A Christmas Reminder

This holiday season, don’t forget that people often put on a happy face to save from bringing everyone else down. They don’t want to be the reason you’re Christmas isn’t the most magical it can be, and they don’t want to take you away from the joyousness of ringing in a new year.

But don’t forget that doing this is exhausting and impossible to keep up 24/7. Sometimes the chunks in the armour will show. Sometimes a greeting will be a little rusty. Sometimes the spark just can’t be generated.

So don’t forget: don’t make people feel bad for leaving the party early, or being a bit quiet at work, or just needing some alone time.

Don’t forget that the holiday season can be hard for a lot of people, even if they don’t have anxiety or depression. They may be remembering a loved one who’s no longer around. They may be struggling to make ends meet. They may be missing something they’ve never had.

Don’t forget that we all have our moments when life is just too much. We are overwhelmed by a thought, a situation, a feeling. We can’t always be strong and hopeful and optimistic.

But also don’t forget that they do need you, and it’s not the grand gestures that people need. They do appreciate that you picked up the kids so they could have a shower. They do appreciate that you fielded that call when there’s mountains of paperwork to do. They do appreciate that you thought to invite them, even if they can’t make it. And they appreciate you listening to the story you’ve heard a hundred times before.

So don’t forget, in what can be a very commercialised time of year, that some of the best gifts can’t be bought at the shops. They’re found at the bottom of your heart, wrapped in love and tied with the strings that bind us together.

And, lastly, don’t forget to spread your gifts throughout the year because while this time of year is special in so many ways, it doesn’t mean you aren’t special every single day and you have the power to spread that gift whenever and wherever you so choose.

Oh, Captain. My Captain.

Death comes to us all. Some go quickly. Some linger. Some step, unknowing, into the void. And some, for whatever reason, take it upon themselves to decide the method and the timing.

I almost wasn't going to write this. When i woke to the news this morning that one of the greatest actors I had ever had the pleasure of viewing had dies, apparently by his own hand, I vowed that I would not be just another blogger writing about another celebrity death. Yet here I am. Writing.

It's nearly the end of the day as I write this. I've spent most of the day thinking about my own experiences with depression, and the experiences of my friends. I have battle this demon for a long time. Despite the general perception, suicide is not the easy way out. If it were, I wouldn't be here.

Today I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am not depressed. I am most definitely sad, but I am not depressed. This is not to say I am cured. I cannot give assurances for tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. I'm not sure I will ever be cured. To use a medical phrase: Today, I am asymptomatic.

My sadness is, naturally, coloured by my experiences. It stems from an understanding that there, but for the grace of God, go I. And by God, I mean chance or fate or destiny or whatever turn of phrase you choose to employ. My sadness is filled with a fans adoration, a writers admiration and a depressives anticipation of what may, one day, be my own undoing.

I know who would know real loss. His family. His friends. Their loss I cannot know. Their grief I cannot share. This does not make the tears I shed, even as I write this, any less real but they are tears of sadness, not tears of love lost too soon.

Robins battles with alcohol and drugs have been well reported. His battle with depression equally so. The lifelong battle faced by Robin and millions of others worldwide shows one simple fact about depression: It does not discriminate. Age, wealth, location, social standing, friends and family mean little when it comes to depression. You may look at someone and think, 'what have they got to be depressed about, they have everything.' It's never about what you have. It's about how you feel. There lies the irony: Material possessions are immaterial when it comes to mental health.

Being alone isn't so bad. It can be quite nice to be alone with your thoughts. Being lonely is a completely different thing altogether. You can be surrounded by people and still feel totally isolated. Trying to reach someone on the outside can be painful and defeating, but trying to reach someone on the inside of their own mind can be equally terrifying. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Each and every day you should try.

Not just big ideas or carefully-chosen words. Every idea has power, no matter how small. Every word has power, no matter how trivial. Tell your partner you love them for no other reason that it's true. Send those birthday wishes to the friend you haven't seen in years. Take those clothes that no longer fit to the op shop. Volunteer an hour of your time to a charity. Just one hour. Pick any charity. And don't be afraid to be exactly who you're meant to be.

Whether it's making a fool out of yourself in front of your kids, helping a friend fulfil their crazy dream, being unique and off the wall and special and crazy and deadly serious and hilarious and a daredevil - keep your spark. Fan it occasionally. Make sure it never goes out.

Robin once said, "I believe in destiny. There must be a reason I am as I am. There must be." I wonder if he every discovered the reason. I wonder how many of us ever do. I think, by nature, we are far more adept at seeing the purpose in other people than we are in seeing it in ourselves.

It's times like this that I wish heaven existed so I could pray for Robin to read this over my shoulder. Not because it's particularly well written or because it speaks to people - neither of these things matter - and not because it would bring him back - it wouldn't. I would want him to read this because for me, the reason he was as he was is crystal clear.

Through all the many laughs, the extraordinary speeches, the tearful goodbyes; through the ups and downs and twists and turns; through the characters we've loved, the stand up routines we've craved and the humanity you've shown: Through all of this the reason shines through - to show me that it's ok to be me.

Rest in peace, my captain. May your legacy be more than you ever dreamed it could be.

If you, or someone you know is suffering from depression or any other mental health issues, please seek help from one of the institutions listed below, or in an emergency call 000.

Beyond Blue

www.beyondblue.org.au

1300 22 4636

Lifeline

www.lifeline.org.au

13 11 14

Kids Help Line

www.kidshelp.com.au

1800 55 1800

Please note: the above relate to Australia organisations, for information on local help centres in your area please contact your GP or go to the World Federation for Mental Health website (www.wfmh.com/links/external-contacts/international-organizations).

Sex, Love and Depression

PLEASE NOTE BEFORE READING: While this blog does not contain sexually explicit material (sorry, anyone thinking it might) it does contain adult themes and is not advised for readers under the age of 18 except under direct adult supervision. It does contain references to, but not details of, my own sex life so if you’d rather not know, stop reading now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I am not going to make this an essay on the moral rights or wrongs of sex. I don’t care what you get up to in the privacy of your own home as long as I’m not there. This isn’t a lecture on premarital sex or the appropriate age at which to start having sex. It is not a recount of past lovers as such, there are no blow by blow descriptions.

This is going to be a study of some of my experiences surrounding sex and love and, hopefully, a window into why I am as screwed up as I am. This also contains information that even my best friends might not know so if they are reading this information for the first time, I’m sorry for not telling you earlier but I probably had my reasons. If you are reading this and I have told you all of this information before, or even most of it, consider yourself extremely trustworthy.

I was an early bloomer physically but a late bloomer in terms of sex, in relation to other people I knew. From the time I was quite young I looked older than I was and many of the experiences I had as a young girl made me very withdrawn and ashamed of how I looked. People expect you to act a certain way when they think you are a certain age. When that age is significantly different from your actual age it can be quite distressing. Being different from everyone else can also be distressing, as can other people’s insensitivity.

An example of when percieved age is not the same as actual age happened when I was about 13. Most people, when they first met me, thought I was at least 16, if not 18. Dad and I went on a weekend snow trip. We were staying at a place which had it’s own pub/restaurant attached. Dad had made friends with a few people who were staying at the same place. On weekends, when it got later, they would have games in the pub. I was a night owl, even back then, and was sitting in the restaurant section with my dad and his mates when one of these games started. The game was “strip musical chairs” in which all the males stood on chairs and the women would walk around the circle until the music stopped, at which point they would remove an item of clothing from the male on the chair they stopped at.

Even at over 30 years of age, I am slightly embarrassed by this game and wouldn’t participate in it except with a group of very close friends so imagine how embarrassed my 13 year old self was when I didn’t just get asked to join in by the blokes we were sitting with, I was literally picked up and carried to the game floor. You would have thought that me saying, “no, I don’t want to” might have been enough. Or perhaps me grabbing hold of a 2x4 pillar for dear life and refusing to let go until my hands were literally pried off it might have been a clue. Luckily for me, after one mortifying round, the guy who was running the game saw how much I clearly didn’t want to be there and asked how old I was. When I told him, he apologised and sent me back to my table quicker than you could say, “under age”.

You might think that this experience would have put me off sex or men, or both. You’d be wrong. In a strange, sick way I was flattered that they thought I was old enough to play the game. It did put me off alcohol for a long time, though. Most of my friends were drinking from the age of about 14 or 15. I didn’t have my first sip of alcohol til I was 17 and it wasn’t until I got to 19 that I really had a big night of drinking. Even today, while I enjoy a few drinks, it doesn’t bother me if I don’t drink and I quite often end up as the designated driver because it gives me a nice excuse not to drink. But I digress …

This experience, and others of a similar nature though perhaps not quite as in your face as that one, influenced me a great deal and all occurred at about the same age. They made me aware of older men looking at me in a different way from the boys my age. What those experiences taught me is that I could use my body. I’m not sure that’s an appropriate thing for a 13 year old to know. It also influenced the kind of man I sought to attract. If the boys my own age weren’t going to pay me any attention then I would just go for the men who would. Some of the men who snuck glances at my cleavage should have known better because they knew how old I was but at the time it rarely occurred to me that it might be inappropriate, which is why we have laws to help protect children from being exposed to adult situations.

When I got to be about 16, the hormones kicked in. For me, this was not good timing. I’m not sure it’s good timing for anyone but especially for me. I wasn’t the prettiest. I wasn’t the brainiest. I wasn’t the best at the sports I played. I wasn’t the funniest. I wasn’t the teacher’s pet either at school or in sports. I wasn’t anything in particular. I wasn’t even very good at being average. I was quiet and reasonably studious while I was on school property, but I was also a bit different from everyone else. Even today I can’t quite put my finger on it but it was there.

The boys that I liked in my teenage years were completely out of my league. They were either a fair few years older than me (as I’ve stated in another post) or they were stunningly good looking. Quite a few fell into both categories. I’m not sure whether any of the guys I knew during my high school years had any interest in me whatsoever because I was always the one that got laughed at or ignored (well, that’s how it felt at the time, I’m not saying that’s actually what happened; it’s all about perception).

In my head, I clearly didn’t have what it took to be girlfriend material. It’s an idea which has stuck with me throughout my life and has been part of the downfall of at least one relationship. I figured all any guy would want from me is sex. Even then, I always imagined that they’d have to be roaring drunk to want that. My friends used to try and set me up with guys. It never worked, usually because the guy they were trying to set me up with had no interest in me whatsoever.

I only recall being asked out once during my entire high school career and I won’t name the person but I’m sure a lot of people reading this might know who it is anyway because the very next day I got asked about it by one of the boys who was merciless in his taunt of me and because in our year 12 year book I got given the rather dubious nickname of “The Terminator”, which I can only assume was a reference to this … maybe someone who knows the story behind it can let me know in a private message someday.

I said no for two very different reasons. The first has to do with what I’ve already said so far: being teased about the way I looked for a good long while at school by certain boys made me think that no-one would be interested in me and the fact that I was being asked out meant that it was surely a practical joke. The idea occurred to me that if I said yes and arranged a “date” with the person on the other end of the phone then when it came to the actual date I would either be stood up or in some other way completely humiliated.

The second reason I said no was that I was terrified of what my mother would say. Her favourite expression in regards to any boy I liked was “they make a nice friend.” It made me think she didn’t want me to date. For many years I thought she would kill me if I did go on a date. I didn’t want to be the “bad” daughter or disappoint her. Even when I finally got my first boyfriend, she used that same expression. Ok, he was a lot older than me and, as it turned out, we were not suited to each other but her saying that only made me want to be with him more, to rebel.

And rebelliousness brings me to my 20s. Sex was my rebellion. I am not ashamed to admit that. Some people drink heavily, get tattoos, have lots of piercings, run away from home. Some people, like myself, sleep around. I’m not proud of my actions in a lot of ways but I won’t be held prisoner by them either. That part of my life is something I have to carry around with me always and it wasn’t all bad. I now have a beautiful son who I wouldn’t give up for the entire universe.

In a way I was making up for lost time. In another way it was my way of telling myself that I was in some way attractive because they wanted to sleep with me. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t carry on this behaviour for my entire 20s. It was sporadic. I fluctuated wildly between having a lot of partners and having none. I would go a year of sleeping with pretty much any guy with a pulse then 3 years of sleeping with no-one.

During the years when I was with no-one it was not because I chose to be abstinent or anything as lofty as that. It coincided with the most terrible depression that I have ever known. I’m not talking about the “oh poor me” kind of depressed either, I’m talking almost suicidal here. The ironic thing is I was so depressed that I thought that if I did commit suicide no-one would come to my funeral anyway so what was the point of doing it?

If you’re reading this and you knew me then but didn’t realise at the time how bad it was – that’s how good people are at hiding their depression. The down shot of hiding it from the general public is that the people who do see it cop the worst of it because it is a real struggle putting on that happy face to go to university or to work or to anything really. My poor mum must’ve gone though hell with me, not just once but several times, as I spiralled downwards.

Growing up, I had no cognitive connection between love and sex. I still struggle with combining the two. Most of the guys I have had great sex with I haven’t loved. By the same token, most of the guys I’ve loved haven’t been my perfect match sexually. If I ever find someone who can meet both criteria, watch out. For a very long time I didn’t think I deserved to be loved, I didn’t think I was good enough. Those thoughts aren’t easy to shake and I still get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me, “you don’t deserve that guy, he’s too good for you, why would he have any interest in you?”

When I was with guys all I would think is that they were just after sex, and most of the time that were true. I would hope and pray that one of them would fall for me. If any guy showed an interest that was more than sexual I would latch onto them like my life depended on it. When they turned out to be just like every other guy it broke my heart and reinforced the idea that I didn’t deserve to be loved.

This was espeically the case when I end up with a married man. I’ve spoken before about this person but I think it’s appropriate to bring them up again. When we first met I had no idea he was married. He showered me with affection. It was more than I had expected and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. When he told me that he was married I was devestated. I didn’t want to end it with him because I thought I’d never find anyone else but at the same time I knew that I was not his first choice and he’d never leave his wife for me. It broke my heart that he didn’t really love me and it made me think that all I was good for was someone’s seconds.

My need to feel loved meant I didn't vet the guys I dated. I would go out with anyone who asked. This is how I ended up with a stalker. We went out for two weeks. He stalked me for three years. Admittedly, I probably didn't treat him very well in those two weeks. I went from wildly enthusiastic to stone cold. In those two weeks I had realised he wasn't what I was looking for and had somehow found the courage to convince myself I didn't need a guy just for the sake of having one. What I didn't bank on was the lengths he would go to in order to "win" me back. The weekend after we broke up he called me and told me he had cancer. I thought I was the most awful person on earth for breaking up with him but I wasn't going to get back with him just because he was sick. Another week went by and he called again to tell me he'd made it up so I'd get back together with him. I told him I didn't want to hear from him again.

What that experience taught me was that there was a perfect example of the type of male I could hope to attract. That type were the ones who were mentally unstable. It reinforced every idea I had about my own worth in society and especially in regards to my ability to attract a partner.

I tend to fall into the trap of looking for ulterior motives when anyone shows any interest in me. The person must want something in return for being nice, they can’t possibly like me just for me. It shows what an utter lack of trust I have in people, especially men. If I don’t even trust my own parents to keep their word about things then what hope does anyone else have? Why I don’t trust my parents is a whole other story and one that is unlikely to ever get published here but it just goes to show how deep my mistrust of people goes. Like I said at the start of this post, if you’ve heard even part of this information before then you are very trustworthy, in my opinion.

The birth of my son gave me some purpose in life. I stopped having suicidal thoughts (I still get depressed and angry at myself but nowhere near as badly as I used to). I also managed to hold down a job. What having a child did not do is stop those thoughts of inadequacy. Any guy I have dated can tesify to that. Anyone who knows me can probably testify to that. Even people I’ve just met can probably testify to that. The thoughts did not stop, they merely altered to take into account the new situation.

I still have a lot of doubts about myself. I am slowly learning to overcome them. I don’t know that I will ever truly get rid of all of them but I can maybe outweigh them given time. One of my new year’s resolution for 2011 was to be less self-depreciating. It’s not about lying to myself and saying I’m wonderful when I’m not. It’s about being realistic and accepting that while I do have flaws, they probably aren’t as catastrophic as I think they are. I’m not sure that I’m being entirely successful in this resolution, but like all resolutions it is a work in progress.

My advice to anyone who has made it this far through this post is simple. Do not confuse sex with love and do not think that because the opposite sex don’t seem interested that you’re not beautiful. Everyone is beautiful in their own way and everyone deserves to hear it once in a while. The whole reason I am writing this post is because a new friend of mine called me beautiful and I didn’t believe him because I really hadn’t heard it from anyone.

If there are any teens who did read this, let me say this to you: the time you have now, while formative, is not your entire life. Take the best things you can from it and build on that. Throw the negativity away. Find someone you do trust to talk to and remember, sometimes it’s easier to open up to a complete stranger than it is a loved one and there is no shame in seeking outside guidance. I just wish I had’ve had the courage to take the help I was offered when I was younger.

Sex can be fun but it’s not something you should give out like lollies. If a person truly loves you they will wait until you are ready. Don’t be in a rush to step out of your childhood because you’re a long time an adult and once you’re there, there’s no going back.