The week before we went on our Easter holidays camping trip I had an assignment due, for my psychology unit, on stress and coping.  We had to put together the introduction for a research report into gender differences in stress sources and coping styles, discuss positive and negative coping styles and come up with some hypotheses for our report.

This all of course necessitated a fair whack of reading and research on stress and coping in the weeks leading up to it, and I came to realise over the course of my study time that I was not handling my own stress very well.

Insomnia, my most familiar symptom has been an all too frequent visitor in our house of late. Hiding, the next interloper on the list, has been an all too frequent urge of late. Hiding in my text books or hiding online. Avoiding having to deal with, well, everything. The problems at my kid’s school, CJ’s health problems, mounting financial pressures, hubby’s worry about his job, the increasing distance of a much loved friend…. Just everything.

And I realised that I am not coping.

Not really. Not well. I am merely using negative strategies to avoid everything and distract myself. It’s not doing my health much good either.

My not being here regularly is also a sign. My head is so full of clutter that I don’t know where to start or what to say.

A few days ago I had the most open talk I’ve ever had with my GP. Confessed my dark secret sins, told the tales of my tortured nights. I’ve started some medication despite my reluctance after long ago experiences, but it’s been okay. No nasty side effects. In fact only one side effect at all.

Sleep.

For the first time in six years I have had a decent nights sleep every night for two whole weeks.

Boy, does that make a difference!

Now to start poking my head out the door again…

Every time I looked at the comments from my blog post about Lou’s father and grandparents.

Every time I see the words ’strong’ and ‘brave’ I flinch.  It’s just not how I see myself. I did what had to be done because it needed to be done. I see myself as practical but that’s it.

And I hoped that people didn’t see my posting my story as a way to get attention or sympathy.  I just really needed to clear my head and my blog has become the place to dump things so I can stop them running around my mind.

I don’t often share the whole story for a number of reasons.

Firstly it’s not something that I want to revisit. The time that I was with Lou’s father was a very dark time in my life.  I have had to work very hard at putting that crap behind me. At getting rid of the negative self talk, at pushing aside the feeling of unworthiness, of stepping past the constant self doubt to regain the things that were lost – my sense of worth, my pride, my balance, my confidence.

Secondly it does no good to rehash it on a regular basis. It’s past, it’s over, it’s gone. Sure some of what I lived through influences my behaviour and attitudes today. Unfortunately sometimes when dealing with other family members who are still in deep denial or dealing some of the issues Lou is having a result of her time with him, I can’t help but have some of this stuff in the front of my mind. And sometimes when that happens I find the doubts rushing back in and I need to put it all back in perspective again.

Admittedly, knowing what my daughter has now lived with has reopened a few old scars and I have been grieving a little for what she lost as well as for what she should have had but didn’t get, but my overall feeling about it all is of empowerment. As much as it blows that I know these things, I know how she’s feeling, I know where’s she’s been, I know what she needs to get past this. I know I can help her and that’s not a bad thing.

Lastly it makes people uncomfortable. I knew before I published my post last week that many people would not know what to say to it. What do you say to something like that? Many people don’t know any of it. Most people who do know, only know bits and pieces.  They might know my ex was mentally ill, they might know he was on drugs while we were together. They might know that I left because he got physical, but when you put some of the bits together and start to see the big picture it’s horrifying and overwhelming and unimaginable unless you’ve been there yourself. And I have by no means shared everything.

But I don’t want people to be uncomfortable around me. I don’t want them to not know what to say. I don’t want them to not know how to react when I make a  comment or a dark joke about ex’s or mental illness or the like. I don’t want people to define me as a survivor of domestic violence.  I don’t want people to feel sorry for me.

I don’t want people to feel sorry for me.

That’s really the root of the problem.

The idea of having people feeling sorry for me makes me really, really, really uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that I’ve been tossing up whether to leave the post stand or making it private or deleting it or I dunno.  I even switched it to private and switched it back (sorry to feed readers).

I know this is a perception issue on my part. The fact is that I don’t just get uncomfortable, I get defensive and I’m not sure why. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I dunno, it’s like ……. *pulls faces at screen*………. it’s like I feel that it somehow undermines how far I’ve come to have people feel sorry for where I’ve been if that makes any sense at all and I have no clue why I feel that way.

In the end, I’m going to leave it. I know that the people who read my blog, who I consider my friends aren’t sorry for me, they were expressing their empathy, their understanding, their support and their heart.People are not sorry for me. They are sorry for what I went through. I should and do feel comforted that people are so empathetic and supportive.

I know that domestic violence is always going to make people uncomfortable. It’s hard to think about people we know or love living through things like this. It’s hard to imagine how it would feel to live with, why it happens in the first place, why women stay or how abusers think.

Being uncomfortable and not talking about issues makes it easier for them to continue. Being uncomfortable and not talking about issues means they are easier to deny. Being uncomfortable and not talking about issues means that people don’t know they aren’t alone.

What happened happened, it’s uncomfortable, messy and horrid, but I’ve decided to leave it up. The more people are uncomfortable and the more people talk could perhaps mean one less future victim and I’m going to be comfortable with that.

We have spoken to one or two of your service consultants every week for the past six weeks explaining that we were moving so needed to shuffle our bill payments and making alternative payment arrangements. Every week your consultants have said that was fine and that they ‘made a note’ on our account  and every week that note hasn’t been made prompting more phone calls the following one.

So we can only come up with one conclusion -

You suck!

No I’m serious.

You see when one of your consultants ring up for the sixth week in a row to make a payment arrangement with an already irate customer, they tend to get a little more pissed off.

And when said customer specifically asks you for your name, department and a receipt number for the call and tells you it is because they are sick of Telstra customer service people NOT noting their payment arrangements on their account, your consultant  might want to ensure that note actually gets fucking made because when that customer realises that their contract for services with you are up in the next few weeks and decides to call you to find out when so they can investigate their options, they are NOT going to want to be hassled again  because the payment arrangement they made not six hours earlier was not noted on their goddam account! AGAIN!

Then when you transfer that customer through to someone else because the first consultant couldn’t find the contract end date after trying to make the customer pay today with a credit card that they don’t own, you don’t really want that customer to be told that their bill includes a reconnection fee for when YOU cut off their phone because YOUR consultants stuffed up and didn’t note the customers payment arrangement after telling them it was okay.

Because that is pretty much going to make up their mind that they are switching service providers right then on the spot.

Adios Telstra. I’ll be in touch with your complaints department soon.

Premium service my arse!

Mistress B

My young bloke has just started his first season of rugby league this year. Today he plays his third game of the season…………..

and I’m wishing we’d encouraged a different choice of winter sport.

Not out of any concern I have regarding the sport and how it is played, I’m more than happy with that, but rather out of concern for the off-field activities of the big name players that the young local boys hero worship.

I can’t say that I’m a huge footy follower. I’m happy to watch the odd game with hubby or mates and will get caught up in it and find myself yelling at the telly with the best of them, I have a rough idea of who players are and what team they play for, but *shrugs* don’t follow any particular team.

In all honesty I can’t see why anyone would these days. It’s not like the players have any loyalty to their clubs anymore. Twenty years ago once players got established in a club they stayed there. Club loyalty, team loyalty was on show but now the players follow the money and bugger the club. How can anyone expect the fans to stay loyal to one club when the players aren’t? And what message are our young players learning? That money is more important than loyalty and your team mates.

Then you have the situation where the fate of the club is riding on a few big name players. The whole idea of team sports is that wins and losses are from the team’s effort, not  resting on the shoulders or availability of the elite one or two. How does this teach our young players about team work? It doesn’t. The only thing I can see it teaching them is that if their ’star player’ doesn’t turn up then they may as well pack up and go home because if the professional teams get flogged when they are missing one player then what hope have they got?

And lastly we come to the culture of alcohol and drug abuse and binge drinking with the resulting assaults, sexual indiscressions, inappropriate behaviour and sexual assaults. These stupid dickhead asswipes idiots that abuse their own bodies,  drink drive, sometimes assault women, get involved in drunken sexual escapades,  disrespect their families, their team mates, their clubs and their fans are the men that my 9 year old is meant to want to grow up to be like?

Over my cold, rotting, stinky dead body!

I was talking to hubby on the phone on Thursday night while flicking through the tv channels and stopped to listen to The Footy Show for a moment. I made the comment to my husband that I hoped they weren’t trying to defend Matty Johns the way they have tried to defend other irresponsible  players/ex players in the past and while it was a mixed view that they were showing I soon found myself yelling at the goddam idiots TV.

Comments like “Matty Johns is being made the scapegoat for 20 years worth of incidents”. To which I respond fucking bullshit! Drunken group sex in a hotel room while on a team trip, even when consensual equals very bad judgement.  He was stupid and he got caught being stupid. The public, the fans are sick of stupid.

The public is also sick to freakin death of stupid people getting away with being stupid as if fame or sports hero status equals absolution from consequences. The average Joe knows that actions have consequences, why  do these bonehead footy players think their actions won’t?

“You can’t police what goes on in people’s bedrooms”……… well I’m sorry, but being subject to public scrutiny about what you do in or out of your bedroom is part and parcel of being a celebrity/high profile sporting identity etc. If you don’t want people knowing what goes on in your bedroom don’t get into the public eye. If you are in the public eye and don’t want to be scrutinized then don’t do stupid or unsavoury stuff!

And when your name is associated with a brand like the NRL or your team’s name……. everything you do in your public AND private life is going to reflect on that brand or team. Again, that is part and parcel.

” Thanks for the emails supporting Matty, he’s a good bloke”. Was he party to rape? No I don’t think he was. Was he stupid? Unequivocally yes. Was he thinking of his team, his mates, his wife, his children, his family or his future? Obviously not. Do ‘good blokes’ cheat on their wives and humiliate their families by participating in degrading drunken group sex parties with naive 19 year old girls in foreign hotel rooms? No, I don’t  think so. While it may not have been illegal it was morally reprehensible and ultimately incredibly damaging to the woman involved and certainly not something a ‘good bloke’ would do.

‘Good blokes’ don’t use women as objects or have group sex bonding sessions.’Good blokes’ don’t leave women to fend for themselves in situations that are obviously not quite what they were expecting and will cause  regret in the cold, sober light of day.

‘Good blokes’ also take responsibility for their mistakes, Matty Johns might have fessed up to his wife at the time and obviously knows he did the wrong thing but is trying to dodge, weave, explain away and shift blame to the person he and his team mates degraded and hurt with their stupid and thoughtless actions. For fucks sake Johns! Just apologise. Without reservation or qualification.

I was talking to my mum and she said that they need to go back to the days when the players didn’t earn so much money, when they had to work to support themselves as well as playing football. Back then they had to be responsible, they had to hold down real jobs in the real world and couldn’t afford to let their ’star’ status go to their heads. She could be on to something there.

The NRL has a real image problem on their hands. Their brand is no longer associated with sporting heroes, team spirit, loyalty and the love of the game. It is now associated with salary caps, binge drinking, debauchery and loss of responsibility.

Not that these problems are only present in the NRL. Indeed binge drinking in particular as well as the culture of avoiding taking responsibility for our own actions is rampant throughout Australian society but this is  one of those places where it becomes even more critical that the people  our young children are encouraged to emulate display a good example, that these sportsmen are worth looking up to both on and off the field.

I can only hope that this latest in the long string of incidents prompts both the NRL as a whole and the clubs to start taking players not willing to live to a certain standard of professional and personal behaviour to task, to give them a taste of the real world and to dump the throwbacks unwilling to start being the kinds of representatives of the sport that would make us proud, the kind of representatives that parents can be okay with having their children look up to and emulate.

I also hope my son grows up wanting to be a fireman or something else honourable………… anything BUT a footy player……….

I don’t imagine that being a high profile footy player would be the dream of even the hardest core football fan parent for their son these days…………

We’re here!

We’re in!

We survived our first night!

But it was a close thing………….

Somehow, despite my best efforts, some of my things were left behind.

Things that are conducive to me having a good night’s sleep.

Like……… a nightie and a book or failing that the rabbit ears for the small tv or failing that a radio and most importantly my anti histamines to take the edge of the mother of all headaches I had (still have) after being out and about in the mega dust storm that blew threw town yesterday afternoon!

Normally you would be able to see the church steeple, other buildings and a big hill in the background from here (even taking into account the crappy pic)

I don’t know where my nighties went. They were folded up on the back of the lounge at one stage then a pile of clean clothes got dumped onto a chair in the bedroom and I remember putting them in a bag that was meant to come with us on the last load, but somehow it must have gotten missed with trying to get the animals into the car too.

Now I’m quite happy to sleep naked, but being our first night in a new house with new noises I was half expecting a child to try to hop into bed with us during the night so wanted something on for modesty’s sake and I was tired enough that not being able to find the clothes I wanted was a big deal but I ended up finding an old singlet to sleep in.

Then I realised that my books didn’t make it. I have always been someone who reads before going to sleep. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for just a few minutes.  It clears my head and I can drop off easily then. It doesn’t much matter what I read either, whether it’s a new book or a well loved old book as long as I have a book.

Somehow  none of my books managed to come with us despite me having a small box of them in the bedroom that were marked for moving yesterday.

So, if I couldn’t read then I would have been ok watching a little telly. Yes we have a (small) tv in our bedroom. Yes I know it’s not meant to be a great idea. But just like some people have the telly on through the day for company, I have mine on for a little while at night for company. I never have a problem with that during the day but night times are a slightly different matter. I set the sleep timer on the tv, turn the volume down to three and drift off quite contentedly without hearing every little sound that the house and the neighbourhood makes. Now the telly came with us in the last load, but we are stuffed if we can figure out where Uncle S stashed the rabbit ears (antennae)  for it!

We couldn’t even find a radio that worked – they were still at the old house too!

So it’s after midnight and I’m overtired, lying in a strange bedroom with strange house noises and fussing cats trying to climb into the window sill behind the metal venetian blind making a racket with the front of my head feeling like it was going to explode and could not for the life of me drift off to sleep knowing full well that I had to get up at 5:30 to take PSLS to work ………………….. so PSLS wisely resorted to the only other thing guaranteed to make me sleep.

Sex.

Yup.

Sex.

I find all those jokes about men going to sleep straight after sex hilarious because in our relationship, that’s me not him.

I figure that those women who complain about their significant others going to sleep straight after a little rumpy pumpy are doing it wrong cos hot damn! A little roll in the sack relaxes me  and puts me straight to sleep every. singe. time.

Doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the night, middle of the day or first thing in the morning. By the time he’s come back inside from his post coital cigarette I’m curled up fast asleep……… much to his amusement (and the inflation of his ego)

And true to form I was asleep before he climbed back into bed last night. Not even the cats could disturb me after that!

So, first night done, dusted and survived……………… and now I’m off to the old house to collect my anti histamines, my box of books and to find the damn rabbit ears for my telly cos PSLS ain’t home tonight!

Or whatever you want to call it!

For me, it’s Easter.

A time to remember and reflect and respond to my faith.

A reminder that death is never the end of the story.

For some, it’s about the cycles of the seasons and looking forward to the renewal of the earth. (Which makes no sense for us in Australia coming into fall/autumn)

For other’s it is about chocolate and hot cross buns and enough treats to cause a sugar high that lasts for a month. (Don’t get me wrong, we’ve enjoyed those too)

For other’s it is a marketing goldmine. A chance to put on special sales and increase their own wealth (because really, who doesn’t need hot cross buns in January?)

For yet other’s it’s a chance to push their religious agenda’s or to attempt to sensationalise news by linking it to religion or to jump on the ‘political correctness’ bandwagon (which annoys me no end)

Now I don’t care what your reason for acknowledging the season is. I really don’t.

If you want to make it all about chocolate bunnies and make jokes calling Jesus a zombie and make stupid statements about the spread of AIDS being made worse by the availability of condoms instead of leading the church in the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus or get caught up in discussions about how the Via Dolorosa is  in the wrong spot ……….. go right ahead.

What ever floats your boat.

As frustrating as some of the bullshit news story connections are at this time of year, they are just that. Bullshit. And we know to expect that.

But please, show a little respect while you are doing it. Just a little consideration that what you are doing is not diminishing the significance of the time for those to whom it does have special meaning.

In Tarot cards, the death card is used to represent change. The passing of something – a stage of life, a relationship, an ideal, an idea and the beginning of something new.

We live in a world where we face an uncertain future with the global financial crisis, global warming crisis, an overall-sense-of-hopelessness crisis and all the other stuff gone wrong in this crazy world. The death card has been dealt for our world as we know it.

So I ask you to stop and think the next time you go to make a joke about someone else’s faith, or cast scorn on them and dismiss them as nutters or discriminate against them as fools or remove their religious symbols in the name of political correctness.

Because isn’t finding a bit of hope where you can a good thing?

Couldn’t we all use a reminder that death is never the end of the story?

1. The creepy crawlies. ESPECIALLY the spidies that make their webs from the back table to the roof on the verandah and under all the chairs, across the path to the garden, or between the really badly pruned conifers on either side of our front steps, but most especially the ones that waltz inside under the gappy front door and scurry into my bedroom as it is the closest!

2. The dust. Everything is always dusty. PSLS reckons it’s cos we don’t have real ceilings here. I’m thinking all the gaps wouldn’t help either.  I’m also wondering if that is contributing to all the sinusitis problems I’ve had over the past 18  months.

3. The ceiling that isn’t really a ceiling and makes rain deafeningly loud. You know I was sitting in my bedroom the other week when we had a storm go through with the volume on the telly turned up to 40 trying to listen to it. It’s normally on 12.

4. The lack of floor water drainage in wet areas. Seriously. Who doesn’t have floor drainage in the bathrooms and laundry? It has changed the way I clean, but ….. yeah.

And the floors are sloped towards the middle of the house FFS! The last time our laundry flooded from a leaking tap for the washing machine the water seeped under the laundry wall into the bathroom, pooled around the toilet before seeping under the next wall then ran off down the hallway soaking the carpet.

5. The front and back verandahs flooding during heavy rain. It makes for a horrible mess on the front one that needs cleaning up later – the water just pools in the middle of it drawing with it all the accumulated dust/dirt/leaves etc from the area. It also makes for mad dashes out to the back one to rescue the dog food bowls and other things that may float away or not appreciate a good soaking as the lowest part of the verandah is BELOW the  level of the yard.

6. Living in a mobile phone dead spot. We HAD to convert all our mobiles to Next G to get service when we moved here. Normal digital mobile service was only gained by standing in a particular spot on the front verandah whilst doing contortions with your phone on speaker so you could yell at it – fine if you wanted to call out, but no so good if someone was trying to get you! Our TV reception is also quite dodgy at times, am so glad we have a set top box because the analogue signal is often unwatchable.

7. The acrobatic aeroplanes buzzing our house for hours on end when they test the planes built at the local hanger before sale. We are like……….. half a kilometre from the airport. The barrel rolls and loop de loops were entertaining the first few times, but now, for hours on end first thing on sleep in Saturday mornings……. meh.

8. Our fucktard neighbours. Well only two of the neighbours are fucktards – Firstly the young bloke next door who plays loud music when his g/f stays over so his mum (whose house it is) can’t hear them doing the wild thing (they have a toddler and I’m pretty sure his mum didn’t buy the whole ” we found it under the cabbage patch story”). He and his mates also uses our driveway instead of their own spreading cat-heads onto our lawn because they don’t worry about keeping those things under control.

Second lot are the ferals two doors down who have raging domestics any time of the day or night and whose kids like to tear up other people’s mail, bully my kids on the bus, let their dogs roam free occasionally to terrorize everyone else’s pets and are just LOUD! All. The. Time!

Our other neighbours are all quiet, lovely people and we can only hope that we are so lucky in our next place.

9. The not-any-longer white carpet. All. Through. The. House. We have children! ‘Nuff said. I won’t even start on the damn mulberry tree planted right at the main walkway through from the garden to the house and the resulting pink stains all through the house during fruiting season.

10. Dirty water. This has been and continues to be a big issue in our town, but it wasn’t one that we had to contend with before we moved here. While the council has been undertaking all sorts of measures to fix the recurring problem it still happens quite regularly. We have a freestanding water dispenser to filter our water for drinking as some days the water is brown. I’m talking really-silty-river-water brown. I’m talking freak-the-kids-out-and-make-them-think-they-have-shit-black-coal-into-the-toilet brown.

I have light coloured clothes that are stained from washing in the dirty water and the girl’s white school shirts need regular soaking to try to keep them clean. It’s not an issue up in the north part of town where we are moving too and one I’m looking forward to not having to contend with any longer.

What are some of the things that annoy you where you are living?

but our goddamn cinema is closed!

With no sign of it reopening in a hurry either.

Sigh.

I guess we’ll have to go to either the colour city or the racing city for a day where they have cinemas that are open dammit!

hmmmmm Maybe we should go ten pin bowling while we are are there too……. where is that half price discount offer card………

Wonder if can we take the kids to the movie………. lets see……… can’t find a rating………. oh look a parent guide -

as soon as we move cos what we are doing now just aint working.

I seem to be averaging three or four appointments a week between my counselling, Lou’s counselling, TJ’s speech therapy, Lou’s physio, and everyone’s general medical/dental needs. We are also on the waiting list for speech therapy for Lou and today we found out that Lou has shin splints. Great. Just fucking great.

Then there is sport that we havent’ been making it to regularly but have just finished doing registrations for winter sports that will start in a few weeks. And the gym. I should be getting there and I’m not, I should be getting the girls there and their attendance is sporadic at best.

Then there is the new house hunting, old house packing and cleaning deal and the landlords ringing me up apologising for putting us on the spot but pressuring us to hurry up and move at the same time that I didn’t appreciate.

And now I have fifty gazzilion parent teacher interviews to go to next Tuesday after mid semester reports came out this week because that just makes sense for parents to try to get to see TEN DIFFERENT TEACHERS PER CHILD on the one day. I need to see 17 freaking teachers if I’m going to chat to them all. Won’t be doing it, just sticking with the big ones – english, maths, science, history/geography. Don’t get me wrong – the kids have great results – you wouldn’t know that our house  has had some huge challenges this past term they are that good – but there are a few things that need to be discussed. Oh and PSLS – he’ll be on his way to South frickin Australia that day so no help there.

Then I have one child whining that they have to do ‘Everyyyyyyything around here!’ and another not wanting to do anything and the littlest one wanting everyone to stop bossing him and I’m ready to shoot someonething.

And why is the tennis court on the sports news purple? Purple! For fucks sake! That’s not a tennis court, that’s a painting accident in a sporting arena!

Sorry was distracted then blinded by the purple.

Where was I?

Oh yes, our after school routine for getting homework, reading, piano practice etc all done is non existant.

We aren’t even getting to fire brigade training – something that we all do together at the same damn time.

I can’t contemplate going back to vocal group, hell I can’t even manage to get around to everyone’s blogs regularly.

We are a shambles people.

*hangs head in shame*

We’d better find a new home soon so that we can get packed, get moved and get settled and get ourselves into a better routine, cos this chaos right now is driving me nuts!

I hate New Years Resolutions.

Truly.

I don’t do them.

Don’t see the point in setting myself up for failure by resolving to accomplish a certain thing or list of things this year so I only do anti resolutions.

I think it’s good to have goals, things to work towards, but resolutions just seem…… well, not for me.

I do do some thing at the beginnings of most new years though and make myself a wish list.

My wish list might be things that I want to buy over the year or do or things that I’d like to try or learn.

This year’s wish list is about making our home more comfortable and continuing to look at self sufficiency.

To buy -

• a lounge with chaise
• dining chairs
• chest of drawers for kid’s rooms
• shelving for all kid’s rooms
• desk for Miss Lou’s room
• good desk chairs for everyone’s desks
• new bed linens for my bed
• extra outdoor furniture for entertaining

Most of the furniture we’ll be able to get from hubby’s work – all locally produced…….. which fits in nicely with one of ‘To Try’s’

To Do -

• continue with our backyard vege garden to grow more of our own produce
• build a small hothouse for propagating seeds/seedlings
• investigate and buy suitable fruit trees
• to sell some of my jewellery
• to help Miss Lou settle back in
• to help TJ improve his language skills
• to help CJ settle in to high school and develop good study habits
• to continue looking at ways to lower our living costs and utilise our finances better
• to help my mother document, record and put together the things she has collected re our family history in a format that pleases her

To Try -

• to purchase more of our household goods and groceries locally
• to buy organically made goods/produce where practical/possible
• to recycle more and reduce our household waste
• to make more of our own snacks/biscuits/treats/gifts/etc
• to make more of our own clothes
• to make my first quilt

To Learn -

• how to use my over-locker to it’s potential
• how to build and maintain my own website (coming soon)

So there you have it. The things that I’ll be aiming towards this coming year. What are you going to be aiming for?