Traffic

 

Traffic
 
I have been stuck in a traffic jam
cars and vans and lorries and bikes
jumbled up unable to make their way
forward
 
jostling for position for the getaway
nothing progressed at all for months
and all I could do was identify the
vehicles
 
that were all the many stresses in my life
not being able to focus on any one of them
compounding the stress and the traffic
jam.
 
Suddenly an acupuncturist or an osteopath,
almost certainly, has shown one vehicle how
to navigate out of the melee and start a
journey
 
making a space for the next vehicle to
straighten up and leave, like one of those puzzles
with only one space but the corner shape must
exit
 
and now all the vehicles are moving
each in a separate lane on the motorway
(though the bikes must make their by another
route.)
 
All the types of vehicle are still present
but moving at their own pace
at variable speeds stopping and starting
individually
 
and I have clarity at last
and I am back in my own body
and in my own head and I have found
myself.

Seeing the Real You at Last

 
Seeing The Real You At Last
 
today I have a glimpse of the real you at last
“we know a song about that”
(sorry Bob) in my grief
 
today you are present in that way
that dead people have
when they have got into your soul
and I comprehend the hugeness of it all
 
I hear myself reeling off
“my partner died, then Covid struck,
then I broke my shoulder, then …”
as if bereavement was a small thing
(but it is vast)
 
and at last I allow myself to consider
what my therapist would have asked,
(she, the wise woman who questioned ‘accidents’)
 
and I see, really see in that
bone-deep, mind-expanding way
 
that my lack of attention before I tripped,
“doing marvellously” when I had Covid
(the first and second time)
and generally carrying on
stoically
 
yes, stoic(ally), that thing
I never am and wouldn’t do me any good
(and hasn’t)
 
I carried on stoically,
believing I was still doing really well considering
but putting off the day
 
pointlessly, painfully, but somehow
always knowing the day would come
 
when I see the real you at last
(again) and have to grieve

 

 

 

It's been a weird summer.

The weather has been weird, both literally and metaphorically, since I last blogged.  From time to time I think I'll write a post and then things change completely and I don't.  

Really, I feel completely cheated of the summer.  I have had no good weather in my garden since the end of April.  All the times when everyone else was complaining of the heat I was away and for the hottest week I had been pinged and was confined to barracks.

Since June I have also been suffering from a mixture of some of the worst grief and a bad bout of post-viral fatigue.  The fatigue is very frustrating.  So many things I have been unable to do.  Some of my friends just don't get it.  I ventured out for a rare coffee with friends this week and they asked if I had walked in.  

I laughed.  

They were surprised.  

I had to explain post-viral fatigue all over again.  Interestingly, although I've always described the condition as post-viral fatigue my cranial osteopath talked about "people with ME" and then corrected himself to "post-viral fatigue" so I suppose I'm crossing the line between the two.  I've bad PVF before, though, about 18 years ago, and got over it completely until April 2019, so watch this space.

Part of the problem in recent weeks, though, is that one of the feelings - best described as tired brain-fog, I suppose, can be caused either by the post-viral fatigue or emotional "stuff".  I'm usually pretty good at working out emotional stuff but it has been a challenge.  I now know to look for stuff first and if I can't find anything it's probably fatigue.  But the fatigue is definitely getting better and the brain fog associated with it has mostly gone.  I still need to be careful, and probably haven't been today as I've done quite a bit in the garden/patio.  I think it will have done me good, though, even if I have to rest tomorrow.

 

It may be summer

It may be summer; my garden says so.  In this weirdest of times, though, I don't always feel that it is.  There was a short period at the end of April when it was lovely and much sitting out was done, by me and by visitors.  Since then, though, I'm not so sure.  May's weather was truly dire.  June has begun better and things are coming into flower ...

But what about me? 

I have post-viral fatigue and have had for the past two years.  It's not quite ME but it could turn into that.  Fatigue and brain fog are the main symptoms in my case.  On the face of it, flare-ups are unpredictable but when I consider that stress is a trigger and look for one, there always is one.  It's often something small, but related to the underlying stress, e.g. currently grief.  When it hits, if I don't notice and do too much, it can get significantly worse but it's very minor compared with ME and I want to keep things that way.  

Most people seem unaware that for two years after a major bereavement your immune system doesn't work as well as it should.  This includes it being much more likely that PVF will flare up.  I am now really taking that on board and trying to be positive and know that the difficulties I'm having at this particular time will fade.  I need patience (not a trait Aries people are known for!)  Gradually my friends and relatives are understanding where I'm at. 

So it may be summer.  The grief hit really hard in the middle of May, but now I think I'm coming out of the worst now.  But in the garden the summer-flowering plants are competing with spring things, like wallflowers, which shouldn't be around any more.  In my life PVF is flaring up badly from time to time, along with other, minor, ailments.  I'm hoping the warmth and light provided by summer - and people - will give me the patience to continue moving forwards.   

 

It feels like spring

 

I'm cheating with this particular photo, as when I took it (early February) it didn't feel at all like spring.  The flowers are so joyful, though, and every year they encourage me to look forward to when spring will be here.

February, too, did feel like a never-ending month.  I often felt fatigue, I often felt depressed in spite of anti-depressants, I often felt the year would never move forward.  Of course, in one way I had good reason to feel depressed and every visit to my parents' empty house has made me ill for the first few days of returning home.  

But now, early March, it does feel like spring.  There have been gloriously sunny days, with actual warmth in the sun.  I've been able to do some outdoors jobs, which includes a massive tidy-up of my biggest shed.  It isn't outdoors, of course, but as far as temperature is concerned it might as well be as it has no heating.  I booked a trip to the local tip and got rid of some huge things and now the shed looks like it never has before.  I went on my first walk since October.  I just haven't had the energy till now.

Spring is a time of new beginnings.  And suddenly I do feel I've moved forward to a new time in my life.  My mood has lifted in the last three days.  Apparently I even sound better on the phone! 

Having brought back lots of tools from my parents' house, and added them to those I already had, which was more than most people have, it occurred to me that I needed to prove to myself that I could still use them and wanted to.  It has been about 18 years since I've done anything with tools other than tiling and decorating as Mike3 did everything with tools and after he died I just asked my builder friend to do all the odd jobs.  It turned out I was quite scared of trying and this has become worse as the years have gone by.  I think somewhere in there was a sense of responsibility to stay ok for my parents.  Now they've both gone, I can have a go again, and if I damage myself, well, there's nobody really depending on me so it doesn't matter.

On Friday I needed to put up a spice rack in the kitchen.  I didn't want to wait till aforementioned builder comes to do various jobs on Wednesday as it meant I could empty one of the boxes I'd brought back.  I would do it myself!  And I did.  Not entirely, it turns out, because I needed advice on using Mike's drill as it was different from my old one.  And advice on size/length of screws and rawlplugs.  But my builder had 15 minutes on his way into town and popped in and advised and now I've done it!

So it feels like spring out there - and it feels like spring inside me too.  I am moving forward, discovering rejuvenated me after a period of statis. (Blogger doesn't know the word but I'm sure all my readers do.)  Nothing I haven't been before and of course now with various age-related aches and pains but still, I feel better.  I feel like spring is happening.

An image for our times, personal and global.

World Mental Health Day during a pandemic

 

It's a while since I've walked down by the canal - or anywhere, come to that.  Life has taken over.  Probably nothing all that different from what is happening to everyone else but the effect on my mental health has been noticeable.

Until recently there were really only a couple of people I talked to about how I was feeling, because what's the point when everyone else is feeling much the same.  I realised, though, that I wasn't talking to quite a number of my closest friends.  Why not?  Eventually I realised it was because so much had happened since I last spoke that the first question might be "why didn't you say anything?" and I didn't really have an answer.

The other reason was that for a few weeks now my life has been filled with anxiety for half of the day while I do things, make telephone calls, arrangements for and speak to my parents, and they are both having a tough time at the moment.  When I did tell anyone about what was happening, the anxiety returned.  Better to say nothing, then.

I got round it eventually, in one case by demanding 5 minutes of a friends' time because I was relaxed after a glass of wine and wanted to tell her when it didn't make me anxious.  She graciously gave me 15 minutes while her husband sat poised with a paused box set at a crucial stage in the denouement.

Gradually, I've talked to or messaged most people.  It's better.  Several of them have sympathised.  Several have said they don't mind me letting off steam, even people I hardly know.  

So on World Mental Health Day I have a message.  It's my usual message, actually.

Talk to people!

Whether you feel anxious, depressed, sad, isolated or happy, relaxed and ready to go, talk to people either about how you feel or about how they feel.  There are too many people in society still not doing it.  

For those who've been following any of my ramblings, my garden is the thing which brings most contentment in this most hideous of years.  Everything seems more difficult with a pandemic, except gardening.  I know this isn't true for everyone, but I feel really sorry for anyone who would like a garden but doesn't have one.

Days of lockdown, part 4 - the wider picture, sort of.

 

How has my mental health been coping with lockdown?  Am I losing friends, as a report on Radio 4's Today programme recently suggested would happen with friendships when you don't see the other person for more than three months?  Am I being too extreme in my approach?  Not careful enough?  How has my life changed permanently due to Covid-19 rather than the sort of changes I might have expected normally?

My mental health was absolutely fine during the first few months of lockdown but gradually and more recently I have been struggling from time to time.  I love living on my own but I am quite a social person so I've missed going out for coffee with friends the most.  As restrictions have lessened, people who live with someone else can fairly safely go out to restaurants, pubs and cafes but people who live on their own who are not in a bubble with another household can only go on their own.  

People who live with someone else can go on holiday together.  People can do some kinds of holiday, e.g. camping, with friends they don't live with.  People with grown-up families can take holidays with them in places like rented cottages.  I, on the other hand, have been self-isolating for two weeks before visiting my elderly parents and their live-in carer.  The final tin lid on that was that I planned a week of 'holiday' when I came home, to enjoy sitting in my garden, meet with friends for coffee and Cake (which I normally avoid mid-week) and other social things.  Instead, we had a week which was mostly wet and windy plus two sets of my friends that I would otherwise have seen went on holiday.  Life became a bit grim for me and I was been periodically depressed.  

Depression in my case usually involves anxiety and a sense of being out of touch with myself, amongst other symptoms.  On at least two occasions when I did encounter other people (online and 'live') I realised afterwards that my anger was influencing my reactions and behaviour in a way I felt I needed to apologise for.

I started to question why I was self-isolating before visiting my parents when their carer has resumed some of her social activities and went out to lunch (eating outside) with friends, travelling by car (wearing masks but still three or four in a car) and popping into small shops when she goes out for a walk.  There doesn't seem the same point in my not doing that for two weeks before visiting them if she's doing it all the time and before I go again I'll assess the situation carefully and decide at the time how careful I need to be.

I don't think I'm losing friends while not seeing them but then I have friends I rarely or never see anyway.  There are a few local friends I have not been seeing but somehow I think my belief in real friendship still holds good - that it will stand any amount of absence and on seeing the person again it will only be a short while before you are back where you were with the relationship.  I'm fairly confident that friendships will survive.

What I've been experiencing is isolation and some loneliness.  And I've been really grumpy about it all.

Friends say they can't meet for coffee on a particular day because they're doing something with someone else.  Well, you're much better off than I am, then.  I don't have 'someone else' I'm doing things with.  I don't say anything.  But maybe I should?  Friends probably don't know I have any problem if I don't say.  I know there are many people much worse off than I am, however this is about my mental health - and I'm "just sayin'."

The wider picture for me is coloured by the knowledge that autumn is pretty much here, bringing an end to meeting outside and the implications of all of that.  Fortunately, after five months, my acupuncturist has resumed working and I have begun  to feel more like my old self.  I've lost most of the anger.  I've also been mentioning how I feel to people I know, even those I don't know well if they live on their own.  Most people who live on their own seem to think the same way as I do.  This is interesting and makes me wonder if living with other people insulates you in some way against being over-careful.  

Maybe I have been over-careful.  I'm thinking of asking my cleaners to come and clean while I'm at home.   Other people, including my parents, have been doing this.  As autumn approaches I am looking ahead at the things I like about autumn and winter - open fires, good tv to watch, closing out the world once it's dark.  A friend and I have worked out a strategy for safe socially distanced watching of films with a takeaway (or cook-in).  We have a similarly careful attitude and are both happy to move about the room out of each other's way, put on masks when necessary, etc.  And I am getting some nice, mild days so I can eke out a bit of summer living and adjust to the autumn.

As for the wider, wider picture, the national view, world view, politics and social issues and, and, and, and .....  I'm afraid for now I'm unable to give my attention to it.  I do what I can for people I'm closest too.  You really can't do more than your best and that's my best for the time being.

In case you missed it, I'll just point out the pun of the wider view of my vegetable garden above!  And to finish off, we, like everyone else, have had some spectacular sunsets recently and I now have a working camera to record them.

Mental Health Awareness Week

We're just at the end of Mental Health Awareness Week.  I really hope it's had an impact and I feel it may have done.  I watched an amazing documentary about Nadiya Hussain, the Bake-off winner, talking about her anxiety disorder.  She was extremely brave to put it out there and allow herself to be filmed exploring her anxiety and what had happened to her in the past.  If you haven't watched it, I wholeheartedly recommend it and you have just under four weeks left on iPlayer to do so.  Bake-off is watched by so many people and Nadiya is such a lovely person that I hope it has drawn people to watch.

Elsewhere other celebrities have talked about their mental health issues more openly as well.  Without any facts or statistics to back it up, I feel that there is increasing awareness of mental health issues.  There's much to do, but it's started.

But what of you and me?  "It's good to talk" isn't just about celebrities. In a way it can damage or enhance their reputation but we don't really know the effect it's having on their families and their 'real' lives.  Ordinary, less famous people may feel they have more to lose in talking about their mental health.

For this reason, I've been very open about mine.  I blogged here when I first started taking anti-depressants and I realise that time has flown by without an update.  Well, I'm doing fine, thank you, on the mental health front.  The first two weeks were hideous, with sometimes overwhelming anxiety.  The doctors I spoke to occasionally at my practice were very understanding but said that it was a known side-effect that should go after a couple of weeks.  It did, but it was a close thing.  I'm so glad I stuck it out.  The doctors were all clear that it was up to me and gave me as much information as they were able, one of them even contacting a specialist to answer one of my questions to which she didn't immediately know the answer.

So a few months on and I'm still taking the antidepressants and expect to do so for the time being.  I'm pleased to say that in spite of a difficult time with injuries and illnesses and family worries, I'm not depressed.  Sure, there have been occasions when I felt defeated, not sure when I was going to escape the vicious circle of illnesses, but it wasn't depression.  Without the medication, life would have been much more difficult.  I was suffering from depression, I knew it, I went to the GP and he prescribed the best treatment.  It really can be that simple.

A friend of mine posted somewhere that the worst lies are those you tell yourself.  Maybe the best way to avoid those is to talk more to other people.  When you actually hear your lies repeated, then maybe you'll be aware of them and realise them for what they are.  I don't know.  But what I do know is that Mental Health Awareness Week is a really good thing and I hope that we will all take on board what we've learned and carry it forward to the rest of the year.

Is it spring yet?

I'd like to start by saying that I certainly do believe in climate change.  What is happening to the sea, for instance, and the melting icecaps just can't be denied.  However, and this may be a little controversial, I don't believe that any patch of unusual weather is a sign of climate change.  We've always had it in this country.

In February we had some exceptionally mild weather, but it's not by any means a first.  I remember the odd week in February where I sat in my attic studio with the window open all day.  I can't tell you what years that happened in because they only happen occasionally, but they do happen.  Then we get the rest of winter, which is what we're getting now.

Mike3 used to say, "He who celebrates the first warm day as the start of spring gets the longest spring but he who waits till the last frost gets the longest winter."  I like that.  So I think spring has begun, but slowly.  Things in my garden think so too.  Some of them like this aubretia, have never totally stopped blooming, even in the snow, and now are really starting to come into their own.

Meanwhile, I've been on antidepressants for more than five weeks and I'm pleased to say that I'm feeling a great deal different.  You're not supposed to notice any improvement for a couple of weeks at least but I started to feel better after about four days.  It's difficult to describe but I just knew I had feelings that had been absent for a while. 

It wasn't plain sailing.  I wasn't warned about the possible anxiety as a side-effect and it was most unpleasant.  Luckily for me it wore off after a couple of weeks, which it does for most people though not all.  And then I was back to being myself.

I think I'd been depressed for longer than I had thought at first.  Life things get in the way which can be blamed for how you feel, but now I am doing and thinking things that I'm aware I wouldn't have done in the last six months or so.  It creeps up on you.

What I don't mean is that everything in the garden is rosy.  I'm not on cloud nine or even cloud six.  Life is what it should be if your brain isn't warping it, in other words there are good and bad days, good and bad things happen, and last Friday at a friends drop-in-for-tea afternoon nobody talked about Brexit at all.


At the moment I'm particularly enjoying this tall euphorbia.  Its vibrant green flowers are very long-lasting and have brightened up my garden for a couple of months.  In the background in a tub you can see a shorter euphorbia with pale leaves but still fairly bright flowers.  It's proved to be an ideal tub plant.

PS, there's still another week of Another Beastly Art Exhibition at Nature In Art, from tomorrow till Sunday.