To Japan With Love

Friday night, watching TV when it is reported that a quake has hit Japan. Seeing the footage of the quake hitting the NHK building brings back bitter memories.
NZ's urban search and rescue teams are off this morning to Japan to help their brothers in arms- after all, the Japanese teams helped us in our time of need. It is hard not to ignore the connection between Japan and Christchurch- the Asashi TV station was camped out near the ruined Knox Church. We had the Japanese USAR team looking for our people.

It is painful to see the suffering in Japan, because here in Christchurch we know what that is like, and yet we don't truly know because in comparison we were relatively lucky. It breaks my heart to think about all the lost and displaced Japanese people, because they have long been very welcome visitors to our city. Many come here to have a Western wedding in the Botanical Gardens, or have their photo taken in front of the now ruined Christchurch Cathedral.

But like us they will receive all the help and support that they need, and they will rebuild. We can't forget them.

It Was SUPPOSED To Be A Post-Quake World

Monday afternoon. First academic day of the first term at University, so the campus is packed with students. Workers are having lunch inside, or buying lunch. The central city is buzzing with tourists.

And then it struck.

6.3, but it felt much much bigger than the 7.1 we had in September 2010. And it did more damage. It was shallower, there were more people around to affect than the September quake. I was in the bedroom taking a nap when it hit. It threw me across the bed and I couldn't get to the door to shelter as everything started flying around. Downstairs was much worse. My 40 litre fishtank had smashed on the ground, and between the broken glass and the water everywhere I couldn't reach it to try and rescue my goldfish. I couldn't reach the phone as it was near the remnants of the tank and was off the hook. I immediately got to my laptop and reached out to let everyone know that I was safe.

Believe it or not, we managed to find the fish, STILL ALIVE two hours later. My mum did CPR on one of the fish who seemed to breathe her last gasp, but she came back to life. They are both in a smaller tank now, but Ash who had CPR is not looking so good. But she's still alive. They both are. Both of my cats have been traumatized too, and a sweet but frightened Burmese cat hid in our garden. We tried to find his owners, but to no avail and hopefully he will have returned home.

My mum, who raced over as soon as she could, is stranded here. I am in the Central City, and there is a cordon around the four avenues, and a curfew in place. So she can't get out to go to her home, and nobody can get in. She's been doing baking to keep herself busy, which my partner appreciates since he doesn't ever get home baking from me! She went into delayed shock last night and I had to give her some St John's Wort.

Yesterday I was hopeful, and very grateful. Today the shock has hit, as well as the realization that nothing will be the same ever again. I've been needing to sleep so much, I can barely keep my eyes open. I think it's my body's way of dealing with the trauma.

71 people confirmed dead as I write this. These are OUR people, our family by extension. We're a tough lot but this is putting us all to the test. And in this time we need to be compassionate to one another as we're all in the same boat.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Things have not exactly been rosy in 2010. I look back at the catalog of catastrophes in my life with more than a little tinge of despair:
-a family friend nearly died and had to have both legs amputated at the knee
-a family friend DID die- but he had a long and happy life
-my university job was in jeopardy and I missed out on both a payrise and increased hours
-there was the 4 Sept quake, 10 days before my birthday
-I suffered from PTSD after the quake
-I then suffered a bout of depression
-I was persecuted in my new job for having said depression
-I had to leave my new job
-my sister-in-law found out she has secondary cancers
-we had more aftershocks after Christmas
-my cat went missing for four days

It doesn't exactly make for joyous reading.
There have been times when I have been ready to throw in the towel and feel sorry for myself, but then I am reminded of a story about my great-Grandmother during WWII. In a freak accident, she fell down the stairs and fell through a plate glass window. She was a mess, as you can imagine, and needed stitches all over her face. Once she was patched up, despite the pain it would have caused with the citric acid, she sat down and ate an orange. Why? Despite the pain, she didn't want to waste her fruit ration, and she had been dying to have an orange for some time.
If she can get through that kind of trauma, my troubles are nothing.

It's tempting to feel sorry for yourself. But then, by stewing on the woe you close yourself off from new possibilities. You're not open to serendipity. So as bad as I feel, I will soldier on, day by day, until the bad times pass.

Struck Again

2:00am, Sunday 26th December. Boxing Day here in NZ. We were woken with a jolt by a 4.4 aftershock, after being without large aftershocks for some time. Then at around 10:00am we were hit with a 4.9 that caused damage again. The central city, which had been struggling to rebuild and to get people back to visit, was cordoned off. People lost power and water again. It was a significant blow to morale, I believe. I know I was (no pun intended) badly shaken. Oh, this is normal, the Geologists and Seismologists say. Well, normal in your world perhaps, but not in ours.

How do we go on from here? Does this mean we will constantly have to be on our guard again? Will there be an even bigger quake?

My PTSD symptoms had started to dampen down, and my depression was beginning to lessen, but after yesterday's horrific shocks I am in a state of despair. My cat Hazel has not come home either, adding to my distress.

The Biggest Challenge Part II

(continued from last post)
Needless to say, I felt pretty dejected about the whole situation. I didn't appreciate feeling like I was being interrogated, and I knew that my rights had been violated then and there. But worse was to come...

The next day, I was called by my supervisor to say that our other boss wanted to see me. This time I insisted on a support person being present, which actually irritated my supervisor to no end. Thankfully one of my colleagues who knew of my situation was there for me. I walked into the boardroom and was told unceremoniously that due to a downturn in clients and referrals, I had three choices- redundancy, an extra week's unpaid leave at Christmas, or reducing my hours. I had a week to think about it. When I spoke to the boss on the Friday to give him my decision, I told him in no uncertain terms that I thought that dropping this bombshell before Christmas wasn't right, and also that being asked about my mental health history on the Monday was wrong. To which he replied; "if we'd known about your history, we wouldn't have hired you." NICE.

So now I am in the situation where I work four days a week with a three day weekend. Nice for some, but I am gutted. I feel angry about what has happened- it's patently obvious that my bosses have used my mental illness as a way to save money. Needless to say, my depression has actually worsened. BUT I am prepared to make the best of a bad situation. There are silver linings there, I just don't know what they are right now.

The Biggest Challenge Part I

It's been a turbulent year, but there have been lots of wonderful things that have happened as well. Unfortunately at the moment there's not a lot of wonderful going on! However, a very recent and very painful episode showed me just how strong I am...and just how much I have learned over the years.

I started a new job in September only 6 weeks after graduating from University a semester early. I was to be working part time, Monday to Friday, which suited me after a very heavy full-time load of academic work as well as holding down a job at the university. However, my new employers were expecting an upsurge in work and thus there was the promise of full-time work in the future. I was SO happy. I was earning a decent wage, I LOVED my job (I actually still do, it's a wonderful job). Then the quake hit. Traumatised, we had no idea on the Sunday night post-quake whether or not we were required to go into work the next day or not. On the TV they were saying a state of emergency had been declared and to stay home, but nobody had told us otherwise. I got in touch with a friend at work, who got in touch with our immediate supervisor, who said to go in on Monday morning as usual. I was expecting that perhaps we would have some kind of debriefing regarding what had happened. When I turned up on Monday morning, and my boss was there....beaming and smiling! We've just had a major catastrophe...and you're smiling??? In fact, she acted like nothing had happened.

As it turned out, most of our clients cancelled that day due to their own issues and there was a sense of frustration in the air due to the fact that we weren't at home dealing with our houses and our issues. As the months wore on and the aftershocks continued, so too did the frustration. My boss apparently didn't feel the aftershocks- in fact, she found them to be a complete novelty and she would ask about them and be smiling and...HAPPY. It was sick. I don't think she had any concept of how the rest of us might be feeling.

As you know, I was diagnosed with PTSD, and when I told my boss about it, she was fine and wanted to know how she could help. But I have discovered that PTSD is fine in a workplace...depression, apparently, is a bridge too far.

A few weeks after my PTSD diagnosis, I noticed the symptoms of depression coming back in a big way. I have battled with depression for 10 years, but I am at the point where I can deal with it like you would any other illness, with the minimum of fuss and I know how to look after myself to get well again. Things came to a head one Thursday, and I told my supervisor what was going on. She seemed supportive, allowed me the day off on the Friday to see my doctor and see if I needed more time off. My supervisor suggested two days, to which my doctor was incredulous- two days is certainly not enough time to even begin to get well. My doctor wrote a Medical Certificate for a week off work.

When I came back to work the week after, I figured everything would be fine. It wasn't. I was asked to come to a meeting with very little notice with my boss and my supervisor. I didn't have time to have a support person available to me, so it was basically a case of two on one. It started off innocent enough, they wanted to know how I was. I told them that I was doing my best to get better. But then they wanted to know about my history of depression. Since this incident I have learned that they are not entitled to KNOW this or even to ask it. But I told them, and then they tore strips off me about small infractions- one was losing a checklist of skills learned so they could show my recruitment agent that they were looking after me, the other was that I pulled out of writing the meeting minutes because I had sore wrists from typing all morning. They questioned whether I could deal with the stress of the job (but like I said to them, this is not ABOUT stress, it's the fact that I had PTSD and depression crept in behind it). They said that I had agreed to go to full time when I was ready, but what would happen now? I kept trying to tell them- this is BECAUSE of the PTSD, and while I am not well now, I will be. The whole meeting was an exercise in futility, and after 15 minutes I had to go back to my desk and act like nothing was wrong.

In the wake of tragedy

I want to say that the aftershocks have died down but I'm afraid that I'll have to eat my words. What I will say is that they appear less frequent nowadays, unlike the first month afterward, where your nerves were precarious and you were just waiting for the next one.

There has been another tragedy that has emphasized how fortunate we were to not suffer major casualties- the Pike River mining disaster. 29 men lost their lives in an explosion last week, and the explosions are still continuing, hampering recovery efforts. I'm not entirely sure how much more stress and tragedy the South Island can take, but we are a resilient people, and when the rest of NZ had our backs during the aftermath of the quake, we join with the rest of NZ to do what we can for the people of Greymouth and the families of the miners.

It definitely makes you appreciate things- your family, your health, your friends. It's been hard for me to appreciate those things because of the depressive episode I have been suffering from recently due to the PTSD. At first I felt ashamed that I had to take time off of work because of it, but then I realised that I hadn't actually really paused at all this year. I hadn't taken any real time out from a very stressful year of many changes. I graduated early halfway through the year and within six weeks I was into a new job, and then the quake hit. I guess this was my body and mind saying; "you need to stop and rest." I do feel better, though, thanks to the help of my doctor and the aforementioned rest.

I have decided to use the quake as a measure of time. There is the pre-quake life I lived, which was okay but was only just starting to become full of potential, and there is my post-quake life, which I believe to be full of possibilities. A seismic shift in attitude, if you will.