Fight the Black Dog #5

Fight the Black Dog #5: Lets all get talking!

In this weeks edition of “Fight the Black Dog” you will find the following:

1 – Lets all get talking!

2 – how to contact me and/or show your support

3 – a brief disclaimer

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1 – Lets all get talking!

I started this campaign to get people talking about depression, yet, I must admit that I have been rather remiss with the talking about it myself in recent weeks. Why is depression and mental illness so hard to talk about? I have a couple of theories about this.

The reason I haven’t posted any newsletters recently is because I have been having quite a good run. Quite obviously I have managed to achieve a balance between my lifestyle and happy pills that has resulted in me barely thinking about the condition of late. Some days, I have been feeling so good that I have forgotten to take the happy pills.

When you are feeling good, you hate to admit that you have ever had the bad days. Thinking of what you were, until recently, completely incapable off, can put you at the tip of a slippery slope. That small, teeny, negative thought you have been so hopeless niggles at the back of your mind. Much better to ignore it and pretend nothing was wrong… right???

Of course, on the flip side there are the extreme lows. The days when you are so bad that you do not have the energy to deal with things. The days you cannot talk to anybody about anything, let alone how you feel. The days when you are incapable of getting out of bed. The days when you just want to fall asleep and never wake up because you’re not going to accomplish anything anyway. I have had these too, but not for several months now.

And sometimes… you can experience complete apathy. Meh. It not that you can’t do anything; it’s just that you don’t see the point. Why would you even bother talking about it? I was wavering about this type of depression when I started ‘fight the black dog’ Fridays. I had absolutely no motivation. It was all so blaaaah…

The last appointment I had with my Dr (a few weeks back) he asked me why I was doing so well (apart from the fact that we have played around with the happy pills). I am still awaiting to see a psych – but I think that just being able to talk about some of what I have gone through by posting here, has helped me quite a bit.

‘Fight the black dog’ has provided me with motivation – talking about depression was hard, but it appears, from the feedback I have had so far, that knowing that you are not alone can help. Sometimes there are reasons for depression, and sometime there are not. Not having to justify why you are feeling the way you are also helps. Feeling that I didn’t deserve to indulge in an illness such as ‘depression’ because I didn’t have a terrible childhood, or hadn’t been verbally or physically abused made me feel ashamed that I was suffereing such an illness, and perhaps it wasn’t real and all I needed to do was ‘cheer-up’ like everyone kept telling me to do. I understand a helluva lot more about the illness now, and I want to talk about it to help other people understand more as well.

Please do continue to talk about this on your blogs, or emailing me. If you are having trouble talking because of the reasons I mentioned above, or even some other reasons, please feel free to email me anonymously on ginger_nut(at)bigpond(dot)com – if it helps, write it all in third person. I’ll try to get back to anyone that emails personally.

2 – how to contact me and/or show your support

if you would like to contact me, you can do so at ginger_nut(at)bigpond(dot)com – if you are sending me a story of your particular battle, please try to include whether or not you want me to include your details. I received some emails from anonymous email addresses, and that is fine as well. I’ll include those stories later one.

I was happy that people have posted about depression on their own blogs, as well as sharing the button I created. If you would like to show support with the button you’ll find details of how to create the link via the first weeks post.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has mentioned my campaign on their blogs, podcasts or web-zines – I have tried to visit everyone who left a comment, and if you look at my sidebar you will see my bloglines list has grown quite a bit. If I have missed you, please leave a comment or send an email.

3 – a brief disclaimer

I need to point out that I am in no way an expert or professional in the field of mental health – everything I share with you here derived from my own personal experience and treatment in conjunction with ‘self-education’ from wanting to know more about this condition. I have started this campaign to raise awareness of Depression and mental illness and to help support others who are affected by this (whether directly suffering or knowing others who suffer) If you are in need of help, please contact your doctor and speak to those in your family and circle of friends.

Cheers,

Ginger_nut aka Meg

Rockin’ socks..

Beware – there is a spoiler below for the most recent delivery of the rockin’ sock club – if you haven’t got yours yet, and you don’t want details yet... don’t scroll down too far!

Yarngasm!

I got my latest fix from blue moon today, and thought it was about time I reviewed what I had managed so far with this club…

#1 First and foremost – the Monsoon Inside-out sock, AKA the penis sock...

As you can see, I haven’t gotten far. This is because the cable has made the ankle too tight, and I can’t get it over my heel :( I think I may have to frog this sock and consider a different pattern (truth be told, I wasn’t incredibly keen on the ribbed sole anyway…)

#2 – the silkie walkin’ on the wild tide grasshoppers.

Well, these got put off while I wanted for the extra skein to be delivered so I could make the knee-highs.

#3 – the firebird solstice slip.

I made quite a bit of progress with these. And as they are toe-up and I have past the heel, these technically pass as a pair of socks. Very short anklet socks, but socks nonetheless. Hmmm... I really should finish these!

#4 – the newbies :)

This is my favourite out of the lot, so far. Purdy colours, and purdy lace :) Hopefully I’ll finish these before summer… And how cool are the temporary tattoos!

Rather ironically, the only pair of socks that rock that I have finished were made from an extra skein I ordered with my silkie. The little monkey foo foo socks…

So if I haven’t been knitting my rockin’ sock club socks … what have I been doing?

Making up some noodle knit kits for the markets! This is the prototype, but the plan is to have complete kits with needles, yarn and pattern for sale. Yeah, a tad bit gimmicky, but I am hoping to sucker in some beginners :)

And because it has been a while, a puppy pic… poor abandoned Pierre!

THIS is it!

Exactly one year ago today, I was so bored at work that I decided to start a knitting blog…

(A few short weeks later, and blogger was no longer accessible on the work network… hmmm, a tool for procrastinators, perhaps?)

Hoodathunk that single action would have had such an effect on my life… I made so many friends, some I have even managed to catch up with in the real world!

oh, and… Pierre has enjoyed the last year too – and yes, he is still a snob. He is currently interested in my newest pet skein (and a treat for myself for my blogiversary), some gorgeous buffalo gold from Mandie at Ewe give me the knits. Don’t know who is going to get socks from it, but I’m just going to enjoy carrying around and stroking it for a while J

Don’t forget to leave your comments to win prizes! (And I will not be parting with the buffalo, so don’t get any ideas too ethotic!)

PS – did you know stashes can hide passports?

"completely organic 100% pesticide free silk"

A quote from a fashion magazine - anyone else have a problem with this?

handspun yarn pr0n

Not a lot of knitting is happening round here – but I been spending heaps of time at the wheel…

Just a bit of what I have created thus far...and these are my lucky jitterbug socks that got me the gig at stitchery blue (yes, it is the LYS in Geelong) - colourway mardi gras... And this little fellow all dressed up for the mardi gras was some secret knitting I sent to Lara...Bazza the Ram (complete with tail still attached)

ugg...

me facebook...

ugg...

me find six degrees...

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nearly as adictive as ravelry...

let me know i can find you over there - we can start a knit-bloggers group!

i'm off to re-connect with people nearly forgotten over the last decade :)

Whoring for comments…

I know – rather selfish of me to not post for over TWO WEEKS, and then expect you all to leave comments for me, but it appears that my blogiversary is coming up this month and it has become tradition to thank your readers by doing a bit of a giveaway…

But first – I have been rather busy… I have moved (well – as much as I can fit in the back of the focus with the seats down) in with a buddy, and as part of the fantastic services Tel$tra provides – was without the interwebs for a few days. Living with my parents again was only ever supposed to be a temporary arrangement, so when my intended accommodation didn’t become available when expected and a room opened up at my old haunt, the decision was easy to make. The new house has a fully enclosed backyard that Pierre can run around in at his leisure, so he is enjoying the new digs too.

I have also been spinning like a fiend. I went to my first market on the weekend (lots of interest but unfortunately no sales) and have been trying to get a nice stock of handspun together. I be doing a market tour around the Bellarine Peninsula this summer, and once I get it all together will wack up a list of dates and venues in the sidebar.

I will also be teaching knitting through LYS, Stitchery Blue – starting with a 3 hour ‘Anatomy of a Sock’ workshop on the 8^th of September. More on that in a few days…

And now back to the whoring for comments…

Everyone who leaves a comment in August will go into a draw to receive some goodies… not entirely sure what those goodies are, but most likely it will be some stitchmarkers or handspun (for the knitters) and if there are non-knitters I’ll make up sumfin’ special… a pair of socks or what-have-ye

This goes for all comments on all posts – yes, comments on previous posts, comments on Black Dog Friday posts (which – BTW will be back this week).

One comment per person per day will count – and at the end of the month each comment will go into the draw and pick out a couple or more winners at random. So the more you visit over the next couple of weeks and comment the more chances you have to win. It also means that those of you who have dropped in the past 2 weeks, when I haven’t posted, and left a comment get a bit of a head start.

Anyhoo – start the ball rollin’ by letting me know what you would like to win from Chez Pierre – especially any non-knitters lurking out there.

Now I need to go catch up with my bloglines – 1000+ unread posts! YIKES!