The minister's dog

Easter Sunday and it has been an interesting day in the story of Gabi and I.  This morning she was happy sunning herself in the garden (after coming to fetch me for a game of chase) so I decided not to call her in to lock her up whilst I went to my first service. The garden is secure, and I left the back porch open for shelter locking up the rest of the house.  It seemed the natural thing to do though some may think otherwise. When I returned lunchtime all was well.

Later I had 2 services following on – with a bit of time between but not enough to come back to base. It would be a lot longer than any time she had been yet left alone, was it too soon? I took the other option and she came to church with me. She fidgeted at the first – every time people stood to sing she thought she would be taken out for a walk! But settled ok. 

On route to the next service I drive through a large common, we had a bit of time so stopped and went for a walk. The theory was good, Gabi enjoyed it but this was up in the lands still with snow, and melted snow ran in rivulets. Quite early on I slipped and slid through the mud – yes with my tidy preaching clothes, and in the interests of doing a thorough job as I slid down the skirt slid up so it was a damp bum for the rest of the evening!

During the evening service a tired Gabi was very settled and lay down most of the time, even when we have the percussion out. She coped well but I wonder if overloading with new places and people was worse than leaving her to manage a 5-6hr stint alone.  It may have been a Hobson’s and I would still have worried about doing the right thing if it had been the other way around.

In any event we have both survived, had supper and settled for the night, a quiet Monday I think.

The arrival ...

So my new housemate has moved in. I collected Gabi from the Dog’s Trust centre yesterday and we are in the early days of working each other out. I have found that she loves the garden and enjoys a game of chase and the chance to run around. She is also camera shy and any time I try to get a close up with my phone camera she turns to walk away. She is good, too good – as if she is wary of where she will end up next if she does anything wrong.

She has discovered that after letting her out in the morning for a toilet break I return to bed and can stay there for hours – she came upstairs with me at first and after I went down for our breakfasts around 8am and then returned she later came up to check on me then went away again.

We have a lot in common, anxiety, concern about being good and getting things right and needing to take time to decide if someone’s kindness can really be trusted. Well I like to think I have moved on from the last one but it is definitely a pattern I recognise.

It will be interesting to see how our group therapy progresses.

For now my end of term report is that things are all a bit of a haze, emotionally numb and disconnected from Easter despite needing to lead services. Oh well, it’s Friday but Sunday’s coming... sometime!  

When people are scary even though they're not

It has been a bit of a mixed day, it started with an early wake up and remembering I hadn’t put the rubbish out last night so quick dash in pyjamas before back to bed.  The post brought a thick envelope from psychology services - this was not a simple appointment letter. Actually no appointment at all, just a hope for one in a couple of months – and a thick wad of a questionnaire to fill in. What are my difficulties, how affect life, my childhood, relationships, friendships, employment and education histories.  Quite intense but after years of ministry training with annual self reflection forms I coped well enough and spent the morning filling it up. An achievement.

It does make me stop and think about how this episode of depression varies from others before. This afternoon I forced myself to make a visit at the community hospital, it was overdue and as I was already out on errands and virtually passing it I couldn’t find an excuse to put it off. It sounds awful, I do care and that is why I feel guilty about it all – not visiting, not wanting to be there, and afterwards feel small and petty as my reasons for avoiding visits seem flimsy compared to their needs.

This social anxiety has been part of my shadows for years but it seems to be topping the bill in this episode. I don’t have any definite thoughts of things that I am afraid of happening, just a general angst, emotion without conscious thought.  It is as if my unconscious mind knows my conscious thinking part is too clued up to recognising the twisted thoughts as irrational and the voice of depression not reality and avoids that tactic. So I get the feelings without thoughts.

But if you read up anything about social anxiety it seems an odd thing to have when I can stand up every week and lead public worship and preach. Just the sort of thing that makes people nervous even without any anxiety issues.  I can do that, but social chit-chat, one to ones, coffee morning chatter, all that feels beyond me.  I suppose a major difference is control, knowing the conversation topic and feeling more confident because of that.

So social stuff has always been draining, but at the moment it feels beyond me, and a major part of the current depression.  Bit of a challenge in a people based job!

Canine therapist

So the answer seemed to be yes to the Dog question. I have been to the rescue kennels and met the one I fell in love with on the website.  She is a collie/samoyed cross about 6yrs old, a big girl, and more so as both fluffy fur and very overweight. I have offers for dog walking from a friend who can’t have a dog in her flat, so between us she should get the exercise she needs to lose the flab, and we will go on a diet together.

Most people have been very positive about my live-in therapist and fitness buddy, the occasional warning comment has been from people worrying about me taking on a burden, rather than seeing the benefits.  My second visit to see Gabi was when I only felt like hiding in bed and would have all afternoon except I was motivated to do something else.

The new meds are still in early days, and in the morning – as yesterday’s has worn off and today’s not yet in the system – I feel so low. It is in the mornings than I doubt myself as a dog carer, as a minister, as capable of the most basic of things. Yet I do what I have to, I am thanked for a good service and sermon, or the Lent study group I somehow stumbled through. So I know somehow I can, and each day have to live in the moment, for the thought of years stretching ahead can seem overwhelming.

Yet this too will pass, and as I live in shadows now I wait for light of resurrection, a journey Gabi and I can take together, both rescued and learning to find our place.

But first I have to bring the house halfway to order at least before tomorrow's adoption inspection...

We are not a museum....

April's article for the 3 villages newsletter and a response to the Daily Mail article and news about a Gloucestershire parish council

Village life

Yesterday the Daily Mail headline screamed from the shelves ‘No right to live near parents’. The National Trust chief addressing house builders said all new housing should be added to towns and cities and villages protected. Others note that this would add to high cost of housing that would rule out locals in favour of those selling up madly priced London homes etc. No room for those maintaining local industry – yes there is some, but rural wages are usually lower than cities; or for younger families – who can afford the country dream until the children have left home, so what future for village schools and the roundness of community life?

Meanwhile a parish council in Gloucestershire objects to the homeless community shop finding a home in the parish church – ‘it’s inappropriate’ they cry (oblivious to the middle ages history of markets gathering at village churches).  Yarpole shows how it can work, and a village shop is a huge asset, Orleton’s flourishes and Brimfield’s gain is very appreciated.

Both of these stories show people trying to capture and preserve their image of English country life, but our villages are not museum exhibits but living communities.  There will always be debates about housing, and other changes to aspects of village life – but all living thing face changes and so must our communities whether town or country.  That doesn’t mean it is easy, nor that changes aren’t to be considered and debated, but that we can’t make one rule for all situations, nor turn our communities into museums of theme parks.

Dog or not?

I am considering whether having a dog to chase off the Black Dog of depression would be a good idea. I live alone and the company would be good for me, I am a dog person 100% when pet options are considered – a pet needs too be big enough to give a decent cwtch (cuddle/hug). A dog would force me to surface, to walk, to feed. Pets are known to be good therapy, but is that a fair reason to inflict myself on one? Is it selfish?

Why does anyone have a pet? I suspect it is always selfish, for company, to placate the kids, sometimes even for a status symbol if it is one of those fashionable types. That doesn’t necessarily stop them being deeply loved and cared for members of the family.

There are practicalities of course, can’t be a puppy as not mentally up to the housetraining, needs to be happy to be left with others if I have to be out all day, and okay if sometimes only gets the garden instead of a full walk.  And I do have a network of people who would help when needed.

A rescue dog – two lost souls helping each other?

Or just a mad idea?

Detective Guilt?

Midsomer Murders have been at it for years, but in an Agatha Christie lots of bodies, fixed group of suspects and all neatly sorted in the end style. Reasonable entertainment for those of us who like that kind of thing but still fantastical.  In the last week or so we have had Mayday, the start of Broadchurch and now Shetland – all dramas about small communities in the eye of tragic storms that sweep them into the glare of police and media. 

With our own community in the midst of a critical stage of our own experience of that storm, a storm that began a bit over a year ago, it all feels a bit too close. And yet I have been watching. I am intrigued as I always am by whodunits, but also feel uncomfortable, voyeuristic. The TV shows are fiction, designed to draw us in, ‘no-one was harmed in the making of this movie’ and all that. But in the midst of a murder trial locally, perhaps I am just displacing my feelings about following the local press and keeping up to date with the case.  I can make a defence for it on pastoral grounds – the need to be aware of what may be facing the community from this month long drip, drip of news and stories. But I know that both the curious bit and the detective TV fan in me would be following it anyway and, knowing the real lives that have been impacted in big or small ways, it makes me feel guilty for being interested.

Sometimes the dramas are on the doorstep, and horrible things can happen in idyllic places just as wonderful things can be glimpsed in the most hellish. (What is the opposite of idyllic anyway?) People are people with all our weaknesses and strengths wherever we are, but times like this are a reminder that the picture we show one another can be a long way from the reality behind closed doors, and leave us questioning what we thought we knew.

A ripe context for any drama or novel to gather from, and it seems to be a flourishing harvest at the moment.

A problem shared....

........is a problem everyone knows about – the implications of being open!

Whilst the doctor’s backup that yes this is a real problem doesn’t offer a fix for depression it did reduce the guilt and liberated me from trying to keep up appearances.  Informing colleagues is useful as is letting someone at each of the churches know – it gives a reason why I might not be up to something and people can be supportive and understanding.

But once something is ‘out there’ in the community grapevine then just like on the internet you no longer control where it goes, how others interpret things and how many people know.

I missed sitting in on an ecumenical service on Friday, perhaps a comment is made and someone who knows explains that it is because I am not well. And so it seeps along. For the past few days as I see someone in the street, or when I got to church on Sunday, I hear ‘how are you?’ or ‘are you feeling better now?’

It is meant well and I know that, but it leaves me unsure how to respond.  Depression, like other chronic issues, doesn’t lend itself to the ‘get well soon’ and 'yes getting better thanks' approach. Maybe this is one of the reasons people struggle with how to support those affected, what do you say? 

But back to what I say in return – ‘plodding along’ is a good one for any occasion, and at the moment I have the useful ‘Doctor’s changed my tablets so a bit wobbly til they settle’.  That allows for the sense of things not being too good at the moment whilst also hinting at a why. Saying ‘I’m a bit low at the moment’ can lead to kindly followup enquiries about why, ‘been too busy?’, ‘pushing yourself?’ and apart from depression not having nice neatly classified reasons, I just don’t feel up to the extended conversation.

So for now if you see me and ask how I am doing I will appreciate it, but can I just acknowledge your care and interest and we’ll leave it there. I’ll talk a bit more when I feel more up to it.

Meanwhile, how are you?

Half full or half empty?

I have been getting increasingly anxious about feeling low and the things I haven’t got done because I have been hiding under the duvet instead. Last Friday I was open with my small support group about what I am like when the outside being a minister mask can be put down. With their encouragement I booked to go back to the doctor. I was thinking that there may not be anything much he could do, afterall I know the theory about challenging my thinking, of the benefit of routine, food, exercise and rest in taming the black dog of depression - I just can’t get it to work. In the same way I understand how a bike works and what to do but have never managed to ride one – just to discover different ways of falling over with one!

So made it to see my doctor yesterday, I had listed the bad day feelings so I wouldn’t forget things. He has changed my antidepressants, so it is a week to wean off the old one and then to gradually introduce the new, and he has put me on referral list for a psychologist.  I mentioned my drinking and he asked a few questions but the answers didn’t concern him, so I feel less guilty about that now.

Today I feel better for having spoken about it all.  My doctor had offered a sick note option until the new drugs kick-in, but I feel that I need the fixed points as a focus and a reassurance of the things I can do. So given that I can be flexible around what I do and when I declined the sick note.  Knowing that it was available, that someone recognises that I am struggling and it is not just my laziness or lack of self-will, has changed how I feel today about the things done and not done.

Since I could have been off sick everything I manage to do in life and work is a bonus rather than thinking about the failures and things not done.   This was essentially the idea from the support group – ‘have done’ lists rather than ‘to do’ lists. But with the doctor’s backing I have felt able to send a message to the church stewards to say I will be less than fully functioning for a while yet, and the layers of guilt are falling away. The glass may be incomplete but today I feel it is okay for it to be only part way and I will call it a quarter or a half full instead of focussing on what is missing.