I remember ...

Clearing up my former bedroom of its paraphernalia I am reminded of different times of my life. More recently, the paintings I did whilst in hospital with severe depression in Switzerland. Some of the art looks slightly trippy with swirls of iridescent colour, similar to the disarray of chemicals in my mind. Others are starkly devoid of colour, reflecting the raw aching pain within that simply would not leave. Many show my indecision of whether to stay in Switzerland or return to Zimbabwe and the uncertainty I faced regarding Zimbabwe’s future and my return.

Dusting off my insect collection from when I took the entomology course in Cape Town, I am transported away to happier days, running around campus and in the Cedarburg with a butterfly net bug hunting. There is the elusive spider wasp, with its cellophane-like wings, then the punk-like disco-ball beetles, with their tufts of yellow or orange hairs on their carapace. Those were Elysian Fields for my soul and was a time when I was content with life.

I remember sitting in the chapel at school, trying to make sense of the fact that Lisa was gone. Paging through a nun’s bible and hymn book, looking for an answer, for solace, for reason. I did not find it that day. The song The Rose always takes me back to that day and your funeral as Chenai sang it to you and to our aching souls. Jacaranda season is another reminder. I imagine Lisa walking along the purple carpeted path through the playground and out the Herbert Chitepo Street Gate, where it is said she hailed a taxi to take her home to where she shot herself dead.

Music memoirs from a little while back

The local documentary club happens bi-monthly at The Queen of Hearts Coffee Shop in Harare. A group of upcoming professionals both young and older assemble and enjoy and evening of film viewing accompanied by a complementary cappuccino and if you pay an extra $5, a bowl of soup. Last night the film was on the Sound City Recording Studio in Los Angeles. A number of prominent bands had recorded hits there in its hey day and it had a state of the art mixing desk. It was an entertaining soirèe.

It did bring back memories though of my Father, and times from my childhood when my Sister and I had to sit patiently in the lobby or by the recording desk as my Father pursued his music career. I remember the mixed  bag of musicians who would wander in and out of my Father’s house and my Dad’s music room which was mostly out of bounds. Despite being a gifted musician, my Father never took time to teach my Sister or I how to play an instrument and we had to fit into his life and around his recording time. The only time he had use for us in his music was for a music video, in which my Sister and I were dressed in rags and made to sit outside a hut near the Domboshawa Area.

The music video was partly following the story of my Grandfather, and how born out of an extra-marital affair or possibly rape, he was raised by his African Mother in possibly squalid conditions. At the age of seven he set out from Penalonga along the road to Harare, in search of his Father. He slept in public toilets at night along the way but eventually located his Greek Father in the big metropolis of Harare. His Father, less than thrilled to see his illegitimate son, hastily enrolled him at a boarding school designated for coloured children. This and other disappointments and disownership made my Grandfather eventually want nothing more to do with his Father and ultimately caused him to change his surname from Zambellis to the made up name of Lannas.

The poor father-child relationship seems to have been passed down through the generations and my Father did not fulfill his obligations as a father willingly either. With his involvement in the music industry came other women who eventually replaced my Mother, and my Father dabbled in illegal substance abuse at times. His already volatile moods became more erratic and his artistic temperament could flare up with minimal provocation. The weekends we were to see him could be cancelled at a moment’s notice due to a gig taking precedence and my Sister and I had to adapt to the many women that floated in and out of my Father’s life.

People in Zim still remember my Father and his band “Talking Drum” even though it is many years now since my Father left for England. At the supermarket cashiers will sometimes look at my Spar shopping card and ask if I am any relation to my Father. On conceding to being his daughter I am then asked if he is still making music to which I invariably reply I haven’t a clue, which is the truth. A few years ago my Father reconnected with my Sister but he has extended no effort to try to contact me. In many ways I am happy it is this way but it does sting at the same time that I am not. 

How far I've come

A friend of mine who also suffers from bipolar depression has been re-admitted to hospital again. My heart goes out to her as I have been there and have recently felt the twinges of not coping and feeling life is just too hard. I hope I can be the friend to her that she has been to me and I can help her climb back up from the pit of despair. How much one is able to do this for someone else and how much they themselves have to overcome is hard to tell. I know in my own experience it helped to know I wasn't alone and friends who had depression themselves were the easiest to be with as you knew they had been where you were and wouldn't judge you. Each person's struggles though are different and even having bipolar doesn't make you privy to all that the other person experiences or what is causing their sense of worthlessness or self-hate.

Today as well an acquaintance at church who seems to also have mental health challenges said they didn't feel they needed to take medication. I admit that yesterday I had forgotten to take mine and the thought of just not taking it does sometimes go through my mind. I guess I see though that if I mess up my brain chemistry by just suddenly going cold turkey I'm going to do more harm and set myself further back. It therefore doesn't become a major stumbling block for me. I don't know this other person's history or condition but was trying to say that if they needed to be on meds they should try stay on them.

The thought of having a major bout of depression again or worse a psychotic episode does perturb me. I also don't know yet how I will cope one day without my Mum. That does scare me as I still am semi-dependent not only financially but for support on her. I know I once was an independent person and I was able to cope. Life in Zim seems harder some how and I think not having a full time, decent paying job doesn't help. I'm still thrashing out what I really want to do. The more artistic, creative side of me is feeling it wants to be used more but just how and how to make a living out of it is the question. Writing appeals, I am going to try maybe see if any local magazines or newspapers want articles.

Well that's my day's musings. Will be more soon no doubt.

Taking flight

In trying to decide on what it is I really really actually want to do, I find my mind is flighty and I have idealistic ideas of things. The nuts and bolts of it is I need to find something, not necessarily my dream but hopefully something I enjoy. When I peruse job adverts though I find myself snobbish and that most of the jobs advertised don't live up to my expectations. I recently saw a post on the internet suggesting that my generation finds it hard to find a job that makes them happy and that we have grandiose ideals of who we are and what we deserve in life. Whilst it was in a way over board and verging on the comic, it did have grains of truth in it that I could semi-relate to.

article -

Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy

I'm finding myself repeatedly questioning what I truly want out of life and what job would be what I really would find fulfilling. The life I have been living for the last couple of years has been doing odd jobs but the variation has been stimulating. I think I will struggle to find a single job that will allow me to be scientific and creative at the same time and which will give me complete satisfaction. Must I settle for less though and can I afford to be so choosey? That's the big question for me that remains to be answered, hopefully out of choice and not necessity.

Onwards and upwards I say ...

Well I haven't been on for a little while as, as I mentioned in the previous posts, I no longer have my current job after the end of this year. In many different ways it is a big relief as to be honest I wasn't really enjoying it of late. If I could have been doing fieldwork I think it might have felt it was more rewarding but I never managed to get to the field. Instead I have been cooped up indoors battling through statistics and been a hermit because of it. Statistics has been very stressful and I am very dubious of the p-values which convey the ever sought after deeming of significance. It is very easy to get a different result but science lauds the p-value and it's supposed truth a little too greatly.

I am therefore at a cross-roads again though job-wise. This is a bit unsettling and I have got anxious over it. I am putting my CV out to local schools to maybe teach next year. So far no takers but they have agreed to maybe have me down as a relief teacher for subbing if needed. I will probably have to tutor more to increase my income in the meantime. Am trusting for better things.

Having signed up for an online course on creative writing and story telling, I wish to pursue this a little more as I enjoy writing. At some point I want to try write a full tale of my illness and battles with depression. It would be cathartic and might help others, I don't know.

Depression and the threat of it's return do hinder me in my job search as I know I can't take on high stress again - I just don't cope well. Working by correspondence does give me grace for days when I wake up to downs and struggle. A full-time job would not be so accommodating but in a way structure would be good for me. Also I enjoy interacting with people to an extent and being cooped up at home working is not always good for me. We'll see.

In the meantime I need to finish off the dratted data analysis, so back to work!

Back to square one

The job I have been doing has been stressful of late and I haven't been entirely happy with a number of things. Today I received an email saying that the organisation can no longer afford to keep me on. In a way this is a welcome release and means I can look for something else. It does mean however that I will be without a major source of income and I need to urgently find something in order to survive financially. I may have to just suck it up and put in to teach. Not sure how easy it's going to be to find teaching jobs though as most schools seem to have their full quota of teachers.

In the meantime I luckily have some consulting work to tide me over. I am facing a conflict in personal and work interests though in the jobs I have to do as they involve wetlands and proposals to build over them which goes against my fundamental opinion. Will have to try find a way round this and do what I can to protect the wetlands.

It is a bit scary suddenly not having a source of income again as work is very scarce in Zim and there is no social security to fall back on. I am exploring what avenues I can and trusting that there is something else out there.

Support network

With my depression I have often felt terribly alone and isolated. I find it hard to put into words my feelings and I don't often want to burden others or go on about negative things. I therefore tend to keep an awful lot internalised and only rarely when prodded tell others (mostly my therapist and psychologist). My chief "carer" or care giver is my Mum. Since the time when I broke down in Switzerland she has been there and has walked with me. I had a very good friend from my church in Switzerland who also helped me in my dark moments there and whom I still am in contact with. To both I owe an awful lot and in some ways without them I might have actually committed suicide by now.

My relationship with my Mum though is not easy. There are things I can't tell her and when I am low I don't really vocalise to her what is wrong. She has to sort of work round it but often misinterprets what my silences mean. She has also not fully come to terms with me having depression and will try to pin my downs to other things. The complications with my poor relationship with my Sister interweaves into this. My Mum always defends my Sister and it feels like she always takes her side. If my Mum doesn't accept my illness at times, my Sister absolutely shuns it, taking a very religious view that depression is of and from the devil. We do not see eye to eye on many things. This makes the return of my Sister every year from varsity a difficult period and it almost always has some form of fall out. My frustrations with this sometimes lead me to become very angry and at times even more isolated as it feels as if my Sister and my Mum become a unit and I am not a part of it. Living altogether is not a healthy environment and I am going to have to find some sort of solution should my Sister return to live in Zim.

At times I am now coping well and can be more independent. When I take a dip though I really need people to be there for me and I rely on my Mum heavily. It scares me a little to think how I would cope if my Mum died. I don't quite know yet how I would. Currently I am not only dependent on my Mum for emotional support, but am also beholden to her financially as I don't earn enough to fully support myself. I am trying to take on more work but it is a delicate tight rope, as when I get under a lot of pressure I crumble and feel I can't cope. I am trying to push my pressure limits little by little though and try to press on to regain my ability to work well under a healthy level of pressure and stress.