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It’s a boy!

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4th May 2018

It’s not a tranquil lake. It’s a torrential flash flood and it’s fast approaching. It’s coming towards me and I am putting up a big fight but not winning. I am being pushed towards it by the boulder of time. Another turn of the wheel. The approach is a rough zig-zag path with exhausting ups and 3G downs, jagged corners and innumerable pot-holes. It goes thud-thud-thud. My brain hits the hard inside of my skull multiple times as it comes closer and closer. Am I going to hold my breath when it happens?  Am I going to be submerged for longer than I can hold on? I don’t know how to swim and my limbs are pathetic. What am I going to do when it hits?

6th May 2018

It’s here – the 24th birthday of a man-child who didn’t reach his 21st. It’s a blessed day. A happy day. But it doesn’t feel that way. A painfully long weekend filled with his absence. A trip to the local park. An ice-lolly. Carrying his djembe around in the sun like a mad woman as if it’s my baby. Baking raspberry, pistachio and chocolate brownies. Holding back tears all day. Being with ‘it is like this’. A visitor. A long evening. A nice meal. An enormous hole. Massive nothingness – a vacuum that my love wants to get into but there is no way in or out. It’s sealed like a submarine.  Not a drop of water or a molecule of love can enter or leave. The void sits in the middle of my living room. My life. Starving my love of all expression. Suffocating me.

7th May 2018

It came and went. I lived. But I am not getting anywhere. I want to be someone I am not while accepting everything as it is. How can these two positions be compatible? It’s like being night and day at the same time. Not dusk or dawn – they are too serene. Do I have a realistic hope of ever getting there or am I delusional?

Does unconditional peace exist? Apparently, some folks have experienced it. I have too, for brief snatches of time. To have it as a native state of being – unblemished, pure and vast consciousness. It seems unachievable. But they say it’s possible. May be. Some day…

(Buddhist teachings by Ajahn Anando: ‘Knowing in the present’: https://www.amaravati.org/speakers/ajahn-anando/page/2/)

 

A vacuum in the NHS.

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When Saagar was ill, he filled out an online form and referred himself to IAPTs – Improving Access to Psychological Therapies. This programme  began in 2008 and has transformed treatment of adult anxiety disorders and depression in England. Over 900,000 people now access IAPT services each year. I have used this service in the past and found it useful. I suggested to him to fill out the form a second time and he did. They usually call back within a day or two. He didn’t hear back from them.

I recently found out that IAPTs does not look after suicidal people. I would like to know what they do when they read a self-referral form of this nature.

There is a vacuum in the NHS. There is little face to face support for those who feel life is no longer worth living. Why do most people with physical illnesses ask for help? Possibly because they trust they will receive appropriate help from the system. Why is it that many people with mental anguish don’t approach the medical services for help? Probably due to lack of trust.

The Listening Place works towards filling that vacuum. A few days ago I visited their premises, a short walk from Pimlico station, in the heart of London. This airy, green, warm and welcoming place felt ideal for anyone in need of care, support and understanding. Here, individuals can speak openly about their feelings without being judged. They receive on-going support from trained volunteers over a number of weeks as deemed appropriate. The volunteers help relieve emotional pain and stress and offer opportunities to consider alternatives to suicide. Anyone over 18 can be referred to them by themselves, other charities, NHS as well as health and social care organisations. They try to give continuity by facilitating you to speak with someone who knows you from before. They charge nothing and keep your information confidential. It is remarkable that they are open 9 am to 9 pm, 7 days a week.

Phone: +44 2039067676; Email: referrals@listeningplace.org.uk

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Sarah Anderson, who was once director at the largest call centre for the Samaritans, set up The Listening Place in 2016 and the service has since helped hundreds of individuals with its unique approach to care. During our chat, Sarah’s passion and dedication to the cause comes through, loud and clear.

The world needs more people who give a damn about other people.

(PS: Through the grapevine I hear the future funding of IAPTs is in jeopardy. The vacuum grows.)

 

 

 

What am I doing here?

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Like a fusspot, I brought my tea-bags with me. I packed 6 in a flimsy little plastic square box, enough for three days. The nail on my right middle finger shouts out its fragility again. The file is tired of the rate at which the 20 possible keratinous beds declare their inability to cope. The mirror shows a lot of pale scalp shining through sparse, dyed, once thick curly hair.

I woke up in South Wales this morning, in a hillside country house, my window overlooking a valley. Meandering hedges partition the fields semi-geometrically, up and down the slopes. A scaly river shines at the bottom. Not too far, white lines on a newly washed country road glisten too. A few white houses with dark sloping roofs sit on ten shades of green at safe distances, like meditating sages. The panoramic horizon is a multi-coloured squiggly line, cutting right across my window. 6 wind- turbines merrily dance on the west-end of it. The long shadows give away the corner of the sun.

On the balcony a squirrel scrounges under hanging bird-feeders. This morning the birds seem more interested in conversation than food. An errant motor superimposes the chatter periodically. A few streaky feathers lie here and there. One of the twin kittens strolls across the keyboard of my laptop from left to right, following the direction of my sentences.

My mattress on the floor lies 3 feet away from a snazzy red and silver drum-kit and a Djembe. Percussion instruments trail behind me all over the world. I see them wherever I go.

Why am I here his weekend?
I am here to see a ‘medium’.
Never thought I’d hear myself utter those words. 

Day 974

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Yes, but…

‘Yes, but…’ essentially means “what you say is superlative, here’s the underlying truth.”
I am sorry but…
I like what you’ve done but…

The moment the ‘but’ appears, the previous half of the sentence gets completely negated. It sounds insincere or like blame or criticism.

I am shocked to discover how many times I use the word ‘but’ in one day. Recently I learnt that a simple and effective shift can be made if I replace ‘but’ with ‘and’. That way, this is true and that is true too. Multiple realities don’t need to compete. I don’t need to choose one.

‘I know you want more time to complete this book and the deadline is looming.’
‘You want my help here and I need to be in Wales for a few days.’
‘I’d like to help you and I need to make some difficult decisions.’

Feels and sounds better to both parties I think.
Multiple realities do not compete. They just exist.
You own a piece of truth and so do I. Let’s figure out what we can do.
Yes and, ‘NO BUT’!

Day 965

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Guidelines, guidelines everywhere…

NICE guidelines on ‘Bipolar Disorder in Adults’ regarding the role of families and carers state:

“Quality standards recognise the important role families and carers have in supporting adults with bipolar disorder. If appropriate, health and social care practitioners should ensure that family members and carers are involved in the decision‑making process about investigations, treatment and care.”

“Why is it that some psychiatrists sometimes don’t fully appreciate the views of carers and involve them in the care of a patient when NICE guidelines clearly state that it should be otherwise?” I asked a senior psychiatrist casually during a recent conversation. “Traditionally” he said, “doctors were sons and daughters of doctors, their friends and spouses were often doctors and those were the people they spoke with. Carers didn’t fit into that box. It’s a cultural thing, still lingering. Hardest thing to change – a mindset.”

India gets criticised for its caste system. In other countries it exists in other forms – the power dynamic between different groups of people in different strata of society. As the Grenfell tragedy unfolds, I see how the management didn’t  take the resident’s concerns seriously. What is the nature of Tenant-Management relationship? Who is disadvantaged?

Any number of guidelines cannot change deep-rooted, unconscious biases. Only humanity can.

Mrs May visited the site but couldn’t speak with the residents for ‘security’ reasons and because she is very tired after her recent election campaign. Being with them would have taken compassion. And humanity. I wonder if this was a Mayfair tower wether she would have felt more secure and less tired.