From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

Cork is festooned with posters.

So many that I’m wondering whether I should vote on appearances.

I’m undecided. My vote up for grabs.

I think I better write a Manifesto to guide me through the process of deciding where to place my vote.

In order to have something solid to sail by, I propose this mantra:

“Health before Wealth“

or would it be better to say:

“Health and Wealth are bedfellows”

- what do I mean by “Health”?
- what do I mean by “Wealth”?

I think I’ll explore this in order to dispel some of the confusion I feel when surrounded by politicians being themselves.

Right now, I stick by “Health before Wealth”.

I favour…

the party that has ensured clean water before planning permission.

the party that has let people out of prison to serve their time cleaning up cigarette butts from our streets, the party that has a track record of producing useful community service from criminals.

the party that has influenced farmers to let people walk the land, so that they might lead less sedentary lives.

the party that has complained most about the Irish health system, that is most angry at its poverty, especially its lack of services for people with cancer and depression.

I’m minded to vote for the politician who has been least satisfied with the status quo.

But I could be persuaded, I think.

One thing is sure: I trust no politician. I hold them all to account.

You must read this blog (thebitterpill).

I found out about it when its author sent a comment to this blog today.

Otherwise I might never have found it.

If you read no other blog today, read this one.

You will thank me for putting you in touch with it.

This is my way of saying thanks to thebitterpill.

I’d like to highlight a comment from Noel to the post I wrote on 26 April .

His comment gave me encouragement to think deeper into what I mean when I say that I’ve experienced recovery from depression …

what I mean when I say I have ‘recovered’ from depression …

what I mean when I say that most people who suffer from depression recover from it…

and go on to live good lives…

Noel’s comment was a challenge to me to be clear and careful. That’s how I take it.

I thank him for it.

Please read the exchange of comments, and add your own comment, if you feel like it.

I feel I’ve been sold a pig in a poke this weekend.

I bought The Irish Times and turned to the Weekend Review.

I mean that I got excited by the prospect of a decent bit of review and analysis by Carl O’Brien. He got a whole page around a wonderful photograph by Patrick Brown jnr.

I looked at all the text and relished what I was going to read. I was in need of some insightful comment about the horrible proceedings that have dominated my mind this week.

Entitled “Trail of questions”, Carl O’Brien and his editor squandered the opportunity, in my opinion.

The piece is a useful summary of what happened.

It includes quotes from the adult Dunnes, detailing their funeral instructions.
Quotes from Mary Dunne, his mother
Quotes from Bridget Dunne, his sister
Quotes from Jim McDaid TD
Quotes from Catherine O’Brien & other neighbours and locals
Quotes from Sebastian Dunne, one of Adrian Dunne’s brothers
Quotes from Declan Coogan, from the Irish Association of Social Workers
Quotes from Dr Tony Bates, a senior clinical psychologist.
Quotes from the local parish priest, Fr Bill Cosgrave.

The journalist, Carl O’Brien, assembled all this in a professional style.

This is what he inserted himself:

(and I quote it because I am so disappointed in it…)

“The Question Of whether State authorities could have done more to protect the family, meanwhile, is an imponderable one…”

He lists five questions:

“Should the Garda have intervened earlier?

“Did they need to wait for more information from health authorities?

“Were the potential risks facing the family sufficient to merit their immediate placement in care?

“Could both authorities have communicated better?

“Could anything have been done to prevent the family’s deaths?

And then he writes

“WE ARE NEVER LIKELY TO RECEIVE CLEAR OR SATISFACTORY ANSWERS…”
(my caps, my bold)

Oh what a thing to say. What a preposterous thing to write. Purile. Infantile.

We need adult thinking. Serious thoughtful stuff. Not, what I feel is, rubbish thinking.

These are good questions. They and others deserve to be investigated in order to help improve things for the living. We need to learn from these dreadful deaths because this sort of incident (not in this precise form) will happen again. Disturbed people are living in our communities. People in need are out there right now, on the edge.

Some people will tip over the edge and be on the verge of killing themselves and their children. This is as clear to me as my expectation that the sun will rise in the morning.

We should expect to receive clear and satisfactory answers.

This journalist, unwittingly I hope, is influencing public opinion and other opinion formers to expect less than we are entitled to expect from our public representatives, and authorities.

Whoever heads the investigation into this tragedy better do a good job, better find out things for us, better confront us with the information as to what was the culture that facilitated this result.

What were the habits of thinking and acting that influenced the outcome?

That’s the sort of thing we need to know, if we are to have any chance of preventing such a disaster in future. The fact that this event happened so soon after another tragedy in Wexford does not mean that there is no hope for the future. It should re-double the anger of those in the community who will not accept the status quo, who will not accept that what was done was good enough.

The editor of the Weekend Review should, in my opinion, be ashamed of such defeatist journalism. I expect more of The Irish Times.

I will not accept such writing in such an important place.

I will go on buying the paper because I want it to reform itself and I want those two responsible journalists to be embarrassed at how they missed an important opportunity to say something useful.

It is not enough to be comforting. Now is the time for firm resolution because there are real people depending on how we handle this. Not all of them are adults. Children’s lives are at stake.

Come on The Irish Times, do a lot better. Somehow find a way to lead the fight for clear answers.

I’ve never done this before:

I’m posting another comment I’ve just written on Sarah Carey’s blog, so as to make sure as many people as possible who read me can consider the following:

“April 26, 2007 at 11:10 pm

Returning to the theme that sparked Sarah down this thread:

“I feel we have lost the art of listening, the skills of listening to understand. We have no time to listen, and sometimes by listening to others we may have to confront the pain in ourselves. There is just not enough emphasis on listening, it’s not a panacea to solve all ills, but so many people wade through life feeling that nobody understands who they really are…” (This is a quote from Paul’s blog which began the thread)

I got a booklet from the HSE with yesterday’s post, entitled “Parents who listen, protect”. Subtitled: “A handbook on building good communication in families and communities. Published by the HSE as part of a national initiative on child protection”

I see thanks and acknowledgments to ten HSE staff, including Derek Chambers, National Office for Suicide Prevention, HSE.
(I hope he reads this…)
Let me quote a little:

“If you know someone who you think might be thinking of suicide, show you care by offering support, for example say something like: ‘I’m worried about you and I want to help.’

“Get help or encourage them to get help, for example by saying ‘I will stay with you until you can get help.’ There are a wide range of supports and services that can help in a crisis, including:

The local GP or family doctor;
GP out-of-hours co-operative services;
Accicent and emergency departments of general hospitals;
Voluntary support services such as Samaritans and Aware.”

The introduction says:

“… In any family and community, it is important that adults and children listen to each other and talk to each other daily. Children rely on adults in their life to guide, teach and protect them…”

I was very surprised to get this booklet.

It seemed to come without warning. Among general election bumph, it might easily have been thrown into the recycling with a moment’s consideration.

As a production, I admire it. However, I worry that someone in the HSE has now ticked the box and moved on to another project. Investment made for what return?

I wonder will there be some follow-up monitoring to find out what % of recipients benefited from the booklet?

If onlys… :

If only someone had stayed in the house with that family over the whole weekend…

If only someone had said “I will stay with you until you can get help”…

It’s easy to be nostalgic for a golden age, a time when there was a ‘real’ sense of community, an era when people minded their neighbour’s business…

However, we can only live in the present, and, hopefully, the future.

I still think this will be brushed under the carpet

by the authorities, politicians and the wider Irish public. Only a small number of cranky people will fight on, complaining about the need for decent mental health services. Howling for services that reach out into the wider community, searching for people in trouble and being with them at their hour of need.

The impulse to kill yourself…

The impulse to kill yourself, your spouse and your children is temporary and passes. Depression lifts and dissipates. Almost everyone who experiences depression survives the experience and lives on.

Many of the many survivors of depression never stop hating the pain they went through, and what it did to their loved ones. But also emerge better people than they have ever been before: more aware of themselves, their needs, the needs of others - and committed to help people through the hard job of understanding what depression is like and how they can make the community a fitter place for everyone.

We should all welcome those who speak out about their experience of depression because hearing the voice of a survivor gives courage to those who are suffering right now.

I know.

I was in the pain of depression and I was helped to remember that I would come out of it. I am grateful to every voice, however weak, that speaks up about what depression is really like and how you can get to the other side.

I wrote this for Sarah Carey’s blog.

62 comments about the Wexford tragedy - worth reading, as BlankPaige suggested:

“Sarah and everyone,

It’s taken me a long time, and a lot of energy, to read down through all the posts to arrive here and express something. Paige said I’d need plenty reserve strength, and she was right because this is a draining business and the confidence I have read has caused me to doubt whether I should say anything.

But of one thing I am sure: the next time a couple of young adults and two young children go into an undertaker and make arrangements for their funeral, there will be alarum bells ringing all over the place. Someone said hindsight is not insight, and I know that applies here.

If the adults had gone in without their clothes on, they would have been intercepted and there would have been serious public reaction. But all they did was discuss their deaths, and pay particular care to how their children should be laid out. To me, with hindsight, it is a clear as anything that they were seriously disturbed. I firmly believe that if anyone had asked me what I thought, hypothetically, of any couple doing that, I’d have immediately said they were not fit to be left in charge of two young needy children. But I can’t prove I’m right now. It’s too late.

In my mind, this might have been a cry for recognition, recognition that “we are in trouble…” Certainly, most people in half of their health would have expected some significant reaction to such behaviour. Healthy people under 35 do not plan their funerals, and certainly don’t plan how their children should be laid out.

The undertaker was surely right to phone someone. The Gardai have legal duties and it was, I think, right to contact them quickly.

I see Ireland as a country in transition. There is still some semblance of traditional community. There is certainly in increasing urban-like anomic community: this is a community within which most people don’t know their neighbours, let alone feel they owe them a duty of care. So it is not so strange that this family seems to have kept themselves to themselves, and many locals have spoken of the man doing that. So no one is looking out for others with much experience. People are less and less practised at noticing that something is wrong with others, even those who appear to be holding it together.

People who are so much in trouble that they are thinking of all their funerals are not proud of their distress. They strive to disguise it. Certainly when I was deeply depressed and thinking of how I might kill myself, I did not display this despair openly. I tried to act normally. I held many conversation without my heart being in them. I wanted people to think I was normal. I also yearned for the company of a community within which I could be miserable openly.

I didn’t tell my wife I wanted to be dead. I didn’t let my mother know I was imagining the easiest and least troublesome way to die. I didn’t reach out to my brothers with an open display of desperation. They all knew I was depressed. I didn’t hide that. I kept away from other people so much, and that was so different from my usual way, that I felt I was obviously distressed.

The priest, had he suffered from depression himself? Unless he has experienced severe depression he is unlikely to know how hard it is to keep going over a long time. I know I believe everyone who commits suicide is suffering from depression. This does not mean that everyone who is depressed is going to commit suicide and murder their children. But depression is dangerous and people who go planning their children’s funerals are dangerous.

If the priest was a close friend, he would have gone back himself the following day, if he was worried. So I presume he wasn’t worried and that he was not really close to the family. I bet he wishes he had attended to that family all weekend because he knew there were no statutory services on the horizon.

The garda went off duty and handed over to another member of a complex organisation. No one took a decision that there was a risk here. I find this surprising, so surprising that I suspect that at least one garda felt there was a serious risk but didn’t feel empowered to take effective action. Easier to avoid individual responsibility within a collective bureaucracy. If this is so, there is a organisational culture issue and this analysis fits with other stories I’ve heard.

I also think it would be good to ‘get real’ about the health system. Everyone knows that mental health is the cinderella of the whole system. We all know there is no after hours service. We know there is no pro-active service looking out for troubled individuals and families. We know that children are in their parents care and that troubled families mean above all vulnerable children. This is a risk we have been prepared to tolerate.

Politicians respond to pressure. They want to be elected. It is because there has been so little pressure on politicians that there is so little service for people with mental health issues and their carers/supporters. The rate of change is so slow that it will be generations before there is a step change in the level of safety for people living with depression. This I believe.

We, the needy voters will have to take much more dramatic action to change the situation than we have ever taken.

But social change is not easy. There are competing demands and politicians and civil servants are the agents that we have to broker overall changes in social priorities.

Anger is healthy. To be understanding in the face of such a disgraceful and tragic event would be less than human. At least there is life where there is indignation and if the majority are casting round looking for a target to stone, this is a sign that there has been violence against a core human value.

Irish systems run by Irish people on behalf of Irish people and their children have failed this time. Will this blow over? I favour an inquiry for fear that this will be replaced by another headline grabber.

I’m sure I haven’t expressed exactly what I wanted to say, but at least I’ve given it a decent shot. Thank you Sarah for being here.

I went to an Aware meeting last night.

I’m bound by the agreement to confidentiality that starts every meeting. But I think I’m entitled to report on how I got on at the self-help group which began at about 2010.

I fell asleep. I was awake for most of the first person. However, I nodded off, woke briefly to hear a bit of one other person, and otherwise slept soundly - without snoring - until the end of the discussion at about 2135.

No one even tried to wake me. They all knew I needed the sleep, even though this was my first time slumbering through an Aware meeting.

I’ll never know what happened at that meeting. Over tea in the kitchen afterwards, everyone was kind and gentle with me. We don’t talk about what was said in the meeting room. We relax and enjoy each other’s company, and chocolate biscuits.

Why did I fall asleep?

I’ve done it before. But only at dinner parties, after wine, especially when I’ve not been the centre of attention. (Gradually the Wiffe has ratcheted up the consequences for me of falling asleep in public: she has got crosser and crosser to the point where I’ve given up drinking red wine. She’s succeeded in curing me of the habit of relaxing too much in such social situations. And I thank her for that. I don’t like sleeping over my friends.)

I’ve never fallen asleep when I’ve been at such an interesting discussion group as Aware: I’ve always found the issues and the people riveting.

So why nod off last night?

I’ve been through a rough time over the last week. I was exhausted.

First, I’ve been doing paid work:

running a particular “time management” training course that was new to me, for a new client, and I’ve had to drive Cork to Limerick and sleep in someone else’s bed overnight

designing and running an innovative “teamworking” session for a high-powered group, none of whom I’d met before

Second, I’ve been doing this in the context of an urgent rush to complete the sale of the Wiffe’s house in Dublin, and exchange contracts for the purchase of a house in Glanmire in Cork:

travelling to Dublin by train to sign documents

dealing with the people in the Wiffe’s house, including getting them out

struggling to find a way to dispose of furniture and other stuff in time for that house closure

Third, I’ve had an exciting, emotional run up to the Wiffe’s highly significant birthday:

bothered that I might forget something important

concerned that my co-ordinating skills might not be up to complex celebrations

Finally, I did the worst thing possible:

I lost her gold bracelet, and the four charms I got as birthday present to go with it.

This was a disaster because she’d been reluctant to let me borrow the bracelet in case I’d loose it. She must have had a premonition: on Friday evening I couldn’t find the charm bracelet. I was convinced I put it somewhere safe and secret in the house - so that she wouldn’t come across it be accident before the day.

I could go on about what happened next, including how I tried to deny I’d lost it until there was nothing left to say. I could describe the fury, the sheepish guilt, the frustration - the sheer volume of emotion that welled through me (and her too).

To complicate things, we had a lovely time on most of Saturday, all of that evening in Ballymaloe, all of Sunday until I had to say “I have lost it…” So the excitement was not all negative.

However, I’ve had no quiet & calm time recently.

So, is it any wonder I fell asleep among my fellows at Aware last night.

The best thing is that I narrowly avoided having a crazy week which would have involved me delivering a high-powered presentation & driving to Dublin on Tuesday, supervising a removal company, sleeping on a fresh bed, driving on to Limerick on Thursday, to another bed, to another training course, to another bed, and finally, on Saturday morning driving back to Cork, to a house with guests, to let the Wiffe go off for more celebrating with her girlfriends.

Somehow, in the middle of the furious emotions that swilled through me, I was saved from my own weakness: saved from doing too much, as if I could do everything.

So, last evening, I sat and slept and it was the best thing I could have done there.

Today, I am a fresh man,

and I meant to blog about the Vincent Browne show in RTE Radio 1 last night, on which John McCarthy made a wonderful advocate for people with mental health issues.

Tune into the podcast on the RTE radio website and you’ll find a great debate about what it’s like to be in the care of the Irish health system. Probably John won’t get elected as an Independent from Cork North-Central in the coming election, but his voice is badly needed in Irish public life. Through him, people who are suffering have had a voice and I wish that voice to be louder. I hope the people in that constituency will not miss the opportunity to vote for John: they may not get such an opportunity to vote for their health again.

Especially after the suicided deaths of the family in Co Wexford: that news harrowed me all day yesterday and probably added to my tiredness.

But now, after such a long write, I crave the calm of an empty kitchen where I can make my own tea.

There is blue in the sky over Cork.

I blog before bed.

Thinking how hard it is to blog while earning my living.

But also thinking how hard it is to live without blogging: I need the writing practice. If I don’t get it, I grow rusty. Also, stuff festers.

I got a great buzz and surprise from a conversation with my sister in USA: she was reading the blog. I thought she was much too busy to read this blog and it turned out she was brousing back over back issues.

We even agree to do something together, across the Atlantic, almost to the Pacific…

Then she made me jealous:

She been in the company of David Whyte, and hear him read, live. I’ve only hear a couple of his CDs. He brings a group to the west of Ireland every year and addresses the meaning of life, or journeying, or mid-life-crisising or the like with them. They walk together and I wish I could afford to join them.

I even wrote a poem about him once. Perhaps that qualifies me as a ‘groupie’?

Today…
I worked hard preparing a session on teamworking for about 14 people. In about ten hours, I meet them. We’ll consider the work of Myers Briggs and its relevance to their team.

I hope I wake up able to be useful to them. The rain in Cork won’t matter

ps: The sister is not responsible for me becoming jealous: I made myself jealous.

I’ve been having cognitive behaviour therapy, for a long time.

It feels like a long time since I first went to the therapist back in February 2007. I’ve only had two sessions.

At the first session, the therapist asked me to keep a daily diary of my moods. Also, to listen to a CD on stress, and fill out some questionnaires about myself.

At the second session, a few weeks ago, I read out three pages from my diary. The diary is now 190 pages long. It has turned into something else.

The therapist asked me to keep a record of how I spend my time, and analyse it into time spent on essential things and time spent on pleasurable things. I’ve been doing this in a haphazard manner. There is another bit of homework which I have not yet done.

There is a lot of homework in this therapy.

I’ve experienced many therapies. For me, this is a demanding therapy, especially in between sessions. If I was depressed, I would find it hard to do. It encourages me to think carefully and thoroughly about how I think.

Concentrating on the messages I give myself, the thoughts I converse with in my ‘head’, the urges I give myself through thinking.

At the core of cognitive behaviour therapy is the proposition that :

how we think determines how we feel.

The diary has been a marvel and has helped me change my way of living - for the better.

I feel much more in touch with how I am than ever before. I am much better able to take other people in my stride than ever before. I feel more grounded than ever.

The diary is written in Moleskine. This is the best book I have ever written in. It is satisfying to hold, solid to look at and has lines spaced out in a style that suits me, my eyesight, and my thick fingers.

I’ve bought another volume, so that there is no chance I’ll fill this one and be stuck without one for even a moment.

This morning I took the first page of my diary to the Munster Literature Centre imaginative writing workshop. I gave out one page and read it out. They then offered me feedback, helpful feedback.

They also thought I’d given them a poem, even though it said “diary” in the footer. Perhaps the bit I read out was a poem and I didn’t know it.

I’m thinking of setting up a separate blog where I’ll publish the diary, all of it.

That’ll help me see if there might be a book worth publishing.

A sort of applied philosophy book.

The sort there have been millions of.

And the train from Cork left on time…

Arrived on time…

Allowing me to spend most of the journey typing up my draft applied philosophy of life…

Another book I’m working on…

Almost a finished work…

About what it is like to strive to be me - rather than a copy of someone else

And before I forget it, I found some urban vandalism in The croppy fields memorial

A spray canister of graffitti

Against the backdrop of Seamus Heaney

Along the Liffey

Adjacent to Collins Barracks

Astonesthrow from the railway station

Animating my ire

Arresting my attention

Ahern opened it in 1998

Astonishing that you can’t see the Spike from there

Aghast the skyline a round Guinness

Amen.

That’s why this is so late appearing.

Actually I mean I did paid work, because I work everyday.

Daily life is work for me, feels like work, and every interaction I have with every other person is certainly work to me.

I love work.

I think I’ve always loved work. Certainly I’ve been lucky in work, even been fortunate in paid work.

I work for myself.

I like working for others too.

The best book I’ve ever read about work was written by David Whyte.

I have two copies of Crossing the Divided Sea, but both of them are in a container waiting to be transported to Cork from UK.

How to make meaning from work - that’s the kind of thing David Whyte writes about.

He also reads poetry better than anyone I’ve ever heard.

He’s worth looking up.

A good initiative among Donegal Gardai:

They went to work wearing T-shirts that said “Talk2Me“.

They walked 10km of streets in Letterkenny, Glenties, Buncrana, Milford & Ballyshannon on charity walks to raise awareness about suicide.

There were more suicides in Co Donegal in 2000-4 than 1980-9.

A short report in today’s The Irish Times quotes Sgt Sarah Hargadon:

“We want to send out a strong message that there is an alternative to suicide which is dialogue. There are a lot of support groups out there to help people who are lonely or depressed and are contemplating suicide.”

I’m glad to see this.

But I think the phrase “contemplating suicide” isn’t quite right. People with an impulse to kill themselves, are a long way from a contemplative frame of mind. They are desperate, despairing and struggling to find the stamina and courage to go on.

I hope other parts of the Gardai around the country find out about this, and do something positive to help reduce the terrible suffering from depression.

I’m wondering who to vote for in the next Irish general election.

I am also thinking about how prevalent the skill of filibustering is in Ireland.

“In 1874, Joseph Gillis Biggar started making long speeches in the British House of Commons to delay passage of Irish coercion acts. Charles Stewart Parnell, a young nationalist MP, who later became leader of the party, joined him in this tactic to generally obstruct the business of the House to force the Liberals and Conservatives to negotiate with Irish nationalists. The tactic was enormously successful and Parnell succeeded in, for a time, forcing Parliament to take the “Irish question” seriously.” (Wikipedia on Filibuster)

I think the medical consultants are filibustering.

I am undecided how to vote. I am also not sure on what basis to make up my mind.‘

There is only one policy I’ve noticed that has my unequivocal support. Unfortunately that’s one from the Irish Labour Party: they are a minority party which won’t have much leverage even if the Fine Gael coalition wins. Also I have seen nothing like the same policy from Fine Gael, so I suspect that Labour’s proposal is unlikely to be implemented.

It would be silly to decide to vote for Fine Gael/ Labour on those grounds.

Good public debate today:

But I’m encouraged to see The Irish Times today publish Opinion & Analysis with a headline:
“Should farmers be paid to allow walkers access to their land?”

Padraig Walshe, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association Versus David Herman, “a veteran Irish hill walker and leading member of Keep Ireland Open.

Good to see this clash because I am disgusted by the lack of access to Irish countryside.

You can join the “debate@www.ireland.com/head2head”

In my opinion, Padraig Walshe, the hired hand of the farmers’ lobby group, is filibustering. See if you agree…

I expect the farmers to string out the argument as long as possible (ideally into the next century) in order to protect the status quo. Tiny concessions, like the Sheep’s Head Way in west Cork.

In the UK, it took mass trespass to open up the Pennine Way in the 1930’s.

The name “Keep Ireland Open” looks like a joke to me: Ireland is not open, so you can’t keep it open. Also I am disappointed to read :

“We do not aspire to the idyllic Scottish situation. Instead we are campaigning for freedom to roam over only 7% of the land in rough grazing and a modest network of rights of way in lowland areas…” (David Herman, Keep Ireland Open)

Not even an aspiration to open up Irish countryside in the way UK countryside is open!

So much for the Irish champions of access.

By the time Grace is a middle aged adult, she might be permitted to roam over a few Irish fields and hills.

Irish farmers got their freehold right to land from the British government.

They got scandalous rights to prevent people walking on the land. And their descendants are a conservative lot.

Walkers are better off to go walking in the UK if they are enthusiasts. But if they simply want an afternoon stroll in fresh air, they are screwed.

The Labour Party has proposed an Access to the Countryside Bill. If anyone sees support for this from Fine Gael, please let me know.

It might make me vote for them.