It is 7am

She opens her eyes and they begin to burn and scratch.
Before the first thought has even entered her mind, she feels it.
The panic that presses her chest and wraps itself around her throat.
Still shocking yet familiar after all this time.
In the close distance she hears the kids awake and the breath in her lungs quickens, in and out.
The boys begin to bicker, softly at first and then louder.
A turf war escalating.
She knows that is her own heart she can feel, pounding like it is searching for a peaceful place to rest.
The hands of anxiety tighten around her torso.
Strong and unrelenting
Another day is beginning and she must face it.
She swings her legs around and sits upright, her feet hitting the carpet with a dull thud.
It is 7am.

I wrote this. I wrote it about me.
Somehow the words come out more easily if I write it like it's about someone else.
Someone else like me.
This is how anxiety sits in my world right now. Not on every day, but on many.
I am ok. I don't want any one reading this to be worried or heaven forbid, think that I am "not coping".
I am, mostly.

I am grappling with things on so many levels that it feels exhausting and overwhelming.
There are endings to grieve. Natural endings and lost potential.
There are beginnings and achievements to celebrate too. They are not forgotten in the maelstrom.
Fear and anticipation are present in some of the new.
Sadness is a companion and exhaustion loves the ride too.

I talk about this with some who are deeply trusted.
The talking helps, releases the pressure valve.
But in so many ways, the rationality of those conversations never quite matches the swirling internal dialogue of emotions. It's a wave. A wave of change where the swell rises and must break before the waters find the calm.

Image via we heart it

How it feels to let go of some stuff

Back when I wrote this post I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed and depressed and anxious.
Life and everything I had taken on was weighing heavily. It was all too much.

I have been doing some regular work with one of those professional mental health people and together we have put in place some strategies for dealing with the anxious when it comes. One of the big tasks that I knew was there to be done was to downsize my commitments. I knew that I really needed to stop saying yes to everything, start saying "no" or "I don't have the time to commit to that project".

I have quit my part time job.
I have finished my two year role as secretary of the kinder.
I have said "no" to other requests that have come my way.
I have limited the number of nights out that I have in a week (although that gets tricky come the silly season).
I have not missed my twice a week pilates class.
We went on a farmstay holiday to one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.
I am making a conscious effort to slow down and be in those moments with the boys instead of worrying constantly about the next thing on the to-do list.
I am spending more time doing the things I love - cooking and reading and hanging out in the backyard. Working with beautiful food and creating dishes in my own kitchen is a true place of happiness and feels like a completely valid therapy/meditative experience.
My Christmas plans are in place and they are smaller and more achievable than the craziness I came up with last year. Home cooked Christmas presents here we come.

All of this has helped so much.
I am calmer. I am more present. The anxiety is a smaller beast. When it visits, I am more able to cope. There is still a way to go though. I have to watch myself because my personality regularly leads me to a place of saying "yes" too often and ending up over-committed and miserable.

But for now, where I am feels good.

How do YOU say no?

The overwhelm is here again.
It visits too often. Unwelcome, unyielding. Buffeting and rough on the mind.
I wish it away but wishing never quite does it.
I know that there is too much on, too much on my plate. I know this.
But what I don't know is how to take it down a notch and let everything in my head calm down.
My to-do list has reached magnificent proportions and it is both my friend and my mortal enemy.

The big thing I do know is that I am not very good at saying "no". I am a capable gal and I have lots of skills. I am someone that others look to, to help, to lead, to be involved.
So why can't I say no sometimes and keep my commitments at manageable levels?

Do you have any suggestions for me? How do you manage it?
I suspect it might have something to do with this.....(as seen on a recent visit to Abbotsford Convent).

Help please.

R U OK?

I am running a little bit behind schedule this week.
So at 10pm, with a couple of hours left of R U OK? day to go, here I am. Late to what would appear to have been a successful campaign. I saw yellow everywhere on my social media streams today, and that has to be a good thing.

I asked a couple of people today. And yes, I am clear that they are both ok.
A couple of my lovely friends asked me whether I am ok too.
It felt good to be asked and it felt even better to be able to answer with a clear yes.
In the last year, my answer would not always have been yes. As I have struggled with the Batsman's diagnosis and a house full of therapists nearly every day, there have been highs and some devastating lows.
I feel like I am standing a little more in the sunshine this past couple of months. I can feel it on my cheeks.

I am ok. Really. I am ok.

On thoughts provoked and drowning

So many wonderful posts have been written about the inaugural Aussie Bloggers Conference. You can read them here. It was an extraordinary weekend, it really was. There have been summaries, succinct and to the point, there have been blow by blow accounts, rambling and weaving, and there have been snapshots, posts that have captured a single (often hilarious or moving) moment in time. All these posts record, for all eternity, the Aussie Bloggers Conference in all its glory, for those like me who were there and those who were not.


I wanted to be among those early posts. I really did. But the demands of a Batsman very anxious upon my return, the daily slog of his early intervention program, a kinder committee meeting, a deluge of other stuff and nonsense all rolled up in a hangover just didn’t allow it to happen. More on that later.


The weekend provoked a lot of thinking for me and I remain in a neurological tussle to process and make sense of it all. Here’s the shorthand version of what it has made me think about.


• I met amazing women. Such a privilege to meet those I have long admired, read, cried and laughed with. And there was this guy, who I think is beautiful and funny.
• People are their blogs. Authentic, raw, gutsy, funny, moving.
• Why am I blogging? What it’s all for?
• What will I do about reviews and sponsored posts and the $ generally?
• Social media – tweet tweet
• Privacy – mine, my kids’, protecting all of us
• Do I really want my mum to read my blog?
• Keeping it real. Content is queen.
• Blogging as community. Extraordinary community.


Like I said, it was an extraordinary gathering. Thanks to the organisers who made it so.


So, it has taken me till now to blog about the conference. There’s a whole lot of reasons and I know I don’t need to make excuses, tell you why, justify my bloggy timetabling and all that but I think, through my insomnia last night I have got to some real stuff. I want to share it.


I haven’t blogged about the conference till now because in all truth, it made me a little bit sad, about me, about who I used to be, not so long ago.


Once upon a time, maybe a year or so ago, I would have been more confident, less anxious and fearful, more willing to let it all hang out, less worried about whether others would like me, more able to bounce around and introduce myself to people, more able to be in the centre of the action, less, way less, self conscious. It’s not so now and the conference weekend allowed me to see all that.


Truth is, once the adrenalin of the weekend faded a bit, what was there was sadness. Isolation. Fear. Overwhelm. Anxiety. All of it. Can’t really write that on a feedback sheet can you?


The last eighteen months has been tough, there’s no denying it. The Bowler’s birth and sleep depriving ways, confronting the Batsman’s diagnosis with autism and the craziness that has brought to our family life has all taken a toll. While I probably look to lots of people to be managing it all and coping with the rollercoaster ride, in reality it’s a struggle. It’s fucking hard in fact. And I am pretty damn good at saying to myself, “hey Suz, look at what that person is going through, you are ok, you’re lucky, get on with it”. I don’t let it in because that means loosening that very tight grip I have on it all. The old me, the one who was a little more carefree and a lot more fun; she has been hanging so tightly that she’s at least in part, disappeared from view.


But today, on the third day in a row of waking up feeling sad, teary and overwhelmed, I said to the Captain “I feel like I’m drowning”. Drowning in stuff that needs to be done, drowning in the pressure I feel to do all that I can for Batsman as he struggles through “autism town” and drowning under the weight of my own expectations of myself.


I walked on the treadmill at the gym this morning, with tears welling while Pat Benatar sang in my IPod about it being a cold world when you keep it all to yourself. Gawd, doesn’t that sound like a soapie episode? Does anyone cry while they are in the middle of a gym workout? Probably someone who is depressed and anxious and struggling does. And did I mention how utterly exhausted I am? All the way through my bones.


So here I am. I am putting it out there with all of you. The weekend was amazing and I am so grateful to have met so many gorgeous people. But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for me. I want to be real about this and it’s so bloody scary to do that.


But I don’t want to drown.