Waiting Room

Sitting in the at the local medical centre. Not for long but there none the less. Sitting in an empty waiting room. Memories flooding back of times past. The many frequent visits. Sitting in here waiting for my name to be called and another fruitless journey thereafter. Of the flood of words and explanations and hope that the doctor, of which there were many, would understand and see the problem and write a prescription for a bottle of pills that would take it all away and make me better.

I had been living here about 4 years permanently and in that period had gone to the doctors probably over 20 times for various things but about 75% of those visits were in the last year of that period where I was constantly back and forth searching in vain for an answer. Just an answer would do. What the hell was happening? Sitting here nervously. Partly hoping today was the day and partly fearing what the answer might be.

Yes for all the frequency of those visits I stayed up North for 5 years before that and only went to the doctors once in that whole time. That was strange because I never even registered with a medical practice until right at the very end when I had to after coming back from a holiday abroad with an ear infection. All that time working and not a problem to note and that visit was probably my first in about 8 or 9 years to a doctor such was my fine health- mental and physical.

And tht makes me wonder why the sudden change. Two big changes. Firstly a change of abode but I was fime for the first two years of that. The second change was the eventual change of job and that is when my problems began, at the refinery. That in itself had two problems. I remember a big old Geordie in the smoking room cursing and moaning about all the idiots confining the few to a single smoking room and if only they knew the shit they were breathing around about them pumped into the air from the refinery before going on to list a dozen and one different chemicals. The other problem was spending all day facing a wall in my own world cut off from the rest.

The last time I was here, in the waiting room, was January 2008. My wife was in hospital pregnant with the boy. The youngest girl was up North with her grandparents and the oldest girl I had managed to drop off at nursery that morning. I had to pick up a prescription. A neighbour had offered to get it for me and that was the easy way out but I was pushing on my own trying to force normality and so ended up here panicking in a queue waiting for a little bit of paper to take to the chemist and then run off with a bag full of diazapam to stop me falling off the edge- as I had pleaded to the doctor over the phone. I did it and it felt great but I was in no hurry to go back and the diazapam remain untouched to this day- well they are out of date now.

So 5 years since I had last been here and thankfully not sitting here because I need to but because I want to. The push continues as I try to get myself out further and for longer and I keep pushing. This is part of the push. This time it was my wife who was in for a prescription. The boy was not even born last time and there he was battering about some balls of a little toy on a table as he nears the time to start school. Another little achievement like last time but this time I will return again. That is what I have been doing. Pushing to get there and pushing to go back. Trying to force normality again but unlike last time it seems tiny step by tiny step to be working this time.

Upward

Every step feels like its uphill until the next plateau. Makes me wish wonder whether I should carry a dustbin lid and sleigh my way home in style. Except its not all uphill- just metaphorically so. It is very much downhill which at first seems good but only if you travel from A to B and I never travel from A to B, always A to B and straight back to A again. Mumbly jumbly mess I am spouting here I know but its a little complicated.

Since pushing out I have been noticing gradients more and more. They are easy to find. This is an old mining village. The land is collapsing in places. The stank outside my home has just about disappeared. So its bumpy but not in immediate degrees and instead over expanses. What I have noticed is that our home appears to have been built on the crest of something- the last support- and as a consequence no matter where I go I am walking downhill. Which I already said is good but only if, unlike me, you don't need to come immediately back.

And therein lies an answer possibly to why for so long I wondered why the walking out was not the hardest part compared to the turning around and heading home. Partly that is because I use more than 50% of what I have getting out and pushing as far as I can and have to make do with what I have left to get me back home at speed. I see now though that is not the only reason. I turned and the horizon is always upward. I never used to notice gradients yet now my thinking is ruled by it.

Still I push on. I push on and on and on to cover distances people do without thinking about but to me have taken years to achieve. Two miles for the first time since this all started. Something I thought impossible now done. No wooping and yeeha-ing or jumping up clicking my heels. Instead just a burnt out mess crashed on the couch filled with regret for pushing too hard. Physical some, mental the other. How much of one and how much of the other I don't know. It leads me to try to recall how in the past I felt walking two miles. And maybe this is the problem because I cannot remember and my head instantly visualises someone without a bead of sweat breathing regularly with a bit of fatigue. But was that the case? And even if it was I was fitter then, younger then. I forget I am talking about 7-10 years ago. A quarter of a lifetime ago at the extreme. A time before my hair greyed and my face became more drawn. A more active time. So is it right to try to compare the two?

Of course not and this is what I have to try to get into my head. It doesn't matter how it felt before anymore than it feels for others. It is about how it feels now. I see from that I am still thinking about it too much. I think about it beforehand, constantly during and for a long time after but it is the after that causes the problems because my mind is set to look for problems. So I must try to be more mindful and less introspective. I must accept and let be and just keep pushing on without worrying about consequence and without regret later because there is nothing to regret when the alternative is spending the rest of days indoors miserable.

In the past I have talked of flashbacks. Random visual images of a former life. These are still as strong as ever. Now I see their purpose. They are coming more regularly now. Not alarming just a memory projected visually and briefly. In a car down a street I forgot about or sitting in a pub I forgot about. I have to say everyone is anywhere but here. None from here. Most actually from up north before I moved here. Now for the first time I see their purpose and it is a positive one. They are a reminder of what I want and where I want to be and spur to ensure I don't slack off and I keep going and even if I am exhausted to the point of panic I keep pushing myself out time after time striving to stay out longer and go further and do things I never thought possible. Ultimately to never give up and keep trying. And they are working. Its a change in mindset as I said in the last post and churns up an appetite to do more while the mind plans little things never done that can lead to bigger things down the road and all tie together at the end to not resurrect the old life but breathe a brand new better one like a metamorphosis of sorts and the breaking free from the cocoon. 

That is how it feels at least. It feels like every step is uphill and a struggle but at the end it will be worth it. Confidence builds little by little. I am hoping this is the slow start of heading out of this. Only time will tell.

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.

Last chance saloon

Oh yes, I do look like a scruff but that will be sorted soon I can assure you. Its going to be my first attempt at self haircutting and may well end in disaster but I have hats for that. Out and about. A rare occurrence captured. I am pushing, really I am pushing hard. Pushing hard to free myself from the situation I find myself in. I am getting it all ways at the moment and the fact that I am is testament to my complacency since this started and in the last 18 months at least.

The idea was for this next post to be filled with photos with my new camera. Unfortunately I have used it rarely. An expensive ornament at the moment but I hope that will change this week. Its the Easter holidays and the family as always are leaving and in that time I hope to get more familiar with the camera. Here I was out with my oldest daughter which is unusual nowadays but used to be a regular occurrence. I was letting her take photos of things with the old compact and trying to teach her along the way. And also, of course, taking lots of pics of her as she found new situations to be photographed in. Then a thought. I am never pictured out. I think there is one from 2 years ago and I do get out. So in a spur of the moment the above.

As I said I am trying hard. Very hard. I feel like its last chance saloon. I am putting every effort into getting myself righted as it were. Trying to find as many glimmers of hope that I can to keep me going. Just sick of where I am and missing where I want to be. Just keep pushing on. At some point I will meet that point where it will either make or break me for a period. That is where I run headlong too.

Anniversary

I don't know why I thought it would be so easy, the first part at least. A two part plan where the first part didn't need planning and the onus was on part 2. And part one was done. It was dark and I was sitting in the car in the car part of the shopping centre barely giving the shops much of a glance. I hadn't even taken the seatbelt off and nor had I taken my specs off which indicated there and then that part two was a no go. I was shaking. I couldn't stop it. And if truth be told I was that way before I even opened the car door. It took me back to my first drive after my big panic attack, exactly the same. I can't even remember the last time I drove but for some reason I thought it would be fine. It wasn't. Despite being defeated before even getting in the car I pushed through the panic and drove the short distance to the shopping car park. So there I was shaking and with the sole single repeated thought of alarm that I had to get the hell out of there and the quicker the better. So much for staying with panic. Everywhere I looked there were people sitting in cars looking back. Reminded me of the first chapter in a novel I wrote of a guy on a bus and not being able to escape the stares where even trying to look out of windows he suddenly realised he was facing someone's reflection. So I legged it. Empty handed and full of frustration, guilt and panic.

Why the hell did I put myself through that, last night? Well today is our 9th wedding anniversary and I needed flowers and a card. Me being me I left it to the last minute thinking I could just wing it and I couldn't. I was like a bear with a sore head after. So pissed off and full of guilt. This morning I had to sit and recieve a card and a jumper and a kiss full of guilt. "Where is your card?" asked my oldest daughter. I struggled to speak. Later, was all I could say. Last night I found the only thing I could do was get on to Interflora and spend money we don't have but it had to be done. So the wife was over the moon to recieve the bouquet above at work but the guilt didn't leave me. Failure, big stupid failure. And then I thought: what about the card?

Well that was something else still missing. I couldn't got out and get one- though I did contemplate another futile attempt but given the panic last night and more of the same this morning I decided not to compound matters. The neighbour was in downstairs and I did think about asking a favour but that would be as hollow as getting it from Moonpig. So I decided to make one. Took me a while and thankfully the ink had not run dry on the printer. Not the best of attempts but its there in the middle above and more personal as I put my own words in it. The wife was overjoyed even though it didn't come in an envelope. And all is well for now but with mother's day approaching and her birthday soon after I am going to have to plan more in advance this time around.

Flowers and torment

The maelstrom of images swirl too quickly leaving me disorientated for a moment as the humming top in my head spins to a blur threatening to launch at any time and take the top off my head with it. The scene is unreal and it by the artificial fluorescence powering all big supermarkets amid a cacophony of near silence- except for the humming in my head, the whizzing. It is a poor display in front of me. Where there should be a beautiful rainbow of varying colours and shapes I see emptiness. Where there should be various aromas which should melt together into an alluring fragrance and take me back to summer gardens I find myself robbed of scent. Flowers. More to the point flowers for my wife. Mother's day is nearly gone as its ten at night but here I am in the supermarket buying flowers on behalf of my children having not been out for 2 days and hating every minute of it.

I stare but don't absorb. I can't stop staring and that is the problem. Where I need to focus I have to much focus and cannot flick out of it. My eyes scan between the empty spaces at the pathetic offerings but still my mind is spinning so quickly any observations just bounce off. On instinct I grab two small bunches. They are poor specimens. I am no expert in flora or fauna but these look unconscious and maybe even in a coma but really it is all they have and in this situation I must make do.

Behind me is the path of least resistance- home- but ahead is where I must go to the checkouts. No point in wasting more time. I take the heavy steps to the checkout and pay for the items. As usual I try to throttle myself for something to do as the agitation needs some physical outlet. There was a time I just looked blankly lost in my own thoughts but now the anxiety manifests itself physically like this and takes over my hand to rip the Adam's apple from my neck. I try to remain calm despite the attack so no-one comes to my rescue. They are all as I once was moving slowly lost in their own worlds elsewhere. Mindless creates happy in their own heads, lucky bastards. They don't look at me and even if they did they would see an illusion. They may see the one handed assault but think nothing of it. They wouldn't see what the other hand was doing. This hand is straining to hold the taut thick elastic. This elastic stretches over my shoulder and all the way home to where it is bolted down to the sofa in my living room.

Each time I go out I must throw the thick elastic over my shoulder and push all the way out there in the world. The further I go the more the strain. I cannot stop and relax for fear of being catapulted at high speed back to my living room. So I take the strain and I pull the elastic hard in order to get further away. And when I return it is not much easier. If I relaxed I would be dragged face first through the concrete at high speed home. Instead I must still take the strain and edge myself home as slowly as I can. This is always the way but its not always the same experience. Some days it feels shorter and tighter. There have been days when it has loosened and I take hope that finally it is getting ready to snap but it never does. Always though I must strain and always these little trips leave me exhausted afterwards as a result. That is the resisting the strain and the constant tension.

Let me also say what took me there at the end of mother's day. One day I walked past "the pound shop" and paused for a moment wondering whether to get an anniversary card. To be able to have that decision is a big improvement in my walking problems, or agoraphobia, as there was a time that this was out of the question and no-one got cards. That day I decided not to go in as I would get it later- nothing was stopping me. This was 2 weeks before my anniversary. On the day of my anniversary I lay on the sofa in pain around my abdomen riddled by guilt at not even being able to get my wife a card for our day.

At the start of last week I paused in the same way outside the same shop- mother's day this time. I had learned my lesson so went in and bought not only my wife a card but my own mother too. Success for me. Just a little success but each one counts. And it was just as well. No physical problems, I said, for many years. I sat down in the kitchen on Friday night and when I tried to get up I couldn't straighten. I had pain in the small of my back. As the night went on it got worse. Saturday I could hardly move. So frustrating though. Another occasion and once again I am unable to move freely- was it always going to be this way from now on?

But at least this time I had the cards. So on Mother's day the girls had something to give their mum. They wrote the card out from the words I transcribed and then filled the card with kisses. My wife was happy but I could see something was missing. A little present. I hadn't gotten anything except a card. Partly this was because I didn't think I needed to, that I couldn't get out and also that I would not even know what to buy for my wife. I could see the disappointment though.

On Sunday evening I felt my back ease a little. In truth when I managed to straighten up it was alot better and later I found walking was actually not the problem I expected it to be. So on a whim on my late night jaunt I decided to go into ASDA and when in there had the notion to purchase flowers. I did so successfully. Again something else I can chalk up- a little thing but another thing regardless.

I am so glad I did. I sneaked back into the house and my wife was in the kitchen on the phone. Quietly I sneaked into the girls room to find them both awake. A minute later I stood there as my wife turned around to find her two girls there ready to present her with a bunch of flowers each for Mother's day. It might have been late but regardless it was worth it. It did make her day and I think we all got a lift.

Additionally though it taught me something else about myself. After a lay off from going out I have always found the first trip the hardest usually scuttling home almost a soon as I am out of the door. That night I was out for as long as I have been over the past year so that need not always be the case. It teaches me that my apprehension is probably at play. Better to do things on impulse. So if it has done nothing else it has helped me at least realise something that works better for me and long may it continue.

Waiting game

I feel I am slowly getting back on track again with regards to the walking. After falling back it is going to take time to find my stride again but hopefully not as long as when I started from being . It could not be helped but if I can find it within me I will get back to where I was quickly. At the same time though I will be sensible and not go straight into trying 3 long walks per day.

Yesterday I managed two walks which I felt took alot out of me so today I will try one later. The second was a bit of a success. It was about equal in distance to the first but I was out longer. The longest walks I have done in the past 3 months have taken about 10 minutes a time. Sometimes the same walk is quicker because I have a tendency to walk to quickly so I consciously try to slow my pace to a more reasonable level. There was one time I was out for half an hour in a very long walk by my standards but that was only once and I suffered a long time after so never again.

On the second walk yesterday I went to meet my family coming back from the shops which I did. As we past the kebab shop though the smell gripped me and I said to my wife that I fancied one. I knew though it was too early to go in so I did not but she took the girls in while I waited outside with the baby boy. That was about a 10 minute wait and the panic surfaced a couple of times but I got through it. OK it would have been better if I had gone in, ordered the food (which was for all of us not just me), waited and paid. So it was tainted but I won't beat myself up too much about that. I still waited even if it was a few yards away from where I should have waited and is a step forward. All in all I was out about 20 minutes. This is something I need to do more often.

The time out is important. I spend so much of the day off my feet even if I am not walking it should help if I am on my feet more often. The waiting game could help. Even if I arrange to wait outside the shops for my wife it would help and then slowly maybe go in. I remember doing this previously and felt better for it.

As I've already said I have a problem with people coming to the house which came after a big panic attack but also after I was made redundant. Being around people is foreign to me- other than my family and this no doubt has an impact. So if I can get out more and be around people, even if not interacting with them, then surely it will help me too. I feel I am stuck in my own world whereas everyone else is in another. The only way I can see to bring the two worlds together is by being around people more.

It can be done. Back at the start of February having not been in the shop for over 2 years I found myself in a long queue inside a cramped shop body to body with people. It was hard but I waited and managed it. So it can be done. I remember at the time I could not believe it and when I got home could not tell my wife who was just out of hospital. That was a really good time for me and I hope to get back there. I know it is possible because I have done it before.