Stop Making Sense

I'm not even sure if this BLOG stuff is carthartic anymore :( Ggrrrrrr @ Self

Head on the wrong Axis

I don't know how I've ended up here again but my anxiety has been overwhelming me the last 3/4 weeks on and off, mostly on, theres been very minor short lived hypomania which meant I organised stuff I couldnt keep up and bought stuff I shouldnt have bought.

I feel like my anxietal head is on the wrong axis, instead of my head dealing with my life in linear fashion I'm somehow now processing my past, present and future life in one go, all in my head at the same time.  I was in floods of tears at the Bowie Prom when watching 'Blackstar' and 'I cant give everything away', it was very touching and melancholy just overtook me ............... I have too much stuff, I have too much, Its a symptom of 21st & 20th century life I think.  Not expensive stuff, I just have too many comics, CDs, books and other guff, my house is a tip and I've allowed myself to hoard.  It's all great cultural stuff and some of it means a lot but I've just got too much stuff that thats part of my overwhelming head that I can't process the volume of thoughts and the volume of stuff in my life.

I feel like I'm letting work down, my wife Carol down, my family down as I'm this pathetic anxietal wastrel who just can't get a grip !!!!!!

I'm trying to use the tools I have before and obviously I've seen my GP and contacted my Mental Health case worker as well to discuss what I can do,  made a few changes  but theres not silver bullet that pulls you back into a sensible head set.  I'm cancelling lots of social stuff like I did a year ago because I can't get my head around the axis change in my thought processes where everything is pouring through my head at once.  I can't read all my eMails and all my facebooks as I can't add to the volume of stuff in my head either so apologies if you have contacted me in that way, it's bust I'm just ignoring it at the moment and I know I need to take things day by day, hour by hour, I'm looking to my CBT, Mindfulness and Talking Therapy and I'm also very lucky to have friends and family who have come alongside me as ever to help me, to try and help me out of a rut again.

I wish I could just be laid back and accepting of some of the guff going through my head but instead I often manage to crank up my anxiety, not that I mean to, I don't want that dialogue in my head, I really don't but as I think I've said before theres no silver bullets, yes we have tools that health professionals provide and yes they do work, but often they don't work as well because of the baggage we bring and our warped thinking, I don't know, I'm not the expert.

I just want to be well so that my family gets the best of me but at the moment thats just not happening !!!! Friends and Family and Work colleagues can I just say thanks and I'm sorry that I don't always respond in the way that your good faith deserves.  It's ridiculously a first world problem in these days of horrors all over the news regards Syria, Africa, Asia, Germany, France etc. etc.

I wish there was a switch I good flick my good friends.  I hope life is treating you and you are treating yourselves well !!!!!!!

Poem: BiPolar High Roller

BiPolar High Roller

Hello here its the BiPolar High Roller
You never asked to be at the table
To be so unstable
Try things and be unable
To bet on yourself a complete misery

Hello here Its the Absolute Beginner
You never asked to learn about this
To be far from bliss
Everything a mental quiz
To be yourself completely miserable

From mania to mood to anxiety
Theres no way to be free
From this devil thats sits on my shoulder
With the mania I'm so much bolder
Than the pathetic whelp overwhelmed by anxiety
From fight or flight wanting to be free

Feeling im Superman and I can do it all
Mania sweeping through me Im having a ball
Sleeping so little through it all
Talking over people standing ten feet tall
For a short time thats the way it is
Until I crash and burn as i shoot and near miss
From a near miss to feeling I've totally missed the goal
To a feeling that I'm useless and I fall into a hole
Concentration becomes a thing of the past
Prickling feelings that last and last and last
Daily fatigue yet sleeping no more
All of my confidence has shot out the door

In good company the BiPolar High Roller
The Dice are rolled daily as the mood hits the floor
The Wager is living life as the anxiety closes the door
On the chances to convince myself Im worth anything
what odds will the next day bring?

***END***

( this might not be finished ??? )

Fear

I've heard a number of talks where someone espouses 7 principles to dealing with fear etc. and I have to say I've never really came up with anything that takes away or reduces the fear in something.

It's true that fear limits us from being the best we can be, however it's not something that is easily dealt with, as much as people say 'face your fear',this is definitely something that is easier said than done.

The seven specific principles that I highlighted in my talk are to: listen deeply, focus on people, be addicted to learning, be of service, flow through change, move through fear, and follow joy.

Let’s look at moving through fear. Fear is a big block for many people, whether in an agile organization or not, and in people’s lives. Fear limits people from being at their best, for example they may not:

·         Speak up about something they are not happy about

·         Ask questions when they are unsure about something

·         Try a new activity or practice

·         Share new ideas for improvements

·         Pair up with a team member to accomplish a task

·         Ask for help

·         Talk directly to someone they are struggling to have a good relationship with

·         Speak openly at retrospectives

·         Say no to a request that can’t be accomplished, or accomplished in a sustainable manner

When these fears are active, people are not able to fully and authentically contribute to a team and it’s success. We are not able to get the best from people if they do not feel safe to move through fear. Fear holds us back from taking risks, trying new things, being authentic, and moving forward to be at our best as individuals, as a team, and as an organization.

Fear doesn’t ever really go away though. High performing groups still feel fear, but to lesser degrees as they practice moving through fears. Fear comes up, and they say "hi fear, thanks for coming out… I’m going to go do this thing I’m scared of anyway." That is how we expand to become better versions of ourselves. That is how the most successful people and organizations became successful. That is one way companies gain a competitive edge — create an environment where people feel safe to move through fears.

What Hypomania can look like?

I haven't blogged recently, this is because my energies have been directed at keeping me on course at work and it's been busy and challenging for me with a bit of a blip a few weeks back where I had more anxiety than I had  had for a long time.  I think I've managed to course correct and I feel better than I did a few weeks back.
I saw someone else blog regards what their BiPolar meant to them and as BiPolar and Hypomania is oft misunderstood I thought it might be worth explaining the Hypomanic state and what it can feel/look like,  I don't find myself with Hypomania very often as I'm more in the depths of anxiety and depression but when it does kick in it can feel very strange, partly because whilst it's happening I'm not very aware of it and it's only in looking back that I can reflect on it.
So looking back at my episodes of Hypomania what can I reflect on?

• It's racing thoughts and ideas, a feeling that you are a Superman
• It's obsessing over very small things such as skin tags and moles
• It's being hyper positive, saying 'yes' to multiple things at once and feeling that you are limitless and things need to happen now, right now
• It can be like your mind has a 100 search engines open at once
• It's a feeling that you are late when there is no deadline but things need to happen fast
• It's a feeling that you have all the answers and speaking at 100mph

It's all the above and none of them and it's only after an episode that I reflect on them, a very normal Hypomanic episode for me is me going from an empty social diary to booking in something almost every day for a month, it's like the opposite of catastrophe thinking when you have anxiety where you think you can make things happen/succeed at will.
I'm learning that this is all a part of my BiPolar and with medication and therapy I'm learning to navigate this better and trying hard to see if I can identify warning signs as normally i rely on other people noticing that I'm manic.

Hillsborough and Humanity

As a Nottingham Forest fan I'm very very aware of Hillsborough and all that happened at the FA Cup Semi Final that Nottingham Forest could not win when replayed.  I'm aware of the reaction of the Murdoch newspapers which was my overriding memory of what followed, the low brow way that they made amazing unfounded claims before any investigation had taken place and ran with the headline 'The Truth'.  As we knew then i think as football fans and as we now absolutely know, it was far from the truth.  It's sad that 'The Sun' and 'The Times' did not feel that they could run with Hillsborough headlines on the day that the verdict was the number 1,2 & 3 story in the British press.

I am so pleased for the families and the activists that they have got a Jury verdict that vindicates their loved ones.  I remember the compelling Jimmy McGovern film that Chris Eccleston said was the most important work he had ever done and he's a Manchester/ Salford lad I believe.

With it's lies, cover ups, half truths, grotesque pantomime headlines in Murdoch newspapers, behaviour of public servants across the Police and Politics. Bernard Inghams letter to a Liverpool supporter said all about the disdain that the political elite had for Football supporters at the time, the Guardian has been at the centre of any journalistic integrity around the story.   For football writers across the Papers outside of the Murdoch and right wing press the story has been a back beat to any coverage of Liverpool over the years and it reached it's crescendo with the verdict yesterday, then a barnstorming and passionate speech in the House of Commons from Andy Burnham, I had always thought Andy just a little light weight in the oratory department but yesterday his speech was fair and well judged and I think the reason SYP had an almost immediate suspension at the very top of its management.

The Guardian reporting in 1999 prompted the then new Labour administration to set up the Hillsborough Independant Panel, a process of discovery was started.

It was interesting to see Theresa May read the full Jury verdict when to me this verdict is a result of the pressure of 'Human Rights' being brought to bear when everything else is stacked up against tose who want to get to the 'Truth', we need the EU Human Rights legislation and we ought to be proud when people are exonerated and justice is done that we were founding sign ups to the Human Rights legislation.

Don't be fooled by a Little England, Little UK view that Britain is better on it's own, after all what did the Bill of Human Rights ever do for anyone ??????


***END***

Breaking Good

There was an article that appeared in mid March on the ‘A Life of Productivity’ BLOG that looked at ‘breaks’, we are all aware that in using IT equipment we are encouraged to have regular breaks from the equipment but this BLOG talked about engineering our breaks to follow the same pattern as our sleep, I’m not quite sure what the science of it is but I guess finding and utilising our bodies natural rhythms has got to be worth a try.  The BLOG called for breaks every 90 minutes because the general accepted period that we sleep in, is 90 minute cycles, each period alternating between light, deep and REM sleep.  There is it seems an argument that in the mornings at work our bodies alternate between 90 minute periods of wakefulness punctuated by 20-30 minute periods of sleepiness/tiredness ( my won experience is that I’m tired most of the afternoon after 2pm rather than in bursts in the morning ).  The advice seems to be to break every 90 minutes and take 10/20 minutes when we are naturally groggy.  This seems a bit simplistic to me and is obviously hard to achieve when you have colleagues booking meetings across your natural rhythms of the morning.

So we have a counterintuitive proposition that its better to take more breaks for better productivity.  This sort of implies that a break acts as downtime to refresh and recharge yourself, now there might be guilt associated with this but lets remember the end goal of our working isn’t so much about how much we do, but its about how much we achieve.

To play this into my mental health challenges that I have in the work place, I know that I am really tired in the afternoons so my takeaway is that in order to improve my productivity in the afternoons I will need to take more breaks and I’m hopeful that will improve my performance in the afternoon,  I will also look at the 90 minute period in  the earlier part of the day as best I can.  Apparently a way of doing this is to look at writings on the Pomodoro cycle which looks at the work/break make up of your working practices.  Another thing I am looking to achieve because of the fatigue I have in the afternoon is to work on tasks such that I don’t try to finish them without a break but I work on them whilst I feel productive, then break, then come back to them and by working on lower priority work in the afternoons I should still maintain performance at work.