Sitting here on Saturday morning, life is good. We had a good night last night, spent at the house of our old friends of many years, sitting in their back garden with a lovely takeaway, good beer and good banter, and a good Friday night sets you up for a good weekend.
Possibly better still as the male friend had serious health problems at the beginning
of the pandemic, with tumours in his bowels, which they caught early enough to operate on, and it invariably saved his life. Still, until the camera went up the way, no one was any the wiser. And again, I can only compliment the NHS. Within twenty-four hours, he was on an operating table, and because of that, he was able to share a beer and a meal again last night. A scary time for all connected, and wearing a bag all his life is a small inconvenience to allow him to share good times. He has been my friend for some twenty-five years and hopefully will be for some twenty-five to come.
I am sitting partially watching the New Zealand v Australia rugby match, which is on in the background; my good lady is having a long lie, I am waiting for my daughter to drop her two dogs off as she is at a wedding all day and night, and there is no more I can ask for today – life, as I said, is ‘good.’
I often say there is usually a ‘but’ and in all honesty, the ‘but’ today seems to be the world in general, more so when you start to read the daily papers as they seem to be doom and gloom all around. I have tried not to read them so often these days because I don’t believe it does my mindset much good. There’s nothing drastic that affects my anxiety or mood swings, but I find it makes me think about what is going on in our world, and I do despair at times, which, if you look at it, is still a negative effect on my mind, and if it has this effect on me, it must have an effect, probably worse with some people.
So let’s look at Generalised Anxiety Disorder. To me, it seems to be the problem I would associate with today’s world. Described as this:
‘Generalised Anxiety Disorder (or GAD) is marked by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events for no obvious reason. People with symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder tend always to expect disaster and can’t stop worrying about health, money, family, work, or school.’
So there are things that are quite personal to the individual, such as those last five subjects, but what if people get concerned about bigger events in our lives, things that affect our towns, cities, countries and the planet itself. I have my concerns, problems that I believe will have an effect on my yet to be born Granddaughter, and so it does bother me. If you haven’t read it, please do so:
https://www.thruanxiouseyes.com/2020/02/01/global-warming-the-real-issue/ or
This concerns me, but once again, I can’t do anything about it. I believe I have played my part in only having one child, but I don’t believe people of today are concerned about what effect their present-day families will have on the future, a bit like ‘enjoy the moment’ attitude.
Imagine a family who decides to have five children who will all decide to do the
same over the years, and so every twenty years, each child has five children? In sixty years, a family of two having those initial five children will have added many people into our country, to the extent I don’t know if I can do the sums. Still, it’s a lot (I make it 155 people from those two adults if all children had another five of their own does that make sense?) And if a lot of families adopt this attitude, we are in trouble – but please read the posts above. The planet has room for them, but it doesn’t have the resources, at least I don’t believe it has?
And so, if we look at headlines, it makes me wonder how some people can’t be affected; there are murders, shootings, robberies. There is rape, terrorism, natural disasters such as flooding, fires and droughts, hunger and starvation, human trafficking, illegal immigrants, illegal drugs, influencers, Love Island, and so much more and the first word that springs to my mind when I see these being written down in the same sentence is ‘depressing.’
I have my mood swings, and depression was discussed in the early days along with medication which, I didn’t take but do now. But I don’t get depressed; I know that much, but the headlines are concerning, and at times a little worrying and frustrating; but again, they don’t affect me, but as mentioned, I can see how they affect other people because people worry about many things.
I have mentioned how we get these things out of our life, and realistically the only way we can do this is not to read the papers or even the headlines, which given some people’s mental health situation, they may find difficult.
When I did my mental health first aiders course, we covered OCD, and I have this condition too, but to the extent, we laugh about it! But it is no laughing matter for some; I know that much, and it can be a serious matter. Still, my shirts have to face the same direction in my wardrobe, to the extent the lady who does some ironing for us puts my shirts on coat hangers a certain way, so I don’t have to change anything!
When I carry notes in my wallet, the Queen’s head has to face the same way each time, preferably to the front of my wallet. When I put my socks on that carry logos, the logo has to face to the outside of my leg, never inside, and I can’t wear odd socks as some do. A Christmas present from my in-laws a couple of years ago were three pairs of similar but odd socks. They have been in my sock drawer ever since and will never be used. If I managed to put odd socks on and only noticed this later in the day, there would be no mad rush home to change them; it wouldn’t have any effect on me, I just wouldn’t like it, but I’d be okay. And that is my OCD, all quite irrelevant and nothing serious when we look at life’s bigger picture.
But OCD gets worse. We were told a story on the course about a woman who escaped a violent relationship and found refuge in another house that her partner knew nothing about and so didn’t know where she lived. So concerned was she that he would find her and maybe break-in, she started to check the locks on her windows and doors every night before she went to bed until her OCD meant when she checked them each night, it took her two and a half hours every night, meaning she was repeatedly walking around the house checking locks, checking and re-checking.
I have just timed myself to do this around our three bedroomed semi, and going reasonably slow but making sure they were all checked took me three minutes. If this lady lived in the same size house and it took her the same amount of time each time, it means she would have checked each lock fifty times – now that is serious OCD. Because of her habits, the repetitiveness and the time involved, and the reasons for doing it, which of course, she should never have had to do!
But OCD comes in various styles; what if your OCD was the world and society today to the effect you found out all about it by reading papers? I then see why people so concerned about how we live our lives would become stressed and anxious because of what they were reading. The problem with the ease of access to these headlines is how we stop people from doing it.
There is self-help as I have done, delete an app if you have one, and don’t ever buy a paper as I don’t. It then becomes the strength of character and mind to stop yourself from dropping into the habit I had. Whilst online checking e-mails, football results, or any other reason, I would bring up the web page for the paper I read, I would see the headlines, and I could feel it ‘annoying’ me. And that is as much as I let it do; anxiety never came into the equation!
Doing it as always is so much easier said than done, and it is times like this that
people may need help, which is available if this is what people really want; it is recognising that you need help, and that is the starting point. Getting help is the second step, and it is out there; it needs to be found. Usually, by talking to people and visiting your GP, not because you read papers but by doing so, it makes you feel anxious. Anxiety is the problem; to reduce your anxiety, we need to get rid of the root cause, the reading of the papers.
But then we also need to look at social media too. I have an account on Twitter to help promote my website and my blogs, another source of bad news. I think this can be ‘doomscrolling.’ Another source that I have tried to stop using for headline news, as to me as this post below mentions, the word itself is depressing, described as such: ‘Doomscrolling and doomsurfing, are new terms referring to the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news.’ Let’s not do it from today?
People may read this and think it’s silly and their prerogative, but today’s society is hard work, as I pointed out to a young man last week. I am back to that point I have made, where having lived through two different generations, the difference is very noticeable; forty years ago, life was so much simpler, trust me, and I was still having fun – lots of it too.
So whatever our problems are, reading papers or checking windows fifty times each night, it affects us all in different ways, and we need to recognise this, and we need to talk to people who understand the problems, the help is there so please find it, to help yourself.
As I finish writing this on Sunday, it is mid-day and the mood has stayed the same all weekend. I am lucky, I am content and relaxed and I can’t ask for much more. I have just bought the nicest car I have ever owned at fifty-eight years old, and I went against my own opinions and judgement and I have bought a road bike to help with my road cycling. I am lucky and I know I am and that is a massive help to my mindset – I will never take my good luck for granted!
But I wanted my final say to be on Mr Ricky Gervais again. I’ll be honest I never used to like his style of comedy. My opinion has changed drastically recently and he is a funny and very clever man. I like his attitude in life to his work and what people think of it. Whilst I support being good to people and saying the rights things, I occasionally take time to listen to people who don’t seem to do PC, and to me, Ricky is one of them. So last night we watched Ricky Gervais – Animals, all wrong but hilarious. Sometimes we just need a couple of beers and to laugh at life and how other people see it – he’s a master.
Thanks for reading, and stay safe.
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