I’ve Lost My Voice

~ Trigger Alert ~

The voice inside my head, that is.  It’s alright, I’m only slightly crazy and I’m not talking about psychosis or hallucination or anything else from a slightly scarier spectrum of Mental Health.  However, there is a voice inside my head, it’s like the record that I live my life to, I know the track so well, the intonation and the insinuations, the voice that always seems to come from nowhere but yet is a constant companion.

The voice is always there, watching what I do, ready to tell me what it thinks, ready to tell me not to bother, ready to remind me just how much I’ve messed something up.  I drop something and it’s yelling at me for being so clumsy, so stupid, so fat and that I can never do anything right, that I always get everything wrong, that it’s no wonder that no one likes me.

The voice deals in absolutes.  Negative ones naturally.

The voice dishes out abuse in spades, it keeps me in my place, down there in some deep, dark abyss of feeling rotten.

The voice is the one that looks at what I do and tells me what’s wrong with it.  There’s always something wrong.  Because I’m just not good enough.

The voice monitors me for pride.  Pride is very wrong.  Only bad people are proud.  It is the conscience with a red-hot pitchfork.  It tells me to shut up and not be so stupidly big-headed.

The voice tells me that I’m not good enough and that no one likes me again and again.

The voice loops words and phrases, uses them against me like some mantra, cycles them repeatedly.  One word links to another.  Inescapable.

Words like lazy and fat and stupid and ugly and stupid.

If you are lazy, you are fat.

If you are fat, you are ugly.

If you are ugly, you are fat.

If you are lazy, you are stupid.

If you are stupid, you are ugly.

If you are lazy, you are fat.

The words all tie together.  If one is true then they must all be true.  A kind of logic.

The voice has a rhythm, it has its rhymes.

I can’t remember when the record started.  I don’t know life without it.  It’s been there for years, literally years, probably decades.

But now it’s gone.

At first, I didn’t even notice and when I did, I realised that I hadn’t heard it for weeks.

It’s weird.

I’ve already almost forgotten the words of the record that has played every day of my life for twenty years.

It is silent.

It’s weird.

The voice has gone.

Now what do I do?!

Dialogue

Write on Edge has been prompting us to work on dialogue this last week, well I was away and not really in the right place to conjure up meaningful words.  But at the same time dialogue was a theme resonating in my own life.

An exchange of ideas via conversation

Where a group of people talk together to explore their assumptions of thinking, meaning, communication, and social effects

Dialogue is essential in more than fiction, it is the essence of nonfiction, that is, our everyday lives.  Many people feel that it is our ability to communicate that makes us human.  But all that make me wonder why then we find so hard, if not impossible at times.  Sadly it’s the important things to the important people that go unsaid.

Have you heard the cute little phrase beloved of kitsch fridge magnets and the like, ‘friends are the family we choose’?  I like it.  It’s true.  Friends can be closer than family because blood isn’t enough to keep people together much less like them.  True, good friends are one of life’s greatest honours.  I’ve also seen somewhere in the blogosphere another phrase, beautiful and true, about how family (therefore the friends that we’ve opted in) are the ones who travel life’s road with us.

But while I’m all for friends and my personal definition of ‘family’ is generous, why has family fallen so much from favour?  Why are we no longer being held by our family ties?  Distance, lifestyles, communication?

Maybe if we now get to choose our ‘family’, we should also be thinking to get to know and opt some proper family members into that elite circle.  It’s so sad when someone passes and you’re full of regret that you never got to know them better or realise only then that you had so much in common with them.  But it’s too late then.  Get to know people, talk to them.

Family is changing but it doesn’t have to bad thing.  We’re apparently a generation empowered and besides which we have so much communication technology available to us that there needs to be no excuse.  It might be a different type of relationship but with email, social media, mobiles and goodness knows what else along with more longstanding things such as telephone and letters, there is no distance that is too great.  You can keep in touch.  There are no adequate excuses if you truly value your relationship.  Send a text message, send a card with a mile long twee poem and your name at the bottom.  No excuses.

It becomes a tragedy when family, close family nevermind anything further, knows so little of each other’s lives, when they don’t know each other and their shared history.  When all they can share is moments of grief that drag them together and still they have no words for each other.  It’s a tragedy when they come together in that grief to mourn a passing that could have been prevented with just a little dialogue.

Please, please reach out.  If you love someone, talk to them, tell them that you love them and more importantly, encourage them to talk to you and genuinely listen.  Teach your children to believe in family and to always communicate.  Don’t be fooled into thinking that bottling up, sweeping under the carpet, hiding away are the techniques that will give you a long and happy life.  Man up as the Americans say and cry, hug, talk and listen with those you love.  Whatever your tie to them may be.

Talking saves lives.  Talking saves families.

Struggling to Keep it Light

Trigger Alert!

OK, think of something funny to say.  Definitely go with funny, everyone likes funny.  Come on, you can do funny.  No one wants to read something miserable.  They definitely don’t want to read this kind of mumbling nutty rambling.  Funny is good.  Nope?  Nothing?  Rats …

My mask isn’t working very well at the moment.  Sometimes I’m not sure whether I wear a mask at all because I don’t think that there’s actually anything else behind it.  The mask is my face now, it’s who society, life, family, culture, personality have carved me into.  It’s meant to be there the whole time, there’s not meant to be anything else.  I’m meant to keep it light and witty and entertain you all.

It’s not happening today.  My spirits have lifted a little with the sunshine at the window but the fug is still there.  I’m exhausted too.  We’ve been living something of a mini rollercoaster the last few days, it’s a somewhat surreal experience when you’re totally numb.

There’s all the camping stuff to rehouse, all sorts of random homeless articles strewn about, the never-ending battle with the washing up – but all I want to do is hide under my duvet.

courtesy of deull.net

You’ve probably seen one of these artistes before, in pictures or on the telly at least.  This is how I’m feeling, although naturally with none of the associated grace, poise and body shape.  They roll themselves up in the swathes of fabric, I couldn’t find a picture of that.  I imagine that for most folks that would be a cocooning, comforting sensation but to me it’s a feeling of being trapped.

I am wrapped in this oppressive swaddling and it binds me restrictively.  It forces me into shapes and places, sometimes to conform with a mould but other times it’s a noose around my neck, a tripwire to my foot, a shackle to my wrist, a blindfold to my eyes.  It is inescapable, it is never-ending.  It is smothering.  I don’t know how to release myself, it’s like something from a nightmare these ceaseless ribbons.  I forget, it is a nightmare.  But there is no waking.

I’ll go away again now and try of think of something better to share.  I’ll come back my dry, sparkling self (that does rather sound like a bottle of wine) and entertain you all again.

It’s All Riding on How the Cake Turns Out

It’s crazy but when I’m exhausted, stressed out and just plain overwhelmed by everything I go into the kitchen.  I take down my treasured recipe books (there are a few of these!) and start thumbing through.  Sometimes there’s already a germ of an idea slowly taking root in my fogged out head.  It’s usually baking, often sweet, that calls me and promises, well what?  I don’t know.  I just take refuge in the process.

I find the recipe that I’m looking for.  There’s not always much in the cupboard these days so it keeps the options down and pushes up the creativity stakes.  Maybe if I can just bake this to perfection than I will regain some peace, some sanity, some control.  I weigh out ingredients, substituting what I have in the cupboard and on the shelves on occasion, other times just changing it for the sake of domestic bliss.  Within minutes there’s flour all over me.  It’s a talent I’ve had since a child and it’s definitely a hard one to shake.

But when you’re exhausted, stressed out and plain overwhelmed, it isn’t always the best time to cook.  It’s especially not the best time to launch into advanced techniques beyond inputting nutrition into self.  I’m cack-handed and anxious.  Awkward with the mixing, having to sit down regularly and hug the mixing bowl to my chest.  Things go wrong when I can’t think straight and can’t hold a train of thought, hang on what am I doing?

And there’s so much at stake.   There is redemption to be found in every knead and stir.  But it has to be perfect otherwise all is lost.  It’s a lot of pressure.  Pressure makes me feel worse.  I keep working on, hoping for a miracle.  I’m aiming for mostly edible, setting my sights low but needing so much more.  There’s so much at stake.  I work on.

I need someone to eat it, savour it and relish it.  I need to win someone over with my creation.  I need it to be declared fit for consumption and praise. (There you go, I admitted it, selfish little attention seeking critter that I am).

The highest of compliments is when my husband deigns to eat it (preferably without demanding an exact ingredient list and carrying out an autopsy beforehand) and requests it to be made again.  It’s just the two of us now.  Sometimes I take ‘offerings’ to family and friends, a small piece of love wrapped in foil.

You can win hearts with food.  I keep baking.  There’s redemption in cooking but I’m still trying to find it.

Life is a Rollercoaster

Life is a rollercoaster, so they say.  It’s comparing life with one of those traditional, perhaps even slightly old-fashioned, Big Dipper style rollercoasters with their flowing curves and wooden structures.  The ups and downs.  I wouldn’t mind if life could have a few more ups because sometimes there are only seems to be downs.

Oh and by the way, I don’t like rollercoasters.  I have been on one.  A proper one, not a scaled-back-to-be-suitable-for-children one, thank you very much.  I didn’t like it.  They’re very painful, my back was jarred for days, and nerve-wracking.  It’s also that horrible feeling of being completely out of control, the ground being ripped away from under your feet.  You go hurtling through the darkness, lost in a world of other people’s screams.  I was worried I’d lose my glasses.

I can see all those comparisons in life.  However there hasn’t been many of those relatively gentle climbs up but I’ve definitely seen and felt more of those pitch over the edge and goodness-knows-where-you’re-going-to-end-up moments than I ever would want to wish on anyone in an entire lifetime.

First of all, there’s the feeling of being completely out of control, after all life’s carriages don’t roll to any particular track, but it’s more than that, it’s that horrible, horrible feeling of not knowing where you’re going to end up and yet knowing for sure that’s not going to be a comfortable ride.

Life has been more like one of those modern rollercoasters that sound even more terrifying than I even dare contemplate.  The ones that take you to some ridiculously high point and then drop you.  Yes, drop you.  There isn’t any up.  There’s just that sickening plunge where you leave your stomach at the top but its contents meet you at the bottom.  That’s what our life has been like.

I’d say ‘recently’ but then I realise that it’s been two years, three years of this nightmare.

It seems never-ending, we’ve lurched from one crisis to another, from one pit of despair to another.  When I start to list all the things that have happened over these few years I get overwhelmed and I can’t even begin to work out how we’ve survived until now.  Have you seen one of those stress scales that give life events different ratings?  Well we’ve been through pretty much all the high rated ones, and a few of the lower ones for good measure as well.  One after the other, no breaks, it’s been relentless.

I start to wonder whether it is never-ending.  You see for the first time in all those years things were looking good.  Looking up.  As unbelievable as it seemed. And then it happened.  Another disaster has happened and we’re only just beginning to fathom, nevermind deal, with the consequences.

I am exhausted and overwhelmed.  I don’t have any more ‘feeling’ left, I am numb.  I’m going to be away a bit, we’ve got to go away for a few days for this one and then I’m not really in the right place for thinking and writing and making sense.

I wonder just how much more we, I can take.  But you know what they also say, you’ve just got to ride it.  And once you’re strapped tight into one of those little carriages, you don’t have much choice.

Who’s a Carer?

Carer has become a job title, it’s a professional role played by someone who specifically comes into your life and house to care for you in a physical way.  Carer forgets the original verb; it’s about caring, someone who cares about you and for you.  This is what being a carer truly means.

We probably don’t think to count ourselves as carers for spouses or children or parents.  It’s what we do naturally in response to a need because we care.  They may be ill or they may not be.  But we still cook meals, wash clothes and support them through trials, homework and sickness.

Sometimes though those precious ones in our lives do become ill and because we care, we take on even more.  We may be doing all the housework, we may be the ones who become the sole breadwinner, we may be doing more than hand holding, temperature taking and sick bowl providing.  It can be exhausting but we never stop to question why or what we’re doing.  We’d probably be a little bit confused by some bureaucrat trying to label us as ‘carers’.  Um, no I’m his wife.  Yes I have to make sure medicines are taken, forms are filled, appointments are kept, nutrition and diet are carefully maintained, health is carefully assessed and monitored – the list goes on.  But carers, not us!

However it can become an isolating quagmire caring for someone, even though we love them so, so much.  It’s so physically, mentally and emotionally draining.  And we probably don’t even realise how much we’re giving.  We don’t work set hours, we don’t have breaks.  We definitely don’t have the choice of going home at the end of a shift.  It’s never-ending.  Sometimes we can take on too much, we’re human too and we can only do so much.

It’s so important to get help, although ‘help’ can be a vague definition and is sadly too often lacking.  Sometimes though it’s us who have to step forward, surrender and humbly ask for it.  Beg for it.

The beginning of this week was a little intense and as you know, I haven’t been brilliantly well either.  Yet again I found myself at breaking point.  (I’ve seen a lot of breaking points over the years and I know them well, what I don’t quite fathom is how I make it past each time).  Then something magical happened.  Someone, a relative, took me out to dinner, a fast food dinner but all the same.  I was out of the house, I stopped being the person who cared, who supported, who helped and had a few hours of being me.  We chatted and ate.  I didn’t stop loving or caring but I did really appreciate being to able to leave it all behind for a couple of hours.  It was a break.  A blessed break.

I realised something else just now.  The bitter reality of being in a situation where that person who you love so much is ill.  I miss them.  Terribly.  You see, just now, they reappeared.  I hadn’t realised how little I see of them nowadays and how long it’s been.  The joy of meeting up with an old, dear friend.  The bitterness of realising just how much they’re affected by this illness and how much it has changed our lives and relationship.

But I will go on loving and caring.  Even during those moments when I don’t know how I’m going to go on.

Take a moment to reflect on all those wonderful individuals who, often behind closed doors, care every hour of every day for the ones they love, no questions asked.  You’re probably one of them too.

Where are You?

I wasn’t originally going to take up this week’s prompt from Write on Edge, maybe I was wussing out a little.  I’m a little afraid of being afraid.  But I’m starting to like these challenges and the prompt mulled around in my head for a good while.  I went to sleep on a vague idea, one that I wasn’t too sure about, and when I woke it seemed like a good idea to have a ‘stab’ at it.

So here goes, a text message eliciting or expressing fear.  It’s not written in any shorthand either, which was also another completely different challenge!  Oh, and just to warn you all that it may be TRIGGERING.

I know you wanted some space & to ‘clear your head’ but I’ve not heard from you all day & am very worried. Promise me you’re OK?

(As an aside, I drafted this on my mobile (so hard because I kept going to abbreviate everything) to get the character count (I’m twelve wee characters over according to my phone, oops!) then got my husband’s reaction.  He wanted to know who I was sending it to and what had happened, worry and concern were how he described his reaction.  Is that close enough to fear?)