Micro-blogging: a simple observation

Therapist: So people do say good things about you?

Me <small voice>: Yes

Therapist: And do you remember them?

Me: <sounding like Boris Johnson>: ah, um, well, yes, I mean, I do remember but I don't, well, I suppose, I kind of find ways to dismiss them....

Identifying my dysfunctional thinking is going to be a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

But I liked her, and I think I'll be able to work with her. Though she did warn me that if I revealed anything to her about terrorist activity or laundering drug money, she wouldn't be allowed to respect client confidentiality. So there's that.

Micro-blogging: mental collapse and the art of football management

 As is so often the way in life... I spoke too soon...

Having had a warm and positive start to the footballing new year, things have now spiralled downwards.

I have lost any zen-like equilibrium I once possessed. I have, in fact, more than lost my equilibrium, I have tumbled, swirling and spinning, into the abyss. Any confidence I had that I knew what I was doing is shattered and if I feel anything about football it is that I am a failure. A charlatan who has no place coaching or managing a team. 

For the past ten days, there hasn't been a single day when tears of despair and hopelessness haven't poured unbidden down my face. 

I've thought, several times, about trying to put my feelings into words here, but I can't. I can't bring myself to write them down, to confront them, to open the floodgates to the tears that I may not be able to stop. 

I've thought, several times, about walking away from coaching football, but I can't. I can't bring myself to abandon my boys and give up on something I want to achieve. 

Is it really football, or have I simply burnt out at last?

Maybe it's football. Maybe it's life. Maybe it's me. 

I want to be perfect, and I'm not.

I want to be proud of myself and I'm not.

I want to believe, deep inside myself, that I'm doing a good job, but I don't.

I want to stop constantly needing someone else to reassure me that I am good enough, and I don't know how.

Tomorrow I have an initial consultation with a therapist. There's no magic wand that will change how I feel about myself, but I have to start somewhere.

I feel faintly absurd to be seeking professional counselling to learn to cope with volunteering with an under-10 football team, but in truth, it goes far deeper than that. I suspect that football has simply ripped off the sticking plaster I'd slapped over the open wound of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem that has been festering for many years. 

I might write about some of it here, I might stick to politics and cats. Who knows?

Pleasing none of the people none of the time

The thing about random memes on Facebook is that most of them, aside from being poorly spelled, poorly punctuated, and frequently involving utterly invented quotes, are complete tripe. They sometimes make me wonder whether I really know my friends when I see the things they link to. On the other hand, there's the odd thing that pops up that stops me in my tracks and actually makes me think.

Here's one of them (with apologies for spelling, punctuation, grammar and colour-scheme):

And the problem is, I am absolutely not OK with not being liked. In fact I spend an inordinate amount of emotional and mental energy contorting myself attempting to be liked. I volunteer, I help, I smile, I cook, I step up, I try so damn hard all the time to be a person other people will like. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it doesn't work. The people who like me, like me anyway. And the people who are either indifferent to me, or don't particularly like me, are not going to have their minds changed by me spending hours of my free time doing things for them. They'll just willingly soak up my kindness and carry on with their lives, not liking me any more or any less than they did before. I am an irrelevance to them.

It would now appear that I have engineered myself into a hole. I have spent so much time contorting myself in desperate and futile attempts to be liked, that now if I stop being the ever-biddable, ever-self-sacrificing, ever-helpful me, I am resented for not bending over backwards. I am now expected to be all things for all people, and I am burnt out, unable to keep offering more and more of myself. And yet I keep doing so, because to stop, and to risk not being likeable enough is still unthinkable to my needy little mind.

Every day I receive emails, WhatsApp messages, text messages, phone calls, taps on the shoulder, all asking me for something. Sometimes it's a simple question about a date or a time, sometimes it's a request for information, and sometimes it's a request for help. But it's always something. Always requiring an answer, or effort, or work, or commitment. Worst of all is that sometimes it requires a decision. A decision that I know is not going to please at least one other person. And then my need to please slams up against my need to do the right thing, or my need to be clear and honest, or my need to be organised. It's not possible to be honest, and honourable, and moral and also please everybody.

I have to find a way to tell people things that they won't like. I have to find ways of telling people what I think or believe without worrying about whether they will or won't like it. 

I have to find ways of saying "No", without being paralysed by the fear of being disliked. I have to find ways of doing what I know to be right without spending hours agonising over the wording of the email that needs to be sent, and then days agonising of what I have (or more likely haven't) heard in reply. 

I have to find ways of accepting that I cannot please all of the people all of the time. I will be lucky if I can please some of the people some of the time. 

At the moment it feels like I'm pleasing none of the people none of the time.

 

Isolation and exhaustion

Preamble: I started writing this about three weeks ago. Since that point I have added to it and deleted from it as my mood has ebbed and flowed. I have hit crashing lows where the world seemed unmanageable and I felt broken, and I have had days when I've wondered what I was being so melodramatic about. I have tried to capture both sides of my emotions in my editing.

Even at the best of times, I find interacting with the world hard work. And I think we can all agree that 2020 and 2021 very much come outside the boundaries of "the best of times". 

So, where normally I would find myself second guessing my every social interaction, questioning whether I have been too abrasive, too sweary, too self-absorbed, too needy, too rude, too oblivious, too opinionated, too me, I now find myself doing all that but beyond the veil of face-to-face interaction. I am robbed of even the clues of body-language and tone of voice that used to tell me when I wasn't welcome, or my views weren't needed. My social world has collapsed down to WhatsApp, and three-minute conversations outside the school gates. I now spend more of my free time talking to a football manager who trains on the pitch next to us* once a week than I do to people I once thought might be my friends.

I say "once thought might be", because there are now a surprising number of people, with whom I once thought I shared some kind of friendship who I essentially haven't seen, spoken to, messaged or otherwise interacted with for about a year and a half. And against my existing background of being perpetually anxious about whether I am saying the wrong thing, looking out of place, getting in the way, or in other ways transgressing subtle social rules, the isolation of lockdown has eroded what little confidence I had about my place in society.

The rational part of me knows that as much as these former-maybe-could-have-been-might-still-be friends are not contacting me, I am also not contacting them. As much as I am struggling with holding my life together, and navigating the emotional and psychological barrages of a pandemic, they are too. As much as I may be questioning my place and value and worth to others, they may be too. I doubt very much if I am the only one feeling isolated, anxious and alone. I doubt if I'm the only one whose child still will not sleep through the night and who is whimpering with exhaustion**. 

But inside my own mind, the degree to which other people may or may not be struggling doesn't change the reality of my own anxiety. No amount of rationalisation silences the voice of a school "friend" that said, "If you changed the way you acted, maybe people would like you." Inside my own mind, the loudest voice is the one that says, "See? People only ever tolerated you, they're probably all relieved not to have to spend time with you." 

Which isn't to say I don't have friends, or that they aren't enormously lovely people. I do, and they are. But when I'm reduced to electronic communication, or fleeting, mask-obscured exchanges, I am also reduced to doubting everything that I say and do, even with those lovely friends. I obsessively re-read messages I've sent to ponder whether somehow I have caused offence. I replay those fleeting conversations in my head to question if I managed to remain the right side of socially-acceptable. Was I too flippant? Or did I over-share? Am I wearing people out with my complaining? Have I failed to listen to other people? Am I oblivious to an undertone that is obvious to those who find human contact easy? 

Always, always it boils down to "am I too much?" or "am I not enough?"

The less I sleep, the more I find myself to be either too much, or inadequate, and the more I am sure that others do too.

The less "normal" contact I have with my friends and acquaintances, the more isolated I feel, and the more convinced I become that I will always feel this way.

I have spent so long without much face-to-face social contact that I have now reached the point where I cannot really imagine resuming it. Regular pub nights? Having friends round for a meal? Having play dates for LittleBear's friends? These seem like wildly improbable events now, and almost as daunting to consider as I previously found meeting new people. 

Back in the mists of time, I wrote about how hard I find it to move from casual acquaintance to genuine friendship, and how much I tend to feel as though everyone else is friends with each other and I'm the outsider. Well I'm right back in that state now, convinced despite all evidence to the contrary, that I alone am alone. That I am adrift in a sea of vague acquaintanceship without the dry land of solid friendship anywhere in sight. I have a small life raft of dear and lovely people, but I fear that if I cling on too tight I may either draw them under the waves or be pushed away by them before I sink us all.

In an attempt to dig myself out of my self-fulfilling hole of isolation, I am trying very hard to step outside my isolated bubble and reach out to other people. And it's not as bad as I feared. I am met not with rejection and horror, but with warmth and enthusiasm. It turns out other people aren't desperate to avoid me. It turns out other people may just be waiting to be invited too.

I went out for a drink with two people I've never socialised with before. 

I'm having lunch with two members of my life raft. 

I've suggested meeting two people for a drink who I've barely spoken to since before covid.

I am not alone.

We are not alone.

* To put this extensive friendship into perspective, we exchange pleasantries and ask whether our respective teams won or lost the previous weekend. Yet this is still a greater level of conversation than I manage with most people.

** I'm too tired to fix my participles. We're both whimpering with exhaustion - read it however suits you.

You don't have to be the best (Part I)

About a week ago, while meandering aimlessly through posts on Facebook, I stumbled across a Kurt Vonnegut quote that a friend had posted, and it really hit a chord with me. (I often find myself mildly exasperated by "inspirational" quotes on the internet, and positively filled with rage at some of the utter tripe that's ascribed to Winnie-the-Pooh but which was absolutely not crafted by A A Milne. I'm assuming they're Disney quotes, or just random bollocks that someone on the internet made up, but I find them irksome.)

Anyway, back to Vonnegut. I was so taken with this particular piece that I even spent some time hunting around for references to it, to try and be as certain as possible that it wasn't a Winnie-the-Pooh-ism. And I was pretty satisfied that it was the real thing.  And the thing is, I have been going back to it several times a day, reading and re-reading it. Marvelling at what a radically different world view it presents to me, and wishing, perhaps, that I had had this particular epiphany several decades ago.

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” 

 

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

 

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

 - Kurt Vonnegut

Pretty* obvious isn't it? It's great to do things just for fun, because you like them, because they make you smile, just because. You don't have to be the best, you don't have to "win", you just have to do it and you'll be a richer, more rounded, more interesting person. But that's not really me. While I certainly can't lay claim to the level of talent that Mr Vonnegut has, I can definitely relate to the "achievement-oriented environment". I need to be good at everything I do, I need to excel, I need to prove myself. And it's absolutely exhausting. Not to mention the fact that there are lots of things I don't do, because I'm a bit rubbish at them. Or maybe just average. I avoid huge swathes of life's opportunities for fear of failing, or of not being the best at it. 

In a moment of synchronicity, today I found my original diagnosis of anxiety and depression and the accompanying recommendations made by the psychologist to my GP. Illuminating excerpts include:

"PhysicsBear worries that she is not good enough, despite the evidence going against this, and engages in anxious predictions... PhysicsBear has unrelenting standards which are exacerbating her beliefs... she fears that she will get something wrong and as a result of this she oscillates between over-preparing and avoiding..."

And one of the therapy goals that was identified in 2013 was:

"Not to be as concerned that she is failing if she is not perfect."

So really, seven years later, I shouldn't find Kurt Vonnegut's words such a revelation. But here I am anyway, trying to accept that just doing stuff for fun is OK. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be better than other people. Me is enough. Doing is enough. 

So if you hear an off-key warble, aimlessly meandering from note to note, not quite holding a tune, it's just me singing. Because I'm crap at it, but it makes me happy. And if it doesn't actually cause anyone physical pain (which may be debatable) then perhaps I should give myself permission just to do one thing really badly, if it makes me happy.

* At this point in my writing, IdiotCat walked across the keyboard and wrote "hjukkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk,55555". Tempting though it was to leave his words for posterity, I felt it detracted from the readability.

Still here. Just

I am still here, though barely clinging on to sanity by my fingernails.

What have I been doing? Aside from collapsing on the sofa and weeping you mean?

Mostly, I've been reaping what I sowed. All those good intentions, and that sense of responsibility, and that desire to be wanted and needed and liked that leads me to volunteer for things has come back to bite me.

It seemed like The Right Thing To Do to volunteer to talk to the year two children about science.

And the PTA were so very convincing in their begging for help to run stalls at the school fete.

And it seemed such a good idea to have started helping out with LittleBear's football team.

The science education malarkey was only a morning spent in school, doing the same forty-minute "lesson" four times to four different classes. I feel passionately that children need to see that science is real, and normal, and doable, and that scientists are just people. And, even more importantly, that science is not the preserve of boys and men. That a scientist can just be "LittleBear's Mum", who they see every day, and who plays with them and talks to them.

But I'm not a teacher, and it took me a long time to plan what I was going to say and do to introduce atoms and elements to them. I spent many, many evenings preparing material, making molecular models, writing a powerpoint presentation, drawing on stickers, running trial samples on a mass spectrometer. The day itself was marginally nerve-wracking, as I've spent my life stoically avoiding public speaking of every variety, and children aren't necessarily known for being the easiest audience. In fact, it was all fine, and the science co-ordinator has asked me if I'll come back for another session next year. Which I think is a vote of confidence more than a sign of desperation. That's what I'm telling myself anyway. And I am extremely glad I did it, and delighted with the enthusiasm I got back from the children.

The PTA summer fair was also not overly long, or overly onerous, but I simply happened to be the parent who blinked first in the Mexican stand-off of who would take charge of organising the rota for our class stall, and setting it up on the day, and providing stickers and sweets as prizes, and providing a gazebo and chairs so we could survive the day. And it simply happened to be on the hottest day of the year. And I'd simply promised LittleBear that I would also provide both a homemade battenberg and a Victoria sponge with fresh cream for the cake stall. Simple really.

The football team is not, generally, too overwhelming a commitment. It requires time, and effort, and energy, not least because it involves an hour a week running around with a horde of seven year olds. It requires a certain amount of planning about the nature of the running around, and a certain amount of admin in keeping track of which small people have turned up, and which parents have handed over their weekly £2 for training.

That's generally.

But lately we've been dealing with registering the team and the individual players with the FA for next season, and we've been preparing for (and running) a ridiculously large tournament. Which is how I ended up giving up several evenings to painting white lines all over the local school field to mark out eighteen football pitches so that more than six hundred five-aside matches could take place in one day. Like I said, it was ridiculously large. It does raise enough funds to keep the entire club of twenty three teams running for the rest of the year, but it was also a lot of work.

On top of which, there are Tensions, and occasionally even Ructions, amongst the people running the various football teams. I dislike both Tensions and Ructions, and thus find myself having arguments in my head as I lie awake at night. I wonder if I've said too much, or not enough. I wonder whether I even want to be involved any more. I'm tired of showing up and having the physical equivalent of mansplaining occur - the men simply take over and assume I'm not even present, let along competent or qualified. I'm tired of attending meetings with men who appear to think women don't have a place in football. I'm tired of trying to organise and help and plan in the face of constant obstruction, and secret planning meetings that occur behind my back. But my boy loves his football, and Coach and I are working well together, and I love the little boys I'm coaching (most of the time!) and I can see a point on the horizon where the current clouds will start to clear. I just have to survive a little longer. Just a little longer. Just survive.

Except... there isn't ever really a break. Not really. Life doesn't stop. There's always work, and home, and cooking, and laundry, and housework, and gardening, and Random Things That Stop Working And Need Mending. And then there are all the other things. The phone calls about the things I "need" to do, the duties I "should" undertake, the requests to "just" arrange something. There's always a reason to lie awake, my mind churning with shoulds and what-ifs. There's always a LittleBear who can't sleep in the middle of the night and needs a cuddle. There's always something.

So if you see me on a cloudy day wearing sunglasses, it's because I'm hiding my puffy-eyes and tear-stained cheeks from the world.

If you see me walk past you on the street and I only raise a weak smile, and don't stop to chat, it's because my tank is empty and I have no words left for chatting.

If you wonder why LittleBear's teacher is hustling me quickly into the classroom after school, it's because she's trying to shield me from sobbing in front of the entire cohort of year two parents.

If I cancel our plans, if I don't socialise, if I don't join in, it's because I cannot face any more physical, emotional or social effort. I've given, and given, and given and I'm done.

Another step forwards, and four backwards

On Sunday I completed the third full day of my training for becoming a qualified football coach. I now only have a handful of online modules and a "sign-off" session to complete. It was another day jammed full of physical exertion and new information, and in its own right was rewarding, taxing, challenging, interesting and fun. But I spent a good portion of it feeling somewhat unmotivated and demoralised. Not because I kept on landing on my arse when attempting to play against Real Football Players, though I did that a remarkable number of times. And not because our coach was able to find a very long list of areas we could improve in the session we ran, though she certainly managed that.

Among the many areas we were dealing with was the idea of creating individual plans and goals for each member of our team - not simply running training sessions that address a general principle, but working out how to draw some particular learning objective out for each player, whether that objective is a technical skill, a psychological strength, a social skill or a physical one. Not simply aiming to practice "defending" but making sure there is a challenge to stretch the players who are already excelling as well as those for whom defence is not their metier. Oh, and to always remember that we need to be age appropriate, and that it should be fun.

What can I possibly find in that to demoralise me? Other, obviously, from the fact that if I were to actually start trying to do all the things suggested I would pretty quickly end up with a full-time job on my hands. Or, indeed, I would start needing to run training sessions five days a week to try and cover every suggested aspect of football, instead of the one hour a week that we have. And if I did that, it wouldn't be long before there were no players left in the team as they'd be exhausted and fed up, as it would no longer be fun.

Being me, naturally anything vaguely challenging slathered on top of a bedrock of sleep-deprivation is simply Too Much, and my immediate reaction to everything that was thrown at me was to feel inadequate. It all feels too hard, requiring a level of understanding, empathy, clarity of thought, observation skills and coaching skills that I don't have, or don't know how to acquire.

On top of the overwhelming nature of the content, I also have to contend with my own psyche and its inability to function in the real world. Frankly, that's a considerably bigger problem. Let me explain...

For a start, my LittleBear's football team already has a coach, and I am only becoming qualified so I can help him. Coach is, rather alarmingly, young enough to be my son. He is full of youthful enthusiasm and yet possesses minimal tact. He is impulsive and excitable. He gets into a huff easily, and calms down easily. I, on the other hand, require almost constant reassurance that I'm not a complete failure. I don't take criticism well, and I'm more or less incapable of speaking up and saying, "I'm not happy with this situation." We are not obviously well-suited to working together, though get on well as general-purpose human-beings.

However, this mis-match in personality brings us to training and matches, where Coach runs things, and I meekly do as I'm told. And then, because he's young and bumptious, he'll bounce over and tell the boys I'm working with that they're doing things wrong. And in my mind, by implication, I'm doing things wrong. Add to this the fact that every training session and match has a built-in supply of spectators in the parents, some of whom have been Real Football Players, or Real Coaches, in a former life. Nothing engenders confidence in someone who is cripplingly anxious like having a helpful parent wander over and gently say, "Any time you want a hand, I'm happy to help out." Not exactly a vote of confidence is it?

I have, in the past ten days, driven home from both matches and training in tears. I have struggled to write this post, to try to put into words the warring factions within me of loving the kids and loving the football, but hating the responsibility and the self-doubt. It has involved a great deal of introspection to disentangle my own anxiety and low self-esteem from events that have occurred and decide what aspects were entirely inside my own head, and which I need to look outside myself to address. Being me, my initial reactions to any slight setback are utterly dominated by a self-pitying "woe is me" feeling. After several day's reflection I reach a more balanced viewpoint. I do need to talk to Coach about letting me at least try to do things my way, instead of instantly stepping in if he thinks he knows best. I do need to speak up with my own ideas and suggestions from my training, and not simply step back and be passive. But I don't need to take offence at things that are said without malice, or those that are said through a surfeit of enthusiasm and passion for the game.

Most of all, I have realised that if I am going to make any reasonable attempt to both do a good job of helping this little football team and not push myself to breaking point, I am going to have to put some serious work in on my own self-confidence. I can't afford to let volunteering break my spirit - for my own sake and for that of my wonderful bears, big and small. The team may need an assistant coach, but my bears need a wife and mother who is happy in her own skin and enjoying her life. At the moment I feel desperately, tearfully anxious that I will not be able to find the balance required to do both things.

Neither sleep nor food

Last year I wrote about the impossibility of having a child who both sleeps well and eats an interesting variety of food. At that point in time, we were having exciting culinary adventures, but a dearth of sleep, and it was taking its toll. I have mentioned to more people than I care to count that there is at least one good reason why LittleBear is an OnlyBear, and that reason is his mother's inability to cope on reduced sleep levels.

For the past few weeks* LittleBear has been suffering from nightmares again. He wakes in the night in a state ranging from mildly perturbed through to sweating and sobbing, and appears to be only consoled by Mummy. Daddy does his best, but LittleBear generally ends up demanding Mummy as well or instead.

Being me, naturally I am both looking for reasons, so that I can Solve The Problem, and also beating myself mercilessly over the head for my own catalogue of maternal failings that has led to this state of affairs. Because nothing promotes rationality like sleep deprivation. I have tried desperately to spot patterns in good nights versus bad nights. (Hint: there are no patterns; except in the fevered desperation of my befuddled brain).

I think it would be fair to say that some of the approaches I have taken in the middle of the night have not, perhaps, been the most productive. There was the notable occasion when LittleBear summoned me back to his room for the seventh time in the space of a little over an hour. (I forget now whether this was via the mechanism of the pathetic half-stifled sob, or the tremulous cry for "Mummy"). I became, shall we say, tetchy. I informed him in no uncertain terms that there was absolutely nothing I could do. I had cuddled him, I had kissed him, I had offered reassuring things to think about, but he had his bed and I had mine, and it was about time we were both asleep again. Phrases such as "I've had enough of this," were possibly uttered.

And it feels as though I have been making up for this attack ever since. Because, unsurprisingly, getting cross with a distressed, anxious, sensitive small boy does not engender feelings of calm, contentment and security. It feels as though he needs the reassurance that I will come to him at any time, no matter what, because I threatened not to. I don't think he's doing so consciously or deliberately, but I fear that he fears abandonment. So, night after night, I stumble from our room and clamber into bed with him, spend ten to fifteen minutes cuddling him and whispering sweet nothings, before stumbling back to my own bed again. I have persuaded him that he is allowed to come and find me if he needs me, rather than crying alone in bed. And I have persuaded him that it is always better to call me than to be sad on his own.

This has, mostly, worked for the past week or so. LittleBear feels better and goes back to sleep. I feel more confident that he will call or arrive by my bedside, so I no longer strain to hear him. And, miraculously, after a few nights of him actually going straight back to sleep, I began to relax enough to believe that he would do so, and thus I too went back to sleep. In total we were perhaps losing no more than twenty minutes sleep each. Prior to this, it didn't matter how quickly he fell asleep again, I would lie awake, straining to hear his little voice. Just in case. I was losing anything up to 2 or 3 hours sleep on the worst nights. But, as I said, we got into a system. It was working.

Except.

A couple of nights ago, the night before going back to school after the holidays, we had another session of needing a cuddle every ten minutes for a large chunk of the night. Five times? Six times? I lost track.

So last night, when I woke for no apparent reason at 3:30, I then lay awake until LittleBear did have a nightmare, which wasn't until 5:15 on this occasion. Thanks brain, you're not doing me any favours.

Here we are then, going to bed every night, assuming LittleBear will wake in some level of distress at some point between 10pm and 5am.

Does he do so more when he's been told of for something during the day?
My self-recrimination tells me he does.

Does he do so more when he's over-tired?
My doubt at my own parenting skills tells me he does.

Does he do so more when he feels neglected?
My anxiety tells me he does.

Is it just one of those things, and he'll grow out of it, and really I should just chill out, love and cherish him, and wait for it to pass?
Probably.

Am I going to?
Almost certainly not.


* I say weeks, but it feels like months. I have lost the ability to be rational and objective about this. It may even be years by the time I next talk to anyone.

Outside my comfort zone

As previously reported, I have now started training to become a football coach. I spent two solid days alternating between being run ragged by young whippersnappers who turned out to be Real Football Players and being bombarded with information by a Real Football Coach.

I drove to the sports centre where we were due to be trained feeling vaguely sick as the anxiety ramped up inside. I'd managed one slice of toast for breakfast. (Note to self: one slice of toast is not adequate to fuel a middle-aged woman through two hours of classroom education plus two hours running around an astroturf pitch). I did know one person on the course, and despite the fact that we don't know each other well, it was a relief to find a friendly face as I walked into an unknown classroom to see ranks of strangers before me.

From then on I was left with mercifully little time to dwell on any of my own fears and anxieties, because we launched straight in. And it was extraordinary.

It sounds trite to say that it was inspiring, but that's the closest word I can find.

I realised that it has been a very, very long time since I've formally learnt anything completely new. My professional life has allowed me to incrementally expand my knowledge of the rarefied field in which I work. At home I've taught myself to make and do various things, from icing cakes to calligraphy and from making cuddly toys to drawing dinosaurs. But I haven't sat in a classroom and been taught something for nearly quarter of a century.

My brain was filled with a boggling array of new terminology and new ideas; a new way of looking at football and of breaking it down into its constituent parts. I was challenged to think about why I was becoming a coach and what my core values are. I had to consider different ways of coaching ranging from issuing commands through to allowing players to learn by trial and error and everything in between. The kind of things that would be obvious to most teachers, but not to those of us not accustomed to such things. And I had to run around trying to put it all into practice and trying not to be too incompetent when facing a Real Football Player*.

It was completely and utterly exhausting. I came home barely able to speak, think or function, but with my head buzzing with ideas. I sat down and made notes to try and get everything straight in my head before I had to throw myself into the next day and risk forgetting the first day. It was genuinely one of the most rewarding things I've set out to do in a long time. I may never be a great coach. I may never even do a huge amount of coaching, but I've taken the first steps towards getting involved and I've loved it. I've loved being challenged. I've loved doing something so enormously different from anything I've done before.

So maybe football coaching should now count as part of my comfort zone. But even if it doesn't, I have had a salutary reminder that learning new things is definitely something I should be doing more of.




* It remains a point of pride that I did, occasionally, manage to get past a young lady who plays for Watford FC.

Another angle on football

As I believe has probably been discussed on these pages, I live in a household of football obsessives. Myself included. And, due to LittleBear's devotion to his sport, I have found myself volunteering to "help out" at his team. "Helping out" has migrated to becoming an assistant coach, and being DBS checked and trained in First Aid and Safeguarding. Oh, and holding the purse strings for the team. And registering the team for tournaments. And buying new kit. And communicating with the parents. Bit by bit it's sort of crept up on me.

As of tonight however, I have started my training to become an FA Level 1 qualified football coach. I completed my first online module, ready for starting the practical training on Saturday. The fact that I've never played football is beginning to prey on my mind somewhat. Just a bit. The thought of making a complete and utter idiot of myself is becoming a more and more terrifying, and realistic, prospect.

BigBear and LittleBear are being very understanding of the fact that I will be spending 9am-5pm on Saturday and Sunday learning to coach football. LittleBear is being reminded rather frequently that it's all for his benefit, and he has no excuse for complaining. BigBear is simply being very understanding.

Back to the preparation for the course however.

Step one was the need to own astroturf boots. I decided to check out what was available online, which led to this disheartening discovery on the Sports Direct website:

Really?

(There are such things as football boots for women, but frankly, I don't see the need for such a thing. I've bought plain black men's boots. Feet are feet, and my weird feet are weird no matter what gender they are)

The next step was to complete the Introduction to Coaching module online. Most of this was relatively passive and involved reading and watching videos. There were some interactive sections however, with the answers apparently being used for discussion at the sessions at the weekend. I confess that I have been feeling a little low lately. Not quite at the top of my game. Somewhat over-tired and over-emotional. Being confronted with this question was a bit more than I could handle:

Why can't I pick "none of the above"?

Honestly, asking someone who's self esteem is crashingly low what their positive traits are is not going to go well. I was prepared to admit to "Reliable" without feeling like a fraud, and then spent five minutes clicking on things, then unclicking again.

I've only just finished this module and I already can't remember which three qualities I grudgingly admitted to. Which is going to be another way to make an idiot of myself on Saturday when we discuss our answers.

This is beginning to feel like a very, very foolish idea indeed.

Hamster wheels again

I set off thinking about writing about the eternal hamster wheel that I inhabit in my mind, repetitive thoughts and arguments cycling round and round and round. Never ending, never concluding, never progressing, only an infinite loop of the same conversations where I supply both halves and somehow still lose the argument.

And then I looked back through old posts and discovered I have use the phrase "hamster wheel" to describe my endless, sleep-destroying, anxiety-inducing thoughts on at least four other occasions. So not only are my thoughts trapped in perpetual loops, returning to the same point with monotonous regularity, but so are my similes. I can't even manage to be original in my repetitiveness.

So what is it that my poor brain is doing to me?

It's still banging on about the windows.

Not the fact that the windows crashed (doesn't Windows always crash?)

Not even the fact that the window company someone managed to cancel the order to make the replacement windows without telling anyone.

No.

I'm still pointlessly fretting about the change in size of the windows.

I read and re-read emails where there is no hint that the specification is subject to change; emails where there is no suggestion of an apology or acknowledgement that anyone other than me is at fault.

I stare at the "finished" wall into which the bifold doors will be installed. I see all the spare wall that could be busy being window if it hadn't been turned into wall.

I study the diagrams I drew for the builders, and the 50 point text showing a 4000mm opening for bifold doors.

And I still cannot fathom why they changed the size of the doors when there is demonstrably space for the doors to be the size I specified.

I still cannot fathom why they would think it was OK to change the size of the doors without confirming it in writing with me first.

I still cannot fathom why they would ignore seven emails asking about the change in size, and then tell me it was what I wanted.

And so I have endless conversations in my head in which I point out that the builders are either unprofessional, incompetent or untruthful*. I explain why in nauseating detail, determined to demonstrate the rightness of my way of seeing things**.

I don't even know what response I would like in my head when I'm the one providing both sides of the conversation, let alone if I had the guts to actually try and express any of these thoughts and feelings out loud. Which I'm too much of a confrontation-averse munchkin to ever think about. Would an apology suffice? I don't know. Would I feel better if they simply said, "you're right, we screwed up, the bifolds should have been bigger?" What is it that I want?***

The true absurdity is that we're going to have massive bifold doors, through which sunlight will stream in all its unfettered glory. An extra thirty centimetres is unlikely to make one iota of difference.

So why can't my mind let go?

Why can't it shut up?

Why can't I be more like BigBear, with his phlegmatic shrug?

Is it because it feels like unfinished business? Is it because it is, literally, unfinished? Is it because after nearly four months living in a building site, I'm simply so stressed that there has to be a release valve for the stress, and my mind has latched onto the only thing that's demonstrably wrong on site and is venting through that?

One day I will go to bed without lying awake thinking about window sizes and the permutations of events that could lead to them being anything other than 4m. One day I will drive to work without explaining out loud, to nobody, what the problem with 3.7m windows is. One day I will sit in my new room, gazing through my new bifold doors and I won't care any more. One day.


* All, undoubtedly, massive over-reactions.

** This effect is not dissimilar to a situation identified by the cartoon xkcd, in which someone on the internet is wrong.

*** What I actually want is for someone to wave a magic wand and make both the hole and the windows that are on order 4m wide, as requested. This is clearly not going to happen, but I find magical thinking so helpful when trying to find practical solutions to my mental contortions.

In which disbelief reigns

Our building works have passed from comedy, through tragedy and straight into farce.

For those who are familiar with the oeuvre of Kevin McCloud, and his "Grand Designs", it is always the windows. Always. 

Our windows and doors were due on Monday, but did not arrive.

Then they were due on Tuesday, but did not arrive.

LittleBear, in what I initially dismissed as a histrionic fit, declared, "That's it! If they're not here today, they're never coming!" He even put in a full-blown, lip-trembling half sob to complete the dramatic performance.

Being a mature, sensible adult, with a firm grasp on how the real world operates, I told him that this was not a sensible stance, and that of course they would arrive, it was only a matter of 'when'.

And then, today, MrsBuilder contacted me.

After the previously mentioned tragedy, in which the lorry carrying the windows crashed, naturally the windows were re-ordered. We were given an estimated delivery date. MrsBuilder pursued the manufacturers as the delivery date approached, and was assured that all was in order. Until now.

It turns out that the left hand and the right hand of the window company are not on speaking terms. I'm not convinced that Right Hand even knows Left Hand exists. Because Left Hand happily acknowledged that the original delivery had failed and that they needed to make replacements. Meanwhile, when Right Hand received this information they appear to have shrugged and said, "Pah! This is just a copy of that order we've just finished, what a silly mistake, we'll chuck the order in the bin."

And thus it is that Left Hand has been happily confirming things with MrsBuilder, while Right Hand have been happily not making any windows and doors at all.

And thus it is that four months after paying a quite considerable sum of money for some quite considerable doors and windows, not only do we not have any doors and windows, but nobody has even started making them.

I think I would probably be more angry and upset about this if I weren't in a state of utterly bewildered shock. I find it hard to imagine how a company can operate in this way. I have occasionally had cause to be disparaging about my own company, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot imagine one half of the company acknowledging and confirming an order, while the other half unilaterally abandons it.

To her great credit, MrsBuilder has been right on it from the moment she discovered this situation, and already has a quote through for an alternative supplier, and is pursuing others as I type.

The original window company have, apparently, offered a £500 refund as some form of apology for their incompetence. I am pressing for this to be the case even if (when) we don't get them to attempt to make the windows for a third time. I have no idea whether I will succeed in this quest, as I don't actually have a contract with the original window company, I have a contract with my builders.

To be honest, the thought of arguing about compensation with my builders makes me feel more stressed and anxious than the thought of weeks and weeks of waiting for more bloody windows. Waiting doesn't involved interacting with other human beings. Arguing that four months without a trace of a window is unacceptable does involved interacting with other human beings. I don't like other human beings. I don't like interacting with other human beings. I think I feel slightly sick now...

Rationality has left the building

I may, in passing, have mentioned that I'm finding this building work lark a bit stressful.

It's also possible that I am prone, every now and then, to a soupcon of anxiety.

It should, probably, come as no surprise that the stresses of getting the building work done is proving rather anxiety-inducing.

There have been a few incidents that are not world-shattering, and in the bigger picture, well, they're not really in the "bigger" picture, because they're small. But they've been vexing, and frustrating, and have caused me to become somewhat agitated. There've been a few occasions when the diligent, all-weather builders have either misunderstood, misinterpreted, or re-interpreted my designs/sketches, and I've come home from work to find an unexpected surprise has been constructed. I don't like surprises of that sort. Twice I've insisted they change what they've built. The third time I've shrugged off as not worth fighting over. The fourth time (today) caused me to launch a major broadside, that was perhaps a trifle intemperate. The word "ranty" was used by BigBear, in a very gentle and loving way. He's been remarkably tolerant of my irrationality.

There's also been The Question Of The Doors. There's not really much point going into it, but the brief version is that a failure in communications means the massive bifold doors that I asked for are not as massive as I had asked for. I wouldn't even really mind this, if something like this had happened:

Builder: Those doors you wanted?
PhysicsBear: Yes?
Builder: If you have that cupboard you mentioned in passing, there's no room for that size door. Do you want a smaller cupboard or smaller doors?
PhysicsBear: Good question, let me have a think.

Instead, what happened was this:

...
...
...
...
...

And then I measured where the doors are going, found it was smaller than I was expecting, and asked why. I asked why seven times by email, over the course of a week and a half before getting an answer. And then the answer was, "it's your own fault for wanting a cupboard."

The finished room will be lovely. The not-quite-so-massive doors are still going to be massive, and still be lovely. The slightly-surprising constructions will only ever be surprising to me, and though surprising, they are beautifully built. I cannot fault the workmanship of the diligent, all-weather builders.

But...

I feel sick with anxiety. I am afraid that my intemperate ranting will mean the builders will refuse to finish the job. My hands shake as I drive home from work, as I hope that I won't have to speak to them in person. I wonder what terrible things the builders are saying about me to their friends. Some of my friends are their friends. It's not that big a village. How many people that I know now think I'm rude and angry? How many people that I don't know now think I'm rude and angry? Will I move from being "the weird woman who cries outside school" through "crazy cape-wearing lady" and straight into "psycho customer that nobody wants to deal with"?

I am tired of being tired. Tired of lying awake at night having arguments in my head. Tired of thinking and over-thinking every decision and conversation. I want my sleep back, my peace-of-mind back and most of all my home back.

I want to cry.

I want to hide.

I want it all to just go away.

I want it to be over.

Scientifically-proven rage

4am

The edge of Storm Diana battering the house.

The wind moaning against the windows sounding like a child keening. My ears alert to the faintest murmur from my son.

The creaking of the roof joists like a child's footsteps across the bedroom floor. My hands sweaty and my heart thudding as I wait for the door to our room to be opened by a sleepless child.

The flapping and rattling of the tarpaulins outside. Wondering if there's any point looking outside to see whether everything is safe.

The muffled tearing and snagging sound of a cat scratching a carpet. I nearly go downstairs to deal with the defecating beast, but decide it can wait.

BigBear turns to me, "sorry if I woke you."

He hadn't. Or perhaps he had. Or perhaps we'd both been woken by the same noises outside. Either way, I was awake before he went to the bathroom.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm now lying awake worrying about how much the building work is costing."

It didn't.

Earlier in the evening, when it was actually reasonable to be awake, BigBear had shown me a brief report on the effects of sleep deprivation on anger. Apparently, cutting someone's sleep from 7 hours per night down to 4.5 hours per night for only two nights increases anger. I am willing to provide corroborating evidence that this is true.

BigBear's comment filled me with rage. Disproportionate, unreasonable rage. In the cold light of day, it's hard to say quite why. Being worried about the cost of a very expensive building project is fiscally responsible. Communicating with your spouse when you're worried is a fundamental part of a good marriage. Lying awake in the night is something that should evoke empathy and sympathy, not anger. And yet there I lay, feeling unjustifiably aggrieved. Aggrieved that I am desperately short of time, and sleep, and energy, but that the one thing we are blessed with is enough money, and yet now I'm supposed to be worrying about that as well? Feeling as though BigBear's worries somehow negated mine, or perhaps were a criticism of mine. My nebulous anxiety was being diminished by his much more rational concern. Because it's all about me. Especially in the middle of the night.

And then I got over it.

But I was still awake.

And still awake after that.

And then awake some more.

I tried relaxing one muscle at a time. I tried focussing on simply counting to ten as I breathed, clearing my mind of all extraneous thoughts. I tried taking myself off to a "happy place" in my mind, but it turns out there isn't one at the moment.

If we'd had a spare room, I would have retreated to it to read a boring book and nod off. But the spare room is now the "store everything that used to be in the extension" room, and doesn't have a bed. Or even enough spare floor to curl up on. I considered trundling downstairs to the sofa, but then remembered I would be yowled at by IdiotCat, not to mention have to suffer Storm Diana whistling through the not-exactly-airtight temporary door.

By the time 7am rolled round, not only was I tired, worried, tearful and stressed, I was also very, very bored. So, naturally, the first thing I did was go downstairs and check that IdiotCat had not made any further deposits. To my surprise, he hadn't. Though evidence of the scratching, shredding noises in the night was apparent in the pile of carpet-fluff that lay heaped around the doorway. Feeling marginally improved after not cleaning up excrement, I made BigBear a cup of tea to say sorry for being cross in the night. Even though he hadn't known I was cross. Sorry BigBear.

I told you communicating with your spouse was an important part of a good marriage didn't I? Blog posts and unsolicited cups of tea count as communication. Really they do.

Things I nearly said

I nearly wrote a post about all the good things that are beginning to happen on our building site. After a week of inactivity due to the steels that were delivered not being quite right, things have picked up pace.

I nearly wrote about the beautiful steel structure that's held into massive concrete foundation pads with nice big bolts.

I nearly wrote about the new damp-proof membrane we have, and the first course of block work marking out the new walls.

I nearly wrote about the newly drawn structural engineering plans that approve the use of queen trusses, and the omission of purlins with the addition of a flitch plate* that will all come together to provide the high, vaulted ceiling that we want.

I nearly wrote about building control signing off the structure as being to drawing, allowing all further work to continue.

But this morning, I stepped out of the shower to find a small boy thundering upstairs....

"Mummy? I like the cat even less** now."

"Oh dear. What's he done now?"

"He's poo-ed on the carpet this time."

Oh hooray. It's a good thing I bought a box of latex gloves for wearing when cleaning out his litter tray. Much easier to pick up poo when wearing a glove that can simply be thrown away. And to add insult to injury the IdiotCat had used his litter tray to wee in during the night. I do feel sorry for my poor puss, as he is clearly very anxious and very upset about the building work, but I have no idea what I can actually do to make his life easier.

When added to the insanity-inducing insomnia that has plagued me in the small hours of the night for the past three nights, poo-on-the-floor was the straw that broke the camel's back. I had already been awake since 4:30, dropping off briefly around 6:00, only to be woken by LittleBear at 6:15 when he laid claim to a nightmare.

So, despite all the Good Things that are happening, all I really want to do is sit down and cry, and hope that the howling winds outside don't lift the roof slates off tonight. It won't matter after tonight, since tomorrow the slates are being deliberately taken off so the entire roof can be rebuilt, queen trusses, flitch plate and all.

And now, as the evening progresses, I can feel my anxiety increasing, not only as I become more tired, but as bedtime approaches and I start to fear lying awake worrying about the roof, and the floor, and the walls, and the windows, and the cat, and the poo, and the carpet, and, and, and, and....

I'm worrying about worrying.

I'm fretting about not sleeping in a way that will lead directly to not sleeping.

And just like having no ideas about how to soothe the cat's fears away, I have no ideas about how to soothe my own fears away. How to stop myself worrying about sleep, or indeed how to stop my mind whirring manically for hours if I do wake up. I tried every meditation trick I have up my sleeve last night, to no avail. Probably because meditation doesn't come easily to me, I haven't tried it in a few years and I'm a bit rubbish at it. Maybe I should practise a bit more. I do keep telling LittleBear that you only become good at something by practising. Perish the thought that I take my own advice...


* I have developed something of an obsession with the term "flitch plate" so I shall indubitably write about it properly at some point. Who wouldn't want to say "flitch" as often as possible? Flitch. Flitch. Flitch.

** The current dislike of IdiotCat is not so much a dislike of IdiotCat himself, as his behaviour. Along the lines of loving the sinner but hating the sin. It is the wee-ing on the carpet which has led to the statements of dislike.

Definitely a cat-astrophe

The IdiotCat has managed to avoid walking in any more concrete, which is indubitably a Good Thing. The IdiotCat is, however, deeply suspicious of the entire building site now, and despite the lovely builders best and most determined efforts to ensure he always has a route out, he has decided that he doesn't like it, and that he would rather attempt to dig holes in the carpet and wee in the living room. This is indubitably a Bad Thing. (Not dissimilar to Mog's Bad Thing, for any aficionado's of Judith Kerr's work).

I have now had to clear up more of the IdiotCat's Bad Things than I ever had to clear up after LittleBear when he was moving out of nappies and into Big Boy Pants. And nobody built LittleBear his own special ramp so he could safely climb over a freshly poured set of concrete foundations to get to the toilet either.

And this is why I was late to work this morning after shampooing the carpet (again) and we now have a litter tray in the living room. Yay.

Meanwhile, I turned into my normal self last week and lay awake inhabiting the hamster wheel of my mind, wondering about as many different permutations of roof construction and ceiling-shape as I could think of, entirely pointlessly, and with no reference to any facts whatsoever. Ill-informed, exhaustion-fuelled speculation is always the best way to spend the nights. After a few days (and nights) of this, I decided that since I'd actually employed a competent, professional, friendly building firm, it would perhaps make more sense to furnish myself with some facts by asking questions instead of imagining what might be happening.

Fighting my own tiny battle against the stigma of mental ill-health, I sent an email confessing to MrsBuilder (who is also in charge of all their admin) that I suffer from anxiety and that it was getting on top of me, and that even though my anxiety issues aren't technically their problem, I'd really quite like to know some more of the details of what's planned for the structure of the roof. And then I spent several hours feeling even more anxious about having made a complete arse of myself. MrsBuilder, happily, didn't see it that way. Or, if she did, she was very diplomatic about it, as she immediately made an appointment to come round with MrBuilder and go through everything together, and assured me that I only ever had to ask if there was anything I wanted to know.

I'm so pleased I employed this company. As BigBear put it, they have empathy.

Having a meeting with Mr and MrsBuilder did provide me with plenty of facts, which has eased the sense of "Aaaaaghhhhh, I don't know what's going on." It hasn't done much to help with the sense of impending doom as I discovered they're going to have to remove the entire extension roof and rebuild it from scratch. Perhaps the volume of timber in the garden should have given it away.

And just when we thought we'd found all the most entertaining parts of the former construction, more came to light.

Do you remember the welded beam?

Top quality "welding"

It turns out that the blackened marks that I'd rashly assumed to be evidence of welding are soft. And sticky. Even those of you who are unfamiliar with welding are probably more-or-less aware that welds are rarely soft. Or sticky. So, yes, it does look as though that fish plate* is holding the two beams together with mastic.

Fortunately the new steel work that will replace the not-welded, not-bolted, not-set-in-foundations steel work arrived on Tuesday, ready to be fitted yesterday and today.

Unfortunately the new steel work hadn't been made right, so has had to go back. I'm currently working on the basis that since the house hasn't fallen down in the past twenty-five years, it's not likely to choose the next few days to do so merely because I now know that it's only staying up through pixie-dust and unicorn tears.

Stress? What stress?


* Another of my new discoveries, along with king trusses, queen trusses and purlins is that the slab of metal used to weld two beams together is a fish plate. Though if it's not actually welded, maybe it's not a fish plate?

Causes for joy and despair

The destruction continues apace, with the house now being deficient to the tune of two roofs, three walls, four windows and a door. It has, however, acquired three Very Large Holes. These will be for pouring concrete into as footings for the new steelwork, assuming the buildings inspectors who were coming today are happy with the holes. At nearly a metre cubed each, I can't see how anybody wouldn't be happy with them really. If you're going to have a hole... make sure it's a big one. Or three big ones, which must be three times as good.

Before it finally disappears forever, I do have another little visual treat for you, however. I present for your delectation the manner in which the lean-to extension is joined to the flat-roof extension:

Construction at its finest

Please don't spend too long staring at that image, looking for the cross-bonding of bricks, or the anchor bolts, or indeed anything at all. There is literally nothing, not even silicone sealant, in the gap between the two buildings. They are simply built "quite close" to each other. Not even that close.

On the plus side, we have discovered that the pitched roof is actually attached to the main body of the house with something more than glue and good wishes. Not much more, but something more.

A bolt, a bolt, my kingdom for a bolt!

In fact there are at least four M6 bolts holding the first set of roof timbers to the wall. Which is four more bolts than appear to have been used to hold anything else together. This genuinely made me almost giddy with excitement. You have to take your pleasures where you can.

Meanwhile, the nature of my mind is such that I have been awake since 4:30 this morning fretting about the roof trusses, and their location, and appearance, and size and whether they will have to span what was going to be an open, vaulted ceiling and completely change how the room was intended to look, or whether there's an alternative structure, or whether we should revert to having a "normal" flat ceiling in the revamped extension to avoid having exposed (not very beautiful) trusses. You'd be surprised by how many hours I can spend worrying about roof trusses.

And then this morning, MrBuilder arrived on site, as well as the Diligent Weekend Builders. So I asked MrBuilder if we had to have the trusses visible, and now I know all about king trusses and queen trusses and purlins, and he knows what we want, and it's all fine, we almost certainly don't need to have exposed trusses, and what was I worrying about anyway? But never fear, I'm sure there'll be another thing I can lie awake worrying about soon.

Being brave

Here we are, crawling to the end of half-term, wondering if it's now time for a holiday to recover from this one. More or less the same story as every holiday with LittleBear. Holidays with a small child are never quite as relaxing as holidays without a small child used to be. Which is not to say that they're not fun, they just involve considerably less sleep, less sitting around watching the world go by and definitely less reading a book with a nice glass of something in front of me.

This particular holiday was slightly talismanic for me - I have been increasingly feeling as though my world is getting smaller, my horizons narrower. I have found reasons and excuses not to travel. I have felt thwarted and trapped by my own inability to lift my head up and face the world. So I promised myself I would start with a small step. I would go to Zurich, where my friends live, where I've been before, where I know I can cope. And I didn't just promise myself, I looked two of my good friends in the eye when I said it, and they made me promise to stick with it, to not let life defeat me. And in my head, I built this trip up to be Something Important. It was to be the first step in travelling to more far flung destinations. If I couldn't do this, then there would be no hope for me.

Nothing like piling the pressure on myself is there?

Which is obviously how I came to be sat on GrannyBear's sofa the night before we flew crying that it was all too hard, and too scary and I couldn't do it. BigBear even offered to let me bottle out if that was what I wanted. I hadn't told him about my inner promises though, or that this trip represented something bigger to me than just visiting friends in Zurich. (I expect him to mind-read. For some reason he thinks this is unreasonable).

However, to cut to the chase, we went, everything was fine, and we had a lovely time. But since I'm not, generally, prone to writing the kind of blog posts that paint my life as some kind of Instagrammable perfection, I thought I'd share some of the odder aspects with you instead...

Like the fact that my awesome planning saw us renting an apartment in a relatively central location. Just off a road called Langstrasse. And while it's not exactly the Reeperbahn, it is very definitely the red light district, and party district, and drugs district. Both prostitution and cannabis are legal in Zurich. Let me introduce you to the bar on the ground floor of our building.

Ideal for children

And perhaps we should all pause to ask ourselves what kind of an apartment needs individual red lights above the bedroom doors?

Anyone worried?

I was distinctly relieved that the only question that LittleBear asked was "Why is that shop called 'Acid'?" pointing to a shop with the characteristic smiley face in the window. That and asking why the bakery along the road needed to be open 24 hours a day. We decided not to explain the concept of the munchies. The bakery, however, proved to be a great blessing, allowing me to pop out every morning for fresh baked goods only a minute from our front door. And thus it was that we discovered that LittleBear has a passion for shoggi gipfeli. Those of you who are not already familiar with this confection may be tempted to Google it and determine that it is a chocolate croissant. But you would only know half the story, for a shoggi gipfeli from the "Happy Bakery" is nothing so ordinary sounding as a chocolate croissant. I cannot really do it justice other than by showing you my small boy attempting to tackle one.

Nearly as big as his own head

Despite our insalubrious surroundings, we explored Zurich, mastered the tram system (even went to the tram museum) and introduced LittleBear to a variety of food stuffs that weren't all cheese or chocolate. A lot of them were cheese or chocolate, but they came in different formats, such as raclette and rosti, chocolate meringue and ruby chocolate. He also ate sourdough and bacon and coffee ice-cream, not to mention tackling gruyere and emmental, which are considerably cheesier than red leicester. To be honest, I was more impressed that we managed to go out for dinner with a vegetarian, a coeliac and someone with lactose intolerance and find things they could all eat. LittleBear has almost ceased to be the hardest person to find food for.

I will leave you with what I think should be the cover for a rap album. Taken under a tram.

Consequences Part I

I have carefully chosen my post title in a tempting-fate kind of way, in the hope that by describing this as "Part I" there may never be a "Part II".

Last night I wrote about a minor run-in with another human being as I cycled home with LittleBear. I wrote about it in a relatively flippant way, making light of the anxiety I was feeling, as I try to bring a level of amusement to my friends so they see the absurd contortions my mind takes as I battle, almost daily, with anxiety that can be paralysing. It's not only for the entertainment of my fellow-man however, it's also to try and shed some light into the darker corners of my mind, to bring them into the open and allow other people to realise that even people who may, on the surface, appear fully functioning, happy and well-balanced may be struggling underneath. I hope to bring understanding and compassion to the world, in however small a way I can manage.

I'm not sure that yesterday's post achieved those aims. I don't think I conveyed the true depth of my own distress. Distress that I had made a stupid and rude mistake in speaking out loud when I didn't need to, and incapacitating fear of the consequences of my actions. I wasn't joking when I said I'd already spent six hours worrying. I was not joking that I would lie awake at night pondering the possible outcomes. In the darkness of the night I pictured Angry Bloke tracking me down in the playground and confronting me as though I were an American referee he was a Colombian defender*. There was finger jabbing; there was pushing; there was shouting. I got up this morning feeling physically sick. I struggled to eat my breakfast. I considered texting my friend to ask if she would collect LittleBear from school so I could avoid The Path Of Doom. I didn't offer to go to school this morning for reading-time with my LittleBear, just in case. I let BigBear go instead. I actually chose to miss doing something I love, with the child I adore, because I was shaking and sick with anxiety. This is me. This is who I am. This is who I hate being.

Then I turned my phone on.

And I found a message from a stranger. Someone who reads my blog, but whom I don't know.

She told me,

... or cycle on the right side of the road as a vehicle should.

That was what she took away from my attempts to light-heartedly describe my day while revealing my own mental struggles. She decided to presume that I was guilty of a minor traffic infraction** and to reprimand me.

And I was left wondering whether some of my readers, this stranger included, think this is all some kind of joke? That I exaggerate my feelings for dramatic effect? Or maybe that this whole blog is a work of fiction? Some sort of anti-Yummy-Mummy page where I pretend to be a bit kooky to get page hits? I don't. I am real. I am not just words on a page. I am a living, breathing woman who makes mistakes, who gets things wrong, who fights to be a better person but sometimes fails. This is me.

I drove to work in tears because a stranger on the internet had criticised me. I spent the night lying awake, afraid of what a different stranger might say to me in person as a consequence of my own actions. I am considering not going to a friend's birthday party on Saturday because I have reached humanity-overload. I am not sure whether I can actually face interacting with other people, with putting a smile on my face and pretending that I can function in society. And all of this has come about because of my interactions with two strangers. People whose opinion should not matter one iota. People who have no duty of care towards me, beyond basic civility. People who have probably not given a second thought to the ongoing ripples from their transient encounters with me. People who are not to blame for my reactions.

This is why my life is exhausting. Every day is strewn with moments such as these. Moments of passing remarks, casual comments, glances, expressions, that create in me an agony of over-thinking and fear.


* Not a reference that will stand the test of time I suspect. For my future self - World Cup 2018; England v Colombia; penalty awarded by a US referee to English captain Harry Kane resulting in serious objections by the Colombian team.

** I have also spent a large amount of time mentally drawing maps and diagrams to explain the actual layout of the area in question, and the intersection of a cycle path and a road so that I can demonstrate that while my comments were rude, my cycling was entirely legal and responsible, and that my use of such terms as "pavement" and "path" were not precise and accurate descriptions of the actual thoroughfares in question. Because that's what anxiety does. It forces my mind into a hamster wheel of panic and self-defence.

The perils of passive-aggression

I collect LittleBear from school by bicycle every day. 

We take the same route home from school every day.

And every day the same group of parents stop in the middle of the path, at a point where it splits, and prevent anyone else getting past in any direction while they exchange inanities before going their separate ways. They make absolutely no effort to take the additional three steps forwards that would allow everyone else to go about their day.

Today, being a Bear Of Insufficient Sleep and Commensurate Levels of Patience, I snapped, and as I finally managed to cycle past I muttered to LittleBear that I didn't understand why people had to block the path. Which provoked Angry Bloke to shout after me that they were saying goodbye to their friends. 

And I have spent the last six hours stewing on this and feeling stressed and anxious. I am running through in my mind whether I should try taking a different route home so that I never have to risk seeing him again. Or perhaps making sure we spend an extra five minutes in the playground every day from now until the end of the year to make sure we don't encounter them at that corner again. I have been fretting about whether tomorrow he will see me and accost me about my rudeness, or perhaps deliberately block my way. Or maybe he'll push me off my bike? Or tell everyone within earshot that I'm a rude and selfish person? Or find some as-yet-unimagined manner of publicly humiliating me? But it's OK, because I've got all night to lie awake and imagine the things that are as-yet-unimagined.

It perhaps wouldn't be quite so bad if I didn't know I'd been in the wrong to make over-hearable comments instead of just saying "excuse me". Though (in my feeble defence), "excuse me" has completely failed to penetrate on any day so far.

If anyone spots me hiding in the undergrowth near the school, I'm not a weird stalker, I'm just hiding from Angry Bloke and the Path Blockers. Which might be what I name my band when I'm forced to run away from home to escape the howling mob pursuing me with flaming torches and pitchforks over my poor path etiquette.