So how does it feel if one simply can’t get a grip?

By admin on January 20, 2011

As a counter-point to The Daily Mail article I wrote about yesterday is this truly fabulous blog Who Stole My Smile? subtitled as A Blog of One Man’s Fight Against Depression and its Stigma. It’s written by Adam Glenn, someone who is really making a difference.

On January 5th he posted an entry called What I’m Feeling and said….

“But I’m tired. I’m tired of the low self-esteem. I’m tired of the feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. I’m tired of simple tasks feeling like monumental undertakings. I’m tired of finding no joy in things I used to love to do.

I’m trying to get better, but these feelings hit me every day. This dark fog envelopes me and makes it so hard to see the way. How can I hope to get out? How can I hope to be the person I was before all this depression?”

This is one eloquent person with depression who doesn’t need to get a grip, he has a firm grip already. I nearly wrote ‘depressed person’ in the previous sentence, but I think ‘person with depression’ is a better phrase, it makes a difference.

Talking, blogging, sharing all make a difference, helps others to talk about the same. Talking helps us appreciate how depression feels and to start understand what can be done to support people with depression, real people, normal people with their real and normal mental states.

Adam Glenn is doing exactly what Professor Damasio advocates “Perhaps the most indispensable thing we can do as human beings, everyday of our lives, is remind ourselves and others of our complexity, fragility, finiteness, and uniqueness.” Damasio, A. (1994) Descartes’ Error : Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, London: Vintage.

Crisis counselling is available around the world. In Australia Life Line 13 11 14.

Posted in Tagged , 2 Comments

Happy Blue Year

By admin on December 31, 2010

2011 is starting and I want to wish everybody a happy blue year. I’d love a year free from pressure to be happy. I notice the quest for happiness is becoming a relentless push. If you’re not happy apparently you should make yourself happy. I couldn’t help noticing a row of ‘happiness’ books in a local store. A row of them? Pressure. The pursuit of happiness, the happiness project/workbook/trap, stumbling on happiness, the art of happiness, the how of happiness, the blah blah blah of happiness…

On Amazon books a search on ‘happiness’ returns 20,375 results. Me thinks that is too much self-help. ‘Sadness’, by the way, returns 979 results – an emotional state that is much less understood, less valued, less desired…

I am as happy as the next person, I think I am happy enough. Full. I’m blue too from time to time.

It’s a natural state not a fault that needs to be be happied over or happied up. Generally we think that happy = good and blue = bad, and that’s not really true, blue is not bad. Where one state is present the other must be too. Blue is rich for quiet, for contemplation and reflection and for feeling. It’s not that happiness is over-rated, happiness is fabulous but blue is fabulous too.

Blue is a state that’s under-rated, and in the words of Lennon/McCartney “Let it be”. That’s why I am wishing you a Happy Blue year in 2011. Instead of trying to change how you feel, just allow yourself to feel how you feel. Happy Blue Year.

“Perhaps the most indispensable thing we can do as human beings, everyday of our lives, is remind ourselves and others of our complexity, fragility, finiteness, and uniqueness.”

Damasio, A. (1994) Descartes’ Error : Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, London: Vintage.

Posted in Tagged , Leave a Comment

…and so this is Christmas

By admin on December 23, 2010

It’s Christmas and a time for being with family, and for many it’s a time without somebody special. A time when you can feel very alone amid the general cheer.

It’s also a time when many won’t understand your sadness, I know mine is misunderstood. I am cajoled to join parties and teased not to be a grinch. Questions about the length of time since Mottsu’s death reveal concern that I should be over my loss. That I have grieved long enough – however long that is… That’s the most difficult to deal with the it’s-been-long-enough-attitudes.

My reply is simply “How long would it take you to get over me?”

However long it’s been is not long enough for me to be restored back to where I was. Time won’t see me completely restored or refurbished, I am changed by my experiences.

Merry Christmas, as merry as you can manage, I wish you as much merryiness as you desire and time for reflection, grieving and longing, time for yourself amid the celebrations.

Posted in Tagged Leave a Comment

Principles for fighting stigma

By admin on December 7, 2010

In August of 2009, Glenn Close, the actor, co-founded a national organisation dedicated to combating the stigma of mental illness. The organisation is called BringChange2Mind, it’s described in this news article.

BringChange2Mind launched their principles last month asking people to sign on to them to make a difference in addressing stigma. “You will be helping to create a future in which shame is replaced with dignity, misinformation with truth, discrimination with understanding and isolation with community.” the article reports. How could I not pass on the principles for everyone:

1) It is likely that someone I know is living with a mental illness and that fear of stigma may be preventing them from accepting their illness and seeking help.



2) I can make a difference by learning about mental health issues and the devastating effects of stigma.

3) 

If someone I know exhibits sudden changes in behavior, I will pay attention and reach out to them.



4) If someone I know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, I will take it seriously and make every effort to ensure they get help.

5) 

I will not perpetuate or tolerate stigma of any kind and will commit myself to changing the way society views people living with mental illness.

There are also principles published for people living with a mental illness. Is this sort of awareness raising action necessary?
Yes it is, on all sorts of fronts.

Posted in , Tagged Leave a Comment

Bad fruit

By admin on November 10, 2010

I was all bright and morning when I decided to try a city fruit stall, for the first time, on the way to work. On display was a small array of fruit, all in their skins.

“Do you have any chopped up fruit?” I said.

“No” he said, “I don’t have a kitchen, just this stall in the street. I don’t have anywhere to chop fruit. I don’t have a fridge to store it in. There’s nowhere for me to keep sliced fruit. I don’t have a kitchen. When would I cut it up anyway? I don’t want to get up at 4am to chop fruit for my lovely customers…”

“I’ll take a green apple and a banana please” I said.

I could feel my facial muscles tense into a grimace and my breathing became more conscious. Buying something healthy before work should be easier, the multitude of muffin sellers in the city are, everyone of them, more gracious. I need to complete the transaction and escape the fruit guy. The day just begun, along with my interest in fruit, was rapidly spoiling.

“I don’t get home before 7pm” he said “When would I cut up fruit? I don’t have anywhere to store it? No-one in the city has sliced fruit” he said, and he kept it up, going on and on…

He was ranting, my morning feeling was evaporating. I stood to receive my fruit as his tirade bruised me.

He could have said “No” to my original enquiry.
He could have said “NO”.
He could have said “Sorry, I don’t have chopped fruit”.
He could even have said, “Wah? Chopped fruit? Are you kidding me?”

He could have smiled, sans rant, and preserved my morning, saved my mood and smile, not that he cared about his “lovely customer”.

I’m never going back, non, nah, neh, nein, nr, no.

Posted in Tagged Leave a Comment

Our orphan experiences that aren’t welcome at work

By admin on November 2, 2010

I wrote about The Burden of One’s Own Story back in January. Being heavy hearted and unable to be your whole self at work was on my mind, I was (and mostly still am) perplexed about how to integrate my life (outside of work) experiences with my work-life.

I am not sure why it is that I feel unable to bring my whole self to work. There are experiences that I suspect are not welcome in the office, orphans. My workplace identity is only part of me, the regular, normal, routine, most dull parts of me to work, it’s all that work can cope with. Where I work is probably much like other workplaces. Employees are acquaintances of their employer rather than friends.

Not that I want to be particularly over-friendly or outrageous, and I’d like to bit more whole and complex, rounder and full.

Of course, it could be me who is prickly and not ready to share more at work, that would be another explanation. I am unhappy, but sometimes not all that unhappy with maintaining some distance between my work-life and the rest of my being.

I don’t know what goes on and I do believe climate change is needed and some warming of workplaces. Warmer, more welcoming, more accepting. In small ways I am becoming a climate change activist, a covert sort of activist creating little interventions. The trick being not to overheat anything.

I also work on ensuring my own internal micro-climate is tropical, innerwork.

Posted in Tagged , Leave a Comment

The butcher is all knives and caring

By admin on October 21, 2010

It’s sunny and quiet in Lygon St. The hour before lunchtime and I swing into my favourite Butcher shop. A traditional Italian butcher, nothing shrink wrapped or packaged. I sometimes flirt with the idea of becoming vegetarian, but probably not this week.

“May I take a chicken fillet, one chop and two pork and fennel sausages?”
“Is that it?” he says.
“Yes, that’s it for today.”
“Do you live alone?”
“Yes”
“What happened to your husband?” Funny he assumes there once was one.
“He died.” I say, one hand flying up involuntarily and landing gently over my heart. Tears ready, instantly present without warning.
“How long ago?”
“Six years”

“…but you always seem so happy” the butcher says.

“I am happy, I have a beautiful life”

A beautiful life, it’s a familiar phrase I used it often more than six years ago and it popped out unexpectedly today, in the butcher shop. It’s true, I do have a beautiful life.

You only get one life. There’s no God, no rules, except for those you accept or create for yourself. Then once it’s over… it’s over. Dreamless sleep forever and ever. So why not be happy while you’re here?
Peter Krause as Nate Fisher, Six Feet Under

I ask about the butcher’s family and the clocks start ticking again, the sunny day continues.

Posted in Tagged Leave a Comment

It’s so utterly appalling

By admin on October 19, 2010

I was walking home from the city today, runners on my feet and ipod playing in my ears. It’s a good zone to travel in, and when Pink starts singing “Na na na na na na na na na na na na” I almost skip along. Walking, breathing, heading home, life is good.

Then a roadside sign, that stopped me in my tracks.

“You are now entering a 3 smiles per hour zone”

What? You’re kidding me. I don’t quite believe it.

Three smiles per hour?

Staring, I feel a thwack of emotions hit all at once.

I don’t know whether to puke, scoff, or shrug. My initial laugh of surprise dies down and anger rises, as do tears – rising to the brim but not spilling. I’m humiliated, the sign is so cheery and condescending, with it’s bright message. A lot of things all at once.

Someone must be kidding. What is the intent of this sign? To put smiles our cute little dials? Not one but three smiles an hour – and why stop at three? Am I accused of being too smiley in an hour?

What’s going on?

I want to click my heels together and be lifted up and whisked home. I want to hide for a while curled up in a blanket, safe, with my little dog, and hidden from the world. I feel I could simply bawl and bawl and bawl…

One of Michael Luenig’s poem rans through my head “They took him on a stretcher to the Home for the Appalled where he lay down in a corner and he bawled and bawled and bawled.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he wailed, when asked about his bawling, ‘It’s the world that need attention; It’s so utterly appalling. It’s so utterly appalling,’ he sobbed and cried and bawled, and the chorus rose to join him at the Home for the Appalled.” http://www.leunig.com.au/publications/

I was utterly appalled, and Michael Luenig’s wry take on the world allowed to clear my head with a dismissive snort and walk on. Pink singing “I’m alright, I’m just fine. I’m gonna show you tonight. I’m alright….“.

Posted in Tagged , Leave a Comment

It’s not easy being green

By admin on October 13, 2010

It’s not that easy being blue either….it seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things and people tend to pass you over because you’re not standing out like flashy sparkles on the water or stars in the sky….

…when blue is all there is to be it could make you wonder why, but why wonder why wonder. I’m blue and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful, and I think it’s what I want to be.

It’s not that easy being any particular colour and I love people, blue or green, and I especially ♥ dear green Kermit

Posted in Tagged Leave a Comment

It gets worse

By admin on October 9, 2010

British marriage counselling service Relate advises that mid-life crisis happens earlier than we (me anyway) have expected at 35 – 44 years old. People in this age group self report as the loneliest age-group and are reported as the unhappiest in society.

Mottsu was 43 and exhibiting some typical mid-life symptoms, when he died by suicide. I know he was seeking a new career and direction, and overwhelmed that a change didn’t seem possible.

I imagine he was also wondering, and asking those haunting existential questions, what next, what else, so what and the like. He might even have wondered if God believed in atheists. I don’t know.
I do know he was in crisis, and the risk was barely visible.

I mention it because I know how easy it is to snicker at middle-aged people in shiny sports cars. Mid-life crisis can be something to ridicule but a crisis is a crisis, and it’s not all that funny.

Things get worse it seems.

Posted in , Tagged , Leave a Comment