- Why does knitwear from Primark very often smell weird? I've had this happen to me a lot. Nothing I do seems to get rid of the smell, either. I'm practically drowning in perfume today, yet I still smell like I've been dossing in a musty warehouse. Nice.
- Rihanna. She's not done anything today to annoy me, but her general existence usually does the trick.
- The fact that I can't decide if I like Lana Del Ray or not. I'd probably like her more if she wasn't getting airplay on Cool FM. Anyone getting airplay on Cool FM raises my suspicions immediately.
- The woman in the advert for whatever new toothpaste Sensodyne are hawking now - the one going on about how her healthy diet is destroying her enamel or some such crap. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about her that annoys me. I just know that I'd like to put my finger - and, indeed, the rest of my fist - into her face at a rather sharp velocity.
- People who walk too heavily. I should not be able to hear you coming ten minutes before I see you.
- My insatiable quest for junk food. No matter how much proper food I eat, I still want to stuff my fat face with crisps, chocolate and anything in between.
- People in work who insist on drumming loudly (and badly) on their desks, to the point that I've now got a headache. Ditto whistling.
- The fact that I never seem to want to be doing anything that I'm doing. When I'm at work, despite being overloaded with things to do, I'm bored out of my skull and keep planning out all the things I need to do when I get home. But when I'm home I never do any of them. If I do anything other than spend the whole night in front of Mock The Week and QI repeats, it's a minor miracle.
Tuesday 31 January 2012
Minor rant for a Tuesday lunchtime
Things that are bothering me today:
Friday 27 January 2012
The ignorant taxi driver
It's so uplifting and inspiring when you start the day off right, isn't it? Well I wouldn't know, actually, because I'm pretty sure that's never happened to me and it certainly didn't this morning.
First of all I slept in. When I finally woke I was so completely exhausted still that it took me a while to keep my eyes open long enough to actually get up. Then there was the hunting like a headless chicken for something to wear, the phone (both my mobile and landline) refusing to work when I called for a taxi, the traffic, the weather, etc etc.
Then there was the radio in the taxi. It was the Nolan show, a very well known and popular talk radio show on Radio Ulster in the mornings with a bloke called Stephen Nolan who lives to sensationalise and antagonise. But he was being reasonably sensible this morning - when I got into the taxi, there was a discussion about tourism infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Someone called in saying that there's nothing for families and children to do here because there's no rollercoasters. And the taxi driver was all 'Aye, right nuff, there's nathin like that here, like rollercoasters or annyhin' (actually there is, in Portrush, a very well known amusements park called Barry's. It's not massive, but it does have some of those types of things). Now, I personally object to that because I think we have much better things for kids to see and do here - my 6 nieces and nephews had a ball at the various tourist/museum type attractions that we took them to last summer. The Giant's Causeway, the Ulster Museum, the Folk and Transport Museum - they loved it. But whatever, I wasn't going to get into a debate with this guy over something like that.
Then the next item on the show started. It was Alastair Campbell talking about his new book The Happy Depressive which talks about his problems with depression, with alcohol abuse and his mental breakdown in the 1980s. Obviously this is something I was rather interested in. But the taxi driver started scoffing and laughing - 'Why on earth would he think anyone would want to read annyhin like that, like? Sure who'd wanna read sumhin about depression?' etc etc etc. He looked at me in the mirror like he expected me to join in his laughter and mock a person with depression who's had the audacity to write about it.
I know this wasn't the worst thing in the world for him to say on the subject, but something about his attitude just really irked me. He seemed like a fairly stereotypical working class Belfast man - and there has been a huge, huge problem with suicide amongst that very group. Swathes of young men all over Belfast (usually in working class and/or deprived areas) have been taking their own lives, and it's been a problem that the authorities have been struggling to deal with for years now. That he could be so utterly untouched by any sort of mental illness in his family, his friends, colleagues, anyone that he knows seems highly unlikely to me, therefore. But he had such an overwhelming sense of ignorance about it that I found it really bothering me. Thankfully this all happened towards the end of the journey, so I didn't have to deal with too much about it. But I really felt like just telling him 'I have depression, that several of my friends do/have had, and that I find it both interesting and important that someone like Campbell should write a book about this because we need any help we can get to knock down the ignorance and stigma towards the disease from idiots like you' to see what he'd say. But of course, I didn't. I'm just writing a ranty blog instead.
I get that people don't understand this. It's a very hard thing to understand if you haven't experienced it yourself, and even then everyone's experience is different. And I know that there are some people who are just a bit judgmental and think that you have to just pull yourself together. Those people, I tend to think, are just blocking out their own feelings. It's very often a sort of knee-jerk reaction that suggests to me that it's almost hitting a sore spot, like they have their own crap to sort out but they're just ignoring it and don't want to acknowledge that there's a different way to do things, or that different people might think differently.
But that someone could find it *funny* that a person was sharing their story of mental ill-health with others, who couldn't possibly get their head around the idea that there might be people interested in this - it just blew my mind a little bit. How could a person be so utterly ignorant of the world in which they live? How could you live in a city where suicide is a huge problem, and there are constantly public health drives against it, and find depression amusing? And to think that expressing that in public is perfectly ok? To not even consider that the person you're talking to might have some experience of depression, either personally or through friends or family? I just don't get that.
And mostly it's just incredibly sad that this is what we have to deal with, this is the sort of attitude that exists out there that has to be challenged. It's hardly any wonder that people don't want to talk about it, don't want to admit to it, when this is the sort of thing you're faced with.
First of all I slept in. When I finally woke I was so completely exhausted still that it took me a while to keep my eyes open long enough to actually get up. Then there was the hunting like a headless chicken for something to wear, the phone (both my mobile and landline) refusing to work when I called for a taxi, the traffic, the weather, etc etc.
Then there was the radio in the taxi. It was the Nolan show, a very well known and popular talk radio show on Radio Ulster in the mornings with a bloke called Stephen Nolan who lives to sensationalise and antagonise. But he was being reasonably sensible this morning - when I got into the taxi, there was a discussion about tourism infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Someone called in saying that there's nothing for families and children to do here because there's no rollercoasters. And the taxi driver was all 'Aye, right nuff, there's nathin like that here, like rollercoasters or annyhin' (actually there is, in Portrush, a very well known amusements park called Barry's. It's not massive, but it does have some of those types of things). Now, I personally object to that because I think we have much better things for kids to see and do here - my 6 nieces and nephews had a ball at the various tourist/museum type attractions that we took them to last summer. The Giant's Causeway, the Ulster Museum, the Folk and Transport Museum - they loved it. But whatever, I wasn't going to get into a debate with this guy over something like that.
Then the next item on the show started. It was Alastair Campbell talking about his new book The Happy Depressive which talks about his problems with depression, with alcohol abuse and his mental breakdown in the 1980s. Obviously this is something I was rather interested in. But the taxi driver started scoffing and laughing - 'Why on earth would he think anyone would want to read annyhin like that, like? Sure who'd wanna read sumhin about depression?' etc etc etc. He looked at me in the mirror like he expected me to join in his laughter and mock a person with depression who's had the audacity to write about it.
I know this wasn't the worst thing in the world for him to say on the subject, but something about his attitude just really irked me. He seemed like a fairly stereotypical working class Belfast man - and there has been a huge, huge problem with suicide amongst that very group. Swathes of young men all over Belfast (usually in working class and/or deprived areas) have been taking their own lives, and it's been a problem that the authorities have been struggling to deal with for years now. That he could be so utterly untouched by any sort of mental illness in his family, his friends, colleagues, anyone that he knows seems highly unlikely to me, therefore. But he had such an overwhelming sense of ignorance about it that I found it really bothering me. Thankfully this all happened towards the end of the journey, so I didn't have to deal with too much about it. But I really felt like just telling him 'I have depression, that several of my friends do/have had, and that I find it both interesting and important that someone like Campbell should write a book about this because we need any help we can get to knock down the ignorance and stigma towards the disease from idiots like you' to see what he'd say. But of course, I didn't. I'm just writing a ranty blog instead.
I get that people don't understand this. It's a very hard thing to understand if you haven't experienced it yourself, and even then everyone's experience is different. And I know that there are some people who are just a bit judgmental and think that you have to just pull yourself together. Those people, I tend to think, are just blocking out their own feelings. It's very often a sort of knee-jerk reaction that suggests to me that it's almost hitting a sore spot, like they have their own crap to sort out but they're just ignoring it and don't want to acknowledge that there's a different way to do things, or that different people might think differently.
But that someone could find it *funny* that a person was sharing their story of mental ill-health with others, who couldn't possibly get their head around the idea that there might be people interested in this - it just blew my mind a little bit. How could a person be so utterly ignorant of the world in which they live? How could you live in a city where suicide is a huge problem, and there are constantly public health drives against it, and find depression amusing? And to think that expressing that in public is perfectly ok? To not even consider that the person you're talking to might have some experience of depression, either personally or through friends or family? I just don't get that.
And mostly it's just incredibly sad that this is what we have to deal with, this is the sort of attitude that exists out there that has to be challenged. It's hardly any wonder that people don't want to talk about it, don't want to admit to it, when this is the sort of thing you're faced with.
Thursday 12 January 2012
Evidence of things unseen
I suppose I should really write something here. Hopefully something a tad less dramatic than my last post.
I realise now that it perhaps sounded a bit more sinister than was my intention. When I talk of giving up and so on, I don't mean giving up on actually being alive and breathing and what not - I mean giving up on the idea of anything ever getting any better. Giving up the hope that can be so painful so often. It feels so much like everytime I have hope that things might change, that things can get better that something comes along to knock me down, and then kick me when I'm down, then stamp on my head, piss on me and leave me there for scavenging animals to try to eat. Not that I'm being melodramatic or anything... But it's increasingly difficult to try to focus on the bright side when it feels like the universe punishes me every time that I do.
Which is what brings me to the topic of this lovely little post - evidence. Evidence is a pretty big part of my depression and anxiety problems, now that I think about it. I have all of this evidence stored up inside for every time something has gone wrong, everytime something hasn't gone my way, everytime someone has let me down or hurt me (intentionally or otherwise). And it's very difficult to see evidence for anything more positive. Everything becomes distorted and corrupted in your mind, you absolutely cannot believe anything good that's ever happened, anything good that anyone has ever said to you. Anything good is all lies, as far as you're concerned.
One of the techniques of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to list the pros and cons to things - make out an actual list of the reasons for and against anything that you think. It's supposed to force you to recognise that you're not always right about the things that you think, to stop you over-generalising and catastrophising everything and look at the details instead of just going off the rails. It's a difficult balancing act, though, to actually make yourself recognise and accept any of the good things. That's what I've been struggling with a lot lately.
For a while there I kept trying - no matter how down I got - to not turn it into a self-worth thing, to not beat myself up everytime I got upset or annoyed or emotional about something. I tried to just accept my flaws rather than focus all my energy on them and how awful a person I must be as a result, and tried to concentrate instead on the person that I want to be. To actually try to be a bit better instead of just complaining to myself that I'm so awful all the time.
But that gets hard sometimes. When you get let down or disappointed or struggle to cope with something not going as you had hoped it would, it got more and more difficult for me to keep trying to focus on the practical, positive, proactive side of things. It didn't even feel like self hate a lot of the time - it was fear. Paralysing, horrible, horrible fear. That I was so much worse a person than I thought, because why else would these things be happening to me? Have I just been kidding myself, pulling the wool over my eyes - am I really so much worse than I ever thought I was, and that's why all of this is happening? And if I'm so awful when I thought I was trying to get better, then I must just be a waste of space, I can't do anything right and should just give up. It went something like that.
I seem to have a fear of not being able to see the real evidence in front of me. I'm terrified of discovering that I've been blind to something, that I've been stupid not to see what's right in my face. I suppose maybe that's something to do with the perfectionism - not just the not being perfect part, but being wrong. I hate being wrong. I hate not knowing. I hate not knowing what to do next, what the right answer is or how to find the answer. In some ways, that's a positive trait in me - I suppose it's what always made me good at research and really enjoy learning things and gave me a curiosity about the world and education. But when you turn that sort of inspection towards yourself, it can all go horribly wrong.
And then on top of all of that, there's the sense of failure. I was so convinced a few months ago that I'd made some sort of breakthrough, that things were really, honestly going to be different. And that I've managed to have such an awful month or two makes me feel rather defeated. It makes me question everything. Do I just keep trying, or am I trying at the wrong thing? Is there something I should be doing differently? And if so, what is it, and how do I find out? And so often, that all just gets so exhausting. It feels physically hard to keep going on, keep getting out of bed and going through the motions each day. Very real and scary financial implications for me and my family are the only things that do eventually drag me out of bed. But that becomes so much effort, that it's hard to find the energy or motivation to do anything else.
I need help with this. But I don't know what sort. New meds? Therapy? Although I can't afford therapy and I don't know if I have any free options left to me at the moment. I know I need to get out and socialise more but I've gotten to the point where I just don't seem to have many friends left, and those that I do have I can only see or talk to once in a blue moon because they're too busy. And then there's the whole can of worms of whether or not to tell anyone anything about my problems, which is a whole other post on its own. My doctor keeps telling me to get out and exercise more. To try to find a hobby or something that involves other people. I don't think she gets just how far gone I am - I can barely force myself to be around my flatmates, trying to do something like that is like entering the Olympics before I can walk. And I feel so confined by so many aspects of my situation that I, once again, don't know what the right answer is. I have zero funds at all for anything - I'm finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, let alone finding any disposable income for extracurricular activities. My work schedule is such that I never have free time that I can depend upon - I have to work from home when I'm sick and when I'm on leave, so I can't exactly commit much of my free time to anything because there just isn't much. And I'm so physically exhausted all the time from not sleeping properly that doing anything other than collapsing as soon as I get in the door seems like an impossibility.
Now I'm starting to make excuses for things, I know that. As much as I need some help and support, I need to do this myself because no one can do it for me. I need to make the effort. Trying to figure out that balance between doing it myself and needing and wanting help has always been a struggle for me. I always seem to oscillate between being so desperate for friends and relationships - people I can rely on - and being so hurt and disappointed by the failure of such relationships that I give up on people altogether. Neither is really working for me.
Anyway, that's just some thoughts for the time being. Maybe getting some of this stuff down here will get it out of my head for a bit so I can actually have some thoughts in there about something other than my mental health. It'd be a nice change.
I realise now that it perhaps sounded a bit more sinister than was my intention. When I talk of giving up and so on, I don't mean giving up on actually being alive and breathing and what not - I mean giving up on the idea of anything ever getting any better. Giving up the hope that can be so painful so often. It feels so much like everytime I have hope that things might change, that things can get better that something comes along to knock me down, and then kick me when I'm down, then stamp on my head, piss on me and leave me there for scavenging animals to try to eat. Not that I'm being melodramatic or anything... But it's increasingly difficult to try to focus on the bright side when it feels like the universe punishes me every time that I do.
Which is what brings me to the topic of this lovely little post - evidence. Evidence is a pretty big part of my depression and anxiety problems, now that I think about it. I have all of this evidence stored up inside for every time something has gone wrong, everytime something hasn't gone my way, everytime someone has let me down or hurt me (intentionally or otherwise). And it's very difficult to see evidence for anything more positive. Everything becomes distorted and corrupted in your mind, you absolutely cannot believe anything good that's ever happened, anything good that anyone has ever said to you. Anything good is all lies, as far as you're concerned.
One of the techniques of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to list the pros and cons to things - make out an actual list of the reasons for and against anything that you think. It's supposed to force you to recognise that you're not always right about the things that you think, to stop you over-generalising and catastrophising everything and look at the details instead of just going off the rails. It's a difficult balancing act, though, to actually make yourself recognise and accept any of the good things. That's what I've been struggling with a lot lately.
For a while there I kept trying - no matter how down I got - to not turn it into a self-worth thing, to not beat myself up everytime I got upset or annoyed or emotional about something. I tried to just accept my flaws rather than focus all my energy on them and how awful a person I must be as a result, and tried to concentrate instead on the person that I want to be. To actually try to be a bit better instead of just complaining to myself that I'm so awful all the time.
But that gets hard sometimes. When you get let down or disappointed or struggle to cope with something not going as you had hoped it would, it got more and more difficult for me to keep trying to focus on the practical, positive, proactive side of things. It didn't even feel like self hate a lot of the time - it was fear. Paralysing, horrible, horrible fear. That I was so much worse a person than I thought, because why else would these things be happening to me? Have I just been kidding myself, pulling the wool over my eyes - am I really so much worse than I ever thought I was, and that's why all of this is happening? And if I'm so awful when I thought I was trying to get better, then I must just be a waste of space, I can't do anything right and should just give up. It went something like that.
I seem to have a fear of not being able to see the real evidence in front of me. I'm terrified of discovering that I've been blind to something, that I've been stupid not to see what's right in my face. I suppose maybe that's something to do with the perfectionism - not just the not being perfect part, but being wrong. I hate being wrong. I hate not knowing. I hate not knowing what to do next, what the right answer is or how to find the answer. In some ways, that's a positive trait in me - I suppose it's what always made me good at research and really enjoy learning things and gave me a curiosity about the world and education. But when you turn that sort of inspection towards yourself, it can all go horribly wrong.
And then on top of all of that, there's the sense of failure. I was so convinced a few months ago that I'd made some sort of breakthrough, that things were really, honestly going to be different. And that I've managed to have such an awful month or two makes me feel rather defeated. It makes me question everything. Do I just keep trying, or am I trying at the wrong thing? Is there something I should be doing differently? And if so, what is it, and how do I find out? And so often, that all just gets so exhausting. It feels physically hard to keep going on, keep getting out of bed and going through the motions each day. Very real and scary financial implications for me and my family are the only things that do eventually drag me out of bed. But that becomes so much effort, that it's hard to find the energy or motivation to do anything else.
I need help with this. But I don't know what sort. New meds? Therapy? Although I can't afford therapy and I don't know if I have any free options left to me at the moment. I know I need to get out and socialise more but I've gotten to the point where I just don't seem to have many friends left, and those that I do have I can only see or talk to once in a blue moon because they're too busy. And then there's the whole can of worms of whether or not to tell anyone anything about my problems, which is a whole other post on its own. My doctor keeps telling me to get out and exercise more. To try to find a hobby or something that involves other people. I don't think she gets just how far gone I am - I can barely force myself to be around my flatmates, trying to do something like that is like entering the Olympics before I can walk. And I feel so confined by so many aspects of my situation that I, once again, don't know what the right answer is. I have zero funds at all for anything - I'm finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, let alone finding any disposable income for extracurricular activities. My work schedule is such that I never have free time that I can depend upon - I have to work from home when I'm sick and when I'm on leave, so I can't exactly commit much of my free time to anything because there just isn't much. And I'm so physically exhausted all the time from not sleeping properly that doing anything other than collapsing as soon as I get in the door seems like an impossibility.
Now I'm starting to make excuses for things, I know that. As much as I need some help and support, I need to do this myself because no one can do it for me. I need to make the effort. Trying to figure out that balance between doing it myself and needing and wanting help has always been a struggle for me. I always seem to oscillate between being so desperate for friends and relationships - people I can rely on - and being so hurt and disappointed by the failure of such relationships that I give up on people altogether. Neither is really working for me.
Anyway, that's just some thoughts for the time being. Maybe getting some of this stuff down here will get it out of my head for a bit so I can actually have some thoughts in there about something other than my mental health. It'd be a nice change.
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