Weird Weekend Away

 

“From when no one quite knows, it was the custom on the Tuesday following Plough Monday (the 1st Monday after Twelfth Night) to dress one of the confraternity of the plough in straw and call him a ‘Straw Bear’. A newspaper of 1882 reports that “… he was then taken around the town to entertain by his frantic and clumsy gestures the good folk who had on the previous day subscribed to the rustics, a spread of beer, tobacco and beef”

I just got back from visiting my friend again. I go back in January purely for the above event. No, I was not taking part although hiding behind a mask and hitting people with a big stick might be useful sometimes. I first went 13 years ago and have been back ever since. What started out as just somewhere to go for a day out and perhaps a good opportunity to take pictures of people instead of landscapes and deer has sort of developed into a near spiritual event. I  do love traditions and folklore and of course the UK is full of them going back many years from the conker world championship in nearby Oundle to cheese rolling down hill and many others. This year we nearly did not make it due to flooding so we went a different way and only arrived half an hour later than normal.  I hope to make it back again.

New year, same OLD madness

Thankfully  I go back to visit my friend for a week again tomorrow. Its been a weird two weeks since I last got back after Christmas. The first few days were fine but I gradually went back into stressed insomniac, irritable, anxiety lunatic mode and within a week I was taking sleeping tablets again. I have simply been hanging on in order to visit her for the last few months and I was OK as I like autumn anyway but I already dread getting back in late January and find this time of the year the worst by far to deal with. I still have no plans whatsoever and or any idea how to get out of this mess. Thinking about my problems or seeking help(as there isn’t any!) only intensifies my feelings to not be here.

Age really gets to me now. In reality I hardly feel any different inside than when i was 30. Yet as I am now considerably older many things are much harder and people treat you differently with contempt or even suspicion.  I sometimes look at blogs and posts on mental health that I agree with and yet have to stop myself from commenting or following them as I feel like if they knew my age then I should feel ashamed and they would feel almost suspicious of my intent.  Maybe I should wear a dirty mac and hide in bushes like Benny Hill used to. Age matters. Its like they tell you to look at and make eye contact with people on the street but is it really my imagination that younger women often give me a dirty look as in who the hell are you looking at kind of way like you are a dirty old man. It just confirms everything so I now look the opposite way. Great exposure therapy idea!

It may be the modern world but most blogs on mental health seem to be by people in their twenties as they are online more, most are also female as perhaps females are more expressive of their feelings and talk about them more.  But of course many people over 40 have depression and anxiety too.  Social anxiety?  I am not sure, perhaps the stigma of saying you suffer from a form of shyness if you are over 40 is too humiliating as its still seen as something you will grow out of and almost a child like condition. The idea that you are just a coward that needs to get out more is common, its basically the entire concept of CBT, yet therapists charge you £50 an hour to tell you this.

Myers Briggs Personality Test

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

I don’t know if they are all the same or especially accurate as there are not that many questions. I have done it before but am sure I came up a something else last time. Perhaps I have now progressed onto the next stage of madness!

Your personality type is:

Mediator

INFP-t

Mediator personalities are true idealists, always looking for the hint of good in even the worst of people and events, searching for ways to make things better. While they may be perceived as calm, reserved, or even shy, Mediators have an inner flame and passion that can truly shine. Comprising just 4% of the population, the risk of feeling misunderstood is unfortunately high for the Mediator personality type – but when they find like-minded people to spend their time with, the harmony they feel will be a fountain of joy and inspiration.

Shy? What me! That’s the problem,we are just 4% of the population yet I need to find like minded people to connect.

Left unchecked, Mediators may start to lose touch, withdrawing into “hermit mode”.

Ah thats more like me!

Take Things Personally – Mediators often take challenges and criticisms personally, rather than as inspiration to reassess their positions. Difficult to Get to Know – Mediators are private, reserved and self-conscious. This makes them notoriously difficult to really get to know.

And this!

Mediators dream of the perfect relationship, forming an image of this pedestalled ideal that is their soul mate, playing and replaying scenarios in their heads of how things will be. This is a role that no person can hope to fill, and people with the Mediator personality type need to recognise that nobody’s perfect, and that relationships don’t just magically fall into place – they take compromise, understanding and effort.

And not being mentally insane of course.  I have always looked for Steph from neighbours but I would still have to have talked to her first so it would have gone wrong when she realised I was a mentally insane loner. There should be a personality test for that too. I’ll look.

Yet Mediators can be easily tripped up in areas where idealism and altruism are more of a liability than an asset. Whether it is finding (or keeping) a partner, making friends, reaching dazzling heights on the career ladder or planning for the future, Mediators need to put in a conscious effort to develop their weaker traits and additional skill.

Conscious effort? Sounds like exposure therapy or doing the hard work required! Some aspects are true but its a bit like astrology where many things can apply to anyone. Severe anxiety and depression simply blow all normality into oblivion.

Is therapy really for everyone with mental health problems?

I think therapy in reality is very limited in fixing life long problems. They make out it can cure almost anything and yet it really can’t can it? I say this because I once again looked at a site that says if you are feeling as bad as me (starting to feel hopeless and suicidal again) you should look for help immediately and that of course means therapy. Yet it cant do that much can it? Even though all my problems are caused by social anxiety, general anxiety and now depression it cant make me positive just by talking to a stranger as I realise that getting a job from the position I am in now is very hard, almost impossible to be honest.  I was not catastrophising when I was younger , people often used to notice my awkwardness and and some did mock me and I did not get better with age. And getting a job I hate is not any better life at all as its no more than survival. Getting a relationship after being a life long virgin is also now next to impossible( for quite a few reasons) and being cured entirely of social anxiety now would hardly change anything.

Yet to even get therapy i would have to pay £50 an hour private or wait months for NHS therapy and then its often only 6 sessions and I saw only today that most people need more than 20 for it to really have a positive effect. I would not do most exposure therapy for social anxiety anyway as I think over the top exposures are almost insane and have no desire to face my fears yet they demand positivity and a mindset to do anything no matter how discomforting from the off and completely ignore that if you are older and have never had any positivity for years then a few weeks of talking to a stranger is going to do folk all. And for depression alone all they do is try to make you do things that you used to enjoy and connect with people again as they assume you used to be happy which if you are a life long loony you never had in the first place. Then they blame you for not being positive or willing to do the hard work required as if its a choice, funny I thought negativity was a common trait with suicidal depression.

Post Christmas Lethargy

I had quite a good Christmas away with friend, spoilt by some kind of bug on Boxing day that left me feeling sick and then gave me such a cough that I had trouble sleeping for the next 8 nights. (WARNING COVID ALERT!!!  MONTHS BEFORE IT OFFICIALLY BECAME PUBLIC!!!)I had felt better for a few days when I returned but after a week I took a sleeping tablet Thursday night as the anxiety returned. Its never occurred to therapists that much of anxiety is not imagined but dependant upon ones living conditions just like insomnia and if its impossible to move house or family then there is no cure.

I still went out yesterday as a sunny day was forecast, it clouded over and I sat down still groggy form the sleeping tablet. If tablets can effect the mood and emotions to such an extent then surely many people have this kind of mood all the time anyway so are not just capable of deciding to be more positive. For instance its like having a bad hangover, if someone came near me let alone spoke I would have been to grumpy to speak, so the assumption that the cure to social anxiety is that you run around talking to people with enthusiasm is a million miles away from reality. Thankfully i am due to go back to my friend for  a week next Friday so its just a matter of getting by.

After a while the clouds dispersed and the sun came out. The sky was quite nice and I watched the sunset for the first time this year and the full moon emerge. I’d like to be a wildlife photographer but unless I get a bigger lens or hide in bushes all day the only things I can get are pictures of the deer. There is no other wildlife in the UK I come across. I have only ever seen one badger and some foxes a few times from a distance and the odd hare or rabbit. Birds apart from swans and geese are all too small to get close to.