Cloudy with a chance of meatballs

Today winter really set in here in Harare with low clouds, cold and a bit of bleakness. I get affected by the weather, something I need to think about with where I set my goals on living. The UK maybe is just not a good idea in this way. Moving there would also mean I wouldn't have as good a support network readily on hand. I have a good group of friends here and some others who like me have bipolar depression whom I am able to relate to closely and who share my trials and can empathise fully. I had created a group on Facebook for others with depression to connect on. Unfortunately adding some people to it has caused offence. I apologize, it was not intended and I had wanted it to be an outreach and way of helping. The format for AA groups sounded like a good model to follow. Some people are still keen. If you would like to be in it, it is called "Unquiet Minds". Anyone is welcome.

I saw my psychologist today and we talked about what led up to last week's incident. I had been in a dip for the week prior. Possibly I should have taken decisive preventative steps. There are some things I can do like get out and see people, not not get up at the weekend and tell someone. I also need to handle work stress better and manage the expectations of my boss better and try stand up and say when goals are unrealistic. I also have to not compare where I am now with what happened when I got depressed in Switzerland and see my current work as separate to that. Although saying that there are warning signs from then that I should heed. At the end of the day too my work is a job and if it is not for me I have got to not feel trapped, which I did last week. All too quickly everything just snowballed into a monstrous out of hand proportion that I just couldn't deal with and so tried to opt out of everything, life included.

Went to home group this evening with people from church and I shared about what had happened. I was a bit nervous to but everyone gave me support and a few people opened up about their life experiences which I would otherwise have never known. We're following the "Multiply" discipleship series and tonight's session was about your life purpose which was quite relevant and God's plan for your life. Couldn't have come at a better time. Hopefully God can use all of this for something.

For some reason the following poem has been coming to me all day. I don't know why but here it is ...

The White Birds

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

I WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea: We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can pass by and flee; And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that never may die. A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose,         5 Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes, Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew: For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam—I and you. I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore, Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more:         10 Soon far from the rose and the lily, the fret of the flames, would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea.

Depths of Winter

Cold morn with low lying clouds
I do find my heart enshrouds
Filigree of tree branches are stark
Whilst inside my heart is very dark
But beauty is there although deep within
and there is hope despite the sin
Oh winter you will not defeat me I know
and from this gloom I will but grow
Although grey, the light is loud
although alone I stand among the crowd.

The Light is Loud

(for writing group, not my current state but a piece of the past)

Words, thoughts, images a buzz

My mind, it feels like nothing but fuzz

Can't concentrate, can't settle, it's all things go

No time to take it nice and slow.

Inappropriate, fantasizing, strange dreams

and whilst at it I could spout forth reams.

Don't take me too seriously, I'm all a flutter.

And my mind keeps whirring without a shutter.

Hypomanic verging on psychotic

I can start becoming a bit neurotic.

Bear with me and hear me out

I will try not to scream and shout.

Wetlands Poetry

Ode to Borrowdale Vlei/ Wetland 



What have we done?
The wild places, they are all but gone.
Vast spaces teaming with life,
are now covered in tarmac and ridden with strife.
We cut off our life blood in the name of progress,
and all we have left is an urban circus.
Our rivers, our wetlands, our grasses, our trees,
now malls and car parks, polluted with disease.
Mother Nature's beauty has been raped and subject to pillage,
with man's mines and dump heaps and burgeoning village.

Wintry Poetry

Winter of My Soul

Trees stripped to bare branches
with leaves that swirl at their roots.
Stark blue skies, with a nip in the air,
chills me as I step outside in my boots.
Inside it is winter but I stoke my inner fire.
Although a season of death, it won't quell my desire.
A hope for life, a need for a reason to be.
Where has my hope gone? It remains to be seen.

Chinese, Shona & Women's Heritage

Well I feel a bit of a hypocrite as I am doing a 100% better now and so many people continue to send me encouraging words. Thank you to all who have. I realize what an amazing support network is there for me. Need to think about that next time and try stay focused on the good. Watched this TEDx talk here on "Why aren't we awesomer?" and it is food for thought and to think about how one thinks - quite a good challenge. Think I need to try talk about my thoughts more before they become too overpowering and destructive sooner. Will be seeing my psychologist this coming week.

Yesterday was a busy day. I made a rare appearance at Lucy's Writing Group and shared my poem (will post it in a minute). There was the Winter Fair on at the same time at the Christian Counselling Centre and I saw another good friend who also suffers from depression and who had had a not so great week too. In the afternoon I went to my first Chinese lesson at the Confucius Centre at the UZ. I didn't realize that the other half of the lesson was a Shona lesson so I had a double whammy of languages and culture. The Chinese was really interesting - it was explained that the different characters in writing stem from drawings of shapes. Mountains, eyes, moons and body postures all are involved and there are literally thousands of strokes forming words and letters. The most complicated with all eight strokes pronounced yong means forever and as our teacher said, if you want to learn Chinese it will take forever as it is so complex. Eeek, a bit daunting. The pronunciation really is something. I did actually already know ni hao and xie xie - hello and thank you, from teaching a Chinese boy English.

For Shona I really need to get over my prejudice and try again at learning it. After learning it for 9 years at school my vocab is embarrassingly pathetic and I still have trouble with basic conjugation and negatives and tenses. Will try and see how I get on. The lessons were free so I will try keep going and it is a great opportunity if a little ambitious. The Shona theme continued into the evening as I had been invited to go to a "Women's Heritage Society Hall of Fame Inductees' & Society Inductees' Congratulatory Winter Dinner of the Year" - yes quite a mouthful and a half!!  I hadn't been home long before the friends who invited me came to pick me up. I had misread the email they'd sent inviting me and I missed the part saying dress smart. I went to get in the car in my jeans only to see they were dressed in black tie attire. I had to back track and quickly go get dressed up smarter.

I needn't have worried about making them late as when we got to the Rainbow Towers Hotel we were the first people there and the event only started 2 hours later. Ran on true African time, it is a bit of a given. We were the only pale faces but it was an interesting evening. A Women's Heritage Society World Organization had apparently been started - not sure by who. Some women from Zim had been nominated to the "Hall of Fame" and then others as "inductees". They ranged from Augustus Chihuri's wife to the lady from the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA). The lady from ZERA hit home by saying as an outreach they were providing sanitary towels to women in a refugee camp as the women there had had to use leaves as a make do solution. A lady from the Tourism Authority though went a bit off track by giving us a sales pitch for titanium pots which are supposedly healthier to cook in. It was an interesting evening.

I found it interesting that in both Shona and Chinese culture the woman has lower status. The Chinese symbol for woman is based on a woman kneeling.

Facing Monday and a new week. Got to just try not let things get on top of me and have things to look forward to.

Recovery

Thanks for all the support, encouragement and kind word from people around the world to my previous post. In hindsight I can see I have a loving support network but one of the hardest things I find when I am in the depths of depression is telling people and letting others know how I'm feeling. I retreat and hide away from the world and go into an inner shell which feels desperately lonely and hopeless.

I guess I should try take preventative steps when I feel the horrible familiar feeling coming on me again. Someone has challenged me to try think of what things give me moments of relief and can help towards coming out of my depression. One of the most therapeutic things is being with my animals. When I get home my dogs without fail give me a fanfare of wagging tails and my Elsie does a wiggle with a leaf in her mouth that she has found just for me. They are very precious.

I'm not usually very talkative when low so facing people is a major hurdle. But I need to get out otherwise I can sink even lower and become more isolated. When I have things to look forward to it can help but then there are occasions when I just opt out of everything and would rather not go.

Guess all of this makes it hard for you to know how to help. The best is just a small message and patience with me for when I am ready to face the world again. It is nice to just know you are there.