While it hasn’t been as long as I thought since I last posted, it has certainly been a while.

Problems started around mid-month when I started getting exhausted with the half an hour of exercise every morning. Given it was gentle exercise, I became quite depressed and got a first class ticket on the ‘what’s wrong with me’ train.

After a few frustrating appointments, a few frustrating doctors and some blood tests, I’m back on the right track.

As it turns out, I’m skirting but still not stepping into diabetes territory – thank goodness. My vitamin D is low (which doesn’t surprise me, seeing as I skipped supplements for a while before the test to make sure I got a real reading). And, for the first time in my life, my iron is low, which is likely the cause of my exhaustion.

I’ve finally gotten started with the local program that will get me on my feet in all ways. There are classes about pain management (yay aching knees and ankles thanks to weight), stress management groups, a dietician and even some gym time for me. Not to mention a new psychologist who covered a heap of things in the first session. I also managed to find a good GP that doesn’t buy into BMI, understands that PCOS is a real condition and who puts an emphasis on balanced eating.

For so long I have struggled, tripped, gotten up again just to trip later down the line. Always I have wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t just keep going. As it turns out, my GP slapped me across the face with it:

“You can’t keep doing this alone.”

While I have never been truly alone, it occurs to me now (in a ‘duh’ kind of moment) that I haven’t set up a proper ‘team’ for myself in the past. Not only friends who know what I’m going through but the kind of professional sort I need. Partly, I must admit, because I’m not all that keen on taking care of myself and have always seen getting all that support as playing into the victim mentality. But now I see that it’s not wrong to need a lot of hands to hold.

Today I’m back to square one, but I don’t mind being here. I started with exercise, I’m starting up the supplements, I got a new hair cut to make me feel good and even a new notebook for tracking things (the GP said that the dietician will want a food diary, so I may as well start one).

Another start. It may not be the last. But then again, it just might be.

One of the things I decided to do when starting my new schedule was to make sure the start of my day was computer free. For years I would either get up, exercise and get straight on the computer or I would get up and go straight on the computer.

Partly, this is sad. Partly, it’s kind of understandable given that I work with a lot of people in the US and the earlier I’m on, the better.

So when I started a couple weeks ago, I gave myself time not only for exercise but also for some computer-free time after that. I initially started it as a part of mindful eating because there was never a breakfast that went by when I wasn’t distracted. I realised that I wasn’t giving my breakfast – no matter what it was – any sort of proper attention.

What I didn’t realise is how good I would feel after doing it for just a few days.

After a short time, I began to feel better in the mornings. My outlook was sunnier, I felt more equipped to handle the day… Even days I woke up knowing it was going to be a ‘sensitive’ day weren’t quite so bad because I got a quiet start.

And it wasn’t about a ‘slow’ start either because it was out of bed and onto the Wii Fit board or out for a walk. (Better than a cup of coffee, I reckon.) It was more about not getting out of bed, putting my body through exercise stress and then hopping on the computer straight after for mental stress.

I was getting to the point where just opening up my email to take care of a few things was sending me into a mild panic attack. My heart would race as soon as the inbox was opened.

Yet what started as something I changed for mindful eating practices grew into a mindful anxiety control practice. It’s not an option for me to quit what I do online, but by postponing it for just an hour and getting up earlier so I had more time to relax into the day, I eliminated 99% of the stress.

Yes, I still have bad days, but I feel much better about handling those bad days than I used to.

More than ever, I am seeing that a little bit goes a long way – and in a lot of different directions to boot.

I love TED Talks and found this one to be very useful for those of us who use weight for comfort/protection/etc. Especially when it comes to the ‘waiting to feel like it’ impulse.

A day or two before New Year’s Eve, I read my horroscope. Basically it said that it’s not the date that is important, it’s what you start on a date. The funny thing about that horroscope is that I read it a few days after deciding that I had no reason to wait for 2012 to start doing things.

Significant dates are lovely when they work for you, but the general consensus seems to be that new year resolutions are there to be broken. I like significant dates as much as the next person (hello Mondays!), but I also have no patience.

So, on Christmas when the Bloke traded me his phone (because I “will have far more use for it than me” he said), I perused apps to help me keep on track.

I found Noom, which is the one I’ve stuck with since trying out a couple others. It keeps track of weight, has a food diary function and does all sorts of things including GPS tracking for workouts. It’s not everything I want (what about water?), but it works. And I started on Christmas.

Also before 2012 started, I discovered that making my own Christmas cards was really good for my headspace. I hadn’t done anything crafty for a long time, and it felt so good! So now I’m rockin’ some craft time in my schedule*. I just finished up two small homemade Smashbooks for friends.

I have plans for a couple more – including one for me! (Go figure, making something nice for myself…)

*I mentioned a schedule didn’t I?

Well, after listening to the Bloke have a discussion with a pub owner on New Year’s Eve about the failings of many modern parents, it hit me that I’m glad I haven’t had children at this point in my life.

Yep. That’s right. Glad.

It finally hit me that I have not ever been ready to be a parent. I don’t stick to things, I can’t keep to a schedule, and I don’t take proper care of myself. A baby is not just something you can get bored with. It’s for life.

Now, I’m not here bashing myself. I’m accpeting who I have been up to this point so I can make changes to become the person I want to be.

So I’ve started a schedule. It’s currently flexible because I don’t know everything that works for me. For instance, I’ve already figured out that I need to move writing time to the afternoon because I’m just not ready for that kind of thing right after exercise. And yay, I’m exercising!

I suppose that this year isn’t about making or breaking resolutions so much as it is about proving to myself that I can put in the work necessary to be who I want to be.

Day one nearly done. A lifetime to go…

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
*Moved more than a kilometre in Australia (haha)
*Had the pets outnumber the humans
*Published a novel

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
*Probably not. I don’t really remember what they were in the first place.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
*I don’t know about ‘close’, but people I know gave birth. Plenty of bubs for the year. No one I know in person, though…

4. Did anyone close to you die?
*Not as far as I know.

5. What countries did you visit?
*Just Australia, this year.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
*Better self-control. There are plenty of things I would like to do, but they require sticking to a schedule – something I’m not the best at.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
*February 4th, when we moved into the place we’re renting now. It was absolutely stinking hot and humid. By the time we were in, we just put the mattress on the floor in the kitchen because that’s where the aircon is and fell asleep.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
*Publishing my novel – Echo Falls.

9. What was your biggest failure?
*Letting my weight gain so much. A large part of the initial gain was moving into a place without a working oven/stove, but I had plenty of time to correct that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
*YES. Ugh. The flu that didn’t leave me be for nearly two months and ended off with a particularly strong ear infection. Not fun.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
*Copies of my book. Haha. Other than that… I don’t think I actually bought anything noteworthy.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
*My husband’s. As always, he’s stood strong by me while I’ve dealt with things.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
*Turn on the news. Pick some names.

14. Where did most of your money go? 
*Honestly? Food and drink. Isn’t that where it usually goes?

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
*Publishing my novel. (I promise I’ll only mention it sixteen more times.) Getting our first dog… and getting our second dog when it became obvious Brin needed a companion.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
*I honestly don’t know. I don’t listen to a heap of music.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Calmer, which is the more important for me
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter.
c) richer or poorer? About the same, I think. A little less in debt from paying a year’s worth of student loan payments, so I guess that would make me richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
*Exercise (haha – but seriously…)

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
*Mucking about wasting time. Doing little things that end up taking so much time like playing Facebook games or pressing the snooze button on my alarm.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
*Having fun. Driving around a bit, making homemade pizza, movie marathon – all with the husband.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
*No, but I stayed in love, which is just as important these days.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
*I can’t really say. I didn’t stick to any particular one for very long when I did watch television.

24. What was the best book you read?
*The Hunger Games series.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
*A minor. Just kidding. No great discoveries.

26. What did you want and get?
*A lot of stationary/scrapbooking supplies.

27. What did you want and not get?
*A lottery win.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
*I don’t keep up with movies, so I couldn’t really say…

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
*I turned 25 this year and had a night at a pizza place with a mate who has a birthday close to mine – with all our friends, of course.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
*Not having to deal with the flu.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
*Confused.

32. What kept you sane?
*Deep breathing.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
*None.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
*Occupy Wall Street

35. Who did you miss?
*No one specifically.

36. Who was the best new person you met? 
*Missy! She was like insta-friend and it’s been great ever since.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
*That it’s okay to admit you need help.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
*If you’re wrong in all the right ways. – Raise Your Glass – Pink

Here’s to all the people who truly need Christmas cheer. To everyone who wants to feel happy but can’t. To everyone who smiles through the pain until they can be alone to cry. To the people who see the joy on others’ faces but can’t quite feel it in themselves. To the people with the invisible ailments that don’t show on the outside, but hurt so much on the inside.

During this holiday season, here is to all of you. Because the most precious gift often is knowing that you aren’t alone.

…when, if you don’t stop, your body will stop for you.

I can’t believe I let it happen to me again, but I did – and yesterday I suffered the consequences.

With the hormones, the demands from work (and a lot of demanding people), suddenly having to figure out how to do Australian income taxes, a stack of Christmas cards yet to finish and send out, financial woes, and just wanting nothing more than to sit down and write… Well, all that stress bubbled up and came out yesterday.

After walking out of the tax office (an appointment we had to put on our credit card), I sat down on the steps and just cried. Poor Bloke was great and helped me to calm down, but I was in full on panic attack mode just trying to breath and not think about anything other than being in that exact moment. Every time I started thinking about something else we had to do, I couldn’t breathe again. So I had to sit and not think about any of it.

Not exactly an easy task for a woman who runs her to-do list through her head almost constantly.

I managed to calm down and make it through the day, but getting the rest of my work done involved frequent breaks because I couldn’t sit for long doing it before I’d start to tear up and have trouble breathing again.

Today is a bit better, but I still have to layer my work with task, non-work something, task, non-work something… (This is one of my non-work somethings.)

I was in denial. I was in denial about being exhausted, about being strapped for cash, about having to declare a no-presents Christmas because we just can’t afford it, about the fact that not having a ‘proper’ Christmas broke my heart because it’s ‘my’ holiday, that I was freaking out over having to learn taxes because we can’t afford an accountant, about… a million and one different things.

I’m so tired of feeling like I have to justify my stress because someone might scorn me for having it better than they do.

So no more justifications, no more denying that I want to give my husband a gift on Christmas even if I have to put it on a credit card and no more feeling like I have to keep my mouth shut when they treat me like crap.

I’m done with all of it.

This week I have hormones on the brain and, apparently, coursing through my body.

I have PCOS, which basically means everything is harder. Feeling good, feeling happy, getting (and staying) fit, losing weight and makin’ babies. I went into the doctor yesterday not only to get to know a new female doctor I’ll be seeing but also to discuss some problems I’ve been having lately.

From headaches to cramps to annoyingly super sensitive nipples, I have been scoring better than a hormonal trifecta over the past two weeks. While these signs might be happy little warning flags to many women, for me, it’s just another reminder that my hormones are out of wack and I’m not doing enough to set them straight.

Thankfully the hormone gods have granted me some reprieve. While I’m usually a sweet-tooth kind of woman 100%, I have been totally digging the salt lately. While I have to be careful about getting too much of that as well, I’m just glad not to be desperate for chocolate or other sweet things.

So if I’m a little grumpy this week, blame my hormones. I do.

Unfortunately, the onset of so many things at the same time has my doctor directing me to go back on the pill. There are a lot of reasons why I don’t want to go back on the pill, but whether I do or not depends on how much longer I can tolerate what’s happening to me…