Mar
30
Mental health divergence
Filed Under Life, Psychology | Leave a Comment
There is a famous story about a journalist who proclaimed schizophrenic tendencies in order to artificially get sectioned in a mental institution. Once in, apart from taking journalist notes, he behaved ‘normally’. However, this was insufficient to protect him from a continuing label as mentally ill.
I mention this as one flavour of mental health divergence - once over the divide, the journey accelerates before it can come back to the other side.
In my case, my mental ill health is tension headaches that have plagued me for many years. The are relatively mild, but sufficiently persistent and debilitating to take me out of mainstream life. I have not been able to work full time since 2001 because of them. So I have scratched a living working part time, principally working on my PC at home writing computer code, web sites and documentation, and processing photos. This has isolated me, compounding my plight.
One corollary of this isolation is that I have more time to think about my situation, and this amplifies it.
On bad days, I let things slip in the house - no dusting is done for weeks, so far down the list is it. So I get unsettled by a less than clean home.
The incapacitating effects of my ill health puts a strain on relationships, a further strengthening of the divide between me in ill health and ‘others’ in relatively good health.
I should add that most people suffer in various ways; I am far from alone, of course.
But this divergence was brought home to me quite strongly today. This time, I was distinctly on the very healthy side of the divide - not so much ‘capacitated’ as invigorated! I truly felt (and still do) massively and excitingly alive. This happens on occasional days. It meant that I was effortlessly able to resolve my very long standing spam email problem. The blinkered effect on my thinking that my headaches creates makes this task one to avoid - I simply cannot get my head around it.
But today, I was able to deal with this, tidy up some of the mess in the house and regain some control over my life.
This is the other side of mental health divergence - good health breeds action, achievement, engagement, and much less self scrutiny. You just get on with life, and keep on top of most things.
I know, because I was like this before the blight of my headaches changed things.
Mar
18
A week in my life
Filed Under Life | Leave a Comment
I used to write a diary, exclusively for my own future benefit. Time to ressurect this for a one week spell, but to the Internet as audience. I write this also for my own benefit as I mark the current state of 14 years of tension headaches.
Monday 17th March 2008
After the best night of sleep for a week, I felt energised. In fact, I felt great. Lively, happy and articulate. Yet, as always, with the arbitrary accompaniment of a distinct tension headache.
I spent 3 hours on my computer software documentation contract for an American company in the morning before a lunch of pork and leek sausages with pasta and peas. The stray cat I look after sat, as always, by my heel, begging for tidbits. I obliged.
I notched up another hour of writing before adjourning to Coffee #1 cafe in Albany Road early afternoon for a tea, and a read. Two teas, actually, and maybe two much caffeine - by 4pm, the energy of the day vanished, and I felt intensely tired. It was like being hit by a wall at 2 in the morning. I have no idea whatsoever as to why I felt quite this bad, this suddenly, after feeling so good. I cannot link it to any thoughts, nor behaviour. Such things blight my life - being prepared to expect the unpredictable makes planning things tough.
I meditated for half an hour, which served only to make me feel even more tired, with a thick head.
As often seems to happen when I am drained, I had obligations. Gosia rang to arrange a rendezvous to return her camera at 6:30. And a bride I had photographed last year was due to visit at 7:00. It was tempting to cancel her visit, but this was itself a deferral from last Monday when I was equally spaced out.
As I sat in the Coffee shop after a light tea, waiting for my Polish friend to arrive, I felt disconnnected from life - so intensely drained that sleep seemed to be the only sensible thing I should do.
The bride decided to be very fussy and stayed for nearly 90 minutes, leaving me extra drained. I relaxed afterwards in a vegetative state before an early night.
Tuesday 18th March 2008
In theory, your mind should work in your favour, not against it. Especially when doing the latter is of no value to any one else. But it woke me at 6:00 and I lay and relaxed, hoping to complete my sleep to no avail. Meaning that I was heavy of head all day. Flat in mood and energy.
I struggled through 2 hours of writing before walking to town mid morning, stopping for tea at Howell’s coffee shop in the centre of Cardiff, and then onto the market for food, and an art shop to look at presents for one of 7 birthdays I must buy for in March.
Another hour of documentation before my regular coffee shop trip at 1:30. I met a Creative Writing student who was beautiful to behold, and engaging to talk with. Alas, my tired state suffered, and I left the shop almost depleted of cognitive abilities.
Home to my ‘dark room’ to do some Wedding album preparatory work. I choose to work in the dark, with a board over the window so as to ensure even display properties of my PC monitor. Some time to relax before a strange evening tea of egg and banana and spinach sandwiches. It relaxed me, but my headache and blanket tiredness was still dominating me. Acutely frustrating, since I wanted to make my regular Tuesday visit to the Ocean Palace Chinese restaurant in Riverside for a meet up with friends to play Go, the Oriental board game. I’ll see if I wake up a bit later.
I did, but not until after deciding to stay in. I relaxed and felt better, but because I did, I felt I had missed out on a nice evening out. Such is life!
But my calm was disturbed at 9pm by a neighbour asking for a favour - to print something on my PC. I did. Then he came back to ask to have it printed larger. No peace for the wicked!
Wednesday 19th March 2008
Today started as normal with birds waking me at 5am, some disturbed further sleep and a crawl out of bed at 7:30 with a headache.
It was a beautifully sunny day, and we don’t get so many of those in Wales, so I strained every sinew in the morning to complete 3 hours of documentation. It hurt my head, but I worked very dilligently. And escaped at 11am into the glorious sunshine for a Mocha in a coffee shop. My 3rd ever Mocha. I’m getting to like them a lot.
I read the paper and decided that the rest of the day would be a celebration of the weather. And a much needed break of routine. That I have an enormous tendency to habitual behaviour, rigorously habitual behaviour really hit me hard this week. It is, I suspect, a large factor in my headaches and tiredness.
Having decided to do different things, I felt liberated, and happy. And almost headache free as I headed home for some curried chicken and a sit on a chair by the front door to do some puzzles.
Then I cut the back garden grass for the first time this year. A task which I enjoyed in spite of the added bonus of a dead rat to dispose of. Cats toy with them, kill them, and forget to eat them.
I sat on the garden chair as I watched 2 cats try to track down yet another rat. I felt sorry for it and scared the cats away.
Onto something different - I pumped up my bike tyres and set off on a ride for the first time this year. To Heath Park for a quiet sit in the warm sun. Delightful! And the energetic cycling got me well puffed without aggravating my 10 week archiles tendon injury. Cool!
Afterward, I walked to Clifton Street for some shopping at an Art shop for birthday presents and a green tea in a health food shop. Home for a rare meal - soup with bread. I added ground almonds and cranberries to it for an extra oomph.
After tea, I relaxed in a game of Go on the Kiseido Go Server on the Internet. I played a Japanese player who helped me with some Japanese words. I also ordered some books on the mind. I have an insatatiable appetite for such fayre.
I feel refreshed and elevated by a very different afternoon. My headache persists, but very much in the background. I chose to continue with my nightly half hour meditations before going to the pub to watch football. It is strange, you know, that every time I relax into a meditation, my headache becomes distinctly more pronounced. What a paradox - greater tension arising from greater relaxtion., something that I have never really understood.
I felt so sleepy after the meditation that I decided to stay in.
Thursday 20th March 2008
And my reward for a relaxing evening? I awoke at 5am, 6am and then 6:45, unable to sleep again, arising very tired and headachy. It is deadly dull and frustrating that each day dawns with a headache. And the prospect of 3 hours of documentation writing was not ideal.
My sleep quality was such that my head felt like it had been through a wrangler. Even the act of smiling was not easy, my face kind of cramped into a downbeat state. But I was really pleased with my dilligence - I wrote fast end efficiently, and was more than justified with a mid morning sojourn to the Coffee #1 in Wellfield for a Mocha, fast becoming my favoured drink.
I completed my 3 hours of documentation, and wrote a letter to accompany a DVD of extra photos that I unwittingly agreed to send to the bride who visited me on Monday. At no cost as well. I really need to get my business head on.
After a lunch of mackeral, rice, peas, onions and tomato sauce, washed down with the nice and bitter combination of green tea with ginseng and a square of 70% dark chocolate fromn Lidl’s. It is far superior in my view to the Lindt equivalent. And a lot cheaper. Quite odd really.
I set about designing the wedding album for Sadie and Justin with a tempered bad head : food always eases the tension. I decided too that I would probably not document tomorrow and Monday - I would recognise the Bank holiday. The earliest Easter weekend since 1911. The next such early Easter will be in 2228. Easter Sunday is defined as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
I should make it clear at this stage that I am self employed, principally working on my own at home. After the initial novelty wears off, it is pretty soul destroying to work without the repartee of good company. Hence the trips to coffee shops.
After completing the album, I was done in, to use a quaint expression. So I tried to sleep it off. But, oh no, my mind does not give me the luxury of what I need. The March weather outside was cool and wet outside. I played a little Go on KGS before venturing to the Albany Road version of Coffee #1 to read. And maybe chat.
The rest of the day faded away in tiredness. Except for a 45 minute chat on the phone to my long standing friend Caroline in Portsmouth. It appears that she and a friend may be setting up an independent advocacy business. If anyone deserved a break such as this, she does.
Friday 21st March 2008
At least the birds appear to have stopped waking me up early. Cool. Except that when I did awake at 6:45, it was a mix of headache and anxiety - no idea why - today is a Bank holiday, so the day is free to what I want. But it has left me feeling as flat as a pancake yet again.
I played Go to relax before getting some last minute presents for family birthdays. I felt glum. And with no plans for the day had no idea of what to do to lift my mood. So I had a tea in Coffee #1, Albany Road variety. Talked with a friendly lady I had seen before. Then went home to get my camera to return to Woolworths to photograph the audaciously bright displays of mugs and drink containers. With permission from the Store Manager.
As I neared my house on my walk home, a voice called from my house. It was Nick, another photographer. He had tried to visit me to show one of his framed photographs. This was a pleasant surprise - I invited him in for a cup of tea and a chat. I recognised how relaxing his company is. He places no social demands on how you need to behave with him, which is always a relaxer for me. I told him that I had been planning to walk into town to look at rucksacks for my forthcoming holiday, and also for lunch. (No, I was not planning to eat a rucksack).
He was happy to join me, and we spent the next 6 hours walking, talking and eating. He is a remarkable fellow and I was able to forget myself wonderfully. We had a very filling steak and kidney pie in the remarkable Pillars Restaurant in Queen Street. You access down a set of steps, and like a tardis, it opens out to immense size. They are so fast at serving you that your meal is ready before you realise that they have even heard your order properly. I exagerate only slightly!
We visited two rucksack emporiums (emporii?). They offer a great range of back packs, some of which are suitable for taking a fridge or two. We met some of his friends on the way and chatted. And found a coffee shop in Woodville street - ‘Hoffi Coffee’ to have a coffee and a further chat. He told me some of his life stories. They make me feel like I have lived on a different planet. He has swum the equivalent distance of the circumference if the World. This guy does not do things by halves!
In the Japanese/Korean shop in Woodville Road, we were served by the most delightful of Japanese ladies. She was adorable in her politeness and gentle manner. I tested some of my Japanese with her.
We went back to the shop just to see her again, so lovely was she. Now I am looking forward to my visit to Japan even more, in the hope of encountering such gentleness again.
I showed him the photos I had taken in the afternoon when we got back to my house, by which time, my poor sleep had caught up with me. But regardless of how I felt, it was a very very different day.
I played too much Go on the Internet as a way of relaxing. It becomes a route to detox too often.
Saturday 22nd March 2008
Yet another awakening to ill feeling. A kind of sad malaise that hangs over me as I lie there trying to get more sleep. So I was very pleased to be invited over to my sister’s at 10:00 for present giving, tea and a chat of course. This lifted my mood immensely - having something other than myself to focus on! (You get ill and spend more time on your own which drives you mad which makes you refelct on yourself which spirals you lower …).
Having eaten too much this week, I had a lighter lunch, played yet another game of Go and then went to Coffee #1 in Albany Road on autopilot, thankful that my favourite seat was vacant. The seat bathed on warm sunshine whilst the World out there was being battered with chilly winds.
Energised by my 3rd all time straight coffee, I grabbed my camera from home and spent a few hours photographing my colleagues playing football at Roath Park rec. One player, by the name of Owen, purportedly an ex Portugese professional, with legs like tree trunks and arms much stronger than my legs, normally giggling his way around the pitch had an outrage performed against him. Whilst he can batter his burly frame around at all us lesser mortals, if anyone bites back, his wrath is incited. This happened. Twice. I was taken aback the first time, I failed to photograph the fight. The second time, I got a few good shots, one shown.
A swift mint tea at the Wellfield Road Coffee #1 followed as the biting wind bit too much, and Monica, serving there, she of the enchanting brown eyes asked me if I would photograph her sometime. Of course.
As you can see, such an ingrained habit to visit cafes now. So I did something different after a tea of rice, mixed beans and peppers - renewed my video card and rented ratatoule, or however it may be spelt. Time to relax with some good entertainment.
My head today was in abeyance - relaxed and inobtrusive, but one moment of tension and it would spring back to plague and tire me rapidly.
Sunday 23rd March 2008
Awake at 5am in a tense, anxious state. I eventually managed to get back to sleep, but the day was blighted by a messsed up head (as if I had been drinking until 4am and had little sleep).
I should add that this week is not so representative of my life the last decade or so, because normally I play tennis and football. This resets my headaches and other conditions to a large extent. But injuries deny me this luxury.
However, I am able to walk without aggravating my injuries, so walked to Splott Market in the morning - a round trip of 4 miles. Nice. I had a tea in a working mans cafe, and very nice this was too. Damn - that cafe habit persists.
To the pub after a tasty lunch of oak smoked trout, rice, peas and oyster sauce with home marinated ginger to watch my team Liverpool get beaten yet again by the old enemy - Manure (Manchester United). I had the misfortune of chatting with a Manure fan. I guessed his profession correctly with no clues at all - a computer programmer. There was just something geeky about him.
To Coffee #1 for a tea. Yes - another cafe. Honestly, I will break this habit, mr nice CA man (Cafe-ers Anomynous).
Back to the Billabong pub to watch Chelski (Chelseas) beat Arsenal. Not a good day.
I vegetated in the evening, as my head seemed to stop me doing anything terribly constructive.
Postscript : Monday 24th March 2008
You know that feeling when you come out the other side of a bad illness. You feel liberated amd incredibly alive, proposing to be grateful for the rest of your life for your wellness. It doesn’t last, since you swiftly become used to normal, healthy life again.
This transition is the best way to describe today in comparison to the bulk of last week. But times ten.
Even though I awoke again at 5am, I got back to sleep until 8am. I knew that this extended sleep would benefit me, but I felt anxious and depressed, so worn out have I been from the last few weeks. But half an hour later, playing Go I realised that I was incredibly energised and began to feel staggeringly alive and healthy (but, as always with a background headache).
Bank Holiday or not, I used this energy to design a Wedding album in 2 hours flat.
I arranged to meet my good friend Alex at Coffee #1 at 1pm (it was his idea - honestly!). Before he arrived, I found myself chatting with Boyd Clack, local actor, and his wife Kirsten. I took their photographs and had a nice chat about Faye Dunaway with whom they have been filming. Off her trolley apparently, after too many years pampered out of a real understanding of reality.
I was not only energised, I was uninhibited, taking photos of some of the cafe girls (they loved the prints). As I was talking with Boyd, the little, very bubbly blonde lady asked what drink I wanted. Minutes later, a Latte appeared, on the house with a smile. How good is that?!
Alex appeared and we chatted, moved upstairs and chatted more, including with a Liverpool fan. a very friendly guy. Alex was quiet, a little surprised how readily I talk with strangers.
It is 5:15 now, and I feel equally energised, loving every minute of the day. Truly alive. If I could have a day like this guaranteed just once a week, I would probably not worry about my headaches. In truth, I get days like this maybe 10 days a year.
And looking further back, I am on the path to a hyper state. Which does not bode at all well for tomorrow. If I let my energised state carry out its natural course, it will keep me awake until 2 or 3am. And my sleep will be severely disrupted, leaving me in more of a zombie state than if I had a bad hangover.
Sad, but true, I must give up some of the fun today, take time to meditate, and avoid energised activities so that I can calm my mind down to be more in tune with my bodily state. These games that I appear to have to play in my life. How nice it would be to just simply ‘be’. To simply live healthily every day. Those that do should have a period without to realise what they have :
“Just as youth is wasted on the young, who know not about the ravages of time, good health is wasted on those who have not suffered significant ill health.”
You can quote me on that, but please give my name. I ask because I particularly like that thought.
Mar
16
Religion continues to benefit from a privileged respect that generally obliges us to respect the beliefs of a theist. As one article I read today pointed out, we should differentiate between a respect for the right to have a belief in something from a respect of the belief itself. The latter is not an obligation, especially if the belief is at odds with your own beliefs.
Rarely though, is a Religious belief a simple, passive thing, like believing that the Earth is round. It is expression of Religious beliefs that are troubling. If we should allow the right to a belief, there are times when the activation and material manifestations of a belief should most definitely not be granted.
For example, belief in Islam, in principle, is fairly harmless. Koran principally promotes respect for others. But, like many Religions, the ancient scripts are open to interpretation, and the beliefs can become extremist, even against the basic tenets of the faith. This is still fine, as long as they remain beliefs, and are not activated.
But the Islamist belief that homosexual sex is wrong is activated as the death of the ‘guilty’ person(s).
This is an extreme example of the danger of activated beliefs, near one end of a spectrum, with minor impositions to join in a prayer of thanks for a meal illustrative of the other end.
Religion’s privileged position in many societies confuses what it means by the respect of beliefs. It not only expects you to respect a belief differing from your own, but to passively respect the activation of that belief, with all that that might entail.
Fortunately in Britain, the predominant religion is Christianity, which tends to avoid extreme flavours of activation.
But why should a set of beliefs not only be granted a universal protection and acceptance, but also the activation of those beliefs, almost regardless of the consequences, just because those beliefs are labelled religious?
Supposing I were to have a belief that anyone who failed to eat a meal had to resume that meal before any other were proffered to them. You might respect my right to hold such a belief. You are most likely to deem this belief an overreaction on my part. You would probably treat me as crazy if I were to activate this belief with my family.
But incoporate this belief into a religion, and my right in the belief, the belief itself, and its activation would somehow have to be ‘respected’.
There are sad cases where an American child can die of a treatable illness because the belief (that prayer is the only appropriate action to take) of the child’s parents is similarly treated with this excessive 3 levels of respect. Similar behaviour outside of religion would see the parents sectioned for mistreatment and/or man slaughter through inaction.
Is it not better to be pragmatic about the beliefs of people, and treat them in their own right, independant of religious contexts? The World would probably be a lot healthier for it.
Mar
11
Why pray?
Filed Under Atheism, Religion | Leave a Comment
I have just read the story of a man who prays at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in the morning for World peace and later in the day for the eradication of illness. After doing this for 25 years, he was asked for his thoughts. He felt like he was just talking to a wall.
I have prayed in my time. A kind of half hearted prayer, since I have never been very religious.
But I want to know why Religious people pray. They are obviously asking for change, and God is apparently all powerful, so they should in therory be on the right track. But when asked about unanswered prayers, they shrug their shoulders and metion the catch-all phrase - It is God’s will.
But God is all knowing, so he knows what we want to change in the World before we pray. And He knows how important it is to us. If by praying, it makes it more special somehow, then why does He not take action?
Mar
10
A sign
Filed Under Atheism, Religion | 5 Comments
For over a year now, I have befriended a cat that visits my house. Someone has said that she actually has an owner in my street, but either this is untrue, or the owner is negligent, since the cat eats a full breakfast every morning at my house., and would stay indoors all day and night if I let it.
In my own small way, I like to think that I am helping another creature. A creature that has a strange habit of attempting to eat my night time herbal tea bags. It wrips them to shreds because of the valerian in them I believe, which has an effect akin to catnip.
—
If you are a religious person, you would likely say that my drawing skills were God given. For as long as I can remember, I have been able to draw well, and was recently asked to draw a lady I had photographed at a coffee shop.
I started the drawing last night in just the right mood, with an almost clear head, and a calm energy. After two and a half hours, I had drawn all the hair detail - the hardest part of the drawing in this case. And went to bed very happy with my efforts and the look of the drawing.
—
This morning, the cat appeared within seconds of the click of the kitch light switch, and had soon devoured the bowl of cat food. I was shaving and wondered if I had shut the door to the front room. The cat loves to go in there and sit on a leather chair that I am frightened it will claw to death.
Yes, the cat is in the front room - sat on my drawing, slopping a half eaten tea bag all over my drawing. The pages were curling, and unerasable tea and paw stains covered the drawing.
—
Now I call this a sign.
The all-powerful God, who is perfect, who is all compassionate, who loves me more than any human could, and who has given me a great talent, does nothing while a cat I care for destroys a drawing I was lovingly creating as a surprise gift for someone else.
Or, more likely, He does not exist. To me, the unfortunate scenario I have experienced is so much more likely to be harsh reality rather than God’s way. This is a further sign of the non-existence of God.
Mar
3
Not alcohol
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I’m sitting at my PC playing Go, sipping at a mug of red wine. It would have been a finely cut crystal glass if I had not slammed it down on my kitchen workshop too hard in frustration one sleepless night.
The more I sip, the more relaxed I get, and the worse my game playing becomes. But I don’t mind, since I am chilling out.
Like a lot of people, a little, or even a lot of alcohol is a genuinely pleasurable experience. However, I’ve noticed a pattern in the last few months that make me realise that the side effects are more prolonged than I first realised.
If I go without alocohol for 2 or 3 days, I find that I feel a lot cleaner and clearer of thought. It is a nice feeling - a fresh feeling. In the evenings of such alocohol liberation, I actually choose not to drink, preferring the clean feeling to the drugged feeling alcohol gives.
A day or so later, some problems or poor sleep would eradicate this clean feeling, and I would labour through the day, to be comforted at the end by a beer or more wine. Very pleasant too.
My conclusion from this is not so much that alcohol is a mixed blessing, but that the majority of people do not entertain the viewpoint that the absence of a pleasurable thing, such as alcohol, can itself be pleasurable. It sounds almost zen, but I now realise that I really do enjoy drinking, and I really do enjoy not drinking. I realise this in a way that is clear in my mind.
And the concept probably applies in a much more universal way. But the capitalist society I live in cultivates an overriding importance on material things, and breaking free from it is refreshing! I am making my own decisions, not bowing down to the cunning ploys of a set of over paid marketing men.