Winston Is A Champ

Original Post

Following is Update #2 - About 2 weeks ago 

You know what one of the biggest lessons I've learnt since beginning treatment for PTSD? Not everyone is an arsehole! Most people seem to be wonderful and kind. I say seem because this is a generalisation and I haven't met everyone in the world. I'm also still messed up by years of trauma and my go-to trauma brain thinks everyone is a prick and untrustworthy.

I say this because it amazes me every day and I'm so grateful now. Ridiculously so. If it wasn't pandemic times I think I might hug people when before I could barely make eye contact. Crazy!

So the original vet hospital I took Winston to were amazing. Even though I was triggered and losing my shit for not being able to administer an injection, they were amazing. So professional, sympathetic, and all-round wonderful.

Then my local vet, not an exotics vet by the way, have been wonderful too. I was able to arrange with them to bring Winston over for his daily injection without a consultation which would have really f'ed me up financially (what finances though? LOL). Even better is they are a block away and within my 5km radius (I'm in a covid-19 red zone at the moment).

Winston Needs Medicine and It's Triggering

 I have two rabbits. Winston and Hazel. Hazel is the youngest at around 4 years old. Winston is my oldest, at roughly 9 years, and MY BOI. Back in 2012 I was socially isolated and not coping. Instead of adopting a dog, as I was going to do with my ex, I went with a rabbit.

I didn't realise back then I had CPTSD and my hypervigilance was off the charts. I love dogs. I love all animals. I just couldn't be around dogs because they would trigger my startle response with their barking. I thought it was the ME/CFS sensitivities at the time, but now I know better. I was intensely startled every time a dog barked.

Long story short, yes there is more story, I went and adopted a rabbit. It wasn't Winston. It was my beloved Fiver whom I named after Fiver in Watership Down by Richard Adams. Fiver saved my sanity at the time and unfortunately he passed away after six months of me adopting him. That's a trauma story I am saving for Mrs Yellow.

I was still socially isolated, suffering from depression, and quite unwell after Fiver passed. I lasted two weeks before the lack of sound little padded feet made started to drive me madder and I adopted Winston in 2013. That's a long time to have a bunny companion. He has been there for my depression, kept me going when I was suicidal, gave me a reason to get up in the morning. We bonded hard when I adopted him. I have been dreading him getting older...

First Dose Done

 That's right. I've had my first dose of covid-19 vaccine. Yay! I'm quite pleased about it so obviously I am very pro-vaccines and pro-vaccine education. I wholeheartedly believe everyone should get vaccinated, voluntarily, and as soon as it is available for them. 

I got the Pfizer vaccine. I'm eligible, here in Australia, even though I am under 40 because I have Type 1 Diabetes. Add on to that my history with clotting and my clotting gene mutation and it definitely rules out AstraZeneca. I would have applied for the AstraZeneca if it wasn't for all my clotting issues and even went to my GP as soon as it was available, but I'll probably post about the whys another time. 

For those Sydney-siders waiting to get their first dose done I though I'd share my experience with you. 

I won't get into the applying process as we're all experiencing a fun time with that. I booked my appointments and had a two month wait for the hub at Sydney Olympic Park.

The vaccination process itself was quite smooth. When I went, unfortunately, they had a big ol' technical glitch. Their system crashed. It was so unfortunate given Wednesday was so cold! It meant they were running 1.5 - 2 hours behind. My appointment was 5:15pm and they were still at 3:45pm when I showed up. Early. Of course. Before 5pm.

Happiness Where You Can Find It

Prepare yourself as my inner nerd is about to appear.

 What is one thing I really enjoy doing? Filling out forms and answering questionnaires. Yep. I love my forms (unless it's Centrelink) Census is upon us here in Australia for August. This brought back memories. I've found, increasingly, since I began therapy for the PTSD, I'm recalling memories which are not trauma. It's quite exciting, but also feels a little strange. A more "What is this?" fascination for me. 

Anyway, so the topic of census looming came up and I remembered when I was a kid how excited I would be by census date. Of course crushing disappointment would follow the initial excitement when I was told I couldn't fill it out because I was obviously too young. Before I understood what census was all I knew was the night was special. Everyone had to be at home, my parents would get together and fill out this form for what felt like ages with an air of importance. To me it was a special occasion, an event, with excitement in the air.

I also felt this when I was admitted to hospital or a parent played hooky from work.

Catching Up II

 So it's May....

I was just checking what I posted last and realised my last post was March. What have I been doing in all that time? April felt like it was about four days long. Easter happened, therapy, more painting, plans for the future, Dune, and crochet.

I went to the Easter Show. Let's start there seeing as I went the first weekend after it opened and that's pretty much in the beginning of April. I was really excited about the Easter Show. I was more excited about it than I was about Mardi Gras which is saying something. Gay Christmas and all.

I hadn't been in a few years, I think. I was going to say I haven't been since I was 14, but I feel like I've gone as an adult and possibly repressed it... Either that or I went with someone I'm not fond of anymore. Either way - REPRESSED.

Basically I was excited because it was an event I could actually participate in and I haven't been post-PTSD-treatment. I may be midst treatment, but there's been so much progress. I want to try out things with my fresher level of awareness and with my grounding techniques in place. The Easter Show is also where I remember going to as a kid and watching the parade, but blocking it from my memory. Everything else around the parade I remember, including the large frog hat I wore and being on my father's shoulders, but the parade? Apparently fuck the parade. I didn't see it this time 'round either. I forgot about it.

I didn't flip out and enjoyed myself. I dissociated at times, but not all day. I even went on a ride, The Pirate's Revenge, and didn't hate it. I've now figured out heights can be scary, but it's more the vertigo I get and then the motion sickness from movement. I'll probably not go on a roller coaster, but I will consider more rides.

What else?

From Therapy to The Future

 I just had a full day of therapy and I feel like my brain is about to explode. I need to stare into space for an hour to process. A full day is appointments with my psychologist and psychiatrist, 2 hours tops, but holy shit it's enough to melt my brain. 

They were really good sessions, but I think the reason my brain is melting is because of the topics we discussed. It's really hitting home for me how disruptive and erratic my life has been. I've been living day-to-day, taking everything as it comes. I've needed to in the past and it's what I am accustomed to. Now I've been presented with the idea I can create goals for my life and strive for something in the future. It's just.... WTF dude?

This is where I am in my life. I've been working so hard on reaching the goal of normalcy, stability, well-rounded health for so long I haven't truly believed I could get there. Now I'm almost at a precipice where these possibilities are somewhere on the horizon and every time it comes up my mind is blown. I'm starting to think my head actually hurts after these moments because my brain is being forced to change. It needs to change for me to actually accept all these ideas can be a part of my life. It's flooring. I don't know what I want to do with myself. Part of me wants to cry.

I'm sure this sounds dramatic to someone out there, especially when their life has been full of stability and consistency. That doesn't throw me at all. I'm actually happy for those people, but to me they are also unicorns. We're talking about a unicorn life here. Unicorns all over the place. Unicorn city

My Fitbit Broke

 My Fitbit broke the other day and I think it might be a great thing.

I've been using a fitness tracker, off and on, since 2012. First Fitbit, then Garmin, and back to Fitbit. In 2012 I was suffering from muscle weakness after years of being unwell with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) and FM (fibromyalgia) to the point of being bed-bound for quite some time. I was fortunate to move out west and receive wonderful health care by people in the profession who gave a shit and didn't ascribe my condition to depression or being lazy 😒 

Yeah, the whole ME/CFS and FMS experience I had with health professionals back then is definitely a sore point for me. Anyway, back to what I was saying before I go off on a tangent. 

I was diagnosed with pulmonary embolus (three blood clots in the lungs) in late 2012. By this point I wasn't eating, existing on sustagen instead, and just a mess. Mentally and physically. The benefits of using a fitness tracker, at the time, was the motivation it gave me to reach my goals of slowly, oh so slowly, building up my muscle mass again. It was hard work, but I had to introduce movement back into my life no matter how much pain I was in. Not only had I been diagnosed with a PE, but it turns out I have a gene mutation which causes excess clotting. 

I didn't process the trauma of having PE very well. The benefits of using a fitness tracker were still there, but I also have anxiety and OCD so... eventually the fitness tracker became a problem as well. 

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

I've been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life's challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call 'catching greenlights.'

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it's medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot's license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It's a love letter. To life.

It's also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.

Just My Thoughts

Catching Up

I've been distracted lately. Or maybe the right term is busy. In a good way, mostly. 

My back has decided sitting at the dining table to type is not cool. I'm doing physio three times a week and a bunch of exercises three times a day. It's kinda made me not want to type or blog, but today I am taking over my partner's desk as she is in the office. I felt inspired.

I finished a great psychology book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, and began a new one, Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. It's a big deal for me after the anhedonia and depression. I realised the other day I had begun a trilogy in January 2020, made it to the sequel, only to lose reading momentum at page 378. 378! That's some effort and yet apparently not enough for me lol. So, yeah, big deal for me.

I've officially started a book club. We're getting things underway, have chosen our first book, and have set the date for our first meet up. I had a book club years ago which I ran for two years. Unfortunately I was so triggered at the time, and unaware of it, that book club wasn't a fun experience for me. This time will be different and I'm quite excited.