You can often think that the stuff on Dr. Mercola is slightly alarmist this article should convince you otherwise - the more I read and investigate this the worse it looks. Have a read and see what you think?
I've already said that it appears strange to me that the cause of a problem are not addressed rather that we invent drugs (further non natural things) to combat a "disease" that we don't actually have in the first place if we ate properly and not to some fictitious and self interest driven agenda.
There's not a lot of money to be made if we all ate like humans should. Rates of obesity, diabetes, heart problems and some cancers could all be reduced. It's pretty obvious that there's money to be made from millions of unhealthy people. Our hospitals and health systems are overloaded with these problems and yet a simple change of lifestyle and diet could save us billions of pounds. Strewth I'm was over 3 1/2 stones lighter in 6 months - that's the bottom line. It never dawned on me that the food pyramid I was following, the 5 a day ethic and all the other food advice given were just sticking the weight on me.
As soon as I changed my diet the pounds dropped off me and whilst things have slowed the trend is still downwards. It's a big concern that all these sugary drinks, potato snacks and cakes, flour, potatoes, pastas and bread are just thumping the weight on to people and building up the very real possibility of becoming diabetic, obese, prone to heart disease and the like.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
And It Got Me Thinking
Yes - I know - what are the chances of that? :-) Every chance of course!
Watching the programme last night about becoming less anxious, less inside your own head, less analytical and to grow out of it and it really is beginning to feel as if that is happening. I can't tell you how difficult it actually is though. It is a continual struggle to stop yourself going back to where you were. It's easy to fall back into the habits of a lifetime and go to that "happy place" in your head except it isn't a happy place at all, it's insular, it's self injuring, it's poisonous sometimes eating away at you, it's lonely and yet it is also comfortable and self fulfilling, familiar and my bolt hole from reality. It's where I do all my thinking and planning, it's also where I mentally "self-harm" myself where I beat myself up, where my darkest thoughts gang up on me and so it isn't all that nice either.
I wonder if I struggle with mental health problems but I don't think so, I certainly have never felt that I have. I do suffer from massive introversion and with the processing power of my brain - more so when it isn't doing anything other than looking at itself - it leaves me open to attack myself and if you've read this blog you know how bad that can be. I have no doubt that I've had depression of some sort and that I have pretty low self esteem and low confidence levels although if you met me face-to-face you'd probably find that hard to believe, I'm pretty good on the outside just a little bit rotten on the inside.
The Hippocampus region of the brain and it's there that some of the stress that cancer caused appears to have screwed around with my head was mentioned last night - a little too much to go through here. I was thinking about how I've taken a long time to get to a position of taking a bit of control and to stop living in this spiral of introverted inward gazing, self mocking post cancer life that just didn't allow me to build away from what had happened. How I envy some of the patients I met who took this all in their stride and cancer surgery was like popping down to Sainsburys for them. They turned up, had their operation and went straight back to their lives.
Me? It affected me pretty deeply and profoundly as mortality was presented to me right before my eyes. I wanted to know all about it, how to cure it, prognosis, mathematical equations, odds and potential life expectancy. To me, I needed to understand all this. Not sure that it would be everyone's ideal.
Let's leave the operations, treatments, side effects and physicals to one side apart from to say that these are challenging in their own right. Apart from here in the blog and on the odd occasions when I did feel like sh1te, I hid that lot - no need to upset anyone else is there? I struggled more with the mental side.
After all these years and quite suddenly it dawned on me that if I was to get out of here, get out of my mind - without the use of mind bending drugs that is! :-) - I needed to let go of how I live now (well then) and to start to live my life through a more emotionally driven way rather than the theory plann, manage and direct way I have all my adult life. To me it is a terrifying place to go because it does mean I don't have that control, it is also liberating and exciting and makes me feel alive as well. It's only been three weeks and it's been anything but straightforward and it certainly hasn't been easy but I do have a couple of very close friends who are helping me through this transition. I'm so glad that they are there because I struggle with it but I'll not be beaten.
I'd say that my self esteem and self belief have improved, I feel good most of the time, I actually stand and walk tall when I'm out, I can feel that. I do get attacks of confidence and doubt but I am dealing with those. It feels like I'm struggling to shed off an old skin and emerge anew. It isn't all happening at once that's impossible but day by day I am getting more confident, have a much better can do attitude and slowly the procrastination that has dogged me for so very long is beginning to melt away.
Life's got good at last - life's also got frightening and big and time is going fast and slow and I feel great and worried :-) It's brilliant, it's all rather new, it's all rather scary and yet wonderful too. I've a long way to go to change my head and to climb out of the cr@p place I've been for so long. I've the opportunity to grasp it, I have good friends who are there to support me too.
The climb away from Depression is a long one but I've made a great start, my mind is now open to new possibilities and gradually I'm being pulled out of the prehensile strands that hold me back and of the shadows of my mind that aren't there to help but to wound me.
Watching the programme last night about becoming less anxious, less inside your own head, less analytical and to grow out of it and it really is beginning to feel as if that is happening. I can't tell you how difficult it actually is though. It is a continual struggle to stop yourself going back to where you were. It's easy to fall back into the habits of a lifetime and go to that "happy place" in your head except it isn't a happy place at all, it's insular, it's self injuring, it's poisonous sometimes eating away at you, it's lonely and yet it is also comfortable and self fulfilling, familiar and my bolt hole from reality. It's where I do all my thinking and planning, it's also where I mentally "self-harm" myself where I beat myself up, where my darkest thoughts gang up on me and so it isn't all that nice either.
I wonder if I struggle with mental health problems but I don't think so, I certainly have never felt that I have. I do suffer from massive introversion and with the processing power of my brain - more so when it isn't doing anything other than looking at itself - it leaves me open to attack myself and if you've read this blog you know how bad that can be. I have no doubt that I've had depression of some sort and that I have pretty low self esteem and low confidence levels although if you met me face-to-face you'd probably find that hard to believe, I'm pretty good on the outside just a little bit rotten on the inside.
The Hippocampus region of the brain and it's there that some of the stress that cancer caused appears to have screwed around with my head was mentioned last night - a little too much to go through here. I was thinking about how I've taken a long time to get to a position of taking a bit of control and to stop living in this spiral of introverted inward gazing, self mocking post cancer life that just didn't allow me to build away from what had happened. How I envy some of the patients I met who took this all in their stride and cancer surgery was like popping down to Sainsburys for them. They turned up, had their operation and went straight back to their lives.
Me? It affected me pretty deeply and profoundly as mortality was presented to me right before my eyes. I wanted to know all about it, how to cure it, prognosis, mathematical equations, odds and potential life expectancy. To me, I needed to understand all this. Not sure that it would be everyone's ideal.
Let's leave the operations, treatments, side effects and physicals to one side apart from to say that these are challenging in their own right. Apart from here in the blog and on the odd occasions when I did feel like sh1te, I hid that lot - no need to upset anyone else is there? I struggled more with the mental side.
After all these years and quite suddenly it dawned on me that if I was to get out of here, get out of my mind - without the use of mind bending drugs that is! :-) - I needed to let go of how I live now (well then) and to start to live my life through a more emotionally driven way rather than the theory plann, manage and direct way I have all my adult life. To me it is a terrifying place to go because it does mean I don't have that control, it is also liberating and exciting and makes me feel alive as well. It's only been three weeks and it's been anything but straightforward and it certainly hasn't been easy but I do have a couple of very close friends who are helping me through this transition. I'm so glad that they are there because I struggle with it but I'll not be beaten.
I'd say that my self esteem and self belief have improved, I feel good most of the time, I actually stand and walk tall when I'm out, I can feel that. I do get attacks of confidence and doubt but I am dealing with those. It feels like I'm struggling to shed off an old skin and emerge anew. It isn't all happening at once that's impossible but day by day I am getting more confident, have a much better can do attitude and slowly the procrastination that has dogged me for so very long is beginning to melt away.
Life's got good at last - life's also got frightening and big and time is going fast and slow and I feel great and worried :-) It's brilliant, it's all rather new, it's all rather scary and yet wonderful too. I've a long way to go to change my head and to climb out of the cr@p place I've been for so long. I've the opportunity to grasp it, I have good friends who are there to support me too.
The climb away from Depression is a long one but I've made a great start, my mind is now open to new possibilities and gradually I'm being pulled out of the prehensile strands that hold me back and of the shadows of my mind that aren't there to help but to wound me.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
What are the chances that there would be a programme on it
The BBC aired a programme tonight it was all about being pessimistic and optimistic but it went a bit deeper than that. Michael Mosley, who I have a lot of time for having seen some of his other programmes can't sleep well, has an over active mind, has a pessimistic view of the world and so on.
Bang, I related straight away to what he said and could see myself in just about every step he took. There's some interesting stuff in the programme and in the article in the link.
It's enough to say that he is taking a very similar journey to me - it's just I'm not using meditation and CBR to do it like he did. The good thing is that it can be achieved and I almost could shout out aloud when he mentioned the hippocampus region which I was certain took a complete pounding in the treatment and the sort of post traumatic stress part of getting over cancer.
See what you make of the article. For me it was interesting that they can change outcomes and you can train yourself to be more optimistic and positive. Just what I'm doing at the moment although not in the same way. At least I know it is now possible.
Bang, I related straight away to what he said and could see myself in just about every step he took. There's some interesting stuff in the programme and in the article in the link.
It's enough to say that he is taking a very similar journey to me - it's just I'm not using meditation and CBR to do it like he did. The good thing is that it can be achieved and I almost could shout out aloud when he mentioned the hippocampus region which I was certain took a complete pounding in the treatment and the sort of post traumatic stress part of getting over cancer.
See what you make of the article. For me it was interesting that they can change outcomes and you can train yourself to be more optimistic and positive. Just what I'm doing at the moment although not in the same way. At least I know it is now possible.
Progress
Small steps one foot in front of the other. I needed to get on and sort some things out. I managed to really get cracking and finished early this afternoon. It's been a gas and finally, finally, I've sort of freed myself away from these invisible hands which were dragging back downwards. Of course all isn't clear right now but I'm I'm getting there and not having the black moments that have interspersed the last few weeks.
It is nice to be free of these periods of doubt and as I think it may be grieving or mourning. I suggested that I never really did grieve or mourn for being ill or what it did for my life. Looking back I've never really recovered from bladder cancer. I'm not back to the place I was before I was ill. Interestingly I don't think I want to be either now, in retrospect. I now want something very different indeed.
I thought I wanted my old life back, it was pretty good, money was OK, life was OK, I had my work to keep me busy and out and about, I worked around Europe and the UK and we had a good enough life, I got my dream job and BAM Bladder Cancer exploded onto the scene and that was it, life got interesting.
I suggested that the only person who was truly affected and altered was me. No one else was and I wouldn't ever want them to be but the outcome is of course that when you've all travelled through the trauma and the treatment and the recovery you all arrive at the same place at very very different times and unfortunately the person who started the journey isn't the person who finished it. That person is me, I am nothing like that person. I'm sure my friends recognise me still but there is a very different person there now.
What it leaves is an awkward truth, physically I look the same (a bit thinner maybe), but mentally I'm scarred, damaged goods as I often tell people :-) I'm not the same as I was 7 years ago. I'm very very different and even more so recently. It's taken me a very long time to get out of where I was and to realise how I was trapped in my own mind and my own rhetoric. All along I've really known the answer and was even making reference to collateral damage early on in the saga. I have no idea how it will end but the thing is to let it happen now as it will and to stop suppressing my life in the meantime. I made a rod for my own back in some ways - now I'm going to please myself and start to live my life. After 6 or 7 years I've got some catching up to do no matter how frightening it is to me and no matter in some ways the damage that may happen as a consequence.
It is nice to be free of these periods of doubt and as I think it may be grieving or mourning. I suggested that I never really did grieve or mourn for being ill or what it did for my life. Looking back I've never really recovered from bladder cancer. I'm not back to the place I was before I was ill. Interestingly I don't think I want to be either now, in retrospect. I now want something very different indeed.
I thought I wanted my old life back, it was pretty good, money was OK, life was OK, I had my work to keep me busy and out and about, I worked around Europe and the UK and we had a good enough life, I got my dream job and BAM Bladder Cancer exploded onto the scene and that was it, life got interesting.
I suggested that the only person who was truly affected and altered was me. No one else was and I wouldn't ever want them to be but the outcome is of course that when you've all travelled through the trauma and the treatment and the recovery you all arrive at the same place at very very different times and unfortunately the person who started the journey isn't the person who finished it. That person is me, I am nothing like that person. I'm sure my friends recognise me still but there is a very different person there now.
What it leaves is an awkward truth, physically I look the same (a bit thinner maybe), but mentally I'm scarred, damaged goods as I often tell people :-) I'm not the same as I was 7 years ago. I'm very very different and even more so recently. It's taken me a very long time to get out of where I was and to realise how I was trapped in my own mind and my own rhetoric. All along I've really known the answer and was even making reference to collateral damage early on in the saga. I have no idea how it will end but the thing is to let it happen now as it will and to stop suppressing my life in the meantime. I made a rod for my own back in some ways - now I'm going to please myself and start to live my life. After 6 or 7 years I've got some catching up to do no matter how frightening it is to me and no matter in some ways the damage that may happen as a consequence.
Close Friends
They're a blessing aren't they. They don't care how paranoid you are they pick you up, dust you down and set you on your way again. Hopefully I do that for them too. I've been having a really difficult time of it recently because I don't actually know how to cope without all my defence mechanisms in place and all my fail safes. Where I go when I can't cope with the world or my situation or life is into myself, I retreat into my head and I used to be OK with that.
My head though is these days a not so good place to be as a few Monday's back will testify. It is full of conflict and that's because I don't really speak to anyone in depth about the innermost stuff that's gone on, even this blog doesn't go into the depths of the stuff that can fester inside my overactive head. Hence this whole change in me these past 3 weeks (yes that's all it is). It has been unbelievably releasing and inducing great freedom of thought but precious little action. I've explored letting my emotions loose and keeping my analytical self as far in the background as possible and its been brilliant and its been hell, ups and downs, highs and atrocious lows.
The problem has been an almost overload of things happening to me that have been suppressed most of my life, strong emotional things just normal stuff to many I suppose but to an INTJ this stuff is just way off beam - it doesn't even come into the normal day to day experiences. It's like standing on a breakwater during a storm, watching lightning and thunder flash and crash around you, the Aurora Borealis overhead, the reflection of a calm sea, the stars in the firmament and so many experiences all suddenly unleashed and thrown at me in a few weeks. It's almost as if I haven't lived all these years. I know that's not true but that is what it feels like.
I said many many times in this blog that I never really celebrated life and living and never really shouted about being clear or having survived. I questioned WHY had I been spared, what was the plan and what was I going to do with this great gift?
The very first thing is to start living and so it has proved, these past three weeks I have put in place all the steps to do that but - someone superglued my running shoes to the starting blocks. Most probably my head - it doesn't approve of being frivolous or having fun too much it doesn't understand that concept and it doesn't compute in the rational world built inside my brain. Stuff has to make sense. If it doesn't make sense it is discarded. It can never see that sometimes it is what if, why the hell not, for the crack, for the rush, for the danger, for the thrill, for the beat of your heart, for the spectacle, for the experience itself, for the emotion for the love of it.
Today finally dawned after a chat last night with a very close friend and things were different for two reasons. First another friend had sad news - he has upper GI Cancer he doesn't want to talk to anyone - so I've suggested he write emails to me and I've given him some words of mine. This is particularly sad to me this morning but it suddenly spurred me on to then think about my own situation a bit more. I had this chat last night and I realised that my friends are going to help me more than I thought they would. They are on my side and they want me to pull out of this long period of mourning for myself and get the hell out of those bad places and into somewhere new and wonderful. I said something wonderful is about to happen a few weeks back well it has or is happening now.
Today the gloom lifted a little and some of the mourning and grieving for the old me moved away. My friend has cancer - I know exactly what that is like, I know the agonies that he is going through, the utter mental anguish and the fear and terror for that is what goes on inside. Look at photos of me 6 years ago and you can see a drawn face, grey pallor and in my eyes you can see fear, terror and it is disturbing for me to go and look at those photos because I look sick. It would be unfair on my friend or all other sufferers to survive and not somehow deliver on a covenant we probably all made at one time "If I survive this I'm going to........." (just add in whatever it should be). Somehow I have an obligation to those who didn't survive to go and make more of my life and do something useful with it.
For me I thought that meant go build something, go help someone and I worked at the Charity, I worked on big social ideas and ended up here wondering what the hell do I need to do? I finally realised sometime ago that whilst it would be nice to have stuff and things, material things, money to go do great things or just to spend that in fact, there are very few material things that I have that I can't do without. I like a few things but the remainder no longer mean anything to me. If I take Maslow's hierarchy of needs and suddenly, whilst it is a somewhat simple explanation, it sums up where I am. If I can have these things then why should I want any others?
I'm not saying that I've suddenly made a huge step overnight but I've got over the grieving for changing my life albeit in a little way. Whilst it is great being an INTJ, an "intellectual" or a "Scientist" in terms of being alive, they don't come close. Achieving a higher intellectual plateau is an interesting thing to achieve but surely not at the cost of your life, your experiences, love, happiness and just enjoying life for the sake of it.
I've already made the choice and hadn't realised it was going to be so difficult for me. I'm blessed with some wonderful friends who I know are rooting for me to climb out of the huge rut I was in and emerge blinking into the light of the day. Today is a small small step in that process but finally I don't feel so full of dread as I have these past weeks. Today it feels right and I'm beginning to make some progress towards living my life once again.
My head though is these days a not so good place to be as a few Monday's back will testify. It is full of conflict and that's because I don't really speak to anyone in depth about the innermost stuff that's gone on, even this blog doesn't go into the depths of the stuff that can fester inside my overactive head. Hence this whole change in me these past 3 weeks (yes that's all it is). It has been unbelievably releasing and inducing great freedom of thought but precious little action. I've explored letting my emotions loose and keeping my analytical self as far in the background as possible and its been brilliant and its been hell, ups and downs, highs and atrocious lows.
The problem has been an almost overload of things happening to me that have been suppressed most of my life, strong emotional things just normal stuff to many I suppose but to an INTJ this stuff is just way off beam - it doesn't even come into the normal day to day experiences. It's like standing on a breakwater during a storm, watching lightning and thunder flash and crash around you, the Aurora Borealis overhead, the reflection of a calm sea, the stars in the firmament and so many experiences all suddenly unleashed and thrown at me in a few weeks. It's almost as if I haven't lived all these years. I know that's not true but that is what it feels like.
I said many many times in this blog that I never really celebrated life and living and never really shouted about being clear or having survived. I questioned WHY had I been spared, what was the plan and what was I going to do with this great gift?
The very first thing is to start living and so it has proved, these past three weeks I have put in place all the steps to do that but - someone superglued my running shoes to the starting blocks. Most probably my head - it doesn't approve of being frivolous or having fun too much it doesn't understand that concept and it doesn't compute in the rational world built inside my brain. Stuff has to make sense. If it doesn't make sense it is discarded. It can never see that sometimes it is what if, why the hell not, for the crack, for the rush, for the danger, for the thrill, for the beat of your heart, for the spectacle, for the experience itself, for the emotion for the love of it.
Today finally dawned after a chat last night with a very close friend and things were different for two reasons. First another friend had sad news - he has upper GI Cancer he doesn't want to talk to anyone - so I've suggested he write emails to me and I've given him some words of mine. This is particularly sad to me this morning but it suddenly spurred me on to then think about my own situation a bit more. I had this chat last night and I realised that my friends are going to help me more than I thought they would. They are on my side and they want me to pull out of this long period of mourning for myself and get the hell out of those bad places and into somewhere new and wonderful. I said something wonderful is about to happen a few weeks back well it has or is happening now.
Today the gloom lifted a little and some of the mourning and grieving for the old me moved away. My friend has cancer - I know exactly what that is like, I know the agonies that he is going through, the utter mental anguish and the fear and terror for that is what goes on inside. Look at photos of me 6 years ago and you can see a drawn face, grey pallor and in my eyes you can see fear, terror and it is disturbing for me to go and look at those photos because I look sick. It would be unfair on my friend or all other sufferers to survive and not somehow deliver on a covenant we probably all made at one time "If I survive this I'm going to........." (just add in whatever it should be). Somehow I have an obligation to those who didn't survive to go and make more of my life and do something useful with it.
For me I thought that meant go build something, go help someone and I worked at the Charity, I worked on big social ideas and ended up here wondering what the hell do I need to do? I finally realised sometime ago that whilst it would be nice to have stuff and things, material things, money to go do great things or just to spend that in fact, there are very few material things that I have that I can't do without. I like a few things but the remainder no longer mean anything to me. If I take Maslow's hierarchy of needs and suddenly, whilst it is a somewhat simple explanation, it sums up where I am. If I can have these things then why should I want any others?
I'm not saying that I've suddenly made a huge step overnight but I've got over the grieving for changing my life albeit in a little way. Whilst it is great being an INTJ, an "intellectual" or a "Scientist" in terms of being alive, they don't come close. Achieving a higher intellectual plateau is an interesting thing to achieve but surely not at the cost of your life, your experiences, love, happiness and just enjoying life for the sake of it.
I've already made the choice and hadn't realised it was going to be so difficult for me. I'm blessed with some wonderful friends who I know are rooting for me to climb out of the huge rut I was in and emerge blinking into the light of the day. Today is a small small step in that process but finally I don't feel so full of dread as I have these past weeks. Today it feels right and I'm beginning to make some progress towards living my life once again.
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.
Thank you Mark Twain. Absolutely right - changing me has been a bloody nightmare and the biggest problem I've got now is I have no concentration and have to force myself to stop dreaming and just get on and so some work. Easier said than done as opposed to antidisestablishmentarianism which is of course easy to do than say :-)
Freeing up my whole personality has taken such hard work to do, I can't believe how difficult it is and of course it is difficult because it flies in the face of who and what I am. I have to say that I feel alive and feel a little better about myself - I'm working hard on beginning to like myself. All of that is the upside, feeling good, great in fact. But trying at the moment to sit down in this stifling hot oppressive humid heat is hard enough work as it is without my head not wanting to conform and do what I want it to do.
I suppose I've just got to plug away at this and just get myself into some sort of discipline to achieve the tasks I've set myself. I've probably been working so hard at being the new me that this lot can all go to hell in a handcart :-) But I need to do my tasks as well. Maybe tomorrow I can just get a good day at it. Such a hard thing to do though.
Maybe I should see if I can call a cease fire between my brain and my heart? That might work! :-)
Freeing up my whole personality has taken such hard work to do, I can't believe how difficult it is and of course it is difficult because it flies in the face of who and what I am. I have to say that I feel alive and feel a little better about myself - I'm working hard on beginning to like myself. All of that is the upside, feeling good, great in fact. But trying at the moment to sit down in this stifling hot oppressive humid heat is hard enough work as it is without my head not wanting to conform and do what I want it to do.
I suppose I've just got to plug away at this and just get myself into some sort of discipline to achieve the tasks I've set myself. I've probably been working so hard at being the new me that this lot can all go to hell in a handcart :-) But I need to do my tasks as well. Maybe tomorrow I can just get a good day at it. Such a hard thing to do though.
Maybe I should see if I can call a cease fire between my brain and my heart? That might work! :-)
If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
How we laughed when we saw this in my days as a consultant. There were plenty of these types of jokes going around and yet, as in these things, there's a modicom of truth in them.
I was thinking the other day about the Low Carb, High Fat diet or maybe I should say lifestyle? It occurred to me that since the 1970s the world has seen a massive increase in obesity and diabetes and other diseases. Is it that we are living too long? Is it that we can detect these things better? Or is it that our diet is wrong? There's huge Bucks to me made selling heart tablets, Statins, Insulin kits and Insulin, tablets to help with Obesity and everything else but, in reality, if it was down to our diet and people knew that, they'd be yelling from the rooftops that this is the way to go, wouldn't they?
Add to this the cheapness of carbohydrates and their nature to be let's call it addictive shall we? And now you have two interested classes both vying to feed and cure the masses. Surely there can be no vested interest here?
All the above is written in my most cynical style because it is just so wrong. I was in the Post Office earlier today and looked over the shelves, there were the sweets (candy) all lined up - not one thing nutritious in any of it I reckon. On the grocery side there was bread, milk, cakes, processed foods like pies and the like. We can go and pick up stuff that we are told is healthy and then be surprised as the weight piles on relentlessly. It's so annoying to eat what we are told we should, for a "balanced" diet and find out that we still can't lose weight. In many ways, the vast majority of people are ignorant to the basic facts out there.
Stick to a low carbohydrate, high fat diet and things start to happen to your body. After the first week it gets easier. I've just gone into a slightly more high fat approach and already it is beginning to move my weight off after it having stalled ever so slightly. Mind you I had 3 cheat days last week! I'm planning on limiting cheat day to not have so much and also to just have the odd thing - like Strawberries or a beer (liquid bread). I don't miss carbohydrates at all neither do I miss the 3 1/2 stone that I've lost nor indeed the next 2 or 3 stone after that. Once you get back into some sort of shape, you find that you feel good, you look good, you are a lot fitter and you can begin, as is my case, to begin to rebuild some confidence and self esteem.
I was thinking the other day about the Low Carb, High Fat diet or maybe I should say lifestyle? It occurred to me that since the 1970s the world has seen a massive increase in obesity and diabetes and other diseases. Is it that we are living too long? Is it that we can detect these things better? Or is it that our diet is wrong? There's huge Bucks to me made selling heart tablets, Statins, Insulin kits and Insulin, tablets to help with Obesity and everything else but, in reality, if it was down to our diet and people knew that, they'd be yelling from the rooftops that this is the way to go, wouldn't they?
Add to this the cheapness of carbohydrates and their nature to be let's call it addictive shall we? And now you have two interested classes both vying to feed and cure the masses. Surely there can be no vested interest here?
All the above is written in my most cynical style because it is just so wrong. I was in the Post Office earlier today and looked over the shelves, there were the sweets (candy) all lined up - not one thing nutritious in any of it I reckon. On the grocery side there was bread, milk, cakes, processed foods like pies and the like. We can go and pick up stuff that we are told is healthy and then be surprised as the weight piles on relentlessly. It's so annoying to eat what we are told we should, for a "balanced" diet and find out that we still can't lose weight. In many ways, the vast majority of people are ignorant to the basic facts out there.
Stick to a low carbohydrate, high fat diet and things start to happen to your body. After the first week it gets easier. I've just gone into a slightly more high fat approach and already it is beginning to move my weight off after it having stalled ever so slightly. Mind you I had 3 cheat days last week! I'm planning on limiting cheat day to not have so much and also to just have the odd thing - like Strawberries or a beer (liquid bread). I don't miss carbohydrates at all neither do I miss the 3 1/2 stone that I've lost nor indeed the next 2 or 3 stone after that. Once you get back into some sort of shape, you find that you feel good, you look good, you are a lot fitter and you can begin, as is my case, to begin to rebuild some confidence and self esteem.
A Test that can Smell Bladder Cancer
This looks to be something useful for the future. Link Here.
"Bladder cancer can now be detected long before symptoms develop - after scientists created a device that can smell the disease.
Responding to chemicals in a patient’s urine, the sensor is able to give an accurate diagnosis within 30 minutes. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2358366/The-test-smell-bladder-cancer-long-symptoms-develop-100-accurate."
Let's hope this helps detect it, I'm so glad that mine was detected reasonably early.
"Bladder cancer can now be detected long before symptoms develop - after scientists created a device that can smell the disease.
Responding to chemicals in a patient’s urine, the sensor is able to give an accurate diagnosis within 30 minutes. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2358366/The-test-smell-bladder-cancer-long-symptoms-develop-100-accurate."
Let's hope this helps detect it, I'm so glad that mine was detected reasonably early.
Monday, July 08, 2013
It's Complicated
So the Facebook status says and it isn't wrong at all. It is complicated - my whole life is a mashup of things at the moment and whilst I am happy to be all messed up it really doesn't help me getting things done.
Life is going to get even more complicated I'm sure in the coming months and years. Well Vive Le DIfference is all I can say, bring it on and let's see where it takes me. Feel the roller coaster has already spun me around and is making me feel a little queasy inside but that's part of the fun of living I guess, needs to be some ups and downs and some danger...
Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.
Life is going to get even more complicated I'm sure in the coming months and years. Well Vive Le DIfference is all I can say, bring it on and let's see where it takes me. Feel the roller coaster has already spun me around and is making me feel a little queasy inside but that's part of the fun of living I guess, needs to be some ups and downs and some danger...
Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.
Diet Progress
I've entered a slightly new phase in my diet and it has made me strangely a little light headed. My blood pressure is nice and on target but it hasn't been this low all the time I've been taking readings. My blood glucose levels are also good - not as low as I'd like but low enough and I'm beginning to see some results and the weight is starting to fall away again which is good. The exercise I'm doing (not in this 30 degree heat though) is I think adding nicely to the mix. It isn't the main thing making me lose weight but I like to think it is helping me along.
Today, after yesterday's Wimbledon party here I haven't actually eaten anything since about 6 or 7 O'clock last night and it's coming up to lunchtime here. I don't actually feel hungry at all. My energy levels are good. One of the girls commented yesterday that she reckoned she could see that I'd lost loads of weight.
It's all good stuff and I'm really enjoying the diet but not so much this light headed bit - I need to make an appointment to see my GP and get my Blood Pressure reviewed. I doubt they would drop the medication this time but who knows in 6 months or a year perhaps we might be able to. It is a problem with the diet because it does bring down your BP and so medications like I'm on take it down too low after that.
I'm not sure if I should have a target weight still - people keep asking. I just reckon I'll keep dropping the weight off until I get somewhere steady. It says that I should be around 166 pounds or 11.8571 stone.
I think I was 11 1/2 stone when I was about 19 and about my fittest I'd be pleased if I could get near there. I'd need to lose around another 3 stone to get near. I think that is doable.
Today, after yesterday's Wimbledon party here I haven't actually eaten anything since about 6 or 7 O'clock last night and it's coming up to lunchtime here. I don't actually feel hungry at all. My energy levels are good. One of the girls commented yesterday that she reckoned she could see that I'd lost loads of weight.
It's all good stuff and I'm really enjoying the diet but not so much this light headed bit - I need to make an appointment to see my GP and get my Blood Pressure reviewed. I doubt they would drop the medication this time but who knows in 6 months or a year perhaps we might be able to. It is a problem with the diet because it does bring down your BP and so medications like I'm on take it down too low after that.
I'm not sure if I should have a target weight still - people keep asking. I just reckon I'll keep dropping the weight off until I get somewhere steady. It says that I should be around 166 pounds or 11.8571 stone.
I think I was 11 1/2 stone when I was about 19 and about my fittest I'd be pleased if I could get near there. I'd need to lose around another 3 stone to get near. I think that is doable.
Sunday, July 07, 2013
Communication
It can be a make or break thing and it's key to the work I've done over the years. I like to think that I'm a good communicator - it is my job after all said and done and yet, it's exactly this that I'm noticing now.
I can talk to only a very few people about my real inner most thoughts and what is going on with me. This blog gets edited highlights and sometimes the grizzly crappy reality that my life can sometimes be like.
In many ways - I see my future as being one of more open and constructive communication and the "new me" clearly needs it as it is hellishly difficult to maintain direction like this.
I've realised that it's a major past failing that communication hasn't always existed the way I'd like it to have.
I can talk to only a very few people about my real inner most thoughts and what is going on with me. This blog gets edited highlights and sometimes the grizzly crappy reality that my life can sometimes be like.
In many ways - I see my future as being one of more open and constructive communication and the "new me" clearly needs it as it is hellishly difficult to maintain direction like this.
I've realised that it's a major past failing that communication hasn't always existed the way I'd like it to have.
Saturday, July 06, 2013
Late Nights - Early Mornings
Doing a lot of that at the moment - up late, listening to music, working out where I'm going and just generally thinking stuff through and working things out in my head. I'm trying to be careful not to do the analysis stuff too much, I can't help myself you know, it's what I am.
So far I'm not feeling too many side effects from it, not even tired really although I could do with giving my brain a rest on occasions as I am overloading that still.
Today is a wonderful day - very hot and a tiny bit too humid but hey it's the UK and so we have to make do with what we get. Wimbledon weekend which will be good and Mrs. F. has decided to invite the holiday gang over for Wimbledon and for some food - most probably a BBQ which will be nice so I will have cheat day tomorrow mainly in terms of beer but if they happen to get some nice bread I may grab some with some Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar - sweet! Hope I'm not turning in to Peter Griffin :-) yea you'd like that wouldn't you? :-)
Am a lot better today, have managed to tackle my emotions early on and relax today - have been on edge for a few days and no real reason to be. Mind you I never ever want to have a day like Monday ever again. Think that shook me quite badly as I really wasn't expecting it - I was expecting something on Wednesday the anniversary of my dad's death but no Monday was when the Tsunami hit me.
So, moving on, as that is all you can do. Today is a really good day, for one I got paid some money on account for some work I'm doing. That's great and can finally start to re-build some sort of business life. Secondly I need a spark and a kick up the arse to get going. I'm just not moving things on as fast as I know I can do so I am going to make a concerted effort to do something about this next week. In many ways, I've been holding back and not letting myself move forwards. Things have changed and whilst life is a lot more complicated - that's actually what I want. What I can do though from here on in is concentrate on building my businesses up. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will my businesses be so I just have to get started and take it a day at a time.
So far I'm not feeling too many side effects from it, not even tired really although I could do with giving my brain a rest on occasions as I am overloading that still.
Today is a wonderful day - very hot and a tiny bit too humid but hey it's the UK and so we have to make do with what we get. Wimbledon weekend which will be good and Mrs. F. has decided to invite the holiday gang over for Wimbledon and for some food - most probably a BBQ which will be nice so I will have cheat day tomorrow mainly in terms of beer but if they happen to get some nice bread I may grab some with some Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar - sweet! Hope I'm not turning in to Peter Griffin :-) yea you'd like that wouldn't you? :-)
Am a lot better today, have managed to tackle my emotions early on and relax today - have been on edge for a few days and no real reason to be. Mind you I never ever want to have a day like Monday ever again. Think that shook me quite badly as I really wasn't expecting it - I was expecting something on Wednesday the anniversary of my dad's death but no Monday was when the Tsunami hit me.
So, moving on, as that is all you can do. Today is a really good day, for one I got paid some money on account for some work I'm doing. That's great and can finally start to re-build some sort of business life. Secondly I need a spark and a kick up the arse to get going. I'm just not moving things on as fast as I know I can do so I am going to make a concerted effort to do something about this next week. In many ways, I've been holding back and not letting myself move forwards. Things have changed and whilst life is a lot more complicated - that's actually what I want. What I can do though from here on in is concentrate on building my businesses up. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will my businesses be so I just have to get started and take it a day at a time.
Friday, July 05, 2013
Life's Ups and Downs
STOP this roller coaster I feel sick :-) Oh boy the light headed feeling I get these days as I continue to wean myself off being inward looking is utterly bizarre. At once it can be liberating and then as fast as you like, I feel sick to the pit of my stomach and I am way, way outside of my comfort zone.
My head just can't handle the signals and me stopping (or trying to) analyse them. I am up and down sometimes for just minutes. 10 minutes ago I felt quite sick and it was that I am trying to do some serious work and my head isn't focussing and working properly - it is taking me hours longer to do than I first envisaged. My typing skills have deserted me and there I am thinking this is a good thing to be doing to myself. You know what, it probably is for I'm beginning to feel alive and that's part of the target.
I feel good about myself, I am getting thinner and feel better, fit, healthy, alive and the best I've felt certainly since before I had Cancer. Emotionally though these recent days have wiped me out I've had the horrible, horrible lows of Monday to great highs as well but they flick from minute to minute even. For a control freak it's disturbing but not unexpected I suppose.
There are bittersweet moments when I can see that things are great and yet look back and think it would have been far easier to be sitting on my arse and reflecting :-) I'd still far rather being doing things that challenge me, slowly and a bit at a time that's what I'm doing. The key to eating an Elephant is that you can't do it all at once you have to eat a bit at a time, that way you can eat it all. I know this, it is after all what I've done for years but now I have to do it and virtually "Eat my own dog food" I find it so difficult even though I know it to be the thing to do.
I'm getting there - putting myself through the mangle every day and having huge highs and equally deep lows. Patience is a virtue. I like the one-liner "God, please give me patience, and give it to me NOW!" :-)
I'll just have to accept that I'm going to be messed up for a while yet and just try and work through it.
My head just can't handle the signals and me stopping (or trying to) analyse them. I am up and down sometimes for just minutes. 10 minutes ago I felt quite sick and it was that I am trying to do some serious work and my head isn't focussing and working properly - it is taking me hours longer to do than I first envisaged. My typing skills have deserted me and there I am thinking this is a good thing to be doing to myself. You know what, it probably is for I'm beginning to feel alive and that's part of the target.
I feel good about myself, I am getting thinner and feel better, fit, healthy, alive and the best I've felt certainly since before I had Cancer. Emotionally though these recent days have wiped me out I've had the horrible, horrible lows of Monday to great highs as well but they flick from minute to minute even. For a control freak it's disturbing but not unexpected I suppose.
There are bittersweet moments when I can see that things are great and yet look back and think it would have been far easier to be sitting on my arse and reflecting :-) I'd still far rather being doing things that challenge me, slowly and a bit at a time that's what I'm doing. The key to eating an Elephant is that you can't do it all at once you have to eat a bit at a time, that way you can eat it all. I know this, it is after all what I've done for years but now I have to do it and virtually "Eat my own dog food" I find it so difficult even though I know it to be the thing to do.
I'm getting there - putting myself through the mangle every day and having huge highs and equally deep lows. Patience is a virtue. I like the one-liner "God, please give me patience, and give it to me NOW!" :-)
I'll just have to accept that I'm going to be messed up for a while yet and just try and work through it.
Thursday, July 04, 2013
Emotions heightened and quite touchy too
I am still working hard to be less like me and to let my heart rule my head a bit. It's strange territory for me but I can see that life is going to continue to be interesting.
The strange thing is that my senses are heightened somewhat and I don't particularly like how I react to things at the moment. Emotional reactions aren't me at all. I normally prefer to consider what is going on and then think about it and then react. At the moment I find myself taken aback by strong emotional responses where perhaps before that would never have happened in fact I probably wouldn't have reacted at all.
A meeting I had earlier today looked like it would have to be postponed and whilst that's bound to happen I felt really disappointed and sad about it? WTF! That's just so not me.
I took Flocky Bicep's advice and got on my bike and cycled locally to a nice spot where there are some lakes and quite a few fishermen go there. I can get there through a bridle path way mainly and in 20 minutes I was there. I'm certainly not in great shape but did well and then tried to find my way back on another route but couldn't find it so doubled back and came back the way I'd ridden in the first place. Got quite a good sweat up and did some blood pressure readings and noticed that they were bang into the 120 and 80 mark so delighted about that. My blood pressure is much better and continues to go down. Not enough to come off the drugs I fear but getting there. I reckon if I can keep thee diet going and exercise then I may try to get off these drugs in a year or so. I feel occasionally faint and generally when I test do find I am low. I checked my blood glucose and that was once again in the low 5s so that too is fine.
Life's good at the moment. It isn't quite where I want it to be but it's only been 2 weeks since I changed things around and I still need to learn to be patient.
The strange thing is that my senses are heightened somewhat and I don't particularly like how I react to things at the moment. Emotional reactions aren't me at all. I normally prefer to consider what is going on and then think about it and then react. At the moment I find myself taken aback by strong emotional responses where perhaps before that would never have happened in fact I probably wouldn't have reacted at all.
A meeting I had earlier today looked like it would have to be postponed and whilst that's bound to happen I felt really disappointed and sad about it? WTF! That's just so not me.
I took Flocky Bicep's advice and got on my bike and cycled locally to a nice spot where there are some lakes and quite a few fishermen go there. I can get there through a bridle path way mainly and in 20 minutes I was there. I'm certainly not in great shape but did well and then tried to find my way back on another route but couldn't find it so doubled back and came back the way I'd ridden in the first place. Got quite a good sweat up and did some blood pressure readings and noticed that they were bang into the 120 and 80 mark so delighted about that. My blood pressure is much better and continues to go down. Not enough to come off the drugs I fear but getting there. I reckon if I can keep thee diet going and exercise then I may try to get off these drugs in a year or so. I feel occasionally faint and generally when I test do find I am low. I checked my blood glucose and that was once again in the low 5s so that too is fine.
Life's good at the moment. It isn't quite where I want it to be but it's only been 2 weeks since I changed things around and I still need to learn to be patient.
Whoa - What Living Is Like
I was on amazing form yesterday / last night. Realised too late that I was full of nervous energy getting released. Fitted into my old suit and shirt and felt on top of the world. The "new me" is a complete explosive ball of fun but very difficult for the old me to handle. Feel a little worried this morning about it all but that's just me being me.
I think perhaps a happy medium may be required - good old Flocky Bicep dropped me off home (that was nice of him). He's a good friend and helps me out a lot - have to say it I've leaned on him a lot these past few weeks and may well have to into the future.
I checked out the route (part of it) that I will go on my bike later. It looks as if I may be able to avoid cycling on the main road itself which is good. The bridle path looks good too so am hoping that I will be able to start getting some training in with that.
Use up some of this store of energy - suddenly - I look good, feel fit, my skin feels better, my waist is wasting away I've lost fat off my stomach, my sides, my thighs and it is beginning to go from my neck too. Really pleased that after 6 months I'm 3 3/4 stone lighter, 4" if not almost 6" off my waist, couple off my bum and thighs and a couple of inches off my neck too. I need to check out what weight you are meant to be for a guy close to 6 foot high and try and get there. At the moment though, if I can continue to eat like this and just have the odd cheat day I reckon I should be able to drop another stone or two by Christmas - that would be a nice goal.
But this energy thing is just amazing, new me, new life, new everything - really happy about that.
I think perhaps a happy medium may be required - good old Flocky Bicep dropped me off home (that was nice of him). He's a good friend and helps me out a lot - have to say it I've leaned on him a lot these past few weeks and may well have to into the future.
I checked out the route (part of it) that I will go on my bike later. It looks as if I may be able to avoid cycling on the main road itself which is good. The bridle path looks good too so am hoping that I will be able to start getting some training in with that.
Use up some of this store of energy - suddenly - I look good, feel fit, my skin feels better, my waist is wasting away I've lost fat off my stomach, my sides, my thighs and it is beginning to go from my neck too. Really pleased that after 6 months I'm 3 3/4 stone lighter, 4" if not almost 6" off my waist, couple off my bum and thighs and a couple of inches off my neck too. I need to check out what weight you are meant to be for a guy close to 6 foot high and try and get there. At the moment though, if I can continue to eat like this and just have the odd cheat day I reckon I should be able to drop another stone or two by Christmas - that would be a nice goal.
But this energy thing is just amazing, new me, new life, new everything - really happy about that.
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
Oh Dear :-) This Will Be Fun
My great friend Flocky Bicep recommends cycling to help keep fit and I thought you know at least you get to see stuff on the bike :-) So I've dusted off my Mountain Bike - not that there is a oversupply of Mountains anywhere near here but some nice off road tracks within a few minutes ride. So I've pumped up the tyres and tightened the nuts (not mine the ones on the bike - what are you lot like??) :-)
Had a quick tour around the block and will get myself off to tour the local area. There are some quiet roads but more importantly there are huge tracts of fields and lanes nearby and some bridle paths so I shall make use of those and see how I get on. I think I will be a fair weather rider though and the main road up here is a bit lethal so I will make sure that I won't head out on that. This is going to be fun/different/painful * you can pick any two from three :-)
It will certainly make a change from my Cross Trainer which goes nowhere - so if I can achieve the same sort of distances I'll be happy. I do actually feel a lot healthier too I wasn't out of puff doing a local circuit so that's great too.
Tomorrow I plan to take one of the local bridle paths and see if I can get to a local park with some lakes and have a push around there, then get back here - it's about 45 minutes to walk so what's that 2 or 3 miles? That's doable as a first go.
Flocky has also suggested I dust off my Golf Clubs and that seems too like a good idea - I would get massively fit at Golf as I'd walk about 4 times further than most people going to fetch my ball :-)
Hey I'm having a great day today and I know it is the anniversary of my dad's death but you know - he wouldn't want me to be moping around the house or anything like that - good on yer dad :-)
As he often said to me - "you're a long time dead" and so you are. All the better reason to get out there and live a bit. Enough of the introvert inward thinking and get out there and make a splash - go on dare you! :-)
Had a quick tour around the block and will get myself off to tour the local area. There are some quiet roads but more importantly there are huge tracts of fields and lanes nearby and some bridle paths so I shall make use of those and see how I get on. I think I will be a fair weather rider though and the main road up here is a bit lethal so I will make sure that I won't head out on that. This is going to be fun/different/painful * you can pick any two from three :-)
It will certainly make a change from my Cross Trainer which goes nowhere - so if I can achieve the same sort of distances I'll be happy. I do actually feel a lot healthier too I wasn't out of puff doing a local circuit so that's great too.
Tomorrow I plan to take one of the local bridle paths and see if I can get to a local park with some lakes and have a push around there, then get back here - it's about 45 minutes to walk so what's that 2 or 3 miles? That's doable as a first go.
Flocky has also suggested I dust off my Golf Clubs and that seems too like a good idea - I would get massively fit at Golf as I'd walk about 4 times further than most people going to fetch my ball :-)
Hey I'm having a great day today and I know it is the anniversary of my dad's death but you know - he wouldn't want me to be moping around the house or anything like that - good on yer dad :-)
As he often said to me - "you're a long time dead" and so you are. All the better reason to get out there and live a bit. Enough of the introvert inward thinking and get out there and make a splash - go on dare you! :-)
Has it been just two weeks
It's been the longest and shortest two weeks of my life. I feel like time has shot by and yet it is only two weeks since I changed my attitude and have started to try and life my life differently and with the one day's exception it has been a great success so far. I find myself with good energy and having got past 2 weeks in, I find that I can now just try and throttle down and settle into "normal" if it ever can be normal again life.
Delighted that changes in my diet mean that I've started to lose weight again around 3 pounds in under a week and feel fit again also my blood pressures are now normal or below and constantly at that so that's good too. Blood glucose levels are 4s and 5s so that too is good.
Courage to continue and to be myself are what I need now, it's taken a long long time to get here and to decide that it is what I really wanted to do. All my life in fact and I am impatient to be getting on with the rest of my life but circumstances won't allow that yet. I have to be patient and I have to take things easy. But with time going so fast and yet slowly all at once I wonder how I'll manage to keep a lid on it all but then that's just the thing isn't it? I've moved away from being that person (as far as I possibly can) and should just let life come to me not plan and plot it out anymore.
Delighted that changes in my diet mean that I've started to lose weight again around 3 pounds in under a week and feel fit again also my blood pressures are now normal or below and constantly at that so that's good too. Blood glucose levels are 4s and 5s so that too is good.
Courage to continue and to be myself are what I need now, it's taken a long long time to get here and to decide that it is what I really wanted to do. All my life in fact and I am impatient to be getting on with the rest of my life but circumstances won't allow that yet. I have to be patient and I have to take things easy. But with time going so fast and yet slowly all at once I wonder how I'll manage to keep a lid on it all but then that's just the thing isn't it? I've moved away from being that person (as far as I possibly can) and should just let life come to me not plan and plot it out anymore.
Reflections on The Black Dog
Throughout his life SIr Winston Churchill suffered from clinical depression and he referred to it as his Black Dog and my friend and I early on after we had both been operated on used this phrase to cover the various visitations of depression that we got. In many respects we used this term when it got really bad.
If you don't get doubting voices and thoughts in your head you may think what I say is strange but I'd like you to imagine that I do hear voices, I hear my (what I guess is) my subconscious all the time and it is an incessant companion and it works away at lots of things. It does things like test jokes out whilst I am talking to people, it runs through scenarios and what if situations, it brings together loose strands and in everything it is there in the background running along very smoothly and is part of me. I hear it as I type because in many ways it is me speaking these words.
I don't think this is unusual at all by the way - I imagine that everyone, if they stop and think, has the voice or the spoken thought there. What happens when the Black Dog comes to visit is that a little dark cave at the back of your mind where all your innermost fears and hatreds, your foul mouth, your disgusting thoughts and your discriminations are exiled gets opened up. The Black Dog can appear in many ways.
It's easiest way is to sow little seeds of doubt in your mind that it nurtures and cultivates and grows, weeding out the ones that won't work and looking after those that will. Ideas are fertilised and brought to work against you. These may be fears in meeting people, in stressful situations and they work my trying to make you do something against your will. They eat away at you gnawing and getting under your skin, irritating and taunting you.
On Monday, I can only say that I was unprepared for the Black Dog's return. I know I have on and off days quite regularly it is bound to happen as I'm still repairing my mind and my body from what I now see was a more traumatic event than I realised. You rebuild on hope and a promise of better things and Black Dog takes away hope and replaces it with fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).
It was only my friend who has his own traumatic event at the same time that I did who recognised this for what it was. That time of year - we both were diagnosed and operated on around the same time and so July holds dark memories for us - we ignore the signs at our peril.
My 'new life' or the new me is a work in progress. I feel I've made some big strides forward these past 2 weeks. The Black Dog can go to hell and whilst I don't think for one moment I won't get another visit for there are more challenges facing me in the next few years I will be ready and I've friends who I will pick the phone up and talk to. I often feel that this is a battle of me versus it (the rest of the world maybe) and yet it need not be like that. If I'd have thought for one moment about it I may have been able to put out a hand and have it held and my mind may have been able to have been defused in time rather than suffering the explosion it did.
If you don't get doubting voices and thoughts in your head you may think what I say is strange but I'd like you to imagine that I do hear voices, I hear my (what I guess is) my subconscious all the time and it is an incessant companion and it works away at lots of things. It does things like test jokes out whilst I am talking to people, it runs through scenarios and what if situations, it brings together loose strands and in everything it is there in the background running along very smoothly and is part of me. I hear it as I type because in many ways it is me speaking these words.
I don't think this is unusual at all by the way - I imagine that everyone, if they stop and think, has the voice or the spoken thought there. What happens when the Black Dog comes to visit is that a little dark cave at the back of your mind where all your innermost fears and hatreds, your foul mouth, your disgusting thoughts and your discriminations are exiled gets opened up. The Black Dog can appear in many ways.
It's easiest way is to sow little seeds of doubt in your mind that it nurtures and cultivates and grows, weeding out the ones that won't work and looking after those that will. Ideas are fertilised and brought to work against you. These may be fears in meeting people, in stressful situations and they work my trying to make you do something against your will. They eat away at you gnawing and getting under your skin, irritating and taunting you.
On Monday, I can only say that I was unprepared for the Black Dog's return. I know I have on and off days quite regularly it is bound to happen as I'm still repairing my mind and my body from what I now see was a more traumatic event than I realised. You rebuild on hope and a promise of better things and Black Dog takes away hope and replaces it with fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).
It was only my friend who has his own traumatic event at the same time that I did who recognised this for what it was. That time of year - we both were diagnosed and operated on around the same time and so July holds dark memories for us - we ignore the signs at our peril.
My 'new life' or the new me is a work in progress. I feel I've made some big strides forward these past 2 weeks. The Black Dog can go to hell and whilst I don't think for one moment I won't get another visit for there are more challenges facing me in the next few years I will be ready and I've friends who I will pick the phone up and talk to. I often feel that this is a battle of me versus it (the rest of the world maybe) and yet it need not be like that. If I'd have thought for one moment about it I may have been able to put out a hand and have it held and my mind may have been able to have been defused in time rather than suffering the explosion it did.
Lock Stock
And Two Smoking Barrells makes me laugh every time and when Vinnie Jones says at the end of it all "It's been emotional" I can really get that. This week has been a complete drain. These past two weeks have possibly altered my life for ever or at least set a course of events in place that will alter my life for ever.
It's probably not too late to go and cry off but - nah - I'm not going to do that now. I've resolved to tackle this stuff head on from now on and just see where the roller coaster finally takes me.
Way back in 2006 I suggested that I had no idea where I'd end up on this Bladder Cancer Journey and that I probably didn't have much control over it either. Well that is true and here I am 7 years later and I'm nowhere near where I thought things would be.
It's the first anniversary of my father's death today. In many ways it doesn't upset me as much as you might imagine it should. He lived a long life and he looked after mum and my brother and me. We all die, that's the truth of it and he died and we celebrated his life and mourned his death but he would have hated for us to be sad about it - we all die right? He didn't want a memorial for people to go visit or talk to - he just wasn't that sort of man. He was more like me or I was more like him than either of us ever let on :-) That's our profile. Of course I miss him and have fond memories but I don't feel the need to build a shrine, display his photo, put flowers down somewhere. He would never have approved and I like to think it is his wishes I'm following.
For myself - I've had an early Birthday lunch and some cake and some beers and wine (I declared cheat day) and so I'm happy and mellow at the moment.
So glad I'm not where I was yesterday - how bad was that ? Haven't been that down for years and years.
It's probably not too late to go and cry off but - nah - I'm not going to do that now. I've resolved to tackle this stuff head on from now on and just see where the roller coaster finally takes me.
Way back in 2006 I suggested that I had no idea where I'd end up on this Bladder Cancer Journey and that I probably didn't have much control over it either. Well that is true and here I am 7 years later and I'm nowhere near where I thought things would be.
It's the first anniversary of my father's death today. In many ways it doesn't upset me as much as you might imagine it should. He lived a long life and he looked after mum and my brother and me. We all die, that's the truth of it and he died and we celebrated his life and mourned his death but he would have hated for us to be sad about it - we all die right? He didn't want a memorial for people to go visit or talk to - he just wasn't that sort of man. He was more like me or I was more like him than either of us ever let on :-) That's our profile. Of course I miss him and have fond memories but I don't feel the need to build a shrine, display his photo, put flowers down somewhere. He would never have approved and I like to think it is his wishes I'm following.
For myself - I've had an early Birthday lunch and some cake and some beers and wine (I declared cheat day) and so I'm happy and mellow at the moment.
So glad I'm not where I was yesterday - how bad was that ? Haven't been that down for years and years.
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
Two Weeks In - Can You See the Real Me?
MInd out a bit of "adult" language in the clip!!! Then this clip came to mind.
After two weeks I can relate to this album so much and finally I'm getting my head around things. It's hellishly complicated and what in my life hasn't been eh? It wouldn't be me without convoluted issues and twists and turns going on. I feel as if I've finally "seen the light" and not so much in a religious way although I'm certain that there is some underlying connection so let me expand.
Two weeks ago today I set off on a voyage of change and discovery. All my life I've been a cold calculating machine of a guy. I doubt that I was ever spontaneous or just did things for the craic as they say. Sure I had a lot of fun but in reality I was the one keeping an eye on the rest and with few exceptions I'd dump them and go home rather than lose control of myself say for example we were out drinking. I'd be the one scanning for any signs of trouble and keeping everyone safe and out of harms way. I'd do all the planning and organising because that's what I excel at (see what I did there stuck in the spreadsheet program!)
For years and years I've done the same thing and I can't help it, it's in my DNA, it's who I am. My Psychometric Profile is that of an INTJ. Here is what an INTJ is like from this site.
When someone with the INTJ personality has mastered their chosen area of knowledge (INTJs can find their strengths in several fields), they can quickly and honestly say whether they know the answer to a specific question. INTJs know what they know and more importantly – they are confident in that knowledge. Unsurprisingly, this personality type can be labelled as the most independent of all types. INTJs are very decisive, original and insightful – these traits push other people to accept the INTJ’s ideas simply because of that sheer willpower and self-confidence. However, INTJ personalities do not seek nor enjoy the spotlight and may often decide to keep their opinions to themselves if the topic of discussion does not interest them that much.
INTJ personalities are perfectionists and they enjoy improving ideas and systems they come in contact with. As INTJs are naturally curious, this tends to happen quite frequently. However, they always try to remain in the rational territory no matter how attractive the end goal is – every idea that is generated by the INTJ’s mind or reaches it from the outside needs to pass the cold-blooded filter called “Is this going to work?”. This is the INTJ’s coping mechanism and they are notorious for applying it all the time, questioning everything and everyone.
INTJ personalities also have an unusual combination of both decisiveness and vivid imagination. What this means in practice is that they can both design a brilliant plan and execute it. Imagine a giant chessboard where the pieces are constantly moving, trying out new tactics, always directed by an unseen hand – this is what the INTJ’s imagination is like. An INTJ would assess all possible situations, calculate strategic and tactical moves, and more often than not develop a contingency plan or two as well. If someone with the INTJ personality type starts working with a new system, they will regard the task as a moral obligation, merging their perfectionism and drive into one formidable force. Anyone who does not have enough talent or simply does not see the point, including the higher ranks of management, will immediately and likely permanently lose their respect.
INTJ personalities also often shoulder the burden of making important decisions without consulting their peers. They are natural leaders and excellent strategists, but willingly give way to others vying for a leadership position, usually people with Extroverted personalities (E personality type). However, such action can be deceptive and maybe even calculated. An INTJ will retreat into the shadows, maintaining their grip on the most important decisions – but as soon as the leader fails and there is a need to take the steering wheel, the INTJ will not hesitate to act, maybe even while staying in the background. The INTJ personality is the ultimate “Man behind the curtain”.
INTJs dislike rules and artificial limitations – everything should be questionable and open to re-evaluation. They may be idealists (impossible is nothing) and cynics (everybody lies) at the same time. Whatever the circumstances, you can always rely on the INTJ to “fill in” the gaps in the idea – they are most likely to come up with an unorthodox solution.
Generally speaking, INTJs usually prefer to work in the area they know very well. Their typical career is related to science or engineering, but they can be found anywhere where there is a need of intelligence, restless mind and insight (law, investigations, some academic fields). INTJ personalities rarely seek managerial positions – if they do, this is probably because they need more power and freedom of action, not because they enjoy managing people.
Every personality type has many weak spots and INTJs are not an exception. There is one area where their brilliant mind often becomes completely useless and may even hinder their efforts – INTJs find it very difficult to handle romantic relationships, especially in their earliest stages. People with this personality type are more than capable of loving and taking care of the people close to them, but they are likely to be completely clueless when it comes to attracting a partner.
The main reason behind this is that INTJ personalities are both private and incredibly rational – they find it very difficult to understand the complex social rituals that are considered part of the dating game, especially in Western societies. Things like flirting or small talk are unnatural to them; furthermore, INTJs (especially females) tend to see typical attraction tactics (such as feigning disinterest) as incredibly stupid and irrational. Ironically, INTJs are most likely to attract a partner when they stop looking for them – this is when their self-confidence starts shining again. There are few things that are more attractive than the unrelenting self-confidence that INTJs are known for.
If I were to write what I'm like I'd probably write that. I find the last two paragraphs particularly interesting as I don't get any of that at all :-) It at once tells you all that is right and all that is wrong with me. I live in a world where my brain is in overdrive all the time and it never stops whirring and thinking and coming up with ideas, trying to sort out where I am, what I'm doing here and thousands of other computations. I have great friends - they know this I think - I get "taken out" of this land on occasion and try and let my hair (what's left of it) down.
What changed was that I found that I didn't want to live like this anymore. I wanted a different life, to try and be the opposite of what I am, to act spontaneously without thinking too hard about it. To do things without analysing why I was doing them. A simple walk in the park is not a simple walk in the park for me. I am reminded of the film a Beautiful Mind although I could only wish to have a mind like the one portrayed in the film.
Here is the possibly the extreme of my particular problem and if you've seen the film you will recognise the torment that can be my head sometimes. I think about everything and I research and strategize - I don't always get it right and I alter and adapt I understand my subject - even if it is new to me I will become a subject matter expert quickly and I will use that knowledge and build businesses or help someone that is my great gift and a gift I now recognise it is for it serves me particularly well and generally only lets me down occasionally but it doesn't let me live life, get on with life, enjoy life for life's sake, wonder at the glories of the world without wanting to capture and dissect the butterfly to see how it manages to fly.
Since bladder cancer came and woke me up to the fact that I was mortal - for I had not strategized on that much - I had no real idea of the outside world in terms of beauty and wonderment. Niagara Falls when I visited it was a stream of huge numbers and statistics not a wonder of the natural world. My eyes experienced things in a different way and I so much wanted to just experience these things for what they are wonders of creation and our world. There's so much cynicism and anger in this world and yet beauty is all around us and I saw it as a science project not an experience to be savoured for the emotional reactions it made in your body - you see I almost started talking about the chemical balances and what happens in your body when you smell or sense or see something.
So - hope you are with me so far? I looked back at my blog and the "troubles" I've encountered and I've encountered more than I thought these past 7 years and it is 7 years today that it all started. Through early guilt and trauma, dealing with staring at death, dealing with treatment and the shock and awe that regime meted out on me. The post traumatic type stress and the utter fatigues afterwards and my aimless wandering in the employment vacuum. Just some of the stuff I've endured and some I am sure is self inflicted some goes with the territory and I wouldn't wish cancer on my worst enemy. It is a devious pernicious disease that eats you up mentally and physically.
So I wanted a change and someone came along who spoke to me of a different world and a different life, different value systems and above all the simple things in life, those simple pleasures we all take for granted UNLESS you happen to be like me that is. It sounded wonderful and I determined that is what I must do. I must forget logic and plans, risks and issues, contingency plans, safety nets needed to go, it needed to be a concerted effort and a leap of faith to get myself out of where I was and get on the route to somewhere better.
It has been the most difficult transition of my life it's really hard work to keep to it. I feel like I'm Mr. Spock being asked to play a parlour game. There's no Logic to it and that's the thing isn't it, to throw all that stuff away and stop pulling the wings off flies and seeing everything like a scientist does.
I had the most awful day I can remember for such a long time yesterday and finally dawned on me that today 7 years ago my life really did change in a big way. I lost my dream job and I lost a huge chunk of my life really. I lost my self confidence, my self belief, my ego, my self esteem. I lost my dignity - you can't believe what lying down on a bed without your trousers and pants in and having instruments shoved up your Penis can do to you? Maybe you can - must be more than 40 times I've had that done to me maybe more. There's no dignity in cancer or its treatment, there's mental torture and there's pain, there's hope as well but mainly in just gets a big bat and beats you around the body and smacks your brain into porridge.
So there I was wallowing in my own head for all this time and now I've been shown a way out and this hand is extended towards me to pull me out of this pit of self made inward looking almost narcissistic behaviour. It looks good and this hand of friendship is given without precondition. Come and savour a new life, one without inward reflection, without all the analysis and theorising, come out into the sun and blink at its magnificence, come and meet new friends, enjoy their company (and they yours), walk upright into this brave new world.
Then the most difficult thing for a scientist to encompass surely is love. For surely there has to be love and it has to be unconditional and it has to be true. I struggle with this of course because it's all chemical signals and stuff but that's the point. Instead of it being a load of chemicals and pheromones and stuff I need to rethink my ideas and let go and let everything in that I've batted away for so long. I am trying to get to a state of mind where I will be able to be at peace with myself, to actually like myself (I hate myself at the moment) to build my self esteem, self confidence and self belief back up and to love myself for what I am not hate myself for what I am not. Once I get that into my head I can perhaps open up to enjoy my life again and perhaps find a life and find love to go with it.
Here's hoping that I don't screw this up and can keep to the plan - arggggh there is no plan remember! :-) Oh yes it has to be fun and it has to be joyful as well . Not much to ask!
Monday, July 01, 2013
In Blog Overdrive Today
What a day today has been since the moment I woke until now around about 10 pm my whole head has been in turmoil and in the most awful place. It hasn't all been black and despairing like it was years ago but it shook me completely and it took me quite by surprise catching me fully off my guard.
It didn't start like that at all it started with a vivid waking dream that truly upset me and then it morphed into the blog posts you see below here. I feel I've fought off the Devil and his hordes today. I'm exhausted and found myself to be far more fragile than I thought I was. I thought I'd toughened up a bit in the past 6 months. I'm certainly physically fitter, another belt notch today and stomach is beginning to go flat - yay hay! But for sure, my head isn't strong and then of course it became blindingly obvious what it was. Was glad I kept writing and eventually found out what was bugging me. I'm in for a full slap from my mate Flocky Bicep for over analysing but hey, I'll take what's coming, this is just a blip in the process but an annual one that I must get ready for next year - I never ever want to feel like I did earlier today it was awful.
In many ways, you do live this stuff out yourself too - not too many people to help you. I have a couple of friends who will help and one who had the same experiences as me at the same time so we really do "get it" and bless him he was also not in a great place today. So July is my bogey month - just have to deal with that as time goes by. Tomorrow I am being taken out a few days early for my birthday which is on the 4th - my father died last year on the 3rd so I had a strange birthday last year.
Had a very good friend text me this evening and that suddenly turned me around and I feel so much better and whilst I'm emotionally drained I feel that it is over now and the blog posts helped purge the soul and I can calm down now and just get over it.
In effect there are some very poignant bits of those posts which I will leave as they are because they came straight out of my head as I was typing. It shows that you may have to deal with some strange things going on in your head long after you feel you were cured.
I hope I have a good night's sleep tonight I don't need any horrific dreams or sad ones either for that matter.
It didn't start like that at all it started with a vivid waking dream that truly upset me and then it morphed into the blog posts you see below here. I feel I've fought off the Devil and his hordes today. I'm exhausted and found myself to be far more fragile than I thought I was. I thought I'd toughened up a bit in the past 6 months. I'm certainly physically fitter, another belt notch today and stomach is beginning to go flat - yay hay! But for sure, my head isn't strong and then of course it became blindingly obvious what it was. Was glad I kept writing and eventually found out what was bugging me. I'm in for a full slap from my mate Flocky Bicep for over analysing but hey, I'll take what's coming, this is just a blip in the process but an annual one that I must get ready for next year - I never ever want to feel like I did earlier today it was awful.
In many ways, you do live this stuff out yourself too - not too many people to help you. I have a couple of friends who will help and one who had the same experiences as me at the same time so we really do "get it" and bless him he was also not in a great place today. So July is my bogey month - just have to deal with that as time goes by. Tomorrow I am being taken out a few days early for my birthday which is on the 4th - my father died last year on the 3rd so I had a strange birthday last year.
Had a very good friend text me this evening and that suddenly turned me around and I feel so much better and whilst I'm emotionally drained I feel that it is over now and the blog posts helped purge the soul and I can calm down now and just get over it.
In effect there are some very poignant bits of those posts which I will leave as they are because they came straight out of my head as I was typing. It shows that you may have to deal with some strange things going on in your head long after you feel you were cured.
I hope I have a good night's sleep tonight I don't need any horrific dreams or sad ones either for that matter.
What a wobbly day
Phew what a bloody roller coaster ride today has been. Could it be that simple that it is just that July holds bad memories for me and it's at the back of my mind? Maybe it could indeed be that. My friend who also had cancer at the same time as me tells me that he too isn't in a good place at the moment. We both recall the warm weather and the operations we had. We were lucky that we had each other to talk to during the recovery periods and we spent ages meeting up and having lunch and comparing notes.
I still feel I've never really let it all out after that. I've never actually grieved for myself if that is at all possible or meaningful? Maybe it's all locked up and needs purging at some point in time. I've never really had a massive celebration either - remember saying how much I appreciated actually making 50 years old at my party as I didn't think I'd see past it at my 49th :-)
Would be nice to draw a line in the ground now and step over it and everything nasty in the past was erased and I could go and get on with my new life. Would like to be that brave to throw off the old and just get on with the new. Brave new world often felt that it would come down to something like that and in many ways it may just clear down the past.
It would be nice if you could do what you do with a computer and clean out the cache - scrub out the 6/7 years and move on, nothing to see here, move along now come on.
I still feel I've never really let it all out after that. I've never actually grieved for myself if that is at all possible or meaningful? Maybe it's all locked up and needs purging at some point in time. I've never really had a massive celebration either - remember saying how much I appreciated actually making 50 years old at my party as I didn't think I'd see past it at my 49th :-)
Would be nice to draw a line in the ground now and step over it and everything nasty in the past was erased and I could go and get on with my new life. Would like to be that brave to throw off the old and just get on with the new. Brave new world often felt that it would come down to something like that and in many ways it may just clear down the past.
It would be nice if you could do what you do with a computer and clean out the cache - scrub out the 6/7 years and move on, nothing to see here, move along now come on.
It's As If You Don't Want Me To Succeed
There's something not quite right about the way that my mind screws with me. It's as if all the negative thoughts and negative vibes are stored away and neatly filed ready to undermine me at any time, in any situation and just hover like the sword of Damocles ready to strike.
For reasons that aren't apparently obvious to you the reader because I choose not to tell you I need to be at the top of my game now, I have been given something wonderful that has the potential to change my life from now on, to give me the direction that has been lacking (why did you survive etc) there's a bright future, I can see it, I can almost touch it it's just there just slightly out of reach of my fingertips. It's like one of those movies where you are dangling from a precipice with thousands of feet to drop to your death. Above you is your salvation hand reaching out but we don't know in the film plot whether or not they will offer their hand and we don't know whether, if offered, the hand will be taken by the person hanging on for dear life.
So there we are it's all being played out, there's survival, redemption, a happy ending waiting in the hand dangling down towards me, the sun is out behind that person I can't see their expression yet but I know I want to be rescued and go up there away from this danger. Hanging on there I'm full of adrenalin and fear. Just as I'm about to reach up and grab the hand suddenly I feel a huge weight on my legs pulling down on me threatening to drag me back down into the dark abyss. I look down and it's all my demons unlocked from my head clawing at my legs pulling me down into their world.
I'm in a middle ground here, I'm strong enough to hold on and stop being pulled down but controlling them stops me from reaching up to the hand that is there. My mind plays tricks on me to the extreme, if I reach up will the hand be pulled away. I trust the owner of this hand, they wouldn't do that. But the demons taunt me and suggest and whisper and play to my innermost fears. Does the hand exist at all they say, is it strong enough? Do you really know they will pull you in? In my heart or hearts it says reach up grab that hand for all you are worth. Once you've grabbed it never let it go.
I can't hang on for ever I realise and I need to make a decision. The fear is that I don't make the decision at all or that I reach out and I miss that hand entirely. Sometimes it's not easy being me at all. At the moment I can taste it - let's call it freedom shall we - breaking the bonds that hold me down, being free, cutting loose. The demons are the manifestation of the extremes of the risks and the stuff I need to leave behind. My head is a train wreck all twisted metal and dismembered parts.
I think I can blame Bladder Cancer squarely for this and also the trauma of the treatment too. I often said that the NHS (God bless them) treat the symptoms of the cancer and they do that well but it's just like anything else, a broken leg maybe, reset it, plaster it, few drugs, let nature take her course, off with the plaster, take it easy, good as new. And so it is with many things I guess but cancer, that's different and they don't treat your mind.
Someone once asked me whether I thought I would die and I remember saying that yes I did - it was truly a moment of massive introverted thinking. The dawning of what it may mean to leave everyone behind was a salutary lesson to me. I've always looked at it that we all die but suddenly I didn't want to go then. I think I remember wanting to see my kids graduate, perhaps get married or settle down and look after themselves was the main thing because 7 years ago tomorrow would be when I got ill.
NOW THERE YOU GO.... What do you reckon just happened there then???? 7 years since I got ill - it must be plugged into my brain mustn't it.
1st July - my Mum's Birthday
2nd July - I get Cancer
3rd July - my Dad dies
4th July - my birthday
Oh FFS - could this be what it was all about all along? Knew being able to blog today would be useful - bloody hell was it on the back of my mind all along? Can't be it isn't the 2nd July yet.
For reasons that aren't apparently obvious to you the reader because I choose not to tell you I need to be at the top of my game now, I have been given something wonderful that has the potential to change my life from now on, to give me the direction that has been lacking (why did you survive etc) there's a bright future, I can see it, I can almost touch it it's just there just slightly out of reach of my fingertips. It's like one of those movies where you are dangling from a precipice with thousands of feet to drop to your death. Above you is your salvation hand reaching out but we don't know in the film plot whether or not they will offer their hand and we don't know whether, if offered, the hand will be taken by the person hanging on for dear life.
So there we are it's all being played out, there's survival, redemption, a happy ending waiting in the hand dangling down towards me, the sun is out behind that person I can't see their expression yet but I know I want to be rescued and go up there away from this danger. Hanging on there I'm full of adrenalin and fear. Just as I'm about to reach up and grab the hand suddenly I feel a huge weight on my legs pulling down on me threatening to drag me back down into the dark abyss. I look down and it's all my demons unlocked from my head clawing at my legs pulling me down into their world.
I'm in a middle ground here, I'm strong enough to hold on and stop being pulled down but controlling them stops me from reaching up to the hand that is there. My mind plays tricks on me to the extreme, if I reach up will the hand be pulled away. I trust the owner of this hand, they wouldn't do that. But the demons taunt me and suggest and whisper and play to my innermost fears. Does the hand exist at all they say, is it strong enough? Do you really know they will pull you in? In my heart or hearts it says reach up grab that hand for all you are worth. Once you've grabbed it never let it go.
I can't hang on for ever I realise and I need to make a decision. The fear is that I don't make the decision at all or that I reach out and I miss that hand entirely. Sometimes it's not easy being me at all. At the moment I can taste it - let's call it freedom shall we - breaking the bonds that hold me down, being free, cutting loose. The demons are the manifestation of the extremes of the risks and the stuff I need to leave behind. My head is a train wreck all twisted metal and dismembered parts.
I think I can blame Bladder Cancer squarely for this and also the trauma of the treatment too. I often said that the NHS (God bless them) treat the symptoms of the cancer and they do that well but it's just like anything else, a broken leg maybe, reset it, plaster it, few drugs, let nature take her course, off with the plaster, take it easy, good as new. And so it is with many things I guess but cancer, that's different and they don't treat your mind.
Someone once asked me whether I thought I would die and I remember saying that yes I did - it was truly a moment of massive introverted thinking. The dawning of what it may mean to leave everyone behind was a salutary lesson to me. I've always looked at it that we all die but suddenly I didn't want to go then. I think I remember wanting to see my kids graduate, perhaps get married or settle down and look after themselves was the main thing because 7 years ago tomorrow would be when I got ill.
NOW THERE YOU GO.... What do you reckon just happened there then???? 7 years since I got ill - it must be plugged into my brain mustn't it.
1st July - my Mum's Birthday
2nd July - I get Cancer
3rd July - my Dad dies
4th July - my birthday
Oh FFS - could this be what it was all about all along? Knew being able to blog today would be useful - bloody hell was it on the back of my mind all along? Can't be it isn't the 2nd July yet.
Usefulness of Blogging
On days like these it is invaluable to me to just unload onto the blog. I don't remember ever being a complicated person or indeed a particularly deep thinker, worrier or much else before I had cancer. I would never have run a daily journal let alone a blog.
Blogs are cathartic because you can do a number of things with them - I imagine you could hone your writing and storytelling skills, you can use it for fiction or fact or a line somewhere in between.
You can tell the truth, half truth or lie. You can run a journal of random thoughts a bit like this one or be more focussed on a subject.
To me the usefulness of blogging is actually like today. I need to go talk to someone or write it down to analyse it if you will. I actually know that I'm meant to be following a path of not analysing stuff but somehow today was like going back 3 or 4 years to days of the Black Dog to days of real anguish and pain and suffering and well I shouldn't be feeling this right now I shouldn't be digging up the old stuff. I thought I'd got away from all of that and I thought I was stronger than all that.
Tomorrow it will be 2 weeks since I decided to change my life for ever to get rid of all the shackles that had bound me mind and body. It is never going to happen overnight and without resistance to change - we are humans and we actually don't embrace change as well as we like to think we do. In many ways there's a feeling especially for someone with my particularly "tight" ordered mind that you are launching yourself off an abyss, that is why it is so hard for me to do it. The unknown doesn't sit comfortably with me, I want to know, be in control all the time and to be prepared to give up the things that make me, me is a huge ask. But that's what I did for better or worse and so far it has been a struggle, it hasn't been plain sailing but then again, some of the rewards so far have more than made up for it.
Today is a flashback day, my body and my mind are fighting it out and my mind has resorted to dirty tactics. Fighting dirty is I suppose one way and maybe if that's the last resort then maybe I'm on the way to winning but it is the depravity of my mind's comments the vicious way it accuses me and the torment going on in my head I don't like. How can your own mind wish such wanton destruction on itself? Don't get this wrong it isn't anywhere near suicidal thoughts or that sort of thing far from it. This is a constant series of bullying snipes at my self belief and self esteem system. It's as if you are being bullied all the time but it's in your head.
Stuff like, and yet it appears trivial, you failed at being a father, or you haven't had a job for a while because you aren't any good, you shouldn't have survived cancer, you are a failure and so many other things like this but some too distressing to put to paper. Being told you aren't good enough for someone or anything to do with some sort of rejection are the worst I find. These things aren't even remotely true and don't stand up to scrutiny - that's the thing they aren't even rational thoughts. What they are, are a constant stream of negative energy eating away at me and my self confidence (what little of that I have) and its just intent on pulling me down - it doesn't want me to be happy, it nit picks on any slight doubt I have and goes for it.
So I have a doubt about something let's say, I was worried about something I'd said to someone and wasn't sure if they'd heard that right. It would worry me a little but now what is happening is it gets blown out of all proportion by my head and suddenly its a full blown crises and I start to doubt myself. I know what this is, I have to deal with it and now because whilst I've always had this constant "head battle" since I got cancer I don't need this right now, I need something different I need the real me to be talking inside my head not the demons.
I've never needed the real me to be there for me more than now, to guide and help me, to finally make me believe in myself and to "be me" to help me to form the right sentences that mean what they say and that aren't trite. To look into people's eyes when I speak to them, to stop looking at the floor or elsewhere, to be self confident, to show the real me, to be the real me. Now more than ever when I've picked myself up from all the cr@p that's come my way, where I've got something to strive for, to live for, to aspire to, now, when I need the backbone and the courage to get rid of my inhibitions and shyness, my lack of self confidence and low self esteem just when I get some way towards that - the bloody demons come and threaten to take it all away. It's not fair and I feel it eat at my chest and my head like some poison not wanting me to move on and not wanting me to be free.
This is a pretty upsetting blog for me as it made me realise that despite all the good stuff going on in my life right now there is still so much inner turmoil to get rid of. I can actually feel the stress as I am catching my breath a fair bit and feeling a little sick. I don't think that this is like it was 6 years ago at all, it is just a lot of self doubt and not knowing how to handle situations using my heart and not my brain.
It was never going to be easy to travel down a road that I am unfamiliar with - whilst all this is happening to me, I don't intend to turn away from it, good will win and I will conquer this - it's just and if I might address my inner mind here "I DON'T FFFFING WELL NEED THIS RIGHT NOW SO P!SS OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!" there, that's better.
I need a hug :-)
Blogs are cathartic because you can do a number of things with them - I imagine you could hone your writing and storytelling skills, you can use it for fiction or fact or a line somewhere in between.
You can tell the truth, half truth or lie. You can run a journal of random thoughts a bit like this one or be more focussed on a subject.
To me the usefulness of blogging is actually like today. I need to go talk to someone or write it down to analyse it if you will. I actually know that I'm meant to be following a path of not analysing stuff but somehow today was like going back 3 or 4 years to days of the Black Dog to days of real anguish and pain and suffering and well I shouldn't be feeling this right now I shouldn't be digging up the old stuff. I thought I'd got away from all of that and I thought I was stronger than all that.
Tomorrow it will be 2 weeks since I decided to change my life for ever to get rid of all the shackles that had bound me mind and body. It is never going to happen overnight and without resistance to change - we are humans and we actually don't embrace change as well as we like to think we do. In many ways there's a feeling especially for someone with my particularly "tight" ordered mind that you are launching yourself off an abyss, that is why it is so hard for me to do it. The unknown doesn't sit comfortably with me, I want to know, be in control all the time and to be prepared to give up the things that make me, me is a huge ask. But that's what I did for better or worse and so far it has been a struggle, it hasn't been plain sailing but then again, some of the rewards so far have more than made up for it.
Today is a flashback day, my body and my mind are fighting it out and my mind has resorted to dirty tactics. Fighting dirty is I suppose one way and maybe if that's the last resort then maybe I'm on the way to winning but it is the depravity of my mind's comments the vicious way it accuses me and the torment going on in my head I don't like. How can your own mind wish such wanton destruction on itself? Don't get this wrong it isn't anywhere near suicidal thoughts or that sort of thing far from it. This is a constant series of bullying snipes at my self belief and self esteem system. It's as if you are being bullied all the time but it's in your head.
Stuff like, and yet it appears trivial, you failed at being a father, or you haven't had a job for a while because you aren't any good, you shouldn't have survived cancer, you are a failure and so many other things like this but some too distressing to put to paper. Being told you aren't good enough for someone or anything to do with some sort of rejection are the worst I find. These things aren't even remotely true and don't stand up to scrutiny - that's the thing they aren't even rational thoughts. What they are, are a constant stream of negative energy eating away at me and my self confidence (what little of that I have) and its just intent on pulling me down - it doesn't want me to be happy, it nit picks on any slight doubt I have and goes for it.
So I have a doubt about something let's say, I was worried about something I'd said to someone and wasn't sure if they'd heard that right. It would worry me a little but now what is happening is it gets blown out of all proportion by my head and suddenly its a full blown crises and I start to doubt myself. I know what this is, I have to deal with it and now because whilst I've always had this constant "head battle" since I got cancer I don't need this right now, I need something different I need the real me to be talking inside my head not the demons.
I've never needed the real me to be there for me more than now, to guide and help me, to finally make me believe in myself and to "be me" to help me to form the right sentences that mean what they say and that aren't trite. To look into people's eyes when I speak to them, to stop looking at the floor or elsewhere, to be self confident, to show the real me, to be the real me. Now more than ever when I've picked myself up from all the cr@p that's come my way, where I've got something to strive for, to live for, to aspire to, now, when I need the backbone and the courage to get rid of my inhibitions and shyness, my lack of self confidence and low self esteem just when I get some way towards that - the bloody demons come and threaten to take it all away. It's not fair and I feel it eat at my chest and my head like some poison not wanting me to move on and not wanting me to be free.
This is a pretty upsetting blog for me as it made me realise that despite all the good stuff going on in my life right now there is still so much inner turmoil to get rid of. I can actually feel the stress as I am catching my breath a fair bit and feeling a little sick. I don't think that this is like it was 6 years ago at all, it is just a lot of self doubt and not knowing how to handle situations using my heart and not my brain.
It was never going to be easy to travel down a road that I am unfamiliar with - whilst all this is happening to me, I don't intend to turn away from it, good will win and I will conquer this - it's just and if I might address my inner mind here "I DON'T FFFFING WELL NEED THIS RIGHT NOW SO P!SS OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!" there, that's better.
I need a hug :-)
Sleepless in somewhere that isn't Seattle
Sometimes I don't get stuff. If things aren't crystal clear and I know exactly what is being said I get very confused. I can't compute phrases that disguise perhaps another meaning. Of course I can get day to day wordplay but this is different. This is where things are said in code, things are said that may perhaps be the opposite of what they mean.
Few words were said yesterday and I just didn't understand them. Tried to get my head around them but suddenly it was as if I'd never learnt English at school because I ran out of words to say to respond. I felt like I was in a room of strangers and unable to attract any attention or have anything to say or to start a conversation with. I don't think I've ever felt so utterly alone before - this was just for a few minutes it was absolutely terrifying to me and completely shook me to the core. I've never ever been in such a strange place/world before.
In many ways I don't understand the meaning behind the words but what I took them to mean was to perhaps jump to conclusions perhaps reach into my mind and pick up on all those pieces of ammunition I beat myself up with. For suddenly I was using my own self doubt and anti self confidence bullets to beat myself up mentally and that was it. It was like being assaulted by your own thoughts and beaten into a corner with all those doubts and stinging criticisms about yourself only your own mind can conjure up. They didn't stop although I managed to stave off some of the attack, they kicked ten bells of sh1t out of me whilst I slept and when I woke this morning I felt I'd done a full ten rounds.
I actually woke feeling relatively OK considering I should be in the darkest depths after that onslaught. I do feel weak and a little emotional this morning but that's just because of how hurtful my brain was to me last night.
I can't perhaps tell you how upsetting it is to have this as during the dark days of Bladder Cancer, during those treatments and the traumatic stress that they induced, these "voices" were always clawing at my self confidence and ripping away at your mind. Dark days indeed, Imagine your own mind saying to you "you're gonna die", "you're a wimp after you've had your treatment". It's SO upsetting to have your head do this to you but that's Depression folks, it does that to you, it finds the smallest little chink in your armour and sticks a lever in there and prises that open then finds another and so on. This silent battle goes on all the time you are suffering.
Eventually you get over it (or I did I'm sure some poor people battle this every day) and you park this stuff at the back of your mind. Yesterday, it got released (I thought perhaps I'd killed it off) and unleashed itself on me overnight in a torrent of abuse and misinformation and lies and deceit aimed only at making me miserable. I'm not going to fall into its clutches, it's all gone and is banished back to where it came from but it has left me really drained this morning and quite emotional. Unleashing the demons I can do without how dare they do this to me? I get a way out presented to me and there's light at the end of this particularly dark tunnel I've travelled along and my own mind wants me not to go there.
I suppose it was churlish of me to expect this next phase of my journey to go easy. Perhaps I'm not destined to have joy and happiness dropped into my lap, maybe I have to work now even harder to achieve it? I won't let these doubts that are assailing me and these awful questions written by Hades himself come and get me the reward is far greater and failure cannot be an option, I didn't live so that I could not be a better person and reach for greater things in life. That path lies before me, I hadn't realised it would be strewn with mines and bombs not from my enemies but from my own mind.
I know out there lies real happiness and contentment (I must get to a point where I am going to be happy with myself), wonderment, enjoyment and love, above all there must be love because that would bring the whole journey together.
Few words were said yesterday and I just didn't understand them. Tried to get my head around them but suddenly it was as if I'd never learnt English at school because I ran out of words to say to respond. I felt like I was in a room of strangers and unable to attract any attention or have anything to say or to start a conversation with. I don't think I've ever felt so utterly alone before - this was just for a few minutes it was absolutely terrifying to me and completely shook me to the core. I've never ever been in such a strange place/world before.
In many ways I don't understand the meaning behind the words but what I took them to mean was to perhaps jump to conclusions perhaps reach into my mind and pick up on all those pieces of ammunition I beat myself up with. For suddenly I was using my own self doubt and anti self confidence bullets to beat myself up mentally and that was it. It was like being assaulted by your own thoughts and beaten into a corner with all those doubts and stinging criticisms about yourself only your own mind can conjure up. They didn't stop although I managed to stave off some of the attack, they kicked ten bells of sh1t out of me whilst I slept and when I woke this morning I felt I'd done a full ten rounds.
I actually woke feeling relatively OK considering I should be in the darkest depths after that onslaught. I do feel weak and a little emotional this morning but that's just because of how hurtful my brain was to me last night.
I can't perhaps tell you how upsetting it is to have this as during the dark days of Bladder Cancer, during those treatments and the traumatic stress that they induced, these "voices" were always clawing at my self confidence and ripping away at your mind. Dark days indeed, Imagine your own mind saying to you "you're gonna die", "you're a wimp after you've had your treatment". It's SO upsetting to have your head do this to you but that's Depression folks, it does that to you, it finds the smallest little chink in your armour and sticks a lever in there and prises that open then finds another and so on. This silent battle goes on all the time you are suffering.
Eventually you get over it (or I did I'm sure some poor people battle this every day) and you park this stuff at the back of your mind. Yesterday, it got released (I thought perhaps I'd killed it off) and unleashed itself on me overnight in a torrent of abuse and misinformation and lies and deceit aimed only at making me miserable. I'm not going to fall into its clutches, it's all gone and is banished back to where it came from but it has left me really drained this morning and quite emotional. Unleashing the demons I can do without how dare they do this to me? I get a way out presented to me and there's light at the end of this particularly dark tunnel I've travelled along and my own mind wants me not to go there.
I suppose it was churlish of me to expect this next phase of my journey to go easy. Perhaps I'm not destined to have joy and happiness dropped into my lap, maybe I have to work now even harder to achieve it? I won't let these doubts that are assailing me and these awful questions written by Hades himself come and get me the reward is far greater and failure cannot be an option, I didn't live so that I could not be a better person and reach for greater things in life. That path lies before me, I hadn't realised it would be strewn with mines and bombs not from my enemies but from my own mind.
I know out there lies real happiness and contentment (I must get to a point where I am going to be happy with myself), wonderment, enjoyment and love, above all there must be love because that would bring the whole journey together.
So I'll leave you and me with this rather lovely number by Camel - it's the overall sentiment and not the lyrics that I like and the beautiful melody. When I used to sit and listen to music a lot I'd invariably put this on as the last track.
Decrypting Messages
My head doesn't work very well cryptically at all and so if I get an obtuse phrase used or one that doesn't compute in my brain it normally throws me a real curve ball.
I've had a number of these that either I'm just sensitive about or that don't appear to say what they are asking. Having the devil's own job trying to work out what to do with them.
I've had a number of these that either I'm just sensitive about or that don't appear to say what they are asking. Having the devil's own job trying to work out what to do with them.
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