A Halloween Full Moon.

The rain has been hammering down all day. It is gloomy, desolate and not enticing. A shame as I was looking forward to seeing the first Halloween full moon in 76 years. In a way it is our day. Many have said to be over the years that their mental illness is at its worst on full moon. There is no scientific reason why this might be but the world of mental health is not one of science, more one of anecdote.

My apologies for my recent silence. Many times I have wanted to write. Usually on the hard and angry days. But that is not wise. Better to let anger dissipate. I've learned that through bitter experience.

The days where I want to give up, walk away and tell the world to fuck off keep coming. Usually just a day in duration they nevertheless affect my sleep and my anxiety rises. The older I get the more I realise anxiety has been there most of my life. With each passing day I'm beginning to make sense of mum's last tormented years before her sudden death in 2012. That my life was unstable then is a memory. Well it should be but it keeps coming back. Why worry about small things?

The last two weekends I've had visitors. Great but what worry I experienced. It came into sharp focus how out of control I feel in my life. My cooking is so important but I need to concentrate and not be distracted. I need a cup of tea. I want a bath. These requests are little but to my delicate sense of self they sky rocket my anxiety. I certainly struggled with patience earlier in my life. Seems others do still.

My little life is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I give it two weeks max before we are shut in our homes. I've watched from half way round the world what lockdown has done to my friend Georgia in Melbourne. They are finally allowed outside but what price have they paid with their minds? I think that will come to us.

So I must focus on what I can do. And on this wet day Handel lightens up my life. I have a chilled glass of wine. I'm nice and warm. And I have lamb to cook. Flavoured with rosemary, thyme, fennel, bay and cooked on a bed of onions and steamed in white wine. Never tried it before but pretty much everything  from Sam and Sam Clark's Moro books comes out brilliantly.

Take care out there in the rain, marvel at the full moon if you see it and remember my friends, madness is not constant. I have a mental illness but a lot of the time I cope. Just letting go of the bad days, the powerlessness, the fear and the anger, that is the key to surviving mental illness.

I Heard a Voice.  

A Pint in the Autumn Sun.

That glorious golden light of autumn pervades this still and quiet October afternoon. On carpets of russet leaves I ventured forth for a little drive. Stopping at The White Horse at Burnham Green I sat alone in the garden, pleasantly warm and contented in my mental stillness. Not often that happens in term time. But I'm not there today. After a long weekend what better than a lonely contemplative pint in my favourite season?

Being away from work even for just a couple of days was what I needed. I plod on each day seeing all I have achieved slip away as with an hour glass. My time feels over. What next I do not know. I need a job but all that comes with it feels scary, empty and isolating. I have my supporters but none are in position to help me. In my own self derision I used to say I'm only as good as the students I can help. If I can't help I'm a waste of space.

The plaudits, the comments, the cards and the history count for little now. There is a new world, one I do not understand and I suspect to the detriment of future generations. All will be seen in time.

What I do hope moving forward is that I get clarity. Support means many things to different people but it is very hard to define. On Wednesday I go back to therapy. Peter will tell me what might help and I will be dragged kicking and screaming away from my way. For my way is no more.

Yet on this quiet afternoon I'm trying not to think about that. The morning will come soon enough. A day at a time and a task at a time.

Away from my small world I suspect it will not be long before I'm locked down again. My friend Ros is already headed that way as she lives in Wales. My area has rising infections but is okay at present. My friend Marie came for the weekend to beat any shutdown. I do like visitors but I also like the solitude of the afternoon after departure. She got home okay.

For me my kitchen beckons. Thai prawns with chilli and basil will adorn my metaphorical table tonight. Not sure about tomorrow.

Enjoy this sunny day before the rains come. For they will come. Until next time.

I Heard a Voice. 

Still Standing, Still Fighting.

Cast your mind back to late winter 1994. My life had been ravaged by mental illness for four years. Fred and Rose West has just been discovered and some of the most heinous crimes in British history were unfolding in the glare of the tabloid press. John Major was our Prime Minister. And Donald Trump was already a clown...a very rich clown. Mental illness was not talked about. And I was desperately lonely.

Back then I was waiting for admission to a specialist psychiatric facility in London. They took the untouchables. The ones who no one wanted to work with. The angry. The damned. The ones everyone else had given up on as too damaged and too toxic. I entered that ward in March.

When I emerged in the summer of that year my last hope was gone. Well it wasn't gone, I had simply not done what I was told and was thus forward too much for the NHS to deal with. Bernie Rosen once told me that I would never find a medication that would work for me.

Going back to my small world was soul destroying. There was no hope. Yet I was determined to do something and that was to read my medical notes. A few weeks later I did so. And it was like they were talking about an alien completely detached from my life, my experience, my emotion and my compassion. It told my GP that my prognosis was to kill myself within six months.

All these years later on World Mental Health Day I can say I'm still standing, I'm alive, I'm kicking, and I'm fighting. It takes a lot of courage to fight mental illness. I did find a medication  and it worked.

I have a life. I have a career. I have friends. And mental illness is now just a part of my life. Covid aside the last few months have been tough. All the doubt has come back. I feel all I have achieved is being swept away. And my legacy is crumbling.

Yet I must recall the words, the cards, the nominations and the kindness of my friends who have helped me, the students I have helped, the sun shining, having my own place, having opera and books. Having my kitchen. And having life.

Many of my friends from those days are dead. So on our day I bear testimony for both the living and the dead. I have no doubt that the few people who read my musings fight their demons day to day. I certainly do. If that is you please stand up and congratulate yourself for surviving. Keep fighting for that way we will prevail over our demons.

Take care out there.

I Heard a Voice. 

Splitting Apart at the Seams.

Way back in March when I was sent home from work and the world shut down for the first few weeks it felt to me that people were pulling together and being kinder to each other. Early in lockdown I read a piece in the Sunday Times by the former Tory minister Liam Fox about the book he was writing on the history of pandemics which illustrated that much social good comes from these disasters.

Sat at home on a cold gloomy September day six months on I'm losing the will to see human kindness. The central part of my community here in my small part of Hertfordshire is the pub over the road. Having been shut down for 15 weeks, opened again and now restricted again friends are turning on friends and it is all falling apart.

I despair the political bloodletting, the division and the hatred. Nothing like this has happened since 1918/19 so how did any government know how to respond? We are all in this, if we fight each other we are in trouble.

On a much more important level the deep racial divisions in my society and across the Atlantic have been starkly exposed. I do not know about Black Lives Matter apart from what the press tells me but I do know that peace and reconciliation must be a way forward. I'm lucky in my life that I have so many friends from all races, creeds, beliefs, gender orientation and sexuality. I'm lucky enough to see that diversity in my work place. Please let us fight together not fight each other.

In my small and insignificant part of the world I too have been struggling. I had an awful week. I haven't switched off all weekend and I'm heading for a showdown that will be brutal whatever the outcome. My future is clearer but more foggy. I'm delighted for friends but have a sense of doom in my own career and future.

After a tough weekend I will try to highlight the good. I had fun with Gary and Ali last night despite their inebriated state. I have listened to Mozart. I cooked fantastic roast shoulder of lamb. I have chatted to friends. And I get to watch the Rams at 6 pm. It is not all bad.

Take care everyone.

I Heard a Voice.

Sunlit Autumn Day.

Greetings from a beautiful Hertfordshire. Two weeks has gone by since I wrote. In truth there could have been several posts but they never came.

So on this sunlit autumn day I'm back. Careful as ever in what I have to say but that makes it clear life is not easy. All my travails of before are still there. I'm facing what may be a game changing decision. At best good will come. At worst I will have a lot more money but an even more uncertain future.

Terms starts on Monday. Is there about to be another lockdown? What chaos that would bring I do not know. What I do know is that my return to campus on Thursday was a bewildering and overwhelming experience. Got almost nothing done and anxiety was very high. Yesterday all our systems were down so could get little done then either.

Facing next week I live in fear but time stops for no man. But I have the weekend first though. Tonight there will be a southern Thai duck curry and tomorrow roast beef awaits.

The rest of this afternoon is devoted  to Handel and reading. Maybe I'll be back on here soon. Sorry I didn't have much to say today.

I Heard a Voice. 

A Passage in Time.

On this day in 2007 I moved away from all I knew and undertook this crazy venture here in Hertfordshire. Who could have known I would be in this position all these years later? Never all together happy I feel more uncertain at this stage than at any time during those years. Work however can wait. I'm on holiday.

The cold and rain has given way to mild autumn of sunshine and beautiful hues of leaves. Not sure what to do with myself this morning after waking early again I watched the first half of the Richmond Tigers then ventured forth for a fry up. All a bit of a come down from yesterday.

Then I ventured to town to go to Borough Market and meet my friend Krishna. She tells me we have known each other ten years now and we have both had our share of low times. She calls me her Buddha as I have always given her good advice. By her own admission she probably wouldn't have been alive today without my interventions. For all my doubt I know that for every Krishna there are a few more. People say kind things about me. I'm just not very good at being kind to myself.

I was very restrained at market only buying spices and some balsamic vinegar for Sarah. The birthday lunch on Sunday with Sarah, Jess, Miriam and Nigel was fabulous. Some of the finest roast beef I've had. How long until I go there again?

Ahead of me lies uncertainty. Yes I will enjoy my last few days of freedom. What the start of term brings I do not know. That I'm anxious is a given; it was ever thus. A colleague at another university who I met early on all those years ago later described me as like "a rabbit caught in the headlights". It was pretty terrifying back then. And all done alone.

Now I have immediate colleagues and though we all face uncertainty as Robin put it "we will face it together". A big contrast to the loneliness of 2007 to 2015.

Back here at the flat I'm listening to Haydn and wondering what to do. Maybe some reading. A roast chicken awaits later. For the the clock keeps ticking in a passage of time.

I Heard a Voice.

The Leaves, the Blackberries and the Chill.

An all together fresher outlook has descended on the land. A few leaves have already fallen. The blackberries are ripening. The chill. And the night drawing in. Autumn that beautiful season is almost upon us. The strange world we inhabit mid pandemic has seen a lightning summer, a lot rain and a nation still reeling from the extraordinary events of the last six months. Can summer almost be over already? Yes indeed. On Sunday we once again celebrate my birthday. On Wednesday it will mark 13 years since I moved here. Thursday 13 years in my job. I would never have imagined this outcome all those years ago.

Once again I find myself at a crossroads with direction signs torn down. Is there a storm coming the likes of which I have not seen since my breakdown in 1991? Or am I just being too anxious and paranoid? That I'm unsettled is clear. That I need change is also clear. But how and why? And will I be in control of events? A decision that I needed to make by midnight has been made. It will advance me no further and the recriminations may be deeply unpleasant. But the parameters of my life are not being kind to me at the moment. That they have been artificially set against me became clear last week. My response may lead to trouble but needed to be sent.

For now though I focus on my holiday. Had a great time in Kent with dad. Today I did a little shopping and remained steadfast in resistance to the desire to buy yet another coat and two more pairs of boots. Maybe after pay day on Friday.

Tonight's opera is Cosi fan Tutti and I'm having a beer. Been reading Rick Stein's Secret France book as I listen. Tomorrow I hope to go to Cambridge but that depends on when I wake up. As ever I slept poorly at dad's so am quite tired.

Not sure when I will return on here, maybe next week. Enjoy the rest of summer and let us hope as we move into autumn the world becomes a little better for all of us.

I Heard a Voice.