Monthly Archives: September 2010

Love well and grieve hard

By admin on September 28, 2010

I found myself missing Wally, the Border Terrier, this morning.

A string of somewhat coherent thoughts cruised through my head and left me picturing Wally. I remembered him sitting by the car one day and shaking, his whole body trembling and his little face set with misery. I closed my eyes remembering dear Wally and the way he trembled in the world, and I sighed loudly releasing air. Longing…

I (still) grieve hard for Mottsu and today I am thinking of his (our) little dog, Wally. ‘There’s only one little Wally” we used to sing to the tune of Guantunamerra, “…one little Waaa-lllll-eeee, there’s only one little Waaa-lly.”

Wally was our dog, he was Mottsu’s dog, a one dog fan club. Let me tell the story behind the memory of him sitting by the car shaking.

The day we moved in to the big country house, Mottsu’s dream house the place from which he was going to build a new career and enjoy a tree-changed life, was a day happy on the surface and dark and swirling beneath that.

There was too much invested the house, too much money, too many hopes for a different life, Mottsu was grapsing at a future beyond depression. Maybe he had already lost his centre, I don’t know, I think he was battling the high seas of depression and was helpless to make headway.

The morning of the move, we packed up one house and waited for the movers with their truck. I stuffed the car with loose bits and items, the pieces not secured in boxes. Mottsu drove off, our precious flotsam pushed up against the car windows, he went to get the key, drop off the bits, and was to be back before the movers had loaded their truck.

Mottsu left.
The movers arrived.
The movers loaded up the truck.
No word from Mottsu.

I was overcome with a seemingly irrational fear. A full body wave of terror swept over me and drew everything out, I perched on the toilet seat seasick green, clinging to notion that I was being absurd, and at the same time ill with fear. This was three weeks before he left without coming home again. That sunny Saturday morning, my body sensed before my mind had formed the thought, that Mottsu might not come home again.

Mottsu drove up.

Relief broke out and I laughed, Wally wagged and we all piled into the car and followed the movers to our new house.

We spent the day unpacking, sorting and putting things into place.
Amid the boxes and mess I didn’t see Wally for most of the afternoon, I found him outside sitting close to the car and shaking.

Wally just wanted to go where we went, he wasn’t going to be left behind. The mood of the move was distressing, a big exciting move to be celebrated with an unnamed darkness underscoring it all. Our new home was supposed to be a safe place, with paddocks and views and dreams filling every room. Somewhere below the visible reality things didn’t feel so welcoming.

Wally picked it all up, sensed the shadows and trembled, he wanted to go home, to our regular city home, I did too.

I miss Wally and his big little dog heart, his love and his fear. I love and love, I grieve. Still and on and on. The price for loving well is grieving hard.

That’s just how it is, love well, grieve hard, long and hard – and on and on…

Posted in , Tagged , , Leave a Comment

Glory glory psychotherapy

By admin on September 25, 2010

You might not agree that everyone should be in therapy as Thomas Moore says. I vehemently agree, I think everyone should be in therapy. In therapy may just be the new normal.

I’ve written before about how much I ♥ therapy it is valuable to me. There is nothing wrong with me, strictly speaking (maybe don’t ask my family they may express another view), and I draw incredible support from my therapist. Incredible unconditional support.

Thomas Moore says he is “…yet to meet a completely healthy, adjusted neurosis-free person”, and maybe he is yet to meet you. For me everyday dysfunctional, neurotic, and emotional is more interesting and more normal.

Posted in Tagged , Leave a Comment

To Write Love on Her Arms

By admin on September 23, 2010

I was not taken by World Suicide Prevention Day, and there is another movement I’d like to mention: To Write Love on Her Arms

“To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.”

Their vision, they say, is that they actually believe those things, and that they hope we love ourselves enough to get the help we need. Non-judgemental, I say (while trying not to judge but to appreciate).

Your story is important.

Your life matters.

Your best days are ahead.

Recovery is possible.

Simple messages, informative and loving. TWLoHA reassure me that help is possible. Help is something that’s available for you rather than being done to you, or help being imposed on you. It’s important that help can be reached rather than help needing to ride in, scoop you up, and rescue you. I may be oversimplifying very difficult situations that we can find ourselves in, and the premise of TWLoHA makes sense to me. TWLoHA seems not to victimise, or diminish anyone trying to find hope, but supports that search.

A loving supportive approach to say you are not alone (not if you deep down don’t want to be).

Posted in , Tagged , , Leave a Comment

You know how I feel

By admin on September 21, 2010

It’s a new day for me….and I’m feeling good.

Turn the sound way up (even though tinny PC speakers like mine), and feel good… This is some song.

“This old world is a new world and a bold world for me.”

Posted in Tagged Leave a Comment

Let me go

By admin on September 19, 2010

Euthanasia is a little off topic for this boo-hoo blog. It was, at least, until Free TV Australia ruled that an advertisement calling for voluntary euthanasia was promoting suicide. So now I’m talking about end of life care and euthanasia – which is not the same as promoting suicide. Give me a break…and it’s an important topic so another post on this.

Here’s a little more fuel for the discussion with an indepth article from the New Yorker:

“These days, swift catastrophic illness is the exception; for most people, death comes only after long medical struggle with an incurable condition—advanced cancer, progressive organ failure (usually the heart, kidney, or liver), or the multiple debilities of very old age. In all such cases, death is certain, but the timing isn’t. So everyone struggles with this uncertainty—with how, and when, to accept that the battle is lost. As for last words, they hardly seem to exist anymore. Technology sustains our organs until we are well past the point of awareness and coherence.”

Gawande, A. “Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?” The New Yorker, 2nd August 2010.

Life is precious, no argument.

There’s a time when you will throw your arms around me and a time when you help me to go. There’s a time when when I will throw my around you and a time when I will help you to go.

I’m asking for a choice about my end of life, that’s not promoting suicide. It is not.

Posted in Tagged , Leave a Comment

Life is about choices, death could be too

By admin on September 17, 2010

I believe in our right to die, I’ve written about it before. Advertisements about Voluntary Euthanasia are regarded as encouraging suicide and therefore contravene broadcasting standards.

The advertisement below will not be aired on television.

Full details of the planned campaign are here, you can make up your own mind.

This is a political debate and it is a religious debate. Euthanasia and a right to chose is a debate we ought to be having, it’s too late by the time you need help to peacefully die.

Exit signs are well marked, pointing the way out, except when we most need them.

Posted in Tagged Leave a Comment

Blog-a-versary

By admin on September 15, 2010

It’s a year since my first post, more or less anyway. Happy blog-a-versary to me .

To mark the occasion the picture is my favourite it’s the big picture of the blog banner.

I hope you’ve probably read some of the other posts. This blog is about loss trauma and grief particularly in relation to depression and suicide, all topics not discussed often enough. Things we don’t talk about and I believe we need to talk about more.

I have ideas, I have opinions – strong ones as it turns out. I discover myself as I write. It is interesting to encounter oneself in a blog, and your own history; just as you wrote it, but sometimes hadn’t quite noticed.

Good or bad, right or wrong, normal or abnormal. I have a particular interest about how I judge and label. I’m trying to judge less, and I’m learning how to approach the world differently. My blog is helping me to see people, conditions, and issues not as good or bad, nor right or wrong, no normal and no abnormal, less at least. A different me in the world.

“I spent my whole life being scared, scared of not being ready, not being right, not being who I should be.” Peter Krause as Nate Fisher, Jr. in Six Feet Under

Posted in , Tagged Leave a Comment

Of course I cringe at a ‘tsk’er, I am one

By admin on September 13, 2010

Tsk is the annoyed clicking one’s tongue against the roof of one’s mouth.

The exasperation of a tsk as it escapes almost involuntarily from the tsker and is acutely felt by the tsked target (the tskee). Shot like an arrow, tsk scores a bullseye.

Tskees hear – out of my way – step aside – move on – not now – not again – get over it – here we go again – give me strength – not now – you would – still?

I know the experience of tsk from the perspective of both tsker and tskee.


Tsk disapproval
Tsk annoyance
Tsk exasperation
Tsk frustration

Tsk impotence, not knowing what else to do – no way to change the other (the tskee in this instance)

I tsk with the best of them. I tsked Mottsu, firguratively at least, he would have felt an accute tsk on occasions. Living with someone who is deeply depressed is incredibly draining. I wanted to help, I couldn’t, and I kept trying with, what was probably, a relentless Pollyanna cheer. He was seeking support from professionals, I wanted to believe he was well supported. I’m not so sure he was and at the time I didn’t know what else to do, how else to help.

I tried to indulge him, spoil him and cocoon him from the world. It all washed over him, impervious, nothing touched his dulled heart. It’s tough living with someone who is severely depressed, I’ve already said that and need to repeat the sentiment. My point is that caring about someone with depression is a difficult experience. It’s worthwhile, it is absolutely the only choice to make, the experience is also immeasurably more difficult for the person with depression than the bystander, and the effort required is relentless for both.

On his last day Mottsu was distressed, I have written about that before. I was concerned and I had opted to stay home from work to be close to him. He said he had an appointment with his psychologist,he said, and drove away.

The moment he drove away stony faced and tear stained was the moment I could have tsked with exasperation. What I did do was skip. March 15th was a sunny day, the sky was blue it lifted my heart. Mottsu was getting support, I was going to get my legs waxed. I figured I had two clear hours I skipped, foolishly happy.

I didn’t see Mottsu again, I don’t need to be tsk‘ed by anyone I tsk myself every day.

Posted in Tagged Leave a Comment

Tsk tsk

By admin on September 11, 2010

I hate being tsked, it happens a bit amid the hurried rush and bump of city footpaths and being tsked really irks me.

Tsk.

The noise just escapes harried countenances who feel inconvenienced by a step I take or a move I make. Tsk makes me feel guilty for being in the way. I can’t help feeling pricked by the sharp tsk of someone’s misdirected annoyance. It stings and I feel annoyed.

I read the tsks yesterday when someone walked in front of a train, suicide during peak hour.

In no time twitter lit up with a number of tsk tsks. Passengers were held up as trains stopped running, and some roads near the city were closed. Tsk. People were annoyed that “all it takes is one suicide to bring the traffic to a standstill“, and this one “what is with the trains…a suicide.”

A suicide? Tsk. How annoying, such an inconvenience.

Today a news report, “A man found injured on the Eastern Freeway on Saturday morning, and who later died, may have been lying on the road when he was hit by a car.”

I was dismayed to read this TSK from the friend of a friend published on facebook;

“Would like to thank the silly person who tried to take their life on the eastern freeway this morning. As if an hour drive to work during peak hour isn’t enough…. Seriously an hour and half drive to work on a Saturday is not ok by me. So thanks for making me late. Oh and one last thing if I knew who you were I’d smash you.”

Shit-loads of empathy, is how I describe those reactions.
Too horrible. What happened a bit of to ‘he ain’t heavy he’s my brother’ attitude?
All very well as long as I’m not on my way to work?

Posted in Tagged , Leave a Comment

What does it matter whether they believe you or not

By admin on September 7, 2010

“If I’d been able to kill myself and afterward see their faces, then yes, it would have been worth it. People aren’t convinced of your sincerity, your motives, and the depth of your sorrows except by your death. As you long as you are alive, your case is uncertain, and you are entitled only to their skepticism. So if one were sure to enjoy the spectacle, it would be worth it to prove to them what they don’t wish to believe, and to astonish them.

But you kill yourself and what does it matter whether they believe you or not: you aren’t there to drink in their amazement and their contrition (so fleeting, moreover), to attend, as every man dreams, your own funeral.”

Albert Camus, The Fall (1956)

Posted in Tagged , Leave a Comment