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dr claire weekes mbe on anxiety

28/8/2018

PEACE FROM NERVOUS SUFFERING

Dr Claire Weekes (11 April 1903 – 2 June 1990) was an Australian general practitioner and health writer and
also had an early career as a research scientist working in the field of comparative reproduction. She is considered by some as the pioneer of modern anxiety treatment via Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. She continues to be noted for her books on dealing with anxiety disorders. Many of today's anxiety self-help books cite her work. I was greatly helped by her books in the 1990s and have just found her on youtube. Click the "PEACE FROM NERVOUS SUFFERING" link above to be taken to her playlist.

photo © Rightasrain Studios 2008

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aging #6 - "exploring death from womb to tomb"

7/6/2018

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That's a quote from Dr Leah Kaminsky.

I've been reading two books - The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke (U.S. author) and We're All Going to Die by Dr Leah Kaminsky (Australian author). I found them at the library by chance, in the 155.937 section.

As I've said in an earlier blog, I was born thinking about death, terrified of it, bemused by it, fascinated with it, my artistic temperament trying to make sense of it. Year after year after year.

Kaminsky talks amongst other things about the marketing of death, how the medical profession is more about cure now than helping the dying face death. "We keep people alive, hooked up to ventilators and IV drips, pumping drugs into withered bodies to keep them going when the life force has clearly left them. Preserving the dying in ICU like living mummies, we no longer know how to let them go." She mentions how the stethoscope is being replaced with "gadgety digital LCD readouts based on some super voice recognition technology" and worries with humour that she'll be listening to someone's heart and there'll be silence because she's pressed the wrong button. The company assures that you can record and share sounds like never before, that it has power that will amaze and volume that rocks. She addresses as a GP her and our fear of death and dying. It is truly an indepth personal look, yet very uplifting.

Meghan O'Rourke finds she is unprepared for the intensity of her sorrow at her mum's death of cancer at only 55. Woven throughout with references to her relationship with her mother and the process of dying, it's also a story about resilience in the face of loss. Lyrically written, it's an eye-opening memoir.

I highly recommend both books.

photo © Rightasrain Studios 2017

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what do you do...

27/7/2017

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...when you have a seriously bad accident that ultimately changes your life, your view of the world (although mine has always been skewed...like my dominant-use arm and hand), your body's ability to ever be as flexible again as it was prior, and changes your opinion of people's relationship with you, your opinion of people ... period?

I have had to compensate, readjust, re-evaluate, re-find, accommodate, counterbalance, reconcile, balance, accustom. Super-sensitivity ... I was going to say "doesn't help", but that is what people tell me and I refuse to say that to myself. My sensitivity has given me my gifts and talents. (But) it also makes me, my body, my skin, my senses, my ability to live this life, difficult because of my awareness of life and living, and the thin thread that holds us from dying. We die, we all die, we all die eventually whether it's 10 years away or 2 minutes. Facing actual death which I have done a few times, is life-rattling. And falling does that. Yes, "thankfully you didn't hit your head, break your hip, break a leg". People say that but it negates a further conversation about how rattled I was by the whole experience. I look for depth. Brushing off my experience with an "anyway", which crops up so many times in conversation with friends and family after I have "shared", doesn't cut it.

Anyway ... this isn't about them. This is about finding myself again, finding my music, my art, my gaming love, my use of limb and life. I am on the way there but it takes guts, courage, detachment, love and dare I say it, commitment. A word I learned to hate in my cult days. It is about acceptance, accepting the fact that my fall is another nail, not in the coffin, but in the stack of difficult, harrowing experiences I have been through, mind-boggling, nailed as an extra experience and weight on top of all that's already happened to me. I hear "drama queen", "over-the-top", "yes-but", "be grateful". Too bad, this is my life and my experiences make me compassionate. There are many many many of us on this planet just like me. Many don't speak up, don't need to, don't want to. Silent, because negativity, perceived negativity, isn't looked kindly on in this day and society.

This is my story. Will I ever be grateful for it? No, I doubt it. But it's still my life, my experience. It is me. Is that sufficient? Maybe not. I have to live with it though. No choice. And once again, in spite of depression and PTSD, I paint, I draw, I game, I play, I watch, I read. I have once again found, hauled back, my loves.

What else can you do? After all, I am still alive.

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Lauren Hillenbrandt on CFS

28/6/2015

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Lauren Hillenbrandt wrote "Seabiscuit" and it was made into a film.

She talks here of her life with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

On Wikipedia, this really struck me because I've been there done that:

Hillenbrand says, "I'm looking for a way out of here. I can't have it physically, so I'm going to have it intellectually. It was a beautiful thing to ride Seabiscuit in my imagination. And it's just fantastic to be there alongside Louie as he's breaking the NCAA mile record. People at these vigorous moments in their lives - it's my way of living vicariously."

I would answer the same way as Lauren Hillenbrandt:

What would be your advice for people who have been diagnosed with CFS?
Lauren Hillenbrandt:
"It's such an individual journey. But what I would say is, no matter what happens with this illness, I think it is possible to carve out a dignified and productive life. This illness takes everything away from you, and you have to find completely different ways to define what your life will mean to you. But I think it's possible to make a good life. I have been happy in the time that I've been sick. It requires a real redefinition of everything, but I think it is possible to do."

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dr claire weekes mbe on anxiety

aging #6 - "exploring death from womb to tomb"

what do you do...

Lauren Hillenbrandt on CFS

I write stuff.

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