Counting Blessings through the interference

The bus was one of those double deckers from a few years ago, the ones I think of as new, even though they're not new. But they're one of the best on our shoddily-provided bus route. They are shiny with pale plastic and lots and lots of chrome handholds, but they have a major flaw: when the engine idles in traffic, noise resonates through the rear of the bus and echoes from the back seats off the shiny plastic walls and off the metallic handholds and gets into your ears as if swirling water was pouring from a jug or basin over your head. There is a rumble from the engine and the air vibrates and then you hear "Shrrshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" and every second or third syllable in any conversation is masked by a strange, white-noise-like, Doppler effect.

"I was in The Square and we_ oo_ eh_curt_es_an_as_eh_dy_..."

It only happens when the bus has stopped in traffic. Once the revs increase, the sound returns to normal.

I often think it can't be good for you.

How is it a health inspector has never condemned these buses as a hazard?

Half-way up the bus I was sitting feeling sorry for myself and feeling depressed over what a lousy job I had to work at. In the back seat a mobile phone rang and a young, well-spoken man answered it and chatted unabashed. I gazed out at the buildings going by, half listening, tuning out when the bus halted and the shrilling, swishing noise buzzed about the cabin.

"...There's no problem at all. I just decided that living in the house with the lads would put me back into a place I didn't want to be again. So I'm on the bus now and I'm on the way over to...."

"...and I'll sleep in the car."

"....was taking 40 mils of Methadone and gone off it. I'm doing okay. There was one day I was sick but it's okay now.."

"...one day just blow yourself away with a needle, so I thought it would be better if I got out of there..."

"...you're right, you're right. Your man asked me to mind something for him and to have some for myself if I wanted. So, of course, I fucked myself up and my mother saw me and said she'd seen your man's car and if she saw it again on the road she'd call the police.

"So I told him and he said he didn't want any trouble with police and I told him I couldn't look after his goods any more..."

"....course is a year. A whole year. They retrain you. I have the literature there. But she said I knew as well as she did I'd never do the day course. She said, the best thing you can do is hang on for the house and get away from everyone. You do better on your own. She told me a lot about myself, more than any other counsellor ever did..."

The bus moved by the playing fields in Old Bawn, half-a-dozen gangly youths clad in T-shirts and shorts kicking a football back and forth on a football field. The sun shone brightly through the right hand panes of the window glass, making those passengers in the offside seats squint and sweat.

"The best thing you ever did was tell me to get out."

"...I'll have to knock on the door, though, and ask for a blanket..."

"No, no. There's nothing you can do...."

"I had three pillows on the bed. Can you get them for me...?"

"Oh, no bother. No bother...."

I stepped down from the bus and shuffled home. The young man was still speaking away on the mobile phone as the bus pulled out from the kerb going off down the road to who knows where.

Dogs don't talk.

Are you alive?

Yes.

Then prove it. Stand up.

Okay. See? I'm standing.

Proves nothing. Can you walk?

I think so. Yes. I'm walking. See?

I can change that.

Oh, fuck off! It's my birthday. Or it was when I started out this morning...

Bet you can't make it to bed in one piece.

Bet I can. And do you know what else?

What?

I'm not going to go to sleep just yet. That'd be just what you want me to do, little doggy. Sleep and dream and worry about things. I think I'll write a bit in my blog and tell the world about you.

So?

So nothing. It isn't all about you, Matey. I may even listen to some music and then go to sleep.

You're a fucking rebel, alright. But I'll still be here in the morning, won't I?

So will I.

Happy Birthday.

Same to you, pal.

The Hare and Tortoise prepare lists

Herself is running mad about the room.

"Where's my Christmas list?"

"You mean, of all the presents you're going to get me?" I ask, innocently.

"No..... Of all the jobs that need doing before Christmas."

I find the list, which is something like three pages long. Lists are things that run other people's lives. I'm not a fan of them. My mother, for example, used to leave them everywhere for herself to look up later and wonder where they came from.

Make breakfast.

Something for dinner.

Then in her later life, she would leave them for me. And notes. I found one in a fold of an old armchair one day a couple of years back. It reads: "Fried stuff for Dad in the morning."

It was reminding me to make the breakfast I made every single sorrowful day, in case I forgot.

Bugger lists.

So, my Christmas list, faulty and all as it is, is inside my head. It consists of two major instructions:

"1. Buy presents (If you want to).

"2. Don't worry (If you want to)."

I'm getting there.

We're all getting there.

Merry Christmas, if I haven't wished it for you already. And even if I did.

You can wag your tail but I ain't feedin' you no more

Alluded briefly to the black dog in my post 365 reasons to take prozac and also in this post some time ago. In a good humoured, well-intended (and welcome) reply to the second piece, someone remarked "And you are depressed about something"? (my question mark).

Well, belatedly, the answer is: No. I'm not depressed about something. I'm just depressed. Depression isn't "Oh well. I wish I hadn't painted the room that colour." Or, "I'm feeling glum today."It's something that lives inside the head and trundles around and around without any triggers, without any reason and apparently without any magic-bullet cure. (Hey! No pun intended! LOL!)

This week and last I was watching the television programme hosted by Stephen Fry on BBC2 entitled "Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive" and I recognised many of the traits of the illness as described by the various sufferers, including our host. Stephen, a comic actor whose work includes the TV adaptations of "Jeeves & Wooster", and earlier in the "Black Adder" series was the subject of inexplicable mood swings in his early teens which saw him slap the school nurse for suggesting he tie his shoelaces a particular way, climb about on school roofs, engage in credit card fraud and ultimately get locked up in jail. It wasn't until he walked out of a play in which he was appearing in 1995 in the West End and disappeared that a diagnosis of bipolar depression was made.

In "The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive" Stephen Fry explores his own history in a frank and revealing way. Along the journey we are introduced to fellow sufferers, and, sadly, the families of sufferers who have taken their lives. Stephen himself sat in his garage for two hours contemplating suicide, his hand on the ignition key of the car and a duvet stuffed into the gap of the garage door before deciding that he couldn't go through with it.

In the show, we learned that he once owned more than 10 cars at one time and he now owns 13 or 14 iPods. His mania, or euphoric mood swing often manifests itself in compulsive shopping. When he is down, which can happen for about seven to ten days a month, he experiences feelings of self-worthlessness and he spends the time lying in bed looking at the ceiling in his home until the humour passes.

Since his diagnosis, Stephen has avoided the use of medication. The programme explored the pros and cons of various treatments but did not resolve whether or not he would choose to take pills upon which he would have to depend for the rest of his life.

An interesting phenonemon among even those who have suffered horribly with the disease is that given a hypotethical button to press which would mean that they would never have had the condition but would instead have lived an "ordinary" life, the majority of those interviewed said they wouldn't have chosen to press that button.

My own levels of mood swings were at their height (and depths) in my 20s, which co-incides with my most productive time as a writer. It makes me wonder what level of manic mood swing I was in when I wrote my earlier pieces for the roleplaying industry, a time when I had many manic episodes and lived the dreaded peaks and valleys I ascribed to creativity.

Funnily enough, I don't seem to have those wilder swings I experienced in my 20s any more. When I'm happy, I am reasonably happy, not wildly charging off about the place. Not, either, laughing out loud at something I've written that strikes me as uproariously funny. When I'm down, it lasts for maybe a few weeks at a time. I'm in one of those down periods at the moment, and it's reflected in a lack of any creativity. There is no work being added to the blog. No thoughts of writing anything of interest even to myself alone. No push on to get more flat-packed stuff for assembly and fitting in the kitchen.

Someone on the programme (I think it was Richard Dreyfuss, but it could have been Stephen Fry himself) mentioned how they don't think they'd like to commit suicide; they just sometimes would like not to be alive. I know exactly how that feels. There is no active wish to go fetch the bottle of pills or hang off the Dodder Bridge, but instead there is a well of negative energy that sits there in the background. I sometimes think that I'm waiting to get through this life so I can get a better shot in another. It is a strangely comforting feeling and no doubt alarming to non-sufferers to hear.

It was interesting to find the stigma of depression is breaking down a little. Certainly programmes like this one will help non-sufferers to understand things a little better. We ain't moping around, sulking, being stubborn spoilsports. You wouldn't ask a diabetes sufferer why he was making a fuss about that jam doughnut. So why ask me to cheer up? I will when I'm able, okay?

Interesting television programme. I shall now stop trying the pulling of oneself up by imaginary bootstraps and just get on with things. This includes feeling depressed, for which, no doubt, the Lord will one day make me truely thankful.

Dyslexia For Cure Found

The above headline in a spoof newspaper in the oft-repeated "Naked Gun" movie is about the highlight of the past week. Naturally, I've been drinking whiskey, which I love drinking but which nonetheless has a dampening effect the next day on my mood. Had a face like a slapped arse this morning in work. Quite sure my workmates wondered if I was still taking the correct pills. The day was busy in a paper shuffling kind of way. I am to be left to my own devices from Wednesday onwards for five weeks when my most-valuable and much appreciated clerical officer goes on holidays and I have to phone-juggle and report write at the same time. I think I shall have to take to wearing the flip-flops that Herself bought me during the summer after all, so I can write with both bare feet while speaking to irate customers and typing up-to-the-minute statistics for my boss's boss's bosses. Where did I leave that bottle?

And the livin' is easy

I've finally made it to my annual leave, which starts tomorrow for two weeks. No more... well, no more doing so many undesirable things that I just don't want to recall any of them to mind, really.

I've been in holiday mode for about a week in my mind, so the transition won't be as abrupt as, say two years ago, when Herself and I sat looking at each other for about one week of our two weeks holiday wondering what you do on leave. Nor like last year, when, improving as we were, the crossover from work mode to holiday took three of four days. This year I'm ready to rock.

Don't know what's wrong with the head, though. Depression being a fine companion these past decades, one usually is aware of what's bringing one's mood down. At worst, it tends to affect in a way I can cope with by using a step-by-step solution. Some days that can be as bad as "Okay. You've reached the bathroom. Now turn on the tap. You've washed the face. Now apply the shaving foam...." and so on. This time, I have the same feeling one gets with writers block. A kind of frustration. An inability to do anything constructive.

I suspect it is the unrelenting good weather, which we Irish are unaccustomed to dealing with! Balmy nights of broken sleep due to heat and poor air circulation have continued for several weeks now. This past week, things have cooled down and some semblance of normality is returning to sleep patterns.

I note too that Herself and I were both like the people in those old Golden Pages television adverts, where disaster was averted at the last minute by the services available in the phone book, and whose sighed hugely with relief when the problem was averted. High pressure work being removed (even with my mental preparedness this year) has resulted in the two of us doing passable impersonations of rag dolls these past couple of days. Tomorrow, when Monday rolls around and neither of us walk into a busy office, will hopefully see us getting into true holiday mode. I'll keep you posted.

When feeling low, march about to this song

If you go down to the woods today,
You're sure of a big surprise
If you go down to the woods today,
You'd better go in disguise.
For ev'ry bear that ever there was,
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic.

Ev'ry Teddy Bear who's been good,
Is sure of a treat today.
There's lots of marvellous things to eat,
And wonderful games to play
Beneath the trees where nobody sees,
They'll hide and seek as long as they please
'Cause that's the way the Teddy Bears have their picnic

If you go down to the woods today,
You'd better not go alone
It's lovely down in the woods today,
But safer to stay at home.
For ev'ry bear that ever there was,
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic.

Picnic time for Teddy Bears,
The little Teddy Bears are having a lovely time today
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily gad about,
They love to play and shout;
They never have any cares;
At six o'clock their Mummies and Daddies,
Will take them home to bed,
Because they're tired little Teddy Bears.

Picnic time for Teddy Bears,
The little Teddy Bears are having a lovely time today
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily gad about,
They love to play and shout;
They never have any cares;
At six o'clock their Mummies and Daddies,
Will take them home to bed,
Because they're tired little Teddy Bears.

Reggie Perrin where are you?

Can't really call the boss an idiot when you're self-employed without the doctor taking an interest in the conversation and writing worried notes on your chart. So after two and a half years as a wage slave, I've had a day of days when I should very much like to say something to the boss about his/her policies and the way they're mishandled, and (more to the point) how my colleagues... and worse... me!... get to be on the receiving end of bastard members of the public venting off about the boss's policies and how they're mishandled. It ain't fair. Sniff! Sniff!

Yes, I had a bad day today and if I had been on a public counter instead of a telephone, I would have cheerfully hospitalised the sarcastic little bollix that I had to deal with on a call this morning. But such is the pact I've made with the devil that I must stay in a completely unrewarding job, defending policies in which I don't believe.

No, I won't be sending back the pay cheques in protest. And that irritates me too.

On the positive side, the too-big-for-the-washing-machine duvet got a hand-washed pounding tonight. But I'm still mad as hell.

Welcome to the world, Willie. Personal loans to repay. Direct Debits to service each month.

I watched an episode of "The fall and rise of Reginald Perrin" a couple of weeks ago. I'd forgotten how completely anarchic it was. I also hadn't been inside that corporate world the character of Reggie Perrin inhabits when I watched it as a youngster the first time around and when he sporadically tells people they're bastards and gets away with it and fantasises about what bastards they are, it really strikes a chord. What fun.

And the funniest is that as the story progresses his honesty in calling all the twits out means that they begin to think he has some secret to middle-management that they don't, that he is really a guru whose ideas should be followed. Ultimately, he does the famous strip on the shingle beach and swims as far out to sea as possible, only to be washed up unknown in another part of the country where he begins to rebuild his life. Then he rises again, becoming the boss of his own business empire with all his former antagonists now working for him and which sells absolutely useless objects (for example the bottomless ashtray, or the rungless ladder) and which makes a fortune.

The program pokes fun at the whole British business world of the 1970s, the time in which it was made, and is full of lovely sterotypes: the fierce but dim managing director; the ditzy secretary; the ass-kissing middle-management staff. But the character of Reggie is just wonderful.

As soon as my debts are re-paid, I plan a less extreme Reginald Perrin exit from the job that I'm in now. I've had the arse chewed off me by one irate customer too many. The bosses can go fuck themselves and their policies. I want to be a customer again and be the one to do the biting.

365 reasons to take the Prozac

I nearly snatched the prescription out of the doc's hand.

"You've been through a lot lately," he said. "Would you like something to relax?"

So let's see... Diabetic father, recovering from colon cancer and prostate about to give up. Mother beating lumps out of me while I'm changing her nappy/ hospitalised/ dying / dead / cremated / lodged in a wall. Cat poorly. Going to rain later.

"Just give me the fucking tablets."

They said in a report a couple of years ago that fifty percent of tablets have absolutely no effect on fifty percent of people due to differences in body chemistry, genetic makeup, and so on. But these motherfuckers did the business for me. A few milligrams of Fluoxetine hydrochloride promised to iron out the wrinkles in the road for a while.

Naturally, being such an Internet animal, I read about the side-effects before I took any:

"More common side effects may include: Abnormal dreams, abnormal ejaculation, abnormal vision, anxiety, diminished sex drive, dizziness, dry mouth, flu-like symptoms, flushing, gas, headache, impotence, insomnia, itching, loss of appetite, nausea, nervousness, rash, sinusitis, sleepiness, sore throat, sweating, tremors, upset stomach, vomiting, weakness, yawning

Let's see. I already dream a Stephen King plot nightly. "Abnormal ejaculation" sounds interesting. Heh. I'm already blind and anxious: witness the spectacles. Sex drive is in "Park." I get dizzy when I play ring-a-rosy, so I'll cut that out. Dry mouth.. plenty of beer in the fridge. I get flu-like symptoms once a year. Flush when I talk about sex drive. Gas, headache, insomnia, itching, loss of appetite and nausea means its Sunday morning. Nervousness... that's what the Prozac is for, right? Rash: I always was too rash for my own good. Sinusitus, sleepiness, sore throat means it's Winter. Sweating accounts for the heating system. Tremors, the wooden floor. Upset stomach, means curry night. Vomiting, weakness and yawning means I'm sick and tired of reading these side-effects.

So I horsed them. The way they work (if I understand things properly) is to "encourage" the retention of the happy chamical occuring in the brain, namely serotonin. Basically the drug interferes with the bod's ability to reabsorb the serotonin, so when enough happy chemicals are made they stick around longer. Groovy.

I was one of the fifty percent the drugs companies love. Reckon I stayed on the 'Zac about a year, then decided that things were okay and started weaning off it.

When I was on it, those little bumpy bits were really smoothed over. It's a tough one to describe, but that kind of early morning feeling when you wake up worrying that something bad is going to happen, well it still was there, but I had a kind of mental switch which allowed me to figure out that probably things weren't going to be as elephantine troublesome as the mind's eye was making them. A sense of proportion was gradually learned.

For me, the best thing was going off them and finding that the effect lasted for the best part of a year afterwards. And after that, the memory of the effect was still there. Although it takes a little effort to do so sometimes, I can still switch that little "So What?" switch on in a stressful situation in my life and gain the benefits of chilling out without the prescription.

If you're head-wrecked, don't put off talking to someone about it. And don't rule out entirely the option of the prescription happy pills. There are more options available these days than there were. And, if you're in the drugs companies happy 50%, you can benefit.

Or you could walk a couple of miles each day. Or hit a punchbag. Whatever does it.