The Cerebral Mum

I think Caspar must be having a growth spurt.  It’s only 1:14pm and he’s already gone done for his second nap.  In spite of it looking like her would be done to just one nap a day soon, it’s now gone back up to 3. Or perhaps I’m just not as “present” for him and he’s bored and having no fun.  I don’t think that’s it though.  I think that really would be a self-pitying, un-motherlike thought.

Well, maybe not un-motherlike.  Mothers worry.  Mothers try to do what’s best and there is never a real answer to that.  I think we’re fine, though.  I know I don’t have the energy and zest that I would like, and if that was going to be some lifetime thing I think that would upset me.  But I don’t think that it is a lifetime thing.  I don’t I am scarring him for life because I am sad right now.  And I do my best to keep our days busy for him. Or busy enough.  I still enjoy him.  He still makes my heart light up.  Right now, the light is a little dim, but it is a light nonetheless.  So it’s okay.

He probably has become a little more demanding than usual in the last few days, which is evidence that he is very aware that I am not as focussed as usual, but he is such an easy, placid boy that it is not unbearable.   It is not making me feel more stressed or pressured or overwhelmed.  It is not making me feel like a failure.  And that’s good.

Really, it’s just a reminder when I drift into my head to snap out of it, to be in the day as best I can.  Knowing that there are many mothers out there suffering depression whose depression is tied up with their young children, I think that I am fortunate that mine is not.  At some stage, I guess, I will have to consider how becoming a mother has effected me, my psyche,  because I need to question everything I think I know.  My thinking has become rigid.  I think I have less capacity for empathy at the moment.  I think I have become judgemental.

But when I do examine it, although I think I will still feel as i do now, that our relationship is an easy one, that he is a wonderful human being, and that I am a good mother for him.  That I have the resources to make good choices, that I have the capacity to love him as needs to be loved.  That it is easy to love him.  I do not have the same expectations of perfection for my child or for me as a mother that I seem to have for myself alone, or for other people.  Those expectations for “them” - that nebulous, imaginary “them” - need to go.

I think that when I speak about the world and social issues I am careful with my words.  I don’t make accusations or use ad hominums to bolster my opinion.  But I think that somewhere in me there is some sense of self-righteousness that takes away the good part of doing that.

And now it is 1:42pm.  And he’s is crying to get up.  Just a little nap.  So off I go to be in his day.

Related Posts

• 5 reasons to smile… (and 3 songs) (7)
• I can say the word… (5)
• Just a quick brag… (0)
• And in nicer news… (2)

I think I am too drained to write.  So I’m just starting.  I don’t know what will come out.  This might be it.

Unsurprisingly, I have become weepy since starting on this course.  Weepy of the stupidest things.  Yesterday Big Sis was going down the street and I asked her to pick something up for me.  I gave her my money and she said, “Fuck, it’s all silver”. So I cried.  Today my mobile phone rang and I didn’t want to answer it and I cried.  I haven’t checked my voicemail for 2 weeks.  I should check my voicemail.  I hate voicemail.  I think I’ll delete voicemail.  But that would involve me using the phone.

I don’t know what I am talking about.

I’ll start again.

Today, I made lunch for Caspar and me and I wanted to eat together while we watched a dvd.  I couldn’t find it and that upset me.  Big Sis was using her computer so I couldn’t burn one.  So I tried to find something else but none of the real dvds would work.  My dvd player only likes .avi files.  So that upset me.  And Caspar had eaten half his lunch without me while I flapped around feeling broken because it seemed so little ask, just to watch a dvd.  I cannot organise myself.  I feel confused.  My lunch was cold.  I didn’t even want it anymore.  Then Big Sis came out with a burned copy but she wasn’t sure it was the right one and I tried to organise my thoughts and figure it out but she just backed away as fast as she could while I struggled for words, distressed over nothing.

She doesn’t handle other people’s emotions well, my Big Sis.  She shuts down.  She gets out of there.  She knows this and I know this.  But that closed door left me feeling wrecked for hours.  Rejected.  Nobody can deal with me.  Nobody will be around me as I am.  Nobody will help me.  Why does everyone leave.

Later, we talked.  And I cried because I can’t seem to do anything else.  And she is there for me and isn’t rejecting me.  And I know that she tries her best to make room for what is going on.  And we both know that no-one can fix me anyway. “That’s the depression talking,” she says when I try to explain how I feel.  I feel abandoned.  I feel like a child.

She is not kind to my friends.  She has no respect for the people who say that they’ll call or say that they’ll visit or say that we’ll catch up some time.  “They’re not your friends,” she says.  There is truth in that, maybe.  I make excuses for them.

I have other friends.  Better friends, but they are far away.  I don’t have the energy for gargantuan efforts to see them briefly.  I want to be around people.  Just daily people.  Who talk in nothings.  Nobody shares my nothings.

How silly and inconsequential this seems.  I would like to stop crying now.

I have a counselling appointment for the 22nd.  The woman who called asked me questions, took down my doctor’s name, my pension number, my Medicare number.  I truly hope she is not the counsellor, she had an awful, harsh voice, even though there was nothing wrong with her tone.

I wanted to think about the clock, and what that meant.  I don’t understand the clock.  I feel like I should put backlinks in these posts so what I am talking about makes some kind of sense.  I don’t have the energy for that.  Making sense is not the purpose.  I should put a note on the sidebar, maybe, for strange visitors.

The clock.  The clock makes no sense to me.  A clock I hated, that made me feel burdened and overwhelmed, that would make sense.  But a clock that stopped me in my tracks, that made me want it to be the first thing I saw when I woke up?  I read somewhere that a clock can be a mandala, a symbol of the self, but I am struggling to read at the moment.  I cannot concentrate.  I skip whole passages, whole pages.

I think I need to work out why, at my lowest lowest point, my cry is always that “Nobody ever takes care of me.” I think that is true and untrue.  I think that is true and untrue for everyone.  Why do I reduce to that little girl voice? I’m going out the back to eat worms?

I thought I should read about The Orphan archetype but I don’t have all my books.  And the web is useless.  I think Jung is really helpful, but he does attract the crazies.  And he’s not easy.  Everything gets simplified and misinterpreted.  Jung is buried very deep in the psyche of the internet.  I can’t find it.

And my eyes are stinging.  And I am tired.  And I am stupid.  And I want so much to write something useful to myself and this all seems so useless.  I don’t think I will read it.  I will just post it.  I’ll read what I said tomorrow.  I guess nothing is useless.

Related Posts

• A carnival, a psych ward, and art… (1)
• What am I thinking ? (11)
• Why I left on Thursday night… (4)
• Polar seasons… (2)

Two results of me realising I’m depressed. I am seriously pissed off. And I am even more exhausted. Depression thinks it is useful. It defends itself. Cas has just gone down for his afternoon nap. I slept through his morning one and my body is screaming to sleep again. Maybe I will. Maybe I can’t do this. Is that what my body is trying to tell me? Well, it can get stuffed. Because I’m being attacked on two fronts, physically and mentally. My brain is trying to to undermine me, but it’s angry, and anger is energy. So here, brain, have your say…

Ahh, and now it’s gone all shy and is pretending to be calmly rational again. But I have scribbled evidence on the notepad in front of me to use against it:

So here I am. Self-diagnosed and totally fucking furious about it.

Why? Because I am arrogant and should not have allowed myself to devolve into this state.

Why? Because I have done this before and resent having to do this again.

I resent being a statistic…

I am pissed off because I do not want to engender sympathy and support…

I am pissed off because I am not dramatically depressed. I am not depressed in an interesting, theatrical way. Not in a creative way. I’m just stale and this depression is the commonplace, pedestrian kind that 1 in 5 (or whatever the damn statistic is) people experience. I think I’m too good for it. But no.

There is no rending of garments, no throwing of teacups, no hiding in closets, no cutting myself, no starving myself, no throwing up my food, no shaving off all my hair. No words words words like swords. Just this dead person I think I’m too good to be. Ennui is boring Lassitude is sloth. There is no gaping, wounded emptiness for all the world to see, no catharsis.

Just nothing.

And it is my fault, my fault, my fault. Because I thought I was so clever that I thought I was done. I know everything, like a teenager. I know the secrets of the world. I know the Truth. I know that I am exceptional. And here I am. Not exceptional. With no excuse.

There is no excuse for being here. Not for me. Because I’m clever. Clever in the most clever way. I have the ability to make connections, to see the connections between things that seem unconnected. I have the ability to make the world make sense. Paradox and insanity are my best friends. Like most of my best friends, I haven’t been paying much attention to them.

I’ve just been hiding and wallowing and shrinking and shirking my duty. It’s my duty to know myself, my duty to be myself. That is my moral code. It should be everyone’s, but me? Secretly, I like the rebelliousness of it. I like revolt. I think I’m special.

I let my high opinion of myself absolve me of that duty I haven’t been performing for years. That’s pathetic.

I am arrogant. And I like my arrogance. And I am paradoxical. I am proud of my big pains, my glaring, gaping wounds that no one could make shut up, even when it exhausted everyone around me. Oh, yes, being hurt in dramatic, theatrical ways makes you special too. I am so fucking arrogant that I thought I could, and would, handle everything life threw at me, that I was never a “victim” - that I would never be a “victim” - that I didn’t even bother to deal with the new shit that came my way.

That quiet, nagging shit, of people who wanted me to be smaller. That quiet, nagging shit of having to do meaningless work and conform and dress right and and pay bills. And eat and sleep like a “normal” person. Stupid fucking me just slowly crumbled beneath the weight of feathers.

That’s pathetic.

And the other thing that is pathetic: There’s a bigger thing that got to me, a few years ago. A bigger something outside of me that I had no control over. A bigger thing that was done to me, that, knowing all I know, should not have made me a victim. And I made myself a victim of it anyway.

That stupid boss whom I thought was my friend who grabbed me in the kitchen, and undid my top and restrained me from behind and grabbed my naked breast and made me scared because I couldn’t find away to make it stop. That guy was a fuckhead. I reported it to the police. After months, he got a fine and no conviction.

What pisses me off was not that it happened, was not the lost job, not the talk behind my back, not the warnings that me taking action would give me a bad reputation and make me unemployable. I knew what consequences there would be. What pisses me off is that all the resources I had within myself to deal with such a thing weren’t used. If I had worked my way through it, no matter how long it took and no matter how much I fucked up along the way, I would now be proud of myself.

What did I do instead, with all my brains and all my skills? I just left.

I just left it alone.

And that’s pathetic.

See, brain. You did have something to say.

Related Posts

• A carnival, a psych ward, and art… (1)
• Evil Judy Garland… (8)
• I can say the word… (5)
• Checkmate… (16)

Who can prepare for this journey? My rational, rational mind has a grip on me so I did. I wrote my warning post. I talked to Big Sis. And I ripped open a few boxes of books to grab what I could without creating a god awful mess.

They may not be the best, and they may not be my usual reading material (but what use is Camus right now?), they may even be “dumb”, but they are a start on getting my brain to use another mode of thinking.

And they are what I have.

Books For The Road

Andrews, Ted - Animal-speak: The spiritual and magical powers of creatures great and small, Llewellyn, 1993

Bolen, Jean Shinoda - Goddesses in everywoman: a new psychology of women, HarperPerennial, 1984

Johnston, Robert A. - The fisher king and the handless maiden: understanding the wounded feeling function in masculine and feminine psychology, HarperCollins, 1993

Mazza, Joan - Dream back your life: a practical guide to dreams, daydreams and fantasies, Perigee, 2000

Murdoch, Maureen - The heroine’s journey: woman’s quest for wholeness, Shambala Publications, Inc, Massachussetts, 1990

Nichols, Sallie - Jung and the tarot: an archetypal journey, Samuel Weiser, Maine, 1984

Raff, Jeffrey - Jung and the alchemical imagination, Nicholas-Hays, Maine, 2000

(Eve, thank you for your book suggestions. I will have a look for them and get them if I can.)

Related Posts

• Evil Judy Garland… (8)
• Pain in the ass… (2)
• What am I thinking ? (11)
• 30 Poems Clearing House. (0)

A while ago, for the 30 Poems in 30 days challenge, I wrote a poem critical of Robert Frost’s A Minor Bird…

I do not need
to speak of birds
I can say the word
Depression. _{A Minor Depression}

So here’s the word: I am depressed.

I mean “clinically” depressed: I have all the symptoms. Constant and complete exhaustion, physical aches, headaches, no will, no confidence, no pleasure, inability to concentrate, inability to sleep, a sense of being overwhelmed, a nebulous sense of guilt, and no sense of myself as a person. So I’ve said the word. It’s long overdue, but I’ve said it.

The first thing I want to say about this is that this has absolutely and categorically nothing to do with becoming a mother. Motherhood has not effected my sleep or my energy levels, it has not challenged my identity or made me lose perspective, it has not restricted my freedom or challenged my confidence. If anything, it has been a boon in every respect. But it has also forced me to slow down, to stop pushing my body to its limits in terms of hunger, thirst and sleeplessness, to stop filling my life with so much work and responsibility that there was never time to think or breathe, all in order to avoid my state of mind.

Why do I want to make that clear? Because I think there is a very real problem with our current social narrative about motherhood. I think that it is negative, and I do not want to be associated with it in any way. I do not want to give tacit support to it and I do not want people to assume that I am evidence of it. Because for all the very real women about there with very real problems, like post natal depression, there are dozens of self-aggrandizing women ignorantly promoting their narcissistic-martyr-complexes-with-a-twist-of-consumerism as the quintessential, modern day truth about motherhood, instead of what it really is - a sly imitation of age old stereotypes, hidden amongst words and ideas which were once a powerful call for change but have now been perverted for the same old purpose: Maintaining the status quo. If these women like their status quo, that’s their damage. But I don’t like the way that it is peddled, and I don’t want to be perceived as part of it.

Leading up to taking a week off, I started so many posts about things which are going on in the world, about societal problems, about philosophical problems, about other people’s problems. (A post entitled Motherhood is the easy part… was one of them.) I struggled with my writing, I laboured for the right words. I finished none of them. I posted none of them. I truly believe that words are the only thing that has ever changed the world - and there is so much that needs changing - but it slowly dawned on me as I wrote that I do not have the emotional resources to be a voice right now. It slowly dawned on me that this was yet another pressure I was adding to my life to distract me from what I really need to do.

Physician, heal thyself.

So healing myself is what I am going to do right now, before I again take the burdens of the world on my shoulders. Voices are clearer when we are standing on rocks than when we are sinking in quicksand. I have healed myself before, and I can do it again. But this is what is going to happen:

This blog is going to literally be my journal: The place where I spew my stream of consciousness writing, my dreams, my unleashed emotions, all of my mess. It will be uncensored, possibly unintelligible. I will post what I post, when I post. My guess is that I will probably post a lot. In the past, trying to come to terms with the things inside of me, my best and most powerful tool has been to let them out. I don’t know if I really remember how to do that, but it is a place to start. I will not only be “thinking my way back to myself” but writing my way back to myself.

I don’t have the luxury to release all the fucked up shit inside my head in my daily life. I have to throw balls to a beautiful boy who cannot catch them, and teach him that the triangle goes in the triangle shaped hole. I have to prepare three meals a day and peel bananas and mandarins I do not eat. I have to go to the park and run baths and wash nappies. So this blog will be my luxury. For the time being, it will be written solely for me.

Everyone is welcome to stick around, welcome to comment, but I won’t be offended if you don’t want to. I will probably say vicious, nasty things. I will probably be cruel and unkind, especially to me. I will probably go off on tangents. I will ramble about symbols in a language made of pictures. I will say things that are “wrong” and I will not explain myself. I will dig around in the archives of my history looking for breadcrumbs. I might do weird exercises. I might write in the second person. Or the third person. There will be no structure, no conclusions. There will be posts without narrative or opinion. I probably will not make sense.

So this post is the warning sign at the beginning of a journey. I don’t know how long that journey will take, or where it will take me. I don’t know what monsters are in my closet, or what beasts will block my path. I do not know what I will see when I look in the mirror.

All hope abandon ye who enter here. _{dante alighieri}

Related Posts

• And now back to miserable… or not… (17)
• When is a good day good? (9)
• A day to do things… (7)
• What am I thinking ? (11)

The 11th assignment from 30 poems in 30 days: Courting controversy…

“Read a poet you don’t like. Try to figure out what they do that upsets you and determine whether or not this assessment is fair. Try to think of ways that you would approach the same subject matter using your style. Write a poem that addresses some of the same subject / style / tone of the poet you dislike but do it in your own style.”

I am breaking my tradition and writing about this poem before you get to read it. The poet I chose is Robert Frost, whom I loathe and detest with a violent passion. I have heard him referred to as ambiguous but I find his work overly simplistic, transparent and smarmy. Dainty, lily-livered pop-psychology with no real sensitivity, abusing what can truly be seen through nature just to make himself appear insightful. Truly, he makes me vomit a little in my mouth.

The poem I chose was A Minor Bird and I veered slightly off the assignment by writing something of an invective rather than approaching the subject matter in a different way.

I do not need
to speak of birds
I can say the word
Depression.

I can say
I hate
the imitation of my sorrow
by a mynah at my window
or echoed in a song
in minor key.

I don’t need
pastoral devices
to disguise
my inner turmoil.

Fences do not make
good poets
Just say the word
Depression.

As I said over at The Writer’s Resource… If Robert Frost could be framed, he would be a motivational poster.

Related Posts

• Has poetry done me in? (5)
• And now back to miserable… or not… (17)
• Fakes and falling angels… (5)
• I can’t wait for this day to be over… (4)