tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49404176781924920372024-02-19T04:52:27.711+00:00Vivre Sa Vie Anxious? Moi? Amusing musings on anxiety, panic attacks and other worrisome weevils (i.e. how to cope with the general terror of being alive) Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-38917628248978151262013-03-17T23:03:00.004+00:002013-03-17T23:14:36.055+00:00The drugs DO work!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxaXaX976yHjOmNv9kdcKM_6fg-Ifsxe_kog2QjkEXzrcdVy0Q-Sq6Lv4jrmtyNCbRcRaCnsGtCfdR7h_bXisdhLxqmjfnu3-mIGqxaiVFCsxEUlrcDQI2wccfrgJgILF63_kIiYztsJA/s1600/vintage-celebrate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxaXaX976yHjOmNv9kdcKM_6fg-Ifsxe_kog2QjkEXzrcdVy0Q-Sq6Lv4jrmtyNCbRcRaCnsGtCfdR7h_bXisdhLxqmjfnu3-mIGqxaiVFCsxEUlrcDQI2wccfrgJgILF63_kIiYztsJA/s320/vintage-celebrate.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Throw us another Prozac, Jeeves. there's a good fellow'</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take that Verve, you miserable one (well, two, at a push) hit wonders!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can scarcely believe this even as I'm typing it, but I'm writing to you from the heady and unfamiliar plains of wellbeing, happiness and contentment! The shiny blue Prozac (blessed be its name) has <i>finally</i> kicked in, and <b>I FEEL BETTER THAN I HAVE DONE FOR</b> <b>YEARS</b>. Honestly. I genuinely think I feel like my old self again after four long, painful years of struggle in the wilderness. It's like I've stumbled across an oasis of peace and normality in the middle of a vast, parched desert. Where the hell am I?! What is this strange place of certainty, equanimity and tranquillity?! Have I been catapulted into someone else's mind?! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel resilient, I feel capable, I feel <b>cheerful</b>. Seriously. I'm able to count my blessings - I feel deeply, humbly grateful for all the wonderful things in my life. I'm looking forward to things to come. I'm able to laugh at things that would have had me sobbing two months ago. I'm not questioning every single tiny decision I make. I'm cheerful in the face of adversity, and am actually counselling my boyfriend out of a post-holiday slump! I'm happy for him to go away and leave me alone in the house. I don't feel scared. I don't feel afraid. I feel calm, I feel <i>peaceful</i>. I'm not perpetually thinking of death and disease and destruction (the three Ds?) and I <b>FINALLY</b> feel up to the task of living the life I've been given. I of course have still got enough natural pessimism and anxiety to immediately think 'A-ha! This will be <i>exactly</i> the moment Mr. 'I Love Irony' God will choose to strike me down!' BUT I don't fear it. I don't mind it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At a very basic level, I feel able to breathe again - both literally and figuratively. It's been weeks since I last felt like I couldn't get enough air, and even when I did last get a twinge of that, I knew that it would pass and I scarcely noticed it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel like the world is a miraculous place. I'm struck by the amazing things all around me. I'm a born-again, Woody Allen-shaped butterfly emerging from a cocoon of horror and darkness! It makes me realise what a struggle my life has been for the last four years - a desperate, daily struggle to even hit the baseline of okay-ness. Each day felt like a fight to stay alive against overwhelming odds. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But now it's as if a miracle has occurred - honestly, I want to write to the inventor of Prozac and swear my unwavering allegiance and eternal gratitude to him or her. I lay awake in bed last night feeling blissful in my own body - feeling safe, not worrying that it would stop, or break, or that I would stop breathing, or that something terrible would happen. I just smiled to myself, in the darkness, and thanked the universe for finally throwing me a break. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, so I get you're just never, ever going to read this blog again if I keep on in this saccharine vein (my favourite miserable songwriter starting writing crap songs as soon as he got married and thus happy), but I just wanted to let you all know that <b>THERE IS HOPE</b>! The drugs <b>DO</b> work, no matter what your paranoid-of-the-entire-medical-establishment hippy parents tell you, and they are bloody <b>MIRACULOUS</b>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You know how I know I'm not absolutely 100% cured? Because somewhere in the back of my mind, there's a little voice saying 'maybe you're having a weird reaction to the Prozac - maybe it's chemically-induced euphoria! Maybe this is a psychotic, manic swing and you're going to tumble right down into a depressed slump! Maybe you're going mad!' All of which reminds me that I haven't had a personality transplant, and a tiny, freaked-out, hypochondriac inner Woody Allen lives on within me. But there's a confident, blissful, brave, peaceful lady who completely dwarfs him, and I really, really like her a lot more. </span><br />
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* <i>My boyfriend wants me to add a footnote - he thinks it's important to make it clear that it's not <b>all</b> the drugs; he has just reminded me that I've done a hell of a lot of hard work to get to this point, and the drugs have just allowed me an easier context to put some of that into practice. I'll accept that. Now if you'll excuse me, I've just got to add another shiny gold relic to my glorious Prozac shrine... </i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't understand! What is this sensation of warmth flooding over me?! Is this...could this really be... is this really how non-anxious people feel <b>ALL THE TIME</b>????!!!!'</span><br />
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Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-5476719943534959022013-03-10T13:08:00.003+00:002013-03-10T13:08:38.305+00:00Gone fishin'...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Hey girls, is this what real relaxation feels like? My heart is almost not racing!'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey chaps.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So sorry there have been tumbleweeds rolling across this page recently. I've actually been on holiday (yes, you heard that right) for two weeks and now madly trying to catch up with everything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So lots of things to come once I've sorted myself out and written some stuff down, but suffice to say, a certain little panicker managed to get a verrrry long flight without panicking, and is feeling very proud of herself right now...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope you are all well and laughing in the face of the anxiety beasts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hugs, </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">V xx</span><br />
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-54981414631745325352013-02-01T17:37:00.001+00:002013-02-01T17:43:42.628+00:00Ten things I know about panic attacks...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is you, trying to navigate the modern world with an ancient monkey brain. You're afraid of lions but there are no lions any more, so you're a bit confused, gawd bless you. </span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An attractive young woman ran out of one of my events yesterday, after having what turned out to be a panic attack. She is, as so many panic sufferers are, a highly intelligent, capable, and likeable person, and we chatted about the panic demons for a bit whilst she calmed down. She's not yet read an awful lot about this stuff, so I got to thinking about what I would like to have read when I first started getting to grips with it. Results below... </span></i><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ten Things I Know About Panic Attacks </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Brilliant people have them</b>. Oh yes. Some of the most beautiful, talented, courageous, hilarious, intelligent people who have ever stalked this earth have had panic. You're not weird, I promise. (Well, you may be a bit odd of course, but that's got nowt to do with the panic I'm afraid).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2. They're not your fault!</b> You've got to stop blaming yourself, and I'll give you three good reasons why...<br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> a) You're part-man/part-monkey (interestingly, or not, that is also the name of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMjUSrYfyak" target="_blank">this</a> not very good Bruce Springsteen song). You're negotiating a modern landscape with an ancient ape-ish brain that is hard-wired to respond to the fight-or-flight mechanism. We are the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_evolution/2012/10/evolution_of_anxiety_humans_were_prey_for_predators_such_as_hyenas_snakes.html" target="_blank">descendants</a> of some pretty alert and anxious chimps - the ones who heard a rustle in the bushes and thought 'it could be a lion, but then again, what are the chances, maybe it's just a stiff breeze?' all got eaten. We got the neurotic genes - tough break.<br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> b) Something in your past might have made this more likely. You may have had an unstable childhood, or been the victim of some trauma, or had a hypochondriac Dad. It's no-one else's fault either, but remember that outside forces have moulded you and made you the person you are today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> c) You may just have a rubbish brain. Some people don't produce enough thyroid hormone (moi, for example), and some people don't retain enough serotonin. That's it. You didn't make it happen did you? Take it up with God when you next bump into him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You've got to be easy on yourself. It's shit enough going through all this crap without the meta level of self-flagellation on top.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3. They go.</b> And come back. And go again. If there's one thing I've learned I've from my boyfriend, it's how a wiggly line on a graph goes. His wise counsel is that a general upward trend on a graph is rarely straight - there are ups and downs and ups again. Whilst the downs may be lower than yesterday's ups, they're still higher than the downs a year ago - <b>BUT</b> - that's really hard to see from your perspective, seeing as how you're trapped in the graph. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>4. CBT really helps.</b> My free NHS CBT course was hands-down the best thing I ever did for my panic attacks. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5. You're not going to die.</b> Or go mad. <b>I PROMISE. </b>Your heart races much faster than this when you're running (and that's considered <i>good</i> for you), and your breathing will <b>not</b> stop (your body won't allow that to happen), and will return to normal in a little while. <b>I PROMISE.</b> No-one has <i>ever </i>died of a panic attack, and no-one ever will.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>6. Wishing them away makes them worse.</b> Both in the instant they're coming, and just generally. The most suffering I <i>ever</i> experience is when I get furious and rail against them like a trussed up tiger, and my thrashing and rejecting ends up just tightening the knots around me. Some people get wonky noses, some people get IBS, some people get cancer, some people get panic attacks. You might have them for life, or they may go at some point. But you have to accept them <i>for now</i>, or you'll increase your misery exponentially. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>7. They're not all bad.</b> All of this hardship has actually brought me a lot closer to both of my parents, and I've learned (well, am still learning) to be okay with being vulnerable. Which I've been told makes me even more likeable! Keep in mind that you're picking up some pretty good life skills here in the crucible, so you are in no way wasting your time or effort. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>8. They're funny.</b> Learn to see the funny side of anxiety and panic (and there <b>IS</b> a funny side). Learn to laugh at fear rather than cowering from it, and by doing so - puncture its menace and remove its power.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>9. You can cope. </b>A large part of anxiety is fear of not being able to cope, to deal, to handle. But you have coped your whole life - all the way up until this very minute. Why would you stop now? You have the strength to cope with this, and anything else life throws your way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>10. All of the above are really difficult to put into practise</b>. And that's okay. As my exceptionally wise and beautiful friend told me - this is a <i>process</i>, it's not a solution. You may forget half this stuff, and not be able to put the other half into practise, but you're trying, and you're learning stuff all the time. Just accept that you're taking baby steps - this is not a race. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey, new girl - you're doing just fine! Everything's going to be okay. It really is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">x </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You gotta roll with the punches of outrageous fortune (as I believe Shakespeare once said...)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-43948690792607326932013-01-26T13:51:00.002+00:002013-01-26T14:03:54.048+00:00YOU ARE BRAVER THAN JOHN WAYNE!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yep, he may have been a big old lily-livered-lefty-hater, but I'm afraid (see what I did there) John knows his onions when it comes to cojones...if that's not a mixed metaphor too far</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was having tea (peppermint, natch) with an old work colleague of mine who also has serious GAD issues (which, incidentally, I only found out about because I 'outed' myself to him on a whim, and he shocked me to the core by revealing he TOO suffered horribly with it), and is going through a bit of a bad patch at the moment. As we swapped war stories in the meditation centre cafe (ha, natch again), he shook his head and said my advice was all well and good, but that I was much braver than him, so he wasn't sure he could take it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And this was enough to pierce through my panicked haze and make me forget my trembling hands on my teacup (still staggering up the Prozac ramp) momentarily, and I proceeded to give him a very stern lecture about bravery - the gist of which I will outline now, but in a much more lucid and Cicero-ish manner than I managed at the time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No. NO! Listen up, Woody! You think you're a coward because you can't do things other people do without batting an eyelid? Think about it. The very concept or definition of bravery <i>entails</i> fear - it doesn't make any sense at all without it. As some bright spark once said, 'bravery is not the <i>absence</i> of fear, it is the mastery of fear' (or somesuch) or as John Wayne had it - 'bravery is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway'. Let's be clear: there's nothing <i>remotely </i>brave in not being frightened at all. Courage is peering into the jaws of the beast - whether imaginary or real - and walking forward anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider the person who travels in to work on the tube of a Monday morning, blissfully chomping through a pain au chocolat and listening to a comedy podcast. Would you call them brave? Or courageous? Of course not; it doesn't make sense to, because they are not afraid. They may be easygoing, or relaxed, or happy, or peaceful, or any number of things. What they are not, is <b>brave</b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Contrast that with the person with panic disorder, who arrives at work at the same time as person A, and says 'hi' to them at the coffee machine. This person set out for work maybe half an hour before person A, and was pacing the house a full three hours before that. This person woke up terrified after a few hours sleep, and was so full of fear and dread they were sick before breakfast. This person cried before leaving the house, because they were so petrified of getting on the tube and of what the day would bring. This person walked to the tube anyway. This person got on the tube, had a panic attack, believed they were going to run out of air and die, and got off again a few stops along. This person took a pill, phoned a friend, cried in the corner, waited for half an hour, and got back on the tube again. And off again, and on again, until they finally made it into work to start their day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And this person thinks they are a coward. This person berates themselves for being weak, and this person worships person A for being brave. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This person is not a coward. What this person is, is an<b> eedjit</b>! This person is conquering terror and fear <b>EVERY SINGLE DAY </b>on top of living the life everyone else finds so hard! This person does ten rounds with a slavering hell-beast before breakfast! This person has fought more truly, genuinely courageous and brave battles than person A has had happy, hot dinners! This person needs to wake up, smell the bloody coffee, and realise they are <b>SUPERHUMANLY, OBSCENELY BRAVE</b>, and could by all rights wear a cape and undies on the outside by now! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This person is you. So suck it up, SuperYou, and stop calling yourself a coward. Or I'll come round there and knock some sense into you. And you don't want that, because I've fought the kind of demons that would make Buffy drop her stake, wet herself, and run home crying to Giles.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Just got to quickly wrestle these before work, won't be a sec....'</td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-4509330066409367962013-01-23T14:33:00.000+00:002013-01-23T14:37:19.336+00:00Prozac nation (is not my favourite nation)...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users8/aspazia/prozac/prozac-pez-dispenser--large-msg-1117650641-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users8/aspazia/prozac/prozac-pez-dispenser--large-msg-1117650641-2.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">'YES! Yes I am!</span>'</td></tr>
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Greetings from a small, Viv-shaped Prozac nation!</div>
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My six months without antidepressants have been fairly hellish, so I finally surrendered and went to see my almost-hot psychiatrist who recommended a trial of Prozac. Cue much grinding of teeth and general nervousness. 'Me? On Prozac? Sounds so 'Girl Interrupted'! Why can't my brain do it itself goddamnit?! Why can't I just RELAXXX??!!' etc etc. Although pills aren't for everyone, there's no doubt that medication has provided a lifeline for millions of people around the world (myself included), and sometimes you've got to come to terms with needing a little help. See <a href="http://www.xojane.com/healthy/ill-always-be-on-medication-and-thats-okay" target="_blank">this article</a> for a really clear-headed and inspiring take on an often maligned and misjudged thing. </div>
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I've been taking them for a week now, and...guess what?! They've made everything much, <i>much </i>worse! You've got to laugh - it is quite funny. Apparently they can do that (i.e. make you feel like you want to jump out of your skin for the first couple of weeks) before they make you better. <i>If</i> they make you better. </div>
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I'm so bloody anxious, I could gnaw off my arm. I've been teetering on panic a number of times a day, and just feel jittery and speedy. I had two days of really bad nausea, which has now improved to simply not fancying eating anything apart from beige food. With cheese on top.</div>
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I'm persevering, because apparently I could exit the tunnel into bright daylight any day now. Please hurry up that day!</div>
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I have to remember that:</div>
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<b>1.</b> This will pass.</div>
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<b>2.</b> Sometimes the darkest night is just before the dawn.</div>
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<b>3. </b>Whatever happens, I can and will cope.</div>
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<b>4.</b> This will pass (again).</div>
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It's been a long old time in the tunnel, and I really just want to feel a bit better soon. </div>
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Whilst I'm waiting, I am consuming approximate 1kg of Rich Tea biscuits daily, laughing at the brilliant Twenty-Twelve spoof documentary, having loads of hugs, trudging into work in the snow, and crying into my decaf tea. </div>
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See? There are always bits of sunshine, even when things are shitty. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.biopsychiatry.com/prozac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.biopsychiatry.com/prozac.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">'It'll wash your blues away! </span><b style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Or </b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">make you feel so anxious you feel like you can't breathe! Yay!'</span></td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-48202484226098312342013-01-06T20:42:00.005+00:002013-01-10T15:10:29.871+00:00Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ldzsqzgVsN1qb8ugro1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ldzsqzgVsN1qb8ugro1_500.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"'We all want some figgy pudding' my arse..."</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Guys! It's 2013! I've been lounging around, stuffing my face with Quality Street and sweaty cheeses (thank you Mr Gallbladder-Surgeon-Who-Gave-Me-Cake-And-Thus-My-Life-Back) and I have utterly failed in my blogging duties. So my last maudlin post has been languishing there, completely unrevised and depressing - not a good way to see in the new year! Sorry chaps!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How are you, beloved anxious peeps? Did you have banging festive frolics or big fat, figgy funks? Did you fend off Uncle Bill's crushing chest-to-breast hugs and Nana's racist outbursts? Did you panic over the possibility of undercooked-turkey poisonings and salmonella eggnog manslaughters? Did you fear you and your loved ones would die in the inevitable gnarly Christmas motorway deaths, because I know I certainly did!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are some things I learned over Christmas:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. </b>Kids are a good distraction from anxious self-obsession. I always thought having children would tip me over the edge into full-throttle nervous breakdown, but my niece-wrangling efforts this Christmas actually cheered me up (admittedly I disappeared swiftly every time one of them vomited/had explosive diarrhoea, so it wasn't an authentic parenting experience. But still...)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2. </b>Stila's new liquid lipstick in 'Beso' (thanks, Santa) is a stunningly good matte 40's red. And it lasts (i.e. stood up to my rigorous, virtually lab-condition Christmas lunch testing). If you're starring in an upcoming WWII biopic as a beautiful, ball-breaking SOE agent, this is the one I heartily recommend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3. </b>Shalom Auslander's memoir <i>Foreskin's Lament </i> is a superb, brilliant, amazing, fanspectaculastic must-read for all anxious folk everywhere. The man is hugely traumatised as a result of his deeply misguided (and at times, abusive) Orthodox Jewish upbringing - and yet I related to <i>every single</i>, fucked-up, neurotic thought he puts to paper. <b>BUY IT NOW</b>. Makes Woody Allen look positively stable. And read his novel <i>Hope - </i>both books are the funniest things I've read all year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>4. </b>Don't play bingo if you're feeling a bit panicky. I lost my bingo virginity this Christmas (I know, I know, I'm prematurely aged) and almost had a heart-attack as a result. How the pensioners manage to not fall down dead in high-blood-pressured droves I have no idea. 21, 6, 14, 90...WAAAIT, ARGGGHHHHH! I went in a sort of smugly ironic, post-modern way, and ended up knee deep in screwed up tables of numbers and panting with genuine excitement. BINGO! A v. good use for excess adrenaline.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5. </b>We all now have an extra year's worth of intel about living with this malicious anxiety beast, so theoretically should be another 365 days cleverer at dealing with it. Go team! I've been thinking of my anxiety as a Boggart recently (HP again - please don't watch the films, they're bloody awful) - it changes shape and morphs so frequently (health anxiety to status anxiety to random phobia to depression anxiety and back again), but is the same old beast cowering underneath. It's the old Wizard of Oz behind the curtain trick - watch it and call it out!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope you all are feeling well and not too stressed about what 2013 holds. How about we make it the year we level a well-aimed kick at Mr Anxiety's cojones and get a bit of the upper hand back? And if we miss, let's just have some cake and gin and chat about it together. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happy new year!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">V x</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PS. You can't make me take the tree down. How will I survive without its Prozac-y twinkly lights? Superstition is only magical thinking after all, and didn't my therapist say that was a no-no...?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/5401340981_77dcfd3296.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="244" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/5401340981_77dcfd3296.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take Valium. I swear to God it's the only way you'll survive the night.</span></td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-79646222298993900062012-12-14T15:43:00.000+00:002012-12-14T15:43:13.587+00:00In which Viv goes a bit emo...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8j0pxNbs61qicsgwo1_500.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8j0pxNbs61qicsgwo1_500.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can't even think of a funny caption :(</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WARNING</b>: <i>Rambling, depressing post ahead which includes absolutely no handy tips on how to deal with anxiety! Thank the sweet lord this is anonymous...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, at the moment, something slightly odd is happening to me, and I can't really figure it out - or, I can, but I don't really want to face the conclusions. I'm quite embarrassed about what I'm about to say, and feel like I'm letting the side down revealing this, but at the same time I'm hoping being honest may help you - and me - in the long run! Here goes.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel like my anxiety is shifting and changing shape - I 'fix' one thing (obsessive thoughts about panic and travel and health and dying etc) and it simply morphs into another mind-consuming obsession, which at the moment seems to be pure, unadulterated self-hatred and self-bullying (god knows what the right name for this is). I've never had this one to such an extent before, so I don't know if I'm just getting horribly depressed and need to go back on medication (this is the scary conclusion I don't want to accept), or if this is just bog-standard anxiety posing in a different costume. Maybe you can help me figure it out!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apart from a general, base-level fear that I'm completely messing up my life and failing on every single scale and by every single measure, I'm starting to angrily analyse all of my actions - even on an infinitesimal scale. I'm comparing myself to everyone - people I know, people on TV, people I see on the train - and feeling like I am disgracefully inferior. I feel I'm horribly ugly and shouldn't be seen (and that I'm wasting my only moments of potential 'beauty' thinking that as I'll only get less and less attractive from here), that I'm not as intelligent as I thought I was, that I am awkward and pathetic, that I'm unadventurous and dull, that I'm friendless and like poison to be around, that I'm terrible at my job, and on top of all of that - that I'm wasting every single precious second of my one-and-only life with these thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm gazing at women I know, hungrily, wishing I was more like them. I feel bad for people who have to talk to me, even for a short while. I'm beginning to follow myself around, mocking myself, saying 'oh, great, that was brilliant. Look at you walking like that, look at you, so pathetic and useless. Yeah, just slink over there and hide, that's so like you' etc etc. (For a brilliant take on this evil, bullying self-commentary see this amazing, wondrous <a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html" target="_blank">cartoon about depression</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I'm <b>FURIOUS</b> with myself about all of it! I'm turning into someone I really don't like, and I'm working myself up into a frenzy of hatred and anger and disappointment and venom and I just don't know how to fix any of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought we were meant to get more confident as we grew up! I'm almost thirty, and I'm now comparing myself with a confident 11 year-old I know and am wishing I could be more like her in every single way. I feel like I'm gradually losing my certainty and sense of self with every day. I used to be a screamingly, proudly self-confident A-type personality (debating and public speaking champion, A + student, sports-mad, head girl, popular etc - just generally precociously over-the-top and certain), and now I'm slipping into EMO self-loathing just when I'm meant to be feeling my maximum levels of self-assuredness!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's happening?! Is this anxiety, or depression, or am I just losing my marbles?! Please help me get my mojo back...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">V x</span></div>
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Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-72988069257330980552012-12-07T18:19:00.003+00:002013-01-23T14:34:20.001+00:00Wrap up your anxiety and walk away...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltu6h0PZeT1qa70eyo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltu6h0PZeT1qa70eyo1_500.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'NO-ONE SHOULD SEE THEIR OWN LIVER!!!'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, the entire global anxiety community can finally lift their ragged nails from between their teeth and heave a sigh of almost-relief - I'm back! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorry for radio silence - have been desperately catching up on work and life after my convalescence, and mainly recovering from the shock of seeing my own gnarly internal organs in Kodachrome technicolour. My surgeon insisted on proudly showing me evidence of how he managed to laboriously pick my diseased gallbladder off my liver. 'See the swelling and adhesions here? All terribly sticky and difficult. Here's where I cauterized the liver to stop the bleeding after I pulled the gallbladder off'' (me, inwardly, raging: '<b>WHAAAT</b>? You seared my f-ing liver you f-ing maniac?! Is one of my internal organs now medium rare?') Outwardly, eyes wide and ingenue-ish: 'Hmmm, fascinating, how intriguing to see the mark it makes!''</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it kept on coming. 'And here's me avoiding the artery there' (inwardly: '<b>WHAAAAT</b>?! There was an f-ing artery nearby? You want me to congratulate you for missing it, Sweeney Todd?') Outwardly: 'Marvellous, just thrilling, gosh, thanks, how skilled you must be!' etc etc ad infinitum. Surgeons, note, anxious patients do not relish hearing or seeing such lurid details of their near-deaths and battered remains. Patients, note, <i>no-one should have to see their own liver</i>. You may have to book a 6-week course of counselling to get over seeing <b>INSIDE</b> your own skin, so poke your eyes out before a surgeon ever offers to show you a photo. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, onwards and upwards my friends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I went to my lunchtime meditation, and - double-whammy of joy, not only was my old friend <a href="http://ohvivresavie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/buddhist-barry-white.html" target="_blank">Barry White</a> on the desk (sadly not leading the meditation) but I also think I'm vaguely getting the hang of it again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's a long, tree-lined driveway leading up to the meditation centre, and we were instructed to visualise leaving all our worries, fears and plaguing thoughts in little parcels under the trees before we came in, and we could pick them back up when we left. For some reason this really cracked me up - I imagined parcelling up all these weird little phobias and obsessions in shiny paper, labelling them, and placing them under the trees like presents, saying 'aah, Fear of Death and Disease! This one's a good one, worked quite hard on this on, very proud of the size of this one', and 'ah! My old friend You Have No Friends! I weaved you so big; you're truly magnificent!' and 'Big Box Of Vague Dread About The Future! It hurts to leave you here when we've had so many wonderful nights together!'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We were then told to try to keep our mind with our body, and not let it run off back to the parcels under the trees. And for some reason this really clicked with me. The mind is not tethered to the body, and that's an incredible, miraculous, astonishing thing - our imagination can take us anywhere in the universe. But this is really not bloody helpful if your imagination is morbid and anxious, and takes you to nightmare-ish places you don't want to go, and ends up driving you slightly round the twist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I loved the idea of keeping the two together, for a while, like a couple of old lovers on a bench. For some reason I immediately visualised my mind like a red balloon tied to an old bike (slightly odd that I visualise my body as a bike...). And it just felt really...restful, and <i>right</i> to finally have the two together - like when Harry and Sally finally got together for good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And, as cheesy as it sounds, as I walked back down the wooded drive and looked at all my virtual packages of worries and dreads and neuroses and fears and prepared to collect them, I suddenly thought - 'What if I just leave them here? What if I just walk out and leave them right here?' And I strode down the drive toward my life, the sun beating down on me, and I felt light and weirdly free, and (seriously, it was like a film) a tear actually rolled down my cheek.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, awesome readers, I think you should go for a walk somewhere wooded and hippy-ish, and put all your discrete bundles of worry and fear and anxiety and dread under the trees there. Look at them, think about how much you sat on them and brooded on them and nurtured them. Be proud of the baby horrors you've created! Think of all of them, sitting there, all knobbly and covered in bows - and just walk away.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Free!</td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-7044071383261990452012-11-13T14:20:00.004+00:002012-11-13T14:20:40.500+00:00And on the third day, she crashed (with apologies to Jesus and ELO)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://superstarshealthsecrets.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Dorothy-from-Wizard-of-OZ1-229x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://superstarshealthsecrets.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Dorothy-from-Wizard-of-OZ1-229x300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No ruby slippers, no wonderful wizard; just terror and bright backlighting...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, talk about talking too soon. After the general 'I'm alive!' joy of days one and two, I plummeted like a burning, nervy, post-chop Icarus tangled in charred plumage and mixed metaphors. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wednesday morning I woke up, and suddenly all was not well. I felt anxious - really, really anxious - I didn't want the operation to have happened, and I was almost fainting with squeamishness about the wounds on my body and the notion of what had gone on internally when I was not there to see it. It reminded me of my poor childhood cat when he had an abscess on his back - he kept on twisting and turning and shivering his skin along his backbone to try and slide it off and get out from under it somehow. I wanted it all not to have happened, and I wanted to get out from under it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I fell into a massive, familiar pile of panic and anxiety, and took a Lorazepam to try to dull the edges, but somehow it combined with the leftover anaesthetic and took me in a horrible way - all wide-awake crazy thoughts and palpitations and trembles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't listen to my post-surgery relaxation CD because it made me want to faint, I couldn't take a Lorazepam because I was frightened of making it worse, I couldn't lie still because I was petrified of clots forming in my legs, and I felt absolute, complete, suffocating despair. I tried all the old tricks, and they didn't work. I got disassociation - my whole familiar world started looming and stretching in sinister ways, and I felt trapped in a waking nightmare. It was like a big, fat, supersized Ecstasy comedown (apologies for mature references!) but without the ecstasy (with a small or a big e). All agony, no ecstasy?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I convinced myself I had post-surgery trauma syndrome, that I had clots in my legs and internal bleeding, that I had an infection, that I was going mad, that I would have to have another surgery to fix this one and this would all happen again, and above all - that I was a colossal, self-indulgent hypochondriac who couldn't handle a routine operation like the rest of humanity. My thoughts were just completely and utterly out of control - the horse was galloping away towards the inferno and the rider was just freaking out on the sidelines with wet jodhpurs and a frayed whip. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Needless to say, it wasn't a vintage few days. It turns out that it's not such an unusual reaction after all - apparently the body's hormonal and endocrine systems go haywire after surgery - and couple that with the general anaesthetic wearing off and some anxiety about recovery and you have a perfect recipe for panic-a-go-go. I just wish I knew that beforehand! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It, however, remind me of a couple of panic-related things that are worth repeating:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. </b>Nothing <b>REALLY</b> works in a panic the way you want it to - because the body is specifically designed to create terror that is virtually impossible to override. The whole point is that you're not meant to easily cognitively disassemble it - you're meant to fucking <b>RUN</b>. So I was reminded, at a cost, that the best thing to do is to grab on to something and hold on, and wait it out. To weather the storm and try desperately to hear the tiny, squeaky voice a mile off that stutters '<span style="font-size: xx-small;">this will pass</span>' in the face of the terrifying succubus screaming <span style="font-size: large;">'<b>IT WILL NOT</b>' </span>in front of your face.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2.</b> It <b>does</b> pass. I felt like I was in a horror film last week, and I'm calmly typing this now after a relatively happy couple of days. Yes, I'm still a bit quivery, but that always happens for a while after a storm of panic - I know I just have to wait it out until it completely passes again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3.</b> Anxiety and panic don't make you weak. This one is thanks to my stepmother, who came downstairs and wrapped me in a tight hug when she found me sobbing uncontrollably on my own, and told me about her experiences with panic and anxiety (she's also hard as fucking nails, and you would never, ever characterise her as weak or even approaching it) and shook me back to reality and self-respect. Everyone is flawed. Everyone has their vulnerable moments. But that's not what people remember of them, and that's not what they should remember of themselves. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So. That's it. I think I've earned a bit of a relax at long last, so if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Ingrid Bergman give weird, face bruising non-kiss kisses to Cary Grant - I've got a week's worth of recovery DVDs to catch up on..</span>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8r6mxR8RH1ru5dceo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="249" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8r6mxR8RH1ru5dceo1_500.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nope, that's still not it - we can clearly see your lips aren't touching, guys...</span></td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-16844674047763538172012-11-08T10:52:00.003+00:002012-11-08T10:54:34.276+00:00Surgical stockings and ruby slippers... <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120503235747/oz/images/5/50/Ruby-slippers-wizard-of-oz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120503235747/oz/images/5/50/Ruby-slippers-wizard-of-oz.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This outfit only needs some bottle green surgical stockings to be complete...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Praise the lord or Buddha whatever hippy sprite you like (whatever gets you through the night), but it's over! Operation operation has taken place, and I am at home recuperating - languishing on my day bed like a Victorian lady with a bad case of TB (and sloth).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First of all - everything went really well, and I'm okay, so if you just want the headline news and not the garbled in-depth editorial, you have permission to stop reading NOW.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who are a glutton for punishment, stay tuned for Casualty - Viv style. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All went pretty well. I got wheeled into the pre-theatre room, and they had Jeremy Kyle up on TV, and his guests were screaming and hollering about aborted babies or something, so the woman kindly changed the channel and sat back down. I wasn't sure whether to say anything, but I was feeling a bit nervous and panicky about the immediate future, so I tentatively said 'uh, I think this one's actually a holocaust documentary?' as indeed the screen was full of sepia images of bunkbeds and corpse piles. She giggled and flipped it over to Frasier. Frasier's MILDLY amusing escapades did not entirely erase the <b>DEATH DEATH DEATH </b>images flashing across my mind for a few minutes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then I was wheeled into the Room of Doom; not what it said on the sign, but should be re-named, because it just felt like an ante-chamber of a torture clinic (do they do torture in clinics? Maybe if you go private...) or something - all tubes and breathing machines and metal trays of syringes in a row. Cocky anaesthetist and hard-nosed nurse are flirting over the top of my wobbly attempts at light-hearted conversation, and cocky anaesthetist suddenly says 'I've been having twinges in my gallbladder too, thought I had to have it out, but I don't. 'Oh' I said, 'if you did, would you have it done by surgeon x (my surgeon) and he said 'oh, no, I would never get it done by a colleague - if something went wrong he would never forgive himself, and besides, I know where he lives (cocky laugh)!' <b>WHAAAAT?! IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?!</b> He would never forgive himself - so he <b>WOULD </b>forgive himself if he ballsed it up on a stranger, i.e. me, but on you, he wouldn't?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And why the hell are you even putting my surgeon's name in the same sentence as 'getting it wrong' when I am literally being wheeled in to have him rifle through my insides with sharp knives? WTF? Just as these thoughts were racing through my mind and I was starting to feel like maybe I could just hop off the trolley and catch a bus home, I completely lost consciousness (he obviously went 'shit, that wasn't very reassuring, was it? Quick, force the anaesthetic in now, go, go...')</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, next thing I know, I'm shivering and shaking like I'm in a bucket of ice, I have no idea what's going on, and I have a mask over my face that I keep on trying to rip off. They're soothingly trying to force the mask back on because my temperature is low and I need oxygen, but to my ragingly confused mind I am just being smothered by a bunch of people I can't really see. I'm crying that I'm cold, and they've got loads of hot fans underneath my covers on the trolley, and I'm so upset about what is happening that I ask one of the nurses who I can't really see to hold my hand. She holds my hand under the covers and I think I calm down a bit. God knows how long that went on, but eventually I get wheeled back to my room, and I can see my boyfriend there, but only just, because it feels like I'm just being drowned in unconsciousness - I swim up for a second and then get pinned back down again, against my will. That carried on for the rest of the day, basically. I guess we can safely say now that I'm not a big fan <b>AT ALL</b> of the old general anaesthetic, and will happily leave it a good long while before doing that again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So apparently it all went well - the evil little stone-choking-fat-pinching bastard is out and languishing in medical waste somewhere, and I can move on with my life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've got some <b>VERY</b> fetching anti-embolism stockings on as we speak, and some actual ruby slippers on the ends of my tootsies for some Technicolour Garland glamour too. You can just imagine, what with the stockings, the infrequent bathing, the needing to be helped up to sitting position and the special surgical dressings for my wounds - my boyfriend is just out of his mind with frenzied desire and a urge to pledge his life to me for ever.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.collegefashion.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/The-Beautiful-Dorothy-Gale-dorothy-gale-18685947-768-576-500x375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.collegefashion.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/The-Beautiful-Dorothy-Gale-dorothy-gale-18685947-768-576-500x375.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Cocky Anaesthetist just said WHAT ???!'</span></td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-23560598878222681062012-10-23T15:17:00.001+01:002012-10-23T15:22:16.614+01:00The interwebs can cheer us up!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lko58het4s1qcqlr9o1_250.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lko58het4s1qcqlr9o1_250.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">' Gee whiz, now I've got these inspiring blogs to read I can cut down on the barbiturates and unsavoury menfolk!' </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We interrupt this most fascinating of all fascinating blog streams about gallstones to bring you news of inspirational, anxiety-busting blogs and websites elsewhere in the world.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly: </b><a href="http://www.xojane.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">XO Jane</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Have I mentioned this one before? Sorry gents, it's definitely a ladies only one, this. Ladies - listen up. I've just discovered it - full of hilarious, sassy (I really hate that word, so why would I use it?), feisty (if anything I hate this even more than sassy, grrrr) and strident (ah, forget it) articles written by clever, funny women. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">kay, so I've just somehow managed to make it sound really terrible (remind me not to write a review of your book if you ever publish one), so just go there and see. It's not remotely all about mental health, but there are some bits and pieces that are really pertinent to us worry-warts: <a href="http://ohvivresavie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/anxiety-hero-trading-card-8.html" target="_blank">Anxiety hero </a>Sara Benincasa has written a great article on there about </span><a href="http://www.xojane.com/healthy/panic-attacks-cure" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">panic attacks</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, there's </span><a href="http://www.xojane.com/healthy/adventures-misery-my-life-and-antidepressants" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">this one </a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="http://www.xojane.com/relationships/plagiarising-virginia-woolf-why-im-glad-that-i-outlived-my-suicide-note" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">this one </a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">about depression, and even one about </span><a href="http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/dieting-fat-two-whole-cakes-excerpt" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">GALLSTONES</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, who'd-a-thunk-it?! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Use the search bar - it's your friend. If you're in the UK it will probably try to steer you to the new UK version, but I personally prefer the US one (which still features a lot of the UK articles).</span><br />
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nextly:</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://thebigscarycword.wordpress.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">The Big Scary C Word</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. It's actually a breast cancer blog that popped up on Huffington Post UK, but is such an inspiring and brave account of a young woman coping (well, hell, she more than copes) that it deserves inclusion in the push-up bra (uplifting, see what I did there) section.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I initially internally shrieked with self-hatred after seeing how phenomenally well she was dealing with something infinitely more terrifying than anything I worry about, but then I realised - she doesn't have an anxiety condition! Or depression! Her boatload of shit is very different to our boatload of shit, but you can certainly draw a hell of a lot of inspiration from this woman's sunny outlook - I certainly have.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nextly nextly:</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://blogs.psychcentral.com/panic/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Panic about Anxiety</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Summer Beretsky blogs at Psych Central about her agoraphobia and panic attacks. Loads of great, clear, honest (she doesn't hide behind anonymity, hmmm) articles there about anxiety in all its gnarly forms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Question: Is an anxiety blogger blogging about other great anxiety blogs a little like a woman telling her boyfriend how gorgeous other women are and then giving him their numbers? Guys, guys - where are you all going...hang on, can I just.....guyyyyyys...? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">V x</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li2isdF81U1qajg12o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li2isdF81U1qajg12o1_500.jpg" width="202" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blogs: for when life feels like a metaphorical budgie is crapping on your metaphorical head</span></td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-7038489314361302502012-10-18T20:42:00.000+01:002012-10-18T20:43:10.123+01:00Operation Fawkes (aka Operation Operation)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4bl7g9Xcx79r3OEy9RbjoVkLGsMFk7MCtbshSyq4hbMIn64M-PdoieMFoyKrn8inLl_D36OWgHXZsjTLrmVj_-ex0tXed4_5ZM-zpL3JnBy88z12bqAAgheC5dabXruhGF0Ob4kJeiOY/s1600/vintage_nurse_thermometer1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4bl7g9Xcx79r3OEy9RbjoVkLGsMFk7MCtbshSyq4hbMIn64M-PdoieMFoyKrn8inLl_D36OWgHXZsjTLrmVj_-ex0tXed4_5ZM-zpL3JnBy88z12bqAAgheC5dabXruhGF0Ob4kJeiOY/s1600/vintage_nurse_thermometer1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">''Ooooo-eee! Honey, you've got yourself a bad case of the SURGEON-GONNA-CUT-ME-UP-WILLIES - your anxiety temperature is th-rough the roof!'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, I know my gallbladder has <i>completely</i> hijacked this blog, and I promise I will only write around two more organ-related posts. I'm sick to the back teeth of hearing about the bastard thing - so you guys must be begging for the scalpels too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Long story short: I'm going nuclear - going private, because I can't live like this any more, and all my relatives are going to all pitch in with a bit of cash to make this happen. Should I put up a JustGiving page at work? I get them ALL the time (lots of athletic, overachieving, worthy colleagues, puke) so why not put together my own...? 'Hi All. Yep, you got it, it's another request for a needy cause, sort of. Just give me your card details and I'll post pics of my 'marathon' later...'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So will be having operation on the 5th of November. I am now, predictably, terrified, and my anxiety bugaboos (isn't that a type of pram? I've definitely got the wrong word there) have flown in to roost beside me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Remember, remember, the 5th of November' just sounds bloody terrifying now - is it an omen?! Am going to go the way of Mr Fawkes, but minus the plucky heroism and fireworks? Am I going to wake up from the operation and not know where I am and have the worst panic attack ever and vomit into my hospital gowned lap? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it can't come soon enough really. Today I had an attack in the middle of preparing a VIP for an event - I went all 'show must go on' and gritted my teeth, smiled, chatted and managed to get them out on the stage before hobbling upstairs and collapsing underneath my desk. I stripped down to my singlet, popped some codeine, writhed there with my headphones on for a while (had to keep tabs on the event, what a control freak), covered in sweat from head to toe, and after 3/4 of an hour it completely passed and I went back down, said I'd been watching from the booth and no-one was the wiser. But enough! Lady Macbeth of the Gallbladder says '<b>out,</b> damn sac'!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the anxiety front, I've been finding it difficult to breathe, randomly, here and there. I <b>REALLY</b> hate that one. Just sitting there quietly and then suddenly, wheeze, wheeze, 'is my chest tight? Why can't I breathe? Shit'. I know it's just anxiety, and if I ignore it, it goes, but it's so bloody unsettling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Onwards and upwards, though, hey?! No more gallbladder talk soon - promise! Only one more update about the operation (and maybe one afterwards, what the hell) and then back on track!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope all of you guys are fit and well and anxiety-free (ha - are we ever?!). And if you're not - screw it - grit your teeth, get through it, wait for time to pass, and better things will transpire for all of us soon. I'm a faithless, hippie-raised heathen but I'm trying on a bit of hope and faith for size! And weirdly, it kind of works! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">V x </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't pretend to be cute. You're going down, bitch.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-31793338665884713862012-10-08T19:22:00.002+01:002012-10-09T16:26:49.542+01:00Crying in hospital corridors (good potential band name?) ...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing has changed in British hospitals since this picture was taken, except that the buildings have decayed and the instruments have grown rusty. And I don't think you get nuns now, more's the pity.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had my appointment with the surgeon today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Managed to hyperventilate as soon as I started wandering through the hot, claustrophobic corridors - American and Australian (hell, anything but British) readers, I know you're picturing a clean, bright, modern hospital right now, but please know that British hospitals are still using equipment from the 1930's, in buildings from the 1800's, and that that is truly terrifying. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Burst into tears as soon as I got into the waiting room as it was full of hundreds of geriatric people coughing their wet lungs out. Was sweating so profusely I had to rip off all my layers, so was sitting there crying, practically naked in front of 100 staring old person eyes. I googled ' cute kittens' and flicked through those whilst I cried and waited and chastised myself for being a ridiculous wuss.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Half an hour later I see the surgeon, who is twelve. I just <i>knew</i> I would get a bloody junior doctor. No joke, he then launches into his special nightmarish bedtime story about <b>EVERY SINGLE</b> complication that has <b>EVER</b> occurred to people who don't get their gallbladder out. Terrifying things. Things even Google didn't tell me. He then told me <b>EVERY SINGLE</b> horrific complication that could occur with the surgery. At one point, when he was mentioning perforated somethings, drainage tubes, pus explosions, deranged sphincters (really) and mistakenly cut livers - tears just started pouring from my eyes (as in, I was silently crying). He got me some tissues, said nothing and proceeded with his list - nothing was going to deter him from the list.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I then get sent to the other side of the hospital for blood tests. Get to the desk and there's no-one there. Finally someone comes and points to a handmade sign that says 'No more blood tests'. No more blood tests? When I explain that a surgeon has sent me to get urgent tests, another harassed nurse comes up and starts shouting at nobody in particular 'Look at all these people! We just can't do it! There's too many people! Enough! We're closed! It's impossible!' and the guy nods and says 'nope, we're too busy'. No sorries, and that's it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I go back to the 'digestive diseases' ugh, department, and tell them that apparently the blood test department is shut down for the day. So a very camp nurse takes me into a storage closet (I'm not joking), tells me he hasn't had a day off in three weeks, and does it there and then. The 'room' was so small we had to put together a military strategy for both of us to get out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, I don't want to be the standard NHS moaner, and apologies to all those of you who've had good experiences (and who will be affronted by bad language), but WHAT. THE. FUCK?! Is this country trying to kill its inhabitants so as to save money on welfare? Is there a grand genocidal, money-saving scheme going on that I don't know anything about? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have to wait <b>FOUR MONTHS</b> for the surgery. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I feel <b>so</b> ashamed and furious with myself for having an anxiety attack (didn't quite reach the level that it needs to be to be classified a bowel-shuddering panic attack in my book) simply from walking through a hospital. How am I going to stay in it long enough to have surgery?! I feel like I've let myself down. I feel like I'm not a properly functioning adult - like I'm too sensitive and soft to cope with the harsh realities of the world. I feel different, and not in a good way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I also know that empathy and sensitivity are what make me <b>ME</b>. I think deeply about people's experiences (too much maybe) and care about them - even if I don't know them - and most people don't. Maybe that makes me cry when I see sick people, and freak out when I'm in hospitals, but I'd rather be that than oblivious to suffering. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And crying doesn't make you weak - everyone over the age of 13 knows that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I might go off and do it some more.*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>*NB. Since writing this, some beautiful, charitable genius commented below and snapped me back to reality - so no more anxious self-pity and self-blame going on any more! I'll let this post stand as a perfect example of how easy it is for us GAD sufferers (and really anyone who sets far too high standards for themselves) to blame ourselves unnecessarily. Apparently, sometimes freaking out is normal and justifiable - particularly when surrounded by dying people! That does actually make sense, come to think of it. Thank god for you guys - you are all absolutely <b>AWESOME</b> and amazing and fantastic and I love that we almost have a bit of a community going here. Bring your nervous friends! V x</i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAVyORQbT1d9B0bDPtAeAMn7tJSlv1C8mjZPN0e2i6_pmPjlg-1fdfRHHY5QAUgYAIM90dKlTKOq-3U0vazQf9hhujMZsPedCCofFZyCHvtd3UPaKWeJE3L-VJnhwi50HPFNqvatD4AbPk/s400/vintage+hollywood+LUCY+and+DESI+hug+OH+THANK+YOU+RICKY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAVyORQbT1d9B0bDPtAeAMn7tJSlv1C8mjZPN0e2i6_pmPjlg-1fdfRHHY5QAUgYAIM90dKlTKOq-3U0vazQf9hhujMZsPedCCofFZyCHvtd3UPaKWeJE3L-VJnhwi50HPFNqvatD4AbPk/s320/vintage+hollywood+LUCY+and+DESI+hug+OH+THANK+YOU+RICKY.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is me, hugging all of you (a little bit too tightly and needily). Awww. <3</td></tr>
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Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-66946131478484748812012-10-05T12:36:00.000+01:002012-10-05T12:36:11.533+01:00Guys - are we the only sane ones?! <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ojd7Ktm2atA/TsEUJfhVE1I/AAAAAAAAE98/i0DpE-mpm1s/s400/vintage+woman-+free+clipart-sad-blues-blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ojd7Ktm2atA/TsEUJfhVE1I/AAAAAAAAE98/i0DpE-mpm1s/s320/vintage+woman-+free+clipart-sad-blues-blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'If I leave the house I could be struck by an out-of-control motorcar, or be attacked by a grubby urchin. Far better to sit here and wait for the TB to take hold'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have a (half-baked, biased, not thoroughly researched) theory. Admittedly it sounds like the textbook ravings of a madwoman, but stick with me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It is my contention that anxious and depressed people are actually the sane, in-touch-with-reality ones, and those odd, glowing balls of Pollyanna-ish, panic-free light you see around are actually completely deluded and inured to the realities of the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ever wonder if maybe crippling anxiety is a normal and justifiable response to a world in which we we are painfully squidgy and breakable in the face of disease and tragedy and accident and heartbreak? Tali Sharot, author of '<i><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/01/tali-sharot-the-optimism-bias-extract" target="_blank">The Optimism Bias</a></i>' argues that most people grossly underestimate risk, and wildly overestimate their capacity to survive life's gauntlet unscathed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her research shows that clinically depressed people have a much firmer grasp of statistical probability and the likelihood of negative outcomes, whereas non-depressed people consistently under-predict those outcomes, or assume they will happen to other people . These results were so convincing and predictable, that she argues that what is often called pessimism is actually far closer to realism, and what is called 'normal' is actually dangerously deluded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also read in the paper the other day that mildly depressed people are viewed as being far more practical and grounded and useful in the workplace, because of the aforementioned ability to assess risk and potential threats. (As long as they're not crying into their sushi, presumably).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Perhaps if we'd had more depressives and neurotics in the banking industry, the global economic temperature would be far healthier - if there were more of <i>us</i> on the trading floors, we would have been ominously whispering 'God, let's not sell these sub-prime mortgage-backed securities - imagine if there were a global crash and loads of people ended up penniless and destitute and lost their houses and killed themselves!!'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Essentially, anxious folk are having a normal and natural response to a world in which cancer and divorce statistics are terrifyingly loaded, random, life-altering accidents are sadly commonplace, and where our mortality is under threat in a thousand different ways, a thousand times a day. We <b>KNOW </b>what can happen to us. We appreciate the risks. We have accurately taken the measure of our squidgy selves and our spiky habitat. We have seen the nature of the world, as it is, and so we don't want to leave our bloody houses, thanks very much!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's cold comfort, but the next time your doctor sighs, and says 'ah, yes, looks like you're suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder' you can flash right back like a latter-day Dorothy Parker and say 'Actually doc, research shows that I have a far greater grasp of risk and the limits of my own mortality than you do, so you could hardly call it a 'disorder', but sadly I live in a society where we have medicalised normality and put mass-scale madness and denial on a pedestal. Now just give me my repeat prescription for a lifetime's supply of Valium and we'll say nothing more of it...'*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*NB. This is meant to be a reasssuring, empowering post for the already-worried, but now I'm worried it's going to make you more worried... </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://freerangelibrarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pollyanna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://freerangelibrarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pollyanna.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, bugger off, Pollyanna, you crazy, deluded loon. Don't you know that your chances of DVT go up with having to lie around in that bathchair all day?</span></td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-13376309294987605662012-09-28T11:41:00.002+01:002012-09-28T11:46:21.804+01:00Boils and burps and blues, oh my!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s290/tracylord/lombard/Annex20-20Harlow20Jean_45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s290/tracylord/lombard/Annex20-20Harlow20Jean_45.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'No, I can't come out from behind the couch. No, I can't tell you why, because nice girls don't tell tales about their hypothetical boils that aren't covered by their hypothetical stockings on their hypothetical legs'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Things I gleaned from the universe this week:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I should stick to my day job.</b> I get BBC job alerts (I love my job, but just in case), and one of them was 'Researcher on Silent Witness'. This actually made me laugh out loud. Can you think of a job that comes less recommended for an anxious person? 'Hmmm, let me just see how I can make this grisly murder look more convincing and true to life - *Googles real life murder details. Faints and never leaves the house again*.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I should never again swallow peppermint oil capsules that are not covered in enteric coating</b>. Basically they just explode halfway down your unsuspecting oesophagus, and create a burning lining of peppermint <i>everywhere</i> in your digestive system. Painful peppermint burps and blistering heartburn ensue - I feel like I've rinsed my intestines with industrial-strength mouthwash. And apparently now (I Googled my symptoms even though my family has tried to ban me from consulting Dr Google) I get to look forward to 'anal itching and burning' when said peppermint finally vacates my system. Fabulous.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>It's hard to feel glamorous when you have managed to harbour a BOIL on your leg</b> (in the middle ages I believe they were referred to as carbuncles, arg) - in all likelihood exacerbated by a shamefully lax shaving regime. As I applied my Chanel lipstick and pouted in the mirror, I realised I was painting a very thin and insufficient veneer of artificial glamour over an angry body full of weird, stifled gallstone sludge and carbuncle pus (sorry chaps). Sexy!</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Having a doctor as your upstairs neighbour is a mixed blessing</b>. On the plus-side, I find it ridiculously comforting hearing him padding around upstairs - essentially I know I can bang on his door and get an emergency tracheostomy STAT should I ever need one. On the downside, his ghoulish medical mailings are in the communal post area. 'Nasal-gastric tube errors: avoiding the risks' screams out from the latest issue's cover, with grainy black and white pictures of perforated lungs underneath. Shudder.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Tomorrow is another day.</b> The hardest thing to cope with at the moment (ironically) is my endless fretting about how I will cope with this for a possible five months until the operation (worst-case scenario of course - this is me we're talking about). But the fact is, I AM coping. I AM getting to the end of each wretched, crappy day, so all I need to do is carry on with what I'm doing, and inevitably the days will snowball and roll into weeks, which will turn into months, and I'll arrive at my promised surgical land of manna and scalpels in the end. <b>* </b> </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>* </b>Check me out, being all Buddhist and accepting. This is a blatant lie, of course - I hope you spotted it. Inside (and outside, to be honest) I am screaming '<b>HOW THE BLOODY BEJESUS AM I GOING TO COPE WITH THIS FOR MONTHS ON END???!!!!</b>' but I'm trying on my beatific monk's robe for size. Fake it 'til you make it, kids!!! </span> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01828/uncle-joe-mint-bal_1828322i.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01828/uncle-joe-mint-bal_1828322i.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I tell you what, they'll keep you 'aglow' all right...</span></td></tr>
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Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-66923183367894587582012-09-21T12:21:00.002+01:002012-09-21T12:52:41.956+01:00Half-full?! There IS no bloody glass! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgej9kQmO89tqdTHKMoXNPWRQh1DmVh4d48mt39h_YL5uCN9zuhy0ejcwoQKHVXrt5SMzqgtCpTLaTbn2ZqbSyxcquS33mPdeOEFJgIouoHdXOtvJojTQvri8QLE_JrZ8O9eiCBchRxpAQ/s1600/Vintage+Housewife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgej9kQmO89tqdTHKMoXNPWRQh1DmVh4d48mt39h_YL5uCN9zuhy0ejcwoQKHVXrt5SMzqgtCpTLaTbn2ZqbSyxcquS33mPdeOEFJgIouoHdXOtvJojTQvri8QLE_JrZ8O9eiCBchRxpAQ/s320/Vintage+Housewife.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'And THIS ONE'S CLEAN TOO?! Is there no end to the gifts and blessings God will bestow upon me?!'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ARGH, HELP - I CAN'T DO POSITIVE THINKING!</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I realise this statement is ironic in itself. I can sustain the bright, sunshine-y thing for about half an hour, or during the day, but by the time I get home from work, I'm back in the land where everything is awful, where nothing will ever be right again, and where I am a dysfunctional, horrible poison wafting around the house and emptying vitriol over my boyfriend. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If something is wrong, I just find it really hard to believe that everything isn't 100% terrible and an utter catastrophe. I re-tread this miserable little neural path over and over and over again, and I despair of anything ever changing it (which itself is completely catastrophic and further grist to my specially patented self-pity mill). I get myself tangled into a net of woe and anger and fury about the situation, and about my inability to change it, and about how horrendous the whole mess is, and end up so beyond exhausted I can't even comprehend what exhausted means.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have spent at least half an hour sobbing every day since about two months ago. I can never believe it when I read those twenty question interviews in the Guardian and they ask the person 'when was the last time you cried?' And they say 'oh, ten years ago when I watched Free Willy' or something. I would be like 'oh, five minutes ago in the taxi on the way to the interview, and before that, ten hours ago in the shower, and before that five hours ago when eating my dinner' etc etc etc ad nauseam. Will I ever get to the point where I can't remember the last time I cried? Can you get repetitive tear duct syndrome (RTDS) or early-onset blindness from too much YSL mascara in the retinas?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been googling positive thinking, and all I can find are these blogs with people who've got fibromyalgia and cancer and two amputated limbs and lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and a heart condition and a drug addiction and an abusive childhood - and they're all <b>UNBELIEVABLY F*&KING POSITIVE</b>! Which makes me think I'm a horrible, ungrateful, twisted little self-pitier with a black steam of smoke for a heart and Eeyore for a God.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(You can tell I'm desperate by the following sentence, which actually hurts me to type out) Do any of you have any mantras or sayings or prayers or anything that keep you upbeat and out of the asylum? I'm running through depressive treacle here and could do with your advice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far, the only one that has come naturally to me, was when I was curled up in the foetal position in the corner of my open-plan office, being watched by my colleagues, and crying with gallstone pain this Tuesday. It was 'This will soon be over and I'll be watching the Great British Bake-off with my boyfriend this evening, this will soon be over and I'll be watching the Great British Bake-off with my boyfriend this evening'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which, I think you'll agree, needs some work.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kuzbl75KEP1qzmxo9o1_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kuzbl75KEP1qzmxo9o1_400.jpg" width="198" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'THE TOAST IS BURNED! My life as I know it is over. I might as well throw myself into the bin with it now and wait for the dustmen of doom to take me to the scrapheap of suffering'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-70064581665911671082012-09-14T17:18:00.002+01:002012-09-21T12:26:05.064+01:00How (not) to be alone...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://rlv.zcache.co.uk/vintage_advertising_vacuum_chores_housework_poster-rf1a1ce7b8a984ef98be5ffa9d72a6959_7qs5_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://rlv.zcache.co.uk/vintage_advertising_vacuum_chores_housework_poster-rf1a1ce7b8a984ef98be5ffa9d72a6959_7qs5_400.jpg" width="319" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Thank goodness I've got a million and one things to do - now I don't have to endure the horrible darkness of my own mind. Hurrah!'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I discovered something confusing this week. I hope this is not too much of a solipsistic post, but I'm really describing my own brittle mind to see if any of you struggle in similar ways.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So. Apparently, the more work I have on, the less anxious I am, and the more things I <b>HAVE </b>to do, the less depressed I get. And that extends to 12 hour days and huge professional pressure that would make even His Holiness the D. Lama himself get a bit hot under the collar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is that? How ridiculous! Is it because my flood of adrenaline finally actually has a legitimate output? Does my body suddenly recognise the 'dangerous' scenarios it has been planning so steadily for? Is it a perfect context match between stressful situation and stressed person, so my body can finally relax into a sort of natural symmetry?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It explains why holidays are always tricky for me, and why a week working from home sends me into a tailspin.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm a bit fearful of this discovery (quelle surprise). Because what it means, ultimately (I think), is that I'm not very good on my own. If left alone with my mind for too long, I end up panting and sweating and writhing in agony with a frenzied worry monkey on my back and a tranquilliser hissing in my stomach.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But this is terrible news! Because we <b>HAVE</b> to be able to sit with ourselves, alone, without going mad! Surely that's a fundamental life skill!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Imagine me, on a desert island - I'd have only been gone for three days, and they'd find me looking like Tom Hanks in Castaway - incontinent, bearded, and talking to a coconut. Jesus, God forbid I go to Mauritius or something on my honeymoon - my new husband will have just popped out for a Daiquiri and I would suddenly descend into a hairy, sweaty mass tangled in a cheap sarong.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, but I think I may hate my own company. If you do, too (hate your own company, not mine - that's just cruel) - tell me, so I can feel less unhinged.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And if you don't, please, for the love of God and all that is sacred, give me some sort of insight into how you've managed it.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrzncgnE621qa70eyo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrzncgnE621qa70eyo1_500.jpg" width="202" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'But darling, I was only gone for...!' 'You should never have left me alone , Marmaduke. I told you this when we were courting. I <b>CANNOT</b> be left alone'</span></td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-4620942656713492702012-09-12T16:06:00.001+01:002012-09-12T16:08:49.690+01:00A mean case of the 'shoulds'...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://americanpresident2012.com/1/images/stories/uncle_sam_pointing_finger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://americanpresident2012.com/1/images/stories/uncle_sam_pointing_finger.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>I WANT YOU </b>to do everything differently and to not do that and to do that a bit more and feel grateful that you didn't fight in WWII and that you're not dying of cancer and to pull yourself together and stop being so much like that.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I'm in my twenties, but they're almost over.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> be having fun.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>shouldn't</b> be sick.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>shouldn't</b> be depressed.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>shouldn't</b> have to take medication.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> be carefree.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> be crazy and thoughtless.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>be spontaneous and capricious.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>shouldn't </b>be anxious. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>be able to do that easily. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>be having sex twenty times a week.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>look like that. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> be a better girlfriend.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> be successful by now.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>make the most of this.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>think about myself less.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> have more friends.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>be more like her. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> be almost ready to have kids by now. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>go to that thing.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>buy that thing.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> change this.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>read that.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> do that more. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>eat more of that. </div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should</b> take more of those.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I <b>should </b>stop staying <b>should </b>so much<b>.
</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should <b>I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I <span style="font-size: large;">should</span>.</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
ENOUGH!!</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Am I the only one being pursued by a rabid Shouldasaurus?</span> <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnQLZwCrKXsP6fzo-vOJCEKWfYylxa0bonfDQ-H_dz0MZDzBhJz1ndlFGDEbCjkkcQuObntMtSQxLHPZzLWhEoGufaFg4YCJOGYfSgZOPWaAPIinRDEyCAtHrOdVYMFcMMx2kSh6C4QuNl/s1600/vintage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnQLZwCrKXsP6fzo-vOJCEKWfYylxa0bonfDQ-H_dz0MZDzBhJz1ndlFGDEbCjkkcQuObntMtSQxLHPZzLWhEoGufaFg4YCJOGYfSgZOPWaAPIinRDEyCAtHrOdVYMFcMMx2kSh6C4QuNl/s320/vintage.jpg" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">'Hi, is that NHS Direct? I keep having recurrent and distressing thoughts that all begin with the words "I SHOULD" and now I've got a touch of self-hating hysteria. Can you send someone with a medical license over to the house straightaway?'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-23712066018631876752012-09-04T12:32:00.002+01:002012-09-04T12:35:23.259+01:00I worry, therefore I am...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.themetapicture.com/media/funny-vintage-ad-wife-husband.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="http://static.themetapicture.com/media/funny-vintage-ad-wife-husband.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Phew. See, she was worrying unnecessarily. Don't let yourself fall into that silly lady-trap, tsk tsk, there's a pretty thing.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Cognitive fusion' sounds like an exciting thing that happens in clever brains, but is actually a stupid bitch of a neuro-thing, and here's why.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apparently when you start worrying about something (i.e. 'argh, my wife is going to divorce me because we had a big argument') your brain and body cannot distinguish between your imagining of the horrors of the event, and the actual event itself. To the brain and the adrenal system, when you imagine all the terrifying things that could happen during a divorce (brain screaming 'I'll be alone!' 'I'll lose my kids!' I'll never have sex again!'), you are literally experiencing all the same emotions and affective hormones etc you would experience during an <i><b>actual</b></i> divorce.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You've essentially created a nightmare-ish fantasy world that your body cannot divorce (ha) from reality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So a day spent worrying about the possibility of a divorce, is a day where you've voluntarily propelled yourself into an unpleasant almost-genuine experience that either;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>a)</b> is never going to happen, in which case you've given yourself a traumatic fake divorce completely unnecessarily. (The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that this is the most likely option, particularly if your worries involve obscure, disastrous outcomes with infinitesimally small chances of ever occurring like mine do)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>b)</b> IS going to happen, in which case you've not only got to go through it once in your horrible pretend-land, but AGAIN in the real world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason this is a bitch is that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>a) </b>it's destructive and horrible and nasty</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>b)</b> knowing all about it doesn't stop me worrying in the slightest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, maybe a little bit. I'm working on it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The upside (it genuinely took me more than a day to hit on this, I'm such an Eeyore!) is that it works in reverse - i.e. imagining lovely things produces all the warm fuzzy good vibes you'd get if you were really doing those lovely things. Hence the popularity of visualisation ('you're lying on a warm beach in the Caribbean feeling the sand between your toes etc').</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So all we need to do, is stop imagining horrible things, and start imagining wonderful things! Our anxiety will not only dissipate, we'll actually go from almost-genuinely experiencing divorces and gnarly deaths to almost-genuinely experiencing beach holidays and winning the lottery!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I told you there would be an easy solution to this anxiety lark! Stick with me, kids, and we'll soon have it licked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">V x</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/255/PreviewComp/SuperStock_255-22340.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/255/PreviewComp/SuperStock_255-22340.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'I can finally see my happy-ever-afters clearly with these special rose-tinted spectacles on. Hurrah!'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-8940193028227050612012-08-29T17:55:00.004+01:002012-08-29T17:58:20.395+01:00Brain - serotonin = WET CHAOS...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bilerico.com/2010/07/tampaxbrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.bilerico.com/2010/07/tampaxbrain.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just like this poor woman, my brain has fallen victim to moving and sentimental images, like fully-clothed sunbathing on LiLos, and Italian wedding dresses. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My brain and I have had a falling out. There's been a slapped wrist (brains have wrists) and an official warning over negligence of basic duties. It's not being fed serotonin every morning with its cornflakes and has gone all mushy and sentimental and weird.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the last two days I have cried in the following ways:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I flicked over to the X-Factor (eating dinner, urgently needed moving images) and listened to a mildly talented boy whose parents had split up (they couldn't even scrape together any real tragedy for the pre-singing story) sing a probably mediocre song, but in my addled state I just heard music, so was moved. I mean, <b>multiple</b> tears, not just A single, individual tear.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watching some terrible documentary about athletes and how-hard-they-trained-for-the-Olympics-and-how-happy-they-were-that-all-their-hard-work-had-paid-off-and-how-it-was-all-worth-it-and-how-they-were-really-pleased-to-represent-the-country-and-how-grateful-they-were-to-their-coaches-who-had-been-through-it-with-them-from-the-very-beginning-and-most-of-all-to-their-families-who-always-believed-in-them cue Coldplay.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watching the last 3 minutes (literally) of Masterchef Australia where the winner was crowned. I want to clarify that I had not watched <b>ANY</b> of the series, so this was a record tear release from a standing start.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When someone's pastry tore on the Great British Bake-off.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At several slow-motion sporting montages calculatedly created to cause maximum heartstring damage by the BBC</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But here's the clincher:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I CRIED WATCHING AN 80s RE-RUN OF THE CRYSTAL MAZE. When a girl managed to get a crystal. That's all. When she took it back to the team they all cheered and I felt my eyes moisten.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I said - '<b>ENOUGH</b>!!!! The Crystal Maze??? Really, has it come to this? You are genuinely moved by a 20 year old re-run on Challenger? What is happening up there in the control room Mr Brain? Are you pulling the wrong levers or something? Are you drunk? Are you asleep at the wheel? Do you need a defibrillator? What do you want from me?!'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How long does it take brains to get back to normal after a number of years being chemically enhanced, I wonder...</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3468/3753159167_6d97176ac2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3468/3753159167_6d97176ac2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh no, don't, I can feel them forming. Look at her eager face. Oh God, it's too late. What a moving display of ingenuity and problem-solving. Pass the tissues please.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-45749077658016377202012-08-23T15:08:00.000+01:002012-08-23T15:09:38.001+01:00It's my self-pity party and I'll cry if I want to...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zq6NP6DaaBM/T86bPzc8-PI/AAAAAAAABD0/C4yOkN-WRZ0/s1600/Vintage+Tears.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zq6NP6DaaBM/T86bPzc8-PI/AAAAAAAABD0/C4yOkN-WRZ0/s320/Vintage+Tears.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is actually a photograph of me, taken only yesterday</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hi guys. I'm throwing a self-pity party today and you're all invited (apart from my boyfriend, who has been attending the pre-party for the last few weeks and needs to go have his own one now)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are the facts:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1</b>. My vertigo/labyrinthitis symptoms have come back. Having labyrinthitis was the thing that triggered all my panics in the first place, so I'm really freaking out. It's been three weeks now, and it's not going away.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2.</b> I've now completely tapered down off all my anti-depressant (still on Lyrica, but needed to rekindle my libido which was brutally exterminated by the Citalopram soldiers). Forum on the web suggests the vertigo is a symptom of coming off the SSRIs, so maybe it's that. Lots of frantic Googling later, and I still have no idea if it is or not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3.</b> I'm meant to be going on holiday with my boyfriend to NY, LA then Mexico in two days time (the wedding of one of my best friends in the world), and it looks like I'm too dizzy and sick to go. It took 6 months of 'will I, won't I' , some weird hypnosis, and a handbag full of benzodiazepines to be comfortable enough with even <b>TRYING</b> a long-distance flight again, but when I finally did, I felt brave and was looking forward to it. Now I can't go and I feel <b>utterly</b> bereft.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>4.</b> I booked non-refundable flights</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5.</b> I had an ultrasound today to see what was causing my chronic indigestion, and it turns out I have gallstones. And I need to get my gallbladder cut out of my body. With a scalpel. And rummaging in my insides. And general anaesthetic. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are no words to describe how much this freaks me out. Having lived in Britain for almost ten years now, I said 'oh, really? Well, thanks, thanks so much, yes, wonderful, great, okay then - thanks again' to be polite, and than ran outside and cried and had to sit down outside the hospital so I didn't faint. And then I started worrying poor expectant mothers would freak out at the sight of me thinking I had lost my baby or something, so I had to move myself along. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>6. </b>I have cried every single day for the last 3 weeks. This may be down to coming off my pills, which may mean I need to be on them <b>FOREVER </b>and will become a female eunuch and lose my boyfriend and have to live somewhere as a panicked, atheist nun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>7. </b>I'm scared my stones are going to explode.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>8</b>. I'm scared my boyfriend is going to run away with a beautiful, healthy Mexican lady who never panics and doesn't have gall-related-belching.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>9. </b>I'm scared and sad about being scared and sad and I'm driving myself and my poor boyfriend <b>CRAZY</b>. I'm trying to find it funny, but sometimes it's just not. Now I'm crying again. I'm like a strange, leaky, worried, burping, dizzy, bilious beast. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, some of those last ones weren't facts.*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vx</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* This is what CBT teaches you, to be able to distinguish between facts and thoughts. Pah. Go away sanctimonious CBT - I'm having a pity-party, and you're not invited.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpC3HnyLJ7lpWEJxmvTvguB3p2ssXIxAODWFiYa688Tjp8gIJxY0Txz7kr6ajMF48_VSpAWbC4T4KPL94F2iqdM3KazZMnYv_W1n87mTFF8tYLcfaL-wXDX92eRhvl2yly5YksL6RyBOA/s1600/roy+lichtenstein+crying+girl+1964.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpC3HnyLJ7lpWEJxmvTvguB3p2ssXIxAODWFiYa688Tjp8gIJxY0Txz7kr6ajMF48_VSpAWbC4T4KPL94F2iqdM3KazZMnYv_W1n87mTFF8tYLcfaL-wXDX92eRhvl2yly5YksL6RyBOA/s320/roy+lichtenstein+crying+girl+1964.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'I really loved my gallbladder. It was my favourite innard'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-65601719913436186922012-08-22T18:09:00.000+01:002012-08-22T18:10:23.145+01:00Better breathing for panicked panters...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXkOjFkZZyjSJI9iq3Q8lJlCaixRnPwmsmBr5OXJjC0r1WKwNgYkkWmbwjSJMU5mOK85zKpUDJSH7p7zxR2GLTpCQycztqR_CqEhvYcUJ-n-XbuUEC_Rbr6bEPw6OjbyXccklRWD7F7mw/s1600/Mad+Magic-strangle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXkOjFkZZyjSJI9iq3Q8lJlCaixRnPwmsmBr5OXJjC0r1WKwNgYkkWmbwjSJMU5mOK85zKpUDJSH7p7zxR2GLTpCQycztqR_CqEhvYcUJ-n-XbuUEC_Rbr6bEPw6OjbyXccklRWD7F7mw/s320/Mad+Magic-strangle.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Doctor, Doctor, I just have this, sort of, suffocating feeling, like someone's got their hands around my neck and I can't get any air...'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've just realised that I haven't yet shared one of the all-time best panic-busting tips I've ever been given.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After being diagnosed with panic disorder, I languished for six months on a CBT treatment course waiting list (thank you NHS), but I did finally wend my trembling way into a treatment room. And when I did, <b>BOY </b>was the wait worth it (thank you NHS, no sarcasm). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having the CBT was the first time I really got to grips with this gnarly panic crap, and began to lose my fear of panic a bit. I'd tried some CBT in self-help books prior to that (I ordered approximately 851,000 different books and CDs on Amazon), but it never really stuck, and being an impatient, type A sort of person, I would just race through the chapters, do the exercises quickly, shout 'FINISHED!' triumphantly, and then complain that it wasn't working. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before then, I think I still thought I would die with each panic attack. I thought I was completely insane, and needed to be locked up. I thought my life as I knew it was over. Of course now I still have a moment during panic when I think all of those things, but my more logical brain can fight back much quicker and win the day in the end. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's too much to cram into a single post (maybe I should do a series?), but the overriding rule that changed my panic-stricken life was:<span style="font-size: large;"> <b>DON'T TRY TO CONTROL YOUR BREATHING</b></span>. It was completely at odds with all the other stuff I'd been reading and trying (breathing in for 5, hold for 4, out for 8 - that sort of thing), and with loads of other panic advice I'd been given. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The guy asked me to hyperventilate with him so he could prove it to me. I cried and refused (why the hell would I do that?! I literally spent every second trying NOT to hyperventilate!) so we tried it in another session once I trusted him a bit more. He did it with me, and promised nothing bad would happen to either of us. We deliberately hyperventilated together (one of the stranger experiences I've shared with a complete stranger) and watched what happened afterwards. Essentially, your body regulates itself. It does not need you to sit and watch your breath. It does not need you to count each one in and out. It does not need you to <b>DO</b> anything. It just does it on its own! Miraculous, hey?! If you hyperventilate and go out of whack, in a short space of time it will come back into whack - without your help or control or vigilant inspection. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I cannot tell you what a huge, unbelievably liberating relief it was just to <b>LET GO</b> of the goddamn breathing thing and just let it do its thing. It was like taking off a 100kg backpack and leaving it at the door. It sounds obvious to non-panickers, but it certainly wasn't to me then. I don't think I've ever fully hyperventilated (in an out-of-control way) since then. I may have got strained, and struggled, and started to breathe quickly, and worried I was going to run out of air, but the less I tried to control it, the quicker it came back round to normal in the end.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's it. Don't control your breathing. Just let your body do its thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorry for a tortuously long, and possibly slightly dull post, chaps, but the fundamentals are important too, right?! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://isastaffing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Vintage_photo_relaxation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://isastaffing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Vintage_photo_relaxation.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A successful, non-panicked breather will look relaxed and beatific, like so.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-64236359582790704512012-08-09T15:50:00.002+01:002012-08-09T15:52:00.188+01:00Wrap me up, Scottie!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.yellercab.com/sites/yellercab.essential-connections.com/files/home/user3/Retro%20bandages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://www.yellercab.com/sites/yellercab.essential-connections.com/files/home/user3/Retro%20bandages.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Go on, tighter, TIGHTER woman! I want to feel PEEEACE!'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stick with me, kids, because I've discovered another anxiety cure. It may not yet be approved for use on homo sapiens, but our time will surely come.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Behold, the mighty <b>THUNDERSHIRT</b>! A tight, restrictive, natty little vest for your firework-frazzled Fido, that soothes his separation anxiety, thunderstorm wobbles, and all manner of canine worries. Apparently it also allays 'crating and travel anxiety' which would be perfect for my plane journeys. As soon as I saw it I was jealous.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.healthcareproductz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/thundershirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://www.healthcareproductz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/thundershirt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apparently autistic children chill out when you give them special high-pressure hugs, heavy blankets and weighted clothing, so there's obviously something in this pressure/tightness lark.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do you think it will work if I just put on a four year-old child's wetsuit? Or a vintage girdle? Or a full-body bandage?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I've just stumbled upon an inconvenient truth that rounds off my anxiety/tightness thesis. It's not global warming (sorry Al), but just as catastrophic. Kind of. My mother has just confessed to the fact that she *gasp* <b>DIDN'T SWADDLE</b> me as child. Being a patchouli-wafting weaver of soy-yoghurt, she thought it was terribly restrictive for child me, and that I should have been able to move my chubby arms freely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b>
<b>BUT NOW I HAVE AN ANXIETY CONDITION! </b>It all makes sense - the pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place! Child + no swaddling = late-twenties onset panic disorder . I'm obviously going to have to make up for lost time, starting from now. And I know which beautiful, Australia-based hippy is going to be footing the bill for my jumbo pack of size zero unitards... </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thundershirt.com/Content/images/separation.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.thundershirt.com/Content/images/separation.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My boyfriend is going to be SO pleased when I happily wave goodbye to him in my shrunken toddler's wetsuit...</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-12159315271187598612012-08-01T19:57:00.000+01:002012-08-01T19:59:11.824+01:00Do I have anxiety because I'm bad at maths?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/06/bombe-lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/06/bombe-lady.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'And if I just put this here, like so, it is now 10,000 billion trillion to one. Which means it's pretty likely, right?'</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've got a theory.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it may well be possible that my entire anxiety disorder stems from a <b>basic misunderstanding of statistics</b>. I'm talking about the generalised anxiety here; the day-to-day neuroses, fears and worry-wartishness. I wander around the world, clucking like a traumatised, paranoid hen, living in perpetual fear of terrible things happening to me, or the people I love, or the people they love (ad infinitum). But is it all because I can't get my head around the numbers?<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Observe.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My boyfriend tells me he's been feeling run-down a lot lately - I immediately start planning my tragic life post-boyfriend-dying-of-cancer. I have a splitting headache and two red dots on my hand - I wail that I'm too young to die and start mentally dividing my (non-existent) assets. I read an article about pavements exploding - I walk along the sunny streets imagining what death by explosion might be like. I see that someone drowned on the news - I get in the ocean but don't go in past my shins. My boyfriend travels abroad - I say goodbye and cry because he's going to die in a horrific, fiery plane crash.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Benign things take on a sinister alternate aspect according to random news stories I've absorbed along the way. A tube of hair dye is a terrible allergic reaction; a patch of sunburn is terminal skin cancer; a mung bean salad is a potentially fatal dose of food poisoning; a motorway car trip is ten car pile up; a tube ride is a terrorist explosion; a knife poking out of the dishwasher is a fatal impaling; a day stuck at the desk is a deep vein thrombosis in the leg. The world becomes one huge Final Destination obstacle course, with a trillion different ways and means of jumping up and killing me/loved ones/anyone etc etc.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But is all of this simply a combination of a globalised, hysterical bad-news media, and my terrible grasp of statistics and chance? Why does my brain read the headline "Woman dies of no-symptom-cat-virus in Peru'' and then automatically assume that is something that is likely to happen to me? Because I never paid attention in Grade 9 maths?<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A logical mind acknowledges that these tragedies are <b>RARE</b>, and that they're extracted from the <b>entire</b> global news pool - so the likelihood of a fatal badger biting/pole-dance neck breaking is probably 1 in 7 billion or something. But to my chaotic, artsy mind, all of these horrible incidences seep into my consciousness (as much as I try not to read about them), and add to the general sense of the world being a terrible, dangerous, hazardous sort of place.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My boyfriend is a scientist, and so is pretty hot on the old numbers. He's also, without a shadow of a doubt, the sanest, happiest, and most mentally healthy person I have ever met in my life. Is this no mere coincidence? Does he forge ahead, anxiety-free, fearing nothing - all because he has an accurate sense of likelihood and chance?<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do I need ditch the drugs and hypnosis, and simply pick up my high-school maths textbooks instead? How about you guys - can any of you add up? Am I onto something here?</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You thought playing outside was safe?! Ha! Even an innocent kite is a death-trap waiting to happen.</span>..</td></tr>
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<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940417678192492037.post-1352641834500451732012-07-13T13:42:00.002+01:002012-07-13T13:45:55.069+01:00Sweet (inner) child of mine...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Awwwwwww. But you wouldn't want a whole one...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wow, well, it looks like I just can't stop the cheesiness from flowing this week! Today, kids, I'm going to talk to you about your </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">INNER CHILD</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Before you bring up your lunch, WAIT just a few seconds, and hear me out...<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know not all of you can afford therapy (hell, I'm not sure I really can either), so I'm going to maximise the efficiency of <i>my</i> therapy by telling <i>you</i> all the good tips I get given (you save money, face, and time this way). Good idea, huh?<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am (and I'm guessing a lot of you are as well) a bit of a big bully - to myself. To everyone else I'm like a soft, fluffy rabbit of empathy and joy. To myself I'm like a fiery ball of relentless, violent, satanic fury. Anyway, the gist of quite a few of my shrink sessions involved me trying to visualise my younger self (don't do this at work BTW- it can make your eyes leak a bit) and imagining saying the sorts of horrible things I say to myself NOW to that person. I find the best sort of age to remember back to is 5ish - maximum cuteness and innocence, and I personally can't relate to anything much younger than that.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you do genuinely try and close your eyes and imagine saying 'You're pathetic, there's nothing to be afraid of, you're crazy, you're a loser, you're a waste of space' etc etc etc to this shining little blonde bundle of loveliness, it just feels abusive and utterly wrong.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it's a pretty good lesson, because essentially, you <b>ARE STILL</b> that person, believe it or not, and your squidgy, vulnerable bits (the bits you shout at) are still about that sort of mental age, really, if you know what I mean. Ugh, I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All I know is that the more I've made a conscious decision to take care of myself, as I would a fearful child; the more relaxed I've been a panicky situation. You wouldn't scream <b>'DON'T FUCKING PANIC YOU CRAZY BITCH!!</b>' to a five year old if they said they were scared (and if you would, perhaps you should fork out for some therapy after all...). It is literally <i>the</i> most counter-productive and adrenaline-raising option available to you. You need to shush, and swaddle, and stroke, and hum to, and cuddle that petrified thing inside.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> If you want the science rather than the hippy version, it turns out that being angry with yourself causes just the same physical and emotional response as someone <i>else</i> being angry with you or shouting at you (tight chest, adrenaline, cortisol, fear, anxiety etc etc), so is a perfect cocktail for escalating your panic if it's beginning to rear its head.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know it's hard to get out of the abusive patterns if you've spent a lifetime trudging up and down them, but the almighty God of science ALSO shows us that neural pathways <b>CAN </b>be rebuilt, and behaviours <b>CAN</b> change, so it <b>IS</b> possible to start again.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So go on, give yourselves a big cuddle y'all! Because inside, you are still that cute, innocent, freckly little ball of loveliness. And, of course, because deep, deep down, you know you're worth it....*</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your inner child is this creepy, then you might need to shout at it to make it go away again.</span>.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*This blog post was in no way brought to you by L'Oreal or any other you-hating haircare or beauty conglomerate.</span><br />
<br />Vivre Sa Viehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16968916150096947866noreply@blogger.com7