Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Being a twin

I would like to really understand others' view of 'twinship.'
Many know of the conjoined twins and  when the mothers say that they will make sure they remain so close because they were in actual fact from the start. Wrong.
separation is normal.  Separation for any human being is normal.
Separation for twins is not only normal but essential.
its the closeness that will get to us in the end.
the Expectations of the relationship.
We, as twins see the relationship very different to others see it.
My twin and i have been essentially, 'divorced' for over 40yrs.
What is it about perception that most think that we should love unreservedly, be as close to each other as we were at age 7yrs old?  No one can quite comprehend a twin murdering her other half with fighting, rows and squabbles.
Right then, who left the toothpaste cap off?
Now you understand.
its the little things.
I do things differently to the twin.
when she plays with her dog in the snow at 8am and i do the dishes at that time, that is dancing to a different tune, with the drum beats at odds.
who wants the dishes done first so that she can play in snow, knowing on return you can find a warm and clean place to bed down?
ON the other hand, who wants to play first, because she finds it difficult to get close to the day any other way, that early.
my twin does do things differently.  Very.
Are we mad, bad or indifferent, to squabble?
Actually 'NO'
She is my sister, I am hers.
she has been away 40yrs, returns, changed from experience and disabilty.
she is a social worker, i am an artist.
and the gulf between is the pacific not the Irish Sea!
Do we love each other?  "Yes of course we do, you Fool!"
We brought each other up!
Do you want the best for the twin, yes.
Do you worry, fret, riddle yourself with anxiety for your dear twin?
"Of course we do you f...idiot!"
We are blood brothers (actually sisters), so we love each other, we are twins and have that bond that no other has, but its not a marriage.
It is not a contract to Love her and no one else til death do us part.
It is nature gone wrong.  An older mother who had twins, and this is what happens older mothers, more likely to have twins.
so we at the end of a tired line, are twins.
Did we chose it, no.
Just as we chose not to be married, in church, in a civil ceremony, in front of the buddha or the Irish sea, or the back yard pond.
we are not married, period.
Here is an experiment - try flinging two women aged 58yrs old together, both with neurodegenerative disorders, having not lived under the same roof for over forty years and say - "here you go, now look after her and you look after her and live together in harmony for the rest of your life."
thanks mate, try it when a fabulous dog leaps from the snow thick with snow balls right onto your face as you try to rest!
not fun.
do you love that damn dog, passionately actually, but no, i dont expect a black woolly mammoth to leap from the stomach high snow right onto my bed, lep across my own middle and brush that coat of her, against my flesh with pure, cold ice balls.
Does my twin too, want to be plagued about whose turn it is to wash up.
No she doesnt, does she have to?  No, actually she doesnt.
who is happy though, not I for sure when i am dead beat and need the dishes washed.
So we have difference.
How many of you are advocating the rights to be just that, 'different'.
it doesnt seem as if the call for acceptance of difference comes when you have an identical twin sister.
its all in the twee perception, that the blood in our veins is the same and its a heart to lung thing, that is two hearts to lungs, and its circulating in order to make both halves breath, get the oxygen (and the energy) to cope with illness - and to be a twin.
She is presently reading the papers, i am shut in bedroom watching birds and typing.
we are different.  And the same goes to every twin alive today, who carry the burden of the inheritance of a twin.
and the burden is thus because others place that upon the shoulders of twins who know our differences and no one else wants to see that, this is so, this is the way and this is actually, 'normal!'
I love my twin and her mad dog, Saffi.
without a doubt.
but i want myself and independence, without a doubt.
we are bonded and wrapped in love and support for each other, end of similarities, bar the walk in the snow with my chihuahuas in our coat hoods, to protect their wee paws getting frost bite!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Such a stressful time for everyone

I think the Government of Ireland do not have a clue about the people trapped in the vice of this present economic crisis.
Not one family member of mine has gone untouched.
what it has brought on a personal level is splits, stress, strain and unbearable sorts of decision making none would have thought of even five or six years ago.
How many in the present Dail actually SEE.
this is a word many know about for not to SEE as in vision terms is the dread of all, or most.
not to see, colour, people's faces, laughter, children.
but also one doesnt have to see pain, the furrowed brow, the tears ready to burst forth, even though the voice be strong.
what exactly do the members of Dail Eireann actually see.
How many have walked amongst the people now facing ruin, facing huge choices, people facing life changes none would have considered.
businesses going to the wall, others straining to keep theirs even afloat, the terror for the children, the terror and fears for the future of many who have new borns, those who watch the younger 20 something wonder what the hell to do after their Arts degree and who suddenly find they are not trained up enough, when once they would have considered they were.
even if no, many of these youngsters would have gone on to the MA and the Phd, but where is the spare cash for such a luxury of sitting in libraries, being educated when there is that flat to pay, the food for the mouth and heat for the body?
what are my young nephews and neices facing?
how many of their parents will see them drift away, drift and the parents put all, all the power they had to bring them to maturity and a setting forth on a life, only to drift away before their eyes whilst their own hair turns grey naturally.
where was that dream of being the grandfather or mother, able to play with the kiddies on their knee by the hearth?
there is no certainty for anyone, when that happens, where is the joy and optimism?
what does a celebration of a child's birth actually mean when the falsehood behind one day is the next and the next, the strain.
Tell me if anyone cares to, how on earth does a person stay strong and positive in the face of economic and financial ruin, crises and hopelessness.
when you are single and alone, with no young people hanging out of you, no child taking up a room due to inability to move left or right or out, it could be easier than trying to cope with a multiplicity of jobs, careers, business straining to stay even in existance, new babies entering to uncertainty/
will the TD's be the only ones sitting for the vintage vino this christmas, the lights down low, the velvet rich covered chocolate and a full belly, how many too will resign on the fat salary after the fat meal.
when the hope is only that tomorrow is the shortest day of the year and so the long haul actually to the spring, is that all really there is to hope for?
ah i guess its enough, we will see the daffodils pop through in the new year, the snowdrops strong and sturdy through the snow, the crocus then and the ice melting off the rooftops with a slow plop.
less birds looking fluffed up like a puff ball and maybe so that little robin i have seen all winter doing the huddle will be the actual robin i see smart and fresh in the spring, if i can think so it would be enough joy for me.
alas not many can see this far, and the Dail sees neither the robin's struggle nor that of the human society they have left in tatters to pick up the tabs of crooks, and robbers of a despicable kind.
the crime of the coppers.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

It was raining cats and dogs - and more snow!

Many a lesson was learnt this week indeed!
taught by 'Peanuts,' a neuropsychologist and also Colm Murray, who has ALS.
Peanuts became 'love in a tiny bundle' but the other chihuahaus, mature, sedate were having none of it. One distanced herself so much not even i counted!
the other just curled into a ball, that feathery tail screening her eyes like a fan and pretended she was dead.  Notwithstanding the eye opened now and again to peek over her fan to watch the devil incarnate on Her patch.
the devil incarnate fell in love with me, I am sure of it, and i with him, but he had to go for harmony's sake, so he went and i believe he will be 'loved up' by Brenda, she already felt he was her favourite so maybe she will keep him, she is keeping his name anyway!
so Peanuts taught me never to upset the status quo, well i have already done so, so pee peanuts came too late.
Now the other teacher in my life at present has to be Mark, at Beaumont the neuropsych.
He was tired the day we went, you can always tell.  Did we blame him?  not at all.
We are awakened to the 'situation,' yes, we sure do have a 'situation' here in this country of ours, in our health service, overworked staff.
but he is our leveller, just levelling twin and i out, so hope he doesn't flatten the good old spicy bits down, who like a flattened out twin?
Finally it was Colm Murray who stole my heart for bravery and courage who spoke with good humour and reality now that he has been diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy.
As he recalled his 'finding' he did suspect it, long before its final official dx by a pro.
How, he did the google bit.
Who doesn't.
When one is very ill, you do the google.
I believe most professionals do this as well actually.
If i had not done the google i would be lying here in a mess and not knowing certain whys, and certainly knowing that almost every medic in the land would short shift me out of his clinic/surgery as soon as clapped eyes on me.
I had seen it, and experienced it.
when one woman, who was believed to be a bloody nuisance in A&E's for her sadness and her actions because of sadness took her life into her own hands and became a rock of determination, they didn't know what hit them.
I didn't ask for more of this torturous abuse, i walked, and i complained about the consultants.
I put it on record exactly what i thought of them and then finally pushed a yellow sheet or sheets of Papers in front of a neurologist and demand he sign.
He moaned and groaned, "i dont do forms, my secretary does that."
"not these she doesn't, doc. you are actually needed here."
It wasn;t easy, always he was 'too busy' or 'oh, where did i put that form.'
and of course the raised eyes etc.
once the forms got lost so we started all again, with new forms and i actually put them in front of him and said, "now doc, whilst i am here will you sign this."
the eyes went blank as if to say 'what are these?'
"well you know i am not happy, and i wish to go to St. Toms for a second opinion?"
his glazed eyes tried to concentrate and he remembers, ever so glinty.
'and doc i need a bit of historical detail and a lot of persuasion on your part to get over the hump past the airport boundaries, as the HSE have to sanction this, like/
we got that far.
I was to go to London, hospital and all and keep receipts.
after the event of one week where more was discovered there than in five years in Ireland, i put in the costing of the trip, one receipt was sent back, are you ready for this.
the HSE would not fund the bus fair nor the cup of coffee and bun i had at the airport on the way out and back!
so i could get to London but not even the cheapest transport would be funded to do so.  flying was a given otherwise i couldn't go, the cheaper option, swimming, was simply not an option.
right, good old Colm Murray probably did receive a good deal better treatment or attention for Colm was Colm and Awynah was herself.
So too, we had a week and a half.
as i drove home last night late, withnessing the last christmas party taking place at the hostelry we stopped off at for a meal (for the second time in a day), my twin announced "i will not forget this year."
to which i responded, "I doubt you will, my friend."
certainly not that day, would i.
drove the cat down to the vet, who was determined to give the twin ten lashes for trying to catch her, visibly seen on the palm of her hands and vERY painful looking.
she got jabbed for her pains. vaccinationa actually.
then it was home to bed for me.
I had done a massive shop at dunnes, collected yet more plants and pots from twin and settled down for the eve.
the phone rang, saffi had collapsed.
twin said she was going to call a taxi.
but i felt i wanted too, to be with Saffi for who wouldn't, saffi is a dog and a half. more than a dog and a half.
we all drove into the Vet hospital at UCD, rapid transport style in the bus lane.
and saff was put on a drip and given antibiotics.
Saff survived the night but twin and i hardly did.  she was worried, i was too tired.
and then the snow came, the bloody snow which might put the twin back in leaving the home she is to vacate on monday.
Most things are in prep.
i have brought all her plants here, someone else promised to keep them but that hit the deck in a big way.
i also brought bedding material, not in the shape of straw but probably the next best as twin poor twin is a fussy bed material chooser.
she has packed, we both have worked very hard indeed, with the paperwork, the business side of signing off a home.
we have also worked very hard and with purpose in dealing with trying to find our 'forever' homes.
Never would anyone think that a woman who is so collapsed in brain matter of the mental kind would be up to defeating it (and them), defeating the belief that i was a half wit and trying to defeat the innuendos that are currently flying, be able to juggle so much when so very unwell now, in a physical dimension.
never could it be thought that twins with neurodegenerative disorders, could actually do all this entirely alone and very successfully, they didnt chose to do it alone but we are quite proud of our achievements thus far.
also finding two properties, having them assessed and further reviewed tomorrow, was not what was thought of my twino and i, as we plough through the dealings with adults in an adult fashion.
on our recent path we have met many very kind people, not a one was against what we have done, and many are proud and joyous for us.
we shall travel onward a bit further, hopefully all dogs will keep well and paw up with us.
we shall trott and slither but hopefully not slip - in the snow and brain, and march on, like eggits in a war, for war is an idiots game.
we are marching as pasifists (can't spell that), we  hope not to find any dead bodies on the way, and hopefully, despite much good wish, we will not create some either.
x

Friday, December 17, 2010

I am not entirely sure anymore!

I dont really know why i TRIED so hard! that is, nothing really flowed in my life.
I was trying to attain certain things, so that the flow would begin!
where i am at this point in the effort i do not know.
You kinda get very lost, you are there, half way there, not even half way there or have you begun at all?
these are the questions.
Awynah, what were you trying to attain?
well, em, family love?
what else?
ummm....friends....acceptance...understanding about living, life and society?
yeh, well, how far did you get?
I can safely say...not very far...at all, at all.
You do get pissed off communicating with a computer rather than the three d.
and when the 3D's in your life are small, big eyed, furry with bad breath and snore a lot - in your ear, you have to beginning worrying.
No one bar the twino has been in contact with me, that is on a personal level in months.
when i asked the twino was she worried that the only person she saw from day to day was myself, she said 'a tad bit'
ditto self...sure Gud, who wouldnt.
try it sometime, no one else bar the hubby...absolutely no one else at all!
i told you, you'd go nuts!
like in pee peanut nuts.
you start to scratch and whine, grovel and slither up bellies of non-acceptables and non human all for the want of another 3d of similar kind.
is it acceptable for a 3d-er to be smothered in hot.
that is hot fur?
chihuahuas huddle and cuddle in winters and exude heat, try that too, the heat is enormous for beasties so small.  and the fur, its soft and tickles, and it sort of floats on the surface of skin, like feathers.
yep, try that too.
the competition too for the armpit area and the stomach and the neck crease is mighty.
the competition to claim the belly rather than the laptop have it is also enormous but the grey metal of an apple usually wins that one.
i am tired, of 3d furries as sole companions for life.
tired of nuts, and tits and big eyes, and haliotosis,  for the rest of my life.
who will spare me the indignity of being in a dog kennel be it of a rather luxurious kind, and the boarders are not wanting for anything and neither have yowlers and howlers on either side of the wired fence.
that is, not of the dog kind, only of the human alcoholic type.
yep, tis a weird one when you are not entirely sure how, you tried to get the human dimension and ended up with the canine!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

When Love is a Bundle yet the Heart is empty

I feel it is like a boxing ring.
Have I lost a few rounds and won one or two, or which way is it anymore.

How tired can you get in the search for acceptance and love and support.

Yes, Peanuts, ah Peanuts is going to send me nutty and i am sorely smitten!
Peanuts will come with me as the soul who actually does need a soul.
How much love i can give him, and his new sisters.
How i shall try to integrate them into a unit and have a happy clan.
I put all to bed last night, bundled, but the bundle would keep me awake.
Is my bundle alright?
Well obviously not.
Ana was perched on the back of the sofa looking straight at me as i peeked in on turning on the lights.
Maggie had her back to me, sitting bolt upright and looking at me indignantly as she turned that fluffy, big eyed, head.
Peanuts, Peanuts found a smotherer, that is he was smothered in the soft downy throw.
but there he was with his fawn head, peering at me.
"So?" i ask, "what is it?"
they could not answer, none could speak.
"MAMA! what have YOU DONE?"
I left them, all kinda lost on a patch of the sitting room, none quite sure where to put herself.
Peanuts already knew!
about an hour later i couldnt settle, all three came to bed.
Peanuts settled under my chin, Ana behind my back with my hot water bottle (I have done me back in) Maggie nestled around my belly area.
could i sleep like that, certainly not.
All banished back to the mystery of the sitting room.
I placed wee Pee with Maggie Mai the younger,
Ana refused absolutely refused to cuddle up to maggie as always.
But Ana was always a crayon of a different colour.
shes an obstinate, needy, foodie chi.
Ana doesn't know how to be 'dog.'
Does that actually equate to her Mistress, Ann?
Does Ann know how to be a human?
The human went to bed then, but could not sleep.
it was not only sleep depravation that kept her quiet and restless, it was deep exhaustion and depression.
Yes, wee pee will help me enormously forget the load of the last two or more years.
But how much can Ann forget the losses in this time?
Can she come to terms with being alone in the world?
For she very much is that.
Oh she has Ana and Maggie Mai and Pee Peanuts, but Ann cannot live by chis alone!
what human touch will reach out to Ann, to touch the flesh of say her hands and fingers, squeeze em and say, 'dont fear Ann, i shall take your hand every inch of the way/'
I doubt i can believe a soul alive will or could do that.
How could it have gotten this bad, i ask.
And what was its genesis.
Was it entirely a LOUD mouth?
I think maybe it was.
Something inside of me cannot do anything but pretty plain.
Especially in expression, hurt and the languages she has.
Has the deafness pared down her opportunity to use various communication nuaunces?
Has the deafness separated her from the so called 'normal society' and where in normal discourse, learning takes place.
When i think of Pee Peanuts, i know that he will have to be gently nurtured into the fold of two female chihuahuas, who had my all attention.
In order that Pee Peanuts gets integrated he must be welcomed slowly without prejudice.
No amount of cosseting must impede the love and predictability that has been stabilized here by two rehomed chis, already.
both of whom have a 'history'
Pee Peanuts has a history, he was conceived in a trapped horse box at the side of the road.
Peanuts will join my company of abandoned.
But Peanuts will get the love he so badly lacked.
Like all my chis, they are loved, unconditionally.
so what says this about human kinds in my life?
Can anyone ease me into my throws of misplaced family, so different but yet all  needing the cares of each other.
Like Ana Chi, the eldest, sometimes i feel more for her, cos i know her least.  She is so much inside herself and searching, rarely can see around her.
When Ann the man, vis a vis Ann the woman is out there, she is searching.
Will i look into your eyes and say 'please love me?"
of course not, but inside is that, inside is where i was at 19, 29 and now 58.
A seeker for acceptance in the human clans so close and yet so far.
Almost 40yrs in a psychiatric system all because the woman couldn't relate or walk the barriers that seemed up in front like a glass wall.

Tell me the difference now after thousands of tiny pills going into my system, these thousands were meant to 'make me better' but what was my sickness?
there wasn't any, none provided yet drugged to the hilt, all for the yearning of love.
I learnt not that, i didn't get better from something i never had.
I offloaded onto the babies i have.
So sick now, tis all thats left.
I have my twin as well, but can a person have one?
and how much can twin and i be there for each other, for species is Society.  One to one does not equate to species, nor to society.
Both Mags and I shall have to forge ahead now with disabilities and try once more, one last time to brace ourselves for the final fling.
But God if it be your wish, bring me to my fold like the prodigal son, maybe i overspent on the words, will i be allowed in and sit in the corner just to feel the warmth?
meanwhile i look over at the sofa.
Peanuts is huddled and nestled in the belly of Maggie Mai the younger.
Ana is on the fringes, yet she does lie on the softness of the fluffy throw.
my gang, two girls and a boy!

Monday, December 13, 2010

sitting down for tea on the lawn and the birds chirping, in what country and when?

I always ask the DIFFICULT questions to myself?
\
when you think of the tablecloth and the art deco period, the quirky  clarice cliff china and the settings of swinging legs and pointy shoes, dandy men, and giggling, pouring the pointy teapot spout at an english woman in floral dress, cup with the trangle handle, and all is well with the world.

you have already guessed this is not my world, never was and never will be.
supping tea with dandy men will never be for sure, let alone supping tea with anyone either.

when though, the day sitting and supping, hearing the birds chirping and listening to the grass grow, will come?
how long is a life when one would expect the last ten to be it?
for life left me far behind and now i have a short window to achieve what i wanted, a very deep peace in my heart, not a dread of death, nor sorrow of leaving when i wasted it, unknowingly.
did not understand it, unknowingly.  Did not how to change that dileman and was looking as if walking backward instead of forward for over forty years or more.
I want to create a home for peace, where i will be enveloped in peace, nature, nice neighbours, a visit from twin and saffi often.  and also family, often, but that may not be so now.
i want to talk of current affairs, animals, birds, green issues, long after the party is over.
I want to laugh, and see the great neices and neps run along my path in the back and around the grass, maybe chasing butterflies in my garden.
Why do i wonder at such posibilities.
I have my brain back - we have been given a window out, where the learning and decerning awnyah knows she now can at least see the world and want to experiment the experience of joy.
she never had a blade of grass she could call her own or of her own planting.
never had a home nor the people who would make a home.
lets try make the home and see if eventually the people will arrive.
i will have to generate this and not imagine this.
the is the last grand experiment open to awnyah and also the chance to sit at the ubiquous table by the window looking out over grass and green and pen them words, down. but again we have to try in the alternatives.
writing gone and memory not hot, we have to generate the mixing of my presence in creative media and trow all in the tea pot, the clarice cliff one with the long spout and funny handle.
when children are what many treasure to leave on the earth and give its their custody.
i want to explain how difference has meant that many need the custody of others HEARTs, or be given over to the custody of others hearts.

I await laying the table for the dainty teapart of life, spread out on my table cloth with laughter and joy.
and Pooh bear feels he knows his home!
awynah

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Now for reparation with good intent

when you get upset and may have wronged another, you wear the sack cloth and ashes, and there are many ways.
as part or whole of reparation i am editing my blogs and have deleted maybe offending tracts, deemed offending anyway.
with a truly contrite heart and with full reparation as i can i do this.
anyway that apart one most edit as time moves on and things and ideas do change.
when for the better and good is the awaited aim, so all may rest in life and then in death, until death do us part.
with sincere apology,  i say my 'sorry' and will move on, amen.
when one flea jumps maybe the others will follow, that is a hope, and if all fleas jump at the same time, i believe the world or planet makes a jump literally, scientifically, it sort of jumps, or at best shutters....

Personality, Reparation and all that stuff!

~How difficult it is to step over or aside from ones own feelings and hurts and ways of expression of same?
- How difficult to change the ways of communication and engagement.
- HOw difficult it is for conciliation and reparation, that is a 'truce,' making amends and acceptance of stance to take place?
- I think its about longevity!
- the longer the hurt and pain and ways of making ones voice heard in such a way, be it good bad and indifferent, the harder it is to change tack.
In a perfect world, which it is definitely is not, one would wish to wash the sins of all of us and many away.
Is there true reconciliation with the Jewish Nation after the War?
Will there ever be so between the Jewish people and the Palestinian?
Are we expecting too much?
Again, many say these sort of conflicts take time, again we have the longevity bit.
Unfortunately Humans do not have longevity on our sides. so you kiss and make up fast or you remain enemies for life and forever.

I wonder how one surmounts these difficulties as they are usually all across the familial generations and for decades beyond.  It is not an unusual phenomenon and no family is without the hurt, bitterness and longevity of memory!!

Do people have an inbuilt Flaw, that is part of once the hunter/gatherer situation? You will use the flaw, once seen in your prey and hone in on that?
or in the case of anger, bitterness, was it a weeding out of the week etc within the caves that men and women were literally done away with.
Again this is the 'survival of the fittest' so that the human species can toughen up, grow and develop.
But what are the legacies that hold within our genome and psych from the ancestors before us?
Have we literally found no use other than attack for the part of us that once was to 'grow' strong and be useful?

Personality is a person who has grown and personality is half nature and nurture and probably more nurture than anything cos we came onto earth in a pretty raw state.

So when one has reached nearly the ten score year and ten, er, is that right?
we have become bloody set in our ways.
To transgress, continue a way of communication at this age makes it harder for all, because in a sense we are all weaker and frail so it hurts more and makes more of an impact than when we were say, 2oyrs old.
Tradition too, plays a part, the roles are well defined in a family setting again to protect the survival of the fittest.
Usually, those who do not marry are sometimes just very unlucky but mostly because their inbuilt make-up has been determined by nature not to produce a strong link in the already strong link that is there...again protection for longevity of a race, clan and family.

Forgiveness is a different matter...you can try and  explain the reasons behind actions, and some of them are not that good actually and some of them are, but forgiveness is not a biological entity.
its a learned response and has to be taught and has to be repeated over and over in order for the understanding of the word, 'forgiveness' is truly known.
Some may never understand the concept, some may use the words, some try to use it with good intent and some just rubbish the idea.
ON a personal level i would place myself with the 'good intent' and am forgiving, but unfortunately i am the type who also has not fully 'let go' but trying to learn this idea that forgiveness is a wholesome and necessary thing, for all.

Can i do this 'forgiveness' trick?
I think i can, and i am working hard on it.
Its a hard lesson and it takes hours of homework. at the best of times as a schoolchild, homework was not my strongest point!
but i see its VALUE.
So me in my mighty, measly way has tried through blog of this one, to sort out the mish-mash of meaning of personality, reparation and all that stuff.
of reparation...thats for another day altogether.

Friday, December 10, 2010

ECT, Mental Health, mental wellbeing

a finding of international repute has found that ECT is not only of no scientific benefit but in fact positively dangerous, and should be put to bed with lobotomy, insulin coma therapy, hot baths and such.
yes, bore a hole in my head please it hurts!
I do not approve of ECT, i do NOT.
I believe i have very good reason as well.
No, i have never been treated or shocked with ect, i have seen it been administered and wheeled the wrecks back to the recovery room and gave the multiple headaches their painkillers as they moaned on the cots.
Why, do you ask did i happen to be doing this?
I have not the foggiest notion, for i was a patient at the hospital!  yet i wheeled the men and women who i had befriended down to the blasted electric rooms, omg it was awful.
How many 'outsiders' have seen a confused 'shot at with electriicty person?'
How many people actually want to?
would you like to see what it does to your relative, have you seen the film "one flew over the cockoo's nest?" see it.
that is the reality in a mental institution.
it was when this film was made in my day and it is now.
very little has changed if at all.  there is more restraint, due to lack of staff, there still is no real occupation for the patients, they wander around like blue arse flies bored out of their trees.
there are security men now instead of nurses.
and they are the bouncer type too!
besides, its even hard to get into one when you ARE sick, as i know that too, as my keys were whipped from my van when i did attempt to leave a woman there, oh, she is dead now - as is her friend.  she died a few months after the first one.

Back to ECT.
the brain, the brain is a fatty organ, with nerves and its the head of communication operations and somewhere, if its the brain at all, feeling and emotions are connected with that part of the anatomy.
we can pretty much guess at this one actually, for i have met a lobotomised woman, it was scary.
she admitted it, but it was like talking to an automaton.
Why should you inflict more pain to relieve another pain?
If you brake your leg at the knee and then at the ankle would it be wise to say 'ah, we will break in the middle, cos then we shall have symetry and all will mend in a line, like"
silly bloody analogy but i am tired.

but this study is not going to change a psyschiatrist academy's view.
Why, well ECT is the quick fix when they cannot ply the magic any other way.  the quick fix is very short and slip, zap secondst lived, its not a cure!

Psychiatry is the luxury item in the medical sphere, as all they have to do is claim, 'well its the brain, mental illness, you cannot cure mental illness, they have it for life, you know we do try to allivate the pain but you cannot fix it."
they damn try hard to fix something they know they cannot.
and they get paid a mighty fee to be the quack on the stand of the wagon yollering for his skills and his lotions and potions, ECT being one.
400 people received ECT last year, some against their will and some with their own free will.  you would wonder which is the saner.
if you go into this knowingly are you sane?
if you go in roaring are you insane?
from age 17 until i was 48 i walked up my lonely road from the bus to the shrink every two weeks for a fifteen minute 'therapy' with her.
I was quaking all of the walk there, i sat in the waiting room more or less rocking in terror, i entered her room, sat down.
this is psychiatry at its best, are you ready for this?
"how are you today?
'the same."  i look into my lap and fumble at the cigarette i have just lit.
"what have you done this week."
"well, i went for walks, i did a bit of artwork, you know this and that."
"I'm not sleeping well, i am having nightmares."
"what are you on for sleeping?\
I tell the doc the dope.
"oh we can increase that for you for a while."
"are you sure, is it safe to?"
a giggle "of course its SAFE!' you can go up to zillion of milligrams on that one!
ah, i say, stupidly.
'I wish the bloody depression will go."
"it will."
"but when."
"give it time."
"will it get any better than this."
"it will."
this is some hell of an intelligent conversation going on here innit?
so the drawl the scrawl and the promise...did you hear that now, that is the bottom line.
'i promise you it will get better for you.\
and i am told to be patient and take the stronger sleepers and just up the anti-depressant a wee bit, and are you sure you wouldnt try MAOI again?
after eating oxtail soup and nearly killing myself for its reaction to whats in MAOI, that was a defo no.
Anti-depressants did me as much good as eating too many bananas, they made me constipated stupid in my brain where nothing flowed.
you lived terrified in this world, and begged to go back to the lunatic.  I begged to get back where i was safe, but usually only after i was there three weeks and couldnt face the world, i hadnt been given the confidence to do it.
so it was a roller coaster of innane conversations, no therapy, you call the above therapy?
no freedom of brain for it was clogged, constipation like with drugs.
its also like putting a plunger on the toilet, you hold it there for a very long time.
say over forty years?
cos if you didnt the woman/or man might be able to talk well about the difficulties and when the plunger was sloshed up and down and sucketted out the woman would talk it all away on to the floor and more and she with it, and i have!
you have to get it OUT.
you cannot blast it out, insulin it in, medicate it in nor indeed medicate it out.
mental function is a communication and experiential part of being who we are, we work with what we have and its a growing process of nurture, nature, environment, maybe a bit of genetics and such but certainly not just one thing.
I advocate for people with mental health issues, troubled personas and fears, being brave and face it...dont wait 40yrs to get that life you have wanted.
dont sit on the toilet that long.
do something about it, take the enema and get the awful gunge out and start to grow and start to live.
dont do silly things by thinking your method of slashing it away on your arms, legs and stomachs will be the answer either, you WILL be considered a lunatic for doing that, and THAT can never be hidden from the lunatics (shrinks).
dont crash bottle either, as in alcohol as that does damage too.
if yo wait until you are 48 you could in the next ten years, find...you get a life in two and lose your lot in eight, i did, as i got very very sick indeed, physically and i was dismissed...out the door, imaginative lunatic.
working on thoughts and feelings is not a life long  path when they go array, but they could be if you stump it with stumping drugs.
you walk with it, slowly and the slowly will not be 40yrs for most, it will not.
I hate the discipline of psychiatry, i see it ruin more lives than it helped, i have seen psychiatry and its box of trinkets and glitters in myriad of colours and shapes (the rubber bone you hold in your mouth as they shoot you with ect), i have seen the promises the promises, their way.
i have seen the shell shocked individuals who once were actually very bright people either brain dead from ect followed by meds or so drugged anyway they shuffle along, not looking left or right.
just a shell.
if you have a problem talk.
i am gonna sleep now. bit of a ramble but boy oh boy am i dead tired tonight.
anyone enjoy christmas?
i never did - is there a pill for that, can i be zoomed out, scottie?
or zapped out spock?

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

NaW, AWNYAH came back. thank the trains!

Well, if you clocked out of Awnyah you were fickle, fickle fickle.
I had a damascus conversion on the road to - the noggin.
It was a hard day all round but my zennish brother seems to have calmed both twin and i who sat around laughing and having a chat and it was very very pleasant indeed.
So my damascus has come on viewing or well -wink open, eye closed, one eye open and both eyes closed - the f....budget.
this should make interesting reading to the decerning.
I just wonder what the Cows of today and tomorrow actually understand about 'how does Mrs. V live with diabetes, Bi-Polar and a husband with Cancer and dying? all on her own with a shot in and out for a minute of two of a paid worker who has had her case load increased for no more pay and who will by then be getting tired, harassed and bothered.  It is not for the faint hearted a scene like this.
This is not either a particular generalised pot shot of a actual event unfolding, older people have multiples to worry about.
younger people have multiples to worry about, and try to muddle through.
It wasnt for nothing i heard a Social worker say that 'it has come to the point where the Family have no alternative but to help"
This was a general statement.
This WAS what used to happen in a bygone age and generation.
When we consider how this christian ethos pulled ranks and held fast for their own, we see that the cohesion has always brought the joy and the bitter sweet.
Again this is not an exaggeration if you look back at the old sound archive documenting the hard times on the Blaskets, the off shore isles and during the Famine and also the Fight for republicism, ditto the jointing in fear and community and duty of the many irish who fought in the World Wars.
Complacency came in when money was floating.
The 'I am alright Jack' attitude, and somehow those where were not ok jack got completely forgotten.
It also  came about with affluence and education.
Young people were the centre of attention. we had pages in all the national rags on 'how to parent' from training kids on the potty to being sort of 'diplomatic' with them when naughty, like the psychology of bringing up kids.
most of that is useful but it was in fact were tricks and the family who once had their own ways were made to feel quilty of their tactics.
to reward the kids and feel better on the discipline, they had the money to lash just about every plastic at them, be it the money, the cars, the plastic cars, the 'I want to' and "Yes Darling you will have"
another factor being in the education system.
more were getting educated, the tutors were on a high of expectancy that all their students would brave a new world well, and never thought of the economic bubble that may, and did come.
Every child in Ireland thought they were made for life.
what a bitter blow when they now see what their parents saw, emmigration and poverty and joblessness on a grand scale.
but at the end, the interior clock and tradition had been bought and sold out of them.
gone was an attitude of 'i need to help for that is what i should' comes in 'i have to look after myself'
both apply actually.
one is not exclusive to the other.
The younger generation are meaning to make a better world for themselves as we did, but its the emphasis that has gone, its more or less so individual that no one else counts.
or very few.
and when they dont count they get thrown away.
trash society.
we, i feel strong about this, to get back to the roots of being who we are, in my case and in my country's case, the 'looking out for one's neighbour' country, young and all, all generations, not just for the few, all.
the young, the school children, unemployed and the getting onners!
No man is an Island, but not so only for lack of societal contact, no man can go it alone in any sphere. thats what being human is.
Lets find a new christianity, show the young that the fruits of care are Abundant. the tiny historical anectodes, the 'Oh aunti/granny I never  knew about that!'
and the resultant giggle, and the slap of a bare knee with glee by a wrinkled old arthritic hand of warmth and joy and connectiveness.
now Awnyah is back advocating....HIYA
x

Sunday, December 5, 2010

A very ordinary life!

I have come to the conclusion that Life is 'ordinary.'  consider the young and when we were so.
the dreams, aspirations, hopes and prospects were many.  Limitations were there on education, money and stuff like that, but all had the dreams and imagination and all had potential.
No one set out to be any different than Good, honest, and worthy but most of all LOVABLE.

who achieved even half of that?
when you got the education, did you also get your dream or your Love?
If you got the Love, did you get the education and the kids and all the rest of the dreams and longings and hopes.
No.  you got one, or two or three or four, and along the way you picked up the disappointments, an ability to live despite altruism at youths enthusiasm.
most of the exciting prospects and hopes died into pretty much sameness, a gentle process of assimilating whats known as 'the good, the bad and the ugly.'
Who would want to change stuff now, say twenty years on, or even when one has past the school gates after three years finish?
What would you change if you could?
Do you actually think it was a changeable situation or other?
Most possibly we all would have wished in retrospect to change stuff a lot but life plays out for everyone, pretty much the same.
you try your best through sometimes hard and tragic life events.
you may have got the education and money but not the Love and the Children and you may have had children and started to ask yourself 'what was the point of wishing for that?' and 'now what?' syndrome.
If we get another syndrome in here it would be hard to pass life through without another anyway, for most.
Its an ordinary life FOR ALL.
I achieved good things, i have not a doubt.
I have never relinquished my love and respect for the elderly and my love and determination for the twin sister and i to live possibly the last decade well and peacefully.
I have increased my appreciation for life, nature, animals and learning the art of 'trying always' to do my best.
What can i not turn back the clock on?
"Personality and Character" are but two.
"No Love and no children" has to be two definitely.
but can i change it now?  No.  A very strong 'no' as much as you might want.
I am proud for my achievements though sometimes considered small, learning to drive at 53 and now driving an adapted van to take a mobility scooter.
I am proud i tried not to fail those i would hated to, and proud i am still here to see beauty and nature and watch on into a world i never fully understood even a bit, but still what can you see and take joy in when religious ethos has failed you and you will just rely on any good Lord to look after and upon you and take a chance in the Lord, even though an agnostic.
Nothing in Life or Death is a 'given'
On a lighter note when Awnyah has done with the Phillo, i had a grand day indeed.
On wakening i saw my wren return to my 'yardenette,' the first this winter and he had deserted me during the summer and i am none too pleased with him for doing so. (it could have been a she actually)!
despite the vast array of feasts on the table he/she chose to cling the wall and look for the 'real, red blooded things' the blood sucker wren he is!  Pecking away at holes at the poor suckers hiding from the cold, and it was very cold.
I checked the cold frame and most of my cuttings are surviving it, and i whacked heaps of snow off the planters that have bulbs for the next season.
My pink tree has found a corner and placed at its feet are my Feet, the little pink pomps i wore at my neps wedding, lovely ones i dressed up with feathers and sequins and very nicely if i say so too.  i had taken them out of the pink box i placed my pink tree on and knowing that i shall walk soon from here i placed em on the top of the tree stand, to keep firm the tree, to keep firm my faith in myself.

there is a star on top of the white tree, the bigger, there are twinkling stars outside my hall door as i type.  and a spray on the purple door all saved from last year.
Preps are on now for the Vibe, as Anto says he ain't getting any yet, we have a 'depression' on a grand scale here in the holy isle of Eire!
We shall have a Depression on mega style after Monday as the anxiety fueling impending budget promises to be one hell of a humdinger for the least well off too.
that includes the twino and I and doesn't include most of the rest of the tribe.
right back to the good things in Life.
Twin and I went to a craft fair, in the city.
Off we set as we thought the roads reasonable, some were not!
 We parked the flower covered vano outside the exhib hall, bang outside!
down came the ramp back as everyone watched a spectacle we both have to get used to.
the Scooter came out and the wheelchair was put together, the two old disabled people of yesteryear youth helped each other 'assemble' and close up the transporter, Spock style and off we drove, 'zoom em in' down style.
what happened next was the awe bemusement for the watchers.
Firstly we got got price in!
that good in recession times, enough for a coffee, yep all of two euros, but beggars cannot be....
and i moved off, twin whipped her stick from the back carrier of my scooter, hooked the handle into the carrier flap and i pulled her along, tram or train fashion, now thats a spectacle!
it was good, slow, interesting and i have to say I was mighty impressed at HOME GROWN ARTS&CRAFT 'Real QUALITY,'  every year we improve and mature in our rich inheritance of inventiveness and creativity.
the visual arts were not necessarily our finer point but the arts and crafts definitely were.
I asked at stands how the business was, and most said, very down.
one woman i had a gift from via the twino one christmas was standing at ultimate quality pottery ware.  She told me it was her 18th show and feels it will be the last, very few are stopping by at the height of her career i feel.  Her work was GOOD, she featured in a Nationwide programme a good few years ago, she was sad.

I was sad.
Also on show was a showy largesse of wealth as well, we are not without money as the fashion of the women was rich and grand, the money was not short there and a lovely wooly hat was going for 45E how i would love but i bought my E6 keyring - very pricey but nice, but still..very pricey for a keyring!
I bought a necklace and a wee gift for a very kind lady.
I was given a free gift from another kind lady of yesteryear for whom i worked.
Indeed i was her first Card Artist and still some of my work is on their stand, so many years later!
she remembered me, i had forgotten her name and still do!
she gave me a pack, free of my own designs still there and i gave her a print of my designed christmas card this year!
she said i had not lost it!
nope, one doesn't, it just changes.
She gave me decorative tissues too, i guess to wipe nicely the tears of disappointment and loss but with a nice flower on them and so i wipe snot in a decorative way.
We had a coffee and two cakes, which twin went and got, thank God and paid for! Good Woman!  We had a great chat with a 'sitter outer' letting the wife do the walking.
we talked about the science behind how men HATE shopping!
i had seen a scientific programme from the Beeb on it being a biological fact and real rather than laziness.
men can physically feel sick, anxious and have heart attacks over the prospects of big anxiety making shopping sprees as this was, with a lot to loose, via the wife!
A wee hat for E45 and a key ring for E6, when the depression hits, lets hope people and workers do not continue to loose the run of themselves, and think down to the lesser able shopper, and if you sell 10 things for less and sold five for half how would you feel at the profit margins on that one, after the budget!!
Then to the pub, jaded, cracked jaded and in pain and sleepy, the roads loosing the run of itself by beginning to ice over as detected in the whirr of my wheels.
the van wheels.
As a line of bus waiters watched with amusement and disbelief two disabled persons of yesteryear, pack up again in grand and swift fashion and head out, their entertainment was over for the day, we were OFF and their bus had arrived!
Pub, we got in by a breath, at 3.59pm i told twin to get out at the traffic lights and grab a turkey dinner while i parked.
we were the last dinner customers as the counter was closing as twin sticked it up to them.
i sticked in after (walking sticks) and we sat down with other sticks too!
its a Stick pub and very much so, so we feel welcome and at home. the cheer does not leave a stick club in a depression!
we had a grand meal and a mean fantastic chocolate sponge, soggy and soaking with ooozz of black sticky runny chocolate, with two blobs of  veined red white ice cream and chocolate is scientifically proven to improve the mood and atmosphere in a persons brain.
our atmospheres were improved and soothed and so belly filled and belly up we moved on and i deposited twin to her best friend saffi, and then returned to mine the chihuahaus, printed off some  christmas cards, stuck em on card the twino gave and so we had a good day, short window but good.
and i have the name of the bird i shot -with camera yesterday.
A Mistle thrush, a fine fine bird.
Twin now has repaid me in kind for the taxi to Beaumont neuro department! She filled the tank with petrol and boy that has gone up too!
and i wish all the choc feeling as i snuggle.
xx