Finding the Lost

I’ve been feeling old, lately. Ugly, aged, and… 2 dimensional. So much has changed in the 3 and a bit years since my mental health crisis. I’m an entirely different person with an entirely different life. In so many ways that is a positive result, but there’s one long-standing aspect of that recovery that has really […]

What has it got in its pocketses?

When my partner and I met in the winter of 2007, I know he realised I had some… eccentricities. I’m just not entirely certain that even if he had envisaged us still being together 9 years later that he would be having a conversation with me over txt that read as follows: Him: “Do you want […]

When Bullied Children Grow Up

It’s been about 4 years since my diagnosis of Complex PTSD following severe psychological childhood bullying, and subsequent domestic violence relationships. I was diagnosed a full year before I accepted that diagnosis. I left that therapist the moment she suggested the PTSD, and that it began with the bullying, because I had never associated the […]

Sleepwalking

This acoustic version of Sleepwalking reminds me of the hours and hours I spent alone in my Melbourne apartment, writing, drinking, freezing, singing, crying, hating, loving – feeling terrified, empowered, and lonely. At the time, I was numb to all of it. Those emotions were ripples across my surface – except the loneliness – I […]

The Smell of Apricot Chicken Reminds Me of SuperTed

Last night, as evening began to hide the clouds that had owned the sky all day, I stepped into my parents’ house to collect my daughter. A wall of scent and memory flew into my face and settled around my heart. It lifted the corners of my mouth and made me stop, and breathe. Apricot Chicken! I […]

I have a vested interest.

Originally posted on Tenure, She Wrote:
In the fourth grade, I was obsessed with marine science and sonar technology, and I’d spend Saturday afternoons watching The Hunt for Red October instead of Saved by the Bell. That summer, I toured a Navy sub in dry dock– my first time! — and I asked the officer leading the tour when we’d be going to…

Senseless

It’s a beautiful Autumn day. The sun is a warm glow on my bare arms and a slight, playful breeze whispers through the stray hairs that have fallen out of my ponytail, tickling the back of my neck. Birds and  butterflies take a moment’s rest in the leaves of still trees, and the clear, haze-free […]

A Lofty Dream

I’m really hungry, today, but only for a café breakfast. I’m not cereal hungry, or toast hungry, or even Work Morning Tea hungry, with their party pies, sausage rolls, cocktail frankfurts and some-kind-of-cheesecake. No. I am only hungry for eggs benedict on sourdough, with heaps of hollandaise sauce, chipolatas, fried tomatoes and bacon. Lots and […]

Yeah, ok. That wasn’t home, either.

Well, it appears I can’t sustain rage like I used to. A few hours in the red room, listening to some blackmetal and I’d exhausted myself. For someone whose mental illness manifested in hours of imaginary conversations where I always came out the victor (or at least didn’t have my arguments invalidated), it’s really quite […]

Homecoming

I was only recently saying to a friend that having mental “health”, after three decades of trying to understand my mental illness, is a foreign place, to me. Mental stability has a sameness to it that has never been part of my life, either as a child or an adult. I’m used to peaks and troughs, […]