Therapy?

My life has returned to normal so much it's unsettling. Turns out my brain can cope far better with imminent disaster than it can with your standard multiple low-level anxieties. 

Work is getting hard again. 
Hard on the brain, trying to work out complicated presentations. 
Hard on the heart, listening to stories of destitution, deprivation, desolation. 
Hard on the generosity, when people are actively ungrateful. 

I can tell when my anxiety levels are rising, because I get an increasing amount of what psych-types call "intrusive thoughts". Basically these are very strong mental images of you doing something awful and out of character. Example: kicking an old lady up the bum. I'm admitting to something here that others may or may not have experience of themselves. So either you are nodding sympathetically, or you are whistling while twiddling your finger next to your temple. Anyway the great thing about intrusive thoughts is that it is exceptionally unlikely that I would ever act on them. They tend to happen more to people who have OCD traits, and for whom control is a big thing. So your brain, in its infinite sneakiness, makes you imagine the worst case scenario of losing the plot. It makes you believe you could, in fact, whack a priest across the face with your shoe, or drop-kick a newborn over a wall. See, told ya. Totally loolah. 

Anyway, when I started getting more of these little Bishop-Brennan moments, I decided to go along for a bit of brain-shampooing. I've always been a fan of an old spot of psychotherapy. It may not surprise my readers to learn that I'm a bit fond of talking about myself. So handing over 70 quid to ramble on about myself for an hour seems like a fair deal to me. I could if course get it for free, through the kindness of ARC house et al, and I have gratefully used their service in the past. But the new "I'm so well now I can't have cancer" delusion would be shattered by crossing that threshold so I'd rather pay the money and feel like a standard crazy loon than a cancer-struck one. 

So off I went, twice, and spoke to the kind lady. She ooed and hmmed in all the right places. She fell into the same trap they all do though. "My, aren't you great?"  Don't feed the ego lady, it's already morbidly obese (oops, less of the morbid, remember the delusion). 

I did feel a bit better though.

Next step in self-care was going out for the night to the pub I used to drink in when I was a student, with the some of the friends I used to live with back then. Proper solid nostalgising. And I drank almost like I used to (replacing pints with half-pints; I haven't totally lost my senses). It felt bleeding marvellous. The hangover was like another old friend, ready to greet me in the morning with a cup of Barrys tea. My GGT doubled, then recovered within a week. Go on the freshly grown liver! 

The final step in the anxiety management plan was a trip to my favourite offshore island, to escape from all semblance of real life and bask in the timeless nothingness of long walks and throwing stones into the water. Which was all well and good, but I came home after a day to go to work for a morning. And then, sadly, came home again for a funeral. 

I have spoken before about radiators and drains. This girl had a PhD in Warmth and Kindness. She was the Professor of Empathy. She was the most selfless person I ever met. I don't think it was a coincidence that she was buried on a Saturday. She wouldn't have wanted to put anyone out by being so rude as to make them miss work to send her off. She was a shining light and now the people she loved have a bit of darkness in them that will never brighten again. 

And she had bloody great hair.