It's my life and I'll cry if I want to....

It has been a good day, a very full and busy day, but productive, useful and generally positive - then I got home. The answerphone was beeping, and the message that played back was from someone important and that they didn't like how I had gone about something.  I had to phone back and duely got my verbal slap on the wrist for a slight misdemeanor.  Something that probably happens to someone somewhere every day, maybe every hour every day.  But it made me cry.

I was tense and defensive just hearing the message, and it was worse when I called back. The other person had a valid point, no big deal but that I should be aware next time etc.. The incident was tiny, microscopic, on the richter scale of life   I was so glad to be on the phone not face to face. I can try and hide it in my voice but I can't stop the tears from falling and totally breaking up.

And then came the comment that it was a symptom of a general attitude issue I have and am 'getting a reputation for' and regardless of whether the person hadn't intended it that way it made me a wreck.

Realistically - yes they had a point, and it was worth making. Mostly I am so angry with myself for reacting so violently to justifiable criticism. I like to think I am so much better in myself, and in so many ways I am, but if you prick me do I not bleed? And like a flood!

In reality is it that I am not really any better at responding to criticism but merely better at avoiding situations where I am in the wrong or risk being in the wrong. I still react as if the world will end because I have been told off. It is worse when I know it is a valid point, it triggers all my 'being useless', 'being a failure', 'about to be cast out into outer darkness' vulnerability.  We covered this in therapy - my deep seated instinctive fear that if I am not perfect then I am worthless.  Have I really not moved on? Am I so easily crushed by the suggestion that I could have dealt with something better?

My brain recognises that it is something that should be shugged off and chalked up to experience, but my reaction is from somewhere deep, deep within and beyond the contro;l of my rational self.

Am I always going to be like this? Will the child inside ever feel healed and safe?

Counting spoons ...

Today I have been in bed – all day, though did manage to surface for food hunt in the kitchen. It’s the chronic fatigue after a busy few days getting up at regular commuting worker times and concentrating for long periods of time whereas normally I rise later and take breaks, though will work late into the evening/night.

On my glass course there were just a few of us and we chatted a lot, I was introduced to the idea of Spoon theory – it is a close metaphoric cousin to my usual image of the energy budget. You only have so much available, and when fatigued each action costs more – or takes an extra spoon.

With the budget image I can explain the overdraft effect – that I can spend against the credit of the following day, but like overdrafts it comes with a cost. No energy the next day and it feels like I have to pay back with interest.

Today I am paying back my energy debt from last week's course, but it was worth it.  My body may be fatigued but I am feeling really well mentally, lifted and renewed. Even lying here all day not able to do anything expect catch up on iplayer in a half listening way I have not feel the frustration or self reproach that is usual when I have to cancel something in the diary. Instead I have felt peace, tired peace, but peace!

So I definitely think it was worth it – and even worth the effects of fatigue.

A creative retreat

I have just had 3 days away, a retreat.  Well to me it was, it was a place to be me, not the job, nor even the daughter, sister, auntie that I am in my usual time off stays with family. It was 3 days of fused glass design, 3 days devoted to my hobby.

3 trees waiting for kiln

Does that count as a retreat? I mean it wasn’t a holy retreat with prayer times and quiet reflection on God, actually that would be hard – it so easily drifts into thinking about work and things going on in my churches rather than being a retreat away from them.

What is a retreat for? If it is to have space away, if it is to restore and refresh – then my glass course counts. It was great to go into a safe bubble where there was nothing more to worry about than what to put on the sheet of glass on the bench in front of me. I do feel restored and refreshed – well apart from the fatigue after 3 full, busy days!

'Creation'

So once I sleep it off I will be up and running with new vigour and strength. The first day’s work was ready to come home with me, as was the last item that didn’t need the kiln, but the rest I wait for in eager anticipation, especially the broken bottle sculpture!  And then I will be trying it out in my own kiln...

Beach huts - Etching, engraving and gilding class

But first its back to work, the point of a retreat from normal life is that it is temporary respite and you have to come back.

Allsorts day

My blood tests came back normal for B12 – I was disappointed. That may sound odd but there is a lot of logic to it. It is not a wish to have a problem, but a wish to have something fixable. Though objectively measurable would be good too.  From chronic fatigue to depression I am fed up with subjective conditions. Other people can see the effects but no-one can measure the good day or the bad day, or even the bad day coped with well bluffing people into thinking it’s a good day. That leaves the pressure on me to balance my own care, yet I can’t necessarily do that.

When I am low but not totally crashed out the boundaries are all blurred. Is my hiding under the duvet typing this* because the house is cold and I’m a miser, or because  I can’t face the big wide world and it’s my safe zone– security blanket effect, or because I am tired and want to be horizontal?  It is partly a mix of all of those, with a dash of bad habits becoming engrained, but in any one day the proportions vary.

But if I am feeling the depression then I am also likely to be beating myself up with guilt, and so likely to accuse myself of bad habit laziness for my lack of proper eating, housework and general life stuff, let alone work and especially avoiding people because I can’t face the world.  So does that mean that the more I blame laziness and bad habits then the deeper my depression is? But sometimes it will be habit and laziness, and bad behaviour like watching iplayer after midnight which will leave me overtired next day.

This morning I saw someone on an overdue visit and survived, enjoyed her stories of long ago, and left wracked with guilt that I had let myself put off the visit, this afternoon I went to see someone who had asked me at church to call because she wanted a chat. All week I had been dreading it and still was. Why? I think it was because she isn’t the sort of person to feel a need of me for a there, there care visit, and she will state her mind quite firmly about issues. Add in my own guilt about visits not made....

I braced myself at the doorstep as if I was at the head teacher’s door. And it turned out that she was offering to help out, that she wanted to do something useful with her time and lots she couldn’t do but she can get around in the car and can listen and chat. In their village chapel there is not currently any folk stuck at home but she could help in other places if I could use her. I was reduced to tears at the offer as the neighbouring church has so many in need of regular visits, and so few left to visit. 

She affirmed me in my role as a minister despite the guilt I confessed to feeling about avoiding visits when my depression sends me under the duvet too often.  She reminded me that God knew my strengths and weaknesses when he called me to this – and called me as that person. Theoretically I know that but being reminded by someone else is precious, and in an unexpected moment when the guilt was high and I really needed it.  

* about 5pm in draft

Impersonating the organised

Last week I was accused of being organised, which I think just goes to show what a good actor I am – or bluffer at least. I am always chasing my tail which since I don’t have one can be a fruitless exercise! My study looks like an explosion in a paper factory, and in my house only the bathroom I think is free of wandering work. 

 Anyway that accusation has come back to mind as I see friends in the job commenting on their facebook statuses (stati?) about tackling their tax returns – deadline end of January. The tax return we were sent in April and I returned in May. Hmm is that a sign that I am organised then?  And when the chasing emails come for the autumn church paperwork I get to glow in the fact that with a little encouragement (and more) from me my churches were all done on time.

So am I organised? Many years ago when I looked much more organised than my housemate suddenly he came across the truth – ‘You are not organised, you just write everything down’.  Some may say that that is what organisation is, but I know that what my friend saw then is why I can give the impression of being organised about my tax return and October returns.  I know how unorganised I am, and that if I don’t do the big things that I will be trouble for not getting done as soon as possible they will be drowned in the sea of paper and totally forgotten when the real deadline comes.

I deal with it, I write it down, because if I don’t ..... I won’t!  And that is what happens with far too many things, until I get one of my periodic attacks of order. That’s when it is time to go and lie done in a darkened room until it passes...

Getting in a spin...

This has been a week that has been spiralling out of control.  I have expensive bills for fixes in the flat, ongoing damp and the tenant leaving.  I have been upset and frustrated in work, over tired and apathetic with the Black Dog prowling around.

Yesterday the washing machine broke, the clothes stayed soggy, the Dog was growling, I had been busy all day and still needed to prep for Sunday . 

Today, after being awake half the night, I finally dragged myself up and running late went straight for the car, de-icer was empty, back to house, discovered the kitchen floor was swimming from dripping clothes, ignored it, found spare de-icer and finally left.  And that was just the morning!!

All week I have been sliding towards the hiding under duvet stage, the rapid onslaught of things beyond my control, and control is the real issue. Tonight I am bouncing back – why? Because I gained control over something.

I decided I couldn’t afford a new washing machine, or even an expensive repair, so searched the web and decided to pull it out and see if it is something simple – and it was. The fan belt had fallen off and I was able to put it back on, screw the back on again and spin the soggy clothes.

There are plenty of things I can’t fix and issues overwhelming me, but one victory gives me hope that other things can be faced as well - I even got the dishes washed that had been piling since Wednesday.   

I am still over tired, still feeling like wading through treacle to get anything done, but I am looking out not down – all because I got the spin back!

Beware your sins will find you out...

Before Christmas I was getting so tired that it was an effort to stay awake much of the day, though by force of will I could when I needed to, as long as I could get a rest soon after.

The doctor put me on Amitriptyline to help me stay asleep at night (my sleep diary showed lots of waking in the small hours) and that has helped. I am now merely tired all day rather than exhausted.  I was also sent for blood tests – iron,  thyroid, blood sugars etc.

A return trip to the doctors reveals that my red blood cells are enlarged – suggesting a deficiency in B12 and folate.  A dietary issue probably, 'can be alcohol as well' mentioned the doctor with a quip about communion wine, as he booked me in for B12 and folate blood checks.

I left without saying anything, but I have been drinking excessively during the past year. Not enough to be unable to stop (I did for lent) but enough that I would be embarrassed for people to know. I came home to google it all.  It should be easy to get enough of these B vitamins in diet, but alcohol stops the body being able to get at it.  I hadn’t expected that regular drinking at my level would have such a definite impact on my body’s functioning. 

Or maybe the deficiency is due to the fact that my eating habits are rubbish.  I often go without breakfast or other meals and then end up with a super sized portion when I do cook, or binge on lazy junk to get the sugar hit. 

So whether it is the eating or the drink, my sins have found me out – my bloods tell the tale

I have felt ashamed at how things have been, and note that it is taking much more guts to comment on my drinking here, and yet my eating habits are equally self destructive.  Shame may put me off the glass of red since the results, but hasn’t improved my diet (except that I added marmite to my crisp sandwiches).

It does make me wonder about the classification of weaknesses/faults/bad habits. Some are seen as worse than others and yet all can be as bad in terms of not caring enough for my own wellbeing.

A new year....

A New Year or just another new day? Well both of course, there is something important about having review points in life, and maybe something useful in sharing the angst with others, the regrets and the promises to be fitter, healthier, lighter.

I saw 2013 in home alone, well me and my cough at any rate. I didn't even notice midnight pass, but I did manage a glasswork project - first firing in 2012 and second, bowl firing in 2013. 

2012 was a dramatic year in many ways, in the lives of those I walked alongside, and still do, as minister. This will be a hard time for one of the villages I work with as we approach this month the anniversary of one of their own disappearing, and during Feb and March the ensuing murder trial.  And away from public notice the private agonies of individuals whose stories I hold to myself.

It was also the year of my ordination - after all the years of doubt and struggle finally the moment where a congregation stood and on behalf of the wider church proclaimed me and my colleagues 'Worthy!!'  I even coped with the presence of the person I most struggled with in the depths of my depression.

What will 2013 hold? We dare not predict, for as with all times it will throw up its own surprises.  However it will be a busy year at one of my churches as we try to use the 150th anniversary as an excuse for new ventures and a hope to reinvigorate ourselves. 

For me? Well I have a shiny new kiln to practice my glass fusing with and at the end of the month I have a three day course in the 'next steps'.  So with tools and ideas watch out world - Manse Crafts are coming!