Mental & Emotional Health

Last week I had the great opportunity to talk to Terra, of Eating Disorder Talk and I felt like we instantly bonded. After a late evening of LOLing together (it’s a new word, get used to it), I realized that she’d be a perfect person to be my first featured interview of Mental & Emotional Health fame! (Because I’m sure it’ll be my interview that makes Terra famous. *nods like she really believes herself*

I came up with some questions, some random, some not so random that I posed to Terra and off we went! (My own notes mid-conversation are in italics!)

**If you had 24-hours to do with absolutely as you please, resources (financial/babysitting/etc) not being an object, what would you do?
I would do as any mom and take a long bubble bath … after having a few rounds of spontaenous daytime sex … maybe with a 20-year-old? Oh how this made me laugh! I’d shop at a leisurely pace, do some yoga on the beach two blocks from my house, cook and eat an insanely spicy meal (want to invite me over then?), drink to excess (but not too much so), go out to the movies (maybe even alone!), clean my house from top to bottom, and organize my filing system and photo albums. Then maybe I’ll look for a 30-year-old. hehehe

Already Terra had me laughing, and so I had to continue!

**What is your all-time favorite song? And don’t give me any of that “I-can’t-pick-just-one” bull, pick one!
ALL TIME FAVOURITE: (damned Canadians spelling their words with “u”’s!) At Last - Etta James (though I also adore covers done by Christina Aguilera & Cyndi Lauper. Gloomy Sunday (originally done by Seress in 1933 - geeze, this song has an interesting background, Terra) covered by Sarah McLachlan. (I am going to have to find a copy of this song and listen to it. I’m totally intrigued by the background!)

**Tell me a little more about yourself; what you do for a living, what do you like to do in your spare time, boxers or briefs, that sort of stuff!
I am a stay-at-home mom who is struggling to write for three websites (Eating Disorder Talk, From Manic To Mommy & Single Parenting on a Low Income ), maintain a neat & clean home, raise my 13-month-old (virtually alone), work from home as an admin-assistant/bookkeeper, keep my eating disorder in check, shower regularly (who has the time?) and maintain a healthy sex life (this is normally the inspiration for showering). LOL When I have spare time, or if I’m avoiding responsibilities as I do when I’m MAXED out on overwhelmtion (I love that word!) , I write, crochet, organize, make lists, read, sing to female artists (likely, badly), and clean. Sometimes I even bathe when there’s no reason to, “just cuz I can.” Oh, and I prefer old-old school, plaid, cotton boxers. None of that boxer brief crap for me - only two men look good in those: Mark Wahlberg & Ashton Kutcher. I absolutely agree with that. Also, I’m a natural red-head and my eyes change colour with moods (as do my daughter’s my mom’s & all three of my sisters’ - I call them witchy eyes). Neat!

**Now onto “afflictions” (I really doing like calling them illnesses, so bear with the word for a bit) what do you currently live with?
I currently have mild cases of cyclothymia, attention deficit disorder, & obsessive-compulsive disorder. They are heightened by stress but often managed via behaviour during stressed moments. This is where, if I had been interview Terra in person, I would have just stared at her … completely confused. Run that by me one more time? On some level, they take care of each other in that my ADD causes me to lose focus on 12 tasks simultaneously and my OCD leads me to order & clean things (and count, but anyways) and the cyclothymia leads me to cycle between exhaustion (which makes sense for my lifestyle) and hypomania … meaning:

When I get stressed, I go through a hypomanic phase and clean a little bit of everything!

I will get distracted from that main cleaning task; say I’ll be doing dishes, but decide mid-way to throw the towel into the laundry, I’ll then sort the laundry to be washed after Zoe goes to bed. I’ll move the sorted laundry in baskets to the living room so it’s close by when the time is right, but in the living room I see something on the floor so I’ll sweep. I’ll pick up the laundry baskets, set them on the furniture until the floor is swept and notice something on the sheets (on the bed that serves as my living room furniture) so I’ll change the sheets ultimately causing me to resort the laundry. (I’m out of breath reading this and thinking about doing all those things in a span on ten minutes. I also have a very funny picture of you running around like a loon doing all this stuff!)

Point: I got some of the dishes washed, laundry sorted and maybe even done, floors cleaned up - and later I’ll go back to mop it, probably finishing the dishes and sweeping again.

All of this feeds the OCD which relaxes me, therefore making the ADD symptoms virtually nil. Most of the time.

**What have you lived with (but overcome?) in the past? Have they all been doctor diagnosed afflictions?
I was chronically depressed from the age of 11. This was exacerbated by the use of opiates. When I quit opiates, I got more depressed, feebly attempted suicide a few times (though my first attempt was prior to age 11). At 16, I was diagnosed as borderline schizophrenic, and at 19, major depression. I was first diagnosed as anorexic at age 12. At 23/24, I went through a psychotic break (also owing to drug use and severe fasting). I was diagnosed as full-spectrum personality disorder - meaning I kinda want to fit into a whole bunch of categories and the doctors couldn’t just PICK ONE. That was eventually downgraded to my current diagnosis.

If you’d like to learn more about Terra, come back tomorrow for the rest of our interview!

mental & emotional health, personal interviews, Eating Disorder Talk, Terra Atrill, dream day, favorite song, Etta James, Christina Aguilera, Cyndi Lauper, Sarah McLachlan, From Manic to Mommy, Hub Pages, mothering a toddler, writing, crocheting, organizing, list making, reading, singing, cleaning, Mark Wahlberg, Ashton Kutcher, cyclothymia, bi-polar disorder, attention deficit disorder, ADD, ADHD, adult ADD, obessesive-compulsive disorder, OCD, chronic depression, opiate use, suicide, attempted suicide, borderline schizophrenia, major depression, anorexia, anoretic, personality disorder