Category: self-analysis

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More about Reading

There were two points I intended to make yesterday, and I don’t think I got round to either of them.

The first was about reading in general. A few months ago (when lockdown seemed like a temporary thing which would soon be over), there were suggestions going round on social media about how to make the most of your time, improve your wellbeing and cope with the changed circumstances. Often these were in the form of lists (spend some time in the open air; eat healthily; wear your nice clothes, that sort of thing), and one suggestion frequently included was: ‘read a book.’ This sort of advice irritates me because, well, reading a book is something to be done for the sheer joy of it, because it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures (or can be), not something you ‘should’ do because it’s worthy, and then afterwards you can tick it off a list and feel smug about yourself. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t engage with ‘Goodreads’, or join book groups. Yes, I know, I know, this is just me being grumpy, curmudgeonly and intolerant of other people’s choices. But the idea of something which feels so essential to me being treated as a kind of challenge to be met and then worn as a badge of honour sticks in my throat (which I know is grossly unfair and judgemental on the people who do go on Goodreads and join book groups).

Anyway, enough of that rant, because however much I love reading, I don’t do it nearly as much these days as I used to. When I do get properly stuck into a good book I remember how wonderful it is, and think: ‘why don’t I do this more often’ and really, why don’t I? It’s not as if there are so many more important calls on my time (well, maybe there are, but I’m quite good at ignoring them). That said, I do get two hours a day of audio drama from the radio (more if I download things from BBC Sounds) – and I can crochet at the same time. But however great the BBC’s available repertoire, it can’t match the stacks of books, unread or re-readable, on the shelves in my study.

Then there’s the telly (which I watch for between two and four hours most evenings). There was a time, in the early 2000s, when I gave it up altogether. We had a big house with a living room and sitting room either side of the front door, and in the evenings Hubby would sit in the former watching the box while I sat in the latter, either listening to radio drama and crafting or reading. Then after I moved out, I had no television in my flat, or when I was travelling, or (except for two months in 2012 when I stayed with Laura) the time after that, until I returned from Prague in 2014.

Run out of words again. More tomorrow.

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Reading – (to be continued…)

This morning, I did something I haven’t done regularly for years – read in bed. For most of my life I’ve read in bed both at night, before falling asleep, and in the morning, after waking up. Then when I was regularly attending the sleep clinic in 2006-07, I was told that I needed to train my body/mind to associate being in bed with sleep and nothing else – if I was awake in the night for more than twenty minutes I should get up, go to another room and do something quiet and relaxing, and only go back to bed when I was ready to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, this never really worked – I could be awake in another room for two hours and feel myself dozing off, then go back to bed and lie down and my brain would be wide awake again. Over the last few years, I’ve started listening to the radio in the night – or rather, downloaded plays and readings from BBC Sounds – and sometimes I fall back to sleep, and sometimes I don’t, but I’ve never really got back into that habit of always reading in bed.

But it bothers me that the only time I read whole books the way I used to is on holiday, or long journeys – and even then, it’s been replaced by listening and/or crocheting. When you’re reading, you can’t do anything else, but if you’re being ‘read to’ (ie listening to the radio, or audiobooks) your hands and eyes are free to be doing something else – like crochet – or any other kind of handicraft, (or even chores come to that). And because I only read in fits and starts (often, to be honest, when I’m on the loo), I never really get into what I’m reading, not helped by the dyspraxic effect that I don’t take in what I’m reading on the first time through, and am constantly forgetting who’s who and what’s happened.

This morning, around six, when I’d already been listening for an hour or so, I decided to read from my Kindle, a thriller that came up as a recommendation based on my previous reading, and which I won’t identify because I don’t want to spoil the plot for anyone else. I’ve been enjoying it, but as I’ve only been reading it for 10-20 minutes or so a day, it’s been slow going, and I’d started to feel that it was becoming a tad repetitive. This morning I’d read three chapters, when, at exactly half way in (according to the Kindle read percentage), there came a catastrophic event, in which one of the protagonists was killed and it seemed all was lost. I couldn’t help but the think that the author must have read/been told the advice about having a major climax/plot reveal at the end of Act Three – and I was rather shattered that s/he’d killed off this character (or has s/he? It sounds pretty conclusive, but who knows?)

Dammit, I’ve run out of words again…

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Along the Way

Back again.

This does feel like a chore. I seem to have slipped back into that demotivated state where I really don’t want to do anything. Maybe it’s the heat – doesn’t help, that’s for sure. That’s quite an odd phrase for me to use: ‘for sure’. Slipping back thirty-odd years into Dallas-speak – maybe it’s the heat – though it’s nowhere near as hot as it was there, but then nobody went outdoors at this time of year, they stayed inside and froze in the air-conditioning.

This morning, doing my exercises in the spare room with the window open, I felt stifled. Usually I have a high tolerance for heat, but this is getting even me down.

Taoism – must’ve been in a pretentious mood the day I mentioned it. How about Existentialism? Let’s throw that into the mix.

My yoga teacher said (a while ago now, must be, because we were in the Community Centre at the time, not the park), that the difference between fate and destiny is that Destiny is the true purpose of your life, what you should be doing if you allow everything to happen as intended (by whom? The Universe, or God, or whoever). But Fate is what happens to you anyway if you’re not following your Destiny. I liked that, I thought it was a nice distinction, even though I don’t believe there is such a thing as a ‘True Purpose’ to the Universe that underlies everything that happens. Why should that be? I suppose, to my ‘left brain’ (if we want to go back to that cliché) it’s quite clever, because it allows an ‘out’, as positive-thinking based philosophies often do: ‘Oh well, things didn’t turn out the way you wanted or expected, but that’s because you didn’t want it deeply enough, or you didn’t believe in it enough, or because the Universe has a different plan for you, which you can’t see right now, but one day you’ll see why it happened this way.’

Looking back over life, or history, it’s easy to see the Way that brought us here, the turning points, the (sometimes) tiny events that can trigger enormous consequences. We look back, and we construct a pattern (because that’s what humans do), and we can see that, well, that had to happen for this to be the way things are now. But we can’t know what would have happened if that point hadn’t turned, or had turned in a different direction – we can speculate, perhaps, but we can never know.

The example that just popped into my head wasn’t ‘tiny’ at the time – in fact, I’ve always thought of it as a tragedy, until just recently: the fact that my grandmother was widowed with five children at the age of forty – but if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have moved from Manchester to Cleethorpes, and my parents would never have met – pretty fundamental, from my point of view (and my children’s and grandchildren’s).

More along this thought path another day, perhaps.

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Untangling Dyspraxia

I was trying to think what I would write about this morning, then saw this post on the Dyspraxia Adults Facebook group and it got me going in reply… also helped that what they were asking about was something that was already on my mind.

I didn’t get my Dyspraxia diagnosis until I was 42 years old when I was doing a masters at university… The university gave me a lap top to support me through the course but no human support.
I am 49 now and have never managed to unpick what issues I experience are down to my dyspraxia and what are just my personality … I would very much like to know what I should be seeking support for and what I should be accepting as part of my personality.

Here’s my reply:

I was diagnosed with dyspraxia at the age of 64. It’s taken me almost two years to start to really engage with it, and, like you, to try and sort out what is down to my dyspraxia and what my underlying personality.

It seems to me, looking back over my life, that so many things I’ve always considered part of who I am (social anxiety, interacting with people, untidiness, forgetfulness, always being late, inability to make decisions, not being able to finish things without giving up, self loathing etc etc etc) can be traced back either directly to dyspraxia or to the way it was dealt with (ie not at all) during my childhood and adolescence – in fact pretty much my whole sixty-plus years worth of life. In other words, my ‘personality’ has been completely shaped by it, and I don’t think it’s possible to separate the two – I’m sorry this probably isn’t very helpful!

Even since I’ve had the diagnosis, trying to tell other people – friends and family – about it doesn’t seem to help, because they don’t understand and either think this is just something I’ve read somewhere and/or that it’s just part of my being self-critical and ‘beating myself up’ and I’m not really ‘that bad’, or perhaps that I’m just making excuses for not listening or being chaotic.

But I have found being on this forum (which I only joined a few weeks ago) and reading about other people’s experiences and struggles is helping me to see that the problems I’ve lived with ARE real, not just excuses or down to “negative attiudes”.’

Well, I’ve just posted that, so don’t know what they will make of it.

What I was vaguely thinking about before that was that a few days ago I think I mentioned Taoism in passing at the end of a post, and was going to go back to that. The connection is me thinking about the ‘Path’ I’ve taken through life, and how it might have been different if I’d understood myself (or been understood) better when I was young. Because it seems I’ve been on this quest of self-discovery for a long time.

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#amwriting, #notwriting – What is the point?

I was quite surprised earlier this week to discover that I was attempting to write 500 words daily as far back as April 2005 – six months before I even started blogging – and possibly even earlier than that (I haven’t gone digging any further back).

Having said that, I just checked the oldest of the clutch of backup CDs that I dug out the other day – dated 2 November 2004 – on which I found a folder called ‘Journal’, containing another folder called ‘October’. I opened the file from 1 October and the first para was as follows:

“Friday, 01 October 2004 There was an interview on Radio 4 last night with Grahame Greene’s biographer, apparently GG used to set himself targets of writing 500 words at a session, don’t suppose what he wrote was drivel, though.”

Somehow the use of the word ‘drivel’ suggests to me that I’d already been writing that journal for some time – I’m not sure any of it’s been preserved for posterity – though there are earlier paper journals lying around. I remember buying A4 lined Pukka Pads from a cheap stationers in Bedford which has long since gone out of business. But I definitely started writing daily at the beginning of 2000.

Well, all that was what I wrote on Saturday, until I got a phone call from a friend asking for help with uploading the current Southsea Storytellers group anthology (‘Flights and Fancies’) to Kindle. As usual, there were a few annoyances where what appeared ok in MS Word didn’t look so good when uploaded, but I went to see him and we managed to sort them out between us (apart from the placing of images on the page, which never works, even in professionally published books). Always another learning opportunity.

When I got back at lunchtime, I didn’t feel like resuming this post, and yesterday I decided to go out for breakfast before going to writing group (which used to be my habit on Sunday mornings). The place where we now meet, by the beach, is different from where we used to, and a cafe en route, which just happens to be one of my favourites, only reopened last week – seemed like a good excuse to skip blogging.

This morning I didn’t want to write about anything at all, but as I’d already got a couple of hundred words from Saturday, I thought I could add to that, and now I’ve done another two hundred justifying why I’ve missed the last two days, I’m on the home straight.

Does this idea of setting a quota every day help at all? I really don’t know. I can feel myself moving towards not writing anything again. Some mornings it just feels so stressful, but it’s not usually so bad once I get started – like everything in life. But once again it raises the perennial question of whether there is any point or value in writing like this, and I honestly just don’t know the answer to that.  

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Tell Me the Old, Old Story

I think I surfaced just about bang on sunrise this morning: 5:40. I went to the window and saw the pink glow creeping over the house roofs, then left the gap in the curtains and went back to bed, watching the colour briefly suffusing the wall. At least it’s sunny – well, it was for most of yesterday too – the rain didn’t last long.

Am I feeling any more sunny this morning? Maybe. Yesterday did not turn out to be a good day. I spent most of the morning digging through old laptops, archived files and a set of data CDs and DVDs which I burnt as part of a back-up system around 2005 and 2006 (amazed myself by finding them, although I knew I’d seen them somewhere recently – well, in the last three years at least). I was looking for photos – a specific photo, in fact – of my cat from October 2005, when we first got her, because yesterday was her fifteenth birthday and I wanted to make a post about it on Facebook, with then-and-now pictures. I did it partly because I suspect she won’t be around to see another birthday, and I am preparing myself for the inevitable letting go, but also because her entry into my life was such a bizarre turning point – and yesterday I not only found the background to her name, which I’d saved in one of those fifteen-year-old files, but my journal entry for the morning of the day we brought her home – before I knew what a shit-storm I was initiating. And that photograph (on one of the back-up CDs), which featured, ten days later, in the first blog post I ever wrote, on a blog called ‘Husband or Cat?’ on a platform which no longer exists.

I could tell that story again. Should I? There are people who know it already – at least one of whom might even be reading this – in essence, at least, even if not in detail. But the details are still there, still documented, still accessible. It’s an odd story, full of drama, and passion, in its way, with a beginning far too implausible for fiction, and an ending… how did it end? Well, I guess – at least, as I’ve said before about all the world-churning choices I’ve made in the last fifteen years, if I hadn’t done what I did, I would never have known how things would turn out if I did, now would I?

I suppose that’s what fiction’s for – to explore the other side of the ‘what if’ – but I don’t have the energy or inspiration for fiction. Maybe that’s why I was compelled to make the choices I did – because it was the only way of finding out? When I think of the dreams and expectations I started with, it’s true that none of them quite worked out as I thought they would, but they shaped my life nonetheless.

I was going to write about writing advice – and Taoism. Another time, maybe.

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Bother

Why do I bother? God knows. I haven’t got a clue.

I did another of the five items on the list yesterday – and a bit of another (sorting out my accounts, which is going to be a long job), and had a stab at another (renewing the insurance on my van) but got stymied by the technology, because I thought I could renew it online, but couldn’t see how, so now I don’t know if it will renew automatically or if I have to call them – which reminds me that the van itself is a can of worms, because I need to call the garage – but I don’t want to use it at present anyway.

You’ll notice there are still five items – I haven’t added any more, although I keep thinking of them, but I never remember to write them on the list. However, I did do last night’s washing up when I got up, and tidied and wiped the kitchen counters and sink (again). We’ll see how long that lasts.

I made a plan yesterday evening that if I was awake early enough this morning I would walk to the beach and watch the sunrise, but I slept in till 5.20, so there wasn’t time to get myself sorted and to the beach before the actual sunrise at 5.37.  And although I don’t really like lying in bed when I know I won’t get back to sleep, I still don’t want to get up either, even now, when it’s warm.

This is why I’ve decided that routine is so important, because if I know what I ‘should’ be doing, maybe that will push me (‘motivate’ is too strong a word) into doing things even when I really don’t feel like it (which is about 23 hours and 55 minutes of every day). Given that I’ve got quite good about doing my half hour of exercise and meditation, and writing my 500 words of drivel, over the last few months, I’m hoping that maybe I can squeeze some more useful and positive habits into my days.

I’ve given some thought in the past to how to get over the problem I was talking about yesterday, of never knowing where I’ve left things. One solution would be to constantly scan every room for anything which isn’t in its ‘specific place’ and return it so I can find it when I need it again – the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I guess that’s what most non-cahotic (I like that typo, I think I’ll leave it) people do automatically – but the idea fills me with horror and deadens my soul. There wouldn’t be time for anything else, would there? But then if it actually worked, wouldn’t it save the time and stress of constantly searching for things? I think of my spirit animal, Mole from The Wind in the Willows, throwing down his paintbrush and running out into the springtime to cries of ‘Bother!’ and ‘Oh blow!’ and ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’

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In Absentia

I said yesterday that I’d started a to-do list. I actually did one of the five things I’d written on it – clear and clean the kitchen table. I also did other things related to that which I hadn’t written on the list – like putting away (or rather, dumping in the study) the toys the grandkids had out last week (not just the ones on the kitchen table, but also the ones in the front room); cleaning the sink, draining board and surrounding counters; pulling bags of yarn out of the Chinese cabinet looking for something to use for the border of the baby blanket I’m making for my daughter’s ex-sister-in-law’s second baby (and hence Flick’s cousin) who was born last week (because I need to use all the yarn I have for the blanket itself or else it will be unbalanced because I only had four balls of the original and have had to do a band of a different colour in the middle, and don’t want to go back and start again given that the baby’s already arrived).

I started wondering how much of my time in an average day is taken up with looking for things, often things I’ve only mislaid in the previous five minutes. My first instinct was that it’s probably between about one and two hours. That might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m sure it’s never less than half an hour, and that is balanced out by days when I might spend several hours on trying to find one particular thing. More than once I’ve had kind people (who presumably think I’m incapable of thinking this out for myself) suggest that I have specific places for things like my glasses, phone, keys, wallet, hand bag, coat etc etc etc so I always know where to look for them. I then watch their expressions go from helpful to sceptical as I point out that the problem doesn’t arise at the point when I’m looking for whatever it is – when my mind and concentration is focussed on finding and I do indeed go straight to those ‘specific places’, before starting to figure out exactly where it is this time – but at the point when I put it down, when my mind is NOT concentrating on what I’m doing, but probably on what I’m going to do next; or what needs doing and what I should be doing next; or what I’m going to cook for dinner and when I need to start that; or what somebody said to me earlier or last year; or what I should have said or done in response but didn’t; or what I’ll say next time; or just generally (in that lovely phrase) ‘away with the fairies’.

To use another lovely phrase, I am ‘absent-minded’, and most of the time my mind is completely absent from whatever and wherever I need it to be in that moment, and this, I suppose, is the root of all my difficulties.

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Monday Morning

Back here again. Why? Because half the time I swear I’ve given up for good and then one morning I think I might try again. Just this once. On the understanding that it’s the same old nonsense and, basically, a complete waste of my time writing and yours (whoever you are) for reading it.

But we both still have a chance. You can stop right here – or I could, in which case you wouldn’t have the chance either way, because obviously I wouldn’t bother to post this. But I probably won’t – stop, that is. Though with another potential 400 words… Who knows?

It’s nine o’clock now (I went to the Co-op before starting) and it’s Monday. Does that mean I can play music without worrying about disturbing the neighbours? There again, they might work shifts, for all I know.

Okay, now I’m playing Roxy Music’s ‘Flesh and Blood’, that being the first cassette I pulled out of the shoebox at random that I haven’t already transferred to the PC. Still haven’t done anything about replacing the stylus on my turntable.

Reached the second track, ‘Oh Yeah’, and the sound quality is pretty awful. I have the original album somewhere, so if I get my finger out and do something about that stylus, I can play that. But I still feel a bit wary about playing these old albums – they’ve been kept for all these years and moved from place to place, and maybe it’s all been a waste of time because they’re ruined anyway.

Next track, ‘Same Old Scene’, isn’t much better.

How do I manage to do anything? Repetition, routine, and constant self-bullying. I bullied myself into going to the Co-op this morning. I bullied myself into putting the shopping away when I got back, and starting a ‘to-do’ list. The weight of the things I don’t do is always in my head, because I’m always thinking about them, except the times when I let myself off and sit in the sun or listen to the radio and/or crochet. Or else I’m thinking about other things, worse things, that I’ve read or heard or people have said or done to me that make me angry or sad or hopeless.

I think constantly about these things, but never do anything – worse, the thinking itself is completely aimless and futile, it’s not even as if by thinking I ever produce a coherent plan of action which I then proceed to complete. Except – well, I did start making that to-do list. If I completed some of those things, I suppose I’d be happier. But a more reliable way of becoming happier is by quietening the thinking – and the way to do that is by doing things that make me happy directly – like sitting in the sun, listening to the radio, and/or crocheting – all of which I may do later after I’ve had breakfast.

The second side of the album sounds better than the first one did.

Think it’s time for breakfast.

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Imminent Cahos (accidental typo, but I left it because it seesm appropriate – and there I go again!)

I mentioned that I’ve joined a Facebook group for dyspraxic adults. Yesterday I got involved in a hilarious thread about having to brush your teeth before you get dressed so you don’t get toothpaste down your top. There were 34 likes, loves and laughs (so far) to the original post, and pages of comments. Honestly (I have to keep saying this) I always assumed it was just me. A couple of people said: doesn’t everyone do this? But I know for sure, because the person I’ve lived with longest (my ex) somehow managed to brush his teeth with his mouth closed – I tried it a couple of times, but couldn’t master it. I used to assume it was because I habitually breathe through my mouth, due to all the rhinitis allergies I’ve had down the years (I was always that child with the permanently runny nose).

Someone asked: ‘Does your dyspraxia affect your daily life?’ to which the answer can only be: ‘Yes, massively!’ The most obvious effect is that my main source of exercise is wandering from room to room and up and down stairs because, as my Dad would say: ’you don’t let your head save your legs!’ (as if it was that easy – presumably it was, for him). I know many people see the constant back-and-forth of trying to find things and remember what you’re supposed to be doing and why you’re there as a huge joke, but it can be exhausting and beyond frustrating – after sixty-odd years, the humour has worn mighty thin. More than one person has dropped hints about early onset dementia to which I can only say: extremely early, considering I’ve been like it forever, but at least if it does come I’ll be well-prepared.

The short term memory thing, though very significant is only part of it, of course. Time- and spatial-organisation and management is another, and planning and sequencing activities down to minute detail is related to that. I’ve often felt (before I ever heard of dyspraxia) that I have problems managing boundaries – temporal, spatial, interpersonal, probably loads of other categories my left brain hasn’t yet thought of. It’s most obvious with time, I think – when I start doing something, it takes as long as it takes – it’s why I can’t handle deadlines, or keep appointments – both of which are sources of friction with the external world and other people – and hence sources of shame and self-recrimination, leading to stress and further inability to cope.

But by comparison with many of the younger people in the group I’m so fortunate – I possess the two great blessings of financial security and self sufficiency. Many of the posts are concerned with finding and keeping work, getting help, negotiating relationships and living with other people. One young woman said in a post yesterday: ‘How can I explain … that we don’t KNOW how we adapt our lives because it’s just normal to us?’

We never lose that sense of imminent chaos. But we adapt.