Anxiety

Ok - this is serious - objectively my life has got a whole lot better, even the weather has improved and it's beginning to look like spring.  I have had a flu/viral thing for two weeks, but I am nearly better - and what I am wondering is this - why am I so anxious?

There is free-floating anxiety of course, but I seem to be suffering from a leaden, entrenched anxiety.  In the last few days I have been reading novels as a distraction, but I am finding even the plots of the novels are feeding my anxiety.  I can wake up feeling anxious about what I am going to cook for supper for heaven's sake.  Even the most minor things will upset me.   Having to make a decision is incredibly difficult.

I know that some of it is this endless cycle of repressing my feelings - and perhaps a lot of it is the apathy I've felt since I've been ill.  But I HATE the way I feel now, I am taking no pleasure in anything - everything seems dull, even the crocuses in the garden, which are normally a great joy.   I wish I had spoken to my GP about it - but what could he have done.  Is this a case for CBT?

I feel so utterly grey - I feel as though even if an agent took my book on it wouldn't excite me.   However, I am sure a lot of this is post-viral, and that I will come out of it.  I remember feeling a bit like this back in 2009 after about 6 months of viruses.   Suddennly I snapped out of it, spring arrived and I felt happy.  I hope I don't have to have another spate of unrequited love to do it to me this time.  I'm getting too old for this sort of disturbance.

Lacking wholeheartedness!

I wish I felt as delighted as I ought to feel about the changes in direction of our fortunes.  There is always this nasty feeling that things will somehow go wrong - the direction of flow will change... but in fact things have even got better. It turns out my father will put his house on the market in June/July - so we will have the money even sooner.   As a result, I have been emboldened to book a hotel for a few days in Arles, in April.  Ned is advancing us the money - and I have a nice warm feeling about sunny cafes, ancient stones, lizards, warmth, sunshine, spring flowers....ah for a dose of the warm South!

The fact that I have had a most obnoxious virus/flu for 6 days hasn't helped.  Obviously that always makes one feel grim.  Today the sun shone quite unequivocally - it was warm - with a zippy wind of course! - and I saw the first blackthorn flowers.  I was hoping that this was the day when things turned, when I began to feel better.  After a stupendously  milky latte (clue in name I think!) a sandwich and a shared piece of coconut cake I felt completely ill again.   Heigh-ho!   Still, it was a lovely day, things are getting better.  I have done virtually no writing because I am in a headspin about what to do.

Next week I shall concentrate on getting all the financial loose ends sorted out - and then perhaps, a dozen submissions - including US ones - of the Ash Grove - and then, and then....well, it might be March and it might be clearer where things are going.

The Wheel of Fortuna turns?

Well, can it be true?  I am so utterly delighted with life that I can barely believe it.   No, I haven't won the lottery, but two or three problems have been solved in the last fortnight or so.   Firstly I found a small source of occasional income, which should ensure we have enough to cover the mortgage payments each month.  This was a great thing, it's work I enjoy more than I expected, and it's only a couple of days a month.   So, I was beginning to feel a little bit better - when the next tranche of letters and court summonses arrived... and then there was just this feeling that this would NEVER end and we would always be struggling on...and I thought, as I have before, "if only I could put a date to the end of this trouble, at least I'd be able to plan, even borrow a bit from Ned if I new when I'd be able to pay him back.

Suddenly that wish has been answered.   Yesterday I called my father, and he has decided to put his house on the market and divide the proceeds between us.   This should happen within the next year - so perhaps only another 12 months of unbearable misery to go.  Wow!  And much better than having to wait for people to die... which was always the horrible side about one's "expectations".

I realise now how lucky we are - to have such expectations, I wish all my struggling friends and relations had this to look forward to.   However, I am very aware that the lessons of the last three years must not be forgotten... the ease with which it could be splurged is frightening.  It needs to be invested, since I have no pension.  Anyway, delightful though this is, it does mean we still have no income to speak of.   However, today, finally, Mark was rung for an estimate on a stone job.  It was the first time I'd heard his phone ring for weeks.  So, what with 2 days work to look forward to in February, and perhaps this job too maybe
 things are finally beginning to trickle back....It would be great, because Mark feels really dispirited about work.   So what next?  Interest in the novel?

Love as a form of OCD

I have been thinking a bit about OCD - since a friend's son suffers very badly with it.   All the "useful advice" I have been giving her to help him cope with this, is the product of my own experience, but not with OCD.

Attentive readers may be aware that since before I started this blog in 2011 I have been trying to get over a dose of unrequited love, which has been quite disruptive.  I think I have got "over" it now, to the extent that I do not feel it much any more.  If the said love turned out to be requited and active, that would be another story - but I am no longer sick with it.

Looking back at how I got over it, I see, that, as is so often the case, it happened through time and circumstance.  Chiefly, time passed and I found other fulfilling and distracting things to do.  It helped that I was no longer working on the novel that related to it, so I was not constantly being "triggered".  It helped more when I was deeply involved in something else, work, dealing with students and domestic issues, Christmas is always a big distraction, going out to work, seeing groups of friends and NOT talking about it helps.  Doing sociable things with my husband which enable me to see him in a more positive light help.

These things are pretty similar to the advice I have been giving my friend - telling her to get her son out of the house, remove distracting stimuli, reminders of the obsessions, get him out seeing other people, doing something, working.  And in his case, keep medicating!   I don't think there was a medication against the LO - the citalopram certainly helped the depression but didn't seem to remove the desire to see him, be with him, talk to him etc.

I realise that in some ways psychiatrists might regard unrequited love as a form of OCD - it has many of the same traits - there are triggers which immediately provoke the thoughts (mention of the city he lived in on the radio for example, or a country he worked in) - as one of the favourite songs says There is always something there to remind me.  Of course, it isn't as stuctured as OCD, it doesn't have its rituals... but it definitely has that sort of sense of being in a loop of stimulus and response, where you cannot escape.  I have "automatic memories" - for example seeing a harvest moon in September over a newly cut field in the dusk ALWAYS makes me think of one of the last walks James and I had before we began to talk about divorce. However, that scene can also fade into the more generalised nostalgia  I suffer, where certain scenes provoke a non-specific sense of longing.  This non-specific longing turns back to become attached to the LO... and then, crazily, things that have nothing to do with him, are attached to him, and I sigh.

Rationally unpicking one's responses is helpful - but like therapy, it is not a quick fix.  As in therapy, you may know why you feel a certain undesirable way, but it does not necessarily stop you feeling it.   The answer is, keep analysing, keep unpicking.  If you find yourself slipping into it, find yourself at it and say "No, you are only doing that because you read about someone with the same name" (or whatever).  Getting rid of these feelings is difficult, not straightforward, especially if you are of a romantic, idealistic disposition.  Those feelings seem to suggest something better, finer, than grim, sweaty reality, one wants to cling to them, they seem to be a tenuous contact with the numinous, or a higher sense of oneself.

Is this higher sense of self a delusion?  Does our reach exceed our grasp - we can never have this thing - this life-improving objective which will make everything so much better.  Is this what OCD people are trying for - the completion of their system that will give them peace.

Anyone who has lived into middle-age and thought about the world knows that there is nothing that comes into your life without a new set of problems attached - even a £13m lottery prize!  Age makes everything a little less efficient, especially our idealism.  I ought to feel glad I have recovered from love, but in a sick way, I miss it, the brief contacts with a higher form of joy... will I ever experience them again?  Is that why people long for grandchildren and like pictures of cats on FB.  Life is duller without unrequited love, but it is certainly less sickening and depressing.   Perhaps it isn't quite the same when people recover from OCD.

Lord McAlpine

In 2012 I wrote some pieces which named a couple of people in the Conservative party who were rumoured to be involved in paedophilia (that's upper class child abuse... or is it just a more distinguished form of child abuse?).  At the time there was a great BBC-scandal because Lord McAlpine had been named as connected with the Welsh childrens' home paedophilia scandal/cover up.... he took offence, sued etc. and threatened to pursue everyone who had ever retweeted disobliging tweets about him.    Although I hadn't written much about him, I had mentioned his love of boxing matches in passing.   He died the other day, which is why I am now writing this, not because I have any thing scandalous to say about him - the love of boxing not being exactly connected with paedophilia - although I think the way it was seen in the Ancient Greek world at the Olympic and other games, leaves one in no doubt about the erotic stimulus in provided for some.

Anyway, what I guessed at the time was that Lord M (bottom) could have been mistaken for Peter M (below) - the now dead Welsh office MP, worshipper of Mrs Thatcher and apparent paedophile.

They are not that similar - but to a frightened child, one stout, rubicund, jowelly Tory probably is as bad as another.  So maybe this solves the Lord M thing, that he was wrongly identified when it was Morrison all along.  Unless of course it's true.  Apparently a lot of BBC journos believe it is true - but that may just be the strength of the conspiracy theorising.  I know nothing, only that he liked watching boxing, and this fact has not been thought worthy of mention in the obituaries.  After all, plenty of people like boxing apparently.

Despite the death of Lord M I don't think I shall bring back the very popular pieces on Tory paedophilia... who knows, someone else's lawyer may be on the qui vive for this sort of material, and I don't really want to be bankrupted.  At the time I wrote them a great deal was being made of some investigations into a place called Elm House in Barnes...here apparently more cavorting with the denizens of care homes took place.  Oh why do I say cavorting?  I am trying to be euphemistic, but why don't I just say rape?  Since then, nothing more has been said.  

As I wondered in the previous post, why do the Tories seem to be so heavily implicated in child abuse?.  Is it just a coincidence that nearly all the well-known men charged with it have been Tories?  I imagine Stuart Hall was a Tory (the commentator, not the sociologist!).  I'm not saying there aren't Labour voters who abuse children (probably their own, rather than purchasing other people's), but somehow child-rape seems to be an unpleasant metaphor for just how much these people care for the weak, vulnerable and marginalised and how insouciantly they screw us all.

Sex pests on trial...a hierarchy of "horror"

I went out last night to the Society of Authors' meeting and we were indulging in social chat before our proper "discussion" - we being 1 F military historian, 1 F journalist/biographer/playwright, 1 F novelist, 1 F children's writer and 1 M technical writer and me.... and some one began to talk about the news, because by coincidence, 3 well-known men - Dave Lee Travis, Rolf Harris and Bill Roache were all on trial for coming on too strong with young women.

The conversation was interesting - it revealed what we thought was or wasn't "unreasonable".   And we didn't entirely agree.   I thought people who were adults when men came on to them (we are talking harassment, not rape here), shouldn't be charging them 20 years later, but perhaps I'm wrong.  I think the problem is that all these cases are bundled together, so that underage sex is on trial, as well as a bit of slap and tickle with an adult, albeit junior colleague.  It's quite hard to sort things out, especially since people have subjective responses to the people involved.   There is a sort of hierarchy about what is felt to be awful.

!.  At the top is Jimmy Savile - now widely agreed to be a monster!  Psychopath etc. etc.  Nothing, not all the charity work (penitential in nature?) can get him off the hook of being, widely considered to be the Mengele of celebrity sexual abusers.

2.  Any acts on pre-teenage children - no matter by whom, largely considered beyond the pale...

3.  Acts on boys, teenager or otherwise, by adult men still considered to be "worse" than girl teenagers - since (implicitly) sex is what teenage girls are "for".

4.  Dave Lee Travis - not exactly a monster,but very much a partaker in the 70s sex pest culture. Due to the coy nature of court reporting on the BBC news we hear a great deal about "sexual acts" - why can't they spell it out... what are we actually being called upon to be revolted by here?

5.  William Roache: despite being father of the lovely Linus, and having all his family in court with him, there doesn't seem to be that much sympathy for him.  His victims were early teens, under 16 - and in one case returned to his house after being raped there previously (she said she felt guilty about doing this - which opens up a whole load of issues about guilt/pleasure etc. that are the flip side of child abuse (no, I'm not saying "they like it really" but simply that it's more complex than one might imagine from the media account)).  Bill Roache is a well known nutter of course, a Druid, into astrology, and a proselytising Tory... arrrrgh.  He is widely confused with the more sympathetic character he plays - Ken Barlow - so there is sympathy for him.

6. Rolf Harris: apparently lots of people are shocked by this, because they "liked" him - i.e. felt they could be chums, including our hostess, who had enjoyed his tv work for many years.  So there is a bit of a sympathy vote for Rolf and all jokes about "extra legs" etc (a song I found rather sinister when young - due to a not entirely unconscious association with the phallus!) are thought to be distasteful - the trial is not over, his wife is in a wheelchair, the jury has not even gone out yet - and many people are hoping he will be acquitted.

Evolutionary biology? Or Tory policy?
I think that sums up the conversation - but I am still struggling with the idea that adult women who have received sexual harassment in the work place - which is unpleasant admittedly (I know a bit about it) should somehow be lumped in with underage girls.  I can't quite understand why they are complaining about it now - because however wrong it is, however annoying or upsetting or humiliating it was, a one-off bit of sexual harassment, is something you ought to be able to get over.  

I bet some evolutionary biologists (more Tories!) would say men are "programmed" to be attracted to teenage girls who were at their most fertile and at an age when they will most successfully bear children.   I would say that clearly the men are not interested in any future progeny - and if they have successfully socialised themselves out of that urge, they can bloody well work on socialising themselves out of the rest of it.....    I cannot help noticing in passing that most of the above men have worked for, promoted or been members of the Conservative party.  Given the whole other strand of political paedophilia which seems to involve Conservative MPs past one does wonder what the connection is (perhaps it's something to do with men who are insufficiently evolved???).  Jim Davidson was another (Tory/suspect)...

Joke:  Q. Why DO dogs lick their balls? (er, that's testicles, not playthings)
 I'm beginning to lose track of all the people who have been charged, rumoured to be involved, or just found
generally creepy.  Perhaps it would be safer to assume that all men in positions of power will do this if they can get away with it.   Unless they are in the Labour Party of course?  I am mystified about this actually, I was in the Labour party in my late 20s - early 30s and not a bad looking woman though I say it myself - but but but... there was a lot of joshy, jocular sexism from older Trades Unionists and MPs - who had not yet had their consciousnesses raised. When they said anything we all just screamed at them and told them they were sexist pigs!  I can't think of any Labour chaps doing this sort of thing (unless I have a selective memory).

They do say with the Tories it's sex, and with Socialists it's money (doesn't leave much scope for the Labour party then)...but perhaps that's true.  Money is tempting if you haven't had much,  maybe Labour men get laid more so don't feel the need to prey on kids so much... maybe all that jocular sexism is part of their mating ritual, counter-intuitively it is actually what gets them laid:
   "This is how it works love - we get all patriarchal, you get outraged, and feel the need to correct us, we slowly feign understanding, giving you the pleasure of thinking you've successfully changed our thinking - and then, having focussed on us for a while, you find us attractive, sensitive, perceptive - because we've accepted your viewpoint.  And then we've got you!"  
 Great strategy. There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents....
 "Get your coat love, you've pulled!".

A.  Because they can!   

Gleaning

I've always liked the idea of gleaning - going over the harvested field and taking up any grain you can find... snappers up of unconsidered trifles are gleaners of a sort.  I suppose I first came across the idea in the story of Ruth in the Bible - when she and Naomi are allowed to glean Boaz's fields.  I think I am in gleaning mode just now - I still have a burden of fiscal tasks (re-negotiate the mortgage payments again, tax returns, small approaches to people about money, debt advice) but I am squeezing in the odd bit of cash. Today I gleaned £20 for some gardening.  If I could glean £20 a week it would be something - last week I did rather better than that.  There is a vague prospect of a single night BnB person... so it continues.

I am also gleaning scraps of information, which might ultimately result in getting an agent - and who knows, perhaps one day a publisher and an advance - of, oh, maybe £2,000.... is it worth it?  I don't know.  I'm not bothered about being "a published writer" - because I am - I am more interested in making enough money to get by to enable me to live free of the regular job halter... but things have been so wobbly that I have thought about a regular job, probably in a supermarket.  But then again, I think all the experiences I have gleaned in the last year or so will feed one of my novel ideas... I want to write a Harold Fry...  for the money!