Son, She Said, Have I Got A Little Story For You.

I was heading home from work one evening in December 2012 when I received a call from my dad. We had an okay relationship. We were close but there was still an odd kind of distance been us, some kind of barrier that we couldn't quite work around.

When my dad calls it never tends to be for good news. He isn't really the chatty type and rarely rings when there isn't something going on in our lives. More often than not, he's the harbinger of death, calling me to tell me who's passed away from our extended family in Yorkshire. I still get a bit worried when I see his name come up on my phone.

We both briefly said hello. He asked if I was at work and I said no, I was on the bus heading home. "Okay, he said, I've got some news for you son......"

I waited to find out who'd passed away.

"I've been diagnosed with Alzhiemers."

I was stunned. He'd been having a few odd episodes. He'd had instances where he'd forgotten where he'd parked the car or he'd suddenly realise he wasn't sure where he was going. He'd forget he was cooking and left things in the oven until they'd burnt. He put washing powder in the toilet rather than the washing machine. He starting buttering a plate rather than the toast he'd just made. It stopped being funny and started becoming aconcern. Things were just getting that bit worse for him.

I was taken a back. My dad was in his early sixties, not someone who was old. When you're younger you almost think of your parents as being immortal. You slowly see changes as they age but they're so subtle you don't understand the one inevitable fact that we are all growing older. Also, when he'd had the tests the doctors discovered signs of damage on his brain, caused by several mini strokes. He'd not even realised he'd had them and they had probably occurred in his sleep. Even more things to worry about.

It took me a while to understand my dad's illness, accepting it has taken a hell of a lot longer. When I talked to my counsellor about it a few months ago he said something that stopped me completely in my tracks, that what I'm experiencing is grief. The fact that we have to watch aspects of him slowly slip away, that we know we are going to be robbed of things in the future. I'm grieving over what my dad is going to lose as well as the fact that we will eventually lose him too. It's hard to prepare yourself for anything like that.

I think it's fair to say that for a while my dad struggled too. After the initial 'I'll be okay' attitude, the realisation set in. I can't begin to comprehend what it's like to be told that everything will start to become unfamiliar. People, places, memories. Aren't memories our most personal, private treasures? Each one is unique and nobody will ever have the same as you. They go to make up and shape who you are. Alzhiemers not only takes these from you, but they take away your identity. It takes the very core of what you are away.

Mental illness. It's a cancer of the soul.

Part of the thing my dad struggled with was accepting it. Doing that proved to be hard. He came from a generation where you didn't talk about things like that. You got on with it. He was a pitman until the government robbed us of the industry. You carried the world on your back and you tried to move on. He never talked about the hardships of the miner's strike. He never talked about his dad dying. He never talked about how he felt about us. He was a man from that generation that meant you just kept quiet about things. He kept things very close to his chest. To accept it would mean he would after to talk about it, about his feelings and his fears, and that was a sign of weakness.

He was diagnosed with depression not long after that and started taking medicating for that too. Understandable really and something that wasn't unexpected. But what was unexpected was what happened next. And I'm sure all my family will say it took us by surprise.

My dad started opening up and talking about it. And not to just us. To total strangers. In large numbers.

He started going to support groups and discovered that he was able to talk about others about what he was going through. My dad was approached to become a spokesperson for alzhiemers awareness and he took the challenge head on. It was part of his way of dealing with it, of trying to fight it. He started speaking to groups to help educate people. He had radio and newspaper interviews (you can read some here and here). He had taken something that frightened and worried him and found an aspect of it that he could control. He had gone from someone who liked to keep their life private to someone who had embraced what they were and were not afraid to be open about it. His attitude seemed to completely change.

(As an aside, I'd like to point something out. Although my dad had talked about it to me, to read in a newspaper article that your father has seriously considered killing himself over this is still heartbreaking. My dad found a way to release himself from that but how many others haven't?)

My dad has even gone out to people who've recently been diagnosed with dementia to talk to them and reassure them that the diagnosis isn't a life sentence. You can lead a relatively normal life. He still drives, he still cooks, he still goes to suffer watching Sunderland play football. He tries to live his life the best way he possibly can. He's developed a very dark sense of humour. The meds help fight it but we all know that at some point they won't be aaffective anymore. I dread that day and hope it's in the far distant future for us all. In the meantime though, we try to keep things as normal as we can.

We've opened up to each other more and more of late. After I published my first blog he came over and we talked for about two hours, just the pair of us. About depression. About dementia. About how we try to deal with these things. About being open. About what we're afraid of. About the lives we've had, the lives we live now and the lives we could possibly have.

I'm going to do a sit down chat with him at some point soon and record it. I think he's a great example of taking something and doing something unexpected with it. Also, it means I'll have something, a record of his story, to pass on to others and also to remind myself:

No matter what happens, there is always hope.

The title of this volume of my blog comes from 'Alive' by Pearl Jam, which you can find at Pearl Jam - Alive (Live). It's a song based around the person he thought was his father being revealed not to be him, and that his real father had passed away. To me, it's become a reminder, to reach out and be there for the ones you love while you still can.

If you'd like to talk to me further you can drop me an email at rustyred666@googlemail.com. Also, I've created a closed support group on Facebook, also called The Order Of The Dog, where you can come and find kindred spirits who suffer from mental health issues or just want to help support others. Finally, please feel free to share this with anyone or anywhere where you think it might help.

Cheers,

Scott
The Order Of The Dog.

There Are Those Of Us Who Deal With Darkness....

I've posted about music several times already in my blog and I've no doubt that I'll post about it several more times in the future. Music is such an incredibly important part of my life. Even my blog titles are taken from songs. It changes my mood, it touches me in a way most things never could.

Music is my main medication in life. If it wasn't for music I wouldn't have the friends I have (most of whom I've met through music) and I wouldn't be here. It has, quite seriously and hand on my heart, saved me. My meds work to try and keep me on an even balance, but music is the thing that can really cure me. A song can alter my mood in seconds. Some uplift me, some motivate me, some relax me. Others, a select few, offer me catharsis, that emotional release that seems impossible. I know very few people who can watch the video of Johnny Cash performing 'Hurt' without being choked up. The Temple Of The Dog album got me through the passing of my grandad and immediately sends me back to that time in a heartbeat. And as for Steve Earle's 'My Old Friend The Blues' is a perfect meditation on life.

The subject of this blog came to me after I had gone through a bit of a dry spell with my writing. I always have several blog pieces I'm writing and last week I was working on them as best I could but I wasn't connecting. My writing felt forced and faked. Take a break from it my brain said, even if it's just a week. So I took its advice and took some time away from it. I thought it'd be a couple of weeks and I'd decided I would only start when inspiration struck with a new idea, not something I'd been previously working on.

The thunderbolt struck me on Sunday night.

I'd gone with Sarah and a friend of ours to see a gig in Newcastle at the Miner's Institute. It's one of Newcastle's most beautiful buildings dating back to the 19th century. It's quite grand and is very typical of buildings of that era, with marble floors and sweeping staircases. It resonates with me in a different way too as it's a centre of mining heritage in the North East of England. My dad, my uncles, my grandad and generations before them were pitmen. I come from a strong mining background like most people in this part of the country and I've lived in mining villages for most of my life. There's a sense of community that's still there. But that's probably another conversation for another time.

We had come to see a band called The Lake Poets, a band comprised of a young guy called Marty from Sunderland. He writes acoustic songs tinged by folk and country music. A lot of them flow with the life blood of our heritage, especially when you start listening to songs about the miner's strike of the eighties in these surroundings. They instantly remind you of a once proud industry that is now non existent, thanks to the actions of the Conservative government of the time that seemed to want to create divide across the country and social classes.

I have another tie to the Lake Poets. Last year when I was going through a major episode of anxiety and depression. Sarah and I went to see them perform at a different venue in Newcastle. It had been a bad night before we even got there with long traffic tailbacks triggering anxiety that just seemed to escalate. When we eventually got there we sat on the balcony just above the stage, away from the crowd and giving me a handy exit if the need arose. By the time Marty and his band took to the stage, my anxiety was at a peak. But as soon as he started playing a combination of his songs, his voice and his playing started to sooth me, calming my frayed nerves. I lasted the whole night, shedding a couple of tears due to the power of the performance rather than the results of my illness.

Fast forward to Sunday night in the Miner's Institute. Part of me was a little worried that the songs' power would be diminished without the enhancement of an overemotional state. I was wrong, so wrong.

He was part way through his set when he started talking about the story behind one of his songs. It concerned a young girl he was teaching who showed him a huge bruise on her hip that her father had given her. He went on to play Black And Blue, the first song I ever heard from them. When I first listened to the song I was floored. I had to stop, skip the track back and play it several times in a row. I bought the album purely on the strength of that song. I know I'm not only one who's been affected by the song. A few of my friends have felt exactly the same when they heard it. It's one of those songs that just connects on a pure, raw emotional level.

Marty was playing the song solo at the Miner's Institute. His voice and guitar had everyone spellbound. I felt like time had stopped. I didn't need to breathe. The only thing that existed was this performance. Something inside me felt uncaged. The tears started. Not just tears of sadness, tears of emotional release. I felt like there was a cleansing of all the negative emotions I was still carrying from my last incident. My face and beard were damp. I could tell without looking around that I wasn't the only one touched by the power of his song, the feeling in the room was tangible. You could feel the relief once he'd come to the end of the it as the entire room seemed to exhale collectively.

Other songs hit home too. Shipyards (about his grandfather who who never got to see him perform), North View (his memories of his gran before she passed away from Alzhiemers) and Vane Tempest (influenced by the Miner's Strike and it's effect on his family) left various people, including myself, with tears on our faces, especially when you consider the latter song was being performed in a room steeped in so much mining history. The songs weren't full of misery either, they all carried a sense of hope and a celebration of the past to them.

I left the room feeling emotionally lighter. I wasn't quite prepared for emotional release it gave me, but I'm so incredibly thankful for it. So thankful that I felt I was finally able to let go of the extra baggage I wasn't even aware I'd been carrying, something that medication, counseling and therapy hadn't been able to do.

The indefinable power of music.

The title of this blog is the first line from Black And Blue (the song I discuss above) from The Lake Poets. A live version of the song preformed at Tanfield Railway (which is about ten minutes drive from my house) can be found here The Lake Poets - Black And Blue (live).

If you'd like to chat to me you can drop me an email at rustyred666@googlemail.com. I've set up a closed Facebook group, also called The Order Of The Dog, where you can come and find kindred spirits who suffer from mental health issues and people who want to learn more and support others. Just click on this link - The Order Of The Dog. Finally, please feel free to share this blog anywhere and with anyone where you think it might be of help.

Cheers,

Scott Hamilton
The Order Of The Dog.

You Can Spend Your Time Alone Redigesting Past Regrets

Sometimes trying to start something is the hardest part about it. When you suffer from anxiety just trying to make a change can be one of the hardest things you can do.

The first step on the road, turning the first page, being the first person to speak. It's like we're afraid of that commitment to something unknown. This is most of us, not just the odd ones of vus who suffer from mental health issues. We all want that something but we all seem reluctant to do anything about it.

Try to sit and take stock of things in your life. Think of all the good things you have, the special relationships, everything you're thankful for. Now realise:

None of this has happened by accident.

Some things happen because of the deliberate choices we make. Some happen because of a decision made by someone else that directly or indirectly is passed on to us. And even then, we are the ones to decide if we accept it or react against it.

Think of all the missed opportunities we've had, countless moments of triumph and failure that have passed us by. The times that have slipped us without us knowing. Should we be sad for them? Why? Isn't it better to regret something that you've done rather than something you haven't? If we spend our lives grieving our missed opportunities we'll spend the remainder of our brief time here not being able to enjoy what we have right now. We can't enjoy the next meal, the hug of a loved one, the song on the radio, a walk along the beach. We can't appreciate them as we're too busy wanting what we've missed.

These moments don't exist, they never have and they never will. Too many of us spend time obsessing about these moments that have passed us by. Too many 'what ifs' or 'if onlys'. We need to close our lives off to these. We need to start living in the present tense, not the past.

We can change what happens now and what happens next. We cannot change what has been set in stone in the past, or even things that have never happened.

All you need is the desire to make that change, the desire to take that first step. Carpe diem - seize the day. If something is wrong and you don't like it, do something, anything,to try and change it. You may change it for the better, you may not.

But you'll never know unless you try.

The title of this installment of the blog comes from the song 'Present Tense' by Pearl Jam. You can find a live version of the song here Present Tense - Pearl Jam (Live)

As usual if you want to get in touch with me you can drop me an email at rustyred666@googlemail.com. There's a closed support group on Facebook called The Order Of The Dog  that I've set up for people to talk and get support for mental health issues. Also, please feel free to share this blog wherever you think it might be of help.

Cheers,

Scott
The Order Of The Dog.

'Forgive yourself. Share your experiences. Break the stigma' - A Conversation With Megan.

I first came across Megan and her blog, The Manic Years, through WordPress. I spent a bit of time reading through it and find it fascinating. I try to spend time reading other people's work but I don’t have as much time as I'd like. But Megan's really resonated with me at the time. She was also asking people if they wanted to share their stories. A few emails later and she had mine which she blogged here Music and Blogging. I asked Megan if she'd reciprocate which she was happy to do. I sent her some questions and a few days later I received her replies. And here they are:

Would you like to say a few words about yourself?
Hello! I’m Megan, I’m 26, and I live with my 4 year old daughter. I like to write in my spare time, and I run a mental health blog called The Manic Years. I also have a degree in Biological and Biomedical Psychology, and have a working background in academic and clinical research. I love my life, but unfortunately it has been scathed by a battle of mental illness.

When did you first start showing signs of mental health issues?
The first significant memory I have of when things started to get difficult for me, was probably from the age of 12. Back then, I was having a really difficult time at home with my mum being ill (she had clinical depression, social anxiety and OCD).  She was constantly bleaching the house, in a world of her own, talking to herself, you know. I suppose I started to withdraw myself from the outside world, and that caused a whole lot of other issues for me. I just wanted to rebel. Drinking, a change in temperament and eventually, self-harm. Other than that, looking back from now I suppose I could say there was something wrong with me even earlier than that. I had a large group of friends, but I always felt like an outsider ever since I was a kid. I felt too much. I was so sensitive to the world around me. Extreme emotions which I couldn’t understand. It made me a shy child. I think what was happening at home kind of escalated that, it was too much for my little soul and unfortunately I retaliated by reaching out for dangerous coping methods.

How did people react to you? Did you get the support you needed?
People certainly noticed. But I didn’t get support. I was confused, and I was scared, and I didn’t know what was happening to me. Generally I was socially withdrawn and depressed for the last few years of high school. But then I had times where my mood elevated up to the point where I was the complete opposite to myself. I was loud, extroverted, and impulsive. There were times when I would channel this in to creative arts (I used to paint) and writing. I write a whole novel throughout my last years of high school. Who does that at that age?! Sometimes I would get so severely exhilarated with life, that I’d lose control of it and my memory would black out. I’d wake up having taken large doses of pills and I would have attacked myself, quite viciously in some way or another. That’s when the self-harm became more apparent to the people around me. The first time I lost control of myself I was at a house party that I had organised. I was having a good time, my mood escalated even higher, and then the next thing I knew I turned nasty and tried to cut my nose off with a knife. I had no idea why. I still have the scars on my nose today. I certainly didn’t draw the connection to psychosis back then. Afterwards, I would become withdrawn again, indifferent to my peers. I didn’t know what was happening to me, so I kept to myself.

How did you try and deal with your issues? Are there things that worked better (or worse) for you?
My extreme mood cycles continued after I left high school, and I can hold my hands up and admit that I went down the wrong path and dealt with them in the worst way possible. My self-harm behaviours went from occasional to a daily struggle; I developed an addiction to caffeine and prescription pills in an attempt to self-medicate my symptoms (which I ended up in rehab for), promiscuous activity, impulsiveness, even more ‘Black outs’. I thought these were my coping methods, my conscious choices. I didn’t realise it was something else altogether. At one point, when I was 17, it even went as far as me packing my things and moving to another country. That was the first time somebody had mentioned that I might have Bipolar disorder. I dismissed the thought; “But I’m not happy?” I had a total misconception of the disorder, so much that even though my symptoms were extreme and apparent, I still didn’t relate them. I thought that Bipolar was a case of being sad one minute, then happy the other. I thought my self-harm and my intense behaviour was me dealing with depression; turns out it was mania! I finally got diagnosed ten years after my first symptoms showed and it was only then when I was provided with the right tools and the right knowledge to approach the illness from there on. After a long process of getting the right medication, my life finally began to feel settled.

How are you at the moment? Do you feel like you're doing okay?
I am just coming out of a bit of a manic spell (my medication started failing), so I am still a little unstable, but I’m getting there. I have come a long way from how I dealt with episodes in the early years. I have a solid platform to keep myself well after years of psychotherapy,  counselling, CBT and well…. Practice! There was no self-harm, no destructive actions and less consequences after this one, and I was strong enough somehow to come out of after a matter of weeks (I wasn’t fully untouched however, it affected my ability to work and I am now dealing with those financial implications!). These days,  I think I finally have a better understanding of how important it is to track my moods, surround myself with the right people in my life, practice a healthier lifestyle; having a routine, strictly taking my meds, regular contact with my doctor, not going out drinking as much. I have a daughter now as well, so even more reason for me to strive for wellness. I suppose with Bipolar, it feels like a constant fight to keeping your stability; she definitely provides my safety net that keeps me from swaying.
My support network is my lifeline. My friends are incredible, even though I have a smaller circle now. They have been nothing but supportive over the years. My family and my partner have been my rocks too, I’m really lucky. My life is far from perfect, but comparing it to my teenage years and earlier twenties I can finally come to the conclusion that yes, I am doing incredibly well!

Tell us about the blog you started. How did that come around?
My blog, The Manic Years, came about as a therapy assignment back in 2013 when I finally got my diagnosis. It was an outlet to track my thoughts – my moods were all over the place back then – and I suppose when you are in the midst of feeling so down you can’t cope one minute, then ecstatic the next; writing makes a good reference for you to look back and gather your feelings in to something solid that you can understand. It helped with coming to terms with the disorder, it helped with venting my emotions when I was in such states, and it finally helped me on the road to forgiving myself after a lifetime of harmful behaviour towards myself and to others.

What do you feel the blog gives you? Do you find it a good outlet for you?
I am really proud of the way the blog has transformed over the past 6 months. I used to only write posts when I was in the fog of extreme feelings, and I think that’s when people started to take interest and connect with me. I have a way with words when I’m stuck in an emotional state, I am in no way a ‘writer’ so to speak, but when I’m trying to describe how I am feeling it somehow works. I have had a lot of feedback recently of people reaching out and saying “this sums up exactly how I feel in words!”, and the feeling of helping people and making something useful from my experiences with mental health.
Recently, trying to stick with the ‘real experiences’ feel to the blog, I started a Sharing Stories feature, where I encouraged people to tell their own stories drawn from their experiences. So far, we have had a good range of mental health topics such as eating disorders, PTSD, social anxiety. The feature has definitely broadened the blogs theme from being a one way perspective of mental health that it was originally. I feel relatable experiences of what it is really like to suffer is exactly what was lacking on my journey to understanding what was wrong with me to begin with; and so I wanted to produce something that portrays a real life account of information that people can say ‘This is me!’, rather than your usual detached facts and figures approach in to mental health issues that you so commonly find on Health websites and leaflet these days. Bipolar is a very complex disorder, and is not usually picked up for diagnosis until years later; as it was with my diagnosis experience, the average being 10 years from onset of first symptoms! Can you believe that? That’s ten full years of consequences, pain and even suicide numbers. I really feel we need to evaluate our approach to mental health, and that is exactly what I have planned for the future of my blog.
The feature has had a great response, and the amount of support and lovely comments from readers is overwhelming. If you would like to take part, please feel free to drop me an email.

In closing, do you have some final words for people?
I cannot stress how important it is to reach out to people if you feel you are struggling. Depression and other things are nothing to be ashamed of, I think it is more common these days than people realise; particularly with it becoming more of normality in this day and age. I think people who have battled to fight the stigma of mental health have done an incredible job in that past few years, especially now with higher influencing people and celebrity statuses opening up about their own personal encounters. Sharing really does save lives.

Fight for yourself, speak out, connect, help people, and drop the judgement. Forgive yourself. Share your experiences. Break the stigma.

I'd really like to take some time to thank Megan for taking the time to answer my questions. You can read her blog over at The Manic Years. If you'd like to take part in sharing your story you can drop her an email at themanicyears@gmail.com. You'll find it a rewarding experience.

If you want to get in touch with me you can drop me a line at rustyred666@googlemail.com. Also, you can join our closed Facebook group, The Order Of The Dog by going to The Order Of The Dog. It's there for people who suffer with mental health issues as well as people who want to support or just get a better understanding. Also, please feel free to share this blog wherever you think it'll be of help.

Cheers,

Scott
The Order Of The Dog. 

The Road Ahead Looks Shorter Than The One Behind, Either Way I'm No Closer To Wisdom

Even though I'm out of the other side from my last big episode, it's still there to a certain extent. Anxiety and depression ebb and flow like the tide, just without the regularity. You can feel it creeping in for days or sometimes it just crashes in like a tsunami of negativity.

Today feels like a struggle. Feel like I've been able to put on the pretence of it being a normal day but my mood is dictating otherwise inside of me.

I started feeling this one descending a few days ago. I've been working on a blog focusing on what had happened just after my overdose a good few years ago. It was a bit of a slog getting through it all to be honest. I'd spent quite a bit of time writing and rewriting everything, wondering how open and honest to be about my life at that time. As weird as it sounds but it had actually been a lot easier to write about my actual suicide attempt than it had been to write about it's aftermath. Perhaps it was being down to the fact that I could approach the story about the overdose with something more of an analytical approach.

This time though the dog feels as though it's got some teeth in me and it's trying not to let go.

The black mood is just hanging there, ebbing and flowing. I can feel it trying to get at me and I'm fighting it all the way. It's shit how it tries to recolour everything. Things that I know start to get questioned as I feel it's paranoia working it's effects on me. I'm starting to doubt things. As dumb as it sounds but I've started questioning the validity of the doing the blog. I know it's doing what I want it to do. It's letting me articulate my feelings and put things out there. It's allowing me to communicate and help people and that was the whole purpose.

But the mood is making me think twice. I've sat here wondering why I bother, what's the point? I know the benefits of it and I know about the positive feedback. I just don't know why I'm feeling negativity about something that's brought me nothing but positivity.

I know it's only temporary,is a passing phase. A lot of people I know aren't feeling quite right. Perhaps it's something contagious. I wouldn't care but there's plenty of good things going on, just feel like I'm stretching a bit to appreciate it. Things will be better soon though. Perhaps I just need to recharge my batteries a bit. Let's ride the wave out, let's see where it takes me.

The tittle of this blog comes from the song 'Deathstimate' by the Irish band Therapy? You can find a link to it's video here Therapy? Deathstimate

As usual you can get message me at rustyred666@googlemail.com. If you search for The Order Of The Dog on Facebook you'll find the closed support group I've set up. There's other sufferers there as well as people who know someone who's affected by mental health issues.

Cheers,

Scott
The Order Of The Dog