03 May

Posted at 19:45h in Mental health
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I had my first panic attack at 22. Except I didn't know that was what it was called, or that it was symptomatic of the fact I was suffering with a mental illness. Mental health was not on my radar. At all. I didn't think of my brain as being healthy or unhealthy. I didn't think about it having moving or corruptible parts. It just was. It existed and enabled me to get on with life. When I did allow myself to think about these panic attacks (mostly I liked to pretend I had imagined the whole thing) I believed these aberrations were caused by...

13 Apr

Posted at 19:55h in Mental health
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Two weeks ago I opened my notebook and wrote this to you: --- "I'll level with you. I'm feeling anxious. Right now as I write this. I was fine and then all of a sudden I was aware of the tell-tale signs: the increase in temperature, the noise of my heart beating, my stomach bubbling. My anxiety manifests itself as illness. Or maybe I should say, it provokes the same symptoms as illness. I feel 'not quite right', 'not myself'. I feel I am slowly moving away from my body, like a camera panning out. I am dangerously aware of the ticks and whirrs of...

08 Mar

Posted at 14:57h in Mental health
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Two weeks ago storm Doris battered the UK. Liverpool was hit hard. On our street, opposite our house, a two hundred year old beech tree came down falling across the road, pulling with it our neighbour's fence and landing in our driveway. The road was made impassable. It was a miracle no one was hurt and nothing seriously damaged. It would seem we were not the only ones who had experienced a tree blocking the road, stopping the traffic. In Liverpool over one hundred and fifty trees were felled and even now, over a week later, driving around you can see the carnage...

01 Mar

Posted at 14:15h in Faith
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Today is Ash Wednesday. In churches all over the country people are gathering to repent of their sins. They are kneeling while the vicar or celebrant draws a cross of ashes on their forehead as they prepare for Lent, and after that, Easter. I like this. A stopping point, a place to be reminded. It is only recently I have understood what repentance is really about. Maybe you never mis-used or misunderstood repentance, but for a long time I did. Repentance was part of the conversation about how I was messing it up and was not able to get my shit together. It was another way to...

07 Feb

Posted at 09:53h in Mental health
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I wrote this a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning. It is pretty raw and I wasn't sure if I would share it. But I have decided to because honesty is more important that appearance. "Last night was bad and for the first time in a long time I remembered, no - I experienced - what it was like to not be able to rely on my brain to act as it should. Again. I had gone to bed calm and well, but woke two hours later sweating, my stomach tied in a painful knot. I lay awake in agony, my hand on...

01 Feb

Posted at 12:37h in Uncategorised
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In the words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”. Last night I took out my notebook and wrote a list of all I needed to do today. It was long. Impossibly long. Long enough to fill my time today, and probably tomorrow and the rest of the week too. I have never had a high-powered executive job where I get to wear a power suit a la movies from the 80s set on Wall Street. I am not on three different phone lines at once, delegating like a...

24 Jan

Posted at 15:31h in Mental health
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It is January in the north of England and my garden looks as you would expect; damp, leaf strewn, drained of colour: a mess. There is not much to be seen, but there is work to do. I plan to cut back some shrubs that have needed a hard prune since we moved in four years ago. They are overgrown and block light from the house. As I begin to work, my neighbour walks past on his way back from his allotment. He calls over, “Take it right to the floor, you will only get leaf this year, but the flowers will be back...

18 Jan

Posted at 11:52h in Living well, Mental health
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I can't remember a time I did not know the lyrics to the theme tune of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Throughout the early '90s the song wormed its way into my ear, remaining in my head long after the show had finished. And, kudos to the song's composers, years later as my children grew up unaware of the origins of this piece of musical genius (heavy on the irony), we have on occasion found ourselves singing it to the kids, mock-rapping in the kitchen, initially thrilling and later totally embarrassing them. Last week my ten year old discovered nearly 150 episodes of Will...

07 Dec

Posted at 12:12h in Living well, Mental health, On taking anti-depressants
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On the 1st December I started to write an Alternative Advent Calendar. I have been posting these 'gifts' daily on Facebook and Instagram. Christmas is busy, and expectations are high. It can become stressful and overwhelming very quickly. My Advent Calendar is an antidote to this. Each day I have been writing short thoughts about ways to manage this season, ideas about how to stay sane, maintain mental health and hopefully enjoy the festive period. I am writing to remind myself. To talk truth to myself. And to remind you. To talk truth to you. Here are the first seven days Dec 1st The Gift of...

28 Nov

Posted at 19:05h in Faith
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I struggle to articulate the discoveries I have been making about my faith, in part because what I believe cannot easily be squeezed into language. It cannot be condensed and compressed into words, black and white on the page. I am only ever able to scratch the surface, if I am lucky. Even if I had all the time in the world I would still remain unable to articulate the breadth and depth and complexity, the clear and pure simplicity, of the faith I am discovering. This was not always the case. I used to find my faith far more straight forward. For every question there was an...