Learning to distinguish...

This morning I went to my acupuncturist for my weekly session. As I was lying on the table I realised I had no idea what the acupuncturist was actually doing. I just get up on to the table, lie down and close my eyes. Then, because this is Japanese acupuncture and the needles are tiny, I don't feel much of what she is doing. She begins to take pulses and do a route around my body, pricking and prodding as she goes. Sometimes she asks me to turn my head to one side or the other to see if the pain in my neck is easier and sometimes she just moves around me in silence while carrying on with tiny inexplicable actions.  I have never once opened my eyes to see what she is doing. Occasionally I smell the familiar smell of burning as she warms the needles, but usually I just space out and go somewhere else.

This is most unusual for me. I am someone who researches everything about any medical practitioner who recommends a treatment for me. I don’t trust doctors at all and watch their behaviour with hawk-like attention. Why have I chosen to trust this woman, especially when I am so sceptical of so much alternative medicine? It is not as if I am seeing miracle results. It isn’t even as if I know the system of acupuncture that she is using. There are far fewer practitioners of Japanese acupuncture than those following the Chinese system. The only thing I am sure of is that the sessions feel increasingly soothing and right now this is what I need.

Lying down on the treatment table today I allowed myself to really relax and travelled to another, quieter realm. I came back from there realising that I need to be clearer about distinguishing my feelings, i.e. my emotions, from my feelings, i.e. painful or pleasurable bodily sensations. If I can once again learn to make those distinctions I am sure that I will be less disturbed and shaken off centre. I know on some level that I am too identified with my body, but hell, it’s my body, what am I supposed to do with it when it hurts, when I can’t walk for pain or when it let’s me down. I have spent so long dis-identifying my self from my physical body it was always one of the reasons I was neglectful of my health. I now see that there is a difference, a very clear difference, between disowning my body and owning my physical body but not getting caught up in identifying my psyche with pain. This also means that the nature of pleasure is also a feeling that I can allow to flow over me. No feeling needs to be so important. They are just feelings, regardless of whether I label them as positive or negative, or in terms that make more sense to me, sensations. The sensations I experience need not rock who I am or how I feel in myself. Learning to witness all these fleeting things is a life lesson. I saw today how much I still have to learn.

I also spent some time today NOT beating myself up for forgetting what I already knew, but congratulating myself for remembering what I have learned and remembering to remember it! It comes back to what I started this week writing about - trust. Tough lessons this week, but really worthwhile, I think.

To sleep, perchance to dream...

Warning: This blog entry contains nothing whatsoever about wisdom, meditation or spring coming and the grass growing by itself. It is entirely and unapologetically self-indulgent today.

Lately I have had some really vivid dreams. It could be that my imagination is running riot at night and sending me into situations that my unconscious mind knows I am not strong enough to resolve during my waking hours or, more likely, it is an early side effect of medication. Whatever is causing my night time manoeuvres doesn’t really matter because they are certainly entertaining. In fact my sleeping life is currently far more exciting than my waking one.

At the outset, let me lay my cards on the table, be perfectly open and frank and waylay any smartass commentary. I am aware that ALL dreams are sexual in nature. They are all open to Freudian interpretation and all boil down to repressed sexuality. OK, that’s out of the way so now I can begin.

Let me set the scene first. Two days ago we became aware of an unpleasant smell in the downstairs of my house, a very unpleasant smell. All of us looked suspiciously at each other, but no, it wasn’t of human origin and after checking various drains and overflow pipes it seems as if we have a rotting animal corpse somewhere under our house. Short of digging up the entire floor there is no real answer except to wait and hope the smell dissipates. To say that I am disturbed by this is an under-exaggeration. I am horrified.  As I fell asleep that night I could just get whiffs of the horrid odour and it was my last conscious thought before falling into a deep sleep. 

Dreaming – the smell was strong and very noxious. I started to explore where the smell could have been coming from and made a mysterious discovery. There were workmen dismantling the house next door and in doing so were relocating all the sewage pipes to flow over my back kitchen door. No one had asked us for permission to do this. In reality I don’t have a back kitchen door, but in my dream my house had a different configuration. Not only were the plumbing pipes being moved on to my property, but they were being installed wrongly. I knew exactly where they should go (?).  Suddenly the workmen started knocking down the back wall of my house. It was a total mess and things started falling apart. I remember screaming and being very, very angry. ’How dare they!” It was at that point in my dream I grabbed a huge machete or axe and ran towards the people destroying my house. I knew that I was quite prepared to kill the destroyers. I felt wild with anger.

And then I woke up! What the hell could that mean? I know that I am hung up on issues of security and safety and I also know that I am frightened of seeing my own defences crumble around me, but I awoke quite startled at the level of my rage and my absolute conviction that I would have killed someone, at least in my sleep state.

Last night I dreamt a completely different scene. I was on my way to the seaside and was being accompanied by two people. The first was a child of about 6 years old, the son of a very good friend of mine and the second was David Cameron, the Prime Minister. So far, so bizarre. David Cameron was flirtatious and a bit inappropriate with me, but I wasn’t particularly interested. I was laughing and fairly carefree. I was more involved in buying sweets for the little boy at a huge candy stall in a local market. The seaside location was somewhere I have visited in my dreams many times before. I realised, even as I was dreaming that this place was familiar from earlier dreams, so familiar I could begin to map it when awake.

The next thing I knew all three of us were walking up an outside staircase to a room or apartment. Cameron went away into the bedroom, the boy disappeared and suddenly there was Cameron wearing women’s clothes, my clothes I think, even though I was still fully dressed. Cameron beckoned to me to come into bed. He looked most strange. Here was the British Prime Minister wearing a silver sequinned top and satin leggings inviting me to bed. I was both amused and distressed. Had he misread my lack of interest as something else? I started shouting at him ‘Stop being so stupid’ and the more I shouted, the happier he became. It dawned on me that Cameron was a masochist and that my shouting at him was making him very excited. He invited me to hit him with a hairbrush! I was horrified. This was a no win situation because the more forcefully angry I became, the more stimulated it made him. I walked away to think about what I could do. I also remember making some comment about this behaviour being very wrong with a child present.

As I walked away I remembered I had my camera and re-entered the bedroom and began taking photos of David Cameron dressed in women’s clothes. He had by now donned a very fetching pale pink feather boa and was begging me to hit him as I repeatedly snapped photos. I escaped from the room and knew that the camera contained the evidence that could damage the Prime Minister’s reputation forever. By simply giving the photos to the newspapers I could single-handedly bring down the government. But wait, not only could I do that, but I could SELL the photos to the papers thus making me rich at the same time.

This became the real dilemma of the dream. Do I give the evidence to the newspapers and rid the country of an unfair, undemocratic government or do I sell them to the gutter press for exorbitant sums of money? Selling the photos would mean that I would no longer have any money worries, but would place me in a morally compromised position. Donating them would accomplish what I wanted but surely no one would blame me from profiting from my situation. Should I or shouldn’t I?  What should I do? This was when I woke up.

This is a summary of the past two nights. I awake tired. I think all the running about in my night travels exhausts me. So much processing. I hope you can see how my unconscious dream state is puzzling to me. Aside from the reality which is that I hate our present UK government and there is an unholy smell in my house, I have no real idea as to the meaning of these vivid dreams.

Any ideas?

Turn off the GPS

Friend 1: Are you visiting us tomorrow? Do you need directions?

My son

Friend 2: I’m all set. I have the address, a GPS, and a GPS override.

Friend 1: What’s a GPS override?

Friend 2: My wife.

Holding back from being an over-bearing Jewish mother is a trial. My natural instinct is to jump into the lives of my children and offer advice, answers and information. This might be acceptable if it was welcome, but often it is not. I begin to see that one of the main reasons the interference is unwelcome is just exactly that, it is interference that appears to be a lack of trust. If I trusted my children more, I would stand back, watch and wait to be asked. I would be able to allow more and if I really were to open my eyes I would see that most, if not all the time, my adult children cope just fine without my advice.

Trust is an issue for me. I am not good at just allowing anyone to act and waiting for an outcome. I always seem to think I have a better way or I pre-empt others’ finding their own way. I am like a living GPS system, constantly issuing information. Turn right here, turn left there, carry on for another mile … a living GPS with a New York accent and a Jewish mother tone in her voice. Anyone’s nightmare scenario!

I lie awake at night and invent problems for which I then have to find solutions. This is not just a waste of my energy and time, it is also a source of anxiety. I read and chant (sometimes) all these positive affirmations but when it comes to trusting that my spouse, my children, my bank, my doctor, my plumber, my dentist, my car mechanic or myself know what they are doing and I can sit back and relax – almost impossible.

This truly must be the definition of ‘driving yourself crazy’. Seeing this, admitting this, is the first step and  the next step is how to stop. Last week I was given advice (unasked for may I add) that I might begin by not starting sentences with ‘You should’. This would certainly help. I am filled with shoulds. I hear my mother reeling off her lists of shoulds all the time. I remember as a child hearing that I should do better, I should be thinner, I should be more feminine (this said after I refused to wear frilly lace blouses that were in style then), I should clean my room, I should do more. I remember feeling like screaming at my mum, actually I remember screaming at her very often, ‘leave me alone’. Sadly this has become a default mantra of mine whenever I feel stressed. A real Catch-22 this one, leave me alone, but come and take care of me.

I digress. I was looking at how much I over-mother my children. My children are not even slightly children anymore. They are old enough to have their own lives. They are financially independent and for the most part, they make pretty good choices. I know that as a parent I have helped equip them with life skills that empower them to make their own decisions. So why do I still have this need to interfere. It is rarely needed and if it is needed, I am invited to give advice or add an opinion. Maybe I am just afraid that if I don’t insinuate myself into their lives they will leave me out, though in reality this is highly unlikely.

So it’s time to re-programme this GPS – change the tone, alter the accent and maybe encourage patience. Usually if I wait long enough everyone finds their own way and it’s always the best way for them. If I can re-programme well enough I might even be able to completely relax and enjoy the journey trusting that we will all reach the destinations we choose.

Baby steps ...

Warning: This blog entry may be boring and repetitious, but I need to write today so bear with me.

I was never quite sure why I stopped writing. I thought it was because I had run out of things to say and yet I never stopped talking to whoever was around to hear. I imagined that as my life was reasonably even for a bit I didn’t need to use this forum as a way of clarifying my thoughts.  I stopped using my writing as therapy and felt that the course of sessions had run their time and it was now time to listen and not write. All of these are valid. They were all true to a greater of lesser extent, but in talking to a very old, good friend a few nights ago I re-inspired myself. I got excited once again about writing, not as therapy, as creativity.

Let’s cut to the chase here – go straight to the core of all of it. I am often not okay. I have long periods of time when I sink into places of such darkness that I cannot begin to see any glimmers of light. This past six months has been one long bad dream. Even before the death of my father I was in pain with my back and neck. This pain has carried on, worsened and ground me down until it was almost all I could think about. Sleepless nights, limited walking, pain, pain and more pain led to months of drugs, x-rays, doctor referrals, fighting with the National Health Service for adequate diagnosis and tests and finally, not a great diagnosis – nothing too serious, but not easy either. My father’s death sent me into a downward spiral of sadness and long periods of time when I didn’t work. When I finally returned to work it was the middle of winter and the dark days sent me further into my old friend, depression. A brief respite of a delightful few weeks in California with my children was a welcome change, but only solidified my despair at having limited mobility and pain. Returning to London I was sad, dispirited and anxious as hell. Work was adequate at best. I’m sure others didn’t really notice my lapses, my lack of passion and my partial commitment, but I did. I was distraught. It’s hard to do less than your best when you know what you are capable of achieving.

Two weeks ago I finally made the decision to give up work for an extended period of time. I also finally realised that I couldn’t weather this particular spell on my own and needed the help of medication. This was and still is, a hard thing for me to admit. I have spent many years in an environment where the route through depression was always expression, catharsis and therapy. To take medication feels like failing. It feels like I am saying I can’t do it anymore and that admission is a weakness. I am working with trying to drop that belief because I also know that that is a belief that works against me. It is an old message that probably has its roots in fear that if I show weakness, if I admit that I need help, I will be vulnerable and that’s dangerous. I wonder where I’ve heard that before!

I am not familiar to myself at the moment. I am not capable and in control. This means I am adjusting to a different me right now. A part of me that needs very careful nurturing is more present than the independent adult self I present to the world. I am a bit more reclusive and a lot more fragile. I do feel like I am suffering from some sort of post-traumatic shock, though I am not quite sure what the shock is/was. I don’t know yet if the anti-depressant meds will help, but hell, it’s worth a shot. What helped immediately was just letting me hear myself say, I need help. I can’t do this alone.

Baby steps… a day at a time.

Life returning...

Today I am thankful for a miniscule step towards the return to normality. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and my many friends and family in the US spent some time in the afternoon sitting round large dining tables and eating roast turkey, sweet potatoes, and all the other traditional and non-traditional foods that the numerous cultural communities have served up on this American holiday.

Here in the UK it is a non-event, though many more English people are aware that this is some sort of special day for Americans. I’ve lived here for such a long time that I usually forget that this is such a big day in the Yankee calendar. The origins of the Thanksgiving Day are lost in the mists of time, re-written by the Americans to read like a wonderful fairy tale of the early life of the English settlers in America and the Native Americans they met during those first hard winters. It doesn’t really matter that much anymore. What does matter is that so many people have used this time as a time of reflection, a time to acknowledge what they are thankful for and how much they have in their lives.

For the last month I have been in retreat, spent a lot of time in hibernation and indulged my feelings of sadness, alienation and futility. I’ve tried to bring a modicum of compassion to the ‘poor me’ that semi-lived in my house this November and sometimes I succeeded and other times I gave into utter despair. I was reminded once again of the power of friendship and the power of love. Those around me treated me with loving sensitivity as if I was very fragile and delicate. It humbles me to think about how beautifully I was received even when I was unable to give back.

I am dealing with the loss of my father step by step. His death was expected and even welcomed, as a release from a life lived well, but ending when it was needed. I see that there is a difference between death and loss. The loss of my dad is where my sadness lives. This will take time. The memories that flooded in on me at the beginning of this month were almost unbearably painful. Every memory caused more tears. I am beginning to laugh more when I remember my dad. Laughter and tears are not a bad mix.

So on this American Thanksgiving, to honour the land of my birth, I am thankful for many things. I am thankful that I have so much in my life, that I have people who love me, who I love in return, that I had two good, strong, loving parents who have instilled in me the courage to survive and that I will go on from here in a positive way, even when I sometimes feel tempted to do otherwise. I am thankful that I am still alive and still have time to do the many things that I haven’t finished yet.

And, despite my father’s misgivings, I am even thankful to be living in London, where we save our turkeys for Christmas and sweet potatoes come un-candied, with no marshmallow toppings.

I suspect that I am coming back into the world, little by little.

	mojo
	1. Self-confidence, Self-assuredness. As in basis for belief in ones self in a situation 2. Good luck fetish / charm to bolster confidence. 3. Ability to bounce back from a debilitating trauma and negative attitude

Playing a waiting game...

Today is a new day. I was touched and only a little bit embarrassed by loving thoughts from friends. It helps me to make my moods more public, the hidden quality to depression just makes it worse.
Every time someone sent me a hug or wished me well I wound up crying again. There seems to be an endless supply of tears in the one body I am carrying around so heavily these days. Sometimes I just silently cry and watch the tears running down my cheeks and sometimes I am bent double sobbing like a small child and sometimes I am just numb and disconnected. I know that I am not my feelings, that I have the meditative ability to witness my feelings and allow them to pass through me, but I also know that sometimes I am totally identified with the crying, the wailing and the despair.

Watching my depression grow reminds me of the first time I decided to experiment with live yeast. I could only have been about 9 or 10 and I got hold of some baking yeast and thought I would see what happened when you mixed yeast with hot water and put it in a jar. I screwed the lid on the jar tightly and hid the jar under my bed. Every few minutes I checked on the growth. It seemed to grow at a phenomenal rate.  By the end of the day the yeast/water mixture had reached the top of the jar and then I got a bit frightened. What would happen if I took the lid off the jar? Would the growing yeast mixture overflow, would it make a huge mess, would it carry on growing? So I did what I have since seen is a recurring pattern my life - I pushed the jar further under my bed, pretended it wasn't there and went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning my bedroom had a strange yeast smell. The jar was no longer where I had left it. The lid of the jar had blown off, the yeast mixture exploded and the mess was everywhere. Suffice it to say I was horrified, my mother was furious and I spent a few hours crawling around under my bed cleaning off growing yeast blobs.

Ever since then I have dealt with my winter depression in the same way - I have bottled it up, checked on it periodically and then pushed it away until it exploded. This doesn't seem to work very well. The adult version of the jar of yeast means that I create mess by doing this - with work,with friends, with relationships and primarily, with myself. So yesterday I opened the jar and revealed the expanding contents. By writing my feelings I stopped them a bit from growing bigger. This morning I checked on them and I felt a bit easier, not so suicidal, not so panicked and alone and this is definitely a good thing.

Today I woke early, I showered, washed my hair and even put a small amount of make-up on. I got dressed and went out into the world for a bit, not too far because I am still in physical pain from my neck, my tooth extraction and just my whole self, but further than yesterday. I had a solitary coffee in Starbucks, cooed at someone else's cute baby and came home.  This is a step in the right direction. The yeast is arrested in its explosive contained rising. Maybe tomorrow I can see people and move a bit more.

I see that I have no real choice. There are too many people in the word that I believe care for me, for me to give up.  It's tempting. It's very, very tempting, but ultimately, it's not a choice. One day at a time, one hug at a time, I will make my way through this. I know that if I keep feeding the negativity I am living in right now - feeding it and putting a lid on it, it will grow and grow and I am afraid that I will explode with it, but in that explosion I will just disappear. Small yeasty Cynthia blobs clinging to the underside of the furniture.

I am not ready to disappear yet. I have too many things to create, too many cakes to bake and shopping trips to make. Like I said yesterday... one day at a time.

Negative intention

In reading the title of this blog I realised today that it is completely innaccurate. Not only do I not have many positive intentions today, but today I am positively negative in my approach to the world.  I am not doing very well. As I write today I cry too. Tears just seem to have started falling again. The tears had stopped for a few days and fool that I am, I thought I was finished. I thought the sadness and blanket of negative energy had lifted. it hadn't, it hasn't and I am lower than I have felt for years. Winston Churchill described his depression as a 'Black Dog' that came to inhabit him. I feel like I have a nameless big fog of bad feelings just covering my whole world right now.

What to do? Can doing actually change anything? What really is the point? I get up, I do all sorts of time-wasting small things that simply pass the days until I can legitimately crawl back into my bed and sleep. Even that is difficult. I have constant pain in my neck (it would be funny if I felt like seeing it that way) and the result is that I also feel worn down. I am at the giving up point today.

Will I give up? I am really not sure. I am closer than I have been for a long time. My father's death has come at the wrong time of the year. How inconsiderate of him to die at the beginning of winter. I cannot cope at all. I am supposed to return to work next week. Can I? Will I? Do I give a damn? All these questions and no answers. All the things I could 'do' to make myself better and no motivation whatsoever to do anything at all.

I feel sad for Ralph, standing helpless, giving me hugs, patience and time to recover. Instead the only re-covering I do is to pull the blankets up higher until they are almost covering me head to toe. In this space I reject everything. I reject offers of kindness and gestures of love, I reject the possibility of feeling better when I feel I am swimming through the black soup of misery. I am not a good swimmer and this soup has a particularly tiring quality. I am just so tired and yet all I do is sleep.

So this is today and it just feels endless...