And It All Ends in Tears

 

I feel so guilty that I’ve struggled to write this update, it feels as if I’m admitting my criminal irresponsibility and negligence to the world.  And you know where to find me.  Did you know that it is a criminal offence to release either a hand reared or a casualty animal when it doesn’t have as equal a chance as it’s (naturally raised, non intervened) peers?  Puts quite an edge on it.

We checked the weather forecast before starting our release, rain but that’s nothing new in this country, and we had to balance it with the itching need of these fledglings to get out.  We’d had to shut the curtains to stop them crashing into the glass and they kept bonking their heads on the ceiling.  It was definitely their time for more space.  Rain is not unusual and even more unfortunately, it’s unlikely to go away completely.  That’s real freak weather conditions otherwise.  Besides, the door would remain open and food provided.  They could always shelter here too.  That’s more than other fledglings would have.

That’s what we told ourselves.  Maybe we were irresponsible, maybe we were inexperienced, maybe we were impatient, maybe we were stupid.  I don’t know.  Do birdy parents check the forecast before allowing their babies out of the nest?

Hindsight is a great thing to torture yourself with.

Wednesday evening we had all four back in then one went back out.  He didn’t come home to roost at bedtime so we had to hope that he had found a safe roost elsewhere.  It was dry at the time too.  And really, that’s kind of what you want them to do.

Thursday morning was still dry, overcast with a threat of rain.  The forecast said rain again.  I tell myself now that I should have read through the news, maybe there would have been an article about the weather already hitting the furthest point of the peninsula, two counties south.  I don’t know.  I tell myself that I should have done something different.  I tell myself that I should have kept the door shut that morning and not have let the other three fly free like they did.

The storm came in like I don’t what.  It was the kind of storm that would have taken you by surprise in October.  Three months on when the fledglings would have been bigger and stronger, more savvy too.  I can’t remember one like it.  Especially not in June.

To give you an idea of how bad it was and to torture myself a little more over my negligence, we have an enclosed balcony which keeps fairly dry.  To have the rain splash the bedroom window three feet inside, the wind has to be coming from a certain angle and be pretty hard.  It doesn’t happen much.  Yesterday the rain was lashing against the window and the balcony floor was awash.

We kept the door open, the rain driving into the sitting room, hoping against hope.

Maybe they found somewhere to roost.

But now the biggest threat to our babies is exposure.

I feel so terribly.  I took my eye off the ball, I lost focus.  I should have checked the news or the forecast better.  I should have done something, done something differently, anything.  Because it is my responsibility.

I failed our babies.

 

Who Cares for the Carers?

Being a carer is something that I’ve written about before, about how it can be a much broader role than is first perceived, especially when we focus only on a professional home-help for the disabled or elderly.  Modern life likes things appropriately pigeon-holed and boxed but such attitudes rarely do justice to the reality nor anyone any favours.  We all should be carers really, people who care, every day of our lives.  But there is more to ‘caring’ then just its root meaning.

Although I am not claiming that parenting is simple, when it comes to ‘caring’ I would suggest that the parenting role is the simplest.  It’s the most easily defined and recognisable.  You are meant to care for your children, you could say that it’s almost an intuitive response.  You have the support of individuals and organisations.  You have specific goals and timeframes.

When it comes to adult ‘caring’ then things get more complicated.  A lot more complicated.

Why is that?

The person who is receiving the care is not a dependent minor.  They may well have known a long life of maturity, independence and responsibility before suddenly finding themselves in need of care.  Having to hand over their life along with any remaining dignity doesn’t put them in an easy position.  Without even thinking of the physical changes, any change of health has huge emotional and mental consequences.  And not just for the sufferer themselves.  The carer is often a family member who has likewise been precipitated just as suddenly into this new arrangement.  In fact, the carer may have previously been the dependent party in the relationship.  What happens when your full-time breadwinner is too ill to work?  Or is the sole driver in the family?

Just as the ill person needs to adjust so to does the carer.  And that adjustment will need to be done together, there needs to be dialogue, meaningful communication.  The process can even be similar to grieving.  And you have to accept that both of you will be seeing, feeling and dealing with the situation differently.

It’s not easy living with a serious and or long-term health condition.  I know that.  But the ill person usually is best placed to receive appropriate support and treatment.  What is on offer for the carer?  Precious little.  In the best scenario, they will have the full support of the person they are caring for but maybe not.

Carers have to walk a fine line, carving out a new role for themselves even if the relationship is falling apart around them for whatever reasons.  They may be taking on all the responsibility, the duties that come with sickness whilst the person who is actually ill is practically delusional as to the reality or seriousness of their illness.  And what point does a carer become a nagger, a paranoid observer or a call-the-doctor-right-now hysteric?  Usually at a different point to the person they are caring for.

It needs open and frank communication between both parties, that’s for sure.  The ill need to accept their limitations and know when and how to ask for the help to need.  Because that carer needs all the help they can get in knowing what to do.

Mental health makes the challenge even harder.

What do you do when your loved one refuses to seek treatment or acknowledge their decreasing state of health?  How do you balance motivating them yet not overburdening either them or yourself?  Do you take responsibility for getting every single pill into them, for them getting to every single appointment?  Do you remain on high alert even when they’re swearing that they’re fine?

It’s hard to find a balance as a carer.  You may have lost your best friend, your own support system.  You are lost and alone in a place that has no name, no map, no solutions.  You may or may not have the cooperation of the person you are caring for.

But the worst is the endless, draining, exhausting level of responsibility and pressure that you have to live with day in, day out.  Sometimes it feels like someone else’s life is in your hands, everything you do, say or even think seems to be a determiner in their state of health, maybe even their survival.  You find yourself taking on more and more, tasks that you never used to have to do yourself, tasks that you maybe didn’t even know needed doing.  There is not a moment off-duty, you are permanently tuned in to their every symptom, reaction, feeling, whim, want, need, you name it.   Even when you’re apart.  Sometimes being apart is worse, the fear, the dread, it eats away at you.

And then there’s the emotions that goes with that endless, draining, exhausting rollercoaster.   Sometimes bitterness seeps in as you wonder whether they couldn’t just make more of an effort, whether life really needs to be this way, a bitterness tinged with then quickly replaced by guilt and shame.  The loneliness that sets in as your loved one withdraws from the world then from you.  The pain and confusion of reactions, words and behaviours that would have once been incredibly alien.  A fear for the present never mind the future, the future  is too far away and unfathomable as you subconsciously scrutinise everything, analysing and recording, noting each subtle change, holding onto each one like time-lapse cloud patterns.  The thousand and one worries that are yours and yours alone as seemingly the only responsible adult around, the financial, the administrative, the domestic, everything is on your shoulders, it is your burden to manage.

The pressure is overwhelming and ceaseless.  There is no hope.  Just endless cycles where good days see m far and few between.

But who cares for the carers?

While most of us wouldn’t be ‘glad’ that our loved one is ill, we do ‘gladly’ take on the challenge.  Why?  Because we care.  We do everything and more because we care.

But our resources sadly are limited.  We are human.  Love doesn’t make us perfect.  Or bestow some super power or immortality or whatever else is needed to care day in, day out, year after year.

That’s a scary and humbling and shaming thing to admit.

But carers can’t go on forever without rest or support.  Especially when that’s not the only thing that they themselves  are facing, their health may break or they may have other responsibilities and commitments to juggle with or some other crisis to deal with.

What then?

Who cares for the carers?

What help and support is given to them?  Where can they turn when they have reached the thousandth breaking point and just don’t know how much longer or further they can go on?  Who will listen to them?  Who will relieve them of their burdens?  Who will  give them a supporting hand?

Carers do an awful lot, normally behind the scenes.  They are stage managers who also run the lighting and sound whilst building all the scenery, rehearsing the actors and choreographing the dancers, learning understudy, drumming up support and backing and leading the marketing campaign.  They do everything.  Usually single-handedly.  It’s fine for a while and the show goes on.  But for how long?

Please remember the carers in your midst, appreciate them.  Spoil them every so often, make sure that they have an evening off or a listening ear.  And if you ever need someone to care for you, man up and work with them.  Trust them and reassure them.

Please care for the carers.  We all owe them such a lot.

Commentary to Yesterday’s Back Story

I’m very tired this morning so I’m not sure if anything I write is going to make sense, just to warn you all, and I should really be cleaning the kitchen because it looks like a flour tornado has passed through there.  I don’t think the flour can be blamed by itself because it only behaves in this way in my presence.  As for me myself, I looked like I had wallowed in the stuff.  And dough.  Fortunately, however, it is a lot quicker and easier to change myself than it is to clean the kitchen.  Unfortunately.

I find it very difficult to talk about current problems, maybe because I just try to block it all off.  Which is obviously a great coping mechanism.  I’m also only just starting to process through some of the thoughts and realisations so not all the ideas that I’m planning to talk about have been fully developed just yet.  But I need to get this off my chest, out of my head so I’m going to offer up another ‘whinge’ post.  It’s a follow-up to yesterday’s post.  That was, if you will, the back story and today I’m going to develop some of my thoughts and analysis (don’t expect anything profound even if I did use that word) of the situation.

My sense of humour survives but even it is sorely tried by this ongoing saga.  There is only so much that I and it can take and we are being pushed to the outer limits of our limits.  The problem is that the whole thing has become a constant nag on the spirit, the soul.  And never-ending.  Losing hope is the worst thing in the world.

Other People’s Views

Despite the ordinate amount of money the statistics say that people spend in this country on DIY and the Bank Holiday rituals and festivals of DIY, a lot of people who I meet and who talk to me seem to think that it’s a complete waste of time and effort as well as a sign of some over-proud, materialistic urge to want your house to look ‘nice’.  There was a brief spell in the early 90s when turning each room of the house into an encyclopaedia of paint effects and a smorgasbord of draperies was popular and that trend has resurfaced, although in other manifestations such as the overblown patterned wallpapers, during the Recession, nesting perhaps becomes important when everything else is going down the plughole.  Wanting to do more than slap the infamous magnolia paint across every wall in the house and laying cheap white tiles in the bathroom is something of a vanity.  A luxurious vanity.  Of people who have obviously got their priorities seriously messed up.  We tried to find a bathtub which would fit in our bathroom, preferably also sized to allow us to have a basin in the room too.  There are some fairly short models but they were all too wide to fit between the wall and the door frame.  Seriously.  So we decided that we’d just fit a shower enclosure.  Because there was only going to be a shower, we opted to buy a double-sized tray.  Why would we do that?  Showers should be this size (please imagine the appropriate hand gestures).  A luxurious vanity.   Probably delusional too.  Large showers also seem to be perceived as kinky and perverse as the American hot tub, for some reason.  (No, I can’t fathom the workings of the stereotypical English mind either).  Nor are you meant to rip out entire rooms.  The English are great believers in the grin-and-bear-it ethos.  When passing judgement on other people, they therefore conclude that you had no pressing need to do the work which you were forced into starting by some such disaster or another.  You really should have asked your friend or elative’s permission before starting.  They would have probably told you it was fine, you can survive.

Even though, ironically, another faction are pressurising you to do all the work right now regardless of necessity, budget, time or anything else.  They egg you on, telling you that you’re a failure whilst the work isn’t finished, that it’s no way to live.  They lend money, they lend support.  But walk out the door the moment that they’re actually needed.

Other people will wear you out with their views.  Most of them will condemn you or judge you but they never really help.  Other people induce the guilt that you have to live with day in, day out.  Other people make you question everything you’ve ever done and all your values.  Other people mess with your head and your house.

Other People’s Help

Other people, as we have seen, are very willing to offer up their views on anything.  But only when it’s negative.  (It again seems to be a quirk of the stereotypical English.  They’re quite happy to bawl abuse at you for wearing a Western hat from across the street, despite the fact that they’ve never met you, but to offer up a compliment requires much blushing, stammering of apologies and many excuses).  They will give advice and make all sorts of suggestions with authority.  It’s only months later that you find out that their expert opinion was actually erroneous.  Usually when it’s gone completely belly up.

There are people who are quick to help, the generous so-called Good Samaritans who promise time, resources, labour with enthusiasm.  Many times they never deliver.  Other times they kindly start and then leave.  Do you trust these people and allow them to walk their hobnail boots all over your home, your heart and your mind?  Disappointment is a terrible thing to leave with.  And you end up wondering if you should trust anyone at all.  Because even the tradesmen who’ve come through haven’t always been up to the job.

Oh, yes, other people mess with your home and your head.

Who Should Do the Work?

I don’t particularly trust tradesmen, nothing personal, it’s just the way I am.  I’d rather get on with things myself.  There are people who I have trusted, people who have helped.  They’re people that I’ve really respected.  But it hasn’t been repaid.  The people who have helped have marched in with the attitude that we’re useless, clueless and entirely dependant on them.  That’s not a pleasant thing to live with.  It is rather irksome.  I don’t believe having a slightly greater knowledge in some specialist area of DIY makes anyone a better person.  If you show me, I will learn, I can be taught.  But no, they treat us as imbeciles.  Before leaving us in the lurch again.

We were happy to potter at the work, doing it at the weekends and on days-off, when we had the money too.  But of course it’s different when you suddenly find yourselves confronted with a major disaster and of course everything changed when husband lost his job.

I grew up in a house that was slowly being renovated from a state of dereliction.  I made my first dry stone wall at two.  Across the patio.  Despite the fact that I wear a skirt, I am not useless.  I rather object to being treated as useless.  The people who have helped make this assumption and shoulder me out of the project.  Now hubby is brilliant at the manual labour side of it, he’s strong and tough, far more so than me, especially when ME strikes.  He pays fastidious attention to detail too (which is why it breaks his heart to have the place like this, to have cowboys wander on in and trash the place in their efforts to make it better).  But if I’m honest, I don’t think he has as much knowledge and experience.  But they’ll work with him because he wears trousers.  Isn’t gender bias fun?  Drives me nuts.

We could do the work but husband is too ill now, too disheartened too.  I know how to do the work, I want to do the work but … always that but, isn’t there?  It’s not because I wear a skirt but it’s because I too am ill.  I feel so guilty and useless that I can’t do more.  I’m absolutely itching to do it.  Especially because I know it would help hubby feel so much better.  But do you know how bad my health is when it comes to this stuff?  When we were doing the sitting room a year or so ago, I was ‘well’.  I was able to help with the painting.  Now painting is the easiest, most basic DIY task on the planet.  I’d have to sit on my low stool because I couldn’t stand to do it.  So I’d work a section from the floor up to about 3, 4 feet.  I’d have to concentrate really hard and the ‘pain’ I felt was crazy.  If it was really good day, I could do an entire wall, some 2-3 metres along.  Then I would have to go collapse on the bed.  That was when I was ‘well’.  I feel so useless.  Conflicted too, because maybe I’m just proving that ‘skirts’ can’t do the work after all.  I can’t lift, I can’t reach, I can’t turn things.  Basic actions but so essential to DIY.

So who should do the work?  I don’t know.  I want to shout, me!  I’ll do it!  But I physically cannot.  Maybe I can wait on other people’s promises, trust them to deliver like they haven’t on all the other things that they’ve already started.  But I’ve lost faith.  Home doesn’t feel like home anymore, it isn’t a sanctuary.  And it’s the other people who have violated that.

But everyday I ask myself, ifI don’t do the work, who will?

Deadlines

I want the place ‘finished’ or even just the bathroom.  I dream of being able to wash my hands in the bathroom, of having the luxury of getting up in the morning and splashing water on my face and brushing my teeth in the bathroom.  I’m fed up of having toothbrushes by the kitchen sink.  This is the stuff of my dreams.  Crazy isn’t it?  Just a basin, that’s all I want.

Do you know what?  I have the basin.  It’s been sat in my spare bedroom for three years.  It’s beautiful.  I chose it because it’s big and has a shallow slope perfect for handwashing and hairwashing.  And you can get your hands in.  The object of my desires is a handbasin.  How bad is that?!

I don’t know what the future holds but I’d like to live in this house for a while before we had to go anywhere.  I want to enjoy this place first, for this place to feel like the home we dreamt it to be.

I want the pressure to be taken off, we’ve lived like this for three years at least.  And it’s a really heavy burden.  It wears you out living like this with the constant presence of all that is wrong.  I am exhausted by it, overwhelmed.

There’s another reason that this work needs to be done soon.  It’s a worry that really is on my mind of late, well, it’s probably been there all along but I’ve finally cornered it and labelled it.  The kind of stress that eats away at you like acid.  We’ve been at risk of losing the place for a couple of years.  We are still at risk.  That’s a big enough worry.  It’s actually quite a huge worry.  But … there’s that but again … the place would need to be in saleable state.  It’s in a worse condition than when we moved in.   Excellent.  So if not for anything else, the work has to be done soon.  Because I really would like to live in my home before we lose it.

The DIY Saga

Once upon a time in the not so distant past and in a not so faraway kingdom a young, and perhaps a little naïve, couple moved into their first home, a realistic dream home with plenty of space, lots of light and a hefty mortgage.  After all, even an ex-council flat is a very charming fairytale castle after spending the first few years of their marriage living in the in-laws’ attic room.

There was no major work that needed doing, the survey was sound, some redecoration would be required because upside-down Chinese characters wallpapers are an acquired taste but nothing too urgent.  Space, light, peace.  Their own space.

Relatives pressured them into buying the ‘white goods’ before they moved despite the couple being quite ready to ‘rough’ it for a while with a camping stove and cooler box.   Also some of the basic furniture that they would need, from a shop of the relatives’ choosing because it was ‘cheaper’.  The money was lent.

The previous occupiers had a dinky cooker sitting in the generous space between the units and therefore it was generally assumed that the space would fit a standard 60 cm cooker.  Having bought a cooker the space was discovered to be 58.5 cm.  Helpful.  Updating the kitchen suddenly shot up the priorities.  That and the sink leaked.  And some Greek key stickers on the over painted tiles and ancient sawn-in-half units.

Someone* offered to help out, the couple said that they could only afford to do some units and decorating at a time.  For some reason, nearly all the units were bought at once but no doors.  And the cheapest worktop available, an insipid beech.  Then work was started to remove the tiling.  The entire wall of plaster fell off.  The kitchen suddenly became a larger project than was originally anticipated.

Then the boiler died.

Work on the kitchen stopped.

The only hot water was from the electric shower.

A boilerman was recommended.  He came, inspected (inspection was also passed on him and he was promptly assessed to be a ‘numpty’) and said that the only thing that might do was to fit a ‘diaphragm’ in the brand new under-sink unit.  It was the size of the entire cupboard.  Proof of the numptiness.  The couple weren’t entirely convinced that a) this would return the boiler to working order or b) this was a sensible use of an entire unit.

It was time for a new boiler.

New boilers don’t come cheap.

Boilerman promised to return and quote.  Boilerman never did.

Someone offered to do part of the work and get a mate of theirs to finish off all the gas work and, more importantly, sign off and commission the boiler.

Boiler was fitted and got to the up and running stage.  Second boilerman never signed off the certificate.  Whereupon he was never heard of again.

Someone who was helping with the kitchen had clearly tired of the project and it was shelved.

All this within the first four months.

Time passed.  As it does.  Very little progress was made.

The following summer the entire plumbing ground to a halt.

Well, ground to a halt is what happened after the washing machine exploded water across the kitchen, the laminate awash with an inch of grey water.

Have you ever had to empty a litre of water from inside your wok which was safely stored inside a cupboard?

First step, the employment of vicious acid.  The kind of acid that ate every rag and old towel in the house.  And meant that you had to step gingerly past everything for weeks trying not to spread and burn anything else.

It didn’t work.  You weren’t expecting it to, were you?

Urgent plumbing works were clearly required.

The kind of plumbing works which involved completely redoing the bathroom because of the too narrow, clogged up pipes.

The bathroom was started.  Someone offered to help.  That someone insisted that a shower which run off the hot water system was the best way to go, far more pressure.  Well, the husband is a sucker for pressure so the new shower wasn’t electric.  The wife remembered the summer before when the boiler had died and how the electric shower had become a lifeline.  Ah, but it’s a new boiler now, everyone said.

Tiles were cut, wall surfaces stripped back, the basin ripped out (because let’s face it who fits a giant vanity unit in a tiny bathroom and leaves 10 cm between it and the bathtub, not allowing for the doors to open?  the same person who fitted a tiny washroom sink hardly big enough for a pair of hands?).  The new shower was fitted.  (No bathtub, it wasn’t possible to buy one that fitted).  Some tiles were laid.

And that was that.

It got shelved.

The following spring the husband put his foot through the sitting room ceiling and a plasterboard sheet came loose.

That autumn the boiler stopped working.  You remember that thing about which shower to fit?  Yep, there’s no more hot water.

For months.

Someone with the proper qualifications and hopefully some nous told the couple that their electrics were faulty to the point of being lethal.  They offered to do a quick rewire and to certify it all at the end, as a favour, just a couple of days’ work.

Cue months of cable laying, quite a few days of one emergency bulb hanging from a wire taped from room to room being the only light (in midwinter), a couple of upside down or rickety light switches, strange quirks to iron out before a general return to average electrics.  Then nothing more.  It’s not quite finished and it’s definitely not been certified legal yet.

A relative of the someone who had insisted on the non-electric shower got their boilerman friend in to sort out the boiler.  Months of agro with the boiler company and eventually a return to hot water.  Boilerman points out a whole lot of other problems.

The husband made good his damage to the sitting room ceiling and redecorated the whole room while he was at it.  Partly because the entire ceiling had to come down because our boards bear no resemblance to the modern sizing.  Sitting room just needs the odd finishing touch.

The ‘cheaper’ cupboards which were actually the same price as those from the ‘fancy’ store that the couple would have preferred had to be replaced because every single shelf was now C-shaped.

The electrical someone fits the thermostat that the (third) boilerman had recommended.  He’d offered to some of the other necessary stuff too but that never happened.

Shortly afterwards the boiler stops working again.  Yep, no hot water again.

For months.

Another boilerman friend (the fourth) is summoned by relatives and decides that it’s because the electrical someone has turned the thermostat down too low.  Five months without hot water.  He reiterates all the faults.  Apparently even a small flat needs more taps to maintain pressure.  Especially when the original someone who helped with the kitchen fitted the new tap so badly that the pipe is pinched in half.

A new tap is procured and the plumbing assessed by another someone.  It is discovered during this ‘quick’ project that the stopcock doesn’t ‘stop’ completely.  A new stopcock needs to be fitted further up the line.  The original someone also tied the washing machine waste pipe with string to the wall to hold it up so that also needs completely redoing.  There are no ‘quick’ projects, a half-an-hour tap fit becomes an overnight slog.

The someone promises to return to finish off the other items on the boilerman’s list.  It hasn’t happened yet.

In the meantime, someone has peeled most of the old, peeling wallpaper off the hallway walls.

Kitchen’s still not finished, bathroom’s still not finished, the hallway is a Black Hole of Despair, the plumbing isn’t finished, the electrics aren’t finished, the sitting room could do with a little bit more finishing.

Oh and at some time, wouldn’t it be great if the bedrooms could be redecorated too?

Four years, my friends.  Four years.

And that’s just the DIY, I’ve not mentioned any of the ‘stuff‘ which has been going on in the same time frame.

It’s all been a little bit crazy.

And it’s driven us crazy too.

* Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

On the Rocks

Yes, I’m afraid that this will be a mental health post but as I know that those are never going to be popular, I will kindly share some knitting with you first.  I don’t know if knitting is the reason you’re following my wildly varied ramblings on this blog but I’m sure if it is preferable to trawling through another long whinge on the state of my mental health.  If you like, why not leave a comment to say why you’re following and what your favourite topics are?  A quick poll, so to speak.

When I joined the Ravelry community many months back, I confidently wrote that I was a ‘fanatical bootee maker’.  Well, since then I haven’t knitted a single bootee.  Not even part of one.  (Which, with my attention span, you should realise that such a UFO would be a distinct possibility).  I kind of felt that I had fibbed.  Declared an outright fib to the world, posted it on the Internet for all to see my dishonesty.

The problem is since joining Ravelry, my confidence has grown exponentially.  Now that’s not really a bad thing unless of course you make a statement like the one above just before it does.  Having more confidence means that I’m not just knitting bootees anymore, there are quite a few different things in my repertoire these days.  Ice cream, for one.  (You’ll find out all about that another day).  But not bootees.  I’ve been knitting them for over three years constantly, it’s quite pleasant to have a change actually.  And there is only so many babies that I know too.

So yes, my statement had become something of a lie that I had on my conscience but then I was requested to make a pair up for a new arrival so maybe it isn’t quite such the outright fib that it was before.  I have made bootees, a salve to my conscience.  Here they are:

These ones are called ‘Jemima’.  (We discussed the other day the fact that I do name my knitted garments but maybe you can let me know if that’s quite sane behaviour in your comments too).  Nice and bright and cheerful.

~

Right, now for a change of subject although distracting myself by writing a post on bootees has made me feel a bit better, albeit temporarily I’m sure.

~ Trigger Alert ~

I suppose that if you’re a drink then being ‘on the rocks’ must be quite a lovely experience.  I wonder how and why that particular expression was coined.  Although the hygienic properties of commercial ice machines will in most instances make you heave then swear off the ice for the rest of your life.

There are other times in life when being ‘on the rocks’ is definitely not such a pleasant thing, very undesirable in fact.  Like, during times of shipwreck.  How many times were rocks responsible for some maritime disaster or other?  Too many.  Rocks were something to be feared, dreaded, respected and avoided.  So too it is in life.  Like the sailors of old, we know what our chances are on life’s great voyage and realise that at some time or other, there will likely come that crash but we do our best to avoid it, to minimise the catastrophe where possible.

Worst yet were the wily smugglers (whose ancestors were overabundant in Blyton’s works) who sought to mislead, driving ships onto the rocks where their wooden guts split open spewing treasures across the beach.  There are people like smugglers in our lives wreaking catastrophe and trampling on our mental health.

Moments of great crisis can bring out a strength in us that we never knew that we possessed.  History tells of ‘mere’ women who passed the night on the shoreline after word of some shipwreck or another rescuing all those that they could reach and find, braving the worst of weather with minimal thought of their own safety and comfort.  We rally around in these moments, finding reserves of courage, faith and energy that go beyond the normal, allowing us to continue the fight.  It’s afterwards that the shock kicks in.

But great these crises may be and their effects, there are worse experiences, for being ‘on the rocks’ brings to my mind another state.  The great rock desert.

Deserts to the young and stereotypically inclined mind are mind-blowing swathes of sand, swept up in peaks like a 1950s rocker’s hairstyle, frequented by camels and other nomadic dwellers.  Not all deserts are like that.  There is the rock desert.

The rock desert isn’t made up of those majestic red rock mesas and buttes nor of great canyon-lands for which the Southwest States are justly famous for, those aren’t desert.  I can’t find a single word for those at this time but look upon those as some of the uphill adventures that life provides.  Rock climbing is never an easy activity, well, I wouldn’t imagine that it is even to the initiated and the experienced.  It requires planning and forethought, like so many of life’s little challenges.  It can be hard to judge where to place a foothold and a guiding rope is always a blessing.  Whether the surface is smooth, time or water worn or splintered and frail, the biggest question is always where to put your feet and how to get safest to the top.  You can see the parallels with life.

The rock desert is something different.  It is the ceaseless reg of the Sahara, dry, dusty, harsh.  It can be a bewilderingly huge plain with little changing definition.  That is where I am, on my rocks, staring out into life with little idea of where I am facing or where to go.  I am overwhelmed, stressed out like the poor lost traveller stranded in that reg, dehydrated, confused and more than a little bit worried about his predicament.  Some moments the wind gets up and whips the gravel and sand into a whirling frenzy, other times the wind is softer and it moves low across the ground surface, skimming like a dirt tide.  That is where stress gets you.  I can walk off in any direction but the landscape doesn’t change perceptibly.  I am trapped within this vortex with nowhere to escape to.  The stress is constant, relentless and unchanging.  Sometimes you feel like throwing yourself down in the dirt and wailing, other times more like throwing your head back and screaming like a banshee in a wolf pose.  The problem is that neither of those courses of action change anything.  You’re still stuck there.  And working out how to get unstuck is rather tricky, there are no obvious or immediate solutions.  You just have to keep wandering and hoping.  But unfortunately, that doesn’t feel like it’s enough.  I’m stuck, I’m lost, I’m stressed out, I’m overwhelmed.

The Evil Audiologist Strikes Again

Yes, I was hoping to strike a small note of melodrama with that title.  I probably should have tried to work ‘curse’ into to it as well for best effect, in tribute to the melodramatic and wordy titles of 1930s graphic novels and detective stories, but I’m not quite sure how it sits with the grammar.  Can a curse strike again?  And if the curse is of someone then does it mean that they are cursed or that the curse belongs to them, that they activate it?  Too much for wee head right now.

Anyway, maybe I should try going back to my original subject or else this is going to turn into some verbose Victorian novel with asides bigger than the plot.

As you know, I have ears.  Yes, not those normal ears like everyone else, the other artificial kind.  The kind that actually hear things, to be truthful.  (I think I’m the only person who has ever called me four-eyes, as another aside, and technically for many years I was six-eyes.  I’m meant to wear a prescribed tint in my lenses to help balance the effects of my perception disorder but I can’t find anywhere anymore which does the testing.  I do notice it when I spent too much time on the computer especially but anyhow, to resume!)  And my new shiny ears have the new cord system.  There are pros and cons to this, I rather like how the old mould kept my ear free from draughts and besides which, the cords have to be replaced every couple of months.  For someone who worries about waste, this is definitely not a benefit nor indicative of a new and improved system or technology.  When I had my ears fitted, I sensibly remembered to ask the whens and hows of this and the audiologist, that audiologist, explained that I just had to waltz into the main reception at the hospital and ask them to hand the tubes and domes over like they do batteries.  (Getting batteries from Main Desk requires an extensive session of begging, production of an up-to-date audiology logbook (yeah, like I can find it) and various identity and background checks).

So after the number of required months and slightly clogged pipes (tubes, officially), I trotted into the hospital.  And there the fun started.  Main Desk looked at me very blankly.  And eventually determined that I should be sent to Outpatients.  Outpatients looked at me very blankly.  And eventually determined that I should hang around the bottom of the corridor where audiologists live and see if they had any better ideas.  Hard work.

So with this five minute errand rapidly turning into something like a tooth-pulling operation (metaphorically) I set myself to lurking.  It’s hard enough to get an audiologist’s attention when you have an appointment so I wasn’t entirely optimistic about my chances.  I may have mentioned before but audiologists have the ridiculous habit of popping their heads out of doors and calling for their patients softly.  Now why are most of us in audiology for?

I did find an audiologist, the lovely one, the one who had gotten me retested originally, and despite being on her lunch break was more than happy to help restock me with cords and domes, giving me extras so I don’t have to go back in again too soon.  I really appreciate an audiologist like that, well anyone in any line of work really, who goes out of their way to help.  And does actually help.

It was when lovely audiologist was helping that we found out that my audiology log book (I had even gone to the effort of locating it just to placate Main Desk) was not correct.  No, the evil audiologist with whom I have been at loggerheads for over twenty years had written down the wrong size domes.  (Domes are the little nozzle-y bit at the end of the tube which plug into your ear).  Nice, helpful.  Lovely audiologist took black pen to my book and corrected the entry.

As I was now talking to lovely audiologist (who actually wears the same model hearing aid as me, audiologists tend not to have any personal or family experience with Hearing Loss), I asked a wee question that had been bothering me.  When I go to use the T-loop setting on my ears it’s really hard work to find it, sometimes I end up convinced that I have five different settings not three.  And of course the time I spend faffing trying to find the setting means time that I’m not hearing what’s going on and I had got thoroughly cheesed off by the new improved ears.

She asked me what I was doing.  I explained that evil audiologist had told me to press the middle of the rocker switch hard to move between settings.  She looked surprised.  I said that evil audiologist had sworn that this was the best way of doing things.  She told me that was not the case.  Just as I use the rocker switch to raise or lower the volume (I struggle with hyperacusis with my ME so I tend to use a lower volume than I technically should) so I should be using it to move between the settings but just pressing and holding instead.  This is a much more efficient and accurate system to switching between settings (when you hit the middle, you have a 50/50 chance of either going up or down which is why I was getting so many different options, not just moving up as indicated by evil audiologist) and even more impressive, is that I can go back down.  My old ear couldn’t go down, it just cycled from 1-2-3-1 but now I can go from 3 (T-loop) to either 2 (forward mic only, it’s great for places with lots of background noise) or to 1 (normal).  Just like that.  I like that.

I then asked how I was meant to obtain the relevant parts as evil audiologist had sworn that Main Desk was the way.  She looked surprised again.  Then checked with various other department members to make sure that she wasn’t cracking up.  Collection from Main Desk was never an option.  But in the future if I email audiology to let them know what I need they can leave a marked envelope at Main Desk if that’s easier.

Evil audiologist strikes again.  Do not trust her.

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UPDATE (17/04/12):  I have added a couple of diagrams of hearing aids to clarify the vocabulary used throughout, I couldn’t do it before as I didn’t have a right click working on my mouse!

Fog

There’s been a lot of fog here of late but whether I’m talking metaphysically or not is for you to decide!  Days that don’t even dawn, just a lightening of the grey swirling cloud that has descended to roam our streets, chilling our bones and refusing to let any washing dry.  Fog which eats away into your bones, nibbles into your soul and leaves you damp and wretched.  Fog which is palpable and wafts drifting mizzle across the hillsides.  Fog which closes down every horizon, enveloping every building and creature in its damp, clinging and inescapable embrace.

I don’t like fog.

Fog is November days, where the glory days of autumn slide away into the dank decay of early winter.  Fog is a pessimism that leaves you empty and hopeless.  Fog is not spring.  According to my calendar it is spring.  Apparently.

For two weeks we have slumbered and shivered under this pervasive cloud, it has felt like the beginning of winter all over again.

Admittedly on a few days by afternoon the sun has won through, penetrating the gloom and ushering in glorious afternoons which on a few occasions have felt deceptively summer-like.  Then the fog descends again.

I don’t like fog.

The weather’s moods reflect in my own, it is harder to be cheerful and upbeat (especially when it doesn’t come naturally to my chemicals) when the seasons revert five months and you wake each day to fog.  Then there have been other challenges to my mood, I’ve had to be busy with various things and there’s been a lovely bundle of stresses to deal with.  These all combine and load me down, I just want to hibernate but there has been little rest, little respite.  Busy, busy.  Stress, stress.

I don’t like fog.

My head is weary and overloaded, at the moment I really struggle to concentrate on and to co-ordinate more than one thing at a time so this month has really been pushing it.  I snatch moments of rest at odd times but my mind never switches off, a week of insomnia adds to the burdens and the increasing fatigue.  I get confused and overwhelmed, things are at best neglected or worst, forgotten, and I feel the control slipping from me again.  Did I ever have it?  It all requires so much focus and drive and concentration, I don’t have these things for so many reasons.

I don’t like fog.

Black Clouds Gathering

~ Trigger Alert! ~

For some it seems incomprehensible that a young girl, a child, in a white cotton socks, an unfurrowed brow and pigtails could ever be Depressed.  Depression is earned by the deserving, those who have traversed a difficult lifetime of tragedies.  But even then our sympathy does tend to be limited, after all if the poor person has already got through so much then surely they just need to pull their socks up, stop moping and get on with life.  But Young Depression?  What do you say or do?  Do you even believe it’s possible?

Childhood is meant to be innocent idyll.  There are some that believe that view is only a myth created by fantasising Victorians, perpetuated by children’s story writers in the 1930s and hauntingly reprieved in the post war 1950s.  Childhood hasn’t always been an easy rite of passage, it wasn’t ever easy to survive and for most, it was hard work, poverty, misery and sickness all the way.  But it’s also a time of youth, of make belief and fairy tales, of play.  It always has been so too.  Otherwise how would children learn to be adults?

Then there is a further idyll that we fantasise about, the perfect family.  Young Depression destroys that fantasy, tearing through it like a freight train.  Beyond the stigma of Depression, we seek to find a fault, a blame.  Depression has to be caused by something.  If your child is Depressed then we simple-mindedly conclude that the family structure is to blame.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.  But that attitude doesn’t exactly encourage parents to seek help for their child.  And without appropriate help and support, the consequences can be devastating.

Even though we struggle to comprehend Young Depression, we also react to these child victims in the same way as we do to adults battling mental health.  What did they do wrong, why are they so weak?  Depression is easily, too easily, blamed on some inherent personality weakness.  In children and teenagers we go further.  They’re acting out or up.  We use words like melodramatic and attention seeker, we just see the behaviours and laugh them off.  As they grow into teenagers, the symptoms of Depression merge with those of adolescence: bolshy, withdrawn, sleeping too much, eating too much, flying off the handle.  It’s quicker and easier to put the behaviour down to their age but sometimes it’s worth looking a little deeper and asking a few more questions.

If we don’t do that then too many children and teenagers fall through the net.  When I was little, there was no so thing as Young Depression.  There was no such concept.  It was bad behaviour if there was ever a label to be stuck on my head, I was weird, I was a freak.  It was the world against me.  Literally, sometimes.

But it does happen.  10% of children will suffer a mental health problem.  In their childhood.  That’s one in ten.  You probably know someone who’s fifteen, someone who’s ten, someone who’s six.  Now picture them in their classroom, there’s probably going to be about thirty pupils there.  Three of those children are likely to be suffering, right then and there, on average.  Scary?

Childhood trauma has always caused Depression, or perhaps more accurately increased the risk of a person suffering.  But the onset was often delayed, children don’t always appreciate the seriousness of a situation straightaway and also often accept their situation as the norm.  Nowadays with children being constantly bombarded with media images of perfect families and hunky-dory, ticketyboo situations, the pressure also falls to them and they consciously weigh their family circumstances against the models they are presented with.  Experts also agree that stress is increasing with each new generation and with it the increased risk of developing a depression.

I was the most innocent, sheltered, naïve child that you can imagine.  The argument that the Internet is making self-harm and suicide accessible and even fashionable to a younger audience than ever wasn’t relevant to my generation.  The Internet hadn’t even been invented (or technically, maybe not publicised).  I knew nothing of suicide.  I wasn’t even allowed to watch the evening news because of the risk of nightmares (I have a low scare threshold, remember?).

I remember the pain rising within me.  It was unbelievably raw.  I didn’t know what it was or where it came from.  I would scratch at my arms and twist holes in the lacework of my socks, hoping to find some relief, trying to lessen the pain.  The pain was so bad that I wanted to die.  I was nine maybe.  That pain has continued to follow me and it was nearly a decade later that I realised that this pain had a name.  Depression.

Sometimes I wonder how I survived my teenage years but more importantly, sometimes I wonder if earlier intervention, better support, more understanding would have made a difference.  That’s why I’m begging all of you to look out for the young ones in your lives, to dare to ask the questions that you may not want the answers and to be there for them through everything.  Acknowledging that it may be a possibility doesn’t make it the possibility, you know?  Just keep a watchful eye on them so that more can be spared the pain.  Please?

Three Years and Counting

Sometimes three years can seem like an awfully long time.  Sometimes you’re not quite sure where those three years went.  Sometimes you just don’t know how you made it through those three years.

It’s been three years since everything went pear-shaped and you know what, I’m going to tell you a little about it.  I know that sometimes it seems like all I do is whinge but I need to get this off my chest.  Bear with me.

Here are some of the jolly little hiccups that have happened during those three years:

Husband lost his job.  Husband got very ill.  Nearly lost husband at one point.

Father died suddenly and prematurely.

In our immediate circle there’s been two marriage breakups (one especially nasty) with all the associated fallout plus various feuds and falling outs which have made life particularly difficult for everyone else.#

An assortment of rumbling family problems.

Lost two dear friends who were like parents to me.

Financial problems due to husband losing his job (naturally in very stressful circumstances) and having to live on benefits (don’t let anyone kid you that this is an easy, comfortable lifestyle).  The threat of losing our home has now been over our heads daily for two and a half years.

Applying for and living on benefits.  Don’t go there.

The boiler has died on at least three separate occasions.  I think in the last three years we’ve probably been without hot water for about half that time.

Unfinished DIY projects due to a painful combination of lack of  finance and motivation and our helper going AWOL.

Another relative, in their teens, dying suddenly and tragically.

I don’t do status symbols but our van was probably the closest thing to one.  Giving it up meant losing freedom, independence and being able to help other people.

My own ongoing health problems.

Hmm, what else.

Well, I think that comes to about 700 something on the Holmes and Rahe stress scale * so that really should do it.  But it’s not just the amount of stress that’s difficult to live with but it’s constancy.  It’s feels like that the carpet is about to pulled out from under your feet, again, the whole time.  You’re on edge.  You can’t plan ahead.  You dread tomorrow.

Stress sucks.

* I’m not a big fan of the stress scale, it’s a moderately useful tool but it does seem a little bit dated especially as there seems to be a very suburban, white, male, 1950s bias to it.  Divorce is a pretty big number two and I have a sneaking suspicion that some people might actually welcome that event in their lives.  Foreclosure is about halfway down a list, presumably because it just never happened back then in that world.  The fact that pregnancy only happens to the other spouse definitely suggests that male bias.  Or shock horror, your wife going out to work.  Other quirks include less arguments with spouse being as stressful as a lot more.  Oh and what happened to things like exams or other tests?   Much less racism, sexism or any other form of bullying.  How about being an immigrant or refugee?  The chart deals with nothing like that.  Besides which, stress like pain is a very subjective experience.  You can’t guarantee that two similar people are feeling the same pain or the same amount of pain due to the same experience.  I’m sure if you read through the list, you’d reorder the thing quite quickly and add a few of your own too.

Death of spouse or child
Divorce
Marital Separation
Detention in jail or other institution
Death of a close family member (eg parent or sibling)
Major personal injury or illness
Marriage
Being fired from work
Marital reconcilitation
Retirement
Major change in health or behaviour of family member
Pregnancy of spouse/partner
Sexual difficulties
Gaining a new family member (e.g. through birth, adoption etc)
Major business readjustment (e.g. merger, reorganisation, etc)
Major change in financial state (e.g. a lot worse off or a lot better off)
Death of a close friend
Changing to a different type of work
Major change in the number of arguments with spouse (e.g. a lot more or less)
Taking on a significant (to you) mortgage
Foreclosure on a mortgage or loan
Major change in responsibility at work (e.g. promotion, transfer, demotion)
Son or daughter leaving home (marriage, college etc)
In-law troubles
Outstanding personal achievement
Partner beginning or ceasing work outside of the home
Beginning or ceasing formal schooling
Major change in living conditions (e.g. new house, renovating)
Revision of personal habits (dress, manners, association etc)
Troubles with the boss
Change in residence
Changing to a new school
Major change in usual type and/or amount of recreation
Major change in church or spiritual activities (e.g. a lot more or less than usual)
Major change in social activities (e.g. clubs, dancing, movies etc)
Taking on a small loan (e.g. purchasing car, TV, freezer etc)
Major change in sleeping habits (e.g. a lot more or less)
Major change in number of family get-togethers (e.g. a lot more or less)
Major change in eating habits (e.g. a lot more or less food intake)
Holiday or vacation
Christmas
Minor violations of the law (e.g. traffic or parking infringement)
www.stresstips.com

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.