Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

The Edge of God

The Edge of God is now out!  Edited by Nicola Slee, Michael Jagessar and Stephen Burns with a chapter from moi.  It will be launched at Queen's in the New Year.

Buzzing

Spent most of the day continuing with engraving memorial stones.  I painted in the enamel on one stone this morning - but the third layer has run - so I will wait until it has hardened and then wire brush tomorrow.  I rushed it.  Patience is a virtue.

 

The engraving was much more satisfying - like using a minature pneumatic drill.

 

Thoughts have strayed today to rearranging the house.  We are being joined by another person after Christmas who will be living here for a while - and among other things will help out with some of the work in the grounds.  I am moving my study and have been tossing up whether to be truly hermit-like and claim the caravan as a study; move back in to my partner's study; or use our snug  - which has won.  The snug has fantastic views and is just off the kitchen.  I will feel like the Captain on The Starship Enterprise!  Although I love my current study - it will be a joy to have a creative space over looking the shore - so a bonus.

 

I have an addiction - skype.  I am proud of it which is probably shameful...

I don't feel that though.

 

Ideas are coming thick and fast for canvases and writing just now.  Not sure why - but I am filling my ideas book and need to do a series of rough sketches tonight for the canvases.  I feel as though I am buzzing on all cylinders and I am pleased with the quality of what I am producing.

 

Change

I have been giving quite a lot of thought recently to change.  I'm sure you know the joke about how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?  One - but the light bulb has really got to want to change!

 

I feel like a light bulb.

 

I had a smashing lunch with a friend a few days ago, but like most highly stimulating conversations it left me with questions about myself and no clear answers - at least not immediately.  Anxiety has often encouraged me towards quick resolution - a rather fierce process of exploring options with phenomenal speed and firming conclusions in haste.  I am learning that there are other ways to proceed.  Ironically I am the opposite with others' processes.  I like to provide space for people's hearts and minds to play and discover and not to tie them down.  An approach I rarely award to my own psyche.  Ironic.

 

In recent days I am owning my anger more directly.  My parents both had powerful tempers and I watched that impact on an older sibling.  I learnt from birth how to moderate my behaviour so that I did not have to face the consequences he did. Depression is anger imploded.  It would be much healthier in my case if it were outside me rather than inside!

 

So, I have returned to an informative, but rather irritating book called "The Facts: Personality Disorder" (Krawitz, Roy; Jackson, Wendy 2008 Oxford: University Press) because in amongst it's sometimes fatuous commentary - there are some questions for personal reflection.

 

How will I benefit from change?

I found it tempting to give the acceptable answers - the ones that win positive strokes - rather than the ones which resonate in my deepest self with all its confusions, damage and hope.

 

I will be challenged.  This feels positive to me - encouraging. 

I may experience a greater sense of personal acceptance.

I may well not take myself too seriously - but much more seriously than I do right now.

I will continue to surprise myself.

I will be stimulated by the journey.

 

What are the positive things about change?

 

Reflection.  Space.  A break in brain traffic or hopefully a slowing down of my thought processes.

 

What are the negative things about change?

 

Emotionally demanding.  Scarey - will I loose the parts I have grown to love? 

What if my future connections mean I loose the respect of those I most admire?

What if I creep back into familiar territory and feel I can't change.

What if I beat myself to a pulp or let those who will dislike the changes do that for me?

 

What will happen if I change?

 

Goodness only knows.  Positive words come to mind.

Liberation.  Hope.  Creativity.  Excitement.  Confidence.  Righteous targeted anger.

Negative thoughts lurk in the shadows:

I can't be bthered.

Why should I?

In a minute ... when I feel better.

(The inner child will out!)

 

Are there things about change I am concerned about?

 

The first change - not meeting my own exacting standards.

 

Is change important?

 

Would I have got this far in the reflection questions if it wasn't?  Doh.

Yes it is.  For me.  It is a positive sign I am alive and becoming.

 

Is change important now?

 

Very much so - but I want it to be holistic rather than superficial.  It won't be enough to simply take on a new character and learn the script - I suspect this is more about paring back the need to be acceptable to others until I discern what is pleasing and acceptable to myself.

 

What do I need to do to maintain the hope that change is possible?

 

Believe my two personal motivators:

Fear is courage waiting to happen.

What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?

 

What do I need to do to give me more confidence that I can change?

 

Trust.  Hope and gentleness towards my own being.

 

I am reminded again of Helen Keller:

Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing at all.

 

Crossroads

My editor liked the book review so much relief.  All being well another review will hit "The Expository Times".

I am missing our son who was home for Half Term and in stunningly good form.

Today I have spent an enjoyable time on Skype.  It is a medium of communication which suits me very well. It is entirely and completely addictive and I am glad I have only recently discovered it!  Get on it and we can chat!

The book I was reviewing is by Leslie Francis and Andrew Village, two academics I have a great deal of time for because their intellectual research has significant practical relevance.  This book is no exception.  A must for preachers who have ever wondered why at the door after preaching their hearts out the people shaking hands don't seem to have heard the sermon they thought they had delivered!

"Preaching With All Our Souls" by Leslie Francis and Andrew Village, Continuum Press 2008

I do wish I could get back to teaching.  I am beginning to feel withdrawal.  I need to look at how I can move this forward, I really do. 

I have learnt some important things over the last few weeks.  Firstly, that I am at a crossroads and I have an amazing array of choices to make.  Secondly, that I am a person of value and I have giftedness to bring to the table.  Lastly, I have the space and time to develop in new ways - to grow the aspects of my personality that feed and nurture my psyche.

The Sanctuary is back - and I am comfortable being.  The healing has come gently and is still in progress - I am excited by what I am feeling and discovering within myself.  I haven't the faintest idea what the future holds - but that excites me rather than makes me anxious.  I am counting blessings not dwelling on my ill-self's belief that I am wholly unacceptable.

Artificial Intelligence

It has been an age since I last blogged ... Father, forgive me.

My computer has been very, very ill and out of action for a few weeks.  Whether it was failing with old age or something else caused the problem, I don't know, but to cut a long, tedious story short, a wonderful man put a new hard drive in and another will be saving the contents I have failed to back up from the old hard drive.  The consequence has been that I have been bereft without all the things that form my literary, socila ans creative comfort blanket - the contents of my laptop.

On a personal note I have stopped taking all my drugs apart from a small maintenance dose of antidepressant.  Cold Turkey was no fun.  I was shocked about their power and the urge to escape the worst of the side effects as I came off.  Still, the great news is that after weeks, nay months of walking stiffly; my joints in agonising pain; mouth sores and a head filled with nothing; not to mention absolutley no desire to do anything much, I feel alive again.  It has been brilliant to meet my old self - except she's different and I like her better than I ever have.  I have so much energy I am bubbling.  I look good too.  I've put masses of weight on - but that is coming off as I exercise more.  Hair is too long - but with the snow it has it's uses.  I feel as though I have been given another chance to claim life.

Our son is home this week and it has been an absolute joy.  He is maturing beautifully and we have talked about music and paintings - and life. 

Humphrey, the gorgeous Newfoundland, is growing still and is now just over six months.

I am looking out at the world with a grin on my face.  I am enjoying my reprieve.

Roots

I've enjoyed a full and challenging day.  The most noteworthy moment was a phone call from my cousin - which was a wonderful out-of-the-blue catch-up call.  It was good to hear him and news of his family who live in mainland Europe.

I have been spending odd moments in recent weeks continuing to search out our family tree.  In the middle of the conversation with my cousin I forgot to mention that the latest links I have found are deeper into our Jewish roots and are taking me to Lithuania!  (Sadly only metaphorically just now!)  It looks as though the original Wallmans (I still have a terrible urge to inclusify my name to Wallpeople!) travelled as refugees to Holland before again seeking sanctuary in the UK.  I need to check my trail but this looks as though it's the right direction.

In between attempts to work for short period on indexing an MS, I went to an art therapy session.  I felt very de-energised.  As though I had arrived on the wrong day for a party.  I couldn't concentrate and returned home out-of-salts.  All my agenda, I suspect.  I think it's probably something about going into the hospital.  I am trying to live now and trogging in there sometimes feels as though it is counter my intuition.  Today I wanted to stay home and get on with being me. 

My partner went boat shopping while I was in my therapy session.  I was unbelievably disappointed when he confessed he had only been joking when he said he had bought one.  It was a Mr. Toad moment ("Poop! Poop!")  I have always wanted a boat.  I have added it to my wish list ... one day, when I am rich and infamous ... I will sail away.

Indulgence

I have had a pleasantly indulgent afternoon ordering Christmas gifts for nearest and dearest.  I feel chirpy about Christmas for the first time in years and I am trying to get a little ahead of my usual practice of either buying things when I see them and then squirrelling them away in secret locations in the house which are so secret that come December I can't remember where I put them.  They usually turn up eventually - but too late for that year - and are then hidden in a new safe location for the following Yule by which time, yes, I've forgotten them again!  This year I know the cupboard is bare - so I can start again!  The great thing has been that I haven't needed to leave my study - apart from puppy peeing expeditions.

Nutmeg, our rabbit is now indoors in her winter quarters - this year she is in my study and will free run in the kitchen - or outside.  The evenings are getting much cooler - and although we are resisting firing up the central heating (the credit crunch bites) we have set up a couple of electric fires.  Humphrey (the teenage Newf') meanwhile languishes in the driving rain with his head to the wind and ears flying.  He is built for the sea.

I have revised something important today - which I often forget - the importance of not thinking too much; stopping when I need to and starting without knowing what, where or most excitingly how I will finish.  The playfulness I have lost in recent years is back for now and gently wiggling at the nature of her existence.

I'm a Barbie Girl...

For some reason I have been unable to get the pop song "I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie World" out of my head this morning.  A certain lighteness of spirit is noted - although I detest the song!

I am cutting medication, gently.  I have loved the benefits.  I no longer have a sluggish demenaour imposed by the sedative qualities of one of the drugs - and I have more energy. 

I am gradually making key decisions about the present and the future.  I have never been a challenger of the status quo on my own behalf although at times a powerful advocate for others.  I am gradually practising a new way of being.  Instead of dismissing myself and my individual giftedness quite so readily - "It's all my fault, I am going into the garden to eat worms".  I imagine and visualise what is in the best interests of my most desired self.  Of course to find my Desired Self I've had to do a fair bit of excavating and there's still a good bit of scaffolding in place holding up the shakier parts, but the essence is not only there but confident in the deepest sense of knowing that I am being as much me as I can be right now.  I am surprised how particular I am; positively fussy.

Interestingly Desired Self needs to lose some weight and regain a level of fitness - but not nearly as much weight as I had previously assumed.  Desired Self is a born teacher, creator, advocate and befriender.  Desired Self knows her limitations but more importantly her unique combination of strengths.  Desired Self is seeking healthy relationshios which break old, destructive habits and encourage transation and mutuality rather than colusion and co- dependency. Desired Self is Anxious Self's kindest and most determined friend.  She knows when to add pressure and when to snuggle up beside.

In reality one of the healthiest relationships I have just now are with my dogs - where the relationship is in the now and involves a good deal of mutual affection.  Dogs are uncomplicated and clear in their signals - they are great to practise emotionally healthy living on!

I am choosing carefully what I am picking up again - even frienships.  In this next period I need to have some friends who are emotionally stronger than me in order to help role model - and these are about.  I have volunteered to get involved in HUG which is a highland charity advocating around mental health issues.  I am taking myself very seriously indeed.

The Wise Person Builds Her House...

I hope you like the new look web blog format.  I have been looking at the strap line "knocking on heaven's door..." and feeling sad about it as it takes me write back to teaching the course I used to.  I decided there is no point in dwelling in the past - so it is time for a change.  I have always preferred to view whatever has happened to me and those I love as what has been given, quite randomly and arbitarily and so looking at something whilst seething inside is not like me - and I am not going to indulge myself - so the strap line goes.

I thought about what I wanted to celebrate in the moment - and my new heading was born on that thought.

Today has been an apparently gentle day but with a lot of hard paddling under the floaty exterior.  I had a very transforming phone call the other evening which reminded me of the importance of the journey we must all take sooner or later towards authenticity and claiming our selfhood.  I am giving thought at the moment to which baggage I can jetison and the results have been surprisingly liberating.  I am feeling guilty about some choices I am making, but for the most part I am feeling good - but different.  Something has shifted and changed - let's hope there's rock and not sand underneath.  Though - what it would matter I am not sure - sand is great for castles and rock - well I would be grateful for it if I felt the tide turn.

Saddling Up

I am attempting to climb 'back in the saddle' after what has felt like a significant glitch.  I had being trying so hard to schedule and 'normalise' my behaviour that the wave of anxiety and incapacity overwhelmed me rather unexpectedly.  I feel as though I was learning to walk emotionally again and from time to time I still come a cropper and feel the need to batten down the hatches and become a recluse once more. 

Part of my 'downfall' was a quite inexplicable, and sudden lack of confidence in the care I was receiving from mental health professionals.  It wasn't rooted in any sense of denial regarding my condition, at least I don't think it was.  Rather I found myself finding it increasingly difficult to conform to the expectations placed upon me.  Yes, getting some kind of schedule into my life is in essence a wholly desirable thing - it is more of a difficulty for me to discern what makes it into the schedule than accepting the idea that a schedule is desirable.  I was being introduced to activities which felt strangely distant.  It took me a while to realise that they were uncomfortable partly because they did not resemble the kind of pastime I would usually enjoy.  I was aiming to please others and get a tick in the box of recovery.  I wasn't addressing my own needs - which is a precursor in my view of managing BPD in the long term.

I think part of my 'downfall' was also the very real grief that academic term had started and for the first time in more years than I care to remember I am not beginning to teach a course in Theology.  I miss my teaching and my students more than anything.  My old boss had said (yes, the one who fired me) that we would be meeting up this month to talk about possible futures.  The month is almost out and I have waited and watched the post, feeling rather foolish at my preoccupation and not wanting to test the water for fear of further rejection.  I will write and continue to paint but right now I feel as though my arm has been cut off without the class contact and interaction with colleagues.  No doubt something will turn up.

I am amazed how much energy seeps away when I am worrying unnecessarily about things I have little or no control over.

Today has been a good day.  I have given some head under the duvet time this week to working out which parts of me are ready to do more and which still need a little defrosting.  For the moment I am feeling acutely isolated from the Church.  I am sure this is the pain of recent rejection as a tutor combined with the pretty much non-existent relationship I have with the local Anglican scene.  I think I have read all this in the past as in some way my fault - "I must try harder".  The last duvet meditation revealed to me my anger and sense of righteous indignation.  I am a worthy servant - but where I am placed it is impossible to see how any kind of practice as an Anglican and progressive Christian can be creatively realised outside of the very necessary work of The Sanctuary.  The key is that I am learning not to try so hard and not to take things lying down.  I have always been great at defending others and fighting on their behalf but lousy at arguing my own case.  THat is going to change.  If opportunities don't fall into place from one source they will from another.  But this time, I am going into dialogue with a stronger sense of my preferred outcome.    What is to be gained by this approach is significant freedom to explore other possible futures; a chance to learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others.

A former student at TISEC kindly informed me, amongst other things, that it was the Course's loss that I was no longer teaching on it.  Initially I thought she was quite wrong - just over-egging the cake to ease the pain.  It's taken time to recognise that it is their loss - but also mine - and we will both feel the worse without the other.  The course has lost a gifted teacher, but that teacher has lost the stimulation of engaging with others.