Mary Beth, clearly thinks I don’t have enough blogging material 

So, this Honest Scrap thing. I’ve never seen it before so I’ll just follow the rules and hope I don’t get in any sort of trouble. Lucky thing then that I live ALL THE WAY DOWN UNDER and MB is scared of all those spider’s we have…snigger snigger.

Here are the rules for this award:

a) List 10 honest things about yourself – and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!

and

b) Pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.

Wow. I really am going to have to dig deep. I think I’m too honest sometimes!

And of course, I hope you don’t expect short and sweet from me. I don’t know how to do short and I certainly don’t do sweet.

1)

When I was in high school I always wanted to get hurt in some sort of tragic and or/dramatic way. I would sit and day dream about falling over and breaking my leg and needing to get dragged off in an ambulance for ages in class. This way, I would be remembered as the girl who broke her leg/cracked her head open/fell down the stairs/cut her hand off or got hit by a car and not the “slut” of the school. Which I wasn’t.

2)

I am a self harmer. I started cutting when I was day dreaming about getting hurt in school. Self harming is not always about suicide. For me, it was the last thing on my mind. Self harming for me happened when so much pain and hurt and anguish was happening on the inside. In my head. When I couldn’t sleep for days on end and my head started pounding and I felt like I was about to explode. The pain that I created by cutting my arms, somehow released the pain I had on the inside. And by concentrating on the pain of the cuts, the other stuff faded away. By looking after my wounds, I felt more alive.

People in my life feel safe because I have not cut since early 2002. Just before I met Tim. But the truth is that it’s always there. And if I don’t stay on top of getting help when I need it, it could always happen. It’s always there. It makes you feel guilty. It makes you feel ashamed. But somehow it makes you feel better and when things get tough I always think about doing it. It will never go away but I hope that I will never lose so much of my control over it that I need to “use” it again.

3)

My husband makes me a better person.

I will never forget the first time Tim was talking in his sleep. About four or five weeks after we met. And even though I didn’t do it, I told him in the morning that I had tried to talk all of his deepest darkest secrets out of him while he slept. And he said “That’s not very nice, they’re my secrets and *I* control when you get to go inside” Man, that hit me. I hadn’t done it. But what he said was so true. And I have never ever considered doing it again, because I know I am a good person.

EXCEPT for that one time, when he rolled over and asked me to “hand him the towel with the chicken in it”…I made him repeat what he’d asked. Which he did. And then he woke up and heard what he was asking me to give him. So he told me I was a fucking bitch and went back to sleep. I was 30 weeks pregnant and had to go and sit ON the toilet while I laughed because I kept peeing my pants. I was laughing SO hard!

HEY! The rules clearly stated that I had to dig deep.

4)

Hmmmmm….

Sometimes, when Tim makes me laugh too much…I snort. Yep. I’m a snorter. And the really sad thing is…Jaxon does it too. Of ALL the things he could have taken from my gene pool…he took the stupid snort!

5)

Though I was very good at school and might even have been called the teacher’s pet on numerous occasions, I was also a very disruptive student. On my list of things that I would hope my son never does…

• I got in to a fight with my “ex-best friend” and threw a table at her. Then, when we both got sent to the principles office I managed to suck her (teacher) in to thinking it was ALL ex-best friends fault and I was the innocent party.
• We had a teacher named Mrs Gargan. Kids called her Nag Rag but no one ever did it to her face. Until I came along. I got in a LOT of trouble for that one. Mrs Gargan was my best teacher, and I really liked her.
• In year 8 I talked my entire class (for Mrs Gargan’s Italian class) to wag. They did. But all we did was go and sit outside her class room window where she could see us but not get to us.
• I would sit in class on my chair backwards. With my legs spread. Or I would sit with my feet up on the table. And once again, Mrs Gargan would yell at me and tell me I was un-lady like and that I was impertinent. I got my thrills by making her spit it, so that she would spray the kids in the front row. She would yell, “Jai-meeee, STOP. BEING. IM. PER. TI. NENT!! (and that there peoples, is the first and last time you will ever see me use my real name on this blog)

6)

I believe in God. But not religion. I believe that we should act a certain way and that the Ten Commandments are simply common sense. Following them should keep you out of trouble. It’s common sense not to steal things. It’s common sense not to fool around with your friend’s wife or girl friend. I believe that if everyone could believe that there is a God and not that I have a God and you have a God but MY God is better than yours or MY way is the RIGHT way, then there would be fewer wars. I believe that NO GOD would want us to fight this way.

I also happen to think that science has it right too. So maybe science created the Universe and God created humans.

7)

I happen to believe in global warming. I think that if we don’t do something about how we treat the earth soon, then in 50 years there will be nothing left of us. I am sad for my grandchildren for the mess that we are creating for THEM to clean up.

Australia is running out of water fast. When the water run’s out, the tree’s and plants die. And when they die the air will suffer. And when THAT happens the ozone (which by the way is paper thin) will suffer and when THAT happens, everyone will suffer. The temperature of the Earth will get so bad that water will dry up everywhere…and the trees will go. And the oxygen will go. And of course, as this all happens we stupid humans will fight over the last remaining tanks of oil and water…and when Aliens come to visit…there’ll be nothing left. Except of course, our rubbish. And our material belongings, which we put money towards over helping save the planet.

I also wish that NASA would quit sending rockets in to space. They go through our ozone layer. Dick heads.

8 )

At the moment, I am seeing a psychiatrist. I went there for a very specific reason.

Since Terry died back in 1997, I’ve been unable to cope with stress. I’ve been unable to keep a job for longer than 3 months. I normally lose a job within three weeks of starting.

I start, it’s all good.

Then one day someone will say something and I’ll start stressing about it. It could be nothing. It could be that I put the jug back in the wrong spot and could I please make sure I don’t do it again. But then from that day on I feel like everyone is talking about me. And everyone is sitting there laughing at me when I leave.

Then of course, I start lying in bed for hours and hours on end unable to sleep because I can’t stop thinking about what they might be saying and what they really meant when they said could I please make sure I didn’t do it again. Did they really mean that I am a bad person and I am going to suffer a long and painful death in hell because I put that stupid jug back on the right side of the bench instead of the left side of the bench? And why the hell didn’t they tell me to put it back on the right side so that I didn’t have to get in trouble in the first place huh?

So I lose sleep and then one day, not long after the jug incident…I start not wanting to go in. But I get up and I force myself to go. But then something else might happen. And it could be even more stupid than the jug incident (if that’s at all possible) like “could you take this to so and so” said in the “wrong” tone.

The next day?? I just don’t go. I lay in bed crying  and I can’t get out of bed because I’ve failed once again at keeping a job. And all the other stuff around that fact that keeps me awake at night. Like letting my family down. Letting Tim down. And letting myself down.

I’ve been doing this shit for 11 years. And I am sick of it. I don’t want to be THAT KIND OF ROLE MODEL for my kids. Because before Terry died I LOVED working and I was a good hard worker with a real future in my industry. I was going to go far and I could cope with comments and stress and lack of sleep and dead lines. I was a proud person who walked with her head high and didn’t worry so much about the crap that goes on at work. I never ever called in sick, I never cried at work in the toilets.

So I am SICK AND TIRED of being that person that can’t keep a job. A few weeks ago I decided that it’s a problem that I can’t solve by myself. That I am so accustomed to failing and losing jobs that right now, I am SCARED to go back to work even if I want to or our family would be better off if I did. Because I am scared to fail again. And let people down again.

Last week I walked in to that ladies office and I knew exactly what to say to her. Teach me how to cope again. Teach me how to function again. Teach me how to deal with LIFE (ie, having to work and keep a job) again.

I’m on my way.

9)

I want to write a book one day. I have been through so much. A parental divorce, my brother being killed in a car accident, child hood abuse, tough school years, severe depression, post natal depression, suicide attempts…the list goes on. I just feel like it can’t all be for nothing. Stuff like that can’t happen to someone like me and not be for a reason. Someone that can open up and talk about it all with pure honesty. Someone that can openly admit to mistakes, and failures, and open up about the pain and suffering without breaking down. It must have happened so that one day I can help other people going through the same shit.

10)

I had to ask Tim to help me out here because at one time or another all of my secrets have been told to someone or other. And he thinks you should know that my second toe is bigger than my big toe. As in longer. He thinks this is unusual but I think it’s normal. So if you happen to have a second toe that is like,  3mm longer than your big toe…pipe up and let him know in the comments section!

OK. Finally. We’re at the end. I can pass this thing along. I hope the people I pass it on to enjoy doing this as much as I have. Thank you Mary Beth, for giving me material I can work with

Firstly, this award goes to Jackie over at “The other side of the fence” because she’s just started blogging and I wanted to challenge her

Then, to Angela at “Thatch” The Journey. Because she inspires me in ways that no one else in my life will ever understand. This link will send you to my most favoritue post of hers. It’s my favorite post, because this is the way I see life. Stop, and smell the roses…or take in the sunrise…as it were.

Then, Ashley at Lily’s Pad, because she’s gone through some huge life changes recently and I wonder how she’s going.

Then my bestest friend ever Tasha at Tasha’s Asylum, because she started blogging but it never took off and I want to see more of her life since we no longer live close enough to meet up!

Then to Jackie over at Can we Survive, because she has an endangered animal up on her blog and I like that. She cares, and I like that.

Sending a big call out to Nicole at Mile’s Files. Just letting you know we’re all thinking about you and Mile’s. I don’t comment often, but I do read!

And last but not least, well. Not least. And I don’t know her name but I’ve been watching over at Sex Diaries of a Mom, and patiently waiting. And I thought, maybe, just maybe…she needs this award to help her get back in to blogging. Because blogging has become so important to me and maybe it’s important to her too and she just needs something to write about to get back in to her sexy groove.