This may surprise a few people but I have suffered from severe depression for many years. I know, weird isn’t it?
“But you seem so cheerful!” people say to me “You can’t be depressed!”
Anyone who says things like this to me has clearly never seen me in private when I have reached the extreme low points.
Now, you may be thinking ‘Oh, well this is going to be a miserable blog post!’ and I would say ‘Aah, well that is where you’re wrong!’ so there!
On the contrary, this blog post may delve into misery at points but I assure you that it has a happy outcome. With that in mind, I shall continue.
As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, I have suffered from severe depression for many, many years. Whether this is due to my OCD is unknown – it’s difficult to know which came first. All I know is that I was a miserable child, a miserable teenager and a miserable adult.
Several people have said to me in the past that depression doesn’t exist and that it is all in my head – so to speak. I always find this completely insulting and it really doesn’t help when I am feeling so low. Anyone who has suffered through depression will tell you that it is a terrible illness and one which can have an enormous impact on your life and the lives of your loved ones.
In my case, there was nothing particularly bad in my life that caused my recent terrible spell of depression. I have a job that I love, a husband whom I love, I’m now debt free after a lot of effort, I have everything I could want – yet several weeks ago I felt like I couldn’t go on and apart from my OCD there was no reason for this to occur.
It didn’t help that I was recovering from viral meningitis and felt physically terrible but that wasn’t the cause of it. For about a year I have spent most of my time feeling dreadful, feeling unworthy, fat, ugly, useless and a disappointment. My husband tells me I’m wonderful on an almost daily basis but to no avail. Nothing seemed to lift the darkness, I found myself having some terrible thoughts – not specifically about harming myself but I just didn’t want to have to go on feeling the way I did.
There was no obvious reason for it, a time when I should be the happiest in my life and all I could think about was how miserable I was. The worst thing was that I knew that my misery was making my husband sad and it was hurting him to see me that way – but that just made me feel worse.
So, I sat in my psychiatrist’s office around two weeks ago in a sorry state. I was at as low ebb as I could have reached to be honest. I’ve tried everything over the past year to improve my mood but nothing seemed to work. I have had Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for my OCD and have taken various anti-depressants but I just didn’t feel any better.
This time my psychiatrist advised me to take new medication, I was offered the same medication last year and I refused it as I didn’t want to take any more medication than I was already on. However, this time I was so miserable and so desperate to feel better I accepted the medication at as low a dose as possible. Now, everyone is different and I am in no way suggesting that what helps me will help anyone else and I would strongly advise anyone with depression to seek help from their GP as different therapies benefit different people.
I took the low dose of the medication and I have to admit that I felt like a zombie for around 2 or 3 days, I kept drifting into sleep at odd times. The first day I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I was so sleepy. The side effects were not nice but after a few days I started to feel quite cheerful.
For the first time in a long time I actually felt quite happy, sort of content. I didn’t feel drugged up or hazy – just a feeling that everything was going to be ok. The OCD voice in my brain that generally told me that I hadn’t done things properly seemed to quieten down considerably and for the first time in a year I found myself looking forward to things.
The oddest thing is, I’ve spent so much of my life feeling miserable inside that I actually have no idea how to cope with not feeling that way. Isn’t that weird? I’m so used to feeling miserable and worried and desolate that now I don’t feel it I sort of miss it – I was so used to it, that living without the constant misery is actually very peculiar. I commented to my husband recently that I am so used to living with depression that I don’t really know how to act without it.
I don’t feel euphoric or high, I just feel like everything is ok. Who knows how long it will last, I am only to be on this medication for a few months so we’ll just have to see what happens over the next few months but even a break from the depression is very welcome, regardless of how long it lasts.
It at least gives me hope that perhaps I won’t feel as bad as I did forever, there is hope.
Monday, 6 September 2010
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
OCD
With all the misery in the world at the moment, I'll try not to add to that with this blogpost but things have been so desolate that it may dip into the morose at times - sorry.
I have been through a mammoth struggle in the past year and I really just want to get my thoughts out and to hopefully raise awareness of a disorder that can be utterly debilitating and left untreated can lead to all manner of problems functioning in life. It may seem a little selfish to talk about myself so much in this blog post but I really need to explain what has been happening.
As you may know, I have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I have had OCD since I was about 8 years old but it was only really diagnosed formally a few years ago. I've spent my entire life knowing that there was something that wasn't 'right' with me mentally but I didn't know exactly what it was.
Many people seem to have an inaccurate view of what OCD is, people regularly say to me - 'If you have OCD then at least your house must be immaculate!' which is just not true, I have a fear or chemicals that trumps my fear of contamination so I tend not to scrub things meticulously. My flat has 'safe' areas that I feel are clean and 'unsafe' areas that I feel uncomfortable in and are untouched for long periods of time. I also do not feel completely compelled to gain symmetry in everything as is often portrayed on the TV, some OCD sufferers do but others don't. Everyone with OCD has different obsessions and compulsions and it is important to understand this.
My first real memory of OCD behaviour was when I was a child. I remember being told that if you didn't drink enough that you would become dehydrated, I became extremely anxious about this, not knowing how much I was supposed to drink to keep hydrated. One night I drank as much water as I could before I went to bed, assuming that this would keep me hydrated. However, when I got into bed I became more and more anxious and got up several times to drink more water. As you can imagine, this lead to needing the toilet rather a lot but every time I went to the loo I became utterly terrified that as I had gotten rid of some water that I needed to drink more - so the cycle of going to the loo then drinking water from the tap continued throughout the night. I remember my parents getting cross with me, not understanding what was wrong, and telling me to go back to bed but every time I did I needed the loo, then I felt utterly compelled to drink more water.
In isolation this may just seem like the episode of an anxious child who perhaps got the wrong end of the stick when given some advice but some of my other behaviour highlighted that this was not just an isolated incident.
In my early years at secondary school I developed a series of tics that I couldn't control and for which I was generally mocked. I would clear my throat every few seconds, the compulsion to do so was overwhelming even when I didn't feel necessarily that my throat needed clearing. I developed a nervous cough and the more people mocked it, the worse it got. Surpressing it just made it worse, surpressing it led me to start sniffing every few seconds instead so then I was mocked for that. I found that in later life, surpressing my OCD behaviour would result in me feeling compelled to blink a certain number of times every few minutes.
I was a complete nervous wreck as a child for little reason, I worried about everything. If a disease was mentioned I would become completely consumed with worry that I would get that disease - I thought that every dog would give me rabies, that everything I touched would make me ill or poison me, that even walking under certain trees would cause me harm. I became terrified of death, every time I thought about the death of people around me or my own I would become almost hysterical.
My main problem was that, despite being absolutely terrified of pretty much everything, I was too scared to tell anyone about my thoughts. I was worried that I would be taken to a psychiatric hospital and locked away or that people wouldn't believe me. Every time I tried to explain to people what I was worried about and get reassurance people would look at me as if I were mad. My main phrase in life as a child seemed to be 'will I be alright if I do (insert anything here)?'. I must have driven my parents bananas with my constant asking for reassurance. Because no one actually knew what the problem was, no one could really help me. I felt so ashamed, asking for reassurance so often and so I developed ways to cope. Unfortunately these coping mechanisms were to make my anxiety and my life a whole lot worse.
I would check things copiously and often unnecessarily. The worst part of OCD is that, there is a part of your brain that says 'I know that I have locked my door' or 'I know that I have switched the tap off' but there is another more insidious part of the brain that continuously questions and doubts whether you do know that things have been done.
Looking back, my OCD has affected large parts of my life - I almost missed an exam at college as I had to go back home and check that my hair tongs were off, despite the more rational part of my brain knowing that I had unplugged them before I left the house. I have often missed out on going places because of anxiety about food, available toilets, fear of contamination, fear of not locking the door of my house properly. In one of my jobs in my life I was the only girl in the office and was completely terrified that the tap would be left on in the female toilets and that I would be blamed even if it wasn't me so after leaving work I would often have to go back and check the taps several times - no matter how close to home I got. I would touch things with tissues in my own home if I felt they were 'contaminated'.
A lot of my life has revolved around my OCD and it has prevented me from doing so many things. At several points in my life my hands have been cracked, sore and bleeding due to the sheer amount of handwashing I have done to ease my anxiety about contamination. I kept quiet about it, tried to hide my coping behaviours from people but that has always made them worse and I have suffered clinical depression for most of my adult life because of my OCD. Whenever I tell people that I have suffered from depression they usually say 'but you seem so cheerful!' - sadly I have tried to cover my misery most of my life that I tend to think that everyone wants to see me cheerful and have done so. OCD can be such a destructive disorder.
Over the past year I have had the biggest flare up of my OCD that I have ever experienced and I have had to finally face up to the rather grim reality that, although OCD can wax and wane, there is no absolute cure. I think that this was the biggest cause of my depression, I had to face up to the fact that my OCD is a disability which I will probably fight against for the rest of my life.
I haven't been very communicative over the past year or so, my OCD overwhelmed me. I have isolated myself and been too afraid to see people. For the past year or so I have not been able to function in any capacity. There was no one single event that caused this relapse, just a slow decline into the worst period of mental illness in my life.
About a year or so ago I was coping with my OCD symptoms. I would check things but not obsessively, wash my hands but not to excess. I was able to get buses, travel places, go to supermarkets - all the usual things that most people do on a daily basis. Slowly I started to notice that I was checking the floor more often, worrying that I was standing on sharp things like knifes or needles, this fear started to escalate until I could barely go anywhere without worrying that I had cut my foot open and that I would bleed to death. I have always had checking and washing behaviour but I was unprepared for the horrors of my OCD that were to come.
While sitting on a bus one morning there was a girl sat behind me talking on her mobile phone, I was fiddling with my MP3 player and not paying much attention. The bus came to my stop and I started to get up and walk down the bus when I suddenly thought 'What if I have hurt that girl in some way?'. Now, you need to understand that while people have intrusive thoughts all the time, most people dismiss them - consider the last odd thought that crossed your mind, you probably dismissed it right? With me and a lot of other OCD sufferers, we tend to attach more meaning to those thoughts than they really require. I thought 'I wouldn't hurt anyone physically, ever! I didn't hurt the girl' but my brain wouldn't let it go. I then thought 'Aah, but you were worried that you had hurt her so maybe you did'. I searched my memory and in my heart of hearts I knew that I hadn't hurt her in any way or even gone near her - but my brain kept doubting my memories. I turned back to look at the girl and she looked fine, chattering away on her phone, but my brain told me that maybe I was confused and perhaps I had hurt her but was seeing her as fine because I wanted to. I started to feel anxious and as I got off the bus I continuously checked that the girl was ok, she was fine but I couldn't convince myself of that. As the bus drove away I could see the girl and knew she was fine so why was I worrying that I may have hurt her??? I couldn't breathe properly, my breathing was coming fast and my heart was beating so quickly I thought that it was going to beat out of my chest. I started to feel light headed and my fingers tingled, I felt like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack. To say it was awful is an understatement. I don't want to hurt anyone, I never would hurt anyone deliberately so why would I worry that I had hurt a complete stranger? I have since found that the anxiety is due to the disparity between what you think and your general ideas on things - I never want to hurt anyone and even the thought that perhaps I had hurt someone caused massive anxiety.
During the course of that day there were several instances of the same thing, I started worrying that I had punched people or shouted at them in the street. I started to worry about what I was saying and doing and this hyper vigilance just served to make things worse because the more I tried to remember what I had said or done, the more my brain would say 'Well, if you thought it then you must have done it'. The absence of the memory of shouting things, doing things etc just made me think that perhaps I had done those things but couldn't remember. I had so many panic attacks that day that I had to go home and when I went home I simply went to bed as the mental exhaustion was horrendous. I worried that my thoughts made me a bad person, that I was somehow evil deep down and that was why I was having these thoughts. I worried that I was being possessed, I felt so confused and scared all the time with no reason whatsoever.
Now, I just want to reitterate that I am in no way dangerous, I know that, my psychiatrist knows that and you need to know that. Apparently the fact that I have these anxieties is supposedly a good sign as it means that I have no desire to do any of the things I worry about and wont carry out any of these things.
I genuinely started to think that I was losing my mind and due to the sheer volume of panic attacks I had started to have on buses, in the street etc. I became utterly terrified to even go outside. This led to my agoraphobia. Every time I tried to leave the house I ended up having a panic attack, even the mention of having to attend any appointment gave me panic attacks.
Just because I didn't go outside didn't mean that the problems ended. I became scared to touch things in my flat, things that I had been able to touch perfectly fine before I now considered contaminated. I couldn't even use the phone or the computer at one point, fearing that they were somehow dirty and contaminated. I could barely eat anything as I worried that my food would be contaminated. It would take so long to go to bed as I had to check everything was off first, door locked etc. I couldn't read anything as I couldn't concentrate and slowly but surely my decline continued until I couldn't even leave my bed for several weeks. I couldn't make food for myself or wash my clothes, I became convinced that even my clean clothes were dirty. I would be totally unconvinced that the taps were off in the flat and would spend hours checking taps and that doors were locked.
The cruel thing about OCD is that even though you doubt everything that you do, there is still a part of your brain that is hyper aware of what you have done and haven't done so the confusion worsens as it is almost like having two conflicting people inside your brain. What's even more frustrating is that I knew that it was my own brain doing this to me but I was powerless to stop it, when I had a compulsion to check something for example I absolutely had to do it or the anxiety within me would rise to unbearable levels. Often it was easier to check whatever it was then walk away but then I wouldn't believe myself and would have to check again and again and again...
The anxiety was crippling, I felt nauseous pretty much most of the time and my stomach churned every time I even thought about doing anything that would involve me touching things. I stopped showering as the panic attacks made a shower last 2 hours and I would almost pass out. I stopped brushing my teeth, putting on make up and even brushing my hair. I had to do things over and over again until I felt right. Life became unbearable for both me and my poor long-suffering husband.
I really went to bits, the OCD was crushing me and my world seemed to get smaller and smaller with regards to where I felt I could go or what I could do. Due to the sheer helplessness I felt at not being able to control my thoughts and anxieties I became immensely depressed. I can't put into words exactly how low things got for me, I just felt that I was never going to get any better and that the rest of my life would be like that.
I am lucky enough to have a loving husband who did everything he could to help me. He urged me to see the doctor and he re-referred me back to my psychiatrist and they referred me to a mental health team. My husband went to every therapy session with me, held me when I was hysterical, shaking and sobbing, he supported me through everything. He even read as much about OCD as he could to see how he could help. The important thing is that he listened to me and never judged me and that made all the difference. In my life, whenever anyone noticed my OCD behaviour in the past they would often look at me with scorn, pity or bemusement and this just made me feel more ashamed. That's no ones fault, OCD is difficult to understand if you are not going through it.
I've been receiving therapy for several months now and I'm feeling a bit brighter. I accept that everyone has intrusive thoughts and that I am not a freak, but I have had to accept that I do have a mental illness for which there is unlikely to be no cure. I am learning new coping methods and trying my best to recognise my obsessive thoughts and apply what I have learned to get through them.
Without my husband I wouldn't be making such a good recovery today, his endless patience and support has kept me going through times that I just couldn't have borne alone. I have a long way to go and my recovery is slow but steady. I still find it incredibly difficult to get out of the house and walk around the streets without having anxiety attacks but I am getting better. I still worry that I have punched people or shouted at people on buses or in the street but it's getting easier to convince the doubting part of my brain that I haven't.
I am not looking for sympathy, pity or attention - the point of me writing this is to raise awareness of OCD, it can be an utterly debilitating condition. I may look funny when I am continuously checking things or if it takes me a long time to do something but it truly isn't amusing in any way. I would urge anyone with the same thing to seek help from their doctor as it may not improve on it's own. It is a distressing condition and one which can affect not only the person suffering from it but people closest to them. There are several treatments and although CBT may seem scary, believe me nothing is more scary than having to continue life the way I have been this past year.
I'm improving a little every day and with the help of my husband I know that, while I may not live a 'normal' life, things will get better.
I have been through a mammoth struggle in the past year and I really just want to get my thoughts out and to hopefully raise awareness of a disorder that can be utterly debilitating and left untreated can lead to all manner of problems functioning in life. It may seem a little selfish to talk about myself so much in this blog post but I really need to explain what has been happening.
As you may know, I have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I have had OCD since I was about 8 years old but it was only really diagnosed formally a few years ago. I've spent my entire life knowing that there was something that wasn't 'right' with me mentally but I didn't know exactly what it was.
Many people seem to have an inaccurate view of what OCD is, people regularly say to me - 'If you have OCD then at least your house must be immaculate!' which is just not true, I have a fear or chemicals that trumps my fear of contamination so I tend not to scrub things meticulously. My flat has 'safe' areas that I feel are clean and 'unsafe' areas that I feel uncomfortable in and are untouched for long periods of time. I also do not feel completely compelled to gain symmetry in everything as is often portrayed on the TV, some OCD sufferers do but others don't. Everyone with OCD has different obsessions and compulsions and it is important to understand this.
My first real memory of OCD behaviour was when I was a child. I remember being told that if you didn't drink enough that you would become dehydrated, I became extremely anxious about this, not knowing how much I was supposed to drink to keep hydrated. One night I drank as much water as I could before I went to bed, assuming that this would keep me hydrated. However, when I got into bed I became more and more anxious and got up several times to drink more water. As you can imagine, this lead to needing the toilet rather a lot but every time I went to the loo I became utterly terrified that as I had gotten rid of some water that I needed to drink more - so the cycle of going to the loo then drinking water from the tap continued throughout the night. I remember my parents getting cross with me, not understanding what was wrong, and telling me to go back to bed but every time I did I needed the loo, then I felt utterly compelled to drink more water.
In isolation this may just seem like the episode of an anxious child who perhaps got the wrong end of the stick when given some advice but some of my other behaviour highlighted that this was not just an isolated incident.
In my early years at secondary school I developed a series of tics that I couldn't control and for which I was generally mocked. I would clear my throat every few seconds, the compulsion to do so was overwhelming even when I didn't feel necessarily that my throat needed clearing. I developed a nervous cough and the more people mocked it, the worse it got. Surpressing it just made it worse, surpressing it led me to start sniffing every few seconds instead so then I was mocked for that. I found that in later life, surpressing my OCD behaviour would result in me feeling compelled to blink a certain number of times every few minutes.
I was a complete nervous wreck as a child for little reason, I worried about everything. If a disease was mentioned I would become completely consumed with worry that I would get that disease - I thought that every dog would give me rabies, that everything I touched would make me ill or poison me, that even walking under certain trees would cause me harm. I became terrified of death, every time I thought about the death of people around me or my own I would become almost hysterical.
My main problem was that, despite being absolutely terrified of pretty much everything, I was too scared to tell anyone about my thoughts. I was worried that I would be taken to a psychiatric hospital and locked away or that people wouldn't believe me. Every time I tried to explain to people what I was worried about and get reassurance people would look at me as if I were mad. My main phrase in life as a child seemed to be 'will I be alright if I do (insert anything here)?'. I must have driven my parents bananas with my constant asking for reassurance. Because no one actually knew what the problem was, no one could really help me. I felt so ashamed, asking for reassurance so often and so I developed ways to cope. Unfortunately these coping mechanisms were to make my anxiety and my life a whole lot worse.
I would check things copiously and often unnecessarily. The worst part of OCD is that, there is a part of your brain that says 'I know that I have locked my door' or 'I know that I have switched the tap off' but there is another more insidious part of the brain that continuously questions and doubts whether you do know that things have been done.
Looking back, my OCD has affected large parts of my life - I almost missed an exam at college as I had to go back home and check that my hair tongs were off, despite the more rational part of my brain knowing that I had unplugged them before I left the house. I have often missed out on going places because of anxiety about food, available toilets, fear of contamination, fear of not locking the door of my house properly. In one of my jobs in my life I was the only girl in the office and was completely terrified that the tap would be left on in the female toilets and that I would be blamed even if it wasn't me so after leaving work I would often have to go back and check the taps several times - no matter how close to home I got. I would touch things with tissues in my own home if I felt they were 'contaminated'.
A lot of my life has revolved around my OCD and it has prevented me from doing so many things. At several points in my life my hands have been cracked, sore and bleeding due to the sheer amount of handwashing I have done to ease my anxiety about contamination. I kept quiet about it, tried to hide my coping behaviours from people but that has always made them worse and I have suffered clinical depression for most of my adult life because of my OCD. Whenever I tell people that I have suffered from depression they usually say 'but you seem so cheerful!' - sadly I have tried to cover my misery most of my life that I tend to think that everyone wants to see me cheerful and have done so. OCD can be such a destructive disorder.
Over the past year I have had the biggest flare up of my OCD that I have ever experienced and I have had to finally face up to the rather grim reality that, although OCD can wax and wane, there is no absolute cure. I think that this was the biggest cause of my depression, I had to face up to the fact that my OCD is a disability which I will probably fight against for the rest of my life.
I haven't been very communicative over the past year or so, my OCD overwhelmed me. I have isolated myself and been too afraid to see people. For the past year or so I have not been able to function in any capacity. There was no one single event that caused this relapse, just a slow decline into the worst period of mental illness in my life.
About a year or so ago I was coping with my OCD symptoms. I would check things but not obsessively, wash my hands but not to excess. I was able to get buses, travel places, go to supermarkets - all the usual things that most people do on a daily basis. Slowly I started to notice that I was checking the floor more often, worrying that I was standing on sharp things like knifes or needles, this fear started to escalate until I could barely go anywhere without worrying that I had cut my foot open and that I would bleed to death. I have always had checking and washing behaviour but I was unprepared for the horrors of my OCD that were to come.
While sitting on a bus one morning there was a girl sat behind me talking on her mobile phone, I was fiddling with my MP3 player and not paying much attention. The bus came to my stop and I started to get up and walk down the bus when I suddenly thought 'What if I have hurt that girl in some way?'. Now, you need to understand that while people have intrusive thoughts all the time, most people dismiss them - consider the last odd thought that crossed your mind, you probably dismissed it right? With me and a lot of other OCD sufferers, we tend to attach more meaning to those thoughts than they really require. I thought 'I wouldn't hurt anyone physically, ever! I didn't hurt the girl' but my brain wouldn't let it go. I then thought 'Aah, but you were worried that you had hurt her so maybe you did'. I searched my memory and in my heart of hearts I knew that I hadn't hurt her in any way or even gone near her - but my brain kept doubting my memories. I turned back to look at the girl and she looked fine, chattering away on her phone, but my brain told me that maybe I was confused and perhaps I had hurt her but was seeing her as fine because I wanted to. I started to feel anxious and as I got off the bus I continuously checked that the girl was ok, she was fine but I couldn't convince myself of that. As the bus drove away I could see the girl and knew she was fine so why was I worrying that I may have hurt her??? I couldn't breathe properly, my breathing was coming fast and my heart was beating so quickly I thought that it was going to beat out of my chest. I started to feel light headed and my fingers tingled, I felt like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack. To say it was awful is an understatement. I don't want to hurt anyone, I never would hurt anyone deliberately so why would I worry that I had hurt a complete stranger? I have since found that the anxiety is due to the disparity between what you think and your general ideas on things - I never want to hurt anyone and even the thought that perhaps I had hurt someone caused massive anxiety.
During the course of that day there were several instances of the same thing, I started worrying that I had punched people or shouted at them in the street. I started to worry about what I was saying and doing and this hyper vigilance just served to make things worse because the more I tried to remember what I had said or done, the more my brain would say 'Well, if you thought it then you must have done it'. The absence of the memory of shouting things, doing things etc just made me think that perhaps I had done those things but couldn't remember. I had so many panic attacks that day that I had to go home and when I went home I simply went to bed as the mental exhaustion was horrendous. I worried that my thoughts made me a bad person, that I was somehow evil deep down and that was why I was having these thoughts. I worried that I was being possessed, I felt so confused and scared all the time with no reason whatsoever.
Now, I just want to reitterate that I am in no way dangerous, I know that, my psychiatrist knows that and you need to know that. Apparently the fact that I have these anxieties is supposedly a good sign as it means that I have no desire to do any of the things I worry about and wont carry out any of these things.
I genuinely started to think that I was losing my mind and due to the sheer volume of panic attacks I had started to have on buses, in the street etc. I became utterly terrified to even go outside. This led to my agoraphobia. Every time I tried to leave the house I ended up having a panic attack, even the mention of having to attend any appointment gave me panic attacks.
Just because I didn't go outside didn't mean that the problems ended. I became scared to touch things in my flat, things that I had been able to touch perfectly fine before I now considered contaminated. I couldn't even use the phone or the computer at one point, fearing that they were somehow dirty and contaminated. I could barely eat anything as I worried that my food would be contaminated. It would take so long to go to bed as I had to check everything was off first, door locked etc. I couldn't read anything as I couldn't concentrate and slowly but surely my decline continued until I couldn't even leave my bed for several weeks. I couldn't make food for myself or wash my clothes, I became convinced that even my clean clothes were dirty. I would be totally unconvinced that the taps were off in the flat and would spend hours checking taps and that doors were locked.
The cruel thing about OCD is that even though you doubt everything that you do, there is still a part of your brain that is hyper aware of what you have done and haven't done so the confusion worsens as it is almost like having two conflicting people inside your brain. What's even more frustrating is that I knew that it was my own brain doing this to me but I was powerless to stop it, when I had a compulsion to check something for example I absolutely had to do it or the anxiety within me would rise to unbearable levels. Often it was easier to check whatever it was then walk away but then I wouldn't believe myself and would have to check again and again and again...
The anxiety was crippling, I felt nauseous pretty much most of the time and my stomach churned every time I even thought about doing anything that would involve me touching things. I stopped showering as the panic attacks made a shower last 2 hours and I would almost pass out. I stopped brushing my teeth, putting on make up and even brushing my hair. I had to do things over and over again until I felt right. Life became unbearable for both me and my poor long-suffering husband.
I really went to bits, the OCD was crushing me and my world seemed to get smaller and smaller with regards to where I felt I could go or what I could do. Due to the sheer helplessness I felt at not being able to control my thoughts and anxieties I became immensely depressed. I can't put into words exactly how low things got for me, I just felt that I was never going to get any better and that the rest of my life would be like that.
I am lucky enough to have a loving husband who did everything he could to help me. He urged me to see the doctor and he re-referred me back to my psychiatrist and they referred me to a mental health team. My husband went to every therapy session with me, held me when I was hysterical, shaking and sobbing, he supported me through everything. He even read as much about OCD as he could to see how he could help. The important thing is that he listened to me and never judged me and that made all the difference. In my life, whenever anyone noticed my OCD behaviour in the past they would often look at me with scorn, pity or bemusement and this just made me feel more ashamed. That's no ones fault, OCD is difficult to understand if you are not going through it.
I've been receiving therapy for several months now and I'm feeling a bit brighter. I accept that everyone has intrusive thoughts and that I am not a freak, but I have had to accept that I do have a mental illness for which there is unlikely to be no cure. I am learning new coping methods and trying my best to recognise my obsessive thoughts and apply what I have learned to get through them.
Without my husband I wouldn't be making such a good recovery today, his endless patience and support has kept me going through times that I just couldn't have borne alone. I have a long way to go and my recovery is slow but steady. I still find it incredibly difficult to get out of the house and walk around the streets without having anxiety attacks but I am getting better. I still worry that I have punched people or shouted at people on buses or in the street but it's getting easier to convince the doubting part of my brain that I haven't.
I am not looking for sympathy, pity or attention - the point of me writing this is to raise awareness of OCD, it can be an utterly debilitating condition. I may look funny when I am continuously checking things or if it takes me a long time to do something but it truly isn't amusing in any way. I would urge anyone with the same thing to seek help from their doctor as it may not improve on it's own. It is a distressing condition and one which can affect not only the person suffering from it but people closest to them. There are several treatments and although CBT may seem scary, believe me nothing is more scary than having to continue life the way I have been this past year.
I'm improving a little every day and with the help of my husband I know that, while I may not live a 'normal' life, things will get better.
Monday, 18 January 2010
TV Guided
I love television. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I really don’t know what I would do without it. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a good book, I find computer games entertaining and I adore baking (when my OCD permits me) but to me there is no better hobby than the television.
My enjoyment of TV seems to have started in my early childhood when I used to avidly watch the adverts. I seem to remember my mam once telling me that I only used to stop crying when the adverts came on. I’ve always had a fascination with adverts, perhaps it’s that I want to understand how they work, how do you encourage someone to buy your product with a 30 second idea?
It wasn’t just the adverts, I loved it all, the sitcoms, documentaries, magazine shows and I have spent the majority of my life basking in the glow of that fantastic invention.
When I was about 15 my Dad lent me his ‘media station’ – in this day and age those words mean something totally different but this media station comprised of a tape deck, a radio and alarm and a black and white TV that was about 4x5 inches. It was about the size of a small car engine and was notoriously difficult to tune in (It was a dial, not a series of channel numbered buttons). My Dad then procured me a betamax video recorder to go with it. Now, at that stage Betamax video recorders were pretty much obsolete and getting hold of the accompanying betamax tapes became an epic obsession for me. Many years of scouring car boot sales until I had a healthy collection of about 50 tapes which I crammed with episodes of ‘Cracker’, ‘A Touch of Frost’, old films like ‘The Big Sleep’ and little gems such as the ‘Ghosts’ season of mini dramas from the BBC. I adored that Betamax, even if it chewed up some of my tapes and sometimes the picture rolled as I had lovingly watched each tape so many times. I remember many nights and days, holed up in my room, obsessively watching my tapes – I’m genuinely astonished that I actually did go out and socialise with people at that time, I was so obsessed with TV.
My love affair with television has been a tempestuous one; I jumped for joy when Craig won the first Big Brother (the only Big Brother I really watched) and pledged his prize to charity, I sobbed uncontrollably at David Tennant’s final performance as the Doctor, I shouted angrily and stamped my feet whenever there was a cliff-hanger ending on Eastenders and I would have to wait a mere 2 days to find out what actually happens. I have marvelled in awe at the wildlife of our world and have seen so many unusual creatures. I have watched startling discoveries and science experiments. I have been appalled at some TV shows, hugely offended. I have watched the nation choose people with little talent on talent shows and have marvelled that people with great talent have been dismissed. I’ve spent many hours getting questions wrong on University Challenge and wondering how I ever got through university if I’m so intellectually inept. I have sat through programmes about Fishing and Barges (for which I entirely blame my husband) and have apologised profusely after becoming fascinated by the most banal shows and putting my husband through the pain of having to watch them.
Television is like a drug to me – it’s not always good for my health (mental or physical), it sometimes makes me elated and other times depressed and I couldn’t stop it even if I tried.
I once asked my husband if he would ever ask me to give up television and thankfully he said no. You see, the thing is that if he asked me to give it up – I’m really not sure that I could or would want to. I have given up smoking, alcohol (sporadically and when necessary), chocolate (on various occasions but I’ve currently fallen off the wagon) and caffeine – but ask me to give up television and I would become pretty hostile. If I did give up Television for my husband I daresay you would find me staring wistfully into the windows of Electrical shops or gazing greedily at mute TVs in pubs.
Several months ago we visited my in-laws and, as there is no TV in the bedroom, we usually bring a miniature handheld TV which I got very cheaply a few years ago – I have raging insomnia and I tend to watch TV if I can’t sleep. On this occasion my husband seemed to be under the impression that I had brought it although I’m not sure why as he has always been in charge of it in the past, he had helpfully brought the charger though. Anyway, after the initial ‘I thought you brought it...’ exchange I found myself feeling like a petulant child having their toys taken away. I think I even cultivated a pet lip I was so upset. It wasn’t my husband’s fault, it was an accident that it hadn’t been brought along but I was so upset and angry that I wouldn’t get to watch TV as I tried to sleep. I think that this definitely counts as addiction.
I have found recently that television is my way of actually experiencing various different emotions without having to go through the scenario in real life. I’ve had enough drama in my life and my mental health doesn’t really stretch to allowing me to get involved in stressful situations at the moment. So I use TV as way of letting my emotions out without actually offending anyone...well...unless they are in the room at the time and are offended at sobbing women.
For example, when the Doctor and Rose were separated in Series Two of Doctor Who and she was cast to a parallel universe I was heartbroken. The scene where he says goodbye to her has me in tears whether I watch it, hear the music or even think about it. The fact that they will apparently never see each other again (although we all know where that ended) and they care about each other so much pulls on my heart strings. It’s right up there on the sobometer with ‘Casablanca’ for me.
I won’t spoil the following film for anyone but my friend Ewen will tell you that anyone mentioning the film ‘The Iron Giant’ and the word “Superman!” is guaranteed to make me fill with emotion – seriously, even writing this at the moment I have tears in my eyes. I cried for about two hours after that film and each time Ewen cried “Superman!” it just set me off again.
I cried on awaiting Allie’s decision between Gavin and Finn in ‘Cutting It’ at the end of the first series. I clasped my hands to my chest and only moved to wipe the tears from my eyes so that I could see the screen. Don’t worry, I know that it is not real, but if the actors are skilled enough, watching their emotion is thrilling.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been happy times too...
I obsessively consumed ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe’, ‘Fawlty Towers’, ‘dinnerladies’, ‘Blackadder’, ‘The Mighty Boosh’, ‘Life on Mars’. I have laughed myself silly at ‘Mock The Week’, ‘QI’, ‘Not Going Out’, ‘Rab C. Nesbitt’, ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ etc.
In some ways I miss the old days of watching a TV show bit by bit, now I can go out and buy a DVD and watch it in the space of a day and once spent I feel sadly dissatisfied. I’ve been watching ‘30 Rock’ week by week and in some ways it has been like constantly teasing me which has just made it all the more alluring. I watched ‘The Thick of It’ series 3 week by week and thoroughly enjoyed it. The only problem with this is that I saw the third series of ‘The Thick of It’ before the first two series so now I will definitely watch the previous series, which I have already bought on DVD in anticipation, within a short space of time because I can’t help myself, which somewhat spoils the excitement.
Such is the nature of my addiction that I can quite happily sit through most shows, I’m not a big fan of reality TV and talent shows and I do find that the news, while fascinating, is ultimately quite depressing - doesn't stop me watching them all on and off though. I find some soap operas a bit boring but it still doesn’t stop me from switching them on from time to time and getting sucked in again.
I often wonder if I really should curb my television habit, if I’m spending too much time doing something that may be considered so amazingly pointlessly time wasting by some people. My agoraphobia affects me in such a way that I only really feel comfortable going outside with my husband and with him at work full time I find it very difficult to go out on my own so most of my day at the moment is spent inside. In the flat the TV is a constant feature of my life and I do tend to find that if I watch too much TV I find my worldview is often skewed, depending on what I watch. I often have the TV on while I am doing other things, don't worry, I don't spend all of the day watching TV.
I’ve started listening to the radio more lately and watching shows on the internet but I still see that huge comforting box sitting in the corner of the room, dolefully willing me to switch it on, to see what it has to offer and I can’t help but run my fingers over it’s well worn remote buttons and wonder what delights I am missing. Perhaps I won’t give Television up just yet...
My enjoyment of TV seems to have started in my early childhood when I used to avidly watch the adverts. I seem to remember my mam once telling me that I only used to stop crying when the adverts came on. I’ve always had a fascination with adverts, perhaps it’s that I want to understand how they work, how do you encourage someone to buy your product with a 30 second idea?
It wasn’t just the adverts, I loved it all, the sitcoms, documentaries, magazine shows and I have spent the majority of my life basking in the glow of that fantastic invention.
When I was about 15 my Dad lent me his ‘media station’ – in this day and age those words mean something totally different but this media station comprised of a tape deck, a radio and alarm and a black and white TV that was about 4x5 inches. It was about the size of a small car engine and was notoriously difficult to tune in (It was a dial, not a series of channel numbered buttons). My Dad then procured me a betamax video recorder to go with it. Now, at that stage Betamax video recorders were pretty much obsolete and getting hold of the accompanying betamax tapes became an epic obsession for me. Many years of scouring car boot sales until I had a healthy collection of about 50 tapes which I crammed with episodes of ‘Cracker’, ‘A Touch of Frost’, old films like ‘The Big Sleep’ and little gems such as the ‘Ghosts’ season of mini dramas from the BBC. I adored that Betamax, even if it chewed up some of my tapes and sometimes the picture rolled as I had lovingly watched each tape so many times. I remember many nights and days, holed up in my room, obsessively watching my tapes – I’m genuinely astonished that I actually did go out and socialise with people at that time, I was so obsessed with TV.
My love affair with television has been a tempestuous one; I jumped for joy when Craig won the first Big Brother (the only Big Brother I really watched) and pledged his prize to charity, I sobbed uncontrollably at David Tennant’s final performance as the Doctor, I shouted angrily and stamped my feet whenever there was a cliff-hanger ending on Eastenders and I would have to wait a mere 2 days to find out what actually happens. I have marvelled in awe at the wildlife of our world and have seen so many unusual creatures. I have watched startling discoveries and science experiments. I have been appalled at some TV shows, hugely offended. I have watched the nation choose people with little talent on talent shows and have marvelled that people with great talent have been dismissed. I’ve spent many hours getting questions wrong on University Challenge and wondering how I ever got through university if I’m so intellectually inept. I have sat through programmes about Fishing and Barges (for which I entirely blame my husband) and have apologised profusely after becoming fascinated by the most banal shows and putting my husband through the pain of having to watch them.
Television is like a drug to me – it’s not always good for my health (mental or physical), it sometimes makes me elated and other times depressed and I couldn’t stop it even if I tried.
I once asked my husband if he would ever ask me to give up television and thankfully he said no. You see, the thing is that if he asked me to give it up – I’m really not sure that I could or would want to. I have given up smoking, alcohol (sporadically and when necessary), chocolate (on various occasions but I’ve currently fallen off the wagon) and caffeine – but ask me to give up television and I would become pretty hostile. If I did give up Television for my husband I daresay you would find me staring wistfully into the windows of Electrical shops or gazing greedily at mute TVs in pubs.
Several months ago we visited my in-laws and, as there is no TV in the bedroom, we usually bring a miniature handheld TV which I got very cheaply a few years ago – I have raging insomnia and I tend to watch TV if I can’t sleep. On this occasion my husband seemed to be under the impression that I had brought it although I’m not sure why as he has always been in charge of it in the past, he had helpfully brought the charger though. Anyway, after the initial ‘I thought you brought it...’ exchange I found myself feeling like a petulant child having their toys taken away. I think I even cultivated a pet lip I was so upset. It wasn’t my husband’s fault, it was an accident that it hadn’t been brought along but I was so upset and angry that I wouldn’t get to watch TV as I tried to sleep. I think that this definitely counts as addiction.
I have found recently that television is my way of actually experiencing various different emotions without having to go through the scenario in real life. I’ve had enough drama in my life and my mental health doesn’t really stretch to allowing me to get involved in stressful situations at the moment. So I use TV as way of letting my emotions out without actually offending anyone...well...unless they are in the room at the time and are offended at sobbing women.
For example, when the Doctor and Rose were separated in Series Two of Doctor Who and she was cast to a parallel universe I was heartbroken. The scene where he says goodbye to her has me in tears whether I watch it, hear the music or even think about it. The fact that they will apparently never see each other again (although we all know where that ended) and they care about each other so much pulls on my heart strings. It’s right up there on the sobometer with ‘Casablanca’ for me.
I won’t spoil the following film for anyone but my friend Ewen will tell you that anyone mentioning the film ‘The Iron Giant’ and the word “Superman!” is guaranteed to make me fill with emotion – seriously, even writing this at the moment I have tears in my eyes. I cried for about two hours after that film and each time Ewen cried “Superman!” it just set me off again.
I cried on awaiting Allie’s decision between Gavin and Finn in ‘Cutting It’ at the end of the first series. I clasped my hands to my chest and only moved to wipe the tears from my eyes so that I could see the screen. Don’t worry, I know that it is not real, but if the actors are skilled enough, watching their emotion is thrilling.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been happy times too...
I obsessively consumed ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe’, ‘Fawlty Towers’, ‘dinnerladies’, ‘Blackadder’, ‘The Mighty Boosh’, ‘Life on Mars’. I have laughed myself silly at ‘Mock The Week’, ‘QI’, ‘Not Going Out’, ‘Rab C. Nesbitt’, ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ etc.
In some ways I miss the old days of watching a TV show bit by bit, now I can go out and buy a DVD and watch it in the space of a day and once spent I feel sadly dissatisfied. I’ve been watching ‘30 Rock’ week by week and in some ways it has been like constantly teasing me which has just made it all the more alluring. I watched ‘The Thick of It’ series 3 week by week and thoroughly enjoyed it. The only problem with this is that I saw the third series of ‘The Thick of It’ before the first two series so now I will definitely watch the previous series, which I have already bought on DVD in anticipation, within a short space of time because I can’t help myself, which somewhat spoils the excitement.
Such is the nature of my addiction that I can quite happily sit through most shows, I’m not a big fan of reality TV and talent shows and I do find that the news, while fascinating, is ultimately quite depressing - doesn't stop me watching them all on and off though. I find some soap operas a bit boring but it still doesn’t stop me from switching them on from time to time and getting sucked in again.
I often wonder if I really should curb my television habit, if I’m spending too much time doing something that may be considered so amazingly pointlessly time wasting by some people. My agoraphobia affects me in such a way that I only really feel comfortable going outside with my husband and with him at work full time I find it very difficult to go out on my own so most of my day at the moment is spent inside. In the flat the TV is a constant feature of my life and I do tend to find that if I watch too much TV I find my worldview is often skewed, depending on what I watch. I often have the TV on while I am doing other things, don't worry, I don't spend all of the day watching TV.
I’ve started listening to the radio more lately and watching shows on the internet but I still see that huge comforting box sitting in the corner of the room, dolefully willing me to switch it on, to see what it has to offer and I can’t help but run my fingers over it’s well worn remote buttons and wonder what delights I am missing. Perhaps I won’t give Television up just yet...
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Attack of the clothes and the killer heels...
This may sound a bit bizarre but I think my clothes have got it in for me. Hmm, on reading that back I may want to think about altering it, given my fragile mental state at the moment. You just know that if I went doolally in a sweet shop and started hurling around Curly Wurlys that my psychiatrist will read this and say ‘aaah, paranoid delusions eh?’ and I’ll have sealed my own fate.
I should really explain, I don’t think it is just my clothes but my footwear as well...that sounds even more bizarre! How can I really elucidate on my material fear? I have never found a comfortable outfit that hasn’t been a pair of pyjamas (and even they seem to ride up in the middle of the night to show my chest!). Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we should all wander around completely unfettered (Scotland is far too cold for that!), I just think that it would be nice to own an item of clothing that doesn’t feel the need to start a career in comedy or assault.
You see, I don’t think I own a single item of clothing that hasn’t betrayed me in some way – blouses that have burst their buttons disgorging my breasts, skirts that have ripped open at the slightest provocation, cardigans that have entangled me in various inanimate objects, tights that roll down my body so that the gusset ends up at my knees and worst of all the footwear that has torn the skin from my heels, broken in two or simply caused me agonising pain regardless of insoles and other various gel based solutions.
I think that it may have started in my childhood. When I was about 13 or so at school I was running to a class when my knickers’ elastic emitted an enormous twanging sound and they fell down. Now, I don’t think I have to explain the logistical problem in running with an underwear malfunction but I think you get the picture. I was so embarrassed, not only at that but at the fact that I had to corner my P.E. teacher to explain the problem and seek a safety pin. The women could barely contain her amusement as I desperately attempted to pin the now massively oversized under crackers. I still to this day remember the shame that must have radiated all over my face as the teacher said ‘hmm, that is a problem isn’t it?’ smirking and holding out the safety pin.
Apparently, so I am told, when I was a child I used to take my clothes off all the time and run around the garden and house. I sincerely hope that I consigned my nudity to just the house and garden as I am not sure at what age I stopped this odd behaviour as I can remember very little before my eighth birthday but according to my parents I had this sort of obsession with running around nude...oh yeah, I used to wear wellington boots too...along with the nude thing. Like I said, I sincerely hope that my nudity and rubber fetish are far behind me now but I think that this perhaps goes some way to helping me understand my problem with clothes.
I always hated clothes shopping, even now I sort of decide what I want in my head and go searching for that rather than run through the whole selection in each store. If I don’t see what I am looking for I don’t tend to buy anything. I think my hatred of clothes shopping comes from my deep rooted memories of desperately wanting a pair of ‘Clarks Magic Steps’ (I believe that’s what they were called) shoes with a key in the heel but my parents wouldn’t buy me them and I remember being really miserable about that – I was about 5! I also think that clothes shopping with my Dad was always a truly awful experience due to the fact that it generally ended in an argument. I love my Dad to bits but he never quite grasped the fact that I am a girl and should be wearing girls clothing. You see, when my parents divorced when I was fourteen I stayed with my Dad and with him being a man with no real experience of what it is like to be a fourteen year old girl he tended to treat me like a boy as he had experience of being a boy. For example, when I had to go shoe shopping with my Dad he would pick up a pair of shoes and say ‘These are lovely, we could get you these?’ and they would be hideous, male shoes in sizes far greater than my tiny feet. I would say that I didn’t like them and immediately he would break into the ‘you never like anything that I pick out as you’re just trying to be awkward’ argument so generally any pre-school year clothes shopping trip would be sullied with my Dad being confused as to what to buy me and me wanting some sort of totally inappropriate shoes that would hurt my feet and fall to bits as soon as it rained. I developed a sort of pavlovian reaction where if my Dad said ‘Those shoes are falling off your feet, time to get some new ones’ or ‘Your jumper has a hole in it, we’d better get you some new clothes’ I instantly felt stressed and anticipated a row so the shopping experience was forever ruined.
I envy men on the clothes front; no matter what men wear they always look ok. You never see a man having to hoist up a boob tube every five minutes (mind you, in Edinburgh anything is possible), I have never seen a man have to take his shoes off because although they looked great in the shop they are agony to wear, if a man has his flies down he isn’t so mortified that he has to hide in the toilets for the rest of the evening. For example, a friend of mine wandered outside a pub for a cigarette and I happened to notice his flies were down and I asked him if he had been to the loo and he said ‘Aye, why?’. When I tried to discreetly indicated that he was showing his bits to an Edinburgh street he smiled cheekily and said ‘Och well, you know what they say – it pays to advertise’ and with that he deftly drew up his fly and continued to smoke happily! He wasn’t even drunk! I once fell out of a dress I was wearing and I cried for about an hour!
A dear friend of mine once told me that most mornings he gets out of bed, runs his fingers through his hair, gets dressed and sets off to work without even having to look in the mirror. He also said that even if he does look in the mirror he generally thinks ‘yeah, I look ok’ and it’s true, he’s a handsome chap. I did a quick poll of a few of my male friends and they said pretty much the same. They also said that they didn’t have any sort of problem with any of their clothes, except for bowties – bowties are of course evil, for anyone who has ever attempted to tie one if you have managed it then well done as they are a complete pain.
Anyway, if I run through a few examples of my wardrobe malfunctions it should give you a better picture as to why I generally think that my clothes are plotting to injure or embarrass me...
Several years ago, I battled anorexia and became very thin, too thin, and once I had gotten through some of the mental issues I had with losing weight and started to gain a little weight I actually started to feel a little better about myself. I bought lots of new clothes as all my clothes were baggy and shapeless and my new clothes helped to heighten my confidence. I bought a beautiful skirt that had a zip right up the middle that could be unfastened both from the top and the bottom. The skirt was great until the zip started to play up. One morning, wearing the aforementioned skirt and tottering happily to work in heels that were clearly dangerous to someone as seemingly accident prone as I am a builder caught my eye as I walked past. He grinned and said ‘morning darlin’! ‘and I smiled in a way that I thought would perhaps be coquettish and said ‘Good morning to you too’. As I walked to work, several men eyed me up and down and I was sort of surprised but was enjoying the attention. Anyway, I got halfway to work before I thought ‘hang on, I’m not all that, why are so many people being so nice to me today?’. I looked down and to my horror I found that the zip had leapt its way to the top of the skirt and it was barely clinging to me at all! As I mentioned before I have a morbid fear of tights and the whole creeping down the body palaver so I always wore stockings and on this day they were fishnet stockings and I was also wearing very tight black lacy panties. I think there was initial shock then the hurried zipping up of the skirt while blushing profusely as I mentally worked out exactly how many people must have thought that I was some kind of exhibitionist. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I worked out my terrible wardrobe error at the train station in front of a crowd of bemused looking commuters!
The previous situation wouldn’t have been half as bad if it hadn’t been followed a few days subsequent to this by another skirt wrapping itself around my ears as the wind blew it up like Marilyn Monroe without the glamour. So yet again, Haymarket station got a good view of another item of my underwear drawer.
Then there was the bra that would spring itself open if one of my friends touched my shoulder! It was always one particular friend, I used to think that perhaps he had a magnet up his sleeve and was somehow performing a trick worthy of an escapologist – sort of a proxy escapologist as it was my chest that seemed to want to do the escaping!
There was the crocheted cardigan that managed to entangle itself around the lock on my bathroom door and rendered me incapable of movement for half an hour.
I had a beautiful satin blouse that seemed to think that my bra was attractive enough for everyone to view and without my knowledge would pop open button by button until I had to ask a platonic friend to monitor the situation and alert me should it reach critical.
Those are just the embarrassing items of clothing, I haven’t even begun to unfold the tales of the violence of the slacks, the terrible tale of the of the tumble down Arthurs Seat or the cowboy boots that forced me to meet my friends’ parents in a state of shock and filth.
Every pair of trousers, jeans etc that I have ever owned seem to magically grow and shrink as I wear them. Thus meaning that I feel that I don’t need a belt at the start of the day and later they end up hacking the inside of my thighs to bits as they sink lower and lower until I am hoisting them up every five minutes.
It was suggested to me that I should try a thong; I was told that as underwear goes they are sexy and comfy...I’m afraid that I found them as sexy as being sawn in half and they were by far and away the most uncomfortable things I have ever worn – and that’s saying something! On the two occasions I wore a thong I ended up going home and resorting to the comfy pants within an hour of trying them. Maybe they are comfy for women whose bottoms are tiny and peachy but with my voluptuous buttocks I’ll stick to the safe option.
As for the tumble down Arthurs Seat; I was taking a walk with a friend of mine in Edinburgh about ten years ago and he suggested climbing Arthurs Seat. Now, to say that I unsuitably attired for what he had in mind would be an understatement, I was wearing a long dress with stockings underneath and a pair of boots with ridiculous heels but he assured me that it wasn’t too bad a walk. Although he had lived in Edinburgh most of his life this experience didn’t seem to extend to walking up the huge hill as he took me the wrong way and we almost ended up rock climbing – and as you can imagine, in heels that’s not an easy feat! Anyway, halfway up we found the easier way to get up and we finally made it to the top. It was amazing! It was cold and incredibly windy, but amazing. We took in the scenery then decided to go down the easier way. It was still quite a trek and my friend gleefully ran down the sloping grassy hill shrieking with delight as he did so. Not wishing to be outdone I followed suit. Running in heels is not easy as any women will tell you but for some reason the boots hurled me forwards a lot quicker than I anticipated and I ended up almost cartwheeling down the hill! My dress went over my head on the first rotation and all of the shocked hikers around the hill were treated to the sight of my underwear again! The worst thing was that I tumbled for quite a distance so I wasn’t able to even regain my dignity until I had collapsed at the bottom laughing – well, let’s face it, when you have publicly humiliated yourself what else can you do?
Then there were the cowboy boots that wanted to ensure that meeting my friend’s parents would be memorable to them for all the wrong reasons. It was my friend’s birthday and he had invited me to a wonderful little cafe that served the sort of food that I had never experienced (I had to ask what a guinea fowl was). I wasn’t really sure what to wear, smart or casual? In the end I plumped for a glitzy top with a pair of jeans and my new cowboy boots. Pleased as punch with my outfit I strutted down to the city centre. Unfortunately as I got down to Princes Street it had been raining a little and the cowboy boots I was wearing didn’t have anything in the way of grip and as I stepped onto the curb after crossing the road and I lost my footing. I hit the wet paving with quite a thud, scuffing the skin from my elbows and palms as well as muddying my jeans and grazing both my knees. A lady picked me up and I tried to sort myself out but I was shaking and bleeding and very muddy. When I met up with my friend my exact words were ‘I’ve had a bit of an accident...’ and he smiled as he is used to me being generally accident prone and he led me in the direction of the cafe. So, on meeting his parents I had to decline the handshaking and shakily explain that I had to go and clean myself up. I remember standing in the toilets dabbing ineffectually at my bleeding knees with wet tissue paper and thinking ‘great, now they’re going to think I’m a complete idiot!’. Hopefully they didn’t but I certainly thought twice about wearing those boots again.
With a similar pair of boots I managed to go over on my ankle and hurtle down the stone steps at Edinburgh zoo leaving me bruised and laughing at the bottom – my friend who was with me couldn’t pick me up for laughing!
On Valentine’s day many years ago I was happily walking to university when the sandals I was wearing broke in half on one side and, as I was halfway between home and university and there was no bus service between the two I had to hop about 2 miles home at which point I realised that I had forgotten my keys and I had to ring the doorbell desperately hoping that my landlord or landlady were in so I didn’t have to sit outside with one sandal on. Thankfully they opened the door and I started my journey again with sensible if ill matched footwear.
So you see, I think my clothes and shoes are on a mission to thoroughly disgrace me. As I write this I am happily wearing a pair of pyjamas having thrown off my clothes as soon as I came in this afternoon and I have still felt the need to cover the web cam on my netbook to ensure that it doesn’t magically switch on with a sensor in the monkeys face on the pyjama top and reveal my chest to all the people on my account! The next time you see a girl who has tucked her skirt in her pants or has lost the ‘beauty tape’ on her revealing dress, please tell her immediately and have a heart – it’s the attack of the clothes! :)
I should really explain, I don’t think it is just my clothes but my footwear as well...that sounds even more bizarre! How can I really elucidate on my material fear? I have never found a comfortable outfit that hasn’t been a pair of pyjamas (and even they seem to ride up in the middle of the night to show my chest!). Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we should all wander around completely unfettered (Scotland is far too cold for that!), I just think that it would be nice to own an item of clothing that doesn’t feel the need to start a career in comedy or assault.
You see, I don’t think I own a single item of clothing that hasn’t betrayed me in some way – blouses that have burst their buttons disgorging my breasts, skirts that have ripped open at the slightest provocation, cardigans that have entangled me in various inanimate objects, tights that roll down my body so that the gusset ends up at my knees and worst of all the footwear that has torn the skin from my heels, broken in two or simply caused me agonising pain regardless of insoles and other various gel based solutions.
I think that it may have started in my childhood. When I was about 13 or so at school I was running to a class when my knickers’ elastic emitted an enormous twanging sound and they fell down. Now, I don’t think I have to explain the logistical problem in running with an underwear malfunction but I think you get the picture. I was so embarrassed, not only at that but at the fact that I had to corner my P.E. teacher to explain the problem and seek a safety pin. The women could barely contain her amusement as I desperately attempted to pin the now massively oversized under crackers. I still to this day remember the shame that must have radiated all over my face as the teacher said ‘hmm, that is a problem isn’t it?’ smirking and holding out the safety pin.
Apparently, so I am told, when I was a child I used to take my clothes off all the time and run around the garden and house. I sincerely hope that I consigned my nudity to just the house and garden as I am not sure at what age I stopped this odd behaviour as I can remember very little before my eighth birthday but according to my parents I had this sort of obsession with running around nude...oh yeah, I used to wear wellington boots too...along with the nude thing. Like I said, I sincerely hope that my nudity and rubber fetish are far behind me now but I think that this perhaps goes some way to helping me understand my problem with clothes.
I always hated clothes shopping, even now I sort of decide what I want in my head and go searching for that rather than run through the whole selection in each store. If I don’t see what I am looking for I don’t tend to buy anything. I think my hatred of clothes shopping comes from my deep rooted memories of desperately wanting a pair of ‘Clarks Magic Steps’ (I believe that’s what they were called) shoes with a key in the heel but my parents wouldn’t buy me them and I remember being really miserable about that – I was about 5! I also think that clothes shopping with my Dad was always a truly awful experience due to the fact that it generally ended in an argument. I love my Dad to bits but he never quite grasped the fact that I am a girl and should be wearing girls clothing. You see, when my parents divorced when I was fourteen I stayed with my Dad and with him being a man with no real experience of what it is like to be a fourteen year old girl he tended to treat me like a boy as he had experience of being a boy. For example, when I had to go shoe shopping with my Dad he would pick up a pair of shoes and say ‘These are lovely, we could get you these?’ and they would be hideous, male shoes in sizes far greater than my tiny feet. I would say that I didn’t like them and immediately he would break into the ‘you never like anything that I pick out as you’re just trying to be awkward’ argument so generally any pre-school year clothes shopping trip would be sullied with my Dad being confused as to what to buy me and me wanting some sort of totally inappropriate shoes that would hurt my feet and fall to bits as soon as it rained. I developed a sort of pavlovian reaction where if my Dad said ‘Those shoes are falling off your feet, time to get some new ones’ or ‘Your jumper has a hole in it, we’d better get you some new clothes’ I instantly felt stressed and anticipated a row so the shopping experience was forever ruined.
I envy men on the clothes front; no matter what men wear they always look ok. You never see a man having to hoist up a boob tube every five minutes (mind you, in Edinburgh anything is possible), I have never seen a man have to take his shoes off because although they looked great in the shop they are agony to wear, if a man has his flies down he isn’t so mortified that he has to hide in the toilets for the rest of the evening. For example, a friend of mine wandered outside a pub for a cigarette and I happened to notice his flies were down and I asked him if he had been to the loo and he said ‘Aye, why?’. When I tried to discreetly indicated that he was showing his bits to an Edinburgh street he smiled cheekily and said ‘Och well, you know what they say – it pays to advertise’ and with that he deftly drew up his fly and continued to smoke happily! He wasn’t even drunk! I once fell out of a dress I was wearing and I cried for about an hour!
A dear friend of mine once told me that most mornings he gets out of bed, runs his fingers through his hair, gets dressed and sets off to work without even having to look in the mirror. He also said that even if he does look in the mirror he generally thinks ‘yeah, I look ok’ and it’s true, he’s a handsome chap. I did a quick poll of a few of my male friends and they said pretty much the same. They also said that they didn’t have any sort of problem with any of their clothes, except for bowties – bowties are of course evil, for anyone who has ever attempted to tie one if you have managed it then well done as they are a complete pain.
Anyway, if I run through a few examples of my wardrobe malfunctions it should give you a better picture as to why I generally think that my clothes are plotting to injure or embarrass me...
Several years ago, I battled anorexia and became very thin, too thin, and once I had gotten through some of the mental issues I had with losing weight and started to gain a little weight I actually started to feel a little better about myself. I bought lots of new clothes as all my clothes were baggy and shapeless and my new clothes helped to heighten my confidence. I bought a beautiful skirt that had a zip right up the middle that could be unfastened both from the top and the bottom. The skirt was great until the zip started to play up. One morning, wearing the aforementioned skirt and tottering happily to work in heels that were clearly dangerous to someone as seemingly accident prone as I am a builder caught my eye as I walked past. He grinned and said ‘morning darlin’! ‘and I smiled in a way that I thought would perhaps be coquettish and said ‘Good morning to you too’. As I walked to work, several men eyed me up and down and I was sort of surprised but was enjoying the attention. Anyway, I got halfway to work before I thought ‘hang on, I’m not all that, why are so many people being so nice to me today?’. I looked down and to my horror I found that the zip had leapt its way to the top of the skirt and it was barely clinging to me at all! As I mentioned before I have a morbid fear of tights and the whole creeping down the body palaver so I always wore stockings and on this day they were fishnet stockings and I was also wearing very tight black lacy panties. I think there was initial shock then the hurried zipping up of the skirt while blushing profusely as I mentally worked out exactly how many people must have thought that I was some kind of exhibitionist. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I worked out my terrible wardrobe error at the train station in front of a crowd of bemused looking commuters!
The previous situation wouldn’t have been half as bad if it hadn’t been followed a few days subsequent to this by another skirt wrapping itself around my ears as the wind blew it up like Marilyn Monroe without the glamour. So yet again, Haymarket station got a good view of another item of my underwear drawer.
Then there was the bra that would spring itself open if one of my friends touched my shoulder! It was always one particular friend, I used to think that perhaps he had a magnet up his sleeve and was somehow performing a trick worthy of an escapologist – sort of a proxy escapologist as it was my chest that seemed to want to do the escaping!
There was the crocheted cardigan that managed to entangle itself around the lock on my bathroom door and rendered me incapable of movement for half an hour.
I had a beautiful satin blouse that seemed to think that my bra was attractive enough for everyone to view and without my knowledge would pop open button by button until I had to ask a platonic friend to monitor the situation and alert me should it reach critical.
Those are just the embarrassing items of clothing, I haven’t even begun to unfold the tales of the violence of the slacks, the terrible tale of the of the tumble down Arthurs Seat or the cowboy boots that forced me to meet my friends’ parents in a state of shock and filth.
Every pair of trousers, jeans etc that I have ever owned seem to magically grow and shrink as I wear them. Thus meaning that I feel that I don’t need a belt at the start of the day and later they end up hacking the inside of my thighs to bits as they sink lower and lower until I am hoisting them up every five minutes.
It was suggested to me that I should try a thong; I was told that as underwear goes they are sexy and comfy...I’m afraid that I found them as sexy as being sawn in half and they were by far and away the most uncomfortable things I have ever worn – and that’s saying something! On the two occasions I wore a thong I ended up going home and resorting to the comfy pants within an hour of trying them. Maybe they are comfy for women whose bottoms are tiny and peachy but with my voluptuous buttocks I’ll stick to the safe option.
As for the tumble down Arthurs Seat; I was taking a walk with a friend of mine in Edinburgh about ten years ago and he suggested climbing Arthurs Seat. Now, to say that I unsuitably attired for what he had in mind would be an understatement, I was wearing a long dress with stockings underneath and a pair of boots with ridiculous heels but he assured me that it wasn’t too bad a walk. Although he had lived in Edinburgh most of his life this experience didn’t seem to extend to walking up the huge hill as he took me the wrong way and we almost ended up rock climbing – and as you can imagine, in heels that’s not an easy feat! Anyway, halfway up we found the easier way to get up and we finally made it to the top. It was amazing! It was cold and incredibly windy, but amazing. We took in the scenery then decided to go down the easier way. It was still quite a trek and my friend gleefully ran down the sloping grassy hill shrieking with delight as he did so. Not wishing to be outdone I followed suit. Running in heels is not easy as any women will tell you but for some reason the boots hurled me forwards a lot quicker than I anticipated and I ended up almost cartwheeling down the hill! My dress went over my head on the first rotation and all of the shocked hikers around the hill were treated to the sight of my underwear again! The worst thing was that I tumbled for quite a distance so I wasn’t able to even regain my dignity until I had collapsed at the bottom laughing – well, let’s face it, when you have publicly humiliated yourself what else can you do?
Then there were the cowboy boots that wanted to ensure that meeting my friend’s parents would be memorable to them for all the wrong reasons. It was my friend’s birthday and he had invited me to a wonderful little cafe that served the sort of food that I had never experienced (I had to ask what a guinea fowl was). I wasn’t really sure what to wear, smart or casual? In the end I plumped for a glitzy top with a pair of jeans and my new cowboy boots. Pleased as punch with my outfit I strutted down to the city centre. Unfortunately as I got down to Princes Street it had been raining a little and the cowboy boots I was wearing didn’t have anything in the way of grip and as I stepped onto the curb after crossing the road and I lost my footing. I hit the wet paving with quite a thud, scuffing the skin from my elbows and palms as well as muddying my jeans and grazing both my knees. A lady picked me up and I tried to sort myself out but I was shaking and bleeding and very muddy. When I met up with my friend my exact words were ‘I’ve had a bit of an accident...’ and he smiled as he is used to me being generally accident prone and he led me in the direction of the cafe. So, on meeting his parents I had to decline the handshaking and shakily explain that I had to go and clean myself up. I remember standing in the toilets dabbing ineffectually at my bleeding knees with wet tissue paper and thinking ‘great, now they’re going to think I’m a complete idiot!’. Hopefully they didn’t but I certainly thought twice about wearing those boots again.
With a similar pair of boots I managed to go over on my ankle and hurtle down the stone steps at Edinburgh zoo leaving me bruised and laughing at the bottom – my friend who was with me couldn’t pick me up for laughing!
On Valentine’s day many years ago I was happily walking to university when the sandals I was wearing broke in half on one side and, as I was halfway between home and university and there was no bus service between the two I had to hop about 2 miles home at which point I realised that I had forgotten my keys and I had to ring the doorbell desperately hoping that my landlord or landlady were in so I didn’t have to sit outside with one sandal on. Thankfully they opened the door and I started my journey again with sensible if ill matched footwear.
So you see, I think my clothes and shoes are on a mission to thoroughly disgrace me. As I write this I am happily wearing a pair of pyjamas having thrown off my clothes as soon as I came in this afternoon and I have still felt the need to cover the web cam on my netbook to ensure that it doesn’t magically switch on with a sensor in the monkeys face on the pyjama top and reveal my chest to all the people on my account! The next time you see a girl who has tucked her skirt in her pants or has lost the ‘beauty tape’ on her revealing dress, please tell her immediately and have a heart – it’s the attack of the clothes! :)
Friday, 27 November 2009
The bus fuss...
I don't know if it is just me, perhaps I have a sign on my face of which I'm unaware or maybe I have the sort of face that says that I am eager to please, but people on buses regularly talk to me. I don't mean 'Ooh, this weather is terrible isn't it?' or 'The price of bus fares gone up again? Gosh, I remember when it was 50p' etc. I'm talking about random non-sequiturs such as 'That was the pub!!! That's where it happened!' or 'Did you have the sprouts?'.
Today was another example of bus passenger conversation that completely threw me. I had to go to the hospital this morning as I was given a set of tests last week and I was told to provide a urine sample. To cut a long story short I messed up the test and, for reasons that will remain undisclosed due to not wanting to get into the ickyness of the situation, I had to return to the hospital to pick up another sample bottle. My OCD has led to extreme agoraphobia over the past few months and on several occasions, going out of the house and even to the hospital has led to panic attacks. Today I was incredibly shaky but I just about coped. Anyway, I was riding along on the bus, attempting to go home when I decided that I would get off at another stop past my flat and then get a bus back - don't ask, there was a logic there but it's probably not worth analysis. Just as I passed the flat an elderly gentleman in the seat in front of me suddenly spun around and said loudly 'I used to live round here you know'. I didn't quite hear him at first as I was wearing headphones and trying to calm down so I took them off and said 'Sorry?' and he repeated himself 'I used to live up there' he said, pointing to the bus window but not in any direction that I could really attribute to a particular location 'Have you heard of *mumble*?' As I didn't hear him and he was a complete stranger to me I felt the need to be polite and I didn't want to seem like I hadn't been listening because I had so I chose the polite option 'No, I don't think I know that' I replied and at which point he looked faintly cross and turned away. I waited for his reply but he returned to staring out of the window. A few people on the bus looked at me bemused but the man didn't turn around again. As I got off the bus a few stops later I turned to the man and said 'Have a good day' but he just looked at me as if I had said 'Screw you!' which incidentally made me obsess at to whether I had been offensive even though I knew that I hadn't - oh the joys of OCD!
Admittedly this isn't the most extreme bus incident that I have been involved in, there have been numerous other bus encounters both good and bad, but it made me think of some of the things that have happened.
Perhaps these things have occurred because of the frequency with which I travel on public transport or maybe I am just a magnet for bus weirdness but you'd think I would be used to it by now. The bus service in Edinburgh is excellent, better than I have experienced anywhere else, the buses are warm, comfortable, reasonably priced and generally on time (prior to the closing of Princes Street and the subsequent tram network building works anyway - but that's a whole different conversation for another day). As anyone who lives in Edinburgh knows, it seems much easier to get around Edinburgh on the buses than by car.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself the most unsociable person in the world but as I'm sure that anyone who knows me would probably tell you that I am utterly inept when it comes to small talk. I don't know what it is but I just can't manage small talk with strangers, I can happily talk to people about anything as if I have known them for years but ask me to have a conversation about the weather and I end up nervously talking about something wholly inappropriate like sex and then I feel embarrassed but can't stop talking. It's not a pretty sight, my burbling nervously away. I also noticed another horrible trait I have when attempting to be polite - I can't seem to control my facial expressions properly. Yesterday on a bus (again!) a little dog was on the bus and was sniffing at my legs inquisitively and the dogs owner said 'Don't worry, she's ok' and I replied 'She's just trying to be friendly' and I smiled but as I caught sight of myself in the reflection in the bus window I looked like a clown attempting to go to the loo! My smile was sort of forced and wonky because I was nervous but I must have looked positively maniacal! I got off the bus shortly afterwards as I was so embarrassed.
I've spent a lot of time on buses over the years, my Dad is a bus driver and I think that my enjoyment of travelling on buses must be in my genes. I love just sitting there watching the scenery go by, perhaps that's one of the reasons on a long list why I have never learned to drive. Anyway, I digress...
Travelling on buses a lot has led to several incidents that I have never forgotten for various reasons and some people I know may have heard about these incidents.
While on an Edinburgh bus I got on and noticed that the bus was crowded but there was one seat facing backwards in front of a rather sleepy looking elderly gentleman. There were people standing in the aisles which should have been an indication to avoid the man but I thought 'how bad can it be?' and I seated myself in front of the man. Within seconds of the bus setting off the man raised his head and bellowed 'MMMMoooooonnn Riiiiivvveerrr!!!!' and proceeded to sing 'Moon River' interspersed with him tapping my leg and yelling 'Come on blondie!!! Sing up!!!'.
I wanted to say no, I wanted to pretend that I hadn't heard him but he continued to yell at me so I ended up loudly singing 'Moon River' and 'Oh Danny Boy' with the man, facing the entire rest of the bewildered bus passengers. I really wanted to get off the bus but I had heavy bags and all I wanted to do was go home so I effectively performed several musical numbers to a busful of people coerced by a random drunken man! Oh the shame!
A few years ago I had been on an all night drinking session with a few mates and I stayed at one of those mate's house. I staggered out of their house at around 9am the next morning having had no sleep at all and for some reason I decided that I wanted to go do a bit of shopping in Princes Street before I went home. After wandering around like a zombie for a few hours I decided that I needed my bed so I caught the bus. Now the only reason I am setting the scene in this way is because I want you to know what state I was in when this occurred. It was summer and it was warm on the bus and it had become infested with flies and wasps. One of the wasps flew to the back of the bus and was zzzing around madly. People were shuffling around and trying to avoid getting stung when this guy stepped forward, took a piece of paper out of his pockets and unceremoniously squished the wasp. A girl cried in horror 'oh, you didnae have to kill it!' at which point the man turned around and on a hugely crowded bus said 'I like killing things'. There was a sort of stunned silence before a guy at the back said 'ooookkkaaayyyy'. The man then asked the passenger next to him the following horrifying question 'Have you ever killed a rat?' and he proceeded to explain how to kill a rat, he moved on to explaining how other animals can be killed and I hurriedly got off the bus in fear. Now, maybe he was just joking or perhaps he was a professional pest controller but I wasn't sticking around to find out. Most of the other bus passengers followed suit and perhaps that was his motive for saying it, it was a crowded bus after all. It was sort of simultaneously horrifying and comedic.
Years ago, while waiting for a bus with my boyfriend at the time an elderly gentleman shuffled up to me and said 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'. I must have stared at the guy with astonishment for quite a few seconds as he repeated himself and I ended up replying 'What for?!?'. It turned out that his bus pass was in his back pocket (thankfully not his front pockets although I'm not sure that it made it any better a request!) and he had arthritis in his hands so couldn't retrieve it. Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly reasonable request and I am always happy to help people but what sort of opening line to a stranger is 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'?!?! I retrieved said bus pass and he wandered off leaving my boyfriend at the time howling with laughter and me pondering how he got it in there in the first place...
Ok, I suppose strictly speaking that was a 'waiting for a bus' story rather than a 'bus story' so onto the next one.
Many years ago when I was thinner and much younger I had just had my hair permed and was wearing a vibrant red dress and feeling quite good about myself, an elderly gentleman on the bus leaned over to me and asked the time. I gave him the time and he said 'do you know that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?'. Judging by the vodka he was swigging and the fact that it didn't look like his first drink of the day, I took the comment with a pinch of salt. I thanked him but he kept insisting that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and we almost got into a fight as I disagreed. I suppose to be fair, as I didn't know him, I didn't have any previous experience of the women he had seen throughout his life so possibly I was a bit hasty in challenging his view but I'm not exactly Angelina Jolie. So rigid was he in his opinion that I had to get off the bus several stops earlier than I had planned only to find that he followed me to the supermarket I was going to. Thankfully I managed to shake him off before things got out of hand. I'm sure he just wanted me to believe him and I know that it was a lovely compliment but it was also quite a scary experience.
Now I don't want you to think that it's just Edinburgh, I was on a train in New York and a magazine hit me on the head from the rack above. A girl started talking to me, asking me if I was ok when this man further down the train yelled that it was my fault that I was hit on the head by the magazine. I don't know how that was even possible as I hadn't put the magazine in the overhead rack but apparently it was my fault!
Admittedly my bus experiences have generally been in Edinburgh. After a guy on the bus said 'Isn't this snow awful?' I agreed and we were talking about snow in general when this other guy leaned over and angrily said 'Snow! This is nothing! In Canada the snow was up to my neck!' and I said 'Oh it's never been that bad here' and he said 'Well think yourself lucky! You don't know the meaning of the word snow!!' before turning away in disgust. It wasn't a competition! It wasn't even a conversation I was having with him, it was just general British weather chatter. Like I said, I'm not good at small talk.
Another time, while sat on a bus in a traffic jam, a drunken guy was sat in front of me and he kept looking at me and saying 'you alright?' repeatedly to me and each time I said 'yes' he continued in the same tone but when I didn't reply he started shouting it at me until I replied so I moved seats. In the new seat I was accompanied by another guy who said 'That's a wee shame, being shouted at like that, young girl like you, shouldnae have to put up with that'. I politely thanked the man and he asked me if I lived in Edinburgh, I said yes and he asked me if I was married. At the time I wasn't and said so and he asked me if I owned my flat. When I said no he said 'There's a way you could get a house y'know'. By this time you'd have thought I would be used to this but I still said 'How do you mean?' and he said 'Get yourself pregnant, that'd do it. I've got a friend who could get you pregnant if you like?'. Seriously, he asked me if I had thought of it as an option and I said 'Erm, no thank you' and he said 'Oh well if you don't want my advice then!' and turned away! I mean, what can you do! The bus was in a massive traffic jam and there was nowhere for me to escape but back to the 'you alright?' man seat!
The strange thing is, I just want to underline the fact that all of these happened during daylight hours! I dread to think what it's like at night on the buses!
So to all the bus drivers who must experience a lot more than I see, I salute you. If you've had to cope with the superset of my bus experiences, you must have so much patience and a sense of humour! And to the bus driver who said a few months ago 'I could write a book about the mad things that happen on here!', please do, if nothing else it will be cathartic!
Today was another example of bus passenger conversation that completely threw me. I had to go to the hospital this morning as I was given a set of tests last week and I was told to provide a urine sample. To cut a long story short I messed up the test and, for reasons that will remain undisclosed due to not wanting to get into the ickyness of the situation, I had to return to the hospital to pick up another sample bottle. My OCD has led to extreme agoraphobia over the past few months and on several occasions, going out of the house and even to the hospital has led to panic attacks. Today I was incredibly shaky but I just about coped. Anyway, I was riding along on the bus, attempting to go home when I decided that I would get off at another stop past my flat and then get a bus back - don't ask, there was a logic there but it's probably not worth analysis. Just as I passed the flat an elderly gentleman in the seat in front of me suddenly spun around and said loudly 'I used to live round here you know'. I didn't quite hear him at first as I was wearing headphones and trying to calm down so I took them off and said 'Sorry?' and he repeated himself 'I used to live up there' he said, pointing to the bus window but not in any direction that I could really attribute to a particular location 'Have you heard of *
Admittedly this isn't the most extreme bus incident that I have been involved in, there have been numerous other bus encounters both good and bad, but it made me think of some of the things that have happened.
Perhaps these things have occurred because of the frequency with which I travel on public transport or maybe I am just a magnet for bus weirdness but you'd think I would be used to it by now. The bus service in Edinburgh is excellent, better than I have experienced anywhere else, the buses are warm, comfortable, reasonably priced and generally on time (prior to the closing of Princes Street and the subsequent tram network building works anyway - but that's a whole different conversation for another day). As anyone who lives in Edinburgh knows, it seems much easier to get around Edinburgh on the buses than by car.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself the most unsociable person in the world but as I'm sure that anyone who knows me would probably tell you that I am utterly inept when it comes to small talk. I don't know what it is but I just can't manage small talk with strangers, I can happily talk to people about anything as if I have known them for years but ask me to have a conversation about the weather and I end up nervously talking about something wholly inappropriate like sex and then I feel embarrassed but can't stop talking. It's not a pretty sight, my burbling nervously away. I also noticed another horrible trait I have when attempting to be polite - I can't seem to control my facial expressions properly. Yesterday on a bus (again!) a little dog was on the bus and was sniffing at my legs inquisitively and the dogs owner said 'Don't worry, she's ok' and I replied 'She's just trying to be friendly' and I smiled but as I caught sight of myself in the reflection in the bus window I looked like a clown attempting to go to the loo! My smile was sort of forced and wonky because I was nervous but I must have looked positively maniacal! I got off the bus shortly afterwards as I was so embarrassed.
I've spent a lot of time on buses over the years, my Dad is a bus driver and I think that my enjoyment of travelling on buses must be in my genes. I love just sitting there watching the scenery go by, perhaps that's one of the reasons on a long list why I have never learned to drive. Anyway, I digress...
Travelling on buses a lot has led to several incidents that I have never forgotten for various reasons and some people I know may have heard about these incidents.
While on an Edinburgh bus I got on and noticed that the bus was crowded but there was one seat facing backwards in front of a rather sleepy looking elderly gentleman. There were people standing in the aisles which should have been an indication to avoid the man but I thought 'how bad can it be?' and I seated myself in front of the man. Within seconds of the bus setting off the man raised his head and bellowed 'MMMMoooooonnn Riiiiivvveerrr!!!!' and proceeded to sing 'Moon River' interspersed with him tapping my leg and yelling 'Come on blondie!!! Sing up!!!'.
I wanted to say no, I wanted to pretend that I hadn't heard him but he continued to yell at me so I ended up loudly singing 'Moon River' and 'Oh Danny Boy' with the man, facing the entire rest of the bewildered bus passengers. I really wanted to get off the bus but I had heavy bags and all I wanted to do was go home so I effectively performed several musical numbers to a busful of people coerced by a random drunken man! Oh the shame!
A few years ago I had been on an all night drinking session with a few mates and I stayed at one of those mate's house. I staggered out of their house at around 9am the next morning having had no sleep at all and for some reason I decided that I wanted to go do a bit of shopping in Princes Street before I went home. After wandering around like a zombie for a few hours I decided that I needed my bed so I caught the bus. Now the only reason I am setting the scene in this way is because I want you to know what state I was in when this occurred. It was summer and it was warm on the bus and it had become infested with flies and wasps. One of the wasps flew to the back of the bus and was zzzing around madly. People were shuffling around and trying to avoid getting stung when this guy stepped forward, took a piece of paper out of his pockets and unceremoniously squished the wasp. A girl cried in horror 'oh, you didnae have to kill it!' at which point the man turned around and on a hugely crowded bus said 'I like killing things'. There was a sort of stunned silence before a guy at the back said 'ooookkkaaayyyy'. The man then asked the passenger next to him the following horrifying question 'Have you ever killed a rat?' and he proceeded to explain how to kill a rat, he moved on to explaining how other animals can be killed and I hurriedly got off the bus in fear. Now, maybe he was just joking or perhaps he was a professional pest controller but I wasn't sticking around to find out. Most of the other bus passengers followed suit and perhaps that was his motive for saying it, it was a crowded bus after all. It was sort of simultaneously horrifying and comedic.
Years ago, while waiting for a bus with my boyfriend at the time an elderly gentleman shuffled up to me and said 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'. I must have stared at the guy with astonishment for quite a few seconds as he repeated himself and I ended up replying 'What for?!?'. It turned out that his bus pass was in his back pocket (thankfully not his front pockets although I'm not sure that it made it any better a request!) and he had arthritis in his hands so couldn't retrieve it. Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly reasonable request and I am always happy to help people but what sort of opening line to a stranger is 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'?!?! I retrieved said bus pass and he wandered off leaving my boyfriend at the time howling with laughter and me pondering how he got it in there in the first place...
Ok, I suppose strictly speaking that was a 'waiting for a bus' story rather than a 'bus story' so onto the next one.
Many years ago when I was thinner and much younger I had just had my hair permed and was wearing a vibrant red dress and feeling quite good about myself, an elderly gentleman on the bus leaned over to me and asked the time. I gave him the time and he said 'do you know that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?'. Judging by the vodka he was swigging and the fact that it didn't look like his first drink of the day, I took the comment with a pinch of salt. I thanked him but he kept insisting that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and we almost got into a fight as I disagreed. I suppose to be fair, as I didn't know him, I didn't have any previous experience of the women he had seen throughout his life so possibly I was a bit hasty in challenging his view but I'm not exactly Angelina Jolie. So rigid was he in his opinion that I had to get off the bus several stops earlier than I had planned only to find that he followed me to the supermarket I was going to. Thankfully I managed to shake him off before things got out of hand. I'm sure he just wanted me to believe him and I know that it was a lovely compliment but it was also quite a scary experience.
Now I don't want you to think that it's just Edinburgh, I was on a train in New York and a magazine hit me on the head from the rack above. A girl started talking to me, asking me if I was ok when this man further down the train yelled that it was my fault that I was hit on the head by the magazine. I don't know how that was even possible as I hadn't put the magazine in the overhead rack but apparently it was my fault!
Admittedly my bus experiences have generally been in Edinburgh. After a guy on the bus said 'Isn't this snow awful?' I agreed and we were talking about snow in general when this other guy leaned over and angrily said 'Snow! This is nothing! In Canada the snow was up to my neck!' and I said 'Oh it's never been that bad here' and he said 'Well think yourself lucky! You don't know the meaning of the word snow!!' before turning away in disgust. It wasn't a competition! It wasn't even a conversation I was having with him, it was just general British weather chatter. Like I said, I'm not good at small talk.
Another time, while sat on a bus in a traffic jam, a drunken guy was sat in front of me and he kept looking at me and saying 'you alright?' repeatedly to me and each time I said 'yes' he continued in the same tone but when I didn't reply he started shouting it at me until I replied so I moved seats. In the new seat I was accompanied by another guy who said 'That's a wee shame, being shouted at like that, young girl like you, shouldnae have to put up with that'. I politely thanked the man and he asked me if I lived in Edinburgh, I said yes and he asked me if I was married. At the time I wasn't and said so and he asked me if I owned my flat. When I said no he said 'There's a way you could get a house y'know'. By this time you'd have thought I would be used to this but I still said 'How do you mean?' and he said 'Get yourself pregnant, that'd do it. I've got a friend who could get you pregnant if you like?'. Seriously, he asked me if I had thought of it as an option and I said 'Erm, no thank you' and he said 'Oh well if you don't want my advice then!' and turned away! I mean, what can you do! The bus was in a massive traffic jam and there was nowhere for me to escape but back to the 'you alright?' man seat!
The strange thing is, I just want to underline the fact that all of these happened during daylight hours! I dread to think what it's like at night on the buses!
So to all the bus drivers who must experience a lot more than I see, I salute you. If you've had to cope with the superset of my bus experiences, you must have so much patience and a sense of humour! And to the bus driver who said a few months ago 'I could write a book about the mad things that happen on here!', please do, if nothing else it will be cathartic!
Friday, 13 November 2009
The Fear of it all
I saw a psychologist recently to talk about my OCD and general anxiety and I was thinking about the nature of fear, seeing as that seems to be at the root of the vast majority of my problems.
Now you may think that is a pretty miserable way to start a blog post but I have been battling depression my dear reader, I will attempt to keep this post light without straying into the totally morose :) Someone told me recently that they found my blog posts boring which sort of upset me but I decided that I would write this anyway, seeing as I had something to say and wanted to say it. Plus I spend most days alone so it is nice to feel like I am talking to someone, even if no one ever reads this far.
I'm frightened of pretty much everything! I didn't think that this was the case until I was compiling an 'anxiety ladder' - basically a list of things I'm frightened of in order of how terrified I am of each. Now, rather hysterically, this lead me to actually think for once of what I am truly terrified of...and it turns out to be pretty much everything! I suppose realistically I should have made a list of things that were likely to happen and a separate list of things that are very unlikely to happen as adding all my worries to the list made it ludicrously long!
With the psychologist's help I managed to get this down to two main fears - Fear of loneliness and Fear of death for myself or my friends and family - which pretty much encompasses everything! I have always had these two specific fears but ridding myself of these fears appears impossible.
A few years ago I decided to see what actually frightened me TV wise to try and somehow relieve some of the fear. I spent about 6 months watching as many horror films as I could possibly manage in my own obsessively fastidious way. Not only did this lead to a lot of desensitisation but it also lead to some pretty horrendous nightmares and thus the reappearance of my long standing insomnia. I eventually found several TV shows/characters that quite literally terrified me:
1. Ghostwatch - Yep, the BBC drama that launched a vast amount of my teenage nightmares. I watched the show when I was about 15 and despite the warnings and the clearly bizarre ending and the fact that even though Sarah Green disappeared into a cupboard never to be seen again she was on TV during the next few days, it still dug deep into some sort of deeply traumatic part of my psyche. It didn't help that my Dad seemed to think that my fear of a made up ghost on a drama was hilariously funny and this led to him shouting 'Pipes is coming to get you!' at various moments (referring to the ghost within the show). I can laugh about it now but it wasn't enormously funny at the time. In retrospect my fears of this show were laughable but you know what, I bought it on DVD a few years ago and I couldn't bear to watch it. I bought it from a well known retailer during the day and I took it home, put it in the DVD player and attempted to watch it at 2pm in the afternoon and I couldn't get past the DVD menu screen! Somehow this show led to 'a bad taste in the brain' as my husband calls it, the experience of being terrified of something that you didn't think that was that scary long after the films credits have rolled.
2. The Woman in Black - Not sure how many people have seen this drama but it just goes to prove that you don't need a huge budget of special effects and a bevvy of attractive actresses running around screaming to make a truly unsettling TV. The show was based on a novel by Susan Hill and I saw it when I was about 13. There is one specific moment that utterly chills the blood as the main character in the story is lying in bed he awakes to a most extraordinary vision. I wont spoil it for those who wish to see it but it most definitely led to the 'bad taste in the brain' situation for me.
3. Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20000 feet - This shouldn't be as scary as it is but somehow this sort of plugged into my dual fears of flight and seeing garish faces at the window when you don't quite expect it. I tried to watch this again recently and I just couldn't bring myself to go through it again.
4. Davros: Leader of the Daleks - I utterly adore Doctor Who but just the sight of Davros has me hiding behind the sofa! I just don't know what it is about Davros' terrifying visage that troubles me the most, I think it leads back to my general fear of Daleks in my childhood. The idea that something could be so uncaring and unflinching in it's goal to 'Exterminate!', not allowing any room for compromise or negotiation, just terrifies me. This has not been improved for me seeing as the Daleks can now fly thus rendering the running upstairs for safety option completely useless.
This is just 4 of the most televisually petrifying things for me but I assure you that the full list is pretty long! Surprisingly most of the true horror films didn't really scare me that much and I found that most of the things that I find truly terrifying are those things that seem remotely plausible to actually occur.
I have been reading a book recently that indicates that, although people fear certain situations, the likelihood of these things happening are fairly slim. It gives facts and figures to back up the information but sadly it still doesn't stop me from worrying about meteorites falling on my flat or seeing a face staring through a window several storeys up. I've got that sort of 'The probability of that happening is miniscule...but it's still possible' mentality which is never going to help.
I think most of us live with a general fear day to day, there's so much to worry about and the overriding fears of the general public seem to have changed over the years.
With my OCD I worry about pretty much everything to the point where it affects my day to day functioning, the fear is often overwhelming but sometimes the fear of the opposite of something happening can be just as terrifying. Someone once told me that if a good opportunity comes along you need to grab it and not let fear hold you back. Fear of unemployment many years ago spurred me to walk into an office and ask for a job even though they hadn't advertised one - incidentally they gave me a job apparently because of my sheer courage (and a good reference helped I understand :) ). Fear of missing bugs made me strive to be as good at software testing as I can possibly be so I worked harder (and hopefully smarter). I've said on many occasions that although my OCD can often override my brain, it does have the advantage of making me strive harder at things and you can't beat enthusiasm and determination. I was told recently that my determination is palpable when it comes to beating my OCD but it is simply the fear of not being able to live my life properly that gives me the determination to carry on. So there you go, fear is not all bad I suppose.
Think of all the things you do each day or rather the things you may not do because of fear, you may be surprised. I dyed my hair a few weeks ago for the first time in my 32 year old life, what had always stopped me before was fear - fear I would hate the colour and fear that I would mess it up. I had my hair dyed a vibrant red and you know what, I love it! Fear stopped me doing it before but now I feel like a new woman!
Well, I may always fear the daleks, I may always fear things that go bump in the night but apparently I have been told that the only thing to fear is 'fear itself'...
Great, that's another fear to add to my anxiety ladder...
Now you may think that is a pretty miserable way to start a blog post but I have been battling depression my dear reader, I will attempt to keep this post light without straying into the totally morose :) Someone told me recently that they found my blog posts boring which sort of upset me but I decided that I would write this anyway, seeing as I had something to say and wanted to say it. Plus I spend most days alone so it is nice to feel like I am talking to someone, even if no one ever reads this far.
I'm frightened of pretty much everything! I didn't think that this was the case until I was compiling an 'anxiety ladder' - basically a list of things I'm frightened of in order of how terrified I am of each. Now, rather hysterically, this lead me to actually think for once of what I am truly terrified of...and it turns out to be pretty much everything! I suppose realistically I should have made a list of things that were likely to happen and a separate list of things that are very unlikely to happen as adding all my worries to the list made it ludicrously long!
With the psychologist's help I managed to get this down to two main fears - Fear of loneliness and Fear of death for myself or my friends and family - which pretty much encompasses everything! I have always had these two specific fears but ridding myself of these fears appears impossible.
A few years ago I decided to see what actually frightened me TV wise to try and somehow relieve some of the fear. I spent about 6 months watching as many horror films as I could possibly manage in my own obsessively fastidious way. Not only did this lead to a lot of desensitisation but it also lead to some pretty horrendous nightmares and thus the reappearance of my long standing insomnia. I eventually found several TV shows/characters that quite literally terrified me:
1. Ghostwatch - Yep, the BBC drama that launched a vast amount of my teenage nightmares. I watched the show when I was about 15 and despite the warnings and the clearly bizarre ending and the fact that even though Sarah Green disappeared into a cupboard never to be seen again she was on TV during the next few days, it still dug deep into some sort of deeply traumatic part of my psyche. It didn't help that my Dad seemed to think that my fear of a made up ghost on a drama was hilariously funny and this led to him shouting 'Pipes is coming to get you!' at various moments (referring to the ghost within the show). I can laugh about it now but it wasn't enormously funny at the time. In retrospect my fears of this show were laughable but you know what, I bought it on DVD a few years ago and I couldn't bear to watch it. I bought it from a well known retailer during the day and I took it home, put it in the DVD player and attempted to watch it at 2pm in the afternoon and I couldn't get past the DVD menu screen! Somehow this show led to 'a bad taste in the brain' as my husband calls it, the experience of being terrified of something that you didn't think that was that scary long after the films credits have rolled.
2. The Woman in Black - Not sure how many people have seen this drama but it just goes to prove that you don't need a huge budget of special effects and a bevvy of attractive actresses running around screaming to make a truly unsettling TV. The show was based on a novel by Susan Hill and I saw it when I was about 13. There is one specific moment that utterly chills the blood as the main character in the story is lying in bed he awakes to a most extraordinary vision. I wont spoil it for those who wish to see it but it most definitely led to the 'bad taste in the brain' situation for me.
3. Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20000 feet - This shouldn't be as scary as it is but somehow this sort of plugged into my dual fears of flight and seeing garish faces at the window when you don't quite expect it. I tried to watch this again recently and I just couldn't bring myself to go through it again.
4. Davros: Leader of the Daleks - I utterly adore Doctor Who but just the sight of Davros has me hiding behind the sofa! I just don't know what it is about Davros' terrifying visage that troubles me the most, I think it leads back to my general fear of Daleks in my childhood. The idea that something could be so uncaring and unflinching in it's goal to 'Exterminate!', not allowing any room for compromise or negotiation, just terrifies me. This has not been improved for me seeing as the Daleks can now fly thus rendering the running upstairs for safety option completely useless.
This is just 4 of the most televisually petrifying things for me but I assure you that the full list is pretty long! Surprisingly most of the true horror films didn't really scare me that much and I found that most of the things that I find truly terrifying are those things that seem remotely plausible to actually occur.
I have been reading a book recently that indicates that, although people fear certain situations, the likelihood of these things happening are fairly slim. It gives facts and figures to back up the information but sadly it still doesn't stop me from worrying about meteorites falling on my flat or seeing a face staring through a window several storeys up. I've got that sort of 'The probability of that happening is miniscule...but it's still possible' mentality which is never going to help.
I think most of us live with a general fear day to day, there's so much to worry about and the overriding fears of the general public seem to have changed over the years.
With my OCD I worry about pretty much everything to the point where it affects my day to day functioning, the fear is often overwhelming but sometimes the fear of the opposite of something happening can be just as terrifying. Someone once told me that if a good opportunity comes along you need to grab it and not let fear hold you back. Fear of unemployment many years ago spurred me to walk into an office and ask for a job even though they hadn't advertised one - incidentally they gave me a job apparently because of my sheer courage (and a good reference helped I understand :) ). Fear of missing bugs made me strive to be as good at software testing as I can possibly be so I worked harder (and hopefully smarter). I've said on many occasions that although my OCD can often override my brain, it does have the advantage of making me strive harder at things and you can't beat enthusiasm and determination. I was told recently that my determination is palpable when it comes to beating my OCD but it is simply the fear of not being able to live my life properly that gives me the determination to carry on. So there you go, fear is not all bad I suppose.
Think of all the things you do each day or rather the things you may not do because of fear, you may be surprised. I dyed my hair a few weeks ago for the first time in my 32 year old life, what had always stopped me before was fear - fear I would hate the colour and fear that I would mess it up. I had my hair dyed a vibrant red and you know what, I love it! Fear stopped me doing it before but now I feel like a new woman!
Well, I may always fear the daleks, I may always fear things that go bump in the night but apparently I have been told that the only thing to fear is 'fear itself'...
Great, that's another fear to add to my anxiety ladder...
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
The fortnight of positivity!
It's easy to feel miserable in these times of financial hardship, high levels of unemployment and with winter drawing in. I've suffered from depression for a long time, which is odd considering that most people say that they think I am a cheerful person. Hmm, looks like I put on a really good show! It's no ones fault, I've been disguising my depression in the same way that I hid my OCD for so many years, now I just don't bother. I was a miserable child, a miserable teenager and I'm a miserable adult. My husband knows that if he finds me crying over a plotline in Eastenders and asks if I am ok, if I say I'm fine then it is just general depression - I do tend to tell him when something is wrong, he's not psychic. I've never really understood my depression to be honest, I just didn't want to be the kind of person who sits miserably in the corner at parties so I try very hard to seem happy. Oddly enough, trying to act happy makes me even more depressed!
The thing is that, in the grand scheme of things, I don't have that much to be miserable about - yeah I'm unemployed and have been for the longest time in my career, my health is not great but I have a truly fantastic husband who makes me feel great so surely that should cancel out depression? Nope, it doesn't work like that sadly, so to speak.
Anyway, I didn't start this blog entry to spread my misery my dear reader, quite the opposite actually. I came to a realisation about my general state of mind that has altered my perspective recently. It started last week...
For the past four months I haven't really interacted with many people at all, which explains the seeming lack of emotion in my writing at the moment. I am generally a very social person but OCD and depression do tend to make me pretty grim company! During these months I have spent most of my time in my flat and therefore the only interaction I have had with humans is my husband, my doctor, hospital staff, bus drivers (although the general conversation with them stretches to showing them my bus ticket and saying Thank you at the end of the journey) and my Dad (who coincidentally is the only bus driver I do get to have a conversation with :) ). I have spent a great deal of time watching TV, listening to the radio and reading news and other articles on the internet. This interaction has lead to a very bizarre and interesting tilt in my perspective.
For example, last week I was feeling particularly down as my OCD seemed to ease up for a few days then came back just as bad and this often frustrates me. I was unable to have a shower due to the fear and I spent about two days in bed, just sleeping and crying for the most part (Gosh, this really is a miserable blog entry! Apologies, there is a point to all this and it's a positive point so stick with it). When I spend any long period of time in my flat I do tend to lose touch with reality a little and it's easy for me to develop odd opinions based purely on what I have ingested informationwise over the course of the day.
Now, when watching TV my husband and I have differing tastes when it comes to quality entertainment - my husband very much enjoys documentaries, comedy shows, programmes about boats and ships and informative science shows. I on the other hand like some of these shows but I am queen of the guilty TV pleasure - as much as I want to give the impression that I am an intelligent person who watches sophisticated shows, there is still a part of me that clamours to watch mindless trash. I believe that there is a time and a place for informative shows but there should also be lots of time for the nonsensical fluff that clogs the TV. Oh and the adverts! The glorious, brightly coloured banners of the commercial break! Apparently, I was told that when I was a very small child I used to cry through the programmes and when the adverts came on I used to dry my eyes, sit up and pay attention. I am not sure what the adverts were like in the late 70's and early 80's but I'm sorry to all the people trying to sell me things - it's not like a baby can advise their parents to buy things is it. Anyway, I digress...
Last week I watched TV programmes on the following topics:
How an erupting volcano could possibly trigger another ice age
How an asteroid could wipe out the human race and pretty much all other life on the planet
How the bee population is dwindling and this could widely affect the food chain
The chances of us being able to find another planet to live on
Climate change and the effect of global warming
Crime in the UK
Shows about accidents and the terrible consequences
Shows about World War II and the loss of lives
A show on what is the most likely thing to end life on earth
News in general
Medical dramas
I've got to tell you that after a few days of feeling down and watching this kind of content, as you can imagine I was pretty much distraught. It's kind of my own fault though, I should have had the TV company put up a banner at the bottom of my TV stating 'Enjoy apocalyptic programmes responsibly'!
You see, as well as the other mental issues I have I also have been described as a 'naturally anxious personality' and so these shows, coupled with my unemployment and general feelings of uselessness as a member of society made me feel particularly depressed. It's easy for relatively small risks to have a big impact on me when I am particularly nervous. For example, after watching a particularly graphic programme on car crashes last week I point blank decided in my head never to get in another car - which is not really massively practical.
It's not the TV's fault, it didn't choose to turn itself on (actually our TV does have a habit of switching itself on during the night but it doesn't choose the shows that I should watch!). It's not the fault of the makers of the programmes or the broadcasters, in my case it's my fault for tuning in when depressed. Perhaps I should have sensors attached to my tear ducts that means that the slightest hint of misery and the TV tunes into something that I enjoy, like Scrubs, Wildlife S.O.S. or Frasier. Never mind a porn filter on my internet access, I need a misery filter!
I mean, I understand that generally good things seem to be more newsworthy than bad things, misery in TV shows is somehow more entertaining that watching happy people living their happy lives - soap operas would be ludicrously boring if everything went perfectly for every character. It reminds me of something my Mum said when I was a kid - while watching a film where the main character was given a quest I asked my Mum why they didn't just choose a different way of doing the quest that seemed easier and my Mum said 'Because if he did that the film would only last five minutes wouldn't it?' which in retrospect explains a lot of things about the shows I watch.
After thinking about my general environment recently, I came to the following conclusions:
I'm spending too much time in the flat not communicating with people properly
I'm watching too much miserable TV
I'm reading too much miserable stuff on the internet
I perhaps may have watched too many horror films
I haven't been listening to much cheerful music recently
Now, the getting out the flat part is not too easy and I will work on that but as for the other points, I'm going to surround myself with only positive information for the next two weeks and, in some sort of bizarre self experiment, attempt to lift myself out of the depression. It can't do any harm surely?
So my poor husband is saddled with me listening to cheerful music (not sure if listening to The Smiths while writing this blog entry really counts :) ) , watching TV shows that could be classed as light entertainment, taking positive steps each day to improve my health situation like attempting to learn to relax and generally attempting to think positive thoughts. It's not as easy as it sounds but, as people kept annoying me by saying 'try to think positive thoughts' I figure it's worth a go.
Two weeks of 'positive thinking'! Not sure how it's all going to pan out but my hopes aren't high :)
The thing is that, in the grand scheme of things, I don't have that much to be miserable about - yeah I'm unemployed and have been for the longest time in my career, my health is not great but I have a truly fantastic husband who makes me feel great so surely that should cancel out depression? Nope, it doesn't work like that sadly, so to speak.
Anyway, I didn't start this blog entry to spread my misery my dear reader, quite the opposite actually. I came to a realisation about my general state of mind that has altered my perspective recently. It started last week...
For the past four months I haven't really interacted with many people at all, which explains the seeming lack of emotion in my writing at the moment. I am generally a very social person but OCD and depression do tend to make me pretty grim company! During these months I have spent most of my time in my flat and therefore the only interaction I have had with humans is my husband, my doctor, hospital staff, bus drivers (although the general conversation with them stretches to showing them my bus ticket and saying Thank you at the end of the journey) and my Dad (who coincidentally is the only bus driver I do get to have a conversation with :) ). I have spent a great deal of time watching TV, listening to the radio and reading news and other articles on the internet. This interaction has lead to a very bizarre and interesting tilt in my perspective.
For example, last week I was feeling particularly down as my OCD seemed to ease up for a few days then came back just as bad and this often frustrates me. I was unable to have a shower due to the fear and I spent about two days in bed, just sleeping and crying for the most part (Gosh, this really is a miserable blog entry! Apologies, there is a point to all this and it's a positive point so stick with it). When I spend any long period of time in my flat I do tend to lose touch with reality a little and it's easy for me to develop odd opinions based purely on what I have ingested informationwise over the course of the day.
Now, when watching TV my husband and I have differing tastes when it comes to quality entertainment - my husband very much enjoys documentaries, comedy shows, programmes about boats and ships and informative science shows. I on the other hand like some of these shows but I am queen of the guilty TV pleasure - as much as I want to give the impression that I am an intelligent person who watches sophisticated shows, there is still a part of me that clamours to watch mindless trash. I believe that there is a time and a place for informative shows but there should also be lots of time for the nonsensical fluff that clogs the TV. Oh and the adverts! The glorious, brightly coloured banners of the commercial break! Apparently, I was told that when I was a very small child I used to cry through the programmes and when the adverts came on I used to dry my eyes, sit up and pay attention. I am not sure what the adverts were like in the late 70's and early 80's but I'm sorry to all the people trying to sell me things - it's not like a baby can advise their parents to buy things is it. Anyway, I digress...
Last week I watched TV programmes on the following topics:
How an erupting volcano could possibly trigger another ice age
How an asteroid could wipe out the human race and pretty much all other life on the planet
How the bee population is dwindling and this could widely affect the food chain
The chances of us being able to find another planet to live on
Climate change and the effect of global warming
Crime in the UK
Shows about accidents and the terrible consequences
Shows about World War II and the loss of lives
A show on what is the most likely thing to end life on earth
News in general
Medical dramas
I've got to tell you that after a few days of feeling down and watching this kind of content, as you can imagine I was pretty much distraught. It's kind of my own fault though, I should have had the TV company put up a banner at the bottom of my TV stating 'Enjoy apocalyptic programmes responsibly'!
You see, as well as the other mental issues I have I also have been described as a 'naturally anxious personality' and so these shows, coupled with my unemployment and general feelings of uselessness as a member of society made me feel particularly depressed. It's easy for relatively small risks to have a big impact on me when I am particularly nervous. For example, after watching a particularly graphic programme on car crashes last week I point blank decided in my head never to get in another car - which is not really massively practical.
It's not the TV's fault, it didn't choose to turn itself on (actually our TV does have a habit of switching itself on during the night but it doesn't choose the shows that I should watch!). It's not the fault of the makers of the programmes or the broadcasters, in my case it's my fault for tuning in when depressed. Perhaps I should have sensors attached to my tear ducts that means that the slightest hint of misery and the TV tunes into something that I enjoy, like Scrubs, Wildlife S.O.S. or Frasier. Never mind a porn filter on my internet access, I need a misery filter!
I mean, I understand that generally good things seem to be more newsworthy than bad things, misery in TV shows is somehow more entertaining that watching happy people living their happy lives - soap operas would be ludicrously boring if everything went perfectly for every character. It reminds me of something my Mum said when I was a kid - while watching a film where the main character was given a quest I asked my Mum why they didn't just choose a different way of doing the quest that seemed easier and my Mum said 'Because if he did that the film would only last five minutes wouldn't it?' which in retrospect explains a lot of things about the shows I watch.
After thinking about my general environment recently, I came to the following conclusions:
I'm spending too much time in the flat not communicating with people properly
I'm watching too much miserable TV
I'm reading too much miserable stuff on the internet
I perhaps may have watched too many horror films
I haven't been listening to much cheerful music recently
Now, the getting out the flat part is not too easy and I will work on that but as for the other points, I'm going to surround myself with only positive information for the next two weeks and, in some sort of bizarre self experiment, attempt to lift myself out of the depression. It can't do any harm surely?
So my poor husband is saddled with me listening to cheerful music (not sure if listening to The Smiths while writing this blog entry really counts :) ) , watching TV shows that could be classed as light entertainment, taking positive steps each day to improve my health situation like attempting to learn to relax and generally attempting to think positive thoughts. It's not as easy as it sounds but, as people kept annoying me by saying 'try to think positive thoughts' I figure it's worth a go.
Two weeks of 'positive thinking'! Not sure how it's all going to pan out but my hopes aren't high :)
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