Living with a Black Dog

This excellently-illustrated book on Depression arrived in my post-box yesterday. Written and illustrated by Matthew (and Ainsley) Johnstone, Living with a Black Dog contains roughly 50 touching illustrations of what it’s like to live with someone who suffers from Depression. (Incidentally I’m not sure that depression warrants a capital letter like that but it does make it look more forbidding. I guess a Black Dog is also a lot more scary than a black dog )

Anyway, it’s easy to read and communicates valuable insights in a light-hearted way. Perhaps because it’s visual it appeals to our emotions more directly? Matthew has this to say (on his website) about the book: “I gave it to a friend recently to have a look at and he shared it with his wife and he said the biggest thing he got out of it was (a) communication, communication, communication & (b) the sufferer taking a bigger responsibility in getting well.”

I loved the illustrations of the black dog itself and the way the dog mirrored the characters’ situations. I also felt quite sad that the couple wave goodbye to the black dog at the end as it sails away into the sunset. Such a cute dog and they’re letting it go? (Perhaps there’s something in this about how we cute-ify our “dark sides” but it’s Friday afternoon so I’ll let that one go.)

In honour of such creativity (and because I’ve been meaning to tackle this subject for a while), I thought I’d do a quick scan to see what online resources are available on Depression. I’d be interested in any thoughts you have on the topic as well. For example:

1. Any well-known novels and movies that spring to mind on depression?

2. Any well-known writers and poets? (Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf are three that come to mind.)

3. Is it even helpful to separate out “depression” in this way, as something scientific to be diagnosed, rather than focusing on relationships?

Of course that leads to the inevitable question of what is depression and how it differs from distress (or just having a bad day or being down-in-the-dumps). I guess severity and duration are the keys here — and the DSM requires you to have five out of nine symptoms to qualify for a diagnosis of a Major Depressive Episode (MDE).

I also know that it’s not possible to do more than scratch the surface of this topic but I thought I’d at least start the discussion, in part because this is something I’ve wrestled with from time to time. A bit like Matthew, I’m not that comfortable putting it out there for people to see. And I’m also wary of labelling myself in a way which is not helpful. I clearly don’t have MDE now but I’m pretty sure that I would have qualified in my early twenties.

I also know that it’s difficult to talk about losses, even minor ones such as the loss of friendships. Perhaps this is part of what this is about. And another part of it is curiosity (from the personal to the more general) of the types of stories that are out there and the ways that people have of talking about loss and longing and sadness. (And then the myriad ways we have of defending against such feelings.)

There’s a sober topic for a Friday! Have a good weekend now

Freud, low schlurp threshholds and the Election

I was planning to review In the Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm today but it will have to wait. Not quite in the mood after a typically rushed Monday and with general moodiness about. Some bullet points instead:

• South Africans will be voting in our fourth post-1990 general election on Wednesday. I am hoping that the ANC doesn’t get a two-thirds majority and that their support drops to below 60% for the first time since 1994. It’s rather depressing knowing that 60% of the electorate have a totally different political outlook to me, but encouraging perhaps that 40% are unhappy with the idea of Jacob Zuma as president. (I could add that I voted ANC in 1994 but that since then I’ve been rather disappointed with the lack of progress on a number of issues including crime, corruption, healthcare, Zimbabwe and others. I’m voting for the opposition.)

• On the reading front it felt almost surreal to begin reading The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot in election week. With so much buzz around Jacob Zuma and the ANC vs the rest, it was also refreshing though to step into George Eliot’s 19th century England where attention to detail is everything. I was not really expecting to get pulled into the story so quickly but I’m admiring Eliot’s subtle humour, her keenly-observed dialogue, her long descriptions and her gently meandering plot. I also like the way that she deftly blends the individual and the social with subtle reflections on the position of women. I’m interested to see how the story of Maggie and Tom develops but I’m already frustrated that the bright Maggie apparently won’t be getting the advantages of her older (and duller) brother.

• I really enjoyed In the Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm this weekend. Malcolm writes so well and so thoroughly that even if I wasn’t interested in the history of psychology I would have been fascinated with the inner goings-on of the Freud inner circle. I’ll hopefully review this later this week but in the meantime here’s a quote:

“To be an analyst and to be certain – they don’t go together. You have to have doubts. You have to be capable of certainty, too, but it has to be hedged with doubt.” — Leonard Shengold

• My dear and slightly demented dog had me losing my temper this weekend with her obsessive licking. Unfortunately we share a room and she got it into her brain to lick her paw obsessively (with insistent schlurpy sounds) at 3am on Sunday morning for about three hours. I know I shouldn’t have smacked her nose and shouted at her to “Just Stop It!” before grabbing her collar and marching her downstairs but in mitigation I was tired and I’m really not at my best at 3am on a Sunday morning. P was not impressed and I also felt bad for not having more patience.

• The irony of the situation was that I was feeling pretty good before that. I’d been to the gym and I’d found good books to read and P and I were having a relaxing weekend. Perhaps Joschka felt left out or just anxious or something. Maybe she’s worried about the approach of Winter and her arthritis was playing up. I don’t know, but the schlurping felt like Chinese water torture. I clearly have a low schlurp-threshhold. (How does one work on that?)

You’ll find me under Spam

Dear blogging friends

If you’re wondering why I haven’t been commenting on your posts recently, it’s because my comment is probably in your Spam queue. I’m not sure how that happened and am trying to rectify it (could even be gone by now) but, well, these things happen.

Hope to see you soon.

Cheers
Pete

p.s. Why are all the good bloggers on WordPress? I would get barred from all the good sites. Well, not barred exactly. I’m still there but I just have a gag tied around my mouth. Hmmm. Mmm. MMM!

Anne of Green Gables (200-word review)

Marilla and Mathew Cuthbert live on idyllic Prince Edward Island. They want a boy to help Mathew on the farm but end up with 11-year old Anne instead. Anne has red hair, a big heart and a wonderful imagination that gets her into trouble more often than not. She loves Avonlea, loves Marilla and Mathew and is enraptured by all the natural beauty around her. She gets into all kinds of scrapes, makes a bosom friend (Diana) and one enemy (Gilbert), breaks her ankle, is rescued (by Gilbert) and allows her imagination to run riot. She also comes top of her class and wins a scholarship to University but gives it up to look after ailing Marilla and teach at the local school. She also makes up with the once-hated and now admired Gilbert by the end. In short, she grows up.

I loved it but I also found it a touch sentimental. Anne as the darling orphan was a wonderful character but I wanted more depth. Margaret Atwood says that without Marilla, Anne is a bit two-dimensional and that Marilla and Anne together make the story. It’s also interesting to see the parallels in Lucy Maud Montgonmery’s own life.

Chasing the Whirlwind

I’m a great one for hare-brained schemes, or more accurately simple (but profound) theories of human behaviour. I like to see myself a little bit like Einstein sailing in circles on Lake Placid (or whatever lake it was) while he worked out his latest scientific theory. I can remember being about 11 or 12 and developing elaborate thoughts in my head as I walked home from the bus across the Rondebosch Common. What those theories were now I mostly couldn’t say but one was the fairly common narcissistic fancy that the world was actually a dream and that I was the main character. Another held that the solar system and all the planets were actually atoms and molecules inside a larger structure.

Today’s fancies are perhaps more rooted in reality. My latest theory I call ‘Chasing the Whirlwind’ and it has to do with finding your passion in life, your whirlwind if you like. The beauty of this theory is that it relates to ‘good’ passion as well as ‘bad’ passion. There’s the Whirlwind of Happiness and the Whirlwind of Anger and they’re both pretty important to understand.

I was trying to explain a bit of this to P yesterday as we drove back from Betty’s Bay along that glorious coast road. If people’s lives are like stories, then I like to ask questions of the narrative. Why did it turn out this way and not that way? How can we amplify the good parts of the narrative and taper the bad parts? And if a story is really problematic, then where did it start to go wrong? Where did the wheels start spinning out of alignment and things got all out of whack?

I imagine that this theorising can be a confusing to read because it’s easy to get carried away by the ideas. But a major influence in this theory has been a powerpoint presentation I read recently by Carolyn Yoder of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU). Now I have no idea who or what the Mennonites are but the Peace Centre at EMU is clearly a source of excellent ideas on Trauma and Healing because this diagram alone is pretty good.

Yoder follows that up with another one which is about breaking the cycle of aggression. Basically this involves grief work or mourning and she reminds us that this should be daily work. What I also liked was that the part where she says that you don’t need to see (or be) a psychologist or mental health professional to go through this process. And there’s a whole range of activities from daily writing to yoga to dancing and being creative to channel your energy in a more productive direction.

Let’s just look at the negative spiral for a bit. I read an interesting article by Philip Rucker (taken from the Washington Post) on the recent spate of mass homicides in the US. Here’s an excerpt:

In Binghamton, New York, a Vietnamese immigrant upset about losing his job burst into an immigration centre and killed 13 people before killing himself. … In Pittsburgh, police said a man discharged from the Marines gunned down three police.

… Consider the case of Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, an electrical engineer whose life swiftly turned sour last fall. His wife divorced him and he lost his job and his beloved dog, Saki. On Christmas Eve, Pardo dressed as Santa Claus for a holiday party hosted by his ex-wife’s parents at their home at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in a Los Angeles suburb.

Pardo rang the bell, swung open the door and opened fire on the party guests with a semi-automatic handgun before dousing the home with petrol and setting it ablaze, authorities said. He killed nine people, including his ex-wife, before taking his own life.

“He was looking for revenge, which is almost always the motive in these mass killings,” Levin [Jack Levin, a well-known criminologist at Northeastern University] said. “It wasn’t enough to get her, but he wanted to get everything associated with her, everything she loved, everything he identified with her.”

Looking at the picture of Bruce “Santa Killer” Pardo that accompanied the article, what disturbed me the most was how normal he looked. Apart from that set jaw and the slightly glazed eyes, he could be one of a million other guys. Clean-shaven, shortish hairstyle and nothing to set him apart from your average beer-loving, football-watching all-American male. He could be the older brother of that Mall Cop guy, the King of Queens.

I’ve seen quite a few men with anger issues in my short career and it wouldn’t have taken an awful lot to tip them over the edge. Which is why I think it’s important to try and understand what drives people like Pardo to extreme rage. Three strikes turned this guy into a homicidal maniac. He lost his wife, his job and his beloved dog and then went on a rampage of unbelievable destruction.

There’s also the issue of gun control but to stay strictly in the realm of Psychology, one very helpful handle for understanding this type of behaviour is that of “narcissistic rage”. Take a fragile sense of self, destroy it entirely and is it any wonder that what you’re left with is primitive anger hijacking intelligence for mass revenge?

Yoder refers to the “inner tornado” of energy which gets stirred up by trauma. With very little knowledge of this case, I would be interested to find out if the three (severe) losses Pardo suffered stirred up some old (and unhealed) inner tornado in him.

What’s a birthday without some over-sharing?

I’m really tempted to do a bit of over-sharing today, seeing as it’s my birthday on Saturday and that naturally leads to some soul-searching. But what picture to use? The obvious choice would be a childhood picture that shows what a cute little kid I was. A naughty dimpled smile, brown shining eyes and any-which-way hair. But, scanning through the recent pics I have here, my attention is drawn to this one. Birthday dinner, April 2005.

I was living in Joburg at the time and I was doing pretty well in my job, although I was secretly wanting to throw in the towel and go off and study again. I like this picture because it shows me having fun and, well, try as I might, I’ve not exactly been having a lot of that recently. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy all the reading and virtual interactions and the time spent with P and my family, but there’s been a definite tapering of fun over the past few months. The real social interactions have been drying up and as I start to worry about the end of my community service and the next stage in the job process, the anxiety is holding its own. Having fun, my stern internal voice seems to ask? Well just stop it. There’s serious stuff to be attended to here, such as this job application and your patients and the house and your mom’s health and such like.

But this picture also reminds me what it’s like to just celebrate your birthday. I’ve had 38 of those so far so I should have a lot of easily-accessible memories. But I tend to remember the disappointments more than the good times. Last year was fun – we went to Stardust where each waiter has to sing or dance or play a musical instrument. Our waiter did a pretty good turn on the tenor saxophone while another waitress who was actually an actress knocked us all dead (in a manner of speaking) with her belting rendition of “Be good to Mama” from the musical Chicago. I also remember it as a painful birthday because it was about this time that I finally accepted that my ex had moved on. Over’s skedover.

But let’s get back to the photo, shall we? It shows me in my favourite blue linen shirt (an old present from my sister) with my arm around a pretty girl in green tassles and a slightly anxious smile. No, she was not my girlfriend. She was a belly dancer at a Greek restaurant at Sandton Square. My face shows a mixture of tiredness, relief, embarrassment and delight. I’m being perhaps a little forward by putting my arm around the belly dancer? Um, it was only momentary and it was part of the fun as I recall. (Now I wonder what P would think. Would she be irritated, jealous, threatened, amused?) I think what I liked about the belly dancer, apart from her skill at dancing, was her smile and her energy. There’s something a little sad perhaps about how easily men are (emotionally) seduced by pretty girls. Did this girl represent the energy and enthusiasm which I felt was a bit lacking in my life at the time?

I also loved the fact that I got to break plates on my birthday and to forget the relationship troubles that I was having. I can’t remember if it was shortly after this that my girlfriend broke up with me for the last time. Perhaps it was. We had already discussed that I was planning to pursue my goal of doing a Master’s in Clinical Psychology, which would take me to Cape Town. She was in fact the one who encouraged me to go for it. I also remember that said girlfriend had been crying that day while I had spent the day playing in a Scrabble tournament. The Scrabble thing is a long story but my research manager at the time was a Scrabble champion and I got all inspired to play. (The crying is not relevant to this story. Not my doing as I recall. Really. But I also have a sinking suspicion that I should have been more supportive. Really.)

What I also like about this picture is that it captures the embarrassment and relief of being noticed and spoiled a bit on my birthday. I would quite happily spend the day avoiding people (all those so-called friends who won’t remember to wish me) but of course at the same time I’m really very grateful that anyone bothers at all. Because, and forgive the self-reflective angst here, as old and experienced as I am, there’s still a deep-down fear that people don’t actually care. I know that I’ve been had lots of love over my life (and I’ve been really spoiled) but somehow the childhood fears remain. I remember that my 10th birthday was the last one I celebrated with friends for a good few years. And my 21st? Let’s not even go there.

On Saturday I’ll be having a family breakfast at Kirstenbosch and then we’ll drive down to Betty’s to unpack furniture and spend the first full day in the new house. There’ll be walks on the beach, new books to read, sipping sundowners on the new deck with P. Spending the first night in the new house (admittedly without curtains). All it needs is a soundtrack. The first song that springs to mind? “This could be heaven” by Queen.

Here’s the photo:

The dance begins

The mating dance between (house) buyer and seller has begun and I’m so nervous that I’m climbing the walls. My tenant is interested in buying my property (in Joburg) and so I approached two Estate Agents for valuations before submitting my initial pitch (or selling offer) to the potential buyer this morning. I thought I did pretty well. Drawing attention to all the good features of the house while explaining my reasoning process and then cutting a further little bit off the price for good will (and in lieu of painting etc.) Now I sit and wait for their response. Experience tells me that they won’t be happy with anything less than a sizeable discount and I’m going to try and hang tough with my original offer.

An added and very unwanted complication is that the Estate Agents who showed my house last year are trying to muscle in on the action and get a commission. So of course I swung into lawyer mode and fired off this regrettable response:

… to be honest I don’t believe that our original agreement still stands. As I understand it, the agreement was that A would get a commission if the property was sold for X amount. If B agrees to buy at the current price that would be a separately negotiated transaction between herself and me, which was negotiated independently of your involvement. If she is not able to buy then I would be happy to enter into a new agreement with A (as well as with another Estate agent) for a joint mandate. Sorry if there was any misunderstanding about the terms of the agreement. If A had found the buyer and negotiated a purchasing agreement then I would of course accept that a commission was due but in this case, the discussions between B and myself have been independent of any Real Estate involvement.

Ouch – I should have been a lawyer. However, I also know that this kind of thing (legal wrangling) leaves me all shakey and anxious. What if they play hardball here? Or what if I have to crawl back to them and beg them to sell my house for me because the tenant is not able to get a bond (which could well be the case)? One step at a time. Breathe. And go with the flow. Altogether now: “… and five six seven eight.”

Classics Challenge (with a twist)

I’ve been thinking about the Classics Challenge which I read about on Eva’s blog. I immediately loved the idea, partly because I have easy access to so many classics at my parent’s house (where I am still staying despite my serious intention to decamp at the earliest opportunity). Casting my eyes along the bookcases scattered around the house, I can’t help noticing the lack of Classics (or any books for that matter) written by women. There are the usual Jane Austens and also some Margaret Atwoods but the bulk of the books on display are by men. My dad has about three whole shelves of Anthony Trollope and probably the entire works of Dickens but I’m looking for four books to go with Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People, which I note was written in 1980 and could therefore qualify as a modern-day classic.

I’m not sure how I came to this gendered reading realisation but now that it’s in my head, it’s colouring my reading selection. I realised that much of my reading this year has been by men and while it’s perfectly natural that I should be more drawn to male authors, of course this limits my reading input in a big way. So I set out to remedy this in quick time.

Having a quick scout around, I find a few excellent candidates: Anne of Green Gables by LM Alcott; Mill on the Floss by George Eliot; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou; and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I’m not sure how many of these qualify as classics and two of these books are also children’s books but no matter. I’m doing this challenge my way.

I’m excited to begin my reading challenge but I can’t help wondering if I’m reading these books for the right reason. In other words, am I reading them because I really want to read them or am I hoping to please my female blog-readers with my gendered reading awareness? LOL. But then I think that that’s nonsense and that there doesn’t need to be a right reason for reading. Isn’t reading alone reason enough? And if you choose to read books by Irish authors one month and then Australian authors the next, who cares? The main thing is to read, and then to read some more. And then to reflect on the reading, and to note which ones I enjoyed the most and which ones made me think the most and which ones I just couldn’t get into and why.

I’ll let you know how I progress. Incidentally, and purely by chance, I picked up a John Mortimer in the library today and the first Rumpole story I’m reading (Rumpole and the Model Prisoner) has a few funny digs at Gender Awareness (and the Sisterhood of Radical Lawyers). It’s nice to see that not even Rumpole is immune to gender awareness. And how is it that Rumpole’s chauvinism is part of his charm?

Learning from Randy

As therapeutic as it was to fire off a quick bullet-point list yesterday, I’m not very comfortable with it, so this is my version of clearing the front page.

• I finished The Last Lecture last night and it was very moving. I was also sad to see (from Wikipedia) that Randy Pausch died from cancer in July 2008. But I was also impressed with the Wikipedia entry here.

• Since Randy got such a kick out of writing a World Book entry on virtual reality, I know he would have got a huge kick from the Wikipedia one.

• I also watched a YouTube of his charge to the students of 2008 at Carnegie Mellon here.

• Going back to yesterday’s entry, I realised that hate is far too raw and simple an emotion for what I was trying to say. Disappointment, dejection, anger, frustration and a whole lot more maybe. Confusion, disbelief, irritation. I guess I could go on. But what is comforting about the Zuma affair is knowing that there are people of integrity such as Willie Hofmeyr (deputy director of public prosecutions) who are considering the intricacies of this decision and are absolutely trying to do the right thing. It’s easy to get caught up in the media hype around Zuma and start hating him. But this is just another step in a long process, which is a lot more complicated than good vs evil.

• After yesterday’s rant, I also read some good news (and I do read the Good News emails that get sent out on SA as well) about how the Justice Department have added on a whole section to the Mitchell’s Plain Magistrate’s Court to deal with Family Law, including divorce, domestic violence and related issues.

• Another piece of good news is that (Cape Judge President) John Hlophe lost his appeal 9-0 in the Appeal Court yesterday. Of course there will be another appeal to the Constitutional Court but for now I think that restores some faith in the judiciary.

• I’m also getting more distance on the swearing incident that happened on the weekend. I’ll maybe pick it up here at a later stage, but it’s made me stop and consider my own actions as well. It’s easy to hurt others but it’s harder to pick up the pieces afterwards. It’s also helpful to remember that damage and repair (or hurt and reparation) are an integral part of relationships.

• Going back to Randy Pausch’s message, I think some of it might have got lost amidst all the media hype. Pausch himself says he’s a great fan of clichés but I think there came a point when, as he himself put it, he became St Randy of Pittsburgh spouting heartfelt wisdom to the masses. It is an inspirational message though and three things that I’ve taken from the book are simple points that I’ve heard many times before. Follow your passion and find a way to make it work. It’s the relationships that matter (in even the most technical of areas). Take things one step (one day, one task) at a time.