All good things must come to an end...

Whatever patient, perseverant soul(s) are still reading this blog I salute you! This period of my life has not been the best for blogging. I started a full time job three months ago that just happened to be in a performance orientated company that I soon found out was very “trigger” happy. I hadn’t been there long before I starting hearing tales of our “fallen comrades” i.e. employees that were fired for something as simple as not sending enough e-mails OR (and this really takes the cake) supervisors/ managers that were given the chop because “they hadn’t fired enough people themselves”. Hmmmm…did I mention that this company is American? So I had been given the subtle message that- even though I was temp covering maternity leave- if I didn’t give 110% I would be given my walking papers. What was worse, and this really scared the shit out of me, if I messed up this woman’s job…she could get fired, even though she did nothing wrong! Did I mention she has six kids? Yep there was A LOT at stake. I’m pretty sure some laws are being broken here…but who ever dares to take on a monstrous American corporation?


So this coupled with the fact that I am still studying full time and have been writing exams ( two of which I am pretty sure I failed) I have not had much time for anything except eating and sleeping…and a spot of T.V if I am lucky!!. I hate to say this…but red wine and chocolate have become my best friends. I can’t exactly say it’s been a social pleasure working for this company.

I have lost two big features in my life these past three months, the first was my relationship with my sister (or rather the final realization on my part that the only way we would not kill each other is if we lived several hundred kilometers apart and didn’t speak at all…except on Christmas and birthdays…or if someone died) and the second, has hit me hard. My church counselor finally realized that she can no longer help me.

Years ago, I was talking with my friend’s husband about getting her to see a counselor. I suggested going to see a church counselor, since it was free and the husband said something that really rang true. Church counselors can only help you if you meet a certain criteria. At the very least you should be a believer…you don’t have to be a very good one…but you must believe in God. Second you need to be able to forgive…a lot of people will struggle for years with this but a GOOD counselor like mine, will be willing to stick with you….so long as you believe. Third, you need to agree with and do pretty much everything they tell you to. As I struggled with all three of the above, I knew that my counseling was doomed with these people from the very start. But I hoped that “maybe this time” it would work. I was at the edge with a knife in my hand, planning on ending it all, so I would have taken any helping hand that had been offered to me.

During my twenty –eight years on this earth I have been to so many psychologists, psychiatrists and counselors that I can’t remember them all. The one that helped me the most was a black psychologist ( pretty amazing as apartheid was still rife in South Africa) named Mandisa who saw me from when I was eight until I was ten. I also had reasons to believe that the church counselor I had now would be different: She has known my family and I since I was seven years old. She has done that most amazing work with people from Rape Crisis and victims of child abuse. The list of lives she has changed is endless. She told me when I first started that she had been waiting for me for years and that she wanted to make me her project. When I tried to run away she would come and find me. Who wouldn’t have been given a little bit of hope?

It started out with me, her and an elderly gentleman. Every Saturday at 3pm, I would arrive on her doorstep. She would give me a big mother hen huge followed by tea and biscuits and I would sit on her couch, her cat Joey purring in my lap and recount the horrors of my life. Then they would pray for me. Sometimes they tried to do deliverance – I’m not sure this ever worked (seriously, imagine someone yelling out you: “Spirit of illness, I COMMAND you to come out!!!!. And then feeling really guilty because nothing was er, “coming out”). No matter what they did the issue was that I didn’t completely believe in God. I remember them asking me each week, “Do you still not believe in God”. They didn’t seem to realize it wasn’t like a dress that I could change, it was more like a cancer invading my system that I couldn’t rid of.

When I came in one day the elderly gentleman was not there and I was told it was just going to be me and her. So for the rest of the year I spread myself at her feet like strawberry jam, she was the first person that I fully told about my abuse and my binge eating. I told her things that I had never told anyone before and she listened and prayed. Some major hurdles where accomplished with her- she confronted my mother head on about my abuse and her part in it. Because of that my mother started to understand me in a way that she never had before.

About three month ago I began to feel guilty…I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being selfish and was wasting her time. The revelations that I had made were now sounding like nothing but repeated complaints and whining. I hate to admit it but we had stopped making progress. Here was a woman who worked 80 hours a week and had women- most of whom had suffered the mostly dreadful atrocities- lining up at her door desperate for help…and I was just sitting on her couch complaining?!. Several times I was tempted to e-mail her and just tell her it was over but didn’t because I wanted to stay with her…sometimes I felt like she was my only friend in the world and I would miss her terribly.

The deal breaker was that no matter how hard I tried, I could never believe in God the way she did and it will take years to forgive my Dad for what he did to me. Not only that, she was way over her head with my binge- eating. It’s an addiction that I have lived with for most of my life that I actually don’t know how to live without it. It seems to make up so much of who I am that I don’t even want to get rid of it.

I fessed up to all of this on her couch last Saturday. Our meetings had become almost awkward because my guilt was always hanging in the air. She didn’t agree with me at first. But upon further retrospect she finally agreed. She e-mailed me last Monday morning to say that we had reached a stalemate and we needed to take a break. For me it was so heartbreaking but I realized that I had reached the limit with her and that she could no longer help me.

The unfortunate part of this is that my mother has been so devastated that yet another helping hand is going to disappear in the Stephi- void that she reacted with anger. This sadly has made the situation very tense with my counselor and it will probably be a while before we will be able to speak again.

I am trying to see this differently…my latest counselor is not someone who has bitten the dust but rather someone, like the rest of the people I have met on my path, has helped me and carried me closer to recovery.

At the same time I can’t get rid of the awful sense of failure…why is it that after SO many counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists that I can’t seem to get well? What is wrong with me that I can’t let my past go, forgive and live the life I was meant to live. For me failure also brings loneliness, the old enemy of rejection has reared its head again and I do feel so alone right now.

I will never be going back to her. From now on whenever we meet it will be as friends, I hope. I am thankful for everything she has given and for everything I have learnt. Writing this post has really helped. I haven’t spoken to her since she sent that e-mail but I now know what I want to say to her.

On to the next….

The ramblings of a dull, bitchy mind

My hair is getting way to long…ginger curls that are suffocating in the heat and feel heavy. I go through periods of wanting to shave my head to be free of it.


I’ve been told by other red heads that I am lucky I don’t possess the epidemic of freckles that go with being a carrot top….they should see me after a day in the sun.

I had to get up early this morning to care for my elderly grandmother so my parents could go to church. Feed her, put her on the toilet and generally make sure she doesn’t freak out to much. Unfortunately she wet her skirt because I left her to long on the potty and she moved.

Why is it that I can still taste my medication two hours after I have taken them?

The meds have put into a four- year haze

I asked my Mom to bring me a bag of something nice when she got home. She brought me celery and eggplant. Both of which I like, but not exactly what I had in mind. My Mom’s fear of my landing up overweight like my Dad has been ruling my life since I was seven, when it became clear that I had inherited his genes.

I have been battling an eating disorder/ food addiction since I was seven.

I am tired of being raked over the coals by both atheists and Christians. To Christians I committed the ultimate sin: I lost faith and I denied God’s existence. To atheists I did the unthinkable I took my faith, as small as a mustard seed and decided I wanted to know God again. Both feel betrayed.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever feel normal again.

I just want to be normal again.

Define normal?

Some days it takes me two hours just to get to the point where I can get out of bed. Other days it will take me the same amount of time just to make my bed: I straighten one side stare at it for half an hour then straighten the other side.

I dread every time my sister comes home. She is always a reminder of what I have missed in life and what I am missing. We are not close and never have been.

Does anyone know how to put my banner in the middle? It's driving me crazy...

The realisation that I could loose my cousin is starting to terrify me. He hasn't got his results back yet but fear and imagination are a cruel thing. He's cool with everything. Why don't I know him better?. Regrets.

For university, it took me a whole day to get through half a study unit…which is normally only supposed to take four hours. I guess I can call it a success.

Goals/ Resolutions for 2011

I'm writing this in an Internet cafe as my family and I somehow used our 9GB of bandwidth (did a visiting sister downloading music have anything to do with it? Oh no!). It's kinda freaky as the screen is massive and I have people constantly looking at what I am writing.

Anyway, on Christmas day, one of the bloggers that I follow put up his resolutions for 2011...It got me thinking. The only resolution I have ever made on the new year was to loss weight- there was one year I resolved to read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy but the end of the year ( managed to finish The Fellowship of the Ring just before Christmas of that year...FAIL!)

Christmas and New Years is actually an extremely difficult time for me. I think Steve Martin in the movie Mixed Nuts summed it up perfectly when he said that Christmas is a time that everything you have ever done is placed under a magnifying glass. The same goes for New Years. Another year has passed, I am older and things most likely have either gotten worse or haven't changed at all.
On the eve of every new year, I wonder if this is the year that things will change, maybe this is the year that I will finally be set free from depression, addiction, suicidal thoughts and loneliness. Maybe this will be the year that things will finally start happening and I will get on the road to achieving all those fantastic dreams I had when I was 18 and the world was just waiting for me.

I have finally come to the conclusion that that will never happen. At least it won't if things stay the way they are. There are things I need to take care of first before any of those things can happen. So these are my goals/ resolutions for 2011- most of them are more life goals and the real goal is to at least start something whether or not I finish it.

1. Start to tackle my eating disorder/ addiction to food: I actually feel uncomfortable calling it an eating disorder when I think about people that have died or starved to death as the result of Anorexia or Bulimia, but I have been informed that yes the emotional turmoil  and dependence that is a result of food addiction indeed classifies it as an eating disorder. I have never discussed this on my blog and this year will be the first time that I will be facing it after years of denial. Food has almost a demonic hold over my life it is so deeply rooted in my depression that I sometimes wonder if it is not the same thing. Looking at me you would never know it- no I am not someone that needs to be removed from my house by a crane. But believe me I know what those people suffer. Even as I write this- the first time I am admitting it in a public forum- something painful is stirring within me. I can honestly say this will be the hardest battle that I will ever have to face. But I am ready for it because I desire to be free.
2. Continue to manage my depression: I don't know if God has it in my path to be free of this terror in my life, a lot of you may not understand this but I believe He is going use me and my experience. But I believe that He loves me and will never give me anything more than I can handle. I will continue to do everything I can to live my best life despite my depression and GAD
3. Face my abuse/ forgive my father. As long as I hold onto the past and continue to let hate and pain rule my life I will never be any better. I know why my Dad is the way he is. But at 71 years old and being riddled with heart disease I desire that whenever God chooses to take him His forgiveness and mine will enable him to go in peace.
4. Get a job/ study: I go back to University next month. I have resolved that no matter how sick I am I will continue to study. I have such a huge desire to learn...to study. I am blessed to be able to do this and I will give it my all. As for the job I NEED  to earn my OWN money :)
5. Continue blogging
6. Pay attention to my relationships

So those are my goals to start in 2011. Now that you all ( and the rest of the Internet Cafe looking over my shoulder) know it I am accountable.

Happy New Year!

'Tis the season to be (exhausted, stressed, trapped, MURDEROUS) Jolly

WARNING: For those of you that are having a great holiday season or possess the Christmas spirit with all the warm fuzzy feelings that come with it, this will be an antidote and will most likely put in in a bad mood after reading.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!, as the song goes. Christmas carols are abound with "Parties for hosting marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow" and then there is the "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, jack frost nipping at your nose". "All for "kids from one to ninety- two" blah blah , "Deck the halls with bells of FREAKING holly"

Bullshit! For one I live in a place where it isn't even winter at Christmas time- today the mercury reached 45C ( 113 F) in some areas where I live. Instead of playing in the snow, we play in the sand on a beach- if we live near to one. Most houses in South Africa are not built with air- conditioners, they are expensive and considered a luxury. So normally on Christmas day we are seeking a pool instead of a fire.

I could deal with that, I have been dealing with it my whole life. But what drives me bonkers at this time every year is that both fate and my family become almost uncivilised.

There is so much going that is causing us to be less than jolly- I might as well put it in point form. Note: This is a rant post some of the situations going on I can't help but be sarcastic about, but there are others that are truly tragic:

• My writing has gone to pooh, I don't know if it's because I feel uninspired due to serious depression, medication or if I am just burnt out with writer's block.  
• My parents and I are in serious debt- my parents under for the breakdown of their business AND my Dad's foolishness with money. As for me?. Let me just put it this way I was very young...overseas...with a credit card. Go figure.
• Because of the lack of money there will be no presents what so ever this year- even buying stuff for a lavish meal seems wrong  knowing that we owe so many people so much money.
• My grandmother who is in the final stages of Alzheimer's broke her hip nearly four months ago and has required round the clock care ever since then (She lives with us) because of this we have never really had the chance to unpack the huge old house we just moved into. This is just the year that my mother's best friend and her family have decided to come to us for Christmas ( we usually go to them ). So we are now in a massive hurry to fix, clean, unpack and decorate the house before Christmas Eve. Take note...this is all DIY.
• The above is in addition to all the cooking, baking and shopping that needs to be done.

On to the more serious stuff:

• I have just started Amitriptyline and am experiencing three of the side effects badly... dizziness, drowsiness and nausea. Add this to extreme headaches from my BIH and horrible depression- not a good mix.
• As I have said before my grandmother requires full time care. If you were ever present for a loved one in the final stages of Alzheimer's you will know the heartbreak, the horror, exhaustion, anger and frustration that goes with it. She takes up literally every minute of our day, we have to go through hearing her scream, shout and talk ALL the time. She can't form coherent sentences to communicate. She is terrified of being alone, yet when we come to her she doesn't know who we are. She's at home but she doesn't know where she is. She sees things that aren't there. Now and then she has lucid moments where she cries and cries her shame, she calls my mother by her childhood nickname and tells us she loves us. Moments later she will descend into darkness again and begin yelling and screaming.
• My Dad hates my Mom's sister
• My Mom's sister hates my Dad
• But my Mom still wants them to spend Christmas under the same roof...because it is "a time for family"
• My Dad's treatment of me has become worse and worse over the last couple of weeks. He thinks I use my depression as an excuse and the reason I am now suffering BIH is because I "did it to myself". He also has no regard for the fact that my meds have serious side effects. Therefore, like my sister, I get no support from him. His constant bullying and downright meanness are wearing me, down making me bitter. My mission to forgive him of the physical and emotional abuse he inflicted on my older siblings and I in the past, is becoming almost impossible. One thing I will still blog about is the part he had to play in my addiction to food and I can tell you right now it is bad. E.g He saw me in the kitchen just now with something in my mouth. The ssarcasm was literally dripping when he said, "Eating again, are we?" and he was getting ready to launch into a full diatribe with the sole purpose to make me feel like crap when I cut him off short, "No Dad, I'm just taking my meds" and I took a huge gulp of water to swallow the ten tablets I had in my mouth.

All of the above mentioned is happening right now....with Josh Groban's Christmas CD playing in the background. Now you know why I said fate as well as my family can be almost uncivilised this time of year. We are a family of misfortune, but it is funny how some of the worst misfortune will save itself until Christmas. And we are all driving each other crazy!.

As depressing as this may sound the perfect Christmas for me would be to be holed up in a deserted house (my sister's flat in Cape Town is the only possibility) with a bag of Quality Street , a take away and a few Christmas DVDs and spend Christmas all by myself with the space and freedom to reminisce on the good and the bad, to cry and to sleep.

I am praying to God to help us, help me through this time. I am praying for strength to be there for people in my family that need me and to take care of myself at the same time. Tonight my mother and I are putting together a shopping list of food we need to buy. Tomorrow I start my marathon of baking as well as trying to turn the dinning room from a storeroom back into a dinning room again. I used to be the biggest Christmas spirit of all time I pray that in all this I will find it again :).

Things...they are not too good

So I wanted to make a post on Friday...and then Friday turned into Saturday. Saturday somehow became Monday and I have been wandering around the house for most of today wondering what to write. I know there is a post in there somewhere but I am not sure how to write this.

For as long as I can remember the closer Christmas draws, bad news whatever it may be will find me. I have to be very delicate in sharing this as I do not  want any ill- favor to fall the person that is involved.

About two months ago I was horribly, severely depressed...more suicidal than I have ever been. It was the first time I felt I had no choice. However part of me was either afraid of dying or didn't want to give up so I actually told my parents. My Dad told me well done for confessing but there was nothing he could do for me as he "had no money" and he then ignored me. My Mom reacted with as much love, compassion and fear as she has. She always does that, I didn't think anything would come of it but I scared her more then I thought and she called my godfather who offered to pay for a psychologist. She also called a lady that I have known since I was a baby who is a church counsellor.

To cut a long story short I have been seeing this psychologist for about two months. Two weeks ago her secertary e-mailed me the bill as she had failed to get in touch with my godfather ( he lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere and travels often). I was firstly hit with shock and guilt at the amount and then secondly began to really worry that....it hadn't been paid. Two more weeks went by, my therapist would briefly bring the bill up and I had no idea what to tell her. I soon found out though that the school fees of my twelve- year old cousin- which he also pays for- were seriously overdue. I made the decision then and there to tell my therapist the truth and stop therapy immediately until the bill had been paid.

I have just found out that my godfather's business partner has done him out of a lot of money and there has been an ongoing court case where his brother's grown up children are suing the family estate for another whole lot of money. Basically....the guy is strapped.

Now let me explain a few things...my godfather is actually my mother's first cousin- my second cousin. He is the patriarch of a giant family and ALL the family member with problems come running to either him or my mother. He helped my parents put my sister and I through a private school, fully paid for my last year of highschool at a private homeschool, helped me go overseas, paid some of my university fees. As I write this I want to cry because I feel so guilty....and thankful. He has given my parents money more times than I can remember. Right now he is supporting my loser aunt and her whole family by paying their rent. If I could count how much money that woman has manipulated him to give it would probably run into millions.

I am more than grateful that he has done this for me because it pulled me back from the brink.

But I am now left with a massive bill that neither me or my parents can pay. Money that is being set aside for me to go back to university is dwindling as it is. And it has sunk me even further into the mounting debt that I am struggling to pay off. Not only that, the stress and pure fear this has brought me is undoing all the hard work that I have done in the past weeks.

During the day my hands are full with teaching a six year old little girl to read and write and generally taking care of her. Although this has been exhausting it has been a blessing in disguise because it has kept my mind off my troubles. But at night, or whenever I get a chance to be alone, the terrible dread fills me. It is not just my debts although that's enough to cause sleepless nights, it's the fear that I won't be able to go back to university therefore not be able to go to Japan ( it may be a weird aspiration but it's an aspiration that means a whole lot to me). I want to live and extraordinary live and achieve the impossible- that feeling is the last shred I have of the old me, the me the died when I had my breakdown and I have been clinging onto it with both hands but it is slowly slipping away.

Most of all I want to get better or be in a place where I can managed this wretched illness that has plagued me for as long as I can remember. It has nearly killed me, it makes me want to die. I kept remembering what one of my church counsellors told me, that I have never known freedom. I remember that because he was right. How tragic and funny that the apple is always dangling beyond my reach.

I have been busy while writing this post. I have not seen my therapist in two weeks and my mother made an appointment for me tomorrow. This has made me feel very uncomfortable and quite frankly I don't feel like talking to anyone right now. While writing I have attempted to cancel my appointment only to be stopped by my mother. This has resulted in huge argument between me and my parents ( funny how my Dad always reappears when the arguing starts). I don't really know what to do, I am dreading the appointment tomorrow. Of course my Mom told my therapist that I have been sinking further and further into depression since I have seen her. I feel a reprimand coming my way.

If you have been reading this post, thank you for reading it until the end. I wrote this hoping that I could transport some of my fears from me into cyberspace, where hopefully it will disappear forever. Maybe it will work....

Sadness

Sadness
It can come at anytime. It could be a warm sunny day. I could be having coffee with my mother or laughing my head off with my friends. I could be happy and content and suddenly The Feeling strikes and bruises my heart: The most overwhelming sense of sadness and loneliness will literally consume me. It will tear the smile of my face and drown me in tears.

I know I am not alone in feeling this way, even though when it happens I do feel very, very alone. For me there are triggers that start the spiral downward. I’m still trying to figure out what these triggers are, I know one of them is seeing a person or animal that I feel sorry for but they can be anything really. Sometimes it would be the oddest things. Today I saw beautiful girl in the grocery store, she was doing promotions….for sanitary pads. Yes most of you will find this funny, she was standing there with a pad stuck to cardboard underwear. She had a huge smile on her face trying to get people’s attention, but everyone was ignoring her. It wasn’t an easy product to promote and she was trying her best. I felt so sorry for her.

Sometimes it can be something that is worth all the tears a person can give. There was a massive photograph on the front page of the newspaper yesterday. The photographer had taken a picture of a little boy- just minutes after he had learned his mother had been murdered.

This will start a process – sadness, thinking about everything that’s wrong with my life and with the world and eventually the loneliness with set in the leaving me in a dark hole. The hurt is so great I almost can’t stand it. I wish they had a pill for sadness….

I feel like the only thing that can help ease the hurt it is a long bear- hug. The worse thing about when I lived overseas is I would go for weeks without anyone touching me, never mind hugging. Comfort eating was a huge part of trying to numb the pain, I used to do the most ridiculous things to try and replace a hug: rolling my body up in my winter duvet, like a huge sausage roll. Sometimes when I was in public I would find a loved- up couple or a mommy or daddy with their kiddies and follow them, just to see them love each other. It was a reminder that there were still pockets of sunshine in a very harsh world.

Positive thinking: tomorrow the sun will rise again, that girl will make a fortune in commissions because of her smile and….THIS TO SHALL PASS…