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.

[Eagle Ray]

Hello dear Paws and Hanna,

Paws, yes, there was a nature connection with both my parents. I think for them it was like one thing that felt safe for them, just as it is so often the one thing that feels safe for me. My dad had an interest in the weather and the stars and night sky. Mum loved wildflowers and birds. It is these positives that have sustained me and gave them some respite too. It can be hard to reconcile acts of cruelty that occurred from the same people who also opened me up to these beautiful things when I was a child. So it was very paradoxical and confusing, but I find it is those beautiful things that sustain me now and bring me back towards some kind of wholeness.

Yes, I'm very aware my mum couldn't easily talk about the worst aspects of her trauma earlier, especially coming from a generation that didn't speak about such things. She did, however, make me aware of her emotional trauma from when I 5 when I essentially became her caregiver/parent figure. I remember the day that actually started and I became highly sensitised to her emotional world. I carried that responsibility for the next 40 years until she died, trying to protect her from the emotional pain that threatened to take her down, and in the end it did take her down. What I was fighting to prevent my whole life still happened, and that is why I sit in the complicated grief I have now.

Dear Hanna, I'm sorry if I got cross there, but I needed to express what is my inner child's need for safety. When you started writing about those descriptions of a mother mistreating a child the other day, my entire body immediately returned to volatile attacks from my childhood which were highly traumatic for me. I had to put a boundary up and keep my inner child safe by saying I couldn't deal with that material right now. I then got further triggered when you described such vulnerability as being a victim (because that's the kind of label my mother would put on me along with things like "weak" and "pathetic", words she used to put me down). When it comes to trauma responses a person is never being a victim. Those are automated fear and survival responses. It is actually entirely appropriate to stand up for the vulnerable parts of ourselves and set a boundary around our own sense of safety.

To me resilience is not being stoic and toughing things out when triggered. It is quite the opposite. Resilience is the capacity to be vulnerable and sit with that vulnerability and also to protect it, especially as it was not possible for us to protect that part of ourselves as children other than to dissociate. I was staying present with my inner child and taking care of her, something I am practising more and more. It is necessary self care just as it is important for you to care for that part of yourself. You went through horrendous things and your inner child also needs care and validation. I'm guessing that's why you detailed your awful experiences as much as you did, to say hey, I went through hard things too.

So we are all vulnerable here and every single living being on the planet is fragile. I personally don't relate to the idea of "anti fragile" as you describe it. I think we need to recognise the fragility that is part of life and be sensitive and nurturing towards it. There is strength and wisdom in vulnerability and we heal most in the presence of safe others where that vulnerability can be expressed. So I'm sorry if I transgressed your vulnerability in any way and I hope you can see and be aware of mine.

Hugs,

ER

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER & Hanna,

Lass when you say "What I was fighting to prevent my whole life still happened"  I get the sense that on an emotional level you feel as though somehow you failed your mum.  I hope that logically you know you haven't failed her. What you were trying to do for her was beyond the ability of any human being.   Unfortunately I've found that sometimes our emotions/thoughts aren't always willing to listen to logic which I'm assuming is what is happening with you.  That on top of the grief of losing her is a heavy burden & you are showing good self awareness when you say it has complicated your grief.  

I won't add anything more here now as I don't want to upset you.  Lass I have a trait where I want to try to help when I see someone hurting, but I know sometimes the other person would rather I just listen. If you feel I am off target or you would rather I don't continue this line of thought, please let me know & I will stop mentioning your mum.  You are still welcome to talk about her or anything else.

I had a lovely chat with my sister earlier this week & she was sounding very bright & said the complimentary meds are still working well & she isn't as tired as she has been.  I think having an appetite back has helped as she is getting the nutrition her body needs.  

ER you mentioning your dad having an interest in the stars reminded me of spending time laying on our backs on a rug in the backyard while dad taught us about space/the universe & things like why stars seem to twinkle.  I got my love of history & space from him.  He was self taught (he left school at 13) & I'm sure if the opportunity had been there he would have loved to have worked in one of those fields.

I was fogged in this morning until nearly noon & then cloud cover all day so it stayed chilly all day.  If it is as cold tomorrow I might light the wood heater rather than use the reverse cycle as the wood fire is a nicer heat.

Hugs

Paws

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Paws and Hanna,

You are absolutely right, that I feel like I failed my mum. Each day I get a pang of this awful feeling of failure. I do know it is not logical, but my emotional self still produces the feelings. I know the reason is that I took on the role of feeling responsible for my mum's emotional state at such an early age it was before the logical, discerning part of the brain has even formed. So it's like it's hardwired into my emotions. It also would have felt like a survival necessity for my small child self to keep my mum alive and ok, so it is this very young self in me that has felt like this is an issue of life preservation throughout my life. My psychologist has suggested doing EMDR for the complicated grief, but something in me is feeling this may not quite fit. I am working on a solution where I can feel the mother-child connection can be held in a safe, loving presence. I know someone who is trained in the singing of traditional Amazonian healing songs who has sung to me before with incredible healing results. In fact it did give me some temporary respite from my grief when he sung to me before. I recently met one of his colleagues who I have also heard singing one of these beautiful songs (they are called icaros). I am thinking of asking her if she can sing to me and the spirit of my mum, and finally heal this broken feeling. She came across as a beautiful person who, if she were to meet my mum if my mum was still here, she would see right into my mother's good heart and soul and gentle core self and hold both myself and my mother in presence together. So I am planning to give that a go when I feel up to it.

That is so interesting that your dad was into those things too. My dad was also into history and enjoyed watching history documentaries and reading history books. He would have liked to have gone to university and become an astronomer or a meteorologist. However, similar to your dad, he had to leave school at 14 and go out to work as most did back then. He had an uncle who would sit with him outside when he was a small boy and tell him stories about the stars at night and clouds in the day. That really sparked dad's interest in the night sky and the weather. I have the memory of being small myself and dad telling me the names of certain stars, constellations and planets he pointed out in the night sky. After I wrote a song for my mum I wrote one for dad where I referenced him showing me the stars. He became quite shaky with emotion when I played this. I was always trying to heal them with love. These momentary connections, like the owl with my mum, were these islands of peace in an otherwise tense and chaotic world. So these remain points of stillness for me now and are anchoring for me. It allowed me to see that underneath traumatic and distressing behaviour my parents were these beautiful people who found some healing in the natural world that facilitated these moments of wonder and connection. I'm thinking here about Julia Baird's writing on awe.

I am so glad your sister is sounding very bright and is getting benefit from the complementary meds. It would be really nice for her to have an appetite back and be able to enjoy food more. Having some more energy would feel good too. I know you would be a kind support for her. It is wonderful now that there is a holistic approach to treatment and complementary treatment options that help the overall wellbeing of patients. Wishing your sister much peace and good feeling.

Wow, that is a seriously foggy day you have had. Early afternoon is quite late for a fog to lift. I too have both reverse cycle aircon and a wood heater. I agree the wood heater is nicer but I have to admit I resort mainly to the aircon which is much easier. However, it is still warm here and I think the need for heating is some time away.

I hope you are having a lovely, restful evening, and you too Hanna.

Hugs,

ER

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER

You clearly have a close affinity with music & its power to heal.  I've not heard of an icaro before, if my internet connection was better I would love to google to hear them.  I hope you can have the icaro sung to you as often as feels right for you.  Finding a way to become not necessarily cured, but rather at peace & content, I think takes a degree of insight into what works for each of us & takes time.  It can also require us to be willing to try more than just one thing as the solutions often need to be as varied as the causes.  Whether you realise it or not I think you have taken some of the hardest of all steps, you are able to see your parents as more than just their behaviours & with that understanding, it gives you the space you need to find your own healing.

I've found working with psychiatrists & psychologists only gets me so far.  Yes the treatments made a big difference & I know I need to keep taking the meds for the rest of my days, but that only got me to a place where I could begin to work out what the next steps need to be. It is still a work in progress as my mental health issues come from a number of very different traumas starting from when I was 4 years old.  I find working with or just being around animals of all types makes such a difference to my mental health.  Moving here to a rural property was the wisest thing I think I've ever done, just being able to watch the wildlife & the farm animals hereabouts can calm my mind as nothing else does.  

Having fogs that last until noon is not uncommon here, I also get days where it either doesn't full lift or where having lifted at lunchtime it starts to resettle about 4pm.  I also get the sea fogs rolling up the valley from the coast.  I love foggy landscapes as long as I don't have to drive.

I saw on the news earlier that WA is still getting abnormally warm weather, I hope the cold fronts forecast do bring you some decent rain in the coming week.  The fogs are at least stopping things from drying out completely after the rain we had earlier this month.

Hugs

Paws

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Paws,

Icaros come to healers, quite often when they are doing a dieta (traditional Amazonian plant diet) or during ceremony. They are medicines that can be used to treat all manner of things, but especially woundings of the soul. I have heard some that remind me of some Indigenous Australian songs, starting on a higher note and shifting downwards.

You are so right, there often need to be multiple ways on a healing path and it is very personalised. I am at a stage now where for me it is all about stuck grief starting to move and a process of repair. I had noticed tonight that the original version of the movie Storm Boy was on NITV but then forgot about it. I turned it on while eating dinner thinking I was going to watch something else and found the channels had gone offline and needed to be reset. I pressed the reset but it only brought back a few channels. This brought me back to NITV just before Storm Boy started. It was the first movie that I ever saw at the cinema that my mum took me to when I was 3. It felt like mum's spirit was playing with my TV channels to make me watch it. I knew it would be very emotional for me but I watched it and cried multiple times.

When I saw it with mum in 1978 I remember saying in a loud voice, "It's dark in here" as the cinema lights went down. Mum had asked dad to go and he said, "that's a woman's movie". So another relative said to my mum, "take your daughter". She didn't interact much with me from what I can remember, and I can see how it was so hard for my mum to reach outside of herself to express things. But the fact she took me really meant something. This is kind of reflected in the film where the boy's father sometimes is struggling to interact with his son. I couldn't follow much of the dialogue aged 3, but I remembered well the boy and the pelican on the beach, Fingerbone Bill and many scenes. I felt a strong affinity with Storm Boy's connection with nature and the pelicans. I later tried to build a raft like he had in the film from pieces of wood at the side of the house. It felt like I was meant to watch this movie tonight. There is a scene in the film where Fingerbone Bill is singing into an oncoming storm and it went straight into my heart.

Paws, I'm sorry you had the many traumas and it sure is complex trying to treat and heal all of those things. I think they have a way of compounding on top of one another. I could not agree with you more about animals being healing and I am so glad you have found your home with the wildlife and animals close. I also find they heal me more than anything else. I can always find healing in nature which is especially important when the human world seems to be not so healing at times. Did you grow up close to nature? I grew up in the city but near bushland and the ocean where I spent a lot of time. When I moved two years ago I knew I needed to get out of the city so came to this rural town. I too feel like it was a wise move.

I love how you get the sea fogs too. I also love fogs. They are beautiful for photography. You can get a mystical looking tree or boat on the water in the mist. We had a couple of fogs when it was super dry and it was so good to have that bit of moisture, like you say. It's still warm here now but we've had good bursts of rain tonight. There was a fiery red sunrise this morning.

Hugs,

ER

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Hanna,

In case you are still reading, I wanted to let you know I'm thinking about you, I care about you and I hope you are ok.

Hugs,

ER

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER,

How serendipitous your tv losing it's channels like that.  I'm glad you got to watch Storm Boy & that it brought back a lovely memory of being with your mum.  It is also good that you let yourself cry, I hope you can use those tears to recognise what it was about a particular moment in the film that made you cry.  I believe we need to look at the things that trigger our tears & hold them up to the light & learn from them so that with time they will lose their power to make us feel so sad.  Grief is natural & so are our tears, but our minds are designed for both to dissipate to a bearable level over time & when we have trauma that can stop the natural process.

Where I grew up was on the edges of the city, back then my suburb was more like a small country town rather than being part of the urban sprawl.  From my primary school we could see paddocks of cows just across the river & I have a lovely memory of a white pony that was in a paddock we would walk past on the way to school.  The milk used to be delivered by horse drawn cart & I used to get told of for getting up early enough to go pat the horse.  Mum grew up on a farm & to her animals either worked or they were raised for food. It was dad who had the soft spot for animals & both my brothers were the same, which is why they could never say no to an animal in need & so we ended up fostering dogs until we could rehome them, plus rabbits & even ferrets.  We also had a menagerie of pets & usually spent some of the summer holidays visiting relatives who lived rurally. 

Having said mum wasn't the one who gave me my connection to animals, she did teach me the importance of taking the time to look at the plants & animals around me, mainly when working in the vege patch & learning the difference between good & bad insects, as well as plant health.

From the weather maps it looks like southern WA may get quite a few good rain bands over the coming week, I will keep everything crossed for you.  Are you on town water, bore water or tank water? 

Hugs

Paws

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Paws,

Yes, I think the moments that make us cry tell us something. For me it was the innocence of the boy who had lost his mother looking for connection. He finds it in the baby pelicans he raises and especially the one he develops a close bond with, Mr Percival. My mum was still that innocent child trying to feel safe in the world, as I am too. She was always in search of safety but simultaneously scared to connect, in case doing so might be unsafe. I have the same fear, which is like yearning for connection but being terrified of it at the same time. I've made myself cry again just typing this, so I think that confirms what my tears are about. My mother so wanted to connect with me but it was terrifyingly difficult for her at the same time.

It's lovely you had the paddocks with cows near your school, the white pony and that sense of the rural being close by. I too would have wanted to get up early to pat the horse when the milk was delivered. When I was a kid the police would sometimes do their patrol on horseback. I would hear the clip clop clip clop from some way down the street so I'd then always go out to watch the police horses going by. You sometimes still see police horses at events in the city, but I'm not sure if they do patrols anymore on horseback in suburban areas. The area where I grew up was about a 5-10 minute drive from market gardens and paddocks with horses. Those areas are all built on now, but there was still that sense of the rural back then.

I'm glad you got to have those animals at home. Your dad sounds like a caring soul wanting to foster dogs until they could be rehomed. You would have got to know a wide range of dogs that way. Rabbits are such characters aren't they. I used to petsit for a friend with a rabbit. There are teeth marks in my laptop cable where she tried to chew through. Lucky I caught her doing it before she got to the wires and potentially gave herself an electric shock. I imagine having all those animals around growing up and also visiting your relatives in the country may have given you a sense of wanting to live rurally later. We also used to visit a relative's farm each year and I remember loving being on a farm. It gave me a sense of wanting to live in the country.

It sounds like you had some self-sufficiency too with the veggie garden. It was good having that time with your mum learning about the plants and the different insects. I liked how in the past most people had a veggie patch, a chook pen etc. When I stay in the city I often housesit for a friend in what is a built up, high density area. But amongst all the tightly packed units there is one house still standing on a full block of its own. An elderly lady lives there and has fruit trees, veggies and chickens. I love that that place still exists.

Thank you, yes, we have had some nice rain. It's clear and sunny this morning. I am on town water here but I also have a rainwater tank. The water comes off the roof into the tank but as my roof and guttering are all asbestos I don't use it for drinking. My neighbour was told by her real estate agent not to use her water off the roof for that reason. There is a settlement near here where they rely on their rainwater tanks for everything. With the recent drought they ran dry and could not have showers or use their washing machines, so were coming into town to use facilities here. What kind of water supply do you have Paws? I'm guessing you may use rainwater where you are?

Hugs,

ER

[Paw Prints]

Hello ER

 It really sounds like your mum tried to the best of her abilities to show you her love, even if her pain got in the way.  It's wonderful that you now have that insight into your mother's & your own needs.  Hard as it all is now, that gives you the understanding towards finding a path to out of the pain it currently causes you.  Being gentle towards yourself & the little girl you were who struggled is an important part of that.  

I don't know about over your way, but in Victoria the police mounted branch still patrol Melbourne's city centre as with all the laneways & traffic snarls it is much more responsive.  You were lucky to have the patrols in your area growing up, I think the horses make the police seem much more approachable to little kids & it was a great way for the police to know all the people in their community.

My dad was a complex character, very strict & very tough on the outside but with a soft centre that when I was growing up he usually only showed through the animals.  His sister told me after he passed that before he went off to fight in WWII he was a gentle sort of boy & that she didn't know the person he had turned into after the war.  Like many of his generation he turned to drink to cope.  Having lived through the Great Depression & the war years, self sufficiency in food & making do was ingrained in both my parents.  

Thank goodness you saved the bunny from itself, that would have been awkward to explain to it's owner.  It sounds like you have done a lot of pet sitting over the years, as I recall you mentioning other animals you have sat.  I've only done it a couple of times & I found it more stressful than all the times I babysat, yet I know people who do it regularly in the pet's home & they love it.

How wonderful & yet somehow sad that the elderly ladies house was the last standing amongst all that development.  I know we need housing, but we also need the green spaces to be healthy mentally & physically.  I'm on tank water here & have two very large tanks which is ample for my needs, in fact I tend to use one tank for the house & one for anything outdoors.  I am mindful of my water use & try to avoid unnecessary waste, something drummed into us growing up as mum grew up on tank water.  Thankfully no one hereabouts has needed to tank in water, but the dams hereabouts are the lowest I've seen them with the lack of rain, as is the nearby creek.  

Hugs

Paws

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you Paws,

My mum really, really tried to overcome the fears that were so debilitating for her. She endured multiple traumas throughout her life. What I find hard now is not being able to have a real conversation with anyone who knew her, as people have tended to polarise around her gentle side, if that's what they saw, or her aggressive side, if that's what they saw. Neither version explains the whole of her nor enables me to explain how I've been impacted by her life and death. It's like I've had to process everything in isolation when normally after someone dies you get to share memories of the person as a way of coming to terms with the loss. That has not happened in this case. I try to hold onto the memory of how mum and I had really grown closer in those last few years, even though things collapsed again in the last year of her life. It wasn't that the connection totally collapsed, but that her deep feelings of being unloved despite my efforts took her over and destroyed her. She effectively died of what is known as "broken heart syndrome", when emotion kills the heart. At times I feel I've been going the same way, like my body is taking me down involuntarily, and I keep trying to find threads to hold onto to keep going. It is those positive things that I shared with mum, especially the love of nature, that allows me to feel it might be possible to keep going.

Today I was at the bakery and the female magpie that mimics the boobook owl was outside the window, warbling away quite excitedly with boobook noises in between the warbles. I watched her dashing about outside, wondering what she was saying. I feel like she's mum's spirit. About 10 months after mum died I was at a wild place by the ocean. A magpie came up to me and sat on a rock right in front of me and sang to me very directly. I looked all around and could not hear or see any other magpies. Again, this felt like mum communicating with me. Mum actually said several times in her last couple of years that she wanted to be a bird in her next life. A few years ago she actually rescued a magpie who was being attacked by other magpies by shooing them away. The attacked magpie stayed with eyes closed and beak in feathers for a long time, but eventually recovered from this trauma freeze and was able to fly away.

It is so understandable your dad was impacted by the war. It can really change people. It was good you had the opportunity to see his soft side through the interaction with animals. I imagine, like many people carrying trauma, that he found animals healing. It is like animals do not judge, they just accept us where we are at, and they can feel simpler to interact with than other humans too when the human world can feel a bit much. I think for people returning from war the hard thing is those who weren't there cannot really understand what they went through, and for the person themselves having words for what they went through can be way too hard. My dad's father was in some awful combat situations and was also a POW. He died before I was born, but my older cousin said he was unfriendly and never interacted. I suspect it was trauma.

I have petsit a few times. The biggest worry for me was the very elderly cat I looked after. I didn't want him to die on my watch. The second day he went off his food and I got really worried. I spoke to his owner by phone who said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, he goes off his food every second day because of an issue with his kidneys". I was so relieved. He was a lovely character and I enjoyed his company.

I'm glad you have your two tanks. Rainwater is lovely. Hopefully you will get some decent rain soon.

Hugs,

ER