Emerging from a Dark Cave to Say Hello

I haven't written a blog post in quite a while largely because my depression and anxiety have taken a bit of a turn for the worse.  Last summer's cardiac scare, caused by side effects of the various psychiatric drugs I was on at the time, and my subsequent dismissal from the Mood Disorder Program at the Royal Ottawa Hospital - brought about by my decision to largely stay off medication following said cardiac scare - right around a very hectic Christmas season seems to have been a tipping point.  Wow, that's a run-on sentence for you.  A clear sign I am out of practice.

So, my state of mind has not been great.  Every little task, even the most trivial, requires a great amount of effort.  Getting out of bed in the morning or brushing my teeth is a daily fight with myself.  During a good week I manage to shave once.  I cling religiously to making sure I work out at least three times a week, though that often means little else gets done on those days.  However, my workouts are the rare times when I don't feel like absolute crap.  We live at risk of our abode being "that house" in the neighbourhood as I have difficulty getting around to the yard work that needs to be done.  Shrubs and grass are overgrown and weeds are taking over the lawn.  Mostly, I fight to fulfill my absolute obligations - going with Kate to her many medical appointments, getting Lena to her activities, cooking and cleaning up around the house with each activity requiring a lot of self-talk to work up the motivation and energy, and each activity, however minor, leave me feeling spent.  I find no, or on a good day little, pleasure in anything.

I live my life with my stomach in constant knots and a profound sadness clouding my mind.  This is no way to live.  Every day is an agony that is difficult to describe.  The great irony is that getting out from under the weight of depression and anxiety requires a lot of work, which, in turn, is difficult to accomplish when you are crushed by the very affliction you are trying to lift off.

Nonetheless, my therapist and I work to try to get things back on track.  Taking baby steps - doing things that I would normally enjoy or would usually be good at, even in small doses, will help light the way out of this very dark tunnel.  So, I will try to write some blog entries - blogging therapy.  Finding the time and energy to do my Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and pursuing other strategies - in other words, putting in the work - may be my salvation.  I am so tired - eroded is a good adjective - of living like this that I feel a small spark of motivation to get on with it. 

Though I will try to rededicate myself somewhat to my blog-as-therapy, I promise, this will be the last post for a while about my depression.  It consumes me enough.

Shedding Some Pounds

The quintessential new year's resolution:  Lose weight.  I'm no different - it's on my list.  After Kate's diagnosis, I stopped exercising and started stuffing my gullet at every chance as a way, I guess, of dealing with the stress.  I gained about 35 pounds.  By the time last spring rolled around, I was not feeling too good about myself.  I was easily winded, in part because I was carrying around a lot of extra weight and in part because I was not in the best physical shape.  So, I started exercising and trying to eat at least a little better.  Since then I have lost around 17 pounds, but feel I need to lose another 27 or so.

I am a hopeless snacker.  Evenings are the worst.  I'm always stuffing something, usually not especially healthy, in my mouth.  I suffer from depression and anxiety and I'm pretty sure my snacking is a form of self-medication, of comfort.

I'm not a big breakfast eater.  My therapist, who has in the past worked in the area of eating disorders, has suggested that my nocturnal noshing may at least partially be coming from skipping my morning meal.  So, she has suggested I eat a more complete breakfast and see if that helps my post-prandial munching.  So far, it has not had much of an impact in terms of how much I eat, but I do seem to have lost four pounds in the past week.  Maybe we're onto something here.

Meanwhile I continue to exercise.  I try to get in a 40-50 minute cardio workout at least three times a week, though 4-6 is more the norm.  My workouts have become important in two respects.  First, this is the only time during the day I don't live with that omnipresent knot in my stomach and, secondly, I feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of it, however fleeting the feeling.

So, hopefully starting today, I will try to minimize my snacking and keep on with the exercise to see if I can shed the extra 27 lbs. and see if I can bring myself to 190 lbs.  I hope blogging about it will motivate me.  I'll try to post once a month about my progress.

And on a different note, Happy New year to all my Chinese readers and friends.  The year of the snake seems to be somewhat inauspicious, but hopefully everyone will come out the other end happier and healthier.  All the best.

Smart Phones, Tablets and that Interweb Thingy

Over the past few years, I have have been developing a profound dislike of information and communications technology (ICT).  I see its potential as a liberating tool - facilitating access to vast amounts of information from almost anywhere.  Allowing us to connect with people we may never have otherwise met and stay connected with people who maybe have moved away.  We seem to have overshot its potential, though, and landed in a less desirable situation where ease of access has led to intellectual laziness, where connecting electronically has supplanted more intimate forms of interaction and where our sense of privacy, and our desire for it, has been lost.

I admit I don't have a lot of empirical evidence to back up some of my claims.  Before I left work, though, I was noticing that cutting and pasting little factoids from online sources such as Wikipedia was creeping into the various documents that came across my desk.  Rather than doing their own anlayses and trusting their own judgements many government professionals seem to prefer the pre-digested views available in cyberspace.  As I say, this phenomenon may not be widespread, but it is creeping in.

I heard a story from an acquaintance recently about a university professor who caused an uproar among his students by refusing to post his lecture notes online, forcing his students to actually attend class and take their own notes.  Of course, this relates directly to the intellectual laziness I referred to earlier, but I think it also speaks a lot about the growing sense of entitlement I feel is growing within  younger generations, but that's a different topic for a different post.  The great promise of accessing information so easily is tainted somewhat by the fact that any idiot can publish anything online (as this blog demonstrates so well) and people seem unable to distinguish the good from the bad.  If any of you reading this teach, I would love to hear your observations about how ICTs are affecting the work and intellectual development of your students.

I also feel that the ubiquity of smart phones, tablets and laptop indicate a bizarre form of addiction.  People seem to have a helpless need to be constantly connected - to the web, to others, to playing games. I look around and all I see are people's noses stuck into some electronic device - texting, surfing, playing.  People text while they drive which is an unbelievably dangerous activity.  I see people, presumably friends or family or at least acquaintances, sitting at the same table in a café not talking to each other but thumbing their respective smart phones.  I see parents at their kids' sporting events engrossed in their phones or tablets oblivious to what their kids are doing.  I always feel bad when I see a child do something great, look over with pride at their mom or dad only to see them clicking away.  And, of course, cyberspace has become a valuable tool in the arsenal of bullies.

Many, and I include myself here, are living their lives online through social media with no regard for their own privacy.  No more secrets.

I have to rethink my own use of technology.  I'm just one red crayon and notebook away from moving into the woods and writing a manifesto off the grid. 

100 Best Movies

Karen, of A Peek at Karen's World fame (among the more entertaining blogs I follow), today posted her version of the best 100 movies.  Of course, this kind of exercise is highly controversial and it got my juices flowing.  So, I decided, what the hell, why don't I put in my two cents worth?  I have to admit coming up with a list of 100 movies is quite difficult, but I don't think there are many I would take off.  

You'll note that movies from the past ten years are not well-represented.  The largest reason for this is that since we had Lena, we don't get out much and our choices tend to be more family -friendly.  I also believe that movies today are more about flash-and-bang than anything else, but that's just my opinion.

So, here they are:

1. Schindler's List
2. Casablanca
3. Psycho
4. The Exorcist
5. Traffic
6. Dogma
7. The Godfather
8. The Godfather II
9. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
10. Austin Powers:  International Man of Mystery
11. Erin Brokovich
12. Dirty Harry
13. The Usual Suspects
14. The Birds
15. The In-Laws (1979)
16. Maltese Falcon
17. Pirates of the Caribbean
18. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
19. Big Night
20. Star Wars
21. The Cook, the Thief, His WIfe and Her Lover
22. Slap Shot
23. The Caine Mutiny
24. So, I Married an Axe Murderer
25. Rear Window
26. Star Wars:  The Empire Strikes Back
27. Star Wars:  Return of the Jedi
28. Reservoir Dogs
29. Kill Bill Volume 1
30. Kill Bill Volume 2
31. Deliverance
32. A Beautiful Mind
33. October Sky
34. The Hunt for Red October
35. The Gumball Rally
36. Marathon Man
37. Bullitt
38. Three Days of the Condor
39. Gaslight
40. Rocky
41. Rocky II
42. Alien
43. The Big Sleep
44. Grease
45. All the President's Men
46. Caddyshack
47. The Dirty Dozen
48. Pale Rider
49. Guns of Navarone
50. North by Northwest
51. The Shining
52. To Kill a Mockingbird
53. Die Hard
54. Mad Max
55. Mad Max 2:  The Road Warrior
56. Fargo
57. Seven
58. National Lampoon's Animal House
59. Taxi Driver
60. Catch Me if you Can
61. Jurassic Park
62. Saving Private Ryan
63. Miracle (2004)
64. Office Space
65. Election
66. Pulp Fiction
67. Wayne's World
68. Goodfellas
69. National Lampoon's Vacation
70. The Bourne Identity
71. Amélie
72. Being John Malkovich
73. Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
74. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
75. The King's Speech
76. Presumed Innocent
77. Silence of the Lambs
78. Glengarry Glen Ross
79. Magnum Force
80. Sudden Impact
81. Stripes
82. Ghostbusters
83. The Longest Day
84. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
85. Saving Private Ryan
86. Back to the Future
87. Risky Business
88. The Big Sleep
89. Body Heat
90. Pride of the Yankees
91. Mississippi Burning
92. Twelve Angry Men (1957)
93. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
94. This is Spinal Tap
95. Goodwill Hunting
96. Boys Don't Cry
97. Mystery Men
98. Dead Calm
99. A Few Good Men
100. Terminator

I look forward to reactions and I'm sure you have some.

Writer's Block

I have been having a hard time coming up with blog topics of late.  Part of the reason is that I have a lot to worry about and that crowds out the mental resources needed to come up with decent subjects.  I also have a difficult time dealing with multiple tasks on a given day and making dinner and doing laundry take precedence over writing.  Anyway, this particular path is a little too well worn.

I've worked for years in the Canadian public service and writing is a daily requirement.  Usually, subjects are foisted on you by management or circumstances, so coming up with a topic isn't usually a problem.  Notwithstanding this, I do remember a couple of times where I just couldn't figure out how to approach some assigned issue and had my drafts returned with comments from my supervisors wondering what the hell I was doing.  I have many professional shortcomings but my ability to write a decent briefing note or policy paper or report or speech have seldom been called into question, so these criticisms sometimes stung.  Nevertheless, at some point we all face that imposing brick wall that is writer's block.

The internet and the library have a glut of resources for helping people climb the wall.  Some of the suggestions are stupid:  talk to a monkey (i.e. explain what you really want to say to a stuffed animal).  I prefer the practical brass tack approaches.  One suggestion that pops up repeatedly is set a regular time of day to write and set a a minimum nimber of words to write and commit yourself.  Another fun way to work yourself out of a creative funk is to do some writing exercises.  Years ago, my wife bought a book entitled Room to Write, by Boni Goldberg.  She proposes a number of short exercises to inspire writing or to help youhone your writing skills.  For example, one exercise encourages you to write about your kitchen as if you were a detective, another suggests writing about your hair.  All very interesting and potentially helpful.  We'll see.

Many people write, either as a sideline or as an integral part of their jobs.  I'm curious to know how others overcome their blocks.  Would love to hear form you.

Anxiety

Anxiety and depression suck.  I live my life with my stomach in knots, with a hollow feeling deep in my chest.  Part of what I have been dealing with for the past ten years, and probably longer, has been crushing anxiety.  I scratch my head a bit at how this has arisen.  I managed to make my way through university, graduating with distinction from university (achieved not through native intelligence, but through a lot of work), and doing quite well in grad school.  I have been a diligent public servant earning performance reviews that ranged from good to great - always volunteering to work on the most challenging files.  I was a little high-strung and moody maybe, but very much functioning.

Now, though, if I have to do the dishes and shovel snow on the same day I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders.  I feel like I am constantly, and not very successfully, treading water, only managing to get my head above water for a brief gasp of air before getting hit again and again by wave after wave.  This drains me physically and emotionally leaving little for anything else.

With my wife sick and a young daughter who I want to have a normal and happy childhood, not one that is dominated by her mother's and father's illnesses, I feel like I'm letting my family down, which in turn makes me feel worse.

This all sounds fairly self-pitying, and I suppose it is.  I don't often speak of all this because I don't like to be perceived as a whiner, but I want people who are suffering from the same type of thing to know they are not alone, to hang in there.  I want others to know that people suffering from depression and anxiety may seem self-indulgent and lazy, but these afflictions are as debilitating as any physical ailment.  Indeed, humanity is blessed with the ability of abstract thought.  We take for granted our ability to control our thoughts, but depression and anxiety work to distort our views of ourselves and of the world.  For those reasons, depression and anxiety seem the greatest betrayals of ourselves and we seem powerless to change that.

Sometimes I despair that I will never feel happy again, but I deeply hope that I will and that's what keeps me going.  I also know I have little choice.  My family needs me and that, maybe more than naything, keeps me putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how hard that may be to do.

Welsh Love Spoons

Carved spoons are a tradition in many cultures but the Welsh, for whatever reason, are particularly well known for their mastery of the craft.  Wooden spoons were originally carved for purely utilitarian reason, but somewhere along the line more decorative versions came onto the scene.  The specific history of love spoons is somewhat lost to time and many theories abound about how they emerged including that young men used them to demonstrate their manual skills to the women they were trying to woo or carving them was a simple inexpensive way for rural men to spend time between growing seasons.  My own feeling is that carved spoons were probably to young men before the industrial revolution what mixed tapes were to my generation:  a thoughtful and romantic token of affection.

Whatever their romantic origins,  they are today often carved to mark a wide range of special occasions - retirements, births, anniversaries and graduations to name a few.  In fact, I have started a semi-tradition by carving my daughter a spoon for Christmas - not every Christmas mind you, but I have managed three over the past five years or so.  She is a grateful recipient and I hope they continue to be special mementos of my love for her.  I hope to expand the tradition to include my wife Kate and to encompass more milestones for both of them.  Below are some pictures of my efforts.

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I have two very good books on the subject of carving spoons which have guideed me, Celtic Carved Lovespoons by Sharon Lintley and Clive Griffin, and Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons, by David Western.

This is the first spoon I carved for the Bean.  Pattern from Lintley and Griffin.

This was my second effort.  Pattern from Western.

This was the spoon I gave to the Bean this Christmas, also from Western.