Mental Health - The Barefoot Blogger

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022

It’s the most ‘everything’ time of the year – and the rise of the extroverted introvert

This year I finally pinpointed my most accurate label by diagnosing myself an ‘Extraverted Introvert’. You all have a friend like me; the one who talks the most and the loudest at each party but probably had a panic attack on her way over because, well, people. And so many of them. The friend who keeps entering herself in talent and quiz shows for the thrill of it, but spends the night before crying on the floor in her underwear, asking her husband why he lets her do shit like this. Oh I know why, because I entered during my Extrovert mode, but my Introvert self has to show up in the morning. God damn my Jekyll and Hyde-ness. Side note: tune into the first new episode of Millionaire Hotseat for the new year if you wanna see me bomb out on a question about Korean Street Food. You can’t miss me, I’m in a bright green top. Unfortunately, it did not bring me quite enough luck that day.

You’d likely meet me and be certain that I’m an extrovert, but you know how you can discover a closeted introvert? By how they recharge. I love the occasional get together, as long as it’s with high vibe people, but I can never ever do back-to-back functions and my recharge place is definitely the fortress of solitude. You might spoil yourself with a champagne brekkie with the girls, but I spoil myself with a night out at the movies on my own with the kombucha and dark chocolate that I snuck in under my jacket.

Every time I start a new job and there’s an upcoming work function, my signature move is to search my brain for a fake event I can claim to be at, or a fake illness I can diagnose myself with, but it has to be something I haven’t used in a while (how do you spell shingles?) I’m so loud and chatty at work that my new colleagues always presume I’ll be the last one standing at the Christmas Party…

I remember over a decade ago, going to Italy on a two-week Contiki tour with a great bunch of people. One of the girls said “I reckon you’ll be so much fun on a night out”, cut to us in a nightclub a few nights later, I was the first to smoke bomb from the dance floor and make my way back to the hotel. But hey, I got to appreciate all of those beautiful sunflowers through Tuscany the next morning, while they all slept on the bus with the curtains pulled closed.

And yet, this year’s work Christmas Party I was on the karaoke floor all night, even though my ENT specialist gave me strict instructions of vocal rest to heal these nodules. Perhaps I was in Extrovert Mode, or perhaps it’s because my work girls are just so damn loveable. Come to think of it, I was ovulating, it is after all the most social time of the cycle, it’s when your genetics are screaming out for you to get out there and find a mate so you can procreate. Hey, I was with a bunch of straight girls, but it didn’t stop me from pulling out some of my best dance moves.

All I know is that I have short bursts of energy followed by the most primal need to shut down and regroup. I used to work in a Call Centre with the most beautiful friend who was an excellent people watcher and had a knack of pin pointing everyone’s idiosyncrasies. She described me as the Terminator. I’d make noise and movements for a while then sudden silence, where she knew I had hit ‘power down’ mode. Within an hour, I’d power back up and start belting out some Gaga. It’s all a matter of balance you see.

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who returned to her role at a major TV Network after having her first baby. I’m somewhat terrified of having a baby myself, not for the birth itself but for losing my identify as ‘Steph’ and becoming ‘Mum’, so I find myself interviewing new Mums, particularly notoriously independent women to see how they navigated such a stark contrast to their routine. My dear friend, who gave birth to possibly the most gorgeous child I’ve ever met, told me that she misses only one thing: her solitude. She sees her friends all the time, most now have children of their own, so she doesn’t feel like she’s missing out on any social aspect of life, but she told me that having solid time completely alone, is near impossible. That word SOLITUDE really hit me in the chest. It hi-lighted for me how important that is to me. Her and I spent most of our teens locked in our rooms reading Anne Rice, and most of our twenties locked in our rooms watching Buffy or The Vampire Diaries, so I get.

Being around lots of people for long periods of time can be not only draining for me and many others, it can be really overwhelming. These feelings can be really exacerbated at this particularly social time of year.

If you’ve watched a lot of lame Hallmark Christmas Movies like I have (now boycotting anything with Candice Cameron Bure – her and her brother have really perfected that middle class, white American, anti-gay image) you may have this idea in your head of how Christmas should be. Calm ambience with a beautiful soundtrack of gentle Christmas music, beautiful deep red gowns and coats, soft snowfall, roasting turkey, people looking lovingly into each other’s eyes before telling their partner of a week that they’ve quit their awesome job in the city to move to the country to be with them. When in reality, someone just cut you off on the way to Westfield and gave you the finger, you realise you don’t have half the money required to buy gifts this year, you’re working right up until Christmas Eve and there’s no freaking way you can hand out gifts to everyone or bake enough cookies in time, you spend Christmas Eve wiping away boob sweat because you insisted on a traditional Turkey dinner but you don’t have AC and you celebrate this holiday in the middle of Australian fucking Summer, then Christmas Day swatting away flies from the food, scratching mozzie bites on your arms and hearing Aunty Shazza scream at the top of her lungs because she’s had one too many and someone left the back door open.

I was recently listening to one of my fave podcasts ‘We Can Do Hard Things’ with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach, and they talked about just this, the pressure to make Christmas ‘The most wonderful time of the year’ when in actuality, it’s ‘The most EVERYTHING time of the year’. It’s the most anxious, expensive, overwhelming, loving, scary, joyous, magical, emotional time of year. I heard the other day that statistically, the most common date of breakup is 12th December. I actually broke up with a long-term boyfriend on that date many years ago! Perhaps it’s a time when we question if we’re ending the year where we really want to be, and maybe if you break up before Christmas, you can start the new year fresh. Or maybe emotions just run WILD in December.

I love a good classic Christmas Movie but when I watch Four Christmases or Daddy’s Home 2, that both centre around visiting all of your divorced parents and their new partners, fighting with your siblings or trying to share custody of your kids with your ex, I just feel so much better about myself. I would imagine that more families feel represented in the newer films and therefore feel less pressure to create a perfect Christmas.

If someone feels the need to take a breather from the family dynamic over the holidays, maybe it’s not a bad thing, maybe they were drowning and saying that they need a time out is their way of waving the white flag. Do all the traditional shit you want this year, but feel free to bin it if you’re just not feeling it. There’s nothing in life that brings me more pure joy than Christmas. I love Carols and play them from August! I love driving around looking at Christmas Lights, and this year I’m super excited to go back to midnight mass for the first time in 8 years (right around the time I met that heathen husband of mine – coincidence?) But I’m really not feeling the traditions this year. I feel beyond drained. After a year of bronchitis, glandular fever, nodules, the worst gastro of my life and two bouts of COVID, I want nothing more than simplicity. We all had two years of doing nothing and going nowhere and I know you’ve all had an overwhelming social calendar this year. My wallet, my liver and my mental health all need nothing more than a little solitude. It’s my Christmas Gift to myself and guess what? Fits like a glove!

Speaking of podcasts, ya’ll know there’s no one greater on this earth than my Queen, Oprah. On a recent episode of Oprah’s Super Soul, she said that when you pray for patience, God doesn’t magically beam down a big dose of patience in a white light, he sends you challenging situations to help you learn patience. Queen O went onto say that sometimes when she prays she says “God, I don’t wanna learn nothin’ today”. Well that’s my feels for 2023. In the last year I worked three jobs and guess what? A few weeks ago I became debt free for the first time in a decade! Super fucking proud of myself. I feel like the last twelve years for me, and in particular the last two have been spent learning so many lessons that have helped me develop into to the person I always wanted to become. I have spent so much effort laying the ground work for a brighter future, but I have no plans on working this hard in 2023 and no plans on learning a God Damn thing! I’m not making a list of goals, and I’m not going to kill myself grinding away. I picture 2023 being one long Great Gatsby style party with beautiful glittery dresses and flowing champagne. But of course, I’ll probably duck in and out for solitude because well you know, people. Eek.

Merry Christmas to you dear reader. Thank you for being a part of my community for another year. May your 2023 be filled with joy, adventure, abundance, and if you’re anything like me, just a little solitude x

August 4, 2021

Taking home the gold in mental health

If you’re in Sydney at the moment, chances are you’re glued to your couch watching the Olympics because let’s face it, you’re in lockdown and there’s fuck all else to do. But also, the Olympics are God Damn awesome!

After setting the benchmark for the rest of the world on how to handle a pandemic, the tables have turned for Sydney; we’re into our sixth week of lockdown with numbers continuing to climb, people of all ages being infected with the virus, not enough vaccines to go around, small business failing and yet to see a cent from the Government, and simply no clear end in sight. Cheering home our victorious Olympians has provided a small spark of hope in an otherwise eerie world.

Let’s start with Emma McKeon taking home enough medals to have ranked herself as an individual Country on the medal tally. Scoring her 11^th Olympic Medal of her career, she’s broken Ian Thorpe and Liesel Jones’ record of nine each (ahh Thorpie, you’ll always be the King of my pool…that came out a lot dirtier than I intended, but how good is it having that champ back on our screens?!)

We loved watching Kaylee McKeown slay that pool then drop the F-Bomb in a poolside interview (Aussie Royalty). Logan from Logan taking home the first ever Gold in BMX Freestyle after building ramps in his backyard and subsequently pissing off his neighbours (might be in for a few less noise complaints now). And I’m pretty sure the number one image in your mind of these games is Ariarne Titmus’ coach; throwing around his mask like a stripper’s G-String and dry humping a barricade in celebration of his protégé’s epic victory. This man is my absolute spirit animal and Boxall, mate if you’re reading this, would you consider hiring yourself out to non-sporting types such as myself? I just think I’d be a lot more successful in life if you were walking behind me and pumping me up as I went about my daily affairs. COME ON BRUNO!!!!!

Can I get an Amen for the 62 year old Andrew Hoy, taking home a Silver and a Bronze in what was his 8^th Olympics, becoming our oldest ever Olympian? Sixty – bloody – two!!! You’ll never catch my 38yr old ass complaining about a burpee ever again. And a dude from Hurstville competing on the world stage in the Table Tennis event. I spent the first twenty-something years of my life in Hurstville! I could have passed our very own Forrest Gump in the fresh produce aisle at Coles, we could have squeezed the very same avocado! You don’t know.

My big waterworks moment came from watching Peter Bol’s family partying like it’s 1999 from back home in Perth, watching on as their man continues his pursuit of Olympic glory. His family fled war-torn Sudan when he was only 4, eventually settling in Australia, without speaking a word of English, in the hopes of creating a new, safer life for their brood. Now families all over Australia scream his name from their living rooms, edging him closer to that finish line. Today, I’m a very proud Aussie indeed. Can I get an Oi Oi Oi?!

Like anything in life; with the sweets, comes the sours. The amount of pressure on these young athletes, from themselves, their coaches and their Countries at large, is perhaps too much for anyone’s shoulders (even those giant swimmer and gymnast shoulders). The high-highs and the low-lows of such a highly competitive field can very often take a large toll on one’s mental health. I can barely watch my screen knowing that someone has trained hours on end, nearly every day for the last four years (or many more) only to stumble on a hurdle or fall off the uneven bars. I can’t bring myself to look at their face as all of their hopes dash before their very eyes. To spend years perfecting your craft and having, in some cases only a few seconds to prove your worth is just a ridiculous amount of pressure. I know my mental state wouldn’t handle it.

This year, we watched two of the absolute best athletes of our time; Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles put up their hands and admit, it’s too much. I can’t cope, and I choose my mental health.

Let’s be clear, in every single situation, we should always choose our health; physical, mental or emotional. Time and time again.

Yesterday at work I was having a chat with one of my favourite colleagues (just so freaking excited to see another human being in the flesh!) We were discussing this very topic until he mentioned that he thought Biles was a cop out because she took someone else’s place in the squad and didn’t go through with it. Argghhh a dagger through my heart! I was crushed that he had taken this view, especially given that the last few weeks, he and I had spoken at great lengths about our extreme concern of everyone’s mental health during the pandemic. We had both been studying the increase on suicide rates over the last few years and fear that the extreme isolation during lockdown could tip anyone over the edge who was already struggling to keep it together.

Here’s what kills me, if Simone Biles pulled a hamstring or broke a leg, everyone would be standing and applauding her brave exit from the floor and just ‘understand’ that she could not physically continue. No one would question it. It would just be a given that she was ‘unfit to continue’. Then why, when it comes to mental health, do the Keyboard Warriors awaken from under their pile of Uber Eats bags to condemn the perceived weakness of someone who is simply exercising her right of self-preservation? This clearly demonstrates that the stigma of mental health is still alive and well.

I can only imagine it’s because it is invisible and therefore un-measurable by others.

Having spent my entire life with a neuro-muscular disorder (that’s a whole other story for another time) I can guarantee you that most people will always doubt what they can’t see. I look fit, I have defined muscles and workout a lot, so when I can’t move because my legs freeze up, people think that I’m ‘faking it’. When I can’t open my eyes because my eyelids have frozen, people think I’m goofing around. When I can’t respond to a question because my tongue has gone stiff because I haven’t spoken in a while, people think I’m being rude (that one hurts the most – I freaking love to talk more than anything in the world!) Even just recently I’ve experienced grown men thinking it’s funny to make fun of the way I walk upstairs, thinking I’m doing my best impersonation of Frankenstein. I used to get really worked up or I used to pretend I was tying my shoelace or looking for something in my bag, these were in the days before I was diagnosed and just didn’t know what to tell people. Now I calmly say, “No, I was born with a neuro-muscular disorder, this is how I walk”. They never know what to say after that, and they never apologise, they mostly look confused and I can see their brains trying to figure out if I’m joking or not. If I had my leg in a cast, or was in a wheelchair, they wouldn’t look confused. I then continue my slow and difficult climb up the stairs at my own pace, reciting the words over and over in my head “I’m doing the very best I can, there’s no need to rush”.

I can’t express to you the relief I felt when my condition was given a name (Myotonia Congenita, in case you want to look it up). It was so freeing. I still get upset (that’s actually a huge understatement). Every single day of my life is hard, physically and emotionally. Simple tasks are often quite impossible for me. But I no longer carry the burden of hiding my disability or apologising for it in order to make someone else comfortable. I can simply be me. In all my perfectly imperfect glory.

That mindset and diagnosis really would have come in handy during Primary School when a substitute teacher didn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t run after standing still for so long. She thought I was a bad child telling lies. She subsequently grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me along the cement in front of all of my peers. My legs were covered in cuts, scrapes and blood. But they healed. The damage that particular situation did to my mental health, never healed. I never told anyone that story until I was in my twenties. I guess it took me that long to realise that it wasn’t my fault.

When you doubt someone’s story, especially their struggles, you’re not only preventing them from healing, you’re adding shame to their already heavy load.

As a person with a seemingly hidden disability and my own share of mental health issues, I am so proud of Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles. They are so brave and so smart in the choices they have made. They’ve essentially taken one for the team. Their actions could set in motion a whole new movement of kindness and compassion. Which could create a world where no one will ever be afraid to admit they need a time out. This could very well save lives.

Osaka and Biles don’t owe the general public anything. They don’t owe us an explanation for their pain, the same way my colleagues don’t need to know when I have period pain or when I can’t get out of bed because depression has sapped the strength from every muscle in my body. I use to text my bosses a really long-winded explanation for when I couldn’t make it into work, and when it was depression, I’d always say I had a stomach bug. Now, I just say “I’m unwell and can’t make it in today”. If you’re unfit to work, you’re unfit to work, no apologies or long-winded explanations required. I guarantee you, the world will keep spinning and no one will remember that day you had off, in five years’ time.

I think sport is a wonderful recreation to be involved in, and full credit to anyone living out their dream. That’s truly magical. But sport is not everything. It ‘s merely one facet of an athlete, in their already rich tapestry of who they are as a person. I hope that when they retire, they realise that there is a lot that they can offer the world, not just their sporting skills.

I was recently in hospital for a routine procedure in which my body encountered a slight complication. In my heady state of anaesthesia and feeling like hell, I remember calling out to the nurse who had spent the most time with me. She stroked my hand and stayed with me until I felt well and I just remember thinking, “Well shit…footy players run into work and have 80,000 people cheering them on. These Doctors and Nurses work so hard keeping us well and alive and no one applauds them when they walk into work.” It’s a topsy-turvy world.

Once I got home, I sent those Doctors and Nurses a box of choccies and a card telling them that the people of Sydney are so blessed to be looked after by people like them. Not all heroes wear capes, but heaps of them wear scrubs.

Here’s to the trailblazers. The brave and the vulnerable, the kind and the compassionate. The broken and the healers.

And to you, reading my words right now. If you’re struggling today, I’m so sorry you’re in pain. I hope that tomorrow is a better day for you. One full of hope.

This really is such a beautiful world.

(image courtesy of https://twitter.com/phlpublichealth)

If you or anyone you know needs immediate support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via lifeline.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.