Fayres

Its that time again for the Christmas Fayre in the town. Just a little thing close at hand but something a bit different from the norm. Up until last year even as close as it is I always had to view it from afar. I remember clearly walking on the other side of the road two years ago in the dark barely within my comfort zone looking at the lights and the people. Hearing the music and the happy voices. My anxiety would not allow me to cross the road and certainly would not allow me to join the throng which scared the life out of me. But last year I managed to go and walk around the stalls and stay for the songs and the eventual turning on of the Christmas lights.

This year I went again but not for long. Feeling a bit poorly at the moment, we all are. That time of year for bugs I suppose. During the week I walked to the Chemist to get my wife's repeat perscription for pain killers to ease that knee that was butchered at the hospital which she still cannot walk properly on. It was mobbed. "Minor ailments" was the buzz word. Pills, nasal sprays and all the rest. Sore throats and coughs and bunged upness. That time of year.

So I have a bit of it myself and was feeling very fragile while out and the deeper I headed into the crowd the more I felt I was going to collapse. I therefore made the trip a short one- twice. But good enough to attend and go around everything.

Its strange that I found that much harder than Friday night. Friday night was the school's Christmas Fayre and I have never attended that on any year. On Friday I did. It took some going as it was just as mobbed but this time not only much further away but inside the school. It was far from easy. A few times I just wanted to sit down- or lie down. The CBT is helping but I sure have a long way to go. I did it though. I stuck to what I had been told and although for twenty minutes or so I was on the verge of panic by a half hour in it was down to virtually zero. And that was the time I knew I could leave. I did not rush out the door though. I stayed a little longer, walked about a bit more and in the end it was boredom really which sent me packing. We had driven up in the car but I walked home- happy to do so. Another thing to tick off the list of things to do in 2013.

I do feel I am getting better. Slowly, not nearly quick enough, but getting there. This Christmas once again I will spend it alone but I really have some hope now that it will be the last time. A 60 mile journey then staying over somewhere for a few days is still beyond me but I am getting closer to it. I feel 2015 will be the year I either do it or I don't. Come April things are going to get very difficult indeed as that is the time I have been told my income stops. I have to try to be in a position at that point to be able to go to the job centre and stay there for however long they want me to and also to be able to go for interviews. I am nowhere near that stage yet. Its all coming too quickly if I am honest but I have been putting it out of my mind for fear it stops the progress I have been making in its tracks.

I'll leave that for the new year. For now I will look forward to a birthday in a few days and Christmas before finally looking forward to (or slightly dreading) the new year.

Being Mindful

Mindfulness is hard to explain so I won't try to, Google is your friend. Basically though its the act of connected with your outside environment with all of your senses as opposed to being introspective where we are cut off from the world around us and resident in our own mind, thinking. It is easy to see therefore why its a practice encouraged in the treatment of anxiety (more so depression) as anxiety and panic reside in the mind. That is not where the symptoms exist on the whole but its where the reaction occurs which is panic and where panic is maintained. Its why mindfulness can be very important. As part of the CBT course I am doing Mindfulness is very much a part of that- more an additional tool to dealing with panic.

Anyway as I have attempted to become more mindful I am starting to see the world is becoming more mindless and wonder if the majority will one day fall into the same trap as I find myself in. Its everywhere. Phones and tablets and now watches. It seems everywhere you look people are escaping into the alternative electronic reality of cyber communication.

I was walking through the park which is usually filled with the same noises and same scenes. The birds, of which there are plenty, make a hell of a noise. Blackbirds (or crows- I am no ornothologist) and gulls solely. The only other noise comes from the kids in the skate park. Not this day though. All other sound was drowned to a whimper by the banshee wailing of a child I found to be far up the hill coming my way in a pram. It was awful. I thought the child may be in distress. I really could not wait to be free of it but first I had to pass it. And so as I headed up the hill the pram came down to meet me. It was strange though. Not coming straight for me but zig-zagging all over the place. A drunk. Surely a drunk. A drunk pushing a child through the park. It was not- or at least that was not the cause. It was a woman in her 50s (I think as I am as good at determining ages as I am at identifying species of bird) with her head down shoving the pram with one hand and texting on her mobile in the other hand oblivious to the child's screaming- most likely her grandson. So I stopped. I felt compelled to say something but the words fell short. She was oblivious. She passed without knowing there was something there standing staring at her and as I left the park the sound of the child crying grew more and more distant until it was gone.

I remember sitting in the corridor of the Sports Centre on a bench waiting for my son who was playing football in the games hall and there was a young woman sitting next to me. Not that she knew I was there. She had her face buried in her phone and I could have been dancing in a Tutu to Gangnam Style in my head and she would not have noticed. Her son was running up and down the corridor entertaining himself. Then he came up and pulled at her sleeve telling her he had done something. There was a mutter, a nod and a dismissive shove of the hand as she returned to her phone. Sad.

Its not for all but its pretty much common place now. People despite the warnings still sit playing with their phone while they are driving as if they cannot go a journey without keeping up to date. Its dangerous. I know first hand as on more than one ocassion I have been nearly knocked down at traffic lights as a result of people being too focused on their phone to notice a red light. Its scary actually and its not going to get better any time soon. I wonder just how much of the world travels through the day on autopilot and lies down at night unable to recall anything outside of the cybersphere from their day.

In many ways I feel I am getting a leg up. I feel I am getting ahead of the game. I am taking myelf out of myself and trying to plant my feet firmly in the world while the shadows of people who once inhabited bodies fall into the background wired into an artificial universe. Its a little empowering in a way. Maybe helps me feel less paranoid. Its a bit of a case of I can fall and the world will keep looking away.

Or maybe not. Maybe I am getting too cynical. Or maybe not. 

Sparkle

I wonder where the balance lies still all these years later. I set out blogging as a release to my anxiety problems. So long ago. At the time I have to be honest and say I did not think six and a half years later I would still be unemployed by way of being unable to work and not that far removed from where I was. I never saw it at all. I was full of positivity underneath the fear. It was just 5 months after the birth of my son and along with the fairly new arrival I had a daughter of five years old and another of three years old. Despite the situation I was confident underneath of a life ahead where I worked and came home to the elation of my children- the home welcome. A home with a garden. Detached. Somewhere decent. Definitely not still in this little flat which we outgrew a number of years ago. But that is where I find myself. The situation has improved without doubt but not as fast as I would like or expected. I forget though that I was virtually housebound back then. Now is an improvement, a big improvement really.

The balance I speak of is the need to get all this out and the duty of a blogger to try to keep things as light as possible. Entertaining is beyond me I am afraid but thankfully there are many more bloggers more suited to the job all over the blogasphere. In the early days it was very dark because that is where I was. I would like to think now its a little lighter. But with that has come more than a hint of the mundane. By that I mean I am posting about things which mean a lot to me, progress, but are the things people do every day. Its finding that balance. I mean who really wants to visit a blog to read about how someone went shopping for a loaf of bread and survived? Not me. Then again though what is more important here? To keep the reader interested or to post about what is important to the author. A balance I suppose is the answer. Finding that balance is not easy.

Looking back at some posts from earlier years I see that although they were darker they were more interesting. I had a little bit of an edge. Maybe a little bit of imagination and creative spark- at times. That seems to have gone. Even the photography where I used to experiment and spend lots of time processing and post on photography forums has gone. The irony being there that I was frustrated in those days I did not have a decent camera to do what I really wanted to do and for the last few years I have but lost all interest in it. I feel burnt out if I am honest. My days are made up of CBT and walking until I virtually drop and then the next day repeating the process. Its tiring and monotonous if I am honest and so I burn out. Then when I come to write something for the blog I find it hard to pull out any kind of joy from these days. That said though all these boring things are important to my recovery and what is helping me get to where I am now to where I once was. So it must be said. It really must.

Within all this though I must find my edge again, my sparkle even. I need more than to recover. I need something to recover for. I need something to help me along instead of getting up each morning dreading another Groundhog day. And only I can generate that. It was there once but it has gotten lost under all the pushing I have been doing and god I am tired. So that is where I now look. A sparkle. A bit of something good to reach out for. A way to become independent and re-ignite my zest for life rather than ploughing my way through it. Its another balance. Where I have pushed my agoraphobic bounderies further out by lust for life has been sucked dry. The balance is what I need to find in my life.

Anyway the reason for this reflection is that I wanted to post more of aforementioned monotony. Today I once again took the kids to school and may do for the rest of the week. My wife was working all day today so arranged for the kids to be picked up but come three o'clock I went and picked them up too. First time of dropping them off and picking them up. Slowly things are coming together and I am contemplating my next moves. Every day I walk through the train station at least once. I am thinking about it. But I am thinking too much. My head keeps filling with images of being stranded at a train station in panic and not able to get home. There is no reason for it but its actually making it harder to do. I need to work hard on the CBT and weed out this fears. Rationalise them. There was an interesting article also on the BBC web site on alternative ways to do that. It is my next challenge and I would like it done before the year is out but it feels further and further away each time.

Viaduct

 I've lost my phone, I said to my wife. No. Just typical. I had to feel my jacket and trouser pockets by way of padding them with the palm of my hand as my hands were thick with mud. We'll have to go back, she said. I looked ahead not believing what I was seeing. A chance discovery. As much as I wanted to go on we had to head back and so we did.

In the morning we had planned to go into Hamilton. I have a cheque for a small amount but it all counts. Its been sitting there for about 2 months as I cannot get to the bank to cash it. Its right in the centre of town. Today though I was going to attempt it. The thought of standing in a queue and waiting did not fill me with any desire to go but I knew it had to be done. It also didn't help that on a Friday its twice as busy as normal in town. We didn't go however. I could not find the cheque and so its left for another day.

My wife has been off on holiday all week so we have been trying to do things. We decided instead to go for a drive to a park we had been to once briefly and have a stroll there. It has only this year been renovated and is a nice place to go walking from the short stay we had previously. This time we planned to explore more and so we did.

We went down and down through woodland on a path less trod than others and as such with less grip. There was a lovely little bridge over a stream and no one about. The only life existed in the sounds of nature and distant barks of many dogs being walked down a favourite haunt. We walked on. I got out my camera and went down to the river bank to take some photos as my wife walked on. No sooner had I done so than I went my length and ended flat out covered in mud. It gave me wife a laugh at least.

We walked on and as I tried with a bit of kitchen roll my wife had in her bag to wipe my hands as best as I could we saw come into view the viaduct. I had forgotten all about it. For weeks I had planned a visit there but eventually abandoned the plans as I could see no way to reach there without a very long walk. Now I had stumbled upon it by chance. Quite a coincidence as I had no idea they were so close to where we were walking. I felt elated. These were once saught out for miles and mile around by eager beavers wanting to climb them. And many did. It was a challenge for these climbers and they came from afar to take on that challenge. I have no idea the story behind them. I don't know if they are ruins of something that once was or something unfinished. I just felt the need to see them. And it was as we neared and I wanted to see how far we had walked that I realised my phone was missing- I record my walks on the phone via GPS.

So we had to turn back and as we expected, and hoped, we found my phone where I had fallen. It had been a long way to walk for me so I had been expecting to head back at that point and try again another day knowing now I could get there. But instead we went back to the viaduct and did get there. Huge things they are. Colossal. Quite a sight but I suppose once you have seen them there is not a lot more of interest about them. And so after viewing we left.

We did not stop there however. By the time we got back to the car I was struggling for breath. I knew it was anxiety related even though we had taken a steep incline to get back. Instead of leaving we decided on another walk on the other side of the river.The is was just as long and we eventually came to the viaduct again on the other side. This time there were stairs to go up. I got halfway up but I was more than pleased with that.

A nice surprise. At the start of the year I had a list of things I wanted to do this year. A very big list. I did know if I would be able to do any but as the year comes to a close I find I have done much more than I imagined. It makes me excited about what to put down for next year's list. Starting to look forward now rather than back.  

Fireworks

According to news reports last week we had one of the warmest Halloween nights on record. I can believe it. So mild for the end of October. There is a balance with everything. Surely tonight was one of the coldest bonfire nights on record. It was so cold. I don't think my hands have ever been so cold. I was in so much pain when the heat eventually returned to them indoors.

Its a shame that this little town has nothing to offer on such a night. I have a memory from a decade ago when I gave this town no thought at all. I was either indoors or at work. I remember I drove home from work and on coming in my wife was straight out the door to her work leaving me with our little girl who would have been around one year old at the time. I remember somehow finding myself down the local park later carrying her and the two of us standing watching the fireworks display. Later I dropped in at my wife's work on the way home. Its a very vague memory but my wife confirms it did happen.

Today though there is no local display. Partly its funding but this is in essence a small mining village and nearly all the rest have one. All sense of community I feel has been sucked out of this place. There is no display. I read a local website talking of how the local park used to be a focal point for the community. There was a boating pond, a putting greet and lots of other things. Families flocked on a Sunday. Now there is nothing but path and grass. With regards to a firework display though I think we are too close to Strathclyde Park where there is a huge one. That is all well and good. Getting in and out of there though is a nightmare at the best of times and we had no desire tonight to be sitting late on stuck in traffic with the kids at school tomorrow.

So like every other year we had to improvise. During the day we bought fireworks from Lidl and took the kids outside to set them off at night, Truth be told they were pretty lame. Its just as well people in neighbouring streets were setting off heavy duty ones. The kids to their credit just played around with the occassional gasp as something lit up or popped. I think they were happier just to be running about with sparklers. It was so bitterly cold. In the end we were glad just to have marked the event and quick to get back indoors to the heat.

School run

Take a journey and break it up into 10 equal parts. Take each step in turn. Reach step one and continue doing so until you feel the anxiety eases to the point you are ready to move toward step two. And so on. The basics of graduated exposure. My reply to that theory put before me was: I have tried but I am not making any progress. Her answer: that is because deep down you don't want to do it. That was time for her to go and when I realised I must do it alone. I was wrong about one thing though. Graduated exposure does work but it was not working for reasons I see now. Not for the reason she gave which still makes my blood boil. That was over three years ago when the second of the CPNs came and went. Although it was not actually the reason I parted ways in the end. That came down to medication. Something now I am glad happened in hindsight despite the problems it caused between me wife and I. My wife saw it as the last chance for recovery and was beyond furious when she felt I was making no effort and squandering the last chance of happpiness for us all.

The thing is though only the person going through this knows. They know what is right and what is wrong. They know what works for them and what doesn't. Although graduated exposure was not working for me I kept at it because I saw the logic in it. I just didn't see the reasons why it was failing as I see them now. As it turned out there were two problems. Impatience which is at the heart of most recovery problems. We look back as see the years we have lost and get frustrated when recovery does not come the next day- or even a glint of it. The main reason it was failing though was that I was too keen. It doesn't work. I would push myself as far as I could possibly go until I hit panic and then go scampering back home. From doing the CBT I have learned this is just maintaining the habit of fear and of no use at all however brave a person feels they are being by throwing themselves continually into panic. The idea is to go to the step where anxiety rises and stay there until the anxiety drops. This is how we learn it does drop. This is how we establish in the mind that there is nothing to fear by getting there. If we leave the situation without panic then that is the memory. If we leave it in panic then that is the memory which resurfaces and is ultimately relived.

Today for the first time I felt a bit more confident. My wife was tired as she had not had a lot of sleep. For the first time I was able to say to her: go have a lie down and I will take the kids to school. On my own. As I always say it doesn't sound much. But it was. I have been the school now too many times to mention yet the responsibility of taking the kids and making sure they got there was crippling. It was harder than it should have been. In recent months I have posted about picking the boy up at home time and picking my daughter up when she was ill. These are journeys I know longer fear. But the fear does rise when I have a responsibility to make it. When my wife relies on my to do it. So  you see its not that I don't want to its that fear holds me back. Today though I cast the fear to one side and just did it.The journey home was a lot easier than getting there. I really did struggle to get to the school and yet I walked over twice that distance after I left the children at the school gates. The weight of relief was lifted and I felt stronger.

What made it even more pleasing is that I got up and out of bed thinking it was going to be the first day in a long time that I could not make the school run. Even that seems foreign yet its something that used to happen on a regular basis. Its habit still. There are still times when we go to pick up the kids that I say to my wife I may not be able to go all the way because I feel so heavily fatigued, ill or anxious yet I always get there now. In the past I used to leg it with the first twang of doubt. This morning I felt terrible. I have a bug. The same big the kids have had. Bad cough, sore stomach and all the rest. Maybe my wife has the same. So I was in no mood to begin with to even go along never mind take them myself. And yet I did. That is pleasing. 

Its a bit of normality. A little of how things should be. I need to keep taking the opportunity to do more things alone and start making that responsibility less of a burden. Its a self made burden of course but only by carrying it will I in time not feel the weight so much.

PS I know the image at the top is not related to the post but I cannot take photos at the school which would be the only apt thing.