I have a black dog...

 I have a black dog...his name is depression...

 He's probably lurked in the shadows one way and another for most of my life...from the night time terror of dreams of being picked off by a sniper, to the fear of crowds and gatherings that I carried with me to this day, starting at the Commodore Hotel in Stonehaven...my sister can tell you the story...

In my earliest years I lived afraid of him. He robbed me of peace and made me terrified for my personal safety. I was scared to think about him and never talked about him. He would disappear, sometimes for a long time but always came back, always showed up when least expected and least welcome.

In 1988 he slunk back into my life...skulking on his belly...growling and snarling low and menacing. It seemed like he chased everyone else away. I remember vividly waking on that first Sunday of Advent. The day held good things…Church…Christmas Carol practice with the Sunday School…morning tea with friends…Advent promise and hope. Except that I struggled to breathe as this big, black dog draped himself across my body, pinning me to the bed. His huge weighty paw pressed down so hard on my head that my efforts and energies were concentrated on breathing, thinking, moving...no room for anything else except for the effort of getting up and carrying on. And I did…we worshipped…sang carols…I worked hard to find hope and promise but on that day, as I seemed to stand completely alone in the midst of a hall full of people, it was too much...too hard...not worth it... 

That is a story for another day and time...and maybe even for a different me to tell it.  But the upshot of the story is that much work has been done to put that big black dog on a really short leash...get him some training...learn to be his handler and not have him jump up and paw on my life at will...

It's been hard work. 

I thought that he was gone for good when I was in my 40’s. Anything that I’ve done in my life that’s been worth anything, I did in my 40’s. I felt ALIVE then…I took risks, I was occasionally brave, I tried things and I felt as if it was the time when I came in to my own and embraced LIFE…

All those quotes about living your best life and life being ‘…one wild and precious thing…’ really rang true…a move from black and white to colour…I loved it…and life seemed to love me back. The more I said ‘yes’ the more abundantly I was…blessed, really. Meaning. Purpose. Love. Challenge. Joy. They all abounded. I thought I had shaken the black dog. That he had lost my scent and just wandered off. But it seems that I’ve been wrong about that.

He’s back...

I’ve caught shadowy glimpses of him off and on for a couple of years but this year he began that rumbling, menacing growl…only just audible but with an enormous capacity to distort and confuse and now, as the year draws to a close I can hardly hear anything but him. He’s a howling, raging wolf of a creature and he has me howling and raging too.

The white noise of him…

The overwhelming, suffocating presence of him…

The weight of him robs me of peace and stillness and worth and joy.

The brick wall of him, blocking all feeling of love (and I know that I am loved…people show and tell me this in many ways but they just can’t seem to get around him)…and joy and peace…

Having once chosen life I find the world collapsing small and scared.

I am mean…doubting…paranoid. Barely able to appreciate anything or anyone good or true or beautiful and yet irresistibly drawn to them, drawn to comparisons with them and coming out on the deficit side.

I am split open to the bone, the wound washed with stinging salt.

I am balanced between truths and contradictions…teetering on the brink, reining in impulsiveness…trying to stare straight ahead to the horizon.

I am exhausted.

So why am I writing this?

When it’s been bad before it always felt like my secret. I lived on my own through much of it. Drove through the night to escape it. I was at great pains to ensure that no one really knew. Because I was ashamed. I had a good life…why was I depressed? I should really just pull myself together…

The Black Dog feels like a major flaw in my character.

If anything, it’s worse now…so much of my life is as I had dreamed it. I love and I am loved. I want for nothing. There is meaning and purpose…there are opportunities for fun and laughter…I have friends and colleagues…

What do I have to be depressed about?

Well…nothing really…and yet I am…

So I thought that if I wrote about it then at least it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.

I’m trying to understand what’s happening. I’m looking for an end in this great tangled mass of string and I’m trying to unravel it steadily and with some order...trying to put the dog in his basket.

This particular post has taken a couple of weeks to write. I started it partly in response to a comment I heard about how depression isn’t a real mental illness…that it’s easier to live with than some kind of psychosis. I don’t necessarily disagree with that but I do also know how much it requires of a person to continually chose to make life enhancing decisions in the face of the snarling or suffocation of the Black Dog. To keep on choosing life when every bit of evidence you think you have suggests that you are not worth the choice requires some kind of grit…it is real enough when it’s happening.

I wanted to say something about how hard it is to live with someone who is depressed. I wanted to acknowledge my beloved Richard in this.

To have your best thoughts and your love batted back to you…to live with the tears or the sullen silence or the wracking self-hatred and doubt…to ride out the howling anger…to come to the realisation that it really doesn’t matter how much you care about the person who is depressed, they have to care too…

That’s hard and heart breaking…and Rick…I’m sorry that I’ve brought this to your door…but I am thankful beyond words that you make it OUR door…

I wanted to write because I see all this stuff about Mental Health awareness, particularly around anxiety and depression, and I just realised that it wasn’t about somebody else but it was about ME…I’m not exactly sure why yet but that seems like an important insight…

But mostly, I think I wanted to write because I needed to reach out in some way. I don’t want or need advice. Please don’t send me your favourite tips. And don’t tell me that you think I’m a nice person…it really doesn’t help. But just know…know that the days can be a struggle…know that my heart is often heavy…my thoughts are often preoccupied and gloomy…know that I never think that my work is good enough or that I am good enough. Know that I need to have the lovely things pointed out to me.

Know that I have this Black Dog. His name is depression.

http://youtu.be/XiCrniLQGYc

The First Sunday of Advent

You do know, don't you, that this is nothing like Christmas...

The thermometer begins to rise and people start to divest themselves of their 'winter woolies'...(huh?)...it's warmer...the days are white bright...flies are attacking every moist crease on your face...the cat's too hot to be handled much and the first damp bath towel of the year is in the freezer waiting for the time when, at 3.30am I cannot sweat a moment longer and MUST HAVE SOME RELIEF...  

They've been playing carols in David Jones' for weeks now and I do believe that Rick and I spied the beginnings of the Christmas merchandise in Myers and September wasn't even over. Friends are talking about going to the beach and packing picnics for Christmas Day...or spending the day in the pool. It's just weird.

There's no way, either theologically or culturally, that this is Christmas. Whether your reason for the season is the birth of the Baby or a celebration of the Winter Solstice or whatever the reason...it just isn't Christmas...and actually, liturgically speaking, we're just breaking through into Advent and the preparation of our minds and hearts begins for Christmas...but it isn't Christmas...

This is the one time of the year when I feel like a stranger in a foreign land...well, except maybe at Easter when people start wishing you a Happy Easter on Good Friday...but that's a whole other story...

I am confused and...discombobulated...and I don't understand why it should be so...this is my 5th Christmas here...you'd think that I would be used to it by now... 

I suppose that I've had 53 years of seeing and understanding and experiencing it all in such a different way. However it works, I know that the idea of Christmas evokes images and words that I have stored up over the years and every one of my senses carries a code that the word Christmas unlocks for me. 

Words and music flood my ears - O Come, O Come Emmanuel; The Messiah; David Essex singing 'A Winter's Tale'...

Tastes and smells come flooding back to me - bread sauce; Christmas pine trees; the first G&T of Christmas Day; spice and cinnamon in Marks and Spencer's Christmas room spray; Bailey's Irish Cream poured generously over ice...

My skin tingles at the thought of cold, fresh air and remembers the suffocation of lots of people in a small room and the central heating roaring away...

My mind's eye is softened and brightened by candlelight and fairy lights and I can still see the faces of people who no longer share this space and time but who nevertheless come and celebrate with me.

The meaning and traditions have been etched onto my psyche in ways that I am barely conscious of and don't profess to understand. I just KNOW the difference between Advent and Christmas. I FEEL that it can't be right that we're into it all so early and somehow the meaning I ascribe to Christmas and tried to make a part of how I lived...not so much now but certainly for a long time...is a bit affronted by the commercialism and the excess...I'm constantly on the look out for other landmarks and indicators that this it Christmas but I keep finding a dissonance between what I experience and what I expect.

They say that what is known by heart is what the heart knows. I was first told this in Sunday School when I was trying to learn passages of scripture. 

What is known by heart is what the heart knows. 

I know about Christmas. Actually, I think this might just be that I believe some things about how Christmas should be celebrated.  But the truth is that's only my Christmas...one tiny part of the Northern Hemisphere experience of Christmas. And on the basis of what I believe...I'm prepared to declare a whole continent wrong. 

Australia...your Christmas story had been judged by me and found wanting. 

I think that might be described as prejudice on my part. Pre-judging a situation based on my experiences and preferences. And my prejudices run 53 years deep...not as deep as some but still enough to create a track that has ruts on either side.

What is the opposite of prejudice? Is it openness? I think it might be.
What can I do to open myself up to some different possibilities? I know that continuing to moan and complain about how it just isn't Christmas isn't working for anyone...least of all me. So what would happen if I chose to embrace a Southern Hemisphere Christmas (although not too tightly cause it is pretty hot here...)? Just see things a bit differently...be a bit more open to yes and a bit less closed to anything new...could my heart come to know some new truths? 

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent. The anticipation and excitement of a 'new thing'...a new way of being and doing...

Here we go...

http://youtu.be/Yv927QNtz78

'O Come, O Come Emmanuel'

Pelicans and Peace

I just couldn't write yesterday. I heard the worst possible news concerning a friend of mine back in Scotland and I felt haunted all day as I thought of all that she and her two teenage children will have to face as the days go by and they have to find a way to live without the most precious man in their lives. 

My heart went out to them and all of yesterday's work and business was conducted against a hollow, empty sound that was sadness and disbelief. The day came and went and it was good to go to bed last night and put it to rest. It will be a long time before my friend and her family can lay their head on their pillow with the thought ( and now, never the assurance) that the night time's sleep will give way to a new day and an opportunity to start afresh. However, that is the very gift that I was given. 

I woke up to a fine West Australian spring morning. The sun was shining and a breeze was blowing. As I organised myself for the day ahead I was able to see all the work done in our garden yesterday. I'd been too distracted to take it in then but it was wonderful to look with fresh eyes this morning...to realise how much they had done and see again how fortunate we are to live in this particular spot. 

My working day almost always includes a drive along Canning Highway over the bridge across the river. Even on the wildest of days I think how fortunate I am to have this every day...the river snakes out on either side of the highway and I catch sight of the city and almost have to pinch myself to believe that I. Live. Here. 

And I live a life I could hardly have imagined back there in Wishaw...

It was particularly beautiful this morning. 

The pelicans had come out to enjoy it. They sat on top of the lamp posts preening themselves and then a squadron performed some aerial manoeuvres before bringing their huge bodies to a graceful landing on the river...like Lancaster bombers flying in formation...

Exhilarating and calming all in one swoop.

I've not always appreciated it in my life, but truly, there is nothing quite like the gift of a new day. Another chance at this business of life and living. 

And although it's not a custom we practice here in Australia, in this season of Thanksgiving I am grateful for another chance.

And I am mindful of those for whom the day wakes to pain and sorrow. I wish them pelicans and peace.

Just keep writing...

Ah! My blog...I've missed you...

I've grown used to emptying my head at the end of the day. Just using you to help me sort my thoughts out and sometimes to help me know what I think about some things.

You've been great...so much more helpful to me that a diary or a journal. Anytime I've tried to keep either one of those  I've found that I've started to disappear in a cloud of pomposity and introspection. I've been so busy trying to instil some weight or meaning into every day and it has been ponderous and turgid to write. So much of my life is very ordinary and mostly lived in a superficial way. It's just not really that big a deal, so trying to capture it in writing seemed really...pointless...

But somehow you are different.

At first I used you. Your purpose was simply to get me into the habit of writing and you did just that. Every day, sitting down in front of a blank screen and writing. 

Sometimes the words would just tumble out...often shouting and noisy. At other times I've had to sit for a bit, writing the same thing over and over again until something caught. 

Sometimes I was mesmerised and knew the pleasure of crafting words in order to have them say just what I wanted to say in the way that I wanted to say it. 

It didn't take me long to enjoy the hours we spent together...I anticipated eagerly the hour when the house was still...no more needed to be done...and I could just write. If it was all flowing well then I felt as if the house breathed in and out with me. For the times of writing the same thing over and over again the doors and walls and windows held their breath and seemed to sigh with relief when I eventually completed what felt like a task. 

Never. In. My. Life. have I been so committed to seeing something through. Never.

It may be true to say that writing for those days kept something alive in me...some vague notion of worth and purpose. I felt as if I was writing because my life depended upon it.

The fact that it seems that people read it and talk about what I've written is pretty amazing to me and I can't deny how much it pleases me. But I can't think about that too much because then it will become a worry about who reads it and what do they think and is it better than...? I know that will spoil this unexpected little pleasure for me...our relationship will change and there will be pressure about how I perform.

And it seemed that the purpose was to get beyond that...the purpose was to get to the heart of the thing and not get caught up in the frills and folderols...

To say how I saw it and to let everyone else think what they think and do what they have to do.

I've missed this sanctuary. This place of safety. This place of the heart. This place where I can be me...

So... I'm going to try and keep on going. Every day. Some small word. 

My word. 

Take it or leave it. 

“Because no matter what they say, you always have a choice. You just don’t always have the guts to make it.” 

― Ray N. Kuili, Awakening

In which the writer makes some uncomfortable personal revelations...

THIS POST MAY LEAVE YOU WITH SOME TROUBLESOME IMAGES...APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE

The past couple of weeks have been tricky in our house. There's been some stuff happening with doctors and hospitals where the imagining has been much scarier than the reality...but it's pretty much all good now and there doesn't seem to be too much to worry about...for which relief, much thanks.

So...nothing serious to deal with but a couple of things going on nevertheless, one of which has been, quite literally, a pain in the ass. A very ordinary pain in the ass...experienced by many people if the array of preparations to deal with said pain is anything to go by, and actually, it might explain the apparently random crankiness and incivility that makes up a lot of the our day to day exchanges. Lots of people walking around with a pain in the ass...that would explain it. 

I've been toiling with this pain full on for the past week...previously it had been intermittent and much more manageable but, this week...oh boy! 
I've been distracted from my day to day work and really just...consumed by it. 
At first I ignored it and just thought that it would go away but I should have known better because since I turned 50 nothing in my body snaps back or sorts itself in the way it used to. I would say that this pain has become more intense as the week has gone on and I've just about run out of strategies for dealing with it. I've hit the point at which I'm ready to get someone with some expertise on the case so I've got the Google thing going...

My poor, long-suffering husband. If I'm not ranting about one thing it's another but this has been a bit different because it's really only today that I've felt that I wanted to 'fess up to what's going on. Call me a prude or any other kind of uptight that you like but I'm not really accustomed to having bum conversations...with anyone...and Rick already accepts and accommodates a great many of my physical...idiosyncracies...so I'm not in any great hurry to discuss this latest but really...it is just so freakin' SORE...and I am so...out of sorts...

Because of it that I felt that some explanation was due.

OK...so I've set the scene...and there is a point to this blog...

At 2pm this arvo I took 2 Panadol and went to BED...honestly, I felt so bad. 
I was hoping that I might sleep for an hour and it magically resolve (it didn't). So I moaned and complained and described and hypothesised and cursed and paced and...you get the idea...I did go on about it...and I felt a bit better for that and also much better that Rick knew the extent of it and at the very least, I wasn't alone.

But I did start thinking about how it would be if I didn't have language...how on earth would I ever have been able to deal with this? How would I explain about the pain and where it was? How long would it take the people around me to work out what was going on? And, given where the pain was and all of the taboos we have about bums, would we ever get there? Without me acquiring a grubby reputation?

It's another one of those moments of epiphany for me...I thought I understood this...

Just like I thought I understood about what it meant for families to negotiate support in their homes...
The theory is a shadow...the reality comes at you in technicolour and stereophonic sound...

It's hard for everyone concerned...Rick just thought that I was cranky because I was too hot...and, since this is Australia, it's going to be hot for a long time! And you know, I'm cranky anyway...would anyone notice the difference? What would I have to do to help them see it?

I'm not making any judgements about what people do or don't do as they support a person who doesn't use words to speak. But I also know that they are among the most vulnerable and worst served within the system. I believe too that there are good people working in agencies, often doing their best in difficult circumstances.

But, I tell you something...if I had to put up with this for too much longer without being able to talk about it or having the wherewithall to get help then someone would get hurt...

I suppose I'm just asking people to consider that before they write someone off as a pain in the ass they might consider that their ass (or any other part of their anatomy) is in pain.

A deep sigh...

Today has been a day full of good things...

Good news. Good times.

Balmy, beautiful, spring weather. 

Good work done in a place where I could look across the river to the city all lovely, dressed in her best bonnet. 

Jacarandas bursting blue and the white gums moving gently in the breeze, sighing with the burden of being so beautiful.

After a frantic week, time with the one I love the best...

Just when I thought that the day could not get better I am reminded of this...

“Nothing is so beautiful as Spring-
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

(From "Spring")” 
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose

Wishing you an evening '...all in a rush with richness...'

In which the writer goes off on one...

I'm about to have a bit of a moan so if you're looking to read something with a sunny outlook then this is not the place to be!

My work for the past almost 20 years has been mostly about trying to figure out what it means to work in a 'Person Centred' way. I moved through the stages of thinking that a plan was the answer to everything; to realising that it wasn't enough to say that I was being Person Centred to understanding that I needed to have actions and attitudes that matched what I was saying. I came to understand that to be serious about being Person Centred meant that I couldn't just apply a formula and be certain that it would work out fine. What I needed to do was take seriously the person standing in front of me - I remember being profoundly moved when I heard John O'Brien talk about seeing people's faces - and alongside that, Simon Duffy's definition of Person Centredness guided my thinking and gave me some words to articulate this profound idea.

'Attitudes and values that honour a person's unique individuality and perspective and are concerned with their full inclusion.'

Over the years I've had a growing awareness of the complexity and the nuance in what I do. I stopped looking for standardised answers...in fact, I've actively distrusted the work of people who have tried to tame the individuality of a person. I don't think that people are standarised or uniform and I suspect that this 'tidying up' has more to do with meeting the needs of the service system than meeting the needs of the people concerned. I've given up on trying to create one, big, happy family of people with disabilities and I've come to an understanding that they are as awkward, co-operative, difficult and delightful as everyone else, each requiring a bespoke response to their situation...

All of this makes the work difficult.

All of this makes the work wonderful.

I've brought every bit of me to this work...my mind...my heart...my hands...

I think about it...puzzle over it...I have been know to cry about it and there have been times when the joy of this work has completely overwhelmed me and I can think of nothing better to do...

So you might forgive me then when I react personally to an attitude that seems to be in the air at the moment. A feeling that somehow, this business of being Person Centred has had its day...its old hat...it's very 90's...and that this work to which I remain deeply committed is now an irrelevance...

It seems that we've moved on now and we're talking about Citizenship and different kinds of Capital...ideas of community and rights and personalised, self directed, self-determined this, that and the next thing are all the rage...

But y'know what...I can't understand any of these ideas except through the lens of being Person Centred. If I take Simon's definition seriously then Person Centredness is the prerequisite. Any understanding of a person's right's and entitlements as a citizen is predicated on the idea of their full inclusion. Any serious intention around the work of personalisation or self direction must take into account the unique individuality and perspective of that person. The shape that self direction will take in my life will be heavily dependent on my perspective on the world...it is my life as I see it...not as the service system thinks it should be.

I KNOW that it hasn't all worked out the way it should. I KNOW that there is the worst kind of indifference and neglect occurring under the banner of Person Centred working. 

Almost every single day of my working life I hear stories that make me want to weep about what  I hear is done in the name of being Person Centred...lazy, sloppy, thoughtless care and support given by staff who've maybe, if they are lucky, had a couple of days of some sort of training that's called itself person centred...in organisations where there is no culture of ongoing learning  and development for staff and the prevailing attitude is 'What's the least we can get away with?' They are being supervised by seniors who've done maybe half a day of training because they already know what it all means and they are doing it already. However, ask them to articulate the issues and explain a better way to staff and they fall back on cliches and slogans and their own prejudices and preconceptions. 

Often these organisations are being led by CEO's who don't feel that they need to explore or examine their own attitudes and who give little in the way of Values leadership. But they will proclaim that they have done Person Centred...here's the thing that I know...you're never done figuring this out...saying that you've 'done' Person Centredness is a bit like saying that you've done God...

It seems to me that the problem continues to lie with the System...and that the System does what it always does...it takes a good idea and turns it into a monster. Just the other day Simon Duffy wrote that we had confused being big with being good...apologies if that's not the exact quote...
The System stretches the idea to breaking point and then blames the idea for not being robust enough. It's one of those things that 'everybody knows'...and we all collude with it...

There's nothing wrong with the idea...

People get confused and think that because the idea of Person Centred work has a simplicity about it then those of us who do the work must be naive about the complexity of the practice. It isn't true. We understand that it is the starting place for all good work. It's the place from which it is possible to hear the need for other interventions...to ponder what it would take for the person in front of you to live their life in their way...to be moved to action by the injustice and pain already experienced. To try and try and try again...

We're not daft, y'know...we are not stupid...we know how difficult it can be...

Please...do not dismiss this work as one dimensional...outdated...yesterday's ideas...

The truth is that Person Centred working is an idea that we have not really tried yet. It has a depth that we have hardly begun to imagine never mind explore.

Do not write it off...