Love Story?

A slightly early Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all!  Whether you’re a singleton, part of a happy couple, have been married forever, a serial dater, or suffering from heartbreak, I reach out and wish you joy on the annual day of love!

Valentine’s Day seems to have become a big deal for a lot of people, seemingly more so every year.  Whilst I can see it’s appeal, it also has its downsides, so overall I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.  Here’s my take on the ups and downs of V-Day:

Every year, as the middle of February comes around, I find it a little baffling that so many people talk about how depressing it is to be single on Valentine’s Day.  This is probably in part because I don’t really get the concept to begin with: it’s over-commercialised.  It’s seen as a great night to go out but all the nice places to eat and drink are packed and noisy.  Also, I don’t see why we should subscribe to being romantic on a set day of the year!  Why not express appreciation for loved ones every day of the year?!

That said, I don’t want to come across as having a ‘bah-humbug’ type of attitude to Valentine’s Day.  Of course it’s nice to have an excuse to spoil our loved ones, spend quality time together and get romantic.  But why feel down if you’re not in a romantic relationship?  I for one have only ever been with someone one Valentine’s Day once, in the quarter of a century I’ve spent on the planet, and I can’t say it’s ever bothered me too much!

The one time I did ‘do Valentine’s Day’, I still didn’t really do it properly, so to speak.  There was a romantic meal, but we did this the weekend after the day itself, avoiding the overcrowding that I can only assume occurs on the day itself.  Other than that, the whole thing was a little disappointing: I’d bought some lovely goodies for my at-the-time-boyfriend, despite being a poor student, and in return got a couple of tacky gifts that had probably been bought at a service station on the way to seeing me!  Not so romantic after all!

Anyway, this doesn’t make me bitter or anything, it just makes me think the whole occasion is a bit over-hyped, which I guess a lot of people will agree with.  Also, I’m quite pleased to be able to say I was once given a red rose on V-Day.  I was still at school and must’ve been about 16.  A charming male friend of mine had bought about half a dozen red roses and handed them out to his nearest and dearest female friends.  A lovely touch, and something that’s remained vividly in my memory for all these years!

Fun with friends! :)

This nicely illustrates my main point, which is this: to me, there’s no point in getting down about being single on V-Day (I’m bored of typing Valentine’s!); instead, why not show some extra love and appreciation to others you hold dear?!  Let us singletons turn a would-be-disheartening occasion into a celebration of being single and free to enjoy time with our friends! 

I’m thinking a picnic in the park with my friends this Saturday will do the trick: for couples, this can be quite a romantic activity, but this will be with the added bonus of greater numbers (the more the merrier & all that!) AND made more fun by a spot of Frisbee!  Who’s in?!

Share the love this Valentine's Day, even if you're single!

If it rains, let’s go to the pub instead.  Can’t go wrong, right?!

Anyway, that’s all from me for now.  Whatever you’re doing, I hope you have a delightful time this weekend, with whichever loved one (or ones) you choose.  If you’re the type to feel a little low at this time of year, I challenge you to flip that switch, turn a negative into a positive and celebrate single life!

Step Into Christmas!

Christmas fun with Miranda

Welcome to my little, What I Call, Christmas Special blog post (Miranda Hart fans will no doubt appreciate this opening :)).  It’s a time of year for joy and fun, food and drink, family and friends, and appreciating all the good things life and the world have to offer.  Of course those of a certain religious status may find it offensive that I’ve said that, but honestly for me that’s what Christmas is and has been all my life; it’s not that I don’t appreciate the religious origins of Christmas, but I don’t have any qualms with admitting I’m not religious myself.  However, I think some of my own values when it comes to Christmas match the Christian ones: it should be a time for forgiveness, thankfulness and peace; this I hope is something we can all agree on, no matter what our religious backgrounds.

As I’ve already hinted at, for me, spending time with family and friends is pretty much the most important thing about Christmas.  In my last post I spoke about mindfulness, about taking more time to notice what’s going on and how I’m feeling in everyday situations.  This had led me to really think about and take note of the dynamics between people in different types of relationships, and at this time of year when many of us come together with family and friends, I thought it’d be fun to note some of my observations on relationships.

The first is that parents can be so mean and unreasonable to their kids!  When I was at the Track Cycling World Cup a couple of weekends ago (see my post That’sHow a Superhero Learns to Fly), there was a dad sat next to me with his young boy.  The kid managed to spill his lemonade all over the floor, and the dad went nuts at him: “you STUPID boy, I can’t believe you’ve done that, you need to be more careful…!!!”.  Many of us can probably remember being shouted at as kids for spilling things, but observing the situation as an

I've noticed parents shout at their kids for the silliest reasons!

outsider I found this guy’s reaction a little absurd: of course the kid didn’t mean to spill the drink and of course he was trying not to spill it (he surely wanted to drink it, after all).  It seems ridiculous that a parent gets so angry with a child for what is clearly a simple mistake that we all make.  He probably wouldn’t have dreamed of shouting at his friend in the pub for spilling a drink, or at his wife if she’d spilt or dropped something in the house!

I had a similar experience today in M&S where a girl walked past a pile of boxes of Christmas crackers and a couple of them fell over.  Her dad: “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?  Pick those up; what have you done?!!!”.  She said it wasn’t her that had knocked them over; I’m not sure whether this was the case or not but even if she had, once again her dad’s reaction was so over the top relative to the situation and the damage that had (or more to the point hadn’t!) been done.

Having a laugh with friends: one of life's true joys!

My next observation is how within pairs or groups of friends, you can say and do things which would be completely meaningless or plain weird to an outsider but make perfect sense to you and your friend.  Of course this is the case with in jokes, which we always have to be careful not to use out of context: as a result of a habit of one of my best friends from uni, who I lived with, several years on I find myself tempted to say “good luck; don’t miss” every time someone informs me they’re off to the toilet!  Another great one is how me and another of my best friends from uni can have the following interaction: Me: “Umm…” Her: “Yeah” Me: “Ok” Her: “Cool” and we’ve genuinely had a meaningful conversation with a tangible outcome.  Brilliant!

Another thing I love about friendship is how there are some people you don’t see or even speak to for months or years, and when you do get together it’s like you were never apart.  Believe it or not, until a couple of weeks ago I hadn’t seen either of the girls I live next door to properly for well over a year!  In my defence, myself and one of the other girls had both been living elsewhere for quite a bit of that time, but even so, there’s no excuse for us not seeing each other for so long!  But the amazing thing about my relationship with these girls is that we’re almost like family: I’ve lived in this house (on and off) for twelve years (that’s half my life, since I was twelve years old!), so we’ve kind of grown up together, and undeniably been through a lot as a group.  So when we do see each other we have a lovely time and chat for hours and hours, which makes all the time apart worth it.  Lovely.

We should be kind to ourselves at Christmas without stressing about work or stidies

At this special time of year, I’m making an extra big effort to really appreciate my family and friends.  I’m fortunate enough to have a couple of weeks off work so I really have a lot of time to spend with them, and I’m using mindfulness (see my previous post!) to make the most of it.  Something else I’m using Christmas as a good reason for is simply being kind to myself, which is something I think most of us overlook, not just over the festive period but all year round.  I don’t just mean looking after ourselves by eating healthily and exercising (I’m the first to admit this type of thing largely goes downhill for me over Christmas!) but treating ourselves in a friendly and compassionate manner (for instance not feeling bad about exercise and eating going out the window for a few days!).  Many students, particularly at this time of year, will know the horrible situation of being constantly in one of two less-than-enjoyable states: either studying, or feeling guilty for not studying, which leads to never feeling truly relaxed.  It’s important to schedule in recreation and leisure time whatever else you’ve got going on, and to make sure you switch off those feelings of guilt and really enjoy relaxation time to the max.

Essentially what I’m saying is, the way I see it, Christmas is all about truly enjoying yourself and appreciating life (not that you shouldn’t do this all year round!).  This might mean making some alterations in order to achieve this.  For example, going back to my observations about dynamics between families and friendship groups, if you start to notice certain things that are positive and negative about your own relationships you’ll appreciate the good bits more and have some insight as to how to change the negatives.  Come to think of it, the same can be said for any aspects of life: the more you are aware of your feelings, thoughts and surroundings, the more you can learn about what you need to do to improve your life, and which bits don’t need improving because they’re already good!

To conclude, I want everyone to have a great Christmas and New Year period, and hope for some this post will provide some helpful tips for maximum enjoyment, or at least makes for a good read.  One final tip I’d give is don’t try too hard to enjoy Christmas.  I’ve been guilty of trying to force myself to enjoy things on occasions and it just doesn’t work.  Instead, focus on consciously noticing and being aware, and enjoyment and happiness will naturally follow.

Thanks as always for reading; please make my Christmas extra special by sharing my blog to help to boost my readership .  It’s here to be read by as many people as possible after all; that’s why I write it!  And finally, I’d like to wish all my readers the merriest, happiest and healthiest of Christmases.  Eat, drink and be merry! 

"The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring"
Oscar Wilde

The Stairway To Heaven, Oh It Starts In Hell

Hello readers, and welcome to the latest instalment of On My Cloud, where I like to ramble on about things I feel strongly about!  I say ramble partly in jest, as I hope that in reality the things I say are considered valuable by others too and strike a chord with at least some readers.  The reason I write this blog at all is that I feel the things I’m writing about are incredibly important and need to be in public awareness, so as always I welcome and encourage comments and sharing with others who may be interested in what I have to say. (Thanks!)

Having experienced a few dry spells with my writing, at the moment I’m a bit inundated with ideas for things to write about, largely due to my current reading around psychiatry and mental health services.  Most notably, I am presently reading a book entitled Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm than Good by James Davies (a fantastic read that I’d recommend to everyone, although it makes my blood boil!).  I don’t need to explain what it’s all about, since the title does a good enough job of giving you the gist. 

 

I was prompted to write this post when reading a chapter that addresses cultural interpretations of emotional suffering and mental distress, just one issue amongst the many revealed by Davies in the book.  This particular topic, though, somehow struck a chord with me in a way that inspired me to write about it first above everything else, perhaps because of the personal significance it has for me as well as the wider social and cultural questions it raises.  As a result, what I think we’re going to end up with is a piece that not only addresses one of the widest and deepest cultural issues I’ve written about yet, but also one that is more personal and self-disclosing than anything I have written previously.  I hope it makes for a good read!

(Having already taken three paragraphs to introduce the topic!) I’d like to start by posing some questions: what does emotional suffering or mental distress mean to you?  What function do you believe it plays, if any?  Or is it just something that gets in the way and needs to be gotten rid of as promptly as possible?  In Cracked…, Davies notes that in Western culture, mental suffering has come to be perceived more and more as something that does not serve a purpose or function, and needs to be removed by any means possible.  Psychiatry has purportedly contributed significantly to this perception, as I will explain briefly now.

To give some context, one of the key objectives of Cracked is to expose the arbitrary and corrupted nature by which mental illness is defined by psychiatry, and the building of a mythical world in which mental distress is caused by some physical or biological phenomenon.  In fact, what you’ll find if you dig deep is that there is actually no scientific backing for this notion.  However, as psychiatry has gained power (largely though the financial rewards associated with pharmaceutical industry links), the notion that mental distress is biologically rooted has taken hold in our culture, therefore rendering mental suffering as a result of abnormality, to be eradicated by psychiatric interventions (which sadly almost inevitably means medication). 

Mental distress: part of being human or bioliogical abnormailty?!

Eradicating suffering and emotional distress sounds great on the surface, so one might argue that it’s wonderful that psychiatry offers a solution to this.  Aside from the fact that there is little-to-no scientific backing for this approach (to be discussed further in later posts!), there is another problem here.  Before we started to view mental distress as a sign of illness and abnormality, we relied much more heavily on psychological and spiritual explanations and ways of coping.  Addressing distress in this way, I believe, is far more productive.  By recognising the causes of distress, often traumatic events or general life stressors, we can also properly deal with the problem rather than blunting it.  Furthermore, we can learn and develop from the experience.  As the aforementioned Mr Davies notes, “from affliction there can be derived some unexpected gain, new perspective or beneficial alteration”.   

The above statement rings true and resonates with me, and I feel uncomfortable with the fact that more and more suffering is being medicalised and passed off as something to be blunted and controlled.  More and more things that were once accepted as a normal part of the human experience are now defined as symptoms of mental illness.  I feel that resilience is one of the most important things in the maintenance of psychological wellbeing, and the medicalisation of distress is not helping us to build a resilient and mentally healthy population.

As already hinted at, I am of the school of thought that distress can be learned from and help a person to develop and overcome life’s challenges, and that this is being stifled unnecessarily and unhelpfully in many cases by the current misguided tendency, through psychiatry, to associate mental distress with biology.  (To illustrate my point: how many times have you heard the phrase ‘chemical imbalance’ in relation to mental health?  If you were to read Cracked, you’d realise this is an unproven and therefore dangerous notion, which is why I am so concerned by the view of suffering that psychiatry instils). 

I’ll illustrate my own personal stance on this topic using a combination of anecdote and music.  As regular readers will already know, I am a huge music fan and like to give each blog post a lyrical title and refer to relevant music within my writing!

To quote a cliché and indeed song title, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.  And let’s be honest, clichés generally materialise because there is an element of truth in them to begin with.  Most of us have probably had times when we could really relate to this statement, times when we’ve come through adversity feeling stronger than before.  For me, the best example is a relationship break-up I went through a few years ago.  It felt like the worst thing ever at the time, like the pain would be endless and insurmountable.  Of course, this wasn’t the case!  As beautifully articulated by Matt Cardle in his song Porcelain:

All the things in this life that you thought you just couldn’t bear

It’s the pressure inside makes the diamond that’s shining there

All the pain and the heartache can break you and shape you like clay

Now you’ve come through the fire and that makes you porcelain

It took a long time, but once I’d got over it I felt so much better than I had whilst in the relationship.  Not only this, but I realised that I’d learnt a lot and gained new perspective on certain things.  For me, the gaining of perspective is perhaps the most important benefit of coming through adversity and dealing with distress in a productive way. 

Many people who have experienced bereavement will be able to relate to the idea that such events, whilst horrendous, really have the power to make us appreciate life, the world and, most importantly, the people around us, more than we did before.  I myself experienced a significant bereavement during my teenage years: I am one of triplets, and unfortunately one of my two brothers took his own life when we were just 14.  Of course, this is a horrible thing for my family to go through, but it has undoubtedly altered my perspective on life and made me so much more grateful for my loved ones.  Indeed it has probably also, on some subconscious level, influenced my aspirations in life and driven some of my passion for the very things I write about now.

Of course there are negatives as well: for instance, the incredibly sudden and unexpected nature of the incident meant that for a while I experienced high anxiety around thoughts of similar things happening again, and still do to a certain extent.  However, I can now recognise this as a fairly normal, if slightly irrational, reaction to a traumatic experience.  If I were to read the DSM (or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which lists

all the conditions psychiatry has decided constitutes a mental disorder), I would probably find that I could diagnose myself with several ‘disorders’ based on this and other features of my personality, experiences and feelings.  Since I have worked through these difficulties and gained something from this, I hope you’ll agree that receiving a diagnosis of a mental disorder would not have been helpful to me, but this is what’s happening to people every day when they end up in mental health services.

What worries me is that more and more normal human experiences are being medicalised by psychiatrists.  This is characterised by the fact that each time the DSM is revised, the number of disorders it lists grows.  This is surely serving to reduce our ability to view distress as a normal part of human experience and enhancing our propensity to view it as a sign of illness that must be treated.  I find this thought quite scary, particularly considering that the diagnostic criteria set out in the DSM are based on nothing more scientific than the perceptions and discussions of a bunch of guys who work for the APA (American Psychiatric Association).  Anyway, I think I’m going off on a bit of a tangent here, so I’ll leave it there for you to ponder if you wish, with the promise of more on this in a later post.

I remember hearing a psychologist called Rachel Perkins speaking at a mental health conference last year.  There is one thing that she said that I remember very well because it resonated with me at the time, and I’m glad I remembered it because it is even more poignant for me now!  She noted that culturally we have come to rely on ‘experts’ (ie healthcare professionals, psychiatrists, etc.) to deal with our distress for us.  Why has this happened?  Shouldn’t we all in fact be the experts in managing our own distress and helping those around us to do the same?  I would agree with Ms Perkins that the answer is yes, we should be turning more often to ourselves and our support networks and less often to medicine to deal with normal human suffering. 

I myself am a big advocate of using support networks to overcome challenging times.  Yes, I’m incredibly fortunate to be blessed with a wonderful family and great friends, where others aren’t so lucky.  But that’s what support groups and such like are for, and all the more reason to invest more money in community-based, non-medical approaches to wellbeing, over medication and hospitalisation.  It’s amazing how beneficial a good chinwag can be, whether this be with a friend, family member, counsellor, support group, teacher,

Coffee and a chat: Something I find very therapeutic!

hairdresser, or a stranger you met on the bus! 

To me, it makes so much more sense to take this positive view of emotional suffering, to work through it and gain something from it, rather than demonising and abnormalising it (abnormalising isn’t actually a word but I’m using it anyway as it sounds good in this context!).  I’m not suggesting this is true for all cases of suffering because of course there are times when people are so severely distressed that a more intensive form of intervention is needed.  My point is that as psychiatry and the social constructs of mental illness grow, so does the perception of distress as abnormal, which I suggest is not a healthy feature of modern society. 

To lighten things up a bit, I’ll give you a few more anecdotes about my own ways of dealing with distress.  In previous posts I’ve talked about lifestyle elements and their impact on wellbeing, but I also use simple thinking processes to work through emotional difficulties. 

Something I actually find very helpful is, when I’m feeling really low or anxious, to consciously tell myself that this is a normal part of the human experience, or an understandable reaction to whatever is going on in my life at the time.  I find that this helps to ground me and perhaps to start problem solving whatever the problem is, which in turn helps me to steer clear of turning to ‘professionals’ for support that I don’t actually need.  I think there’s also something to be said for taking some of that distress and turning it into something positive, for example, channelling anger or hurt over an unfortunate experience into working harder to achieve my goals.  Another thing I find useful is to remember that without the bad times there wouldn’t really be good times either: in the words of Thomas Hardy, “If a way to the better there be, it first exacts a full look at the worst”; or, as Matt Cardle puts it, “The stairway to heaven, oh it starts in hell”.

If the above and other coping strategies don’t quite work as well as I need them to, then I know there are options available for further support, and have indeed made use of input from counsellors and psychologists in the past (I’m not completely adverse to the use of services and hope it doesn’t appear that way from what I’ve said here.  If it does, then be assured that this is only because I feel so passionately that the alternatives need greater attention!)

There is a fine balance to be struck between developing the right services, education and awareness (along with stigma reduction) so that people can access the support they need when they need it, and not becoming overly reliant on such support, which culturally we are in danger of doing.  Unfortunately there is a lot of work still to be done on all these fronts, and getting each one of those things to the level they need to be at is a very tall order (and once which I hope I can make a worthwhile contribution to fulfilling!).

To summarise, there are two main ways of perceiving mental distress and emotional suffering:  the positive view that it is a natural part of the human experience that can ultimately be gained from, and the negative view that it is the result of some kind of abnormality of the brain or biology.  There is some place for both, but as psychiatry has grown the negative view has seeped stealthily into our culture, leaving less and less room for the positive one.  I myself am an advocate of favouring the positive view a little more, and I’ll finish by leaving you with a couple of songs that depict my stance on the topic quite nicely.  Thanks for reading!