Back To Shore

A random collection of thoughts as so often….

April Weather | It fucking snowed last night. On the 2nd day of April. I don’t remember there being snow in April around here. I’m sure there has been, but I just don’t recall and I’m not amused. I’m done with winter. Give me some sun and warm days where we enjoy spending time outside. Especially as outside seems the only space where I might feel safe over the next few weeks.

Covid Pandemic | Most of Germany will drop most of Covid-related restrictions tonight. Wearing masks? Optional / voluntary. Isolate yourself if you catch Covid? Mostly optional, as far as I understand the intended rule change. “Individual responsibility” is the magic word here. The thing is, you need people to really care about other people to make that work for a society as a whole. During the heights (number wise) of a global airborne pandemic everyone or at least the majority needs to also care about those who might have not the same level of protection than themselves. Small children. Sick people. Immunocompromised people *waves*. And yes, of course you can say: “Tough luck” or “they can just stay home / not take part in the regular life again” or “they can keep wearing masks”. But it’s not very considerate. And trust me, I will keep wearing a mask in certain situations for the foreseeable future. And probably still miss out on some things, because they don’t feel safe to me.

I personally still can’t wrap my mind around how for instance music fans, a group of people I felt I belong to for so long, seem to consider it safe to go to live gigs, stand in very close quarters with strangers without wearing a mask in venues that don’t require any proof of vaccination or negative tests. With the numbers as high as they still are everywhere, to me that feels like asking to catch Covid. Proof of that? One of my brother did catch it two weeks ago on one of his first outings into such a setting. He’s fine, because he’s had all three shots. But I have no idea of knowing if I were to be, did or when I catch it. And that’s scary as shit. Two years in still! And I haven’t even talked about the risk of Post / Long Covid, which I don’t want to get either, thank you very much. One chronic illness is enough for me.

I get that this is me acting from my “individual responsibility” and I can’t judge other people for acting differently, because their personal risk-assessment comes to a different result than mine. But I’m just so frustrated and also – I admit it – pretty jealous of those people who (can) care much less about this than I do and just go to gigs and be in the pit or at the barrier and have a good time. I sometimes wish I had the physical (health) and mental (anxious mind) ability to be the same. My life would be so much easier and happier. Thus I reserve my right to whine about how unfair it is, that my Covid risk is and will be higher than that of many other people and that this limits the things I do and how I do them.

Psychotherapy | I guess it’s good thing I’m about to start therapy in the near future; in less than three weeks in fact. I really need some help to deal with this worrying and the anxiety it causes. Among other things. Yes, in the post I wrote last week I stated that I might need some time to prepare myself for it. But things changed.

There was a huge setback in my main project at work this week and I felt so bad about it and so guilty, even though most of it wasn’t really my “fault”. And I don’t think there was a lot I could have done differently. But of course my anxious mind went into tailspin of self-loathing about it. So I decided to check out if I could start therapy earlier than May (which had been my original plan, because of all I had planned until then).

On Thursday the network appointment calender showed a lot of openings with quite a few of the therapists till the end of April. Some didn’t fit my schedule of office / work from home days and some didn’t feel like a good fit or they didn’t write enough about themselves for me to make that decision. But the one I had my eyes on earlier already had openings for Thursdays at 11 after Easter. So I was a proper grown-up and booked that appointment and got it confirmed and started the whole process. Yesterday I spent some time filling out even more questionnaires, which went quite deep in places about family relations and such. I will keep you informed how it will all play out, I guess.

Outlander | The weather makes me stay in for the weekend: Catch up with TV shows and books. I finally caught up with this week’s Outlander episode. I admit I’m losing a bit of my hyper interest in it all. I don’t know if it’s due to my mental state or just the way it is. Also, as much as I enjoy seeing Kaheroton, the Mohawk played so wonderfully by Braeden Clarke, I’m not a fan of this change from the book. From a TV writer perspective I understand why they don’t want to introduce a new character for the whole Emily re-married plot and that they wanted to tell in in a more condensed way. But the whole other Indian Agent bit? WTF was the point of that? It felt like a waste of my time to be honest. And also: wouldn’t Ian rather sing in Gaelic than in English? I’m a terrible nitpicker I know… Anyway, I know from the books what’s in store for Ian and I’m so looking forward to this. They better not change too much of that future plot. Other Outlander notes: A loose fitting apron is a great way to hide a pregnancy, I guess. This is the first episode I actually noticed or paid more attention to it. Well done, guys. Not a fan of how they seem to have cured Kezzie from his deafness / speech impairment. I really should be less critical of this show 🙂

Books | The new (audio)book of the “Dale Detectives” is out and I enjoyed the first few chapters this morning in bed. Where I retreated to after I saw the weather outside. We finally learn what really happened at Nathan’s christening 14 years ago and I admit I did not see that coming. Let’s see how everything else will play out. I have a bit of hard time keeping track of events with the “two days before” / one day after of whatever it is. That probably would have been easier in writing. But I’ve listened to most of the series as audiobooks and wanted to keep that up. Also… I’ve still got so many Audible credits and wanted to save the money for an ebook 🙂

I’ve also finally (re-)started a book I had on my shelf for so long, because the plot seemed interesting, but the first two times I just couldn’t get into it. “Dragonfly” by Leila Meacham, It’s about five American spies in Paris during WW II. This time I trudged on through that bit where I used to abort for reasons unknown in hindsight and I’m hooked so for about one third in.

Lazy Days | I might use the day tomorrow to finally clear off my kitchen table to use it to finally finish the LEGO world map I started building a few weeks ago. I “only” need to put the eight parts together to a whole map. This needs space and a few hours of time I guess and I couldn’t be bothered so far. But a wintery weekend and the new audiobook seems a good time for it.

Lyrics: “Haven’t Been Doing So Well” ~ Frank Turner, 2021

Abstract: 25 years after the idea first floated in my mind, I recently started the process of getting psychotherapy / cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for the variety of mental health issues I seem to have been struggling with all my life.

[The following post is quite a long and winding road to that conclusion, so I thought I better state it up front for a change]

When I look back on the over four decades of my life, I don’t recall a time when I haven’t struggled with self-esteem issues, self-doubts, self-loathing and too much worrying about things I did or didn’t do. Beating myself up, because I was convinced I did it all wrong and/or will continue to mess it all up in the future as well. For the first twenty years of my life I thought that was just the way my life was supposed to be. I didn’t know it any different after all.

The first time I got an idea that maybe I was not supposed to feel like this and that maybe life shouldn’t feel like such a struggle was when I read “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem” (Nathanial Branden) in my early 20s. I remember I followed that with some German self-help books about self-esteem and it was all quite eye-opening for me. I started to figure out why I might struggle so much with certain aspects of my life. And If I’m honest I’ve known I could benefit from therapy since then, which was the late 1990s. But “therapy” just wasn’t done in my family or my social circle. It was a thing for hip people in Hollywood or any other high-flying celebrity with proper drug problems.

So I’ve read tons of books in the years since and tried to incorporate some of the things I read about in my life and to get a handle on things. And that did work occasionally, but more often than not, it didn’t stick and I fell back into old thought patterns and habits and (mentally) self-destructive behaviours. Clearly that way wasn’t working.

About ten years ago English folkpunk singer/songwriter Frank Turner entered the scene and besides writing catchy tunes and being a great performer, his lyrics made me feel like there finally was a person who understood how I felt, because many of his songs were about similar experiences / emotions I knew from myself. Which was and still is a bit weird, because his life and mine have been and still are so very different. I guess, it just proves that mental health issues are universal. It absolutely blew my mind how much I could relate to so many of his lyrics. From the “Mmh, maybe I’m not supposed to feel like that” revelation (see above) captured here

When I thought that suffering was something profound,
That weighed down on wise heads,
And not just something to be avoided,
Something normal people dread.
(Tell Tale Signs, 2013)

To the comforting assurance that…

You’re not as messed up as you think you are:
Your self-absorption makes you messier.
Just settle down and you will feel a whole lot better.
Deep down you’re just like everybody else.
(Reasons Not To Be An Idiot, 2008)

And so so so much more over the years. And for a long while, I thought I just need to listen to Frank sing about this stuff and that will help me figure out my own issues. I don’t need therapy. Again: Clearly not really working. The thing is, unbeknownst to me Frank himself had obviously operated in similar fashion for years. But he recognized it as a sham much earlier than me. Here’s a quote from a recent article, but he’s been stating it for a few years before that:

“For a long time, I didn’t go to therapy — I was aggressively of the opinion that my record collection was therapist enough.“

The first time I heard him state it my gut reaction was: “Screw you, Francis! I don’t want to believe that (your) music is not enough!” and only on second thought I realized that of course he had a point. I still wasn’t ready for any step in that direction though.

At the end of 2020 I read by chance that a university research group was looking for people to evaluate the use of a mental health app “Mind Doc” (Website in German). I signed up and after my evaluation period ended I kept using the app to track my mood and to have my mental health evaluated every two weeks via a few questions I answer three times a day. The app also offers some basic lessons and exercises about a variety of mental health issues. For a time I worked through those as well. The app is actually part of a online (video call) psychotherapy network with proper licensed therapists, which is a great service, because the few local therapists have such long waiting lists. But my health care provider hadn’t been on board then and even though my biweekly evaluation came back with “poor mental health” more often than not, I still didn’t make any move.

That evaluation didn’t surprise me though, because I’ve noticed that all through last year and even in 2020 I’ve been struggling with my mental health much more than ever before. There was and still is a global pandemic and two years in I’m still considered a high risk person for Covid, thanks to the immunosuppressants I need to take for my MS. The whole long saga of my mum getting sick and and then passing away by the end of last year. At work I’ve got so much more to do in a role with more responsibility, which feel overwhelming more often than not. With all of this a “Poor mental health” evaluation was to be expected for someone with a general disposition for it.

In September 2021 Frank released a new song: “Haven’t Been Doing So Well”. I wrote a very long post about why this song meant and still means the world to me. In that post I also talked about the “music is not enough” bit and many of the things I touched on above.

And that’s what I’ve been trying to do over the past few years as well: using some help, not professionally via a therapist. Yet. But by trying to establish better routines for my mental health. (not always as successful yet as I would like). By trying to be more mindful. By trying to read more about it. To work through it on my own as good as I can. It often feels like 3 steps forward, 5 steps back, but when I look back on all those years since that first “OMG you don’t have to feel this way” moment in my mid-20s, I know I’m doing better. I’m a work in progress…

And still… it all wasn’t really working. Or helping. Especially the past few months I noticed that besides being lethargic and listless – which I could still maybe blame on worrying excessively over the pandemic – I also felt like I was turning numb to a lot of things. I realized I just don’t care that much anymore and I feel like I don’t feel emotions as intense as I used to. And that started to scare me a bit. And then on the other hand I had also become quite emotional and I start crying out of anger or frustration much more easily than I used to. That doesn’t scare me as much as just annoys me to be honest.

By the start of 2022 I found out that my health care provider will in fact from this year forward pay for this particular kind of online psychotherapy service. I still hemmed and hawed and suffered for a few more weeks until I finally took the plunge and started the process of applying for it. 25 or so years after the “maybe therapy could help” idea floated in my mind. Better late than never, right?

Last Saturday I had a first in person evaluation meeting with a therapist nearby, who signed off on me as a suitable candidate for online therapy. I informed my GP, because she needs to sign off as well, which she promised me of course she would. Yesterday I told – well in written words, because that’s so much easier for me – a few close friends about it and all were very supportive. Of course they were. I worried about nothing. As I’m wont to do….

Now I “just” have to find a therapist from the pool, who a) has appointments available that fit my schedule and b) whom I feel might be a good fit for me. Just like with any other type of psychotherapy there will be trial sessions at the start and then it usually would be 25 sessions, either weekly or later spread out further, so till the end of the year maybe. The therapist I saw in person also suggested to use the time till I match with a therapist to think about what I really want to focus working on.

After I’ve now got the “inform GP and social circle” checked off I think I will spend a bit more time to actually figure out what I consider my main issue at the moment. The process so far went much quicker than I expected. I’m not sure I’m ready to really start with it yet. I’m not trying to talk myself out of it, don’t worry, but I think I might need to prepare myself a little bit. Anyway it definitely felt good to actually do something to get out of this funk. And to put it all down in writing here for you to read hopefully makes me a bit more accountable. We’ll see… It’s all a bit scary, but also a bit exciting.

And until my first appointment I will keep reading these kind of books, because it can’t hurt, right?

Lyrics: “Reasons Not To Be An Idiot” ~ Frank Turner, 2008

Day 2 of my 3-day (2,5 really) weekend by the sea and I’m sitting at the kitchen table in my small rented apartment, pleasantly exhausted after the 2nd walk through the dunes and along the beach today. Feeling pleasantly accomplished as well, because originally I hadn’t planned to head out for a second time, after I got back chilled to the bone from the first round along another part of the beach earlier in the day. The clouds had been gathering and there was a bit of rain and I was quite mopey about it. I hadn’t slept well either and was exhausted, so I lay down to rest for a bit. And after a while, from bed (it’s a tiny apartment) I saw blue sky – with a few clouds – above the wood outside my window. A tiny push from a good friend back home via text message and I did indeed “get up and get down and get outside”. Quite literally.

And it was good that I went, with music on my headphones and camera in hand. Now I’ll cook some supper and will log into a rather impromptu Zoom call with friends I haven’t seen in a while. Hopefully the exhaustion will help me sleep better tonight.

It’s fascinating how a change of scenery – literally, but also being away from the comfortably known home – helps to unwind, but also detach a bit from the current news. I know it’s privilege that I can do that, both in the way that I can afford to just book a weekend away, but also that I don’t have any personal ties to Ukraine / Russia and thus am not affected directly. But I so needed that this weekend…

Here are a few photos from the walk….