Yesterday I had a particularly anxious day. I hadn’t slept well, which is a trigger for me. I’d had wine the night before and although this sometimes triggers anxiety too, often it doesn’t. In the last couple of months I’ve been burgled, had family with serious mental health issues, my precious cat was killed and we had more quakes.

The experts would say don’t self-medicate but sometimes that’s what we do.

These quakes do not belong to Christchurch but they still affect many of us here because we have muscle memory. Down here, unfortunately, we know that just because you survived a big one, doesn’t mean a bigger one isn’t around the corner. 

That’s not scaremongering, that is simply what happened here and nobody expected it.

Anyway, with yesterday’s A+ anxiety, I walked into the dairy and my brain went “what if I pulled a can of lemonade out of the fridge and threw it at the owner?’.

That’s not normal right? Especially because he’s a really lovely man and doesn’t deserve a lemonade to the noggin.
But I recognise this as anxiety and went home for an early (but still sleepless night).

So, what can I do for you if you are suffering anxiety in uncertain times? Not heaps but I can share a bit. Some stuff from experience and some from reporting for years post-quake.

Maybe I’ll do a listicle. They’re so hot right now.
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1. Anxiety is pure physiology. It’s not just you. They say one in four people have it at some time in their lives. There is power in numbers. I don’t know how to make that better but you are unlikely suffer anxiety during a tremor. That’s a plus. That’s just Naughty Science. Adrenaline is good science. It will keep you going through the aftershocks but once that wears of you have to use other methods.
2. You actually know what works for you. Listen to your inner doctor. If that’s not working, try social media connection. Other people will be there for you, even if you just want to look and not be involved.
3. If looking at news is driving you mad. Stop. You don’t need to know what is happening at every minute. However, if you are in the news industry, this is most certainly not easy. I hope you have an understanding boss who is a good leader and can keep the morale strong. Treats and genuine emails are a good tip. If you are a boss and you don’t know who is feeling what, find a colleague who does have that skill (and it IS a skill, and put them in charge of morale and keeping watch, yes, that’s right. Employ a mole).
4. You are allowed to laugh and have a wild giggle with friends even though other people are suffering. You must. You can help no one by taking on the world’s worries.
5. Anxiety is more likely to come between those shaky shits. In between times is when you need to make decisions. You could do practical things like synchronising your breath with this, Googling anxiety tips from professionals, download apps like Headspace or Smiling Mind. Listen to podcasts such as Anxiety Slayer or just search for words like ‘guided sleep’ or ‘meditation’. Put some light music or white noise on so you don’t hear the earth grinding. Picture Brian Tamaki writhing nude in a big gay orgy.
6. Put any energy you have into helping other people. Make ‘em a lasagne? Knead some scones for yourself, all that pushing is therapeutic.
7. Again, I turn to science that tells me patting a companion animal can bring down your blood pressure.  Don’t have a pet? Think seriously about getting one. Even planning it might make you feel nice. Perhaps it is our jobs to make other animals on this earth have the best life possible. Maybe you need a pet more than it needs you?
8. Actually be prepared. If you do a supermarket trip and stash a packet of Smash, some lollies and six cans of tuna plus some water into a secret box, you might feel as if you are in the best possible position. There are plenty of sites to tell you what goes in an emergency kit.

 
9. Recognise change is difficult. This is some actual sciencey stuff. We do not enjoy change when it is predictable and we dislike it more when it  is unpredictable, like when the next shake might occur. An environmental professor of psychology I spoke to after our quakes told me humans are reactive animals. 

We are unconsciously, but constantly assessing whether we have the resources to survive. These are resources that are cognitive, such as planning and decision-making abilities but also environmental resources like money, familiar surroundings or a car/bike.

Even space and territory can be considered a resource.

If you have what you need, you are more relaxed so you can more easily meet the demands of your life or job.

You might be living or working somewhere more cramped, which gives rise to feelings like lack or privacy or territoriality.

Or you might be working from home which brings isolation. If you consider your peers a resource, then their loss makes an impact.

Even the simple act of maintaining self-control takes mental effort, so if part of your mental capacity is reduced you might not be as efficient and may snap more easily.

If you can no longer rely on autopilot, then you need to use extra brain power to concentrate and that’s when stress tries to take control. Try to reduce your cognitive load by creating familiarity.

10. I am a real whitey so you may recognise this as a bit of kōrero out of my korotore. But there may be a deeper cultural belonging that you need to connect with. This must be true for Pasifika, Asian, Muslim or whatever culture that might soothe your soul a little more. Look into that. You don’t need to be a staunch warrior all day every day. Asking for help is the strong thing to do. Maybe there’s a saying? “A waka don’t row alone”. I don’t know.

11. Again, I am reaching here because I don’t have children. But if you do, you will feel extra worried because you are taking care of more lives than your own. You must care for yourself but also look for resources online about stress and children.Make them a hut under the kitchen table, have it there for the next few weeks and make it luxurious. Then they might play in it, or it might feel less alien when you chuck them under it. Talk to them. You will know how much they can take in depending on their age. This is a good book.

12. Get existential on it. What will be, will be.

13. Drugs. Go to your doctor.
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14. Helplines.  The 0800 779 997 number will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week until further notice.I am happy to add or edit anything here. It’s just a pile of stuff I threw together. Be kind to yourself. 

15. You will not know where you have parked your car or put your keys for about three years. Sorry about that. But you could take photos on your phone and that might help. That's part of the Naughty Science. 

I barely left my bed let alone my house. I have lied to people who wanted to visit, only occasionally pulled the curtains, showered or functioned as a working adult.
I've hidden it reasonably well, as one does. I even hid it from myself as best I could but I'd reached a point where tears were rolling down my face and I didn't even notice until I'd be thinking, "what is this wet stuff all over my cheeks?"
Going to the supermarket was an exercise in timing and control because bursting into tears near the V8 vegetable juice is slightly embarrassing.
Recently I reached a point where I simply had to admit to people I was very unwell. I've written a lot about depression in the past and I'm not in the mood to cover it again, so instead I will tell you about my interactions with the World of Medicine.
There is a rich vein of mental health issues running though my family: depression, bipolar, addiction.
You haven't lived until you've heard a family member babble on about wishing to open a shop selling love and demanding to see the Lizard Queen because she wants to hand back her sovereignty.
Some Kiwi families have holiday baches. I am convinced ours should buy a timeshare unit in a psychiatric hospital.
Anyway, I finally visited my doctor. He is so good with me. When I'm at my worst, we go this usual routine.
He sees me in the waiting room and says "hello Beck, how are you?" and I say "good thanks" – both of us knowing that within the next two minutes I will be in a flood of tears in his office and he will be passing the box of tissues and delivering his time-honoured pep talk.
It runs along these lines: Life can be tough at the best of times and it's not fair but some people just have to work at life on a daily basis. After a crisis you are destined to take a bigger knock than most. This makes you vulnerable but that is part of your talent. Then he veers off to discussing Celtic poets and their various disorders. It is heartening and it helps. Just telling a medical professional how bad I'd become was an enormous relief. Of course, there is a lot of work I have to do myself if I want to be Old Beck again, and I do. She wasn't such a bad stick and I will find her again.
I know I am feeling better because I have had my aunt staying and she has needed a bit of nursing from me. She earned a jolly great gash in her leg after slipping on some seaside rocks and it has infected. Pieces of her leg are dying.
Now, I am a queasy sort. I dislike considering the fact that under our skin there are pulsing, mushy, squishy, runny things. Disgusting! But I have found myself fascinated with my aunt's revolting wound.
We've been to the Moorhouse Medical Centre every day. We're there for about two hours each visit and it's starting to feel like home. We know a few of the nurses by name and a bit about their lives.
But mostly I know about open wounds. I've learned how to identify a pseudomonas infection by smell and that you can clear that stink with a mixture  of malt vinegar and water. I know what necrotic flesh looks like and it's not attractive. You can dig out dead flesh with a scalpel and tweezers and it is fascinating in a stomach churning way. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to encounter people who are kind when you are in a position of vulnerability.
So while I recover my brain and my aunt recovers her leg, we are both sickos in our own way but we are getting better. The kindness of medical professionals and the kindness of friends and strangers has brought me to tears. The good sort of tears. I recognise that the wet stuff on my cheeks might not feel great sometimes but it is the start of healing. 

I wasn't physically sick so I carried on with my day. I had to go to the doctor that afternoon to refill a prescription but the ill feeling had subsided and who goes to the doctor because of a one-off mouth flood?
On Tuesday morning the same thing happened This time I rushed to the bathroom but wasn't actually sick, just a runny mouth. I felt off-colour all day but assumed it would pass.

On Wednesday, my mouth was like the Flockton Basin. The tide was going in and out. I started to feel worried so I did the only logical thing and diagnosed myself using the internet.

I typed: "conditions that cause saliva overproduction" and Google's first answer was rabies.

So there it was. Proof. I lay in bed feeling sick with all the rabies I had somehow contracted.

Sure there were other suggested illnesses such as gastroesophageal reflux disease, pregnancy, excessive starch intake, pancreatitis, liver disease, serotonin syndrome and mouth ulcers. But I knew within myself that I had rabies.

So for the second time that week, I went to the doctor. I've been going to him for years and I trust him.

He ushered me into his room and said, "Now, what brings you here again?"

I informed him my symptoms and explained there was no need to use his years of medical training because I had the answer. It was a clear case of rabies.

He pressed on my sore tummy for a bit and I said, "It's the rabies isn't it?"

Now, the walls of my doctor's office seem quite thick but I am sure you could have heard him from the waiting room: "You. Do. Not. Have. Rabies."

He sounded so sure of himself, that doctor, with all his years of training and experience.

"Not only are there no cases of rabies in New Zealand," he said. "I'm not even going to test you for it."

I was so disappointed. Usually when I let the internet diagnose me it gives me AIDS or cancer so it was quite exciting to have something as rare as rabies. I've been needing a bit of motivation lately and having seen the movieCujo, I know rabies gives you extra energy and makes you goal focussed.

I went through the checklist of symptoms of rabies. They include hydrophobia (a fear of water) which was relevant because I couldn't be bothered showering that day.

I didn't have a fever or headache but I did have a bit of the old nausea, agitation and confusion (although that is a lifelong condition and worsening with age). I certainly had excessive salivation and partial paralysis, although that happens every morning when my alarm goes off.

Unfortunately, my doctor insists I have some gastro reflux thing.

If it was Dr Google that claimed I had all the rabies, then surely it could assist in proving me right.

There must be some clinic in America that will accept a blood sample and give me a certificate and maybe even a T-shirt.  I will wear it to my next doctor's appointment and give him a chomp.

On a personal note, I am sorry if this causes distress to people who have used the service and fear their files were left in the open. However, I believe this kind of privacy breach must be exposed so it doesn’t happen again.

UPDATE: As I understand it, the exterior doors of the building were unlocked but the particular office in which these boxes were was a locked room. When I went to the building on Tuesday July 28 (weeks after RA was closed), that office door was unlocked as receivers were due to pick the files up. These files should still have been secured somewhere off-site. The offices are on a busy corner of Christchurch in a city where abandoned buildings are home to rough sleepers, especially since the quakes. Anyone could have knocked the door in. I believe the process of RA's closure and handover was done in haste which is why these kinds of things can occur. 

Anyone needing assistance can ring the Lifeline Helpline on 0800 543 354

Grandma is 96. She still lives on her own and her brain is sharp as a tack. It's the body that is starting to give way.

I mentioned in last week's column that she had been quite unwell so at the weekend my cousin Chris and I took a roadie to Timaru where we formed a crack nursing team. Or at least some semblance of one.

The very elderly are naughty liars. The sooner you learn this about the ancient ones in your life, the quicker you will see through their wily ways. They say they're fine and that everything is OK, right up until the point they have to press their medical alert pendants and call an ambulance.

This is how Grandma found herself with a short hospital stay and a dicky ticker that was racing at 130 beats per minute when she hadn't even been out on a jog.

I was so grateful Chris was with me because Grandma had shrunk to the size of a Barbie doll but with fractionally less pert boobs. It was a bit of a shock.

She was skin and bones and dressing gown.

The trick with nursing Grandma is to err on the side of bullying. Chris asked her what jobs needed doing and made a detailed list because he is a list kind of guy. These included things that Grandma struggles to do, like go through the fridge and freezer and biff out the pies that have languished somewhere at the back for more than a year.

He also made an inventory of light bulbs, changed a few and bought replacements ready for the next blowout. The list went on, sweeping leaves, turning the mattress, that kind of thing.

While Chris took care of the practical jobs that were bugging our wrinkly friend, I helped with the showering and dressing, even with the protestations that were coming from her.

We also made sure Grandma was eating. She got up and made her own porridge with a surge of morning strength but by lunchtime she was flagging.

Chris said: "OK, if you could choose absolutely anything to eat, what would it be?"

Typically, Grandma said she didn't mind at all. A piece of toast would be fine.

So I put it another way.

"Say, just for argument's sake, that someone who wouldn't answer questions truthfully, was going to have a pillow held over their face shortly, what meal would they choose for their last?"

She got the picture. "I supposed if I was about to be smothered, I'd like a scrambled egg with a bit of parsley."

From there on, little by little, she appeared to improve.

Of course, Grandma is more than lucky to have a large family in Timaru to bring meals and help when she needs it but by the end of the weekend I was almost exploding with rage.

It's nice they come to visit but it seemed to me to be very strange that if a little old woman is sitting in her chair, wrapped up in a blanket when the heat pump is set to tropical while still complaining of feeling cold to her very bones, and occasionally holding their head in her hands, that a long visit with her is just plain cruel.

A very big lesson in "reading the room" can go a long way.

Still, Grandma is too polite to say anything that could even vaguely be construed as mean so she sits and exhausts herself then washes the cups of tea and dishes that the visitors leave.

I dropped occasional hints about "a good visit being a quick visit" but no-one seemed to twig that they were the visitor in question.

Nonetheless, if Grandma's only fault is that she is too nice, that's not a bad way to be. At least her light bulbs are all working and she's still got the energy to brush her cat.

Christchurch woman Antoinette van Berkel has a dying wish, that her seven cats be rehomed before melanoma kills her.

She was diagnosed with the terminal cancer six months ago. Now finding homes for her seven much-loved rescue cats are top priority.

“I didn’t know how much there was to do when you were dying,” she says.

“All I want to do is get my cats into homes before I die. I want to know they are safe and secure.”

Antoinette, 57, has long worked in cat rescue. She keeps a photo album of all the cats she’s saved over her lifetime. Looking back at the dozens of faces gives her some sense of achievement now she wants to find places for her last seven cats.

She shares her home with Max, Ella, Willow, Whisper, GinGin, Bubba and Zac.

Her one-bedroom flat is kept in immaculate French chic style, not a furballs in sight.

“I wake up in the morning and it’s like a cattery, they’ve obviously been playing. I have no idea what they get up to but every morning I clean their bowls and put away toys. Cats are very clean animals. It’s people who are not clean. I’ve never liked going anywhere and sitting down only to stand up with a bumful of fur so I vacuum every day.

“This is just my top, top priority. I can die in peace if I knew they are all happy and healthy and with people who could love them. Putting them down is not an option. I know there must be people out there who take on rescue cats because I’ve done it.

“Rescue cats have special needs and issues that once you understand them, you will reap rewards, they give heaps back.”

THE CATS

If she had her choice, four of the cats would go in pairs as they love being together. So Zac and Whisper would stay together. So would Willow and GinGin.

Ella and GinGin both featured in the Christchurch book, Quake Cats.

“Max is a black and white fluffy. He is fantastic with me, a real companion cat, he’ll follow you about and you can brush him, he plays with water and is a lap cat. He would prefer to be a solo cat in a house.

“Ella is a fluffy tortoiseshell, playful and demanding with a strong personality. She’d prefer to be on her own.

“Whisper is grey and white, she is quite timid but really likes hanging out with Zac and is happy to be with other cats.

Bubba is a black cat, a loveable rogue. He used to hiss and spit but now he’s a real teddy bear. He loves to be picked up but I can’t do that too often because he’s a big boy.

 

If you can help, or for more information, contact Antionette on ph 965 3578
Her ad on Pets on the Net.

antoinettevanberkel@gmail.com