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Fleur Blüm

~ writer, performer, musician

Fleur Blüm

Tag Archives: work

How do I say this…

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Blogging, Cycling, hospital, injury, life, trauma, work, Writing

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about this for a while. How much to say, what I want the world to know – my friends and family have already heard about it. 

hospital ducks.png

On January 27 of this year I was hit by a car while riding my bike. The driver failed to stop at at give way sign at a T-intersection. I will probably be fine in time, but at the moment I feel shitty and I’ve only been out of hospital for a day.

As far as physical injuries go, I have a broken leg. It could have been a lot worse but I’ve had two sets of surgery on it. I was admitted to a rehab hospital to help with recovery, but I really wanted to get home so I could start getting back to a semblance of normality.

I’m off work for the next while, the doctors gave me three months, but I hope it won’t take that long. I’ve been able to keep in touch with work mainly to make sure they can find stuff that I was working on. I’ll have to sort out a proper return to work plan with the doctors and physios etc. depending on how things progress. 

I haven’t been able to do much writing since the incident. It feels like I should be making the most of my time, but it’s hard to write when you’re in pain and just want to sleep. It’s tough because I’m bored and restless but also tired, resentful and sore. 

So, my life is kind of on hold for a while. I can’t walk on the left leg for another four weeks, and who knows how long after that it will take to get back to full strength. I’ll just have to take things slowly for the next few months.

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How I got triggered at work

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Anxiety, Depression, health, Nutrition, pseudoscience, woo, work

Content warning: diet/food, health, anxiety, depression

It’s 9am Wednesday, 21 August, 2019. I’m at a professional development session run by someone who is supposed to be teaching me how to be better at doing my day job. I walk into the session and the special guest is a nutritionist.

I work in Quality and Compliance in the Community Services Sector, so I’m a bit perplexed as to how a nutritionist is going to help me do my job, but I’ve paid good money for the session (technically work paid, but the point stands) and I give it the benefit of the doubt.

We start out with a story about her health journey. Her child was sick with asthma, she was feeling crappy and run down, and conventional medicine wasn’t helping so she started looking into diet and (scene missing) cut to now; she’s a qualified nutritionist and both she and her son are magically cured, all through the power of diet. I’m starting to see a small red flag that she’s selling ‘woo‘ but, again, I let it slide.

She goes on to talk about blood sugar regulation, the role of insulin and glucogen in the normal cycle. Fine, this is accepted scientific fact as far as I’m aware. She moves on to dysfunctional blood sugar regulation, where the peaks are too big so the body releases way too much insulin, and then the blood sugar drops way too low and the glucogen isn’t enough so adrenalin gets thrown in to give us emergency energy. So far this is still in the realm of real science.

She goes on to start talking about the difference between food and ‘non-food’ or ‘negative food’ –  the stuff that is nutrient poor like refined grains – and how we’re all afraid of fats. She talks about how food can control hormone regulation and inflammation in the body, about gut health. Okay, still with her. 

People start asking questions and sharing experiences and I think we’re all still on board.  And then someone makes a comment that there’s was a link between autism and diet [insert sound of record scratching]. I look around and no one else seems to have registered that this is a really out there thing to say. So I do nothing.

She starts to talk about how in more traditional/nomadic cultures the people are more robust, how chronic illness doesn’t exist, how if we look at our ancestors, as recently as pre World War II, they don’t have chronic illnesses and dietary intolerances. About how the big food companies are producing convenience foods which are completely lacking in any value as foods.

And I start to realise the small red flag from before has become quite a big red flag while I wasn’t watching. I don’t think my brain had totally processed this at the time, but I was really uncomfortable with the content. I had disengages, and started self-soothing behaviours like checking my phone.

We all go to a break for coffee and I make a comment that I am almost constantly hungry and I suspect it’s because of my medication and someone in the group says, ‘maybe if you change your diet you don’t need the medication.’ This is the point where I lose my shit. 

This person doesn’t know this, but I take antidepressants to control my depression and anxiety. I’ve been on and off them since my late teens and I struggle with the idea that I need them, largely because of how our society portrays mental illness. I respond to this person, who I’m sure was just being flippant, that I think it’s dangerous to start telling people they can go off their medication, and that shaming someone for having to take medication is completely inappropriate and then I have to go and have a cry in the toilets.

I try to pull myself together and come back to the group and someone else asks if I’m okay. I say no and that’s it; I’m in full meltdown.

As I’m writing this now I can see more clearly the chain of events that led to the trigger of the full meltdown. I don’t believe for one moment that chronic illnesses or autism or anything else didn’t exist in traditional cultures or in the past. Back in the time when infant mortality was significantly higher, and death in general seemed to be more pervasive I think people with chronic illnesses, digestive troubles, autism and a myriad of other things just died. They weren’t there to record their struggles because they were fucking dead.

I am also sure that the confidence of the speaker, and the apparent belief of the people around me made me feel like I was the odd one out; that I was the crazy one in a room full of sane people.

I’m not one to suggest that our modern diets are perfect, nor that McDonalds and frankenfoods and transfats and GMOs are good for us. But I felt like I’d somehow joined a cult and I was the only one to think there was something funky going on. I didn’t know how to get out and I freaked.

It took me a good twenty minutes of weeping quietly in a cafe to calm myself down. I know that my trauma and my experiences contributed to the way I reacted. I understand that going from fine to blubbering mess is not an ideal way to deal with conflict but I honestly thought I was losing my mind.

I’m questioning whether I can trust this particular training provider in future. I wonder if I can feel safe to attend this sort of professional development in future. I certainly wouldn’t have turned up if I’d known the pseudoscientific scare-mongering I was going to be exposed to. Not to mention the last session had a similar, if much smaller scale, response where I came out of it feeling really defeated and overwhelmed by how much I was doing wrong.

I spoke to my sister and to a friend who is in the extremely scientific/rational camp over the course of the day and I realise now that this nutritionist was in the Pete Evans Activated Almond category of science [read: not science]. I should have known when she said that she had to go to America to find the type of nutrition course she wanted.

Sometimes I forget I live in a bubble, especially when something like this happens. Sometimes I worry about the sort of narratives people are susceptible to. And sometimes I cry at work.

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Reflections on 2017

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by toearlyretirement in Music, My Journey, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

2017, balance, Band, day job, happiness, Hello Volume, live music, Music, performance, reflection, work, Writing, Writing goals

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve done over the year even though there are still two weeks left of 2017.

If I made a list of what I did this year it would be sort of inadequate to express what I’ve achieved. I’ll try to make this an interesting reflection on the things that went well and the things that didn’t go so well for me in 2017.

Writing

My commitment to my writing this year has had a few challenges. I finished a manuscript that I started last year in NaNoWriMo. It was 104,000 words at the end of the first draft in July. I pitched the manuscript to three publishers at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Brisbane in August. Of those three, two wanted to see it. I thought I was finally getting the hang of this writing thing.

Since then one has come back to me with a no, the other hasn’t yet replied.

I participated in a weekly workshop for much of the year. Unfortunately that workshop became something I dreaded and sucked the joy out of my writing. I suspect the other members didn’t like my style, and so looked for something positive to say, but it felt forced. As a result, I felt like a fool even when I got positive feedback.

I’ve also written about 50,000 words on a new story, this year’s NaNoWriMo project. I’m considering using it for a self-published collection coming out next year. The story is reasonably solid, and it will need a bit of work to get it into shape.

Finally, I entered three writing competitions. I had aimed for five, but it didn’t quite happen. Perhaps I could count my pitches as competitions.

I’ve learnt the valuable lesson that I can’t listen to all criticism all the time. Not least because it depends who you ask. Editing is a skill I’d like to improve however I became so disheartened trying to please everyone that I didn’t even want to read my own story. From now on I’ll try to be more discerning in taking on critique.

Music

I joined Hello Volume in September of 2015. The three band members and I got on well, we were great at improvising and jamming out new material and I really enjoyed the process. One of my goals for 2017 was to get Hello Volume performing regularly, as well as working on new material.

Unfortunately, as of last month, I am no longer the bassist for Hello Volume. My priorities for the band were not the same as the other members, and I chose to move onto another project which was more in line with my personal goals.

Hello Volume played a number of cool gigs while I was involved: the Bendigo Hotel and the Workers Club, and open mics at Cherry Bar and Mr Boogie Man Bar. Thanks for jamming with me.

I wish the band all the best for the future and I’ll keep you in the loop with regards to my new project.

Day Job

I’m slowly coming to accept most art creators have a day job. There are lucky humans out there who make their living from their art, and that gives me hope. Most creative people I’ve met over the last year have jobs in the ‘real’ world.

It doesn’t make me any less of an artist that I have a job. I keep telling myself that. Artists have to make opportunities for themselves, self-publishing or putting on an independent show, or finding music performance opportunities, for the love of the art. If there’s some monetary reward then that’s a bonus.

It saddens me the world is structured like this. We are a society who doesn’t like paying for art. I’m as guilty of it as anyone else. I work hard for my money and I often don’t value art with my dollars.

My day job has been going along pretty well since my new boss started in late July. It’s probably sadistic of me to say I feel validated she’s getting frustrated by the same roadblocks I was before she started.

 

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Relaxing with my backyard banana lounge and a book (not pictured)

Overall, I think I’ve achieved a lot and learned a lot this year. I’ve done many things I’d never done before. I coped with some pretty difficult life crap too, like being evicted from my home with three days notice (the building was unsafe) among other things.

I think I’m starting to get a handle on the things I need to do to keep myself happy. I’m allowing myself to sit with my feelings more, particularly anger and loneliness. After having four good friends move away from Melbourne last year I’ve been looking for new people to hang out with. It’s a slow process.

Next year is looking busy and exciting. I’ll be doing my annual New Year’s Goals soon so stay tuned!

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Melbourne, Australia
fleurblum@hotmail.com

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