Pushing on

Apologies for the photo above. My wife has had the point and shoot more than be lately and it would appear the lens needs a clean. Possibly. Or the lens is starting to go.

Anyway, this is the road school. Its past halfway. I am past halfway. Point 6 I have passed on my 10 point graduated exposure. The first turn to the left after the 4 trees on that side is as far as I can get but further than I have been for a long time. At the end of this road lies the school and nursery. Not right at the end of it unfortunately but points 7 and 8 on my graduated exposure lie on that road before it ends so I am getting closer than I ever have before.

In fact I am getting out longer and going further in general. At the start of the year I was struggling to walk 2 miles a week between the agoraphobia and fatigue. In the past 3 months I have been maintaining 8 miles a week and this week if I stay on schedule it will be my 4th week in a row of over 10 miles. All this and the number of walks has actually dropped as I employ my new strategy of pushing every walk as far as I can and staying out as long as I can. Not without problems of course. I have had so many crashes. Agitated fatigue and regret after passing the point of no return.

But also not to forget little victories. Things that mean nothing to anyone else. Going to into the shops and buying something. Going into my wife's work and sitting waiting 10 minutes for her. Little achievements. Little steps in the right direction.

And today a glimpse of what needs to be done and a little more acceptance that it needs effort and patience to do it. Mindfully. Reaction is the problem. Being mindful and not reacting or reacting less. Detachment from the fear cycle. Separation from constant worry and anxiety to the pure self that lurks beneath. The anxious mind is so fused now with the self that it is welded on. It is going to take time to pull them apart. I see that.

So anyway not going backwards at least and hopefully however small the steps they are in the right direction. Little things I must not forget and must hold on to in prolonged periods of negativity. Getting out of the head and into the world. So many separate parts but if I can work on every little one and keep clicking them into place then somewhere along the road the jigsaw may make sense.

Genes

A brief description of present conditions as found on examination:

A nervous man, who today suffers from inflammation...

Disease from which you consider this man is suffering.

Muscular Rheumatism

Dated 1945. My grandfather. This document sits in his seaman's pouch at the National Archives in Kew from his time during the second war in the Merchant Navy. To be honest I cannot read the paragraph properly but think its something to do with problems in places like the shoulder and ankle leading the the conclusion that he had muscular rheumatism. But I can see clearly "A nervous man".

He never struck me as a nervous man but it got me thinking- is that what I have inherited through my genes. My dad doesn't strike me as a nervous man but has all his life been plagued with a stutter which I assume is nervousness based. Maybe not.

But then my grandfather had good reason to be nervous. He's been bombed three times on various ships during the war. This episode here was after being picked up bobbing about in the cold sea. From what I have been told he was in a bad way for a long time after. So every reason to be nervous at that point in his life.

I am aware now, looking back, of a nervousness all through my life. I wasn't aware of it at the time. And seeing that now makes me think it was a ticking bomb just waiting to be ignited by a certain amount of stress. In fact I see it was triggered 2 decades ago but over time eased before this latest episode.

And an episode is all it is. A long episode don't get me wrong. But an episode no less. That will not last forever. Some time in future I will be better and free of this. It will happen naturally but in the meantime I will keep working to speed things along.

Diaries

The point of these past few posts was to create a timeline not reflection but as written at the time. I have been writing diaries for a long time. I have written ones up in the lost from 2000 to possibly 2001. The post from 2000 was an electronic diary written on an old laptop and I salvaged it some time ago in the last year- I did have a post but must have deleted it. Basically I took me hours. It had a floppy drive and I have no floppies nor a means to read a floppy. So by luck it had a modem PCMCIA card and using that and some programs to zip the diary. It was slow going as the line kept dropping after finding  a working dialup ISP- no doubt at premium rate.

2004 I found by chance transferred, again in electronic format, from another laptop and on an archive DVD. 2006 was from the same laptop as 2000 and also in electronic format- amazing that the old laptop still runs as its probably at least 14 years old. The 2008 diary was in a notebook. A very dark scary time where I did not have a laptop and so wrote in notebooks. That period of around 3-4 weeks filled both sides of the 80 pages. And I would also like to point out most importantly of all it had a happy ending for my wife and the boy.

So the purpose of this post, recap apart, is to write an entry for this point in my life. More than that I want to do it every year from now on. I have decided to do it on my birthday which seems an apt time. Birthdays are always a time for reflection.

2008

Monday 14th January 2008,

I've always wanted to write a novel. Get ideas from time to time. Don't have the staying power to do so. Don't have the patience. Probably don't have the talent. One of those ideas was just a start point. A room. A family of five in that living room. Normality. The kids are playing among themselves. The wife is sitting watching the TV. The man is staring into space. Just looks lost in thought. His family can't see that his body is trembling. He is not lost in thought. Something is happening inside and only he can see that. A dark curtain came down in his mind. Time had stopped. Then it started again. He jumped out of his seat. It startled his family so much they turned to look and he looked back curiously but with a growing fear. Then he yelled: "Who the fuck am I?". These people were strangers. The room he was in was foreign. He ran out the door and got outside and then he realised he had nowhere to run to. Everywhere was foreign. His pseudo wife called from behind him but he just ran. He had memories but they were not of this place or that family. He was in despair. What to do?

And then sometime after I thought "Total Recall" or was it another Arnie film? Anyway. A borrowed idea I thought was my own. But I mention it because its a bit like I feel now. Since the millennium things have gone downhill dramatically. Was hoping it was just a bad decade but it just keeps snowballing. At times I thought things couldn't get any worse but they did and at the end  of 2006 something happened that I was not prepared for. My life changed forever in one day. In one car journey I went from someone plagued with, and for ever fighting with, anxiety issues to a housebound agoraphobic. One god almighty panic attack on my own in the car out of town that filled me with a terror I did not know existed and at the time I was sure I was either dying or had lost my mind. Life changing. Traumatic enough to keep me housebound.

Anyway life has been difficult. A CPN was brought in and did diddly squat to help before running off into the sunset and leaving me on my own. I muddled by and no longer housebound but still cannot go out very far. A slight improvement. But I was willing to work on my own in the hope I would find a solution. Meanwhile my wife is pregnant and due to give us a son in early March. Something to look forward to but it has also been filling me with dread because at the moment I cannot see how I can be with her at the birth like I was with the girls in 2003 and 2005. Then last night my world was once again turned on its head.

Near midnight my wife went to the bathroom. Then I heard the shower running which was unusual. Then she called me and I could detect the fear in her voice. I was to call an ambulance. I did. They took her away. I spent the next few hours wrapped in a blanket on the couch shaking. Finally a call from a nurse around four to say mother and baby were OK. A relief but I was sure that would not be the end of it. It wasn't but neither had I even given a thought to what was about to happen.

She called earlier today. A couple of hours ago. Her voice was quivering. She started to cry. She said: "Its not good news.". At that I thought only one thing and for all the crap that had been thrown my way I will be forever thankful it was not that. Both she and the baby were OK but not well enough to come home. How long were they staying? "Indefinitely". It sounds selfish and maybe it was but I cannot help the sheer terror I felt in that one word. I felt I was falling without ever landing. How could I cope? My mind was suddenly overwhelmed.

I cannot go to the shops so how could I feed the girls? I cannot get in a car so how can I take my daughter to nursery? So many emotions. Guilt that I was thinking about myself. Fear because I know my wife and son are not out of the woods yet. Despair. Terror. Those two definitely. Frustration at how weak I have become, how useless I am. So many emotions and so many thoughts. Disgust at who I have become. Too many thoughts. I should also be there for her but cannot get to the hospital. What about the birth? Thoughts turning to how she will cope stuck in a hospital for anywhere up to 6 weeks. All her family are 60 miles away so its not as if they can just drop in.

So I needed to start a journal again. I need to sort things out. I just cannot see how I am going to do this but what choice do I have?  I need to put a plan together. I need to call the CPN and ask for medication. If I get no joy there I will try the GP. If there is something that will help me look after my daughters then I will take it.

So I expect to fill pages upon pages over what could be the next 6 weeks. I just pray the end is a happy one. For now that is all I can write. My mind is in overdrive and I am left with this sense of the unreal like I have passed the point of despair.

2006

Tuesday 1st August 2006,

In days past I’ve tried to keep a journal but never stuck with it. For a few years now I’ve never had the urge again because I have come to realise it was labour. There was nothing to fill the pages with and I had to try to think of something to write. That has changed.

In days present I feel the need more than ever in my life to sort out my thoughts- I need to write. This is not a daily thing but on requirement. My head is so full of thoughts that need a road out and this is it. They are dark and unpleasant. They are all fear.

This was not written to be read but as self therapy. This is private. This is my life at the moment chronicled in days.

I am up North where not so long ago I once lived and worked. Now I live elsewhere and for just over a year no longer work. Along with my wife and two daughters we are housesitting for her parents. Under normal circumstances I’d be enjoying this time but not for 3 years have I been able to. That is life I suppose.

Being up in here is my last chance as such to “get better”. I was made redundant just over a year ago and have been unable to look for work nor sign on since. It’s a bad state of affairs. I am left frustrated by this as I want to find the inner strength to get back on track but all sorts of stuff seem to hold me back. Mainly panic attacks, shortness of breath, balance problems and a lack of support from the medical fraternity to help me.

Living in where I do hasn’t helped my situation. Most days I don’t go out and spend the time sitting on the couch on my laptop. Already in here I have been into town twice. On the first occassion I went to watch the football, Sunday, but panic brought me home again after half an hour. Still I tried. I was inside the pub and the panic got too much so instead of fleeing completely I went outside and sat in the beer garden. Once my beer had finished I went inside, ordered another and tried to sit with it. Again the panic was too much. Again I went outside. This time I finished the bottle quickly and even quicker made my way back. Which my wife was not happy about as she had just got the girls ready to join us and so we all went down the park for a stroll.

On Monday I went into town to buy a Paul McKenna book and again although the panic was severe I managed to pull through. Its hard to take. I lived her for a few years. I used to walk about town care free regularly. Sometimes just go for long walks for something to do- I lived alone. And now the places are the same but my body is reacting differently and with no clear reason. Every little thing I want to do is a fight and if I manage to get through it I can take no joy from doing so only relief and no eagerness to repeat it any time soon after. I wonder therefore if my zest for life is being sucked dry and I will soon have no desire to do anything.

Doing something doesn’t make the next time any easier. If it did then that would be an incentive but each time it is just as difficult. Today I found a new source of exercise. I am lacking in exercise so really need to do something. I’ve tried going for walks and tried exercising at home but to no avail. In here there is an exercise bike and I did a mile on it yesterday. Today I plan to do the same and maybe a little more. The effects did not seem to be to as bad as other forms of exercise so I’ll keep plugging away at that.

A feeling of disorientation brings on panic and the worry of it happening brings on the shortness of breath. That is my opinion. There should be a confidence in me though. Occassionally I get this feeling like a pocket of wind in my chest and it convinces me that something is wrong with my heart. This is the same with the disorientation feeling. Also to add to that is a feeling that I am washed out and have no energy. The doctor had an ECG done and it was fine so I have to get away from this fear. They are not always right but I have to find a way to stop it eating away at me.

I’ve bought that Paul McKenna book in the hope that I can somehow reprogram my mind. I do feel that although this was all brought on 3 years ago by a bad illness, put down to a virus, and continuing illness that saw me lose a stone and a half I still feel my problems since then have been in my head. These happened when I was working and brought on a fear that I would feel really bad at work and still have to get home. Some of the feelings have been underlying for a number of years to a lesser extent. Most of these thoughts intrude in my thinking and I just cannot shift them in certain situations.

What do I want? I want to relax. I want to be in a room of people and not be worrying about my breathing and not be looking for somewhere to lie down. I want to just be relaxed and have a calmness within. That would solve everything. That would allow me to get on with tackling life and supporting my family again.

Today we got the car sorted- a flat battery. Well flat was only a symptom of an otherwise dead cell. It meant us calling out the AA. As usual I was filled with apprehension about having to do a 1 on 1 with someone. My wife took the lead and when I followed I was fine. Maybe it was the fact I was not trapped with this person. I was free to roam as I pleased.

On TV there was an interesting character of Richard and Judy named Adam. He claimed to be a distant healer and had healed a man from pancreatic cancer. His mother had also apparently been cured of MS by him. I’m not sure I believe it- the guy is making a mint of the back of the claims. The message though was something I would like to buy into and that is that positive thought can make you better. Whether you believe in a god or not as long as you have that positive belief that things will get better then it helps.

That’s something I have been lacking. That doesn’t mean I’m going to trade in my hedonism for a bible. I do need some positive thought in my life- hopefully McKenna’s book can help me there. My thoughts are always negative. I need them to be positive. I need to hope things are going to change or else they definitely won’t. That is easy said though. How exactly do you convince yourself of something you have entrenched yourself in disbelieving?

Time will tell.

2004

Monday 1st of November 2004,

I'd like to start this new diary, how many times have I done this?, with a brief summary of recent events leading up to now. Next month I will turn 33 years old. Currently employed as a Database adminstrator and application developer- though lacking in actual work to do. Last year was the best of my life for a number of reasons yet was tainted by something still plaguing me to this day. We started the year on the Rhine in Koln and took in a battle of fireworks from both river banks aboard our vessel. In February we married in a fantastically small but beautiful wedding. In June our first child was born, a daughter. Beautiful and healthy- what more could you ask for? Truly it should have been the best year of my life.

But something occurred just before the birth which has remained with me to the present. For a couple of months leading up to the birth I had been getting bloodshot eyes and after going to the doctors they saw nothing a miss. I was also starting to experience dizzy turns or balance problems at least. When the birth happened I had been off work for a week as this dizziness, which the doctors put down to a virus, which was so bad that I could not stand up for long spells. It pains me to think of this as this time should really only be about one thing- the happiest thing along with the wedding to happen to us in that year and any year for that matter.

Our daughter was born on 9th June 2003. She was a beautiful baby and everybody said so, even strangers. Things had changed for us and now we were a family. Although she was not a good sleeper we would not have changed anything about her for the world- she was our beautiful baby and at the present still is the most important thing in our life. I have to talk of some of the darker things in my life so would rather finish this by talking about the positives in my life like our little girl.

In the early days she was brought up mainly by her mum. I've not been able to shake an illness of sorts. I've already said I was ill when she was born and that continued through the one week paternity leave my work gave me- two weeks in total with the week illness before. About a month later I found myself being signed off work with the same thing again and to be honest throughout that time I never felt more than about 70% well and never did for the rest of the year. Worse was to come from October to November when I got the flu and couldn't shake it. In all I was off work for nearly 4 weeks and it culminated in a tooth abscess which was very painful. For nearly a month I had hardly eaten and as well as sweating constantly through the night and having to pill pop I only had water in take to compensate. It was at this point a lot of people started pointing out to me that I was losing weight.

Already this year I have been off work for more than 5 times but on that side of things it does seem to be getting better. Two of these illnesses were shared by by my wife so it wasn't exclusive to me and the last one only lasted 3 days which is an improvement on the week long plus illnesses of before. A lot of the symptoms I had before I no longer get like jaw tightness and dizziness but get more like a temperature now and the feeling of little strength. Despite a concerted effort to eat as much as I can though the weight loss is still happening but in a strange way. I got scales in March and although they are not accurate from the time I first got them and weighed between 12st 3lb-12st 6lb I am now weighing 12st6lb-12st10lb so I know at least I have not lost weight but maybe even gained a pound or two. That is in contrast to the physical appearance. From my chest up there are visible signs of weight loss. My shoulders are bony, the ribs on my chest are showing, my elbows but when I rest the on a desk as there is no fat there any more, my wedding ring slips from my finger but recently it is my face that has seen the worst. My cheeks are getting more drawn and at the cheek bones themselves the cheek is starting to indent. It's a constant worry for me as I know there must be something wrong to make me loss in these areas.

Blood test at the end of last year showed no problems. There were a number of blood tests as well as throat swabs. They did notice something but said it could be viral. Ultimately though nothing to cause my apparent lack of immune system. Coincidently I've seen such problems arise recently in some footballers who cannot shift a "mystery virus". Weight loss and dizziness are the main things in these and no cause can be found.

I was positive this all started from stupidity on my part. I had a spot in my right ear lobe which I daftly punctured with an old needle at the start of last year. It became infected but the doctor said this would not cause my symptoms. Just don't know. And they don't know. And if they, the medical experts, don't know then how am I supposed to know.

 

It's a strange thing. In terms of height I haven't grown since my teens yet I was 9st at the start of my teens and despite trying to put on the pounds ended by teens at 9st6lbs. Sometime between 22 and 24 years old I suddenly noticed I was 12st which was a massive leap. In 2003 I was over 13st before the illness. Yet it appears to me at around 12st 6lbs now my face is the thinest it's ever been. Without doubt my face is getting thinner, which even my wife concedes, but whether it is because I was, and definitely was, carrying too much weight on my face before and/or a little paranoia brought on by recurring illness and remarks that draw me to these conclusions of it's severity I am unsure. Stopping it progressing would go a long way to calming me inside. We'll have to see but I have a chance to try to change and that is in my hands so I can't blame anyone other than myself if I don't at least try to change my lifestyle.

This year my wife and I both lost our remaining grandparent. My dad's mum was an everpresent influence throughout my life and before moving to Perth, and after Uncle Gerald dies, I'd stayed with my gran. That adress once housed my Gran and Grandad plus my Uncle Gerald but with my gran's passing the house has been sold- the memories there with it. At the end of last year my gran was diagnosed with lung cancer and after seeig how my Granda's brain tumor deteriorated him to evenutally 6st I wasn't looking forward to the months ahead. Her passing was a major hurt for us all and still is. We all did get to say our goodbyes in hospital when a clot saw her run out of time early. All though none of us wanted to see her go I was at least glad she was not going to have to waste away in pain over the months ahead and got to rest peacefully.

Work is a depression in my life. In itself it started off well nearly 4 years ago when I had lots to do but for the past year or so I've had nothing to do except what I want. Sounds good but it's not because as an honest person it niggles away at me. Added to this is all the time off I'd had to take and I really feel that people perceive me as a piss taker- I'm not. I have a family and as there are no jobs around at the same pay or matching my skill set I need to stay for as long as possible. An added nightmare is a real slog of a journey which I really hate. There are no plusses except a decent pay which makes up for nothing. With a transition to South Africa my days are numbered and I'm just waiting for the end. Although this will bring lots of problems in itself I can't help but feel it will also bring enormous relief not to have that horrible travel and live a lie from day to day. The only thing that keeps me going there is the forum moderator work I do for EA Sports which is enjoyable but doesn't pay.

So many depressing points but here is something which outweighs it all. Up until 1998 I hadn't had a long term relationship since school. Although I either didn't know it at the time or denied the fact I was a lonely person with no one to share life with. If I was still in that same life I really do think I'd be clinically depressed with the current problems. Luckily that is not the case because lucky is something I feel now. I am sometimes tempted to dwell on the fact that I had just gotten life the way I wanted and was happy when something comes along to spoil it- illness. Resiliance though is something I must show and look at how lucky I am. I have a beautiful and loving wife who I share a good laugh with and is equally my best friend too. I have a beautiful daughter who's fantastic nature and antics give us no shortage of joy and is a real positive force on our lives. How could I consider myself anything other than lucky because it's not a luxury that everyone can claim to have. One other thing, my wife is pregnant again....

2000

Thursday 20th April 2000,

On numerous occasions in my life I have tried to keep a Journal but have eventually thrown away books or deleted data due to boredom. This is due to always trying to make entries every night which becomes mundane. So this Journal I hope will last a long time, as I will only write when I feel like doing so. When looking back on things I’ve written I’ve found I have had to plough through all the useless day-to-day crap I entered just for the sake of writing something. On the other hand I wish I could now look over the last 2 years, which I deleted 6 months ago. I also bogged myself down trying to recollect the previous years of my life but they are not important, although my 1998 French travels alone will be documented again from a copy I have. Whatever the case I will keep this one going.

I don’t need to review my life to this point. My life as of before now will most likely surface as I go on. I don’t know whom I am writing this to. Maybe I am writing this to myself and no one else will ever see it. This may all be deleted but it makes no difference whatsoever. Part of the reason, probably the most important reason, for writing this is to get my thoughts out of my head. That has always been the way. People who know I do this probably think I am soft but I am not. Just always seem to have so much going on in my head that I need to empty it from time to time to declutter. 

The time is 21:41. I am currently sitting in the living room of flat in Blantyre. Its one of two temporary residences I flit between at the moment 60 miles apart. I rent a flat up north in Perth. It is my second flat there and have rented for a few years. When I started working in Perth I used to drive back and forth 120 miles every day so eventually I had to rent there. This flat belongs to my fiancée who shares the flat with her sister. We got engaged on 24th February 2000 which, to date, was the happiest day of my life. I really love her and could not imagine being without her.

Tonight I am alone for the first time in this flat. The women are out on a hen night. I finished my last IT contract at IBM in Perth 3 weeks ago and have been in Blantyre since then. I haven’t found a job yet but I have got enough in the bank at the moment that I don’t have to look straight away for work. I will look but not hopeful as the IT industry is now saturated full of people with useless certificates and no experience willing to work for peanuts and to be honest the money was the main attraction. May have to look for another line of work. I program, write applications. Maybe pursue that in the meantime.

At the moment I am unsure of where I want to live, where I want to work, what I want to do, if I am going to work and of how long my savings will last. I am really in a rut and frustrated. If I had never met my fiancee I would probably be in the Netherlands just now working. That is not to say I am blaming Helen. Far from it because to be honest I don't know if I want to work on the European continent as much as I love to travel there.

Last Friday I did get the train up to Perth and went to a night out with old work collegues. It was good to see some of the faces again. A few guys I wanted to see turned up but some did not. The night started at 17:00 and ended, one of the guys had a party in his flat after closing, at 03:00.

My fiancee's parents picked me up in the afternoon and we all went to Blantyre. I didn’t see much of my fiancee until night. It was her Aunt’s 80th birthday and the family was having a surprise meal for her. This was at the Ashoka in Nitshill. I went too but it was not the best meal I have ever had. I love Indian food but it just wasn't very good which was a shame because I'll bet it cost a bit. At night there was a party at her Aunt and Uncle’s house in Stamperland, Clarkston. It was a good night. Very laid back. Lots to drink and no problems. She drove her parents, her sister and I back to Blantyre late morning. It was 05:00 before we were all in bed.

In the late afternoon on Sunday my fiancee drove me to Livingston. My parents were both merry due to the good weather, a garden and a pile of alcohol. My brother and his daughter were in good fettle. My sister turned up with her rogue boyfriend which didn't go down too well. We also saw my gran for 30 minutes.

So that is about that for now. Not much to talk about. But this is a new start after IT contracting. The future looks brighter than it ever has. The paper is empty and waiting to be filled. A place to stay- a house up north maybe. A new job or working on my own. A marriage and maybe family. But I'll be honest. Most exciting of all is the travels that lay ahead. So many places I want to go and we will go there.

1998

Saturday 21st of February 1998,

This is my life- so far dull and looking none too more eventful but a life just the same. I am aged 26 years old, 6ft plus, 12-14 stone (been a while since I weighed myself, have rough sallow-ish skin, brown unkempt hair, squint front teeth,  hazel eyes and Scottish by birth. My voice- for the deaf – is a low, bassy growl that occasionally whines. Maybe that’s good enough reason to be unmarried and childless at this late stage in life but I can’t say I’m unhappy- more confused and frustrating.

I am alone in a flat in Perth, Scotland- although I have a flat-mate at present that has gone home to visit his wife. After years of writing and discarding diaries I have decided to start another one again. These introductory paragraphs have been written many times before by myself and now are lost in trash and dust but this time I plan to keep a chronicle of the mundane and maybe some of the exciting- though can't promise anything. This is as much a notepad for thoughts and ideas as it is a diary but will be primarily the latter.

As I said I have a flat mate- for the moment. It was actually him who got this flat and I joined him. We work at the Insurance place in IT  and used to travel 60 miles up and 60 miles back each day from the home town so as contractors who contract for 6 month to a year at a time it made better sense to rent for the duration. Ive actually been in this job just over 7 months but I have been assured by the agency and by my on site manager that there will be work for at least another year and most probably beyond. You never can tell though. For the moment its good. Good people where I work. Most of them like to socialise which is great. Great money. Though the money gives me a headache because being a contractor I also had to set up a Limited Company so the money is not readily available and I have to get an accountant to do the books every year.

Can't be bothered with that to be honest. Much prefer going to the cashline and seeing what is available. Feel most of the time like I can't touch it. But truth be told I have very little need for it at the moment over and above food and rent. Being single and spending most of my time working means I don't have a lot of outgoings.

The only downside to living up here is I miss my friends. I miss when Friday comes and I am not heading down the local back home to see my mates. I don't see them much any more because I don't have a car and travelling by train and bus is not worth the hassle. I don't need a car and can't see me driving while I am up here. It only takes 15 minutes to walk to work and most morning someone stops and gives me a lift up which is one of the perks of customer facing in a building homing round 2,000 people. So I miss my friends but it does help that there are so many sociable folk up here but unfortunately most a good bit older and married.

I don't feel lonely at the moment probably because I have a flat mate and we tinker with PCs and networking and nerdy stuff like that. But as he has just found out his wife is pregnant for the first time I think they'll be wanting to get a home together up here together and then it the loneliness may hit home. Though not for a while. I quite like the idea of having the freedom of living alone.

So that is about that. Not exciting stuff. Might get better in a few months. The work has a trip planned for the World Cup with a bus running all the way from here to Paris and coming back the same day. I have been talking with some friends from back home who are going and thinking I might stay over there and meet up with them at some point. So that could be quite an adventure. I've never been to Paris before and would love to go. Will see how much of the language I remember from high school. It should be fun.

More than agoraphobia

Some day, hopefully in the not so distant future, I will come back to these posts and put pics in them. As it stands at the moment just not taking anything. The only time I use the camera is for the kids or their cousins and always in the house. Enthusiasm for photography seems lost at the moment. No idea why. Maybe its this wet summer and the inability to photograph outside. Car problems mean drives are out of the question so there is another route shut off. But it will come back.

I have been very fatigued but that is nothing new. I decided to try to change the way I do my walks. Instead of many short walks trying to do fewer bigger walks. Really finding it hard going. But that is to be expected given I am out of condition. And I don't mind that if it eases over time. But I worry it won't. If in a couple of weeks time I am still doing the same routine and there is no change then I will have to go back to shorter walks again.

I am confused, have been for a long time. Reluctant to call myself agoraphobic yet constantly referencing myself as one. I am agoraphobic but its more than that. The distinction? Agoraphobics generally can walk freely within a "safety zone". They can go to the edge and there they experience the panic when they go beyond. But they can escape back inside the safety zone again. Usually these are places. And that is how it started for me. That is the way it used to be. It used to be just agoraphobia.

I remember about 4 or 5 years ago walking to the shopping centre. As soon as I went through the door I panicked, stayed for as long as I could then escaped outside where I started to calm again. I then walked right the way around the shopping precinct. Then I tried to go in again. Same thing happened but was OK outside again. So I did it again. This time I fought with the panic, clenched the teeth and managed to get what I needed, get through the checkout and took a massive gulp of air outside. The tense body relaxed. The heart slowed down to a normal rate. The shaking eased. Then I walked home fine. That is how it used to be. Situational.

Now though its more than that. I have this bloody fatigue to contend with. This adds a whole new dimension because I cannot separate the fatigue from the agoraphobia. Well not walking anyway. The one place I can see the difference clearly is in the car. No fatigue driving or as a passenger in a car. But plenty of panic should I go so far. That is clear. Clear agoraphobia. Go out the safety zone and panic builds until I am back in it again.

Graduated exposure works with pure agoraphobia. I proved that to myself three years ago. At that time I could not even get into the car without having a panic attack. I had not driven for a year or been a passenger in a car. I had not left my town in 3 years since the big panic attack made me agoraphobic afterwards. One day I got in the car and managed a short drive. The same the second day. Gradually I increased. Over the course of a few months and many horrendous episodes I went from struggling to get in the car without panic to going out of town, into other towns and one day driving 40 miles. Lots of scary things but with graduated exposure I finally managed to branch out further than I even thought possible. It felt amazing.

So that is all fine. A problem, a solution that works for me. Does in the car. Doesn't with the walks. The fatigue I experience makes graduated exposure ineffective. I still do it for the sole reason that if I don't then I find agoraphobia increases. It is effective in maintaining the safety zone but not in increasing it. If find one day I can go to the shop with relative ease, most days I can't even get near the shops.

Now the question that has been bouncing around my head these past five and a half years: is fatigue related to the anxiety or a separate physiological problem altogether? Do I have two problems to contend with or one? The CBT therapist I have corresponded with assures me its part of the anxiety. He said he experienced it too and it even after he got himself anxiety free (managing anxiety) the fatigue still took a long time after to shift. And this is backed up by Dr Claire Weekes who wrote many times not only about how fatigue comes with anxiety but how an anxiety disorder actually has its roots in physical and mental fatigue.

What sways me to thinking there are two problems though is that over the years I have read many people write about their anxiety problems and overcoming them but with little or no mention of fatigue. And to be honest I have read more people writing about ME and CFS who seem to experience the same or worse level of fatigue as I get. Who to believe?

I remember reading a Claire Weekes book years ago and saw myself in those pages- in the process. I remember how it started. It started with fatigue. The fatigue increased. Over time I started to worry about it. The fatigue continued to increase. I went back and forth to the doctors and had all the tests and no reason for the fatigue could be found. I worried more. I got more fatigued. Then panic attacks started sporadically in situations- a meeting room, a crematorium, a church. Basically any situation where I could not escape quickly. It started seeping into the car. Over time I had to turn off the radio and never on any journey after had sound again because it was agitating me. Then traffic jams had panic rising. All the while feeling more and more fatigued, feeling ill actually and believing I had an undiagnosed illness. More worry, more fatigue. Finally one big panic attack on my own in the car and from there house bound.

So its possible its anxiety related. Maybe the timing would suggest it is likely more than possible. Not just chance. Not a coincidence but linked. If you have ever had a fright you will know what I mean. A real scare and after the fright you feel tired after it. That is like panic. The body goes through the same process so I guess continual panic and even higher than average anxiety will tire the body. Worry is tiring. People who go through worrying periods in their life feel very fatigued afterwards.

But I must end this pondering. I cannot shift the fatigue. I have no means of shifting fatigue. I have tried more activity, tried longer sleeps and tried a whole host of other things but I still feel fatigued in cycles. I never feel refreshed. But I can work on the anxiety and if I can one day get on top of the anxiety then I will know then whether the fatigue is anxiety based. If it is great. If not then at least I will be in a better state to deal with it and go see about investigating it.