Lily's Pond of Fictional Reflections

Look, it's me!  *resurrects momentarily*

Life has been... pretty darn good recently.

So the first medication I tried had intolerable side-effects, the second one had nasty side effects for a while, which became manageable after a few weeks and have since essentially cleared up.  I am on a moderate dose of Zoloft (sertraline) and apparently (in combination with zinc supplementation, long story) it fucking works.

O. M. F. G.  I feel... clear, for the first time in a very very long time, like my brain is working with me rather than against me. 

I have, among my memories, two shining moments of peace and calm.  One is when I was a small girl, perhaps three, maybe even five, playing in the shade in our backyard with a large piece of fabric draped over my arms, spinning around being a butterfly--and for a moment the breeze caught the fabric just right.  And one when I was perhaps twenty-five, on a summer night when everything was going right and the water in our pool had reached 28 degrees, breathing out and sinking down through the water to lie on the bottom of the pool and stare up through the wavering reflections at the stars.  (This second, by the way, is the inspiration for my journal theme.)  These have been, throughout my life, the only two times I have felt like that.  Oh, I've been happy, I've been excited, I've been exuberant, I've been proud, I've been overwhelmed by love and joy and wonder.  But that state of... calm contentment... only twice, ever, and only momentary even then.

And now... well, I won't say every moment feels like that all the time, because that would be frightening.  I've got stuff to do with my life, and a whole range of emotions to feel.  But that state feels... attainable.  It's something I'm reaching regularly.  It's there every night when I'm sitting next to one of my children reading a story, feeling my arm around them, and it is perfect.  No fidgeting or frantically spinning stories in my head to keep myself still, or time-checking or trying to scrub bad thoughts out of my brain or twitching towards my phone for something to drown it all out.  Just... being there.

This, then, is why my psychologist said to me, in resignation, when I had explained the horrible things that meditation was doing to me: you have no idea what calm feels like, do you?  Because no.  No, outside those two fleeting moments in my memory, I didn't.  Now, it's just there.

Going to sleep!  Oh my GOD!  I get tired and I can just... put down what I'm doing--I can always keep going tomorrow after all--lie down, and... feel warm and comfortable in my bed.  And after a few minutes, fall asleep.  What the FUCK!?!  Is this what sleep is supposed to be like?!  This is literally the first time in my life that it's not been actively traumatic, the very worst part of the day.  I'm averaging like an hour more sleep a night than I was.

I'm not losing my temper all the time anymore, either.  I was at a positive education seminar the other night, and it occurred to me that I actually couldn't remember the last time I'd yelled at my kids.  Which is interesting for two reasons: both that it's obviously far less frequent, but also that it's not waiting there as a panic-inducing failure that needs to be erased by ritual self-flagellation.  I'm not so rigid on making sure everyone follows exactly the way I want things to be done.  I'm not holding onto my sanity by the bare edges of my fingernails, constantly waiting for the latest straw that breaks my back.  Sometimes we're late, or forget things, and you know that's not a tremendously big deal.  And you know, we're probably late less, forget less, than back when I was in a panic over it all the time.

Getting stuff done!  Yeah.  I can do some things, not in a frantic panic of efficiency, following my coolly calculated plan to run from place to place all day and tick the top 5% of things off my extensive to do list (VERY extensive, because unless I write EVERYTHING down in minute detail I'm too overwhelmed to focus on anything), and do nothing at all else for weeks or months until the to do list is done for fear of never starting again?  No, now I can do a few jobs I feel like doing, enjoy doing them, spend a couple of hours later on relaxing, get up and do a few more jobs later, occasionally list out and reorganise a couple of things to be more efficient but not be tied to the results if something else comes up... and the next day, not have to force myself up and onto the hamster wheel, just... feel like doing some more!  Awesome.

The obsessional thoughts... are not gone, but they are dramatically, dramatically reduced.  I still get maybe 3-5 incidents per day that make me react physically, but not the hundreds and hundreds it was.  Even those aren't as intense.  I don't get caught up in a loop on them.  I don't drive myself to tears of despair with the inability to break that loop, it's more of a two second... ah, crap, that one got me, moving on.  And for the most part, they don't feel as viceral and tactile and disturbing, they're just fluctuations in my thoughts that pass straight through to the other side without making me terrified that I might be a terrible person.

I feel... stable.  I've been stable in that stability for about two months now.  I feel like I'm actually in my body, actually living my life, rather than waiting for the opportunity to do so.  I feel like I never realised how bad it was, how all-consuming, how much of a serious impact it was all having on my entire life until it just... doesn't have to be that way.  Wow.  I am never, ever going off these meds.

I've not been writing.  At all.  I don't know whether I got a bit burned out, whether I just don't need that as an outlet for/distraction from my brain right now, whether I'm afraid to find out for sure whether it's got any easier without the obsessionality, whether once I missed the first fan-flashworks deadline I lost my impetus to do something specific right at this moment, whether losing the midnight oh-god-I-don't-want-to-sleep hours that I've always had means I don't have the time, whether I'm just enjoying sucking the marrow out of all the things I've been missing in my real life at the moment too much to want to immerse myself in another world... or a bit of all of the above. 

I'm sure I'll be back in time.  But for now, I'm busy living, and I'm happy with that.  :)

We've entered a study of Baby Triple P which is a new offshoot of the Positive Parenting Program (one of the only evidence-based parenting courses around). This one is aimed at couples expecting their first child. We're yet to find out whether we're in the control group or the group that actually gets to do the course (darn you, scientific method!), but from what I've heard about it from others at my Aquamums class, I'm really hoping that we make the coin toss.

We've already done antenatal classes, a separate class on keeping well during pregnancy, and this last weekend a breastfeeding class administered by the Australian Nazi Breastfeeding Association (which was good, if unofficially but hair-tearingly bigoted against things like pain relief during childbirth and mothers who also work outside the home), so if we don't get in we won't exactly be entirely lost for information about what to do when my lodger decides it's time to move out.

And even if we don't get to do the Baby Triple P course, I've already found the initial survey we each had to fill in (presumably to compare our current happiness and relationship status with that after we've had the baby - and then compare the changes between the group that did the course and the control group) incredibly interesting - and quite an emotional boost, to be honest. Among other things, I had to list how many times in the past day/week/month Hubby's been physically affectionate, verbally affectionate, done household chores either unprompted or on request, provided sympathy, socialised with my family, discussed and resolved relationship issues, confided in me, talked through financial issues - and also, because the questionnaire asks of course, how many times he's been verbally or physically abusive, critical, controlling, invaded my privacy, lied, or went back on his word - and then how happy I was about that number.

I won't list numbers here (although I will say the second group of answers had a thankfully large number of zeros in it), but I will say that I'm one incredibly lucky girl. May my life and relationship continue to be as awesome as they are right at this moment.

Edit: We got in. Well, they say we got in, and that the control group don't receive the course at all. But it is, after all, run by the psychology department. Maybe they're just saying that and we'll be going along to course lectures filled with lies! Hmmm, I suspect that wouldn't get past the university ethics committee. Is paranoia a pregnancy symptom?

With all the little annoyances of day to day life, it’s easy to forget sometimes how happy I really am.

There are things that could be better in my life – I could do without the sudden resurgence of Hubby’s illness, and his frequently recurring temper tantrums – I could do with being able to stop work and write full time or just, you know, whenever I feel like it – I could do without insomnia or losing vast quantities of weight every time I stop paying attention to what I eat – I could do with having forty-three hours in each day – I could do without the extra stress of worrying about the judges who are yet to appear at the Orions – I could do with some more rain to stop my garden looking so crispy – I could do without feeling like the hunchback of Notre Dame whenever I see a photo of myself – I could do with being a fair bit further into paying off the mortgage.

Life isn’t perfect, and I doubt it ever will be, even if all those things are handed to me on a platter.

But the fact remains, I am totally, absurdly, ridiculously happy with my life.

This simple fact occurred to me this evening, lying on the bottom of the pool, staring up through the expanse of water at the blurry stars.

It hasn’t been an especially unusual day apart from being a Friday where I didn’t have to work. The in-laws had been over for a barbecue for Australia Day. I’d spent a few happy hours preparing delectable (and barbecuable) delights to serve up, I’d blackmailed Hubby into vacuuming and then mopped the floor where the tiles had started growing mould, I’d finally sat down when the guests arrived and spent an evening of pleasant conversation on the patio, realised with some regret I’d forgotten to make a pavlova, seen everyone off and finished up the dishes, then gone to have a dip before bed.

And I lay on the bottom of the pool, just short of neutral buoyancy, pinching my nose shut to avoid getting a lungful of the water which has just hit thirty degrees, thinking... does it get any better than this?

I don’t know. But this’ll certainly do until something better comes along.