Chickafinty ~ A Life in the Laundry

Dot Point

• school going well, especially in the reading department

• have too many books on my "must read aloud to the kids" list...at this rate I'll still be reading out loud when they're grown-ups.

• the laundry is (partly) under control

• the ironing is not

• neither is the folding

• I don't want to be 40 and fat.  I've got 13 months to do something about it.

• am supposed to be getting a new outfit for a wedding in 9 days time...am not feeling strong enough at the moment to cope with changeroom mirrors

• can't work out when I began the slide from slightly untidy to Stage One in three rooms and stage 2 in one room (yes, it's cryptic, no, I'm not going to explain)

• have come to a sudden realisation that this is NOT normal.  So how come it's acceptable.

• I need to stop whining and do something about it.

• The computer needs to go off for a season

April Rose scam

Checked April Rose's site this morning first up.  Was she still with us, or was she rejoicing in heaven with Jesus.

None of the above.

I feel betrayed.  Conned.  Taken for a ride. 

I, along with a lot of other people, invested emotionally in April Rose's story, and it was all fake.

My heart goes out to Raechel, Angie, Mckmama and all those who along with me prayed for something that wasn't there.

Until this morning when the site was shut down completely I still believed it to be true.

Here's what they had to say:

Raechel

Angie

Jennifer

Now to pick up and carry on without a little bit of trust that I had this morning, but has gone for good now.

Beware the gates of doom

Should have been expecting it.  Came home from the holiday on a tremendous high, and the only thing surer than death and taxes is that a low always follows a high. 

Always.

The past few nights have been crammed with disturbing, graphic and unsettling dreams.  That alone should have been sufficient warning that bad times were imminent.  I've chosen to ignore them.  bad idea.

This morning I woke early, just before the first sign of light in the sky, and 'it' hit.

'It' is always, always, always something that has come creeping back from the past, usually tied to some experience in the more recent past...an experience that might have mirrored the original, or shed light on the original and shown the original from a different perspective.  'It' is accompanied by a feeling of icy cold shivering all the way down my body from head to foot and a sickening, twisting, writhing pit of anxiety in my stomach that won't go away.

Those feelings won't leave for a while.  The way I feel now it seems as though they've packed enough baggage for a long, long stay.

Am trying to hold it together.  Need to keep it together for a couple more days at least.  Not sure if I am strong enough to do that.

Frustrated out of my head

Have come across yet another blog by a Christian with no medical training who considers it apropriate to give out medical advice and tell a fellow believer to "stop taking psychotropic drugs" and trust in Jesus instead, because the drugs stop you from dealing with the big issue and she's hiding her sin behind the drugs.

Give. Me. Strength.

I get so very, very angry with this sort of rubbish.  It's blatant ignorance and the fellow responsible should feel thoroughly ashamed of himself at dishing out that advice.  It's ignorance on so many levels.  Ignorance about what mental illness is.  Ignorance about what the drugs do.

So, in the unlikely event that someone comes past this having read pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo on the topic, let me share a few salient facts:

1.  Depression is an illness of the body.

2.  All illness is a consequence of sin.

3.  Depression is linked to the chemical serotonin, a mood stabiliser.  Serotonin is produced by the brain, the same way the pancreas produces insulin.

4.  Sometimes the wiring in the brain produces too much serotonin, leading to a false (and dangerous) sense of well-being.  This is a high.  "Highs" feel great...not 'normal', great.  On a high you can do anything.  Sleep becomes secondary to LIVING.  Everything is experienced at bigger and better.  Creativity is huge, speech just bubbles forth and the world is a marvellous place to be!!!  Please note that feelings like this are not normal.  It is not normal to go around feeling as though the world is your oyster and there is nothing you can't do.  It is very, very not normal, but unless one does something *really* off the scale, like attempting to fly off the top of a building, no one notices the highs.

5.  Sometimes the wiring in the brain doesn't produce enough serotonin, leading to a false (and dangerous) sense of impending doom.  Every part of the body feels tired and never gets rested.  The mind whirls at the speed of light.  Panic sits in the pit of your stomach all day and all night.  There is no rest, even though you'd do anything to be able to switch off the horrors inside your head.  You don't spend all day crying (contrary to popular perception) and there is nothing that anyone can say that will make things better.  You feel so far from God, so unworthy, so blackened by sin that it is impossible to believe that you could be forgiven.  It is the darkest, worst pit of despair that it is possible to imagine.  If this is life there is no point in living.  One longs for death, but feels so separated from God that death is unthinkable, and the future stretches out like a dark tunnel with no light, no possibility of happiness, no forgiveness, no truth, just despair.  This is not normal.  It is not normal to feel that way.

6.  The individual with untreated chemical depression doesn't actually know what it is like to feel normal.  The individual with untreated diabetes doesn't actually know what it feels like to be well. 

7. Diabetes is a result of the Fall, but that's its only link with sin.  Likewise, depression.  It's a result of the Fall, a consequence of living in an imperfect world, but that's its only connection with sin.

8.  God has gifted doctors with the ability to diagnose diabetes, to find a synthetic replacement for the chemical insulin which is not produced correctly by the body, and to provide treatment to diabetics which allows them to live a relatively normal, fulfilling life.

9.  God has gifted doctors with the ability to diagnose depression, to find a synthetic replacement for the chemical serotonin which is not produced correctly by the body, and to provide treatment to persons with chemical depression which allows them to live a relatively normal, fulfilling life.

10.  Serotonin is NOT a mind altering drug.  I think I'd know if my mind was altered.  Serotonin is a mood stabiliser.  Serotonin brings to highs down to normal and lifts the lows up from despair to normal.  I can write all of this and be conherent and clear and NORMAL because the medications are doing something for me that my own body cannot do.

11.  If you have never felt the world-conquering highs and never experienced the despair and anguish from the depths of a low, consider yourself blessed.  If you are not a medical doctor with experience in treating mental illness, never, ever, ever, ever advise a person to stop taking their meds.  You may be a sincere Believer, but that deosn't qualify you to diagnose or treat illness.  I pray the person you advised had enough sense to consult a doctor before taking your advice.  I shudder at the consequences of giving such advice to another with no knowledge or experience.  The consequences could be tragic.

Thin on the ground

After having posted every day in September except for three, posts have been pretty thin on the ground lately.

The whys are many and varied...busy dealing with the return to school for two kids who are just utterly miserable there...busy planning curriculum etc etc for next year and hitting road blocks...busy dealing with Mt Washmore and Mt IronMany...yada yada yada

Also, I guess if I am being honest I'm in a bad patch again.

Throw global financial uncertainty in a big bowl along with an Amercian election that includes a candidate whose stance on abortion I find to be repugnant and a whole lot of other stuff that only affects Mister Bear and me and the kids, toss it all around and then let it fester for a few weeks.  That about sums it up.

No, there's nothing big going on, just a whole pile of little stuff.  I have a sense that a whole concatenation of errors is brewing just under the surface and we've bought into more trouble than we're going to be able to cope with.

Watch the tv news, read a few news pages online and you read about the most horrific things that people are doing to other people.  More than a small percentage of these things are being done by Generation Y...as in Generation Y Should I?...the first generation raised after we "dispensed" with God and all the left wing bleeding heart liberals-with-a-small-l told us that we could make our own rules and not be bound by some pie in the sky when we die Being.  Well, we've trashed Judeo-Christian morals, behaviour codes, discipline and we've done our own thing and now we get to reap the rewards.

It's onwards and downwards from here folks.

This uplifting message has been brought to you by the letter D.

Not in a good space

that's all.

Should've known

I've had three really great days.  Days filled with energy and enthusiasm and I've rocked through my list of things to do and everything has been really positive.

And then there's today.

Slow.  Sluggish. Tired. So very, very tired.  I've made our bed and done the dishes and put a load of washing in, but that's it.  No puff left at all.

Do I push through, or just accept that it's "one of those days" and hang on until Mister Bear gets home?

It's on days like this that I am so grateful that Mister Bear is the most supportive, encourgaing, wonderful man on the planet.

This sucks

It is 3am and I should be tucked in bed sleeping, but instead I am sitting at the computer having a total stress out as I can't remember if I paid our NRMA membership last year.  There's nothing on the radar and at 3am my chances of tracking down whether it was paid or not are nil, but that doesn't matter.

The only too familiar ice cold "you've really stuffed it this time" feeling hit just as I was drifting off to sleep and that was the end of that idea.

The call centre opens at 8am so I should be able to find out then.  In the mean time I am going to curl up on the lounge with a dvd and hope that sleep takes over sometime before dawn.

on another note altogther

am not doing very well at the moment.

If only we had a panic room

I could sit in it.

We've been looking at budgeting.

I don't feel good.