Lois spends the morning planting
various seedlings that we bought the other day into the big pots on our
terrace.
Meanwhile, I go up the loft-ladder
again and look for all the school and university notes (not to mention work
notes from previous jobs), which our younger daughter Sarah stored away up
there long ago - she now lives in Perth, Australia, with her husband and their
5 year old twin-daughters.
I collect as many as I can get,
and put them in piles around the only so-called "well-documented"
zone of the attic, that surrounds the entrance-hatch itself. Finally, I decide
to put all the notes in strong cardboard boxes for safety’s sake. I don't want
them to collapse in the middle of the night and end up blocking the entrance-hatch
- yikes - catastrophe !!!!
I am shocked when I see how many
notes she has stored up there, all neatly labelled by Sarah herself: some of
the notes date to her earliest years in high school - a homework diary from the
8th grade, for example. My god, what madness !!
I plan to lug all the notes down the
ladder on Sunday and store them here and there in Sarah's old room, so we can
leaf them through them, categorize them, and hopefully throw the majority of
them out. Later in the day I order a micro-cut paper shredder on Amazon, so
that we can compost the tiny shreds of paper (or “confetti”). It may be that
the whole process will take several weeks - yikes (again)! But maybe I am being
a little too pessimistic here - I am not completely sure.
the great Bonsaii micro cut paper
shredder,
I have ordered from amazon - hurrah!
Our current shredder is just an
old strip-cut type, which is a bit old-fashioned, I have to say.
12:30 Lois and I have lunch and
afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. Meanwhile, Lois goes
around the corner to the local library, to help library staff lead their weekly
Baby Bounce & Rhyme session for the little children (and their mothers,
including grandparents) who live in the neighbourhood.
15:30 I get up. Lois comes back
from the library and we relax with a cup of tea and a piece of cake on the
sofa.
We listen a little to the radio,
an interesting programme in the series "The Last Word". Lois and I
have got into the habit of hearing this program every week because we want to
find out if anyone in the past 1-4 weeks has died or not (I have noticed that most
weeks there are only 4- 5 deaths, which is a little comforting, to say the
least). The programme's host is the charming Julian Worricker, who is standing
in for the programme's regular host, Matthew Bannister.
Sadly, Dorothy Rowe, the
Australian psychologist, died recently. She specialised in the treatment of
depression - she did not suffer from it herself, despite her difficult
childhood, which was a big help!
Dorothy Rowe
She believed in listening to
patients, rather than, like other psychiatrists, seeing them simply as a problem to be solved,
often by drugs or ECT. She looked on depression not as a
disease, but as a crisis resulting from patients having built unrealistic world
views around themselves. She was very sceptical of drugs such as Prozac, which
she saw as nothing more than a placebo. For her, each case was unique and
demanded careful attention.
"Many people will continue
to believe that their depression has a physical cause. The one major advantage
of this belief is that you do not have to feel responsible for your depression.
However, there is a major disadvantage. There is no physical cure.
Psychiatrists do not talk about curing depression, but managing it, in the same
way as doctors cope with a chronic disease such as diabetes or epilepsy.
"If you consider your
depression as the result of how you see yourself and your world, and how you
live your life, then you can say that, although you didn't sit down to make
yourself depressed, it's still the result of what you have actually done.
“Having to take responsibility
for yourself may seem like a huge disadvantage, but there is a great advantage.
If you don't understand how you created your depression, then by learning more
about yourself, you can un-create it.
Similarly, many people who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia have
recovered from their problem simply by coming to understand themselves.
"Mental illnesses are not
diseases, but a defence-mechanism to keep the person together when he feels
that he is falling apart. These desperate defences are terrible to endure, but
if we are willing to learn, they can teach us to change the way we live our
lives. It is not always easy to change how we see ourselves and our world, but
it is certainly in our power to do so. "
She strongly opposed religion,
especially Christianity - she used to say that the church provided her with an
infinitely long queue of patients. She disapproved of Christianity because it
offered its "in-group" a sense of moral superiority, and that the
sense of guilt it built up and the certainty it required were the perfect
breeding ground for clinical depression. She believed that the majority of
mental disorders came from a need for certainty or security. To be more
precise, it was religion's concept of "the just world" - the
principle that the malevolent be punished and the good rewarded, that led to
mental illness.
However, her message was complex
and often misunderstood. When she said, for example, that "only good
people get depressed", she meant, "the ‘good’ people are the ones who
feel they are never good enough". Also, her message was not always
cheerful. There was no magic formula for happiness, she said.
What a woman !!!!
Let us therefore reject out need
for certainties and securities, accept that life is fairly random and largely
uncontrollable by us, and just try to cope with it as best we can, helping
others to do so at the same time. Simples!
Cheers, Dorothy!
18:00 Lois and I have dinner and
afterwards we stick our feet up in front of the TV. The latest episode of
"Goggle Box" is on, a fun program where various TV viewers look at
some of the week's programmes and comment on them from their sofas and
armchairs etc.
GoggleListing
For Lois and me the only
disadvantage of this programme is that people taking part do not usually watch
the kind of programmes that Lois and I typically watch, but I’m going to let
that one slide.
This week's programme featured
the TV talent show "Britain's Got Talent", although the main
attraction of the talent show was a couple (huge boyfriend - tiny girlfriend),
dancer-gymnasts ,who were not British, but actually Cubans, for some reason.
Perhaps the talent show should
have a new title - "Britain Hasn't Got Talent" because last week's
main attraction was a squad of Dutch girls, three of them to begin with, but with
the help of a little magic with a bunch of cages and curtains, up to 16 girls by the end of the number.
My goodness, what a crazy world
we live in !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz
!!!!
Danish translation
Lois bruger formiddagen på at plante forskellige frøplanter, som vi
forleden købte i Court Farm Shop, i de store potter, der står på vores
terrasse.
I mellemtiden går jeg op ad loftstigen igen og leder efter alle de
skole- og universitets-notater (for ikke at nævne arbejdsnotater fra forrige
arbejdspladser), som vores yngste datter Sarah for længe siden gemte deroppe –
hun bor nu i Perth, Australien, sammen med sin mand og deres 5-årige børn.
Jeg samler så mange som jeg kan få fat på, og lægger dem ned i bunker
omkring loftets eneste såkaldte ”veldokumenterede” zone, der omkranser selve
loftlemmen. Endelig beslutter jeg at lægge alle notaterne i stærke papkasser
for en sikkerheds skyld. Jeg vil ikke have, at de midt i natten kollapser og
ender med at blokere loftlemmen – yikes!!!!
Jeg er chokeret, da jeg ser hvor mange notater, hun har gemt deroppe,
alle sirligt etikeret af selve Sarah: nogle af notaterne daterer til sine
tidligste år på højskole – en hjemmearbejde-dagbog fra 8. klasse, for eksempel.
Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!
Jeg planlægger at slæbe alle de notater ned at lofstigen på søndag og
gemme dem her og der i Sarahs gamle værelse, så vi kan blade dem igennem,
kategorisere dem og forhåbentlig smide størstedelen af dem ud. Senere på dagen
bestiller jeg på amazon en micro-cut papir shredder, så vi kan kompostere de
småbitte stykker (konfetti). Det kan være, at hele processen tager flere uger –
yikes (igen) ! Men måske reagerer jeg lidt for pessimistisk her – det er jeg
ikke helt sikker på.
den flotte
Bonsaii micro cut papir-shredder,
jeg har
bestillet fra amazon – hurra!
Vores nuværende makulator er bare en gammel stripcut, som er lidt
gammeldags, det må jeg nok sige.
12:30 Lois og jeg spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager en
gigantisk eftermiddagslur. I mellemtiden går Lois rundt om hjørnet til det
lokale bibliotek, for at hjælpe bibliotekets personale med at lede deres
ugentlige Baby Bounce & Rhyme session for de små børn (og deres mødre, også
bedsteforældre), der bor i nabolaget.
15:30 Jeg står op. Lois kommer tilbage fra biblioteket og vi slapper af
med en kop te og en stykke kage i sofaen.
Vi lytter lidt til radio, et interessant program i serien ”Det sidste
ord”. Lois og jeg er kommet i
vane med at høre dette program hver uge, fordi vi ønsker at finde ud af, om
nogen i de seneste 1-4 uger døde eller ej (jeg har bemærket, at der i de fleste
uger kun sker 4-5 dødsfald, hvilket er lidt trøstende, for at sige mildt). Programmets
vært er den charmerende Julian Worricker, der vikarierer for programmets
regelmæssige vært, Matthew Bannister.
Dorothy Rowe, den australske psykolog døde desværre for nylig. Hun
specialiserede sig i behandlingen af depression, selvom hun selv ikke led af
den, på trods af sin vanskelig barndom.
Dorothy Rowe
Hun troede på at lytte til patienter, snarere end, at se dem simpelthen
som et problem, der skal løses, ofte med stoffer eller elektrochokbehandling.
Hun betragtede depression ikke som en sygdom, men som en krise resulterende
fra, at patienter havde bygget urealistiske mentale verdenssyn omkring sig. Hun
var meget skeptisk overfor stoffer såsom Prozac, som hun så på som intet mere,
end et placebo. For hende var hvert sag unik, og krævede forsigtig
opmærksomhed.
”Mange mennesker vil fortsat tro på, at deres depression har en fysisk
årsag. Den ene store fordel for denne tro er, at du ikke behøver at føle sig
ansvarlig for din depression. Der er dog en stor ulempe. Der er ingen fysisk
kur. Psykiatere taler ikke om at helbrede depression, men at forvalte det på
samme måde som lægerne klare en kronisk sygdom som diabetes eller epilepsi.
”Hvis du betragter din depression som resultatet af hvordan du ser dig
selv og din verden, og hvordan du lever dit liv, så siger du, at mens du ikke
satte sig for at gøre dig selv deprimeret, er det resultatet af det, du rent
faktisk har lavet. Vi får ofte resultater, vi ikke havde planer om. At skulle
tage ansvar for dig selv kan virke som en enorm ulempe, men der er en stor
fordel. Hvis du ikke forstår hvordan du skabte din depression, så ved at lære
mere om dig selv, kan du ødelægge den. På samme måde er mange mennesker, der er
blevet diagnosticeret med skizofreni, kommet sig ovenpå deres problem ved at
komme til at forstå sig selv.
”Psykiske sygdomme er ikke sygdomme, men en forsvar for at holde
personen sammen, når han føler at han bryder sammen. Disse desperate forsvar er
forfærdelige at udholde, men hvis vi er villige til at lære, kan de lære os, at
vi skal ændre den måde, vi lever i vores liv på. Det er ikke altid let at
ændre, hvordan vi ser os selv og vores verden, men det er helt sikkert i vores
magt at gøre det.”
Hun modsatte sig stærkt religion, især kristendom – hun plejede at sage,
at kirken forsynede hende med en uendelig kø af patienter. Hun misbilligede
kristendom, fordi den tilbød sin ”ind-gruppe” en sans for moral overlegenhed,
og at den sans for skyld, som den byggede op, og den vished, den krævede, var
de perfekte ynglested for klinisk depression. Hun troede, at størstedelen af
mentale lidelser stammede fra en behov for vished eller sikkerhed. For at være
mere præcis, var det religions koncept om ”den retfærdige verden” – det
princip, at de ondskabsfulde skal straffes og de gode belønnet, som førte til
psykiske lidelser.
Hendes budskab var imidlertid kompleks, og blev ofte misforstået. Når
hun sagde, for eksempel, at ”kun gode mennesker bliver deprimeret”, hun ville sige, at ”gode mennesker er dem,
der føler, at de aldrig er gode nok”. Også hendes budskab var ikke altid et
mundert. Der var ingen magisk formel til glæde, sagde hun.
Sikke en kvinde!!!!
18:00 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad og bagefter smækker vi benene op foran
fjernsynet. De viser det seneste afsnit af ”Goggle Box”, et morsomt program, hvor forskellige tv-seerne ser på nogle af
ugens programmer og kommenterer dem i deres sofaer og lænestole osv.
For vores
vedkommende er den eneste ulempe ved dette program, at programmets deltagere
sædvanligt ikke de slags programmer, som Lois og jeg typisk ser, men det
springer jeg over.
Denne uges program fremviste tv-talentshowet ”Britain’s Got Talent”,
selvom talentshowets hovedattraktion var et kærestepar, danser-gymnaster, der
ikke var briter, men faktisk cubanere, af en eller anden grund.
Måske skulle talentshowet få en ny titel – ”Britain Hasn’t Got Talent”,
fordi sidste uges hovedattraktion var en trup hollandske piger, tre af dem til
at begynde med, men ved hjælp af lidt tryllekunst med et bundt bur og forhæng,
16 hollandske piger ved slutningen af nummeret.
Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!!
22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!
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