Thursday 29 September 2016

KEY 3: CONNECT

My brother came round to measure the piano, because we want to give it to him. We don't speak at a deep level much, and the last time I tried he blocked me. He has had a lot of low periods in his life when he didn't go out much, or speak to anyone, but of recent years he has been much more positive and has taken big visible steps to enjoy his life more. So I asked him how he got out of them. 

His immediate response was 'get out and see people'.
photo from Goldsmiths Connect www.gold.ac.uk
He then went on to give me some a very useful perspective on what our parents contributed to our perfectionism and our idea of success (very academic/ professional). And most dramatically useful, 

WHY WOULDN'T YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT?


My sister tends to phone me when she is having a hard time at work and needs someone to work things out with. She is having a general hard time because she doesn't like the job she's had for the last 12 months. A couple of months ago I put boundaries on this as she had not asked about me, when I was off sick from work because I wasn't coping at all. Talking to her on the phone today, it was much more of a balanced conversation. She talked me through my perspective on work in the kind of detail I would give her when needed, and it solidified my position that I wither in urgent work situations and have some other useful contributions to make, and that making this clear to my employer would be important for my future. It was also great to be able to talk about my past similar circumstances with someone who was totally behind my interpretation of events.
How does this relate to connecting? Well, from these and other encounters, I can clearly see that people who care about you usually give you what you ask for. As long as you ask for it. I have been going around thinking that I had no one to talk to, and really this is because I have not been honest with anyone about what I was going through or what I needed. That changes now.

Tuesday 27 September 2016

Happiness score, and Gratitude Visits

My happiness score today is 3.05. Yesterday it would have been more, sometimes, and less other times. But overall my score is up by about 15% on when I started this experiment, which has to say something. The point of scoring myself now was not to make any judgements about the method I am using, just to keep a record. 

While doing this I found this Article about Seligman's Gratitude Visits





I think of myself as a grateful person. I thank people a lot in my day to day life. But reading this I thought about how often I do that because I feel guilty for having taken up their time and effort, so it's by way of 'payment' or 'penance' even, rather than from a place of actual gratitude. 

Or sometimes I express gratitude to people because I know that will make them happy, even when I don't really feel it. Which can get me into trouble because then they think that I LIKED what they did and do more of it. So the joke's on me.

I have a lot to be grateful for, and some people who have done very good things for me, most especially my husband. I have written people letters and stuff, but never actually told them genuinely face to face how much they have given me. The very thought makes me feel like crying with embarrassment. 

But it would be giving them a gift, rather than exposing my vulnerability, that would be the point here. 





 If I'm going to do this for my own good (as the happiness prof Seligman says giving in this way helps people feel happier than receiving gifts themselves), then G is the person I should do it for. 

So I will write myself some notes about what he has done for me. 

Oh wow, I may be some time...




from https://www.happier.com/

Monday 26 September 2016

KEY 10: BE PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER

For me, being part of something bigger is about meaning and purpose. Finding the reason I am here, or if you don't want to imply the existence of a Director, finding something that I am uniquely qualified to contribute to the world, and pursue it.

My difficulty is that this suggests huge glorious influence, which doesn't sound right to me - a person who doesn't even manage interviews because of the exposure they give me. 

But I have been looking into 'purpose' and found This Australian guy Peter Hegarty who has some interesting and thought inspiring ideas about it. He says that talks about purpose as 

'A gift that in the giving costs you nothing of yourself 
and helps you grow into more of the real you than you could otherwise be.'

This appeals because it makes it seem more mundane in a way. Something that is easy for me because it's what I do naturally, but is nevertheless helpful to others. It would be a huge relief to be able to give something that doesn't require me to strain and exercise mind over matter to get there. 

Thinking about this (in my sleep), I see that my particular thing, that I take for granted because it is so centrally me, is my ability to see other peoples' perspective on things. This has been a blessing and a curse at various times, but in itself is simply a tendency that I have more than most. In my work I have used it (unintentionally most of the time) to develop empathy and trusting relationships with the people I help, and to help my team to do so as well, and I have been praised for this by my colleagues. I did this unintentionally, and often against the tide. I had to work out for myself how to honour other peoples' perspective while getting my job done in a professional way within the very limited time available. It wasn't a heroic struggle against the odds for the good of humankind. It was just necessary if I was going to be able to do the job at all. 

At work I couldn't keep it up for long. Looking back on my chequered career, I can see that the way my work is set up is not for people like me (although I suspect there are quite a few of us trying). I have quite a lot of flexibility about what I do and when, but there are lots of things that I am responsible for which impinge on my ability to get the balance right between empathy and getting the job done. That makes it sound facile, but its much more complex than that. I need to think about this a bit more...(see below)

It has been a problem for me a lot in my personal life. At least at work you expect to be marching to someone else's drum at least some of the time (whether you like it or not). But socially, in romantically, being attuned to where other people are coming from whether you like it or not means that you are much more likely to do what they want, rather than what you want or need. You might even end up in a relationship where they want you but you don't want them. And there is a risk of abuse, which I have always felt the need to guard against without really knowing how (other than to leave suddenly). But less dramatically, and more insidiously, you tend to cater to their needs first, so that everyone is happy, and very quickly you find you don't know what your needs are any more and everyone seems to be happy but you. And there's also that overwhelming resentment that they aren't doing the same for you, and you can't help feeling that this means they don't care, when of course they simply don't have the knack of reading people like you do. (I am INFJ in Myers Briggs personality typing - see the excellent personalityjunkie.com for more.) And I'm ashamed to say that then they get the brunt of my resentment without knowing what they did to deserve it.

What would have worked better? 
1. Well now it's easy to see that I needed to learn to deliberately switch perspectives back to my own. Or deliberately stick with mine until I know what would be right for me, before switching to check in with them. Or even be mindful of which perspective I'm in when I'm thinking about something, so I can make no decisions except those that include me. 
2. To give myself time to sort these things out in my head, instead of demanding of myself that I make decisions as quickly as other people seem to.
3. To know that it's not just OK but necessary to put limits on what other people expect of me that respect my need  a/ for recovery time and b/ to live my life for me.


When I started my current job I was lucky that I was able to do this perspective thing most of the time, and I was happy in my job. After a lifetime of fatigue after 3 months of full time work, and having to reduce my exposure to my work to 3 days a week at most, I was able to talk about doing the job for the rest of my life, perhaps even increasing my days. I was on purpose, had enough time, and was able to relax into it and make a difference. 

But a year ago my workload doubled, and other things were going on in my personal life that knocked my confidence and and stopped home being so restful, and this all took me away from what I loved doing and I became exhausted again. 

I need to think about what it was precisely that put a stop to it. But more importantly, what it was that made it possible for it to feel so easy and rewarding for me. 
Ostensibly the job is to give the clients what they need. But it is usual for them to want something that is not on the list of possible professional actions for me. They want me to listen, understand, and help them work their way through their difficulties to a place where they are stronger. Or sometimes they just want me to take their difficulties away. Neither of these are in my arsenal. So I have to sell them what I can do as a way through. Other people don't even try to sell it, and are then surprised and annoyed when the person doesn't turn up again. What I have discovered is that it is possible to not only sell people what I can do, but also to give them the understanding and empowerment they need to get what they want and to accept my advice about what else might help. And all within a reasonable amount of time. The difficulty is when I don't have a reasonable amount of time.

More from Peter Hegarty:

'...Purpose underlies everything that you do
Purpose is about service
Purpose counts on integrity...
Purpose is the essence of your deepest values'

So, if this is my purpose path - to use my skill with perspective to create a better service for people, then I need to focus on the integrity bit of this. I need to work out how on earth I can express and act on this knowledge most of the time at work, but without also trying to conform to the other professional expectations that fly against it and make it such a struggle for me. 

What are those things? 
- Having to make decisions with potentially serious consequences in a situation where I cannot have enough time to make them well.
- Being responsible for too many people at a time, so I can't know any of them well enough to help them the way I would like (or even be as safe as I'd like).
- Having no influence on the senior people who make decisions about organisational change so they keep doing things that will make it worse from the clients perspective. eg?
- Having to work in a system which is supposed to be giving people what they need but has forgotten that theirs is not the only perspective (if it ever knew) and has for many clients become part of the problem. 
- Having to work hard to gain the trust of clients because they have had multiple changes of contact and therefore know at first hand that the service does not care about them as individuals. 
- Working with people who don't even think about trying to put themselves into a client's shoes. 
- Working in a system where I have no personal support, or even a place where I could talk about these things without fear of seeming dangerously radical.
- Working in a system where the support services, especially IT, are not constructed to make it easier for me to do my job, even though my job is what the service is paid to do. They are constructed to make it easier for the moneymakers to get their money. Surely we could manage both?
- Working in a system where the management is so cumbersome that there are different groups negotiating the same contract, but don't know it, and when this is pointed out and invited, don't speak to each other.
- Where the reputation of the organisation is very poor, but it dismisses or ignores improvements suggested by the clients or other stakeholders.
- The 'assessment centre' for my job was all about client experience, and yet no moves have been made towards improving it in the 3 years since I started. IE I seem to be on my own here!

What would I need to do in order for me to be able to pursue this more directly?
1. I think I need a bit more time thinking about this perspective shows me about how to arrange my life. 
2. I need to ask for/look for a job which has fewer urgent problems coming to me.
3. And fewer clients.
4. Where I can be part of the decision-making processes at a higher level. Or at least to have a way of talking to them about this, and trying to help them see this perspective as essential. EG 'client champion'/ advocate
5. Design a workshop for this. And for lower down the organisation.
6. Find a mentor. 
7. Forge stronger relationships with client pressure groups and other stakeholders.
8. Work on the broader perception of this as a basic part of such a service. Talks at conferences, articles, youtube etc.
9. Find out whether analogous things have happened in other industries that I can learn from.
10. Do what I need to do to allow me to continue having this clarity about myself, and time and space to work it through. (This should be number one!)
 - by practicing mindfulness regarding which perspective I am in at any time
- by learning new tactful ways of being clear about what I will not do
- by being sure that I know what I need first, before checking in with other people

Wow, that was good - I haven't thought that through in detail before. This certainly seems like a good starting point for working out how to design my own life!

Back to PH again:
'The Paradox of Purpose

Selfishly investing in our truth, 
holding our integrity and our boundaries as sacred and inviolable 
results in selfless, authentic and generous service to others'


Saturday 24 September 2016

KEY 6: LOOK AFTER YOUR BODY

When I was at school there were some girls there who were always beautifully groomed. They had perfectly shaped nails and shiny hair. Their hair was cut regularly, and their clothes never looked old or had buttons hanging off. I wanted to be one of those girls, to be fragrant and ladylike, but not enough to work out how to do it all by myself. 

As I got older I started to make it part of my persona that I didn't care about those things. That it was what was inside that mattered. After a while I thought of myself as plain and dumpy anyway, so what was there to tend? I picked up some strategies when I had babies and realised what they needed was also what I needed - routine, exercise, and regular healthy meals and sleep. I even asked one of those girls from school to tell me her self-care regime, but she didn't respond and I didn't push it, feeling ashamed that it was so obvious to her but a mystery to me. 

Now I'm 50 and I have had the need for self-care pushed into my face by collapsing due to lack of it. So I'm using this key to look up what other people do to groom themselves.

Initially this seems superficial and vain. But pushing through is necessary because I am not even doing the basics here, ok?


The Elegant Woman says:
'presenting yourself to the world with a clean, neat and pleasant look is an act of kindness.'

Skin: Establish a skin care routine that works for you (more below)
Exercise regularly, sleep well, drink lots of water

Facial & body hair: around the lips and between the brows must be removed at all times
Eyebrows should be shaped every 6 weeks and tidied every week
Remove hair from legs underarms and bikini lines at all times

Make up: aim for a fresh healthy appearance

Hair: should be clean neat tidy and elegantly styled
Get roots touched up regularly
Wash your hair every other day
Aim for low maintenance hairdos if you have a busy life
Get a regular haircut that keeps clean hair clear of your face

Exercise and posture: Feed yourself good nutritious food
Exercise regularly. If you start to slouch you need more exercise.
Rest well

Nails: should always be clean and shaped
Buffed or polished, consider french manicure video of how to do it
Don't forget your toenails

Dress elegantly:
Discern quality. Quality not quantity. Take your time.
Know you are worth spending on. Restrict yourself to only one dress/ pair of shoes rather than loads of options. Aim for only a single perfect ensemble for each occasion.
Don't buy things only because they are practical.
But only buy clothes that you will wear frequently.
Quality accessories make a lot of difference

I know that when I have put some thought into what I am wearing, and being clean etc, I have felt better about myself, more confident, and also prettier. This does rub off on the day and it's more likely to be a good one.

Treat your clothes well: 
Dry clean, steam or handwash when needed.
Iron and hang them up
Mend them before putting them away
Polish shoes regularly

Basic skin care routine
I have normal/ combination skin that tends to get tight after washing.

1. Use a gentle cleanser or soap and rinse with warm water, then pat dry. If your skin gets tight or oily, use a different cleanser. If dry, avoid alcohol or fragrance.


2. Exfoliate once a week


3. Moisturise while skin is damp, with UV filter


4. Wash in morning, and cleanse make up in evening.


5. Don't go to bed with make up on


6. Replace make up regularly, especially eye make up eg mascara every 4 months.


7. Eat and sleep well



The elegant woman - on being gentle

In my trawl through the website I also found this gem. Which certainly speaks to me and to what I have been trying to do with my life. 


'How to be Gentle?

How to be gentle? Where do I start?

Slow Down, Declutter, Obtain Peace

In my book, Secrets of Elegance, I talked a little bit about achieving authenticity (being who you are), the importance of having a devotional to read, editing yourself and wardrobe and obtaining peace.
One of the concepts of that book is how peace is important to elegance, and how we should remove anything that does not give us peace (i.e. anything that causes stress). Similarly, it is a lot easier to be gentle if you are peaceful within. Editing is very much a process of achieving elegance and we must get rid of "Too Much". Too much stuff, too much on our schedules, too much commitment, expectations and demands.
Slow down. Meditate. Engage in peaceful, slow-moving activities that require patience. Such as reading novels, painting, yoga, ballet, Tai Chi, sewing, knitting etc....
Be gentle with people...
Value what you have - eg pick up things as if they were delicate and valuable...
Be gentle with yourself...A lovely blog post about this
Have an abundant mindset...
Eat well'
I am drawn to these things, but life seems to have speeded me up so much that I don't do them any more. So now is the time to do these things. All at once, in a formal timetable I impose on myself ungently? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha






Thursday 22 September 2016

KEY 4: DO THINGS FOR OTHERS

This is a hard one for me - not because I'm a selfish person, but because I actually find it very difficult to think about what I need. Because all the things I can see and do for other people could easily take up all my time and energy, and tend to crowd out the small voice that tells me what I need. The silent voice. 

For example, yesterday I had a free couple of hours when I could have done anything I liked, and some unaccustomed energy to do it with, and what sprang to mind was this list of potentials:

Make insulated blinds for my daughter's bedroom
Visit a convalescent friend to help her declutter
Take up my husband's trousers
Thank the man who is covering my job while I'm off
Accompany my mother to her doctor's appointment

As you can see, none of these is actually using my time and energy to look after me or even have much in the way of fun. Despite the fact that I am off sick to recover from overextending myself. 

So I am about to leave the house to help with the decluttering and give moral support to my friend. I offered without thinking about it. It's as if inside I think that I am nothing if I am not a good friend, I mean literally I have no value.

I must learn better boundaries. I must ..No. 

For my future health and happiness I put boundaries on my own and other people's behaviour to allow myself space to be myself, and to give myself what I need.

How did I learn to have such great boundaries?
Practice every day
Have a whole day every week of saying no
Timetable R&R time for me alone, and stick to it as a priority
Tell friends and family it's doctors' orders


Tuesday 20 September 2016

KEY 9: ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE

Not sure how to do this as I don't know who I am.



My midlife crisis has consisted of me trying to find out, first by working out my clothing style (yes, I know), then my personality type on MBTI. I am 18 months into this and still not very sure, although doing the exploring has been amazingly engaging and I have learned a lot about myself. 

I don't think of myself as obsessional (in fact I police any obsessional behaviour in myself quite carefully so maybe I am actually...See what I mean about not knowing myself?). I always avoided doing a blog because I knew I wouldn't be interested in one thing long enough to sustain one on a theme. But there is one theme with everlasting interest for me - this stuff that's happening to me - what does it mean?

A nice image of all the thoughts that go through your head all the time
from http://mindfulnessni.org/what-is-mindfulness/

RIGHT NOW what's happening to me is fatigue, and I am sorting through the reasons why I might be exhausted, in the way you do in order to work out how to get unexhausted, as the strategies I tried before didn't work. There are lots of explainations out there which apply to me to one degree or another. I think it's as much of a 'rabbit hole' as personality typing, so you could get lost in it, but there is perhaps something in all of the explanations which fit me, and it might be worth thinking about the explanation - where do they overlap and how does that help me?

So first, here are some syndromes which appear to apply to me now (although I have had no differential diagnosis of this kind from a professional):

CLINICAL DEPRESSION
where I got this from - WHO ICD 10
'In typical depressive episodes... the individual usually suffers from depressed mood, loss of interest and enjoyment, and reduced energy leading to increased fatiguability and diminished activity...(for at least 2 weeks). Marked tiredness after only slight effort is common. 

Other common symptoms are: 
(a)reduced concentration and attention; 
(b)reduced self-esteem and self-confidence; 
(c)ideas of guilt and unworthiness (even in a mild type of episode); 
(d)bleak and pessimistic views of the future; 
(e)ideas or acts of self-harm or suicide; 
(f)disturbed sleep 
(g)diminished appetite.'

'...characteristic features that are widely regarded as having special clinical significance. The most typical examples of these "somatic" symptoms are: 
loss of interest or pleasure in activities that are normally enjoyable; 
lack of emotional reactivity to normally pleasurable surroundings and events; 
waking in the morning 2 hours or more before the usual time; 
depression worse in the morning; 
objective evidence of definite psychomotor retardation or agitation (remarked on or reported by other people); 
marked loss of appetite; 
weight loss (often defined as 5% or more of body weight in the past month); 
marked loss of libido. 
Usually, this somatic syndrome is not regarded as present unless about four of these symptoms are definitely present. The categories of mild (F32.0), moderate (F32.1) and severe (F32.2 and F32.3) depressive 

According to this, as I have two of the three basic symptoms, 4 of the other common symptoms but only 3 somatic symptoms, I fit 'recurrent depressive disorder, currently moderate depressive episode without somatic symptoms'. 

On the other hand, the description doesn't really sound like me, and some of my problems are the opposite of these eg weight gain, mood best in the morning, and sleeping 12-15 hours a day. In particular I don't actually feel low in mood or lacking in enjoyment most of the time - only when I put myself into situations that I'm not up to coping with at that moment. When I can listen to my body, avoid difficult conversations, and rest when I need to, I feel quite positive, and can really enjoy things. In general I know this will pass and that it doesn't make me a bad person.

ATYPICAL DEPRESSION
ICD 10 does say that there is great individual variability in depression symptoms, but this seems to be a bit of a cop out, allowing practically anyone to be diagnosed with depressive syndrome if the doctor thinks they are depressed. There used to be a syndrome called atypical depression which seems to fit my problems more closely, but this has become part of the depressive syndrome in ICD and part of major depressive disorder in the American classification. It is still described in public-facing websites WebMD and NHS as follows: where I got this from

 'The main characteristic of atypical depression that distinguishes it from melancholic depression is mood reactivity. In other words, the person with atypical depression will see his or her mood improve if something positive happens. In melancholic depression, positive changes will seldom bring on a change in mood. In addition, diagnostic criteria call for at least two of the following symptoms to accompany the mood reactivity:
  • Sleeping too much (hypersomnia)
  • Increased appetite or weight gain
  • Having a more intense reaction or increased sensitivity to rejection, resulting in problems with social and work relationships
  • Having a feeling of being weighed down, paralyzed, or "leaden" '
I certainly feel more cheerful if someone seems to be caring about me, or for example when I saw a particularly high quality production, and I have all four of the additional symptoms. 

Any depression diagnosis requires physical cause to be excluded, which it has not yet. I have low iron, and H pylori, but I don't think these are enough to explain the degree of tiredness and upset I am suffering.

So, so far it looks as if my problems are described fully by atypical depression.
Treatment for this is antidepressants (which don't work so well for atypical) & psychotherapy. Self-help includes regular exercise, and a diet with vits A,C,E; wholegrains; low fat proteins; B12 and folate; vit D; selenium; omega 3 fatty acids.
And reduced use of drugs, alcohol and caffeine.


SOMATISATION DISORDER
from ICD10 as above

'A definite diagnosis requires the presence of all of the following: 
(a)at least 2 years of multiple and variable physical symptoms for which no adequate physical explanation has been found; 
(b)persistent refusal to accept the advice or reassurance of several doctors that there is no physical explanation for the symptoms; 
(c)some degree of impairment of social and family functioning attributable to the nature of the disorder...
Exclude physical illness, anxiety and depressive disorders, hypochondriacal disorder, delusional disorder.'

a/and c/ are true for me. b/ not so much - I do go away when they tell me it's not serious. Physical illness is not yet completely excluded, and I am depressed according to this classification. I don't have an idea I've got cancer or something, and I am not in a good position to judge whether I have a delusional disorder, but I think not!

CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME CFS /ME myalgic encephalomyelitis

'Most patients seeing a GP in the UK today are diagnosed using the criteria outlined in the NICE Clinical Guideline of 2007 (read the Guideline and supporting documentation here). This Guideline makes clear that the illness is recognised on clinical grounds alone (i.e. that there is no specific ‘test’ for the illness) and that healthcare professionals should consider the possibility of ME/CFS if a person has:
a) Fatigue with all of the following features:
  • new or had a specific onset (that is, it is not lifelong),
  • persistent and/or recurrent,
  • unexplained by other conditions,
  • has resulted in a substantial reduction in activity level,
  • characterised by post-exertional malaise and/or fatigue (typically delayed, for example by at least 24 hours, with slow recovery over several days).
and
b) one or more of the following symptoms:
  • difficulty with sleeping, such as insomnia, hypersomnia,
  • unrefreshing sleep, a disturbed sleep–wake cycle,
  • muscle and/or joint pain that is multi-site and without evidence of inflammation,
  • headaches,
  • painful lymph nodes without pathological enlargement sore throat,
  • cognitive dysfunction, such as difficulty thinking, inability to concentrate, impairment of short-term memory, and difficulties with word-finding, planning/organising thoughts and information processing,
  • physical or mental exertion makes symptoms worse,
  • general malaise or ‘flu-like’ symptoms,
  • dizziness and/or nausea,
  • palpitations in the absence of identified cardiac pathology.
It is important to stress, however, that ME/CFS, whether defined by NICE or using another definition, remains a “diagnosis of exclusion”, which means that other possible causes of a patient’s symptoms should be excluded, often by testing, before this diagnosis is given. As the NICE Guideline says, “A diagnosis should be made after other possible diagnoses have been excluded and the symptoms have persisted for 4 months in an adult [and] 3 months in a child.”'
I have all of a/ and 6 of b/. But I don't think I have this for several reasons. The more dramatic symptoms and limitations do not relate to me. I would say that my tiredness has been lifelong, although it's much worse at the moment than it usually is. Cardiac causes of my palpitations and pains have been excluded but I am still under investigation for stomach symptoms.
This one seems authoritative and has more detail on the symptoms and treatments for this syndrome. It also has a useful section on differentiating it from mental health problems. Which gets quite annoyed with people who don't get the difference! I don't know whether that is because sufferers won't engage with doctors who think it's 'all in the mind', or because they have the idea that mental illnesses don't have accompanying physiological changes (neither of which I necessarily go along with).
Again, I don't relate to the perspective here, and the relationship between activity and fatigue is more on a minute to minute than day to day basis. However, I do relate to the stuff about thinking being as fatiguing as exercise. So I am going to stop doing this now. and have a proper rest.
That said, it has some helpful ideas about how to help yourself. In summary these are - learn to listen to your body, adapt your life to your fluctuating capacity rather than the other way round, relaxation, sleep hygiene, healthy diet + multivitamin, exercise only within your capacity. This is what I have started doing for myself recently.
THERE WERE MORE BUT I CAN'T THINK OF THEM RIGHT NOW. SEE YOU LATER.
OK, 13 hours sleep later...
NEURASTHENIA  - excluded because of the severity
HYPERMOBILITY SYNDROME - don't quite fit the profile
AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE - test for inflammation negative
more and more and more
MENOPAUSE - well almost anything can be a symptom of this apparently. The treatment is...there is no real 'treatment' as it's normal. Exercise, healthy diet, supplements. Time will tell.

MY ANALYSIS OF THIS LIST:
Having done this (in an uncharacteristically precise way) I have a new perspective on why people are dismissive about psychiatric disorders as not illnesses. They are descriptions of symptoms which are almost all very common ie extensions of normal. These are all extensions of normal, and there are no clear signs that I have one rather than the other. I could almost have them all. (Except the ones which explicitly exclude themselves if there is another one, like neurasthenia and depression, presumably to serve the classification system rather than the patient).

There are presumably so many because doctors are (by their training and inclination) not interested in non-fatal syndromes and so people with disabilities due to them are left having to work it out for themselves. Like me. Depression is the exception, as doctors do diagnose depression which is not severe and life threatening, which has probably been driven by the drug companies (see Prozac Nation).

So officially (on my sick note) I have depression. But what do I really think is going on for me? And do I think something needs to be done about the way doctors think about this? If so, in what direction? Step back and let it be normal? Or prescribe more non-medicine solutions?

Right now I don't really care about that. What I care about is what is really going on for me, and what will help me recover quickly and never ever ever get to this point again.

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON FOR ME? & HOW DID I GET HERE?

I drove myself to a standstill.
I have an image in my head of a donkey being beaten even though it is on it's knees.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/540502392750733374/


Would you haul this donkey up and send it back to the same work? Seriously not.
I don't do physical labour, but my work and my 'self-discipline' have done this to me. Again.
Radical rethink time. 


This one isn't down yet, just resisting a bit. As I was in 1982. And 1996, and 2001, and 2002, and 2003...etc
That would have been a better time to rethink my strategy.
http://www.newser.com/story/163485/new-meat-scandal-donkey-in-south-africa-burgers.html









Sunday 18 September 2016

HAPPINESS Experiment 3


My hypothesis:
That my life has been engaged in the wrong struggle - to subdue and manage my intransigent and unreliable self - when in fact this self, who I have demeaned and punished because I'm ashamed of it, is in fact the best, most creative and expansive part of me that knows how to have fun and be happy. It deserves none of this oppression and will instinctively come out to play when I consistently nurture and tend it, and the result of this will be that I will start to know my purpose and be happy and be a better wife and mother and a healthier happier person.

This is based on hope rather than experience, and I really need something to change in my life. The first few weeks of my experiment have been amazingly productive, and have resulted in a 180 degree change in how I am thinking about myself and my relation to the world. 

I have hope that I can now capitalise on this change to make a real difference to my life.



Queen Anne's lace flower bud holding the promise of complex beauty in the mature flower when it unfolds


Particularly useful strategies so far have been:
- being gentle with myself (MOST IMPORTANT)
- working through the INFX course repeatedly
-hourly alarm on my phone to remind me to check in with myself about what I need
- setting boundaries on other peoples' behaviour and being more open and direct with important people about what I want from them minute to minute.
- exploring MBTI more
- starting to say what's going on for me either out loud or on the closed PH facebook group
- writing in my daily journal about my intentions and where my perspective is now


The 10 keys:

1. LEARN SOMETHING NEW

2. TAKE A BREAK AND NOTICE

3. CONNECT WITH PEOPLE

4. DO SOMETHING FOR ANOTHER PERSON

5. DO SOMETHING FUN

6. LOOK AFTER YOUR BODY

7. TAKE THE NEXT STEP TOWARDS YOUR BIG GOAL

8. USE YOUR STRENGTHS

9. ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE NOW

10. BE PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER

My new realisation is that I must leave important decisions and deliberations about my future for the time being while I learn basic self care and allow my body and mind to recover from the exhausted state they are in now. 



Experimental Method 3:
Do each of these keys in a small way each day. Looking after myself is my priority now.
Blog my thoughts and ideas and discoveries about each of the 10 keys.
Doing more of these will certainly mean I have to make the world adapt around me more than I am used to, create boundaries, and my work reassuring myself is going to be even more important, so...
Work with what comes up, directed by INFX course.

Outcome:
Oxford Happiness Questionnaire - baseline at this point: 3.14 (slightly lower than average)



MY HAPPINESS PROJECT

My Happiness project - 
IF YOU ARE READING THIS TO HELP YOU BECOME HAPPIER, PLEASE SKIP TO DEC 2017

I've been unhappy for a long time, and the things I have tried to help me feel more contented have been marginally effective at best. But then they have been partial, marginal attempts, with me trying to squeeze them into the pauses in other responsibilities in my life. 



On Camber Sands


Events have meant that this can no longer be sustained. I am on sick leave from work with no immediate expectation of return. I don't know if I want to return, or if I do, whether it would be a good idea or not, as I have a strong suspicion that this career is bad for me. My family are self-sustaining for the time being. The house is not yet falling down. I have been doing a lot of personal development work with information about how my mind works from personalityhacker.com and a course from the wonderful Merja Semilov on how to look after myself and find my 'purpose path'  Link to course

People always say - take care of yourself - and I don't really know how. In fact, having nothing to do, and no particular goals or projects is a bit of a nightmare for me, makes me feel restless and useless. But doing this work on myself has helped me understand what taking care of myself means. 

This project is my way of working this out, in a sort of scientific model way. Prompted by a useful talk with my sister who is a product manager with Agile.





My hypothesis:
That my life has been engaged in the wrong struggle - to subdue and manage my intransigent and unreliable self - when in fact this self who I have demeaned and punished is in fact the best most creative and expansive part of me that knows how to have fun and be happy. It deserves none of this oppression and will instinctively come out to play when I consistently nurture and tend it, and the result will be that I will start to know my purpose and be happy and be a better wife, friend and mother and a happier healthier person.








My experimental method:

EXPERIMENT 1: Carry a picture of myself as a child to make me feel compassionate towards the vulnerable part of myself, a list of positive feedback, and a copy of the hypothesis.
Set alarm for every hour and give my basic self what I need at that point. Record, walk or stretch, and tell someone.
Respond to triggering events as recommended in INFX.
Record what I have done just to look after myself, and record something about this experiment every day.
On Sunday, record happiness measures on spreadsheet
Repeat for 4 weeks in a row



Me at 3



My outcome measure:
It isn't easy to rate how happy you are (or how low), as there is a lot of day to day variation depending on what I've done and who I've seen, hormones and bugs, the weather, random variation. And also because I feel as though I have almost always been a bit depressed.

The most relevant and well replicated measure I've found is the Oxford Happiness Scale which is intended as a repeated measure to help people improve their own happiness. Guardian article and Oxford Happiness questionnaire


RESULTS of experiment 1: 

Some improvement in the happiness scale from 2.1 to 3.0, but a way to go
What worked: 
  • Playtime - letting playfulness lead my recreational activities even when it felt like a total waste of time, has led to my having joy in my clothes; reading and watching fun really relaxing stuff
  • Check-in - meant I did a lot more practical parenting like pain killers, naps, loo - basic self-care
  • Trigger exercise - meant I learned how to sooth myself; have not lost my temper at all; 
  • Starting to think from the point of view of myself running my own life, rather than carrying on carrying on. Coaching webinar talked about a big dream poster which I think would help focus me.
  • Journal, and repeating INFX course approx weekly is marvellous tool for improving my life

What didn’t work so well:
  • Kids missing out - need to timetable them again
  • Haven’t given myself my compliments 
  • Haven’t been doing diet/exercise so regularly 
  • Now I’m getting a little more energy, I am frustrated with myself for not being able to decide what to do. 
  • Now I’ve had some time off thinking about work, I am feeling tired at the very thought of working on what I think of currently as my passion project at work, and I just want to stay at home and make stuff. The problem with which is the money. And the huge amount of emotional work it will take to allow myself to do that.


My doodles about how to help myself be happier



EXPERIMENT 2:

I changed my method at the end of August in response to these results. 

EXPERIMENT 2: Decide what to do in advance.
Make sure that time for not developing/ working/ doing stuff with other people is booked in every day.
Timetable family and friends; exercise; meals; sleep
Use JPJ as a model, with lists of possible tasks for each section - work some days, playtime some days, parenting session on Sunday (for timetable) and one other day (for making a bridge to Rose)
Keep doing the check-in, triggers and journal and INFX course
Focus on textile art as WORK for this month to see what it’s like and what the barriers are

so, what to book in?
Meals exercise sleep rest time, journal morning and evening
playtime weekly (`Using a running list of potential fun things to do to help me decide when I get there)
parenting session (Another running list) & timetabling session
Girls time
Gid evening
Work on Art - JPJ (Another running list)
INFX course weekly

RESULTS:
Today it is 3 weeks into this experiment, and while my happiness scores are a bit better at 4 now, this way of doing things has put me under pressure to decide things, and think constructively about my responsibilities, and I am actually not looking after myself as well as I was. I also had a big revelation about how being ashamed of being unable to cope is not real or helpful, and probably comes from a mismatch between me and my mother (and an emotionally and physically absent father). This realisation has helped me by changing my perspective on what is happening to me now, from feeling I am intrinsically flawed in a shameful way I don't want anyone else to see, to the understanding that adapting to the world is only good if you do it superficially, not when you try to do it fundamentally. That it's time the world did a bit more adapting to me.

My feelings around this were intensified by the need to speak to my boss and get a sick note from my doctor and I have finally admitted to myself that I am depressed and need to return to prioritising self-care, and give myself real leave from my responsibilities, an big decisions about my future, if I am going to have any real chance of getting happier. And staying happy in the long term, which is of course my BIG PROJECT.

So I am bringing experiment 2 to a premature end today, and starting on experiment 3. The subject of my next post.