Seasons

They say that life is a series of seasons - learning, happiness, sadness, grief, sickness, trouble etc etc. Well, I am (hopefully) coming out the other side of a rather difficult rather long season, and I feel the need to get it out of my system so that i can hopefully learn whatever lessons there are to be learnt. So my first post is going to be a big whinging list of everything I've had to deal with , but I promise it won't be so depressing after that.

Ok, so in the last three years or so - the following has happened in my life. This is in vague chronological order

• I finished a pretty difficult pregnancy with gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, ante-natal depression and the pelvic displacement thing with a pretty easy delivery, and then the most unsettled baby on the face of the planet.
• A week in tressilion where even the nurses couldn't get him to sleep for more than 45 minutes
• Massive post natal depression (pnd) resulting in self harm and not being left on my own for a month, followed by painfull trips to pretty useless psychiatrists
• 8 bouts of tonsilitis in a year, then six months solid on antibiotics
• doing in my back and spending a month lying in bed on my back BORED OUT OF MY MIND and totally reliant on the generosity of others, followed by chronic back pain
• tonsilectomy followed by hell as i was too tolerant of the painkillers due to back pain so i became addicted and had to go through withdrawal - not fun
• a good friend lost her baby
• Another good friend moved to the middle of nowhere for two years
• admitted to a psychiatric ward. This was a horrible experience, but a topic for another day. They had to report me to docs though - not good for parental self esteem!
• Then in three days - my husband lost his job for the fifth time in two years (redundancy) I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and we had to move house - fun week!
• we move house - never good, we had to seriously downgrade as we were housesitting in a nice area, and could only afford to rent a tiny villa elsewhere
• we add a dog to the family - good, but lots of work
• about five bouts of gastro that end up with me in hospital (i can thank my dad for that lovely gene)
• I'm told I can't have any more children - heartbreaking
• My grandmother died (we were very close)
• I become borderline diabetic
• I have an unexplained, prolonged and heavy period, resulting in trips to hospital, serious fatigue, and lots of unpleasant tests. Finally after six weeks, with a total blood loss of about 4 litres, they wack in an iud which kind of works, but I probably have to have the lining of my uterus totally burnt (YAY)
• My brother gets married. Ok, so this was actually a good thing, but it brought up emotional issues and stuff. (He's discustingly perfect and I'm not etc etc - Hi bro!)
• And of course all this is on top of the usual married mother of two crap that goes on in your life - sick people, kids starting school, fights with spouse, tantrums, self doubt about parenting and wifeing skills, oh my gosh my two year old just pooed on our rented carpet, my car just broke down again, my best friends pregnant and i'm not, i'm disgustingly overweight and i'm never going to eat again wheres the chocolate?

OK, I think i've pretty much got that out of my system. No more whinging for today.

I'd just like to say in closeing that my life is actually still pretty good. My husband is fantastic as far as husbands go, my kids are generally wonderfull, I have a great and supportive extended family and some good friends. We have a roof over our heads and always plenty to eat etc (actually way too much in my case)

So a few replies about how tough my life has been and i must be such a wonderfull strong person would be greatly appreciated!

by the way, a great site on mood disorders with great information and insight is www.blackdoginstitute.org.au