Snazy

Ok a stone at least.
Today I left my session with Peter not only with positive thoughts, but also a physical reminder for me to THINK!

Today's session was a real eye opener, and probably the most effective session to date. After a few minutes of chatting and starting the session, hearing what I was saying, I started to realise that change is happening without me even being aware of it.

Talking things through, reflecting on how things are changing for me right now, and how my attitude towards things, it all starts to become a little more obvious to me what I do right and wrong during a normal day. From anger and frustration towards selfish arseholes blocking my driveway, to how I react to being cut up, or someone cutting in in traffic, its all about being aware of the emotions that are being invoked, and how I choose to work with them, deal with them and vent them.

One revelation that arose from today's session was, how I treat anger and sadness in a very similar way. The process of feeling them both is almost identical, however I manage anger in a better way, if that's the right way of looking at it. From trigger, emotional reaction, and expression, right through to resolution. Anger for me goes through all the motions. And while dealt with badly at times, it reaches its conclusion. Where as sadness just seems to stall at expression, or maybe even before at the reaction stage.

Never concluding an emotional cycle seems to be where I trip up, and rather than being a 100 metre sprint, it becomes a never ending 400 metre loop that just keeps going on and on. To draw an analogy, running the 100 metres is a straight clear journey with the ending in sight. But running emotions round an oval just goes on forever. Yes we know there is a finishline there somewhere, but where? We keep going, running hoping and praying it will all end soon, but with the line nowhere in sight, we just keep running, tiring out and losing hope and motivation. To me, THIS is sadness.

Anger, a dash, a quick journey, and straight forward.
Sadness right now is the loop, so what I need to do now is find the tail of the 100 metre track, the emotional run off, and find the place I know I can end the cycle when it occurs.
To me, sadness is a deeper, longer process, to taking a longer journey is fine, as long as that line is in sight.

So, that was deep eh! And that's the real me coming out again. Unleashed again into the wild world (sorry about that)

But that's a good thing. Now I have a parallel to draw on, I can maybe start to see why sadness seems to be such a hard emotion to deal with. Am I afraid to cry, no. Am I emotionally detached? Nope. I am more than capable of understanding sadness, and feeling it. But when its something like grief, I seem incapable of seeing it through to its conclusion, which is the problem we have here, hence the sessions with Peter.

On my provisional chat with Peter on the phone before the first session even started I was asked what I felt I needed from the sessions. At this point I said I needed someone to sound off against, a sounding board. Someone to bounce thoughts off, to help me make sense of what I was thinking. 3 weeks later, as we sat in session I said that I felt in control, having known what I needed from the start.

As we talk in the sessions a weird thing happens. I will say something, something relevant, an emotion or a situation. Peter will then repeat it to me with his wording on the matter. Then the weird part happens. I will then take what he has said to me as his own problem, reflect on it and start to break it down, make sense of it and understand it. Helping myself more than anything else.
The exact process that usually occurs with me helping someone else, but somehow as I am replying, I am feeling myself start to understand.

All a little complex I guess, but hell its working.

Right, with all that said, I had better return to the daily grind and get a wiggle on.

So thank you Peter for my thought stone, and today's session. And thank YOU for reading 🙂

Regards

Michael

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After struggling about this morning and moaning all afternoon I decided to book in a session with my old physio. Remembering how quickly the symptoms went away once my back had received some attention, I thought it is a small price to pay for comfort and mobility back.

On calling I was pleased to hear I am still on their records over 2 years after my last appointment. Sadly the rather pretty and capable physio Jodie who used to work there, does not any more. Which is a shame as she was fantastic at cracking my back.

So I am booked in for tomorrow afternoon for an assessment and initial session, hopefully the person replacing Jodie will be just as good at deep tissue massage and back cracking (not a technical term I might add) As long as I can turn my head by the time I walk out of their offices I will be happy.

The question on my mind now is, should I splash out on a once monthly deep tissue sports massage to keep my old knackered body loose and ticking over? I'm sure it can't do any harm, but on the flipside, will there be any benefit. Something I may discuss with them tomorrow. Resolution treatment is one thing, but if I can be proactive and prevent these things arising, even better.

So the day is coming to an end now. I have some reading material from the counsellor to go through, details on stress and emotions. So I shall get tucked into that soon. Then its walk the dogs, chill for a bit and try and get a good nights sleep on my aching neck/back.

On another note, day 2 of Protikee diet. Doing fine on it, and looking forwards to the coming days 🙂 Fingers crossed I can stay on track.

Have a great evening all.

Night
®

So today started off in an intersting fashion to say the least. Waking up at about 7am with a god awful backache which I seriously need to get looked at very soon. As well as a headache from hell. So not a great feeling.
After popping a few pills and jumping back in bed (carefully crawling more like) I got another hours sleep and tried starting the day again.
Second attempt was almost as painful as the first, back not happy at all, but head a little better.

Unfortunatly due to the extra hour in bed, that sort of ruined my morning, as I was unable to get the dogs walked before going to see the counseller. So up I got, pulled myself together and got dressed before leaving the house for the walk up to see Peter. Arriving a few mins early, as I waited outside I suddenly remembered that I didnt have the paperwork with me that he had asked me to return. Oops. Thankfully I didnt take this as a spark to start of a day of doom and gloom, so maybe some good is coming from all this already.

After the session I decided on a haircut, which was long overdue. Then rushed home for some porridge, with cinammon, yum !

Anyway, I digress, im sure you want to know about the session today really eh. So here goes.
Firstly I have to say that this was the first official session, the previous one was a getting to know you session.
So the session started by a recap of last weeks chat, in which he gave a suprising amount of info and feedback. Even if he had read up a few mins before, his knowledge was good and reassuring to know it was not just a generic catch up session.

As agreed last week, we decided to focus on emotions today, channelling them, dealing with them, and how I seem to have a blockage in managing to get them dealt with and out in the open.
As we talked this over we uncovered a few other underlaying issues that could possibly be the reasoning that I am so poor at managing to get my emotions out of me. As most would expect, childhood came up, but I have to stress that was through my offering, and not his asking.
Key points covered today were as follows

-Growing up as the only male in the family
-Premature emotional maturity (dealing with emotions as an adult from 10-11)
-Being a very open person, but fearing people becoming involved in my emotions
-Finding ways to channel and vent my emotions, rather than bottling them up.

Its strange to sit there and chat about these things in such a productive way, and the session is formatted in such a way that after a little exploration, we recap to ensure it all makes sense and we are heading in the right direction.

Today I started to make a little sense of how certain things in my past have really shaped the way I deal with my emotions, and how from quite an early age I would start to bottle up my feelings. Nothing traumatic, nothing abusive or anything like that. But a long sequence of events that have in some way impacted on my behaviour. It was no sort of analysis, just a few simple questions that made me sit and reflect for a moment on things I felt may have had some baring.

The first death I experienced was my Aunt Peggy. I clearly recall where I was when I found out she had passed, and it was me asking my mum had she died. When my mum said she had, my reaction was very numb and as simple as "oh no, thats sad". On the flip side, when Adam King was killed by being hit by 2 cars when I was 11, I cried with ease, and was deeply distressed by his passing. Maybe the graphic way he was killed, maybe just the first person I was used to seeing on a daily basis, who knows. But it reminds me that I am capable of expressing grief in this way.

From that point on, I have rarely shed a tear, a relationship has brought me to tears since that point, but nothing else really. In times of grief or fear I simply tighten up and stand strong through it, and then at some point store the emotions away, forgetting about them, but leaving them there to fester, and put me where I am today.

Im not in a terrible place, but I do know that its not a good place, and something I need to address before I go through anymore stressful situations.

So as the session drew to an end, and we started on the final recap and summary of the session, my mood changed from light and chatty, to a little deeper in thought, and suddenly finding myself in deep reflection over what we had been discussing. It was a change of feeling that I was more than aware of, and was even aware that my replies in conversation has slipped from "yes (and some supplimentary talk) to simple "uh-huh" as my mind wandered away to start processing what it had been presented with. Which to my mind was a positive step, and Peter also felt that this was a good sign. Once again we had managed to stir up the pot of emotion deep within me, and fingers crossed, started to untangle the web of confusion deep within.

I will be doing some more writing on this over the course of the week, but all in all, im enjoying the counselling very much, and finding it quite productive even at such an early stage. So here's to next week, and seeing where we are at then.

So thats todays mind session over with.

In other news, my back is really getting on my nerves now. I need to see someone to give it a good crack, and get some mobility back in my neck soon. Just a matter of finding someone local and affordable to see to the matter.

Question is chiropracter or physio. Physio would deal with the whole matter, but would be nice just to get the back cracked would be a nice start.

Right, time is up.
Thats me done for the day, thanks for reading, and sorry for going on for so long, hope it was an enjoyable or in some way useful to read.

It makes a change for me to have a truly stress free day, but I think I might have actually managed it today. Or stress free by my standards anyway. I didn't sleep in late, got up once my body said "ok I'm ready". Porridge for breakfast, then slowly got ready to walk the dogs.

Once out walking the dogs, I actually appreciated the outdoors and fresh air.

Positive in mind has an amazing effect on the body I have to say. This afternoon I have managed to relax watching some TV, and instead of the usual worries and concerns about everything around me I managed to forget everything for a while and kick back.

Having recently started taking stock of what I have, what I am blessed with and gifted with (aside the great sense of humour and amazing looks), I have started to notice other people around me more. And while it would be wrong to say I pity them, I can honestly say that sometimes "it sucks to be you". OK so sometimes I'm down on luck, go through rough patches, and other times life seems unbearable. But compared to some others around me, even those who are judged to be the lucky ones... I'm glad I am who I am.

In recent days, weeks I have started to reconnect with myself, and return to my comfort zone. Returning to my old ways, the inner me. I think one of my problems has been, as I have distanced myself from other people, and stopped helping people with their problems and woes, I have resorted to self analysis. Which in anyones books is sure to be a bad thing if you spend too long doing it, and dig too deep.

So for the past few days I have tried to listen more, compare it to my experiences and try to offer a shoulder, some advice, and a friendly ear to anyone needing one.
I have found from all this that I am ready to start trying to get back on my feet. And a part of this process I have decided that getting my book writing back on track is a key part of all this.

Right, back to relaxing, a new week starts in the morning. Fingers crossed the diet will be back on track, and with another counselling session on Tues I'm hoping for a positive week.

Thanks for reading, take care

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Or at least that's what I like to tell myself. OK bad start to the day, bad start to the blog really. But a great example of how a single act can start the collapse of a whole house of cards when your mind is a tiny bit fragile.

After much deep thinking last night, with a refreshed and revitalised mind, I managed to sleep well last night, eventually dropping off at about 1.30am. In fact I slept so well last night, that there lays the problem. I overslept. So usually over sleeping to me is a matter of waking up, thinking "oops" or at worst "oh shit" and then getting on with the day, but today... Not the case. The doorbell woke me, so by the time I got up and towards the door I was still sleep-blind so asked my mother to open the door.

Now I don't think I mentioned it here, but mum is deaf and I recently bought her a hearing aid which has changed everything. Sadly she insists on taking it off and putting it on, which the cheap temp one I bought her is useless for, so in short she has managed to break it. She refused to go to the door before fixing it. So blind, I opened the door.. And there was the "we missed you" card 🙁 Damnit.

So now I am sitting in the bath with the Blackberry, writing all this down, while at the same time reflecting on it and seeing how somethings have pissed me off more than normal, and focusing on the good that will come of today.

In a couple of hours I will be sitting in a tattooists chair for another sitting on my tribute tattoo, an appointment I have been looking forwards to. So with that in mind, I will consider getting out of the bath the start of my day and start with a clean sheet.

So thank you for reading, thank you for joining me and the Blackberry in the bath (I didn't drop it, woohoo) and I shall be back in a more positive frame when I start my day again soon.

Have a great day all.

Regards

Michael

Sent using BlackBerry®

Well, I figured as I had 5 mins spare I would quickly jot down a few points that gets everything back up to date, mainly the whole issue with mum.

Since my last entry she has had 2 surgeries on her cancer. The first was a mastectomy to remove the affected tissue and the tumour. And the second was a corrective procedure following an issue with the drain after the first op.
After her first operation she was rather poorly, displaying the signs of her blood loss episode, so I was keen to get her back to the hospital and get her checked over. This is when it was decided to do a follow up procedure.

I am however happy to report that after the second operation her health has taken a turn for the better, and she is back to being an active and energetic "over 60" year old 🙂
That in turn has given me a little more time to reflect on my own life, hence the counselling being started.

All in all things are looking up for me right now, so im hoping to be able to get back to regular blogging at some point soon.

As for things with my sister. She is pregnant, expecting her 4th this winter. The recent arrival Teyla is in good health and making great progress.
The dogs are as fun and loving as ever of course, with Tuvaaq now being somewhat calmer than he used to be. He is a man now 🙂

And finally the house issues. The kitchen and bathroom are scheduled to be refitted in the coming month or 2, which will cause a nightmare for sorting out somewhere for the dogs to go, and getting mum out of the house when any dusty building work is being carried out. But where there is a will there is a way.
The plot of land nextdoor has recently had planning permission refused for their plans of a 7 flat building. So its still an empty cleared plot of land, leaving me with a big ugly white fence blocking my view of the rest of the street

Right im done, im rambling and I dont like rambling.

Well that's what my mind and body have been telling me to do for a while now, but today was the day it changed from a thought to a reality. Having considered all sorts of counselling for a long time now, only to dismiss is as something I didn't need. In the past few weeks I have realised that it would be a positive thing to do, and have taken steps towards making it a reality.

So this morning I, Michael Snasdell faced up to things, and met up with my counsellor, Peter for the first time. Having always been the one who counselled others, this was a real role reversal for me, but I have to say, after just 1 hour, a much needed one.

I have been doing my usual deep thinking recently about the world around me, and trying to identify the triggers that cause me to take an emotional nose dive into, and was quite surprised with that I actually came up with. Some things that I would have expected to be a true burden are actually not factoring too highly, and other things that seem to have just been insignificant seem to really stir some emotion.

Having talked to Peter quite openly about where I am right now mentally, things slowly are starting to fall into place for me. Its not a quick fix, and its certainly not the answer to all my questions of the world around me, but its IS another trigger. I am constantly identifying things in my life that provoke me in any way, so I have a catalogue of things I in some way avoid for the greater good. Mainly people and experiences, not that they are emotional decisions, just more life choices, and areas i prefer to stay away from for ease of life, and so I remain in my comfort zone, and surrounded by all things familiar.

So today I have formed a new opinion, and experienced something quite new to me. Counselling is a positive thing, especially for people as emotionally inward as me. The u-bend of emotion, where everything seems to be building up has been identified. Now I just need some serious emotional plumbing to get everything flowing properly again.

Grief, anger, resentment, and fear are just a few of the things I know are tangled up in that u-bend. The loss of a number of friends over recent years, as well as family members has brought not a single tear to my eye. Reflecting on this today however in calm environment stirred up some of that trapped emotion, and started to cause my head to almost tremble with things trying to break free. I know grief, tears, and an emotional "outburst" is NOT a bad thing, I just feel I need to deal with what is in there, for my own good.

Anger plays its role too, knowing that being the peacekeeper is an important role to play in life, but not to deny to myself that I have feelings on each matter too. That things regardless of how impartial I remain, will affect me with some form of anger or pain. I am after all only human. But like a professional in any role that deals with conflict and confrontation, I know that somewhere there is an outlet that I need to vent it all too. Somewhere other than a blog (sorry guys)
Many professionals have counselling as part of their job, and now I can start to see why.

Resentment, well there is a lot of that floating about out there, with the whole mum being ill issue topping the charts, but closely followed by other family issues, and then of course the inevitable envy of people moving on in the direction I too want to follow, work matters and other little triggers.

And then fear, of course fear. My greatest one being the loss of my mother which I know is coming. Maybe its the uncertainty of the whole thing right now that is chewing me up inside, or maybe I am using the whole experience and journey through the hospital and treatments etc as a mask to hide behind, just to try and shield me from the money shot which is "the passing". Reading back I have to say I have noticed deflection after deflection from the underlying issue..... My mother is going to die, and there is nothing I can do about it! There, I said it. And I said it only because after talking about it, I accept it now.

I could go on for ages right now, pouring more and more thoughts about it out, but for now, all I really wanted to say was, thank you to Peter for taking this on, and thank you for in one short hour, managing to shake things up just enough for me to start seeing things a little cleared, and start to figure out what direction I need to head in now.
To say I have been blinkered or lost is an understatement.
I now know what it is like for all the people I have spoken with, who I have helped in some way to finally start to see whats going on. I always wondered how a conversation could begin to make someone stronger, how it could act as a catalyst for action, and how my words could affect another persons life. Well, now I do know how that feels. And as a bi-product of all that, I feel better for knowing I have helped others too.

I started out today a little anxious, both about this meeting, and for what lays ahead with work etc. But now, 1 hour later that's all behind me. Counselling is a positive step, and as for the rest of the day and work, hey its just another day, which I have a lot of control over. Watch out world, here I come.

Back later with a little more reflection.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Cor blimey guvnor, time for a brief update..
Just got back from one of the hospitals with mum. I was a bit confused at first, the doctor called her in, 20-30 mins passed, then he came out and called someone else. While I wondered if she had strolled off somewhere or something, Joan the nurse appeared and asked me to go with her... Uh-oh I thought.

We went into an office where mum was sitting, sat down, and the conversation started. Her regular doctor was not in, and having seen a slightly stronger willed doctor he has reopened the suggestion of surgery for mum. So Joan wanted to sit us both down to talk it over. Mum has been against any form of surgery from the start, although she was also against chemo and radio therapy, but ended up taking the treatments, so this could go the same way. I could see from the look on her face from the start that she was not too impressed at it being brought up again, but she weathered the storm and talked.

The suggestion they are making is to clean up the wound on the right side, which is starting to weep again, and will just get worse and worse, smelly, large and painful for her. It will involve removing a large section of the breast, and require a skin graft due to the loss of area skin. The graft is suggested that it will come from her thigh.

Now naturally she has done more negative thinking about the whole matter than the average human, and feels she knows every possibility, so is a tough one to break.
The nurse and surgeon will be discussing the matter at an inter-departmental meeting on Monday and seeing how they can best approach it. They will also be involving the plastic surgeon in the discussion to see how he wishes to perform the graft. So there are lots of decision and things to talk about before the day can come around.
In the meantime she has to decide if she is ok with going ahead with it, or would rather the messy painful route.

The nurse will call me Monday afternoon to say what they have planned. She has already been deemed fit for surgery by the POPS team at Guys, so there is no delay there. Just got to hope she goes with it now. I know she is scared of the whole matter, but fingers crossed she will be brave and realise its a positive thing, not a bad thing.

This is NOT to remove the tumour, this is just to remove ulcerated tissue from around it to make life a bit more manageable.

So thats the update. Oh the other bit is that she has decided that taking Folic Acid for her other conditions is now a no no, as she read somewhere that Folic Acid can affect SOME tumours, and the hospital could not reassure her enough that she would be unaffected by it. So thats another condition about to get worse again.
Mothers eh ! lol

Well after a few days of moaning about my materialistic phone, its time to face the reality of life once again, and worry about more important things etc.
This morning sees a trip to Guys Hospital in London SE1, mum has 2 appointments there today back to back. A lung function test, and an appointment in Oncology for a check up.
So again, things seem slightly more in perspective now,

The weather outside is crap, got to get on a packed train, which I hate at the best of times, but I both get to ensure mum gets there and back safely, and to see the progress on The Shard too. The Shard being a fascinating modern building being put up next to London Bridge station. So its fun to watch from week to week as it progresses, and it takes my mind off other things.

In the meantime, the Blackberry 9700 still has no data, I have written and posted a letter to their complaints dept at head office, and that is as much as I am going to do now. I'm NOT going to carry it around with me in the hope that someone will phone me and fix it, I'm NOT going to pull the battery 100 times for them to run through little tests. Instead I am going to leave it sitting here, and if by Thursday afternoon its not working, then I will call Orange back, and decide on my next move.

Right, time to get ready for the hospital, hope you have a great day, and thanks once again for reading one of my little rants.

Well, the appointment I have been waiting for, for mum to see the POPS team at Guys has finally come, although not actually a letter, but a phone call. After scheduling it for mid April, I got a call today to say they want her in on Monday instead, as all dept's have asked for it to be done ASAP. Which comes as quite a relief to me. Sods law says tomorrow we will get a letter saying the Colonoscopy has been set for Monday too lol. (bloody hope not)
So that's one piece of good news. And also she gets a full once over again on Monday which makes sure her HB and BP are still fine and she is healthy to be at home for now.

The other letter of the day is from my solicitor. The solicitor has been working on my behalf now for about 28 months, acting on the liability case against my employer.
Its been a long journey, but today I got the letter from my solicitor confirming their intention to settle the payment for loss of earnings and for private physio I received following the start of the issue. This draws to a close the whole messy affair, and allows me to finally get on with life as normal. No longer worrying about what appointments or letters need attending to next.

The funny thing about the whole matter is it was almost completely avoidable. But one man on a mission to make life difficult for me has cost the company a huge sum of money, a lot of disruption, and may I add, me a lot of physical pain and discomfort. Sadly, like most cases like this, its me and the company paying for it, not him.

Anyway, that's me for now.

Oh couple of quick updates.
Mum is in good health and spirit right now. Much better than she was a week ago.
And I am planning my return to the gym on Tuesday, following a successful introduction of my new early rise routine. Cant do Monday as I have a day of appointments with mum etc.

Have a great weekend.