Synchronicity

Hi all, I know I have been (electronically) quiet for a month or more, but I am actually okay. I have been working towards my final draft of the academic component of my PhD and as it requires me to re-read and reflect on my 'writer's journal' and occasionally my Wellness Blog entries it has beena bit of a roller coaster emotionally often dipping well into my minus scales of 'unwellness' and uni-polar depression cycles. I have had to work extremely hard at centering myself, fighting the urge to self-sabbotage (especially with food and alcohol) hence weight gain through being super-critical and losing all self-confidence. It has been a battle to regain balance and control and to work as hard and effectively as I could at my highest cognitive level to produce my best written work.

I cannot stress how critical this is as some very influential people in my career have expressed doubts about my capacity to control my illness, and one in particular hinting that I actually mobilise my illness when it suits me to ensure I do not have to place my work out for public scrutiny, thus I am wasting hers and my time (and University resources). The pressure has been on for the last few weeks as this person has taken annual leave and I am availing myslef of her absence to 'prove her wrong'.

However, this added self-imposed pressure comes at a time when (as we all know) dysfunctional families become even more dysfunctional and lash out at each other. My environment has not been, how shall I say it... conducive of optimum cognitive functioning! Yet, I am slowly getting there, slower than I had hoped but I am alive and re-instilling my sense of self-belief that the PhD is not beyond me and does not belong to a 'crazy person'. I keep feeling that I am being punished for reaching too high, beyond my social level, beyond my personal life role. This is the critic inside my head, speaking at the times when I am most vulnerable.

So it is interesting to see that when I actually went into total procrastination (thus unproductive mode), three things happened to force me to rethink, today. As usual it is the coming together of random and completely separate events that for me provide clarity and a way ahead.

Over the summer I have been playing with some of the new boys' toys in our house. I have been commandeering the T-box and Foxtel IQ when they are out and programing all the crap sitcoms ( Boston Legal etc), docos, and movies I missed at the cinema. It is my guilty pleasure to sit down on my day off (Yes I know the last thing I should be doing is sitting... like a couch potato) and having a viewing feast.

Yesterday my son had a funeral to attend in the morning and I had an appointment with my psychiatrist. Arriving home to find the house empty and mercury predicted to soar to 39, I decided that this was the perfect time to avoid working completely and do a spot of hard-disk clean up on the devices. I loved Denton's interview with Mem Fox and have at least six Book Show eps to catch up on.

then my son arrived home and recounted his experience at the funeral for the father of a golfing mate ( another older father-aged figure). My son had dismissed this man as rich, lazy and miserly without friends. And this sadly appears to be the case. So it was a shock to realise that the wealthy father's funeral was such a big event with VIPs from throughout the State and Country in attendance. My son noted that he and his ex-boss appeared to be the only ones there to support their mate, and how that made him glad he went.

I explained that this was why I had encouraged him to attend, to be there for his friend as funerals are for the grieving not the deceased. What was interesting to was hear his take on a completely traditional Church funeral service with readings, prayers, hymns and the Eucharist.
having been Christened Catholic I asked my son if he took the Eucharist and he said he felt that he couldn't. Such is his disconnect between his own spiritual upbringing and his life-experiences.
However, we were able to reflect on how having money does not in and of itself constitute gaining respect and friendship from peers and colleagues. I also noted that the funeral appeared to be very religious as the man in question was retired from one of the professions and had obviously been a Mason. My son asked how I could tell, and I said the give away was the photograph of him suited and seated in a masonic-style chair. It would of course also explain the number of attendees and the actual content of the service.

It made me stop and reflect on my own father's life and that of my brother and sole surviving male cousin, also Masons, and the underlying community involvement and need to 'give back'to society as an accepted way of life. How much of this has actually been subconsciously adopted by me? It amazed me that I hadn't realised my own compulsion to 'do good' and 'fight for just causes'.

And whilst it seems that it is of comfort, in the sense of shadenfreud, that those of us without money like to bleat the refrain, "see money can't buy happiness", it is so hollow and mean spirited. We need to be honest with ourselves. Is it that we daren't think that should our lotto ticket be drawn, none of our problems would be solved?

So what does this mean for me today... still broke and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Fearful that if I do not succeed at the PhD I cannot be employed in a University and will be forced to work in jobs that do not use my intellectual capabilities... all because I have a mental illness or am perceived deviant in some way?

Why can I not harness this fear and have it drive me on, instead of it becoming a humungous oppressive weight bearing down on me, pushing me to the ground when I want to soar above the clouds?

Not a Recipe Exchange blog...

Why the macaroons I hear you ask? Well it is just a reminder of how I put on the extra 70 kgs in the first place. I didn't often cook macaroons (indeed can't ever remember having cooked them) but when I was/am stressed and feeling out of control I crave sweet calorie laden cakes and desserts. Well that's today. It is a cold wintry day reminiscent of my childhood. My mother would always spend Saturday baking the weekly cakes, cookies, slices and desserts. The kitchen always had a sweet aroma and trays of goodies cooling. My Dad didn't think there ocould be a night-time meal without a dessert, and there was always weekend afternoon teas, mid-morning snacks and even suppers during card and board games. It was a fun way to live but not good for a person with a tendency to stack on the kilos if not doing rigorous excercise. Needless to say my whole family was sporty and I had my moments but when I stopped acting (and dancing classes) I began to pack on the weight.

I can say that I am pleased half of the excess is now gone but my emotions are playing havoc with my will-power, despite hypnotherapy! It is holding in as far as fast food and fried food, both really repulse me but it just cannot defeat sugar and chocolate. It is that whole need to reward oneself at times of stress... a reward for surviving it? No sense at all but hey we are talking the sub-conscious here.

Also my alcohol consumtion is vastly reduced (due to it also being calorific and EXPENSIVE... at least anything I like drinking).... so the cakes seem really obtainable instead. GRRR. will need even stronger mind-control and respect for my new body.

Can someone, probably a woman tell me how to respect my new body when attempting to deny a broken heart? It doesn't get easier with age, I can assure you no matter how many times you rationalise and tell yourself that you won't succumb. My dear old battered ego needed a good dose of flattery and I fell for it all.

Am trying to get out and about but when feeling emotionally isolated one's eyes are always drawn towards the apparently happy couples everywhere... well not everywhere just where the middle-classes come out to play. I have been seated amongst roughly 3 - 4,000 people in theatre audiences and galleries lately and what is disturbing is my shallowness. I am judging everybody on their appearance... clothes, what they drink, how they speak and treat one another... particularly the blokes. It is scary that only 3... yep, 3 blokes have passed my supercritical gaze... Is it any wonder I am alone and eating cakes on a Saturday evening?

Well as you can see my dear friends I have loads more work to do before I can claim any semblance of emotional wellness or mood stability... but I am working on it.

Does MY LIFE have to be so hard?

What is it about me?

I know I suffer BMD but that can't be the ONLY reason my daily existence is such an emotional roller coaster. I seem to care TOO MUCH about everything ALL THE TIME.

Just let's examine my movement on the moo- scales over the past 48 hours. It would look visually, like a heart monitor screen whilst the heart is undergoing shocks from defibrillation! Up, down, massive ups, massive plummets and then dead straight.... before beginning the patterns again.

Why?

I was very happy with getting down to the business of writing my Exegesis finally. I have stopped procrastinating and am no longer going back to the safety net of 're-reading articles or book chapters'. I have closed the books and am getting out of my head everything that has stuck in the deep recesses of my brain over the last forty months. The Dr Rowena Wallace method of focused writing seems to be just what I need at this moment.

It seems productive and a step in the right direction; forward for a change. I feel that I have actually worked (intellectually) over this period and despite the obvious structural and stylistic omissions at this stage in the draft it is a reasonably strong base to work on in the coming days.

I have also been jotting journal notes on plot additions and deletions for my artefact and am really looking forward to giving this 100% of my attention in the next few weeks.

BUT.... (here comes the but...)

Everytime I begin to feel under control and even healthy... some voice from somewhere (outside my head) comes along to destabilise me.

My supervisor implied last Thursday that when I sat a seat apart from her on the couch I was trying to avoid her. Wrong!

I'm the bloody one who flew home from my holiday in Sydney just to catch up for a meeting about how stuck I actually was. She was the one too busy to fit me into her busy schedule... after all she needed to leave at a certain hour to ensure she could meet her family/mothering responsibilities. What about mine? Let alone the issue of how much I spent to fly down and return back again to Sydney! My money of course, never University funds.

She also had a go at me for wanting to attend an annual Conference where most of my networking occurs and where I just might have a hope of getting some respect from a future employer. This University Which Shall Not be Named...(my alma mater) will not touch me with a proverbial barge pole now that I have seen the insecurities and hidden agendas at play, keeping it disfunctional (at least at my home Campus).

My future at age 54 hangs on this stuff.

I am not privileged enough to have had a husband and supportive family to ensure that I did not need twenty years out of my academic career and subsistence on Welfare.

These were not bad choices or things I regret... just how the cards fell.

I am only pissed off NOW when people refuse to understand or empathise and put their own emotional and career needs first AT MY EXPENSE.

Hence I am angry and this takes so much energy.

I pay a heavy price for this anger. I turn the emotion inside as I cannot vent (apart from here days later), and I end up crying and self-sabotaging my academic (and health) progress.

Need to regain balance and stability... again.

To take my mind off things, I decide that I need to think of someone other than myself to gain some perspective.

So in a very positive frame of mind I take myself off to important academic "Show Cause" (for continuning to be enrolled in a Course of study) Hearings as the Student Consultative Network representative at a different Campus in a different Discipline... see how protective of myself I can actually be?

This was a great learning experience and opportunity to read character... that of the fellow academic panel members and the students presenting.

Without breaching any confidences or professional ethics let's just say that when faced with cultural pressures unknown to us Aussie-born students: wars, political instability in homelands, extreme poverty, employment victimisation, workplace inflexibility, illness and homeless insecurity... my little issues seem like proverbial mole hills.

It was a humbling experience. And a timely one wit a reminder that I need to re-focus and regroup emotionally.

Next, I have to reach out for some beauty somewhere; this time around the leafy Acland Street and bright shiny wet streets of St Kilda and her wintry sea.

Then, up again to normal scale... move on and write again. Good stuff....

Only to be brought crashing down again by a 'friend'/co-scholar. A return of a missed phone call sees me being asked to 'fix' some computer program issues THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE ARISEN if this bloody person had listened in the training classes or re-read the notes. Nor would it be my problem if he had run the expert trainer herself PRIOR TO NOW....

...Why would anyone at this stage of a PhD completion have moved the main document several times, onto several machines and hard drives... I can understand having backups ... but changing the machine that holds the ACTUAL document and attached library files... geee how dumb?

The complete lack of understanding of I.T. by MOST academics is staggering. Why do they assume any computer or program can fix EBEKAC? (error between keyboard and chair!)

Jesus... how is this a problem needing MY TIME or energy?

Our scheduled meeting had been about agreeing on a final draft of a journal article (co-written, then re-written by me to meet referees concerns... which academically were quite startling in their response.... a complete lack of research rigour on the part of my co-author stating blatant factual errors)... not a joint let's problem solve YOUR PhD issues session. This self-centeredness is staggering... and INSULTING to me! This from the PhD candidate of the Year!!!

Now this colleague needs to be sure his second journal article flows and doesn't regurgitate this joint paper. (I too have a paper for final submission also).... yet the next scheduled meeting is to FIX COMPUTER PROGRAM ISSUES.... I think not!

And to fix his citation issues when these could be researched on our own library website or in the Australian Government Publication Stytle Guide 2010.... why me? I guess I am easier to blame when things go wrong than to actually do the blooody work oneself. NO WAY JOSE. Been there had that just last September/October with same individual, and hospitalised again in February by same issues with a trusted superior/employer and male PhD scholar...

Patterns repeating. Can I be strong and do/say what I must?

I am feeling used and abused again... Remember friendly fire?

So again what was to be a really productive writing day has dissintegrated over night with me getting angry, then keeping it inside, then lashing out on the keyboard again. So much for actual academic writing progress... I need to vent again.

This 'dear' scholar also inferred that I am responsible for my supervisors extreme stress and anger at 'my' lack of progress!!! How dare he. And if that is actually what she thinks... how dare she? Her stress is not my issue, nor should it be... that's what her job is and why she is paid at that level... deal with it. I am trying to deal with my stress at $11.80 or whatever an hour... and I am managing to inch forward and stay well.

GRRRRR angry again....or rather, still.

Just when my world seems about to totter right down towards hospitalisation yesterday, my 21 year old son decides to watch a bad movie on the TV with me last night. I can't say "No, too busy", as this request doesn't happen often and has actually been years in coming.

I am so glad I put the bloody PhD on hold for this. We have had an amazingly tough last ten years. He has had to deal with so much trauma, stress and crises for someone his age that I am proud of him actually having survived it.

He decided last night to finally reconnect with me, as a parent and trusted friend.

We were able to re-trace all our emotional injuries to each other and share the innermost fears and insecurities (both of us). The years of fights, assaults, deaths, illnesses, drug use, car crashes, legal problems, financial crises, gangs and guns are finally all out in the metaphorical cold hard light of day.

The pain is not gone but it can be dealt with at last.

My son confessed to not a day going by without some 'nightmare' haunting him for a moment or two or preventing him from sleeping. He understandably has emotionally disconnected (superfically) just to get through at present.

Who can blame him? I now understand where he is at... finally.

I would be in the same place myself.. and probably a worse place were I his age. I am so proud of this young man. He has had to grow up so hard and so fast.

For the first time in years I KNOW he will survive and I can begin to relax. I am so overcome with relief that this also needs capturing on paper/screen.

Now I can move on and roll the dice again for myself. This has been a major movement in my stability.

When people read this, perhaps they can see how my PhD may be the most visibly important thing in my life but really there has always been more important domestic issues that have sapped so much energy, emotional strength and will to succeed on my part.

I am proud of where I am now... for the first time in years.

And F.... anybody else's expectations.

I am going to stay well, keep a strong relationship with my son and finish what I have started in my own time... so everyone else can just deal with that.

Sorry guys... my turn.

The tears are flowing now.. but they are tears of release.

The Yoga worked!

Again dragging my lumpen body out of bed after less than three hours sleep, I forced myself to drive to the hospital. And the Yoga class was just perfect. Suddenly most of my anxiety has evaporated, and I do in fact feel re-energised (as cliched as that sounds). Pity the old weight still plays a degree of havoc with the knees and no downward-facing dog for me. (I could make some smart quip about that having been the case for many years now, but I will refrain!).

In order for Health Fund coverage had to attend Group Therapy with a counsellor I had not met before. This is always fraught, although just walking through the Eliza Ward doors made me just want to ring home and get a suitcase delivered. I guess the outside world has taken quite a toll over the past couple of weeks. I definitely felt like seeking sanctuary. The session was a touch cerebral but given we were prodominantly strangers that's to be expected. Why is it after the formal stuff finishes everybody let's their hair down and shares all the interesting female-buddy confidences?

Great to see J looking so well, but her voice is shot to pieces. That would have pleased B during the last two Collingwood match broadcasts. (What was the word of the day J?)

Also good to see V on day out and B going home for a while. These people feel like family. This is a Tuesday appointment I simply must keep up.

Ah, Yoga. I feel so much better and my left side is beginning to stretch as comfortably as my right. Eva, I even manage to stand on tiptoes without falling over as I do the breathing exercises... can't actually spell the name of the pose.

Came home determined to do some work but the lack of sleep caught up with me. I have been fighting off the need for a Nanna nap again as I know it will wreak havoc on my sleeping patterns and undo all the good I did today. At least doing an online newspaper read (away from the Carl Williams soap-opera) brought me some exciting news. Another dear theatre pal, Tony Sheldon is having a well-earned break from Priscilla (on the West End) and is finally going to play Bernadette when the show opens on Broadway next March. (Tattslotto ticket needed now). I am so thrilled that his Green Card issues have been overcome and that his contract negotiations similarly worked out. To think after extensive auditioning in the Big Apple he could not be matched in versatility. I am so proud of you Tony. Hope you get home and we can share a bottle of classy champagne before the year ends.

Maybe I should take a leaf out of your book and get my backside into gear and finish my PhD, then we can both celebrate our mid fifties in style, having reached career landmarks. I do indeed feel inspired to pick up the pieces and scramble on.