Agoraphobic

Something different. Not a post from me but an article from someone else. A break from the moans about the rubbish weather and the frustration of being stuck at home when I would prefer to be out and the irony of that in that I trade the places of beauty to run back to the place I loathe the most. Maybe I have been blogging too long. What is left to say? Bah, I'm sure I'll find something eventually. I suppose there is always something to say. I could post about my joy (not) that 7 weeks of school break started to day. I could post about being hit again with Internet fraud and the anxiety that brought- bloody Paypal! I could talk about how out of all the Mr Men characters my children decided to get me a Mr Grumpy mug for Father's day. I could talk about sexual frustration- no actually I couldn't blog about that. I could talk about how reading Wilbur Smith novels has given me a strange craving for brandy- which I have never even tasted- and cigars- which I have. There is always something going on however much life in general is repetitious. Maybe I should see this lull as a sign. It could be time to start pushing out in order to create blog posts of something new. A wake up call that I am stagnating.

This last week I have been burning brain cells trying to understand this agoraphobia. From self help the words "will" and "choice" keep popping into my head as something we can apply freely. But can we? Location A: a crumbling oh-too-familiar tiny claustrophobic flat. Location B (One of many thousands): An African forest full of wonderful sights and sounds just over a mile down the road. I know that's an old photo and I am being lazy but I use it as a profile pic for a reason: It is where I want to be smelling the musky African forest, the roaring sound of water rushing echoed in the tall densely knit trees and the view from that bench of all the beauty nature can offer. On the very few occasions I have spent time measured in tens of seconds there I have been deafened and blinded by the spectre of that decrepit ugly old siren of home calling me home in the guide of a nurturing goddess where my time would be better spent and have always fallen for the ruse. Where would I rather be? You know. I don't have to tell you. My will is to be there and actually anywhere than the other place. My choice is the same. But that is not what happens in practice. It never happens. Were this agoraphobia a disease then I'd have to be injecting antibiotics straight into my subconscious. Why do I believe that? Because that is where free will and freedom of choice does not exist. We all know about the involuntary and voluntary nervous system. Thinking operates the same way, in my view. The fact that agoraphobia keeps invading my dreamscapes says to me that my agoraphobia resides in that involuntary part. A blog post for another time.

Anyway I've been feeding an addiction of late to reading fictional novels that include agoraphobic characters. Its a bit of a sadistic past time but I think its probably to try to understand what drives agoraphobia from creative minds rather than those standard textbook explanations. And in the course of feeding my current addiction I found an article by an Australian author who wrote a novel about an agoraphobic character- "Full Fatham Five" by Kate Humphrey. I haven't read the book and as its not available for Kindle probably won't be able to but do want to after reading her article. I found the article a really interesting read as an agoraphobic myself. In fact I found some comfort in it knowing that I am not that daft at all. So before I start rambling on I will stop there and leave a link to said article below hoping you enjoy the read (It might just be me but I had to copy and paste it because the white text on a black background was playing funny buggers with my eyes):

Art and Agoraphobia

Edvard Munch's 1893 painting 'The Scream' expresses even more powerfully the existential terror felt by the agoraphobe. Munch was walking along the road with two friends when "the sun set. The sky became a bloody red. I felt a touch of melancholy. I stood still, leaned on the railing, dead tired. Over the blue-black fjord and city hung blood and tongues of fire. My friends walked on and I stayed behind, trembling with fright. And I felt a great unending scream passing through nature."

Anywhere but here

Sorry but I'm thinking out loud here. Stuff usually reserved for the private contents of my own mind or my own journals which pile higher and higher with passing years. Just trying to figure this irrationality out. I look at it and it makes no bloody sense at all. Yet seeing it for what it is doesn't change anything at all. So I keep asking myself why that is. Why? Around and around like a spin cycle. The more I discect, pull apart, examine and scribble away the more this inner frustration at my self builds to the point where I am internally bouncing about like a jumping bean.

Its this flat, our home. Put simply: I hate it. I hate everything about it. I hate the fact is subsiding. I hate the damp patches that have appeared. I hate that the windows are crumbling and need replaced. I hate the lack of space. I hate not having my own room. I hate that we have people below us and to the side of us. I hate that we don't have a garden. I hate what surrounds it. Yes I hate it. So why not move? That is the most infuriating thing of all. Not only can I not move but I can't get a break from it because the second I leave I have this desire to get back here which is so overpowering that I have not been out of it for more than 3 hours in about four and a half years while have not stayed overnight outside of it for slightly longer. It has become a tomb of sorts and if defies reason why. There are plenty of places I would rather be even near at hand. In fact anywhere but here. Yet when I get there I am pulled back to this place constantly. That just doesn't make sense even to me yet this is what keeps happening. So do I have a choice? If I cannot grant my own will, my own desire, then is the choice really my own?

"people, places and events are panic-provoking only after we apply meaning to them."
R.Reid Wilson "Don't Panic"

I haven't read that book so don't know if its good, bad or indifferent but I do believe that is true. Well sort of. You see I don't apply meaning to any entity in particular. Anything that is not my shitty little home is a problem, when I am out the door it is a problem. Home is my escape from all those problems and when people invade my home I have nowhere to escape to so then its a BIG problem. Still though it is correct. Ignoring specifics it is my own applied meaning that is actually the problem where there is no problem in reality.

So what is it? This inner conflict is a compulsion to run away from here only to find myself outside with the compulsion to run back and so on. Irrational but that is how it is.

Faulty

What a couple of months. Though we've been quite lucky in so much as in all the time I have lived here, about 10 years I think, we haven't had to replace much. In fact in the last 2 years its mainly been burnt out laptops, irons and hoovers with the one exception being the oven that broke but we were lucky that my sister had a brand new one not being used sitting in her garage. Recently though its gone to pot.

Last month the TV just stopped working. I had a little hurrah inside because I rarely watch the thing but it my wife's head space, when she is not on her mobile, and where the children watch and play. So we had to dig into the meagre funds we had to get a new TV and that about wiped them out. Then it was the iron, replaced at a small cost. All the while the hoover is threatening again to fall apart- god those things are built poorly. Next it was the turn of the PC. I'm alright jack because I have my laptop- for now. But the kids were making great use of it and as luck would have it the day before it broke I ordered 4 cheap games my daughter likes for her birthday. So on her birthday she got the games but nothing to play them on. We just can't afford to replace it such is the climate we are living in. Then again mustn't grumble because there are enough people on this little island who struggle to pay bills and put food on the table.

The PC took me back to my old days in IT. It was coming. A good few times my oldest daughter came through to say its broken again and I would go through to see the dreaded blue screen of death- for anyone who doesn't know Microsoft's windows has always tried to report problems it has and the BSOD is the equivalent of a shrug and a blank look. Nightmare to fix and much to my annoyance I had just cleaned the thing up, set up accounts for the kids, added photos, set up the printer, transferred a load of documents, installed additional software, etc. But there was nothing else for it I had to wipe it clean and start from scratch.

At least I would have but it wouldn't let me and then it finally gave up altogether with a couple of beeps and some flashing LEDs. Software I don't mind but I was never a hardware engineer. Regardless though I spent 2 days sitting with the thing in bits sure that if I disconnected things one at a time I would find the source and change with what spare parts I had. Needless to say after two days I gave it a swift kick and its lying cowering in a corner.

This led my wife to phoning an engineer for a three quote. I am not good on the phone so she agreed to do it. First oddity was that he refused to have the PC dropped out so I was straight on to Google and found his "premises" was in fact a house. Then he wanted me to check something. He wanted me to check it wasn't the monitor which I knew it wasn't and had me thinking "we have a chancer". So I passed the phone to my wife who was talking to him on loud speak while I read a book and he took details before announcing he was on his way around to run some tests and try out some diagnostics. No chance, but it got me panicky for a bit while my wife deliberated.

At a push I could find some of the money for a new PC but it would leave us short and the rest my wife hoped would come in the shape of a loan from her sister. Before she could ask her though there was a snap in the kitchen and my wife came out saying the washing machine door was broke and she couldn't get the clothes out. Eventually I managed to break my way in and spent the night trying to fix the handle after analysing how it worked. I couldn't fix it though. So two engineers were called, both checked and said that the part could no longer be got and a new machine would be required. Bloody annoying. The machine works fine but has a broken handle and it needs a whole replacement? Yep, unfortunately. So that is where the money went and we are down a PC to boot.

The only good thing is, if you can call it that, we have now just about replaced everything costly so we should be OK for a bit. Its come at a bad time though because this month and next there are about 10 birthday including two of my kids and my dad's 60th. Its a time when we expected to take a hit but not this big a hit. And at the back of my mind with the threat of Cameron's henchman coming along to make us poorer and a big credit card debt only being maintained as it is I have more anxiety than usual. My debt is not down to the banks as much as I continue to criticise them but a flaw in my character- my inability to be a chancer. My brother in law had a quarter of the debt on his credit card that I have. In a couple of calls he had the debt reduced, 0% interest for 12 months and agreed to pay a very bare minimum a month. They have two full time wages coming in. I on the other hand have a part time wage and benefits while paying nearly 30% interest after 13 years of loyalty. And the difference is not employment status. Were I to get a well paying job tomorrow, not that I could, I'd still only be firefighting the debt. I just can't brassneck it, its not in my character. Yet I see the benefits and I continue to service rather than fight back.

Anyway, that character flaw is a source of frustration that constantly gnaws at me. It used to be something I was proud of when I looked at people cheating the system and use every loophole they could find to worm there way out of their obligations. But where does it get you? How far does pride get you? God I'm still £80 down, which isn't a lot of money but was still mine, because the stupid bank suspended my phone banking when my account was raided and told me to get it reset I'd need to go into my local branch- which I cannot do.

Just had to get that off my chest. A big old rant that has been building. For the moment all is OK though however close on the horizon the dark clouds build. I look I my dad who is constantly distraught in his search for work week to week as he approaches his 60th birthday and currently is getting up at six am then getting home ten at night with nearly three hours of driving and periods of heavy lifting which he even admits now is too much for him. And for what? He is actually not much more than breaking even because wages are minimum and fuel costs a fortune- he has to pay for his own expenses. Now wouldn't he be better off like some chancers claiming benefits? I can see why the government want them investigated but they are going about it the wrong way. And on top of that there are other issues that need looked at too. Yet my dad refuses to even sign on when he can't find work. He much prefers to fret constantly on the phone, at the job centre and visiting work places in the hope that he can find something.

Money aside things have been sort of OK of late. There has been an influx of visitors and I've coped OK. I think to some extent I am coming to terms with some things and learning to accept them. Still there is lots of anxiety though. When I say I am sort of coming to terms its more a minute to minute thing. Its a wet bar of soap I keep grasping. But maybe that's a start.