Tag: Personal

The struggle

Every day seems like a struggle at the moment.

To wake up. To get out of bed. To get dressed and feed the animals. To leave the house. To leave the driveway. To get on the train. To stay on the train. To walk to work. To be at work. To do my work. To leave work. To get on the train. To stay on the train. To go home. To feel content at home.

If it wasn’t for the love of my dogs, I’m not sure how I would be coping right now. I have family and friends and support networks. I have a psychologist. I have a doctor. I have a home and a job and transport. I have a soulmate. If my life were a ‘cup’ it would really be quite full.

And yet I feel so fucking empty.

I feel so full inside that I might explode, but I still feel hollow. It’s a contradiction, I know.

But what of this world in which we live? What effect should it have on a conscious and caring human being? What effect on an empath, on a person driven by logic, science AND by love? On a person for who solidarity is central to their own identity, a person who wears their heart and their values on their face for every person to see?

What effect should it have on me?

Because I’m waking up nearly every morning feeling depressed. I’m not really coping with all of the extra stress. I’m not really dealing with the fact that we are already in the midst of an existential catastrophe and yet half the world still wants to argue with me over the price of our humanity…

It fucks with me.

I’m sick of all the conflict, every single day. Not just the conflict in which I take part – though I am sick of so much of that too. But mostly it is the conflict all around me. The constant fight over what drives our society, and who profits from our economy. Because it sure ain’t people like me.

I’ve worked hard my whole life, as have my whole family, and nearly every person within a degree of separation from me. Yet we are all in debt. And yet, as we face down an impending pandemic (COVID 19), even in the worlds most advanced economies most of us are still worried about our lack of sick leave.

Me included.

I don’t even have enough leave to take off yesterday, or the day before. And yet I had to, because this world has got me waking up nearly every morning feeling depressed. It’s got me angry and sad and frustrated and feeling pretty close to giving up on a regular basis.

So I took two unpaid leave days, but not for anything fun. I used that time to speak with a doctor, find a new psychiatrist and have my first session.

It’s never easy that first session with a new psych. You have to relive your own traumas and reveal your fears all over again, and if you are like me then there is quite a lot of them. And it’s the first time you’ve ever even met the person. You can see the judgement in their eyes even as you can see their professional training strain against it.

You can feel the anxiety and wonder ‘what does she think of me’.

Honestly I don’t even know if I want to know the answer. What I really want though is some answers, and some solutions to our problems.

Yesterday I had to spill out my life story in a 45 minute conversation with a stranger, and I had to pay for the privilege. I walked away feeling drained and depleted. I can’t even get back in to see her for another 3 weeks, and I got nothing new to help me yesterday. Not this time anyway.

I need a break. I need some time off to recuperate. But more than that I really need to see some change.

We can not keep on kicking the can of climate change down the road. We can not keep burning fossil fuels. We can not keep allowing inequality to rise. We can not keep letting political leaders get away with telling us bold-faced lies. We can not keep locking up refugees, people with a disabilities, mental illness, different politics, or who simply fell into poverty.

We as a civilisation can not just keep on living like this, or at least I can’t anyway.

So I hope you’ll join me in making sure we have change, because I really, really, really want to stay.

Feels like yesterday. #100daysofblogging #Day19

The following is 2 verses I wrote recently, dedicated to my brother Tim Skinner and his son Connor Hart, who were taken from us in a tragic accident 1 year ago tomorrow.

few years ago I wrote a song for my bro
had a different message, a very different flow
there was no way then, that I could have known,
I’d never see him again and I was feeling hurt so

I wrote a little song demanding he call me
half my life had passed and I was being haunted,
waking up tearing my heart out in the morning
started as a teen, now I couldn’t ignore it.

dream he was back, wake up he’s gone again
subconscious thought trying to find a way to mend
scars from a past I was barely a part of,
wanted a change but had nowhere to start from

found a way to get a message to you,
but all you had to say is there’s nothing I can do
spoke with your girl and did a few sums
was then I found out about your four year old son

four year old son I found out about on Facebook
cutest little kid with a cheeky little look,
had the skinner chin, younger face of Tim
one single glance revealed the nature of kin

guess I’d hoped Tim you’d open up to me
invite me for a beer, maybe we could speak
hadn’t heard your voice since I was a teen,
and I wanted you to meet the adult version of me

wanted to meet your lady, you to meet my wife,
wanted to play a part in your sons life
but suddenly then, the worst turn of luck
fishing with your son when tragedy struck;

unseen wave came up under the rocks,
swept you off of your feet, both of your lives lost
hardest year through which I have ever been,
the year monther nature took you both permanently.

Catching ZzZ’s (the NEED for sleep) #100DaysOfBlogging #Day4

SleeepySo this is a little bit of a different post to the first 3, because it’s about something we all love! Sleeeeeeeeep! Most of us don’t get enough of it, I sure as hell don’t. I wish I did. And apparently it’s actually really important to get enough sleep.

We all know that our body recovers while we sleep, but did you know that while we sleep our brain is also cleansed of toxins? Or that connections between brain-cells are produced while we sleep, which improve our memory storage and retrieval?

I’ve been noticing more and more as I get older the importance of sleep. I try make sure to ‘catch up’ on any sleep I miss out on, but it usually doesn’t happen. I’m a busy person, and I’ve always had a bad habit of neglecting sleep. Continue reading Catching ZzZ’s (the NEED for sleep) #100DaysOfBlogging #Day4

A New Year – (2013, the year that was).

At the end of each year, like many others I’ve always enjoyed looking back at the year that was and making predictions and plans for how what the next year will be. The end of 2013 was no exception, but I felt a strong need to finish writing and sorting photos for my post “Logging in WA’s South West” before I wrote this post.

For me, 2013 was a year of much personal and professional progress, but also a year of serious emotional ups and downs and mental health challenges like I had never experienced before. I started the year out on the streets of New York, inebriated by too much top-shelf alcohol consumed while watching comedy to bring in the new year at the Gotham Comedy Club. The hectic nature of New York city on New Years Eve was an accurate omen for how the rest of 2013 would play out, over-crowded and full-on.

My story for 2013 is one of a year not for the feint of heart. Continue reading A New Year – (2013, the year that was).

Dealing with death (and other wonderful thoughts)

I gave the title a little colour, but this really is a post about dealing with death. Recently I have had reason to think a lot about death, though it has never really been far from my mind in recent years.

When I was about 12 one of my favourite uncles died, then my best friends father (my basketball coach) during my final year of high school. There was a break then, for 6 longs years until I lost 2 of my friends from high school in just 2 years, both of them best friends, both of them to suicide. Around the same time my grandfather, after receiving a lung transplant and living an extra year and then some, succumbed to emphysema.

These deaths all register as major events in my life and all came with various degrees of grief and resulting personality shifts. But the impact of those was dwarfed by what I experienced when my 19 year old cousin Jessica Rose Joss was taken away from us in a car accident. That one is still hard to even talk about. She was so young and full of energy and life and for that to be extinguished is heartbreaking.

And I guess that’s what I am getting at here. Dealing with death is heartbreaking. Everyone has a different way of dealing with it and none of them are particularly pretty. Continue reading Dealing with death (and other wonderful thoughts)