WHAT KEEPS ME WELL?
To be honest I rarely feel unwell. It is not a vision that suits me. That illness thing is convenient; it gives an explanation, gets me some benefits, gives me treatment that might however misguidedly, keep me alive. But I have never really, not really, felt unwell mentally or if I have I don’t frame it as illness; I frame it as utter despair or fear or that dank place where emotion does not stir.
I have some experiences that I know others don’t have and there are many things I can’t do but it took me well over four decades to realise I can’t do them and to recognise that people in my life somehow subtly make sure I function in the way I want to but, for all the decades before, I was blissfully unaware of how I was supported.
I remember one of the first times Wendy met my mum, she said to her;
“Graham is very special and we love him dearly; do look after him.”
It was the first time that loaded word ‘special’ had been used in my context and to be honest I quite like it. I doubt my Mum even knows it could be seen in a less than positive light. I don’t know why I am special but I do know that many people care a lot about me and treasure me. That is a good feeling. I also have to admit that there are frequent times when I struggle with appearing normal and need help with that. I quite like to be seen as normal however much I should be proud of my difference.
People keep me well. I don’t know how they do it but they do. I feel for Wendy who makes me feel so wonderful and hesitate a little at that because I am not entirely sure I make her feel wonderful in a similar way, in the sense that when she is with me her cares fall away and she doesn’t have to feel responsible for anything for a time. Maybe I do, do, that in different ways. She may make me giggle and laugh and try to keep a straight face at some of her more outrageous behaviour and statements when we are at home but she doesn’t have to think about the shopping, cooking, washing, tidying. Maybe just knowing those things happen are good for her? That sense of being looked after?
Rosie kept me well last week; I am at my happiest when I am teasing and giggling and putting up the photos the other day at Jeans Bothy, was a time of great silliness. So do many other people when I walk up the path to the Bothy; with little greetings and waves I feel safe and welcome.
The seal I passed an hour ago on its usual rock at Ardmore keeps me well. I love how it curls up in the air in the most luxurious stretch and I love how the cormorants stretch out their wings on the small point and how the oyster catchers gather on the old heap of ballast stones as the tide ebbs.
Charlotte with her constant hugs and ‘I love yous’ keeps me very well and helps me forget the way I must have let my own son down. James, with his exaggerated terror of me almost keeps me well, that is when I am not tired and over solemn and choose to take him seriously instead of remembering that he is ten and this is how ten year old boys express themselves.
Sometimes my not so terrible past rips into me and shreds my wellbeing, leaving me hollow and sad and lonely and somehow a little bit mournfully frightened. Wendy nearly kept me well this morning when she said,
“What happened to you wasn’t right, you do know that?”
And I don’t know that, not at all. I think I need to be stronger and that it was all my fault. I think I if I had been a different person none of it would have happened. I think I make heavy work of inconsequential harms; that I glory in the misery of it all. But having it repeated again and again, that some of the things that happened to me shouldn’t have, might one day strike a chord and I might one day believe it and feel a brief sense of liberation and maybe even the chance to grieve and feel some anger at it all.
Knowing I will be speaking to Dumbarton Area Concern on Alcohol in a few days time about START, as part of Scottish Book Week keeps me very well. I hope I manage to perform in the way I sometimes can if I am very energised. I am especially glad that I have managed to cut the amount I drink in a week hugely over the last couple of weeks and that now, when I wake, I am less muzzy and less sad and more inclined to speak.
Dash the dog, at my feet at the bottom of the sofa bed this morning delighted me as did the smell of the coffee and listening to music as I fell asleep last night. Despite all evidence to the contrary it seems like the world I live in keeps me very well indeed. I am very lucky; I know too many people who live a universe away from this security; for whom wellbeing is an insult and laughter a bitter reminder of what might once have been.
(Photo – window sticker at Jeans Bothy; Helensburgh. November 2021)
Comments