum, Wrigley’s Doublemint.  And I wanted some.  My friends got enough pocket-money from their parents to be able to afford the ten cents for a packet.  My eight cent pocket-money was not enough for me to be able to buy a packet each week with my friends, and I thought I was completely hard done by.

At the time my father was working part-time as a Preacher, and unless you are the Archbishop of Canterbury (I mean England, not here in Christchurch, NZ) the pay rate was never good.  He was working part-time so that he could complete his theology studies.  Mum wasn’t working at the time, because my parents believed that it was more important that she be home for us three kids.  Money wasn’t flowing freely in our house.  I never went without food but I did think life was tough and this is part of why  Mum insisted in sewing my clothes (instead of buying them).  Again, I was hard done by.

In spite of financial strain, my parents actually agreed to put my pocket-money rate up to ten cents, so that I could afford the chewing gum and be like my friends.  To this day, my brother thinks this was unfair.  His pocket-money went up to ten cents too, but he maintains that he was the one hard done by.  He’s getting over it (even without the aid of the therapy I’ve had to have).  I got what I wanted, but actually I’m not sure that in the long run, it did me any good.

One would think that the issue was solved, and crisis was averted.  It wasn’t though because at that point I admit that I decided that now that I had more, I needed more (again) and began regularly stealing money from my parents.  It was never huge amounts, but only because they didn’t have huge amounts that I could access.  You could say I had a taste of Doublemint and wanted more.  My friends could afford to buy an ice-cream after school and I couldn’t, so stealing from my parents meant I could have what I wanted… when I wanted it.

My stealing continued for several years.  Not only taking money from my parents, but Mum regularly had money in the house for various church mission projects, and I siphoned off (never large amounts)the top of those funds too.  I can remember being questioned once by my parents about the missing money, but actually I don’t have any memory of being told off, or disciplined for my stealing.  To this day, I have no idea why they didn’t.  They must have known it was me, and it was certainly against the rules.  But then that’s probably a whole other post.

Eventually my stealing came to a natural end.  I can’t explain how, I just know that I didn’t want to take their money anymore.  Actually the shame I carried was huge, and is the reason why I have never raised the issue with them as an adult.  I could admit that lots of kids steal the odd money from their parents, but that wasn’t what my shame was about.  I was ashamed because I was stealing from them when they had practically nothing, and of course stealing from the church.  My parents were breaking their backs to provide for me and my brothers, but I was simply making matters worse by taking more.

A lot of people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) have difficulty with impulsive thoughts.  But I don’t think what I was doing was necessarily impulsive, nor have I had a great issue with impulsivity in my life since.  Rather I think what I needed was instant gratification.  I wanted the chewing gum ‘now’.  I didn’t want to have to wait until the next week when I could afford it.

Last year, in my city we all became very good at internet shopping because most of our shops were closed for months because of earthquake damage.  Actually I like internet shopping anyway because I don’t get seemingly brainless shop assistants asking me if I’ve ‘had a nice day’.  But there’s one thing I hate.  When I click the ‘purchase’ button I want the product I’ve brought right there and then.  I don’t want to have to wait for the next day, or the next week for it to arrive.  I want instant gratification.

I can be very careful in making decisions about what I want and what is right for me, but once I’ve made that decision, I want it now.  I am completely impatient and even impractical.  Recently I made a decision about something that I want, but I can’t have it yet.  I have to wait.  I hate that waiting.  No doubt it is good for me, somehow…

So how do I accept the wait and the delayed gratification?  I asked my brother, the one who was upset about our increase in pocket-money, and has been suffering ever since.  He tells me what I need is maturity.  Only he could tell me that… but I want it now.

♦

“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire
to be very grown up.” 

―    C.S. Lewis

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