After a dreadful day on Monday, I decided that I couldn’t leave it any longer to try to do something about the work situation.  To that end, I spent an uncomfortable hour with She Whom I have little Trust of, in order to try and verbalise why I don’t think this is working.

It’s actually difficult to detail it here; I’ve sat here for a while trying to marshal it all into some sort of order, but I have failed miserably and cannot put it into words.

I feel she lacks understanding and I suspect that she feels that I am something of a disappointment.  At least she now accepts that I am not a team worker and never will be, although I tried to make that abundantly clear when I first interviewed for the job.  But that’s a Pyrrhic victory that gives me no pleasure, only the pain of being a square peg that has been permanently bashed into a round hole since January.

In an effort to put my point across, I had to resort to saying that I felt taking the job had been a dreadful mistake, which is what I feel to be true.

Oddly, the thing that pricked her most was my level of despair, so maybe she has a grain or two of humanity somewhere.  However, I don’t know whether that is enough to prod her into doing something to help me, as there is nobody else here who can.

I will see what happens over the few weeks, to enable me to complete six months.  In that time, I am going to continue to look for another job.  If it is no better by then, I suspect that I will be handing over a resignation letter or a sick note to get me out of here.

I have no confidence that things will change; the whole setup and culture are so poor that I cannot allow myself optimism, or the disappointment will be so crushing I will never deal with it.

Following on from my ramblings about homesickness the other day, I thought maybe that I ought to qualify a bit more about what makes “home” special - other than being the place of my birth.

Having said that, there are a lot of people out there who never particularly feel a sense of place.  Maybe they didn’t live in their home town for long before moving on; maybe they have lived in many places and have adopted somewhere else as home; maybe there are a whole host of other reasons.

I have never had any problem with feeling that I belong to Birmingham.  It seems to have been in my blood for ever, so when I started researching family history just over a year ago, it was no surprise to find out that nearly all of my ancestors had been there for the best part of two hundred years, often in places just a stone throw from me.

When I was a child, Birmingham was the archetypal “dirty old town”.  There were factories almost everywhere and the small of manufacturing hung in the air.  Although I grew up in leafy Edgbaston, about a mile from Tolkien’s Twin Towers, just a few streets away there were the last vestiges of Lee Bank’s decaying terraced houses, swept away to be replaced by the unsuccessful “streets in the sky” as the tower blocks crept up like monoliths, a vast temple to 1960s culture.

I grew up believing that most of the city centre’s old public buildings were black and it was quite a surprise to later find out that they were Cotswold stone.  The place was a mixture of Victoriana and gross post-war concrete.  Urban renewal was a twinkle in some architect’s eye at that time and we were grossly unfashionable.

That has all changed, particularly over the last twenty years and I have watched Birmingham blossom into a beautiful city that I am proud to show to a visitor.  The city centre is now a blend of styles including some impressive modern buildings that would grace any European capital city.

But Birmingham isn’t just about the city centre; it’s about the places where people live and there are so many parts of it that are dear to me.  Edgbaston was my home until I was eighteen, but since then I have lived in a number of different parts of the city and also out just beyond the edge of it, in Bearwood, another place which I now miss greatly.

The city has given me an appreciation of so many things; the canal network which drove me to want to own my own narrowboat, Victorian Revivalist architecture, the Arts and Crafts movement, our rich, industrial history, the joy of living in a huge, thriving urban network and the simple beauty of red-brick terraced houses.  They are all parts of the whole, parts of what I love.

It’s not pretty, or charming, like the whitewashed Cornish fishing village or the chocolate-box Worcestershire hamlet, but it is impressive, full of variety and just a comforting place to be.  I feel safe in these streets; they have laid and woven themselves over the heart of England, engendering and fostering a people who have learnt to laugh at themselves in the way that almost no others can.

After all, we have variously been branded unintelligent, unsexy and generally unalluring, so we need something to laugh about.

Brummies are the salt of the earth and Birmingham is the home that we can be proud of.  It may not vie with the likes of Rome and Paris, but it is ours.

I think I have worked out what one or two of my problems are.

As I seem to attach importance to the concept of milestones, this is where my consternation at the age gap gets triggered. I will be entering the “third age” some years before you do.

This isn’t about attitudes or looks (although they are very important); it’s about biology, and whilst attitudes or looks can be dealt with to an extent, it’s harder to fight against the invisible armies of cells, chromosomes and DNA.

I can do nothing about being biologically older than you; it’s completely out of my control. I can and will do what I can at damage limitation; at least the DNA on one side of my makeup is pretty decent, although I know less about the other side. So far, I seem to be taking after the stronger half and I hope things stay that way.

It may well be that I have a completely erroneous idea of the ageing process. I know that I’m not going to fall apart as soon as I hit the next decade and for inspiration I look to the many people I know who are in good shape whilst being considerably older than me. That is what I must aim for; I’ve always worked on the premise that prevention is better than cure, but must try to stop obsessing about it.

I also need badly to find ways of dealing with intrusive thoughts; I seem to be constantly plagued by them, even when I am in a happy frame of mind. I wonder whether the only way forward is the inevitable happy pills, but while they will correct the chemical imbalances, they will not re-work the thought patterns. Maybe I need to look at other options, as at the moment I am feeling that I will never be truly happy again as the “best” part of my life has already passed me by.

And that is a truly wounding thought; I have spent all this time without you, not knowing that you existed, and now that I do have you, my mind won’t let me truly appreciate my good fortune. Instead it seems to be constantly tapping on my shoulder with some bad idea or other about the passage of time and its associated declines.

Another important factor, I have come to the conclusion, is my working environment – this time, not the job itself but the people I am working with. If they truly are representative of the people of this county then I have severe worries about the strain on the local NHS.

I am not exactly sylph-like in shape (whatever you may imagine me as) but have a BMI that is a couple of points over the “normal” range. However, out of fifteen people in the office, I am the third slimmest. That alone is a fantastic motivator into losing that last, elusive stone. Sadly though, they are also a very good illustration of what obesity does to health. Amongst these people there are three Type 2 diabetics, one with a major, chronic bowel condition and two with joint problems.

Even with the residual effects of a long-ago (and very severe) road accident, I am probably fitter than most of them. Fingers crossed I can stay that way as my suyperstitious self is concerned that they will somehow rub off their misfortune upon me.

I write articles for a football fanzine about my team, Birmingham City.  As we are in dire straits, my last article of the season is a rather lengthy rant.  I thought I would put it on here for a change….

————

Without the benefit of a crystal ball or any other sort of jiggery-pokery, I can foresee that I am not going to be the only voice in this last of the season MIB that lays the blame for our current predicament upon the Board.

However, before I get that far, there are a few other points I want to make about this season. At the time of writing, we are almost down and almost out, with one game to play and matters not in our own hands. We have a one in three chance of survival and for added stress, Sky Sports (in their infinite wisdom) have decided to televise us. Maybe they think that we will be more distraught than Fulham’s or Reading’s fans if or when the hammer blow of relegation falls upon us again. Maybe they’re just sadistic.

As usual, the Londoncentric media have been gleeful at the prospect of us paying only a brief visit to the top floor of the footballing skyscraper; in fact, the only thing they seem to have been more gleeful about is the resurgence of Fulham, whipping themselves up into a masturbatory frenzy last Saturday at the prospect of yet another London team retaining a place in the Premier League.

Putting the media loathing of us aside, there has been much else about this season which should be a sharp reminder to every Bluenose that the way of Royal Blue is truly the Way of Suffering.

Over the course of the last nine months, we have nearly been subject to a Far East takeover (which thankfully went down the pan), got through two managers, bought a bunch of players with very variable success, seen our ex-manager and the Board getting into some rather unseemly slanging matches, seen members of the Board carted off for questioning over the “bungs” affair, been subjected to the inevitable abuse from David Sullivan about match attendances, gained some points in very unlikely circumstances (Liverpool [twice] and Arsenal), thrown points away needlessly (Derby and Sunderland, just for a start) and been painfully taken apart by our loathsome near neighbours (They who shall not be named).

We have also been shown that the Jamie Clapham Memorial Cupboard still exists and there never was any such thing as the fabled Big Screen.

In short, it’s been a bit of a mess.

I suppose at least we managed to get through this season without another team’s honours in the front pages of the corporate diaries, or without sweating that we could be in line for a points’ deduction for not having a pitch. For those of us who have been quietly working on the project to catalogue Birmingham City’s cock-ups through the ages, this season has given us plenty of material; but that’s another story.

So, is any one factor that has contributed to us going into the last weekend of the season in nineteenth place?

For me, the players are not particularly to blame, certainly not in the way they were in our last relegation season, when we were saddled with a number of wasters who seemed only to be interested in the size of the pay cheques they were receiving. I won’t bother to name them.

Many of our regular first-teamers have tried incredibly hard this season, but the sad truth is that a number of them simply lack the requisite quality to compete at this level.

Some were new to the Premier League, or had only limited experience and have found it hard going. Fabrice Muamba comes into this category; he did well last season in the Championship but has struggled at the higher level.

Others were, in effect, cast-offs from other teams and weren’t making the grade elsewhere. Ridgewell comes into this category; he was error-prone at Villa and does not seem to have improved significantly over the last months, apart from not giving away quite as many penalties.

With McLeish arriving mid-season, he has not had the opportunity to build his own team, having to work with what he had available. Like any manager, he seems to have favourites that make the fans question his judgement and has so far not been able to crack the problem of our appalling away form.

But I don’t blame him alone; I think it’s a bit unfair to judge him entirely on what he has done in the last few months, and I suspect that he will be given time to attempt to shape the team his own way – as long as he is left with a reasonable core of players to work with, should we get relegated on Sunday.

Would Steve Bruce have done any better? I remember saying in an article earlier this season that I would be gutted if Wigan survived and we didn’t. Well, needless to say, I am preparing to be gutted, but I don’t believe that Bruce would have done significantly better with this team than McLeish has, for a number of reasons.

He had reached the end of the road at Birmingham; the relationship with the Board had obviously deteriorated; the team were stagnant, struggling and lacked ability in vital areas of the pitch. There didn’t seem to be much money available in support.

When the offer came from Dave Whelan, it gave Bruce the chance to make an reasonably dignified exit (although this has degenerated since) and to go and work with an underperforming team containing some better quality players than the ones he had available at Birmingham.

Dave Whelan had spent more on the Wigan team.

And that’s the issue; that old saying about not being able to solve a problem by chucking money at it does not seem to hold true for the Premier League. It’s not quite as simple as “he who spends most, wins most” (as that sort of talk tends to raise the spectre of Leeds United, white and ghastly), but as a general rule, one tends to get what one pays for.

Witness Sunderland; of the three promoted teams from last season, they have spent the most money and are the ones are will be living to fight another day. We mostly raided the bargain basement (apart from McFadden) and seem to be destined to be playing Plymouth Argyle on a wet Tuesday night this November.

Yet, we were assured it wasn’t going to be like this; the Board had “learnt from the pain of relegation” (pardon me if I’m paraphrasing) and wanted to do better this time. I don’t believe that Blues fans have an unrealistic idea of what that might mean; ask the average supporter and they would be happy with anything from tenth to seventeenth place in the league. We’re just not going to be European challengers without massive investment, but we have been led to believe that survival at least would be within our grasp and that the Board would do anything in their power to ensure that.

Sadly, this has been yet another empty promise to the “customers”, many of whom have been around far longer than the Board, and will be around after they’ve moved on to their next project.

The next soundbyte that we will be hit with should we not survive on Sunday, will be “we are not a selling club”, shortly followed by the “but we don’t want to keep unhappy players” mantra as Brady and Sullivan shovel players out of the back door with unseemly haste.

It’s about time (in my humble opinion) that they took just one leaf out of Jeremy Peace’s book and told a number of key players that they are not going anywhere; correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what the parachute payments are for?

The Baggies kept the nucleus of their relegated team together, and although not getting back into the top flight at the first time of asking, have succeeded this time and by all accounts are playing some decent football. Whether they survive or not is another issue, but at least they have given themselves a fighting chance with some continuity amongst the players.

For us, the vultures are already circling; the papers are already full of rumours about offers being tabled for our decent players, with Seb Larsson probably on several other managers’ shopping lists. That will be the heartbreaker; our player of the season, one who genuinely seems to enjoy playing for us, destined to be the first one out of St Andrew’s so that Sullivan can gloat over his latest profit.

We just might survive on Sunday, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m fully expecting our next game to be in the Championship, with only a few remnants of the current team remaining.

That will be painful – because I’m not a customer, Mr Sullivan, I’m a fan – and that’s the difference.

I’m fed up of the empty promises, the disparaging comments, the money-grabbing policies and the disregard – and so are thousands of others, who have voted with their credit cards by not buying season tickets for next year. It’s not because they love Birmingham City any less, but because they have been worn down by the Board’s attitude and feel that they are unimportant.

Start regarding those “customers” as “fans” and you might start getting an appreciation of what the club means to us.

See you next season, wherever; Turf Moor or Old Trafford…

]]> http://englishblueangel.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/a-slightly-premature-post-mortem/feed/ http://englishblueangel.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/de-profundis/ http://englishblueangel.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/de-profundis/#comments Tue, 06 May 2008 10:11:15 +0000 englishblueangel http://englishblueangel.wordpress.com/?p=126

I can’t get away from it; this job is the pits.

Maybe my problem is just that I am inherently lazy.  Maybe I am one of those people that don’t particularly like work and seek to skive off at every available opportunity?

I’m sure both of these views could be quite easily appended to me.  It’s always been difficult to get me to do things that I don’t want to do; I have always been stubborn, obstinate even and I have long loathed being told what to do by other people – which might just label me as plain arrogant.

Arrogant I may be, but it frustrates me on a daily basis when I see people doing things that I know I could do better, more efficiently, with more flair and better ideas.  But it just seems that I am never going to get the opportunity to do this.

I am trying desperately to get to the six-month mark in this job, so that I can then say I have given it fair trial and am not enjoying it, but I don’t know how I am going to manage it.  At the moment, I have to literally force myself to do the things that are being asked of me as I have so little interest I can barely be bothered.

This morning I even woke before the alarm with the dread feeling that I am going to have to come here and waste another eight hours of my life doing things that will not change anything.

Quick, start the mantra again, list the advantages:

I don’t have to drive over one hundred miles a day, which was tiring and expensive (but to get another reasonable job I might have to considering getting on this treadmill again)

I’m only a short bus ride from work and the travelling costs me nothing

I can start early – and therefore leave early

I’m earning slightly more money than I did before.

Now I’m fighting to find another good point; every time I manage to think of something advantageous I’m battered by the thoughts that my proactive, dynamic nature is becoming eroded bit by bit by a continuous stream of bean-counting and a lack of responsibility.

It’s a beautiful day today; the sky is clear above me and the seagulls are calling, echoing across the station yard which is over the wall in front of me. It sounds like being at the seaside; something I’ve still not got used to away from my land-locked existence.

But all I can see is brick walls within and without.  I’m depressed and I can’t see a logical way forward other than yet again counting off the hours.

Someone, somewhere must want what I can offer.  Or is it time to admit defeat?

That irritating pop song “things can only get better” has just jumped into my head.  I hope it’s a helpful message from Fred and not just him taking the pee

He died last night, the sick cat I wrote about some time ago.  In truth, he hung on far longer than I thought he would and simply faded away slowly, rather than coming to an agonised, cataclysmic end like the last cat who lived with me.

I’d known Bram for nearly all of his life, although for the last few years I’d seen him almost in the way that a visitor would rather than as a true owner, as he had been in the custody of my ex-husband and his partner since mid-2003.

We’d chosen him as a large, robust, furry kitten in the summer of 1997 and he grew into a huge, amiable beast as an adult, staying in good health until recently.

On Saturday I saw the frail little creature that he’d become over his last weeks, featherlight and frail.  I had a feeling it would be the last time I saw him, so cradled him in my arms and kissed his little purring head.

As I’ve never had children, my cats have always been my babies and the loss of one is always a dreadful thing.

Now there is only Henri, the silver tabby who is really “my” cat but lives in Birmingham.  He has seen out four other cats, all ginger and at such time as I have another of my own, much as I love them, I will not be choosing a ginger one as they seem to not be as strong.  Only one of the four has lived a relatively long life for a cat.

I have some photos of him stuck on the hallway wall at home.  In one, he is cradled in my arms, gazing engagingly at the camera lens, his huge amber eyes bright with youth.  That is how I want to remember him.

Goodnight Bram x

I am coming to the conclusion that I am essentially quite homesick. Even though I have been here for just over six months, there are so many things that I miss about Birmingham.

As a guess, these thoughts have been triggered by finally changing my address on all sorts of “official” things, like bank accounts, heralding the idea that I have irrevocably left.

Granted, where I am now is by now means repugnant, but it is in comparison pretty parochial. The size of the place does have some advantages; few places in the city are much more than a 15-minute drive away and it has been very welcome to be not more than a short bus ride away from work – a huge difference to the commute I was doing until January.

There are a number of things that I am pining for. I miss is the vastness, the urban sprawl. I had pretty much always lived on or near the edges of the city, so I never felt enclosed by the confines of the inner city and was never more than a few minutes’ drive away from countryside. The best of both worlds, I suppose.

I also miss my friends, even the ones that I maybe only saw once every few weeks. I’m very aware of proximity; I know they’re further away than they used to be, even when they are a phone call or a messageboard away.

It’s still strange to not hear local voices around me every day. I know that for most people, the Brummie accent is one of the most unalluring in the world, but I miss the musicality and the self-deprecating humour of those that bear it. Yesterday I was accused of starting to sound “posh” through hearing other voices all the time. Posh? Perish the thought.

I’m finding it hard to break into new social circles. The people I work with don’t socialise with each other at all other than going out for a meal when somebody leaves. In any case, I haven’t really met anyone at the hospital that I would like to share my social time with. Not that I’m overly picky about my friends, but I have always gravitated towards people who are slightly bohemian or unconventional and so far, there is something of a dearth of them.

There are a number of musicians that I know here, but they seem happy in their own social groups without any new additions to it. So this would appear to be a circle that is firmly closed.

The “other” social circle is the one that, while happy to acknowledge who I am on a peripheral level, seems to have politely swept me under the carpet for anything other than small talk, for fear of condoning the relationship that I am in.

This will not change, not for the foreseeable future and this is more painful than I ever dreamed it would be. I have always accepted people entirely for what they are, not out of adherence to conventions, moral or otherwise. While I can understand the thinking behind it, the thought that one day a piece of paper will magically change their attitude towards me is quite laughable.

I will still be the same person.

But acceptance could be a long way off; I don’t anticipate my status changing for a long time, if ever, as there are all sorts of things could conspire against it, all manners of delays and awkwardnesses that could make it impossible.

Funny, it never mattered particularly to me before, but now it gnaws at me. Maybe it’s a measure of how much you matter, as for the last ten years it has been absolutely the last thing on my mind – indeed, something that I even actively resisted.

In the end, this is all a measure of how much you matter, as without you, my life would be entirely different.

It’s even possible that I would be alone by now, living on the boat, as I don’t think I could have sustained being where I was. I would have possibly been living on Sherborne Wharf, right in the heart of Birmingham and not much more than a stone’s throw from where I used to work. I would have had freedom, convenience, space (albeit limited space on a forty foot boat) and a lot of disposable income, as life afloat is nothing if not economical.

But I would have not have had you.

There is no earthly way that I would be here for any other reason. If the homesickness will not pass, there will somehow be a way of putting up with it. Like the pain of an old injury, it never truly goes away, but you come to ignore it.

I have now been in this job for just over three months. I arrived on January 21st and it is now the end of April. Since that time, there have been a few passable moments, but not much else.

I can’t complain about the people I work with on a day-to-day basis; they are good, kind and generous, even if the conversation is a bit pedestrian at times. That might be down to me though, as I am used to working with men and there is a whole world of difference to working in an environment that is almost entirely female.

The job itself is another issue. it’s rather like one of the descriptions of Chaos from the Old Testament*; “without form and void”. Try as I might, it’s hard to find much that is interesting about it, but far, far worse is the lack of responsibility compared to what I was doing before. In short, it’s crap.

The “old” job, warts and all, had some incredibly boring portions, but the work I had to do was mine; my responsibility, mine to organise, mine to get right or wrong (as the case may be, although I think in the main I did a good job) and mine to get on with. Now virtually everything I do is doled out to me on a “job by job” basis, which, during bad moments, makes me feel incredibly useless.

I’m not enjoying the working environment either; stuck in the corner of a large open-plan office there is no space, no privacy and some days I find this desperately difficult. I am just about managing to do some writing here, but it is hard and I am constantly looking over my shoulder.

Maybe it’s the fault of the previous job; maybe I had far too much responsibility for a person of my grade and I shouldn’t have had as much lassitude as I did; I don’t know. Or maybe it’s the lack of organisation here and the amount of control that is exerted by She who must be Obeyed.

In any case, it is getting me down. Today is a particularly bad day, I realise that, but I am disheartened by the lack of opportunity to get out of here, either temporarily or permanently. I am even starting to look forward to meetings (horror of horrors) as they represent a change of environment. I have even found one person that thinks I have good ideas. I need to build on this as much as I can, as there is a small chance that it might lead to something more interesting.

But the bottom line is that I am stuck here for now. There are no suitable jobs in this small city and I have to ve very careful about looking for something that is too far away as the travelling (and the costs of it) could be crippling and counterproductive.

I still don’t feel as though I am working to the grade for which I am paid, which is a really bad thing. I experienced that about eighteen months ago on a very abortive secondment, which I extricated myself from after six weeks as it was a pointless exercise.

This time there is no quick way out and I am forced to twiddle my physical and mental thumbs whilst I wait for the right opportunity. I am trying not to think too far ahead as it gives rise to a sense of desperation.

At least the discontent is doing one positive thing for me, as I have written two and a half chapters in the last few days. Now I need to keep the momentum up on this as it might be the key to not going insane for thirty-seven and a half hours a week.

I feel dreadfully isolated today. I’m in a room full of people, but I feel alone and hope that I don’t feel like this after I have finished work.

Tomorrow is Beltane, the first day of summer, but there are dense clouds overhead with nothing but the promise of yet more rain.

*Used in the text of Haydn’s “Creation”, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

I’ve been doing some thinking and it seems to me that my periods of temporary madness (at least, the madness that is over my usual baseline) are hormone-related.  For about half a month, I am pretty much OK.  If I get anxieties I can, in the main, keep them under wraps. 

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t get them; it merely means that they are less troublesome.

For the rest of the month though, I am subjected to the anxiety avalanche, periods where I can get simply swept away by it.  I can’t bear that lack of control; there are other areas of my life where I have lost control in recent months and I am trying to get my head around them.  They are a sea-change but ultimately I think I am going to be able to handle them.

What to do about the anxiety, I have no idea.  I don’t know whether it is just caused by my own body, whether the HRT is making it worse or better.

I fret about the HRT, but I am in a bit of a cleft stick over this one.  As I am relatively “young” for the menopause, then I am at a high risk of osteoporosis and as my mother lost height in old age, my risk is even higher.  However, HRT slightly raises the risk of other problems but I just get lost in the numbers.

In any case, I don’t think I want to stay on HRT long term but it has been very instrumental in helping me function over the last 12 months or so as without it I would be suffering badly.  To this end, I may try discontinuing it in a month or two to see what happens to the rest of me.  If the symptoms are bearable, then I will try going without.

That is merely one thing to fret about; when I am in the full throes of anxiety there are so many more.

But there is always a surprise somewhere; out of curiosity I did some of those “state of mind” questionnaires and to my huge surprised I am neither particularly anxious or depressed, maybe just out of the “normal” range, nor am I a raging hypochondriac, which I had always thought I was.  Maybe I am not so mad after all, or else there are millions more that are worse than me.

However, I shall continue to map the madness, note whether it is worse at certain times and see if I can come up with anything else to deal with it.

I’m still having problems sleeping.

The days are fine but I find myself getting apprehensive as it gets nearer bedtime.  Of course, sleep only comes easy to the relaxed mind and night after night I find I am fighting with it.  As ever, my analytical mind makes me want to pin a reason on it, but there are many.

One is that I suspect my control freak tendencies are getting to me.  Sleep is a lack of control over consciousness and at the moment, the thought of being oblivious for hours at a time isn’t a very pleasant one.  Yes, I know that’s a bit odd.

I’ve had periods in my life before when I have feared sleep, usually borne either of the fear of nightmares or of not waking up again.

As a result of this, I feel tired and weary; when I do sleep, it’s fitful and punctuated by wisps of dreams that I can neither remember nor shake off adequately.

In sleep, I am alone with the contents of my head and at times like this, it’s not a very nice place to be.  I know that part of this is upheaval finally catching up with me, the upheaval that I thought I was dealing with well.  Just goes to show how life comes back to bite one on the bum, doesn’t it?

I’m also aware that I live my life in seven-year cycles and I am just coming to the start (or end) of one.  At these times I have always found that anxiety and depression seem to peak and become difficult to manage, or sometimes even worse than this.  I have no idea why it works in this way.  My doctor observed it some time ago and although it doesn’t quite go like clockwork, it’s fairly accurate.

Can nature ever be defeated?  Nurture can; I’ve proved that one to myself.  But nature is harder, more ingrained, woven into DNA; traits, tendencies, weaknesses… and strengths.

So what I must do next is try to use the strengths, my inbuilt stubbornness to fight the contents of my mind again.

What I need though is a point of reference, a belief.  That is what I really lack, as it’s always been a fairly fragile thing for me.  I’m easily wavered, a true Doubting Thomasina.  I’ve challenged Fred to help me, but he is silent.

This is why, even now, I feel very alone in the world - even with you, as I know you bear the same sort of doubting mechanism that I do.  The ironic thing is, I think I have managed to help you a little in this way by some of the strange things that I know - but they are never any help to me.

I’m getting nowhere at the minute; my mind is drifting, bouncing from one doubt to another and not harnessing anything useful.

I need to find the thorny, irritating, cussed bits of myself and latch on to them instead.