Failure

Finally gone back on antidepressants after two years free. The last straw was Monday when I couldn't actually stop crying in work or think my way around problems. Today I am calmer but that is probably because of the combined efforts of no work, Prozac starting and Valium last night, which I took to terminate the mother of all panic attacks. My limbic brain is in big trouble with me now, thought records litter my room but it insists on telling me I am a failure and offering me a way out, which I am not going to take.

So backwards step? No, positive one. This biological flaw of mine, present in most of my father's siblings and his father- one of the first to have ECT is a biological flaw. I can control it to a certain extent but when the pain gets too much and the feelings turn to dust, then it is not a surrender but a step forward.

This is not a failure. This is acceptence and will lead to strengthening of that inner core and defeat of that pesky limbic brain! So as the sun goes down, I focus not on the night, but on the morning that will follow, and think of the flowers lit up by the rays of the sun.....

Deconversion five years on

Five years ago- at about this time in fact- I was driving to work after a weekend in which my mind had been racing. As I drove down the slip road onto the A48 at Cardiff Gate, there came a sudden moment of absolute clarity. I no longer believed in God. Before I doubted, vacillating between faith and terror of a world with no God in it, suddenly there I was on an empty lonely planet, in which I was merely a collection of atoms doomed one day to be no more me....

Five years on. I am still just a collection of atoms. I still yearn sometimes with sighs, sometimes with tears for those days of certainty of faith and hope, of joyful religious experiences and friends united in purpose and values. But I also rejoice in the loss of guilt and puzzlement and the gain in the simplicity in which I now see the world. I have new friends, with new common values and purposes. I have experienced life in ways that previously would have been closed to me to even contemplate. I have explored and laid down the guilt and the fear that for so many years tied me in knots of anxiety and depression and though I have not yet defeated it totally, victory is within my grasp.

Five years on and I have few regrets.
Five years on and I celebrate today as a liberation, and mourn the loss of those positives my belief was attached to, but not the loss of the belief itself.

The anger of suicide

One thing that has always struck me, as someone who has had suicidal thoughts over the years, that one of the things that prevents me from ever completing is the knowledge of what it would do to those round me. For me, therefore, the danger in losing that brake is immense.

Earlier today, I nearly lost it, through anger...and realised after that the saying that I often hear of suicide being the ultimate angry act can be so true. It is the ultimate in the last word, no one can come back and scream at you, lay guilt on you, and you go in that knowledge. "Those who drove me to this, all will finally realise the consequence of their actions."

They say that when people make up their minds finally there is a period of calm, relief, and I can identify with that too- at last you are in control and no one can take that control away.

I know I will not complete, that I am underneath one big coward and will just carry on drifting through this world as I am.
But for all that it is becoming an unbearable fantasy as a way of terminating this permanent pain that seemingly nothing else will stop. I have to fight this fantasy and not allow it to feed on my distress and avoid the danger of anger like I felt today.

Blissful ignorance

Watching the Pope's visit has been a strain
It has tickled my limbic system, my emotional memories
To produce pain of loss

Once I would have been part of the throngs
And my part would have been the quiet stillness
The moments of peace and tranquillity
Where worship and silent moments
Surrounded by the hand of God
I would have knelt and been enveloped in love
In blissful gnorance of truth

No more
Once revealed, cannot be undone
Now no more
Today all I can feel is loss
And what I know
Cannot heal or mend
The emotional pain

Settling in

We've been in the flats a few months now and it is slowly starting to feel like "home." At first it was a nightmare of hideous proportions, with wistful dreams of the home I had lost coming nightly to haunt me, but now, with the courtyard landscaped and soothed by hubbie and my room featuring a chosen print and my books, my heart warms to it. Finally.

And son1 is determinedly learning to manage, in his own way, at his own level. Emotionally most importantly, cooking and cleaning will follow, he manages a quick hoover and beans on toast, probably more than many 21 year olds do. Son2 is slowly elevating my blood pressure by his exam brinkmanship; if he gets into university though, I will miss his funny loving presence here, one more loss to navigate.

And work and family continue to demand and strain my ability to live happily, but at the end of each day, I snuggle into my bed, in my home once more, safe and sound and settled. And I rise in the morning ready to face another day....

2010- strange year

So In November I had a mad idea
Two flats were coming up for sale next to my mother in law
We should buy them, I said to hubbie, use it as a way to move towards Son1 getting independent

So here we are, three months later, minus one house, one dog who sadly died of kidney failure at 18 but plus two flats
Hubbie and I upstairs
Son1 and 2 downstairs

Not been plain sailing
Son1 ran away the other day (armed with 2 ham sarnies and 3 packs of crisp)
Son2 has withdrawn more away from us
And I have lost things beyond words
The sunsets, the sights and sounds and smells of the home I love
Now I live in the city, the droning of the cars and lorries on the main road ever present
The sirens of ambulances dashing up and down
The garden notable by its absence

But this is not for now
This is for the future
The way ahead, the path for son1 to learn how living lone can be

Will it work?
No idea
But to not try would have been foolish beyond doubt

So as I become accustomed to new noises and sights and sounds and smells
I keep in mind that distant goal
That one day I can slip away
Without the last thought being of panic for son1
And allow the last thought to be
Of what I have done and how I have danced my way through this life

Here's hoping

The rabpig and the mouse

Once I was a rabbit.

Well, a rabbit pig, to be more precise.
I combined a scary mix of snuffling and truffling and chewing whatever I could find with a frightened outlook on life.

Other rabbits scared me. They’d gather in groups and whisper and point at my strange attire and dress, at my un-rabbit like ways and my attention to detail, such as where the best lettuce could be found. I’d freeze as they turned their headlights of scorn at me in school, in work and where ever groups of rabbits gathered.

But now I am a mouse.
Still an eccentric mouse, many of my habits and attitudes are distinctly at odds with what other mice possess.

But I am happy being a mouse, scampering instead of snuffling, giggling at absurdities and sometimes joining in.
I am content exploring wickedly and freely, curiously capturing each and every moment.
I relish grazing on little bits and bobs and tasting every luscious mouthful instead of munching mindlessly on every piece of rubbish that came my way.

I sometimes still feel the echoes of past thoughts and feelings.
A chance remark meant sincerely to praise sparks a reflex.
Memory pain floods in unwilled and unwanted.
Tears may flow, but I know what to do and soon those distorted memories are removed from their crooked frames and re-sited where they belong; in the past.

Those days where things were not in balance.
Where life was seen through self loathing glasses. Glasses that touches of praise and affection could not penetrate while smallest slights were magnified multitudes of times.

So today I will scamper and seek out that which excites and scintillates and soothes as needed. And if today memory pain returns, I may shed a tear or two.
I may laugh in its face and jump on those old frames.
I will not let it drive me, as it did all those years, back to being an unhappy rabpig.
The wheel has turned and now I am here, and here I mean to stay.

Chosen

Over the last year or so, I have been exploring, with the aid of Cognitive behaviour therapy, psychologist and a wonderful friend, my "core beliefs"; things that for years have coloured the way I perceive the world. Some of them came as no surprise- I discovered that the belief that I am a "quitter" was at the heart of a lot of my difficulties and successfully challenging that belief and its meaning has enabled me to see things more clearly and more importantly, have a closer relationship with the person who first uttered those words to me: "You're nothing but a quitter!"

My Mother

Probably now she doesn't even remember them or their significance. I too have forgotten all those positive messages and hugs she must have given me over the years, with my distorted way of thinking, only the negatives were heard and attended to and remembered and seared deep into the soul.

Now I see that she too is like me, fully human, fully alive, struggling, doing the best she can.

And this morning another core belief suddenly floated to the surface. A chance remark on the radio about someone who had died who had been in the nightmare concentration camps. After he "made good choices" and lived fully, and the speaker went on to say that he lived believing in the importance of not being "chosen" but being a "chooser"; making the best choices he could at the time it came to make them.

One of those little bells rang inside me and the creaking of cogs turning in my head drove me to a conscious place.

Another core belief.
I am never chosen. This matters, it means I am not valued, loved, cherished. I am worthless, useless. Those sharp and stunningly quick thoughts that fly through the mind. The images of not being chosen for teams, parties, dances (oh those humiliating discos where no one asked me to dance,) being the odd one out in a pair. being afraid, even as an adult to apply for a job in case I was not chosen, to submit my name for a task in case I am overlooked, to push myself forward.

Why?

Those without such a negative cognitive set will by now be laughing out loud, not realising the power of the unconscious thought, hardwired into the brain. The protective evolutionary device that ensured choices in the jungle were made wisely and rapidly, before the time spent contemplating whether to fight or flee gave an opportunity to the sabre tooth tiger to get out the pepper and salt....

Because hardwired in my brain was the assumption that to be chosen was to be valued, to be loved and lovable. To be chosen is a marker of worth, of quality.
Which my non hardwired brain would feebly try and call out that it wasn't and secondly, it didn't matter.
Did it matter that I wasn't picked for the team? I hated sport anyway and would only get shouted at by the hard girls! Did it matter that no spotty adolescent asked me to dance? I hated their sweaty touch anyway. I missed for so long the point that being chosen wasn't important, choosing well was. And sadly, for so long, I let my hardwired brain do my choosing for me.

Then I lost my faith. I lost the ultimate element of being "chosen." If all else failed me, if all else rejected me, God had still chosen me, died for me.

Suddenly, no one had chosen me.

It has taken a long time to realise how important deep down this was to me and why I nearly fell apart at the seams. But thanks to many, some especially, I am now approaching 50 this week; fully human, fully alive and trying to be a chooser and worry less about being chosen.

Story from the start of the finish

It was probably a bit premature to call a post some time back the "Story from start to finish." So I guess the title here is a bit more appropriate. If the finish was the point at which I realised all I treasured and valued was lost, what I have come to realise in the last few years of dealing with this, is that there is seems to be no finish, rather a series of perpetual starts. I have been wandering round in circles, bumbling and staggering (especially since my foot drop- though that is another story) and occasionally dropping to the floor with a thunderous crash. But each time I have dragged myself up and start again, sometimes battered and bruised but always reflective, always ready to try again.

A few years on and I seem to be getting used to it, even relishing it as a challenge. As I said to son1 yesterday when in his best "drama queen" voice he asked me if I found him difficult, after 3 hours of prolonged nagging and pestering. "No, challenging!" and he laughed, as he had just started to recover his sense of proportion. Being able to see life as a series of challenges, some more fun than others, some painful and distressing, is helping me through life more than I would have thought possible. It is hard sometimes not to be like son1 and adopt the drama queen stance, in fact, sometimes it looks a welcome path, but the rocky, steep inclines and facing the spiders and dragons along the way is infinitely more rewarding and enjoyable in the end. And as a result, I no longer fear the spider!

So as once more I face September and the month it all began in many ways, I smile ruefully and wistfully for innocence lost and friendships gone, but know I hold now in my hands the answer.

If I could remember which hand I put it in....

And could find my glasses to locate it....

Answers on a postcard please!

Good Friday

Once such a special day
Waking up not to thoughts of a day off spent cheerily with the family
But a day, sombre, to remember how deep the love was
Now, vague echo only, wistful thoughts
Of what I might be doing today instead
But other stronger thoughts tell me
That all is well
And that today, like all my days, is another one for living
And loving
And that the message I thought I heard
From that day so long ago
Still lives in me
Life is for living and loving and dancing
Through the sombre difficult moments, through the painful times
And through the joy and the peace I now so often find.

Have a good Easter season
Living and loving and dancing
And may the joy it brings to you
Dance with you through the year

Time moves on...

It is amazing how much can happen in a couple of months
I saw a psychologist (finally) starting in November and following that, have gone up a gear in managing my life!
I'm now in a new full time job and am back doing on call
I am also due to start a diet group on Tuesday (lighter life- no food for 3 months eek)
Which will be interesting- will keep some notes here perhaps. Will need to do something to stop me craving food!

Son1 remains delightful- told me the other day very grumpily that his pyjama trousers didn't work.
(They had a hole in them...)
I love how he sees the world.

Son2 did not so well in his exams but is reflecting on this and is at least happy in himself
Hubbie is hubbie and as wonderful as ever...

Me?
I'm as mad as ever, but still trying to dance my way through the madness!

The best laid plans.....

"Christmas this year brings a nice break"

Um, well, no it didn't. It brought illness, firstly son1, who spent most of Xmas eve with a high fever throwing up (so I never got to go to church) then I was laid low by the lurgy. Today is the first day my brain has functioned on anything like the appropriate level! So we plan to have another Xmas celebration in January sometime to make up for it- after son2's exams finish....

But apart from being sore from coughing and tired from lack of sleep, I am ok, and will survive to fight another day.
I hope.
And as Son1 has today suddenly perked up and started being himself again, I only hope that I will do so too again tomorrow!
Happy New Year....

Seasons greetings...

Well this year, it came and went- and I totally forgot.
Probably because I was busy doing other things unwriteable about really, well here at least, continuing on my strange journey of self discovery, indulgence and childishness....

And now Christmas comes once more
Once the highlight, the celebration of the birth of he who came to make my life bearable.
Now it has the potential to be just another irritation in a life that seems to be full of them.
If you look at it that way.
I have discovered that by turning things round and inspecting them from other angles, irritations can become pearls, or at least, little nougats of wisdom. I am doing my best to do that with my job, but my fearful side remains firmly in control, all the whatifs overwhelm the havenots and my tummy lurches again.
But still I continue to twist and turn, to put on my half smile, to let irritations slip over my teflon mind.
I couldn't be a Buddhist though- acceptance was never my strong point, though I do have the figure for it now....

I digress
Christmas this year brings a nice break
Peace from work and the phone
Time to do my essay
Time to reflect
And I still have to go to church as I am "vital" says Colin though I think he is just being kind! So I have cut the nails on my left hand ready to play guitar and hope that my more laid back attitude to my former faith continues and doesn't cause me or anyone else any upset on the night of the service.
I shall play and sing about the angels and the shepherds and the coming of he who came to save us, and know that inside me there will still be that wistful side that wants it all to be true and believable again.
And that will never ever go
Nor do I want it to
It is like the remembered joy of the child finding it had snowed in the night, that peaceful feeling when the exam is over, the memory of a feeling that I can have no longer, but that I cannot forget.
Now there are memories of other feelings, the despair, the self hatred, the guilt. Those come from time to time and dance around too, less joyfully.
But with my half smile and my different perspectives, the memories and feelings have lost their power to drive and punish. So they can come too, and join the dance, as they too are part of me.

So as I have arrived at the back of Da Vinci's dark, mysterious cavern, and discover it is the carcass of a whale (that was a bit of a shock!) I am glad I entered and glad I explored, even if in the end I lost something once so precious to me. I will continue to dance on my way now, with whoever wants to join me, exploring, loving and living the only life I have.
Merry Christmas and may the new year bring what you need to carrying on loving and living to the full in your life....

Cath xxx

Twenty years ago today

Twenty years ago today
Unto me
Was born a son
Not lustily crying
Waving his fists
Sucking and supping at my breasts
But floppy
And blue
And breathless
And while the nurses dithered and the doctors pondered
The oxygen wasn't enough
The glucose fell too low
Sensitive parts went into slumber
Never to awake

Twenty years later
My child man
Makes me laugh
Makes me cry
Makes me hope
And sometimes despair
I love his innocence
His truthfulness
His clear sighted vision

But oh if only
If only I had said
"No, get the doctor back"
Stamped and screamed
Instead of passively sitting
and trusting
Would now he be in some far away town
On the booze with friends
Studying for a degree in something hard
That I couldn't begin to understand?

There
The tears have come
I have to grieve
It is right to do so
I love him so much
But he lost so much
And that is something
That will always make me cry

But no words of sympathy needed
Crying is what I should do
I cannot undo the past
But I can mourn for what was lost in it
And I can rejoice for what was left to me
The dearest, funniest child man
To whom I dedicate my life

Happy Birthday Tom
Mum xxx

Casting day

The moon is in the seventh heaven and my birthday has passed, tis time to cast out those faults that most bother the people round me.
In no particular order these are:
1. My tendency to "panic and pester" those around me when anxious. Poor son2 suffers most with this, but also the rest of family and colleagues....
2. My Greed. I suffer mostly as a result, and will throw this ruthlessly into a bubbling stream (well, ok, the small garden pond) in an attempt to rid myself of this tendency.
3. My inability to give up when I should- persisting despite harm! Where have I heard that before hehe
and finally
4. Self deprecation and not acknowledging that I am all that I can be.

I shall venture outside with my terrible cold and 4 crumbs of bread and gently throw them away...and then claim them back
Part of me
For better for worse
But things to be more aware of in this year and to gently prod when they get tiresome!

Onwards in my fiftieth year.

Casting away....

Have had more suggestions
From friend- that I should "Cast away the idea that you have significant faults or that you are somehow not all you could be." Similar to hubbie's really- stop putting myself down but perhaps in a more active way, not to just cast away the behaviour, but also the thoughts and underlying insecurities that go with it...

And from son2, a list.
Written after a weekend that I had struggled for hours to fix his printer...
Things to cast away
1.The way I panic and pester
2. My perfectionism
3. Stubbornness in not giving up when its time to do so
4 My poor memory (which was a bit of a joke as I couldn't remember the first three...)

Panic and pester "Have you done your homework?" "What time does it begin?" My anxieties that I try not to inflict on him but often end up doing so- that is something I can see clearly and identify with.
Perfectionism- I am not about to cast away! It is something i think I still need to hang on to, will keep that for another year!
Stubbornness in not giving up- I think I am better at this than I used to be but it still impacts on others when I continue persisting in something well past the point of no return.

My memory- bleh, wish I could cast it away!!

So I have another day to think before tomorrow, my birthday, when four things will drift away and be reclaimed, to be thought about and pondered and laughed about in the year. So my life examined will continue to grow and be hopeful and joyful, in the face of whatever comes along...

Happy unbirthday to me, and here's to a busy, difficult day that I know I have tomorrow, but with a wonderful evening out with hubbie to look forward to.....

Greed and self deprecation

Well I have two so far.
Greed- this one comes from me, I am always so greedy, wanting more pleasure, chocolate, food, drink, and all other vices that go with greed! So I will cast that in the water and accept that back, as it has always been part of me, a part that I find hard to control! Let's see what a bit of purifying in the water does for it...

Self deprecation- this is one hubby suggested this morning. I often make self deprecating statements, about how I look, think, behave. Sometimes with him, I agree, it's to produce a "No, you look OK, No, you did right there" but sometimes it is because I really feel that way, useless, fat, ineffective (spent over 2 hours trying to set up son2's printer only to dismally fail this afternoon) etc. Negative reflex thoughts shoot in and out and I ruminate on how useless I am, how ugly, how greedy.......
So this too will go in the water.
To be washed and received back
And thought about
Accepted as part of me but something that can wind poor hubby up no end and something that is no help to me.
So, time to cast it away and accept it back and play with it for the next year...


And as for the other two....
I think I might ask son2 to suggest one
That could be interesting!!
Watch this space......

Casting bread upon the water

It's that time again!
My birthday is due and in line with the long tradition established last year, I have to select four faults to cast upon the water. Last year, I cast my tetchiness, my bitchiness, my naughtiness and my wounding of self. Looking back over the year, what can I say?

Well, I think I am less tetchy, partly because my mood is probably better this week than it has been for years. I have read books, watched films the whole way through, focused on sorting stuff out that I have put off for ages. I am quite delighted and hope this is no temporary blip.

Bitchiness- well, yes, probably still there, in my mind at least. I have been more aware of my passive-aggressive bitchiness and as a result have controlled it more, while recognising that sometimes making models of individuals and sticking pins in is the only way to survive!

My naughtiness.......errrrrr.......well last year I decided to cast things on the water and claim them back, so that which is naughty and wicked in me, the naughty playful side continues but with new boundaries and understanding of where lines need to go. First rule is do no harm and in all sorts of ways, I think I have learnt to think through things a bit more.

My wounding of self- well, no thanks to the bread, but thanks to a certain dancer I have been waltzing with for the past few months, I have turned a self destructive tendency round and learnt perhaps for the first time, that to truly be of use to others, one has to love, care and nurture yourself. Thanks to my wonderful dance partner! Our dancing together may be less and sometimes absent, but memories of those dances will ever live on.

So four new faults to pick on for this year, as things I try to throw away but then reclaim and work with, to accept them as part of me and to change them, transform them, from weaknesses into strengths.

Greed has to be one
Possibly a bit of sloth
Internal preoccupation? maybe
I shall muse over this and produce a final list before B day......

College

Son1 starts college tomorrow.
A new phase.

He will have a 1:1 helper and all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and hope all that has been said about his course is true.
Doesn't half make my tummy go in knots.

What I need right now is a huge lottery win...or an unknown but eccentrically rich relative to leave me all in their will.
Or a new career that doesn't leave me quite so devoid of strength at the end of the day.

None of which will happen, at least not this side of my dreams.

So it is onwards and upward to see what tomorrow brings and to hope, that along with all the expected difficulties, there might be a little unexpected relief too...
Maybe the sun will even shine!!!

Cat xxx

Anniversary

1 year ago son2 started going out with gf
She is a lovely girl and it's their anniversary coming up
So I have brought him up to Leeds so they can sojourn together and be gleeful and joyful before returning to college after their long summer break.
What the future holds for them, I do not know.
And 1 year ago, I was here too, more or less.
In Leeds, a mess inside, but far more of a mess than I am now!
At least now, I know what the mess is about
Where it lives
And how to deal with it, even though I don't yet have all the tools.
So as I once more sit in Leeds, awake, tearful, but thoughtful and accepting, at least I am more assured that things are on the up.
Getting better
No longer to I think only of the negative
I can see through the tears and mist to where I want to be
And I can see me getting there...

Sleep well
Dream sweetly
Wake better....