Glimpsesofcolour

Yesterday I found it extremely hard to get out of bed. But I did. Then I found it just as hard to make myself walk to the gym and had a swim. But I did. And finallly it was pretty hard to make myself go out and meet a friend. But I did. So that’s three very hard things I did yesterday.
Today I only did one hard thing, which was getting out of bed. Then later I went back. Some days are like that.

Apparently (according to my tag cloud) the most common tags on my blog are Christmas and depression. (Now I’ve written this they will be even more common.) There has been a lot of one and a bit of the other in recent weeks. Thankfully, Christmas is the one there has been a lot of, and depression only a little. On the former, it is December 14th and I have written and delivered every one of my Christmas cards and parcels, except the one where the address has to be hand written in Ukrainian script. On the latter, the new psychiatrist (who still did not have my notes, on my second visit – they appear to be lost) has signed me off and sent me in the direction of Mind counselling. And a dip a week or so ago seems to have passed over.

Now to the really good news: I just received word yesterday that The Demon Headmaster (yes, I know I said I wouldn’t call him that any more) is to leave at the end of this academic year. Huge sighs of relief all round from parents of kids with special needs, plus quite a lot of other parents and a lot of teachers, not to mention the vast majority of students.

However he still has eight months in which to do illegal things and make life difficult for our children, so the pressure from the Inclusion Group must be kept up. Thankfully this will not involve me as chair any more, though I can see a possibility of my becoming secretary. No rest for the wicked…

I’ve just had a play around with widgets (it’s legal over 21) and added a tag cloud. Not quite sure what to make of the fact that the two most frequent tags I’ve used are Christmas and depression. Unfortunately it’s not sophisticated enough to tell me whether I am in the habit of using both together…

Looking back at my last entry it really does seem a little ungracious – I can only say, never underestimate the power of a Jewish mother. Even if she is 94 – dear old lady just doesn’t describe it. I finally phoned her yesterday and she didn’t mention anything about our previous conversation or the fact that I hadn’t phoned, so I think she knew she was in the doghouse. We seem to be talking civilly again anyway.

Have just finished reading Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning (whom I believe to have been a Greenbelt speaker in the past). One scary book. I am trying in small ways to practise the kind of trust he recommends. The trouble is, my current inclinations are so bolshie that it is very difficult to trust God, or indeed to feel well-disposed towards God. Church is not a happy experience for me just now, which is such an unusual feeling for me, since I normally love my church, that I don’t quite know what to do with it. I shall keep turning up and hoping God does too, as even if I am feeling my faith to be at zero, I do still love being with the people. Even if the depressed voice inside says they all hate me (rationally I know this not to be true, but depression does these things). Off to eat some worms now…

Well, I’ve seen the doctor and he’s promised to do another psychiatrist referral. What good that will do remains to be seen, but at least someone is taking some notice.

Meanwhile I am feeling considerably worse than yesterday, after a phone call in which my mother nagged me unceasingly about getting The Grouch to go private for his prostate probs. How can a little old 94 year old cause so much trouble? I’m caught between the two of them and I honestly don’t know what my own opinion on the matter is, just that I don’t want to be nagged any more. As a result I went to my singing class in an utterly foul mood, (though the singing did cheer me up a bit) and I am probably not going to ring her for several days, because I just can’t take the pestering. So she’ll worry about me, but that’s tough – it’s her own fault. Sometimes forgiveness takes a little time…

I don’t often quote myself, but about three posts ago I apparently wrote this: ‘I don’t think I am going to go into another post-holiday depression’. What was that about pride and falls?

Basically I’ve been feeling totally horrible since the end of last week, partly triggered by a big upset with Genius Brat last Thursday. Also not helped by the fact that on Sunday at the church visitor drop-in with no visitors, I foolishly volunteered to play Dutch Blitz (it’s a Mennonite thing) against possibly the fastest player in the Mennoverse. Everyone else was slamming down cards at the speed of light and I was sitting there staring at my cards and wondering what they were for… I dropped out after the first round and went and locked myself in the loo and howled. Later a friend found me on the stairs and listened to me for a long time – our church is good at that.

Have been mostly sleeping since that time, but did manage to send off some extracts of my published work yesterday to a lady who wants to publish them in a Christian writers’ mag. This was actually my only really urgent task, so that counted as a good day.

Also managed to get out of hosting a dinner party for US friends on Thursday while The Grouch is having a church elders’ meeting; instead someone else who wanted to see them too is hosting it. I really would like to start having friends round for dinner more, but this is not the right moment. And I have cancelled my sermon for Sunday – if no one else volunteers to do it, we will have a service without a sermon. It won’t kill anyone.

I think I am on the upward curve now but still taking things very easy. I really do wish a psych would diagnose me as type 2 bipolar – it would explain the ups and downs so much better.

..mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Yes, I know I haven’t blogged for nearly a month. My only excuse is that for half that time I was in Austria, where although I did have access to hubby’s laptop, I was more interested in swimming every day, going to the sauna, having a massage and a manicure (and you can’t write your blog while your nails are drying).

That was the second bit of the Austria trip, in a hotel we’d stayed in before, by a lake high up in the mountains, with luxury food and all sorts of indulgences. The first bit was in Vienna, where we definitely chose the wrong week as there was a heatwave including Austria’s hottest ever day at 39C. This curtailed our sightseeing considerably but we managed to do enough for Genius Brat to say he would like to see Vienna again when it’s cooler (it was the first time we had actually stayed there with him as opposed to rushing through on the way to somewhere else). We also managed to have a meal with my cousin, and spend a lot of time in cafés, which is after all what Vienna is really for.

It was a great holiday but since we’ve been back I have been more down than for a very long time, partly induced by the foul weather in London and the fact that I wasn’t on holiday any more. I have spent large amounts of each day in bed asleep and other large amounts playing Lexulous or messing about on Facebook. This is a bad thing, apart from the Lexulous which is great but my opponents keep getting brilliant scores and I don’t (and I thought I was good).

All of this has not been conducive to blogging. I think I’ve probably turned the corner now as I am only spending part of each day thinking my life stinks, as opposed to all of it. The irony is that my plan on returning from holiday was to talk to the doc about reducing my meds, as I had been well most of the time for a longish time. Methinks it is new therapist time (I am currently therapist-less but have some leads). Of course in order to do anything as constructive as finding a therapist, I have to be well enough to face making phone calls and sending emails…

Just to make life even better, The Grouch has just had another blood test for PSA, which is not a theological concept but the marker that indicates prostate cancer. He has gone from 3.9 which is borderline dodgy and necessitated a horrible biopsy, to 7.2 which is decidedly unwelcome and calls for an MRI scan and another biopsy, this time under general. Prayers very welcome from those who pray.

In the midst of all this we are about to celebrate GB’s 15th birthday. It may not be the best ever.

Where to begin? It seems the more I have to record in this blog, the less time and energy I have to record it. And a great deal (and not all of it pleasant) has happened in the last few weeks.

I’d like to begin with my trip to the South Coast Seaside Town to give a presentation on depression and hopefully sell some of my books. But I can’t begin there because events bound up with my visit actually began earlier that week, when The Grouch had an extremely painful and nasty prostate biopsy (suffice it to say that in the immortal words of Private Jones, ‘they don’t like it up ‘em’). Apart from not wanting to sit down very much, he was fine until a couple of days later when he began to feel ill. However he apparently had no fever (how foolish to trust in an electronic thermometer with a low battery…) and as the advice with the antibiotics they had routinely prescribed, was that they could cause a fever, he put it down to side effects and did nothing.

I was more concerned about him than he was about himself, and tried to convince him that I should cancel my trip. However he insisted I go, as it seems that every time I have a trip away booked, he gets ill. So I went, equipped with presentation, books and iPod for the train. The South Coast Seaside Town did its best for me, assembling at least twenty people, some of them even below the age of seventy, to listen to my wisdom and buy my book (of which I sold four whole copies). All went off well in spite of my hostess’s husband having some trouble with getting the CDs to the right track at the right time (my presentation was enhanced with music) – but then he is a very spry 81 and still working, bless him. The most memorable moment of the 24 hours was his remark that, as a non-evangelical, he finds that in general evangelicals always want to talk a lot about themselves. In view of the long stories told my some of my audience, not to mention the Blast from my Past who tagged along and was very keen to talk at great length about all the miracles God had performed for her, I think he is right.

In the morning I was hastily shuffled out because both my host and her hubby were going out, so I had to forgo the possible pleasures of the South Coast Seaside Town, and arrived home early in the afternoon. To find… well, that merits a new entry.

How extraordinary that feeling is that you get when you are beginning to come out of a depression. It’s as though the world’s been switched on again. No one describes it so well as George Herbert in his poem The Flower. ‘And now in age I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write, I once more smell the dew and rain And relish versing..’ It’s true, your senses, including the sense of smell, seem to come back from nowhere, and you hadn’t realized they were gone until they came back. And the urge to write comes back, and words begin leaping out at you. And most of all, the sense of God’s presence comes back, and all the words of faith that seemed so empty and false are suddenly full of life and meaning.

You can create the conditions for this happening, by removing yourself from burdensome tasks, and giving yourself space and little treats, but ultimately there is no way to make it happen, all you can do is wait. And when it happens, there is no way of knowing how long it will last, before the clouds come over again. Perhaps there are ways of making it last? I haven’t discovered them yet, but I am still searching.

Oblogation (n.): A pervasive sense of guilt about not keeping up with one’s blog (or not reading those of others).

My only excuse is that I have had a bad case of the post Christmas blues (usually ushered in by the New Year hangover), and that life in sunny Truthsignland has been less than joyous. I am overwhelmed with domestic tasks, The Grouch has some iffy blood tests, and GB has been more Brat than Genius lately. And one of my favourite people at church is leaving to go back to her dream job in Canada. At least that means this weekend contains an extended party (karaoke last night which I missed cos it was in the wilds of East London, Hampstead Heath walk ending in crepe restaurant this arvo, which I hope to catch if I can get  enough household chores done, and party at the Mennonite Centre tonight.;-)