Red wine repair job?

Our net connection and this week seem to have inversely proportionate speeds right now.  The week if flying by & the net connection is absolutely crawling!  What crazy universal rule governs that?

My mother is here with us for the week.  She had not met my partner before.  In fact, since the wedding of my brother, which will be three years ago this year, I think I've only seen her once, for a couple of hours, as she passed through on her way back from an overseas trip.

It's really good having Mum here.  I wasn't really looking forwards to it that much, one way and another.  For a start, it's been a bit too long between visits, so I felt tense about - just things ... having the house clean enough, having a room set up for her to occupy, what to do with her while she is here .... all the things that when you are a bit all over the place, you can start to inadvertently fret about.

The funny thing is that, once she arrived, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.  My son & I did spend a fair bit of Sunday racing around madly cleaning and putting away, and a bit of re-arranging, but it was actually fun.  There's nothing like a visitor to give you the impetus to spruce up the house and plan some decent meals!

And we have had some lovely meals.  Sunday evening my partner, my daughter and myself ate out in the city, while we waited for Mum's late(ish) arriving flight.  We went to a favourite Turkish haunt of my partner's and mine, where my daughter had not been before.  It was fun.  Monday we had pesto pasta and salad, accompanied by some kofta sticks that Mum found at one of the local butchers.  Both of my kids who are currently in the country adore pesto.  One of my other lasagne plans is to make fresh pesto, then mix with ricotta as one of the filling layers.  I do cannelloni like that and it's delicious!  I keep wanting to do a tricolour one, maybe basil pesto, sun dried tomato pesto, and .... it's the third layer colour that I'm not so sure about - pumpkin?  Or maybe olive pesto.  All the pestos need to be mixed with ricotta, and I'm sure it would need a layer (at least one) of tomato sauce, or it would be too dry.  I would want it to look really good when cut.

I bought a second hand pasta machine yesterday too.  I haven't read the instructions fully yet, except to notice that it shouldn't be cleaned with water at all.  Lucky I saw that, I was just about to dump it in the sink with bleach and water, for a good soak.  It's a bit grubby.  I'll have to clean it up with oil.  I'm sure lasagne made with home made pasta sheets would be amazing!

Last night I made spanakopita, which I hadn't done for a while.  It was delicious.  We had it with a tomato, onion, basil & boconcini salad, and some little Italian style sausages.  A wonderful meal.  Thanks to Mum, who put the spanakopita in the oven while I was at a chiropractic appointment.  What a relief that is!  My back had been in so much pain - both lower back and up in my neck.  Mum had shouted me a neck and shoulder massage on Monday, which really helped my neck, but my lower back was exhausting me.  It's bliss to not be in constant pain!

I'm going to keep on seeing the chiropractor for a while.  I've got a sneaking suspicion, based on the discussion I had with my friend last week, that it might help with my feelings of depression.  It's definitely the multi-pronged approach that is helping, at this stage.  It was just so severe that no one simple solution was going to make much difference at all.  But the combination of counselling, high dose vitamins and minerals, stopping work, focussing on a clean, tidy, welcoming and inviting home (in baby, baby steps), and now getting my back/neck/spine sorted .... together these things are making a tangible difference.

Tonight Mum is going to make some satay chicken sticks and fried rice.  I said that I'd make a crunchy noodle cabbage salad.  Tomorrow night I was thinking of doing something with red wine - maybe lamb shanks.  That's mostly because I opened what was probably a forty or fifty dollar bottle of wine on Monday night, with dinner, and then on Tuesday morning I found it (way less than half consumed) in the pantry, with no cork or seal of any kind.  The au pair had tucked it away & then I'd forgotten about it until the morning.  I was so upset.  It really was a lovely bottle of wine.  I decanted it into a screw top bottle and put it back away while I tried to calm down.  Mum quite rightly pointed out it is still good enough to cook with - so I guess we should use it up before it gets any worse, now that it's started to vinegar, sometimes I think it's hard to actually arrest the process.

So - no lasagne while Mum is here, it seems.  That definitely makes us quite overdue for one.  Maybe on the weekend ....

Gratitude

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” — William Arthur Ward

I'm thinking it has been quite a while since I've made a lasagne!  I've been working on other things.  Still - lasagne is definitely something to be grateful for, so I'd better make sure we've got one on the menu this week.  I found an excellent looking recipe a little while back, that I haven't tried yet:


http://www.closetcooking.com/2011/01/chicken-roasted-red-pepper-and-goat.html


I think it definitely sounds worth a go, and Mum is visiting this week, so we'll have an extra set of hands and also a call for some really nice celebratory meals at home.


Today I've been thinking about gratitude.  That's largely because one of my friends encouraged me to take up a project based on the 365 Grateful project.  Her version of it (I'm not really that that familiar with the original project) is to post 7 things for which you are grateful, on Facebook every Sunday.  They can be photos, or just words.  I've done my seven for the week.  The point of doing all 7 together on Sunday, apparently - is to contemplate all week what you are grateful for, before posting them all together on one day.  


Here is a link to the 'original' project:


http://365grateful.com/original-365-project

I guess at some stage, I might explore that a bit more myself.  Right now there seems to be a whole lot of stuff to explore!  I guess that's a huge movement from feeling so depressed and confused and dark that I could hardly move.  Maybe the supplements are working?  Definitely not going to work is working!!  I know my partner is trying really, really hard to be incredibly supportive and understanding.  That helps an enormous amount.  It's a combination of everything I guess.  There's so many aspects to the "get well" formula.  If I had to pick my top five hints for today, to remind myself, I might choose these:

1. Don't spend TOO much time on the computer
2. Take your supplements
3. Shower, and dress from head to toe, to get your day started
4. Don't drink more a glass and a half of wine (if any at all) and only with dinner
5. Shine the sink again, it is an "inspiration point"

It's funny, the little things that can really get you going.  Or get me going, in any case.  Discovering that FlyLady website has been really helpful.  I get so excited to see my shiny shiny sink.  I want to keep it up for as long as possible.  Two nights is nowhere near enough.  She says it should be a lifetime habit.  I wonder how long I can keep it up for.  It's great because seeing the sink that shiny inspires me to clean other things - like one of my targets for today is to get in and clean underneath it, because relative to how great the sink looks, the cupboard underneath is disgusting.  And I KNOW that looking at a bright, neat, sparkly cupboard under the sink will make me feel good too!

So - am I going to become some kind of domestic goddess, in my battle to conquer depression?  Probably not.  It's just not deep seated enough in my nature.  BUT - if I get a cleaner house, and a halfway decent routine, and some shiny spots and good meals thrown into the mix, it can only be a good thing, and it does help, enormously.

I have to go now, because I snuck in another sleep in this morning, and my son is on the x-box right now, but we have a deal, and he has to switch off soon, and help me with some chores.  In the past, it has often been me who allows his time on the game console to run over, so that I can blob out and do my thing (which is often some kind of avoidance).  In the end it makes him irritable and rude, so it doesn't pay anyone decent dividends.  So, I guess I have to step up and be a better mum, along with all the other things on my list.

Breathe, breathe .... I am grateful for my home, I am grateful for my family, I am grateful for the love we share and the meals we lay on the table together.

My daughter came over for dinner last night.  It was wonderful.  She even stayed and helped wash up, and I got to show her my shiny sink trick.  

These are the things that feather the nest of my soul.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

The flylady says that today I should shine my sink, and get dressed, all the way down to lace up shoes.  Well - I didn't shine the sink properly last night, again.  The au pair washed up.  I'm not sure whether it's a fair thing to impose flylady techniques on him.  It's pretty cool just having clean dishes.  I figure I just need to shine the sink once in every 24 hour period - and admire it for a bit.  Lace up shoes presents a bit of a problem in that I'm not sure that (apart from my work boots) I own any.  I'll have a dig on the outside shoe rack later.  I'm not sure I want to spend my days stomping around the house in my steel caps!

I've finally dipped in to the DBT book.  The first paragraph of the introduction tells me that:

Dialectal behaviour therapy ... is extraordinarily effective at helping people manage overwhelming emotions.  Research shows that dialectical behaviour therapy strengthens a person's ability to handle distress without losing control or acting destructively.


Is this what I need?  Am I so unable to deal with distress and conflicting emotions that I lose control and act destructively?  Yes, I think so.

Just this morning, I got up with my partner as he was getting ready for work.  I made us a cup of tea and put together some lunch for him to take to work.  I was already feeling a bit shaky because I felt he was dismissive about me making his lunch (he said: 'whatever' when I checked in with him about what to give him), and then as we were sitting drinking our tea, the subject of my mother and next week's sleeping arrangements came up.  It was enough to throw me quite off kilter.

For a start I'm nervous about my mother coming to visit.  I don't really want her to see me like this, or to have to try to explain Borderline Personality Disorder to her.  Then: we don't know where she is going to sleep.  Apparently I told my partner last week, that mum will sleep in my son's room.  I don't remember this.  My recollection is that I have stated, all along, that I will clean up both rooms & then offer her a choice, depending on which bed she prefers - so that she gets decent sleep, and doesn't end up with a sore back.  This conversation caused tension.  I don't think my partner wants my mum to sleep in his daughters bedroom.  His daughter hasn't visited us for months, but recently, it seems (without my realisation) it has become HIS bedroom.  He did move his clothes in there - but I thought that was to deal with a cupboard space issue.  He has been spending more and more time in there (a source of distress for me) - but I had not realised until this morning that he had shifted the locus of his belonging into there.  I don't like it.

I guess it doesn't matter what I feel, in this case.  If it has become his sacred space, and sanctuary - I just have to deal with that.  It doesn't make me feel very good at all.  When he decided to move his clothes in to there I did suggest we both put our less used clothes in there & keep our commonly used items in our bedroom - but he didn't like that idea.  I think there's some underlying stuff about it being his daughters room and that she still needs a space, when she comes to stay.  I know I have some resentment around that, because I feel like she has lost her right to have a space here anymore, by neglecting her father so much, and 'stringing him along' so often.  I hate the way she calls and says she is going to come and visit, and then lets him down, over and over again.  However - they are MY issues, so I just need to work through them and leave my partner and his daughter to get on with their own relationship I suppose.

I brought up with him (my partner) again last night that my psychologist says that if he and I don't get joint counselling of some sort, and some separate work - probably each individually with the therapist who does our joint counselling .... nothing else that I do will make very much progress.  She sees the relationship issues as one of my root cause problems and dealing with them as imperative in my recovery. Nothing came of that conversation.  My partner barely acknowledged my psychologists viewpoint and instead went off on the tangent of I don't know where my referral is because my room has been disturbed.  It's true - the au pair did clean, tidy AND re-arrange the room, which suddenly, to my surprise, is "my partner's" room.  I'm altogether not comfortable with that - but I don't know why - so I just need to let that one rest.  The au pair did tidy and re-arrange.  I didn't ask him to.  I asked him to vacuum and shampoo the carpet.  I think he just thought he was taking some initiative.  The room actually looks really good.  I don't think I can possibly reprimand him for what he has done, but now I feel uncomfortable about complimenting him on a job well done.  Damn.

Anyway - apparently my partner's mental health care plan - with the referral for counselling, was in the room & now he doesn't know where it is.  I can't imagine that the au pair would have thrown it away, so I'll just have to get in there later and have a search around and see if I can find it.  I don't think I can afford to take the risk of letting obstacles be thrown in the way of us going and getting joint counselling.  We will not survive, as a couple, without it.  It's as simple as that.  We can't do this on our own.  It's too far gone.

And in the meantime, there's DBT.  Another paragraph on the first page of the introduction to my skills book tells me:

Dialectical behaviour therapy teaches four critically important skills that can both reduce the size of emotional waves and help you keep your balance when those emotions overwhelm you.


Bring it on!  Not the waves, the learning of the skills!

It's a journey.  I've taken some first steps.  I think I'm going to be on it for a very long time.  I'd better learn to like it and start enjoying the view.

What does wellness look like?

Just now I've been chatting online with a friend who has been diagnosed just this week as bipolar.  We've known each other a long time, I guess it must be going on 20 years.  Anyway - we were discussing a few things - like: how long have we been "ill" and when is it that being different, or more intense, or impulsive, or whatever ... became pathologised?  That made me think - well, it's a bit like alcoholism I guess - your mental state is a problem when it is causing harm to yourself, or others.  Being moody, labile, excitable, low - or whatever ... it's just not a problem provided you continue to have a life you feel is worth living and to be able to support yourself and be there for your family, to have positive friendships and all that stuff.

I guess that's a bit how Kiera's story finalised at the end of The Buddha and The Borderline.  She concludes, if I'm getting it right, that she still has BPD, but that she is by then, in control of her life, happy, and making positive progress.  It's not about not having the 'disorder' - being "cured" is more like: attaining wellness, on your own terms.  The label ceases to matter so much if you have your life in a place that you want it to be.  Then you are just a person, with some, I guess you could call them - tendencies.  BUT - while the think is in full swing, and has you by the throat, and is tearing all your relationships, especially the one with yourself, apart - then you are in a very bad place.

I feel like I'm in that very bad place at the moment.  I am tearing me apart.  I am tearing my relationship apart.  I fear I am damaging my relationship with my son.  I am jeopardising my right to be a parent.  I have relinquished a really well paying job.  I barely know what to do when I get out of bed in the mornings.  In fact, some mornings, I struggle with getting out of bed at all.

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) used by psychiatry, defines Borderline Personality Disorder like this:

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:


1) frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

2) a pattern of unstable & intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

3) identity disturbance: markedly and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self

4) impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

5) recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

6) affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

7) chronic feelings of emptiness

8) inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

9) transient, stress related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms



So for me, those symptoms, or some of those symptoms, is what sickness looks like.  The big task then, is to home in on those things and seek the other end of the spectrum ... or at least to slide myself along the scale as much as I can.  Perhaps examining all 9 of those today is a bit much - maybe it's something I can do one at a time, especially with the ones I think apply the most to me.

I think I do have abandonment issues.  It's confronting thinking about what the 'frantic efforts' are.  Oddly - I do a lot of 'pushing away' behaviour - which my doctor thinks is to subconsciously prove a point, and to fulfil a pattern, like: there, I knew I was unloveable, and that no man would ever stay with me, and it's happened again.  See?  I DEFINITELY have intense and unstable interpersonal relationships - primarily with men, partners - and occasionally with someone at work, where I do a 'demonisation' thing, from time to time.  Yes to impulsivity - I'm the queen of quitting (jobs), and occasionally there have been other things as well.  Maybe more than occasionally, LOL.  Yes to recurrent suicidal gestures/threats & to self harm .... oh dear, how many is that so far?

I'm not so sure about identity disturbance, so maybe I'll give myself 4 out of 5 right now (she says, crossing her fingers behind her back & certain that some of her friends are chuckling at this denial).  A big YES to affective instability/marked mood reactivity.  At the moment yes, yes, yes to chronic feelings of emptiness - though this is one that has come and gone, and not been huge at other times in my life.  It gets really bad at the moment though.  Yes to inappropriate/intense/difficult to control anger.  My partner copped some of that, swung and strung wildly between batches of tears and silence, just last night.

A big 'not sure' to criteria number nine.  Perhaps, a little yes, a little bit of the time (hangs head in shame). I don't like that one at all.  I don't think it's big, for me.  Maybe just a little bit ... just sometimes.  I think that's one I could control, fairly easily - and that if it's there, even just a little bit - it will automatically go away/diminish as I get other things in hand and feel happier and more stable.  I don't feel like it's one I need to work on specifically or intensely.

So after having said I wouldn't look at them all today - I just have, though not in depth.  But - that's what I've got to work with I guess.  Intuitively - I feel like my journey of exploration needs to be about working AWAY from the low/bad/destructive end of each of those aspects and TOWARDS the dialectal opposite - the positive end of each spectrum .... the place in which, while that thing is still an aspect of 'me' - it becomes a good aspect.  Because - I think the reality is: it can't be made to go away.  A leopard is still a leopard, even if it does change it's spots (or shorts, if you are a Terry Pratchett fan).

More on this to come, I hope.  Now it's time to get up and get my son moving, and then to dive in to The Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Skills Workbook and to see what the FlyLady has to say today.  I somehow stumbled across this site, through searching for housework tips .... and though I felt a bit dubious when I clicked through from somewhere else, I was delighted to find that 'Fly' is actually about FINALLY LOVING YOURSELF, and so I've decided I like her a lot, after all, and I have shone my sink!  It gleams.  It's not all neat all around, and dried on the inside, like she suggested, just yet (things fell apart again last night, before I got to that stage) - but it IS shiny.

http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/

I'll be turning to those baby steps as much as I can manage.  It's exactly the kind of direction and guidance I was hoping for.

I've got a friend to meet up with as well, today.  I forgot to tell my partner that.  I'm sure he'll be annoyed that he was 'the last to know, like always' and will interpret that as evidence that he is the 'least important person in my life' - but that's for him to grapple with, right?  I have enough shit of my own right now.  And I know how ungrateful that sounds at this precise moment, when he has been so incredibly patient, and loving, and supportive, and is basically making the ultimate sacrifice (allowing me to give up work, in order to try to get well, while he supports us all).  But even so, in the interest of not losing myself completely (to death, or madness, or whatever) I still have to be a bit self focussed right now, and I'm sure that seems very very selfish.

Sorry world.  I have some very deep needs I have to address right now.  I'll be back, in full form, when I can.  Until then, I'm going to be a bit erratic and seem unfocussed/self absorbed/unproductive.  OK?  It doesn't mean I don't love you.  I just means I need to learn to love me.

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).