mental health

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Island Blog – Happy to Wash Up

Work today was wonderful. I spent many hours washing up, and I loved it. This task, the behemoth of cups and plates and tea infusers and cutlery and so much more, was my empire. It was my bag, to a large degree. I chose this task. I am, after all, the granny in the mix. Here, behind the dishwasher racks, the queen in charge of two deep sinks, the one in control of the water mix, I am calm as Yoda. When asked to step out of that safety, I felt a frisson of fear. It isn’t that I have a single problem about stepping out. You can put me behind a microphone, on stage, and before hundreds, and I will talk, sing, engage, easy. But this is different. It thinks me.

This bag is not mine. The young couple who have begun their own beginning in this beach cafe are my leaders. Perhaps there’s a thing in that. Years ago I ran a hotel, many guests, many dinners, many dishes, much baking, but I am not that woman now. That was another time, and that time has taken from me a load of skills and even more confidence. I am happy washing up. And that thinks me too. No, two and a half, if not three.

I remember, and clearly, the moment I decided to risk myself out there again. It was helped through observations of others at my time of life who appeared to accept their end game. I want to shout and yell and dance in the face of that. A wee walk a day. A visit now and then with a friend. A load of hours wishing the (very busy) kids will call, the grandchildren too; the hardly knowing who anyone looks like – it’s been, what months, since…….

I think the fight for the me in me is vital. I know it, hence my search for work, for c……connectivity, competence, confidence, connection, there’ll be others. I know that to collapse into the olding is an inevitable slide. I may be sliding, but, if I am, it will not never be because I let my old wrinkly self become my focus. Oh, no. My focus is out there, where life lives on and, btw, everyone needs a granny and someone who is more than happy to wash up.

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Island Blog – The A Words, with a C or two

Apocrypha – are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word apocryphal was first applied to writings that were to be read privately rather than in the public context of church services. Interesting, that……….it calls to the rebel in me, just saying, and not just about bible wordings. It thinks me of any authoritative body writing rules and things and with a big power behind its butt. For me, for always in my life, this sort of sedentary, (smug) pronouncing sends my feet light and my flight inevitable because the such of this ‘such’ grew from the wrong place, a place of boardrooms and secrecy and nepotism. Not that I disagree with the latter, not if I am honest. I would give my children, and theirs, priority over others. It would be hard not to. If a friend is looking for a leg up (can you say that anymore?), I would be doing the lifting. We choose. All of us.

Acedia – Acedia has been variously defined as a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one’s position or condition in the world. I get this, particularly in the face of the above. For me the list is long. Parents. Expectations. School/s. College. Society. Culture. Appearances. The Uninvited Role of a Female. History. Ages of Me (you can’t wear that…..you’re too old). And. More. We slide, or I did, into the abyss of many abysses yet to come. I doubted myself, the wild in me, the natural and curious me, the only one I really knew. Rising, politely, into either A, in clean knickers and with a rictus smile, I kept on trying to be the ‘who’ which was acceptable for the time, and the gathered mob. I confess to landing in the ludge of Acedia or Accidie. I like the words, even as I never liked the blob I allowed myself to become, the one who, when asked out, spent agonising times in front of my long mirror, one, I am certain, was one clearly out to inflate me. I allowed this. And, that statement is an important one. I know it now. There is no blame in my heart. However, I do allow that I did not know how to challenge the apocryphiles in my life. They stood a head taller than me, or so I thought, and thus they afeared me, big time.

I am different now, and the only thing I can do with this differentness is to spread it wide, like petals. I can tell my grandlings, mostly females, that they probably have to tow the history line, suck up the rules and regs, for a while, because, and I tell them this, their parents have experiential learning. They know their bruises, feel them still, remember the hard knocks, the shocks, the blocks. They also, and I did too, bring to the table their own fear results. Don’t go there, don’t say that, don’t risk this. T’is human. I try to bring a new intelligence into the mishmash of life. Pause, I suggest. Think, breathe, find a question without aggression in your mouth. What you have, and will always have is….

Choice and Control. Not over others, never that, but over yourself. You can go left when some apocryphal someone shouts Right! However, the learning which lifts accidie up and out of the abyss and into the light of a newness takes guts and intelligence and a very good ego control. Ego is useful but it’s the jester in the mix. I learned that too. I fell into the apathy of accidie often. It eats away at a soul, did mine. Jumbled thoughts, not my fault, I’m a victim, that dunk in the sludge. Perhaps it took me a whole lifetime to understand that I always had Choice. I always had Control. I didn’t believe it, too conditioned, too a product of another time, another culture, anotherness. Whatever.

I choose now. I control myself now. And, I have to say, admit, that I really wish I had done it sooner.

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Island Blog – Talk About Kindness

We talk to friends, to family, neighbours and those who sell us something from behind a counter. What we find difficult is talking to strangers for no apparent reason. We didn’t collide with them in a doorway, causing them to spill all the apples from their grocery bag. We didn’t stand on their toes, nor were we asked for directions to the toy store. And so we remain close-lipped, avoiding eye contact, as if we are ashamed of who we are. We want to invisibilize ourselves, don’t want to be stopped or bothered with a stranger. Why do we do this, I wonder? It thinks me, a lot. We are all lonely, after all, not everywhere but certainly somewhere. A lot on our mind means we are thinking circular thoughts, endlessly twirling the how-tos of a problem until even the mind cannot think rationally. And, as we rush onwards we miss the very thing we need most of all. Human contact. There is a huge wide world out there and, further in, there are cities and towns, villages and settlements, and all of them peopled.
It’s easy, isn’t it, to pull our own life in around us, like a shell, thus becoming too embroiled in our own issues and needs. To be open is for the confident folks, the sociable ones, those who find it easy to communicate, yes? No, unequivocally, No. And those who are shy or feel awkward around conversations often hide their light within their shell, when their story just might help us find the answer we need. Something they say, or the way they say it, their smile, the look in their eyes might tell us that we matter, when most of us think we don’t, not really. We may not even mention our problem, but somehow, and this is the invisible magic of connectivity, they up-skittle our circular thoughts into a straight (and often obvious) line. Offering up our seat on a bus, letting someone go ahead of us in a queue, moving to a smaller table when a big family comes in to a cafe, even though we lose the view, all these and more are little beginnings. Suddenly, ice melts and here is the chance to say something nice about another, their coat, hat, the book they hold, their dog, the weather, anything at all. Kindly words exchanged begin something, and doors fly open. We learn something about someone else, something that stops us chewing over our own problems, something that expands our minds as another’s story, spoken or unspoken, revives us like a cold drink in a heatwave. And yet, and yet, for some bonkers and unintelligent reason, we think we are stronger alone. Let the ‘masses’ get on with their unimportant lives, whilst I manage my own important one. So much rubbish and so isolating, so lonely. To be vulnerable, to risk rejection, to reach out in kindness is a brave, strong thing, one that brings magic in, loads of it. Because if we do this reaching out thing once, we can do it again, and again, and the rewards we will reap will not be a bigger bank balance, but a wider mind, an inclusive life, a feeling of connection and the reduction of loneliness. Some of the loneliest in the world consider themselves rich, living behind security lights and locks and boundaries and minimal communication. And those who do ‘risk’ encounters with strangers, anywhere, everywhere, are the richest of all because they have become an integral and important part of human kind. And, if we could all risk being vulnerable and open, making eye contact, proffering kindness no matter our problems or perceived pressures, the world would be a very different one.

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Island Blog – Tanglewood and Scuttlebutt

I know both. So do you. So does everyone. The tangle wood clutches, trips, confounds, all of that tiddleypom. That’s on the outside of us. It’s in the running, the hiding, the defending, the fear, the confinements. Wherever we walk, we are wary of potential fetters. Those of us concomitant with endless tangle woods may well be ready for the twist and fist and the damn roots that grow sideways and strong as a boxer’s biceps, but even we can be felled. The thing is to learn how to fall. I have learned this, in my mind, anyway. Don’t fall flat, if possible. Don’t reach out arms to defend a fall. Roll. Learn to roll. I have experimented with this, in my mind. I watch how rolling fallers roll and thought wow. Pretty much. That twist away from a frontal stramash, impressive. Takes courage. Are there classes?

So, this damn tangle wood. I thought I knew it, but it denses itself in my not-looking days, growing thixotropic, unwilling to deconstruct, even for me, a long serving member. So rude. And, faced with that regrowth whilst I was busy not growing at all, scoots me to scuttlebutt thinking. I should, I could, I ought to have, I might have. Old voices, judgmental. I reside with Well, I didn’t. Not great. It feels me like the runt puppy or the also ran at a race meet. Or, better, the second son, the second daughter in those days when second really meant invisible and unimportant. It bemuses me that such complete and absolute nonsense yet infects some. It does, including me. This is Scuttlebutt.

Scuttlebutt. Inner talk, gossip. Outer gossip. Nothing positive about it. There are too many shoulds and coulds and didn’ts, too many chances to tangle a human doing the best they can, no matter circumstance, no matter judgement, no matter history. Keep going, that’s I tell myself. At least the tangle wood has no malicious intent.

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Island Blog – Means a Lot

Today was one to get through. It took hours, long hours, long as snakes. We all get them, I know, but in our western culture of not admitting to anything sad, most, if not everyone, says nothing, as if to admit to being completely human suggests a structure broken, damaged, faulty. I don’t buy into that. I will say when I feel (and here even I falter for wording) sad, angry, lost in the tsunami of what just happened. It is as if there is something wrong with admitting (wrong terminology) to a weakening. Even that is wrong, somehow. How odd that, with such a vibrant and expansive language within our grasp, the aeons of culture control stultifies. We are a people of denial. To seek the help of a counsellor is something whispered, reluctantly, to a best friend, if mentioned at all. I am happy to say that I have had counselling for most of my life, and thank goodness for the lot of them, for they have been my helpers along my always tricky path. When I did admit, way back to seeking such a wise helper, I do recall my body language showing shame, my eyes averted, my body somewhat cowed. What ridonculous nonsense! That’s what I think now. We all need help along our tricky way, at some point. It is so damn British to think we don’t.

Today I felt the death of my friend harsh as spikes in the soles of my feet. I felt it in the way I didn’t want breakfast, nor lunch, even as I ate both and tasted nothing. I felt it every time I rose from my chair, awkward, stiff, sore. I felt it when I made myself do the 100 pulls on my rowing machine, miscounting, lost in some cut between time and untime, an airy space of nothing, of no sound, no feeling, a nothing place. I felt it when I went upstairs to read in bed for an hour, barely following the story, my eyes ever looking out to the hills, the sky, the gullfloat into a scud of clouds. I felt it when I swept the floors, watered the orange tree, watched walkers walk by. Beneath it all, I have gone away. I function, but the ordinary makes no sense. It used to. It had depth, gravitas, a point. Not now. And, this is crazy because she has a husband who adores her still. I haven’t seen her face to face for years. I know very little about her daily life over decades. And, yet, this is how I feel. We met at 6. We share a birthday year.

And that means a lot.

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Island Blog – Lonely, Again

Here’s a thing. That is a ridonculous phrase, but, nonetheless an invitation to stay put and listen. At least that’s what I hope. I am upside down right now. If I cast my eyes back to what has happened over the past forever, particularly the most recent past, I can allow myself this. However, and But, why would those events be knocking me off my feet now? Well, when I ask such a question with absolutely nobody here to engage with, to consider, to respond, t’is only me who answers. She, actually. She is so damn sensible. If I could catch her, I just might incur damage. And, yet, she is the one who walks with me. In this lonely life, and it is a lonely life, I must be cautious around death threats to the one who is always right beside me. I know this.

My day is organised to a great degree. There are many hours in a daylight day, and, as I write this, I chuckle. I remember endless days that seemed to nibble up the hours, condensing them into what I decided was a conspiracy, a plan set to falter me, to confound, to bring me down. Now the hours move like a snail on morphine. I wonder on all the others who might nod at that, although it isn’t always, so. If I have managed to set encounters in place, such as meeting a friend for coffee or lunch, or deciding that valeting my mini is an opportunity for huge laughter and fun, or to decide to drive very slowly over the switchback, setting off very early, noticing ducks and buzzards and white-tailed eagles, flowers, other drivers who do know about island road. I might park and watch, look, pay attention to the ripples on a hill loch, watch a cow lumber away, see her calf jink and bounce. I might play tunes as I ride. I might clean my wee home, marvel at the view, know I am safe and warm and free.

Even then, I am lonely. And, I don’t think it is just me. I remember feeling lonely in a crowd, around friends, in a marriage. Lonely is a thing. And a very big thing, a thing that doesn’t leave just because I don’t want it, or when i try to swat it away in all my pretending. It has a voice, a presence. It is solid and here to stay. Oh, I could fill my days with endless meets and commitments, jobs and nesessaryness, but lonely lurks in the shadows, well fed and just waiting to slide into the room. I don’t feel gloomy. I feel furious. I think, that, as any new shit hits the lifeline fan, the lonely, like an unburied ghost, finds opportunity, and grabs it.

My oldest friend died. Oh hallo lonely. I refuse, btw the way to give you a capital beginning. I know you. In you come. Again.

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Island Blog – Twenty Twenty Thrive

And so, here we are, landed in a new year, onto an empty canvas, into a story yet to be written. What will you make of it, I wonder? Some of us feel ‘meh’ about the whole thing, some have made a plan of action, resolutions, even, although it is a truth that most of the latter are set too high and dissolve around February 1st. So how might we approach this new land, begin our own new story?

We have talked much on this, here beneath an African sun, and, although ideas are manifold as stars, each one is apposite to that person’s development and growth. To become more healthy is to initiate a plan of action, perhaps to walk each day, perhaps to run, a ghastly idea to me. I could run to save someone or to catch a bus, but all that bounce and jiggle is not a thing I would ever choose to undertake. However, I respect and admire those who do. But if this plan doesn’t get begun, it only serves to bring a person down so that they berate themselves enough to give up on what seemed like a wonderful idea. We are so good at self-flagellation.

Personal growth – now there’s a good one. It could mean noticing everything and everyone: could mean searching out the work of someone who has studied the subject, spoken on it, made it reachable. For me, one who is always hungry for learning, I listen to what others say, how they feel about what they say, and I ask questions. To keep a mind off moans and grumbles and selfies, it’s essential to feed that mind, no matter how old that mind might be.

Connectivity is another option, more of it and among those who uplift and encourage. There is enough gloom and doom out there already. What the world needs is more bright thinkers, those who, in spite of their circumstances, in spite of their fears, choose to see the world as a place of of hope, beauty and opportunity. When I hear moans, I can feel the irritation rise in me. When I hear ‘Well, what can anyone do?’ I want to say ‘A whole lot,’ because each one of us has that power, if we so choose. We can’t change everything, but we sure can change something, and that something is actually ‘someone.’ The self.

Achievements, personal achievements are listable for all of us. They don’t have to be huge. Why do we plant seeds in Spring? Because we can, because we love beauty and that blaze of colour. Why do we smile at each other in passing? Do we, smile at each in passing, or is that ‘self’ so caught up in minutiae, that we just don’t bother? To decide to smile at everyone. A good plan. To pick up litter instead of judging whoever dropped it. Another good plan. To allow someone else the parking space we were heading for. Excellent. A real achievement. And there are many more ways to make a difference whilst moving towards our goal of independent choice, of control over self.

Jimmy Hendrix said ‘ When the power of love is greater than the love of power, our world will find peace.’ I may have misquoted him, but you get the gist. And it begins with one person, one with a resolution that is free to us all. We can all thrive this year, by setting goals or plans or resolutions which connect us to each other, which take our self-centred thoughts up into the sky, to blow away in the winds.

Let’s do this. And a very happy new year to you all.

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Island Blog – Endless Positives

I have a think. In this culture of everything positive and uplifting (good so far) after Covid lockdown delivering awkward separation and restrictions we left way back in the when-when of school, familial confines, fears around ‘others’ who didn’t behave like Us, I think we might be losing the self of us. It is almost as if we shouldn’t feel sad, angry, lost, confused and unsure about what to wear, how to move in a sudden meet. It is as if we have become strangers, when, yes, we used to move past and beyond each other without even clocking a face. Now, there’s a thing.

I know I live in the back of beyond (all welcome by the way), with a view of a tidal loch, nothing much shouting but gulls on the hunt as the Atlantic slews in, but I still notice and note the change in media stuff. So many positive uplifts, and it wonders me. Who is left behind in this? I remember being so low I seriously believed pills and me gone was a good thing. Now, I recognise that woman, and love her and wish I could have been there for her. I just hope she sees me now, and I believe she does.

Nonetheless, I do find this, almost denial, awkward. How do we, who don’t want to fit beneath a label, find a voice? Yes, I fell, yes I fell, yes I fell, but somehow, and with strong and loving help, rose from my lost self, and found just one step, and then another, into a better life.

Perhaps the endless positive is a good thing. I still think there are loads of heads in sand out there.

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Island Blog – The Upbeat

I hesitate to write a blog when I am not feeling upbeat at all. The upbeat, in musical terms, is the lift after the down beat, the one you might clap along to, the easy beat. To clap to the upbeat means you’re the only one clapping, but for musicians it is a chance for play. It is like an in-breath. However, a down beat sounds down. I am beat down, that sort of down. When I hesitate, after many thinks on the matter, I realise that nobody wants to hear moans. We want to run away from a moaner. But my writing is not written in search of sympathy nor fixing. I write from the place of many, if not all of us, at times. Some people’s ‘times’ stretch out like a ribbon throughout their entire lives. Some others meet a break in the page and founder on the wordless rocks. What happens next? they may say. I thought I knew, but now I have fallen off the page and it is up there, beyond my reading, flying in the upbeat, where once I stood strong, like a surfer on my board, mistress or master of the waves. All I am now is soggy. Everything that bounded along in my life, and for endless years like a merry puppy has turned on me with teeth and claws. And we, all of us who know this break in our storyline, have no idea what to do next.

Could be the Lonely, could be the Nothing; could be some loss or a change we are sure will sink us in the end. But, in any case, we are onboard a ship sinking, and so close to land that we can see what was, and clearly, but we cannot reach it because we are going down. I know this place of old. I also know that it passes, eventually. For me it is the Lonely. My life from the very start was filled with others, their noise, their demands. Mostly I dealt with it all, mostly I held back my infuriation at a gazillion things, mostly. And, completely, I took it all for granted. Although the musical phrasing changed, from many siblings to many children, I learned my place eventually, although I fought the barricades and restrictions often and a lot and mostly. But we all yearn for peace and thus, we compromise ourselves and it’s a good thing to a degree. All relationships are ships, and sailing together means shared info resulting in safer passage for all. I watch young families now and feel very thankful I am not in that place any more. However, and there’s a thing, when all have fledged or died, and I am old, those chaotic times I am thankful for, the not-ness of them in my life, there is a nothing. I am encouraged to embrace the nothing. Seriously? Well, that is the sarcastic me and she is not a healthy companion. I must think differently about a situation which only exists in my soul, in my heart and mind. Until, that is, I write it out.

There is much talk about mental health right now. It kind of irks me, the label, but it is way way better than the labels tossed over coffee tables by ‘goodly’ folk in my day, when the very word ‘mental’ put the hat of shame firmly on someone’s head, much like the word ‘gay’. It was the culture back then, the learned way of thinking, but deep down it was always only a way to be smug, to be the one who wasn’t tainted by anything weird, different or dodgy, as any alternative way to live. So dangerous and so very damaging. I knew it even as a teenager and could not believe what I heard nor saw. Now, it seems, a freedom is coming, although it may take a while to fly free. For those of us who know we are foundering on rocks or sinking, I can say that if we believe that everything passes, moments, events, even lifetimes, we can keep on keeping on. I thought I would adore a singular life. I love the concept, but the daily trudge of it is not as I expected. I fill in the hours, yes. I am so very thankful for the wonderful place in which I live, the tidal views, the island weather, the community, my friends and helpers. But, it isn’t enough.

The sun may be shining. It might be a bank holiday, family may be incoming friendly. But unless we, who feel we are sinking, believe in a possiblest time to come, we are doomed. So, un-doom. I am awfy busy with the undooming thing. There is light, maybe light we cannot see, but it is there, nonetheless. Just keep with the small things, the ordinary stuff, the washing, the watering, the waving, keep with those and be at peace, my many friends. Bin the shame, bin the inner judge and sit peaceful in nature and know, of all things, that you have a gazillion others out there, somewhere, who know how you feel right now. The upbeat is coming…..

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Island Blog – A Doorway and a Sister

For three wonderful nights, I have slept well, nightmare free. I have no flipping idea why they come, the nightmares, although I do know that they only come in tough times, when my equilibrium decides to unequilibriate itself, tipping me into a sort of confusion, as if I had forgot who I am and which way is up. To be honest, I don’t spend much time a-wondering about this because ‘this’ just comes like that visitor you really hope never appears at your door, and we all have at least one of those. I just know it will pass like everything does, as long as my antenna are vigilant, strengthened, aware for what I may have missed heretofore because there will have been warning signs. For starters, it is no way possible that a mammoth can travel silently, even on tiptoe. Although I wasn’t around in those days when mammoths pounded over the earth, I am guessing that everyone heard them coming, even just the one. Must have been earth shaking. All that bulk and belly and weight could never just slip into a situation. Even an ‘it’ might have been heard a whole country away, thus giving plenty of warning. Oh, hear that? There’s a mammoth in Cumbria and heading our way so take cover! Simple.

So, I must listen for those big earth-gouging hooves, the pounding of them indicating both body density and danger. Ok, I’ve got that now. But once the damn thing is in the doorway, there is another thing for me to learn. First off, it can’t come through. Why not, You might ask. Because the doorway is human sized and a mammoth, weighing about 10 tons and 11 foot to shoulder height, never mind the body width and bulk plus hair and stuff picked up on the way all entangled and thoroughly woven in, is never getting through. It’s legs are four square and there’s a gap between the drop of its belly and my lino. An easy crawl if I can get past those tusks, which I can, easily, because there is no opportunity for a free swing of those great pointy things, not least because the door frame prevents any such free pointy swingery. I can see where I want to go, if I crouch down, the light coming in the picture window beyond the arse of this rufous beast, well, the swinging tail really, as the arse is massive. I just have to crawl beyond the tail of it, the tail of the nightmare-inducing eejit. How hard can that be? As long, and this is important, I do not clock eyes with the threat, pay no attention, nor give any level of import, to the growling (or whatever mammoths say when being their best at threatening) of the face, the teeth, the horns, I can find myself. I am more than a match for a stuck mammoth. It is only my mind playing tricks, that mind, well, bless it and all that, that only works on what it has already experienced. It has no way of thinking for itself. It might tell me I am no match for such a threat, that this threat is real, that I may as well submit, and I have done so many times over the years, hearing pre-recorded voices telling me I will never succeed, that I am not good enough, that I Told You So is all you’re going to hear today. But, the minute I employ my own intelligence and trust it, trust it, I see the stuck-ness of the mammoth. I see the light beyond its rufous arse, no, tail, I see who has the power here for I am in my right time, my right era, the Holocene era, not the Pleistocene epoch, and it’s Spring (apparently) and the mammoth is not. Perhaps that’s how it got stuck in my doorway. I push under and out and up, moving into the light of right now, of right Me.

When anyone mentions anything at all about anything mental, such as demon wrestling, nightmares, times when life appears as a mammoth in all doorways, folk don’t know what to say. There’s a stigma around anything of the mind. It is all in your mind, I’ve heard ever since I was 13. Well, yes, you’re right, although the way you say it sounds like a judgement instead of what it is, something to be cherished and nurtured and recognised, for it is real and the more you pretend to yourself that we, who do swingle t’ween your reality and the vast empires of our minds, are somehow in need of fixing, the more minds will become lost forever.

There are mammoths in a gazillion doorways but who will stop this rush of humanity towards gain and power, to even stop and notice we with supposed mental health issues? Perhaps just one (and one is more than enough) like my sister, a tiny bird of a woman with a huge personality, ditto heart and with the tenacity and courage of a terrier. She said ” I’ll shoo off the mammoth.” and, I believe she did.