Couch Potato

In case you’re interested, it seems that I have three different types of Personality Disorder, namely: Paranoid, Schizotypal and Narcissistic. I did the test here, so it’s an established Fact, but my score only added up to “moderate” so I am pissed off: can’t even get top marks in a sodding personality disorder test, wouldn’t you know - the story of my life, which began with my daffodil only getting second prize when I was at primary school (I may forgive but I do not forget).

I am going to discuss this with Shrink, obviously. We will have what he increasingly refers to as one of our “tussles”, where I try to engage him in some kind of a debate that is commonly known as dialogue and he does not get drawn, makes gnomic utterances or says something deliberately provoking. He is trying to get me onto the Couch, which you might think is fair enough for a psychoanalytic shrink, but it’s just not natural, is it, semi-reclining while you talk to someone who is sitting just inches away from the back of your head. I’ve said that I’ll do it after my birthday (this weekend – send flowers, chocolates, gift tokens etc.), a kind of graduation ritual, and doubtless this will be playing in my head and I might even sing it out loud.

I sent some poems off to one of the big poetry magazines and got told that although it was thanks but no thanks, they enjoyed my work and please would I send more in the spring. What, for their personal enjoyment? Perhaps if I can get myself fully Paranoid, Schizotypal or Narcissistic my life might begin to take a real direction and hit the bull’s eye – so to speak. Couch may be a significant first step. I’ll keep you informed.

Meanwhile, why not take the PD test yourselves – let me know the results. I promise I won’t be jealous if your score is higher.

Eating the Elephant

So there was this guy who did the Process and on the first day he got out of his wheelchair and walked from from Crouch End to Marble Arch. I don’t know what he did on the second day, but on the third and last day he went home and cut down a tree. A woman who had been bedridden for years got up on day two and answered the door herself. Another threw away her crutches. And Signs? She went to Borders Bookshop in Brighton, had a coffee and bought a book by Ann Lamott called 'Bird by Bird'. It’s a book about writing and so far I’m enjoying it. Reading about the writing process is the displacement activity of choice when I am not writing, and writing about not writing is a close second. The title of the book gets its name because of a story she tells about her brother:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write [it] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

Well that was day one. On the second day I came home and went to sleep. Then Mr. Signs and I did a reasonably thorough uncluttering job of a room in our house and that felt very good. On the morning of day three I noticed that I woke up and felt normal – meaning there was nothing weird going on in my head, limbs, stomach, or anywhere else in my body. And then I went on feeling normal for the rest of that day. I had a sleep again after coming home in the afternoon and when I woke up I still felt normal. You might think I had forgotten what normal feels like, but I haven’t. Normal doesn’t feel like anything at all, but when you are used to having shackles, normal feels like you are a piece of polystyrene floating on the water. Buoyant. The only reason for polystyrene not to float is if something is attached to it, holding it down. When it becomes detached from what has been holding it down, it surfaces again and floats – no matter how long a time has passed.

Well, but today I overdid it, and I haven’t had much sleep. And on this, the first day of the rest of my life, I went supermarket shopping. Cupboards were bare and son has just returned from the Arctic with a head cold and an overdraft. Life goes on and I am not looking for hallelujah moments. I am happy to take it “bird by bird” and notice that climbing the stairs is easier and for several days I have not particularly thought of needing to take prescription painkillers. I did think about it on day two but then I did the Process and the pain went. Today I have taken one because that is what I feel I needed to do and there is no benefit to be gained from pretending otherwise.

There were three of us in the group, plus Mr. Signs who accompanied me. The trainer was a woman who had had M.E. for eighteen years and now doesn’t. The process is used to treat all kinds of things, not just M.E., and it is recognised that this is a physical illness – not “all in the mind”, even though mind is used to bring about a change in the body’s response. Some illnesses appear to respond well to it, others not, nor would it be the right thing for everyone. The process itself is learned in three stages and is simple – but needs to be done regularly and consistently and my inclination is to look at the results after someone has practiced it for a while. Even so, it has taken me by surprise to witness how mind and body (mine) are willing to engage. Therefore I am hopeful. And mindful of the answer to the question: how do you eat an elephant? Answer: bite by bite.

Lightning of Signs

An auspicious start to the day: I have had a mug of pretend latte (instant made with one third boiled water, two thirds hot milk, sugar to taste) and a warmed-up croissant that is a few days old, but it is marvellous how heat revives it. There was a Marlborough Menthol lying around so I smoked that. A run around the forest is out of the question, I have M.E., dammit and, to quote the terminally miserable narrator of Dostoevsky’s ‘Notes From Underground’: “I am a sick man … I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts.” Well actually, I am a woman, really quite attractive and only occasionally spiteful, and I do not think my liver hurts as such - but it is not OK. Fact. It’s an immune disorder thing (PBC). Fingers crossed I’ll see out the rest of my natural without a transplant, but – my eyes are drawn to the top of Chapter One of the Dostoevsky. Scrawled in my handwriting is the following:
“What can we believe? Reconstructing the true motives beneath the surface presented by the narrator is part of the pleasure of reading an unreliable narrator. The narrative becomes a study of a split personality, a hypocrite or a liar.” ‘Struth, but this is wonderful. To come across oneself in the act of doing – what? Writing notes to a future self, perhaps; one who is no longer capable of such willing and energetic engagement and has all but forgotten the self that was.

But it’s all up for change, folks, because tomorrow I begin a three-day course of something that goes by the name of the Lightning Process which sets out to do a re-programming job so that the immune system begins to behave appropriately again (though they can't do anything about the liver thing, but sorting out the M.E. will do nicely). There’s lots about it on the internet if you want to find out more. It’s a challenging thing for anyone who has had this a long time because accepting the condition, its limitations and the fact that there will probably be no cure is one of the things you learn over time to do – or go bonkers. And doing something like this opens you up again to hope, and actually they won’t let you do the course at all unless you’re prepared to come believing that real change is possible. I have told almost everyone I know that I am doing this and had a mixed response. Most people have never heard of the process but wish me well. A couple of people have tried to warn me off and some have been quite threatened by it and hostile, a response I understand because it was my first reaction when I came across it. I was deeply suspicious of something that promised so much. I questioned whether the people that pronounced themselves cured really had M.E. in the first place and whether the initial high after the course was borne out by long-term well-being. I don’t have answers but can no longer ignore the number of people who seem to have benefitted and I want to test it for myself. Anything ventured is always something gained. Someone said that to me recently and I like it. So I come out with something, whatever (and try not to think about the plastic doll you get given at fairground booths when the ball didn’t quite hit the mark). The big prize, perhaps. The jackpot. I will keep you informed but it may be a case of learning the "technique" and then practising over a period, rather than a hallelujah moment. If I come back claiming to be a new woman who loves spring cleaning and cake-decorating then you will know I have been replaced by Stepford Wife. But, you know, one has to risk a little now and then to live well.

And on another positive note, I have been given this as an early Christmas present:

You just put him in water and he grows into a psychotherapist. In fact he’s the only shrink that grows, is available at all times and doesn’t charge a penny. I am blessed.