Believe in yourself

What do you do when the proverbial rug keeps getting pulled out from under you, no matter how hard you try to stay standing?

My breakdown at the end of 2012 spurred me to a greater awareness and action for many other areas where I saw injustice.  That year I applied to attend the first TEDxSouthBankWomen. My application was accepted, and I was on a high. The event and evening was a catalyst for me, something I had desperately needed to get myself back on track.

If I thought fate had finished with me then I was very much mistaken. In January 2013 my husband of 9 years told me our marriage was over and he was moving back to NZ. By mid-January I was in counselling for both my PTSD (another story, maybe, one day) and my marriage break up, but my forward movement had started and wasn’t going to be stopped by something like that! I am living proof that mature age, no money and constant stress don’t have to stop your life.

I organized a flash mob for Eve Ensler’s V-Day event One Billion Rising and taught them the dance. On 14 February 2013 thirty of us danced 3 times in Queen Street Mall to raise awareness for the V-Day campaign against violence against women. Through my involvement with that I joined forces with a wonderful group putting on the Vagina Monologues for the same benefit. The organisation we were supporting was DV Connect, which supports women, children and animals caught up in domestic violence situations. We raised $5,000.

In June I participated in the Ipswich CASV Walk a Mile in her Shoes. I entered into fun runs for International Women’s Day, Mother’s Day Classic, Rotary Run for Autism, the Ipswich Hospital 2013 fundraiser and Zonta Says No, the latter which was also supporting DV Connect. I attended a memorial service at Logan CASV for Joan Ryther, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in Logan.

I participated in the United Nations Say No – Unite: Orange the World in 16 Days Activism Against Gender Violence, commencing on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 25 November, and ending on International Human Rights Day, 10 December.

I joined a flash mob doing Thriller for the 2013 Zombie Walk, raising funds for the Brain Foundation.  I had a personal reason to be involved in that – on 2 July 2013 I was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, yet another thing to add to my stress and turmoil.

I became a vocal and active social justice campaigner. I marched for the Reef, marched for Climate Change, and Marched in March for everything I believe is wrong with the state of our nation. I tweeted, I blogged and I Facebooked.  I volunteered at La Boite theatre and Eyeline Arts magazine and at Brisbane Festival 2013, and I joined the Brisbane Feminist Collective.

For the past 6 years since my stroke I did a bit more volunteering – a Red Kite Festival at Clontarf, a librarian and art gallery assistant - nothing at all like I used to do before the stroke, but I loved the library.

I have no idea why I am now believing that finishing this BA degree from Griffiths University will get me fully recovered. I know quite a lot about the history and future of aphasia, I have booklets from many different organisations, including some that do research, so perhaps I should be counting more on them than myself.

Perhaps the stroke was the proverbial rug, pulled out from under me no matter how hard I tried to stay standing. I will recover, soon…. Just right now I need to go have another avo nap. See you later.