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

Paw Prints
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Valued Contributor

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.

1,548 Replies 1,548

Paw Prints
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hello Hanna, ER, mmMekitty,

 

Well today was the first really hot day for the summer here, mid 30s according to the thermometer. But I've discovered I don't need a thermometer to tell how hot it is, I just need to look out my window at how popular my bird bath is & how much squabbling over it is happening.  I'm pleasantly surprised about how many different birds now use it since the dam next door was filled in. It used to be just the Fairy Wrens & other small birds, but now I'm getting much larger birds drinking from it. It is shallow enough for the little birds to bathe in it (which they do), but now I'm trying to think of a good place to put a deeper bath for the larger birds. I'm also thinking of a dish at ground level for the local echidna & other small critters, but I don't want to encourage the feral cats to come here for water, so that might stay on hold.

 

mmMekitty I remember reading somewhere that you were listening to Asimov's Foundation & I've been meaning to ask if you just have that novel or do you have access to the full series & what do you think of the later novels.

 

I can see very large & dark thundery looking clouds out my window & the radar shows storms heading this way, but it is likely the storms will go around me like the last lot that hit Victoria did. I've got my candles ready just in case they don't, as we almost always loose power whenever there are storms hereabouts. 

 

Hugs

Paws

Hi Paws & everyone

The feral cats ar definitely a problem. I can only think if the bird baths are surrounded by fencing the cats can't climb, but the birds can still enter, & if it's also possible for other smaller-than-cats animals too ...  but I also think, what about these things being convenient for mozzies to breed in. .... maybe only have water available when you are out there & can watch for cats? It might take a while for birds to get used to the water only being available sometimes. It's not really recommended for wildlife to become dependant upon us feeding or providing water for them. They get too used to it, then when you stop providing for their needs, or aren't there anymore, what then?

 

I'm using YouTube to find audiobooks to listen to. It gets frustrating trying to find all the books in any series. I have found them & was able to listen in the chronological orderof the story, rather than the published order. But I'm still not sure how the Foundations Series sits within the other related books he wrote. I have gone on to rereading The Caves of Steel, (first of the Robots Series), which I realise, I ought to have read before the Foundation Series. Oh well ... I'll still enjoy hearing these books again anyway.

 

The weather in Victoria's west & south-west looks likely to be pretty extreme, lots of rain & storms about. While, here, in SE Qld have improved, & it's been more comfortable again. But they are still restoring power to the Mount Tamborine area. It's nearly two weeks without power for them.

 

Hugzies

mmMekitty

mmMekitty
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Paws,

I got distracted while posting - forgot to say what I think of the Foundation series, especially the later books.

I think you mean, Prelude ... & Forward ... & the final, Foundation and Earth. I enjoyed hearing how things were before the Foundation, how things happened to bring it about, but later, in Foundation and Earth, it seems we still weren't told everything ... (making it up as he went along, maybe), & it had gotten too quasi-religious for my liking. 

 

Now into the Robot series, again, beginning with Caves of Steel, I'm not so keen on books that seem to be detective stories in the guise of Sci-fi. I do like the characters, to a point, which is usually when dated attitudes such as those held in the 1950's sort of make me cringe.

 

Hugzies

mmMekitty

 

Hello mmMekitty, ER & Hanna,

 

mmMekitty I enjoy the first 3 novels of the Foundation series & the pre-sequel, but when it comes to the last two, it annoys me that he tried to link all his robot books (which weren't actually written as a series) into the separate Foundation series. To me the Foundation series was a separate view if a future time than his earlier work & I would prefer it if he had kept it that way. I know that is just me, I have friends who like that he made everything fit together.

 

My bird bath is made of copper so not a worry about mozzies, besides I don't keep it filled with water all the time & wouldn't with a deeper one if I can find a place to put it. The only one that the cats could reach would be one on the ground, but as I can't think of a way to enable the large echidna that visits to access it without cats being able to, that one probably won't happen. 

 

Still very humid, thankfully the worst of the storms are missing me & I've only had a few ordinary rain fronts come through, though I can hear thunder in the distance. Keeping everything crossed for those in the path of these storms. 

 

Hugs

Paws

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Paws, MK and Hanna,

 

How lovely you have a visiting echidna Paws! I find them so cute. I would give them a cuddle if a) they weren't spiky and b) they actually wanted one. But I don't think they would take well to me accosting them with cuddles. It is just the way they waddle along and investigate things around them. In Tasmania I watched one come up to a tree stump, sniff about, climb up onto the tree stump and then kind of topple off again 😂

 

I have a bird bath too and just fill it from time to time in the hotter weather. I think it is fine in that the birds are used to ephemeral water sources that appear here and there and it is basically another source for them among various options. I agree that feeding wildlife is not a good idea, unless they are starving animals who desperately need to eat, as can happen following events like bushfires. I have fruit trees which parrots, various other birds and possums visit. It is probably not as healthy for them to be eating these cultivated fruit species as it is their native food sources. But I can't really stop it and I guess it just provides them another option in their food world. The reality is they get more of the fruit than me. Last year of all my peaches I think I only got to eat about two. And those were on the unripe side as I picked them out of desperation that I might at least get something off the tree before my bird and animal friends did.

 

I have lizard friends too in the garden. Yesterday, a shingleback or bobtail (different names in different parts of Oz) decided to try and investigate getting through my fly screen door. She (she seemed female to me, I don't know why) kept going up and down outside the fly screen and seemed most interested in the interior of my home. She then became interested in the glass side of the door. I wondered if she could see her reflection. Eventually she wandered off to explore other things in the garden. She was a lively, curious being, checking everything out. I find these animal friends to be so healing somehow, like their delightful presence is just such nice feeling. My neighbour told me that lizards, including some of the other large skink species we get, have been eating their strawberries! I can't blame them. I think I'd munch a juicy strawberry if I came across one 🍓

 

I hope you have all had a good beginning to the week.

Hugs,

ER

Hello Paws, ER & everyone

My mind is now filled with birdbaths, birds, lizards, possums, fruit trees, strawberries & echindas & it's so lovely!

 

Hugzies

mmMekitty

PS, wish there was a cat dreaming emoji. Either 😹 or 😻 will have to suffice.

Hello ER & MK,

 

mmMekitty I think we must have posted at the same time yesterday. I think you might be right about him not having a clear idea about where to go with the story in the last two novels. It definitely feels that way when I read them. 

 

ER the echidna has visited my place of & on over all of the 8 years I've been here, it is very large now which makes me believe it is the same one. I doubt you could could pick it up for a cuddle even without the claws & spines as it looks very very solid (heavy). Woofa used to bark at it, which always let me know it was about.

 

How annoying not having any fruit left, if you don't want to net the whole tree, have you tried the net bags you can put over individual fruits just to at least give you some for yourself. I have micro bats here, I don't get fruit bats &  I've only ever seen them on TV news when they make a nuisance of themselves. Do you have a large colony nearby? They look very big & scary to me.

 

I didn't know lizards ate strawberries, I've learnt something new. 😀 I've not seen any large lizards like the bob tail here, just small skinks & of course tiger snakes. I wonder what attracted the bob tail to your door in the first place, it sounds so relaxing you being able to just watch her do her thing, I love that about living rural. However I do prefer the wildlife to stay outside, not counting spiders, I've had 7 or 8 birds, 2 snakes, a fox cub, & numerous frogs inside over the time I've been here. 

 

Hugs

Paws

** never having owned a cat, I know dogs run & woof in their sleep (I love watching them)... do sleeping cats do anything similar? 

 

 

Paws, Mekitty seemed to sleep very stil. I'm not sure she moved about any, unless the idea that she would make small twitches of limbs is really my memory or if I simply think she must have ... I don't know.

I remeber the dogs, as you say, seeming to run as if chasing something in their sleep. 

Maybe we were posting roughly the same time - I used to like when I could see the exact time posted, but no more, unless the post is years old. I like the dated format too, not the '2 weeks ago' or '4 weeks ago' or the '1 month ago' (which is most confusing. - really, which is earlier or later, 4 weeks or 1 month?) If a whole page has the same time stamp, how do I figure out which order it is in, unless I go to a page before, or is that after?

Now I get the problem with daylight saving time (or is the problem that up here in Qld we don't have daylight savings time - so my end of today is after yours? 

Is this fun?

Never mind, I think I'm getting tired again.

I"d try to protect some fruit, on a few branches, & let them at the rest, I guess. Same goes for the strawberries. Must admit, not keen on fruit bats, especially the large colonies of them that get noisy & smelly.

 

I'd watch Mekitty when she sat on the windowsill, looking, looking, & close enough I could see her gaze move to watch something else. Maybe a bird, maybe another cat which was outside in the bushes, I don't know, could even have been insects or small lizards in the grass or the flying insects ... She'd sit & watch at the back door, too, very much the same...  I did feel bad keeping her in, seeing how much interest she had inthings outside.

At those times, she was fully alert, like seeing her mind tick over.

 

Hugzies

mmMekitty

Eagle Ray
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hello Paws, MK and All,

 

Paws, it's nice to watch the echidna grow like that and get to know it over time. I live near bushland and have wondered if I will have a snake visitor one day. I actually don't mind snakes but they do present a bit of a challenge if in the house. I don't have any bats that I'm aware of (but they could be there and I've just never seen them). I suspect if there were any they might be micro bats like what you get.

 

Yes, I think doing the individual netting of fruit would be a good idea. I would need help to net the whole of several trees as they are too tall for me to do it alone. The peaches are forming at the moment. Something is even eating the lemons at the moment which I'm finding fallen on the ground with bites taken out of them. They are quite large bites so I suspect possums who left the lemons alone last year.

 

I do love how dogs run in their sleep, doing little barks sometimes. From memory I think Grey Fluffy Cat who I look after intermittently may have shown some possible dream activity in her sleep. Mostly she was very still but I feel like I have a memory of noticing some movement. After I had been patting her she would often keep purring for about 10-20 minutes afterwards, like her body and gone into a particular kind of peaceful state where purring is therapeutic. It was so calming being with her.

 

I'm getting sleepy now. I hope you both have a good sleep 😴

Hugs,

ER

mmMekitty
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Yaaawwwn... goodnight Paws,ER, Hanna, & everyone

Pleasant dreams ... in nature, I hope ...🙀

Hugzies

mmMekitty 💤