Easter used to be my favourite

I wish you could see me
growing back together
picking up the pieces. 

Because when you left
I was already coming apart at the seams
and the last you saw of me
was my unraveling
And you worried, I think.
Because you saw you
happening all over again
in me. 

I wish you could see
how I pick up my pieces
and find some of you in some of them.
And learn to love us both a little better.

© The Grumpy Girl, 2012.


It's been two years, and Easter is still not the same. I used to love Easter. Fantastic timing, dad, really. I miss you.

Objects in the rear view mirror....

2011.
2 0 1 1.
Asshole. Friend.
Fucked me up and built me up.
I honestly don't know what to think about this year. Maybe it's time for a pro/con list?


...


OK, I tried making a list, but apparently my life is not list-able. Instead I got this:


I got fired. From a job that could've been done by Grawp the giant.
But getting fired gave me the impetus to finally start being creative full-time.


I started running regularly and felt great about it... but my knee got fucked up and I had to stop doing sports altogether. Still can't run :(


I finally got diagnosed with ADHD and realised that a lot in my life was not my fault. But now instead of feeling crappy because I never managed to get anything done I felt crappy because of all the time I had lost.


I also learned that there are meds that could help me. But some of the meds fucked me up BAD. Like Charlie! But Charlie the elephant pales in comparison to throwing up into a trashcan at Praterstern underground station. Disgusting and humiliating - brought to you by Strattera (tm). Back to Ritalin then. I'm still not sure they're the right ones. However, when they do work, it's magical. I mean, shit is getting done! And instead of being "a person with tons of creative potential" I turn into a proper "creative person".


I finally had the courage to submit a short story to two literary competitions. I didn't get shortlisted for either one though.


I also submitted my first film treatment ever. This time I only barely missed the shortlist and ended up joining the team in a different capacity anyway.


I lost some friends. Because, apparently, 2011 was the year of people being pissed at me but not letting me know this. (Not a mindreader, I am.) To this day I still don't know the reason for one of those people's anger at me.
I made some new friends though.
And re-established contact with some out-of-touch old ones.


I wrote more than I ever did before. I didn't write nearly enough to satisfy me. But I started work on my first film.


I started film school.


I still don't have a paying job. But I feel I'm getting to a point where I could handle one.


My mother is nice to me again. Unfortunately, I think it is because now that I have a diagnosis she thinks I'm damaged goods and that I can't be held responsible for my own actions - and not because she sees her own faults in last year's ordeal. Oh, the irony!


I LEARNED TO SAY 'NO'!


We went to New York.
I FINALLY WENT TO NEW YORK!


I saw Beirut and Tori Amos and Amanda Palmer live.


I gave Neil Gaiman my short stories and didn't get any feedback.


A friend of mine gave basically forced Lee Sheldon to read my script and short stories and I got the best, most useful feedback ever.


I don't want to jinx it but so far NO ONE DIED THIS YEAR!


I realised what exactly it is that I'm exceptionally good at.


I finished therapy.
But most of all I fulfilled the one New Year's resolution I had: I scared the shit out of being scared.






Looking up/back at this I'm drawing the conclusion that 2011 was quite an okay year, all things considered. Definitely better than 2010. And hopefully 2012 will be even better.


What I wish for besides the basic health-no-one-dying stuff:


- Getting the meds thing worked out
- Making a good movie and getting it seen
- Lots of love and great music and good friends and some travelling




edited because I saw this on twitter and found it incredibly wonderful:

taken from http://dreamripples.tumblr.com/post/14900943949

PW-Protected: Family, removed

PW-Protected post is here.
Passcode can be had from me via asking nicely.

PW-Protected: First Christmas without my dad

You can find the password protected post here.
Contact me and I'll give you the passcode.

Everyone I know is in therapy and if they aren't they probably should be

So, I'm in therapy. I know, I know, who isn't... Like I said to my friend S. some time ago everyone I know is in therapy and if they aren't they probably should be. I had plans to do therapy, just not now. I thought I'd go and do it later, some day in the future, when I could afford it financially and psychologically, as a sort of psycho-hygienic measure. To work on some stuff, reopen a couple of old wounds, rub a little salt in them, let them properly heal and reemerge as this awesome new and improved me - more zen, more together, more perfect. Hm... so that didn't go over too well with the universe.

A bit more than three months ago my dad died. Quite suddenly. We had a difficult relationship, and he definitely wasn't a young father, I did get to say goodbye - but, no surprise, losing him struck me hard. I lost my dad. I grew up. It wasn't pretty. But I'm a trooper so after a bit of crying I buckled up and organised my wedding in 5 weeks (with a lot of help from our friends) and got married within two months of my father's death. (Or fake-married, as I sometimes quite lovingly call the joke of a civil union we get to have here.) We had an amazing wedding party, burlesque/20ies style, we loved it, everyone else loved it and I was perfectly fine. Not. About four days after the party I cracked. And I really mean cracked! I felt I was losing my mind - hell, I still feel like that today. I was exhausted and crying all the time... and exhausted, and crying. It took me forever to get up in the morning, another lifetime to get out of the house, and I remember one day where I actually sat in my parked car in front of the office building, staring at a billboard in front of me for five minutes, before I could muster up the strength to get out of the car and into work. It wasn't pretty.

My wife and a couple of my friends must've realised that I was a bit loopy because they kept talking to me about burn out, depression, grief and taking time off. My dad had been depressed all his life, I'd seen burn out in my wife, then girlfriend, about half a year earlier, and I have a bunch of friends who've been/are in therapy for burn out and various other mental health issues. I know their troubles, and suddenly confronted by being told "you have a problem" I recognised myself in them. I finally began to see the rat race I was in. I began to see the bigger picture which was: I'm in a really bad place and I'm only going to make myself worse. Ironically, I also began to see the positive side of it. If I actually had something, if what was happening to me had a name and a form of treatment, then maybe what I've been going through isn't me failing at everything but instead me demanding too much. Maybe I wasn't a loser after all but only failing in the face of my own expectations?

So I started therapy. I quit all of my jobs (I was working as a freelancer). I registered as unemployed and am receiving unemployment benefits. It made me feel awful about myself, but now I see it as this amazing chance that allows me to become healthy again. Of course, half the time I still feel like a loser only now I'm one of those losers who is unemployed, but then I remember how I sat in my car staring at that billboard for what seemed like forever and I just know I wouldn't make it out of the car and up the stairs to the office this time. Hell, these days I sometimes don't even make it out of the apartment! It helps that my family doctor has put me on sick leave two weeks ago until next week when I'll be seeing a psychiatrist who is supposed to officially give my illness a name and hopefully put me on an extended sick leave (and hopefully not on antidepressants).

Since mental health issues are still mostly a taboo, be it burn out, depression or something other, I'd like to point you to this amazing blog post by Beth Hommel (assistant to one Ms Amanda Palmer btw.) which made me feel both understood myself and understanding my wife better (she showed me the blog and wrote about her own experience with it here). And I can only encourage you to (continue to) speak up about mental health issues, be it on your blog, in real life or in one of those status updates which have been becoming quite popular on facebook.