Pick Yourself Up...

Looking back at June, I'm a little shell-shocked. I don't quite know what happened. Ups, downs, spinning arounds; it's had it all and I don't feel any better for the variation. Several writing rejections balancing out that short story publication and more personal setbacks than you can shake a stick at. I always get a little self-reflective as we head into July (my birthday month) but June this year has just made me fearful. Will things continue to get worse? Ironically, given how much trouble I've had from it in the past, my PhD doesn't seem to be part of this bad spell. It's tricky, yes, but I'm winging my way through, I know what I'm doing and I'm getting good feedback. After all this time, I seem to be confident academically. We'll see if that lasts.

So...what next? Well, July will be as fractured as June in some respects. I'm in London for a few days for a conference and I'm sure there'll be some enforced time off around my birthday, though I'll likely spend the day chucking popcorn at my own reflection. I'm drifting from day to day, unsure of what I'm doing save for the thesis edits which I'm deliberately taking slowly in order to get right. My stress levels have mixed oddly with my apathy, meaning I spend half the time restless and the other half miserable. Completing the PhD won't fix this - the problems are too deeply rooted and far removed from academic worries. So I suppose I'm in no rush any more which, perversely, has meant I can attack the thesis with no pressure and it's therefore getting done more quickly - and accurately - than it was before.

I'm restarting my work diary (again, I last restarted it in January and lost the thread again in March). Hopefully this will give me some structure, reminding me that I am actually working and, if I can quantify that work, so much the better. I may need to go back to my old habits of a little work on something then switch - it may suit my restlessness.

If the second half of 2014 is going to be as challenging as the first, I need to prepare myself. And no one assists that more ably than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers...

Nothing's impossible, I have found,

For when my chin is on the ground,

I pick myself up, dust myself off,

And start all over again.

Don't lose your confidence if you slip,

Be grateful for a pleasant trip,

And pick yourself up, dust yourself off

And start all over again.

Faces of Anxiety

I would never have walked into my old office singing songs from On the Town (I waited until I was shut in the scanning room and then sang to relieve the monotony). Nor would I sit down with my four year old nieces and be a miserable old harridan who isn't much fun. The fact that different faces are required for different parts of your life is inevitable. Something I've realised, though, is that these 'faces' are the reason my anxiety's permeated every aspect of my life. There is barely a person alive I'm not putting a mask on in front of, very few people who could, if you'd like, appear on Mastermind with me as their specialist subject. Probably the ones who think they could are the ones who'd be forced to make up ground in the general knowledge section. What it comes down to is the toll this takes on someone. I freely admit I've always been a bit of a wimp so maybe this is something that affects me disproportionately.

The root of my anxiety is 'doing something wrong'. There are many reasons that's developed, none of which I'll bore you with, but the fact is that it remains an everyday problem. Not just when I step into the outside world either. If you're having to watch every word you speak, type or text all day, every day the default position becomes defence. You become insulated, isolated. You're so busy wondering what you said to whom and was that right and what if it wasn't and what are you going to say next that each day becomes a bit of a slog. And, yet, without communicating with people, online or otherwise, life quickly becomes a little drab. It's a conundrum, and one I really haven't grappled with until now.

Is there a solution? Do I try and stop being a different person to everybody in my life? That would require some home truths and I'm a wimp remember. But this policy of remembering who I am in every conversation, of remembering the boundaries and the masks, is growing heavier by the day. Perhaps it's no wonder I take refuge in fiction...

Doggy Terror

I've mentioned in the past that our terrier, Rosie, is having some stress problems. We put the last bout down to the death of the last cat but her symptoms have returned with a vengeance.

We've got her on some mild tranquillisers because she's been very nervous for the last few weeks. We've been very patient with her, rewarding her for good behaviour and just generally being affectionate towards her. However, yesterday things took a downward turn. My father leaves for work at 7:15. Twenty minutes after he left she started charging at the dining room door in fear. I called down to her which usually works but not this time - the insomniac was forced out of her bed and spent Tuesday in something of a daze.

Last night I spent half an hour downstairs with her after my father went to bed. When I came upstairs she started banging at the door almost immediately. I left it for a few minutes to see if she calmed of her own accord, but she didn't and - worse than that - she woke my father up. Now that is a cardinal sin in this house. I rushed downstairs, he came out of his room swearing and threatening. I politely told him to buzz off and settled downstairs for a little longer despite my fatigue. I've had to do this once before, on an occasion where I had work the next morning and didn't settle down till after three.

I sat and watched a film I'd recorded weeks ago - To Be Or Not To Be, an 1942 comedy/drama starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny. It was probably a better film than I gave it credit for in the early hours of the morning but at the time I was going through the motions of sitting there and offering comfort to the dog. After almost two hours of sitting with her, I got up and switched the television off. Without a word, I left the dining room with just one slight alteration to the way I'd left it before - I decided to leave the light on for her. Now, I don't know if it made her feel safer or if she spent the entire night expecting me to appear at any moment. Still, she didn't kick off again.

I fell into bed close to two o'clock. However, I was completely on edge. I was listening out for the slightest noise because I knew I'd have to get there before my father if she started charging again. I estimate I fell to sleep between half-past three and four o'clock. Then I woke up when my father got up at half-past six. I couldn't get back to sleep while he was pottering about but hoped I would be able to once he had left for work. No such luck! He'd barely been gone five minutes before she went mental again.

I'm ashamed to admit I screamed at her. I was running on two hours sleep and, while I can cope with delaying rest, I can't usually cope with being woken from it or it being interrupted. I went downstairs in a zombie state, turned the television (Radio 4) and light on for her and left the room again. Must've worked. Not a sound till my alarm went off at half-past ten. Now, I don't know how much sleep I actually got in that time. It was probably only another hour to add to my two and a bit. I still feel like someone hit me with a golf club.

My big worry stems from the fact that tomorrow I'm heading off to London. That means I need a decent night's sleep because the travel is going to be stressful enough for me as it is. So I'm spending Thursday night in London. That leaves my petrified dog with my angry father and that's something I'm not happy about. When I get back from London I'm literally here for an hour before I flit off to Derby for the weekend. That leaves a total of four nights for the dog without me to sit up with her and try to calm her down. Not sure what I'll come back to. I know it's not her fault and, to be fair, so does my father. But his fuse is so damn short, especially when he's tired, that I'm anticipating a difficult couple of days.

As if I hadn't enough to worry about!