Staying/Getting/Doing Well – Moving goalposts or fixed target?

[Paw Prints]

Hi, this is my first post, though I have been reading the forums for some weeks. I’m probably expressing myself badly when I say that I have found reading about other people’s journeys reassuring. Finding a community of people who “get it” even when they have a wide variety of experiences and lives lived is not something I thought I would ever find.

Though people talk about getting well & there is a section Staying Well, I’m curious as to what this actually means to other people and how they manage their expectations. I noticed some people refer to being well as ‘being like themselves before they got ill’, whilst others don’t express an exact aim.

My idea of being well has changed over the years. I was first diagnosed as an 8 year old child back in the late sixties. The doctors told Mum that the voices in my head & the sudden crying bouts were because I suffered from ‘nerves’ & I was given meds to calm me. Of course such things were not discussed back then & I was told not to talk about it to anyone, not my school friends nor siblings, just Mum. For decades after my idea of being well simply meant being able to hide my illness from others.

A number of events in my life caused my illness to worsen, until some years ago I became so ill I needed to be hospitalised for my own safety. This lead to my current diagnosis of Major Depression, Anxiety & PTSD. I’m no longer in that dark place, but each day is still a battle (though I can now believe in a future). For now only my siblings & one friend know about my illness, though some things they still don’t know.
So, what does ‘being well’ mean to me, it is ever moving goalposts. If you had asked me 5 years ago would I be as well as I am now I would have thought it impossible as I couldn’t envision a future. If you had asked me last week (during one of my down periods) I would have said my progress was all an illusion & I was fooling myself that things can get better.
For now my idea of being well is being able to believe that things can change for the better, that I will one day be able to manage the everyday things like housework, caring for myself & caring for my dog & maybe, just maybe I will even be able to enjoy myself.

Paw Prints
**I took the tip to give myself time to write my post by writing on a word doc & then paste it.

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER,

Lass I just reread my last post & I'm afraid my phrasing of the sentence about not talking about your mh could mean it being taken not as I meant it to be.  So I will try to be clearer... what I meant is that as you wrote in the previous post that you didn't want to talk about what you have recently been going through, I won't ask about your mh to give you as much space as you need until/unless you choose to talk about it & then I am happy to be a friendly ear.  

I had to google the Baikal seals after your description... they are gorgeous & very fascinating being freshwater seals.  One picture I saw it looked like the seal had swallowed an inflated ball it was so round with it's head & tail attached like handles.  You are right about walrus cubs being adorably cute.  While I was going through a few different sites looking at the seals I watched one about an orphaned baby walrus & how it has to have people to cuddle 24 hours a day & the carers do shifts.  Watching it snuggle up with it's carers I would happily volunteer to do that wherever in the world it is. 

After a few months of decluttering my paperwork between doing other decluttering the penny dropped today... all I have really been doing is moving things from one pile to another.  Plus the piles of paperwork to go are a mix of needing to be shredded & can just toss paperwork, which means I will have to sort them all over again.   I'm shaking my head in disbelief that I didn't twig earlier to what I was doing.  🙈🙄  Because I just have the once a month bin collection (not this month because of the fires) & the bin's weight I am limited as to how much can put in the bin at a time I can't just throw it all in the bin as I go, so I do need a to be tossed pile.  I have just put it all back in the to be sorted pile & I'm starting again, but this time I have the shredder beside me & I will shred as I go.  

I saw on the news earlier the flash flooding on the coast about an hour from here, it seems crazy that we still have a fire burning & didn't get a drop of rain, yet they got pummelled.

hugs

Paws  

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Paws,

No worries about the m/h stuff. I understood what you meant. I don't want to go into the detail of things I've been through as I don't want to trigger others and it is triggering for myself also. Mainly in general terms I am just exhausted from relentless flashbacks and emotional turmoil, but I know they are flashbacks and keep reminding myself as much as I can that I am in the present and it's not really happening now. Kind of amazingly particular alters do this for me as well (remind me I'm in the present), so the dissociative identities actually help me with dissociation! Apparently about the first 1-3 years following the emergence of a dissociative system into consciousness is when flashbacks begin to push through the most, including stuff where there was total amnesia before. So it's very strange and confronting, but reading the accounts of others going through the same thing has been really helpful. I am learning to take things literally one moment at a time.

Yes, the Baikal seals are so delightfully rotund. I love them and want to give one a cuddle! I totally know what you mean about ones that look like they've swallowed an inflatable ball 😂 I have seen that baby walrus video where round the clock cuddles are being given, and I too would happily volunteer for that job. What a cute bundle that walrus is. The children's illustrator I mentioned has a cute walrus illustration I like which you can find if you google "Gareth Lucas banjo walrus with gull". It's of a walrus playing the banjo and a seagull sitting on the banjo. He has several images of various animals playing the banjo. I love something about his illustrations which are so delightful with a lot of character. That gives me an idea - perhaps we can organise some banjo playing on Croix's iceberg, especially of the fast-picking bluegrass kind. I don't think that will disturb the peace too much 😆

I imagine that is rather frustrating with the paperwork. I have bunches of paperwork to go through too and I dread it 🙈  It's one of those things where you don't want to throw out anything important that might be mixed in with unimportant things. It's good you have the shredder to just shred as you go. Does it help to have some music to listen to, maybe something not too distracting though (maybe instrumental?). I actually still have files of stuff from when I was studying and I have a weird relationship with it, where I don't necessarily want to throw out work I put so much effort into, yet it's just sitting there otherwise. Then I have notebooks where I have written down thoughts and ideas. A few months ago I recognised the alter within me that does this, as I visually see him writing in notebooks. He is fascinated by ideas while being emotionally detached. When he first appeared he didn't speak at all or even acknowledge the existence of anyone else in the system. Now he does talk and has been helpful when I am swamped by emotion, as he can rationally tell me what is happening and it gives me some distance from emotions that can be overwhelming. I realise how integral and adaptive each alter in my system is and the important roles they have played. So I have all these emotions about throwing things out that one of them put a lot of effort into. It's very complex. Anyway, I do hope it becomes easier for you to sort things going forward. Often just starting it is the hardest part, and it's great you've at least been able to do that. Sending you much encouragement and energy for future sorting!

I saw the videos on the news about the cars being swept away in flood waters in Victoria. It's really full on and quite bizarre as you say with the fires also happening. I travelled along the Great Ocean Road when I was 17 and remember those areas. It will take a while I imagine for a full clean up to be done and things restored as much as possible. Victoria has really copped it just recently. Apparently there's a cyclone brewing off the coast in the Kimberley here in WA, and sometimes those systems impact further south. Will see what happens, hopefully nothing too drastic.

Big hugs to you Pawsy (and Croix too whose iceberg I am planning as a location for a duelling banjo competition - heh heh)

[Croix]

I heard that!

C

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER,

I'm trying to picture how a walrus could manage a banjo??? They are usually played with fast finger movements.  Fast movements + walrus = "Error 404"... I think.  I can see a walrus with an acoustic guitar playing gentle folk tunes.  I think a bit of Bob Dylan would be a big hit with the penguins gathered to listen.  Perhaps we could get some bears to visit... a banjo duel between a Polar Bear, a Black Bear & a Grizzly Bear would be a sight to see & hear... those long nails would be perfect for plucking banjo strings.  

I haven't heard of Gareth Lucas before now, yet he must be well known as when I googled him it came up with prints of his work on sale from so many different stores.  An illustrator I only discovered about 18 months ago is Sandra Boynton...  I love how whimsical her work is & sometimes silly (in a fun way)... I've yet to see a piece of her work that doesn't make me at the very least smile.

Oh I definitely understand your relationship with your paperwork from when you were studying... I have that issue with all the paperwork & notebooks I have from doing research for my family tree in the pre computer days.  I don't look at it now & yet there are so many hours of work tied up in it I'm finding it near impossible to let any of it go.

I am off to the city to visit my sister tomorrow so I'm planning an early night.  I will have to give myself some extra time in the morning to find a way to secure her birthday present in the car so it doesn't slide about as it is fragile.  I'm hoping I can find a solution using the seatbelts for the back seat with cushions.  

I meant to ask in my last post... how did the photos you took in Melbourne come out now you can view them on your computer?

hugs

Paws

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Paws and Croix,

Yes, I'm not sure that Gareth's depiction of a walrus playing the banjo is entirely realistic 😂 Yes, the idea of a Polar Bear, Black Bear and Grizzly Bear all playing the banjo is fantastic! I think the interior of Croix's iceberg would have excellent acoustics with its domed shape that will create interesting sound reverberations. I just read that the Guinness World Record for banjo playing continuously is 24 hours and 57 seconds. I think we can exceed this! So I hereby announce the Banjo Marathon Competition! We can turn this into quite the party as well, with hundreds of penguins cheering the bears on and no doubt the inebriated kiwis will be joining the festivities. If you want to get a taste of the party atmosphere Croix, I can suggest the YouTube videos entitled "Steve Martin and Kermit the Frog in 'Dueling Banjos' " and "Muppet Songs: Steve Martin - Dueling Banjos". It starts out slowly and innocently enough, before turning into an all out frenetic competition. We will be aiming for as many hours of non-stop banjo playing as possible!

Paws, I really like Sarah Boynton's illustrations. Yes, they are so whimsical and silly in a delightful way. I especially love her hippopotamuses and elephants. It would be such a lovely job to create such illustrations. There is another children's book author, Leigh Hobbs, who is also an illustrator and his most known illustration is of the character Old Tom who is a very battered-looking grumpy old cat. In fact I think his book Old Tom's Holiday is my favourite children's book in which Tom's owner Angela plans a holiday for one and Old Tom feels so left out he finds a way to stowaway in her luggage and then hide in disguise in the various locations she visits. She realises she is feeling lonely and keeps thinking of Old Tom before finding he is there with her after all. I came across this book in a bookshop once and I had to buy it. If you look up "Leigh Hobbs Old Tom" you will see what a manic-looking one-eyed old cat he is!

Yes, I don't know what the solution is to the things that are hard to let go of. If there was a way to digitise them, such as scan or photograph the important info, that at least reduces the paperwork side of it. I'm thinking I should probably do that with some things if they feel really important to me.

I hope you are having a lovely visit with your sister today and that you were able to secure her present safely. I hope it is nice weather for being out on the road too after all the extremes of weather you have had there lately.

Thanks, yes, the photos went well in Melbourne. I took just one lens, a prime 23mm lens, rather than my zoom lens, because it is lighter but still quite versatile at that focal length. I enjoyed doing night photography and city images plus ones of the nature places I went to. I rarely go anywhere without my camera and even if I don't have it, my mind is kind of taking pictures and imagining how best to capture things.

Hugs,

ER

[Croix]

Dear ER, Paws and all~

Thanks for introducing me to new artists, I'd not not normally run across them. Gareth Lucas's picture of a narwhal or sea unicorn would fit right in.

I thing "Muppet Songs: Steve Martin - Dueling Banjos" was excellent, dunno who was canonized, Gonzo maybe, however Steve and the Jug band was exactly right.

Come to think of it if you really want to have a musical mayhem on the iceberg I'd not be adverse to Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

ER if you have lots of documents and you can stack them neatly maybe a local library would have a hopper that takes up to 100 A4 pages and scans them to PDF. It is a really handy way of keeping a digital record of things that are all ready orderly. I'm not sure it would do for photographic prints, digitizing might take a different approach.

Trying to  decide waht you want to keep is hard, and I tend to hang on to just about everything, (soon need a bigger iceberg:) Probably just as well I do keep documents, both of my major organizations had digitized their records, but only back a few years, leaving umpteen years worth moldering in unsorted boxes in basements. It took real persuasion to accept my records, but htey did in the end (easier than going though umpteen records I guess.

Croix

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER & Croix,

I can't believe I've made it to my current age, having watched The Muppet Show including repeats, without knowing that the muppet house band was called Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.  I will go & stand in the corner for the next hour. 😞

ER hold onto your hat... but from my reading we have permission to go wild with our plans 👍👏  I love your idea for the Banjo Marathon Competition 👍🤩  I'm thinking we can have a large flat iceberg pushed next to Croix's iceberg if you ask the helpers that you found for our last great "do".  That would give us room to provide even more entertainment for all the visitors that will no doubt flock to our event, given the success of the last one.  Of course we must invite Effie again as she was such a hit last time.  I'm also thinking that with all the banjos that will be there we should offer some old school barn dancing.  Of course every barn dance needs a caller to tap their feet & clap the rhythm while calling & I think a particular walrus would be perfect at that, slapping his tail & clapping his flippers, plus his deep voice would carry beautifully.  (imaginary walrus emoji)

I do remember the Old Tom books from many years ago, though for the life of me I can't remember where I came across them.  There is an animator on facebook who does very short cartoon episodes called "Simon's Cat" & when I first saw one I did think of the Old Tom books.

I did have a lovely visit with my sister & the present arrived there safely.  I bought a pack of six donuts & put a candle in each (one for each decade) I sang her happy birthday & made her blow out the candles & make a wish.  It is not everyday my baby sister turns 60 (even if the actual date isn't for a few more days) so I wanted to make a fuss.  Thankfully she did like the present, I don't know why but I always worry when I buy a gift that the recipient won't like it.

With the quieter weather they have started trying to make bigger firebreaks around the fires here, in some cases burning off areas.  After passing through big town on the way home the smoke in sections was as thick as driving in fog.  Home was clear thankfully, but a wind shift meant I got up this morning to such thick smoke I struggled to see my back fence.  The bom was right with their forecast though & it did clear by early afternoon with the breeze.

hugs

Paws

[Croix]

Dear Paws~

I'm afraid 

Dr. Teeth on vocals and keyboards,

Animal on drums,

Floyd Pepper on vocals and bass,

Janice on vocals and lead guitar,

Zoot on saxophone

and Lips on trumpet.

will all be most disheartened, ah fame is so transitory:(

BTW how can you have an emoji of an 'imaginary' walrus? Perhaps (!'!)

I'm glad you had a good if early visit and the enonomy birthday cakes were a hit:)

Do you have much smoke to contend with at the moment?

Croix

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Paws and Croix,

Well, I have to admit, although I recognise the individual band members, I did not know they were called Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem either. So I will stand in the corner with you Paws. I have to say, that is a cool name for a band. I almost feel like I should start a thread in the Social section on imaginary interesting band names, and see what people come up with, though people may want to keep their amazing band names to themselves for their future ambitions as rocks stars 🎸

Ah, yes, extra iceberg space is a good idea. It may be able to accommodate a choreographed ice skating accompaniment to the fast picking banjo music, which I imagine will be somewhat manic. I can hear Effie now trumpeting that she would like to take the lead in such an ice skating extravaganza. She can do some high speed triple twirls, or perhaps quadruple twirls, or even a world record breaking number of twirls in one go to match the epic banjo marathon. This will, of course, make her extremely dizzy, and will be quite a sight as she staggers about amongst equally staggering kiwis.

And, yes, I think we can get the walrus going with some enthusiastic clapping and tapping 😃 We could get some penguins to give him a tickle to wake him up a bit, though I don't think he'll be sleeping too soundly through the banjo cacophony. This is going to be fun!!!

I just had a google search for "Simon's Cat" and I can see he does look a bit like Old Tom. Actually, I saw a video embedded on the ABC website in an article called "Drawing Old Tom with Leigh Hobbs - ABC Education", and he demonstrated how quickly he puts his characters down on paper, which along with Old Tom also includes Mr Chicken and Horrible Harriet. Every time I see a picture of Old Tom I just crack up laughing. That gives me another thought, let's have a drawing competition at the same time as the Banjo Marathon! People have to draw whatever comes to mind as fast as possible in time with the banjo music and see what they can come up with. Maybe others then have to guess what the picture is actually of? I think the penguins would like organising that one. I'm excited now 😅

Paws, I'm really happy you had a lovely visit with your sister and that the present arrived safely. Donuts - yum yum!!!!!! (Notice I did 6 exclamation marks for each decade). Actually I should do six donuts too 🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩 It's so lovely of you to make a fuss for her. I am sure she really appreciated it and the present too. She is lucky to have wonderful Paws as her sister 😊

I hope that maybe the smoke situation is still better at the moment. I imagine there's lots of care going into further minimisation of fire risk across Victoria. It has been a really difficult time for so many. There's a few fires here in WA at the moment but not at the highest risk level, plus a few heatwave warnings for the state. Perth is very hot over the next few days, but luckily here it's not too bad at all.

Well sleep well both of you. I hope you are looking forward to the Banjo Marathon Croix (hee hee).

Hugs,

ER

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER & Croix,

I had a post almost done last night when my laptop went to the blue screen of doom.  The blue screen of doom & the black screen of silence have been occurring at odd times over the past 6 months, not often enough to make me think it is about to pack up for good, just enough to be very annoying.  The silver lining is that it makes me do my backups regularly for a bit afterwards.

I think I need to stay in the corner for another hour... Animal on drums ✅  Janice on vocals ✅  I'm going to claim I knew the others & have just forgotten them in my senior moment 🙉🙈🙊 ... okay another hour in the corner for fibbing 🤔

Did you know yesterday 20 Jan. was Penguin Awareness Day??? 🐧  I think the drawing competition will go down a treat, though perhaps keep the Kiwis away from the marker pens... we don't want them drawing on the guests in their inebriated fog.  🤣  We might have to provide a category for each drawing round... I fear the penguins might just draw what they know best... a blank white sheet (snow & ice)

I saw the temperatures WA is getting this week... 40 down as far as Perth & it's only January.  I hope it isn't that hot down where you are ER.    I'm guessing it is much cooler in Tassie Croix.  I actually have showers happening here, I'm hoping it either lasts a while or gets  heavier to help with the fires.

Hugs 

Paws