Bits 'n Bobs

My great return to blogging has been a little less than impressive. Thankfully, with Madame2Bar out visiting a friend in hospital, the kids in bed and bugger all on TV I have almost zero excuse to blog.

After working my way through the procrastination flowchart, that is (thanks Téa).

I just realised that, even though I've not been blogging, I have at least a dozen draft posts and a good size more ideas sitting on my thumb drive awaiting posting. Which makes me question whether I am a) depressed or b) just a lazybum.

The fascist Howard dictatorship has now been turfed out of office. I must admit that it would have been funnier watching Labor self-destruct after another defeat, than the inevitable Liberal 'handbags-at-dawn' fight over the tattered remains of what is left of their party. I won't cry myself to sleep that Kevni won ... the Liberals have been hard to love lately. I wonder if the party will reform under a new title or continue as Australia descends to one-party rule? Interesting times ...

My little brother, heretofore dubbed 'OneBarRiff', has been in hospital for a number of months with some pretty serious stuff. He thinks he contracted it when his immune system was low on account of depression. Wait a minute ... sister, brother, me ...? I'm sensing a pattern here. So are my parents, which brings more crap to deal with.

Owning a pool is great. I think I've assembled an inventory of chemicals that could make a serious sized explosive. (Hmmm ... I wonder if ASIO tracks these kinds of things?) Being able to take a plunge in a perfectly temperatured pool after a 39 degree day isn't too bad either. Roll on summer.

The low employment rate is starting to bite at work. At the same time, I know plenty of people who are looking around for alternate employment. It's a matter of finding the best fits, I guess. When I started work in the early 90s, you couldn't find an accounting job for love nor money. Now it's gimps straight out of uni wanting $50K per year. Pah!

I'm turning 35 soon! I've started drafting a birthday post but finding it hard to work out want I want to say (not an unusual predicament). I do, however, feel that having nothing to say would be wrong.

And finally, I picked up my guitar for the first time since the operation! Here is video to prove it.



One would have thought that a near 6 month, self imposed layoff would have inspired some creativity ... sorry.

Guess who's back ... back again? *

Not quite a month off, and I don't really feel bad about it. For two reasons:

It's been very hard to write anything. Change that. It's been very hard to WANT to write anything, so I don't know if it was hard to actually write. Also, since taking the medication (6 weeks now, I think) I have been experiencing some changes and some realisations about myself.

• Time.

I have a different view of time now. Things used to seem to have to be done nownownow and, if they weren't, I'd get the guilts and just end up leaving things. Now I feel that I can put things in their appropriate space, but also give things their own time.

Part of this realisation came about during a trip over east to meet up with my counterparts from other states (multi-national corporate slave that I am). In terms of age, I discovered that the nearest to me is 14 years my senior, the oldest is probably another 5 -10 years older than him.

So, alone in my hotel room staring at the ceiling, I realised that I have no need to push my career as much anymore. If older people are happy doing what I am doing, then I have made an achievement and can now focus on building my career from the 'inside', as opposed to the energy I've spent trying to find the right career in the right industry.

I'll try to explore this later, because it sounds like a small thing when re-reading but I now have a feeling of peace about myself that I don't remember ever having before.

• Jealousy

I also realised that I am a very jealous person. In fact, I would say that jealousy has been the number 1 driver of almost everything I have done or attempted. If you are a person that I have know in real (or semi-real, ie internets) life, it is almost certain that I have spent time being insanely jealous of something you have, done or said.

Having the green eyed monster as your 'coach' is a surefire way of never being happy. This attitude has not only made me focus externally, I've never really focussed internally. In the wash up, sometimes I've not even known what I've been jealous about.

So that's the two big breakthroughs that have occurred. And I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have occurred without the medication that I'm now taking. So yay for little white pills.

Now I need to find the little pill that gets me back writing regularly.

* A measure of my success in addressing my thinking patterns is that the song came into my head during work and I immediately thought "What is Eminem doing these days?" In times past, I would not have been able to resist going on the web to find out there and then. Now, I haven't even bothered. Baby steps, sure, but steps nonetheless.

Eeeeeew

Or is it Ewwwwwwwww?

Either way, that's the result of the surgery (approx 10cms long). I can't say whether it's been successful or not as I'm still on an enforced rest period - no lifting, gardening or playing guitar allowed. It does feel looser though. Beforehand, pressing your thumb just above the cut was like pressing wood, now it's as loosey-goosey as a normal arm. So I'm hopeful that I won't have any more issues.

The medication is going well, sort of. I can't say that I've felt depressed in the time that I've been taking it, but I have noticed some anxiety issues where I've been waking up at all hours thinking about things (that would ordinarily be easily solved) and I've had a bad stomach which is normal when I get anxiety.

The waking up issues I've put down to my procrastination (depression related) coming up against my anxiety over work. To that end, I've started using the methods from Getting Things Done which has allowed me the ability to focus on small tasks and maintain a sense of control (and get things done!). Highly recommended.

The lack of blogging has been from general tiredness and reacquainting myself with Francis Crawford of Lymond. I must say that I love these books, although Dorothy Dunnett does expose my rudimentary French in all it's crappiness. Again, highly recommended if you buy a French (and Latin, and Spanish) dictionary.

So that's the small update. I haven't really been thinking too much about depression as I wanted a bit of a rest so there's no pearls of wisdom around at the moment. Instead, have a pool shot of the Bomb and me in the pool.



(Since that shot, the water feature is done and the headers are sitting on our front lawn awaiting installation - progress!)

Is Hungry Jacks heaven sent?

The Hungry Jacks near us had a fire go through it last week and was shut down. We drove past it tonight on the way home when the Princess noticed it had been repaired and people were eating inside again. In a very loud voice she shouts

'Hungry Jacks is fixed and working, Praise the Lord!'

I think I may have to monitor the frequency with which she eats there!

Q: How dumb am I? A: Read on ...

One thing I forgot to mention about the Zoloft.

I bought the tablets and the nice young lady at the pharmacy told me to take one at night. I took one at 6.00 because I don't want to take them too late due to the insomnia-type side effects.

Only, I should have read the label, as should the nice young lady, because it was actually half a pill.

I am going to be soooo sick tomorrow.

Medication Situation

My experience with pills and depression has not been good.

Initially I was against taking medication. I had the example of my sister who also has depression. She was quite happy to take her pills and be, um, happy. But never looked to be trying to fix things. I wanted to fix myself and, I guess, the idea of not being of full faculty went against this. Was it pride? Maybe, but I did believe that I had the wherewithall to conquer this problem.

I was prescribed Endep for my arm pain a little while ago and, by the way, it should help with the depression. To say the side effects were bad would be an understatement. I felt dizzy and disorientated almost straight away. I can't recall ever feeling physically worse - it was like having a bad case of the flu. This episode reinforced my anti medication stance.

Today, I bit the bullet and got my prescription for Zoloft filled.

My reasoning is thus: I came in to work this morning and, while there was plenty of work to do, I fiddled and farted around for ages before getting stuck in. Every task felt to big and there were feelings of inadequacy and wanting to run away. Again.

This has happened numerous times in the past and the procrastination is a symptom of my depression. I decided that I needed help in getting better, so little white pills here I come!

So do I consider taking medication a failure? No. Initially in my therapy I would have but I know, today, that I can't do on my own.

This isn't the start of getting better but I hope it's the difference between walking and runnning towards the finish line.

5 Riffs you may not remember (or have ever heard of)

To show the random things that go through my head at work, here is a list of guitar riffs that I used to practice a lot that you may not have heard of:

T-Rex: 20-th Century Boy. Cunningly simple and, is it just me or does he look like Alanis Morrissette?

Judas Priest: Desert Plains. "The engine roars between my thighs". Keats, Shakespeare, Halford. LOL

Living Color: Type. Of course, if I dressed like that I'd look like a twat.

King's X: Over My head. A guitar tone I've never heard before or since. And a 12-string, left handed bass!

Eric Gales Band: Resurrection. And he was 16 when the song was first recorded. Ouch!

Of course, my ability to solo isn't quite as good but not too shabby.

Ouch

The surgery was done yesterday and, aside from a weird squelching sound every so often, all seems to be ok.

I have to wear the sling for two weeks but should then be 100%.



Of course, one handed typing is not all that easy, so posting may be sporadic - unless I can get Madame2bar to type for me :-)

Thanks, Princess ...

... I think it shall.

LOL - this has got to be the funniest thing I've ever written.

Sorry for the title - it's a bit misleading but if I went with the title I was originally thinking of, you would probably skip past this and I am NOT going through hassle of blogging to be ignored!

I've just been living through a very rough week emotionally, and aren't at all sure that I'm out of it yet. It's in my top 5 worse times of depression, maybe as high as #3, only because the top 2 involved breakdowns.

One of the things I hatehatehate about depression is how it takes normal thought processes and turns them on their head. Things I would not think in a 'normal' frame of mind (or would easily dismiss) are suddenly first and foremost in my thoughts and I have to fight to try and approach things, well, normally. And who's to say that the thoughts I'm fighting against aren't ones I really should be thinking about, and my depression is just a way of avoiding dealing with things that all normal people can deal with? (Twisted logic, much?)

It seems somedays that it's only my hate for my depression that keeps me going. My family, job, music etc etc etc just cannot register through the fog. I know they're important to me, vital even, but as motivators to get better, it just doesn't work. And that scares me. A lot.

When I say I want to beat depression, I mean I want to smash it's head open and watch it bleed to death. I hate what it does to me, I hate it for what I've lost, what I've risked, who I've hurt. I hate depression for making me hide in my office and bawl, causing me to turn up late to a meeting with red eyes and a weak excuse for why I look like I was crying. I hate depression for making that bottle of gin look good.

I want to be a better husband-father-son-brother-friend-employee more than anything. Coping with depression means, I guess, accepting that sometimes it's just not working the way you want it to. Coping with someone else's depression is much the same - accepting that things aren't operating on your timetable, or theirs (Mum & Dad - are you listening????). And being patient so that you can enjoy the brief periods of 'normal' that you used to take for granted.

Oh well, you'll have to hang on for a little while longer for some more pool shots. They should be more fun and more coherent than this. Just be glad Madame2Bar didn't take the camera out when I went skinny dipping.

And to any professional counselors who may be reading - while I agree that what I've written probably presents a treasure trove that you are itching to get your hands on, sorry, I already go to counseling.