Damn these tears

My eyes are moist again.  I am feeling very low today, not very cheerful at all.  I can give you no explanations why, but everything critical that I see or read seems to be aimed at me.  Nonsense though I know that is.  I am surrounded by so much love and affection and I am trying to think positively but it's not working today.  I shall probably be OK tomorrow.  At least the sun is shining so we are getting some washing dry.  I don't even know why I am writing this drivel.  It is self-indulgent.  I think that I need chocolate.  I shall go and find some.

So What's Next?

I have been giving some thought about what I should do now.  This is the start of a new year for me - May 13 will always been a little private new year.  Many years ago someone read my palm and told me that she saw that I would have a major upheaval in my life and that I might well kill myself.  At the time I thought that she was ridiculous.   However, I have had the upheaval, but fear not, I am not considering ending it all just yet.  You've got me for a day or two longer.

I have several projects that need to be finalised.  I really do need to knuckle down to the family history again and I despair of the book.   But that's not all down to me.  Summer is just around the corner and the house will start to buzz with the chattering of teenagers.  My trips to the beach will increase - they swim and sunbathe, I mooch about.  It also means al fresco eating, doing stuff in the garden (my poor bones) and digging out the BBQ for Clare's annual shindig that her parents enjoy too.  We don't camp out like them though.  On a myLot discussion I explained that I have an Orang Utang and a crocodile in the garden.  They may put a slight dampener on this years party.  Should be fun though.

Pumpkin has found a new house for her and her family.  That is fantastic news to me.  She works so hard for them all and I am delighted that she will have a great new kitchen to work in as well as being more convenient for her SO's work etc.

I am thinking about looking for a job.  As I said in my last post, I don't want a high powered, BMW driving, look at me aren't I important because I earn more money that you and more stress than I can handle job.  Nope, all I want is something that will provide a little service to people and get me out - and bring me a pound or two.  Any thoughts?  Apart from a mobile library driver I cannot think of anything.  I shall have to start searching.

Happy days are here again......

The Truth and Nothing But The Truth

I am writing this at the exact time that a year ago my adventure with mental illness began.  I was in my office when I felt an overwhelming need to get away.  To close my mind to any external distractions and leave.  For nearly two years I had been ignored, undermined, belittled and humiliated and suddenly it didn't seem important any more.  I could no longer cope.

I had been delighted in March 2004 to be appointed to the most senior operational position in an organisation whose purpose was to deliver employee HR advice and support to a major Government Department.  I had an international role and a large staff based across the World.  I was given no support staff and expected to provide a 24/7 on call service which I shared with a colleague.  My days were largely spent traveling, meeting corporate clients, and helping staff resolve their client lists as well as managing the staff as well.

All went well, except we knew that we were to be taken over by a new organisation that was run in the main by ex-bankers who had little grasp of people dynamics and no idea at all about what it was that we did.  But that was OK, we were there to help them.  I met the new Chief Executive and his deputy.  The latter was fairly dismissive of our worth and it was clear that he felt that we were really a distraction to his main business which was creating a "People Centre".

He left us alone for a few months, but did invite me to the senior management strategy meetings, but never acted on any points that I raised, but he was at least polite.  The CEO even bought me lunch once and impressed on me how vital I was to the whole effort.  Then he brought in a former financier from a major UK bank as my new boss and that was where the fun really began.

Initially things went well.  He had a "Vision" for the future, he wanted us to offer a wider reaching service; things that I could live with quite happily.  He wanted to spread my role amongst a larger number of managers - my first alarm bell rang - but if it benefitted the organisation who was I to complain.  We had already had a "rationalisation" and a number of staff had left, but we were a sharper service as a result.  He also wanted to merge what we did with another HR activity.  I was less sanguine about that, but he was determined to carry on, and so long as there was no negative overlap I was happy for it to happen.  Then the new managers started to appear and he drifted away from me.  In fact he never contacted me again unless he wanted something.  I would try to contact him, but usually got his voicemail - we worked in different parts of the country and he very rarely called me back.

He devised and set up an strategic implementation team that consisted of all the newly appointed managers.  I wasn't invited and when I enquired of one of them why I never got invited to their meetings was told because they had been instructed not to.  To say that I felt upset by this was an understatement.  In fairness the other managers, hearing that I had made that enquiry, did invite me to subsequent meetings.  I then discovered that there was a whole host of things going on that I was not even aware of.  Conferences, recruitments, training of people that I didn't know had been recruited and who I was expected to, in part, manage.  I went to one meeting and my boss came up to me, he was just passing through, he rarely attended the meetings himself, slapped me on the back and said that he thought that I was on a steep learning curve.  Another understatement.

I returned to my own staff and explained to them what was going on and how I thought the new organisation would look.  The record of that meeting somehow found its way to my boss.  Who waited until we were at a conference in the Midlands, having lunch, to express his annoyance with me, in full view of others, including several that worked for me.  He also told me that he had decided that I should not longer have my senior welfare title and that he was passing that to someone else who at that time was working abroad!  Happy I was not.

From then on I could do not right.  He would barely speak to me, and glower at me like I was an itch he couldn't properly scratch.  He was never wholly impolite, but he let his thoughts show clearly enough to me.  Of course there was more than this, but my aim in writing this is not to give a blow by blow account.

That brings me to this day 12 months ago.  I was writing a report that he hadn't called for, but that I knew that he would.  Suddenly the message came on my e mail that he wanted it immediately.  He'd forgotten about it until reminded himself and was now panicking.  So I let him.  I closed down my office.  Had a privately tearful session and left.

The following day I went to the doctor who signed me off work for a fortnight.  But I resisted any drug treatment.  My wife rang my boss who spent most of the conversation telling her about his own breakdown a couple of years earlier!  Perhaps that explained some of his behaviour.  I don't know.  I didn't hear from him again for a total of 11 weeks.  When he wrote saying words to the effect "when are you coming back?"  In the meantime I was allocated a psychologist and signed of for many more weeks.  The psychologist challenged me in many different ways and for the first time in a long time I started to see that there was a life outside of work.

My staff were wonderful.  I received many letters and cards and felt hugely appreciated by them.  But my bosses didn't bother to contact me - ever - apart from when I wrote myself to the CEO, and my own boss's "hurry up" call at 11 weeks.  I attended weekend sessions at the local mental hospital - I was always surprised to see how many faces I recognised at those - and I began an internet therapy course that was also first class.  I cannot criticise the NHS.  They were wonderful.  Eventually I did start drug therapy and it helped hugely.  I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long.

Initially I suffered from enormous guilt about being ill.  I felt that I should pull myself together and get back to work; but I knew that could not.  I would spend hours lying on the bed, either sleeping or feeling very inadequate.  There was a concern that I might be suicidal - I never felt that way once in fact, but I understand why they might have had that worry.  I was not allowed to spend too much time alone.  I was terrified that I might meet someone that I knew so I literally hid myself away either at home or at my parents. Eventually the psychologist persuaded me to go to a local supermarket for an hour each day.  I would spend 15 minutes walking the aisles and then go to the coffee shop for the rest of the time.  But it forced me out and I gained some confidence.  But still I couldn't face work and I started to think that maybe I never would.  I also stopped missing it, so resolved to leave and take some time off.

My employer had agreed to give me full pay for six months - at the end of that time I resigned and found myself without work for the first time in 33 years.  As a final parting shot I was sent a valedictory letter.  It was written by somebody that I had never heard of but thanked me for my 31 years work.  That was good of them.  I expect my name came up on a database reminder somewhere.  Being without work is not scary, but that is maybe because we have a little money and can afford my "holiday".  I want to start doing something soon, but I don't know what.  I don't want to be a senior executive again.  Every day I receive an E mail from an HR recruiter - it's full of "exciting" opportunities doing things that I can do standing on my head.  But I should be bored before I'd completed the application form.  I have been there, done that and hated it. Why go back for more?  Something part-time appeals.  I'd love to drive a mobile library.

What is a little sad to me is that several of my friends haven't so much dropped me, as don't know what to say.  We are of a generation where we don't give up, we pull our socks up and battle on.  I didn't do that and possibly, in their eyes, have let the side down.  Many are the same though, but we don't see each other as much as we did before.  Such is life.

The really wonderful thing is that I discovered social networking.  I am not very good at it, but I have made so many wonderful friends.  They know who they are and how I feel about them.

Onwards and upwards.  It's the only way to go.

I am desirable again

Blogger has freed me from my pariah status and I can get on and write my book.  Thank you Blogger.

Apparently I am an undesirable

I decided at the weekend to set up a parallel blog to this one to act as an ongoing story.  The intention is that I shall start writing and only stop once I have reached a conclusion, or my friends have had enough and tell me the thing is too awful to read any further.  I also hope that they they might give me editorial thoughts and pointers.

I thought that this was pretty innocuous and could not imagine that anyone might take offence at the idea.  But Blogger has!  S/He has told me that my Blog may be a "Spam Blog"  whatever that means.  To say that I am unimpressed is an understatement.  There are barely any words there and I am unable to post for now.  I have raised an appeal, but I am pretty annoyed.

I am going away for a few days.  Back on Friday.  If my blog is still there and functioning again I shall try to make a start.  I am slightly afraid that I shall lose both that blog and this.  Clearly I am an evil subversive undesirable.  You just thought that I was a fish with a penchant for conical bras!

Sunday Roast

I have popped back to myLot a few times over the past 12 hours.  Bella thought that the time was right to salute our friends which we have done royally, most of us have been there - except for Cyn!  Where is that girl?

Roasting is not something that we do in the UK - except on a Sunday usually when we carnivores like nothing better than to get to grips with a joint of beef or similar.  Alternatively, being roasted is not something that we relish.  In the UK it means that we have been told off. 

The whole concept of saluting ones friends by means of an irreverent but affectionate discussion seems on the surface, rather shallow and cloying.  In fact, it has been a wonderful experience, at least for me.  Now there are parts of this blog where I have made clear how I feel about my myLot friends. But the opportunity to say what we feel about each other in an organised manner in front of the whole myLot audience is quite unusual and I for one welcome it.  I am also delighted to have the opportunity to acknowledge the debt that I owe to my friends without whom my life would lack so much.

So as I get to grips with my Sunday roast I give thanks for the Sunday myLot roast too.  Cheers.

Do we "Overshare"?

Eh?  Do we what?  Overshare?  What's that then?  Those of us that spend what seems like an increasing part of our days on sites like myLot, Yuwie or the myriad of similar sites have become used to sharing our secrets with each other.  But how far should we go.  The lure of such sites is that they expose us to a far wider variety of thoughts and perspectives than we might otherwise discover from within our own close circle of family and friends.  The anonymity of the internet gives us a sense of security that allows us to reveal intimate details and receive confirmation that we are not so unusual; that ointment X will help that embarrassing spot, that someone else slept with his wife's best friend too etc.

But why do we want to share this information in the first place?  Is it because we are sad, lonely, morbidly curious, exhibitionists, what?  I think that it has something to do with the pseudo psychotherapy approach to modern life, at least in the West.  For years now we have been actively encouraged not to bottle it up, letting go is good.   We are comfortable therefore, with the thought that it is permissible to ask for opinion about almost anything.   We are happy to parade all that ails us in front of our peers.  I belong to a generation that grew up believing that family problems stopped at the garden gate.  You never ever washed your dirty linen in public.  But that approach has now been all but dashed and I, along with thousands of others, seek the comfort and solace that sharing my agony with a strangers brings. I have mentioned elsewhere here that a number of those strangers are no longer viewed in that light by me.  They have become friends, some of them very close.  They know things about me that my family are not necessarily aware of.  I have posed in women's underwear for their amusement.  I would never do that in my local newspaper.   Neither would that be information that I would share with a prospective employer.  But I am happy to share that comedy image with the World!   I feel safe simply because I have placed myself on the global scene rather than the parochial one in which I live.

If we show a willingness to share, then where does the line get drawn?  I am not sure that it does.  I have sat on trains listening to the most personal details of family life as someone finishes his breakfast conversation on the 7.10am to Waterloo (London).  "Darling, I have said I won't see her again. What do you want me to do?  She works in the same building for goodness sake.  Cutting up my suits isn't helpful my love.  You're getting this all out of proportion" and so forth.  Great entertainment, but is it healthy?  We all like a gossip and to know who is doing what and then feign shock and indignation that there should have been such a lowering of morals.  You have to look no further than Oprah, Montel, Jerry Springer to see people happily trotting onto the TV to bare their souls for the delectation of the wider community.  And we love it don't we.  We act as amateur counsellors to the legion of men and women that parade their problems in the hope that somehow we will make it all better.  We receive our 15 minutes of fame too.  Andy Warhol was not so far off the mark then.

Look at the other public things that we do.  To start with, there's this blog.  I have written this for myself but I hope that you will read it too.  Some people put their diaries on-line, others their art and literature.  What about a film, I'll stick it on Youtube.  The possibilities are endless.  Do we feel happier for doing this?  In the old days someone's diary was intensely personal and rarely shared; at least while they were alive.  Now we leap to the internet to share.  We pronounce ourselves happy.  Only time will tell if we really are.

But our happiness to reveal our innermost thoughts comes at a price.  We look for benign, uncritical responses and live in hope of affirmation that what we think, do or believe is acceptable to others.  If their response is less than enthusiastic we sulk, scream or abuse the very people that minutes before we were asking for their help.  But having received this brush off what do we do?  Why, we rush off and ask another question, hopeful that this time the replies will be more generous.  Perhaps we are addicted.  

I don't think that we will return to the days when discretion ruled.  The advent of the internet has brought a freedom that allows us to express ourselves in ways hitherto unthought of.  I can even publish a book myself now abut anything that I want.  No agent, no publisher, just a few words, $20 and I am published.  

So with all that in mind.  I will see you out on the lot.  I've got a very nasty rash somewhere sensitive that I just want to share.