Ordinary or Oh Wow October
Depression is a horrible disease. It coats your world with this grey slimy useless pesticide of death. It's nasty.
The thing is, when I sat down tonight to write about October, as I've tried to do for every month this year, I thought: "What's the point? October has been an awful month! Why would I want to recall it??"
And then I actually looked at my month and thought "Well, you're an idiot." Cos October kind of rocked, sort of. Sometimes anyway.
Shall we begin?
The start of the month was my birthday. It felt a pointless birthday. Who cared if I turned 44? Who cared given I was so miserable and exhausted? What was the point! But actually, I had a lovely lunch courtesy of my friend of 20 years Melissa, and I had a nice evening out watching Evita with Mum, even though it wiped me for the following day and I couldn't work.
In every year since about 2010, October has been a hard month because it was interviewing month. I remember 2012 when I did 80 one to one interviews and I vowed there had to be a better way. Group interviews. And this year was the first year I have not done all the group interviews as I divided them with my student assistant (has a grad job with PWC next year). She did half, and I did half. It was a lot of work to teach and coach her through the process, but it meant that I only had to interview in the mornings, not in the afternoons when I'm tired. At the end of that process, we had 42 successful people and 41 not successful. I stuffed up and sent the 42 successfuls the unsuccessful email first, but then I realised and emailed them again with 2 minutes. Basically the online email mailer you have to match a list of names to an email and then send it, and I matched the wrong email. Because my brain is foggy.
Another kind of cool thing, and kind of expensive thing, was that one of my students with CFS had recommended going to the Fatigue Clinic near RPA. I had my first appointment last week, and learnt that I definitely meet the criteria for chronic fatigue (well, duh) and that I really am a bit more foggy and struggling mentally, and that is normal. Hopefully they're going to help more in the next appointments.
Speaking of health, my psychologist I'd seen since 2009 decided to up and move back to the UK in June, not exactly the best timing for me. I tried another person out near Parramatta but it really didn't feel right. Then I got the chance to do a free counselling session with a Christian lady who works near to me looking specifically at my food addiction for her university assignment. It just worked. I really like her. So I'm seeing her now to work through the food addiction (which of course comes from the trauma and the abuse etc etc so I guess we'll dig back there a bit). It's really the one thing in my life I'm not happy about that I can actually control: my weight.
I think one of the reasons that October feels so dreadful is that on the 15th I found out Happy has kidney failure and he's dying. As of today, he's still eating and playing a tiny amount per day and lots of cuddles and lots of sleeping. So I guess you could say he's hanging in there. Unexpectedly though, I have two new friends: Fred and George - who are very difficult to tell apart but I"m getting a bit more used to their individual personalities and am getting better at it. At their old house, they killed the children's pet bird (they are predators after all) so the poor kids were traumatised and Fred and George have been rehomed with me. Being new and relatively young, they are busy causing all sorts of mischief, and until Happy dies they are sleeping in a separate cage in the living room, but I'm hoping that eventually they'll go in the big cage with Poppy, if they ever stop fighting with her. I keep rescuing Happy but Poppy and Fred and George need to work out who's top ferret. So an unexpectedly upside of a dying Happy-the-best-ferret-that-ever-was is two new young boy ferrets for free and for a good cause. So currently I'm a 4 ferret household.
2018 really hasn't been a great year in terms of all my usual goals, serving at church, swimming, study, weight, fitness, financial, etc. For example only finally today I reached 50km in the pool, whereas usually by November I would be edging up towards 200km. But one area where my life is going great is my job. I got contacted by a radio producer from the community radio station 2-ser to do a podcast on U:PASS and low SES and CALD students, and so I had my first radio interview this month. It was fun. I also presented on peer mentoring in front of about 25 practitioners across the country which was a bit nice.
It's also been excellent catching up with some graduated leaders this month and also having brunch with a new friend (Amelia) and with a very old friend (Tim). I wanted to go to another old friend's 40th in Melbourne and had booked tickets, but I was too sick to go. Similarly my planned mini trip to see Bec in the Sound of Music this weekend had to be cancelled. Thankfully Jetstar is giving me a voucher towards a future trip as I have a medical certificate (although, they haven't actually done it yet hmmmm).
This month I also made it back finally to work bible study (twice!) and choir rehearsal (also twice!) I've really missed them both and I doubt I will take them for granted again.
October ended with a planned day off to Sculpture by the Sea with my aunt and her friend. It was a beautiful day and a lovely time with them, even though we were both wiped out by the walking and climbing and it was pretty hot.
And that was October.
The thing is, when I sat down tonight to write about October, as I've tried to do for every month this year, I thought: "What's the point? October has been an awful month! Why would I want to recall it??"
And then I actually looked at my month and thought "Well, you're an idiot." Cos October kind of rocked, sort of. Sometimes anyway.
Shall we begin?
The start of the month was my birthday. It felt a pointless birthday. Who cared if I turned 44? Who cared given I was so miserable and exhausted? What was the point! But actually, I had a lovely lunch courtesy of my friend of 20 years Melissa, and I had a nice evening out watching Evita with Mum, even though it wiped me for the following day and I couldn't work.
In every year since about 2010, October has been a hard month because it was interviewing month. I remember 2012 when I did 80 one to one interviews and I vowed there had to be a better way. Group interviews. And this year was the first year I have not done all the group interviews as I divided them with my student assistant (has a grad job with PWC next year). She did half, and I did half. It was a lot of work to teach and coach her through the process, but it meant that I only had to interview in the mornings, not in the afternoons when I'm tired. At the end of that process, we had 42 successful people and 41 not successful. I stuffed up and sent the 42 successfuls the unsuccessful email first, but then I realised and emailed them again with 2 minutes. Basically the online email mailer you have to match a list of names to an email and then send it, and I matched the wrong email. Because my brain is foggy.
Another kind of cool thing, and kind of expensive thing, was that one of my students with CFS had recommended going to the Fatigue Clinic near RPA. I had my first appointment last week, and learnt that I definitely meet the criteria for chronic fatigue (well, duh) and that I really am a bit more foggy and struggling mentally, and that is normal. Hopefully they're going to help more in the next appointments.
Speaking of health, my psychologist I'd seen since 2009 decided to up and move back to the UK in June, not exactly the best timing for me. I tried another person out near Parramatta but it really didn't feel right. Then I got the chance to do a free counselling session with a Christian lady who works near to me looking specifically at my food addiction for her university assignment. It just worked. I really like her. So I'm seeing her now to work through the food addiction (which of course comes from the trauma and the abuse etc etc so I guess we'll dig back there a bit). It's really the one thing in my life I'm not happy about that I can actually control: my weight.
I think one of the reasons that October feels so dreadful is that on the 15th I found out Happy has kidney failure and he's dying. As of today, he's still eating and playing a tiny amount per day and lots of cuddles and lots of sleeping. So I guess you could say he's hanging in there. Unexpectedly though, I have two new friends: Fred and George - who are very difficult to tell apart but I"m getting a bit more used to their individual personalities and am getting better at it. At their old house, they killed the children's pet bird (they are predators after all) so the poor kids were traumatised and Fred and George have been rehomed with me. Being new and relatively young, they are busy causing all sorts of mischief, and until Happy dies they are sleeping in a separate cage in the living room, but I'm hoping that eventually they'll go in the big cage with Poppy, if they ever stop fighting with her. I keep rescuing Happy but Poppy and Fred and George need to work out who's top ferret. So an unexpectedly upside of a dying Happy-the-best-ferret-that-ever-was is two new young boy ferrets for free and for a good cause. So currently I'm a 4 ferret household.
2018 really hasn't been a great year in terms of all my usual goals, serving at church, swimming, study, weight, fitness, financial, etc. For example only finally today I reached 50km in the pool, whereas usually by November I would be edging up towards 200km. But one area where my life is going great is my job. I got contacted by a radio producer from the community radio station 2-ser to do a podcast on U:PASS and low SES and CALD students, and so I had my first radio interview this month. It was fun. I also presented on peer mentoring in front of about 25 practitioners across the country which was a bit nice.
It's also been excellent catching up with some graduated leaders this month and also having brunch with a new friend (Amelia) and with a very old friend (Tim). I wanted to go to another old friend's 40th in Melbourne and had booked tickets, but I was too sick to go. Similarly my planned mini trip to see Bec in the Sound of Music this weekend had to be cancelled. Thankfully Jetstar is giving me a voucher towards a future trip as I have a medical certificate (although, they haven't actually done it yet hmmmm).
This month I also made it back finally to work bible study (twice!) and choir rehearsal (also twice!) I've really missed them both and I doubt I will take them for granted again.
October ended with a planned day off to Sculpture by the Sea with my aunt and her friend. It was a beautiful day and a lovely time with them, even though we were both wiped out by the walking and climbing and it was pretty hot.
And that was October.
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