Friday, 13 January 2012

Compelling.

"Last year I relapsed after ten years. Wait - Eden, don't say that, it's too much information. What will people think? Write something else - anything else."- My brain, ten minutes ago.

You know what's worse than wanting to kill yourself? Wanting to kill yourself but you know you're not going to. That shit SUCKS, because you know you're trapped here. On earth.

I first tried to kill myself when I was seven years old .. left a suicide note on my bed, climbed inside my cupboard and waited to be suffocated. My sister happened to walk past my bedroom at that time, came in and read the note. She dobbed on me so I got out.

I don't know why I wanted to kill myself at the age of seven. That's a pretty full-on thing. Obviously I had issues. Pick a card, any card.

A few years ago I was sitting late into the night with that same sister, and she said, "Remember you tried to kill yourself that time when you were a kid?" I was shocked that she remembered. I've never forgotten it, all these years .. but to hear somebody else talk of it somehow made it real.

My real dads name was Bill and he was from Glasgow and he had red hair. He played tennis and acted like Roger Moore. My stepfather of eleven years was from Manchester in England. His mother used to keep him and his brother home from school and get them to break into the neighbours houses to steal things. We shared a love for horror films.

They are both dead now, and I have a category in this blog called "dead dads." It's a very flippant category, isn't it? I'm very black and wry, aren't I?

Recently I bumped into a very dear, old family friend in the street. She looked me in the eyes and told me I need to get over my childhood.

I'm trying. It was a trying childhood. My whole life to this point appears to be some kind of series of comedic, large events. My theory is that before I was born, I was up on some cloud going, "Ok ok I got it. Make this next life a DOOZY, like, so many challenges. Let's see if I can remember how to get through them."

Alcoholism/violence/hatred/suicide/addiction/psychwards/rehabs/detox/recovery.

Then? I thought I was home free. I was all settled down, married with my beautiful son and another on the way .. and the moment my husband got those goddamn fucking cancerous  tumours  in May 2008? Every single bet was off, from every single thing in my entire life. How much can a koala bear? HA.

I went nuts. But pretended I didn't. Until I couldn't pretend anymore and relapsed the relapse of a thousand dead junkies and here I am, back again. The soles of my feet are charred from running out of hell. What does that mean? You wouldn't want to know what that means. I tell you something right now .. the past while has been hard. Like, bad.

I write posts here that are freaky and scary, then I wake up and think you IDIOT why do you keep writing your crazy on the internet? PEOPLE WILL KNOW.

Guess what? There is no internet.

There's no internet, no twitter, no blogging, no infernal facebook. All there really is, is people telling their stories. Like cavemen.

You know what I did today? Took my boys to the public swimming pool, came home, and weeded a whole veggie garden. Then I made fresh coriander pesto chicken pasta. Then Donna Hay pancakes from scratch. I like to bake! I put ice cream on those pancakes and walked out to my back deck. The sky was pink and my ice cream melted and I was deeply ok.

I can do normal things too. I can be just like you.

Lately I feel a strength that has not been there for a long time .. maybe ever. I can be quite hugely powerful, if I give myself the chance. So can you .. you! The people who read here but will never say anything. That's cool. Thank you for the good thoughts ... I felt them. I feel you.

My two sisters know I will be ok and so do I. They tell me they are not worried about me anymore, that when I go dark and deep, it's cool.

It's cool.

I had to give up being a stepmother, for a while. Too hard. I'm married to a man who would die for his kids - all of them. He has a good heart. So do I. Life is messy.

My stepdaughter is the most amazing firecracker of a girl .. she gives me faith in the future. She reads my blog. If I was allowed to blog about her I would write a beautifully-written story about how creative and talented and amazing I really think she is. That watching the solid love between a father and daughter kind of crumbled me, a bit. (A lot.) That it is all my stuff, all mine.

I told myself I do not miss what I never had. It's a lie.

"Get over your childhood Eden." "I'm trying."

This is the post I could not not write. So annoying. It's dedicated to Cherie's people:

"I'm just a tiny little nurse, in a metropolitan city of Australia, who reads your blog to my patients every Friday.

And you mean something to me. And you mean something to my patients. And that matters.

So maybe you have 1 or 2 haters? Meh. You have 9 people who request a dose of Eden over any other drug that's prescribed to them.

Every. Single. Friday. And it's been this way for a long time now :) "

That right there is the power of a "blog."

::

To rebuild some semblance of  credibility, I will be blogging about blogging for most of next week. Do you have any questions about blogging? Or the fact that these days I do not take drugs ... I AM THE DRUG. (insert lolcat here).



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14 comments:

  1. I don't think anyone ever gets over their childhood. They just pretend they do. Supposedly 7 is the age when you become who you are going to be. Remember that doco 7 Up? "Give me a child when he is seven and I will show you the man." I know my shit started when I was 7. Neither of my kids have turned 7 yet. I'm shit scared. But I always remember what a friend said to comfort me "Don't worry. If you don't fuck them up, someone else will." I wish that let me off the hook, but of course it doesn't.

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  2. I don't think anyone ever gets over their childhood. They just pretend they do. Supposedly 7 is the age when you become who you are going to be. Remember that doco 7 Up? "Give me a child when he is seven and I will show you the man." I know my shit started when I was 7. Neither of my kids have turned 7 yet. I'm shit scared. But I always remember what a friend said to comfort me "Don't worry. If you don't fuck them up, someone else will." I wish that let me off the hook, but of course it doesn't.

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  3. This is not going to be a clever comment...just true. I freakin LOVE your guts. I feel your crazy and your normal. Why would you want to be anything other than your awesome? You have cast your spell on me, that's for sure. And I love it!

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  4. Yeah it's true, no one gets over their childhood, or rather, no one gets over all the shut that went down in it. My question about blogging is this: how do you speak your truth without pissing off those close to you? Like you don't hide your identity and you tell it like it is and you know a shitload of people read your blog and surely there are some people that you don't want to be reading it but it's out there and it's gotta be. What do you do then? Does that even make sense? This is my biggest blogging issue... Fuck, I'm so glad my dad doesn't read my blog, but one day he might!!! Argh!

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  5. Eden, you are well and truly awesome. I so love what you do here and with the greatest of bravery and honesty which moves, compels and makes us think, or laugh ourselves stupid! But you want questions. So: do you think you'll always have those moments where you freak out and say to yourself 'what have I done?' Is it part of the ongoing sharing/writing cycle or do you get more ok with it as you go? Xx

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  6. It sucks when your childhood steals your future happiness.
    How do you organise your thoughts and emotions to be able to write about it? When I try it comes out all whiney bitch.
    I am also curious as to how you deal with family and friends reactions to your writing.

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  7. Eden, you are worth it and your beautiful boys are worth it. You touch so many with your words and we are all eternally grateful x

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  8. Eden I love that you let yourself be who you are. I lOve your raw emotion in your blog and that you tell life how it is. So many blogs try to hide the "bad" and paint a picture of a rosy life. Noone has it all good!! I love reading your blog. I love that you don't pretend to be someone your not. I think that your life has taught you many things....the greatest of which, you can overcome and you are worth it. I will have lots of questions as I'm just starting out blogging... I don't even know if many read my words!, they probably aren't great, but somewhere I hope that it is giving someone joy, just like Cheries people xxxx

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    1. My sentiments exactly. Eden, i love your rawness, truth, & honesty of life & your feelings. I know you haven't set out to necessarily heal any one other than yourself, but you do. So many of us had challenging childhoods that challenge us still today. But it's the stumbling along together, the hiccups & hurdles that you so willingly share that is your gift to the world.

      I feel like crying with the love, intensity & power that your words (hence your feelings) convey. Some of us will be perpetually scarred. But we need to know that that is okay & life loves us anyway. I feel comforted, not scared, by your dark thoughts. Just as I feel comforted by your jubilant ones. I, too, know that you are going to be okay. Just as I, too, will be okay. You are a gift. Just as we all are. We may not all be wrapped up in the shiny pretty paper with ribbon, but it is our gift inside us that brings the most meaning and joy. Love ya to bits xx kylee

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  9. Eden, you wrote that you can be normal too but the part about eating ivecream infront of a setting pink sky isn't the part I saw as normal..your whole entire post/s the ups and downs of emotions, coping, struggling with your past haunting your today, giving in when it all gets too much and then clawing your way back, self discovery...all of you, all of your words to me seem normal. You make me smile and you make me feel normal! I love that you share in a way that is inspiring. I saw a councillor recently and told him I haven't been able to do anything other than frozen meals and watching washing piles build lately while I've gone through a traumatic stage of seperation and he said to me...it's normal! I'm not a horrible mother, I'm not heading toward insanity, I'm not a freak...this is normal for the circumstances..normal. Something I barely ever feel I am. ;). You make me feel normal too :). I can read the love you have for your boys, other people and life in general and know that that is real life, real living. I can switch off the perfect life, perfect house, perfect blogs that make me feel stabby and come here instead because you are real. You are wonderful!

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  10. We love you because we see ourselves in you. We just don't have the balls to write it or say it out loud...
    Tara :)

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  11. Sometimes we don't write those 'polyanna blogs' because we didn't have the polyanna life.

    I'm so relieved 7 year old Eden was able to climb out of that cupboard, because 39 year old Eden gives something to my patients every, single, Friday.

    And that isn't just the beauty of blogging, that's the power of it.

    And we've been doing it for a very long time now.

    And we were initially the ones who read, but kept quiet. But it's ok, because I know you 'felt us' :)

    At the end of last year, I decided to speak up & say, hi. I've been reading your blog to my patients & you impact on lives every Friday.

    I'm so very glad I did.

    Don't change xx

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Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell

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