Negligent apathy – the pandemic gift that keeps on giving

Close up of a wet pavement with a small segment of orange dropped on it.
Out walking a few months ago, I noticed a baby navel orange that had been dropped on the ground.

What happened to our capacity for relating?

There is something that I have been noticing for a while now, in every part of my life.

Over the last three years, our capacity to honour working arrangements, connections, friendships, and even simple responses has often become severely impaired. Of course, I include myself in this.

So how have we come to this normalisation of burnout? Behaving as if those around us are disposable, and it is simply too much effort to put ourselves in others’ shoes and understand the consequences of our actions, because we are just too zoned out.

We were already overloaded

Looking back to long before the pandemic, many of us were already at the limits of our capacity to endure stress. This might be due to a minority or global majority identity, past trauma, juggling survival (perhaps with disabilities, housing issues, chronic health issues, and/or chronic financial stress), and the sheer exhaustion of living in a society that is, increasingly, trying to kill us. Then there was and is climate change and the rise of fascism.

Even if we had ‘enough’ resources for the day or week or month, or even the year, and were in good health, the spectre of that changing was ever present.

When you’re already on the edge, small setbacks feel like big ones, and big ones feel like catastrophes. If you haven’t had time to recover from one thing, and another one happens, you are dealing with more than one layer of response, and these layers can quickly pile up. This over time is likely to reduce your capacity for empathy and your energy to receive others’ bids for attention or help, let alone your capacity to respond to them.

The impact of sudden change

We have all had different responses to the pandemic. But one thing is true, that we all had to adapt to Covid-19 very quickly. Over time, we realised our resources were shrinking : social, personal, and financial. While time seemed to stretch, and some felt persistently hopeful that we were almost out of the woods (we aren’t, still), many people found themselves with less energy. Many people stepped away from relating because it just took too much personal resource.

Remember the frenetic activity of those suddenly finding themselves at home all days? Creating mockups of famous paintings using saucepans and pet cats, learning Italian, and baking sourdough. Those whose labour keeps society propped up were neglected, while being expected to keep turning up for work, or they would lose everything.

The pandemic itself

If you have Long Covid, (or greatly fear getting it for all sorts of valid reasons) you will have been navigating that on top of the huge society wide denial by many governments that the pandemic is still happening. A very redundant form of individualism has been normalised and encouraged, as if to check whether others are okay – family wide, community wide, or country wide – is seen as laughable. An infantile notion of ‘freedom’ has been invoked, freedom from ‘lockdown’ which sounds carceral and something to be rebelled against, instead of a way to keep us all safe.

People as a whole have been encouraged since the start not to take the pandemic seriously. So many aren’t wearing masks now, or acknowledging the decreased capacities, and increased access needs, of a significant minority of people. I am sad to see this even in queer/left community. I wrote more about this here.

This is a trauma response

Before you think I am condemning all humans, it is very clear that this negligent apathy is also a trauma response. Many people have been struggling to connect the way they did before. They may have felt abandoned by close people, friends, partners, and the social system they exist in. They may have experienced multple bereavements, both due to Covid-19, waiting lists, or inadequate medical care due to a deliberately depleted NHS. They may have hated working from home, or been laid off work, or lost their business. They may have been evicted by a rogue landlord.

Life has changed, and this is the new normal, but many people still feel that we can get ‘back to normal’ with no consequence. I find this somewhat delusional – but I am well aware sometimes our delusions and denials are all we have in order to remain upright.

Traumatic dissociation is a major driver of what I am talking about in this post. Dissociation is a very valid survival response and most of us fall into it at some time or another. It may for example be masking a flight response, or a freeze, or any other response to overwhelm.

And what is hard to talk about here is that trauma can make us self-absorbed, selfish and worse. Trauma isn’t pretty. The fight response often isn’t, and the fawn safety response (tend and befriend, caretaking, or appeasing) tries to be pretty, but often can only be sustained on the surface. I’ve even noticed a hierarchy of trauma responses – basically fawn is the most acceptable, and fight the least – which deserves unpacking in another post.

How do we reframe our existence, heal, and reconnect?

I wish I had an immediate answer to this.

I admit that I have been shocked to the core by the behaviours and attitudes of people that I thought I knew. And I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve been baffled at being ignored, over and over, when attempting to maintain a collaboration. Again, I know I’m not alone. Endless one-sided initiation feels like a mug’s game, and trust seems in short supply now.

One thing this society does is divide and rule. The more we fight each other, the more we remain divided. I also know that it is not that simple, and in many cases of discrimination there definitely aren’t two equal sides.

I hear people in certain circles criticising individualism and insist on community all the way, especially in terms of transforming society from the extractive to the supportive. Which is fine, but many of us have not been trained in how to be in community, and we have no experience of how to do it at all, let alone well. And when we do try, very often abusers (emotional, financial, or sexual) find their way into positions of power. It happens over and over again.

There is a lot of work to do here, and a lot of healing and reconfiguring. And we have to start somewhere. As in therapy, sometimes all we can do to begin is make the unconscious concious, by naming what is going on and keep it from falling below the surface again.

Do you struggle with cooking? You’re not alone!

Image plates and bowls on shelves - by Brooke Lark https://unsplash.com/@brookelark
I chose this image (by Brooke Lark) because it reflects the struggle of decision-making in the kitchen, whatever the reason for it.

You wouldn’t think that cooking was a challenging topic, especially at this time of year! *sardonic laughter*

As you read this, you might be recovering from holiday cooking. If this is a huge pleasure for you, (and someone else did the clearing up), I’m glad. But I know this is not the case for everyone.

Actually, the more I’ve reflected on our personal relationship to food and cooking, the more I feel an edge of shame and stigma – and a sense of authoritarianism – around the subject. I have known people who would be horrified by the idea of eating, and offering, anything but fresh ingredients cooked from scratch. If you are one of them, you may find something to think about here.

There’s a gigantic post to be written about food, who has enough of it, who doesn’t, food quality, economic power, the carbon cost of moving it around, labour (everything from who harvests and processes food to who prepares it and who consumes it), and what is called privilege but is also known as relative (or actual) structural advantage. This is not that post.

Here I’m looking at the personal experience of getting and preparing food, and why many more people than you think find it a giant chore and actively stressful on an ongoing basis.

Anything on this list may be further impacted by holiday periods (like right now), when eating/hospitality rituals are at their most significant.

This list is not exhaustive or exclusive

This post was greatly helped by a long discussion thread which ran to over 100 posts and was clearly bringing a lot up for people.

Please note: None of these headings are exclusive – what I have written in some of them of course can apply to others. It’s a rough and ready roundup and for sure I will have missed something.

Not everyone loves to cook

There, I said it.

Not everyone is able to cook

… for themselves or others, for all sorts of reasons.

(TL;DR: Shame features a lot here.)

(1) General food shaming and snobbery

The media is full of images of perfect looking food and recipes. Not all are super posh and expensive and presented by thin white people, and many writers go out of their way to present cheap and easy recipes. But it can seem like we’re never doing enough to make this somewhat mythical-looking proper healthy food. Many of us are too busy or too tired, whether from work or from life, or too skint to think about it.

If this topic is making you uncomfortable – (think of all those politicians saying that they could make Christmas dinner out of three chickpeas and an apple, and why didn’t all these feckless people on low incomes just learn to cook properly?) – it’s worth wondering why. Many people regularly order takeaway or eat microwave or freezer meals or eat food from tins, for many of the reasons you will read in the list below. Yes, you can critique the nutrition in some of it, and the relative expense of takeaways, for sure.

But this is far from being a lazy option, because remember the systemically abusive productivity ethic that sits behind the word lazy.

(2) You never learned to cook and you’re ashamed about it

There are many possible reasons you never learned to cook much. Only a tiny proportion of people never learned because their family was well off enough to employ a full time chef. It’s more likely that your caregiver/s weren’t into it or had no time for it. Perhaps they were out working and/or socialising all the time and you had to make do with what was in the cupboard. Or there was no money for fresh foods that needed to be prepared. If your family was hungry and skint it is unlikely that they were making elaborate things that take ages. Quick, tasty and filling are the most important factors, via takeaway or microwave.

If your childhood was like this you may have mixed feelings about it. If there was trauma attached to it (see below), the kitchen may just seem like a no-go area.

(3) Preparing and sharing food was a fundamental expectation from your earliest days

You may have grown up in a family/culture where cooking for others was an axiomatic part of existence. It is what you did, and to not do this would have been a source of great shame. Being a poor host would be unthinkable. If you were assigned female at birth (see below), you may have been drafted in to help your mother and other relatives prepare large meals. You learned a lot and quickly because there was no choice. Of course that didn’t mean you automatically enjoyed it, and if this is the case, your lack of enthusiasm may cause you to feel as if you are betraying your roots and culture. You may then force yourself to perform ‘Good host and amazing cook’ when you are not feeling it.

Your childhood may have left you with great cooking skills, and the capacity to please others with them – but if food was used as a substitute for love in your family, and not acknowledged as such, control and emotional blackmail may have been in the frame.

(4) Lack of money

It is getting harder and harder to survive in this country if you are on a low income or benefits. We have been at ‘heating or eating’ for a long time now. And heating bills are going up and up. Making sure you have enough for both you and your children or dependants is becoming a normal aspect of daily life for an increasing number of people. Having to be creative, not about flavours or colours or sheer fun, but about whatever you can find that will keep you going for a few hours, is not a joyous experience. If you are struggling to feed yourself or others, you are eventually liable to be traumatised (see below), also from chronic shame, which no one should ever underestimate. You may enjoy dumpster diving, but equally you may not be able to do it or have the energy or time for it.

You might be visiting food banks, unless shame has prevented you and you are waiting for true rock bottom before you go there. Often we think we are waiting for rock bottom when in fact we are already there.

(5) Gender essentialism

If you were assigned female at birth it is more likely, the world over, that you will be expected to cook for others as a matter of course. And to put others’ needs before yours. I don’t need to put an essay here about the implications of this for human relations everywhere, and the assumptions that ride on it. You may have grown up in a family where everyone sat around doing their thing while your mother cooked meals for everyone. Snacks and cups of tea may have mystically appeared by your side at random times and this was Just The Order of Things. If this was modelled to you when you were young, whatever gender you are, if may be harder to shake off than you think. ‘Bad homemaker!’ ‘Bad woman!’ ‘Bad human!’

Tradition can create self-induced pressures: ‘My mother always did it this way!’ You may find yourself experiencing resentment, whether you act on it or not.

(6) Cooking for family

I’ve heard plenty of folks say they loved cooking until they had to cook for their children, however much they love them, and as the years passed their love for preparing food eventually just evaporated. Bring on the freezer meals! Sometimes the mainstream media gets on a high horse about this, even today.

If being a really good cook was part of your identity before having family, you may need some time to adjust.

(7) Eating disorders

You may have had, or currently have, an eating disorder. So preparing food is going to affect you in a number of possible ways. You may have been keeping this a secret from most or all of the people you know. You can just about deal with putting something together for yourself (if you live alone), but when others are around it’s a whole different matter. Even thinking about food may bring a lot of difficult feelings that you would rather keep away from others.

(8) Allergies and intolerances

There is increasing awareness of food allergies and intolerances, which themselves may be increasing. They may cause minor/temporary but life impacting discomfort; cause illness and periods of incapacity; or be actively life threatening. There are many risks in not preparing your own food. If you can get hold of foods that are safe you should be okay to cook. But you will likely need to cook from scratch if you have, for example, a nut allergy or if you are coeliac. (See also having the spare time and money to obtain these foods). If you have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, you may become increasingly vigilant about new reactions to foods.

Other autoimmune conditions may make cooking complex, so someone might use meal replacement shakes so they know exactly what they are consuming.

(9) Weight shaming

If you live in a larger body, you may have experienced fat shaming from childhood, (and certainly as a adult), as everyone around you pathologised you. Every bite you eat may bring feelings of trauma and stigma. Plus, experiencing other peoples’ judgemental hypervigilance in the guise of caring, as well as medical gaslighting, will also cause harm.

Also, if you wish to lose weight whatever your size, cooking for others may become incredibly stressful. You may feel shame at what your body looks like and what you perceive it to look like; shame at having succumbed to diet culture or having dieted unsuccessfully; and feeling as if you have let everyone down by wanting to lose weight, particularly if you have friends in larger bodies than you. It’s a minefield of shame, whose layers are numerous. None of this will make cooking enjoyable.

(10) Disabilities, physical and mental

Cooking from scratch may be physically tiring for you, or impossible to carry out without help. You may have ME/CFS or Long Covid and have experienced gaslighting around those conditions, and therefore not tell anyone about them. Preparing food may exhaust you for many reasons, but you may not have your access needs fully met. Medication, including pain meds, may also make cooking into a challenging and even unsafe task.

Pre-chopped and peeled foods are a godsend to many. There is a lot of ableism around critiques of these accessible forms of food, and this includes ready made meals.

Depression and anxiety can make cooking much harder too. Take care when suggesting that someone ‘Just batch cook!’ – it may not go down well.

(11) Childhood or past trauma

As you can see above, childhood trauma around food may leave its mark on you – screaming fights in the kitchen, or meals thrown across the room, particularly at Christmas and other holiday times, perhaps fuelled by alcohol or drugs. Caregiver/s may have forgotten to feed you, or have simply ignored you, and you had to find what you could find in the cupboard. Kitchens themselves, and the sounds they make, may become a trigger. As holiday times are seen as ‘family time’, therefore group eating time, if you have experienced abuse in your family you may experience difficult feelings.

(12) Current trauma

If you are recovering from more recent traumatic experiences or grief, you may be in a dissociated state and find it very hard to coordinate in the kitchen. Food may taste different, or have no taste, and everything may feel pointless. You may have lost your appetite, or may be eating whatever comfort foods are easiest to find. These may not be the healthiest but will need minimum preparation. You may be forgetting to eat at all.

And decision making can be a huge struggle for some people at the best of times, even over the simplest things.

(13) Executive dysfunction

This may be defined as struggling with time management and planning; following detailed instructions; adapting to new input; trying not to lose things, and general difficulty with self organisation. It can impact someone due to ADHD, trauma, or brain injury, etc. This may affect someone’s capacity to list and choose food, follow instructions and focus on what needs to be done in what order. For many people this may be a lifelong struggle. Cooking here needs to be the most efficient journey from A-Z with the minimum in between.

There is a Facebook Group, Executive Dysfunction Meals, which is very helpful. Also Day to Day Tasks Explained Step by Step.

(14) Neurodivergence in general

I am using a broad definition here, encompassing both differences you are born with and acquired ones.

If you are, for example, autistic you may (and everyone is different) have a range of foods that you simply cannot eat. You may have safe foods that may seem repetitive or bland to others, but you know you need to have a supply of them. Eating outside those foods may cause distress. You may experience sensory processing issues when shopping for food because supermarkets can be exhausting. (24 hour ones may be a blessing here, with peaceful 4am expeditions possible.) The lights, the noises, the random people, are all stressors.

Tastes and smells when cooking may make it enormously challenging. Plus there is the mess of cleaning up afterwards, the issue of food waste, and stress over who does the labour if there is more than one of you.

There is also the performance aspect of cooking for others that may cause huge anxiety. Being looked at while making something and possibly having your labour judged and commented on, may feel like just too much. Similarly experiencing the pressure to be creative, the pressure to make something pretty, or the dread of cooking on a group rota in a shared home.

You may become hyperfocused and forget to eat for hours and hours at a time. If you have issues with interoception, you may not know when you are hungry, or mistake it for another sensation in the body. (Or you may take all sensations to be hunger and eat more than you need.)

Sometimes, if the resources are there, people get meals delivered because it is absolutely an access issue. Having entire grocery shopping delivered however may not work if the company won’t deliver inside your home.

(15) You just hate cooking!

If none of the above apply to you, you are totally allowed to hate cooking for no reason other than you would rather do just about anything else!

As you will hear in neurodivergent and other circles: fed is better than not fed.

If there is someone in your life who might benefit from reading this list, please forward it to them.

I wish you the best possible festive break, if you are having one.

Christmas cheer? I’d love to see less ableism.

I spotted this damaged Christmas tree ornament in TKMaxx.
There was another broken one, in the form of an owl with an unintentionally heart-shaped hole in its chest. I couldn’t bear to photograph it.

This is neither a festive post nor a beautifully crafted one. You have been warned.

If anyone feels personally judged or attacked by this post, I would encourage you to sit with it. Remember this is a systemic, collective issue and it can be changed.

1. The pandemic is still going.

The pandemic is not over. Not even close. In the UK and worldwide people are still dying every day. Over two million people in the UK (let alone the world) have Long Covid. This means symptoms that continue beyond 12 weeks, and in some cases over 2.5 years. (You can end up with Long Covid from a very mild infection, not just from a transmission in the early days pre-vaccinations. ). These symptoms may be such that a person’s capacity to go about their daily life is impaired. They may have to give up work. Do you understand what it means when a person is no longer able to earn a living in this society?

2. Perhaps you have a trust fund?

Let’s cut to the chase. I may have missed something. It may be that the majority of people in the world, the UK especially, are privately wealthy and do not care if they, or someone close to them, can’t work again. I can’t help thinking that this doesn’t add up, but hey.

3. ‘But it’s just like a cold or a bit of flu, no?‘

Superficially perhaps. It enters the body via respiratory channels, but can affect many organs, which is why you have people experiencing chronic fatigue (remember how people with ME/CFS were gaslighted for so long?), heart rate changes, breathlessness, anxiety, cognitive deficits – do I need to say more? And a person in prevous good health could experience this, not just ‘Oh did they have existing conditions oh well there you are then nothing to do with me I am healthy.’ (Vaccinations have helped enormously, but they don’t keep it away completely.)

4. The great leveller?

The pandemic taught non-disabled people what it was like for those confined to their homes or only able to travel with difficulty and extensive planning. All those who could – (what have been called middle class workers) – took their work online. Events – (and there are a potentially lot of those in a therapist’s life like mine, for example) – went online. And it was great! You lost some of the networking capacity for sure, but it made a more equal playing field. Neurodivergent people, disabled and chronically ill people, people struggling with their mental health, those on lower incomes who can’t always get childcare, etc – lots of those people could now attend trainings and meetings. And it kept everyone safer from the virus by removing travel from the equation.

5. Not all benefited from this ‘levelling up’, however.

Anyone doing labour that cannot be done on screen had to keep on going to work in person. That’s a lot of people cleaning, delivering, processing food, working on transport, working in retail, building and of course healthcare. All of them keeping our society going. Without those workers we would have no society. Instead of treating those workers with respect (eg free masks, priority vaccinations etc), our administration played games with the entire population. 

6. Please remember the lies you were fed.

As well as being regularly and deliberately confused about what was happening via the media, with ‘bubbles’, endlessly shifting ‘tiers’ and u-turns (remember Christmas 2020), we were left with an idea that Covid-19 was some kind of naughty enemy of the British Empire that could be dealt with by using infantile language about ‘moonshots’, and maybe a really embarrassing gun battle on the Thames (sounds familiar?) with people dressed as doctors hurling custard pies at people in racist-looking virus costumes.

We didn’t quite get to ‘freedom fries’ but the F word was used, as if the doughty brits were really going to stick it to a virus. And the people in charge who pushed it out were merrily attending parties and going on holiday all along, while ordinary people died in their hundreds of thousands. People were being literally suffocated to death by misinformation, a disproportionate number of them People of Colour. 

7 ‘Then why isn’t everyone masking up wherever possible?‘

We have been told it’s over when it’s not. Even though it’s winter now and wouldn’t it be great not to catch all the other seasonal viruses? Every time I go on public transport in London I am one of the very few people wearing a mask. The other week, on a very crowded delayed Overground train, I was lucky enough to get a seat and therefore have a close up view of someone’s workplace pass clipped to their belt. An actual doctor working at an actual hospital – in a soupy rush hour crowd – not wearing a mask. And yes, I hear stories of hospitals and clinics not enforcing masks and staff not wearing them. (Not all, thankfully.)

8 ‘Hold on, not everyone is able to wear a mask!’

Yes. Some people have a sensory or trauma response, or a respiratory one, which means that mask wearing is acutely stressful for them and just not possible. So all the more reason for everyone else to wear one to boost everyone’s protection and allow those who can’t to live a reasonable life.

And yes masks can be pretty grim if you’re wearing one all day. (Think about the doctors and nurses with dented bruised faces.) I see why many people would be willing to take the risk – I really do see this. And yes I can see why that doctor on the overground wasn’t wearing one, as maybe he had been wearing one all day. But even so – how can we do better?

9 ‘But not everyone can afford masks, esp N95 ones!’

Yes, I agree. imagine if the government gave out masks instead of wasting millions – billions – on mysterious deals that benefit only the very few. Masks for all sounds a lot more worth it, doesn’t it? This would never happen because it might start showing people how they have been corralled into a ‘me first’ space, even while having what they have stolen from them in broad daylight.

10. ‘So why are so many events going back to in-person only, then?’

Good question! It’s like everyone’s forgotten what ‘access’ means. It is directly ableist, with all the knowledge and resources we have now, not to make your seminar/conference event a hybrid one. [As with this entire post, someone will remind me of exceptions to this. There are always exceptions.]

Unfortunately plenty of ableism goes on even in online-only events. This especially confounds me when I see it in the therapist/practitioner world. I have online access needs myself and I admit that I have become a bit of a professional annoyance to some events organisers.

11 ‘Lighten up, will you, lefty killjoy!’

No, I won’t. But I don’t want anyone to stop going to gigs, pubs, theatres, parties and on holiday either! They are a fundamental part of life for many people. But if we all did a little bit to make these things more accessible for everyone, life would be better, no? 

PSA: Until we as a society learn to look after each other better, we will remain in thrall to toxic values that are dragging us all down. Do I really need to name these values? Toryism, neoliberalism, Thatcherism and of course another F word. Of course, many brown and black and trans and queer and working class – and of course disabled – folks have been shouting about this for literally ever.

It’s not that we shouldn’t look after ourselves too, but if we remember that our actions have consequences, and if we pull up everyone behind us, then we all benefit. I’m not sure why that’s so hard to understand. We have all been encouraged to sink into an intoxicating swamp of individualised wellness. Keep working on yourself as the problem, so that you don’t see the structural issues which of course no one person can change alone and will just make you feel worse.

Best order another scented candle. But none of that will get us out of this.

12. Lefty Queers, why aren’t you talking about this?

This is part of the reason for this post. I am feeling increasingly heartbroken when attending queer events where no one is masked (or seeing pictures/videos of them online), despite this community having a higher than average number of disabled and vulnerable people in it, and a lower than average income. This is a community that often speaks of little else but ‘community’, but here seems to be talking the talk rather than walking the walk. Are you content to collude in exclusion?

(Despite my words above, I am also cynical about some usage of ‘community’ as a carry-all badge of goodness and sincerity. It often involves ingroups and outgroups which are not always acknowledged. However, this is not the post for unpacking my thoughts on this because, trust me, we would be here all week.)

13(a) Please read this important article:

Please read this piece by queer disabled activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: Abled-Bodied Leftists Cannot Abandon Disabled Solidarity to “Move On” From COVID. I’ve been sharing it around the place and am baffled by the relative lack of engagement. There are plenty disabled folks who have been effectively written out of in-person engagement by this ongoing ableism.

13(b) And this one:

The pandemic isn’t over, and queer people shouldn’t be acting like it is by Dev Ramsawakh. Someone told me about it earlier today.

I’ll say again, if anyone feels personally judged or attacked by this post, I would encourage you to sit with it. Remember this is a systemic, collective issue and it can be changed.

14. OK I’m done

I’m tired from writing this. I will try to put some links in later on. I hope this post is at least a thought-starter for someone.

If you are still looking away in order to maintain an ‘us and them’ paradigm in terms of health and disability, please remember that however positive-thinking you are, however immune you feel to the issues here, you can still be taken from ‘us’ to ‘them’ in a heartbeat.

Chosen Family – 10 pitfalls to be aware of when creating one of your own

1 Comment

Autumn leaves arranged on a windowsill

An increasing number of people refer to their  ‘Chosen Family’. These are the close people we’ve gathered around us who we are not related to by blood or by law.

While anyone might create such a group while having a perfectly OK relationship with their Family of Origin, Chosen Family is often about putting distance between yourself and your Family of Origin as the only way to stay sane or safe. For this reason, it is often used in a queer context. 

Whether you are escaping violence, prejudice, sexual abuse, bullying or neglect, you may put a lot of time and energy into gathering specific people around you.

Essentially, Chosen Family is a group of people who you believe will treat you as an equal, who you might rely on in a crisis, and who you hope will stay close to you, even when one of you has a major life change.

This applies on a societal level as well as a personal one – if you are queer, gender variant, kinky, consensually non-monogamous or a sex worker, for example, mainstream society likely sees your relationships – and your life – as less valid than those enjoyed by the majority. So it makes sense to band together and create something that works for you.

Created over years

I’m aware that my talking about ‘creating a family’ might imply that this is something done quite rapidly, like picking sports teams at school. ‘I’ll take this one and that one… oh and they look nice, but not that one…’ To be clear, we make these choices over years, during which time the desire to bond and create connection with others may override the quieter messages we may be getting that something is, despite our best hopes and intentions, not quite working.

Added to this is the fact that we may replicate behaviours that were modelled to us from a very young age. Remember, your family is the first group you know. That is where you first learned to navigate other people and

We may, in our eagerness to create the perfect safe zone, forget that it takes two people to form a friendship, and more than two to form a group. We may forget that consent and boundaries here need to be negotiated, as much as in any sexual scenario, and assume agreements that have not in fact been made.

Below is a range of issues you may come across when navigating chosen family:

(1) Letting shiny new people in much too quickly

As a young person you may have been told you had to ‘take what you’re given and be grateful’. So it can feel very exciting, even intoxicating, to realise that you have choices – particularly if this realisation has come to you later in life. 

At the same time, it can also feel quite isolating and frightening to reflect on your own situation when ‘everyone’ around you appears to have so much support from blood relatives, partners and an array of incredible people they seem to have known for years. (Social media really doesn’t help here.) 

So when you meet a new person and things seem to click, the temptation can be to grab them and not let go. ‘This person is fun and we have lots in common and we’ve talked so much already – this must mean we’re destined to be really close!’ And there may be a sense of relief that counteracts the feelings of isolation, and you may stop monitoring the situation because at last you’re home safe.

But having some things in common does not mean everything will match up. NRE  (New Relationship Energy) is a phrase usually used to describe the intense feelings at the start of a romantic relationship, but it also serves to describe feelings at the start of any new association. It’s okay to enjoy this feeling – but it’s also good to wait until it dies down and re-evaluate whether this exciting new friend is right for you as a long-term close person. And it’s worth reflecting before jumping in and sharing your deepest darkest self.

(2) Ignoring warning signs

I have long found it to be the case that when you look back after any kind of breakup or rupture, you realise you actually saw the seeds of it very early on. It was likely a tiny thing the person said or did, which you ignored because it seemed too minor to be worth mentioning. And who wants to look mean-spirited or critical with the shiny new person?

It’s those little moments when the Lovely New (or not so new) Friend suddenly looks at you and says something that is – apparently – totally out of character. Or sends a message that makes you inwardly go ‘WTF?!’ Something a little bit tactless, jarring or controlling that is out of your comfort zone but you don’t have a rudder to navigate it – and you don’t want to scare them away by questioning them on it. It’s that that feeling where your stomach drops into your shoes and you can’t quite believe what you just heard – so you discount it. Such is the fear of abandonment. 

Don’t ignore these little messages. They are tiny tells and they are important. For an exploration of the more extreme aspects of this, read Gavin de Becker’s excellent The Gift Of Fear.

(3) Getting sucked into other people’s stuff

When other people are friendly to you and invite you into their group, you may quickly lose a sense of yourself, particularly if you were excluded or othered as a child. If you aren’t used to it, it can feel amazing to be included in a ready made group whose members appear to be welcoming you and inviting you to things. It’s intoxicating when you are the Shiny New Person. Be aware of your feelings around this. You may feel excess gratitude for this inclusion that may eclipse other more realistic – and accurate – feelings.

Reflect on who is really in control in this new group – the person/couple at the centre may not have your best interests at heart once the fun dies down. Are you there to prop up their glory? Are they really trying to recruit you to go to their workshops or parties (monetised or not)? Or for sex? Are there lifestyle issues, like drugs or alcohol, where you are not on the same page? Are you being increasingly weighed down by a lot of gossip and expected to take sides?

You might want to ask yourself why you want to come in at the edges of someone else’s group rather than starting with yourself and people you yourself have chosen.

(4) Trying so hard to be acceptable that you hide the real you

If your Family of Origin message was that you are unacceptable in some way, you may attempt to hide aspects of yourself from new people, in case they find you similarly unacceptable. The trouble is, the Real You is going to leak out somewhere. If you sense that your outrageous true self is disapproved of in your chosen group, wonder about it. What exactly is it that you are needing to conceal from your chosen people? Are you actually avoiding the fact that, while they may be lovely, they may just not quite be the right people for you?  

(5) Doing the opposite of whatever people did at home

Remember – your Family of Origin is the first group you know. This may be hard to hear, but it will inevitably influence how you respond to your role in the groups you create or join as you go through life. 

This feels unfair, but until we have sufficiently understood our own dynamics and patterns, we may continue to replicate the harmful structures we are trying to get away from. Simply doing the opposite of whatever a parent did is reactive and may cause harm. If, for example, you vow never to shout at anyone the way you were shouted at, you may go too far the other way and become a quiet doormat who never gets their needs met.

(6) Sacrificing yourself for the sake of the friendship or group

Something’s not working but you’re not going to say anything in case the whole thing falls apart. It’s cold when the fire goes out and you know how that feels. It’s horrible and you’ll do anything not to feel that again. Similarly, when you feel that if you don’t do it, it won’t get done – such as organising meetups, for example. If you couldn’t rely on your childhood family for the reinforcement and validation you needed, you may understandably find yourself seeking this in others, and this is where problems can arise.

One good way to check the temperature of things is to stop initiating. If you are always the one who suggests meeting up, just stop doing it and see how long it takes for others to realise. It can provide a harsh but fruitful lesson. It doesn’t mean the friendship is over – but it means you likely need to state your needs and decide how much more to invest in this person or group. 

(7) Your priorities clashing with the priorities of others

This is where you need to decide how aligned you need to be with your chosen family. About having or not having kids. And about politics. Being of a different political persuasion can be exhausting, no matter how much you feel you can put these things to the side. Endlessly explaining things, or being hooked into debate, is not sustainable.

You may find that some people prioritise romantic partners over friendships, putting you further down a hierarchy than you realised you were. (You may not have realised you were in one.) You may also be sad when you have a child and so few of your Chosen Family are still around a year later. 

(8) Feeling as if you matter less than others

This is hard because there may be so many echoes from childhood here – some of them are your mind playing tricks on you, and some are real. 

Example: when your Friend X mentions their other Friend Y a lot, who perhaps lives abroad and you have never met, and keeps on going on about how amazing this person is. Months or years pass, and you are finally introduced to Friend Y.  You greet them with enthusiasm – ‘I’ve heard so much about you!’ – and they look a bit embarrassed and say ‘Oh, um, what did you say your name was? Oh, I don’t think they’ve ever mentioned you.’ This hurts, but is worth knowing.

And sometimes people really love you but cannot prioritise you for a huge and complex number of reasons.

(9)  Guilting yourself into not acting on your feelings

You may have found yourself staying in friendships that are not working any more out of fear. One sure way of telling this is if you find yourself wondering what on earth your life would be like if this person wasn’t in it. If it seems unimaginable, it’s worth wondering why you have come to rely on this person (or group) for so much, even when they are making you unhappy.

You may have been told as a child that you were not allowed to have feelings, or you were ‘mean’ or even ‘selfish’ when you said you didn’t like someone or didn’t want to do something. Perhaps you were told you were inherently defective or just ‘bad’. As a result, you may have found yourself letting others take advantage of you because you just don’t think you have the right to refuse, and you must continually atone for your ‘badness’ by letting people push you around. Needless to say, you are doing all the work here, and this is not healthy.

If it’s not working – it’s not working.

You cannot make something work if it isn’t. You can try, but at some point you will need to find a way to go your separate ways. The relief you feel when this association is broken will be tremendous and tangible.

(10) Not being able to discuss the difficulties in a friendship – or end it

So much public advice is about romantic relationships: getting together and breaking up. We are not encouraged to have much emotional literacy about that, and with friendships even less. Are you able to sit one of your Chosen Family down and explain how things are not working out between you? Do you fear their anger? (Perhaps like that of a parent?) Can you find a way to hold a course with them, or is it time to move on? 

Dealing with ending friendships is a whole post in itself. And while not everyone is into Relationship Anarchy, disrupting the presumed hierarchies among friends, romantic partners, (and bio family too), by treating them all with more equality is something many could benefit from.

If any of what you have read feels familiar and challenging and you would like to talk about it in therapy, please contact me here.

Further reading:

When the world has changed forever – self care in a collective crisis

2 Comments

 

Stages_of_Grief

Never the same again

So you’ve woken up and everything’s different. What you thought was true is not true any more. There are many others who feel the same as you – and no one has a clue what to do about it.

Since the results of the UK referendum nearly two weeks ago, a lot of people have reported experiencing distress and confusion on a scale bigger and grander than they have felt before. Some mention 9/11 as having a similar effect, but for many nothing has been even remotely similar.

‘Hold on, this wasn’t a terrorist attack. It was a vote. A VOTE!’

The referendum occurred in the shadow of the murder of MP Jo Cox and the mass murder of young queer people of colour in Orlando, Florida. And the repercussions of the vote started immediately. Within hours of the result, people perceived as ‘foreign’ were being told to ‘go home’, and sometimes physically attacked. People are fearing a return of fascism.

(It’s fair to say that social conservatism, or out and out bigotry, rarely confines itself to one group. So where you see racism or xenophobia, you will eventually find sexism, homophobia, transphobia and many other forms of discrimination.)

Markets are wavering. Employers and investors are changing their behaviour. Funds are being withdrawn or frozen. Many do not know whether they will be allowed to continue living where they may have lived for years or even decades. And people are wondering what on earth this country has got itself into.

This post is inspired by the current situation, but it could apply equally to any overwhelming piece of news or large scale change of circumstances that is shared by many. This post does not address one particular group of people, as the situation is complex (for example: many Remain voters are upset, but so are many Leave voters who wished they had made another choice), but looks at what you might be feeling and how to manage it.

Hanging on to hope

I’ve noticed a lot of hope being expressed in the form of detailed and well-argued constitutional arguments against what has happened and how the decision can be reversed. Some call this denial, a form of post-bereavement bargaining. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross named five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Sometimes these are interpreted as a simple linear process, but of course it is far more complex than that. The cartoon above has done the rounds a number of times online. (When I find who did it, I will attribute it.) Grief lurches from rage to fear to blankness and back again, sometimes in the space of a day – or an hour.

I am simultaneously reminded of Camus’s La Peste, (and I hope I have remembered this correctly), where the stressed population of the plague-ridden town of Oran actually feel relief when they see symptoms appear on the victim’s bodies, because it at least means they are fighting the disease.

Many people feel drained, exhausted and panicky

Many versions of democracy have been invoked as reasons to re-vote, or not re-vote. There is a sense of enormous unease. There is also no sign of the uncertainty being put right anytime soon. It is suspected that some, in a drive for power, will eventually capitalise on this waiting game.

The ongoing decline of the collective mental health 

This is a very frightening time for many people, many of whom were already affected by austerity. Current government policy has affected collective wellbeing to the extent that the UN has commented on it. Many people live in a state of barely changing anxiety over housing, health, benefits, and job security, let alone mental health services themselves which are in a state of crisis.

(If you are in London, here is a list of low or no-cost therapy services.)

When you are chronically stressed, you don’t recover well from shocks. If you are already running on empty and ‘just coping’, one more insult to your wellbeing and it could all go over. Small setbacks become large ones, and large ones become disasters. Because your resources are so depleted, you are unlikely to have recovered from one difficulty before the next one hits, so most of the time you are effectively recovering from two things at once, then three, then more.

So how can you feel more in control?

Human beings are incredibly resourceful. This means that you are too.

(1) Turn off the news

You have the right not to look at the news. It is unlikely to help your wellbeing in this moment. News can be addictive. Switching it off is often suggested as an immediate mood lifter if you are depressed.

(2) Reshape your social media

This is harder than turning off the TV or radio because your friends are very likely on there and you may want to reach out to them. But do you have a friend who is posting a lot of angry stuff, even if you agree with it? Do you need to see this? It’s okay to unfollow them for a while.

You may have a friend who is delighted by whatever has happened or is minimising it. If they are gloating and it causes you distress, it may be time to reconsider the friendship, or at least remove them for a while. Feel free to lighten the load. One thing about crisis times is that they can force your hand in terms of what, or who, you can tolerate. Never feel guilty about this.

(3) Don’t feel obliged to debate with anyone

Do you actually want to have debates with the people closest to you? So much of what is called ‘debate’ is really no such thing and advances nothing but the person with the loudest voice.

I am hearing about families being split over what’s happened. Your gentle blackout doesn’t have to be a violent rejection, but you are not under any obligation to argue with anyone. But while you can remove people from social media, you cannot escape a family dinner table so easily. A polite refusal to discuss things  may be enough. If things reach a point where you are actively unsafe, you are within your rights to leave or take evasive action. Parts of my seasonal survival guide may be helpful here.

(4) Look for the helpers

The American children’s TV presenter Mister Rogers was known for quoting his mother on how to deal with something frightening in the news: ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ Someone will be looking out for others, trying to clear up the mess, and finding ways to make life better again.

(5) Action now

In times of distress – I am talking about personal issues, drama, a frightening communication, crisis – one way of feeling more in control is to do something, anything that gets you better informed and helps you feel in control and that you can make choices.

This is all very well, but this is a time of total uncertainty. There is no information because the situation is in a state of flux. Many are offering answers, but few understand and fewer believe them. So what action can you take? You could attend meetings, marches, or join a political party. If public engagement does not suit you, you could read as much as you can to feel more in control, or talk to as many people as possible about what has happened to find out what they are doing.

(6) Be mindful of your own safety

You may be inspired to go out and intervene in racist or xenophobic incidents, or rescue others from aggressors. Always be mindful of your own safety. Don’t let yourself be goaded to heroics by those with greater resources than you – particularly if they are doing it from the safety of a Facebook page.

If someone has suggested that you or your friend ‘go home’ – if you are up to physical intervention, or even just socratic dialogue (where you pretend to be ignorant in order to bring out someone else’s ignorance), you still need to know your own limitations. You may be outnumbered without realising.

The current political situation has empowered a sense of entitlement to question another’s right to exist, and that is experienced as a deep and powerful weapon. Record and report what you see if you can do so safely. Gather supporters – but remember the instructions about oxygen masks on a plane. Put yours on first.

(7) Reach out

One of the greatest things about social media is that when we are in trouble, the oddest range of people reach out to us, from close friends to people who live thousands of miles away and who we may never meet in person. Tell friends how you feel. ‘Can we go for a picnic, for tea, the pub, or my house, or your house?’ Ask a group at once so you can all feel held, and so that one person won’t feel pressured or obliged when they themselves may be out of energy.

If you live with several people, or meet up with a group regularly, think about how you could bring the group closer together. Can you meet once a week to share your feelings, perhaps before breakfast or in the evening? This is a way of bringing people together. Some people cannot bear the idea of small group sharing, but it can be highly beneficial. Can you find a venue once a week, or at someone’s home? Many people have vulnerabilities that they find hard to share in a casual way.

However, reflect on whether your concern is more about you than the the other person. You may have a friend who you perceive to be in more danger of public abuse than you. Be mindful that not everyone wants to focus on this. Not everyone wants to receive your fear and sometimes these approaches can be more about you than the person you are approaching, however much you care about them.

(8) Reach out to those who are less able to

Someone who is feeling distressed and whose mental health may have got worse at the current time, or someone whose disability or health situation prevents them from going out, may need your support. Can you give them some time just to listen to them? And without him offering to fix them, unless you have resources that would  genuinely help.

If someone has become incapacitated through distress, can you help them out by bringing food around, or doing some some cleaning?

(9) Try to make sense of fear – your own and other people’s

Fear underpins many toxic decisions and behaviours. Fear can be hard to spot because it is so quickly replaced by something else. Fear is a bit like syphilis: it mimics, very convincingly, other states of mind and behaviours – rage, bullying, scorn, contempt, condescension, and physical aggression –and hides behind them.

You might want to talk to people with different view to yours. It may help you understand their choices better and they yours.

If you have kids, now may be the time to try and explain why people turn against each other for no apparent logical reason.

(10) Be mindful of self-harm

You might be drinking more, doing more drugs, smoking more, overeating, spending money. These all have short term benefits, and are a perfectly rational response to stress – but they may cause damage in the long term. In a time of trouble, remember that it’s best to be at your most alert, and to conserve resources where possible.

(11) Accept your own anger

You may be surprised by the helpless, murderous rage you experience about the behaviour of politicians and media/business leaders, and the impact it is having on your life. It is okay to feel this. You may well find that many others feel the same.

(12) Remember what you have

Is there a unit of time in which you can consider yourself to be okay? In which you have a roof over your head, food tonight, work, or someone to talk to at least? Is it a month, a week, a day, an hour? Can you at least exist minute by minute if nothing greater feels possible?

Now is the time to look at what you do have, (even if you have no spare money, you may have social capital), and what you have through your communities. If there are situations (or people) in your life who make you unhappy and you have any power over removing yourself from them, now may be the time to start looking at this. If you don’t feel sufficiently connected to other people, and you would feel safer and more held if you were, now is the time to take steps to change that.

I hope this piece is helpful in some way. If I’ve missed anything important, please tell me. If you are struggling with any of the issues I’ve discussed here and would like to talk further, you can contact me here.

[Re the image above: when I find out who originally created this cartoon, I will attribute them.]

Trying to fix your relationship ? Change does not have to equal loss

Flames

As a therapist working with couples, one of the most persistent issues I see is fear of change.

However challenging things have become for both partners, and however untenable the relationship in its current form, people have an incredibly strong urge to cling to what they know, because the alternative terrifies them.

The will to hold on sometimes feels even stronger than the will to actually fix the relationship and make both partners happy.

I’m repeatedly astounded by people’s drive to remain connected in the way they always have, as if any form of adaptation will destroy everything that came before and erase all the happy memories.

People will stay together even when there is ongoing anxiety, constant sparking off each other, endless transferences and overreactions, and frequently calling the other out over tones of voice, events from the past and other points of conflict, and when sex has been adversely affected or become non-existent.

In other words, constant stress. And yet when I suggest a gentle reframe, and paint a picture of what the relationship might look like if they pushed the structure around a bit, there is panic. Because for so many of us, change automatically equals loss. Even just the thought of adapting to new conditions can put someone into a grief process.

Pre-mourning

You could call this sadness ‘pre-mourning.’ And I well know myself that it’s very hard to accept that change might actually make things better – enabling both parties to preserve the connection and eventually re-create happiness.

Fear of failure

It’s the same mindset that calls the ending of a relationship a ‘failure’. By this standard, all relationships that end have by definition automatically failed. (I wonder what kind of ending would not count as a failure – both partners actually dying?)

I have written before about the cultural primacy of a very particular kind of coupling, and the idea that to be a fully actualised person you must have been publicly chosen by another, and this must be seen to be the case in your family and community. To tell others that your coupling is in fact not working the way the world expects it to is a source of shame. You feel that you will be pitied or laughed at, and are left wondering if people said ‘How long do you give this one then?’ when you first got together.

There are more options than you think

The normative view of relationships that they are both binary and linear. If they are not one thing they must be another, and that they must follow a certain direction and ascent or they are not valid, or just weird. If you are in a heterosexual monogamous relationship, for example, you will find little public support for alternative ways of being together, except what creates lurid headlines: ‘We tried swinging and have never looked back!’

In fact, there are many ways that a relationship can be reframed or rebuilt, but these options are rarely spoken about as viable options. Like so much in society, if you aren’t doing it in a very specific way, there is something wrong, something lesser, about your choices. Needless to say, this is rubbish, but can be very hard to get past without support, whether therapeutic or from your community.

Some ways to reframe a relationship that is struggling

In the early days of relationship conflict, you may well have worked on behaviour and communication skills. Here I am talking about further down the line.

(1) Decide to live apart, if you cohabit. (Needless to say, the more financially you are tied together, the more this will affect your decision-making. But the decision to live together in the first place should not be undertaken lightly, and ideally never for purely financial reasons. If you have children, the issues are multiplied.)

(2) See each other less often but perhaps for longer each time, or varying contact.

(3) See each other less often full stop.

(4) Figure out the sex, if it was part of your relationship previously. (If it’s gone, can it be rekindled? Do you want/need it to be? You need to be realistic about the consequences when you both assert your needs around it.)

(5) Have some time apart with a timescale on it. (This one scares people a lot as there is a lot of conventional wisdom that says ‘break=ending’. Sometimes it does – but you can only find out by trying.)

(6) Open up the relationship up to other people. (This one scares people even more, often with good reason, and it should not be undertaken without a lot of negotiation and research. There has to be mutual consent.)

Love – or helpless attachment?

The tie that binds here is a thread of what is called love, but may be more akin to helpless attachment. I cannot say for sure what is love or what is not, but if the pain and fear are outweighing the good times, you may be closer to the other.

What if it’s really broken?

It hurts when it’s broken. So the feeling of acceptance is often welcome. I am divided over whether true acceptance can really be worked on, or whether you can only invite it in, to appear when you are ready.

If you’re experiencing difficulties in a relationship and would like to explore things with a therapist, you can contact me here.

Alcoholism – do women have a special relationship with wine?

Green glasses on a table

Women and drinking – interview for the Irish Independent

Here’s the full version of an interview I did with the Irish Independent earlier this year about women’s relationship with wine, and whether it has unique characteristics.

Do you think that women’s relationship with wine is partly fuelled by sexism/misogyny in that it’s the ‘acceptable’ face of drinking, because society doesn’t like to see women as hard drinkers or drunk, whereas wine gives the patina of respectability? (Even if you’re drinking three bottles a day.)

It’s always difficult to tease things like this out, because most attempts to single out and pathologise women’s behaviour come from sexism/misogyny! In fact, many women I know drink a lot of beer and cocktails too. However, in pubs in the past there was a tradition of ‘wine for the ladies, beer for the men’ and I think those gendered stereotypes may have stuck around in certain parts of the media.

You used the great phrase ‘White Wine Witches’ in your book Cleaning Up. Can you elaborate a bit more on this and why you think that white wine can drive some women ‘crazy’?

I remember parties, particularly media/corporate ones, where white wine was the main alcoholic drink on offer, and after not very long there was an unusual level of hysteria in the air. Some people I knew would end up in tears relatively early in the evening. However, those events can create tensions in themselves, particularly for those who are nervous around networking – and the drinks were usually free and sometimes never ran out.

There are many theories about this, which may have more or less value. To generalise: It is said that some wines, including Chardonnay, contain more chemicals like sulphites than red wine, and some women seem to react badly to them. It may possibly be something to do with the sugar content, which may also cause some kind of energy spike, which could be especially potent when teamed with alcohol. (Although I should point out that other drinks, such as cider or liqueurs, have far more sugar in them than wine.) Other factors may be that wines have on average become stronger over the years. Also, after work people do tend to knock the drinks back very quickly, and I can well remember doing that. In general, since the recession, the general level of stress in large parts of the population has gone up, so this may well be influencing drinking habits.

Women are drinking more and there’s increasing evidence of a younger demographic being diagnosed with problems like cirrhosis. Do you think this is being dealt with sufficiently by governments – or even being acknowledged by society?

I don’t think governments and society are doing enough about this at all, whether about younger women drinking or anyone else. It’s heartbreaking to see hospital time being taken up by the results of over-drinking, whether in A&E or long-term wards. A huge number of accidents and illnesses are caused by alcohol, and yet governments spend millions on the entirely pointless and unwinnable ‘war on drugs’. Of course, to truly tackle this, quality of life would have to be examined from the ground up, and this might uncover too many things that are unacceptable to those in charge. Life is stressful; for women and minorities even more so. Tackling sexism and bigotry from the ground up would cause major societal change, but the media continues to feed the stereotypes.

In the last hundred years, huge numbers of women have come into the workplace, but the workplace has not fully evolved to accommodate them. Women still battle daily sexism, the glass ceiling, competitive presenteeism, and issues around maternity leave. This can make the workplace incredibly challenging.

It’s also useful to reflect on why there is this gendered examination of peoples’ drinking habits in the first place. A drunk woman is a woman who is potentially less easy to control, which is why there is so much flapping about it. (I’m aware that pregnancy is an obviously complex gendered health issue where alcohol is concerned.) However, while I am a bit suspicious of medical statements that have an element of social control to them, it is also true to say that physiologically, women are seen to be generally more susceptible to the effects of alcohol than men, however unfair this is.

Also, UK society is obsessed with drinking. In society at large, people tend to have a blind spot around alcohol, saying things like ‘I’ve got a right to enjoy myself, haven’t I?’ which on the face of it is quite hard to argue with. But it’s worth unpacking why enjoyment so often tips over into loss of control and thereby loss of responsibility. To resist the pressures of the group and stop drinking is very hard – whether ‘getting your round in’ or just being one of the gang. Stopping drinking can change your life irrevocably. If the drinking culture in your life also focuses round your workplace (or your partner drinks a lot) then giving up is doubly difficult.

It’s a pretty broad question but why do you think women drink and are drinking more increasingly?

If this is the case there are a number of factors. (see my responses above and below). Put simply, women drink because drinking is enjoyable and because they are human.

There’s a part in Caroline Knapp’s book Drinking: A Love Story where she comes to the realisation that maybe it’s not that she was drinking because she was unhappy, but that drink was making her unhappy. What do you think of this – are women who drink excessively inherently unhappy or can it just be a habit that they fall into which then creates its own problems?

There are many, many intersecting factors to this. Even without depression or anxiety, some kind of existing existential discomfort may cause a person to turn to alcohol, because of the way it makes socialising so much easier, and you feel so much freer. (Of course that person may also just really enjoy drinking!) It may take many years to realise that the longer and the more you drink, you are missing out on developing and experiencing certain sides of yourself.

However, regular heavy drinking in itself does bring all kinds of problems, mental, sexual and physical. The effect on your relationships and work also can’t be underestimated. Going to work every day with a hangover is no joke – and hair of the dog (another drink) is the simplest way to remedy that. Someone may have learned to drink in their family home, so a certain way of drinking may have become normalised for them.

There is also a chicken and egg situation here, in which women who like drinking may find themselves drinking more when they are already stressed (or perhaps premenstrual), so the effect may be compounded.

It’s easy to pathologise ‘women who drink’, but I am sometimes surprised that more people don’t drink regularly, particularly given the lamentable state of public mental health services.

There seems to be an increasing emphasis on how fattening alcohol is or how it can ruins your looks as a deterrent to stop drinking. Do you think this is helpful or is it avoiding getting to the route of the problem, whatever that might be?

If someone really wants to drink, none of those suggestions will have any effect at all. See also smoking, and the terrible anti-drug adverts we’ve seen over the years.

Plus, appealing to ‘women’s vanity’ is also sexist and I’m not surprised many women reject this, as this sort of deterrent would not be suggested to men.

In Ireland and possibly Britain, people tend to be at crisis point before seeking professional help when it comes to drinking. But if you’re maybe just concerned about it, would like to drink less or explore why you are drinking so much, but don’t think you’re addicted, is therapy useful here?

I think if someone is wondering why they are drinking more and more, and perhaps negative things are starting to happen to them, then going for therapy could be very useful. It may enable them to uncover aspects of their past, and their personalities, which may throw light on why they are turning more and more to intoxication. Therapy might also help someone look at their family history and figure out if there are issues with drinking or mental illness that they have not looked at in detail before.

Note: if you’re concerned about your drinking and would like to cut down, and don’t feel that AA is for you, you could try Club Soda, the London-based support network that hosts all sorts of community events and online discussions for people concerned about their alcohol intake.

Further reading:

 

Seasonal Affective Disorder – in summer?

Cornish beach in black and white

Added 24th April 2021

I’m writing this as we semi-emerge from Covid-19 lockdown in UK. The sun is bringing happiness and excitement for many people. It is also highlighting the ambivalence that others feel about exiting lockdown, particularly given that Covid is likely to be here for a while, and that many do not feel fully safe, vaccines or not. 

What is summer depression?

I will start with my own experience. I remember the feeling vividly. It came on at the start of the school holidays when I was about 14. After the elaborate goodbye rituals, the end of term (and every end of summer term after that) felt like falling off a high building, but slowly, into a state of emptiness and loss. This feeling was made all the worse by the fact that when the sun’s out and the temperature goes above a certain level, you are supposed to be out there having fun. It is practically the law. ‘But you’ve got to go outside! It’s sunny!’ 

Gradually the feeling bedded in through university and into my twenties. Summer meant other peoples’ lives, not mine. Staying in sometimes helped, sometimes not. Sometimes seeing blue sky through a window made it even worse, because the barrier between me and the world was tangible, something I could touch.

‘Summer SAD’?? But everyone loves summer, don’t they?

‘April is the cruelest month…’ This endlessly quoted line from TS Eliot’s The Waste Land evokes the sense of alienation brought on by this phase of nature. Green shoots, flowers, colours, warmth, baby animals – all these things symbolise the world turning and everything changing and moving on.  It’s Hollywood tropes like Yay! Beach! Shorts! Convertibles! Drink! Sex! And it is precisely those aspects of the spring and summer seasons that fall on some of us like hailstones. The suicide rate is highest in late spring and into the summer.

Summer also makes itself known to us through sound. Windows open. Music, laughter, glasses clinking, beer cans crushed in hand, barbecues – heard from just across the way, just out of reach. And so the sounds and smells of someone else’s new season hang over you. Fresh cut grass and the sound of lawnmowers. The obsession with light is perhaps unsurprising in the UK’s northern European climate. But this is not always healthy. Light is very exposing. There is a sense that once the bright light has been on you, you cannot go back. And social media can make all this feel so much worse. As with other holiday periods, you may feel surround by people telling you that you can choose how you feel about this.

What does summer SAD feel like?

In a way it’s like any kind of depression, but it has a particular flavour. Symptoms could include:

  • A desire to withdraw from the world
  • A strong feeling of alienation from culturally defined and enforced notions of happiness due to the temperature going up and there being more light
  • Loneliness
  • Anxiety
  • A sense of exclusion
  • A fear of exposure
  • A sense of being trapped
  • A desire to cover up the body
  • FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out

So what causes it?

I think it’s from the same family of responses brought on by Christmas and other annual festivals. The difference is that summer is more drawn out. (For some more detailed thoughts on why holiday times are so stressful, please go to my blog post here. Although what I’ve written there applies to end of year festivities, I think many issues there apply to summer as well.)

Here I’ve listed some aspects of what may contribute to it:

  • The weather may push you into remembering difficult times and traumatic experiences you had when you were younger.
  • You may be trans or gender non-conforming and may dread the exposure that summer brings. 
  • You may have children and be dreading trying to fill up the long weeks until the autumn term starts.
  • The obligation to look as if you’re having fun, and being singled out and exposed if not.
  • A sense of a vast natural cycle that is leaving you behind. You may be ‘still’ single, ‘still’ unemployed, ‘still’ without a child, or ‘still’ married to the wrong person or living somewhere you have outgrown.
  • As with Christmas and other festival times, you may feel obliged to see relatives or go to places that you dislike. If you are a young person you may have no choice in the matter.
  • Summer can be expensive and you may have fears around money. If you had holidays when you were young, perhaps they were stressful and you could not escape. If you didn’t have them, another summer reminds you of what you didn’t have. 

The feelings can also be anticipatory. Many people dread summer for reasons which occur at different places on the continuum between practical and emotional.

The fear of being exposed physically

  • You would rather cover up your body because your size or shape attracts attention and this causes you anxiety.
  • You wish to avoid comments in the street/on the beach because of the above.
  • You wish to avoid sexual harassment.
  • There are aspects of your body that others may be more likely to notice and comment on when you are wearing fewer clothes, or doing sporting activities (for example if you are transitioning, or have tattoos, extensive scarring, or an ostomy.)
  • You dread fending off the expectation that you will participate in sports.

Summer-related physical health issues

  • Hay fever (many suffer miserably with this for months)
  • Sunburn
  • Rashes (including heat-related, ‘chub rub’ and running/cycling rashes etc)
  • Insect bites (many people have a terrible response to mosquito bites, and there is Blandford Fly, ticks etc)
  • If you cover up in jeans/layers in order to hide your body, excessive sweating can cause problems
  • Sleeping problems due to light and heat, which can contribute to depression
  • Light sensitivity (some people find the bright light makes them physically ill and need to wear sunglasses frequently)

So how did I deal with it?

I was astonishingly lucky. Having spent many years doing self-care (see below) fairly badly, my summer SAD was lifted overnight in 2003 by a kind American hippy I met online. We were members of a support group email list and we chatted quite often. When I explained my feelings to him, he suggested I do a ritual of thanks to the sun for giving me life. I was to write a message to the sun on a piece of paper and throw it in the nearest river and watch it float away on the tide. At the time I was living not far from Westminster Bridge, so the river bit was easy. However, the Iraq war had just begun and there were police everywhere. So he suggested I burn the piece of paper instead.

I did it – and it worked. I woke up the next day and the feelings had gone, never to return.

What was going on there, you might be wondering? I cannot tell you. The message seemed to be about personifying my relationship with the sun, and reframing it so that the summer did not feel like enemy territory, or a malign superego, or that something was being taken from me. Also, the previous year had been momentous and life changing in terms of my own survival, and perhaps subconsciously I was ready to let go of my fears.

Strategies for self care

So what to do, short of upping sticks to the antipodes, or very far north, for four months of the year?

  • Choose your clothes and research the best medications well in advance so you feel prepared. Get a good hat and sunglasses.
  • Are there work projects that you can just spend the summer getting on with?
  • Get a good fan or air-con unit for hot days when you don’t want to be outside, so that your home feels like a refuge.
  • If it is not safe for you to be open and honest about how you feel, you are going to need a cover story about why you’re not going swimming, playing ball games or going to the beach. Prepare it carefully. Burn easily? Knee injury? Allergy to XX? Get it straight and stick to it.
  • Suggest activities to family/friends which have an indoor and outdoor aspect, so you can take cover without hiding.
  • Hiding away and saying nothing may feel safer, but may not be a good long-term strategy overall. Can you share your feelings with some friends and others who are close to you? You may find they feel the same.
  • Relish the cloudy days, those grey and green veiled and comforting days when other people are complaining. Even better when there’s a rainstorm!
  • Some people give a lot of significance to solstices and equinoxes and the various festivals that go with them. Even if the language and pageantry around neopaganism doesn’t appeal, observing these time markers give a sense of the world turning and impermanence which you may find helpful.
  • Make plans for the autumn and winter so you have something to look forward to.
  • If you don’t feel you can share what’s going on with people close to you, a therapist can help.

My second holiday season post also has a number of thoughts on how to prepare for a difficult holiday period.

I hope my article gives you something to work with as the summer approaches.

You can contact me here.

Surviving the Festive Season Part Three: When it’s all over

Winter tree in snowSo you got through Christmas and you got through New Year. If you put up decorations, you might even be considering taking them down.

What now?

Once the shiny things are tidied away and ordinary life starts slipping back into place, the turn of the calendar can sometimes bring on a sense of helplessness and confusion.

Here are some ways of thinking and feeling that it’s very easy to fall back into at this time of year, with some suggestions on how to start feeling differently. I’ve raided my archives for links I’ve found interesting or inspiring in the last year. Even if they don’t resonate with you immediately, they may spark off an idea. I’ve also listed some links to organisations that offer support in a crisis.

Update: I’ve also added some thoughts further down in response to global events since I first wrote this piece.

SENSATION SEEKING

Sensation-seeking can be another way of stepping out of our daily self and into a more exciting or intense version of ourselves. It might well have got you through the festive period. It’s a way of switching off what may be an over-developed sense of responsibility. You might be tired of wondering if everyone else is okay. Sometimes we give ourselves a boost with drink or drugs. You can get through a hell of a lot if you’re only half conscious and only half looking out for yourself.

You might grab hold of an exciting new person at this time of year and it’s not unusual to have more sex or more extreme sex (whatever that means for you) because it feels like everything is burning and time is running out. New year has passed, but there is always just one more party. Sometimes we add justifications to this, as if we should not act out our own desires without been seen to explain why: ‘I went through so much last year.’ ‘I’ve put up with an enormous amount in my life and it’s time for me now.’ ‘My life has been going nowhere so I may as well have a good time.’

Calming existential restlessness: The very fact of having pushed your own boundaries (assuming nothing terrible happened in the process) might be enough to remind you that it’s okay to slow down and reflect on everything that’s happened. Is it possible to relish your adventures and forgive yourself for mishaps, emotional or physical? You might find comfort in quiet reflection, in lighting candles, going to the park (try Barnes Wetlands Centre or Hampstead Heath if you’re in the London area) or to the countryside, or spending time with animals, whose desire to play and whose need to be cared for can bring you right into the moment. For a time I used to avoid parks because they reminded me of the time when I only went in then when I was feeling down. Then I started to feel a sense of belonging there – parks are, in their own way, a place of community.

Sometimes thinking laterally about the world through art can restore a sense of balance or wonder, or both. See: If white characters were described like people of colour in literature; The art of science – when popsicles go viral; or Wham’s Last Christmas played eight times slower. (If you can’t take any more Christmas music, try Bela Lugosi’s Dead stretched out to nine hours.) Also, 16th century cosplay versions of modern superheroes.

ULTRA MOTIVATION

You come back from the break feeling as if you’re going into battle. ‘This year I will fix myself.’ ‘This year I will make sure I never get into a situation like that again.’ Making sure certain things never happen again – (being bullied at work, getting into damaging relationships, making poor business decisions) – while important catalysts for change, can put you into combat position from the start and be incredibly draining.

The January klaxon –  ‘New year new you!‘ – is very often directed at women. If we just keep on trying to make newer and better versions of ourselves, (as if the current ones were by default inadequate), perhaps we will deserve good things happening to us. This is a pretty toxic way of looking at life, but it is put in us from a young age. There will always be more to find fault with, because there is always another January on the horizon. Needless to say, never feeling good enough is a major reason for depression and why people end up coming for therapy.

Reducing hypervigilance: What can you do if you sense yourself becoming preoccupied with slipping into old patterns? Sometimes it helps to look at the huge variety of lives that people live, and have lived. What would they have done? Try: Hedy Lamarr – Hollywood actor and inventor; Is Daniel Renaud Camden’s last rockstar?; Women scientists you need to know; Leonard Nimoy speaking Yiddish and talking about his childhood; Meet Chris Paradox, the man who gave up his 70K salary to live under a tree in Battersea.

EXHAUSTION AND GUILT

Coming back after a difficult holiday period can leave you feeling as if you need another holiday (if you even had one in the first place). You want to escape somewhere where you will get your needs met and where no one is making demands of you, or expecting you to be someone you can never be. And now you’re back there is pressure and more pressure. Lists! Fitness and thinness, and a fixation on resolutions which have just become yet more ways to make ourselves feel bad.

Stop running to stand still: Now can be an appropriate time to ruthlessly examine your weekly timetable and prune away all the things you don’t really love doing and can safely do away with. This may extend to friends who are not friends any more, and social circles you have grown away from. Many people do social media ‘culls’ (a cruel word perhaps) at this time of year. Try How should you handle outgrowing a friend? for some thoughts around this.

If there is nothing you can get rid of right now, plan to phase it out. Have half an eye (no more than that though) on next Christmas and how you will bring your own needs into it – bearing in mind that your life may have changed hugely by then anyway. If you are in debt, now is a good time to take action.

Physically clearing out your home can also have a lightening effect. Lateral thinking may, again, help: 30 relatively simple things that will make your home extremely awesome, 34 ingenious ways to de-clutter your entire life. So can changing routines. See: The no shampoo experiment, six months later.

DESPAIR AND CRISIS

All the ‘normal people’ are happily getting on with things and you feel like a wreck. Your sense of failure feels ingrained and real. Any success you’ve previously enjoyed was fake, a blip, a lucky break. And you went back on Facebook and there were all the holiday photos, the loved-up couple shots, and the look-what-I-gots and now you feel even worse. Sometimes all the advice in the world doesn’t really make a dent in things. There are people around you and noise, but the empty space in your head feels overpowering.

If you feel yourself sliding into crisis, it may still feel difficult to ask for help. Perhaps you held back over the holidays, because there were other people with ‘real’ problems needing help. Now everyone’s fitting themselves back into daily life and you’re feeling more and more left behind.

Take action right now: Go to your GP. (If you’re not registered with a GP, find one in your area and sign up. Even just doing that can make you feel more in control.) You can contact the Samaritans if you’re in need of urgent support. The mental health charity Mind has a helpline and a lot of advice about what to do in a mental health crisis, for sufferers and carers. CRUSE Bereavement Care has a helpline for people who are bereaved. The NHS website also has a useful list of mental health helplines.

Share your feelings: Sometimes just the act of asking for help can start to have a healing effect. The right therapist can help you find a path through what you’re experiencing. I took part in a group interview a while back in the Telegraph, with several other therapists:

‘And now it’s all died down, it can feel like ages to go until spring. You may want to reset yourself before the warmer weather gets here, and try and figure out why some situations just keep on pushing your buttons. A good therapist will listen without judging. You may feel hugely liberated on starting therapy – and you might also struggle for a time. If you’re feeling helpless, seeking help can be an essential first step towards feeling you’ve taken control of a situation where you previously felt no change was possible.’

You can find a therapist at Pink Therapy, The Counselling Directory, and the BACP. I’ve also recently put up a list of low-cost therapy services.

ALTERNATIVES TO ACTION

I’m aware that a lot of what I’ve written in this post so far involves taking some kind of action, even if it’s just looking at a website. But (with the important exception of getting help in a crisis) there can be other ways of tackling the sense of existential vertigo that can be so pervasive in the early part of the year. There is always doing nothing at all. (See: How to do nothing; Five reasons we should all learn how to do nothing; How to do nothing with nobody all alone by yourself.)

I’m aware that, at worst, such a suggestion can sound like a privileged life hack. [Especially in these political times – see the final section below.] Most of us need to work for a living. Most of us have responsibilities – to someone or something – that shape our lives and prevent us doing exactly what we want to do every minute of the day. But our media can feel like one endless unstoppable call to action, (which will usually involve spending money) and to do nothing whatsoever (whatever that means for you and the way you live) can be a very refreshing, and actually quite radical, antidote to that.

PERSONAL SURVIVAL IN THE SHADOW OF GLOBAL EVENTS

I originally wrote this piece at the beginning of 2015 – so before the UK election of May 2015, the Brexit vote in June 2016, and the US election in November 2016. Also before the what seemed like unusual number of celebrity deaths in 2016 that affected so many people so deeply. Reading it back, I have a sense of something missing, because it feels as if a whole new layer of challenge has entered our lives.

Social media is now filled with calls to action. I have seen many exhortations to man the barricades, turn vegan, engage dialectically with every person you meet whose politics are different from yours, and be prepared to physically defend someone experiencing a hate crime on public transport. There is a hidden message here too, that if you do not do these things, (and are not seen to be encouraging others to do them), you are insufficiently engaged with the world, excessively privileged, or even a bad person.

PUT ON YOUR OXYGEN MASK

Actually, there is a danger of being toxified to the point of inaction by other people’s letting off steam from the comfortable safety of their armchairs. So first of all it may be healthier to put your oxygen mask on first, and keep the greater part of social media (and all media) at a distance while you regroup and re-evaluate. People talk about ‘contact highs’ from both substances and people – I would argue there is a ‘contact low’ from too much reading about others’ fear, as it can just create a sense of helplessness which cam become ingrained.

I’ve written more about this here: When the world has changed forever – self care in a collective crisis

I would like to end on a positive note – I wish you peace, health and happiness for 2017, however you achieve it.

Surviving the Festive Season Part Two: Strategies for getting through it

4 Comments

tg-1-12In part one of this series I looked at all the things that make Christmas and other festival times so stressful. Here in part two I’m offering suggestions on how to make the experience easier to manage.

I’ve been discussing this a lot recently, and several big stressors have emerged: finances, competition with others, and the sense of obligation. Some people prepare for this time of year as if it wasn’t Christmas day coming on 25th December, but a large asteroid. So this piece is my personal take on how you might manage a potentially difficult Christmas.

Further down there are links to various advice and charity sites. (If you’re expecting to have a happy and relaxed time and none of this applies, maybe you know someone who might benefit from something I’ve written here.)

Some of my thoughts here come in the form of questions. They may not have a specific answer, but I hope that reflecting on them will make things feel less overwhelming.

MENTALLY PREPARE

• Can you identify what it is you do and don’t like about this time of year? You might feel more in control if you can identify which aspects you can just about tolerate, and which ones you would avoid/abandon if you could. Are you in a position to act on this?

• If you do feel able to act, put your foot down early. One way to think about it is to imagine opening the doors and windows in your life and finally letting a breeze through – ie, saying a great big ‘no’. Practise this.

• If you’re feeling a sense of reluctant obligation, reflect on what you really owe to anyone? Also, do you feel that anyone owes anything to you?

• If your mental state means careful rationing of what you do, honour this if you can by planning in advance. If you find yourself without the energy to do this, can someone else organise things for you?

• Can you arrange something to look forward to after Christmas as a reward? Seeing a person you don’t see often, or a trip somewhere?

• If you know things are going to be difficult, can you ask available friends if they are okay with you texting them during the day if it all gets too much?

• If you cannot drum up any positive feelings at all, can you visualise Christmas as the monstrous birthday party of someone you loathe but must appease? Or perhaps imagine you are in some hideous panto or whodunnit?

SHARE YOUR FEELINGS

• Asking for help, or just sharing how you feel, can seem like a radical and terrifying act. But the chances are you are not alone.

• Can you talk to the others around you about your feelings about this time of year? Do the people closest to you agree with you? You may find that no one else has had the courage to say what they have been feeling all along, and through your words you have potentially rescued them too.

WAYS TO ESCAPE

Travel – Can you leave the country? Flights, especially long haul ones, go up hugely in price over this period, so the cost may well be prohibitive. If a holiday is out of reach, is some kind of physical escape possible? A working holiday, a retreat of some kind, or a house or cat-sit?

Work – Can you hide behind work? Selflessly offer to take others’ shifts? Suddenly take on a big pile of freelance? (If, of course, it’s out there).

Charity work – There are lots of ways to volunteer at Christmas, such as Crisis.  If you’re in London, Londonist has a good list of places where you could offer to help out over the holiday period.

Invented scenarios (ok, lying) – Normally, I would not suggest you engage in dishonesty. However, in this case, if you have to lie to get out of a situation that you absolutely do not want and which may be actively harmful to you, (and you absolutely cannot tell the truth because that would be even more harmful to you), you are in a way being more authentic, so I would not condemn it. Your safety comes first. If you are going to do this, I should remind you that the backstories may take work, as well as getting any collaborators on board, so this is not for the faint hearted.

• Illness – a new one or a flareup of an existing one – or an accident or disaster. (But then you may be fending off offers of help which could take you back to square one. This one is best used when you were going to have to take a long journey.)

• The sudden illness/disaster of someone close to you, who needs your help. Is this ‘wrong’? I return to my points about authenticity and safety.

• Pretending you are away when you are not, and you are in fact staying quietly in your home with the telly. A woman wrote somewhere that if anyone asked her what she was doing for Christmas, she would say, ‘Oh, it’s just going to be the three of us on the sofa,’ neglecting to mention that the other two were in fact her cats.

IF YOU CANNOT GET AWAY

MONEY 

This is the tough bit. Christmas is supposed to be about giving, yes? Perhaps, but not to your own detriment.

• How early can you start preparing? (Some people buy things in the sales for the next Christmas). So a huge January to-do list might make you feel more in control. Can you pay for anything in instalments? (Bearing in mind the increased cost over time and the cost of borrowing in general.)

• Ask people to bring food over instead of providing it all yourself. I’ve noticed that potluck dinners have got a lot more common since the recession. For low-cost recipes, try Jack Monroe, Netmums budget recipes, Gluten Free on a Shoestring. Also, the Gluten free vegan.

• Have a secret santa with strict budget attached. (Depending on the configuration of the people you will be with, you don’t even have to assign a person to give a present to – you could distribute them lucky dip style.)

Here’s a piece from Netmums about benefit dates over Christmas, with lots of advice on budgeting. Money Saving Expert has a Christmas forum where people ask for and give advice. Crafting isn’t for everyone, but (time and everything else allowing) could you make, or cook, something instead? 60 great alternatives to toys has some useful discussion points about presents for children.

• Beware vouchers, sales, and ‘bargains’. Money Saving Expert again has some tips on end of year savings. All sorts of shenanigans goes on with pricing during sale times, and some shops buy things in for sales that they don’t normally sell. Once upon a time I read that this was all illegal, but the goalposts seem to have moved considerably.

• Be proud of what you do make or bring. If there is a financial disparity between you and others, can you talk about it? it’s essential to lay down boundaries early so there are no misunderstandings. This is even more important if you have children. Ditto if you are the one with more money than the rest. If you are in this fortunate position, try to remember the stress people go through when they don’t have enough but are expected to put on a show. If you suggest a restaurant or other activity that costs money, and there is an awkward silence, frozen faces, or ripple of embarrassment, there is your answer. Again, if you are in a fortunate position but don’t want to show off or make others feel awkward, is there anything you could do for anyone in private?

DIFFICULT OR ABUSIVE PEOPLE

• We joke about ‘drunk uncle and racist auntie’ but you may be stuck with them for the day, or the entire week. You could try to imagine bedtime, or going home, as a beautiful forest or beach that you are slowly walking towards. If this sounds too hippy, can you plan something for afterwards that you can look forward to and think about?

• Can you find others in the same boat as you so you feel less alone? When you look online, you might not find someone with your exact problem immediately, but this tends to be the nature of problems. We think our issues are unique and this keeps us isolated.

• There may be people who don’t recognise your gender/sexuality/relationship/lifestyle/work and are either rude to you about it or actively threatening. The Albert Kennedy Trust works to help young (16-25) LGBT people who are homeless or living in a hostile environment. London Friend and Switchboard LGBT (also UK-wide) provide telephone support.

• You may be experiencing, or fearing, domestic violence. Refuge and Women’s Aid charities support women and children experiencing domestic abuse.  ManKind supports male survivors, and Respect supports both men and women, and has a helpline for anyone who is carrying out abuse too. Galop is an LGBT domestic violence charity. You can contact them by phone, email or live chat.

ANNIVERSARIES AND LOSSES

• If you have experienced a major loss this year, or are having the anniversary of one, your first duty is to yourself, and then to anyone vulnerable you care for. There is a lot of advice online about dealing with loss, which can be amplified by experiencing the enforced joyfulness around you. Cancer Research UK has some information on coping with grief. Cruse is the main UK bereavement charity. They offer help by phone, email, or in person.

• Distractions can be good – if this feels right, you could fill your home with a manageable number of hand-picked people, (or arrange a number of visits or meet ups) – but let your feelings guide you, and let others take the strain.

• Can a friend or family member take you in? Would you allow them to?

• The loss may not be a person, but a negative change in circumstances (loss of job, home or relationship), or a beloved animal companion. These can all have powerful fallout that needs a grieving process – again, put yourself first.

FAMILY ESTRANGEMENT

• You may be estranged from family. There is a charity, Standalone, that supports people in this situation. They have a detailed festive survival guide.

• Even if you are totally happy about your choice, this time of year may bring on all sorts of concerned and potentially exposing questioning. While ‘none of your business’ may be the appropriate response, this may only inflame the questioner and cause all eyes to be on you if you are in a group. Saying someone is are ‘away’ may be enough. (Again remembering to craft your story – Australia? But where in Australia?) Total honesty may torpedo the conversation, or it may induce a further flood of questioning.

• One thing I’ve noticed in the last few years is that whenever an online problem page deals with family estrangement, very few people are judgemental (bucking a trend, it must be said), and many will share similar stories. The Guardian has a good range of articles on family estrangement and going no contact. From all my reading, a fair number of people choose to go no contact, and many more wish they had made that decision long ago.

• 13 things no estranged child needs to hear on Mother’s Day – this is actually very good advice on what not to say to someone who is estranged from any family member, and could equally apply to Christmas or any other festival. [NB: the link is currently broken – the piece is still somewhere out there though.]

INTOXICATION

• Alcohol and drugs (over the counter, prescribed or illegal) give and take at the same time. They may be all you have to get you through a challenging day. I would not necessarily recommend someone sober up for its own sake for a difficult Christmas unless you or those around you would be in immediate danger, or unless you need to remain alert and/or are driving. If you want to make a fresh start in the new year, a charity like Addaction can help.

• Bear in mind you say and do things when intoxicated that you would not when sober. Some of it can never be taken back.

• Some people change personality when intoxicated and become incredibly unpleasant, angry or violent. This doubles during festive periods. If this is you, you need to stop. If this feels too hard, you may want to try cutting down or stopping. I have expressed many reservations about the 12 step/anonymous movement as a whole, but I know it has helped some people. You could try Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous or another 12 step meeting. You will find community there and a great variety of human experience.

• If you have given up drinking previously, this is a challenging time and you may wish to refer further back in this article for ways to escape Christmas. If anyone comes at you with ‘Oh, can’t you just have one?’ or rudely interrogates you about why you stopped, keep remembering why you did it.

• If you are presented with the prospect of a Christmas with a relative who has a drink problem that threatens your safety, or the safety of someone else, you are under no obligation to participate. Your duty, again, is to yourself.

SOCIAL MEDIA

• In part one I described the various irritations on social media – other peoples’ photos of festive bounty, and their urge to tell you how blessed they are. Do not feel guilty about muting/unfollowing them for a few days. If it’s a friend who you basically like, you can always just send them a nice message so you don’t feel guilty. These networks are valuable, particularly if you are alone, so a few tweaks will make them bearable until it all blows over.

• You could start a secret group on Facebook, or create a locked Twitter account, so you can share with a few people who feel the same way as you, and let off steam.

SPENDING THE DAY ALONE

• If you’re going to be happily, consensually on your own on December 25th, Christmas day alone can be great. Your time, your choice.

• If you’re reluctantly, non-consensually alone, (and don’t have anywhere to go) it can feel terrible. Perhaps you just want to sleep? That’s okay. Or go on a huge walk. Write. Work. Is there anyone at all you can contact? Ignore the day and do your usual routine and make it a day like any other?

THINGS NOT TO SAY TO SOMEONE WHO IS STRUGGLING

• ‘It’s only one day.’

• ‘X is just insecure.’

• ‘What did you get?’

• ‘Where’s Y?’ or ‘Why aren’t you with Z?’

• ‘Can’t you just deal with it?’

• ‘You’ll be fine.’

If you’re still reading, I hope this was helpful.

  • If you’d like to find out more about how I work, and what I specialise in, please go here.
  • If you’d like to read more of my published work, please go here.

Can you really choose how you feel?

3 Comments

Sunrise North London‘It’s Tuesday. I call it ‘Choose-Day’ – because I can CHOOSE how I feel today!’

Never mind that’s it’s actually Friday. I see this kind of attitude lurking around online just a bit more than I’m comfortable with and, given that we are now entering a very challenging time of year for mental health and emotions generally, I thought I’d look a bit harder at it.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I think this is the worst ‘inspirational saying’ I have ever seen. If you know a more florid example of the genre, please send it over. I ought to have a Christmas competition, but you’d have to try very hard to beat that one. I suspect it’ll be me getting the Quality Street, but I remain open.

I am, for the moment, being lighthearted. And I should emphasise that I’m not knocking every just-for-today expression that’s ever been. In crisis, sometimes they’re all you have to cling to.

But – you can choose how you feel? Really? Others clearly subscribe to this view, as evidenced by articles with names like ‘10 Habits of Highly Unhappy People.’ There are quite a few of them around and they’re not difficult to find.

Great! You might think. We all fall into negative thinking and need a bit of a push out of it, don’t we? And actually, these articles often contain reasonable advice and appear on the surface to be well-intentioned. In a nutshell: don’t criticise or gossip, stop comparing yourself with others, don’t ruminate on the past, stop worrying about the future, stop feeling afraid, let go of your anger, look after your body, learn to trust people, stop focusing on the negatives, stop blaming others, express gratitude more, relax, and just be happy.

I can’t argue with any of this. In many ways, these lists are factually, existentially, correct.

But, as someone working in mental health, I experience increasing concern as I read through them.

They imply, or state directly, that feelings about your life and your place in the world are entirely your own choice. In different ways they flag the person’s apparent inner negativity as a reason for their problems, and how they may even be enjoying their misery.

Worst of all, not a single one that I’ve seen contains references to difficulties external to the individual: anything from abuse as a child, to poverty, to physical or mental illness, to violence, to relationship breakdown, to having no work, to experiencing discrimination because of your race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, body type or anything else, and to experiencing a downturn in circumstances because of the recession we have all been experiencing for the last five years. Not a whisper.

I’ve seen too many depressed and anxious people fighting feelings like these, whatever their circumstances. I have, once upon a time, been there myself.

And the trouble with telling someone that they have chosen their feelings, is that if you bothered to look deeper into the individual person, you might actually see the pain and trauma they have suffered. I would then challenge you to tell them they had chosen their sacking, eviction, cancer or rape, because deep down, they wanted it.

Am I being a bit melodramatic here? Human motivations are complex. Sometimes we use problems as a form of defence when life gets too hard. We retreat into illness, or hide in the past, or paralyse ourselves with fear. There will be an old script at work in here, but it is way more complex than mere choice. You cannot moralise or shame negative feelings away.

So what do we have choice over? We can choose how we outwardly react. Perhaps not in the moment, but after some reflection. We can decide what we are going to work on to make a situation different. We can be mindful of our words and actions and their impact on others. We can see if there is any possibility of acceptance of any of our difficulties, just to remove the charge from them. (All that I have just said assumes our mental health is strong enough to do this.)

There is lots we can do, but choosing our feelings, I think, is not one of them.

Low-cost counselling and psychotherapy services in London

1 Comment

London skylineSeeing a therapist in private practice isn’t financially accessible to everyone.

Here’s a list of reduced-fee talking therapy services in the London area. I hope you find it useful.

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST:

• This list is not definitive or exhaustive – it is a work in progress, and I will be adding to it as time goes on. [Most recent changes 17/12/17]

• Being listed here doesn’t necessarily mean I know the service and/or can personally endorse it. It may have been recommended to me, or I may have heard of it a number of times. I am going on what is stated on the organisations’ websites so cannot personally guarantee the content.

• There will be a number of different fee scales and a variety of numbers of sessions offered, from a few to open-ended. The trend is generally towards time-limited work of up to 12 sessions, but some places offer longer. And there will also be a variety of therapy offered. Don’t be embarrassed to ask questions.

• The counsellor you see at some of these services may be in the later stages of their training. Please don’t let this put you off. In order to practise, their trainers, if they are from a reputable college, will have spent time reflecting on whether they are ready or not. Psychotherapy students generally work very hard and have to give very detailed accounts of themselves on a regular basis.

• Some therapists in private practice do offer reduced fee places. Pink Therapy, The Counselling Directory, and the BACP’s It’s Good To Talk are all good places to start looking.

GENERAL – Clients accepted from all round London

Awareness Centre (Clapham SW4)

The Blues Project at the Bowlby Centre (Highbury N5 – waiting list currently closed at 11/17, but they say they may have spaces again in 2018 – also worth contacting the main therapy team as there may be some therapists there offering lower cost)

British Psychotherapy Foundation (Scroll down for their list of reduced fee schemes. Longer-term work.)

Centre for Better Health (Hackney E9)

Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education (CCPE) (Training organisation in Maida Vale W2. Also runs The Caravan drop-in counselling service at St James’s Church, Piccadilly W1)

Community Counselling (East Ham E6)

Free Psychotherapy Network (Collective of therapists offering free and low-cost therapy, mostly in the London area but also elsewhere)

IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) (A long list of London-wide local counselling services, many of which take self-referrals. Otherwise through your GP.)

Metanoia Institute (Training organisation in Ealing W5)

Mind in Camden – Phoenix Wellbeing Service (Mental health charity in Camden Nw1)

Mind in Haringey (Mental health charity in Haringey N4)

Minster Centre (Training organisation in Queens Park NW6)

Psychosynthesis Trust (Training organisation near London Bridge SE)

Spiral (Holloway N7)

WPF (London Bridge SE1)(Fees not really low, but they have a range of types of therapy.)

BOROUGH SPECIFIC

Help Counselling (Kensington & Chelsea W11 – mainly for residents of K&C but not entirely)

Kentish Town Bereavement Service (Kentish Town NW5 – for residents of Camden, Islington, Westminster and the City of London only)

Mind in Islington (Several sites – short term therapy for Islington residents only. Longer-term work also available.)

Mind in Tower Hamlets and Newham (Tower Hamlets E3 – for residents of Tower Hamlets and Newham only)

Time to Talk (Hammersmith & Fulham; part of Mind – likely for Hammersmith & Fulham residents only)

West London Centre for Counselling (Hammersmith W6 – for residents of Hammersmith and Fulham only)

Wimbledon Guild (Wimbledon SW19 – for residents of Merton only)

BME/INTERCULTURAL

BAATN (Black, African and Asian Therapy Network) (Extensive list of free counselling services for BME clients – UK-wide with a good number in London)

Nafsiyat (Finsbury Park N4 – for residents of Islington, Enfield, Camden and Haringey only)

Waterloo Community Counselling (Waterloo SE1 – for residents of Lambeth and Southwark, and London-wide)

CANCER SUPPORT

Maggie’s (Hammersmith W6 – clients from all round London. Also other centres UK-wide.)

Dimbleby Cancer Care (Based at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals SE1 – patients from South East London and West Kent.)

HIV SUPPORT

Living Well (North Kensington W10 – clients from all round London)

River House (Hammersmith W6 – clients from Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing, and Kensington & Chelsea only)

Terrence Higgins Trust (Online counselling; Also London and UK-wide in person services)

Metro (HIV prevention and support services in English, Spanish, Romanian, Polish and Portuguese – centres in Greenwich, Vauxhall, Gillingham and Essex)

LGBT

Spectrum Trans Counselling Service (Ladbroke Grove W10 –  free service for people who identify as trans, non-binary or are questioning their gender identity)

ELOP (Walthamstow E17 – clients from all round London)

Metro (Greenwich SE10, Vauxhall SE11, Rochester Kent ME1 – clients from all round London)

London Friend (Kings Cross N1 – clients from all round London)

Albany Trust (Balham SW17 – LGBT+ and anyone with sexual issues/difficulties)

OLDER PEOPLE

Age UK Camden (Camden WC1 – for those registered with a GP in Camden)

WOMEN

Women and health (Camden NW1 – residents of Camden only)

DRUGS & ALCOHOL

REST at Mind in Camden (Camden NW1 – support for people experiencing difficulties due to benzodiazepine dependency)

Surviving the Festive Season Part One: What makes it so stressful?

2 Comments

tg-1-7This is the first in a series of posts about getting through the holiday period. Christmas is the festival I grew up with, and the one that is the hardest to miss in the UK as it approaches, but I think much of this could apply to any other celebration where people come together over a holiday period who might not normally spend time with each other.

Needless to say, if you totally and unequivocally love these festive times, and find my question above odd or incongruous, these posts may not be for you. But you may know someone who might find them useful.

So, why does the holiday season affect so many of us so badly? And why do we continue to let it?

Positives
There are lots of potentially enjoyable things about festival periods. I am pro end-of-year (or any other time) coming together in front of fires, candles, dancing and wearing sparkly clothing. I love sitting around, not working (if possible), eating piles of food, and going for walks. As long as I can choose exactly where I am and who I am with. (That last point is crucial.)

Negatives
Those are just the nice bits. The holiday season is also, at its worst, part of the Shopping Industrial Complex, with a hearty dollop of pseudo-religiosity, dubious cultural blackmail, and coercive encouragement to spend money. Many people I know start to express dread as autumn turns to winter. Sometimes they only express it privately because such ‘negativity’ may earn them a telling off from some of their friends.

So, in this piece I am trying to unpack what it is about Christmas and other holidays that makes them so challenging. For sure, every one of the challenges has an opposite number which, for balance, I will name here: happiness, excitement, thrilling anticipation, delight at old favourites being brought out, (whether tree decorations, films, or distant relatives you adore). The joy of giving. The joy of receiving. A wonderful religious (or secular) celebration. Snow (real or artificial). Singing. Community. Hearing about the wonderful time everyone else is having and being happy for them because you are happy too. The delight in sharing your own abundance. Feasting. Love. Family. Connection. But this isn’t why you’re reading this.

 

Nine ways the festive season can make us stressed (Really, more like 99.)

The lead-up

• The long, long lead-up that seems to get longer every year. Those first sleigh bells, those first red, green and white themed designs, the incongruous appearance of seasonal food displays among the discount picnic sets. These chirping canaries are almost impossible to avoid, even if you have no internet, TV or radio.
• Consequent expectations: of the world, of others, of yourself.
• The sense that you must hide any negative feelings about it all.

Money

• Holiday spending was never easy for many people. In the last few years, things have become catastrophic. The pressure to spend a lot, be seen to do so, and the accompanying pressure to receive as much as possible, can put intolerable pressure on people. ‘What did you get?’ is a heartsink of a question. Morale can drop further at its frequent follow-up: ‘I got so much stuff! I’m so blessed!’  (See also birthdays).
• If you have children there will be a lot of added pressure. Ditto, and doubled, if there is financial inequality in your family or peer group.

Relationships

• You may not wish to spend time with blood relatives or in laws who you find challenging or actively abusive.
• You may be struggling to deal with your own immediate family for the same reason.
• The pressure to be in a relationship with someone, anyone, to avoid the shame of singlehood, becomes paramount. Normative relationships are particularly pushed at this time of gift-giving.
• If you have children and have split from the person you were parenting with, you may have to do more stressful negotiation than usual about the time you all spend together.
• If you are single, you may feel obliged to perform acts of charity, such as volunteering, to compensate for your purportedly selfish lifestyle.
• You may have few personal relationships and feel increasingly isolated at this time.

Being geographically trapped

• One of the vagaries of living in the UK/London is that there is no public transport on Christmas day. It makes planning a real headache. Taxis are expensive. Railway companies often use holiday periods as a time to fix their networks as well. (I’m aware it’s a public holiday, but many people do work that day.)
• Situations that you can manage for two or three hours may swiftly become overwhelming if they involve staying the night or relying on the kindness/sobriety of others for a lift home.
• The same goes for people having an expectation of visiting you, in numbers or for lengths of time that are challenging.

Emotional triggers

• Memories of people who we have lost, and happier times long gone.
• Doubled if there is an anniversary of a loss around this time, or the loss is within the last year.
• Overwhelming proximity to people we find anything from challenging to actively abusive.
• Highly charged atmospheres.
• Loneliness.
• Feeling obliged to adopt feelings and behaviours that are alien to you.
• Other peoples’ well meaning but sometimes thoughtless exhortations to enjoy yourself.
• The assumption, often well meaning,  that you must be having a good time, and that you ‘must be’ in the company of large numbers of close friends and loving family.
• The pressure to be happy, measured against a seemingly arbitrary scale that it is almost impossible to achieve.
• Comparison with others’ lives and experiences.
• Noise, flashing lights.
• Lack of money / being conspicuously the one with the least.
• You may find the presence of children triggering. This may be because of your own childhood experiences, or you are having difficulty having children of your own.

 Old behaviours and patterns re-emerging

• Pleasing others.
• Denying your own needs.
• Falling back into emotional blackmail.
• Feeling obliged to pretend or put on a false persona.
• A sense of obligation leading to resentment.
• Buying others’ love, with material gifts, food, etc.
• Bullying.
• Anger.
• Depression.
• Excessive use of alcohol, drugs, or food.
• Exacerbation of existing mental health issues.

Religion

• If you are religious, you may be appalled at the hijacking and/or commercialisation of a very significant time in the calendar.
• If you are not, you may feel that religion is being forced upon you.
• You may attend religious events only at this time of year, and may or may not feel like a hypocrite.

Alcohol and other intoxicants

• Intoxication makes everything seem bigger and louder. This can go both ways.
• Intoxication may lead to verbal and physical fights and abuse.
• It may also lead to no-going-back ‘truth-telling’. This may have a cathartic outcome, or create long rifts.
• It may encourage sexual behaviour beyond our normal boundaries, or non-consensual activity.
• Not consuming intoxicants may cause you to be singled out, whatever your reasons.
• (Paradoxically, intoxication can get us through difficult days and for some, may be the only thing that does.)

The internet

• Wanting to stay in contact with your online communities but without witnessing what might at another time be called ‘showing off’, ie the endless performative sharing of others’ bounty, whether involving holidays, gifts given and received, partners, children etc.

If you’re reading this, nodding, and shouting HELP, one thing’s for sure: you’re not alone. I suspect more people experience elements of the above than don’t. People seem to be very good at pressuring ourselves in to doing things we have never truly consented to.

My next post in the series will offer some strategies for making things go easier, faster, or quieter.

  • If you’d like to find out more about how I work, and what I specialise in, please go here.
  • If you’d like to read more of my published work, please go here.