A breakfast that works?!

Breakfast and I have a long history, a love-hate relationship dating back to when I was about 14 or 15.

My parents, naturally, recognised the value of breakfast, and eating it was never optional in our house. We always had Vita Brits or Weetbix in the cupboard, and various other cereals came and went over the years. We were never allowed the really sugary ones (we managed to get Coco Pops as a treat from time to time, but my parents drew a line and Froot Loops were on the other side of it!) but we had our favourites amongst the permitted cereals and always ate something before going to school.

When I was in about Year 10, my body revolted against breakfast. I suspect that the stress of an extremely unhappy school experience and fairly tense home life had a lot to do with this, but either way, breakfast became nearly impossible. Cereals in particular would have me doubled over with painful cramps halfway through my first class. Toast or bread wasn't much better. After a while, just the thought of eating them in the morning would make me feel queasy.

Over the years, with other factors such as hypoglycaemia and weight loss drives thrown into the mix, I've never really sorted out the breakfast issue. Skipping breakfast out of sheer frustration, I would eat something sugary to keep me going at morning tea, and overeat at lunchtime. Not a good way to carry on.

So imagine my astonishment when, for the last 6 days, I've eaten the same lovely breakfast without a single cramp or roiling stomach or urge to gag while swallowing. Who knew . . . the solution was smoothies!

The smoothie I've had every day this week contains:
200mL milk
1 small banana
1 free range egg
1/4 cup (62.5mL) natural organic yoghurt
1/4 cup puffed amaranth cereal
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon

It's got everything - dairy, fruit, protein, long-term carbs. It tastes nice but it's plain enough not to be overwhelming in the morning. I can make it just before leaving for work, pour it into a travel thermos, and drink it on the way to work and while I'm preparing for school in the morning. I can even keep drinking it after the kids come in if I haven't finished. Spreading it out over an hour or so in small sips might be part of the reason my stomach accepts it - and I can't do that with solid food lol.

I'm enormously pleased with this solution to the problem!

Also, if you want a really lovely way to cook chicken breast fillets: cut them into quarters, top them with an organic nut butter (I used 'ABC Spread' - almond, brazil & cashew nuts) and bake them on 230 C for about an hour and a half. I baked pumpkin and sweet potato pieces alongside them (topped with a salt, garlic & herb sprinkle) and had them with steamed silverbeet and an onion white sauce (cut onion into fine rings, sauté in a dollop of butter and some liquid chicken stock, when golden add milk in which cornflour has been dissolved, bring to the boil and stir briskly until thickened). I have the leftovers for dinner tonight . . . yum!!!

Currently I'm cooking almost double quantities each night and having the smaller second servings for lunch the next day. Works well, but it means I can only use nuts on a day when I won't be lunching at school as we're nut-free there. This seems to be working pretty well and it's helping me get in my full quotient of veggies, as I'm eating the same kind of veg/meat/carbs balance at both meals.

Now I just need to wean myself off McVities Dark Chocolate Coated Digestives, which while delightfully natural and reasonably healthy, are still not a large part of a balanced diet ;D

Q: Why are teachers cross-eyed?

A: Because they can't control their pupils.

I love teaching eleven-year-olds ;)

My camping holiday was wonderful and I'll try to post some photos soon if I can choose a handful of the 109 that were worthy of going in the Facebook album!

I'm feeling really, really good at the moment. I'm experiencing a kind of self-confidence I've never felt before. It's very strange and highly satisfying.

While I was on my camping trip I spent hours and hours working through the exercises in the book version of Choosing Me Before We by Christine Arylo, which I'd ordered a month or so ago and hadn't got into yet. It is an excellent book, and has become the next logical step in my mental health and relationship robustness programme that began with reading and working through Susan Elliott's wonderful Getting Past Your Breakup.

One of the sections of questions in the book asked the reader to identify people they had seen demonstrating self-love, and their family and friends' attitudes towards self-love. What I discovered was that I could not think of a single truly self-loving role model from my childhood, teens, or 20s up until last year (when I discovered Susan Elliott!). I also discovered that people did not talk about self-love in my family or peer groups. My instinct was that if someone talked about self-love at school they would have been branded as a narcissist (in suitably vulgar teen lingo, "up themselves") or ridiculed with obscenely biological innuendoes (self "love" ... I hope I don't need to spell it out!). There is a huge resistance in our society to recognising that people need to put themselves first and value themselves most in order to give of themselves to others. We go on about self-esteem and self-confidence as if they are the the be-all and end-all of self-care, but never talk about the fact that truly loving yourself is where both esteem and confidence begin.

Something in all of the exercises and questions in Choosing Me Before We has flipped a switch for me. I've lived with self-loathing and a negative self-image most of my life, and it's gone. It's so weird. I don't really understand how it's happened. But I'm not arguing!

And so I can, and will, say publicly with confidence:

I love myself. I love who I am. I love myself despite and including all of my flaws and foibles. There are things about myself that I find unsatisfying and want to change, but they are only at the level of like and dislike. My LOVE for myself is unconditional.

When you have that self-love it becomes incredibly easy to do things that are self-loving, good for you and true to your nature.

For a long time I've wanted to be more eco-conscious and organic in my eating and cleaning habits, moving towards wholly organic meals and so on. But I've held back because I didn't believe in myself enough to put my foot down and say that this is how I want to eat and how I want to be. I was letting my lack of self-love dictate actions that went against my true nature. No more. And I'm doing it. My diet is healthier and free of most nasty additives. I'm looking for safe alternatives to harsh chemicals in my home. I'm not even tempted to turn to unhealthy foods for comfort because I don't need them and I know they go against my true nature.

It feels so good.

I'm actively job-searching this term, trying to get a position at a larger and more stable private school. I can say with confidence now that my talents are wasted at my current school, where the parents began the year determined not to give me a fair go because I was a replacement for a teacher they'd (for some reason) adored, appointed by a principal they didn't trust. It is a foul waste of my energy to have to work in a school where a negative parent culture is entrenched and to an extent encouraged by some of the longer-standing staff. I am supposed to spend my time creating outstanding learning experiences for my students, not burning up my creative energy trying to jump through flaming hoops set up by people who WANT me to fall and burn as I pass through them. Ugh. The school is nice and the kids are fine, and I like the Montessori system, but there are MANY schools out there that do not have this hateful parent culture of backstabbing, rumour and melodrama. I want one. I deserve one. I'll get one.

The other big news is that I'm hoping to start building a house this time next year! I've looked at my finances and if I get a job just about anywhere other than here, my pay will jump by around $10,000 PA. That's enough to get my debts pretty much cleared out and put me in a position to get a home loan. I'd have to take on a housemate at first to help with the repayments - not a necessity but to make sure I didn't end up in a mess - but that's fine. I would build with that in mind - I've seen a neat design that allows for a quite separate few rooms at the back that would be perfect for a tenant. I'd have to build in suburbia but it would be a start, a step on the road to my eco-friendly Hills house :)

That's a general update. Photos soon!

Holidays!

Term ended on Friday, and a couple of hours after school finished I was busy setting up my tent for a weekend of medieval fun with the SCA. I had a fantastic time, made a heap of new friends, and felt great about myself the whole time I was there. It was fun, relaxed, gentle time with a collection of sweet, healthy people. I had a ball and I rather suspect I'm hooked for life on this SCA thing. I even met another Anglican girl with the exact same attitude to religion that I have. Ha, there ARE more of us! She was as relieved as I was lol. I got lots of embroidery done (and had my techniques admired!!), sang lots of silly songs, went to bed tired out and slept soundly. Apart from the night when my air bed died, but that's all part of the fun ;)



So, it's the holidays. My main goal for these holidays is to get myself 100% physically and mentally healthy ready for term 4. I want to go back feeling strong and successful not stressed out and weak! Lots of walking, healthy food only, solitude and quiet, and good self-help books is the plan.

My skin has been really, really bad lately - pimples all over as if I was sixteen again. I think this is mainly because of stress, but it's also likely not helped by the fact that I eat badly when I'm stressed. Not necessarily all high fat, high sugar foods, but just trashy convenience foods. I've been eating a lot of over-processed rubbish full of preservatives and additives of all sorts. That's not the kind of diet I want to have, so I've decided to shift directly to an organic eating plan. As few foods with artificial additives as possible (none if I can help it) and as few packaged foods as possible. Trying to make everything from scratch from fresh ingredients, and so on. I've got a great example in the slow-cooker at the moment - chicken and vegetable stew made from fresh chicken, fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, chicken stock (the natural liquid kind!) and water. I've also decided to start shifting to natural hygiene products. I've bought entirely plant-based shampoo, conditioner and body wash. This is leaping a little ahead of my original long-term going organic plan (which started with cleaning products earlier this year) but I'm hoping it'll help my skin to settle down.

I'm going camping next week in WA's picturesque south-west and hope to have a photosplurge on the blog afterwards!

Grr

Two vivid dreams about babies two nights running.

I am SO not interested in playing that game with my subconscious right now.

What’s the Worst Best That Could Happen?

A psychological technique my last counsellor taught me is to drive fears as far as they can go, until they become ridiculously overblown and you can laugh at them. The absolute worst that can happen is often so absurd that there's no sense thinking about it. I’ve made a habit of this to the point where I very rarely get caught up fretting about what might happen any more. I’ve got that tendency under control. I know that no matter what happens I’ll probably be okay.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about standards. I compromised my standards to be with MD because I was enjoying other aspects of the relationship. That didn’t end well! I have read and believed plenty of times that one will never be happy in a relationship unless one’s standards aren’t being compromised, but I don’t think I really KNEW it until things with MD went pear-shaped.

My standards are not all that exacting. Obviously, anyone who is a bananahead does not meet my standards! Unfortunately MD was a stealth bananahead. But for people who aren’t bananaheads, there’s things that I need that people might just not have. At the core, these are the things in my life that a relationship must not alter or damage:
- My health (beyond bananahead things like no substance abuse & no idiot driving, they need to at least understand good eating & exercise)
- My faith (I need to be able to practice Christianity unashamed and unhindered)
- My location (I am building a life here in Perth and specifically in the hills, and will not move away for anything unless it’s a mutual decision!)
- My interests (they need to be ok with and even enthusiastic about the SCA and all the activities involved, the degree I’m doing, and my philanthropic goals, and so on)

Sometimes it feels like an impossible task to find someone who will enlarge and expand and enhance my life, not narrow and restrict and impede it.

So what happens if I never find someone who can do that? What if I never meet a guy who is a compatible non-bananahead?

I’m not going to sit around fretting about that, but I asked myself . . . what if that is a positive question? What CAN I do if I never find someone?

I’ll finish paying off my debts and start saving.
I’ll start travelling overseas.
I’ll buy a house and start building a real estate portfolio.
I’ll keep teaching and studying until I decide that I want a change.
I’ll start fostering and raise families of foster children.
I’ll buy that big bush block and build an eco-home and a self-sufficient veggie garden.
I’ll have pets and more foster kids and a wide range of friends and interests and I’ll lead a fun, fulfilling life.

Not so bad, actually.

Everything I’m reading about healing from bad relationships recommends taking the desperation out of dating, and recognising that a partner should complement your life, not complete it. I think I’m edging closer to really getting that. I can see from exercises like the above that I will be FINE if I never find someone. I’ll lead a happy and purposeful life on my own, and a life full of dreams that are not worth sacrificing for someone who is going to make my life a poorer, lesser thing.

Naturally, if I do find someone, those dreams will drift and alter a little because we’ll be forging new, combined dreams. But they will be dreams that are a whole made up of two parts, not a whole created by chopping parts off and casting them away.

It’s time to start living my life for me, and living the knowledge that my life is going to be wonderful whether it’s coupled or alone, because I choose to make it that way. If someone comes into my life to live their dreams alongside mine . . . great. If not, I will make my way regardless. Because I am me, and I am enough.

Cognitive Fail

Another thing my counsellor and I discussed on Friday was the fact that stress, anxiety and depression can play merry hell with the neural networks in one's brain. Instead of carrying electricity fluidly, they start to short out, and these shorts are the reason why one becomes vague, forgetful and confused during times of high anxiety and depression.

I've been noticing this of myself a lot recently. Words come out of my mouth mangled more often. I trip over my words. I lose the thread of my sentence or forget long words. I've 'lost' the names of some of the boys in the classes below and above mine, names I used to know. And I do bizarre things. Like last night: I was getting ready for bed and took my shirt and bra off, then grabbed my pyjama trousers instead of my top and tried to pull them over the slacks I was still wearing. I laughed until I cried at the time, and so did my housemate when I told her, but it's still a bit scary how disconnected my brain seems to be at the moment. I know it'll get better, but . . . wow.

I've been off the temazepam for two nights now. I'm back to waking up at about 4-5am and again at about 6am, but at least I'm waking up fairly calm and being able to go back to sleep quite quickly (provided that Jem doesn't notice that I'm awake, because if she does I have a purring meowing headbutting attention-seeker to deal with!). I'm not sleeping as well as before because I'm waking up VERY tired, as if I'd taken a whole antihistamine sleeping tablet before bed. I literally feel doped. It wears off by mid-morning and after that I feel pretty good, if very tired. I'm sure I'll get there in the end, my body just has to readjust.

There's only a week and a half left of school then two weeks' holidays, which I thoroughly need. I'm going away camping for the first weekend which will be nice. Hopefully I'll come back to Term 4 feeling refreshed.

In My Skin

On Friday my counsellor and I had a very interesting conversation. It started when she asked me to describe one way in which my Aspergers affects me as an adult. I mentioned often feeling gauche / socially inept, and she wanted an example. So I told her about something that happened at my weekend at the SCA. My cousin and I went to the two events together, and on the Saturday we discovered that her Saturday dress was made from the same material as my Sunday dress. When we got to the event we spotted another girl also wearing a dress of the same material. When I found myself next to that girl at the food table, I turned to her with a smile and told her that we had been laughing because of the number of dresses with the same material, which was no surprise really because it was such good material for costumes. She smiled back and that was that. But my cousin a minute later whispered to me in a wry-amused voice, "only you would point out and make light of such a social faux pas!". And I realised that she was right and felt awkward about it.

The counsellor said, "But why did her opinion matter more than yours?".
I blinked a few times, then said, "well, obviously I thought she was a bit silly for worrying about it, but I know most people would agree with her, not me."
Counsellor: "So?"
Me: ... ... ... *codfish impression*

God damn it, she's right.

Aspergers or not, people who are Different Like Me spend their whole lives feeling like they're marching to the beat of a different drum, out of sync, getting it wrong.

In our society the natural acquisition of social norms is characterised by the application of 'good' or 'bad' labels. Conforming behaviour is good, non-conforming behaviour is bad. Children internalise these labels, strive to stick to the 'good' and avoid the 'bad'. That'd be fine if people saved the 'bad' for things that are actually, you know, bad. But because our society insists on cultural conformity as well as behavioural conformity, that moral judgement is meted out whenever a child displays any behaviour - no matter how harmless - that falls outside the cultural norms. Some adults are stricter than others in their insistence on conformity, but even the most relaxed have a line past which they will tell the child that they are misbehaving or being an embarrassment.

And so we internalise the message. Non-conformity is BAD.

And for those of us who spend the first two decades of our lives just working out that there IS a code we were missing behind all this conformity stuff . . . we've spent two decades being told that our everything is embarrassing, unacceptable, bad.

Which, frankly, is bullshit.

Some social graces are required to ease the flow of society, yes. I'm not talking about abolishing please and thankyou here. But there is so much scope for people to be interesting and creative and wonderful and happy and free in ways that hurt no one, and yet attract those dreadful moral labels of "weird" or "embarrassing".

When I am in social situations, I often feel that I am "one step back from my eyes". I'm not living on the surface of my being, free to be myself and act and respond in ways that are genuine to my personality. Instead I'm lurking one step back, judging and assessing everything, making sure I'm not getting it wrong and cringing when I do. A lifetime of waiting for the next judgemental blow to fall has made this kind of mental camouflage necessary.

Occasionally I find that I have been living all the way out to the edges of my being. Sadly, all too often it's a comment like the one my cousin made that brings my attention to it, and I find myself one step back again, peering out through this body trying to make a connection with the world around me. But just once in a while I realise that I've spent a whole passage of time living all the way out to the edges and nothing bad has happened. I felt that way tonight when I left the SCA music practise. I realised that I'd spent the whole evening being 100% authentic uncensored me, and not once did I feel like I'd got it wrong.

I think that says a lot about the people I was with - they're good people, who recognise that weird is ok (if you're part of a society that re-enacts the medieval period I guess you kind of have to realise that). But I think there's also a seed of confidence inside me beginning to grow.

I want to learn to be like that - and feel that good - all the time. If I'm living all the way to the edges of my skin I may occasionally I may blurt out something gauche or get conversational reciprocity wrong or let on that my favourite interests are not mainstream. But . . . so what? If people get hung up about such minor deviations from the norm, that's their problem, not mine. And it's their loss, too.

I've internalised that message of essential badness far too well. The counsellor pointed out that in the example with my cousin, I had simply assumed that she was right and ignored the possibility that she could be wrong. I accepted her correction without casting a single critical thought over the situation or reflecting on whether my position might have some merit. I've become so used to being judged for my differences that I've actually lost the natural perspective that says "I might be right".

For someone who prides herself on critical thought, that's a bit of a devastating revelation.

I'm going to try to be mindful of this problem for the next few weeks. If I find myself one step back from my eyes, I'm going to work through my positive affirmations about being good and sufficient, and see whether I can make myself consciously step up to the outside. I want to get myself to the point where I am constantly and deliberately me, instead of achieving it only in heady moments of abandon with an inevitable come-down thump.

When I live on the outside of my skin I feel taller, stronger, brighter, lighter. I feel like the whole universe is at my fingertips. I feel like I'm glowing. My mind tingles. I can do anything.

I guess that's what self-confidence really feels like?

I want to walk like that through every day of my life.