My grief at Christmas

I work as a psychiatric nurse with homeless people who have long-term mental health issues, physical disabilities and drug and alcohol problems. My patients are not suddenly removed from my thoughts when a season of enforced fun (surely the most woeful type of adult pleasure) envelops me like a leaden duvet. How can I allow myself to enjoy Christmas? 

I am told by social media and politicians to think about lonely people this Christmas (it is literally my job to think about the lonely. And if I didn't I am unlikely to be the kind of person whose behaviour will be positively changed by their message). I am told by capitalists to spend money because it will make me happy (and I know, from the enamel on my teeth down to the nails on my toe that this is bullshit of flabbergasting obviousness). I am bellowed at by advertisers with the nuance of a prison shank, their infantilising, saccharine, constant pre-watershed, radio-friendly drone eats away at the last warmth in me aimed at Christmas until, when the day itself arrives seemingly years after I am reminded that it is only round the corner, I have so little festive cheer left that I want nothing to do with anything other than my wife and my son and my own physical space. And I am told, as a vegetarian, that I need to eat lots of meat because nothing says compassion at Christmas time more than piles of pointlessly dead animals. I have become increasingly angry over the last few weeks at the disgusting consumerism that pervades Christmas, people buying shit they don't need and can't afford and getting poorer and poorer. It is rotten and ugly. 

It certainly isn't Christian anymore (a blessing in disguise, I guess. Spiritual connections to Christmas were eroded a long time ago not that they ever mattered to atheists like me). 

I think about Ruby every hour of my waking life and I hope, every single night when I go to sleep, that I will dream about her. Some nights I go to sleep and don't want to wake up and I want to be dreaming about her forever or, at least, not ever wake up to be reminded every hour that she isn't there. Christmas is a persistent reminder that my immediate family is missing someone and there is a constant gnawing of my resolve in the entire run up. I am told this is a family time but a quarter of my family doesn't exist anymore. 

Our Christmas cards don't have Ruby's name on them. We didn't buy her any presents this year. There is no stocking under the tree with her name on. Her brother Tom gets innappropriately expensive presents we can't afford to compensate for our "well, life is too short" explanations for being in debt. I spent the day with my in laws and they drink all evening and sing. Ruby is dead and they sing. On this "family" day. I made excuses that a recent back injury means I have to move around the house and keep mobile just so I can avoid their company to stop myself from crying every time a new song starts. I have found this Christmas to be alienating and lonely because I still get bewildered and squashed under the encumbrance of loss at times like these. There is no psychic weight like that of a gravitational mass beyond my control for which there is no pill, no treatment other than time (if that, even), to control its descent. 

My mum died a few months ago. My sister nearly died a few months ago and spent many weeks in a coma in intensive care. She barely survived. There were many aspects of my professional life that also contributed to 2017 being one of the worst years of my life and I'm glad to see the end of it. My Christmas was symbolic of the ugly mess and the chaos of the last year. 

Fortunately I have a genetic predisposition to optimism and, by lucky chance, I have an astute bullshit detector so I am staring intently at 2018 as it sidles over the horizon. It had better deliver. 

The Long Run

I hadn't decided on a plan to run. Instead, I just consider the possibility of running and, inevitably before I've had the opportunity to reflect, I find myself pulling on the shorts and T-shirt and course through the mental check list- is my phone charged, the rucksack dry, the drinks bladder clean, have I got the electrolyte tablets, will I take a banana or treat myself to chocolate this time? 

After the commitment to the long run and its preparation comes the silent, reflective minutes, the hesitation, readying and steadying myself, reading my body and assessing my desires for a medium run, a medium/long run, a "proper" long run, maybe even a "long" long run (by this point there is no question that this is not one of my two short runs per week but is, unequivocally, "the long run"). Do I ache anywhere, recovering from any bugs, any blisters or sore areas on my feet from the last run?

Fluids and fuel in the bag (it is never "water and food" to us runners), GPS on, last thing before leaving the house is to slip on my minimal sandals- never trainers on the long run, only occasionally on a short run if it is dark or wet- which are as good as barefoot and provide the thinnest of protective layers against sharp stones and glass. The strongest reason for me to run near-barefoot today is that I will need to retain my energy levels for as long as possible which means running as naturally as possible. And that means relying on the depth of hominid history to help me use the tendons and sinew and muscle just as they have evolved to be used. 

I stare at the sky through the open front door trying to second guess cloud formations, wind direction, humidity.  I have no real idea what I am looking for but it always seems the right thing to do. Then I'm off, running immediately from the door. I don't practice any warm up exercises, I just go dead slow until my rusty hinges free themselves and my thigh muscles have eased their initial fear. It takes five kilometres before I am fully warmed up and they are the most difficult I will encounter today. 

By now I have left the local town behind and there will be no more right-turns or traffic lights until I am home again.

A few more kilometres and I am halfway through. My joints are free and loose, my blood is the colour of the Japanese flag, vitality floods my muscles, litres of energy fizzes through channels in my calves and thighs. I am in perpetual motion. I am "in" the run and will stop only when I die. I am fuelled, hydrated, in charge, in total control. 

Cars rarely use this road- there is an alternative and straighter short-cut from A to B, the beginning and end of this 10 kilometre section only 500 metres away- and the footpath is narrow and undulating at this mid section. It gently snakes left and right, respectfully leaving A-road pretensions well behind, providing just enough variable stimuli to maintain interest without feeling like an overbearing training session. The pavement is relatively new and in perfect condition, barely used. There are no walkers walking, no pushchair pushers, no-one popping out on foot. 

This is the long middle section (totalling three quarters of today's run) of expansive lawns, modest farmhouses and their fields of sheep, forest corners, nursing homes, edges of a golf course. My run is edged with thick hedges of blackberry- I imagine them to be teeming with tiny lives, insects and rodents racing through these animal motorways- and deciduous skeletons spiking the anthrocene sky. 

Running is essentially an introspective and lonely experience for me and these hours alone, in the flow, are some of my most valuable. My thoughts can drift and undulate with the path because my goal and my abilities are assured and because concentration is unnecessary. I think about the intrinsic versus the instrumental value of running, I wonder about homemade pizza and beer for dinner, I think about how my dad and sister are back in London, I wonder about Christmas presents, I wonder about that sore spot developing on my heel. Mostly I have no great depth or detail of thought which is a fundamentally intrinsic value of the run- any contemplation is shallow, dream-like and brief. I am free from intensity.

But every now and then, maybe one run in ten, a thought grows and develops and can begin to overwhelm me in its intensity. Today there started a flicker of an idea about Ruby and that last diabolical day of her life and her last few hours, not with me or Claire or anyone who loves her. Today these thoughts stole my breath like I'd jumped through broken ice into a wintry lake and I couldn't breathe or concentrate or escape and the only thing I could was stop and lean on a wall as if I was tired and cry and cry. Then, as is the way with seasoned grief, I stopped crying after only a minute, wiped the tears and sweat from my eyes, straightened my spine and shuffled on towards my goal. 

By now, in the last quarter of my run, I am cruising home, slow "marathon pace". The final two miles are downhill and I welcome the site of the beginning of the descent as I round the last gentle bend prior to a sharp right-angle at the first traffic lights for miles and on through the final straight-lined, red-bricked town and then my front door of the last house at the end of the cul-de-sac where I live. 

I don't stop running until I touch the front door. 

The shower after a long run is a shower like no other. 

And if my plan is successful I'll be celebrating with a guilt-free homemade pizza and a beer or two tonight. 

Rest day tomorrow, no exercise allowed, and then back to a short run the day after. 

Left-libertarianism, corporate psychopathy and why women's corporeal autonomy is the answer to the world problems

Left-libertarianism is concerned with fair distribution of land and its (occasional) ownership, one’s relationship with that space and an emphasis on equal use of resources (hence the strong value placed on social welfare as a useful tool to assist in apportioning those resources). It works under the premise of equal, shared, mutual use of the world's content and places emphasis on humanist qualities as being the only ones able to do this. The state- capitalist and generally psychopathic- has little or no place in libertarian society and, if agreed that it must exist at all, does so purely to facilitate actions in the best interest of all living things (such as rare interventions to regulate financial markets, social welfare, etc).

Left-libertarians believe in self-ownership, autonomy as independence from authority and in socialist ethics. They reject capitalist teachings as being strongly competitive-based and authoritarian: a traditional ethos of the Right. Generally they are advocates of a free-market economy.
It is a common mistake of those with a capitalist stake to think that "anti-capitalists" simply believe in the opposite of capitalism (which has more than one opposite- anarchism, socialism, statism and so on). As with religious people believing that atheists are defined by what they are not ("a-theist") the truth is very different- anti-capitalism (and atheism) is the default starting point for normal human actions. Babies are anticapitalist, babies are atheist- the foundational human position is to experience an absence of economic greed and of religious belief and so one can become enlightened to all that one wishes to be, thereafter. 

A tenet of left-libertarianism must therefore be a general rejection of organised government and an active avoidance of as much of the states’ influence on the lives of individuals. 
For humans to flourish and to live a life rich in beneficence they need to be to be free of external negative influence (money, ownership, the state, authoritarianism, etc) so they can focus, unencumbered, on qualities most helpful for living things- empathy, decentralisation of power, worker-ownership, equal distribution of resources, fairness, working collectively with our individual identities. 

As an organisation grows, it distances its' relationship with the individual and it is this coldness, at first an inevitability of growth and thereafter a state being sought due to the corruptive abilities of power, that is self-perpetuating- the dehumanising nature of corporate power is directly proportional to its growth. As it grows, it finds its nature is to push away from the unconcious responsibilities of collective altruism as this is ineffective for competitive growth. Therein exists a remorseless grandiosity which it deems necessary to be able to sell itself over competitors. The larger a corporation becomes the greater its degree of guiltlessness due, in part, to its degradation of empathy. 

The financial addiction to gain capital transforms into a craving for stimulation and of change, of fluidity. Thereafter comes distrust, and eventual rejection, of reflective criticism as there is no time to stop and think. An inevitable consequence of this is the eventual loss of control over corporate behaviour, often paraded as an increase in creative impulsivity but, more accurately, as long-term irresponsibility. 

And there lies the crux of the matter- an entity without compassion or empathy, that exists entirely for its personal gain. It feels it necessary to have a massively inflated idea of self, is bereft of guilt and shows no remorse even after terrible life-changing abuses. 
Any human with these traits would be called a psychopath. This is the engine that fuels capitalism. 

So what then? If capitalism utterly fails to address any true sense of human proliferation of value, what counts? 

What is necessary, therefore, is to focus directly on human relationships as being the most relevant for human flourishing. 

Women do most of the worlds' work and earn less money than men while they do it. Women are less represented than men in most institutions, in politics, religions, educational establishments and other areas of power and influence. Women are not even allowed full control over their own bodies in many parts of the world including my home country of Ireland and this patriarchal oppression is the primary method of control over women. Contraception is sometimes difficult to get and abortions are not legal or safe (of course abortions go on all the time and, in countries where they are illegal, abortions have always occurred and continue daily). But I often think about the potential for the fair distribution of wealth, fair distribution therefore of food, of resources, of education, even of love and equality if there existed an absolute freedom of corporeal autonomy for all women, worldwide. It follows therefore that to have complete control over ones contraception is to likely have complete and international equality.

It makes sense to me that if all women had bodily liberty the worlds' population would be under control, food, resources and wealth would be distributed equally, international political influence would be relevant to individuals as well as countries and that life, on planet Earth, could be a type of bliss. 

My amazing wife, Claire. 

The death of another young man

There was a funeral today for a young man. Seventeen people attended, fourteen were professional support workers. He died from a heroin overdose but the naked truth is that he was close to dying from liver failure too. And he was close to dying by his own hand. And he was close to dying by being murdered by someone else. And he was close to dying from a blood clot caused by his reckless injecting technique. 

Even in the womb he was at a disadvantage- he came from a murky gene pool and had a high likelihood of inheriting many serious and life-threatening diseases. His young childhood was empty of parental love and, later on, empty of any parents at all. His teenage years were spent angry at the persistent rejection from everyone around him. He became addicted to alcohol at eight, cannabis, cocaine and other drugs by twelve, heroin by seventeen. There was still no love in his life except for that of nihilism. His life, all life, had no value. 

Then he developed bipolar disorder and spent many months deluded, paranoid, utterly secure in the knowledge that not only drug-dealers and the police but everyone else too wanted him dead. Through his twenties he dealt and abused legal and illegal drugs, he spent more time in prison, more time in hospital. His life was one of almost persistent detention. 

He never had the chance to develop a personality disorder or a psychopathic carapace to protect himself. He was always open. 

He never had a home of his own, never had the security of stability in any form. He lived wildly and was barely tamed by the institutions that surrounded him- he became institutionalised to the streets, trusting no-one, caring about no-one. He wore a sneer, on his face and in his heart. 

We all liked him. Everyone liked him. He was uncomfortably honest and upsettingly open about his life and his mind and his character. But he knew he had no chance and so did all the rest of us. We knew where he was from and how he lived. We all guessed correctly where he was going. 

Hundreds of professionals had contact with him over the years, me included, and we delude ourselves into believing we made minor differences here and there- I helped get a temporary roof over his head (until he attacked someone and had to leave), I gave him a few hours of my time as a listening ear (until he became abusive and rejected me). 

He died off the streets in a bed of his own. He hadn't taken his medication for weeks and had replaced it with vodka. He was twenty eight. 

What chances did he have? In 2017, in Nothern Europe, in a rich, major world city he had hundreds of chances. Some he took voluntarily, some were enforced, most he rejected. But the foundations were never set, his character waned and faltered and he slowly crumbled to death. 

We didn't save him we just cushioned his descent, the death of another young man. 

I wouldn't invite me to a party

Some months are extraordinarily difficult. It is September 2017 and am having one of the toughest periods since Ruby died. 

My mum, who died a few months ago, should have celebrating her birthday a fortnight ago. I am grieving her and her sister who died two weeks later. Ruby should have been celebrating her sixteenth birthday a few days ago. My sister nearly died recently from pneumonia and sepsis and she remains, five weeks later, in intensive care in a poor state (hundreds of miles away). My dad, in his seventies, has to cope with this too. I stopped my antidepressant medication two months ago and although the experience has been mostly positive I am always one intonation or one curt word away from tears. Always. 

Like many men I have a small number of friends and, like many men, I don't really know how close they are. Of course we discuss personal matters, how we feel, all those subjects thankfully now not out of bounds as they were only one generation before us. But other people's personal friends remember dates, seem concerned about their friend's relatives, know when their friends need loving most. I am not the best friend to have- I am terrible at keeping in touch, I go on about being a loner and about not needing other people- but I have been through some very difficult times and, although I am not demanding, need genuine support to keep myself well. 

I consider myself an optimist. Or as my Yorkshire mum would say, I am a "do-er", I get on with things, I try not to dwell. I consider myself a reflective person, looking into my grief, my depression, my life, embracing the potential for growth and for learning. But sometimes, thankfully very rarely, I just feel a bit shit and a bit lonely and I feel that other people around me can be a bit shit too. I know that my friends, professionals, even strangers will "be there" if asked but there are times when I don't want to ask and don't feel as if I should need to ask. 

I rarely wallow, I rarely feel sorry for myself. My job as a mental health nurse supporting homeless people with complex needs means that I meet and support the most vulnerable, most marginalised people in the country so I am therefore sensitively aware of my fortune and privilege. Although I have experienced most parents' vision of hell I have met hundreds of people who have been through much worse and continue to cope, to live, even to thrive. 

But today I am being selfish and indulgent and fragile and I am feeling sorry for myself. And I am thinking- what about me? What the fuck about me? Where's my random text? Where's my gift? Where's my invite? Where's my sympathy card? 

Sometimes I don't want someone to ask if I'm OK, sometimes I just want someone to say "I know you're feeling shit and that's normal". And then give me pizza and chocolate. 

Update: it's now the following day, I've given myself a kick up the arse and I'm feeling a little more grounded. I had been thinking of deleting this entire entry but decided not to for the simple reason that is it an honest and genuine expression of how I feel. Maybe it will ring true to someone and prove that even irrational nonsense, like feeling sorry for yourself, is perfectly normal once in a while. 

Using Every Means

There is no final destination for recovery from grief because the journey lasts forever. Tweaks and adjustments happen daily for many years as frequently as memories about why these adjustments were necessary in the first place.

I had a bad day recently- broken sleep, too much coffee the next morning, news of a friends' illness. Then to work for a busy day but I lasted only two hours until I found a quiet corner (my historical crying cupboard- we should all have one) and bawled until the worst was over. I was acutely sad and couldn't think of anything other than Ruby. I was acutely anxious too as if I had been suddenly shocked into a sharp inhalation. But I couldn't exhale, my body wouldn't let me. I couldn't stay at work- I'd be no use to anyone there- and so I came home.

I did what I know works. I threw on my running gear, took my shoes off and ran and ran for thirteen miles around the hills. I pushed myself so hard that I was hobbling for days after because of the bruises to the soles of my feet. At home I showered, ate well and then sat with one of the cats on my lap in the warm sun doing absolutely nothing. I lounged there for an hour, letting my eyes become heavy, feeling the waves of warmth on my legs, just being, expecting nothing from myself. It calmed and grounded me absolutely. 

This sense of "just being" was new to me. I guess it is a type of meditation but felt very powerful to have discovered this out of necessity, by myself. 

My journey of managing grief and depression had thrown up another surprising coping mechanism- just being- and it's one I will remember and use again and again. 

This recent weekend I performed all sorts of minor tricks that I know contribute to keeping me well- I baked a big chocolate cake and iced it with Tom, I baked two delicious sourdough bread loaves, I made lots of meals- Rogan Josh curry, naan bread, spicy Mexican baked beans. We went foraging and I made eight jars of blueberry and blackberry jam. I made a new Lego set with Tom. I ran twice, totalling 34km. I bought new carpentry tools, watched a number of instructional videos online and planned my next projects (jewellery boxes, shelving, storage containers). I made my own wood treatment from beeswax and mineral oil. I tidied the garage. I drank good gin with my wife, and best friend, Claire. I considered my good fortune.

Mostly these things help. But it can take hard effort to keep positive because these are hard times- my sister is acutely unwell but recovering having spent the last two weeks in hospital in intensive care with pneumonia and sepsis, I think a lot about my mum who died a few months ago and whose birthday is next week and, of course, I think of Ruby every day. It is her 16th birthday in two weeks. I finished my antidepressant medication recently after two and a half years and the psychic effort that I need to exercise to keep me moving in the right direction means some activities and some people are excluded from my life for a while. 

Sometimes these things don't help and this is why it is so necessary to keep moving, to keep trying new activities. It is important to be acutely sensitive and observant for any slight advantage I can gain over the unhealing wound that is grief. Baking a cake, going for a run, tidying the garage, drinking with Claire. There is nothing superflous about this- it is about creating, about play, about regaining control, about allowing myself simple joy. This is active recovery, using every available means and process to help me cope and push forward. As has been noted elsewhere the best way out is always through. 

It is about getting better. 

Today's misty, stormy run took me over Divis and Blacks' Mountain at the edge of Belfast

This was my workstation on a recent smithing course. It all helps. 

Stopping The Tablets

I have stopped taking my anti-depressant medication. 

I started taking it two and a half years ago when I began to feel so sad and bleak through my grief for Ruby that I felt I was a burden, a weight too much for Claire and Tom and for whom life, after their initial raw pain of losing me, would surely be more pleasant if I wasn't in it. 

The medication literally saved my life. After a ropey fortnight getting used to it (the tablets tired me out so much that on the first day I took one I fell asleep at the lunch table in a restaurant) it worked exactly as originally designed- the humid fug lifted, my limbs were lighter, colour returned to my perception. I felt less sad, more able to cope, less irritable, insightful. I stopped having near-obsessive repetitive thoughts- a line in a song, a fissure in a rock, a right-angled desk corner. I could exhale fully having previously kept my lungs quarter full of air for what? Running away? To fight?

On anti-depressant medication I experienced rational sadness, rational tears and a rational breadth of emotion. Everything was manageable- difficult decisions, tensions, my patients, my mum's death in February this year, even my grief for Ruby. I could relax and I could laugh and I was normal. 

I had decided that 2017 was to be a pivotal year. I made resolutions to which I have remained faithful, in the main. I decided to run Belfast Marathon in May and put in four months of near-daily hard graft to achieve this. My mum died, suddenly, in February (I doubt I will ever write about it in this blog. Anathema to my profession as a mental health nurse some things are best left unspoken). The fourth anniversary of Ruby's death was in May, one week after the marathon, and it was more difficult than I had anticipated compounded my Mum's death and post-marathon blues. 

But throughout these physically and mentally demanding months I planned to stop my medication. I was confident in my coping mechanisms, confident that I was "better" and "back to normal" so, with guidance from my GP I very gradually reduced my doses until I swallowed, with no fanfare of note, my 

final tablet ( I was originally taking 20mg of citalopram so I alternated between 20mg and 10mg per day for a week or so then reduced it to 10mg per day for for nearly two weeks then 10mg every other day for a week or so then I just stopped). 

It is more important than most people realise to be measured and patient in a reduction regime. I knew I would be sensitive to negative stimulus and that I would be delicate so I have tried to maintain a sense of self-reflection and I have kept my environment warm and supportive. 

For the first week or two off the tablets I was pretty wobbly. I was very irritable, I lost my temper easily, I became impatient. This was a huge change from the last two and a half years but Claire reminded me that was the old me returning and that I could be a pretty grumpy bugger at times prior to starting the tablets.

Now, three weeks down the line, I have calmed a little and have placated myself. I have kept myself distracted and creative, two activities that I know work well for me. I look to the simple things for meaning- my sunny cycling commute into town, the rain and the trees when I run, my son's hugs, my wife's tenderness.

It is liberating that I have no worries about remembering tablets every morning. But it is constrictive that the ease of coping with stress has dissappeared and that a greater psychic effort has to be employed to get by, day to day.

In other words, normal life.