Frosty Mornings

The nights are bitterly cold now and the mornings the same. Its a battle of wills when it comes to the heating. In this credit crunch we, like half the country probably, are so against turning on the heating until at least one of our sets of teeth are chattering. Of course there is the kids to think about but they are so hyper that they whizz about this small box like atoms in the hadron collider so never feel the cold that is the air.

It is great for walking in though even though I'm not doing a great deal of that at the moment. I do like the crisp air and the cold nip biting at your cheeks as you are warmed and blinded by the ever lowering sun that cast long shadows. I wish I could walk more. I used to love the feeling of coming in from a walk in the cold and a bowl of hot soup as an excuse to heat up. I have so many good memories of the cold here, in Paris and in Koln. Memories of up north on a long walk to loosen the weight of the meal before and coming in to be warmed up with a small whiskey from my father-in-law.

The girls have got a new school which is great because the last was a ramshackle but this is brand spanking new- I actually watched it grow in stages. But planning seems to have gone only as far as the building itself which is built behind the old school. Where the old school was a nightmare to get in and out of the new school uses a different entrance which is narrower and right on a residential street too. Its apparently led to many verbal exchanges between residents and parents over parking as you can imagine. So the upshot is my wife has had to walk them to school and walk to pick them up. Given that she also has a bad knee this is not good for her and I feel more than a tad guilty that me in an apparently healthy body is indoors while she does the run. I wonder if a brain transplant is possible on the NHS?

So while I stand at the window with the boy the three females of the household venture out into the cold. Sad state of affairs. I wish it were different but it isn't. I've been trying for well over a year to walk to that school and just can't. I made it a few times in the car but if my wife finds the bottleneck now too much then what chance do I have? In her dogged pursuit to get me well by whatever means she has arranged a phone conversation tomorrow with the GP. Its the one where I have to say I don't want the drugs he gave me and can I have different ones, preferably the ones that he calls "addictive" and refuses to administer unless I plead insanity. I don't know about anyone else but I have a barrier there where I tend to be unwilling to say things are as bad as they are which doesn't help. Some little part of that "I can cope" nurturing preventing me telling all.

Well I'll see what happens there. I need some way out for the bad times which I can't at the moment handle. Been thinking about a big rubber mallet I can knock myself out with when it gets too much as nothing else has worked so far. But if there was something there I knew would give me an escape out of that mind torrent of jaggy statements nipping my brain I may not even need to take it- just knowing I had something may be enough. And that is what I need because fear of consequence is stopping me pushing myself at the moment and agitation has taken its place because I don't want to sit in this little room so the two stances are at odds with each other tearing my mind apart.

No much else going on at the moment. Immersing my self in books like some kind of researcher on anxiety but plodding over old ground in the hope of finding something I may have missed the first time round. Generating lots of new ideas which only serve to add the confusion but in the passing seconds keep me occupied or at least distracted. I've allowed my world to shrink again and maybe with some arrogance thought it would be a case of just stepping out again but find I'm walking into walls and rolling back home. But its not too bad. I was having a hard time coming to terms with that to begin with but have since seen there is very little point getting frustrated over it and become impatient. Best instead to just keep stepping out and see what happens and at some point it will click again. Its this doom and gloom this country is rightly in at the moment which I think has me revved up looking for quick fixes when in fact what will happen will happen and there is no quick fix and also trying to apply one is highly detrimental.

I have been experiencing something strange in the last few weeks and not sure what to make of it at all. I'm hopeless at conjuring mental images as I have found out many times when trying visualisation exercises but lately I have been seeing an array of random vivid images in my head from my past. They are never of people but of places and always very clear still images. It is very bemusing and the purpose I don't know. Mostly they come and go but one has been recurring and I can make no sense of it at all. Its a cashline at a bank in Edinburgh and its at night. Why? I remember at the time it was unique, to me anyway, because it was behind closed sliding doors and you needed your back card to firstly open the unmanned doors before using the cashline machine. I can only think it just popped up at random and because I found it so strange it has kept repeating on me. I'm not going mad honest!

So for now I have to just watch from the window as I said, as I have been doing for some time now. As cold as it is I love the the way frost makes things sparkle, When the bright sun comes out everything gleams and shines momentarily before it melts under its gaze. I still don't agree with those people who think anxious types are lazy or unwilling to do things or even comfortable to sit in their situation without really wanting to get out of it. This time of year I love and would equally love to be out in it regardless of the cold. Its anxiety only keeping me indoors and a lack of solution to manage it. The cold is what wrapping up is for. Walks in the park and through woodland paths are great this time of year. I want to be up and about at the crack of dawn to see the sunrise even on a frosty morning or maybe because its a frosty morning. I don't because there is little point, I need to catch on the sleep lost the night before and it makes the endless day longer. With purpsoe though I would spring out of bed but for purpose to exist there has to be the ability to carry it out. Its perverse that a desire can bring guilt because its someone else's chore.

Good day

A good day, yes. Its what I was thinking to myself earlier on: a good day, yes. Its a measure though of the quality of life when a day is about what it didn't contain rather than what it did contain. Most people will quantify their day by the highlights in it. A good day might contain an array of beautiful, exciting and/or exhilarating moments. Not me. What was so good about this day? Well I can't list a thing because I have no excitement to offer. I was indoors for almost the entirety with the exception of a short jaunt out to reveal myself to the world as I do at least once each day before heading back inside and if it were not for cars on the road I would have thought I was the last man on earth as I did not encounter a single soul.

No as I said my good days are defined by what they do not contain in relation to every other one I can remember in recent memory. I had to get up at nine which is early for me on a Sunday after a late night and a bottle of wine but felt fine, felt actually quite relaxed. Throughout the day stress was minimal despite watching three kids bounce up and down yelling in a room too small for their needs, anxiety was minimal and panic was non-existent. And this is what led me to the conclusion that it was a good day. A normal boring day with no mischiefs, a nice change. A day without troubles and minimal strife. Sad to say but it feels satisfying strangely.

These are the kind of days when I usually feel propelled to launch myself out the door like I have been catapulted and challenge my agoraphobia with a new found resolve but not today. The urge was there but my wife had a long deserved sleep in as she needed it and with the kids in various states of dress I couldn't muster the will power to find clothes, iron them, dress them and by the time we would be ready to go out anyway I'd have lost the will. Besides that the boy at the moment is a nightmare out as he has found that his new favourite word is "no" and darts here, there and everywhere on to roads and throws himself on the ground and just about everything that can increase the temperature on my already simmering blood pressure.

Not a lot going on at the moment apart from me with my head in a book which I think is the reason for the calm today. Whereas normally I would be ripping my hair out at the noise and all else with kids caged in a room looking for stimulation I somehow am finding it washing over me or somewhere afar that can't touch me as I lose myself in another world. Usually when I realised I am stressed its already too late and I cannot find a way to get myself out of it. So the only way is not to get stressed in the first place which I find difficult but at least today I found out it was possible. All good with only one dark cloud on my mind that won't go.

The main thing on my mind is medication. The wife went to see the GP and he called me after she left. No problem for him and he was very nice and informative on the phone. Two sets of pills. One an anti-depressant and one anti-anxiety pill as advised by the CPN. That annoyed me straight off because as much as I appreciated what my wife did she is still listening to the CPN more than she is listening to me. On a side note she one day started to doubt the CPN last week after her sister went on a rant which again annoyed me because its like everyone else's opinion matters except my own. And with the pills I didn't want that. I wanted a pill to take the edge of things when they got too bad to handle. I didn't want something that was going to make me feel worse for a few weeks with the possibility I might feel a little better later. The main one I'd read about before and didn't fancy. Nothing I can do about that as the info is planted. It seems quite successful after the rough ride but I have it in my head now that its a bad one. I've still not taken it but feeling torn again. On one hand its caused a few fights with the wife who thinks my reluctance is down to not wanting to even try to get better and on the other hand I'm thinking that its my body and given that I can't go to hospital and have had reactions to medication in the past I don't want to play Russian Roulette for other people.

I did try the anti-anxiety medication which I seemed to react to too but my anxiety is so bad at times that I cannot tell how much is a reaction to the pill and how much I have created in my own head through apprehensive worry. The GP said it was a short burst which I did feel but rather than making me less anxious it gave me more anxiety. I have since read that it actually takes 2-3 weeks to take effect which wasn't what I was told. Maybe I could persevere with that but I'm not sure I want to be experimenting with two types of medication at the same time so firstly must choose which one to settle for. The problem is that I have also read that this one offsets the other so the GP was quite right to prescribe them together even if I am reluctant to take them as such.

Really I am not sure what to do. A day like today reminds me that I can on my own terms get in a frame of mind that allows me to at least be in a position to take on my anxiety issues. OK I didn't do it today but I found that place where at others times I have, usually child free, pushed the boundaries. And it also reminds me that every time people interfere it has an adverse effect and does me no good at all. I have the stubborn mentality ingrained where if I feel like a puppet on a string I won't dance regardless of who is pulling the strings nor how hard they pull. But I'm also of the mind at the moment that I can't rule it out until I've tried it either so can see my wife's point of view there, just don't like feeling like a guinea pig.

I know my med phobia sounds a bit melodramatic. Really what is the worst that could happen? I don't know. Maybe it comes from the fact I got the anxiety lable 4 years ago and have never had a check up since and everything since then has been attributed to anxiety. Maybe its the warnings about not take the meds if you have and not knowing whether I fall into that bracket. I guess there is only one way to tell and in the past I wouldn't even have thought twice about it but now I seem to linger too long on cause and effect and that moment when action is irreversible. Its completely irrational but then so is everything else when it comes to my thinking process.

Apart from the medication dilemma and hibernating inside the pages of books still not a lot going on up this end of this little island. Quiet times with little to report. Maybe its better that way. And when I am not here I am back there, former days. Other good days. Like the photo above, circa 2002, where I was equally lost in a book but instead of sitting on the couch in my living room I was on a train from Brussels to Amsterdam- an adventure as I booked everything manually without the aide of a travel agent. No difference inside the mind though. There will be days like that again I am sure and until then I realise its not that important what is going on around about me. Back then I was in my head and its what happens when I am in my head now that equally defines my mood. I think its important when you are troubled to lose yourself if you can and you think it helps. At the same time though you cannot put off what needs to be sorted now one way or the other.

Lost

The skeleton is easy. Its well worn, tried and trust. You have an older man with an interesting profession that means delving into the distant past. Usually he is an archaeologist of some description or a professor but I've seen book collectors and other such interesting non-academic types. He is then joined at some point by a much younger beautiful woman by his side who it turns out has brains as well as looks and from there the sexual tension builds. And what binds them together is an ancient artifact of some sort and it is the quest for this item which weaves the story together. Now that would be pretty bland in itself were it not for the fact they were being chased by a lethal band of brothers connected with some ancient cult who are after the same object and through car chases and shoot outs and all other kinds of exciting near death experiences the story ticks along to its climax through twists and turns and a helluva lot of near misses. And this tale is the major part but usually there is another tale told from mostly Medieval times- or around Christ if the artifact in question is religion related- which brings the history of the prize to the reader at the same time. Its classic Dan Brown formula and repeated now eternally. The meat on the bones is the author's narrative which varies from the dire to the quite brilliant depending on who you read. Usually the former unfortunately as these books are churned out by the basket load.

For some quite time now I have been hooked on these historical thrillers or whatever the genre is called. I don't go seeking them and in fact if I order books I don't touch them but whenever Mrs N decides to treat me to some books from the supermarket its the type she always brings home because they are popular and so accessible and every time she does I groan inside then 300-400 pages later have enjoyed my read. Its so strange as I hate repetition and I also hate beyond the bounds of reality sensationalising- you know the sort of thing: Chuck Norris up against 20 guys and he knocks them all out with 1 punch yet takes 20 in return and doesn't have a mark. Its like James Bond always being left to die in some contraption you know he's going to get out of and that irritates me so much I just want the villain to put a bullet through his head- that's never going to happen is it? Yeah I hate everything about these books yet with nothing alternative to read I force myself to start reading them and can't put them down. Its a weird feeling to be repulsed by my own enjoyment but I do. Abondoning realism irks me and yet at the same time I feel the need to be lost in adventure by whatever means.

At the moment I'm on a reading frenzy which seems to happen when I become bored or disillusioned with this reality to the point that I have to escape into alternatives. So at a loss last night after finishing my last unread book my wife came in today, to save me from the iritation of rereading, with two new books from the supermarket of this genre which brought internal groans again- one about finding Noah's Ark, cue Indiana Jones music, and another about a Medieval manuscript that will change the world. But still I will read them as I have nothing else novel to read. For all its faults and borrowing I did really enjoy the last book I read which was not of this ilk yet another supermaket buy from my wife. It was a sort of Gothic horror translated from Spanish and set at the beginning of last century in Barcelona but hinted vaguely to me of the film Angel Heart, it was actually entitled "Angel's game". I loved it though and couldn't put it down. Maybe more to do with preferring to live in a large gothic home in uncertain times in another place under a burning sun that the story itself. More to do with being lost in myself in another world.


The power of the written word is amazing. In the epilogue to that book I read I started reading the final few pages and had to stop. I was reading something and could feel myself having to hold back the tears. I could feel my chin wobbling and I quickly put the book down before I emotionally broke down. And that is the thought I get in my head: must hold this back or you will go insane and breakdown into a gibbering idiot. I know I won't- I think- but that is the strong thought. So strange that fiction can do that. It was only a letter from a bit player in the piece of a fictional story and yet I couldn't carry on reading until the following day because of what it was doing to my emotions. I see it happen to my wife all the time with TV and through tears she looks at stone-hearted me but I do get that well occasionally in fiction and its stronger and more often than I get it in reality. Without doubt I have suppressed all the dark stuff and from time to time it tries to break out. Its not just sorrow though but instead the strength of the emotion because I get the same with with anger and frustration. My wife came home on Thursday early from work and burst into tears because her best friends mum had died who she knew well. Earlier today she went up to see her and among lots of things she related how her friend and husband had wept together. I couldn't see me doing that I am so emotionally repressed. I just don't know how to deal with these things and can't let go and no it is not a healthy thing but can't help it as in my mind I see a big wall with lots of cracks all leading to one point where I have my finger poked in and fear the consequences of removing it.

Boredom of this life and its restrictions has sent me head long into the world of fiction and the written word. To be perfectly honest I am enjoying it which I should be ashamed to say but am unashamedly not. Its a welcome break from the monotony of endless days. It is though just a short term vacation I take from time to time when I need to. Not a conscious effort on my part but something I just do automatically when there is nowhere left to hide. But the good thing is I do usually feel better for it. At the moment I am feeling better for it. Its a bit like stopping the world for a breather before allowing it to start spinning again. I do though also worry that this is part of my problem- the need to escape from the practicality of life. Even if only on fictional terms swapping shopping for love, hoovering for lust and mundane conversations for whatever the heart desires. An urgent need to escape from the banality of it all into a place where the realm of the senses has no bounderies.