Tag Archives: depression

A change of heart . . .

by . Posted on
09 Aug

Funny how the universe can keep presenting us with information and we turn our backs on it again and again . . . I first read Louise Hay’s ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ 20 years ago and it marked a huge shift in my understanding of the metaphysical nature of dis-ease, but I didn’t ‘get’ the central message about loving and healing yourself by changing your thinking . . . .

Then more than 6 months ago my wonderful psychologist suggested Louise’s ‘The Power is Within You’ which I began to read avidly, but again I didn’t really ‘get’ the idea and it all seemed sort of too hard, and not applicable to me somehow . . . I guess I was just more comfortable with my negativity, judgemental attitudes and self hatred . . .

So I put it down again and lost myself in a novel instead . . .

Last year Ben and I started seeing a new Bowen therapist, who is a Louise Hay teacher and facilitator and she lent me the Louise Hay ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ movie. It’s been sitting on the shelf for 8 or 9 months, but recently I felt guilty about how long I have had it for, and started making intentions to watch it. Finally I plonked Ged and I in front of the computer and said ‘we’re watching this’.

And a doorway opened in my head as I finally saw the wisdom inherent in changing my critical, damning, bullying thinking . . . and the light and love of Louise Hay penetrated my closed heart. They say that ‘when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’ So I picked up the books again and read anew.

I started with ‘I am safe. All is well.’ And my shoulders dropped, my body started relaxing and I realised what a central issue this is for me, that I am scared and feel unsafe most of the time. The more affirmations I chose, the more I invented for myself and the happier I felt. After 40 something years of a postnasal drip, I checked out the cause and affirmation and started repeating the mantra, and I started to feel better in my body and in my life . . .

I have been feeling more relaxed, less stressed, more willing to have time for enjoyment and rest and have eased up on those around me. I have stopped my obsessive exercising and have experienced deep peace in my heart for days at a time. I am eating in a more balanced way, I am more aware of what I put in my mouth, of myself, my actions, thoughts and obsessive and unconscious habits.

I guess I am becoming gentler. I still find the mirror work really hard although sometimes at yoga I reach the zone where I can look into my eyes and love myself . . . I’ve always been better at picking on myself and others and beating myself up.

The initial bliss bubble wore off after a week or two and last week I felt very discombobulated, this week I lost my temper in a big way with our infuriating neighbour (an arrogant architect who lives in Sydney and knows everything about everything up here) and I felt a whole raft of unidentified emotions bubbling under the surface . . .

By yesterday I was starting to identify them as grief – grief that I have been so mean to myself for 40 something years, that I have tortured myself and picked on myself and literally eaten away at myself for so long. I was waiting for Ged to get home so I could take myself off into the shed and process in peace. Ben and I were having a fun day regardless although his whining and crankiness has been very frustrating of late. He refused to go to bed until Daddy got home and I didn’t argue, but he was super tired and over excited when Ged did walk in the door so he started mucking up as he often does at teeth cleaning – kicking and smacking Ged and general being silly. I shouldn’t have got involved, it was their problem, but even though I am advocating and striving for ‘the way of the peaceful parent’ somehow seeing Ged being so calm made me cranky and I wanted bedtime over and the day done, so I started taking control, being bossy and impatient and of course I made things worse, longer, and more drawn out.

I am ashamed to say that I finally lost my temper and there was a horrible scene reminiscent of my childhood when a beautiful small boy felt completely powerless and overpowered by the adults and his distress was enormous. When he smacked me I actually smacked him back and screamed ‘how does it feel?’ I am far from proud of myself and I cut off my three week www.theorangerhino.com arm band in my guilt and shame.

And then I wept and sobbed and howled and what came up for me was all those feelings of self hatred and worthlessness and being bad. They came up one after another in all their darkness and ugliness so I could take a good look at them. I was plunged into that old depression and despair, contemplating running away for ever (except the trailer was on the car full of mulch and so I couldn’t take my car) or killing myself and freeing my beautiful boys of the torment and me of the agony of being such a blight on the earth. One after one these emotions presented themselves to me in all their horror and diabolical allure, and my body shook and retched and writhed as I felt them one by one. These are the core beliefs that have been running my particular show for all these years – ugly, sad, horrible, every one.

At least I didn’t fall for them, I let them come, I didn’t buy into them as I have in the past. I must be getting better, a little more healed, a little less hurt. And the fact that they were so violent in their insistence means I must be threatening their existence with all this positive self talk and affirmation, I’d better keep it up despite feeling very fragile this morning . . .

This path of personal growth and change is a rocky and steep one. But there’s no turning back and I know now that I can leave hell behind if I persist. I am so lucky to have the most wonderful, forgiving, generous and kind man as my husband. And the most beautiful, light filled, angel as my child. Sent to save me, heal me, forgive me, and love me as I have never been loved before and to help me to love myself and become a better human being. I am so very blessed.

Menopause as a grieving process

by . Posted on
wedgie
04 Jul

Many of us are familiar with The Five Stages of Grief as introduced by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and we recognise that when someone we love dies we will experience some or all of the emotions associated with the long grieving process – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.  Not many of us realise that we can expect to react similarly in other times of crisis or loss (job, divorce, rape, illness, burglary etc).  In fact, if you like, these emotions are the major themes of our lives, playing either in the background or the foreground, sometimes softly and other times at deafening levels if we could only see ourselves as others see us.

If there is a taboo in our society about talking about or dealing with death and the dying (and there is), then it is doubly so for menopause.  Just as we do not publicise our periods , we are not expected or allowed to talk openly about Menopause.  But we should.  Because this is a life changer that destroys marriages, creates volatile home environments for children and young people and takes women to the outer edges of their sanity and their ability to cope.  Depression has come out of the closet in all its guises, now it’s time for Menopause to step forward into the spotlight.

Let’s talk about the fact that women universally think that menopause happens to women over 50.  They don’t know that peri-menopause starts around age 40, and earlier if you have used in vitro or fertility drugs which provoke early and often release of eggs.  Peri-menopause – it sounds so harmless, so sweet, so unassuming . . . but it’s not.

Often the first symptom is an all consuming rage which is unidentified as a symptom of peri menopause and therefore directed at husband, children, employers and employees and colleagues.  Families and worklife can be wrecked if the emotion isn’t correctly attributed and some sort of management commenced.  Some women have hot flushes, some don’t.  Some have a couple a night and some have hundreds a day.  They are embarrassing, exhausting, debilitating.  We have to learn how to dress differently in order to manage them, and most women will try a plethora of remedies in order to stem or stop them.

After the rage has wreaked its havoc then comes the depression (which may simply be a reaction to the unforeseen and unexpected change of life).  For many women (especially those hounded by hot flushes) the depression is all consuming, a deep dark pit at the bottom of which is a desire to leave life and all we love.  Undiagnosed, this can end in the ultimate tragedy.

Woven among the above is the denial ‘this can’t be happening to me now’, ‘I’m not ready’, ‘’m too young’ etc as we realise that our biological clock is ticking away our childbearing years and heralding the dawn of the demise into old age and eventual death.  We are forced to contemplate our own mortality, our life purpose, our own needs and wants and desires after subjugating our souls and selves during our childrearing years.  Often women feel rudderless, pointless, empty, barren and embittered as the women’s heartbeat in our womb slows and stops.  Some women are beset with almost constant bleeding and are left begging for the cessation of the flow.  All the physical symptoms are exhausting and the broken nights of sleeplessness add to the out of control feelings and the inability to cope.

This is a time when we need to nurture ourselves, take time out from daily stresses and reflect on our lives thus far and question ourselves deeply about what we want to feel, see, hear, achieve in the second and final half of our lives.  This should be a time of deep going within, withdrawal and meditation for a woman.  This is the perfect opportunity for a life changing journey or pilgrimage to seek out her soul’s longing.  But instead she is often hurried and harried at work and by the frenetic pace of modern life.  All too often a peri-menopausal woman is at war with a teenager in the house, a clash of hormones which is a recipe for disaster and can destroy parent-child relationships.  In my case, menopause has coincided with toddlerdom for my first and apparently, only, child.  I can only hope we can both forget some of our darkest days.  I now fully understand the wisdom of having children in our youthful, fertile years and get them long gone from the nest so that menopause can at least be survived in the sanctity of one’s own space.

Bargaining is part of the process.  Being women we reach out to complementary health professionals, herbal remedies, natural oestrogen boosters and yoga, pilates, exercise, healthier food etc which might stave off or alleviate the symptoms.  We’re bargaining with Mother Nature for more time.

Finally we begin to accept that in all of life there are seasons and we begin to embrace what our autumn years can gift to us, rather than railing against the injustice of the loss of youth and elasticity.  We accept that while we might have saggier skin, boobs and bellies, our hearts are purer, bigger and more open to the wonder of life.  We have experienced life and now we have wisdom to share.  We can devote time and energy to long cherished dreams, creative endeavours and play pursuits.  Menopause is a time when women ask ‘what about me?’, ‘what makes ME happy?’ and finally have time to explore ourselves.  It’s a transition from youth to maturity and we must mourn our losses as well as celebrate what we gain.  Let no woman suffer in silence and may every woman better understand what will come to us all.

Midwinter in my Soul

by . Posted on
10 Jul

I have struggled with depression all my life.  Great times when it seems that the beast upon my back has left me and I can bask in ordinary, happy living things like normal human beings.  And then with no warning that dark, dense, weight is upon me once more and I am bowed down, struggling, wading as if through earth rather than air such is the impossibility and intensity of every move, every moment.

So many times I have thought I have beaten it once and for all.  Each time I am wrong.  I have had long dark nights, and sometimes even days, when suicide has beckoned me, called me, wooed me, whispered to me and seduced me with her siren song of peace.

Still I am here.  This bout, whether it is menopausal, hormonal, mid life or a spiritual crossroads, the crux upon which the rest of my life will spin, is very bad.  The good news is that deep down in my hole I seem to have some clarity.  We know that I have seen myself as I truly am in all my horror and am still reeling from that.  I can’t seem to see anything about myself to like or to redeem me.  That has been pretty painful.  For weeks.

Yesterday I decided I was a good cook.  Today that I can sing.  All very nice but these are neither moral highpoints or gifts to those around me or the world.

Right now the thread anchoring me to the planet is that Ben asked the other day when I was singing ‘When I wish upon a star’ for him, if he could wish.  I said, of course.  ‘For anything?’  ‘For anything, my darling boy, what would you wish for?’  ‘You’ he said.

In my tears this afternoon I realised that my heart and soul right now are at midwinter.  I may not be able to see anything but the bleak desolation of a sleeping earth (and feel its weight pressing upon me) but just as I can see the potential when I plant a seed or clear the land, so too can someone, somewhere (call him or her what you will – I call it God) see beyond this darkness of mine into a spring when some little seed will germinate and grow and one day there will be a blossoming and one day I will flower fully into myself – all the brighter, more beautiful and more precious because of the struggle through the darkness into the light.

And I heard a song I haven’t heard for a long, long time:

Some say love it is a river
that drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razer
that leaves your soul to blead

Some say love it is a hunger
an endless aching need
I say love it is a flower
and you it’s only seed

It’s the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It’s the dream afraid of waking

that never takes the chance

It’s the one who won’t be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dyingthat never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winterfar beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun’s love
in the spring
becomes the rose