Worth watching
An artist friend shared this with me (thankyou Lisa!), and it’s worth watching.
It’s a video on TED wondering about how we approach creativity and ‘genius’ but keep our mental health at the same time.
November 11, 2009 Comments Off
Happy Happy Happy
I’m feeling kinda depressed today. Unmotivated with my art or work. It probably doesn’t help that I feel very tired…I feel like I’m slogging through thick molasses to get anything done.
That is, I WAS! Until I checked the post box!
This year I took advantage of Deviant Art’s free shipping worldwide offer, and ordered a bunch of little prints to use little gifts, gift tags, cards etc for people this Christmas. Had I had more money, I would’ve ordered much larger ones, but at least I got SOME, even if they are small.
And, since I was ordering and it was so cheap without paying shipping, I got a couple for me. My favourite being from artist Ravenari!
I’d have taken photos of the other things I ordered, but since they’re not all for me and some are going as gifts to people, I can’t or it’d spoil the surprise.
The above are poor quality pictures (really, my camera is dieing), but I’m VERY impressed with the quality of the prints from Deviant Art. To be honest, I was expecting slightly dodgy, but the colours are good, it’s crisp, it’s Kodak paper – all in all, a lot better than I was expecting.
So now I’m happy, and am going to go about hanging some of these up near my work space as inspiration. 
November 5, 2009 Comments Off
And repeat
sad Feeling by ~Auu on deviantART
Well, I don’t feel any better today. If anything, I probably feel worse.
I feel small and ineffectual. I want to go to bed and think about what a useless person I am, and how I can never climb the mountain of work I have in front of me.
Like emptying the dishes from the dishwasher…it’s such a daunting idea. How did I ever manage such a complex task in the past? How does one even start?
But it doesn’t take a genius to realise that going back to bed to ponder all the millions of ways I fail as a human being probably isn’t the ideal way to get through a day of depression, and luckily I’m the very not a genius to make that realisation!
So, after a little bit of computer work, I headed out to the garden for fresh air and exercise.
To be honest, it was the very last thing I felt like doing, but I’m glad I did. I feel like I actually got something done, which is always a good thing. Did some weeding, planted some more plants, mulched and added compost. There’s still SO MUCH to do out there, but hopefully once more seedlings start popping up it’ll look more like a nice garden and less like a wasteland.
Annoyingly, the months of bad weather we’ve had (gale force winds, hot dry days, sudden cold snaps, sudden downpours that don’t provide enough water and more gale force winds) has seen me lose a few things.
The basil, for instance. It didn’t just shrivel and die – the poor little seedlings were actually uprooted and blown away. And my ‘Jack-be-little’ pumpkin seedlings just withered and died after the wind shredded them and then a branch fell on them, really finishing them off for me.
But! It’s not all bad.
My normal pumpkins have started sprouting. And after picking peas and snow peas last night, there are a bunch more out there ready to pick today.
And the passion fruit vine (which was starting to grow in a ‘Z’ shape from being ripped down by the wind, tied up again by me, ripped down by the wind, etc) is finally recovering.
In other, and entirely unrelated, good news, the rock melon paddle-pops I made yesterday taste FANTASTIC.
It’s goddamned cold in the house today, but after work in the garden had warmed me up a bit I braved the cold just to try one.
Now I’m keen to try all sorts of other fruit. Especially strawberries, since we’ll have some of our own before too long. I think I need more paddle-pop molds…
Anyway, after all that work, I do feel a little better. I feel less like going to bed for the rest of the day and more like sitting and staring blankly at a wall for the rest of the day instead.
Uh…which is an improvement. Of about 90°, geometrically speaking. Or of jack bloody all, in real terms.
Still, it kept my occupied for a bit, and I’d have felt worse by now without it.
Time to find another (easy) task. Something less scary than emptying a dishwasher.
October 27, 2009 Comments Off
God thinking up a title is a lot of pressure…
Having a bit of a down day today. Which is funny – I had a really great day out yesterday, then started today all warm and toasty while it rained outside.
I guess maybe the gloomy weather got to me a bit though, I don’t know, but suddenly I’m finding myself feeling pretty depressed.
Still, as we all know, depression has up and down days.
I met my deadline of having an artwork finished on Friday, and though I have plenty of other work to do, I took today off from computer work and tried to distract myself from feeling crap by getting other stuff done.
And – lo and behold – I actually DID get stuff done!
I tidied my room, which was a MONSTER task. My drawers had stopped functioning, so all my clothes were all over the floor in a sprawl several layers deep. I got a cheap and nasty mini wardrobe from IKEA to help fix that problem, but hadn’t had the time to actually pack my stuff into it properly until today.
Then, once my drawers weren’t so over full, a bit of sanding and then running wax over all the timber saw it working again. Just got to make sure I don’t cram too much into it or I’ll have the same problem.
So now, at least my room feels nice to be in. Well, It doesn’t today, because I feel crap, but tomorrow, or the next day, or whatever day it is that I feel better again, I’ll be really pleased.
And for now, at least it’s one less job weighing on me.
I also cooked pears and apples with some of the maple syrup my dad bought back from Canada for me, which turned out to be thoroughly delicious.
I made crepes and we wrapped up the mix in the middle of them then ate them for breakfast. Maybe not the MOST healthy breakfast ever, but certainly the tastiest. And, I mean, it’s fruit isn’t it? A shirtload of sugar, but at least fruit sugar. NATURE WOULDN’T MAKE IT IF IT DIDN’T WANT ME TO EAT IT!
Other good news on the food front is also good news on the garden front:
Firstly, the ruby chard patch is going so well that we can eat a bit of it daily, and the patch still keeps getting bigger, not smaller.
Additionally, today also saw us eat our first peas, snow peas and our first (very) baby carrot from the garden.
Snow peas and peas were soft and juicy and sweet, carrot was fail. But that’s because I really hate carrots. I don’t know why I thought this one would be any different. It wasn’t. It was disgusting.
And, even if it is currently depriving me of my vitamin D, the rainy weather should see stuff grow like mad. I hope.
I’m also hoping I’ll feel a bit more excited about garden things later in the week, and that I’ll get out there and plant more seeds and transplant seedlings. Right now I feel very ‘meh’ about the whole thing, but hopefully that’s just short lived.
Then, keeping myself busy this afternoon, I pureed some really delicious rock melon (cantaloupe) with a dash of milk, and poured the mix into paddle-pop molds to pop into the freezer to eat on a hot day. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it tastes as good as it smelled – I’ve still got the dried juice all over fingers, which I keep sniffing just because it smells so tasty, which makes me look like finger-sniffing creep. Probably because I am.
Anyway, I’ve made it through a ‘down’ day again by swinging from task to task. A good thing, I think.
Even if I did wear my pajamas the whole day. But you can do that on rainy days, so long as you get stuff done, right?
And tonight, after watching a show about Ed Wood’s ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ with Seth, I’ll go to bed early and relax and listen to the rain on my window, and hopefully tomorrow will be better.
October 26, 2009 Comments Off
A horrible secret
Sometimes I get in a mood where I want to drag the tv into my room, get into bed (dragging the cat in with me), watch a romantic comedy and cry.
Yes, it’s wrong. Yes, it makes me feel dirty to even write that.
I have no idea why I get these moods. But I’ve been feeling melancholy yet oddly energised today. An odd little individual washing clothes and tidying dishes while listening to Zoe Keating’s (yes, I know I’ve mentioned her a million times before, but she’s incredible) Cello x 16.
Also, there are no cookies in my house. This makes me sad.
October 14, 2009 Comments Off
My personal ten steps for staying (almost, sometimes) sane….ish
It’s funny when I look at it sometimes – the things I have to do to stay sane.
Depression is something that’s always there for me, and a week of slacking off from my ‘stay sane’ routine is more than ample opportunity for it to take up residence in my head again, hungry and eating chunks out of my ‘normal’, ‘healthy’ thoughts, eating a great big hole in my chest, just under my ribs, until it’s a hollow cavern. Days like this I walk around, fist pressed to sternum soothe that weird ache in there, half way between being hollow like a barrel and having swallowed an enormously heavy stone. I stagger like a zombie. There’s pressure inside and outside my ribs. I feel as though my bones might break.
It feels like drowning.
They say drowning isn’t an unpleasant way to die. I don’t think I believe them.
So there are things I do, sometimes daily, to push it back. It hibernates, and the longer it does, the better I feel. And the stronger I am when it comes back.
Unwilling to live that way – day in day out out being crush in a vice, curled up in a shivering ball under clammy covers, aware that in Australia six people commit suicide every day, and god oh god, I don’t want it to be me with my number up today not me not me not me – I take steps.
That’s right, steps.
Shiver in your shoes, mental illness.
It’s funny, but against an illness as seemingly overwhelming as depression, it’s often the tiniest things that punch a hole in the damned thing and let a shaft of dusty daylight into your thinking.*
For instance, for me:
Step 1: actually get the hell out of bed.
I so often can’t see why I should get up. What I need to be out of bed for. I come up with reasons, logical, well thought out reasons that I present to myself as persuasion.
No dice. I get up. I don’t care if the house is on fire and the bed is the only thing in the whole place not aflame, the rule is I get up. And then
Step 2: get dressed.
It doesn’t have to look good, it doesn’t have to match, but wearing the same yellowing pajamas for a month doesn’t do much to boost one out of a feeling of helplessness. Everybody feels crap in crusty, sweaty pajamas. Wear clothes.
Step 3: eat something.
I’m prone to not eating when depressed, which of course makes me more lethargic and more depressed.
Top points if I manage to have a coffee and a couple of poached eggs, but eating a spoonful of a condiment (peanut butter, vegemite or nutella if we happen to have it) and nothing else is a fail I’m afraid.
Step 4: vitamins
I can’t stress this one enough, even to myself. It helps a huge amount to get enough of the things you need, so I take a multivitamin.
Then (especially in winter, since winter light increases brain serotonin levels only half as much as summer light) I take vitamin D, a vitamin which our bodies usually get from direct exposure to sunlight.
There is argument as to how much this aids depression, but I know that it seems to help for me, and since it also helps with other areas of health (bone density, for instance) it can’t bloody well hurt really, can’t it?
Step 5: shower!
I’m prone to letting things like personal hygiene slide when I’m depressed enough. After all, if there’s no point in getting out of bed, can there really be some inherent value in being clean? No. My mind tells me wallowing in my own filth for days, unfed and grimy is acceptable. Hell, logical.
It’s wrong though. Amy, take a shower. Trust me on this one.
Step 6: get out. see humans.
Wander about the garden. Breathe fresh air.
See other humans. Laugh. Realise that there is a world beyond the shady dankness of your bedroom in the middle of the day. And that laughing makes you feel better.
After all, nothing is that serious. Listen to other people’s problems. Have people listen to yours. You’re not alone. Get a grip. Gain some perspective.
Step 7: relax
I’ve started taking a little time just for me every day (oh god, how woman’s magazine of me) and it works.
Some days I meditate, some days I just zone out in the garden over a cup of tea. Sometimes a hot bath, sometimes a blanket and a book.
There’s a lot of time in the day, but the thing is it’s easy to waste it. With this, even 15 minutes, used properly, is enough.
Just make sure you use the time to focus on it being soothing, relaxing time, don’t jam it in and stress through it and wonder why you don’t feel better – the focus of calming down and feeling energised is the whole point.
Step 8: work
I don’t expect huge things from myself while depressed, some days I clap myself on the back just for being out of bed and still existing, but setting little tasks that CAN be done help with combating the feeling of uselessness. On days like this, even just spending 3 minutes wiping down the sink makes me feel like I did something useful, and that the day wasn’t a waste.
Step 9: exercise
I need to work more on this. But going for a walk, or even stretching, increases levels of endorphins and dopamine. These are good things. You want them if you’re badly depressed.
But at the same time – keep it moderate. An hour here, a couple there. 6 hours a day in the gym running until your eyes sweat is a whole other problem, not a solution.
And finally, step 10: avoid stupid things.
Stupid things? Drugs, alcohol (really. very important.), skipping nights of sleep, living on only gummi bears and sour worms, etc.
Boring? Maybe, to some people. But spending a week in bed because you’re afraid to get up and face life is more boring. Take your pick there.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? I know it’s not. I know it’s not a cure, but it works better for me as a management system than anything else.
And right now I’m doing a-ok. So that has to prove something, right?
_____________________
* I should disclose, the reason I don’t mention medication is that I’m not on any. I’ve been on medication previously – we spent years trying to find what worked for me, while I was jerked back and forth with side effects keeping me awake, sending me to sleep, making me eat, making me unable to, etc etc.
I’ve been medication free some years now, and have been more stable than ever by sticking to my routine as best I can.
I should also mention that while this works (somewhat) for me, I don’t recommend it as an alternative to medication. I don’t recommend medication either. I don’t recommend anything. Everybody needs to make their own choices with what works for them.
September 28, 2009 1 Comment
Aha! But the good stuff!
Turns out that in the end, I didn’t have such a bad day. I submit, as evidence, my day summed up in dodgy bullet point form:
- I managed an unexpected trip to Ikea with my mum at the last moment, which resulted in me getting some shelves, some lamp shades and other misc that the house needs (photos forthcoming!). I tried to buy a chest of drawers (my current chest of drawers is a fun little number that tilts forward to crush you under its mighty bulk every time you dare try to open a drawer, which has resulted in me opting to keep all my clothes on my floor lest I be crushed like a bug), but it turned out that after all the looking and thinking and discussing and selecting and finding and lugging and moving and seeking….that they were out of stock.
BUGGER!
On the bright side, this gives me some more time to look about at Ikea hacks (I have some ideas of my own, but it’s great to see what else is out there!) before making my final purchase. Plus, in my mind, a second trip to Ikea is never an entirely bad thing.
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September 15, 2009 Comments Off
