Grey day and more reading

I have a headache.  Unsurprising considering that I knocked off half a bottle of red (at least), after midnight, then slept sitting up in an armchair downstairs.  Some large steps backwards.  How did that happen?  Yesterday our au pair painted the laundry (light orange) and I painted the toilet (strong burnt orange), I got things done, felt pretty good ... and was thinking it was movement forwards, or at least a bit of stabilisation.  We had chicken burgers for dinner (just me, my son & the au pair) and settled down to a quiet evening.  I washed up and cleaned the kitchen.  It all felt OK.

I did make an error of judgement in deciding to watch a TV episode I downloaded on iTunes last week, that I'd been waiting for an opportunity to watch.  The error was that it was already 9:30pm.  I thought it was only a 45 minute episode, but I was wrong.  When my partner got home a bit after ten (from golf) I was still in front of the TV & my son was standing in the stairwell complaining that he couldn't sleep and he wanted me to turn the TV off.  A little while later he slammed his bedroom door, my partner chastised him for his behaviour, then me for my (poor) parenting .... and so the downwards spiral began.

I won't bore you with the details.  They don't vary that much from episode to episode, necessarily.  Suffice to say I sat downstairs crying to myself and not wanting to be a person & my partner slept in the spare room.  I felt criticised and and then abandoned.  My partner has (apparently, according to my sobbing son) confiscated the x-box, until my son 'learns some manners', so my son has doubly been punished for my poor judgement, and neglectful parenting.

I saw my psychologist today.  She seemed a bit at sea, to be frank.  Her best advice was, perhaps it is really time for some anti depressants - definitely if the supplements don't help by the time I see my doctor next, which should be in about 2 weeks.  The one thing my psychologist did keep stressing is that is her belief that the most pressing problem I am currently facing (or at least one which may, if alleviated, cause a significant shift) is the negative interactions between my partner and myself.  She tells me she believes it is imperative that he and I get some couples counselling, and that he perhaps also does a few sessions by himself.  She says not much else will work until this aspect makes some improvement.  I suspect she is correct.  He has a mental health care plan, from my doctor.  I don't think he has done anything about it yet at all.

I finished reading The Buddha and The Borderline today.  I felt a bit of grief at coming to the end, it was such a gripping and enjoyable story.  It was a difficult book for me to read - in that it gave me all sorts of insights into Borderline Personality Disorder, and many of them are not at all pleasant.  However, it is a story that also offers hope, and to some degree, direction - or at least, suggestions of directions.  It has made me think that I do definitely need to find a Dialectal Behavioural skills training course - though this is proving difficult.  I rang a hospital in the region today, where there is a free skills training course.  It turns out I am not in their catchment, and therefore, not eligible.  The woman I spoke to was not able to make a suggestion of a group closer to here for me.  She suggested I call the local health service.  Bummer.

Kiera's book (The Buddha and the Borderline) has also re-awoken a bit of an urge in me to explore a Buddhist practice.  I've teetered on that edge a number of times over the years, and never quite gotten there, despite my best intentions.  Perhaps the time to re-examine that is soon.  Perhaps if anything outside myself was ever likely to be able to help me and support me - Buddhism might be that thing.  With the strange twist that in the end, Buddhism is really actually inside yourself - which I think is the whole point, really, of it being a great potential support, for anyone, including for people with BPD.

I bought a book from the Psychologists today too, it's called The Dialectal Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook.  Short of a training course or support group, and with no better directions from my Psychologist herself, I figured it might be a bit of a path to tread.  I also downloaded a Kindle sample of a book called The High-Conflict Couple: A Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Guide to Finding Peace, Intimacy and Validation.  Yep - that sounds like us to a T - a 'high conflict couple'.  The only reason I didn't buy it straight up is I had already just bought (on the Kindle) I Hate you -- Don't Leave me another book on BPD.

I don't know how much the reading helps and how much it throws me into more disorder and despair.  I think it does a lot of both, really, and paradoxically, I think maybe that's what needs to happen.

Here's a link to some info on 'The High Conflict Couple':

http://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=73976.0

At this stage in my life, almost anything is worth a try.  If I don't progress away from the hole I am in, I really may as well just give up now.  I am not a positive influence on anyone, or anything, in the state I am in at the moment.  There's a saying that says: 'the only way is up'.  If only that were so!  On my walk home today I was thinking this blog should not be called The Lasagne Project so much as it should be titled: The Sinking Ship.

I need to sleep now.  I'm thirsty, but I don't even feel like venturing out of my room to get a drink of water.  My son is staying at his fathers tonight.  Poor child, I'm sure he needs the reprieve.  My psychologist was absolutely horrified when I told her about my partner waking him up in the middle of the night to tell him that I was trying to self harm.  She said 'No child should have to deal with something like that!'.  Tell me about it.

Achieving the Basics

Time just slips through my fingers so fast if I log in the computer to blog, but get sucked in by Facebook.  Argh!  I woke up not long after six, and now it is nearly half past seven, and I haven't done anything sensible yet .... I haven't checked the "4 basic housekeeping routines" site that I found yesterday (in my desperation for direction), or looked at the DBT lessons that's sitting on another tab .... grrr - I really need to be more self disciplined about the Facebook thing.

However - I did chat online with an old school friend, and the upshot of that is we are going to meet up for coffee, on Thursday.  She's going to be in town, from interstate ... just for 2 days.  I haven't seen her in over 20 years.  I guess it will be nice.  At the least, a distraction.  But a distraction from what?  What am I doing - with my life?  Do I need distractions at the moment, or do I need to really knuckle down and do some serious hard work ... on myself?  And - how are we going to afford to live, with only my partner working?  I can feel my gut start to churn and my temples start to squeeze as I ask myself these questions.

I try to say to myself: just breathe, go with it, we agreed on this, you need it - this is the lifesaving time ... now is about surviving, and then learning to thrive .... relax.  But I can feel the potential to freak out just lurking, under the surface.  I guess that's part of the work I need to do - just learning to be in the moment, to trust that solutions will present themselves, and to NOT FREAK OUT.

There's soooo many things I would like to do, the hard bit for me, often, is just grounding and focusing and choosing one or two things to just gently get on with, and make some significant progress ... rather than just spinning in circles and pressing "like" to everything on Facebook .... sharing all the interesting links and quoting all the inspiring quotes ... but never actually digging in and getting something truly done in a practical, one step in front of the other fashion.  My through has gone all tight from fear, just typing about it.  I can feel my chest starting to hurt.  Crazy.

OK - back to basics.  What are my simple steps for the day?  I should look at the list of suggestions given to me by the naturopath I saw yesterday, and choose just one.  And I should take my minerals, because the morning dose, which I haven't had yet, has a stress support herb in it, apparently.  I wish she'd given me a list of the names of the flower essences she put in the blend she gave me, I thought she would - but when I looked this morning I couldn't see one.  Perhaps I will email her an ask, at some stage.

In the meantime - I need to take the simple advice such as what was given here:

http://christianwomenonline.net/2009/03/01/4-basic-housekeeping-routines/

So simple in fact that the first steps really were the 'what to do after you get out of bed' stuff.  I really needed that yesterday morning.  I was so grateful to find it .... and I should follow that advice again today.    A nice safe and sensible set of morning instructions:

• have some quiet time
• get up, make the bed
• shower and dress
• put on a load of washing

I like that.  If I did that each and every day, I would consider myself to have made progress, just at the moment!  And there's probably just a couple of things I should add to that list:

• take supplements
• quietly plan the next step/task for the day & commit to it
• breathe & smile
• be grateful

Getting through those 8 points would be a huge win, for me.  Well - we shall see how I go!

One of my 'tasks' for later, will be to have a closer look at some DBT lessons, and also to phone the DBT program coordinator at a Hospital down in the city, that runs one.  They don't seem that common.

Later, when I get a chance, I will be reading up on 'Core Mindfulness', here:

http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/core_mindfulness.html

Until then, there's showering, and bed making to do!

A mixed bag

Oh my gosh.  My partner just went back to work today.  My doctor gave him two weeks off to spend with me, during that 'crisis' time.  Now he is off back into the real world.  The big wide world of work - this time, to earn for and support us both.  And I am here, in la-la recovery land, on leave without pay ... with a mission of sorting myself out.  I barely know where to begin!  I'm terrified.  Being at home leaves me with the responsibility of running the house, and now that we have one (a bit superfluous under the circumstances, but it's a 6 month contract) tasking the au pair.  I'm almost beside myself with the fear that I don't know how to do these things.

As my partner was walking away from the car, towards the station this morning (I dropped him off) ... I could feel myself screaming inside: take me with you! don't leave me here alone! I don't know what to do!   I so wanted my work skirt, and stockings, and to be sitting beside him on the train.  I guess that is because that would mean things were NORMAL and that I was ALRIGHT.  But I guess the reality is, what is normal anyway?  And I am really not alright, just at the moment - no matter how determined I am that I will be, in the long run.

So - what now?  Where to from here?  Well, I have an appointment with a naturopath today.  It's been a bit complicated by the fact that last night my ex rang to tell me that my 10 year old has an appointment with his orthodontist this afternoon and while the appointments don't quite clash, getting between the two is going to be tight, and tricky.  I also haven't done the homework the naturopath asked me to to.  I was supposed to write down everything I ate for the past 3 days.  Damn.  When I remembered that on Friday, I ate an apple.  But apart from that, I haven't done a darn thing about it.  I was thinking on the way back from dropping my man off that I can probably just fudge it a bit.  My eating habits are pretty consistently LOUSY.  I guess I can just make it up, following what is a pretty typical pattern.  Not precisely what the doctor ordered, but better than fronting up empty handed?  I can't even get going to appointments right!  Argh!

Back to the terror of housework.  It's been so long since I kept house, really, that I feel like I forget how.  I just sit around and look at it and the only things that make any real sense to me are the dishes and the laundry.  Making my bed is a most days routine, though I don't always get to it until almost bed time.  What else do you do?  I used to be a stay at home mum, and I remember it used to take me all day, almost every day - and that I liked it (what was I thinking!).  What did I do?  How does one 'keep house'?  What will I do with the au pair?  OMG - I'm trying not to freak out just thinking about it.  I can't have anxiety attacks about staying home, surely?  There is so much STUFF I'd like to do - but it isn't stuff I'm confident with, or know how to go about with any confidence.

I'd love to rip up the carpet.  That bit can't be so hard, but putting in new flooring looks harder.  I've watched my partner do it.  I don't have the skills with the circular saw and whatnot.  I don't think I could get all those measurements right.  I hate the carpet, with a passion.  I've been struggling to figure out what to do about it for ages.  I'd love to paint the walls, especially up in the bedrooms and the rest of upstairs, where it's darker.  I'm a lousy painter.  I know that from bitter experience.  But it's got to be easier than flooring!  I want to take down our ugly curtains - but I don't know what to put up in their stead.  And the last time I had curtains made up, it was hellishly expensive, and that was years ago.  The whole outside of the house needs timber treating .... I've never done that before.  I guess I'd better work it out, before the whole thing just dries out and falls apart.  And on and on it goes.

I used to love to garden, once upon a time.  Here I live in terror of spiders and snakes, and I think I've forgotten what few gardening skills I used to have.  Turkeys present a problem here too.  The scratch up pretty much everything.  If I start planting, I wonder if they will just rip it all out.  Skills for living - what are mine?  I wonder if I could fill a small notebook page.  I'm not sure.  I feel like I need a manual something along the lines of: "How to be a person, in 10 easy steps".  If anyone knows of one, I'd love to hear about it.

On my good days, I dream about becoming my 'authentic self', but on my scared days - I just hope to be a person, a normal person.  A person who can get up in the morning and know what to do, how to do it, and who can find the physical, mental and emotional wherewithal to get on with it, and move at least some small projects to completion.  I need a set of instructions starting with: "now that you are out of bed ..."  How did I get to here?  And how will I find my way - to where?  Forwards?  Back?

I have some serious work to do!  I guess that means I'd better get moving and get on with it (whatever 'it' is, which hopefully, I will figure out).

On books, borderline and tenacity

I'm reading a book.  Quite possibly the best book I have read in a very long time - or on the other hand, simply the perfect book for this moment in my life.  It's called The Buddha and the Borderline.  As far as I am concerned, it is brilliant.  The author, a BPD sufferer, is lucid, intelligent, observant, witty and emotive without drowning her message in feelings to the point where the thread of her core story is lost.  And her core story is a truly amazing journey, from sickness, through insanity and despair, to a version at least, of health and recovery.

I'm only part way through.  It's so good I've had to force myself to put it down to come and make a few short notes of my own.  If it sounds like the sort of thing that you might like to look into further, you can find information about it here:

http://buddhaandborderline.com/18.html

Wow - what a story.  What a great story.  AND - it's true.  AND - she (if her story is anything to go by) is/was way way way more sick and suffering than I have ever been .... AND she recovered!  I can't wait to read more.  Not only is the book a great source of information about borderline personality disorder, what it is, how it might be diagnosed, and what it feels like to live inside it - it's a book that is also a bit of a roadmap to recovery, or at least a mud map to recovery!  Wow, cool.  Inspiring.  Here's a light at the end of the tunnel that probably ISN'T a train.  Awesome!

So - reading this has been a big focus for the past day or so.  I downloaded it on my Kindle.  Thank goodness for my Kindle.  A gift from my partner, first for Christmas, and then when I lost that one when my work briefcase was swiped (when I put it down somewhere and stupidly walked off without it), he was gorgeous enough to replace it, for my birthday.  I haven't read this much in ages - a lot because of the eye strain.  Yes, I need glasses, well - I would if I were going to read ordinary print books with consistent comfort.  With the Kindle, on the default sized font, I can read and read without this huge urge to put down my 'book' which then leaves me wondering why I used to love reading so much and how come I don't love it, and just can't engage with it anymore.

Well - since I got my Kindle I DO love reading, and don't want to put my book down.  What a revelation!  I had seen quite a lot of people with e-readers, commuting on the train.  I really wanted to get a closer look each time I noticed someone, but always felt it was impolite to stare, or to nudge a perfect (or maybe completely imperfect) stranger and say: 'can I have a go?'.  I talked to a woman at work who was in one of my classes one day and who I noticed standing outside during the break, reading on one.  She enthused hugely about hers, and absolutely swore by it.  They really did sound great, but I remained hesitant - partly because iPads are so shiny and tempting (albeit about 5 to 6 times the price).  The matter was taken out of my hands when I received one as a gift.  I think it's quite possibly one of the absolute best gifts anyone has ever given me - which says a lot considering this is written by a woman whose lover proposed to her just a couple of short nights ago.

WHAT?!?! A marriage proposal?  A marriage proposal and I'm talking to you about BPD, and e-books.  Yes - that is how overpowering and all encompassing this disorder can be.  Does it mean I don't love my man?  Of course not.  Does it mean I'm not over the moon about what he did.  Well, no.  But what it does mean is that because the ring didn't fit (too small) and it has now been tucked away somewhere in it's little box, pending a replacement .... and because I know my guy believes that before proposing, a man must ask a woman's father for her hand in marriage ... and he has never met my dad - well, I "know"* that it wasn't a real proposal.  It was a gesture of love and commitment borne partly, I am sure, out of a desperation to illustrate to me that he is HERE for me and will continue to be HERE for me, no matter what, as we fight this battle together.  Gods and little fishes willing, as time goes on we will fight my demons together more than we fight with each other.

*I think most people with some kind of mental illness or another "know" a lot of things.  Sometimes facts, figures and the assertions of others are completely unable to dislodge that kind of "knowing".  What would it take, for me to "know" it differently?  The scary sad thing is: I don't know!

Do I love this man?  Absolutely, and without a doubt.  When I'm in my sane mind, that is.  When I'm in my horrible borderline/depressive/call them what you will lows (low is just not low enough word - perhaps troughs, or valleys, chasms, or ravines would better describe these places) I sometimes feel or believe, and even more horribly, say - that I don't love him .... but underneath that fear and anger talking, in a small, scared and quivering corner of my soul - I can always sense (but not always acknowledge) the me that feels more truly like the real me, squeaking in a quiet, desperate and frightened way: but you DO love him, you are just scared that NOBODY could love you, so it's safer to say you DON'T, and to drive him away.


Welcome to my world.  It's not always a pretty place.

No lasagne plans today?  Wait - the au pair cooked some bolognese a few days ago and there's leftovers.  And there are lasagne sheets.  If there's an eggplant, perhaps I can fry or grill some slices and layer it all up with some béchamel, maybe with an egg through it and get some sort of moussaka/lasagne kind of thing happening.

Life goes on.  Borderline or no borderline.  Love endures, even sometimes when you spit in it's face.

To the gods and little fishes: thank you, oh thank you - for allowing the winds of the universe to blow such a special and treasured partner in my direction, and thank you, oh thank you for giving him the tenacity to cling to me and hold me through my darkest of hours.

I am blessed.

What goes up ...

Well, what goes up ... as the saying seems to predict, generally also comes down.  It certainly seems to be the case with my state of mental well (or not so well) being!  So - from feeling fairly good, earlier in the week - I went to feeling even lower again than my previous low, which seemed horrendous at the time, but which totally pales in comparison.  Once again, I discovered new depths of horror, shame and unhappiness.  What kicked that off?

Well, we went to the psychiatrist, as had been previously planned.  I went in alone, already feeling a bit frazzled because I had forgotten to bring cash (no eftpos available) and also forgotten my referral letter.  My patient man, of whom I will be ever undeserving, waited for me (after going and getting cash to pay for the appointment).  I guess my appointment took just under an hour.  The psychiatrist asked me lots of questions about my present, past, moods, work, relationships, reactions, substance use & I don't remember what else.  Towards the end of the appointment, he told me that I would not need to continue to visit him, but that I should continue to see a psychologist, preferably one experienced in 'dialectic therapy' and continue to work with my doctor, and to possibly consider a course of antidepressants in the medium term, supervised by my doctor.

What else did he conclude?  1. That I am not bipolar.  2. That I am, however, a sufferer of 'borderline personality disorder (what a lovely label, NOT) and 3. That I am probably currently depressed as well.  It seems that persons with BPD are more prone to depression than the general population.

So - how do I feel about all that.  Pretty crap really.  The outlook for BPD sufferers is not that great.  Its a pretty much permanent thing and any therapy is very long term.  Drugs don't, on the whole, fix it, or make it any easier to manage.  Nice.  AND - about two thirds of sufferers have some history of abuse which, while I don't believe I do have, leads to some fairly disconcerting self examination.  It's the sort of diagnosis that really rocks your boat, and which, once you read up on the condition, doesn't leave you feeling very good about yourself.  It's the sort of situation you can find yourself in and then find yourself thinking: NO amount of fucking lasagne is EVER going to make this feel any better.  Bloody hell.

So - we had a very very very crap night, while I slowly digested this information, and took out the worst of my churning emotions and even more battered sense of self worth (lack thereof, to be more precise) .... on my poor darling partner, who is an amazing person for still being here, at all, let alone for still loving me - which in my view, must be pretty much mission impossible.

The next day (yesterday) wasn't much good to start with, then went downhill a bit more, despite my love's attempts to pull me out of my hole.  I ended up getting lost, up the hill behind our place, and it took me quite a while to manage to come back down - by which time my man was in quite a lather of worry.  Why do I do these things?  I was hoping some spider or snake would find me, and take all my pain away.  Hopeless.  I'm sporting more self inflicted bruises now, too.  What a fool I am.  I read something in one of the sets of web-based information on borderline personalities - it said something along the lines of: it is hard to imagine the pain that BPD sufferers feel.  Basically, you should imagine the absolutely worst emotional pain you have ever experienced, then triple it.  I so related to that.  It's not a very nice place at all inside my head, sometimes.

Damn.  Then it all subsides again, and the sun shines, and wonderful friends contact me, my man puts his arms around me, birds sing .... and I love life, or at least love the possibility that I can feel the potential return of my love of life.  And I can't figure out how I ever got to that bad place in the first instance - which is not very helpful - because it means I also can't figure out how to avoid going BACK to that bad place, in the future.

It is going to be a very, very long, bumpy and winding road to recovery, or at least to a place of more control and equilibrium.  I'm not sure that there is a certain map and I can only pray that I will still have my precious partner, and my beautiful children by my side, if I ever get there.  Pray in the very general sense of the word - I'm not a strictly regulated down on my kneads to the Christian concept of God praying type of person, but I do cry out to the wind, the sun, the trees and the stars - to a force of good and guidance that is bigger than me, and outside of myself.  Right now I cry out with all of my heart and my soul for the Universe to watch over me as I work through this most difficult period of my life.

I hope there is an 'other side'.  And I want, with all my heart, to get there one day and to be wiser, calmer, happier, and a better partner, when I do.

Chicken and Mushroom Lasagne

It's 'hump' day already!  Except that there is no hump, because I haven't been going to work.  What a luxury, what a wondrous relief, what a pressure valve release.  Work really was killing me.  That doesn't necessarily mean it was 'work's fault' - just that I wasn't coping, at all.  I feel sick even thinking about the possibility of having to go back in for just one day.  Yesterday I felt quite distressed for a while, just having to deal with talking to a few work people on the phone and sending in my application for 10 months leave without pay.  In fact, I can feel my throat, temples and shoulders tightening just typing about work right now.  Youch.  Toxic!

Monday was  great.  My partner and I drove to a riverside club about 45mins from here to meet some friends for lunch and then go out on their boat for the afternoon with them.  It was a really magic afternoon.  Lunch was long and lazy and full of happy chatter.  It was only the second time my man had met these wonderful old friends of mine (they were visiting from interstate), so it was great to see him get to know some people who mean so much to me.  The boat trip was perfect.  We spent about 3 hours out on the river, exploring a little and at one stage, just drifting, sitting on the water, near a river beach and a stunning waterfall.  Absolutely idyllic.  If only life could be like that all the time.

Why is life not like that all the time?  Well, largely due to the simple fact of the affordability issue.  Things must be paid for.  This is going to become more of an issue, ongoing, with me not working.  I'm scared.  My partner is quite confident that he's happy to be the main/sole breadwinner - but we do have 2 mortgages to service, and 3 properties to upkeep - that's a pretty big undertaking!  For the next 5 months, we also have our au pair here, so there's his meals and lodging plus 'pocket money' to deal with as well.  We are going to have to watch our pennies very, very closely.  I think I'm nervous for good reason on this one.  Especially when my initial trip to a psychiatrist (tomorrow) carries a $320 price tag, and I am not in a private health fund!

Yesterday was a good day too.  Different to Monday, but good.  We just did a bit of stuff at home in the morning - wait - I'm filtering - the dealing with work stuff was not so good, but I guess it was positive in that I managed to get a little bit of forwards progress in the 'don't have to go back there for a while' direction ... Late morning the three of us (self, partner, au pair) went out in search of carpet shampoo and light fittings and had just a pleasant, no stress (precisely what my doctor really did order!) outing, and got back to our end of the Coast in time to pick up my son from school.  I'm going to really miss my man when he has to go back to work next week, it's been truly magic, and very healing, having him around for this fortnight with me.

I had a nap yesterday afternoon.  I do get so tired.  I'm not sure how much of that is linked to depression directly and how much is diet, and lack of fitness.  I guess they are all so intrinsically interlinked, it's not possible to just say it's this, or it's that.  The males of the household had opted for a BBQ yesterday - so in the evening they began to move towards that outcome.  I had been dreaming of Natalie's chicken and mushroom lasagne all day, so when I got up after my snooze I went and got the ingredients and made an experimental version in and around other dinner preparations.  It's in the fridge now, with just a tiny tasting slice removed.  It can be lunch.  Or dinner I guess.  I don't think we've got anything else planned.  Again, nice to have a backup that is tasty and easy (now that it's done) just sitting and waiting as a just in case, in the fridge.

So - have we had progress (two entire happy days - and that's such a feat it feels like a week) or just an up that will inevitably swing the other way?  I don't know.  All I know is (with a very small couple of quick exceptions) the past 2 days have been wonderful.  And I didn't even tell you about the job offer.  This is the status quo I need to work towards ... whatever it takes.

Time to plan dinner (yes, that chicken and mushroom lasagne is really just the backup - and lunch- plan) & get on with my day.  It's very naughty sitting in bed well after 9 in the morning, but it feels nice!

Plumbing the Depths

Well, today sucked.  Hardly surprising considering the way yesterday finished I suppose.  True, there was a trip to the beach, fish and chips, and ice cream.  Why isn't that good?  Because today, I am crap.  Complete and utter crap.  Today is one of those days of my life that I'm never going to get back.  Today, I really needed to complete my timesheet, for work.  It should have been submitted on Friday, it wasn't.  Today I needed to search for my medical certificate to attach along with the timesheet.  I got so far as half dismantling the Christmas area.  Yes, Christmas.  It's February, and I hadn't taken down the 'tree', or finished opening the gifts.  Yes, that sums me up pretty well.

Some might call it lazy.  Others might call it disorganised.  Kinder people might simply say I have different priorities.  The truth is, sometimes it feels like I have to concentrate really hard just to stay upright and breathing, and sometimes, I fail even at that.  Today was mostly an upright fail day.  I spent most of the day only semi-conscious, and I achieved a sum total of nothing good, plus I managed to plumb new depths of dismalness into the bargain.  Just when I think there's no further down to go, I always seem to find a new crack to fall through.  Today, I let my son see me falling apart, really falling apart.  I've always tried so hard to hide it.  Today, I couldn't manage even that.

I was thinking earlier, maybe the Lasagne Project is not so apt a name for this blog, maybe Mining, or Deep Sea Diving the Psyche or something, something not so much about 'layers' as 'how low can you go'.  I was so shocked last week when my doctor said: 'You know, hospital is always an option at this stage.'  Jesus.  I guess sometimes I've kidded myself that I'm not as bad as I seem, and that really I'm just a bit blue and that if I look at enough trees, and take enough deep breaths, it will all be OK.  Having your doctor say that, not far off the back of your Psychologist suggesting that your case is a bit beyond her and that perhaps a Psychiatrist would be a better option ... these things really knock you around.

Damn.  Today I hit myself.  Whenever I go a stretch of managing not to do that, I always allow myself to hope that it will never happen again.  Then when it does, a big part of the distress is the disappointment in the fact that it did.  This year was the year when I finally realised that if I didn't seek help, I was going to die, or at least do myself some really serious permanent injuries that would hamper everything in my future.  It's just not safe to spend as much time as I do wrestling with yourself to prevent yourself from taking flying leaps at plate glass windows and dreaming of lying down on the road, on the downwards stretch of a curve in the street.  Think about those things too much, and eventually, the laws of attraction would tend to dictate that something bad will happen, because the Universe does tend to try to give us what it thinks we want.  And what it thinks we want is pretty much what we think about the most.

I'm sure that's how I ended up being carted off from work a month or so ago, in an ambulance.  I got a migraine.  It was so bad that some co-workers took me to First Aid.  The First Aider called an ambulance based on my blood pressure reading (180 over 119 or something like that).  As they wheeled the stretcher away with me strapped on it, I was crying because the pain was so immense, I thought I was going to die.  Then I thought: hang on, isn't that what you WANTED to happen, don't you WANT to be dead, and for it not to be your fault?  Which was kind of a handy thought at that point, because it did help me to relax quite a lot, realising that I was pretty much in a win/win situation.  Odd the things you can remember thinking, when your head feels like it's going to explode.  Odd in fact that your head can hurt as much as mine did that day and that thought is still possible, in amongst the pain.

But that was over a month ago, and today is today.  How much progress have I made in that time?  Well, some, maybe?  None, perhaps?  How do we measure those things.  Is cleaning off the top of the microwave a big enough deal to celebrate?  Is hitting yourself and crying uncontrollably for what feels like hours on end enough of a small speed-bump to simply shrug off and get up and do it all again?  Is deciding that you are unwell enough to hold down a full time professional job and taking steps to put it all on hold for 6 months to a year a positive thing?  Who knows.  Not me, that's for sure.  All I know is that I'm upright and breathing right now.

The sun is going down.  Apart from consuming an enormous amount of calories made up of fat and carbohydrate, I can't count a single positive thing that I have done today.  If I had to count my blessings right now, one of them would be that there is leftover lasagne in the fridge, because I surely won't be making a full meal tonight.

Perhaps that attitude of gratitude is something I need to work on.  A lot.  Perhaps the focus of my better days should be on creating things that I can appreciate and benefit from on my not so good days, and even on my completely dismal days.  What's that called?  Making hay while the sun shines.  Today, my sun didn't shine, sad to say.  Tomorrow, perhaps it will.

Tomorrow is not a lasagne day in the culinary sense.  My partner and I are going to meet some friends for lunch and they are going to take us out on a boat.  So, perhaps it will be a lasagne day in the metaphorical sense.  I hope so.

And - when it IS a lasagne day again in the culinary sense, I have a chicken and mushroom suggestion from a Facebook friend, on that sounds a whole lot better than the versions in that very dodgy e-book.

So - when the morning light comes streaming in, we'll get up and do it again.  Amen.

The Layers in Between

It's been a busy day.  Well, a busy day on my scale.  I don't know what other scale to measure by and I don't really know any more what might constitute busy for anyone else, or what might be considered a normal or reasonable amount of activity or achievement for anyone, anyone else?  Or me.

I got out of bed, for a start.  I usually do manage to pull that off - though some days it feels like success might be measured by how long I manage to stay out, or how long after I get out that things start to fall apart, or I cry.  Or I have an altercation with my partner.  Today I have not cried.  Perhaps that can be counted as a major achievement?

After I got out of bed I cleaned off a side table that had become a clutter pile and an eyesore.  I took everything extraneous away, I wiped it off, covered it with a pretty cloth .... put back some beautiful things and tidied the magazines.  I felt a true sense of achievement.  I guess that's kind of sad.  Something so simple, that might take a 'normal' person a quarter of an hour, was my major achievement of the morning.  In fact, I was so inspired I went on to clean off the top of the microwave - which had descended into a similar state to the coffee table.  That made me feel really good too.

The day progressed along, with a family breakfast, phone calls from friends, a bit of reading, and even a nap - interspersed with bursts of cleaning and clearing small patches of the house that have been driving me crazy for what feels like quite some time.  The three of us (my partner, my 10 year old son & myself) had lunch on the deck - hot dogs.  Not much, in some people's terms, all said and done - but way more than I have achieved in a day in a long time.  AND achieved while feeling good about it - not panicked or angry cleaning and hurling, culling and fretting, like I do sometimes when I'm feeling under great pressure.  I did it because I wanted to, and it felt good.

I even managed to make a lasagne.  I cleaned out the fridge - wiped down all the shelves (nope, not the door, yet - that's another project) & got out all the veggies to take stock of what we had.  I ended up deciding it wasn't yet time for the Guardian lasagne as I couldn't justify shopping when we had so much food on hand.  So - we had a bottom of the fridge lasagne.  It was really good.  I cooked up the veggies in a tomato based sauce with a bit of red wine and some salami.  Tasted great.  I made a white sauce and stirred in the last of the ham, finely chopped, some chopped continental parsley and the last of the Philly cheese - excellent.  We still had half a pack of fresh Leggo lasagne sheets and that was plenty to make a decent medium sized tray of lasagne that turned out very nicely indeed.  We had it with a bit of salad, some corn cobs and a few snow peas, and a glass of red, or two.

So - where did the wheels fall off?  After dinner my partner washed up, and we watched a movie - some romantic comedy, I've already forgotten what it was called, but it was fun.  And then it was time for bed.

Ah - brain snap!

I wanted the television off, I wanted my son to have a quick wash and to to bed, it was half past ten, after all.  My partner wanted to see what was on next, and then (to me) seemed to be pushing the barrow of keeping the television on and watching the next movie.  The next thing that happens is I hear myself screaming "NOOOOOOOO".  Restrospectively (apparently) this did not happen.  Nobody screamed, I am told.  The next bit of the evening was spent with my son bathing himself and me quivering in a corner somewhere, my head pounding and my heart hammering.  I managed to get myself into the bath, after my son got out, and spend quite some time trying to calm myself down.  When I felt sufficiently calm, I thought, I got out and dried myself and then tried to talk to my partner about what happened, and what my needs were at that time (of the snap).  Apparently this did not happen either - apparently, I picked an argument.

I've lost my grip on reality around these things, so I don't really know what happened.  Was the TV really turned off within 15 seconds of my indicating my unhappiness that it might stay on?  Did I really pick an argument?  I am not an authority on these matters.  Unfortunately.

What a shame to end an otherwise really good day on such a sour note.  It feels like big steps backwards to me.  Maybe it's not.  Maybe the fact that I am not drunk on the tiles, or howling and snivelling, curled in a ball inside the wardrobe actually means that it all turned out OK, despite a bit of a hiccup.  Again, at this stage of the game, I am not an authority on the matter.

All I know is - I was feeling good, and like I was making progress, and then I felt incredibly pressured and threatened, and then I snapped.  And then I pulled myself together, and then I tried to address the issue calmly with my partner, and then it all escalated and got worse.  And then I realised my son was watching and listening intently, and then I put him to bed, feeling like a horrible failure.  And now my shoulders hurt, it is after midnight, my head feels all full of cotton wool, I can't stop peeing (happens when I am stressed) and the bliss of the day seems to have evaporated.

So it goes.

Today I felt like I got all the filling pretty right, and well balanced, but - I don't know - the dish cracked?  Maybe not that bad .... maybe the pasta (the structural building supports of the whole life thing) didn't quite come through for me.  Don't know.  Maybe one day I will.  That day is not today.

Now that it's already tomorrow, I guess it's time to try to go to bed and forget it all for what's left of the night & get up and try again tomorrow.

At least there will be leftover veggie and deli cut lasagne.

E-Lasagnes, maybe not!

So I downloaded this e-recipe book on my Kindle yesterday: 'The World's Greatest Lasagnes', or something along those lines.  I started reading a few of them today.  There are 197 recipes, in total, by memory.  So far, not so good.  It's very American and there's an awful lot of tinned condensed mushroom soup going on in there - ew!

I think I'll be stepping out in my lasagne journey on some hopefully safer footing than that.  I read an article in the Guardian a while back .... In Search of the Perfect Lasagne .... or, well, something along those lines (you get the picture that accuracy is not my strong point, right?).  The lasagnes researched in that article (yes, eating can be research, that's right) sounded much better than the ones in my new (possibly regrettable) ebook.  The finale of the Guardian article is a lasagne recipe that is the culmination and amalgamation of the journalists lasagne research.  I thought I'd give it a whirl.

How to cook the perfect lasagne (according to the UK Guardian)

I've thrown in the link, in case I lose track of it myself .... and in case you'd like to try it too.

Tonight, we finished off the last of the lasagne that was a throw together job done in collaboration by me and our live in (six month cultural exchange) au pair, a few nights ago.  We used Leggo's fresh lasagne sheets, from the supermarket, bolognese sauce cooked by our friendly French au pair and a béchamel I knocked up, which I actually thought was a bit too flavoursome for just background but which the boys (our au pair is a guy) thought was really good.  I did stick a bit of grated cheese in the béchamel which we used in each layer, along with the bolognese.  I tend to start the bottom of the dish with a meat layer, rather than a pasta layer, unless directed otherwise by a recipe - I buttered the dish too, for good measure.  We topped the whole shebang off with just some grated aged cheddar & gave it about a half hour in the oven.  It was pretty good.

I can't decide whether that lasagne was the inspiriting for kicking off this blog, or whether I agreed to (child request) of lasagne because the thoughts of this blog were lurking in the background.  A combination of the two, I think.

Enough of this talk, it's time for sleep.  There's a whole new day tomorrow and lasagnes, both actual and metaphorical, to be gotten on with.

Sleep well all!

The Lasagne Project: First Musings

I have been contemplating just lately, that life is very much like a lasagne, metaphorically speaking.  I know that the old saying goes, life is like an onion, and follows through with some stuff about peeling back the layers, but when you peel back the layers of an onion, really what you get is, well, more onion.


But lasagne, when you start to peel back the layers, lots of things can happen - for a very first step, you can get your fingers burned!  To me the whole layers metaphor works much better with lasagne than it does with onion.  Start peeling back the layers of a lasagne and the whole darn thing might fall apart, or at the least, get fairly messy.  Life is like that, right?


Well, my life (and from the outside, those of others) can be compared to a lasagne, I think.  It works for me, and I'm going to run with it.  Take frozen lasagnes, well - all prepackaged lasagnes really, for another example: they look really darn good on the package in a lot of cases, the gloss is great, the blurb says it all, succinctly and deliciously - but when you get it home, even if you do follow the instructions to the letter, the result is usually a disappointing and fairly flavourless serve of lacklustre muck that lacks any real substance or taste.  Is your life like that sometimes?  Do you know people like that perhaps?


The other thing is that lasagne can really describe a vast range of experiences, all the way from the solidly delightful and traditional lasagne alla bolognese type affair through to the gluten free, vegan, macrobiotic experience and along all sorts of spectrums in between.  And, even once you have the baked dish in front of you - how it gets served up, accompanied, seasoned and consumed is still up to the individual.  That's life, right - it all comes down to the individual experience.  Even within a family with everyone in the household getting pretty much the same option for a mealtime sitting, one will dine and dash, sans the salad .... one will do the whole dang lot, with all the trimmings, and go back for a second helping every time, one will pick and flick and fuss and eventually partake of their favourite bits and leave a bedraggled mess for someone else to scrape at cleanup time and so on and so forth.


Well, that's life.  Life is like lasagne: a highly variable, quite unpredictable in some circumstances, sometimes vegetarian (and sometimes for some people, not), sometimes sloppy, messy, grey, greasy and disgusting, and sometimes perfectly delicious, absolutely mind-blowingly amazing affair.


So - this is my lasagne project.  It's time for me to seek out and experiment with and perfect the absolutely perfect balance of layers, fillings, seasonings, toppings, heat, dish size, accompaniments etc for my life.  I'm tired of cafeteria slop.  I want the real deal - be it spinach and ricotta, grilled pumpkin and eggplant, or filled with traditional ragu, I want my life to be real, to turn out OK, and for me to be the mistress of it.  Bring it on!