Communication

When the kids were away for a week I did miss them and their quirky ways. For a whole week it was just me and my wife which has not happened for at least 9 years. Sadly we are virtual strangers and with the common interest gone and my restricted life there was not a lot left so it was long and it was empty.

One tale though did make me smile about the girls. The oldest is very artistic. Always drawing or writing. She was out in the garden drawing flowers for a good bit and when she finally became board went to go indoors. The doors were shut over though and she could not get in. There is of course a bell but my children would not think to use that. No, instead she wrote a note that she was trapped outside. She then walked around the house and found an open window and posted the message through then returned to drawing in the garden. After a while when no one came to get her she returned back to the house and went to the window. Behind the glass was her younger sister standing- who had obviously found the note. She was holding a big sheet of paper up to the window with the words written: I AM BUSY. The younger one then went back to watching TV leaving the oldest to find another way in. All the time their grandparents were sitting in the front room oblivious to this.

It reminds me of another time with the oldest. They like a bit of drama. I got up one Saturday and after giving them breakfast she asked me if I could let her know if I heard her mum getting up, to which I agreed to do. I didn't give it any more thought. When I heard my wife get up I didn't have to tell her because she heard. She went over to where my wife sits leaving a piece of paper, opened the door to the stairs (leading out of our home) and shut the door behind her. I could here her walking down the stairs. When my wife got up and saw the paper she sat down, read it and started laughing. I wish I had kept it as from memory I cannot do it justice. Basically the oldest was sorry for being bad of late so had decided to leave to be on her own. But if my wife ever wanted her to come back into the family then she could be found at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing like a sense of drama.

I give these examples because they amuse me at least but also because it irks me a little. This kind of communication without speaking takes me back to my wife. That week alone together we hardly spoke at all. In fact on our 9th Wedding anniversary sitting in the same room she wished me a happy wedding anniversary via a Facebook PM. And that was only after wishing a guy from work happy birthday.

There is a complete lack of communication between us. Not just between us but I think generally more in the world. If I ask my wife whether one of her friends has agreed to something, for example, she will say she hasn't had a text back yet or she got a text to confirm it.

I go out for walks and so many people walking mindlessly alone with headphones on. I bought a paper from the shop and the few things I said fell on deaf ears with no reply.

And another annoyance. The wife does it and the kids do it. I say something and don't get a reply. It annoys me and then they say they are doing it as if I should not wait for an answer but wait to see what their actions are. It annoys the hell out of me.

Silence doesn't bother me. In fact I life silence. But there never is silence despite the lack of communication. There has got to be a TV on even if no ones watching it so that there is no silence and I look around the room with the oldest writing away, the younger girl on the computer, the boy staring at the 3DS and my wife texting or Facebooking on her phone. All in the same room but all in seperate worlds. And that includes myself sitting here typing this. It is only when I take a minute out to look about that I am taken out of my little world for a moment before I again dive back in.

Altered States

I'm feeling proud of myself for small victories. 11 weeks now of 10 mile walks. God, some people twice my age can walk that in the one go. For me though progress. I have only reached that level twice before and both those times were in 2009. The first time I only managed it 2 weeks in a row and the second time 3 times in a row. 2010 and 2011 I never got anywhere near that in a week and this year I started off struggling to break the 2 mile barrier over a week never imagining that I would get to this level for almost 3 months. Its important to give yourself a pat in the back otherwise you just keep taking on the negatives. But I do keep it in perspective. Anyone reading this would think 10 miles in a week: so what? Rightly so, in my world though it means something.

Some cruel tormentor though is at work always looking to slap me down. I logged on to Facebook this morning to look at what's going on in the lives of people I have not seen for over a decade mostly. And there was a post from my dad: 6 mile walk this morning. Slap down. Twenty years my senior and in the last year hospitalised after a heart attack. 6 miles. I struggle to get a mile under my belt. I think: what the hell is wrong with me? Why do I struggle to do a mile and he with his seniority and ill health can do 6 times that? Something is wrong. Of course its that old question for me of how much is agoraphobia and how much is fatigue and how much of the fatigue is caused by the anxiety and how much of the anxiety is caused by the fatigue and so on.

Thinking today I am begining to wonder if fatigue isn't more of a problem because to walk around my block is one third of a mile and were I to attempt doing it 18 times in a row I doubt I could manage past the 3 so that is not agoraphobia. I would start to get anxious but only because I would get breathless and unsteady and weak and feel the need to get back home and rest. Anxiety from my agoraphobic state is definitely a big issue as I know from car journeys but I also have to start accepting that fatigue is as big an issue.  If suddenly I lost my agoraphobia overnight and was anxiety free I still think I would have trouble walking far and attempting any kind of physical exercise. What I also have to remember is that before the anxiety problems started it was fatigue that led me back and forth to the GP without any resolution despite the numerous tests. Just a note.

This is been a strange old week. For the first time in what must be at least 8 years my wife and I spent as few days alone. Her parents took all 3 kids up north last Sunday and my wife went up to get them on Friday. It was strange. Strange being together and finding that with time on our hands there was not much we could do with it together- she could on her own. But for her a welcome break as I have had plenty of time on my own but this was her first time. That is the price you pay when you don't have family living nearby. I doubt, unless I can get myself well soon, there will be another period in the near or distant future until they start leaving home.

That brings me back to guilt. They are growing so quickly and I look at the oldest who is still but a toddler in my head and think she will be 10 next year. All 3 have never known any different from the now- crammed in a small damp ridden flat with no garden and a dad who doesn't work, doesn't go out, won't go to see them in plays at school and won't go weekends away with them. A dad who may very well be as well not being there, what difference would it make? If only this was enough to get me well. If only that will power was enough. Its the kind of thing that has sent me many times out the door headlong into panic and pushed through it with gritted teeth determined to get to that point I keep reading about where the panic subsides and instead finding it increasing more and more until I can take no more, come scuttling home and am of no use to anyone for weeks and sometimes months after. So frustrating.

But any road to recovery starts at least, and usually with, small steps. I wonder if a really disturbing episode is a step in that direction. When I say disturbing I mean disturbing to me at the time because I could not seem to handle it but on reflection now nothing to worry about. On Monday I had this strong sense of deja vu but with it came a sense of dread and I could not get it out of my head. The reason on reflection was probably change. My day never changes and yet here I was with my wife and no kids and it seemed to take me back a decade and unsettled me. I remember reading in a Dr Claire Weekes book once how people in a situation such as I am in can find even subtle change very hard to deal with but until Monday had never experienced it to my knowledge- though if I look back I probably have. What it did was lead to full on mental panic which is basically like a sensory overload giving a sense of unreality which if I am honest is scary even when you know what it is. I really could not get to grips with it at all but by the Tuesday it was gone. I say it could be a step in the right direction as I see it as an extreme of something else I have been experiencing lately.

Over the past few weeks and to a lesser extent over the past few months I have been experiencing weird flashbacks. Well not weird but just out of place. What they are is actually flashbacks of normality. I could be at the laptop reading or typing and see a bank of Scotland in Edinburgh where I used to withdraw money when I worked there. For a moment I see myself as a passenger in a certain street in Perth from when I lived there and a street I had forgotten about. More and more of them come. It makes me wonder if its my mind trying to make sense of it and trying to stitch back the normality that existed for so long before the agoraphobic days of my latter years. I have become so introspective and so cut off that I see it as the mind starting to build paths to the world that exists outside of the bubble I have been living in and the begining of piecing reality back together in some ways a bit like what might happen to someone who has been in a cell for 10 years and finds the outside world daunting but over time it all starts to come back and the fear of it is lost. Just a theory but one I am hopeful of as I know that I cannot just go from this existence straight back into what I once termed normality.

So positives of sorts. Also in mentioning there mental panic I was given thought to look back at the actual panic in my life of late and have to say I cannot remember any episodes. Strange but good. Last weekend was the closest right up to the arrival of my parents for the first time in a few months but it went much better than expected and then the following day I had the inlaws for a much longer time at home. No panic. Not entirely anxiety free experiences by any means and still fleeting panic with the constant threat of it going full blown but no actual panic attack. So good. More positives. I have to note these things and try to use them to spur me on. What I have learned is that I cannot rush this. I have to keep at least maintaining what I am doing and when time comes to increase things it will come naturally and gradually. I just have to go along with it and pick up every little tiny positive and pin it to my chest to remind me I could be heading in the right direction however far off the end in sight still seems.

No distance left to run

 

 A while back on a previous incarnation of this blog before the move I made up a video which was basically a collection of old photographs of my life through the years to here and some music in the background. What I should have done was repost it here 2 months ago when I posted the diaries as it was more relevant then because I lost it in the move so I'd like to post it again. As I was watching it again tonight I decided I might as well post it.

Not working

It seems wherever I turn at the moment the 4 letter acronym is there- AtoS. Striking fear into everyone they contact. On a contract in which they benefit financially for every benefit they take away. Ruthless, some would say. Still I wait in the line holding my little ticket waiting for my number to be called, fearing the time when it does come. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week. It could be next year but somehow I doubt it.

Already I have accepted what will happen and what I will do based on the horror stories I have read. Put simply I will tell them as politely as I can to naff off. Every action has a consequence. In my case we are a family of 5 living in a small 2 bedroom damp ridden flat without a holiday for 6 years and just about financially keeping our head above water. When that money is taken away, and it will be taken away, we are buggered for want of a better word. To be honest I don't know what we will do. But I am one of many.

Of course the solution is employment or at least self sufficiency. Can I work? Yes and no. I can't go to a workplace of any description so that would suggest no. But I am able bodied within my confinement. I have a computer and internet access. I have computer skills. Surely those could be put to some use and if it meant data entry for 12 hours a day and for 6-7 days a week I would do it to be free of the stigma and now financial uncertainty. Alas finding such employment isn't easy and when I last spoke to the people at the Job Centre they basically told me to search the Internet but all I could find were schemes you pay for and hope you make back the money later.

There are of course other ways to become self sufficient. I see a lot of people do it. Once upon a time I thought as was as imaginative but the truth is I am not. Try as I might I have searched myself for an ounce of creativity which may lead to being my own boss. I know my inlaws would probably give me some cash if I had an idea I thought could make me self sufficient or a skill. Agoraphobia though is stifling in the creative process. Of course there are things that can be done without leaving the house but mainly these are skills that involve creating something physical- unless its virtual like web design which I tried and failed at. So no paths leading in any direction. It takes me back to the mundane tasks of things like data entry. Jeez with so much gathered in paper form needing transformed into electronic format surely someone could make use of my time in exchange for not being a scummy benefit scrounger.

Going back to this cull a few things have been on my mind of late. I saw no justification in this current process and in fact today on another current matter affecting the employed I heard someone say that currently the government are targeting areas where there is a minority of wrong doing but not caring that they are impacting those who play by the rules. It got me thinking. Those who play by the rules are the ones most trodden. The evasive devious types usually find a way round it.

The employed can be so righteous and I speak from experience as I was once one of them myself. I remember scoffing at a woman being off for 3 months paid leave with stress in my work even though all she did all day was sit at a computer talking to others around her and making occasional trips back and forth to the coffee vending machine. I never saw her once look stressed. Then another woman who was off every other week claiming to have ME and any time she was in work she shuffled like an old dear with her head hung moaning and groaning despite being in her early forties. Charlatans I thought. I felt an intense disgust I am ashamed to admit.

And what of the employed. I noticed the other day that one of the fathers on the school run has been going a bit regular of late despite having a job. When I asked my wife told me he got signed off with depression for a month. Depression? He's not depressed. Yeah but he needed the time off and he couldn't take unpaid leave. That took me back to my uncle. He'd used up all his holidays at work when my gran was ill so through no fault of his own. But he said to me it was OK because later in the year he would take 2 weeks off by seeing the doctor and getting "signed off with depression or something like that". Something that is difficult to dispute as there are no physical symptoms. You see its in the psyche now that mental problems are undiagnosable and easily emulated and so not taken seriously so there is an undercurrent, as I can testify from experience, that people are lazy skivers unwilling to work.

That is though not to say that it is not the case. God there are many. I remember in between jobs in my early 20s coming out of the job centre after signing on and bumping into a girl  I went to school with. She thought it was great not working and had no intention of doing so and then started to tell me to right off for jobs I would never get and all sorts of other thing "to keep them off your back". Just last year sitting outside my house in the sun a guy came up and got talking and then told me how he was signing on under two different names in different places and still working for cash in hand and he could get me a job there too if I wanted. I see them all the time. My dad's cousin hasn't worked a day in his life and is the biggest slithery snake I have ever known getting everything going. A chancer and it pays for him. Lots of examples and you will know your own so yet I can understand the need for it but its just a pity that everyone is tarred with the same brush.

Its just something I cannot get my head around. My GP has been very good and understanding. He went to university for a long time and worked hard to be a GP as many do. Why is his word not good enough all of a sudden? Why is some stranger with less of a medical background and a set of procedures suddenly deciding whether I am capable to work or not. Well I can tell you this: despite the ramifications of not allowing them to have their wicked way with me I will not be letting them do so. I have read of too many people going through humiliation and mental torture and still being called a fraud after to let them get any satisfaction aside from their financial benefit from doing me over. No chance. They can go and...

Well, I suppose I will deal with that bridge when I come to it. I'm sure there are ways to deal with most things but its best not pondering too much on it until the need is near otherwise in an anxious mind like my own it just becomes caught up in all the other worries growing, snowballing. Still though its worth using it to try to spur myself to find some way to financial independence. Write a Kindle bestseller? Agoraphobic photographer specialising in things around the house and out of the window? Play the stock-markets from the home with monopoly money? Write a killer app for the mobile and tablet platforms? Oh to have the talent or the imagination. Useless at making things with my hands and the brain is too full of swirly things to let any creativity breathe. But I will keep looking.

Aside from the sword of Damocles things have been going OK on my road to metal wellness. Tiny steps and little achievements here and there. Little foundations I hope to build my platform from. Time though is no longer on my side and with that brings a pressure which is detrimental to the whole process but I try to push those things to the back of my mind and focus on the immediate path ahead.

Lastly I just wanted to add a point about this blog and its lack of updates of late. I have been keeping a separate daily blog on my progress of late in the hope of using it one day as reflection for myself and hopefully even as help for others who find themselves where I am now. This though has caused me to neglect my updates here and in my muddled head has me trying to remember what I wrote and where. So I have binned that for a bit and will concentrate here and as a result hopefully update more often.