Birthday cancelled, to be replaced with many unpleasant emotions...

Oh look it is September, I blinked and winter never existed. Not that it was a cold winter anyway, still very much above the long term average, but apparently a bit cooler than the last couple of years.

The weather is not why I am here though. Of course I am here to complain and whinge, thats what these blogs are right? A recount of my suffering while I pursue a career in academia as an autistic, depressed, anxious, low income, barely any family person, and carer to the only 2 members of my family I have left. Is that a good start to this whinge session? 

The main reason I am here today is because I should be in the Northern Territory with my Herpetology group for a book launch and herping trip right now, but alas I made the decision to pull out because I feel terribly behind on my PhD because I had to pretty much take the past month off. 

This trip was going to be a birthday treat for myself too. I've aways wanted to go to the NT, and with my herp group would have been a fantastic opportunity to actually see wild animals and be able to identify them! The book launch lead by the group that I am a committee member for, and it would have been a great time to network more with experts in the field. 

So why did I give up on this amazing opportunity for myself that was perfectly timed with my birthday? 

Because I had to spend the past month fighting for my family to stay in our house. 

Basically, we got a new tenancy manager, who gave us written notice saying we had 3 breaches of our tenancy all of a sudden. Please note that these three things they listed have been the like this for between 7 and 27 years, approved by previous managers, and one of them is a fix to our house because they couldn't be bothered repairing it for over a decade and it was a health, safety, and hygiene concern for my family. So instead of writing up one of my chapters for my PhD and sending drafts out to my supervisors, I constructed a formal letter disputing the issues. But who do I send it to? The new tenancy manager never gave their details even though the letter stated to contact them any time. We ended up having to contact our previous tenancy manager (still works in the same company, but new position) and asking them to forward it on to the Tenancy manager and their team leader. 

A week goes by, still no response. By now its been 2 weeks since we got the notice, and myself any my family has been super stressed thinking we would have to move, and realising that there is no where in Sydney that we could afford to even rent. So we contact our previous tenancy manager again with - just wondering if anything has progressed, is the inspection still occurring tomorrow? 

No the inspection was cancelled (thanks for letting us know, it's not like we have anything else in life that we cancelled to make time for this). 

We end up setting up a meeting the next week, which should have had our previous tenancy manager, our current tenancy manager and their team leader. 

We go to the meeting with a support worker as a third party to take notes, especially since the company that manages our home almost never puts anything in writing. Our current tenancy manger is apparently sick so doesn't turn up, which in a way made the meeting more pleasant. The two people their start of by apologising for what the tenancy manager wrote and they they are new and still need some training. This was a pleasant surprise, I just wish it hadn't taken almost 3 weeks to find this out. They revoked everything that was in the letter verbally, so that was a huge relief. 

Eventually, this week, my birthday week, we get a written email from the tenancy manager revoking everything they wrote. Only now could we actually relax because we had it in writing. 

"All's well that ends well?" - Well NO!

My family spent almost an entire month freaking out about having to move from a house we've been in for 27 years, with the stress further amplified by the fact there is no way we could afford to rent anywhere in Sydney (which my family needs for medical specialists).

This emotional distress lead to the following:

- the inability to work on my PhD, on campus or at home;
- increased frequency and severity of migraine symptoms;
- increased tension with the support workers that come to help out at home;
- a weakened immune system which lead to me getting sick twice within 3 weeks (I rarely ever get sick), which caused further distress which lead to:
    - not being able to see my partner;
    - increased inability to work on PhD (I could at least read a paper or join an online meeting every so often when I was healthy);
    - inability to sleep properly;
    - increased migraine symptoms even more;

All of the above would just lead to compounding distress overall, on top of the normal amount of stress people have when doing a PhD and caring for family members.

After a horrible month, I decided it was best to try and get back into doing my PhD, rather than going on this wonderful trip that was planned, (also since I'm still not fully recovered from the infections I had). 

I believe I made the right call in the long run, as taking even more time off would just increase my PhD stress even more. However, I also believe I still have the right to be upset and angry at how the circumstances in my life have once again denied me from actually enjoying my life.

Oh did I mention I've had heaps of pimples and its Spring so hay fever symptoms are also becoming more frequent and severe....

Spain: Part 1 - The Flight

This recount is written from my current memory of what occurred just less than 2 weeks ago.

Friday evening was when my journey began. My partner was kind enough to drive me to the airport. Unfortunately, my body decided it would be nauseous and wanted to vomit the entire car ride there. Luckily, I was in my car, in which I had a bunch of serviettes, as well as plastic and paper shopping bags in which I could contain my vomit.

At the airport my partner helped me with booking in my luggage. My poster had to go through a "special or over-sized baggage" area, as it could not be booked on with my suitcase, and it also could not be taken on as carry-on. I bought a plain packet of smiths chips for dinner as that was all I could stomach at the time. I got teary, said goodbye then proceeded to operate in automatic mode for most of the journey. 

The entire thing was surreal and I had unwillingly disassociated myself from the situation. Once I got on the plane I put on a horror podcast "Paralyzed" and I was content. Horror relaxes me... The plane food was actually alright. I made sure the uni's travel agent put me down as vegetarian, which most places seem to take as vegan, so that works too. I had the window seat for the longest part (15 something hrs), and the guy next to me slept a lot of the time so I was essentially trapped. I managed to get up once for a walk to the toilet and a quick stretch. I watched a couple of movies and played the kids games, but unfortunately no sleeping occurred. 

Once I arrived at Doha, Qatar, the security threw my unopened bottle of water that the plane gave me in the bin and had to empty my refillable bottle I bought. I get the emptying of my bottle, but an unopened bottle? Seriously? what a waste of resources going straight in the trash  - not recycling even. I roamed around the stores there for a bit and found an organic vegan food place. I got chocolate protein oats and a coffee. 

Next was the plane to Barcelona, I think I had an aisle seat, but honestly it is mostly a blur now. I do think I was able to get up a couple of times to stretch and toilet though. Again, I watched a movie or 2 and played some kids games, but no sleep still.

When I arrived in Barcelona that's when I broke. Everyone was speaking another language, I had not slept in over 24 hours, and my anxiety kicked in. I went to a couple of help desks to ask where I needed to go, and I found them quite rude. So then I found a toilet and cried for a while. Sadly the toilet paper was rough and hurt to blow my nose into. I also found I could register as having a hidden disability and that was associated with my ticket. After eventually composing myself I got a matcha frappe with whipped cream from Starbucks to make myself feel better. 

Soon enough it was time to board a domestic flight to Seville. The person scanning my ticket was friendly at first and then the notice about having a hidden disability came up and they were no longer friendly and just stopped talking to me. I'm assuming they just didn't know what to do in response? But the thing is they didn't need to do anything different...

Anyway, this plane had no meals, and no in-flight entertainment. I think I just listened to podcasts and played coloured in on my phone. and eventually got to Seville airport, where I finally had to find my luggage. My suitcase came out easy enough, I had to wait ages for my poster though.

Throughout most of this journey I was physically conscious but found it all very surreal and had strong disassociation. In the end I surrvived, and got to where I needed to go, which is pretty good for a first time travelling internationally, alone, with anxiety and autism!

Questioning my path

So I recently just took myself on a solo trip interstate. I very much enjoyed it. This was the first time visiting this city, and the first time travelling somewhere alone and not meeting up with anyone at the other end. I really need to do this more often. I'm not responsible for anyone but myself, I can do what I want for however long I want to. Which for me meant visiting lots of museums and galleries, and spending several hours in the Botanic Gardens! 

It was also great to not have as many loud and intrusive thoughts for a few days. I'm sure they'll pop back up again, but I'm really hoping that they will be a bit quieter, if only for the rest of this month.

Anyway, I've been back for a couple of days now. I had a day of rest yesterday, and a day working from home today because I was too tired to drive anywhere, especially an hour to uni. 

However, now I'm starting to question if I'm even up to a career in academia. I've barely scraped through the past 1.5 years with all of my physical and mental health issues. I haven't even started writing papers or my thesis yet (I don't count methods). 

Perhaps like previous times in my life, after a while of not doing research I will miss it again. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy what I do, it's just the constraints upon me and the battles I fight every single day just to get out of bed or to take a shower are exhausting. I don't know if I can keep doing this long term, something in my life has to change simply so I can function more efficiently. 

What would I do instead? Do more animal work for a while, but I know from experiance that won't be enough to intellectually stimulate me forever. It also won't be able to get me out of the financial situation my family is in. I could also do more casual work at universities, but there's not too much job security in that, there is also a preference to hire internally. I could also go back to making content, but that never really made me much money, and I hate the technological side. 

I have no urge to quit my PhD, I 100% want to finish this. However, I am doubting if I can continue in this line of work afterwards with how I am now. Will I ever be able to swim? :P

Still alive, barely

Well, it's certainly been, what's the current saying "a hot minute"? since I last wrote here.

Things mentally and physically have been going downhill since June last year. 

I took a week or two off from uni in October, which was nice and kept me going for the rest of the year. However, it lasted only a short time and by the beginning of December, I was pretty burnt out again. 

Christmas was pretty awful. It was nice to have time off uni, but I've been looking forward to Christmas less and less every year for a while now. This year just reinforced that. I was very much exhausted, had no social battery left, and got pretty bad migraine symptoms on Christmas day itself. 

Migraine for me has been getting more frequent and more intense this past 7-12 months. I rarely ever got nausea, but now it's a regular symptom. I have found if I allow myself to vomit it does relieve some of the pain for a while though. 

I'm still seeing my physiotherapist or remedial masseuse almost weekly, however, that no longer seems to be enough to manage my pain anymore. I have read online that migraines do get more severe in your thirties, so I'm guessing my age might have something to do with it, and of course the increasing physical and mental exertion of doing a PhD.

A bit more on the emotional/mental health side of things, I've been going through a lot of 'self-discovery' for lack of a better term since June last year. I've been seeing a psychologist on top of the counselor at uni. The counselor at uni is great for the surface problems, but the psychologist makes me think and feel deeper about things, that I have ignored and disregarded about myself. 

There's certainly been some unexpected insights from seeing this particular psychologist, it's been a weird and at times challenging ride so far - as I'm sure I've touched upon in previous posts. I think we're getting to a place where I'm willing to address some things that I wasn't before. I know I'm running the risk of getting hurt by doing this (for several reasons), however, I'm almost ready to take that step of 'faith' so to speak. There are still a few things I am unsure about, that I feel I should address with the psychologist during our next meeting, but whether I do or do not at the time is another challenge in itself. 

I am looking into taking 4-8 weeks off from my PhD around this April. I just can't keep doing this. My sleep is ineffective, I have pains in my body almost constantly, and on top of my usual mental health battles and these new challenges arising, I'm constantly running on empty. I'm hoping to book in to see a neurologist, let's hope the waiting lists are not too long!

Work-wise I think my PhD is going okay, I spoke with my main supervisor yesterday and mentioned I might need a break and they were fine with that. I do have a field trip starting this Saturday. This field trip is to the same place I went to last June when everything started to unravel for me, so I am a bit fearful of how I will cope, especially given my decreasing overall health. 

I did have almost 48 hours of reprieve recently. A combination of finally doing Body Combat again (one of the best therapies out there for me), taking myself on a short solo walk, and having some deep conversations with my pairbond, resulted in me feeling good, capable, and less broken. So this time 3 days of work on myself led to almost 2 days of good health. I knew I was on borrowed time though, and I could sense when it was coming to an end. 

This field trip is very important though, and as usual, I will power through to benefit my research, even if it comes at a cost to myself. Like I did after doing Body Combat last week where I knew that my migraine symptoms would be triggered, I could even feel it starting during the class but kept going. I wasn't completely idiotic about it, after the class, I took a long bath with magnesium salts, I did not drink any alcohol, and I took my rizatriptan before I went to sleep. I didn't expect these actions to work so well, I still experienced excessive tiredness and pain, but nowhere to the extent I have in the past. I could actually get out of bed and go for a walk later that day. I am hoping I can manage this field trip's physical pains similarly, but I'm still uncertain about how I will go emotionally.

I've been journaling and I'm sick

So, I saw the psychologist the other day and they suggested I do some journalling. This I have done, and can I say just over a few days I have noticed the difference in how I am dealing with some of the particular thoughts that were plaguing me. These thoughts I did not feel comfortable posting here, they are my own. They are raw and they are expressed much better when I handwrite rather than type. My blog entries are pretty raw and unedited; however, I tend to write them in a way that is open for anyone to read. My journal entries are not for anyone. 

My journalling is generally written in the style of a letter. If I think back, it always has been. I have not really written down my thoughts though ever since my privacy was breached by someone I was dating at the time. This would have been 13 or 14 years ago now. However, that is another story which I feel no need to further talk about. 

In other news I have a cold. This is the first time I've actually had a virus since I had covid back at Christmas of 2020. I have taken today off to rest, which involves sleeping, and sitting out in the sun in the backyard with my old cat and my turtle listening to music and not doing work. 

This sickness has come at an inconvenient time of course. I have planned a field trip (all approved too), leaving this coming Saturday. Today is Monday. If I rest well and drink plenty of fluids, I should be okay as long as it doesn't develop into anything else that is. In addition to my field trip, I wanted to get my draft CoC (confirmation of candidature) into my supervisors before I go away. Right now, I am really hating writing and what I have is way too short for what it needs to be.