Taking the wins

Some public psychotherapy for you

I’m not very good at being nice to myself. For example, most people would probably describe my situation as “young man who had a tragic accident.” But I think: “Disgusting fat pig, who once had an excellent life. His only job was to not fuck it up, and he couldn’t even do that.”

A more specific manifestation is that I don’t let myself feel particularly good about anything that I’ve achieved. The process goes like this. If I’ve accomplished something, that means it can’t have been that hard to do, or else I wouldn’t have been able to do it, therefore it deserves no special praise. Anything that’s now done no longer counts, by virtue of the fact that it’s done. And so the task is to find the next thing to try to achieve…even though once it is achieved, it won’t count either. (Of course, anything I can’t do is grounds to castigate myself for falling short, for failing.)

Clearly, this was never an especially healthy mindset. That way, the path to self-contentment and happiness doth not lie. But it got me a long way in my previous life, underlying a relentless work ethic that made me successful along various metrics.

But what was always unhealthy is now pathological. There isn’t much to be positive about in my life these days, and so denying myself those positives that can be gleaned is counterproductive, to say the least. Hence, I thought it would be a good idea to try and put down in writing some of those things that a kinder of version of myself might take pride in. Also, I figured it might be nice for people reading this to get a break from the regular diet of drip-fed misery.

So the first thing I should be positive about is that last week I completed my second semester teaching back at work. As I’ve been on something of a reduced load, that represents essentially the academic year completed. Even better, I managed to do every single seminar and lecture I was scheduled for, from September to the end of March. Initially I started co-teaching with a colleague, but in the second semester was leading sessions by myself. True to form, I now seek to dismiss this as the bare minimum I should be expected to do. So it’s worth remembering that in the first few weeks there were some dicey moments where my blood pressure dropped and I wasn’t sure I could even make it to the end of seminars. (And bonus points for managing to hold it together, such that I don’t think anybody noticed.) As recently as January I genuinely did not know if I could deliver a 50-minute lecture by myself, or run a seminar group solo. I spent two months from November doing breathing exercises to improve my lung capacity, and initially took blood pressure medication before sessions as a pre-emptive measure. And despite only just making it to the end of a couple of the early lectures, by the end I was no longer nervous about the prospect of finishing, and could dispense with the crutch of medication. At the start of the academic year I was sure that something would keep me out of the classroom – a UTI, pressure sore, something else from the list of horrors – but that I have made it 100% of the way through is now credit in the bank. And if I’ve done this once, I should be able to do it again. That was no means a given this time last year, so I need to try and stop taking it as a given just because I’ve been able to do it.

The second thing to be positive about is that this week I also got confirmation of having an academic research article accepted to a peer reviewed journal. In fact, this is the second original research article that I’ve written, and had accepted for publication, since the accident. I started working on both back when I was still living in a care home, when the chance to do something with my mind represented a blessed release from the stressful mundanity of institutionalised healthcare. And having then spent 8 months in hospital, without using my mind at all, I again didn’t know if I’d even be able to do it: voice-dictating blog posts is one thing, producing original academic work another. But having devised various ways to access the sources I need online, getting a friend to teach me how to use referencing software to make life a bit easier, and learning to accept the frustrations of voice dictation – I’ve now proved to myself that I can do it. Of course, having achieved this my mind has now decided to torment me with the fear that I’ll never have any new ideas, because I’m without a big research project for the first time in 15 years, and generally a bit devoid of intellectual inspiration. But focusing on the present, the headline result is that when it comes to teaching and research – the two core things that I’m employed to do - there is solid evidence that I can indeed still do them. That seemed impossible for me when I was staring at a hospital ceiling in Whitechapel. Now I know that it isn’t.

The final thing I'm trying to take pride in is that on Friday I finally went somewhere by myself, for the first time in nearly two years. Over last few months I’ve done some “well-being coaching” sessions at my local GP practice, something offered to me alongside a change in antidepressants during a particularly bad spell a few months back. Obviously enough, the sessions are no magic bullet. But the lady who runs them is good to speak to, reinforcing much of the advice my regular therapist gives me, and if nothing else simply going there provided an excuse to get out of the flat every couple of weeks. The NHS only provides six sessions in total, and Friday was the last. So I set myself a goal of going there and coming back without a carer, having done the route enough times to know that it is possible under my own power.

Which might not sound like much, but to me it was daunting. What if I got stuck? What if I fell out of my chair? What if I was attacked? What if a car hit me when crossing the road? Et cetera, et cetera. Before informing my carer of the decision to go by myself, I hesitated. But then I thought: for fuck’s sake, in the past you have free soloed rock climbs where a single mistake would have led to certain death, so just back yourself and commit. (Ironically the day I had my accident I was doing everything safely and by the book, ropes and all – but that’s a story for another time.) So I asked to be let out of the main doors to the apartment building, and off I went.

20 minutes there, and 20 minutes back. Everything was fine. I made it with no incidents or complications – just a quiet but real satisfaction in being out by myself, for the first time in almost two years.

And why stop there, I thought? On Saturday afternoon I repeated the trick, wheeling myself down to the park that’s a kilometre or so away. I spent some time in the sun. Watched people pulling tricks in the small skate park. Pootled around the bougie street food market that is there on Saturdays, and thought: it would be good to get lunch there in the future, for a change.

Sure, it’s a long way from wilderness. And like everywhere in London, it’s just so damn busy, so frantically overpopulated. I still miss real nature, real solitude, real adventure and challenge. I find it hard to believe that I’ll ever truly be happy again, knowing what I’ve lost. It feels undeniable that I’m not as good at teaching as I used to be, not as mentally sharp in general. If you asked me to sum up my estimation of myself in a single word, the honest truth would still be: “failure”. But for today at least, I’ll try and take the wins where I can find them.