Sorry everyone – I’ve lost my writing mojo lately. Turns out working full time, doing a couple of uni subjects also having a bout of terrible anxiety makes me a very tired and worn out gal.
Not sure why the anxiety has been bad, maybe a mix of a few things, spending 99.9% of my time at home alone, combined with a dose of general doom and gloom, extinctions, elections, covid, general humanity loss got a little overwhelming for me and I thought I was dying again. I am actually super proud of myself that I have bounced out of it so quickly. Heavily medicated but feeling 99% back to my normal self. That counts doesn’t it?
The trouble with vomiting, can’t sit still, pacing around the house, can’t leave the toilet anxiety is that it makes getting anything done….well difficult. A 4-page uni assignment took 5 days. 5 days! That’s about 4 days too long. I wasn’t even overly happy with it. Should pass but hardly going to win any Nobel prizes for it.
Do you know what else I did for the first time in a long time…….? I went on a date. With an actual living breathing other human being. I know it’s hard to believe. That anyone would want to spend time with me is absolutely astonishing, and overwhelming. I told everyone at work and keyed them up with a “quick one of your products is being recalled” message to get me out of it half-way through, but I actually got through to the end. He wasn’t for me, and I wasn’t for him but ….. A date!
I have gone on some nice hikes lately to clear my head and get out of the house. This picture was taken at Blackheath…..no filter…..seriously! Look at that late afternoon light! Yes, I am old now and say things like Look at the light! Also, this was taken about 2.5 seconds before I told an approx 8-year-old to mind his own business.
I purchased a new diary, all shiny and new for a new year – one befitting of how I have been feeling lately – mental health wise. I think it suits me.
Oh how I’ve miss this. My writing, my little corner of cyberspace that helps me to quieten the noise.
I have been writing, though mostly emails and assignments. I forgot how much time it takes to be a student. But I am loving the learning, the lectures, tutorials, practicals even the assignments, but after many many hours at the screen, I don’t have the energy to bash out a blog post.
I don’t want to just ‘bash’ out some content to keep the blog ticking over, this space will never be filled with what is not authentic. It will always be my voice, my content, what is circling my head. I have tried over the years to add in bits and pieces that I thought I should write, as a good blogger, a range of pieces to spark the interest of different audiences. But really I write this for me and if you enjoy it too, then that just makes me love you even more. Apart from the odd “I could live here” which will nearly always be a cabin or modern home in the middle of a forest because that is exactly where I want to live.
I actually have written a fair bit lately, just in my head when I have been out hiking. Now that the restrictions are starting to ease, the first thing (when my exams are over) I want to do is go out on an overnight hike. Just pack up my backpack and go. Doesn’t even have to be that far. Maybe the Blue Mountains. Like I haven’t spent enough time alone. I will just stay alone, not in my house, somewhere else.
I like being alone. It has never ever bothered me. Especially when I felt out of control or anxious or sad, I like connection but I don’t want to know how out of control I am. Confused? Try being inside my head.
I only like my people. As they say on Runway “You are either in or you are out” most people I meet can probably just assume they are on the out. You’ll know if you are in. If you are reading this then you are absolutely ‘in’.
On September 12 last year, I took a mental health day work (and you know I was honest with work about it all and they were great about it) and I went for a long hike alone, with nothing but me, myself and my hateful thoughts about myself, in the rain, after 15km and 10 minutes beating a very expensive hiking pole against a rock while yelling at myself “why do I fucking suck at life so badly” until the rock won, I felt better. A lot better. Back to normal better.
I don’t want to go back to ‘normal’, if that means shopping and spending and 50 hour weeks, and sitting in traffic and flying to another city for a ‘meeting’, queues and lines, checking out, checking in, the rat race, glorifying busy…..
Personally I have LOVED the slower pace, the genuine connection, the efficiency, the focus and the benefits to my own mental health. Can we keep it like this?
If you’re not offended by a ‘fags’ mug then you are one of my people.
This is a story about the dark overlords of the world wide web.
There was once a little company called Telecom which provided Australia with all its phone call and communicational needs. It was owned by the government and provided its services really quite cheaply, then it was sold off allegedly to the ‘Australian people’, but really to other really rich media magnates who then hiked up prices and provided a really shitty service to its customers. 10 years ago the leaders monkeys of our country decided that we don’t need high speed anything and started building the NBN (National Broadband Network) with lego blocks. It is still being built, as apparently the future of data is via the ground and through cables, this has to be manually installed into each home and paid for by each homeowner even though it doesn’t work very well and the infrastructure is now 10 years old.
Like everyone else on the planet right now, life currently revolves around the internet. I am chewing through data at a rate of around 1000GB per day. Work, uni, TV all rely on data.
Right now, my internet is currently switched off, due to the fact that the NBN is rolling through town and the suburb is in internet limbo. ADSL (which was shit anyway) switched off, NBN not connected yet. This leaves me with one current option. 4G. Hotspotting off my two mobile phones each day. Balancing the allocated data by the hour. TV is only free to air or good old fashioned DVD’s (which I recently gave at least half to the Salvation Army).
All uni work is online now, meaning that I am chewing through my pitiful 4G allowance faster than I should. Telstra are going to charge me $10 per GB once I run out. Way to help Telstra.
I’m annoyed that the NBN install has disrupted my internet on and off for 6 weeks now.
I’m annoyed that even when my ADSL was working it’s was so overloaded that it takes 23 minutes to load just one 25 minute episode on Apple TV.
I’m annoyed that even though I ordered a 4G hotspot via Vodafone with 100GB per month that I have no idea when it will arrive because the tracking of orders on the Vodafone website isn’t working and it keeps asking me to ring customer service.
I’m annoyed that I ring customer service there is nobody to answer my calls. I am currently at 138 minutes on hold and counting. Please use the website to track your order.
I am annoyed at myself that I only just read their website COVID-19 section which says that the government in India has closed their call centre.
I am annoyed that uni is now all online. I don’t know how to catch up on the practicals that I have now missed because I am an external student. The lecturer is not responding to emails and the online chat has no responses either.
I am still sleeping a lot. Please see my previous post below.
We are not even in lockdown yet. Send help and wifi.
I love my prescriptions. Like any good anxiety-fueled, OCD, hypochondriac, I love my prescription medication. One of my favourites is a crazy pill I take called….wait let me go get the packet….quetiapine. Not many people will admit that they take quetiapine as it is most often prescribed as an anti-psychotic and for those who have schizophrenia, bipolar and major depression. At high doses. At low doses (and this is why I take it), it makes you sleep like an absolute log for many many hours straight. It just calms my brain enough to rest, especially if I am in a panic, but sometimes you know you just want to sleep.
I am the first to admit that over the years there have been weekends that I go home on a Friday and just want to sleep until Monday morning and have nearly achieved it with the help of this wonder drug. I can’t take it during the week as I can’t wake up in time to get to work. I have enough trouble with THAT even without the drugs.
Last night I didn’t take it and I woke up this afternoon at about 5pm. I did wake up earlier and got something to eat but I decided I wasn’t ready for the virus today and so I chose to ignore it and go back to bed.
Can I sleep on this? (Artist Christopher Langton)
Yesterday, I got cocky. Out on my mental health bush-amble I was feeling really good. In control, positive, rested, careful and smart. Then I lay awake until 3am trying to do head calculations on the number of people who WILL die from this given Italy’s death rate and how many hospital beds we have and how I can’t even get a script filled or buy meat or toilet paper and is the pandemic actually panic. Then I remember that we are biological beings and we, just like all the animals and plants and fish and insects that we have made extinct and I think, hey maybe it’s the reminder that humanity needs right now.
If overthinking was an Olympic sport, I don’t know if I’d win gold but it would be a close fight. What if there was an overthinkers anonymous do you think the meetings would be really long? “What if we thought about it this way, no that ideas bad, here’s why we shouldn’t think about it like that, no wait what if we thought about it this other way, okay how about you think about it that way and I’ll think about it this way and…..” Or do you think they would be really short meetings because nobody would say anything and we would all go home and lay awake at night overthinking what we didn’t say and why we didn’t say it?
At 7pm I got up after telling myself not to be such a pussy and at least get some uni work finished that I started yesterday so that the day is not a total waste. Now I am writing this.
Are we allowed to go out into the bush and pitch a tent when there’s a worldwide pandemic? Toilet paper optional but also not optional out there.
I need to go to the supermarket in a couple of days and I am dreading it. The fight. I’ll buy what I need but what I want is chocolate and diet coke.
Look, today was just a bad day, okay? We all have bad days. Yesterday was good, tomorrow will likely be good. We all have bad days, let yourself stay in bed if you want. Okay? We good?
And turn off the TV news. Watch something violent or funny. Killing Eve is highly recommended.
Right now I should be walking up a mountain near Queenstown, New Zealand.
BUT…….My current situation is: holiday cancelled, insurance doesn’t cover ‘Acts of God’ which is apparently what a pandemic is. However I got my flights refunded and accommodation refunded, but it takes 7-10 working days to refund? I am working from home every day indefinitely, but still taking a couple of days of annual leave. Mostly to catch up on uni work. Trying to get out of the house once each day to go for a bushwalk and just ‘connect’ with some signs of life.
I am actually finding this whole situation easier to work, who knew? I haven’t lost my sh*t at anyone, gotten agro, been upset or even cried in the days so far since I’ve been isolated. How are you coping?
I am trying not to panic. But for someone who has had OCD (on and off) and anxiety all her life, it’s easy to slide into being a germophobe who thinks they are dying.
Oscillating between wanting to get this damn COVID-19 so that it’s over and done with and wanting to never leave my house again so I never get sick. Very strange.
Our governments don’t seem to agree, we can’t get a straight definition of how far we need to isolate and be isolated. Clear consistent communication. All that’s needed. But these are unchartered waters, I’m sure everyone is just doing the best they can.
Thanks for everyone who is reaching out to me on the daily, luckily I am pretty much used to be alone and I like it. Being alone has never bothered me. Plus in these days of the internet, I am pretty connected most of the day anyway.
If you are feeling alone – don’t be. In today’s virtually connected world we can connect via FaceTime, Skype, Facebook Messenger Video or Google Hangouts. Let’s connect!
Wash your hands – and don’t forget between your fingers.
What a way to start the year… Crying. Look in my defense most of Australia were crying and I kept being shown pictures of burnt baby animals and not even baby animals and look here I am getting upset again. I cried at work – what’s new? I cried again looking at images of the children of lost firefighters.
Our country is burning, there are literally thousands of different charities and causes and people and animals that NEED us, and I don’t know about you but I am so confused about what to do and who to give to.
The world seems to be focussed on us as a people and as a country. Are we failing? I feel like our people aren’t failing but our leaders are. People are slowly getting it and are showing up for each other while our leaders are focussed on money. Our country is literally dying in front of them. It makes me so angry. It seems that the men with the biggest ego are voted into power and given the biggest responsibilities whilst ethics, values, competence and accomplishment are no longer valued.
In other news, The new year slid into my life like people slide into my DM’s. OK nobody slides into my DM’s (direct messages). I’ve been listening to podcasts while trying to stay away from social media and the news.
According to the podcast world, we all need an inspirational word that we can internally channel for the year to set the intentions and manifest the world ahead. Can you feel my *eye-roll* through the interwebs? I’m talking words like; “Self, energy, inspire, positivity, gratitude, present, create, brave, fierce, soar, embrace, impact, release”.
Suffice to say, I think having a word of the year is complete bullshit. I didn’t have a word for 2019 and it turned out pretty well (Read about it here). But I do have goals and things I want to do, enjoy and achieve.
Complete at least 4 subjects of my Masters…and pass
Stay out of prison, stay employed, stay hydrated. (OK that last one’s a joke kind of not really)
Prioritise mental health
Hike at least 500km
Sort out and consolidate my myriad of super funds
Adventure in the South Island of New Zealand in March
See Ben Folds with Sydney Symphony and Queensland Symphony Orchestras also in March
How are you going? How are you dealing with this chaos? What are you looking forward to?
