Thought for the Day - and Why I Don't Drink

My thought for the day is how little any of us know about anyone else's experience. That's why emotional distress is so hard to understand and to treat, because we just don't know how much anyone is suffering. Especially if they choose not to speak about it and even if they do.

I have come to this conclusion while thinking about something that happened the other day while I was doing my food shopping. I was at Aldi, in what is generally considered to be the worst area in our town, although I used to live there and never encountered any real problems (apart from being burgled, once). 

Anyway, I was at the checkout when suddenly there was a kerfuffle, lots of shouting. I didn't see what had actually happened, but the security guard was at the door, yelling and swearing at someone outside. I mean, effing and blinding, no holds barred. The man outside was saying that the security guard had broken his leg, the guard said he was going to effing break the other one. From the look of him, he could have done it easily. 

Then the guard came over to the checkout and started sounding off at the cashier. 'I got him on the ground because he pushed me,' he said. 'He had this down his trousers.' ('This' was a bottle of something, it looked like ether vodka or gin.) The cashier shrugged and said that was fair enough. As I left the store the guard was back at the door, yelling at his victim again (if victim is the right word) who was limping off across the road. 

Now, I think it's pretty clear that the security guard had gone over and above his necessary duty, even if the man had pushed him (which he might or might not have done. He looked very drunk, it wouldn't have been much of a push). I mean, getting the guy on the ground, causing him physical injury, getting so angry that he turned the air blue...it was all too much of a response. Disproportionate to the offence, definitely. 

Well, it was over, and hopefully no permanent damage done. But what this made me think about is how addictive alcohol must be. Luckily for me, I don't drink (partly because I feel sometimes that if I started I'd never stop). But my mother was an alcoholic and several members of my family have substance abuse issues (although I doubt very much that they would think of themselves in this way). I know lots of people who are dependent to varying degrees on alcohol, I am sure I am not alone there.

I used to drink a bit when I was young. I don't miss it. I found it much harder to give up smoking. Alcohol was never really necessary to me. So I don't think I fully understand the issues involved in addiction to alcohol, the pull it can exert on a human being. Witnessing that awful situation yesterday made me think, my God, that man needed that drink. He was desperate enough to try to steal it, desperate enough to try to fight for it. It was only about ten o'clock in the morning.

What had happened to him? What had he been through in his life, to get to that degree of desperation?

And then I wondered whether my mother had needed alcohol to the same degree as that poor man. I think she probably did. I think I have perhaps judged her too harshly, by taking my own standards and applying them to her. I don't think she could have helped herself. I don't think she was ever actually capable of putting her children's needs before her own. I am very lucky never to have been in that situation. 

Which is why, I think, emotional distress is so hard to understand. It is all so subjective. Even if we are very close to someone, we never really know what they are going through. 

Which is why I am passionate about better treatment for emotional distress. We should not be judged, labelled and diagnosed by people who think they know the workings of our mind better than we do. Helping people in distress should be done compassionately and force should never be used, in any setting and for any reason. 

Quickly...

I have to start cooking the dinner soon. The evening meal in our house used to be at five pm; we kept nursery hours for many years. This was because we had four young children and also because I am and have always been a hungry sort of person, and used to be disciplined enough not to snack between meals, which meant that I was ravenous by mealtimes. 

The discipline has gone AWOL. I snack a lot and so I don't get ravenous any more. Also, the children have grown. Two are now adults, away at University for a large part of the year, and the other two are teenagers. Huge, hulking boys, in fact. If they ate dinner at five o'clock, they'd need another meal at eight. 

So we eat at seven. The boys still have a snack after school (for snack, read chicken sandwich or similar) and they come down to snack later. The change of mealtimes...where was I going with this? Oh yes, quick blog, about to cook.

I can't now remember what I was about to write. Oh yes... I have been working today, after my fashion. I wrote around a thousand words of a novel, a respectable amount, in between walking the dogs and letting the dogs in and out of the back garden about a million times. And going to visit my elderly client, and having a PCR test and sorting out the washing and so on. 

I used to think it wasn't a sacrifice, looking after the family, that I couldn't be doing anything more useful or enjoyable and I wouldn't have had much of a career anyway. Recently, I have started to see things differently. I wonder whether if, for the last 22 years, Paul had spent his time nurturing the family and doing all the washing, cooking and cleaning, I might have achieved something. If I'd had a back-up person so that I could focus on my career as he has done...

But it wouldn't have been possible. I needed those children as much as they needed me, perhaps more. I couldn't have delegated their care. I can only begin to let go now because it is screamingly obvious that they don't need me like they used to. I am more reluctant to let go, even now, than they are. 

And, of course, I am only able to think in terms of what I can achieve in my career because I have them in my life, because I have 'achieved' parenthood (or did I have it thrust upon me? Or both?)

And of course, I am not free yet, just more free than I was. I do have all day to get on with my writing (after the house stuff and dog stuff and care work stuff is done) but I still has to cook the dinner. 

(Deliberate error, I find it amusing.)

And bye for now. I'll write another blog post tomorrow. I'm trying to get back into practice. Hopefully tomorrow I'll think of something interesting to write about (smiley face emoji). 

Back in the Game - soon to be out of it?

Well, I have been sitting at my desk writing. It's progress. I have also been tweeting, but that's all part of the fun of being a writer. Smiley face emoji. 

I went to work this morning for the first time in a while, because my elderly client has had Covid. I think I wrote here about that yesterday. Anyway, he said he was sure he was over it and I needed to start earning again (self-employed; don't work, don't get paid). The first thing I did when I arrived was to carry out a lateral flow test (poor old thing, who wants to be woken up to that). Horror, it was positive. Additional horror, he coughed directly in my face as the swab tickled his tonsils. 

I was wearing my mask, but even if I wasn't a hypochondriac I would be sure that I have contracted the virus. So now I can't visit my other elderly client (I only see her once a week for an hour, but I'll miss her) because I might be incubating Covid. She's not willing to risk it and I am glad because I wouldn't want to put her in danger. 

When I finished work I had to do M's shopping, so I dropped that off (I shopped carefully, masked etc) and bought a few things for our household too, in case I am about to be housebound. 

I'll do a lateral flow test daily, I'll soon find out.

I wish I'd waited a few days before going back. M did need some food shopping and he was desperate for a shower (I don't assist, but am on hand in case he falls, he hasn't got the confidence to do it alone). But I wish I'd thought harder, because if I have the virus it'll mean I'll have to take another ten days off work, during which time he'll have to manage without me. Plus, my family might catch it, spread it, have to isolate etc. 

Ah well. The thing is, government guidance is that carers can work, as long as they have been double vaccinated (which I have). This puts pressure on us to help our clients, because we know how they rely on us and we don't want to let them down. M kept telling me that the girl on the phone, when he called in with the lateral flow result (the first one, a week ago) said that I could work, and he found it hard to accept that actually I couldn't, due to members of my family visiting because another family member is very unwell... I held out for as long as I could, and I wish I'd waited until I was sure the virus was out of his system. 

And this is how bugs spread, despite our best efforts.

Maybe I'll have extra time now, to write those words. 

Almost a year later...

Sometimes I can't believe how long it has been since I last wrote a blog post, and today is one of those times. I mean, almost a year? And what have I actually achieved in that time?

I'm still working for the old chap who prompted that last, angst-ridden post. We still get on fine, no issues. Well, the only issue is that he currently has Covid; he came back from a mini-cruise with his son and daughter-in-law last week, and they all have it. There are personal reasons why I haven't been able to visit. I am doubled vaccinated, but I can't risk passing it to certain members of my family... I'll skip over the details, but I have had some time off, and another carer has taken over. I'm back to work tomorrow, although looking after M still doesn't really feel like work. I look after another old person too now, just for an hour a week, and I've had a couple of other care jobs over the last year, which have fizzled out now.

Because what I have discovered is that although I am very caring, in some ways I am too caring. I get too emotionally involved, the work of caring takes its toll on my physical health. I am approaching my mid-fifties, I really need a sedentary job. (I had a full-time job for a couple of months on Census 2021 this year, as well as caring for M. I was 'in the field' knocking on doors, asking why people hadn't returned their census forms. I thought the work would make me fit, I now realise I have gone past that stage. It half-killed me.)

Back to the point of this post. The other week, a carpenter came to the house to do some work. He'd been before to do another job. He had worked incredibly hard the first time, and he charged £200 for the day which I felt was fair enough, although steep. I have only ever earned anything near that amount once in my life, and it was for three days only. Tradesmen of any kind are expensive though, I know that, and as I said, fair play to them.

But the next time, he worked for only two and a half hours, then said he was going to call it half a day, announced that his day rate was £220 and that half a day would be £120. I nearly fell over. I did speak up, telling him that he'd arrived at nine and it was now only half past eleven, and that wasn't actually half a day. I mean, he hadn't even finished the job; he'd said he wanted to get home as his cousin was staying. 

So anyway, the carpenter said he didn't want to upset me, and so he'd call it £100, which I stumped up, somewhat resentfully. But he's a good chap, I mean I don't think he intended to rip me off, so I had him back once more for what I hope is the final time. I checked the daily rate before he came, it was back to £200. I specified that I wanted him to finish the job he'd left half done the last time, as well as the main job. And he did what he said he would, and that is the end of that. At least for now; because in fact I might need his help again, but it won't be for at least six months because I have run out of funds.

The point of this long-winded story is the thing that occurred to me while I was mulling it all over, as I have done a few times since. Because the carpenter did tell me the charge for his work in all innocence, I am sure of that. If he wants to call two and a half hours of work half a day and charge accordingly, he believes he is entitled to do so. He knows the value of his labour.

At no point does this young man think; I am only young, I can't charge £200 (or £220) for a day's work. Nor at any stage does he say to himself, I can't be a carpenter, I should be a carer or a cleaner. No, he trained to be a carpenter, he has the tools, thus he carpentizes (yes, I know it's ungrammatical, I think it's amusing) and he charges accordingly. And people like me think, fair play to him, I am fair game, this is what it costs me to get this work done.

And I drew a parallel. Why, I asked myself, do I never think like that about my trade? Why when people ask what I do, do I say I am a carer, or a home-maker? Why, when I do admit to being a writer, am I then too embarrassed to say I write about mental health, why do I tell people that my novel isn't very good, then let them know that I don't actually do much writing, because I procrastinate a lot of the time? Come to that, why do I procrastinate? Why don't I finish my projects? 

I need to change. I quite often say that in this blog. I say, I am going to write more, or I am going to campaign about mental health more, or do a MA in mental health law, or an MA in novel writing (I actually did do that one). I am prone to calling myself to arms. And then a year later, I find my last blog post, in which I resolved to do whatever, and I realise that I haven't done it, or not really, or not properly. 

What annoys me is that this inability to follow things through is supposed to be a trait of 'schizophrenia'. I mean, as if half the population haven't started novels then not finished them, or gone in one direction and then tried another... I mean, it's human behaviour. But because I read that it's supposed to be a 'schizophrenic' trait, I will conquer it in the end, because I don't want to prove 'them' right. 

I mean, I have followed a lot of stuff through. I have raised a family of four children, I have been Kennel Club registered to breed puppies, I have published a number of books and there is probably more than this to add. I've held various jobs down over the years. I have definitely achieved some stuff. 

But I still thrash and drift, I don't apply myself to the thing I feel I am here for. I don't stand up and say 'I am a writer', and more importantly, I don't write enough words. I am dissatisfied with my output.

I hope that, a year from now, I'll have made some real progress. Because the stupid thing is, I have a sedentary job. I have a trade. In fact, I have a vocation. And now that my other vocation, that great pull on my heart and my time, motherhood, is pretty much over and done, I can concentrate on the other thing that matters. 

Almost a year later, it's time to write some words.