The Great Jettison - emotional catharsis through physical catharsis!

Last year, as a Christmas present, I unashamedly asked for a pretty valuable gift. I asked my mum to gift me some of her time to help me sort through some of the mountain of stuff I have in my house that I don't want.

It's difficult to describe the effect that owning so much stuff has on me. I inherited an awful lot of things from my dad. He died on the 29th May, 2009, and I spent a large part of the subsequent summer trying to sort through his belongings, but there was just do much, it was impossible for me to do, despite the amazing help I got from so many friends. Eventually, when I'd reached my limit in both time and effort, I hired a removal van and stuck it all in storage. When I moved into my house a little over four years ago, I moved all this stuff in. I've been slowly sorting through it, and every now and then I have a bit of a breakthrough, and I feel a little more space.

But last Christmas, I still had so much stuff. The problem is, I feel the need (and I mean, I NEED) to sort through it before getting rid of it. Then I have to decide what to do with it - throwing things away is an absolute last resort (often a necessary resort, but still). So I have to sort things into sell (sub categories: eBay, carboot), give away (sub categories: friends, charity shops, freecycle), re-use (scraps of cloth, wood, metal - could well be useful!), and then recycling (sub categories: collection or dump).... and very last, bloody bin it. And that's just deciding what I should do, let alone actually getting on and listing, posting, packing, going to a carboot, giving away..... So getting my mum in with her disinterested viewpoint was a real boon. I had a big breakthrough, I got rid of quite a few things - but this seemed to pull out some vital stone in a wall I didn't realise I'd built, and promptly lead to a depressive episode. At the time, this felt horrible, as anyone who read this blog or spoke to me at the time will know, but ultimately it was a good thing. I hit rock bottom - but this gave me a platform from which to push off. It's been a journey, and I'm still occasionally stumbling, but the last year has seen some important changes - I'm still in counselling, I gave up my PhD, I got involved with Riverside Sourdough - something I love and truly believe in. I've slowly learnt that all the hallmarks of success and happiness that I thought I should be aiming for are not necessarily the ones that will actually make me happy.

This is the main theme of "Everything that Remains", a memoir by The Minimalists, which my friend Sally suggested I read as part of her new online book group (join in on Instagram! #pageturners #readcreateshare). A lot of it wasn't applicable to me (I do not have an insatiable need to buy new things, I don't always want new gadgets, I can't remember the last time I bought an item of clothing (bar socks and pants) at full price - most of my stuff comes from charity shops!). But, yes, I have inherited a lot of stuff.

I feel almost like a custodian, with a responsibility divvy it out the best I can. But that is a herculean task when you know how much of a collector my Dad was, and that's not even counting my Grandpa, whose stuff I have inherited after his death in September 2013. My dad's sister is still around, but there has been a massive breakdown in communication, and it doesn't seem there is a way to sort things out reasonably, without me being subject to accusations, including stealing from my Grandpa's dead body or whatever else she sees fit to make up and bandy about to anyone who will listen to her (a group which has pretty much diminished to zero members). All that is to come, and while I hope it will be easier that my dad's stuff, I am still terrified of letting go of some precious family relics. The worst thing is, all these relics.... I don't even know what they are, but I would still find it nigh on impossible to chuck away photographs, diaries, letters..... I know this may not make sense to everyone, but I've been brought up by a hoarder (sorry Dad, it's true) and it's not easy to break those early-learnt behaviours.

The authors, Joshua Fields Milburn & Ryan Nicodemus, made some really good points - a big one that I've taken away is to ask "does this add value to my life?" which is great in a lot of situations, but often I find that is a difficult judgement to make. Also, the main author really quite brushed over getting rid of his mum's stuff - he didn't even mention what happened to her dog! But as a direct result of reading this book, I've set myself small tasks. The first was to sort things into: eBay, Freecycle, car boot, and then begin to act on the first two. The carbooting will have to wait for a couple of weeks, but everything that comes back from that will either go straight to donating to charity shops, or if I enjoyed the experience and have a small number of items left that I still think someone would like. I'll head to a different market. The great thing is, once you start getting rid of stuff, the catharsis that results and the space and order that it inevitably leaves behind is such a big motivator that actually I start enjoying getting rid of things. But it's always good to let people know of your intentions and think that there might be someone who's tracking your progress, so with that in mind, here are some pictures of the first wave. (Well, almost.... Mum 'helped' me clear out my wardrobe recently, so a whole bin bag went to London to be sorted through by my sister and her friends.

Pre-sort

Post-sort: The eBay pile is front-centre, the Freecycle box front left, and the car-boot/else-wise pile behind

The starting point - Freecycle-a-go-go!

But the main thing I took from the book can be summed up in this quote:

"These days, I have little desire for new material possessions (although that baleful yearning still lingers from time to time), but I do want to be successful. And success for me has little to do with money, or possessions, or status. Rather, success is a simple equation: Happiness + Growth + Contribution = Success. That's the only kind of success I know. Hence I want to partake in work that makes me happy, work that encourages me to grow, work that helps me contribute beyond myself. Ultimately, I want to create more and consume less. Doing so requires real work"

I have had some moments of self-doubt since jumping off the track I was on - have I made the right decision? What am I doing with my life? Where will this lead me? Can I still consider myself a valuable member of society? Reading this brilliant book, and especially what is says along the above lines, helps me to appreciate that I can uncouple success with what I thought I should be doing, and just focus on things that actually bring me really joy, contentment, satisfaction and - yeah, growth. Mainly into all that space I'm creating by shifting my stuff!

Taking Courage....

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster few weeks. About a fortnight ago the Sertraline began to kick in, and I had a brilliant week. I felt like I was waking up, and remembering what it was like being me. I still felt worried and fearful, but that was put on the backburner, and I actually began to feel like could carry on with my work, and salvage something from the wreckage I feel I've made of my PhD. Wonderful! And this coincided with a meeting with my supervisor, and an evening with some friends, and a wonderful weekend away... Things felt pretty marvellous, actually........ and then came the Monday, and a depressing chat with the joiner who's going to put in my windows about the complete hash job left by the previous builders. There's nothing like a man patronisingly repeating the same upsetting things over and over (I HEARD "dry rot" very clearly the FIRST time. The next 3 times were, at best, superfluous) to really kick the stuffing out of cautious optimism. That was all I needed to send me back to bed for the next 36 hours. Poor Penny - I'm pretty antisocial when I want to be, and therefore pretty crappy to live with at times. Luckily I had an allotment trip planned on the Tuesday afternoon, which forced me to get outside and be active, so happily I was back up to somewhat-reasonable friend on Wednesday. Dizzying heights indeed.

One of the most problematic and insidious things about my on-going struggle with depression is the vacuum where my motivation should be. There are so many things that I want to do, but actually getting started feels impossible. I keep trying, and feeling like I'm crashing up against an invisible wall. I basically find myself offering up distraction after distraction and ultimately whiling away all the available time for whatever task is at hand. This is worst when it comes to work, and ultimately I end up feeling useless, lazy and stupid, with a big handful of other negative impressions of myself thrown in to boot. I try to tell myself that is not who I am, I can point to a great number of examples to prove this, but ultimately that does not matter when standing at the cliff-face of my own certainty that I am, in fact, rubbish. I don't want to turn up to my next meeting and have to admit I haven't done any work, because I cannot adequately explain (to myself or anyone else) why not. How can you explain to someone expecting sound results from cutting edge, novel research that, on some days, just having got out of the house feels like a productive day?! This problem can only be solved by actually cracking on and doing the work I need to, and the only way I can do that is to keep trying, I guess.

I went back to the doctor's for a scheduled appointment  and she said that it's quite common to see an improvement followed by a dip or plateau, and that I was on quite a low dose, so she upped it to 100mg/day - I should see the benefits in another couple of weeks. Obviously I'm continuing with counselling, and this is going very well - It sounds stupid but I'm finally getting the hang of what she's trying to encourage me to do. Basically, letting myself have feelings about things and accepting them for what they are instead of trying to force them into a pragmatic and rational mould. And also letting myself listen to the positive things and not let them be drowned out by the negative. What can I say? It's a journey. I'm taking my lead from the card that my lovely friend Lieke sent me:

And the take-home message is....

I wish I could say that I've learnt some deeply profound lessons in the last month as the result of my Facebreak (tm)... but would be adopting the same simplistic view I had of the world when, in my early teens, I was convinced adulthood would be an endless adventure, thrilling, exciting and fulfilling at every turn, and not an endless barrage of should-dos, direct debits, difficult personal situations and truculent tradesmen. And I think I have a relatively fun life compared to a lot of people who work A LOT harder than me, either at their jobs or their families.

It has been a month of considerations though. I decided I would try a course of antidepressants so I'm now on 50mg/day of Sertraline, which is an SSRI - which basically means that your brain doesn't absorb seratonin quite as quickly, meaning there's more of that "happy hormone" kicking about. I had a long think about this step, and spoke to people trained in mental health, people who'd had good and not-so-good experiences, I read through my GP's British National Formulary which goes into medical-level detail about treatments for various illnesses, and obviously did my own research. I considered that I have a difficult 6 months ahead, and that I'm having weekly counselling to deal with some of the reasons I ended up where I am, and that I'm taking positive action in other ways to get better, and thought that everything that could help should probably be tried. I started about 10 days ago, and apparently they take 2-3 weeks to kick in, so, besides a pretty persistent low-level nausea which happily has gone now, I haven't noticed any changes as yet.

So the other steps I'm taking are many -

• I bought a lovely notebook in Edinburgh which I'm using as a journal/notebook of my journey back to the top.
• Working on my allotment which I now share with the lovely Kate & Vaida - I'm really excited about this as, like I've said previously, I've always wanted an allotment, and OH MY GOSH I MIGHT FINALLY BE SUCCESSFUL WITH PUMPKINS!
• I'm trying to get out for a reasonable walk (at least 30 mins) with Alfie every day, although he was being very unhelpful in this last week when he very uncharacteristically didn't want to go to the park for 3 days straight last week. He actually behaved on the lead! Very worrying, but luckily he seems to be back to his normal, straining-at-the-lead self. Whew!
• I'm trying to be more open with people, even if I think there might be some negative effects - I asked someone out a couple of weeks ago! They said no.... you would think that would be pretty rubbish but actually, after a day of feeling a bit glum, it was nice to reflect that, actually, it doesn't really make any difference to me at all - which is satisfying to remember.
• I'm reading up about mindfulness, which, so far as I've read, is a philosophy of being more present in your everyday life, and not spending quite so much time on autopilot, effectively sleepwalking through your life. One of the core tenets is taking periods of time (They want you to start off with 45 minutes a day, 6 days a week, for 8 weeks.... I have not put aside this much time yet) and simply witting quietly, listening to your breathing and simply being present, instead of thinking about things that have happened, will happen, won't happen, might happen, are happening elsewhere, and letting ones mind relax and take time off the hectic pace which we pretty much all subject ourselves to.
• I'm trying to stop telling myself what I should be doing, and instead ask: a) what I would like to do and b) what I would like to have done, because I feel like I'm constantly telling myself off for not having done things I think I should have done as a responsible adult. If anyone else did that to me, I would get the <expletive deleted> out of my life.
• Just saying "yes!" more - I've definitely spent more time with friends in real life during February, more time out, more time talking (actual talking!).... long may it continue!

I guess the biggest thing I've learnt was: I didn't miss Facebook. I never once regretted not being able to go on it, and I considered not logging in again. If I found a reasonable FB-messaging app for my phone (the curse of the Windows phone user....) I might have chosen not to go back. I have spotted myself going to check FB to see who's responded to any posts I've put up - but I find I can just ask myself: "Why, though?" and the answer is normally "dunno...".

I did miss the people, though. I value the relationships I've forged with people very very strongly. But, on that note.... I've also decided to make conscious decisions about who I want in my life, and consider the net effect of individual relationships, and those that come out in the red - considering why I think I need those people. Happily, the vast majority of people I know are heavily in the black - which is just one of the many ways in which I'm actually a <expletive deleted> lucky sod. So to every single person who's messaged me, hugged me, called me, texted me, sent me handmade monkeys (Thanks Sarah :-D), or just let me know that they are there if I need them: thank you so much from the very bottom of my heart. You have buoyed me up when I really needed it, and you really do make life worth living. Go and tell yourselves that you are wonderful!!

Facebook Free February

Right.

(Deep breath).

I am depressed.

I don't mean; "I'm very sad" or "Sherlock has ended" or "Tesco were out of Sauvignon Blanc". I mean, I'm currently in a place where I stare at the world and all I see is things I cannot do. Most of these things are things that, logically speaking, I can do. Like working a 9-5 day, or cleaning my house, or sorting out wayward builders, or walking Alfie, or deciding on the direction of my research, formulating a plan, and following that plan, or going out with my friends. Or getting rid of the piles of stuff in my house which were my dad's that I've been carting around for almost 5 years with no idea what to do with (this last point my mum has very kindly helped me out with by attacking it with an undaunted vigour, and just left me the simple stuff, like Freecycling the Freecycle stuff, eBaying the eBay stuff, and dumping the rubbish - I still have not been able to finish this). Every now and then when I think of all these things, I start to feel tight-chested and sick and there is a roaring in my ears. Sometimes when I'm walking down the road, I feel like something dreadful is about to happen to me, and I will not have the energy to fight. For a fortnight I couldn't sleep until the early hours, and even after ten hours sleep, sometimes I would wake up and be too exhausted to make myself some breakfast. I feel stupid and like I have no concentration span - that might be a surprise to a lot of people, but I spend most of my time feeling like a thick idiot and I just don't feel that I can retain the useful information that I need. I have to go through my friends person by person and prove to myself that they actually like me and aren't just putting up with me. Also; I have a note from the doctor.

Yes; I do know how lucky I am. I don't think I deserve better - in fact, I often think my family deserves a better person than me. I have so much to look forward to and so much to be grateful for, and dramatic as it might sound; those fact have saved my life. And I feel ashamed for not being able to buck up my ideas and get on with the business of life, as everyone else seems to be able to do. Up until the point my GP responded to my first sentence, I was sure she was going to tell me to get out and stop wasting her time. But I am here and I have tried and it has not worked; so I need to do something different.

Inasmuch as it can be broken down: obviously the main reason is that I still miss my dad terribly. Every single day I want to speak to him. In 2013, both my dad's father and uncle died, leaving so little of my family left. Kevin died five years ago in May, and only now is his inquest going to be held - but I still don't know when. For the last 3 months it's been "within the next few weeks". I thought it was going to be fine but as we edge closer but still haven't had it, I think about it all the time. There is just the basic reason that I have a family history of depression. The stress of owning a house by myself and having lots of decisions that are ultimately my own has not helped. I can't even make simple decisions without mulling them over and weighing up the pros and cons. There are lots of other things that I won't go into here. I imagine not doing enough exercise is playing a big role; but I've learnt that there's a big difference between knowing why something is happening and being able to stop it from happening.

Everything came to a head last week when I had breakfast with a friend of my mum's and listed all the things that I was stressed about in my normal pragmatic way. Then I spoke to my colleague whose father died suddenly recently, and all the horror and gaping chasm of reality I felt when Kevin died came looming up in front of me again. It's not the first time I've cried in the Combustion Lab but it is the first time I've had a witness. Then I spoke to my secondary supervisor and was barely in my seat before he was hurriedly getting me a box of tissues. We both came the the conclusion that I am not actually able to handle this myself, and need medical help. This sounds horrific, but actually, after at least a year of struggling this feels like a blessed relief.

There are a lot of things I'm going to do; predominantly organising some counselling, stop telling the people that care that things are "fine", shoehorn exercise back into my routine, prove to myself that I'm not totally inept, eating better, do things that make me happy.

Another thing I'm doing is; I'm giving up Facebook for a month. The shortest month of the year, but still. There are two big reasons for this: Time, and "brainspace".

1. Time: Even if I was able to measure it, I would be ashamed to admit the amount of time I waste on Facebook. Not just when I'm sitting in front of the TV, or on a train, or otherwise occupied, but times when I should be working, or when I could go out, or have house tasks to get on with. It's not just on FB, it's all the flipping links I click on whilst on there, which leads to the issue of attention; or as I'm just brashly going to call it, with no courtesy to neurology, brainspace...

2. Brainspace: I'm genuinely interested on how people's lives are going, and read tonnes of blogs etc. that people post, get involved in discussions that I know something about - but I never stop to ask myself how all the things I read are useful to me. Sure, they are interesting, but reading a blog about why Macklemore & Ryan Lewis didn't deserve the Grammy but Kendrick Lamar did, or why Miley Cyrus twerking is so bad, or so good, and what Sinead O'Connor thinks about the matter, or the various sides of the 20-year-old allegations of abuse against Woody Allen or BLOODY CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS USING THE SAME DISPROVED ARGUMENTS OVER AND OVER... ahem. But........ how does that improve my life?! It just gives me more bloody decisions to make! It's just too much information and that stresses me out. I feel like I want to know everything (except maybe anything about Hollyoaks/TOWIE/Posh version of TOWIE/Welsh version of TOWIE/Geordie version of TOWIE/American versions of TOWIE and Embarrassing Bodies....), and it's hard to accept that I can't. My mum made a very interesting point earlier: that taking on more information is a very effective way of ignoring the things you need to work on if you're depressed.

Also, counter-intuitively, I think FB has made me feel more lonely, as is very well described in this video by Shimi Cohen.

So that's it. For February. We'll see how it goes, but I have to be honest, I'm pretty scared. I think I'm going to miss out on tonnes of information, at least some of which will be valuable to me. Most of my social life is organised through FB so it'll be interesting trying to make sure I actually know what's going on. And all those cute pictures of animals, goddamnit!

Gulp.

Motivation

So; my first milestone is less than a week away. On Saturday morning, I will run the Cardiff Race for Life 10 km. It's not my main goal, but it is an important stepping-stone objective towards completing the half-marathon for which all this training is aimed, in October.

My training was going very well - I started running 4 times a week, including a longer run at weekends, and still managing to do other exertion-related activities, such as a 25 mile bike ride to the beach, and (almost) weekly circuits classes. However, I have found the strength of my motivation to be fairly undulating. I want to say; "like a rollercoaster"; but that implies sudden changes, speed, and much more fun..!

Early on, as I was began to pay attention to my training plan, it was very difficult to persuade myself that I a) could and b) wanted to run four times a week. After a couple weeks of persuasion from both me, and those around me, I managed to do a couple of weeks of the full amount of training that I had set myself. I thought I'd cracked it, and I was very pleased with myself.

Sadly, it was not to continue.

A number of factors have concerted to create obstacles (both actual and perceived) - some family issues, busy weekends, muscle fatigue, rubbish weather, slight illness and a less-than-ideally regimented diet (this is an ongoing concern and one that I will blog about in the future - once I figure it out!) have left me feeling a little washed out and, critically, not motivated enough to get out there and hit the road as much as I need to. I am telling myself right now that I can make all the excuses that I want: the fact is that I won't be able to do this run in the time that I wanted to. That's a bit disappointing - but failure can be more important than success in many situations, and I need to take that annoyance at myself and channel it into positive internal motivation, as I begin training for the biggie.

The positive summation of the last few weeks is: I've consistently been running longer distances at regular intervals (I've only missed one weekend run so far), my average speed is going up slightly, and coupled with the previous fact, this is even better than it seems. I have managed to overcome the internal naysayer on many runs (that niggling voice that says "you'd better just turn back now, otherwise you're going to be CRAWLING home!") . I'm already noticing the weight loss, and how the first couple of km at least feel much easier than they used to. I've really enjoyed being outside on a few of the runs, despite one run in a massive downpour, for which I was soaked to the skin for the entire 11km, and another where I inadvertently ended up splashing through very muddy puddles. So far I have managed to avoid any kind of injury - whilst parts of me niggle during runs, they are never the same parts on consecutive runs. And I've got the hang of my running watch, pretty much - which will be another post that hopefully writes itself!

Once more unto the.....

Despite an attempt to soundtrack my life with a musical score by Paul Simon (Mainly Graceland, obvs, but also Rhythm of the Saints), the bubbling over of positivity and motivation is fails to last more than a few minutes, and I'm finding it really hard to actually begin running again...

I've had the odd run since the winter, but nothing that resembles any kind of regular commitment. When I'm into a running schedule, there's nothing easier then getting up and outside, in the mornings, when I'm home from work, lazy sundays, whenever. When I haven't been running, the excuses are plentiful: my knee, my self-conciousness, my hair, I'll somehow manage to convince myself that a 5 km run can be equated by half an hour of cleaning my kitchen. I've drawn up a training scheme, the first part of which begins officially in May but I'd like to be running 2-3 times a week before I start that. However, at the moment I feel massively fatigued. I've had a couple of busy weeks but I still feel that I'm more tired than I should be - especially as the springtime is usually when I feel at my very best.

I'm possibly being a little hard on myself as I was in loco parentis of two (sometimes three) dogs last week and consequently walked over 25+ km in the space of a week, which is not to be sniffed at. However, walking is one thing (and one thing that seems to result in inordinate tiredness....), actually running is another, and my mind appears to be interpreting for my body, and making it sound like a teenager: "Guuuuuuuuh.... I'm TOO TIRED!". It does literally feel like my legs are full of concrete whenever I entertain the notion of popping out. And even when that's not the case, all those other excuses pop up. It doesn't matter how much I tell myself how good I will feel afterwards, or promise myself ice cream, or how certain I am of how ineffably easier it will be to continue than it was to start. Basically, I need something to force me to get out and pound the path around Roath Lake. Happily, there is brightness on today's rainy horizon: Wednesday is my day to walk Spud the collie, who needs to lead, loves running and won't take the piss out of me when I stopped jogging halfway round the route. So this evening, come rain come shine, I will be, in all my bright pink-faced glory, panting my way with a stony expression, past the swans, geese, ducks and pedalos to a new, bright future, the main difference of which is that it contains me running more frequently. Rome wasn't built in a day, people.