definatalie.com » Life

Year at a glance.

Natalie — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:42:40 +0000

A collage of 12 drawings I did this year.

Last year sucked for a lot of reasons.

Anxiety and depression threatened to take everything I knew away from me. I was admitted to a psych ward. Diagnosed with Graves Disease and PTSD. Lost friends. Moved cities. Lost autonomy. Spent a lot of money trying to get better. Had to give up my art practice for long stretches of time. Endured physical and mental pain.

A collage of an outfit from every month in 2011.

I did figure out a few things though.

Friends who piss off at the first instance of anything that looks like it’s going to be something other than a fun time are not friends. People who criticise me without actually giving a shit about me are just trolls. My mental health is infinitely more important than basically everything else. People who think me selfish for looking after myself, my mind, my body and my life as a priority can disappear. Releasing secrets is sometimes the best thing. I am valid. It wasn’t my fault.

A collage of 16 Instagram photos of various things from this year.

I don’t know what this next selection of 12 months will hold, and I dare not try to predict the future or set ridiculously high expectations of myself. I will do what is best for me and my kin. I will keep breathing. It might be awkward and uncomfortable but I hope there’ll be some peace and laughter too.

Settling in.

Natalie — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:45:52 +0000

A photo of sand and the beach with two people walking along the shore line.

Since moving I’ve been quiet, but I’m taking some time out to settle in. Where I was once at home in the city, bordered by big buildings and noise while everyone went about their Very Important Business around me, I’m now allowing myself to sink into a world that is much slower and kinder. There’s lots of nature around us now, and I can sit on the balcony and watch magpies pick over the lawn as corellas and lorikeets browse the branches above. I’ve been riding my bike to the shops and getting to know the best route to take, overcoming narrow pedestrian bridges and roundabouts like obstacles in a new life-sized course. We are about 5 or 10 minutes away from the beach and the best hot chips I’ve ever had in my life!

For some people Brisbane is home forever, and for others it’s just a springboard before going on to much more exciting places. I never really thought I’d leave the city even though Nick and I had dreams of living in Melbourne and being fancy artisan types. The move to the Gold Coast was a decision we had to make due to illness and finances; we never thought it’d be the most ideal decision but as I settle in I’m charmed by the sense of community, the fresh air and the space around me. Too often I am seduced by the most glamorous and fancy things but now I’m seeing the value of the opportunity to rebuild myself in such a caring and nourishing place. It’s rather liberating.

A photo of my feet on sand.

A photo of Nick walking away from the shore towards the camera.

A photo of lots of tiny tomatoes lined up on a window sill to ripen.

A photo of a hanging pot plant with its green leaves tumbling down.

A photo of my reflection in a window as I take a photo.

A photo of the vista from our balcony through a security grill. Beyond tree tops and roof tops Surfer's Paradise sits on the horizon.

A photo of a Polaroid camera and red polka dot tea cups sitting on a shelf with a pink my little pony tucked inside one.

A photo of several hanging pot plants outside agains a backdrop of greenery.

A photo of a bright orange teardrop shaped light fitting in the hallway.

A photo of an owl shaped clock on a wall with pink and green wallpaper.

30 by 2012: Stuff I want to do.

Natalie — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:20:37 +0000

My parents have tried to instill in me the importance of setting goals but I am generally quite a foot-loose and fancy-free type of person. I’ve always floated through life content with pursuing knowledge and experiences organically because life has always seemed to be the sort of thing best served largely unplanned with a side of wondrous wide-eyed whimsy.

Photo of a page in a notebook that says "Goals." and a list. Click for full text.

For me goals have either been quite nebulous (see: be a rockstar and become Michael Jackson’s best friend) or fairly specific (see: learn to crochet, get my art in a gallery or oh-god-let-me-just-survive-this-awful-anxiety-until-I-can-get-home-and-hide-in-bed.) When I think about it I am pretty good at achieving the latter and quite okay with leaving the former filed under A for “As if”, but I’ve always shied away from goals that are imposed on me. I’m not terribly interested in buying a house, maintaining a stock portfolio or losing weight. Other people are, and that’s cool, but it really bothers me when they assume I’d be into the same sort of thing.

So I guess I wanted to try and formalise my goal setting because throughout my life I’ve always felt other people looking down their Rather Adult noses at me because I’m not Terribly Mature. As I mentioned above, sometimes my goal for the day is simply surviving and I feel these little goals are persistently overlooked as unimportant and if you’re like me and have disabilities, a keen disinterest in keeping up with the Joneses, and aptitudes that veer away from the mainstream, you can feel as if your goals and the passions that populate your life aren’t worth much.

I think that my goals should be worth a lot, especially in this recovery period in the wake of a rather bollocks few months. I want to feel like I have some measurable and realistic goals to cross off, and also some other slightly hard to measure ones too that I can be mindful of and work towards. If I can get to New Year’s Day in 2012 and reflect on this list and the stuff I’ve achieved, I hope to feel a stronger sense of confidence and self worth.

Things I want to accomplish before the beginning of 2012

Ride down to the shops on my bike by myself.
Make a padded headboard for our bed.
Paint a mural on our bedroom wall.
Go to an art gallery every month.
Grow my nails long enough to do a french manicure.
Design and sell a new piece of jewellery.
Hold a nail painting party.
Get my back tattoo touched up.
Start my sleeve tattoo.
Dye my hair turquoise.
Hold an event for SEQ fatties.
Sort out my recipe book.
Finish my first scrapbook.
Revamp my two bookcases.
Sell stickers of my art.
Write a business plan.
Charge what I’m worth.
Return the books I have that belong to other people.
Make a new friend.
Catch a train from the Gold Coast to Brisbane.
Make new art.
Finish my first cross stitch.
Write ideas down in my sketchbook more often.
Take action on the ideas in my sketchbook.
Undergo Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Be nice to myself. Engage in positive self talk and commit to dedicated self care.
Support other people more.
Make a dress.
Adopt a puppy.
Write a zine. Gather all previous zine content and just do it!

It was quite nice sitting down to collect all the loose goals and ideas flinging around my head. If you’ve got 10 minutes I really recommend writing your goals down. Even if they “seem” silly, but are secretly really special and important to you, write them down. I bet it’ll make achieving way more achievable. And if you’d like to share, please do!

I do like the beach, but I do not like sand.

Natalie — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:26:42 +0000

Writing has always been my way of expressing things that daren’t pass my lips but as my blog stats grow and grow I feel like blogging and emailing have also morphed into another way of talking. This tricksy world has forced me into communicating my feelings instead of keeping them bottled up. How dare it!? I am very fortunate to have a network of loving people around me who really really love me and want the best for me. As I’m rather awkward at verbalising how much I appreciate all this fussing I want to take a moment right now to write about how I’ve been so moved by everyone’s support in the last few weeks.

When I was in hospital I was overwhelmed with lovely messages across all the various forms of internets I use. My parents came to visit me twice over that weekend, while Nick came to see me every day. I would see other patients who’d been in for months look at me with all my abundance of support with sadness, and I wished I could share around the visits with them too. I did the next best thing by sharing all the food Mum snuck in for me! My Auntie and Nana sent me care packs when I got out and my mother-in-law insisted I come down to stay with her for a few weeks.

It’s a testament to how powerfully isolating depression and anxiety can be when you are still struck with horrifying dark thoughts even when love is demonstrated to you on a regular basis. When you stumble into patches of lightness and love, like a clearing in a rainforest, and see all the people in your life who are watching out for you it can be embarrassing too. Sometimes I’ve edged back into the darkness under the canopy because I am so ashamed that I can’t be healed by all these wonderful people’s care, and I am mortified that they may see these relapses as rejection or poor manners. Oh but it is a lot more complicated than that, I’m aware!

So thank you everyone. Thank you so much for having a care in your heart.

This week I was invited to stay with my Mum and sister at a holiday house up the coast. It was terribly relaxing. I took some crocheting and work up with me, but found myself helping my sister sew a skirt and reading Russell Brand’s autobiography. I did some work, promise! I’m making up the fat necklaces over this long weekend to send out next week. Mum and Michelle couldn’t resist trying the gold mirror necklaces on!

Even though the beach was a stroll away we only went once and that turned out to be pretty lucky considering my lack of balance and coordination at the moment, which led me to falling over THREE whole times in the space of 20 minutes. This is a very ominous stat and I shall be keeping my sand trekking to an absolute minimum until I get better! I blame the last fall on my sister, who spun around quickly as we walked along the shore at twilight and screamed something about a shark. Mum and I immediately bolted, but I didn’t get far before realising I was going down. As I surrendered myself to any available sharks in my proximity Michelle burst into hysterical laughter, telling us she’d seen land on the horizon. Not sharks. Thanks land, for infiltrating my camera lens and my clothes. I hate sand more than ever. It is a gritty menace that tricks me and swallows my feet.

Do you want to see photos? Go on, everyone loves photos. (Unfortunately none were taken of my falls because I didn’t think to flip the camera on and document the beach coming up to hit me in the face.)

A photo of my sister and mother's legs with feet planted each on very large stones, which are amongst lots and lots of large, grey stones.

A photo of my red paisley skirt and feet in wet sand. My toenails are shockingly pink (literally, China Glaze Shockingly Pink!)

A photo of my sister sitting on her haunches looking into a rock pool.

A photo of a large expanse of flatish rocks on the shoreline with pink and purple puddles sitting in them. The sky is a fantastic pink/ purple gradient.

A photo of my Mum and sister sitting on a rock against the shoreline and waves.

A photo of the waves rolling in at sunset. The beach curves around from the left foreground to middle background and the sky is a gradient of purple to pink.

Sometimes it’s a struggle to manifest fance (manifance?)

Natalie — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:14:22 +0000

This past few weeks I have struggled. Not just with blogging but personally too (and I’m waiting on some blood test results that might return an outcome I’m NOT keen for.) Lots of bloggers seem to cover up all the bad bits and present the shiniest and most palatable version of themselves to the world, and while it’s nice to appeal to aspiration and positivity but I think that it’s important to be truthful and raw too. I think that trying to be positive all the damn time puts a lot of people off blogging too; I’ve encouraged my husband to blog the struggles as well as the victories as he starts his own blogging endeavour, but I struggle to share my feelings when I’m feeling low and asking for help is especially difficult. It’s harder for me to do this more recently because as my readership increases, so does the percentage of people who aren’t very fond of me and often I feel like admitting my flaws and failures is just providing free ammunition. But then I realise that the percentage of warm, supportive and considerate readers basically swamps the haters, and I want to be able to share vulnerability because yannow, I’m a human being too!

So in the spirit of being raw here’s a list of things I’m struggling with right now:
● My blemished and scarred skin;
● the impending humidity of summer and worrying about how I will manage not to look like a melting wax effigy of myself in the next six months;
● feeling like a failure in comparison to others even though we are in completely different fields;
● going to my sister’s wedding and feeling like an odd-bod;
● not being tanned even though I have never tanned and have little interest in being tanned, but wanting to just because I am the whitest person in my whole family and the wedding photos will look odd;
● being fat in Brisbane in summer because despite what the news says about an obesity epidemic, fat people are NOT everywhere and I usually feel like a sideshow attraction whenever I am around people who are not my friends;
● a depressive episode that seems to be stretching languidly over a number of months, making me think that I might need to go on meds again;
● the cost of treating my diabetes, having to find money for a MRI for my high heel damaged foot and a possible hypothyroidism diagnosis;
● feeling like I am drowning in emails;
● etc.

I’m not looking for solutions or advice really, it’s just a relief to let these anxieties out to reduce the echo inside my brain.

To be fair, some good things are also happening too:
● I’ve cut back on commissions because even though I like drawing things for people, I feel like I don’t have enough time to focus on my personal work and develop my skills;
● the first meeting of Aquaporko BNE, a fat femme synchronised swimming team;
● I ordered more fat necklaces and hope to create a new design to be cut in acrylic soon;
● plans for camping with friends;
● exploring some lovely Lush product samples that Fran sent me;
● discovering Mylanta can be used as a face mask to draw out zits and reduce oilyness;
● some people really like my illustration and design work and that’s nice.

The other week I was having a fantastic discussion on Twitter about the culture of positivity and how damaging it can be, especially when different issues intersect with this societal demand to be unfailingly upbeat and happy and positive. My own particular beef with it is that as a person who suffers depression there is always someone around to tell me to “cheer up” or keep my “chin up” and, you know, if it was as simple as just being happy I would. Because it’s a real effing larf to be depressed and struggle to do even the most simple daily activities. It’s hilarious when people tell me I’ve got excuses for everything. If I could just wave a wand and cut that terrible “behaviour” out, I’d be a winner for sure!

So, I guess this is me extending my middle finger to that culture of positivity as it effects the bloggersphere. Sometimes I am so immobilised by worry I can’t move. Sometimes I am so sad I can’t brush my hair. Most of the time I am so fearful of how people will respond to my experience with mental illness that I do not talk about it. I want to shrug off that shame because it does nothing for my health.

(Hitting Publish on this is the scariest thing.)

I keep moving

Natalie — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:09:45 +0000

Remember that time I was all gung-ho about the Couch to 5k? I remember that time. It didn’t last long. After struggling with finding exercise gear that fit and fearing nasty people yelling things out at me (which totally eventuated), you know what? I stopped doing it. I didn’t like that I stopped running, because I enjoyed it but I needed to sort this problematic stuff out first.

I started with finding a solution to one huge problem: I didn’t have a proper bra that I could do such a high impact activity in without a lot of pain and discomfort. The amount of moaning I’ve done on this issue is legendary, and as a result of that moaning the president of Enell emailed me. I’d been trying to buy an Enell bra from a few different places with no luck so I was really upset and aggravated about the whole issue. Renelle, the kind and benevolent president, had heard my cries and sent me three bras. I actually weeped with relief when I got them. They fit! I could jump up and down without my chest slapping me in the chin! I could hang upside down without my boobs falling out of their cups! It was an Actual Revelation.

Recently my husband and I found ourselves in a position where we could actually afford a gym membership, so we signed up at a Jetts 24 hour gym. And you know what? Now that the issue of heckling is mostly removed, I feel so much more motivated to exercise. I don’t think that many people with slimmer builds consider this constant anxiety about being harassed for being fat whilst one is exercising. It’s a huge barrier – an unhealthy barrier for everyone. I’m really impressed with Jetts and Jess the manager, who is also looking after Nick and my programme. I told her that weight loss wasn’t my primary concern, and that I wanted to focus on fitness and strengthening my arms and she listened to me! You guys, I’ve never had a fitness professional actually listen to me and design a programme that actually helps me (rather than helping the fitness professional feel like they’re Saving A Fatty)! The gear is all new, there’s a cap on memberships so that you don’t have to fight for equipment, and the cardio machines have TVs built in to them (so I can shake my fist at moron politicians on morning TV). We’ve gone almost every second morning since signing up, and even though the walking lunges with 5kg weights in each hand is leaving me with screaming thighs, I’m feeling more energetic and motivated.

The final piece of the puzzle is the exercise pant. I’ve been wearing some men’s 2xl Slazenger tights, which are pretty rad for preventing chafing but I’m wanting a pair of actual women’s pants. Because you know, I’m a woman. Nick has been searching for some skins that will fit him too, because it seems like Australian retailers don’t think that a 6xl man could be exercising (while self righteous doctors abuse “The Obese” for not exercising in the background!) We found an American retailer called Aero Tech Designs which stocks cycling and work out gear up to proper plus sizes and ordered some pants each. I’ll let you know how that goes when we receive them!

So right now at least, I’m enjoying the gym. I’m enjoying the time I allocate for myself which turns into time spent with Nick having a quick coffee before we start our working days. It’s good stuff!

Still in holiday mode!

Natalie — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:10:57 +0000

Things are changing this year, and I’ve got to tell you… I always struggle with change. Nick is on long service leave but is still working hard at home with his freelance business. I’m trying to come up with concepts for a few projects but floundering, or errr, still developing them :P

This weekend we decided we would focus only on pleasurable things because we have been so busy lately. The ingredients for a happy weekend include: no work, minimal housework, friends, outside, nourishing food and time together. It’s nice to pause and spend time together – because we’ve discovered that working from home together doesn’t necessarily mean we are spending time together!

Yesterday we went to the markets with some friends and the boys held the first ever SAUSAGE CUP, which is exactly what it sounds like. Sausages in a cup. I counted nine of them in one cup! Shaun’s photo above should give you some indication of how vast the sausage selection is at the “Wurst House” at the markets.

Then Nick and I decided to go for a drive to the mountains in the afternoon. There is something about being in the mountains that puts me at peace, and we’re very lucky to have a smorgasbord of lovely mountain places around Brisbane to flee to whenever we get the desire. We went to Mt Glorious and Mt Nebo, and spent a couple of hours dreaming about living up there.

One day I will have a studio in the mountains, and I will never come down! Today we are having a lazy day that will be capped off by a picnic in the park with our friends.

I definitely recommend you get some pleasurable weekend in your life soon!

What makes you happy?

Natalie — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:07:21 +0000

What makes you happy? – shot on 5DMKII from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

@thedesignfiles posted a link to one of Jon Rawlinson’s short films, Kuroshio Sea (which is also awesome, check it out) and being the curious cat that I am I clicked onto the next video which posed the question, “What makes you happy?”

A few years ago now, I used to have a VW Beetle, and I would ponder the question of happiness a lot as I drove late at night. Back then, my list of things that made me happy included:

A full tank of petrol
A full packet of ciggies (sigh, oh the past!)
Driving home after a lovely night with my friends
Singing songs really loud (my Beetle didn’t have a radio!)
Driving the bug

Right now, I have a very bland sort of car and while it’s very reliable and doesn’t strand me on scary motorways in the middle of the night (with no mobile phone credit, I had to flag down a stranger!) it doesn’t really give me any happiness. I absolutely hated breaking down all the time in Poberty Jane (my bug) but driving it was thrilling and engaging. In a new car there doesn’t seem to be any kind of engagement or thrill (unless you buy something really fast, fancy and expensive!)

So, the things that make me happy must surely have shifted. I met and married Nick since those times, and I have embarked on a career as a graphic artist and designer. So let’s revisit the happy list, yeah?

Things that make me happy, 2009

Solving a design problem
Laughing with my family and friends
Emptying my pencil sharpener
Absent-minded doodling
Stimulating conversation
Seeing new places and exploring them by foot (like waterfalls!)
Writing something that reflects how I feel as accurately and succinctly as possible
Learning new things
Collaborating with people
Making beautiful food
Expressing myself through personal styling (I hate to use the term “fashion” since styling one’s identity extends beyond that!)
Meeting people I connect with
Cracking jokes that people laugh at

I guess I could go on and on… and I feel pretty grateful for that! What makes you happy?

30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know

Natalie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:15:24 +0000

Illness by sctag1015

This week is National Invisible Chronic Awareness Week in America, and even though I’m international I thought this questionaire would be helpful not only for myself, but for readers of my blog!

1. The illness(es) I live with are:
Type 1 diabetes (T1D), depression and anxiety with a little tendinitis (and arm cysts!) thrown in

2. I was diagnosed with it/them in the year:
T1D – 1998
Depression and anxiety – 2001
Tendinitis/ RSI – 2007

3. But I had symptoms since:
T1D – a few months before being diagnosed (generally you don’t let that shit slide or else you get dead!)
Depression and anxiety – since 1995
Tendinitis – since about 2005

4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is:
Having to interrupt my day to jab myself and eat on a schedule, being a slave to doctors (currently my beef is that they will only give me 1 repeat of insulin so I have to keep going back!)

My depression isn’t as severe as it used to be, I think learning coping mechanisms has helped me a lot in my day to day life. Surprisingly, my anxiety has been largely ignored by the doctors and shrinks so I’m still doing unproductive things like not answering calls from numbers I don’t recognise, putting my phone on silent for weeks on end, having trouble going outside by myself, etc.

I have to wear a wrist brace when I’m working, and if I really aggravate my arm I can’t work for days on end. It interrupts my workflow, and affects my ability to consistently earn money. It also makes me feel pathetic and useless when the pain is at its worst.

5. Most people assume:
I’m fat because I have type 2 diabetes. No. I’m probably fat because I give myself too much insulin, which results in fabulous to low Hb1ac levels (the coating of sugar on my blood cells) and weight gain. T1D sufferers who are very skinny (as a result of rapid weight loss, not natural body weight) likely have very high Hb1ac levels, which leads to diabetes complications like blindness and kidney disease. I will likely meet my end with a stroke or heart disease, maybe even an amputated limb.

People assume that I’m useless and aloof because of many of my anxiety symptoms. When I was a child and teen, people used to get so frustrated with my avoidance tactics and would reprimand me because I would refuse to call places when they asked me to, or because I was socially awkward.

When I wear a wrist brace out in public people are generally nicer and more helpful. Which is surprising considering when I had a bung foot going to Melbourne in December, I had to use a walking stick and some people were rude and inconsiderate. On the flight down, many of the families with children waiting to board encouraged me to get on the plane first but I was nearly bowled over by some impatient special snowflake who didn’t have any trouble walking, nor did he have children!

6. The hardest part about mornings is:
Having to wake up at a timely hour to have my insulin. If I don’t stick to a schedule, everything gets screwed around a bit.

7. My favorite medical TV show is:
I don’t really like watching the real life shows, but I like Scrubs.

8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is:
Insulin pens :D

9. The hardest part about nights is:
Having hypos at 3am and having to get up and force carbs into my face when I don’t want to eat.

10. Each day I take [?] pills & vitamins.
I’m really bad with taking pills and/ or vitamins!! I’m lucky in that pills aren’t really a part of my health care regimen, even though a multi-vitamin probably wouldn’t hurt!

11. Regarding alternative treatments, I:
Certain people have tried to convince me that my diabetes can be cured with homeopathy and a raw vegan diet. Righteo!! If there was a bona-fide cure I’m sure I’d have a mailbox stuffed with excited proclamations from Diabetes Australia/ Queensland!

I want to get hypnotised and see if it helps my anxiety. I’m very curious about it because I have a few people close to me who have been helped by it.

I’ve tried a course of acupuncture for my tendinitis and while it provided short term relief for a matter of hours, it really wasn’t the relief I was looking for (IE: LONGTERM!)

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness and a visible one, I would choose:
I really have no experience having a visible illness, besides wearing a brace in public occasionally. I can’t conceive of a life without diabetes – sometimes when I have dinner with friends I find it strange that they don’t whip out their insulin pens and jab themselves when I do. Most of the time, people don’t even notice when I inject myself!

So yeh, short answer: I can’t choose, and I don’t know differently.

13. Regarding working and career:
Having hypos in the workplace can be very embarrassing sometimes, because a low blood sugar attack can make one look quite drunk and disoriented. Many workplaces I’ve been in I’ve had to simply wait until I could excuse myself to get sugar – which is completely unfair, I know.

Having an anxiety disorder and working has been challenging, but generally it has helped me confront things that I would have put in the “too hard” basket.

14. People would be surprised to know:
That I would be dead if insulin wasn’t on the PBS. It’s expensive as it is, but it’d be 20 times more expensive if it wasn’t subsidised by the government.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality is:
I’m going to die younger than Nick and my friends.

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness was:
Go overseas. I’m still not sure how I would manage it, with the time zone changes and what not… it’d royally screw up my insulin regimen.

17. The commercials about my illness:
There are very few commercials about T1D. Usually it’s scare tactics about T2D (which means that people assume I have T2D).

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed:
I miss not giving a shit about when I eat or what I eat.
I miss the strength I used to have in my wrist.

19. It was really hard to give up:
Smoking. I’m still weening myself off them and I’m not the type to get all sanctimonious about it. I actually really enjoyed smoking as a way to alleviate some of my anxiety!

20. A new hobby I’ve taken up since my diagnosis is:
I’m trying to do new things in my creative practice that don’t involve such intensive use of my wrist. Right now I’m making rosettes out of ties.

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again, I would:
Go traveling and eating.

22. My illness has taught me:
How to be a control freak.

23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say (about my illness) that gets under my skin is:
- XXXXX CURES DIABETES
- CAN YOU EAT THAT?

24. But I love it when people:
Look after me when I’ve had a hypo or panic attack. It makes me feel like less of a freak.

25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is:
I usually just say to myself that tomorrow will come like yesterday came, and pretty soon it’ll be next month. It really helps me feel like there will be a future when I think the world is going to end.

26. When someone is diagnosed I like to tell them:
Ask me anything.

27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is:
How little some medical professionals know. Like, when I’m in hospital getting hourly obs – THE NURSES ALWAYS COME IN AND PRICK THE TIP OF THE SAME DAMNED FINGER.

a) Don’t stick the tip or the pad of my fingers. There are helpful nerves in them! Lance the side of my fingers where there aren’t as many nerves to damage.
b) DIDN’T YOU DO ANATOMY AS PART OF YOUR TRAINING?
c) OW! That hurts! Rotate those injection sites.

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was:
Get me orange juice or something similarly sugary. There’s no one time, it’s not a standalone occurrence, but my friends and loved ones always know what to do!

29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because:
I never really considered that I have invisible illnesses, but I do. I always like to imagine I’m a normal person, but I’m not. That’s a delusion that healthy people don’t have to suffer.

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel:
Thankful and a little weirded out, considering this blog is so public! But I think it’s important to talk about our health, especially about depression and anxiety.

Disclaimer of sorts: This awareness week was started by a Christian ministry, and while I am an atheist I think it’s important to make people aware of chronic invisible illnesses. I also think it’s important to treat them with medical science, not just prayer – like in the case of the diabetic 11 year old who died because her Christian parents refused her medical treatment, preferring to pray for her healing rather than providing her treatment.
/controversy

Do you love where you live?

Natalie — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:24:05 +0000

I’ve been incredibly busy working AND playing in the last few weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion (like I always do) that Brisbane is a fantastic city with so much going on. Growing up here, I’ve heard all the snide “big country town” references and watched friends and family move interstate and overseas to find their glory, but in my lifetime I’ve witnessed the city mature into a vibrant hub of creative activity. I want to be a part of Brisbane’s flurry of creativity, and invest back into the city that has invested a lot in me.

People who moan about there being nothing to do and no opportunity haven’t really opened their eyes, in my humble opinion. Just by grabbing any one of the free street press (mX, Rave, Scene, Time Off, Tsunami…) you’ll have access to any number of free and low priced events, and if you have an internet connection you can be even more plugged in with the fantastic Brisbane Creative Industries monthly events list!

Just in the space of one weekend I went to Brisbane Twestival, an all ages fundraiser with burlesque, cupcakes and bands; a talk by erotica authors at the Brisbane Writers Festival; saw incredible fireworks; and enjoyed a Chris Isaak concert under the stars. I feel so fortunate to be able to say that I am completely exhausted from all the fantastic things I did on the weekend.

I might grumble in summer when Brisbane’s cloying humidity drapes over me like a wet flannelette, but generally I love living here. Nick and I have discussed moving down to Melbourne, and at the beginning of the year we were seriously considering making the move for 2010, but I just don’t think I can bring myself to do it. My family and friends are all here, and I’m beginning to carve a niche for myself (slowly, with a butter knife!) too. To move to Melbourne would mean starting again socially and professionally, and as many artists flock to Melbourne… I mightn’t even get a look in! While I love Melbourne, it’s not my city and it’s not a city that’s undergoing rapid cultural growth like Brisbane. So I’ll stay here and reinvest my time and passions into the people and the city that have nurtured me!

Do you love where you live? If you could live anywhere… where would it be?