From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

The Montenotte photowalk Cork has woken me this morning. I had to get up or else lie in bed thinking about it, composing first sentences.  

I’ve done my share of trying to get back to sleep.  These days I get up and write my way through the discomfort.  That’s why I’m sitting in my newspapered office, energised, wanting to settle up with the experience of going on my first "photowalk".

Of course I’ve been on innumerable walks with a camera.  

Since the invention & introduction of the mobile phone camera, I’ve been out many time with two cameras, as if they were pups I had to exercise.

This Saturday "photowalk" began with a meet @ Montenotte Hotel…

… in the snooty part of Cork City, @1000.  I’d never  been inside.  I’d never met a photowalker. I found out about thispurposeful collective via Twitter, when I read a tweet by @Gingerpixel. 

I’ve never been in a Rolls Royce.  I can’t ever remember touching one.  But one came to see me today, as I was leaving Douglas Shopping Centre.  I’d been struggling with new technology: a webcam.

To be exact, I’d been letting my technical friend Garry install it for me.  After Garry finished, the laptop battery died.

I spent time reading a favourable review of Richard Bentall’s new book, & ordered it from O’Mahony’s bookshop in Limerick. 

As I strode thru the carpark, the amazingly old Rolls Royce drove in.  Two men in the beauty. I directed them into the parking space beside my old Saab.  Whipped out my camera and got into chat with a Mr FitzPatrick, owner/driver, and his friend Jim.   

He got the car three years ago.  There was a Cork GAA flag flying from a window.  I couldn’t resist the invitation to sit in.

I use Google Alert to bring stuff about mental health, including depression, to my attention.

Feels important to keep in touch with what others are saying…

Occasionally, I discover a blog I treasure, one that’s different and offers a glimpse into another’s life.

You could say this one offers such detail about the life of an individual that it’s like a snowflake. 

From Twitter today I got this link.

Some useful advice on things you can do to prevent depression, and help it lift. 

Key points you’ll find elaborated:

• Get Enough Light and Sunshine
• Get Busy. Get Inspired
• Take a Break
• Eat Right and Stay Fit
• Eat Right and Stay Fit.

In case you want to plan your visit to the southern part of Kerry, John O’Donoghue territory

Photograph of Office of Public Works (OPW) map on site… 

Yesterday I talked to someone who’s starting a post-graduate diploma in Chinese culture,business & language in University College Cork.

I thought that was spot on, just what the country needs: people able to deal with the Chinese.

However I was shocked to find out that there were unfilled places on the course.  There are six doing the Diploma course and four doing a Masters.  UCC couldn’t fill the places.

Is this an example of poor marketing by UCC?  

Are Irish graduates unable to see that a post-graduate qualification in Chinese culture & business is incredibly appropriate to the world we’ll live in?

What’s going on?  Maybe all post-graduate courses are struggling to fill places?  

On every imaginable scale, this UCC course should be oversubscribed & have a waiting list… IMHO 

I only knew his image.  He wasn’t a real person to me.  Anything I say about him is based on that foundation…

Words of sympathy from me to his family & friends, even if they found them expressed here, would be so bounded by this reality…

I’m annoyed at some of the commentary about him.  

As if smiling, gregarious, sociable people can’t be desperately sad within.  As if only introverts could get depressed…

All those apparently happy people out there, as if there aren’t many pretending they are "all right"…

It never crossed my mind you [every other person] were so sad you felt you couldn’t let on you were falling apart within…  How many times have you heard the expression "he’s the last person I ever thought …"?

Better to start from knowledge that a huge number of people are struggling to hold it together. Most try to prevent others noticing their difficulty.  Most want to go unnoticed. It doesn’t lessen the pain.  The energy spent pretending to be well is energy that’s not there for getting well…  It’s normal for many people to feel desperately unhappy.  It’s no help to pretend it’s abnormal to feel awful…

Darren Sutherland, a wonderful person, fought hard, harder than any of us will ever know.  He fought the good fight for life…  You can be sure he was in the ring for as long as he could stay.

I had a dream.  Dreamt I found myself in a doctor’s waiting room.  Several others, all in comfortable chairs.  A menu on the table in front of me.  Soft relaxing music, a beautiful piano.

I opened the menu.  A 4-course meal, entitled

Health Menu

Starters

A little exercise with fresh air souffle

Meditation practice in time with a candle light

Going to bed habits, rituals that calm the body

Main Courses

Talking with a friend you can trust

Being listened to, with total attention

Experiencing what it’s like to be accepted

Writing notes on what it’s like day to day

Deserts

A visit to your doctor

A recovery plan formulated with professional service provider

An antidepressant tablet that agrees with you

Coffees & Teas

Regular visits to your doctor 

Yesterday afternoon, NAMA stripped off.  She opened up her dress, revealed herself naked and offered to spend years in bed with me. Her private parts were all mine.  She offered all I’d ever dreamed.  Stopped her titilating, teasing ways and gave herself to me.

Excited would be understatement.  I came.  I came right into her and everything I’d ever loved before faded.  NAMA & I were one explosion.  Completely & utterly seduced, this was my fulfillment, my most thorough coming of age. 

Could I satisfy her, insatiable wench?  Could I hold her whole body close to me for ever? Could I become her other self, as she was already mine?

Yesterday we coupled.  The pimp had done his work, earned his fee. What did I care how we’d come together? What did I care about anything else?  

and how she kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well her as another and then I asked her with my eyes to ask again yes and then she asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around her yes and drew her down to me so I could feel her breasts all perfume yes and my heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

NAMA…  NAMA……….  NAMA. 

Valuable thoughts here about research, and what you can do when not feeling well

It’s been a dramatic weekend here in Ireland.

I suppose every weekend in the last year has been dramatic too.  However, it’s not often we’ve had such a flood of revelations about how our money is being wasted.

In the middle of the worst economic collapse we’ve ever known, media are full of news that senior governing politicians, civil servants and government appointees have been spending tax revenue without prudence.

That’s putting it mildly.

As I walked back from carrying Grace to crèche, I thought of the connection between economic depression & mental health depression.

You’d expect a significant increase in mental distress. 

A big increase in stress & depression.  A severe knock back in your sense of safety is bound to cause you to feel unwell. It would be weird if you felt better after losing your job, house or peace of mind.

I’m not sure about the latest research on the relationship between the economy & mental health.  I remember Durkheim pointing out that the rate of suicide dropped during wars. (I was a student of sociology in UCD 1968-75.)

In my own case, I suffered my longest bout of severe depression while the country was at its most confident [Sept2007 - Sept2008].  As soon as the economy began to wobble and collapse, I got better.  All through the last year, thank goodness, I’ve been in excellent mental health.  Never felt clearer that mental health is so much more valuable than economic health.  But I’m only an individual.

I’d like to hear from doctors.  What are they finding?  

I’d like to see stats from websites. Young people in mental health distress tend to avoid doctors.  They use the internet for help. Has there been an exponential rise in traffic to self-help sites?

On one of the rarest Monday mornings - with sun is shining on autumnal leaves as they turn colour - it would be easy to feel overwhelmed by the torrent of news.  At least we’ve been promised a group resignation by the board of directors of FAS (state employment & training agency). That’s a small mercy, an example to the others who are clinging on to their position, milking the system.

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