Aw Diddums

Goodness me:
Show Us What’s Happening (contest). I don’t feel inspired myself, but had been wondering if I could depict agoraphobia or even deafness; this contest isn’t a world away from it.

The other day I was brushing my teeth and pondering (don’t we all?) on the uncertainty I often feel about the day ahead. I was wondering how I would describe that if I had to. At first I thought “it’s like going to battle without your armour,” but we don’t wear armour today…

This is the nearest I can come to it: it’s like going to work in your pyjamas and bunny slippers, and everybody else speaks a different language. It’s going to rain, and you haven’t brought your umbrella or handbag, which are at home with the door unlocked. You’ve got on the bus and and realize to your horror that you either don’t have the fare or have lost your ticket, and you don’t recognize the part of town you’re in.

I hate feeling like that in the morning.

Today I said to Mum I’m so bored with the town here I want to go somewhere else for a while.
“Where?” she asked.
“Anywhere but London.”
“Of course, NOT London!” (glares at me as though to say “that wasn’t even on the menu.”)

“We could take the train to Xxx…” she suggested.
“I don’t like trains.”

I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere, then…

It’s not quite the end of March and there are icy showers of hail aplenty, but my stress levels are already rising.

I have more problems in the warmer, brighter weather when people come out to enjoy the sun. I don’t look around and think “awk, look at all the people! I’m going home!” Usually what happens is that I set out to have the same kind of day that I had yesterday and the day before, and it’s only when I notice how troubled I feel that I realize there are more people around than usual. The increase would be marginal and I react to it before noticing on a more conscious level.

I felt quite bad today, and it’s only Friday – it felt more like a Saturday. I didn’t want to continue feeling that way, so I straightened up and looked around, thinking there must be something in the way I think that brings it on. It’s often what you can’t see that is so scary… if you are looking away and there are shadowy figures loping towards you, they could be anybody. But if you look directly at them, you see a harassed mother clutching her 6-year old; an elderly couple ambling around contentedly; a group of tall schoolchildren looking at nobody but themselves. They are no threat. But even as you glance at them, they move out of vision and other shadowy figures enter in.

I’m not afraid of them as people – not in any real sense. Sometimes I feel alien in their world as though not experiencing life the way they do, but as soon as I recognize them as fellow human beings with troubles of their own, my inadequacy dies away. It’s this initial lack of recognition that causes the problems. When I first start to stress out, I don’t shake, although a panic attack would be on the cards if I felt really trapped. I feel tight, tucked in, maybe a bit dizzy – and ill. I’m not sure I know what ’sick building syndrome’ feels like, but if you put the word ‘people’ in there instead of ‘building,’ that’s what I imagine it would be like – though I’m probably way off course.

To get away from the bodies pressing round me, I withdraw more and more into myself. I’ve been accused of not seeing friends when they pass me on the road… “I waved and said hello and you didn’t see me”. That’s deliberate – that’s me trying to escape into myself. I have no intention of ignoring anybody, and if I do see you, I will smile back; relieved to see a face I know… but disassociation seems to be my way of keeping to what I’m doing or where I’m going without being thrown off course by the strangers around me.

The problem is, having withdrawn into yourself, you can’t withdraw any further; you’re still conscious of people, and would pull back even more if there was anywhere to go. That’s where the tight feeling of tension comes from, as though I’m leaning back into a wall and wishing it would let me through.

I decided there had to be a way of re-asserting my right to the spot I’m standing on. I’m too aware that others are challenging me for it – some humbly, others more aggressively. I’m constantly under the impression I have no right to standing room unless I’m alone. The only thing to do is to stand tall, take a deep breath, and look calmly but directly at the other people and at the area around me, and stop trying to escape when there’s nowhere to escape to.

It gives me a little breathing space, but I continue to feel ill – and I can never stop in one place for long because there’s always somebody trundling round a corner and bouncing off me.

Talking of what gives us balance – I’m a much steadier person when I have lots of time alone. It makes everything else seem like an adventure in comparison. If I experience too many such adventures, it becomes stressful… I’m usually much better after a few days at home, rather than going out day after day. It was like that when I was going to the skating rink… I was a fair and balanced skater for a few days after getting the hang of it, and then I lost my nerve, surrounded by other people wheeling crazily around. I stood at the side, gripping the handrail, and didn’t want to go back. I didn’t get better the more I tried… I got worse. I’m like that with lots of things. I don’t believe that ‘facing my fears’ and immersing myself in situations I dislike is to my benefit; it usually has the opposite effect.

I’m looking out at softly falling snow… it’s brighter weather, but not all that warm yet. The sun is coming, though. Oh yes, I can feel it, waiting with trembling anticipation behind its cloud. Nothing I can do will make it stay there.

Something I keep wishing we had is an automatic treatment unit in every house. I probably read about something like this in Ringworld by Larry Niven. Every morning you could step inside, and it would scan for irregularities and make any adjustments necessary. Cracked tooth? Repaired without pain or extraction. Furry arteries? Sweetly cleared. A tumour just starting to form? Safely zapped in seconds.

No need to worry your family with these mundane details – they’re carrying out similar checks and changes on themselves.

Broken bone? Beautifully straightened and set without pain. Poor hearing? Tuned to perfect pitch! Failing kidneys? Repaired, as good as new!

No need to go to hospital, sit for hours in waiting rooms and have tests… only for the doctors to say they don’t know what’s wrong with you, or they do know what’s wrong with you and can’t fix it, or they thought they knew what was wrong with you but got it wrong.

A treatment unit in the corner of your own bedroom would be lovely from an agoraphobic point of view especially – not having to go out to the GP, optician or dentist. Fewer people milling about in buses and on the roads (not having to go out to be treated). And just think – no more valuable land given over to grim hospital buildings and sprawling, expensive car parks. No more people catching superbugs they wouldn’t have caught if they hadn’t gone near those places.

I suppose it would be worrying if the technology really was that good, then one day you stepped inside your treatment unit and it said “sorry for any inconvenience, but you cannot be repaired.”

Imagine a society which has evolved beyond our current laws and adds the option of self-euthanasia. “You cannot be repaired. Your heart will self-destruct in 66 hours, unless you choose self-euthanasia.”

Panicking, you click on Y, and it says “are you sure?”

Some weeks later, it is realized that your treatment unit had a bug and wasn’t working properly. The engineers responsible are being sued to the hilt, but that’s no comfort for your grieving family and friends.

That sounds more like real life…. unfortunately.

I’ve been trying to get over my case of the winter blahs.

Yesterday it was bright and sunny, so I went shopping… but it didn’t help much; just made me realize how lethargic and fed up I still felt. I was tired of visiting the same old shops, and there wasn’t anything I was looking for, especially now that my house is set up and inventoried – still looking for someone to rent it.

Stumbling across the road, yawning, I suddenly thought how different my attitude was from some months ago when I was feeling distinctly agoraphobic – unable to go anywhere without wobbling slightly. And now I was bored with the entire place. It’s an improvement! That Chinese saying “may you live in interesting times” is supposed to be a curse.

Feeling flat, tired, and bored out of your skull is another type of curse, however.

I’ve got these lovely kittens, getting friendlier and more playful by the day; I’m getting very fond of them but you would think I would be brighter than I am. I feel guilty because I know one day I will be looking back to now and wishing I could have these days all over again. Fear of the future…

Today I got a letter, tore it open, and it was an invoice from the animal hospital reminding me that I still haven’t paid for the last item on the list… ‘euthanize and cremate cat - quantity: 1.’

Looking at that, I didn’t feel as though I’d received a nasty shock out of nowhere – it was more as though someone had pressed a fist into a sore that was already there. It convinces me that what I have is not purely the winter blues.

One way or another, I was saying to Geosomin that one might as well give in to this listlessness – relax, read books and watch TV. Unfortunately my Freeview set top box has gone phut. Again.

There are still books, of course – I’m currently reading Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. It’s very good, and I’m impressed and engrossed by the amount of detail – except that there’s a touch too much detail here and there that causes my attention to wander. I bought it from a charity shop for £1, and there’s a slight tear on the margin more than halfway down p79. Looking at the content of that page, I have to say it made me wonder…

The paperbacks I bought today:
The Mask of Ra - Paul Doherty
A Winter Book - Tove Jansson
Brother Odd - Dean Koontz
Don’t Bet on the Prince - Jack Zipes (ed, I think)

They were £2 each (except for the Jack Zipes, which was £1.99 from another shop), and each of the £2 ones had a big yellow sticker on the cover saying something like “read then return”. I peeled them off, saying crossly to Mum that part of the money they get from us is probably spent on these stupid stickers. I suppose my peeling them off doesn’t slow the money burn, but I don’t like stickers on books. When I return them to the charity shops, I’ll choose one that doesn’t do that.

We were roaming round that same charity shop – I looked at the shirts and blouses, and there was a rather droopy, worn looking T-shirt on a hanger for £4.50. It looked as though it cost £2 new. As for the DVDs, I’ve always had my doubts about them – they tend to be about £4 each, but Woolworth quite often sells them for £3 each. They’ve probably had a bit of a price hike since hitting the charity shop shelves. Mum picked up a £4 DVD and said “that is definitely £3 brand new from WH Smiths – I saw it today!”

Caveat emptor. Or just go home to sleep. Both methods save money.

Total Sensory Deprivation – a few nights ago I recorded a Horizon documentary on the subject. It reminded me of the office I used to work in.

You would expect everyone to have a fair number of office connections and opportunities for socializing (if only by the water cooler, though we didn’t have one). Unfortunately I wasn’t really talking to anyone after my original friends and contacts left for pastures new. I tried in my quiet way to make new friends, but people had their own friends already and didn’t pay a lot of attention. I think they didn’t want to get involved with someone so deaf and so ’shy’, feeling that I was not their responsibility. They could get on with office life in their own comfortable bubbles and leave me to my colleagues in my own small department. After all, the folk in my department were the ones who chose me.

The feeling was awful, actually, and the longer it went on, the worse I felt. I wasn’t getting any of the office news or gossip, and I had no one to vent steam with or help me get a sense of proportion about things.

Some people were quite kind and friendly, but when I asked one what happened at a pension-related meeting, she forwarded my email (without checking with me first) to the Human Resources Manager. He told me people were not allowed to advise others, for legal reasons. It was now office policy.

Because of my profound hearing loss, I never knew what people were saying at meetings or amongst themselves. It made me wonder how I was ever going to inform myself if no one was allowed to discuss meetings with me… I wanted to tear my hair out!

There was an image in my mind of what I was going through, and I can still recall it. It felt to me as though I was falling down a bottomless well. I was trying to reach out and touch the sides but all I felt was air whistling past my fingertips. Not Alice in Wonderland – more like Diddums in Limbo.

That was my state of mind not so long before I crashed.

Total Sensory Deprivation? No, not quite. But the concept reminds me of that office situation – of me falling down my dark well, disassociated from everybody else.

The Horizon documentary was interesting – in an experiment, people were shut for 48 hours in small, bare cells without light, sound, human interaction or entertainment. It had quite a disturbing effect on them – some started to hallucinate, but I wondered how much that had to do with tiredness. That’s probably the point – they’d feel tired, out of touch and less sure of themselves.

One man who was kept in solitary confinement in real life talked of his experiences. When he mentioned his auditory hallucinations, I laughed out loud. The more he described them, the louder I laughed – and this was in the middle of me grieving for my cat, so I felt slightly hysterical. It wasn’t because I thought what happened to the man was funny, but because I get those… those auditory hallucinations.

I hear music – choirs, orchestras, jazz singers, country singers, opera singers. When you allow them to disturb you, they get louder. And then suddenly they stop, just like that! As though someone took a needle off a record.

It’s very strange.

I never thought of it as hallucinating, which is probably why I’ve been more fascinated than stressed; even comforted sometimes. To me it’s a form of tinnitus. Maybe it even masks the real tinnitus, which to many people is just a wasp’s scream (description courtesy of my mother).

Nor is it like having pop hits playing in your head, or (you’ll hate me for this) How Much is That Doggy in the Window? You can HEAR heavenly choirs or beautiful baritones or whatever – the sounds are in your ears.

At my old house I abandoned my bedroom, preferring to sleep on my sofa. I was never quite sure why I did that, apart from a general feeling of claustrophobia. The documentary offered me a fresh insight. Was it so different from the kind of experiences the people in the experiment were going through? With my blinds closed and lined curtains drawn, it was fairly dark in my room – and without my glasses I’m very myopic. Without my hearing aids I’m almost stone deaf. There were no other humans to talk to in that house: lack of human interaction. Then, when you’re lying there, trying to get to sleep, there is nothing to occupy yourself with. Thus I got the auditory hallucinations quite frequently, and when I was absolutely exhausted but not dropping off for any reason, I very occasionally got visual hallucinations as well. (Like Mr Guppy). Now that DID frighten me, in a way that the heavenly choirs didn’t.

It wasn’t Total Sensory Deprivation, but it wasn’t all that far off.

When I moved out to the sofa, I had two windows and a glass door – it was a lighter room. There were the cats strolling in and out: company. There was the TV… talking people and entertainment just a switch away. I feel sure now that’s why I changed rooms… and I’m not potty or anything, I’m just like any other human being. I like to be a part of life.

During the Blog Monsoon (see last post but one) I found a nice collection of ‘anxiety blogs’ but they’ve actually been pretty quiet. I’m careful not to read them with too much absorption anyway, as I’m terrified they will set me off again! “Don’t think about the hippopotamus.” I’ve been so much better recently that the other day I was whizzing along the street in a total strop about something else. That’s good news.

Jolly the Trolley is still in tow. Mum tried to get me to leave him in the car, but I wouldn’t. I’ve picked him up and carried him, though, which means I’m not really leaning on him. I’ve got fond of him and have started saying encouragingly “come along now” (much to the bemusement of a nearby three-year-old). I also call him ‘him’ without thinking.

Yesterday I said to Mum, “the reason his long handle is rather stiff and I can’t collapse it back down is that he’s got a metal stud down here that’s gone rusty. I better treat it with WD-40.”

Mum, peering intently, said, “mm. I suppose you better.”

When we were in town, feeding cats and buying overpriced ink cartridges, we were crossing the road and Jolly the Trolley got so anxious about the waiting cars that he collided with Mum’s ankles. When we reached the safety of the pavement, Mum spun round and threatened to give him a good smack if he did it again. We both took a step backward.

It surely isn’t just us, though… have a look at this photo of Jolly the Trolley. Do you see a large toothy grin?

You sheltered me from harm
Kept me warm, kept me warm
You gave my life to me
Set me free, set me free
The finest years I ever knew
Was all the years I had with you

If there’s someone you know
That won’t let you go
And taking it all for granted
You may lose them one day
Someone takes them away
And you don’t hear a word they say

(from Everything I Own sung by Ken Boothe)

Edit Feb 2008: Comments for this entry when it was on Blogigo:

1. Pete wrote at Sep 22, 2006 at 21:18:
nice to put a face to the name

2. bluestone wrote at Sep 22, 2006 at 23:12:
ha! I do see that smile!

3. kateblogs wrote at Sep 23, 2006 at 17:48:
Yip a definite smile

4. Pacian wrote at Sep 23, 2006 at 18:01:
I also see a nose and a pair of sunglasses…

5. Diddums wrote at Sep 23, 2006 at 18:30:
I guess he needs the sunglasses because he’s looking up into the sun so much of the time.

6. Sacha, from IrkedMagazine.com wrote at Sep 25, 2006 at 15:58:
AHA! So THAT’S what Jolley the Trolley (J.Tro?) looks like! Handsome bugger, he is…!

I dig the way you write, Diddums.

Get in touch; come write an article for IrkedMagazine.com…

It’s a dark and rainy night, only ten minutes short of midnight. You are alone in the house with two cats. You decide to check your email, and find one from your mother with the intriguing subject heading of Loiterer.

What could that be about? She’s not a nervous sort, doesn’t send a lot of emails, and lives in a pleasant neighbourhood. It must be a funny snippet about a cat.

Consumed with curiosity and concern, you open up the email and it says: “a friend who lives in the next street from you said they were warned to keep doors locked as a strange loiterer has been reported around.”

What? Who? Why? In THIS weather? Who wants to loiter around when it’s bucketing down? What do they mean by ‘reported’ – did someone call out the police? What have they seen? What happened? Did they get him?

You rush off to check your doors are locked, and have a good peer out of your porch. You can’t see anything because it’s so dark, but you suspect you glow in your porch like a guppy in an aquarium. You wonder if there’s something lurking out there under a rock, fixing you with small angry eyes. Everything’s locked, and has been locked all day. Windows are shut and curtains drawn but you feel the need to make your safe house even safer, and close the inner porch door with a determined clunk.

You have always known there are strange people lurking around out there almost any night in the week, but things seem more sinister when you are told “there’s somebody hanging around your neighbourhood and he’s probably not looking after your best interests.”

Talking of spooky things, I was watching a TV programme about a five-year-old boy who believed he was the reincarnation of a child who lived on the island of Barra. Some of what he said checked out, whereas some of it didn’t. It’s hard to know what all that was about. I think older people are more likely to say “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” than younger people – and that’s because older people have been around longer and have seen or experienced things that aren’t so easily explained. It doesn’t mean there aren’t rational explanations – it’s simply possible that the right rational explanations aren’t yet in our philosophy!

There was something I was thinking about the other night but when it came down to it I didn’t want to blog about it. I couldn’t understand my reluctance, as it seemed innocent and amusing, but now I realize it sounds rather like saying “I have imaginary friends.” Sometimes when you can’t get to sleep or are feeling particularly stressed or unhappy, you can imagine yourself hidden away somewhere safe where no one will ever find you. You’ve got all your food, books, cats and communication devices (even hidden people need to talk and blog!) – but if you don’t want anyone to find you there they won’t be able to. It’s a completely imaginary place. Then one day, when you’re feeling particularly stressed out about some work you’re doing, you notice a nagging feeling in your stomach that says “let’s go to the hidden place.”

Uh oh! It’s just become real. You know it’s not real, but your brain has mapped out a little set of paths with signposts saying “this way to our hidden place. Grab the hamper and let’s go.” When your stomach starts to believe your brain, you know you’re in trouble.

Well they do say that we make our own realities – that what seems real to us is real, even if it’s not real to someone else. A recovering agoraphobic should know that. Does know that, in fact. She also knows it’s possible to change that reality, or at least partially change it. That might explain a little of what the boy was going through – that somehow he really believed he had another family, another home and came from a different generation. He’s told himself the stories so often he believes them to the pit of his stomach. It’s a possibility.

Now, I don’t think I can draw this blog post out any longer. I am left to myself, the cats… and the neighbourhood loiterer.

Edit Feb 2008: Comments for this entry when it was on Blogigo:

1. kateblogs wrote at Sep 21, 2006 at 19:39:
That loiterer sounds rather scary. I do wonder about people like that, I mean what makes someone become a loiterer?

I don’t think your hidden places is strange. When I am nodding off to sleep I like to imagine I am floating in a boat in the middle of a huge but calm lake. It’s very peaceful.

Your interpretation of why that boy believes he has had that past life is very interesting, I think you are right. We can convince ourselves that an idea is true, and strongly believe it to be. This is why lie detectors aren’t used over here, because they can only pick up deliberate lies, but if the person believes that what they are saying is true, it will appear to be so.

2. Diddums wrote at Sep 21, 2006 at 21:51:
Interesting point about the lie detectors – they would be wrong in various different scenarios. As for reincarnation, it’s interesting to think over all the possibilities, like “maybe I was Cleopatra” (or Mark Antony) or “we live this life again and again till we get it right” (maybe even the lives of several people in the whole history of the planet, why not?) or come back as beetles… but when it comes down to it, there are probably complex but boring reasons for the way we think. Maybe some of these children have dreams that they confuse with real life. Now and then I can’t work out if something I ‘remember’ was real, or a vivid dream.

3. Pacian wrote at Sep 24, 2006 at 11:46:

kateblogs: “This is why lie detectors aren’t used over here, because they can only pick up deliberate lies, but if the person believes that what they are saying is true, it will appear to be so.”

We’re now moving onto a new generation of “lie detectors” which are more high tech (eg. relying on thermal imaging or brain scans) but no less founded on good science.

4. Diddums wrote at Sep 24, 2006 at 16:04:
Scary thought that all they have to do is watch your brain to see if you’re lying… stuff of nightmares!

5. Iain wrote at Sep 26, 2006 at 02:28:
A Hebridean curmudgeon writes: they stopped mentioning that he said you could see the plane landing on the beach from his house as soon as it transpired that none of the plane-beach-view houses were it. When he said what his dad’s name had been I allowed myself a little smile – Shane Robertson, bless his wee Glasgow heart. As they drove towards the house they’d found in which a Robertson family had holidayed, they said they weren’t telling him the significance of the house they were going to: there were no signs of recognition broadcast as they approached, and even when they stopped and walked with great significance towards the house and began prompting him, still nothing.

Barra, a white house, a dog, a beach, a plane that lands on a beach – a scene which could have been picked up from a two-minute TV clip, of the kind it’s not unheard of to find in the middle of pre-school programmes like Tellytubbies but which could have been seen anywhere or when. And one thing I’m learning as my wee girl approaches three is the extent to which young children are sponges who soak up, retain and reproduce the most extraordinary and unlikely information, including stuff you’ve no idea how it got in there.

Still, nice scenery.

6. Diddums wrote at Sep 27, 2006 at 01:30:
Ah! I saw you had a piece on the Barra child too. I didn’t cotton onto the thing about the planes on the beach – did he say he saw them land from the house? The thing with mixed-up memories is that you might see a plane land and then think it was your own beach it landed on. There were other children featured who had similar ideas – one of them apparently said to his dad “I used to change YOUR nappies.” My reaction was that it wasn’t an unusual thought for a child to have. I used to imagine that people grew old and then they grew young again, passing each other on the way. I clearly remember when I was 4, lying in bed thinking about how I would one day be older than my parents, looking after them the way they had looked after me. ‘Death’ wasn’t in my vocabulary.

7. Iain wrote at Sep 28, 2006 at 00:01:
Yes, that’s ‘why’ they didn’t find the Robertson house on the first sweep, because they were just looking on the air-beach side. The mixed-up memories of course could also come from any number of things wee boy has seen/heard/made up.

I have an interesting clipping from years ago from a Guardian Notes & Queries about how far back you can remember, and there was a letter from someone whose child described a memory which sounded like birth. My mother can remember lying in her cot.

8. Diddums wrote at Sep 28, 2006 at 01:39:
Some of the children mentioned in the programme were describing something that sounded a little like birth – including the Barra boy. He said he just fell through and there he was. I guess children will absorb a lot, like the sponges you mention, but at first they might not know what to do with all the information, and it’s just there in a jumbled mess along with their dreams and memories. Much like any of us, really…

Agoraphobic people hate sunlight. Well we don’t really, but you know what I mean! It encourages people to come out and trail around in large shambly groups; everything we do is lit up in a bright glare which makes us even more self-conscious; some agoraphobics have a sensitivity to light – maybe all of us do without realizing it? We have to take off our jackets and sweaters when we would rather huddle into them, and there’s no excuse to put up our hoods (unless we’re hoodies) or duck under an umbrella.Bright sunshine is overrated!

Too many folks!

At one point I couldn’t move. “They have nothing else to do on a Sunday,” said Mum, apologetically. But on the whole I was in a good mood and smiled at everybody and made room for them, and me and the wheelie bag went skipping about (yes I know that’s bad grammar) and nobody fell over us this time. Well, when you were feeling agoraphobic in town – dizzy and not even able to cross the road – it’s a huge relief when you can go where you want and buy things without hesitating and gallop blithely across roads which would have made you shudder only a fortnight ago. That would put anybody in a good mood because then it stops being something you take for granted.

Jolly’s tricks

I bet none of you realized wheelie bags can walk – I was trying to move it down off the kerb, and it put one wheel down then swung the other down to join it. Thus, instead of falling down with a bump, it stepped neatly off, and I wanted to cheer and tell it how clever it was. Yesterday it had a slight accident when it crashed rather hard over a rough bit of the pavement, and I came uncomfortably close to patting it and telling it “there there, it’s alright.” It took me ages to shake off the urge. Anyway it did good work for us today by taking some heavy and bulky items off our hands; it wasn’t just wheeling around in our wake. Mum collected some used coffee grounds from Starbucks for the garden, and when we gave it to the wheelie bag to carry, it lumbered around like an overfed bulldog.

Buying beary love

Here’s a picture of two of my ‘junk shop finds’ for today – a Primark bear and a Disney Tigger. I collect ‘name’ toys, which includes Russ Berrie, Boyds and Disney – emphasis is on cats and bears. Normally I wouldn’t pay attention to something like a Primark bear as it’s just a cheapie, but every so often there’s something about a cheapie bear that I can’t resist! This one is very soft to the touch and has nice features. I always look critically at bears in shops – trying to give the impression I’m buying them for a child and am just checking them over. I’m not sure how many of the volunteers are taken in, as most of them know us well by now. Anyway, I turned him upside down and round about, gave the ears a tug, parted the fur and smoothed it back from the eyes to check for scratches or cracks, then seized the chin to make sure his mouth wasn’t flapping loose. I suddenly felt as though I was checking the teeth of a nag in Tattersalls.

Tigger only made it because he’s so beautifully clean and has a nice face too – normally Disney is at the bottom of my collection scope.

I’m not a horror fan but I’m an Alien fan

My prime find for today was a clean boxed set of Alien videos for £10. I’ve had my eye on these for a while as they are close-captioned but expensive brand new. After buying this set, we went into the charity shop next door and found they had a set for £11. I’m glad it wasn’t the other way around! A while ago I passed over a set which was £12 – I seem to remember one of the videos in the set was ‘the making of the film’, and those aren’t normally subtitled.

The set I bought was in the shop window, and I had to ask the volunteer for it - he was a boy of about 20, I think, and when I said “the boxed set of Alien, please!” a look of respect came into his eyes. I got much the same look in a shop in York when I grabbed a bunch of videos which were largely science fiction - one was Judge Dredd, unfortunately not subtitled, but I knew I had to have it in my collection ‘just because’. Maybe I’ll find a subtitled DVD of it one day? I love Judge Dredd; it’s one of my favourite films and I could watch it forever without getting sick of it.

The magic of books

I know some of you are a little suspicious of ‘things’ as they just gather dust and take up room (unless you can sell them for a profit on eBay), but ‘things’ are not all I bought - I got six books, including Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison - £1.75. I’ve liked his books ever since I borrowed The Stainless Steel Rat from the library. Today I had to buy Make Room! Make Room! after reading the blurb on the back:

1999 – automation, total welfare, and weekends on the moon…. or an overcrowded world that knows that the dawn of the new century is the edge of disaster – a world of starving billions living on lentils, soya beans and – if they’re lucky – the odd starving rat. In a city of thirty-five million people, Andy Rusch is engaged in a desperate and lonely hunt for a killer everyone has forgotten… for even in a world such as this a policeman can find himself utterly alone…

Totally my cup of tea. And bagsies the well-fed rat I spotted near the car dealership.

Spooky purchases

We had lunch in a café and ate silently. Upon finishing, Mum announced rather loudly “I’m going to buy a broomstick.”
“Ha ha,” I said politely… but then we went into the garden centre where she picked up a really witchy broomstick and bought it without any humming and hawing. I had no idea these were available and my eyes popped. “What are you going to do with that?” I demanded, as we toted it along to the car. Her only answer was to tap the side of her beaky nose.

I felt a Halloweeny tug of my own when we passed a mound of pumpkins, and stopped short and gazed with all my eyes. I really wanted to buy one but was already carrying books and videos and rubber mats and things. Even the wheelie bag took fright at the thought of adding a pumpkin to the load. I’ve never considered buying one before, which is a good reason why I should do it for once. And only this morning I was attracted by Timorous Beastie’s blog post, Orange Rock. I don’t know about chasing the thing around my house, but I want to make Pumpkin Soup too. Anyone got any good recipes?

Edit Feb 2008: Comments to this post when it was on Blogigo:

Pete wrote at Sep 3, 2006 at 22:43:
bear is cute !!

Diddums wrote at Sep 4, 2006 at 09:19:
Bear says thank you!

Pacian wrote at Sep 4, 2006 at 19:43:
“Maybe I’ll find a subtitled DVD of it one day?”

It’s rare to find a DVD that isn’t subtitled.

Love the bear, btw!

Ooch – I was afraid of that. I got up this morning and discovered I was writing my blog posts in German. Fortunately I save my posts, so I can always replace the corrupted ones.

I’m still giving town a miss because that’s what made me ill in the first place. Boys sitting on the pavement with their backs against the walls (too young at the age of 15 to know how copiously dogs pee around – this pet minder could have told them) and older boys bouncing balls up and down the main street. People eating ice cream in cars and outside cafés, and other people sitting on benches, eating fish and chips. And then there are the people carriers on the prowl for non-existent parking spaces… cars get bigger and bigger every year, and there is less and less room for them. Mum said the folk with Glaswegian accents have disappeared now, and it’s mostly English accents left. The rain is coming down today and maybe it would have been quiet in town, but I’m taking my time. Better than pushing too fast and ending up in the soup again.

I found the following very short snippet in the Scotsman (Edit Feb 2008: their article has gone now):

Scream helps to beat stress

WORK-RELATED stress can be cut by up to a quarter by letting out a loud scream, according to new research revealed today.

A study of 1,000 people showed stress levels have increased this month, partly because of the heatwave and travel delays.

Half of those questioned said travelling to work was a major cause of stress, while most complained that being in an office all day made them bad tempered.

Many of those questioned said they were too inhibited to scream.

Last updated: 18-Aug-06 01:53 BST

Well - how is that mostly work-related stress? There’s an awful lot more going on than that. I bet most of them said it was heat and work and traffic jams rather than admit they were fazed by the crowds.

I said to Mum I can see what’s going to happen – I will get back to normal and then the psychiatrist will come knocking at my door… “can we help? How about a little trip to the bottom of your garden? The flowers won’t eat you, you know.”

I suppose I can discuss this thing’s tendency to resurface, particularly in dense crowds. It would be interesting to know if the psychiatrists receive any feedback from recovered sufferers. Do any of them say they are completely clear of it?

Edit Feb 2008: Comments to this post when it was hosted by Blogigo:

Pacian wrote at Aug 18, 2006 at 15:09:
Ich bin ein Blogger! That article in the Scotsman is a great example of bad science journalism. I don’t quite see how the study it actually mentioned supports screaming. Some vital piece of information has obviously not made it into the article, and given that even BBC journalists are quite happy to give huge clinical meta-studies and small opinion polls equal weight, I’m not exactly going to take them at their word.

Diddums wrote at Aug 18, 2006 at 17:29:
Bin ich das einzige, wer nicht Deutsches sprechen kann? According to Babelfish, that’s German for ‘Am I the only one who can’t speak German?’ Maybe you are too inhibited to scream – LOL. Now that you mention it, I wonder just what sort of research they are referring to. Maybe it will be in the other papers. Does it have to be a scream, so long as it’s some kind of self-expression, like a blog? One thing you learn after a bout of agoraphobia is that we have to deal with things, not simply bear them because we are told to. Agoraphobia (and similar) is the system’s protest at not being listened to.

I imagine the mysterious character I saw today had not the slightest idea of ending up in a blog – though any of us could be featuring in half a dozen blogs, unawares.

When I went to walk the dog, Mum accompanied me, saying she had to visit N for a quick blether. N’s car was out of the garage, with a girl sitting cross-legged in the open boot, vacuuming it. We gave her a friendly glance in case she looked up, but she was hunched over and didn’t look up.

I fetched the dog while Mum flopped in an armchair. When I passed the car again, the girl still didn’t look up. She was dressed in black with long sleeves. Long, curly, rich brown hair tumbled over her shoulders.

It was quite cool and windy up on the hill – after 45 minutes of marching around telling myself I’m bold and happy and not agoraphobic any more, I returned to N’s, thinking “well, the car’s probably back in the garage by now.”

It wasn’t. This time the unknown girl was hoovering the back seat, and still managed not to catch my eye.

I went in and the dog burst into the sitting room ahead of me. N invited me to stay for tea – they must have been waiting for me, so I sat down. About 25 minutes later we left. The girl outside was still hoovering the back seat of the car, not looking up for an instant.

It was surreal.

I waited till we were most of the way home before saying “how long has she been hoovering that car?”
“Must be over an hour now,” said Mum.
“Odd. Who IS she?”
“One of M’s brothers from next door,” said Mum.

Uneasy traveller

On Friday we went back to the NHS audiologist, which was not a satisfactory expedition. I get travel-sick just going to the next village, and here we were going to the next town. My stomach was lurching unhappily by the time we got there. If you want to be alert for your appointment you have to lay off the travel pills. It seems mad to have to leave the local town when all you’re doing is having hearing aids reviewed.

My sister has finished with the reviews now, but I have to go back next week as the computer went phut! More travel sickness and agoraphobic lurchings through the hospital. What a delightful plan.

No such thing as perfection

I’m realizing these hearing aids will never be crystal clear. They were worse instead of better when the audiologist adjusted them last time, and that’s what I was trying to get them to change away from today. It’s strangely hard to get it right. You’re sitting in a small booth with someone you’re not used to, who says “does that sound better? Can you hear what I’m saying?”

The answer that comes to mind is a jumble of: “yes, I hear you, but we’re two people sitting in a small booth, you’re speaking distinctly and I’m looking at your face – chances are I would hear (or guess) what you said anyway. And it has no bearing on whether I’ll hear certain sounds or tones better.”

Instead, you say rather weakly, “I hear your voice but I don’t know if it’s better.”
You really don’t. You won’t know till you get home and realize you hear something you’ve never heard before, or no longer hear something that used to be clear (like a beep).

When you’re at the optician’s, you can make a direct comparison between one lens and another. “Is this better… or this? Is this better… or this?”
At the audiologist’s, it’s not like that. It’s simply “does this sound better now – can you hear my voice?”
Well yes – but your voice sounded much the same last time. I simply can’t tell.

You feel worried (having already experienced a bad decision) that one setting is better than the other and you will plump for the wrong one. You hesitate and the audiologist shuffles impatiently. She has other patients and is running late. But you face another queasy trip to the hospital if you get it wrong.

Before I even got there, I decided to have the aids set back to the way they were originally; I was hearing worse at home after she changed them. Unfortunately that didn’t get done, and I have to go back next week because of her wretched computer breaking down.

Summer time, and the living is easy…

As it’s summer and there are lots of people swarming all over, my agoraphobia has taken a slight hold again. The holidays ironically mean that I have extra pet minding to do. I’ve been looking after up to three pet households every day for the past three weeks. I have one more day to go (a dog walk) and then I’ll get two days off.

At the hospital it was one of those days with the same people stuck in the same waiting room chairs every time you glanced round. Wearisome. I was happy to escape, and as I buckled myself into the passenger seat of my sister’s car, I thought “now it’s straight sailing – she’ll drop me off at home and I can have lunch and a rest, surrounded by lacy pink curtains, loving cats and soft bears. Thus comforted and refreshed, I’ll head out to walk dog and feed guinea pigs, taking my wheelie bag with me for company. It will be a doddle.”

When I feel jittery about going out, I pull the wheelie thing around – it makes me feel better. Don’t laugh! It’s funny but also a dratted nuisance. I left it behind when we went to the hospital, as I had no intention of sitting in the corridor watching people falling over it.

Unfortunately, E stopped at Mum’s saying she had something to pick up. She would have taken me home after that, as it was still on her way, but I was now very close to both the dog and the guinea pigs. I knew I should stay and sort them out first – much more energy-efficient. No rest, lunch or bears for Diddums yet.

Stranded without my wheels

E waved goodbye and drove off. I walked and fed the animals and by that time Mum had come home. We had tea and lemon cake and watched shows about presenters making people auction family heirlooms from their attics that they didn’t want to auction just so they could blow the cash on holidays to mega cities in America. It made me cringe.

To my relief, Mum offered to drive me back. “You have some stuff to take home,” she said.
“Yes, please,” I said. “E stranded me here without my wheelie thing.”
Mum gave me a beady-eyed look but I just chuckled.

Again I buckled myself into a passenger seat, sighing with relief and thinking, “now it’s straight sailing. Home for a very late lunch, TV, purring cats and snuggly bears. I can’t wait!”
Backing the car out, Mum said “I’m going to Morrisons supermarket on the way. Anything you need?”
My shoulders drooped, and I groaned internally. Supermarkets are the bane of any self-respecting agoraphobic’s existence – especially on Friday afternoons in the summer.
“Yes,” I admitted reluctantly, “I need a few things.”

So we trotted around the heaving supermarket (myself firmly attached to a nice big wheelie trolley). There was one awkward moment when I had to take the empty trolley away and leave it in a trolley park, then cross the road back to the car.

Home!

Having arrived safely home, I put everything away, fed the cats, got my late lunch, and snuggled down with a huge pink bear to watch TV. After a while we had supper and continued to watch the TV. Normally I’m reading blogs and checking my emails every chance I get, but I felt I’d had enough of the rest of the world in any shape or form, and fell asleep.

When I woke up again it was 9pm and there was a cat sleeping on top of me, paws trailing. Big Brother was just starting. I haven’t been watching it but they mentioned evictions, so I stayed and watched. Maybe I wanted to see someone else squirming instead of me… just for a change. I didn’t know any of them from Adam, but looked the candidates over and said “I predict the two being evicted today are Mikey first and Susie second, in that order.” I was right.

But then I got cross over the Big Brother attitude that Susie should have joined the others in horsing around and getting drunk. They evicted her because she didn’t. I say, more power to her! She’s well out of it. Last but not least, one of the guys in the Diary Room said a very odd thing. “I feel cocooned in here – safe. I don’t really want to go home to the world out there.”

Wow. But I think so many of us must feel that way. Having just watched Grumpy Old Holidays where they agreed that the worst thing about holidays is other people, I just know we are not remotely alone…

Edit Feb 2008: Comments to this post when it was on Blogigo:

kateblogs wrote at Aug 6, 2006 at 14:27:
Yuk, Big Brother. The contestants really are a bunch of twits, and they are encouraged to demonstrate this at every opportunity. I suppose it boosts the viewing figures, but it would be nice to see a programme that applauded mature behaviour.

Those series that get people to sell their stuff, I wonder if the participants feel any regret when they get back from the holiday. Some of the things they sell obviously have sentimental value, I don’t think I could flog something like that for such a trivial reason.

Oh, and you have my sympathies. I suffer from travel sickness too. Some days I can get into the nearest town without feeling ill, but others, well, suffice it to say I’m feeling pretty green around the gills by the time I arrive LOL

Diddums wrote at Aug 7, 2006 at 01:27 o\clock:
I know I would regret the sale of family heirlooms and such – I would want at least to think hard about what I was doing, and reinvest the capital or something… I know I say some rude things about banks, but I do sound like my father’s daughter sometimes!

Ah ha, another bad traveller – it’s funny how it comes in waves. I wonder if you also find that if you feel ill on the outward journey, you’ll probably feel as right as rain when you return, even if there is a lapse of a couple of weeks? I’m not sure if there are lingering effects from the travel pills, or if it has nothing to do with that.

The small town I live in is full to bursting. Not just with residents but with tourists. Struggling with the issues I mentioned in the last couple of posts, it’s not paradise for me.

Today we were in a tiny shop selling things like whale music, healing bracelets, animals carved out of agate, dreamcatchers, yoga books, tarot cards – you get the picture! Normally it has two or three people drifting round it, but today it did not drop below 15, including us.

The shop keeper must have been ecstatic - she had sold two enormous crystal rocks (cut in half to show their sparkly crystal cavities) – one was about my height. I immediately thought “an American has bought them both and is going to ship them back to the States.”

I couldn’t imagine that level of … knowing how one might do that? Just saying “I’ll have those please – post them to my house in Beverley Hills.” The mere thought of it caused me to break out in a sweat. It’s not so much the money I’m remarking on – imagine having that much bounce and confidence.

Mum said “I overheard one of the other people in the shop asking the shop owner about them, and she said they were £2,000 each.”

I told her my daydream about it being a rich American who bought them both and was going to ship them back to the States (that sounds wonderful so I can’t help repeating it) – and she nodded and said that’s the conclusion she jumped to as well. It’s a little sad, I suppose, that we weren’t assuming some local entrepreneur had bought them. Perhaps we felt if someone local had wanted them that much, they wouldn’t have waited till now.

Though, for all we know, those crystals are the latest fashion and sell like hot cakes. I wonder where in my house I could put mine… I’ll go for a tour of my rooms.

Back in two. Seconds, that is.

In this world, confidence is vital. Not just confidence in your own abilities, but also confidence in how you communicate and how you face the world.

This reminds me of two songs from old musicals. The first being Have Confidence In Yourself (Oliver Twist) and the second being Whistle a Happy Tune (The King and I).

There may well be others, and with reason – can you imagine how far any of us would get in this kind of civilization without confidence? How far would one get without friends and contacts, and the ability to communicate well with them?

Well I started to blog about this issue, but it’s a truly difficult one, so I’m hesitating. The problem with confidence, ‘fitting in’ and generally being normal (this topic was recently discussed by Goldfish on her blog)… well, the problem with that is, if you don’t feel able to get along as smoothly as others do, (for instance I’m profoundly hard of hearing), your confidence takes a dive. It takes a dive nearly every day. And when your confidence has banged its nose on the ocean floor often enough, you can end up with panic disorder and agoraphobia. After which everything gets still harder!

How do you contemplate a job in an office, supermarket, shop or anywhere else when you’re not even sure you can face the interview? Well you can go to the doctor for help, but how do you (a) make the appointment? (b) get there? (c) cope with the very claustrophobic waiting room? Particularly if it’s the kind of waiting room where you wait to hear your name being called.

Actually I’ve been through that in the past. I was starting to get stressed out at work, so I went to the doctor and said I was worried. She said “oh – what are you going to do about it?”

The problem with that was that I wasn’t really able to talk to people about something that I was finding increasingly difficult to handle. I didn’t feel able to say all the right things, ask for all the right things (even if I knew what they were – what I REALLY wanted was never to have to darken their doors again) … and on top of all that, how to avoid the inevitable hearing complications. Perhaps I had left it a bit late to ask for help, but there is no ‘right time’ as people won’t take you seriously till they see you actually disintegrating in front of their eyes. And then they panic.

My immediate superior was terrified I was going to turn round and say it was the work that made me ill. When I said to him the work was not the problem, he was so relieved that I had to smile. It was never about the work. It was never about him either.

Around this time (it’s all blurred in my memory now), I had gone to the doctor to see what she said. (All this happened ten years ago)! She said she would refer me to a cognitive therapist, but as they were booked up (the rest of Scotland was cracking up as well, presumably) I wouldn’t get to see this person for six months. Meanwhile, what was I going to do about the job situation, asked the doctor solicitously? I said well I might feel a little better if I moved my desk somewhere quieter (even though I knew there was nowhere – the office was packed out like a sardine tin). She said good, come back next week and tell me how you’re getting on.

Well, next week, I was well along in my little nervous breakdown, thank you very much. I couldn’t even face my mother. I was at her house, and every time she came into a room I was in, I smiled politely, sidled out, and went somewhere else. Eventually she found me lying on the spare bed, gazing at the ceiling.

I sat up and started to slink away again, but she stopped me – in tears. She knew something was badly wrong. I said I had to go to the doctor’s that afternoon and wasn’t sure I wanted to go. She said I must keep my appointment and get this sorted out.

Even more upset, I toddled along the road rather as though I was drunk – in fits and starts, hiding behind lamp posts every time a car went past. I felt completely dizzy – the sky spun around and the cement seemed gritty beneath my feet. It loomed at me.

I got most of the way to the Health Centre and then got stuck outside the small shops just across the road from it. There were cars parked outside, and a man waiting in one of them, looking at me. I couldn’t force myself past him – it was like trying to get a nervous horse to pass a large flapping scarecrow. I just couldn’t. (Ever since then I’ve had a special sympathy for skittish horses). Eventually I turned round and went home.

Now, every time I hear someone say “we ought to make people pay for not keeping their appointments and wasting everybody’s time”, I cringe. I don’t want to live in this unforgiving kind of world. I’m not hinting that I’m going to jump off a bridge or something revolting like that – I just sometimes feel like saying “enough! Stop the world! I want to get off.”

But I can’t.
So.
Next step is to bolster my flagging confidence. For we are nowhere without it.

I whistle a happy tune
And ev’ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid

Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are…

Sorry, I’ve just realized – I can’t whistle either. Kind of stuck now :-).

Edit Feb 2008: Comments to this post when it was hosted by Blogigo:

Pacian wrote at Jul 21, 2006 at 12:07:
Hum instead!

I haven’t had it quite as bad as you, but I sympathise with much of what you wrote. It would be nice if confidence came in pill form. Although I’d probably be too timid to ask for a prescription.

Diddums wrote at Jul 21, 2006 at 12:57:
And that’s the real problem, isn’t it :-). Maybe we should try Ally McBeal’s trick – her imaginary backing group.

Yesterday it was time for my root canal therapy. My broken tooth ‘Bearfang’ (thus named in a dream) was to go under the drill. I’m usually completely relaxed at dentists (once I get away from the receptionist) but something put me on edge yesterday and I wasn’t completely sure what it was. Going through it in my mind, I think there were a lot of little things (little messages that it was a big deal), but the main thing was Mum saying loudly “if you feel funny afterwards, get the receptionist to call you a taxi.” And then she went away.

Lying in The Chair, I was handed two squidgy balls (no rude comments please) to knead nervously during the process. I had already crossed my arms and tucked my hands under my elbows, and was quite happy like that, but I took the squidgy things just to be polite.

As the words “in case you feel funny” were still ringing in my ears, I was a little unsettled when I first got in The Chair. My heart rate shot up, I breathed quickly, jammed my nails in one of the squidgy things, and worried about the ‘panic disorder’ which I was diagnosed with some years ago. If I panic it won’t be because anything’s hurting, but because I feel trapped – unable to just get up and leave. I sometimes get a little panicky in the Hairdresser’s Chair, but so far I’ve managed to ignore it! The panic, that is, not the Chair.

To overcome the same thing at the dentist, I thought about other things – gradually my breathing eased and I was relaxed again, like a dreaming cat. The two thoughts that work best are “oh, poor dentist, rather her than me,” and reciting the poems of Pam Ayres. The girl who sometimes walks Thundercloud when I can’t is having four teeth out – she had a bad extraction and is not looking forward to the next three. I told her about Pam Ayres, and she said she has recently learned some sonnets, so she’ll try reciting those. I’m not sure they’ll work as well, but they will be better than a head full of “gotta get out of here…”

It took about 40 minutes, and when I sat up, the dentist said “thank you for being such a GOOD patient!” and smiled. I grinned back like a happy toddler. I told my sister later, and she said “she didn’t say anything like that to me.”

Wriggles toes and smirks.

I didn’t feel funny either, and walked back home on my own two feet.
Bearfang is doing OK.