The Old Tin Shed

I think I have mentioned a couple of times in the past, that I am adopted.  I was adopted as a baby, and my mum and dad as I know them were my adopted parents.  My sister is also adopted, from a different mother. 4 Corners on the Australian ABC had a program recently on forced adoptions.  I wanted to watch it, but found I couldnt.  What little i do know of my birth mother is the fact I was taken without her consent. Maybe we are not supposed to see some things, maybe its still a painful thing for me, but I look at how my sister and I turned out, and we have both had the a-typical adopted child life.  We both suffer from low self-esteem, and use food to help us cope.  We both try to avoid conflict rather than stand up for ourselves.  And now even she is showing signs of mental illness. Im not proud of my past and have stuck my hands up many times to admit fault and ultimately responsibility.  But when I have doctors say to me "wow you lasted a long time before you came undone

Hey all. Yep another weekend over.  I had a rough one, stubbed my little toe on the corner of the day bed its all black blue yellow and purple.  Then put a big cut and bruise in my shoulder caught it on the back door of my partners mums car that I am working on. Not ten minuets later trying to undo a sump plug I ended up belting my first knuckle on my left had with a hammer.  Its not great either  Then we were pulling a bed apart and the bed head whacked me fair across the old skull, made me see stars for a bit.  Then later in the evening went round to turn the pool pump on and again stubbed my little toe this time into a concrete brick.  To top that off, I ruined dinner. Fantastic day lol.  Seriously though I am ok, was just having one of those bad ones yesterday.  The toe is a bit of a concern, after the swim in the pool the swelling had gone down heaps, but its still throbbing and causing some serious discomfort.  No point on the doctors because they cant set it anyway, found th

Im the bald fat guy I have been better this year than last. Still hurts I miss him lots.  Still find I pick up the phone to call him from time to time.  That usually ruins a good day. Mum spent the day at San Remo, a place we all used to spend our holidays as a family and a place in later years we would go for great fish and chips. Mum is further away from his ashes than I am, we spread them over the Great Barrier Reef just off mission beach about an hours drive from here.  His last wish was to spend eternity in paradise.  In a real way he is, its an amazing place.  There is so much conflict in the family about his decision, and as always I must play the middle ground. Mum & Dad together enjoying Fish and Chips I find it hard I dont have a single point to go talk to him, but I also understand his desire to have no marker for his passing, he was like his father he wanted no fuss.  In fact we had to convince him to have a funeral.  Somewhere his friends could say goodby

My father passed away this day 2 years ago, the time just clicked over to when mum called to let me know. Just wanted to say.  I miss you dad.  I hope your at peace. Love Stuart

Nothing cryptic about this posts heading.  I take this type of medication from time to time, and have found it to be extremely useful.  I have posted before about Xanax, which is the branded name of the medication.  I call it my jagged little pill. There is no doubt it helps me, it pulls me back from the frantic panic, and anxiety that, sometimes enters my life.  It restores order and peace to my mind, I feel while under its grip that I can cope that I can deal with the things that led me to take them.  Its a trick, a chemical trick that works well with me.  I only use them sparingly as resistance to the medication comes around easily. So why the Jagged pill.  One of this medications side effects is memory loss.  Its good in some ways bad in others.  An example today would have been I swore my partner had been home, but that was not the case I simply did not remember the way things were laid out. The good side of the memory loss is that I don remember those things that upset me to

Yeah well this was my 6 week regular visit.  I get along well with my Psychiatrist, we have an understanding about me and my illness.  You see ever since I became sick, I have been willing to go through just about anything to get better. That means a lot of med changes, lots of withdrawal periods where I felt like dog poo.   He made an interesting comment today.  He said "you have been through hell, but you have never lost sight of the single goal to get as well as you can." I appreciate that because it has allowed me to do my job." In a nutshell, that's it isn't it.  That its not just giving up expecting the medications to make you well, its about an attitude and how far are you prepared to go.  The insight I have over my illness is borne of desperation, to be normal. Yuck there's that word.  I'm not normal, but I fit the norm now. We talked about my last post also.  About gaining something from the stress I endured last week.  The fact I didn&

Whats started.  Not something important to others but to me its a major step forward.  It means mentally I have changed position yet again. That is really important in my longer term recovery and understanding of my own illness. So whats started.  I can listen to new music again.  Doesn't sound like much but it is.  Until recently new music made me tense and paranoid.  Then after all the stress of the last week changed me.  Now I crave new sounds new music.  It also has another meaning one that is extremely important to me, it means that I can now enjoy my gaming without having to give it up after 40 minutes. I am becoming the old me, the me that was ok that enjoyed to explore the world around him.  If I gain one more thing back, I will have recovered the parts of me that I wanted back.  That were taken away by the illness and medications.  I just need to be able to write short stories again.  I miss that creative outlet for my thoughts and dreams. Please do not get me wron

Last post for today I promise.  Came across this on YouTube for a comment for Midnight Oils Dream World.  Thought it was very apt in the current climate of fear and oppression. "It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men"  Sam Adams

Just a small trip to the Drug Store (Chemist), and people wonder why I worry about the number of meds I take.  Thats not replenishing all of them by the way, there are several more.

Another one of my musical posts, that I promised you I would annoy you with.  This is a bit of a classic, but I was unable to listen to it for many years.  Amazing how when a song is close to your life it stirs up feelings you would rather not have. My Dad is gone now, we lost him after a huge battle with cancer lasting most my adult life, his end was horrible, wasted by the cancer and in pain that they could not manage.  I was not there for the end, I just could not do it.  I had left him 2 weeks before, knowing it would be the last time.  But somehow there was peace in his eyes he knew it to.  I miss him terribly some days, I have his photo above my desk. Anyway listen to the lyrics of this song and don't ever let a conflict get between you and the ones you love.

The last couple of weeks have been really difficult on this end.  My partner works as a nurse at a nursing home, and has been qualified for over 2 years.  I normally don't talk about my relationships, but this is getting hard. There is nothing wrong between us, but there is some major conflict around his work.  Twice in the past 2 weeks I have had a phone call with him crying and upset on the other end.  His work has had a habit of taking advantage of his good nature and his deep care for the residence.  This has meant that he does a lot of extra shifts over each pay period.  Up till now this has not been an issue, as the pay has been welcome. However now they are taking away regular shifts for the extras he does often at a 1/2 hour notice, sometimes he has to to double shift which sees him at work for 16 hours straight. On top of this they have been incorrectly paying him for over 2 years.  Since he was qualified his pay rate was meant to increase.  It hasn't and after pro

Well that is the most cryptic heading so far. (quite proud of it acutally).  As you all know from previous blog posts that I have been running Linux (ubuntu) for a couple months now.  To be honest its probably good enough for most people but not for me. It has some really annoying things.  The Unity desktop is slow and painful when multitasking and the removal of the close minimize maximize buttons from right to left is just stupid.  I mean most people have been using windows for years they all know where the x button is to close a screen.  Unity is horrible they say its intuitive but its not, you are constantly having to think about how you get to the next thing you need to do.  That and a propensity to deliver pages from email and web browsing that are blank is maddening as it needs a full reboot to fix.. remind anyone of windows. Sound out of the box works fine just don't ask it to do anything complicated like auto switch between headset and desktop speakers when using Skype

Interesting statement don't you think.  I have always realized that life was a set amount of time and then the end would come.  IF I died tomorrow what would I leave behind ? (1) A group of close friends who would be destroyed by grief (2) A mother and a sister, both who are afraid of getting that call (3) My Partner of 3 Years, he would be inconsolable and some how find away to blame himself. (4) A lot of memories with people I have touched over the years. (5) A car, a ton of top of the line computer equipment If I died tomorrow what would I take with me ? (1) My smile and piercing blue eyes (2) My career experiences (3) Everything I have learnt about staying alive with this illness (4) Those moments those magical moments where I have seen things that no one else did (5) A Kind heart one that is damaged by my past (6) Responsibilities for what I did when I was unwell (7) No Regrets my life is what it is. Do not mourn me when I go, I wont he hear to hear you, I wi

Well you know we in the west like to think we have everything sorted out, our lives and retirement etc.  Well today I came across the following on a forum I visit regularly thought some of my readers might enjoy it. An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, "Only a little while." The tourist then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?" The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs." The tourist then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each e

When we took on this place we knew there would be a swimming pool to maintain and run.  Now to the best of my ability I have, but we have had an ongoing problem. There is a waterfall coming out of the wall behind the pool and its a key feature.  The issue I have is that I havent been able to get it to run for any decent time before the flow cuts out.  I have cleaned the canister filter to a point where it is whiter than my teeth cleaned all the other filters as well and it doesnt seem to make any real difference. So I thought one way to check its not me was to run it without the canister.  Guess what, it doesnt work then also.  So I am now admitting defeat its time to get a pool expert in.  It looks like its sucking air somewhere before the pump as the clear filter directly before the pump is pushing air around and that cant be good for pressure. So will call the real estate this afternoon see if they can send out the pool guy