Now is the winter

It's bloody freezing here in Sydney. More so if you're inside our house. And I mean that in the literal sense (not being clever about being frozen out of J's thoughts while he's down).

It's had a weirdly positive effect on us. I know you're going to think we're a bunch of hippies when I tell you this, but we all sleep in the same bed. There are enough beds for everyone, it's just that we prefer to be together - or at least until one adult gets a toddler kick in the head too many. And then the adult simply shifts to the single bed at the foot of the big bed, in the same room.

Cosy isn't it? Or certainly in winter it is. We don't have heating, just a lot of doonas and body warmth. It's always like one big camp out around here.

And it kind of counters the lack of touch in my relationship with J. It's a big part of his depression, a reluctance to be touched. When he's down he flinches if I move forward suddenly or stretch out a hand towards him. Even when he's well he's still quite wary of physical contact with anyone.

But when we all sleep in the same bed it can hardly be helped. And because of the cold he seems okay with that.

How's that for putting a bright spin on things?

Flo

Don't panic

Living with someone who has depression can feel in many ways like being in a parallel universe. Often it feels like a universe which is just slightly out of kilter with the one that everybody else lives in. It's only a fraction out so you can see each other and hear each other; but the two worlds operate in subtly different ways.

I wish I had a guide to this universe. And if I did, it would also have on the front cover in big bold print the words: DON'T PANIC. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy did its bit to get me through adolescence and its advice has proved salient many times since.

Since J started showing signs of depression again I felt like I was falling into the deep end of a very cold pool. But anyway, panic is what I did. It wasn't a daub myself in ochre and run laps around the bathroom kind of thing. (Doesn't everyone panic like that?)

It's just that my heart started to beat faster and more loudly, my breathing was more shallow.

Luckily all the reading and thinking and listening to the advice of those who have inhabited similar places for longer than I hasn't been completely wasted on me. I surprised myself by pulling back reasonably well.

And so far things haven't been too bad anyhow. He was properly down for a full day. He seemed to spring back a little the next day and was able to discuss what he was feeling. I could even suggest that he see his counsellor sooner than his next appointment if need be, to which he agreed.

Is this progress? Either way, panic is best avoided. But there's definitely a bit of a gap between what I know intellectually about how to handle this and what I know emotionally. Emotional me is running a little behind.

Flo

It's back

Well of course it is.

I'm glad we did all the things we did while it was away; glad we had the chance to remember our relationship, do some repairs, build on it a bit.

(You know, I think I'm getting too involved in those reality house make-over shows. All my metaphors are structural.)

Do you remember a book called The Time Traveller's Wife?

Young lovers often believe themselves crossed by fate or by time, but those in Niffenegger’s spirited first novel have more reason than most. Henry suffers from Chrono-Impairment—a quasi-medical condition that catapults him, unwillingly, from one random point in time to another. Clare first meets him in 1977, when she is six and he materializes near her parents’ garden as a thirty-six-year-old from 2000; he returns regularly throughout her childhood from different times in their shared future. At last, when Clare is twenty and Henry twenty-eight, they meet in his present, and the relationship begins in earnest. But romance proves even trickier than usual when one person keeps vanishing to distant, and occasionally dangerous, times... (Read more: The New Yorker - Books briefly noted) 

When I first read this novel I felt like she was writing about our relationship. It's perhaps the best fictional description I've ever read about living with someone who has depression.

It's just that J was present for such an extended period this time, I really hoped (foolishly) that it might be for a very long time.

I don't know yet how long it will last. He had a bad day yesterday, all day. He still attended a social occasion though. He didn't spend the day in bed.

But the physical contact has stopped. His emotional presence in our household has diminished. He has retreated. So while he hasn't entirely disappeared I can see him fading. I can almost see through him.

So I guess now is the time to remember all of things I've learned about how to deal with this. Go over my notes. Something about giving him the space he needs yeah? Maintaining the boundaries right?

Flo

The king is dead. Long live the queen.

Australia has its first female Prime Minister.

I happened to be sitting in a café when it happened. There were no TVs or radios or laptops about. I found out because friends had been texting during the morning, keeping each other appraised of the latest we’d heard.

I felt like I should stand up and make an announcement: People, we have a new Prime Minister. We have our first woman Prime Minister.

(I didn’t of course. I just stared about, trying to read the faces around me, wondering if they knew.)

Julia Gillard seems to be an incredibly competent person. She’s handled several portfolios at once. Her electorate seems happy with her representation. When she was acting prime minister (which was quite often) they say she got through the paperwork like nobody’s business.

She deals with the media calmly. In fact she kept them well in their place at her press conference, no easy feat, making them wait their turn to ask a question.

She communicates her intentions very clearly and her statements are informative.

Importantly she does not conform to many of our society’s conservative expectations of womanhood or of politicians.

She is not married. She does not have children. She is not religious.

I am sorry that her leadership came about this way – impatient factional powerbrokers bowing to the polls and buying a little into the Opposition’s frenetic rhetoric about an electorate who would not/ could not (sorry, that’s a bit Green Eggs and Ham) support the outgoing leader, Kevin Rudd.

I think they underestimated people’s ability to be patient. I know big things take time. I can wait to see where a leader will take us.

It’s a bit like an emergency Ceasarean section. It’s not the birth that was planned - no transition period, not a lot of choice for the main participants. But it’s the one that happened.

And now here we are. Suddenly we have our first female Prime Minister.

But she’s no innocent babe. She’s an old hand at this already. Leadership is just the next logical step, the mantle that was inevitably her due.

I'm curious to see what she will do differently; whether things will move forward with respect to matters like mental health, paid parental leave, environmental issues, genuine consultation with other parties and representatives. I'd like to think so.

Enough gushing from me now. I wanted to give an emotional response. There will be plenty of others today from more political and intellectual viewpoints, many of which I’m looking forward to reading.

Politics has a profoundly emotional impact on J and on me. It’s one of the reasons we first got together.

We both cried (yes, really) as we watched Kevin Rudd give his farewell speech. And it felt good to be standing shoulder to shoulder again.

Flo

In defence of repression

I wonder if I'm always going to be nervous at the first sign of a bad mood. You know, a grumpy morning, a string of swear words heard from another room. Every time J stubs his toe (and reacts in the way that anyone else would) am I going to wonder if this heralds the end of a golden era?

I'm vigilant in a fairly low key way about my own mood. Having suffered from depression in the past I know when I need to step in to stop myself from sinking. And I also know when it's an appropriate level of sadness or just an off day.

But reading someone else is another matter all together. Hypervigilance is such a big part of the prison that is living with a depressed person. I am keen to stop myself from falling into that deep dark hole.

But I'd be lying if I were to say that I can be totally relaxed about things. I am quite afraid that this won't go on for much longer. I'm worried that it might be a bit like the start of a holiday, long dreamt of, saved up for, hardly dared hope for. And then before you know it you're back at work and it's behind you.
I have this very vivid memory from when I was nine. I was on my way to the pool. I had looked forward to it all week. And as I was walking down the hall, swimmers on, the smell of chlorine already in my nostrils I suddenly thought, but soon I'll be on my way back up this same hall, on my way home, my swim in the past.

And then (because I must have been one hell of a neurotic nine-year-old) I wondered if this is what it would be like to be suddenly 80 years old. One day I'm nine with countless years ahead and a very short while later I am in fact looking back down that hall at my nine-year-old self.

I have tried hard to forget that thought so of course it's taken up residence just on the periphery of my day-to-day and every now and again, like a recurring cold sore, it replays itself, reminding me that each day brings me closer to its fulfilment.

Of course as I get older I rather hope that I'll get to 80 and that I'll still be remembering things. But for now I wish there was some kind of filing cabinet I could put it in or some device that allowed it out only when it was going to be useful rather than just make make me sweat a little, breathe a bit faster and fret needlessly.

I could of course file my current fear about J's depression returning in the same drawer. I'll stick the folder under R for repressed or N for neurosis.

Then I'll stop having administrative fantasies (it's been pretty much downhill since 1984).

Flo

There's no place like home

Do you rent? Have you ever had the pleasure?

We've been renting our current place for two and three-quarter years (but who's counting). I've spent most of that time feeling like an outsider in this town and it's only been the possibility of actually leaving that has made me realise I am starting to belong.

We're not moving now after all. External factors are partly responsible. A new bus route means I can now easily get to my old suburb to visit friends (so thank you anonymous transport department worker).

Also after seeing some of the run-down expensive hovels in our price range our current house is looking very good indeed.

Just before we decided to forget about moving we found what I thought was the right house. It needed a lot of work. The paint was falling off the walls as if it were large sheets of butcher paper, tacked on many years ago and then forgotten, left blank. It flopped dismally, almost reaching the carpet which if possible was in an even sadder state.

But it was relatively cheap. Sydney is an expensive city whichever way you look at it. You either spend your money on rent or on transport getting in and out of the city.

Anyway, we were willing to do the work so we applied. Which is not like saying we applied for a credit card (though admittedly that kind of application comes already filled out, in my mailbox, with a toll free number to ring to activate my pre-approved billion dollar limit). It's not even like applying for a job which requires some hard work and not a small amount of anxiety.

No, applying for a rental property involves revealing several pages of private financial details, copies of no less than eight payslips (and I'm sorry, but what gives a real estate agent* the right to see exactly what I earn, my employee number, sick days, annual leave etc. Are they priests now, or doctors? Lawyers?)

Then they want personal and professional references from current and past jobs, past addresses, emergency contact details and my relationship with the person listed. (Stasi files anyone?)

I need to provide copies of several forms of ID. If I want to fill this information out online I have the option of paying a private company some money so that the application is sent faster. Or else I can painstakingly type out or write out all of this information for every application.

Oh, and they want to know if I'm applying for other properties too. Why? Does this disqualify me? Is it a monogamy thing now?

And then you are rejected. And they don't tell you why. Even though you've spent a couple of hours on this thing they won't spend a minute to tell you why (except once a few years ago when they told us that it was because someone else had offered more money.)

Wow, I didn't realise how angry I still am. (I can tell I'm getting hysterical when I put words in bold.)

I realised after that though that I wasn't ready to throw myself back into the pool, offer myself up for rejection, waste my Saturdays at inevitably disappointing viewings, jostling 10 or 20 other people along narrow and dirty hallways, trying to imagine this place as home, and then going too far and actually hoping it might be.

And I'm not even the one suffering from depression. J tried very hard to cope but it very quickly got him down (so we were synchronised then).

He said, "We don't have to do this." And I took a deep breath and had a cry and realised he was right. I'm fine where I am, really. I will give this place another go because it's infinitely better than going through that process over and over again.

We talked together about what we would do. He was utterly reasonable, acknowledging my need for independence, for eventual security about where we live. But he made me see that I didn't need to panic and up stakes and run for it like I have a tendency to do.

So the deal is that we are working together to save up as much cash as we can and then decide where to go in a year. We want to do it before T starts school so we're in a place where we'll be happy to stay for six or seven years.

It feels amazing to be in a partnership like this, where I don't feel the need to temper my emotions in case they're too much for someone and where I don't have to figure it out on my own.

So I spent a day reorganising my bookshelves and doing a bit of a spring clean. The boxes are going to some other poor sod for now. I hope that's not you, though if it is you can be assured of some sympathy from me.

Flo

*See also: vacuous, over-inflated, self aggrandising, judgmental, "I was only doing my job I didn't know it was the Hitler Youth", never paid a day's rent in my life. Apologies to anyone out there who is one. Maybe you're the one in a million that's different.

A bit of a breather

I've started to write a few posts over the last few weeks but just couldn't finish them. I'd lost the impetus you see, the drive to put things into words. I was about to write "on paper" and the fact that it's not just on paper also made the exercise more wearying.

I no longer wanted to spend so much time with the screen. I didn't want that white light seeping through my eyelids, or to enter another password or verification code, or wait a few seconds for the computer to boot and then a few more while it ran an absolutely urgent update. All these piddling inconsequential seconds amounted to something that was enough to sap my will to live (or my will to post at any rate).

So a day or two off became a week and then several. Really it was a good thing. I continued to read other people's work but less often, and I didn't engage online. I wanted to live only in the physical world for a little bit.There was time to stop and evaluate what I was doing with this blog, why I was writing it, who I was writing it for.

Circumstances have changed. My partner's depression has for the timebeing  lifted. I hardly dare to think that possibility and writing it feels so daring (and maybe even foolish) but it also feels so very, very good, however long it lasts.

While he's been well we've been spending time together, making joint decisions about things and getting things done. I have been sleeping well again. I have energy.

And for a few weeks I didn't want to think about depression at all. I wanted to focus entirely on every moment of this normal life. Every small thing was a marvellous rediscovery. We had breakfast together. We talked about what was in the paper. He touched me in passing, as if our bodies touching was no big deal.

Not that everything is swell. He still has a bad day now and again. He still has his habit of saying no to everything, but then he smiles and says, "just kidding, of course I mean yes."

It's been like, I don't know, winning the lotto.(A reasonable amount - enough for a house deposit and maybe a holiday, not millions, but life changing.)

For example, I had a medical appointment this morning; nothing serious just something I wasn't looking forward to. (Why am I being so circumspect? I discuss my most frightening doubts and emptiness here, my most intimate thoughts, and yet I can't say pap smear?)

Anyway, he's just called to see how I am, check that it went well and tell me to take it easy and enjoy the day, take some time out for myself. "Don't go and do any housework," he said. "We can do it together tomorrow when I'm home."

I know you will understand the significance of these things. You will know how remote the possibility is of being on the receiving end of such warm, loving concern and thoughtfulness.

When J is depressed there is no room for me in his throughts. He would not have called. My day off work would only have been a reminder of the fact that he has his nose to the grindstone, as usual. Perhaps he might have felt guilty for not being able to offer support.

Instead I am living in a relative paradise. This must be what spring is like after a long winter in somewhere like Norway. (And the possibility - please don't make me say probability just yet - of it being seasonal hasn't escaped me. I just don't want to think about it right now.)

I've also realised that I do want and need to keep writing. I want to see where this leads me. I want to know what happens when I don't have to just concentrate on surviving each day.

Flo

Do you see what I see?

We've joined the throng of rental seekers. On Saturday mornings we go forth, bathed (yes even), provisioned with victuals and armed to the teeth with enough identification documents and references to get into the inner sanctum of the Vatican should we so desire (yeah verily).

Not that we've had cause to deploy this hefty arsenal. Well once only, and we were unsuccessful because I felt compelled to be honest about our cat. Our beloved neurotic cat who, although she is afraid of a cockroach's shadow (not really earning her keep) might still have been a threat to the flock of native birds who had made their home in the garden of this prospective home. I could not bring myself to omit the truth of the cat and thereby possibly be responsible for the death of one of these birds.

So onward we go. Mostly it's a bit of a sticky-beak really. I mean I'm hardly going to allow my child to live in most of the filth we're shown. Be warned if the picture used in the ad is of the view from the kitchen window (the best part of the place is outside of it).

Also beware the fish-lens photos. I don't know who they think is going to be fooled by the stretched out pictures. Who has a toilet that wide? Is the place built for squat hobbit-like people, short and wide? (Well that kind of describes me but I doubt landlords are going to be quite that solicitous.)

Also lately I've noticed an extremely reprimanding tone in the posting of viewing times - 11am SHARP. (Their capitalisation.) I've waited for at least 10 minutes at each sharply advertised viewing time. In my head I compose numerous letters viciously deriding the real estate industry for its lack of common and professional courtesy. And in my head they stay. Who wants to be on a real estate blacklist after all?

I suppose I feel a little bit better about the experience this time around. I've certainly been desperate in the past; particularly at 7 1/2 months pregnant, bawling outside yet another hideous dirty how-can-these-slum-lords-live-with-themselves place also being viewed by 30 others. (Feeling terribly Nativity scene.)

Now I am toting around an utterly adorable and charming child. He loves house hunting. He's very positive about most places too. I guess he's scoping out where his transformers will be sitting and if he can skid on socks from one end of the hall to the other.

But it means that I'm not in direct competition with those who are younger, hipper, more childless. The agent either wants children in the place or they don't. We can pay as well as anyone else. Our references are just as good. So I suppose it will come down to that. Out of my hands really, and what a relief that is.

In the meantime we plough on, the tense short&wide woman, the dazzlingly beautiful (it's my blog after all) cherubic boy and the sullen male with the cap pulled low over his eyes, walking two steps behind and glowering at competitors. Surely any landlord would have us? (Oh and did I mention a cat?)

Flo

On Melancholy

Depression isn't ever going to lift like a curtain. No matter how the chemicals might change, J will always think a certain way about things. I'm starting to think that's the truth of it. Unless he re-learns how to think, how to stop himself in his tracks and think differently every moment of every day, he is always going to behave in a depressed way. The outcomes will always be the same.

Does anybody ever really end up where they thought they were going to? Does anyone imagine they'll grow up to spend endless hours arranging the smallest of details, over and over again?

Fantasies tend to be sketchy on details. In your dreams it's the beach you see (not the bluebottles and the sunscreen, the sand in your swimmers).

But I can cope with the details. I can even enjoy them, particularly when there's a beach involved (less so the bluebottle stings).

In my mind there sticks a snippet of a Keats poem studied in school:

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

I don't need to add much more to these words which perfectly express the interlocked nature of joy and sorrow; except to say that I am not overwhelmed by Melancholy. I know that what is good must end, but equally that other good things will come.

The happiness in my everyday life is sharpened by, prodded into existence even by the not so pleasant stings that inevitably occur.

Flo

Coming down

I actually wrote this post a few days ago. I carry a little notebook around with me and write my posts on buses and trains - in those very rare moments alone.

Then of course I have to find a time when I can punch them into the computer (I sound like such a luddite) without anyone watching. As a consequence posts which are of the moment tend to lose their truth a little bit.

But I'm going to post this anyhow because of a comment to my last post about going to see Henry Rollins. In her comment Sleepless in New York expressed beautifully how I feel quite a lot of the time:

"Lately, I find myself fantasizing about what it would be like to be with a nondepressed, more optimistic and life-loving partner. ... I fantasize about an optimistic lover the way other women might fantasize about a good-looking lover."

It's like that for me too. Perhaps there's a market here for optimist porn (which sounds awfully like the name of a Transformer or something, but that's what happens when you spend most of your time with a 3-year-old boy).

Sleepless in New York asked me how I felt when I got home, after the rush of optimism I'd experienced. And what happened is that I crashed terribly. I went home and the contrast was stark and painful.

So without further ado, here was the come down, the Henry Rollins fallout:

I can feel it happening again. I am tired early but can't stay asleep. Tears make an appearance with little provocation. I cry on public transport. (Well, I live in New South Wales so perhaps that counts as extreme provocation).

Everything defeats me - the housework most of all. So I've just given up on it. Clothes lie abandoned wherever they happen to fall. Laundry hangs on the line for days. Dishes. Dust. Stovetop. Compost bin. Towels. Bathroom. Weeds.

My paid work is the easiest, more comforting part of my life at the moment. One foot in front of the other. No choice but to do it.

I am relying on playdates to keep my son engaged and happy. Less time alone together means less effort on my part. And I'm too spent to feel (very) guilty about that. Every hour to fill feels like a day.

I just want to sleep for a few days. I don't care where or how.

Flo

Rollins (better than a dose of Vitamin B)

I went to see Henry Rollins speak as part fo the Sydney Comedy Festival this week.

He talks (and talks and talks) about his thoughts and experiences which are often funny in themselves and certainly his observations highlight what is funny in a situation if it's there.

Henry Rollins sees many things wrong with the world but he is not crushed by that; he is driven by it.

I don't go to see motivational speakers. I don't like most self-help books. I have a deep, unsheakeable mistrust of people who proclaim to have answers to the so-called big questions.

I like discussions not sermons. How shall we live? Well let's talk about it, let's figure it out, let's reach our own conclusions.

I think I'm also a little bit afraid of my tendency to get carried away by charisma, wit, charm, intelligence. (Do you see what I mean?)

As a younger lass I was much taken by Rollins' music and strident delivery of very personal lyrics. I still am. Yes it's possible to like Rollins Band and Simon and Garfunkle. Mr Rollins admitted to liking Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam. But here I am getting swept away by admiration again.

I think what hit me so hard about the performance this time around was the optimism. It's not a passive everything will be alright optimism. It's a forceful, active, driving, Super Jumbo A380 optimism. You stand there as it's taking off and the momentum lifts you right off the tarmac.

It's not an ingnorance is bliss thing either. He is well informed of what's going on. He's on top of the media and travels all over the world to see for himself.

Life is hard and many terrible things happen. But he thinks change is possible and it's in our capacity to effect it.

For me it was an incredibly refreshing experience. Like opening all the windows and breathing in deeply. And I was surrounded by a theatre full of people who looked as if they too had just expanded their lungs.

Flo

The Heart of the Matter

In Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter I came across the following lines:

"If I could just arrange for her happiness first, he thought, and in the confusing night he forgot for the while what experience had taught him - that no human being can really undestand another, and no one can arrange another's happiness."

In the confusing night I also forget even though I too have been learning it for many years.

I wonder what makes some of us feel this mistaken responsibility and others not. Is it something we learn as children? A combination of factors from our childhoods?

For instance I am the eldest of three. I was charged with looking after my siblings, particuarly as migrants in a country where they didn't speak the language (I was six years old and so the only one old enough to have learned before arriving).

My mother was shy and didn't like to make phone calls or interact too much with people. She was very unhappy, isolated, having left her warm, southern European home for a cold climate without the comfort of friends or family.

Maybe I learned early that it was in my power to make their lives easier through my efforts; that it was my duty to do so.

I don't think that responsibility for others is a bad thing. I lean more towards community than individualism. I value support networks. I have benefited greatly from the care of others and have not felt like my contribution has been out of balance until now.

But there is a line which some people see clearly. On one side of that line you can interact meaningfully. Less a line than a kind of common zone, a Checkpoint Charlie (without the uniforms and, hopefully, the weaponry).

Beyond it is the unkown other; that foreign land which is another person. Bureaucracies of the mind that baffle outsiders, laws of obscure etymology, subject to change without notice.

What an arrogance to presume that I can navigate that territory without an insider (and there's only one) to guide me, or worse still without permission.

But the border isn't obvious to me. I'd go as far as to say that we're all actively encouraged to forget about it, to feel that we can get inside the skin of a loved one, become one with them; that it's our duty to know someone inside out before being able to claim that we love them.

Maybe it's a confusion of aloneness with loneliness.

I feel like my whole life has been a process of learning to see what's in front of me. (And forgetting again and learning again.)

Flo

The road to hell...

I think his intentions are good. Then again, maybe not.

That's the thing with being around mental illness, whether your own or someone else's. It makes you second guess yourself. It makes you wonder if you've missed something that happened or if you've imagined something happened when it didn't.

Did I really forget to mention that I was doing an 8am shift tomorrow? Was I hallucinating when I saw that lip curl? Did it mean something?

Lately he's been making quite an effort to communicate. Perhaps it's because I've disengaged to such an extent. (Or because he's afraid that he's losing control of me and he's reeling me back in.) He's made an appointment to see a therapist on Monday. (But will he actually go or is this just a way to look as if he's trying?)

He's making an effort to interact with the world again; to be part of things that interest him. (So why is there not enough energy to deal with my requests? Why am I still doing all the housework?)

Just as things look like they might be getting better I find myself to be more cynical than ever.

Or maybe it's just a tired Thursday night, a long day at work, a tempermental, weary toddler. Maybe I'm just too tired to care. I wonder if there's an easter egg left over somewhere. That and a glass of vermouth and a good lie down might just tide me over until tomorrow.

What's yours is yours

Sometimes when my vision has become so blinkered, so focussed on how this illness is affecting me, what I have to do to work around it, hussle this way and that; I get a chance to remember exactly whose illness it is.
Yesterday I had an email from J. I wish I could post it here but I feel that's one step too far (an anonymous blog about my thoughts is one thing but that's quite another).

J expresses himself far better in writing than he does face-to-face. He explained how lonely he feels; how he misses his old circle of friends who have dispersed across the country. He talked about how trapped he feels by this downward drive, the inability to act and to feel happiness.

He apologised for his angry outbursts. He admitted that he was jealous of my happiness, of my social network and most of all of the fact that I seem "find my joy elsewhere these days."

I could taste his pain (a metalic taste, acidic). And this time I knew that I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't feel like I ought to or needed to change anything about my behaviour in an attempt to ameliorate his suffering. I know now that nothing I can do will really help. And I also know that making sacrifices will hurt me and probably end the relationship.

In my response I expressed love and sympathy. I told him how much I would like him to be by my side in enjoying life.

I also framed his suffering (succinctly, without too much feeling) in the context of a treatable illness. I wasn't glib about the difficulties of medication or therapy, but I suggested them as the only way to address these matters.

I didn't discuss at all my socialising; didn't address any specific circumstance. I don't need to justify or explain my actions. I've done it many times before.

I didn't mention his apologies. It's not worth remarking on intentions any more.

Flo

A practical question

The question of freedom and independence is pivotal. The survival of my relationship with J depends largely on whether I can be with him and still feel free to enjoy my life in ways that don't mean compromising who I am. I am a social being. I love to be around people, to go out and see music and film. I need time with other people outside the house.

I saw old friend last weekend who recently came out of a 10-year marriage with a man who has depression. He was very controlling and I hardly saw her for the last few years.

And she said to me, "I was starting to worry that you're doing a lot of tip-toeing around. You're always trying not to rock the boat. You seem afraid all the time."

It was quite a shock to hear that's how others see me. I guess she knows just what it's like to be in that situation so she can easily recognise it when she sees it.

Still, I thought I had it together a bit better than that. Although when I look carefully I can also see how carefully laid most of my plans are - how controlling I am to the last detail of how things will proceed.

So here's a procedural question I guess.

If I plan to go out and J is depressed, what do I do about my son? Do I leave him at home with a sick man? Someone who doesn't need the work of looking after a feisty, tempestuous, contrary 3-year old? Do I leave T in what is surely an unhappy environment? How can I possibly enjoy myself in those circumstances?

Or do I organise for baby-sitting with someone else? I can't know ahead of time how J will feel on the night. If he's well that's a lot of wasted effort and credit used up for nothing. (You'll know what I mean by credit if you've ever asked anyone to look after a toddler who doesn't sit down from dawn 'til dusk - it's like there's guarana in his veins. I can only call in the favour so many times.)

It just feels like so many details. No wonder I'm a control freak. What do you guys out there do? Any suggestions?

Flo

Optimist frayed

Today is a low tide kind of day. Nothing terrible, just low on energy, tired. The kind of day where my walls are down a little, not so sure of myself.

To be fair he said that he wasn't referring to me when he talked about "mindless optimists".

The conversation went mostly like this:

Me: I'm having lunch with Cathy tomorrow. I really like being around her. She's very funny.

 J: I like her too. I like her cynicism. She's very aware of how things work and what goes on around the place. She's not a mindless optimist about things.

I am an optimist. I am a ridiculous Doris-Day kind of optimist a lot of the time. Some of that is just the way I like to be generally but some of it I feel I've been pushed into as a foil for the constant negativity that comes from J.

I looked out the window for a while. I was hurt because I thought he was referring to me. He asked what was wrong. I said, "I think you're referring to me" (no more mincing words round these here parts).

J:  I'm a bit pissed off that you think I meant you. I wasn't talking about you and your thinking that I am is not very nice at all.

Flo (not so optimistic now)

It's not easy being green (or Deadly Sin 6)

Like I needed another reminder of how small minded I can be; how my better nature lives cheek by jowl with my less-than-stellar twin.

Has anyone ever watched Peep Show? The comedy treats us to the world of Mark and Jeremy through the lens of their thoughts - mean spirited, self serving, arrogant pricks that they are. Not that I'm all of those things at once (or indeed at all) but I have my own little pantheon of a character flaws that must never be revealed. (And so now I will proceed to reveal one because that is one of the joys of anonymous blogging.)

My friend recently had a baby. Her husband refuses to allow her to cook or do any housework at all when he isn't at work. He encourages her to sleep between feeds while he takes the baby out for walks. And the baby is now three months old.

And is my initial reaction one of joy for my friend? No dear readers. My first reaction is straight-from-the-gut envy. I am sad for myself that it wasn't that way. It's tears and an acid in my stomach not unlike the aftermath of a rich curry that precede the warm happy feelings which follow shortly thereafter (I am not a monster after all).

I don't devote too much time to these thoughts, but I would love to disown them. I wish they weren't me. Now here they are live on the web. Perhaps it's an exorcism of sorts that will leave room for better things.

Flo

Moving

I have to admit, I get the itch to move every couple of years. It's probably hard-wired from moving around a bit as a child. Absolutely mind-rippingly painful the first time but thereafter quite bearable.

Now I seem to need it. I get to the point where no amount of moving the furniture around the house will quite do. And here's an admission about the depth of this weird need for change: I sometimes sleep with my head at the foot of the bed just to get that where-the-hell-am-I feeling when I wake up.

It was fine to flit about like this when I was on my lonesome but quite another thing to drag a little family around with me. At this point in particular it would mean lugging around the mountain of toys that have accumlutated around us.

I also don't want to do it on a whim. As mentioned before, moving is a huge thing for J - an overwhelming mountain of tasks all rolled up in one one rumbling avalanche of change. So there has to be a bloody compelling reason to move.

I think there are very good reasons to do with my own happiness. I don't drive and we're stuck out in the suburbs at the moment - something we did when T was born because we couldn't afford to stay where we were on one salary. But now it means we use the car too much and we don't walk as much because there's nothing we want to get to that's less than an hour away (a big ask from three-year-old legs).

Mostly for me it means a loss of independence. I hate relying on J to get out (and he hates the pressure of it as well).

So I've been plotting and scheming and trying to figure out how we can do it financially. The only answer I can come up with is downsizing. We could only afford to go back to where we want to be and still save a bit of cash for that possibly-never-to-be-fulfilled-pipedream of buying a place to live if we live in a one-bedroom flat somewhere.

I know how weird that sounds - one bedroom for three people. But right now we all share a room and I can't see that changing for a couple of years (quite long enough to make moving worth it I think and I quite long enough to save some cash). And I value my freedom above my stuff.

I raised the subject, knowing it would be met with resistance and shut-down. Interesting moment though when I said the words "I feel trapped here." I got a rolling of the eyes and, "How do you think I feel all the time?"

There are ways I could have been deeply hurt by this statement but I chose to take it as a geographical trapped rather than a relationship trapped. At any rate it gave me the opportunity to say, "Well I don't want to stay trapped and I'm going to do everything I can to get out of here. Nothing's going to change if we keep doing everything the same."

We were on the swings at the time at the local park, so kind of trapped in the conversation (not all bad is it?). He said talking about money reminded him of his past relationship (a marriage where he lost his business and savings). I said that my past experiences hadn't all been good either, but he's not that person and this is not that marriage.

That was really pushing things as far as addressing things goes. I know that there's no point in trying to talk about things when J is depressed. It can only end badly. But at the moment I'm finding it hard to tell the difference between when he's depressed and when he's well. It's like four seasons in one day. So I had to take a chance.

I can't say if it's paid off or not. We still haven't really taken any concrete steps towards making anything happen. I'm going to send an email and make an appointment with him to talk about our budget. I was thinking maybe lunch on a day when we're both working. I wonder if that's a good idea?

Sorry for the slightly rambling post but I'm a bit obsessed with this idea at the moment and feeling more than little optimistic.

I'd love to hear any comments about your own experiences with involving your partner in big decisions - how to engage without overwhelming, how to move forward without it falling, crashing into a big stinking heap.

Flo

It was the best of times... (Friday night)

Take 1:

I went to see a band on Friday night. My body throbbed to the bass rhythm. My head hummed. My feet locked in synch with the drums. Everyone was smiling, so pleased to be creating this dome of sound and furious joy.

I am still smiling, grinning at the world outside the train window. Now it's my ear that's humming and my stomach is still protesting over that single beer. But I'm still idiotically giddy with happiness.

Take 2:

T was spending the evening at a friend's house so J and I could go out together and see this band at a local pub. We used to love doing this and pre-everything that is our life now we used to do it a couple of times a week.

J had a cold and slept during the day to shake it off. But still, as we all packed into the car (with T's pyjamas, favourite books, toys he wanted to show off and irrepressible excitement) it was easy to see that J's heart wasn't in it.

I won't dwell on the details except for the ones I think you might relate to, and the ones that sound so crazy that anyone else might not believe them.

In the end (meaning less than patience on my part) it was decided that we'd drop T off at his friend's place, me at the pub and J would return home to rest. I'd then find my own way back to T and call J to pick us up from there.

I'd been at at the pub about an hour with an old old friend who was luckily there as well. And we'd bumped into someone that I'd known a long time ago. So we joined him and his friend at a table and were talking when (cue music) suddenly standing quietly fuming behind me was J, waiting for me to notice his presence, which I would not have done if my friend hadn't pointed him out.

He'd left his keys at home and so had no way of getting into the house. He looked angry, refused to acknowledge introductions. I thought he might have come back to see the band and admittedly I wasn't all that happy about it given his countenance. Still, I encouraged him to stay.

He was silent with rage though because I apparently "didn't need him around", referring clearly to the fact that I'd found myself new companions easily enough.

I was a little embarrassed. A little angry. I told him if he wanted to stay it would be great. He refused and turned away. I went back to the table and proceeded to have a good time anyway. It was a bit awkward.

But I did it; I managed to really push him out of my mind. It took me about five minutes but I was able to focus instead on where I was and what I was doing and the knot in my stomach went away. It's taken years to get to this point so it's worth remarking on. (And there was only one beer involved so no Dutch courage either.)

And 10 minutes later J was back! It was time for the band to start so no conversation was really possible. We all herded into a small, badly ventilated room, full of expectation, sweat, breathing the same air at intimate proximity.

J hung out at the back of the room (it was very crowded) but my friend and I (who are pretty short and get a lot of sympathy) wriggled our way down to the front. The music was all enveloping up there. The energy of the room surrounded us. We grinned at each other like maniacs and had a wonderful time.

After the music finished the three of us went for coffee. J was in a calm, contented mood. We all talked and had a good time.

Now we've got another show lined up to go to (same friend). I think he's enjoying himself. I think he's surprised to find it so.

And I think the less this possessive crap has any effect on me the less he might bother with it. Let's just wait and see eh?

I'm looking forward to hearing about your weekends if you have the time to write.

Flo

Long Weekend

I'd like to wish you a happy Easter. Although it's a far less intense holiday than Christmas, it's still a few days off from routine with all the good and bad that entails.

If I were a fairy-god-mother I would wish for you a calm couple of days that don't overwhelm anyone with the pressure to enjoy them.

I hope that the big bad wolf expectation takes his holidays elsewhere.

And if it's your sort of thing, I hope you can socialise to your heart's content, spend time with friends who are normally desk bound on weekdays.

Maybe there will be a bit of light-hearted time spent in the company of your partner (or maybe there won't).

In particular I hope chores don't take up any part of your long weekend (well it's only wishes after all - I can afford to be extravagant).

Flo