In the Room Next Door

Wednesday 11th September started as a perfectly normal day. I went to work, I taught all morning, I grabbed my phone and went to have my lunch.

Sitting down to lunch, I took a look at my emails, and there was one from my Mum which just said "Phone me".

I knew her mother, Jean, was unwell, and my heart sank. I scuttled outside, juggling my credit card and my phone as I tried to charge up a calling card to phone halfway around the world. Before I managed it, my phone rang, Mum's number.

Her news was not good - she'd just had to be the witness at Jean's do-not-resuscitate conversation. Jean had been given two days to live.

I cried all over my colleagues, my head teacher drove me home, and after several phonecalls and wrestling with internet systems, a plane ticket was booked and ten hours later, 10:30pm that night, I was taxi-ing down the runway at Heathrow on my way to Perth.

I arrived at 1am on Friday the 13th (flying out on the 11th of September and flying in on Friday the 13th, it's amazing I got there in one piece). We decided not to go straight to the hospital, and I will forever wonder whether that was the right choice, as I learned later that at that time Jean was still able to talk to people.

We got there around 7am after a few hours' sleep, by which time Jean was, I guess, in a sleep of sorts. She didn't wake up, and died an hour and a half later. I had no last words from or to her, no chance to say any of the thoughts on my mind, but had I gone straight there, perhaps I wouldn't have been there to hold her hand at the very end. I'll never know whether it was the right choice. Perhaps there isn't one. Perhaps she knew I was there. Perhaps, as I was the last of the family who was on their way to get there, she was waiting for me. I'll never know.

Jean wanted to die at home and in her sleep, without having lost any of her mental acuity. Given that they won't really let people die at home any more, this was close. She had five of her seven children and one of her sixteen grandchildren at her side as she slipped away after an astonishingly full life. If any death could be said to be a good one, this was one.

If flinging myself across the world at short notice to watch my grandmother die was not surreal enough, what followed transcended surreality. My cousin, who got married last weekend in Kent, was having a betrothal ceremony in Perth on the 14th. Jean had been adamant that it should go ahead - 'dance at the wedding' was one of her last wishes for us all - and so it did, with us all in this bizarre daze of unprocessed feelings. There were a few tears, but largely it was a masterpiece of kept-up appearances and non-dealing-with-reality.

I stayed in Perth until the following Friday. I managed to see a couple of friends, I sorted out the possessions of mine that remained in Mum's shed, I saw my paternal grandmother (who got taken to hospital with pneumonia as well that week, which was almost more than I could take) and helped in a peripheral way with organising the funeral. The day before the funeral it became apparent that I was the only adult grandchild who wanted to speak (all grandchildren had been asked) so along with my 15-year-old brother I became the voice of all of my cousins at only the second funeral I'd ever attended. I was still adjusting the eulogy a couple of hours before the funeral as family members asked for particular things to be included.

The funeral was Wednesday 18th. I had not been distressed by Jean's body when she died, but I wish I hadn't looked in the coffin as it was all wrong, Jean and not Jean all at once... too much. I drove two of my three siblings in the funeral cortege across Perth to the venue, teaching them as we went that all they had to remember to say was "as well as can be expected" and "thank you". I hugged people I hadn't seen for ages, or who remembered me only as a small child. I got up and spoke. I sat and cried. I drank juice and thanked people for coming and for saying nice things about my eulogy. It was a beautiful funeral and I wish I remembered it clearly instead of in bits and snatches, but I guess that's the way of things.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, Jean’s beloved friends and family. When I was in high school, Jean attended a morning tea given by my home economics class. Overhearing me offer Jean coffee, my teacher jumped in with “Christine! How dare you call your grandmother by her first name?” Jean drew herself up, gave the teacher a scathing look, and responded with great dignity, “How dare you tell my granddaughter what she can and can’t call me?”

The teacher never forgave me, but the pride I felt about Jean standing up for me, and for our relationship, more than made up for it. It was only years later that I understood what it meant to Jean to be seen as an individual, not just someone’s granny but a vibrant,  complex person whose name deserved to be used.

As an adult, I often find myself echoing one of Jean’s favourite phrases: “That is an un-called-for provocative remark and as such is banned!”. As a result, a rising number of young English school children know the meanings of “un-called-for” and “provocative”, and may even try a little harder not to wind each other up. This might be the smallest part of Jean’s legacy, but nonetheless I think she would have been proud of it.

So who was Jean, to a grandchild?

Roast dinners, birthday cakes, warm hugs,
Banknotes slipped secretly into eager young hands;
Well-chosen books, comfy chairs, wise words,
A fierce defence of kith and kin;
A love of nature, an eye for beauty, a powerful history,
A lifetime of learning and love.

Thank you, Jean.

The wake was at my aunt's house, afterwards, just for family. Having catered for a 150-person wedding four days earlier, my aunt wasn't able to cater for the wake, so we ordered fish and chips. Jean loved fish and chips as one of the simple joys in life, reminiscent of holiday treats, and I think she would have found it funny and fitting that the family had such a meal in her honour.

Afterwards, my cousin got out his guitar and started strumming, and the family began to sing. Nothing particularly significant, just pop songs of various vintages. We wobbled our way through "When you say nothing at all" and nearly broke down over "Leaving on a jet plane", but there wasn't much reference to Jean at all... just the family, sitting around singing as we've done countless times before, as if Jean was not gone at all but just in another room, or had left for home early while her family carried on foolishly into the night.

I don't believe in any sort of an afterlife - haven't for years. That didn't change when Jean died. I believe she's completely gone. But perhaps as long as we remember people, love them and hold them in our hearts, in some way they're only just a thought away... like they're just in the room next door.

I miss her so much.

Five daughters, two sons, three daughters-in-law, four sons-in-law, ten granddaughters, six grandsons, three each of grandsons-in-law and granddaughters-in-law, three great-granddaughters, two great-grandsons, and one step-great-grandson. What an incredible legacy of love.

Weekend Away

This past weekend I went to Newmarket, near Cambridge, for the local SCA shire's Yule Ball. I had a great time and was able to wear my brand-new cotehardie, which I've been working on, on and off, since July. It turned out very well and was widely admired. I also managed to spill wine on it, but it wouldn't be me if I didn't. ;) It'll come clean!

The weekend also marked a milestone for me, in that I drove using my newly-minted British licence for the first time, all the way from London to Newmarket and back, in a big hire car, with 4-5 passengers and loads of baggage, over icy streets in parts no less! I was very nervous beforehand, and when we set off from my friends' house for the long evening journey to Newmarket my legs were shaking! But all went well, and I feel moderately confident about driving in London now. Not something I want to do every day, but if it has to be done, I can do it.

I'm the only driver of that group of people, and I have no doubt that I will be doing it again, as we as a group have formed an SCA household. It's been coming for a while, but we had an impromptu meeting in the car on the way home and got our name, charge, badge and motto established and talked a bit about what we want to do as a household. It's a true household of kindred spirits - some are actual kin, others just spiritual kindred. The level of closeness is amazing, and it spins me around that I'm part of it. I have several other friends that close in Australia, people I am completely comfortable and open with, but for sheer amount of time spent together I don't think I have ever been as close to anyone as I am to the couple who are the core of the household. The experience of complete loving-friendship-trust-openness is heady and wondrous. I've craved that kind of connection for a long time, and now that I have it I can't quite believe it. It takes my breath away.

And yet, as always it seems with me, the awareness of that connection leaves me wistful about an even deeper connection that I lack. I have a safer, more complete connection with these friends than I've had in any actual relationship I've been in. In fact these friendships characterise everything my 'love' relationships have not been. My whole dating history is characterised by sad, sour, unsafe, angry, dramatic, unloving, denigrating and ultimately short relationships. (The only former partner with whom I had a good, healthy connection is 14,500km away and may never live in the same city as me again, so although I think the potential for this kind of connection is there, I can't count on it ever being a regular part of my life.) With that one exception, I have never been able to relax and love and trust anyone like I love and trust these friends, and being in their presence, as much as I love it, reminds me of what I've never had.

And it hurts.

I want so badly to find my way to that deeper level of connection. There must be more wonderful, self-loving, accepting, dear, true people in the world! In London, even! But I don't know how to find them, and the odds of them being both free and interested in me seem so minuscule.

I'm still so full of doubt about myself, my identity and where I fit in the world. Finding one place that I fit, one set of hearts with whom I click, throws into stark contrast the emotional chaos surrounding the rest of my life.

Argh, I don't know... I want to just be happy about what I've got but the ache won't go away.

*sigh*

Impatient & Lonely

I have been in a bit of a mood the last couple of days. There's a good (biological) reason for that, although of course I only figured that out after the teary meltdown!

Through all these little mood swings I've been in the grip of an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I realised that, for the first time since coming to the UK, I'm actually getting significant uninterrupted swathes of me-time. When I was first here the share house was a novelty and I had nice girls to talk to, and then I was with my ex and had to be constantly alert and sensitive to his moods. I couldn't listen to my own music or just zone out or work on something pointless and ridiculous for hours. I've loved having that back this week - I'm starting to feel like myself again - but at the same time, there's a loss there. Fuelled by the fact that there is someone from Perth whom I'm missing like crazy (he knows who he is), I'm flailing around just wanting someone to cuddle up to. It's a very physical sort of loneliness, craving contact that no much internet chatting, no matter how affectionate, can quite replace.

And at the same time, I'm almost afraid of finding someone. The ease with which I slipped into yet another dysfunctional relationship scares the pants off me. I absolutely do not want another relationship like that. And in a more general way I'm scared that I'll just find myself back in another monogamous, vanilla, dull relationship like all the others I've had. I've spend my entire adult life hiding what actually interests me because I was afraid (... of everything...). Sometimes I feel like I'll go nuts if I can't start exploring all of that side of myself, right this moment. I want to find people with whom I feel safe sharing the real me and who will understand and I want them now damn it.

But I'm not ready right now... the ongoing mental arguments with the ex are proof of that, although they're easing. I want all this and I want to be ready for it now, and it's incredibly frustrating that I'm not.

And there's no solution but time. I'm doing everything else I can, I just have to wait. Meh.

Doing What You Know

When it was over, there was relief. Not just because the drama had stopped, but because I knew what to do next.

I know how to grieve.

I know the steps, I know the feelings, I know the score (literally, I still have all my GPYP playlists). I looked down the tunnel of that process with a feeling of familiarity and comfort, and the knowledge that I knew how to handle it.

Grieving the breakup was the easy part. The hard part was making the break in the first place.

And I've realised that there's a pattern there. In four of my last five relationships I hung on for months after I knew it wasn't going to work out. In each case, it took a single defining moment to call it quits. In this case, it was a moment where I was no longer angry but just utterly fed up and tired, and so was he. Before that - and before the defining moments in the other relationships - I just couldn't bring myself to step up and break it off. And I don't know why.

After all I've learned, why do I still commit completely to things before I know if they're viable, and then cling so tenaciously when it turns out that they're not?

I wasn't looking for a relationship when I came over here ... in fact I was intending to be a free spirit and perhaps have a few casual partners, much like my life in the last couple of months before I left Perth. And yet I dived back into an absolutely classic dysfunctional Christine relationship the moment one became available.

I've learned better and I was looking for something else, and yet I still grabbed it when it came along.

Clearly I still have a lot of work to do.

And sometimes things end.

It's bewildering that one can live, ignoring the bad stuff and highlighting the good stuff, while the fun dwindles and the fights increase, until one day, with barely a sputtering spark, the whole thing is just over and done with.

It's odd that once it's out there in black and white, the pressure is off and respect can return.

It's amazing that you can cry, grief rising up from the bottom of your heart, while feeling relief so intense it's almost joy.

It's strange that you can miss someone when they're right there next to you.

It's breathtaking to find out how many friends you have and how much they care.

It's marvellous to feel free and alive again.

It's surreal to learn that hugs are inside you.

It's a blessing to know oneself.

Here's to adventure.

Abandonment

When you’re wrapped up in a lifelong depressive dysfunctional mess, it’s very hard to focus on any particular problem. There’s so much swirling crazy noise that you can’t hear yourself think.

As you work through grief and start to heal, some of the noise subsides, and you can hear other parts of it more clearly.

Lately, I've found that the noise of inadequacy and inferiority has settled to a low hum, allowing me to hear less pressing issues more clearly. And the one that’s shouting the loudest is abandonment.

I’ve been reluctant to call anything in my life experience “abandonment” until now – that good old feeling of inferiority tells me that my problems are not bad enough to warrant attention – but the fact is that my reactions scream “abandonment issues”, so regardless of whether I deserve them, I've got them.

I don’t know exactly what in my past has caused me to freak out when I think someone is physically or emotionally deserting me. There are some strong candidates: my mother going back to work when I was 4; mother’s decision to leave the marriage when I was 13; my father’s crazy-cakes behaviour with his first post-marriage girlfriend the same year; my whole family’s tendency to emotionally ‘check out’ and withdraw love during conflict. I suspect it’s all of these things together.

The only time I remember having an abandonment-specific reaction is during my father’s tumultuous relationship, when he did literally abandon my brother and I by disappearing to go and see the girlfriend in the middle of the night, and ultimately by handing custody of us over to my mother because he couldn’t cope with both the girlfriend and us. That abandonment stung, and I still get upset thinking of one night when I had the ‘flu and woke up vomiting and alone because my father had gone off again. However, although that had a powerful effect on me, the way I react to perceived abandonment now bears more resemblance to how I react to my mother’s withdrawal tactics during arguments.

The way I want to react to perceived abandonment is pretty flaily and crazy-making. If I feel like someone has pulled away from me, or is shutting me out, or has gone non-responsive, I feel panicky. I want to get their attention and reassurance as fast as possible. I want to talk to them, message them, email them, hound them to get reassurance that they’re not abandoning me. If it goes on too long I start to get angry… I want to provoke them, annoy them, get them to argue with me: anything to get them to notice me. If it becomes too emotionally charged I start to want to do dramatic things. I have never self-harmed but I’ve fantasized about it, or wished I could be severely injured or sick so that people would “be sorry”. These thoughts were rife in my teenage years (I think that’s not uncommon) but I still occasionally find them cropping up when I feel abandoned.

As you can see, the whole thing is a pretty crazy reaction that can lead to a sharp downwards spiral.

I’ve become very conscious and critical of these abandonment reactions lately. I don’t want to be someone who drives friends and loved ones crazy with constant pestering for reassurance. I know I’ve pestered people in the past. I also know that some people (probably unconsciously) have used my need for reassurance to deliberately keep me off-balance or to ‘punish’ me. Both of those are good reasons to get the reactions sorted out.

I can control the reaction – several times lately I’ve had to sit on my hands and not flail to deal with a person’s apparent (or in a couple of cases, actual) withdrawal. I’m proud that I haven’t gone off the deep end on any of these occasions, and have only outwardly reacted by mentioning one or two of these events on this blog. But inside – there’s a weepy, flaily abandonment-fearing crazyperson wanting to get out. There have been tears when no one is looking, and a lot of hand-sitting and attempts at self-soothing to stop myself from going nuts.

That’s what I’d like to try to do next – get those internal reactions under control. To feel okay about people pulling away, and accept the comings and goings (whether actual or imagined) calmly without feeling like my world will fall apart if I can’t get a person to acknowledge me right away. I’m not quite sure where to start, but it’s something I’ll be doing a lot of thinking about over the next few weeks.

Hmm

In the blog post about bisexuality I revealed something I'd kept secret for a long time: my former attraction to my former best-friend-since-high-school. I noticed today that the girl in question has de-friended me on facebook sometime in the past week or so - I can't quite remember the last time I saw a post of hers, but it wouldn't have been very long ago.

I didn't mention her by name, but if she'd read my blog post she would have been able to identify herself. I was operating on the assumption that she wouldn't read it, because she's gone out of her way to demonstrate how much she doesn't give a damn about me (this has been her attitude for many years, even before our friendship officially blew up). But perhaps she is reading, and did see, and that's why she de-friended me. *shrug*

I'm trying hard not to care. It is triggering my abandonment issues like crazy, and there's some unresolved grief there too, both for the friendship and for the unrequited attraction. I spent years and years hanging around, hoping she would be as into the friendship as I was, not daring even for a minute to admit that what I felt for her was more than friendship. She was often a lousy friend and sometimes treated me as badly as many of my boyfriends, and it hurt all the more because I secretly loved her. A pretty dysfunctional fourteen-year mess!

So I'm a bit hurt and a bit sad, but grateful for the loving people I have around me, and glad that I'm confident and happy enough that I can work through the loss and let everything about that friendship go. My life is here and now, and it's wonderful... and she is not in it. There it ends.

Lost and Found

Sometimes life whomps you so hard and so unexpectedly that there's nothing you can do but sit back and wait for it to stop. You can't rationalise or plan or do anything really except let the feelings come and go and accept them as they pass.

The past 11 days have been like that for me.

Tuesday of the week before last, I went to a Bi Underground meeting in a north London pub. It was just a social thing, and I was hoping to meet other fun, geeky, open-minded people to hang out with. Nothing too challenging.

After about half an hour, a guy walked in (henceforth, SK). My eyes met his.

WHOMP.


We've now been 'officially' together for a little over a week, and it is amazing. We are on the same page and in sync in so many ways that it's just scary and bizarre that we met in such a random way. This one is really, really, really good. For 5 days I was completely delirious with excitement.

WHOMP.


On Thursday my favourite London school offered me, via my recruitment company, a 6-week supply posting covering a teacher that's been called up for jury duty. She'll be out until the end of the school year, securing my income until the summer holidays, which is a fantastic relief.

WHOMP.

On Sunday night I had trouble sleeping, and on Monday on my way to work, my mobile phone rang. It was my brother in Perth, and right away I knew what it must be. My beloved grandfather Paul had passed away peacefully mid-afternoon Perth time. He had dementia and repeated lung infections and was in a nursing home, and we knew he could go at any time. I knew I wouldn't be home for it when I left, but that's no consolation now.

WHOMP.

One of my aunts did offer to pay for me to go back to Perth for the funeral, but not only would I lose income, I'd also lose this extended posting at the school, and probably wipe out any chance of a year-long job with them after the holidays. It wouldn't be worth it to go home. But I feel such a terribly long way away from my family. Mum is missing me dreadfully (even though she told me not to come back for the funeral, she wishes I was there) and I just want to hug my family and be near them right now.

I miss my grandfather so much. It was time and more for him to go, but now I will never, ever hear his voice again. It's taken me a few days to come to grips with the sadness - through the week I've been putting on a brave face and coping as well as I can, but as the surreal feeling fades and the reality takes hold, I'm falling down inside.

Dickens had it right - it was the best of times and the worst of times. I can't balance up the amazingness of finding SK and the relief of this teaching position and the grief of losing Paul. It won't all fit in my head.

I feel whomped.

So I'm drifting and waiting for it all to make sense again.

Torn in Half

This evening I went to the Newcomer's Feast, which will probably be my last SCA event in Aneala (aka Western Australia). I leave in 8 weeks and although there's a couple of events between now and then, I either can't go or they're not major ones.

I had a wonderful time, but after court was closed I got a heavy, sad feeling and although I would normally stay to help clean up, I realised that bailing before bawling is usually the best option. The tears started on the way to the car and lasted most of the way home. I'm feeling a little better now that I'm home and out of my very warm bliaut and showered and in comfy clothes, but I can feel that the tears are still lurking. One of the GPYP tenets is to give sorrow words, so this is me, wording my sorrow.

I have made a whole lot of wonderful friends in the SCA here in Perth. I love the way they play the game, and although I'm still a newcomer and still feel on the outre at times, there are some people with whom I've developed great bonds and friendships, and whom I will miss dreadfully when I leave.

I know I need to go and I would regret turning away and never having the wonderful experiences that are waiting over the horizon in the UK. I need to do this, and yet part of me thinks I'm incredibly stupid to be taking my life apart. Bits of it didn't work at all, but other bits work very well and I feel awful leaving them behind.

I want to be in two places at once, and I can't, and right now I feel like it's tearing me into two pieces.

I also feel lonely at the moment. I watch and admire and adore the couples in good, healthy relationships - I can see pretty clearly which ones are and aren't, these days - and I want that. I know I'm supposed to be building my life and being whole and happy by myself, but sometimes I just want someone else to share things with. I know it will come in time, and I should enjoy the moment, but I right now I'm just impatient. I want real love, and I want it now, damn it.

I'm sure tomorrow I'll get up and go on, but tonight my spirit is sore.

Months and Meltdowns

Yesterday at work I had a completely unexpected teary meltdown. I was thinking about the things I still have to do before I leave, and one of the biggest of those is re-homing my lovely cat, Jemima. One minute I was making a calm plan for this in my head, the next minute my eyes were full of tears that just wouldn't stop coming. I managed to keep it to the 'seeping eyes, possibly hayfever' level for a couple of hours (with a brief interlude of sobbing in the ladies') before someone got suspicious and asked what was wrong, at which point I completely lost it for a couple of minutes. Thankfully work was quiet and I was able to blot and sniff and breathe deeply lot and regain my composure.

I realised later that I'm almost certainly premenstrual and thus hormonal, and that's probably why a sad necessity that I have accepted for months suddenly turned me into a blubbering mess. I took a vitamin B tablet as soon as I got home yesterday, and I'll take another one in a minute, and hopefully that'll keep me from being too drippy. I'm still getting used to having a monthly cycle after so long!

I'm still feeling quite torn up about Jemima. I can't take her to the UK (it would be prohibitively expensive, and also bitterly unfair when she hates travelling, and would also completely destroy the freedom of movement I need to make this UK experience everything I want it to be ... it just wouldn't work). And staying here in Australia and never having any of those wonderful experiences, for the sake of a cat who can't possibly understand the sacrifice, is absurd. I am certain I will find a loving home for her amongst my many friends and acquaintances. Someone will take her and love her and look after her, and send me pictures occasionally. But that knowledge doesn't stop me from feeling terribly sad about it. Jem has been one of the only constants in my life since I got her 3.5 years ago, and for significant portions of time, my household has consisted solely of myself and Jemmy. I will miss her SO much.

Hugs and chocolates please? Well, maybe not chocolates, but hugs would be welcome :)

Sad

Mum phoned me this morning in tears to say that the family cat, Mia, who has had cancer for a couple of years, finally needed to be put down. She'd become very weak and was shaking a lot, breathing strangely and not moving around much. They've waited because she wasn't in pain even though her left ear and eye had gone funny, but it was time.

I raced up the hill and gave Mia a cuddle before my stepdad took her to the vet. She was still aware and greeted me and purred when I stroked her, but she was also clearly very unwell. I stayed with Mum for an hour, chatting to her and 13yo sis and comforting each other. It wasn't until I left that I suddenly started bawling my eyes out, and on the way up to the highway I passed my stepfather returning from the vet where Mia was put down, which *really* set me off. Soon I found I was crying my heart out, not just for Mia, but for Phyllida too even though I thought I'd cried myself out over her before; and for my maternal grandfather, who is having regular mini-strokes and getting more fragile by the week, and probably won't see out the year. I had to go to a particular shop half an hour away and I cried nearly all the way there, and I'm still on the verge of tears now even though it's hours later and I've been racing around doing errands and things. I just feel hurt all through.

My housemate is away all weekend so I'm alone. I have friends who will drop everything to look after me or will include me in their plans, but I think maybe I do need to be alone. Grieving has to be done, it can't just be ignored. I obviously have some things about Phyllida and my grandfather that need to be processed and have been kick-started by losing Mia, and I need to address them. It's time to write some not-to-be-sent letters again.

I picked up my ring today :)

It's so pretty and sparkly! Simple and subtle but lovely. I'm very happy with it and glad that I bought it.

I've had a few off days this week - I've been working through some grief issues that resurfaced around reminders of Aspergers and relationship issues. Nothing too dramatic but it cost me half a night's sleep on Sunday night. I'm still a bit mind-numbed from that bad night.

I finally managed to get my Murdoch password issues sorted today, and I'm officially enrolled in two units! *squee* I'm taking Introduction to Creative Arts and Introduction to Computer Science this semester. I'm expecting the latter to be a breeze (first-year level arts unit? Psh!) but the CS unit will be a huge challenge. I'm looking forward to it though! I just hope my computer stands up to the software lol.

School is going fine, and yesterday the ICT teacher (who is a guy in his 40s or 50s) told me that he was really impressed by how I handle the kids at the swimming pool when we take them to their swimming lessons. I was really touched, because the compliment was given in private and he has nothing to gain by 'cultivating' me so it was a genuine compliment that he went to the effort to pay. It means a lot, especially given how many bitchy and negative people have participated in my development as a teacher so far! The kids are very frustrating at the moment - the swimming lessons wear them out and the heat is getting to them, so they're ratty and bratty and whingy. The boys also all seem to be going through a stage where they want to be able to dish out insults and so on as 'joking around', but can't take it in their turn, so we're constantly having kids complaining that someone else called them a name, right after we've heard them call the other child a name first! It's driving my co-teacher and I up the wall.

Very tired today, early night for me!

Shellshocked

134 confirmed deaths, with the toll expected to go over 200.

More than 700 houses destroyed.

More than 7000 people homeless.

Heaven knows how many injured in hospital.

You'd think I was talking about a border spat between Middle Eastern countries, wouldn't you? I'm not. This is happening right here in Australia, and the attacker is mother nature. Australia's worst recorded bushfire disaster.

Entire towns have been declared crime scenes, and if they catch the bastard arsonists they're going to try them with mass murder. Good.

I think I've made a mistake watching footage of it for the last two ours, I've had tears in my eyes the whole time. It's just unbelievable. This may be Australia's worst ever (recorded) natural or man-made disaster with the exception of those that occurred in wartime. It's worse than the previous two 'worst' fire events, worse than Cyclone Tracy, worse than the Bali bombings. If the death toll goes as high as some think it might, it could even be worse than the Japanese bombing of Darwin in WWII. It's so horrible.

I'm scared, too. Perth is entering a heatwave for the next week. Logically this heatwave is no more dangerous than any other, and we've weathered worse. We've had our own share of casualties too - nothing close to this in recent years, but there've been bad ones. This heatwave is just another dangerous Perth fire weather week. But what if there's copycats who have seen what's going on in Victoria and purposely light fires to try to emulate it? People who wouldn't otherwise? A good portion of the people I love most live in the Perth hills, one of the most dangerous fire areas in the Perth region. I WORK in a school in the hills which could easily be obliterated if a fire came through. I'm scared.

The school is having a fire drill tomorrow, and I'm just glad the principal warned the staff in advance that it was happening. I'm usually level-headed in a crisis but that might have been too much for me! I hope the kids get through it untraumatised. The fires are very much on their minds - lots of drawings of the Victorian bushfires in free time today - and they need to know how to act in a fire situation. And they have to believe it's a real threat or they won't know how to react when they're afraid and likely to panic. But I hate doing it to them. I hate the whole thing.

Love and Tears

Mum just forwarded to me an email from my aunt, who is currently living in England and was able to go to Phyllida's funeral. From her description it was an absolutely gorgeous service and very satisfying and joyous as well as sad.

I'm bawling my eyes out, but I'm glad too. How strange is that?

UK readers, a request?

My mother's cousin Phyllida is being buried in London today, and I'm finding it really upsetting that I can't find anything about it on the internet anywhere. Everything is on the internet, why isn't there a funeral notice or obituary or SOMETHING I can access?

So if you're reading this from the UK, I have a request - it would be wonderful if you could look in your newspaper and see if there's anything about her that you could scan in and email to me. I don't know why it's so important to me, but it is, somehow, and I would deeply appreciate any help.

Of course, you'll need to know her surname (well, probably . . . there may not be many Phyllidas anyway!), so if you're from the UK and willing to help, email me at Chrisell1980@gmail.com and I'll send you the particulars.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Christmas Sorrow

Mum's first cousin, Phyllida, passed away from leukaemia overnight Perth time, so Christmas afternoon / evening in London where Phyllida and her family live. She'd been sick for 18 months and had several setbacks recently (of the organ failure variety), and we'd been told a few days ago that there was no hope and little time. Phyllida was the same age as Mum (52) and completely healthy before the leukaemia struck. She was Mum's closest cousin and beloved by the whole family connection because she was just a nice, nice, nice person. She had a husband and a 17-year-old son who must be going through an unimaginable Christmas period dealing with this. I had only met Phyllida a couple of times, and while I liked her a lot I wasn't close to her, so I'm just quietly grieving, as much for the grief my closer relatives are feeling than for my own grief. Mum and my grandparents are devastated, as is a first cousin who lived in London for some time and knew Phyllida well, and other aunts, uncles and cousins who have visited her in London.

Keeping them all in your thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Christmas post in a few days when this has all sunk in.

Trying to keep trying

I'm not feeling good today. I'm getting over this bug, mostly, but I still feel sort of off-colour and drained.

When I get stressed I recycle a lot of anger at the world - non-specific, undirected anger that stems from the problems and challenges of my childhood. I'm feeling a lot of pressure and anxiety at the moment with reports coming up and the financial pressures of Christmas requiring a juggling act. I'm also experiencing a lot of loneliness and dissatisfaction with being single. I know I need to make peace with that, build my own life etc but right now I'm in an I-just-don't-care-I-want-a-family state. I don't know how to deal with myself when I'm like that! I know part of it is just the virus-imposed weepiness masquerading as cluckiness, and of course parts of me are going to be reacting to the fact that so, so many of my friends are pregnant (including the announcements by two of my close friends from primary school *sigh*).

Some of the feelings are real and some are just reactions, and I do know that I need to work through the issues that make me feel that way. I need to let go of the anger at past events, and let go of the negativity that I attach to being different, stop comparing myself and just let my life be what it is, when it is. I need to put aside the frustration and just enjoy what I've got, but it's hard, and I'll admit that a part of me is resisting. The misery and depression are oh-so-familiar, and soothing in their own way. Living healthily and positively involves giving up the security blanket of depression and self-deprecation, and that's scary.

So I'm trying to just keep on trying, keep on wanting to get healthy, and not fall into my old ways. I'm trying to find some behaviour to replace sitting on the couch crying over the things I want and don't have, which doesn't involve spending a lot of money. Hmm.

Working it Out

Part of GPYP's programme of getting mentally healthy is to grieve for and let go of all of your unfinished business by following letting go rituals (the old 'write a letter and burn it' thing). My unfinished business is about three key issues, but dozens of people. So writing letters to all of them isn't really a functional way of dealing with this. Instead I've started a file on my computer titled "I Should Have Told You.doc". One of the three issues is the fact that I was the 'coper' in my family, the one who kept quiet about her needs as much as possible because others were clearly more important and their needs more significant. So, as they come to mind, I am writing down every significant thing that I should have told the people who helped build and reinforce my feelings of insignificance and inadequacy, either inadvertently or deliberately.

The first is, of course, about S, because I can get that over with quickly. I should have told him that his controlling behaviour was totally unacceptable - even if it meant that he broke up with me. I'm sure there'll be others about him and my other exes that will come out. But I'm just writing down whatever comes into my head. Family, friends, ex-friends, exes, anyone.

I'm going to do this for a couple of months until I feel that I've got in there all of those needs or defiances I never uttered. Then I'll print it out (probably in a significantly fancy font on heavy paper) and burn it. Not quite sure how I'm going to burn it in summer when there's a total fire ban, but still. I'll find a way, or wait until next winter! But those things are going to be gone. I'm going to say them, then burn them, and move on.

Changing Hurts.

Growing pains of the soul and mind are no less painful than those of the body.

At the moment I'm digging deep into my childhood, doing the work I need to do to understand why I get pulled into negative relationships time and time again. Part of the answer is the straightforward issue of being an Aspie growing up in a neurotypical word which has given me a desperate need to belong, to be normal, to be seen as fitting in. Sticking with bananaheads because being in a grown-up relationship made me one of the "real people" is part of my problem.

But the more painful issue is one of sibling dynamics. Throughout my childhood, my brother was the one who acted up and acted out. Not that he had no reason - diagnosed with ADHD and undiagnosed with Aspergers, he didn't exactly have it easy. But his problems were so visible. He got into trouble, he had manic episodes, he broke windows, he had to change schools so many times because the staff were running out of patience with his issues. Not all the time - not every day - but he was certainly a high-maintenance child.

I was the opposite. I never acted out, and when my problems did bubble to the surface, they came in the form of hysterics and inconsolable tears. I was a withdrawn, introverted child, the polar opposite of my brother. My problems were no less severe - diagnosed ADD and undiagnosed Aspergers - but I was no trouble. My brother received the lion's share of everyone's attention, because he had to. He needed it, for sure. But I needed it too . . . and never got it. That is the great unmet need of my childhood - for someone to look past the fact that my brother was loud and I was quiet, and realise that I needed help too.

Time and time again, when my brother worked himself up into a state and started acting out, my parents would rescue him - new school, new counsellor, new hobby etc. For years and years and years I waited for my parents to rescue me too. I just knew that sooner or later they would realise just how much pain I was in, how much I was struggling at school, and pull me out, find me a school that would work for me. It never happened . . . because they never knew. And I never asked for help. How could I ask, when my brother so clearly needed their attention more than I?

One effect of this dynamic is relatively easy to deal with: I need to learn to acknowledge my own needs, recognise them as valid, and be prepared to stand up for them. Another effect . . . not so easy. I have to ask myself: do I get into these relationships where I am still suffering and still living out that silently-going-crazy coping role because I am still waiting to be rescued? Is the part of me that puts up with these relationships that same little girl who waited all those years for someone to notice the pain? Am I unable to say no to crazy-making situations because it's my way of giving the universe / my peers / my parents / others one last chance to do what I needed them to do all those years ago?

I have to put that pain to bed forever before I can let someone into my life. I need to make peace with the fact that child-Christine and teen-Christine are never going to be rescued. I have to learn to live with how it was, not how it should have been.

I haven't the faintest idea where to start, but I'll get there somehow.

I'm watching "The Holiday" this evening and want to share this quote:

Iris: "I wanted to get away from one guy, an ex-boyfriend who just got engaged and forgot to tell me."
Arthur: "So, he’s a schmuck."
Iris: "As a matter of fact he is a huge schmuck . . . how did you know?"
Arthur: "He let you go. This is not a hard one to figure out."

EXACTLY.

Setting it Straight

I have mentioned before the wonderful blog Getting Past Your Past, an incredibly empowering resource for people who are grieving over their break-up and are ready to question why it went wrong and what they can do to end up in a good relationship next time. The site advocates using a tool called the "Relationship Inventory" to take stock of what went wrong and right in your last relationship, and what that meant in terms of your own satisfaction. Some of the questions are hard to answer, because they ask you to question your own beliefs and understandings. But when you finish, it feels good. Oh, so good.

These are some of the things I’ve discovered so far.

1. S was controlling, manipulative, jealous, passive-aggressive, inflexible and enormously self-centred.

2. I ignored S’s behaviour because I was busy being the ‘good’ girlfriend and enabling S’s behaviour because giving in to him meant that I was not being a brat.

3. This was an issue for me because I have struggled against a tendency to a volatile temper. I had formerly adopted crazy-making habits and was determined to defeat them, to the point where I failed to maintain basic standards about how I could be treated.

4. I also ignored S’s increasingly crazy-making behaviour because I did not have the self-confidence to admit that I could see that it was going wrong.

5. This was a self-confidence issue for me because I felt that being in a proper adult relationship was a validation of my own status as a genuine adult, meant that I was ‘keeping up’ with my partnered friends and cousins. These are two issues I have struggled with. By backing out of the relationship I would be going back to the ‘single and failing at life’ tag I’d ascribed to myself.

6. I have self-esteem issues for a number of reasons going right back to the first few years of school. One is the simple fact that having an Aspergers brain means that I have felt different, substandard and confused for much of my life. Another is my role of silent child / ‘the one who copes’ in my family structure. The latter has resulted in my aversion towards asking for help and a habit of belittling my own needs because, as a child, my needs were never as great as those of my brother. I have also developed the habit of belittling my achievements, because what I achieved in spite of my minor needs were never as impressive as what others (ie my brother) achieved in the face of his greater needs. This is a false perception, and a belief not shared by other people, who see my achievements independently to others’ and are really very proud of me.

7. In most of my relationships, I have repeated the pattern of accepting what I should not accept, because I lacked the self-confidence to draw the line at the risk of losing the relationship. In these situations I was clinging to the validation that being in any relationship provided, and doubted my own ability to distinguish between acceptable friction and unacceptable behaviour. I broke up with B because of his denigrating behaviour, then reneged and had to find it out again in the repeat relationship. I took it from E until my walk-over-ness drove him away. I caught it in time with N. With C, I allowed actual abuse to drag on for a year before finally refusing to accept it any longer, precipitating the breakup. D drove himself away by buying into his own crazy-making manipulation, but I had realised that the relationship was going to end because of it. With S, I pretended that I could accept and deal with the treatment I was receiving, and although I still have no idea exactly what precipitated the breakup on S’s part, the way he was treating me was appalling and I should not have been allowing it.

8. The key for me to have successful relationships in the future is to develop an unassailable feeling of self-worth, and to be absolutely clear with myself about what I will and will not accept from others. To do this I will need to unpack every layer of my self-doubt, address every false perception, reject every unwarranted label, and replace the falsehoods with positive truths that will support my belief that I deserve only the best treatment from only the best people. Then, and only then, will I be ready for another relationship.



So there it is. I have a LOT of work ahead of me. I don’t know how long it will take, and for some parts I don’t even know how I will achieve it. But I’m going to get there. No more crazy-making, no more doubt. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.