Brisk as a Whisk – The Results are in…

 

…votes have been counted and verified by an independent adjudicator (he left home aged 17, has his own internet company and can tie his shoelaces, no help needed).  Please do not phone in now as the lines are closed but we might still charge you just for the hell of it.

So, I’ve done my best to be active and positive today and it’s been a reasonable success.  Since I posted last, I threw some clothes on and as I’m a chronically cold person I then added a heavy winter coat and hat to the ensemble.  Sufficiently barricaded against a not particularly cold day, I grabbed my bag, and yelled “I’m just off for a little walk, back in twenty minutes” over my right shoulder to my Mum.  I left the house as quickly as possible, mainly to avoid the very real risk I would stop and think thoughts and end up not going out.

The air was very fresh today with a breeze/wind (actually, it was a bit more grown up than a breeze; not quite as adult as a wind – is there a word for that?)  It was a sneaky breeze, it found entry points into my heavy coated armour - down and around the v-shaped neck area of my coat and up through the large sleeves.  I strode onwards, scared if I let up for a moment I might consider an about-turn back to my house.  I ordered myself to be in the present, to look around me and soak up what I was seeing and feeling.

One problem with this: I live in a shitty area and the walk I was taking was past a completely uninspiring dilapidated factory on my left and a forlorn row of terraced houses on my right.  Still, make the best of it hey!  So, in the present that I now was, I noticed the breeze around my face.  I hadn’t been out of the house in a while so the assault of fresh air was quite invigorating.  Fine droplets of rain, too small to see, were carried on the breeze.  My cheeks felt their touch. 

I managed to get some leaflets on exercise classes running at the community centre (the target of my walk).  Then I walked home.

When I got in my Dad commented that my cheeks were rosy.  He was right and it probably wouldn’t have been up for comment if not for the fact that my cheeks have been decidedly unrosy lately.  When I’ve looked in the mirror I’ve seen a face that’s not seen the light of day for too long, purple shadows beneath tense eyes and a drawn complexion.

I wasn’t sure what to do after this walk.  I tried a little bit of yoga at home and then showered and…that’s quite enough for today, thank you.

CONCLUSION: Old school Brisk as a Whisk advice is worth considering.  I’m glad I went out.  I certainly wouldn’t expect to be able to do this everyday, depressed moods vary day to day as does my level of fatigue.  But today it helped me a little.  For that I’m grateful.

Louise’s Quick Depression Tips:Tip 3. WASHING

Tip 3. WASHING/SHOWERING/STINKINESS:

If you’ve been depressed chances are that you’ve woken up in the morning and the thought of showering has sent you into a decline.  There are  days when you just don’t have the will or the energy.  However, if you don’t wash yourself a) you get stinky and b) you may not get dressed that day. 

Not getting dressed leads to moping and can make you much less likely to do anything with the day that might give you a chance of lifting your mood.

So what do you do if you can’t face showering before putting clothes on?  You take sneaky shortcuts.  Namely:

• BUY WET WIPES.  EITHER MAKE UP REMOVAL WIPES OR BABY WIPES (are cheaper) AND FRESHEN UP WITH THOSE BEFORE APPLYING DEODORANT AND PUTTING CLOTHES ON.

• to the girls: FOR GAWD’S SAKE SHAVE YOUR ARMPITS – YOU WILL SMELL FRESH FOR LONGER THUS AVOIDING ENERGY-DRAINING SHOWERS.

• IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT THE EXFOLIATING FACIAL WIPES ARE THE BEST BECAUSE THEY ARE MORE ABRASIVE AND WAKE YOU UP A BIT.

• OBVIOUSLY THIS DOES NOT MAKE SHOWERS AND BATHS OBSOLETE.  IF YOU FEEL UPTO HAVING A SHOWER IT CAN MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER AND MORE READY FOR THE DAY.

It’s poetry time

 

No Name Poem (can’t think of one)

 

Flame flicked close

Around her ankles

Tonguing upwards

Fierce and fast.

 

The water lay sleek and flat

A match for the tongues

That bounced at her feet.

 

She walked in slowly

Fiery feet first

The water surrounded,

and hushed at the heat

 

Fire made her mark

Then flicked a retreat;

yet the girl

stayed stock still,

the lake at her feet.

 

 

DISCLAIMER

I have to apologise for posting poetry.  Why?  Firstly, I don’t particularly like poetry, especially the doom-laden, flowery word-vomit variety.  And yet sometimes I feel the urge to write some doom-laden, flowery poetry.  I know, it doesn’t make sense, does it?  I blame it on my mood (as I do everything at the moment).  Black, distorted moods give way to doomy poetry for me.

A tenuous link for an upbeat song

 

I woke up this morning thinking about the song, Downtown, sung by Petula Clark.  Here’s a link to hear it.  I wouldn’t bother with the You Tube video on the link page though, it’s got Clark prancing about in a ball gown and it takes away from the simple power of the lyrics and music.

Here’s the tenous bit: the mental health link.  I don’t really make any effort to tie posts into mental health (it’s happening effortlessly at the moment); it’s refreshing not to talk about it.  But it did spring to mind that the film, Girl, Interrupted, included a version of this song when the Winona Ryder character and the other girls are trying to cheer this girl up whose locked herself in her room.  And it’s an opportunity for me to add the quite nice front pic from the DVD to this post:

Louise’s Quick Depression Tips: Tip 2. GOALS

 

Tip 2. GOALS:

 

• A ‘to-do’ list everyday helps focus your mind and allows you to give yourself goals.

• Keep a pen and notepad by your bed – I like the spiral, reporter kind -  so that I can start as soon as I wake up.

• Keep your goals achievable.  Somedays I will write ‘get out of bed’ on my notepad and not write anything else down until I’ve gotten out of bed and put a tick by the side of the goal.

• Remember, it’s about YOU!  If you achieve a goal that was difficult for YOU on a particular day then you have done well and deserve to praise and reward yourself

There’s always someone worse off than you???

 

This post is a rant about a personal bugbear of mine.  Don’t read if you can’t be arsed with a rant. 

The above phrase is much-touted by mental-health professionals, sufferers, old people and in all sorts of other circles. 

Used correctly it is intended, I think, to put your own life in perspective because we human beings do have a tendency to get wrapped up in our own, often petty, little niggles.  It can have great power in bringing things back into focus if, for instance, you’re starting to hyperventilate because Harrods has sold that last Louis Vuitton bag.  Or if you find yourself being caught up in squabbles with co-workers at the office, causing your blood pressure to needlessly hike.

If thinking of the ways in which you are lucky can  bring some perspective to your life then I’m all for that.  Similarly, my grandparents would often say “well, we can’t complain, we’re healthy compared to some people our age”.  I believe this was comforting for them because it took their minds off less serious complaints they had.  But it was always they who said it; no one would have said to them “you’re  lucky you’ve only got arthritis…”

The phrase can be used for good in our own heads I believe.

BUT, and it’s a big but (I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers can’t deny…) I don’t believe it is of use when trying to overcome a mental health condition like depression.

Once a psychologist used this tack with me.  I quote, ahem, “Well at least you haven’t got one of the really serious disorders, like schizophrenia.”

I wanted to rip her arm off and hit her with the soggy end on a variety of fronts.

First: If you’re saying that to me, what are you saying to your schizophrenic patients?  At least you haven’t got dementia? perhaps.  It’s totally inappropriate to try to compare mental health conditions.  I was suicidal.  Suffering is subjective and telling me there’s someone worse off than me won’t cure the biological fuck-up going on in my brain at that instant.

Second: If something, anything, is fucking with your quality of life, you have every right to feel angry about that.  That’s not to say that you should mire yourself in self-pity.  But being upset that you feel like shit on a regular basis is, in my opinion, an entirely normal reaction that needs to be worked through.

Third: (To my ex-psychologist) Part of the illness, depression, is feeling inappropriately guilty, you dumb bitch!!  So you’d like me to add ‘feeling guilty that there are people worse off than me’ to my already crammed to the max guilt-list?

I’ve no doubt that I’ve used the fact that there are people worse off than me to help me gain perspective on a variety of issues in my life, but never in the middle of a severe depression.  At that time you need to be kind to yourself and it’s the hardest thing to do. 

No-one has the right to belittle your suffering, which is subjective and therefore not up for comparison.  It’s only you who can decide when it’s appropriate and helpful to compare your situation or level of illness with anyone else’s.

Personally I think the whole concept reeks of negativity – why would I want to think about people who suffer more?  I’d rather work on injecting more positivity into my own life with positive actions, including helping others with volunteer work, which I have found to be great for making me feel valuable to others again.

To think about people who are in a worse off position than you is pointless unless you can personally do something to help them (this is where I think the volunteering comes in for me).  When you are too ill to help others it is of no benefit to yourself or ‘the others’ to ponder the fact that there is always someone worse off than you.

Louise’s Quick Depression Tips – Tip 1 FOOD

I’ll make a page with all tips gathered together at some point but for now…

Tip 1. FOOD: your body and mind need nourishment, but if you can barely get out of bed it’s probably asking a bit much of you to whip up a paella. So quick things:

• chow down a multivitamin each day.
• Quick healthy snacks – peanut butter on wholemeal toast – it’s got carbs, protein, vitamins in the wholemeal bread and essential oils in the nuts. 
• bananas – potassium and other wicked-important stuff in those.
• Tinned sardines on toast – again with the protein/carb combo, ease of preparation and omega 3 in the fish, which has been shown to help energy and depression.

YOU ARE PRICELESS

 

Some songs feel like they were written for you.  Sometimes you hear the right track at the right time and it shifts you inside, it lifts you up, energises you or gives you some much-needed sugar.

Beverley Knight has a beautiful, soulful voice and her track ‘Gold’ is my favourite.  Any woman feeling a little low on the self-esteem front, anyone feeling uncertain of themselves or their capabilities, anyone having a bad day – this song reaches out and shows you what you are.  We are all GOLD and some of us need reminding of this more than others.  Ahem.  I’m a repeat offender on this front.

I don’t know where I can download a free track to put on here but here’s the last fm link, where you can play the track in the small media player top right of the web page.  Hit play and soak it up, girls xx

The Wobbles

 

I’m not well at the moment; it’s obvious to me and probably to the people around me.  The scariest thing is not knowing why I’m wobbling, how long it’s going to last and what it may turn into.  I think these are fears of any person who has been unwell, physically or mentally, and experiences a resurgence of old symptoms.

I’m feeling tired all the time.  I have little joy when I start the day, I get up late and can’t wait to go to bed.  Then as tired as I am I find my sleep disrupted.  I woke up sweating from a dream at 4am a couple of nights ago and it’s fucking freezing in my neck of the woods.  Plus I’m currently on a break from my volunteer work that was intended to bring structure to my day and be a stepping stone into employment.

I’m muddling along as best I can and some days are more positive than others.

Tonight I went to the cinema with a friend who has also had a few issues in his time.  I couldn’t concentrate on the film, I felt hemmed in by the multitude of people filling the auditorium, I was tired and had a cracking headache.

I told my friend I didn’t feel well and we left halfway through.

These are not good signs for me and I just hope things improve sharpish.  I very rarely leave the cinema mid-film but I had an overwhelming urge to come back to the dark nest of my bedroom and close my sore eyes.

I hope for better days…

Hogan Knows

 

Watched American reality/unreality show, Hogan Knows Best, earlier.  I suppose it’s carrying on where shows like The Osbourne’s left off.  TV always finds a format for a new type of show, one does well and so a slew of others follow in its wake.

I’m not passing judgement on it, it’s the way telly works these days.  It’s like we’re kids and they give us our first taste of frosted breakfast cereal.  And we all go “mmm, that’s nice, can I have some more?”  At this point the tv producers rub their hands together in glee and we are fed the same diet day after day until, suddenly, frosted breakfast cereal loses its charm and we sit back in our high chair, and move our baby heads side to side, lips shut tight, avoiding the plastic spoon of cereal The Hand is trying to feed us.

“But you love cereal, we’ve given you cereal for breakfast everyday for a year,” says The Hand

Our lips remain shut, any remnants of milk and cereal forced into our mouth now dribbling down our chins, efficiently expelled by our tongue.  We can’t speak yet so The Hand doesn’t know what to do.  It tries similar-but-different alternatives.  Monday we refuse the jammy toast; Tuesday we turn up our noses at Shreddies.  This goes on until, finally, Thursday brings success. 

The Hand spoons us some syrupy waffles and, what do you know, WE LIKE THEM.  They are now our NEW FAVOURITE and we eat them everyday.

I like trash tv.  I understand why it has a bad reputation as dumb, uneducated and contrived material.  But I don’t care.  I like it and that’s all I care about.  If I’m in the mood to be challenged, to be taken on an emotional journey then, sure, I’ll need to look for something in my DVD stash or go for one of the more high-brow channels, if there are any these days.  But not tonight.

Tonight I wanted to watch an oversized, middle-aged, bleached haired, bandana wearing monster of a man (actually quite sweet and cuddly) and his larger-than-life bleached blond family as they trounce about America living their half-real half-staged lives.  It is what it is.  Let it be.  I also watch The Janice Dickinson Modelling Agency. 

I’m a voyeur and Hogan Knows Best.

I can always watch Panorama or listen to In Our Time tomorrow…