Madness: A Memoir by Kate Richards.

Posted on April 18, 2013

^this is what happens when I read a book that makes me think. So many post-it’s, highlighted passages and dog ears.

I devoured this book after hearing about it on ABC Book Club. I think it took 4 days to read which is pretty fast for me.

Mental illness is a part of my family fabric. Bipolar, schizophrenia, clinical depression, personality disorders – all terms I know well as do the members of my immediate and extended family. ‘It’ is in our blood – much in the same way that my Mum says salt water is in our blood because my grandad was a tug boat captain. ‘It’ is there, always, waiting, lurking.

It’s been a few years since I have had to visit a loved one in hospital and I pray that this dry spell continues for a long time. (This dry spell is dependent upon chemical levels within the brain remaining at a very specific level. Any slight change in sleeping, stress or dosage will throw this balance off. Once this balance is off it takes a long time for everything to right itself. The most frustrating thing about this levels tightrope walk is never knowing if an exhibited action or reaction is a symptom of ‘going off’. We, the family, second guess innocuous things.)

I personally have never experienced psychosis but I have seen it first hand and have had to deal with it and its aftermath. It’s never the same for the people that are passively viewing it. We’re watching it and judging it with rational minds but reading Kate Richards write about her psychosis and years of illness was cathartic in a sense. It’s such an emotionally draining experience for the onlookers and I know it’s equally as frustrating for the people that are living it. I’ve never read anyone put the experience into words before and that, for me, was…well, important.

I found myself becoming invested in Kate’s journey through her illness. I found myself sighing when she self medicated or cut dosages because I know what happens when you do that. Read this book if you’re interested in mental illness. Read this book if you have a loved one suffering through it. It will give you new insight.

This book fills me with hope. I hope it does the same for you.

Oliver Jeffers

Posted on February 12, 2013

This made me smile today. I love hearing about people doing what they love. We are lucky to be able to live like this.

At the end.

Posted on February 7, 2013

My cousin is dying. He was diagnosed with bowel cancer four years ago. A week and a half ago we were told he would be gone within the fortnight. I guess as a consequence, I haven’t been sleeping much.

This week has been especially bad. This is my third night of insomnia. I try to sleep. I rest in a dark room and try to calm my racing thoughts. After five hours of willing myself to succumb I get out of bed, frustrated. I’m angry. Angry that my brain won’t switch off. Angry that my thoughts won’t let me rest. Angry with life.

You won’t die from not sleeping though. Cancer is another story.

My cousin can’t do much. He is barely conscious. He sleeps a lot of the time because the medications he is on force him to. He is still here though. At home. Fighting. His liver has failed and he is yellow all over but he is fighting. I admire that about him. He has fought valiantly against this pervasive disease. He is strong in the face of everything.

The prognosis was never good. When he was first diagnosed he was given six months. He smashed that. Every month that he lived past his expected demise, I allowed myself a little more leeway to believe he’d beat it. I allowed myself to have hope. Sometimes hope is all we have. Sometimes it abandons us.

He doesn’t want to die. He has said it. But he will. It breaks my heart.

It is the waiting that gets you. The waiting that eats away every second and is never gracious enough to be satiated.

It’s the waiting that twists your stomach into knots that can’t be loosened by fingertips gingerly picking at the strands.

It’s the waiting that dredges memories that have been buried at the bottom of a lifetime. One minute they are forgotten, the next minute they are stronger than a recollection of yesterday.

My Aunt and Uncle have held it together but I know the waiting is killing them. Once he is gone they will fall apart. He is the youngest of all the cousins. It isn’t supposed to happen. He is supposed to fall in love and get married and have kids and live in the suburbs. That is how his life is supposed to go. Not dying of cancer.

I am worried about his family. I can’t even begin to imagine what they are going through. My soul is aching for them. I wish I knew what happened after a person dies. I wish I could set their minds at ease about what is to come. I wish I knew what is waiting for him on the other side. Not just a hunch or a belief, actual factual evidence. I’m the type of person that doesn’t believe in something until I’ve seen facts. Cold, hard evidence. I wish there was an afterlife white paper or schedule of events that I could download. I wish I knew what he was facing. Perhaps that would make things easier.

I was not raised to believe in any religion. My parents left that choice up to me. I have prayed a lot recently though. I just don’t know if I’m doing it right.

Death, as a concept, is something that I battle with. I don’t understand when people say that they’ve made peace with it or they aren’t concerned by it. How can you not be? Everything you are right now, living, breathing, loving, functioning, planning, dreaming, existing – will be gone. You will be erased like the billions that have gone before you. And I just looked it up. There have been billions that have gone before – 107,602,707,791 in fact. That’s 107,602,707,791 people who have had thoughts, hopes, desires and dreams that have died. We remember a handful of them.

I don’t want to be forgotten.

It’s at this point in my thought process that I think life is not worth living if you just have to die. I think about the injustice of it all. How it isn’t fair to be expending all this energy and enduring all this heartache if we are just going to die anyway. I whine and stomp my foot and pout.

Then I stop and I remember my cousin who is dying a few kilometres away and how I know he would give anything to be well and to be able to live the life that I am going to have. I remember that I am lucky to have a man that loves me despite my foibles and a family that would do anything for me. I have a sharp mind and a body that may be far from perfect but has so far served me well. I am lucky beyond measure.

So, I resolve to count every day as a blessing. Every hour. Every minute. Every sunrise and sunset. I resolve to be present, mindful of the fact that life will be over way before I want it to be.

I can’t fix my cousin. I would give my life for his if I could. I would saddle myself with his suffering without hesitation if it were possible. But it’s not. So I will honour my cousin by living the best life that I can. That’s the least I can do.

What I know about writing.

Posted on October 18, 2012

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. If I cast my mind back (way back) my first taste of producing the written word came from banging about on an old portable typewriter. It came home with Mum and Dad in a big black case and you had to plug it into a socket that was on the other side of the kitchen. The cord barely stretched across the room and my brothers would always walk in and trip on it. After too many tugs the prongs bent and the plug didn’t fit into the socket anymore. It was ok though. We got a Commodore 64 not long after that and I became engrossed with Typing Tutor.

Reading words always gave me great comfort. Now it’s the writing that is equally cathartic. I set a goal to write every day in August 2011. As of right now, I’ve been writing for 445 days straight, at least 750 words per day. No breaks. No excuses. Some days it is hard but most of the time I need to write because if I don’t I’ll go crazy. Writing helps me to channel my introspection into something less egocentric. If I didn’t have it, I would live even further inside myself than I currently already am and that would be good for no-one.

Writing is a struggle. How much do we share? How much do we hide? Writers tip toe along a thin line between vanity and humility. If you fall one way you are overindulgent. If you land the other you are boring and unreadable.

I have a quote by Arthur Miller crudely attached to my monitor on a post-it note that reads “The writer must be in it; he can’t be to one side of it, ever. He has to be endangered by it. His own attitudes have to be tested in it. The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.” That sums up what I know about writing. If you’re not nervous before you send your work out into the world, you haven’t done your job.

I write because I am compelled to. I write because I can’t imagine not writing. I write because I don’t want to leave this world without having been a writer. What I know about writing is very little in the grand scheme of things but that’s O.K. I’m willing to learn.

This post was inspired by Sarah’s “What I Know About Writing” challenge. Want to take part?

Too deep for 2am

Posted on October 15, 2012

Night time is hard for me. It never used to be. 10pm would roll around and I’d climb in to bed and fall asleep easily. But it seems the older I get the faster the wheels in my brain turn. The faster they turn, the harder it is to make them stop.

There is one thing I think about above everything else. Death. It’s almost an obsessive compulsion and by the time I’ve finished thinking through each tendril of thought the more remote the possibility of sleep seems. I’m generally edging on a full blown anxiety attack by the time my eyelids finally close.

The middle of the night is a horrible time to be conflicted.

I can’t not think about it. I’ve tried distraction. I’ve tried to make myself bone tired before bed. I’ve tried to reason with myself but the spectre is always there, hiding behind my pillows or between my flannelette sheets. When my brain is quiet ‘it’ speaks the loudest. It tells me that everyone I love is going to die and every night I work through the grief. I don’t want to but I do.

My dog Ben died last year. He was 11, not particularly old, but he had health issues that had plagued him all his life. There came a point, about a month before he died, when I realised he was going to be leaving us. At that point I had to mentally start preparing to let him go. It was excruciating. I was in tears most days, unable to deal with my self inflicted premature grief. Ben was involved in every aspect of my life. He was always near me, like a small fluffy shadow. We had to be untethered and the process hurt more than words can say.

I can’t write about the day he died. A year and a half later and I still haven’t processed the grief.

Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person on the planet up at 2am, worrying about the impending death of loved ones that are sleeping soundly on the pillow next to me. I’d like to think that I will get over this. I hope I will.

“Your first draft is not your manuscript. It’s really not.”

Posted on September 9, 2012

I’ve been in a holding pattern lately.

I have this half put together manuscript sitting on my desktop taunting me. After some feedback from people I trust I’ve decided to move a few things around in my wip. Of course that means jumping back in and revisiting the story but there is something holding me back. I’m not sure what it is. I think it might be a fear of having to roll up my sleeves and get started pulling everything together again. It’s so much work. So much. And because I didn’t get it right the first time I’m wondering if I can possibly get it right the second. (I have always been all about perfection and it bums me out when I don’t get things 100% right the first time.) The initial inspiration and first draft were easy because at that stage I was just dealing with ideas that fell from my brain onto the page. This stage seems infinitely harder.

I remember reading this post by Allison Tait last year, before I’d even begun working on this current wip. I remember thinking oh no, I won’t need to revise my manuscript. It will be perfect and people will read it and weep as they make publishing contracts rain on me. Of course that is delusional. I’m a first time novelist. I’d never written anything longer than a uni paper. What did I know about writing a book? Evidently not as much as I thought.

In her post Allison said this one thing that has resonated with me recently. “Your first draft is not your manuscript. It’s really not.” And now I know, from experience, that this is totally true.

Tagged: early days, The Secrets We Keep

The lolcats help me illustrate my recent experience with hand, foot and mouth disease

Posted on August 28, 2012

About two weeks ago I started to feel sick. I always know when I’m going to get sick, like really sick, because there is something deep down inside that feels off. It feels small, tiny; like a grain of sickness pulsating somewhere deep within the layers of my body. I feel off at a cellular level.

I had been incredibly tired for days which was a pain because I had Projects! and Deadlines! and we all know how there is no room for being sick when that is the case.

(^me….working hard)

So when I woke up with a burning sore throat I knew that the cellular ickiness I had been feeling had manifested into a cold or possibly worse, tonsillitis. I had an inkling that it was something more when a cup of tea BURNED my throat instead of soothing it and when I couldn’t swallow an orange segment. I was feverish. The hot and cold chills that were washing over my goosebumpy body were not eased by a cold compress or hot shower. I felt awful. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep but I couldn’t. I had an ultrasound scheduled (that I had been waiting a month for) which meant I had to get dressed and drive 30km. Awesome right?

I can’t adequately convey what that whole experience was like. Driving home in peak hour traffic, feverish and with a headache that felt like my head was in a vice grip. I can honestly say that I contemplated ditching the car and curling up on the side of the road so I could die with some dignity.

(^me trying to negotiate peak hour traffic while dying)

I got into bed as soon as we arrived home. The sore throat didn’t go away and I was still feverish so I booked in to see a doctor on Friday.

I don’t do diseases by half
Friday morning rolled around and I noticed a rash on my hand. I don’t get rashes. Ever. I Googled my symptoms at 5:15 a.m. and self diagnosed myself with something I’d never heard of. Hand, foot and mouth disease.

Now, I don’t have kids. I’m only around my nieces a few times a week if that and none of them had been sick. Hand, foot and mouth disease isn’t something that adults usually get, some do, but they generally catch it from their kids. I caught it from….(insert your best guess here).

The doctor confirmed my self diagnosis and sent me home with a prescription for the bacterial tonsillitis that I had as well as hand, foot and mouth. And there began my epic struggle.

(^a very sad me)

BLISTERS!
Over the weekend things got worse. I developed a rash on both hands, both feet, my face, my scalp and inside my mouth. Nothing helped to relieve the pain. The boyfriend went to the chemist a few times for supplies but nothing stopped the itching. I had chicken pox as a kid. This was worse.

Thankfully the antibiotics kicked the bugs out of my tonsils just in time for the rest of my body to be ravaged. The rash morphed into big red blisters. I had blisters on the soles of my feet which meant I couldn’t walk without pain. My scalp was covered and my fingers were unrecogniseable. With each passing day I thought “it can’t get much worse, right?” but it inevitably did. I existed minute by minute and entertained myself by sleeping, trying to work, and watching the Gilmore Girls.

About a week after I first got sick, I noticed that the blisters were slowly going down – hurrah!

but they were leaving scars in their place.

I called the Health Department and talked to a woman about how infectious I was. She said I could go out when there was no fluid left in the blisters. “But you’ll need to cover yourself up so you don’t look like a leper,” she said. I chuckled though I was confused. Sure the blisters were nasty but I didn’t look like a leper.

Yet.

Zombification
Today, almost a week after that first phone call to the Health Department, I look like a zombie. Well, at least my hands and feet do. All those blisters have turned into peeling skin. I have chunks of skin missing and rosy pink new skin peeking through the peeling aftermath. No amount of moisturiser helps. I’m like a snake, shedding its disgusting hand, foot and mouth disease ridden skin. Except snakes don’t have hands or feet but if they did I would look EXACTLY like that.

(^a true to life depiction of what I look like right now)

Horrifying right? Here are a few things I know about hand, foot and mouth disease that the internet will not tell you.

Adults can get it bad. I read a lot of literature, blog posts and Wikipedia pages that all said adults can get mild cases of HFMD. What I had was not mild. It was harrowing.
The itchiness is major. Steroid creams don’t work. Calamine lotion works for a second. The only thing that gave me comfort was ice. Ice cold water. Ice compresses. Get your skin as cold as possible.
You can apparently pick it up without being in contact with anyone who is sick. I have never met anyone who has had HFMD. I am gathering that I caught it from a shopping trolley or possibly the carpet cleaner’s kid who was here with his Dad a few weeks ago because he was ‘sick’. If I can catch this from a shopping trolley I never want to leave the house again. Board up the doors and windows, I’m here for the long haul.

By the way I’m creating an infection chart and will isolate patient zero if it’s the last thing I ever do.

Awful awful illness.

365 of 750 words.

Posted on July 30, 2012

After we got back from our New Zealand trip last year I decided I needed to develop some discipline when it came to writing. Discipline was something I was really lacking and I knew I needed it if I was ever going to write a book.

As a freelance writer, I write most days but I rarely had the conviction to work on personal projects. Personal projects happened on the odd morning when I woke full of pep (i.e. really, really, rarely). I was wondering where all my good ideas were. I was wondering why I couldn’t get past writing the first chapter of a story that I knew was good. I was wondering why I was all worded out.

On August 1st 2011 something clicked. I sat down and wrote my first 750 words sprint. From there, I was hooked.

Today I completed a year of writing at least 750 words a day. Want to know what I learned?

Dismiss perfection
When you write on the fly, forget searching for the perfect sentence. You waste time and you get stressed out. It’s a useless endevour. Writing in a concentrated burst has helped me to let go of my need for first draft perfection. That’s what editing is for!

I’ve read back over some of my earlier 750 words work. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but they are words written. These words can be prodded to fit once the idea is down. It doesn’t have to be good. Good can come later.

Just sit and write
I’ve written about a lot of stuff this year. Some of it was familiar; some of it had me reaching to the very depths of my soul. Some of it made me incredibly uncomfortable. Writing like this is cathartic. There is a freedom associated with just letting your mind wander and the words flow. Try doing it for a minute or two. Empty your mind and let the thoughts come. Once you begin, you’ll find you can’t stop.

The first few weeks were hard. The rest was habit
I think that’s true of everything though. Any change in behaviour takes a little while to stick. For me, once I had August out of the way the rest came naturally. Writing my 750 words is now second nature. It takes practice so keep at it. You’ll get there.

Write through everything
I’ve written through countless sicknesses, birthdays, Christmas, New Years, holidays, grief, depression, excitement and anxiety. Even when I was busy I found the time. You can find the time too. It’s not hard. 750 words usually takes me between 13 – 22 minutes to write but there have been some days when it has taken me over 2 hours.

Yes, life is distracting. I’m sure yours is a billion times more distracting than mine, but if it’s something that you choose to do, you make time. You just do.

Celebrating victories is ok
I believe one of the most important things we can do is to celebrate victories. 365 days is a big victory for me. Finishing NaNoWriMo was a big victory and finishing the first draft of my first book (and showing it to people!) was a big victory.

I’ve had lots of small victories throughout the last year, many of which I’ve documented on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve celebrated them. I’ve shouted them. I’ve acknowledged them. Victories are important.

And by the way, don’t pay any attention to the bitter few who might pooh-pooh you. Their ‘issue’ is more with themselves than it is with you.

So what’s next? I’m going to keep writing because it’s not just what I do anymore. It’s who I am. This year has helped to solidify that for me.

Let me know if you do 750 words or if you decide to take it up. I’d love to know how you go.

Tagged: 750 words, victory

Holding

Posted on July 16, 2012

The last few weeks have been about researching, writing and finishing off articles. They’re basically done (just a few little tweaks) so I can move on to end of the month client work and the book – finally.

It gets a little frustrating having to stop and start my WIP but a woman needs to get paid and my little YA venture isn’t going to make any money in the short term. Articles and newsletters, however, do. So I’m writing about dogs and real estate.

It never ceases to amaze me the vast range of subjects that I can write about. My brain is stuffed with tidbits. I guess it comes in handy. I like writing about obscure things. Things that I normally wouldn’t know.

So back onto the book. Feedback from beta readers has been really positive which I’m thankful for but I want to get this sucker out and into the world. Choosing how to do this is my current quandary. I’m researching, reading, gleaning as much information from people who have been there and done it. For now, I’m in a holding pattern and I hate being in a holding pattern. I want to be done.

Patience has never been my thing!

The basement apartment

Posted on June 27, 2012

Summer.

It was one of the few things she missed when she was stranded, snow-bound half the globe away. There, she would sit sequestered in her living room on the threadbare carpet, watching snowflakes falling to the ground like sifted sugar. She would close her eyes and dream about the burning hot sand on her feet as she ran to the cool lip of the ocean. If she concentrated hard enough she could feel each scorching grain as they slid through her toes. While she missed the days (despite the suffocating warmth) she ached for the nights. The ocean at dusk with its twilight blues and sundown pinks screamed out to her through the white out. She heard the call but she had been struck mute by distance. That desolate, colourless place had her shackled and she had no idea when she was going to be set free.

Sometimes they would sit in the back booth of the dive diner; the Rocky Mountains stretching defiantly into the sky behind them. She would swallow down the greasy spoon swill, hoping desperately to gather the courage it would take to leave him. He would sit facing her, a scowl painted on his flinty face, silently contemplating how he was going to ruin her further.

He had become distant, preferring the company of the junkies in the park downtown. She didn’t understand them. How could she? She was raised differently and had never allowed herself to be swallowed whole. They were monosyllabic parasites who preyed on the kindness of those too stupid to realise that they were being screwed. The last waif she’d allowed into their home had robbed her blind. So she turned her back. On them and on him.

He left her alone most of the time, but on the rare occasion when his shadow crossed the threshold she bowed and bent to his will. There was a paper she’d signed. A legal document. In moments of clarity, when she remembered this fact, her body shut down and refused to stir. She had to force herself to swallow the bile that rose and seared the pink flesh at the back of her throat. She had no virtuous feelings for him. Not anymore. He was less than nothing to her.

(Image credit)

One word at a time

Krissy Bradfield. Writer.

Madness: A Memoir by Kate Richards.

Posted on April 18, 2013

Oliver Jeffers

Posted on February 12, 2013

At the end.

Posted on February 7, 2013

What I know about writing.

Posted on October 18, 2012

Too deep for 2am

Posted on October 15, 2012

“Your first draft is not your manuscript. It’s really not.”

Posted on September 9, 2012

The lolcats help me illustrate my recent experience with hand, foot and mouth disease

Posted on August 28, 2012

365 of 750 words.

Posted on July 30, 2012

Holding

Posted on July 16, 2012

The basement apartment

Posted on June 27, 2012

Posted on April 18, 2013

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