My Mental Health vs. A Global Pandemic

This lock down has got me feeling some type of way so lets talk about mental health....

Let me start by saying that the current state of the world has got people showing signs of mental health issues who didn't think they suffered before. It has also brought out the worst in people with existing conditions, or have them exhibiting new behaviors/ticks/feelings. There are SO many people suffering all over the world physically and mentally, and I know that my story is just small potatoes in comparison to the global suffering.

That being said, the longer lock down goes on, the worse my mental state is. I find that I have more low mood days now, which is understandable given everything that is going on, but I feel like it's too much for me some days. If it builds up enough I get angry and tearful and I have to wait, sometimes hours for Rob to get home from work or a run so I can finally hide away and cry it out of my system so I can carry on taking care of Henry day to day.

I get sad about the state of the world. I get concerned for my safety, my family's safety & the safety of my friends. I get worried what will happen if Rob or I bring something home to each other or Mush because we didn't take every precaution. I get overprotective of my mum who's self isolated, when she was such a social person before. I get angry when people take the lock down lightly and continue to go out like nothing is wrong. I get upset because the more idiots decide to risk it, the higher the risk of the infection rate going up which will means we stay in lock down longer and I (and many other people I know) have to suffer with heightened depression and anxiety.

I watched the Drag Race reunion show today, which normally would be prerecorded in studio earlier this week. They did it via Video chat because as it was said on the show... "It DO take Nerve to Flatten the Curve". Nerve to stay home and beat this virus. 

Even though our government allows us going out multiple times a day for exercise, I rarely exercise (pun intended) that right. If I want to exercise, I can do yoga at home. I'd rather stay safe, at home, in my own little bubble and take extra precautions. It almost feels a little OTT the precautions I've taken (sanitizing and wiping down outside door fixings & bins on trash collection days, washing hands immediately after touching envelopes or packages, wearing gloves/mask when I have to go into a supermarket/pharmacy for supplies, etc), but someone had to remind me that those are relatively normal reactions for right now.

As well as my postpartum & pandemic induced depression, my anxiety is off the charts to the point where my medication is barely touching the surface. It seems like every time I think I'm in a good rhythm the past few years, something life changing comes in and smacks me in the face. My dad getting sick, harassment and bullying at work, having a baby, and now a global pandemic.

This was me on one of my bad days. I had to lay
down outside, cry it out & watch kpop music videos
to cheer myself up. Hubby snuck a photo of me.

I've noticed old ticks that I had pretty much under control creeping back into my life. Example, when I feel super anxious, I start fiddling my fingers--the most destructive behavior is picking at spots/scabs/imperfections on my skin (mostly my cuticles/fingernails). I have this thing about having my skin/hair be 'perfect' and it started in my childhood that I would get upset over a stray wisp of hair being out of place. In the teenage acne years I would hate spots/scabs/abrasions and would pick my skin raw, until the spot was perfectly smooth, and then cover the red with makeup so it looked like perfect smooth skin. 

Through CBT and medication, I thought i had those ticks under control, or at least i would recognize when I started to pick and would force myself to stop. With the pandemic, I've noticed this behavior not only starting again, but it's gotten worse. I've absentmindedly started doing this everywhere...not just the cuticles on my hands, but on my feet which is new. The thing that scares me is that I've started projecting this on to my son.

Henry's had a bad flair up of eczema(more on that later), and I've noticed myself itching to pick at his scabs/flaking skin/etc. It really didn't help that I gave myself permission to do it to some extent- the fibers from his clothes would get stuck in his wounds and I would pick at his abrasions to get the little fibers unstuck so the wound wouldn't heal over trapping them inside and risk it getting more infected. I'm fully justified in doing so, but i'm also really ashamed of myself at the same time.

I think, "should I have a consultation with my doctor to get on a higher dosage?", but then again, one of my anxieties is inconveniencing people and with everything going on right now, I don't think me suffering a little bit more than normal is worth bugging NHS staff.

I just wish people will stop being stupid. Stop going out with friends. Stop going to the beach. Stop putting yourself and others at risk for one afternoon of selfish behavior. And just because restrictions are being eased doesn't mean you HAVE to exercise your right to do something. Use your head, let common sense flood you and realize that we are in a state of survival. If you don't HAVE to do something, then don't do it people. You may want to do something....you may have the right to do so....but is it necessary?

How I Met Your Father...

In one of my previous posts I touched on the subject of a band called The City Drive...without whom I don't know if I would be in England right now.

I get asked quite a bit how I came to live in England:, 'why did you move?', 'where are you from?' 'Why would you leave Sunny California to come HERE?'

Well kids, this is the story of how I met Smushy's father:

I was 17 and promoting my favorite band, The City Drive. On their Myspace page I spotted this cute emo kid from England and my little heart yelped.

I comment on his post on the City Drive's Myspace page and added him as a friend. We started talking about the band first, then it developed into more. I said how I loved and wanted to visit the UK, and he said the same about visiting America. We made a promise to one another that if we had enough money to visit either country, we would put the other one up at our house.

We communicated with each other nearly every day, sending each other private messages on Myspace, and even wrote each other 'old fashioned love letters' in the post. I still have those letters actually. it's funny to look back on them now and see what a softie Ben was when he's infatuated with someone.

Fast forward to when I turned 18 and graduated from highschool....

My grandmother had set aside money every year on her grandchildrens' birthdays for them to access later in life. It went through the ups and downs of stocks so when we each accessed our money was our choice and we all got different amounts.
There were 3 stipulations to access the money:
1. We had to be 18
2. We had to graduate from high school  and get our diploma
3. We had to use the money on something *worth* it. Not just blow it on food, or drink, or gambling, or something superfluous.

I decided that I wanted to use the money to go on a trip to England for a little over a month to go visit Ben. So I asked him if he was serious about his offer to come let me stay with him. He said yes, and I started planning my trip to go see him in the English countryside.

Little did I know, that my parents (overprotective as they were) would meet Ben before I did. Whilst I was planning my trip, mum and dad had already planned a trip to Paris and London for themselves and went out there before I did.

On the letters that Ben wrote me, it had his phone number and address on the letter head. My parents had google mapped his address to prove he wasn't cat-fishing me and he did actually live where he said he did, but they weren't okay with me going out on my own to meet 'this guy Ben'. So, while they were in London, they called the phone number on the letter head and spoke to Ben's parents. Basically the conversation went something like this, or so I've been told:

My parents: Hi, This may seem a bit strange but we're the parents of Jennifer. She's been talking with your son Ben online?

Ben's Parents: Oh Jennifer! Yes, we know they have.

My parents: We understand you are okay with Jennifer coming out and staying with you?

Ben's Parents: Oh yes! It's absolutely fine!

My Parents: Well, we are in London for a few days and we wondered if we could come out to you, to meet you and Ben and make sure it's safe and still okay that Jen comes to visit you.

Ben's parents: Yes, absolutely! We can have lunch! When's good for you? We can pick you up from the train station. Do you know how to get to us?


Blah blah blah....So THAT happened. They met Ben before I did, but I didn't know about it until after the fact when he messaged me online and said "Uuuh....your parents are at my house." I went mental. In hindsight I know they just wanted to make sure I would be safe abroad, on my own, for the first time in my life, but as a 19 year old I was fuming that my parents didn't trust me to do my own fact checking.

That aside, in June 2009 I went on my first adventure abroad in England. It was an amazing trip, I got to see lots of English countryside, see some well known sights, and meet some of Ben's friends while I lived at his parents' place.


SIDE NOTE: While looking for pictures for this blog, I was reminded that before I even moved to England to live here, I made a short appearance on British Radio! One of Ben's mates was a DJ for Youthcomm Radio at the time, and so one day while Ben was at work, I went and hung out with Adam and got to be on the Radio one afternoon. Moderately cool fact.

Anyway, despite spending so much time with Ben over the summer and thinking that we were 'boyfriend and girlfriend' (FYI according to him we weren't) I sung a different tune when Ben took me to a house party and I met Robert James Vidler.

Rob was (and still is) one of Ben's closest high school friends. He was 'funniest boy in year 11' so he was the jokester of the group. On the way to the party we picked up Rob from Hereford train station and I can remember meeting him there for the first time. In the car he talked about how he had just finished his final performance piece at school. He said he went to theatre school in Birmingham and that he had to perform a monologue as part of his final assessment.

When he mentioned acting, he piqued my interest. The whole night I kind of hung around him, as well as Ben, because Rob was fun to talk to. He even made some cheesy pick up line that I'll never forget. He said I was the 3rd hottest girl at the party in terms of looks, but the 1st hottest in personality. Not the smoothest thing to say to a girl you just met who's maybe kind of dating your best friend, but it made me laugh and it was endearing that he tried to save himself with the neg.

As the party raged on, I felt Ben ignored me more to hang out with his bros, I got drunker off Scrumpy Jack Cider (urg, never again), and Rob became more and more interesting. To the point where we ended up kissing in his section of the group tent we had set up for the night.

Things between me and Ben didn't quite work out. As I said before, he never really saw us as dating. I think I was just a bit of strange -- that American girl who was good for a bit of fun, until he got bored and found someone new. I got home from California and found a friendly message in my inbox from Robert James Vidler, which was timely because the few days after I got back Ben had changed his status from 'Single' to 'In a Relationship'...with another girl, not me.

I was distraught, but Rob was there on Myspace/messenger/Facebook to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and show me that not all Englishmen are pricks.

We messaged each other every day, using Myspace to start, then Instant messenger, and Facebook and eventually moved to Skype. Rob had to sequester his brother's laptop that had a built in camera so we could skype, but eventually he bought his own so that we could have more time to video message one another. We also discovered Rebtel - a phone service that uses routing numbers to call other countries so you didn't have to pay international calling charges.  


We talked about him coming to visit me, so I saved money, did my driving test, & got a car so I could show him the sights around LA. When we talked about me coming over to visit him, he did the same for me. He took driving lessons, and passed his test so that when I came out, he was ready to take me places.

Less than 6 months after we first met, in Januray/February of 2010 Rob came out to California to spend some time with me. While we were together, we decided to start dating, and we spent our first Valentine's day together. 

Then in December 2010-January 2011 I went to England to visit Rob and stay with his family for Christmas and New Years. Fun fact: It was the first Christmas in a very long time in England where it snowed on Christmas day... I for sure thought that every Christmas would be like that one, but no. That was a fluke. The snow is a lie!

Anyway, in January Rob and I took a trip to Ireland to visit some of his extended family in Kilkenny and spend a weekend in Dublin while we were there. It was then that Rob proposed to me. We got to our Dublin Hotel and while I was looking around the room to see a bottle of Champagne and chocolates on the dresser, he was getting down on one knee behind me. Turns out he got his aunt who lives just outside of Dublin to plant the treats in our hotel room before we arrived. 

Going home to California after that, leaving my new fiancee was one of the hardest airport goodbyes (the only other time was saying goodbye to my frail, dying father -6 months before he passed- after our last family holiday. In that moment I thought I would never get the chance to hug him again...and even then I couldn't hug him the way I wanted to because his body hurt so much. It broke me).  

But it was time to start planning the wedding which we set for the date we 1st met - July 8th - of that year. We planned a wedding in less than 6 months and on July 8th, 2011 we were married in California. 

Photo Credit: Cherie Starke

People comment on how we went from knowing each other to being married SUPER quickly. In the space of 2 years we actually only visited each other 2 times. It's true, those two times were for like a month each visit and we lived with each other in our parents' respective houses so we were 'living' together, but people forget that before seeing and hearing each other through calls and video chatting we just texted & wrote letters. We messaged back and forth and got to know one another in detail EVERY DAY: what our favourite things were, chatting about ideals and philosophies, sharing funny stories of our childhoods, etc. 

Whenever I got a letter in the post from Rob my heart fluttered and it brought us closer together to smell each other's cologne/perfume on the envelopes so we could feel like the other was right there with us. I think I also stole a pair of his boxer shorts when he came to visit me so that I could wear them as short shorts/PJs -- is that weird? That sounds weird and stalkerish, but it was comforting to know I had something of his until we were together again.

For two years, besides the time we spent living with each other and our families, we had no physical contact and instead we had to rely on getting to know one another intellectually. We knew that we were meant for each other pretty early on because of the conversations we were able to have and how easy it was to just talk to one another.

That's not to say there haven't been trials over the years, but we got through them and now we have a beautiful son after a decade of knowing each other, and nearly 9 years of marriage. 

I remember a comment that was made to me about going to visit Ben... I was warned, something to the effect of 'You know it's not going to be like The Holiday, right?' meaning that I shouldn't expect some cheesy romantic comedy movie about falling in love with a fit Englishman. Well, I certainly didn't get that with Ben, but I did fall in love with a fit Irishman instead. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

a brief intro to my brothers

"Now here's a little story, I've got to tell... about three bad brothers you know so well."
-Beastie Boys, Paul Revere

So, I grew up with three older brothers and there are many a story to tell, but I thought I'd introduce my readers to my brothers in a few sentences.

This is Steven: 

Nine years older than me, the youngest of the boys. Steven is married and has 4 children now, which I'm not sure is the smartest move with his track record. Steven....is almost as accident prone as Mr Bump. He's nearly blown up the microwave by leaving marshmallows in there just a little to long. He almost lit my other brother/his car on fire by wanting to burn off the excess gas with a match while the gas was still dripping from the opening. There was also one time he 'parked' on a slight incline to put a gate code in, and forgot to put his handbrake on... then proceeded to try and stop the car rolling back by sheer force and ended up getting a bit bumped and bruised.

Anyway, I digress.... Steven, when I was a kid, was the one I looked up to the most. We had the most in common...sort of. I ended up liking a lot of things that he liked. He would listen to certain bands (Aquabats, Vertical Horizon, REM, etc) and I would listen with him and started liking what I was hearing... so I guess I developed a bit of his music taste. He was also the nicest one to babysit me--like the one time we carved pumpkins on Halloween while listening to Smashing Pumpkins. :) He was the one who introduced me to weird unusual nerd things like Homestarrunner.com , Napoleon Dynamite, and The Vlogbrothers.

This is Greg: 

He is slightly more than a year older than Steven(ive been told by my muk 15 & a half months), the middle of the three boys. Greg is married with 3 kids and since he had his first little one, he was winning in the 'favourite family' category. Between him and his wife, they are the medical professionals in the family and they have the whole tough but fair love parenting style down, which is something I use as an example in my parenting style.

When I was younger Greg was the one who taught me how to play soccer (football)...but he was also the one who liked to pelt his little sister with a paintball gun.There was a time when I idolized Greg and followed him around like a little puppy... maybe that was the phase of him being nice to me. Who knows? Now a days, he's low on the totem pole because whenever he and my husband are together it becomes a 'let's take the piss out of Jennifer' day cause...BANTER. Yeah, not impressed. I usually ignore them trying to get a rise out of me and go hang out with Greg's wife in solidarity of  having to deal with our moronic husbands.

This is Jason: 

He's the eldest boy and eldest child of the family-It's weird to think he's passed forty now. He has a wonderful wife and 1 son. Growing up he was my least favorite brother. He would drag me across the floor giving me carpet burn when he babysat me because I refused to go to bed (fair).....so at the time I resented him. Everything suddenly changed when we went on a Cruise with my family & my brothers wives in 2010.


Jason had moved out when I was quite young; he was a bit of a rebel with his smoking and gothy-ness and disobeying of mom and dads house rules. He left home and moved out to the east coast with some friends and ended up making a life for himself out there. It turns out he's the only other one in my family who drinks (alcohol), and one of our ports of call on this cruise was in Canada where the drinking age was 19, which meant I was legal at the time. So, Jason and I ditched the family, and went for a drink together in an irish pub, next to a celtic shop that we saw in town. We caught up on nearly a decade of each other's lives and it turns out... we're not that different and we get along quite well. BONUS: His son might also be my favourite nephew and favorite little besides my own son.

An introduction to all things Smushy

I would be remiss if I didn't blog about my son... sometimes. I don't want to spam my blog with ONLY him all the time, but I have many people from around the world who are interested in updates. :)

This is my little Mushy Smushy man.

Henry Scott Vidler.

Henry--a nice, strong, historical English name.

Scott- after my father who passed away a few months before I got pregnant.

And obviously...

Vidler - because he was born out of the union of a McClellan and a Vidler and took his daddy's last name.

A lot of the time we refer to him as 'mush' (which strangely enough means boy/man in traveler) or Smush, Smushy, mush mush, mushy man, and all the combinations there is. Reason? Just because when I held him in my arms I kept saying he's so tiny, and mushy, and cute. Hence the nickname Mush.

There's so much that I could say about Mush mush and he's only just over 6 months old.

First of all I will say that every mother thinks their baby is the cutest ever. They get clouded in the aura of 'that's my baby' that a lot of the times when people look back on their son/daughters baby photos they will reminisce and think...'oh yeah, they weren't that cute; they look like a potato'. I'm probably not the exception to this, but regardless, I think my baby is super cute...even in super close up photos.

Honestly, most of the time the only babies I find cute are those related to me...so my nieces and nephews. That's probably something about it being your own kin that make them so much more adorable to you and everyone else's babies lack in comparison to the cuteness that is your own flesh and blood.

One thing I can brag about is that my son takes a crackin' passport photo. Considering that babies don't need to have their eyes open or be looking at the camera necessarily for a baby passport, this photo is pretty professional looking.

Part Sumsh co-operating, part mommy being an amazing photographer. 

He's generally a happy boy. He smiles and giggles a lot. His giggle is adorable, like a little old man laughing. He finds daddy the funniest, but laughs when mama makes faces at him too.

He laughs at the silliest things:

• Mama standing over him and dangling a curtain of her hair around his head/face.  He especially likes it when I flick my hair back--i guess it's like playing peek-a-boo with my hair. 
• Abraca-smushy: when i change him and yank his leggings off in one swift motion like removing a table cloth without disturbing the table settings.
• Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy: something we learned in baby yoga where i support his bottom/lower back in my hands and bounce his butt up and down while singing "Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy"
• seeing the kitty hack (because of a hairball) - he finds that particularly hilarious:

• being bounced up and down when sitting on my or Rob's legs
• being tickled under is armpits or his bum. his bum is very ticklish- i discovered this one day when i went to give him a baby massage around his legs and lower back and he would squeal with delight when i got anywhere near the end of his spine. when we did that baby massage course, he wasn't ticklish there, but I guess he is just more aware and it tickles him now.
• watching mama dancing and pull funny faces at him

• Clapping the soles of his feet together
• wriggling his legs - it gets him every time. he finds it quite amusing
• When mommy sniffs his feet and says 'peeeuuuuweeeee smelly feet.'
• the ceiling: it creeps me out when he laughs at the ceiling still. it's blank..nothing there. i wonder if he's seeing 'the other side' and someone made a hilarious joke at him...and then i get very freaked out. well, as long as hes happy and i dont have any supernatural sightings, i'm good. 

The last thing that I'll say is that he LOVES 'his' kitty. My cat Charlie/binx is old and not the cuddliest thing -- he swats at me if i give him too much love -- and at first he wasn't too keen on Mush. to be fair there were A LOT of new things...we moved him to our new house, we had new baby things everywhere, new appliances that made noise (dehumidifier), a new person (my mom) in the house and then the screaming child... it was all very new for Binx.

Now that things have settled down, he's gotten used to Henry. He at first kept his distance from the child, then would get braver and sniff at him then back away. Eventually he 'claimed' Henry by nudging him. Now he freely walks near Henry, sometimes keeping his distance and sometimes letting Henry pet him. 

Henry absolutely loves his kitty though. He's learning to 'pet the kitty nicely' and not grab fur which is important. Needless to say that when kitty is around, mushy's whole attention switches to the cat. He loves watching his kitty intently and I think Charlie has warmed up to Mush mush as well. Charlie lets his guard down around Henry more now than when he first arrived and I can see the two of them living together harmoniously, as far as cats and babies go.