Coping: Do you fake it until you make it?

In the eyes of my mother, being unable to cope was character condemnation of the worst kind. Throughout my 1950's and ‘60s childhood I became aware of people in our family's circle who just didn’t measure up.

Included in this blacklist were my father’s sister June and our immediate neighbour, Rita. Even as a child I perceived my aunt had a pretty awful life with an emotionally distant and errant husband who gave her little money, much less affection, beyond begetting by her six children. She was later diagnosed with a Bipolar disorder and one of my female cousins had the unenviable task of having to take steps to commit her own mother on more than one occasion.

The other woman was our neighbour, whose Portuguese descent manifested in her looks, vivacity and creativity. She was married to an austere Scotsman called Bill. They had one daughter, Margaret, a year or so younger than myself, who clearly did not take after her mother in looks. She was described in those days as being ‘a little slow’ although she attended the local school. We teased her mercilessly as children, something I feel ashamed of now. Somewhere along the line, Rita had had a nervous breakdown and in my mother’s eyes this was moral weakness. This triggered a diatribe of condemnation and judgement, along with a lack of compassion to which myself and my siblings had to bear involuntarily testimony.

Some years later I had a breakdown while my marriage was disintegrating. All my instincts, all the untruths and half-truths told me something was terribly wrong but my husband countered expressions of my concern by telling me I was hysterical and imagining things. This weary dialogue has been played out millions of times between men and their suspicious spouses. The link between being female and being hysterical are irrevocably conjoined by physiology and etymology in male psyches. In the midst of all my crying while trying to grasp a foothold in my newly disjointed world my mother told me in no uncertain terms to pull myself together. How dare I have a breakdown!  No one in our family had ever had mental illness, she told me. Ironically skeletons in the family closet manifest sooner or later and some years later I learnt of an uncle on my mother's side who had languished in a psychiatric hospital for decades, almost ignored by his immediate family who opted to have him kept there rather than ‘let out’.

All my adult life I have ‘coped’ and appeared to others as someone who can deal successfully with the vicissitudes of life. Just how you measure this success I never know. Is the benchmark of coping how others perceive you or the grim warts and all reality?

I have coped with being left with three young children to raise on my own, including a newborn. I had the support of my parents who bought me a car but I had little money and even fewer skills to equip me for the workforce. My coping mechanisms included, while being sleep deprived for months and being dangerously close to being bulimic, lining up at Social Welfare smartly dressed in order to deal with the whole degrading process of having to ask for money. Having an immaculate house and a stack of folded white, fluffy nappies demonstrated my coping skills when the *Plunket nurse called. This wasn’t just about housewifely pride though; the mechanics of household routine and the responsibility for three young children gave some structure to my life and there was some satisfaction to be found folding all those nappies into a nice neat stack.

I remember being so desperately tired, going through grief for both my marriage and my father, who died shortly after my baby's birth. I was dealing with my estranged husband, still seeking his approbation, which of course I never got. When I went to bed at night I truly hoped I wouldn’t wake up. Life was just too much to bear yet I managed somehow to put meals on the table, take the children to their after school activities and even go out and get a job when my youngest child was a couple of months old. To me a job meant I could shed the loaded tag of “Solo Mum”, (and subsequently any random male’s assumption that I was sexually available), and reinvent myself according to my job title. I kept up appearances. I had no truck with falling apart and languishing on a chaise lounge.

Overall I am proud of how I coped as a sole parent. I felt the fear, yet did it anyway; I faked it until I made it; I kept up appearances. Sadly, my mother never quite made it in this sense although she achieved a lot in her life. Losing her own mother at eighteen and later, her first child to meningitis at the age of two and a half years had a profound impact on the demeanour with which she would live the rest of her life. Neither of these situations were ones where you could fake it until you made it. As children, we just knew that conversation about our dead sister was taboo. I believe my mother ‘coped’ by channeling her grief and anger into tyrannical bouts of aggressive and irrational behaviour, (often focused on an individual), which continue to affect us all.

I am still single and wonder if my ‘keeping up appearances’ is the reason I have never met another partner I would truly love to spend the rest of my life with. As far as I know I never evoked from any man a fervent desire to protect and look after me. Did I ever allow any potential partner see my vulnerability? Probably not for I was hell bent on keeping up appearances of normality. Yet the paradox of this persona, the woman who could single-handedly do it all, was that for years Linda Ronstadt’s version of the torch song classic “Someone to Watch Over Me…” was a favourite. It encapsulated all the yearning for love, acceptance and intimacy I craved even while being supposedly ‘strong’. While I still crave those things, if I hear that song now and others of its ilk and era, I just think “How pathetic. Get a life. Pull yourself together, grow some.” Isn’t that what my mother was saying all those years ago?

Still I know my behaviour is unlikely to change. Few outside my own circle would guess that I am unemployed and between benefit payday and the following week there is little, if any, money in my purse. Would anyone ever guess the extent of my finances and that I have nothing to fall back on? I manage to dress well, have a good haircut and pay attention to my grooming. I present well and hopefully I am fooling the world. Likewise in job interviews, where my confidence and presentation have been favourably remarked on, though these are yet to get me a job. I have this internal struggle and dialogue with the self on a daily basis in order to rise above the endless drip, drip, drip of anxiety about my future. Anxiety and lack of motivation settles within me like a stagnant pool. It is a wearying process and it underpins your life while slowly eroding your vitality and confidence.

What still works for me in a very small but significant way, is when I am dressed, my hair and make-up done and I take a look at myself in the mirror. I CAN fool the world I tell myself, as long as I fool myself first, I can face anything. Go get ‘em girl! For to take some action, no matter how small, goes some way to prevent spilling over the edge into depression. Consequently I am still faking it, until I make it. I am busy keeping up appearances and hopefully eventual paid employment will do the rest.

*Child Health nurse

Grandmas

Once upon a time there were two little girls called Rosa and Cinnamon. One day, while their grandma was taking them to her house for a sleep over, she overheard the older one, Rosa, telling her littler sister in a very matter-of-fact way:

“We’re going to Grandma’s because she lives all alone and she hasn’t anyone to talk to except a cat”.

This alarmed Grandma who was unable to reply as she was busy driving her little silver car in heavy traffic.  She thought of her grand daughter’s statement which while true, made her sound like she was a sad, lonely old lady.

Grandma actually had a very full life with good friends, activities like Tango dancing, (well until her right knee needed an operation), and the odd silver-haired handsome prince who would stay over, so very rarely did she feel lonely.  It was true that she did live with a strange black and white cat known as Paco with whom she would hold whole conversations that no one else really understood.  She would say something and Paco would reply.  This sometimes went on for quite a while and she didn’t think it anything strange.  She knew people commented on this about her but this didn't worry her.

Grandma felt that overall grandmothers got bad press, or rather were frequently misrepresented. Whenever there was a grandmother in a storybook she was shown as a plump old lady with her white hair in a bun and an apron donned over her bosom and pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven or sitting in a big old fashioned chair knitting.  Spectacles were always perched on the end of her nose. The picture book Grandma was kindly and never swore whereas Grandma sometimes said four letter words when no one was around, though never in front of Rosa and Cinnamon.  It was like believing that little girls were made of “sugar and spice and all things nice” and boys were made of “frogs and snails and puppy dog’s tails”. It simply wasn’t true picture of how children were just as the picture books weren’t true about the grandmas she knew either.

For example her princess-pretty grand-daughter Rosa with her flaxen plaits most definitely was sugar, whereas Cinnamon, (the younger one), with her mussed-up golden brown hair along with a look of mischief in her dark eyes was all spice with “puppy dogs tails” - thrown in for good measure.

Grandma liked be glamorous yet had a leather biker jacket she liked to wear now and then along with dangly earings - mostly because it made her feel younger.  She had a job of sorts.  Her hair colour varied but it was never grey.  She exercised daily to keep her figure trim and used all sorts of magic potions on her face to keep the grandma-like wrinkles at bay.  She enjoyed listening to the radio especially current affairs on BBC.  When she could afford it she went to the opera or ballet in her best frock but now and then she broke out and danced to Bruce Springstein or raved to Led Zeppelin like there was no tomorrow.  Rosa and Cinnamon liked it when Grandma danced and they would join in and all rave together.

Grandma worked hard at not conforming to a stereotype that was, she believed, a relic of a former age.  Just a few years ago before she actually became a Grandma she went off to South America to live in the Andes.  Most people thought it was an exciting adventure for her, which it was but what really prompted her to go was a mid-life crisis.  With no partner, no grandchildren and her youth receding behind her, she was secretly disgruntled about being at this stage of her life with nothing to look forward to.

Or so she thought until she returned from the Land of the Incas and grand children came along and then she was disappointed at the world at large for holding out on her for so long. How wonderful grandchildren really were, especially her own Rosa and Cinnamon!

And she knew that out there other grandmas who were like her.  Grandmas who had done all sorts of things in their lifetimes like working hard in low paid jobs to support their families, writing novels, lobbying for political change, running corporations, canoeing up tributaries of the Amazon along with the grandmas who baked cookies, knitted and held long meaningful conversations with their cats.

Grandmas, it seems, come in all shapes and sizes with a variety of hair colours, yet what they all have in common is that they love their grand children very, very much.


* The name of the cat has been changed for reasons of confidentiality

Diary Management

Last year I missed out on a position I'd applied for with a well known corporate. Yes, I was punching below my belt but I liked the idea of a front-line position with harbour views and having been in this exact role before, the hours allowed for work/work balance I sought. A week or so later I got a call from this organisation saying I had missed on on the job but would I like feedback? Sure, I agreed, although with hindsight I might have been better not to put myself up for this as I had just stepped out of the Coroners' Court after a grueling first day of the inquest into my younger brother's death three years before. However Ms Personnel Manager was not to know this and I was bluntly told by her that I had missed out because I didn't have the skills of “Diary Management” .

Later that same week I was talking with a friend who incidentally manages much of her high profile partner's life with grace and aplomb. She told me she had just been turned down for a position for the very same reason.

What was this “Diary Management”, this holy of holies we asked each other? How had we reached this point with abundant life and work experience behind us, yet had never been initiated?

For some days, I fumed over probable replies to Ms Smug-Under-Thirty-HR Manager.

Dear Ms____

It came as a surprise to me that I was turned down for this position because I lacked the required skills in DM.
(Honey,you sure kept this card up your sleeve for this was never mentioned at the interview).

This has prompted me to develop a new program for Microsoft Office, requiring the user to have a microchip inserted into their brain. It converts all the parenting and life experience outlined below into transferable skills required for Diary Management. Incidentally you can download an app to your smart phone.

• Working full time in a deadline driven job as a sole parent to three young children
• When above mentioned children were older, working in same deadline driven environment incorporating children's after-school activities into my after work hours
• Managing to get away Boxing Day for annual family holiday after working long hours getting two publications to print, the lawns mowed, car and roof rack packed with camping gear, all three children accounted for and the dog not locked in the house.
• Being a language a teacher, both here and overseas, who was expected to chew through the curriculum by end of the term with measurable learning outcomes for fee paying students.

P.S. However in my mind I still hear you ask "What has all this got to do with Diary Management? " Very little perhaps but it has a lot to do with AGEISM and ATTITUDE to mature people applying for jobs. Shame on you AMP.

Yours etc...

Dare to Bare in Bondi

As we get older, part of our denial that we are aging is to disguise parts of our body indicative of the process. Whether we cover the dewlaps under our arms or take to wearing turtlenecks in the manner of actor Diane Keaton, most of us are driven by pride and fear of condemnation by others, spectres riding in gruesome tandem in our heads. We hope that the world will regard us as growing old gracefully and we somehow meet some pre-determined ideal of what is acceptable ageing. Who determines this ideal though? The culture of the society we subscribe to or ourselves?
 
We have all come across women whose dress sense has been captured in a time warp. A bit sad we might think, “mutton dressed as lamb “ we might comment. Channeling your inner Stevie Knicks or sporting leg warmers with fluorescent gym gear are looks that are not only dated, they are not particularly flattering to women of any age. However if the wearers are comfortable, so what? While I am particularly coy about showing my legs and stomach, (testimony to my having borne three whopping sons), such physical evidence of fertility is not seen in Western Society as a badge of honour. It should be however, for we are living longer than ever before. The unlikelihood we would have even survived into what we now consider middle age, (i.e. our fifties and sixties), is reason enough to honour and be proud of our beautiful non-gym, bodies bearing the battle scars life inevitably adorns us with be they stretch marks, sagging boobs or varicose veins.
 
Just take a look at fertility figures from ancient cultures. No stick figures here, instead these figures with their heavy breasts and rounded bellies embody an ideal of womanhood that was essentially reliant on protection by males, adequate food, surviving childbirth, accidents and disease. Abundance was an ideal, celebrated whether it was in the hunt, the harvest or the form of someone who had the rank and privilege of eating well. Nowadays instead of celebrating that we are living longer than previous generations, we have become obsessed with youthful appearance and in the process have become highly self-critical.

Just prior to Christmas Day, I decided be bold and bare at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, the quintessential Aussie beach scene complete with surfers, backpackers, tourists of all ages wearing overall very little. Humidity lay languidly over Sydney with a suffocating intensity. Venturing out in the steamy fog, I embarked on a nostalgic exploration of Tamarama Beach and its environs south of Bondi, where my husband and I had lived as newly weds some forty years ago.
 
No I didn’t go as far as breaching the surf in a bikini. I ventured out in a sleeveless top with my knotted legs in knee length shorts. Vanity put up a strong case but for the first time in many years practicality triumphed. While this may seem a small matter, it was a first for me to whom personal presentation has always been of high importance. With only a couple of days to Christmas the shopping malls seethed with people too preoccupied with their hangovers, indecisiveness around last minute shopping or the imminent visit of their relations to be critical of a middle-aged woman dressed appropriately for the weather.

So I dared to bare in Bondi and continued to do so throughout the remainder of my holiday. Just this week I wore a dress to work without the complementary pantyhose I usually don. Capri pants have been eschewed for short dresses and my lightly tanned legs sport my varicose veins for the world to see – if the world cares to look, which I doubt. I have been liberated and in the process I remind myself I am alive and well at an age I would never have reached two or three generations ago, especially given our family carries a deadly genetic disease. It is now or never to determine our own ideal and if that is not the ideal of others, so what?