Thank you, Wil Wheaton

So I saw this tweet the other day.

Ugh. Depression and Anxiety seem to have activated themselves without warning or reason. I hate when this happens.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) June 27, 2014

It made me feel sad and comforted in equal measure. (Or not because WTF who measures feelings, they're not cake ingredients, you can't put them in a cup. Whatever it's a sentence opener. Yes I talk to my actual brain like this, what?) (ahem) .

I felt sad because I know how that feels, and because I was exactly there, riding the depression train down to the pit and saying "Hey wait, I wanted to -" but you can't get off because NOPE this is a one way train and the only way is down and it's going too fast for you to notice, normally. So I felt that. But I was more selfish, because the first thing that I felt, the first thing that always hits me when someone admits their depression is relief, and there are two levels to this relief. The first is "Thank God I am not alone", and I do honestly think that that incredibly simple sentiment can mean so much. It does to me, anyway. When I hear someone say "You are not alone", and I can tell by their words or their eyes or the way that their voice intones that they know, and they mean it, that helps most of all. Nobody talks about depression, not really and not relating to themselves. It is shameful or embarrassing. There is a fear that nobody will know how to react and will feel awkward. It's especially rare for someone in the public eye to speak out.

The second level is different. You can know intellectually that depression is an illness, a fault in the brain wiring or hormones, or a reaction to an unimaginable situation, but the way that the beastly thing is designed overrides any kind of logic or intellect with an overriding sense of "You suck. Everything is all your fault. Especially the way you're feeling right now. Oh, you know what, just this. It's a much better explanation than I can do and it has funny pictures.

Anyway. To see someone like Wil Wheaton, who is extremely funny, clever, talented, kind and successful all at once admit that he also suffers from depression is like a revelation. He has all these amazing things - an awesome job, bags of talent and fun, his own TV show, a wife who he comes across that he genuinely adores and has fun with, great kids he loves and is proud of, he has all of these things and he is still depressed. That means that (although you knew this before) it's not you. It's really just NOT you being useless and pointless and a waste of human space. You could be awesome and you would still get depression. Look at these awesome people who are stuck on the stupid train with you. It is just an illness, and it doesn't need to define you. In the meantime, maybe we can party on the train. Or at least sit around and play sad music and hold hands. Does anyone have a guitar?

I am 26

I have just turned 26.

I have a five year old son who I often struggle with but who is starting to show his true personality and that awes me completely.

I am married, have been for around 6 months. My husband is great and I could not imagine life without him, but he is in pain and he doesn't like to talk about things which hurt, and I worry that I am not noticing enough.

We want to start trying for a baby but there are medical issues which need to be discussed first. This is one of the things my husband is struggling with.

We live in Germany, where neither of us are from. I am working as an English teacher and really really love it. I should be taking both German and driving lessons, but I am taking neither.

Our flat is tiny and we have to consciously work out ways to get space from each other (it means taking turns to "walk the child" and sticking to bedtimes, in practice. And headphones. We have an abundance of headphones.) We want pets but we don't have the room, or the money or the time at the moment.

A lot of our friends are stunningly rich expats (or so it feels) and we are just about hanging on financially. (Although better off than we were in the UK.) But we are here and that is a thrill in itself. We did it.

I feel like I am teetering on the edge of a quicksand pit of depression and I am trying to block it out because I have been in that pit before and I don't want to get stuck in it again. I am surrounded by beautiful buildings, skies and mountains and a beautiful boy and kind people (who all feel like strangers, but that is because most of them are) and I'm even feeling a lot more confident in myself these days but still it is there, and I'm trying to ignore it and I don't know how to get away.

Basically, I am a massive twat.

Sometimes (okay most of the time) I am terrible at expressing myself.

I seem to be incapable of saying anything without it coming out critical. Can't say anything nice without adding a point for improvement. Can't state something nicely that I want changing, have to blurt out something hurtful instead.

It's shit and the net result is, I'm pissing off the people I love or I keep stuff inside which is bothering me because I don't trust myself to say it in a tactful way.

I mean, is this something you can learn? I don't know how to do it and it's upsetting me.

The Dark Playground

I saw this post on Wait But Why a few days ago and it so utterly resonated with me that I had to repost it. I was just waiting for a good moment to introduce it.

Why Procrastinators Procrastinate

I'm not going to summarise, because it is brilliance and it needs to be read, especially if you've ever struggled with procrastination and been told "You just need to be more organised!" "It's all about good time management!" "You should learn to prioritise." or the killer "Well, it clearly isn't important to you. If it was you would have spent more time on it." Raise your hand if you have heard all of these, tried all of these, and still failed.

The Dark Playground is such a genius concept. I can't personally get my head around the idea of the monkey, but the playground is SO true and it's so refreshing to see it laid out like that. Helpful too. At least in theory. I can now tell you exactly when I'm in the dark playground. I spent all of today in it. Okay so that didn't help me get out of it (mainly because there wasn't some clear cut actual thing I could think of that I was avoiding, just general housework dirge) but acknowledgement is the first step towards defeat! Or something.

This is why people normally do the married thing before they have kids

I was just reading this post which I found through ikea hackers (sorry, but actual decoration blogs of people with perfect homes and even more perfect accessories just make me feel jealous and depressed, especially when I look around my own house which is full of "That'll do for now" and "mismatched and/or shabby, but definitely not chic" and "My landlord's taste in decoration (and budget)." - but I digress. I really liked the little anecdote they had about choosing lamps, and how having matching taste in lamps (or not) can seem like the MOST pressing and MOST ridiculously important thing at the time and the author managed to convey very convincingly the sheer panic of realising that, fuck, I've decided to spend my life with this person and what if we don't agree on the best way to make sandwiches???

We had a definite sandwich moment today. I bought a baguette, a real French baguette, and felt all pleased with myself and cultural as I carried it home in my arms because I hadn't brought my bag, and presented it to Creepy with a flourish. "I bought lunch!" I said proudly. "Now we can make a picnic if we need to go out!" He was pleased but said he wasn't ready to go yet. It was his weekend to choose, so I sat down and internetted for a while until he got up and looked as though he was starting to make sandwiches.

First he complained that I could have got some actual food. I felt deflated. I had specifically not bought things like meat and other fillings because the last time I remembered looking in the fridge, we had enough. Secret of Adulthood #1: Remember that groceries (and other supplies) can also get used up by people other than you. Anyway, he set about making some sandwiches and I said, oh, I'll make my own. I had a very specific idea of a sandwich, and I didn't want him ruining it when I'd gone to the trouble of actually buying nice bread. He refused and I became a bit panicky. I may have shouted at this point. He later told me that I had, anyway. So then he got a bit antsy at being shouted at and basically it was all one big mood/weird/disaster. All over a stupid sandwich. And he cut the bread wrong, so even when I made my own sandwich, it wasn't what I wanted it to be anyway. AND HELLO IT WAS A FUCKING SANDWICH.

And I can look back at this and realise that it's just all kinds of ridiculous, and would it have even mattered if he made my sandwich with the gross kind of weird sausage, and anyway HE WAS ASKING what I wanted in it, but instead I just panicked because he didn't do it in the same way as me. And I hate the way that he fries foods, but I've sort of lost how to ask "Please could you try using a bit less fat or drain it before you put mine on the plate or at least use a nice kind of oil and not the cheapest vegetable oil in the supermarket" without whining or shouting or panicking (which leads to shouting, which I don't get. How come me from the non-shouty to the point of frustrating family explodes at the slightest stress whereas he from the shouting-replaces-all-emotion family hates shouting and really doesn't know how to deal with it?)

We keep having total communication failures as well currently. Tonight we both failed to put Mini D to bed because we were assuming the other was doing it. When we went around the supermarket I was told halfway through "Well you're supposed to be seeing what we need for X situation" Thanks. Would have been nice to know that from the start! And the other weekend we argued about whether we had planned to clean that weekend or not. And this is really hard - to resolve when every time I try to resolve something I feel either attacked or terrified (not him, just previous abuse stuff coming up) overthink how to say it, fight the tendency to shout by having a shouting match in my head which then leads to tears because it doesn't get resolved. I want to be able to have these conversations with him but it feels unfair to do that around Mini D when I am prone to shouting or crying and don't seem to be able to resolve things without either of those happening. It would have been nice, on reflection, to have time without him to figure that kind of stuff out.

Weekending

I swear I need some kind of electronic shock reminder for this writing thing. Then again, knowing me, I'd just ignore it anyway.

This week has mostly been spent ill, at least by Mini-D who got a bout of Scarlet Fever. (He's fine) But this weekend has been nice, a really lovely smooth example of how things work when we aren't overwhelmed by tiredness.

On Saturday Creepy got up with Mini-D when he came to badger me, which was a nice change - I usually reluctantly get up and Creepy sleeps until lunchtime or I will sort of stubbornly not get up and then feel crappy about leaving Mini to his own devices for around 5 hours. (He's fine. He minecrafts and watches TV and pootles in his room.) I fell back to sleep (although I felt OK) and they snuck out of the house to get haircuts and pastries! It was nice to be woken up by two neat, handsome boys on their return (and the bringing of chocolate bread was a great touch too!)

The rest of the weekend was one big roll of pretty much perfect co-operation. Creepy did the dishes while I woke up and ate, I helped Mini set up Terraria (it was his weekend to pick what we do, so, of course, VIDEO GAME FEST!), we played for a bit, Creepy joined in, I got bored and went to do my own thing. Sorted some laundry and vegged on facebook etc. Later Creepy got bored of Terraria too so Mini and I played Worms for (actually hours... oops) while Creepy had a nap and then washed up the lunch plates. I made dinner, sorted some more laundry, chilled out. Creepy put Mini to bed while I was in the cellar with the washing machine, which was a surprise. We basically had an entire evening together without one of us being knackered which hasn't happened in ages.

Today, I did the early shift, started new minecraft world, was going well until epic tantrum of RAGE, decided that although it had been colder, we really needed to get out. So we went on a walk which ended up being right up the castle where you can see around all of the surrounding towns and villages and is pretty fun to do. It was so windy that Mini was being literally blown around, which he found hilarious. Luckily the railings at the castle are thick, close together and almost come up to the top of his head, so I wasn't anxious. It was so funny though, he was laughing so much he was actually squealing with delight, and he's 5 now, those moments don't come so often when you have to be a really grown up cool person.

I made dinner for everyone this time which was pork chops, potato wedges and a sweetcorn salad (tinned sweetcorn, drained, mixed about 60:40 with chopped red pepper, and about 10% little bits of red onion, with mint. It was really surprisingly nice, which was good as I'd just sort of made it up as I went along. We always seem to eat the same side dishes with things - chips or vegetables or a really terrible salad, and I was getting bored of it. Now we are slowly accumulating the parts of an entire kitchen, it's nice to use it. Anyway, the wedges and chops both ended up slightly overdone but it was nice all the same, and it felt really good to be eating proper food as opposed to convenience food or endless pasta (though, I made a really nice pasta sauce last night too!)

At some point in the day Mini said "It's really fun to take turns choosing what we want to do for the weekend, isn't it?" and I just thought it was really lovely, to hear him say that. It's pretty much been a perfect weekend, ideals-wise. We've both done a decent amount of input into the housework without it feeling overwhelming or a drag, and it looks pretty nice in the house too, we've done individual activities with MD and also family activities and the three of us have each had time on our own. It's been restful and fun and restoring and close and just nice :) It's nice to get things right every once in a while.

One more thing - scheduling.

You'd think I'd have learnt this by now. When someone asks "Are you free to do X" it's perfectly fine to just say "Let me check and get back to you" and not just "Yes". Leads to all sorts of headaches and ridiculousness when I actually check with the other people and they say no.