Anxiety

Haven’t posted for a while as we’ve been on holiday in Cornwall, plus I haven’t been feeling quite the ticket.

Cornwall was lovely, as always. I mean, the weather let us down a bit as always, but the company was great. Family and close friends, including six childless 20-somethings who thought that Logie was a scream, and didn’t mind spending whole half hours pinging the back of the door spring ‘BOING’, or pouring water from an egg cup to an icecream tub to a measuring jug (in the requisite squat position).

He paddled in the sea, tried to steal various spades and ate about six meals a day – at his normal mealtimes and ours, which always fell in between.

He slept in our room, so I often had that 5am Hobson’s choice. You wake, with a need to wee of about 50%. If you get up and go to the loo, you are 75% likely to wake him. He is then 90% likely not to go back to sleep. The chances of you returning to sleep, whilst needing this wee, are about 25%. But you give it a go. For twenty minutes you have a really good stab at convincing yourself you don’t need to go that much, actually you almost drifted off just then, and if you lie in this particular position the pressure on your bladder honestly isn’t that bad.

Then you get up and go to the loo.

Sometimes you manage to make it back to bed without him opening his eyes, but then you lie there, listening suspiciously to his every breath. You know he is listening to you too, waiting for further proof that it is getting up time. You lie aggressively still, furiously urging yourself to go back to frigging sleep.

Then your husband whispers that he needs a wee too, and all is lost. But at least it’s not all your fault now. Maybe adult nappies are the answer.

Logie has just learnt to say pees, as it happens, and dack u, which represents something of a breakthrough. However, the former is more of an indignant command, and the latter usually comes through a mouthful of biscuit, with his back to you as he’s already walking away. And there is no sign of sorry.

His gorgeous godmother Jules, one of the aforementioned 20-somethings, was especially funny at this age with these words. When asked, upon demanding something, what the magic word was, she would reply “Now!”.

 Despite all this loveliness, my nerves have been a bit worn down and my old friend anxiety has popped in for a bit. There are specific reasons for it – which is a good thing, as often there aren’t, and presumably once they’ve abated it will go away. But I’ve had to fess up to having crossed a line in the mental health stakes, so I steeled myself for a visit to the psych place.

It is very hard to be positive about the experience. But I shall try. I did eventually get to see a doctor the same day, which is a big improvement on their previous record. And he did prescribe me a pill. And it helped tremendously. And those are the things that matter the most.

But the hours I was there were pretty soul destroying. First of all, I saw the duty nurse. He looked like the sort of man who tries to sell you a dodgy sim card in the market. The experience of explaining my symptoms was a bit like ordering a takeaway from someone with not brilliant English. He asked me questions, I answered them, he relayed them back to me slightly wrong every time, without any hint he understood any of the words I was using or what I was really talking about.

I cried a bit. He didn’t seem to notice. He asked if I’d thought about harming my son, and whether I was hearing any voices. I tried not to mind – these are routine questions that they have to ask. Never mind that they make you feel even more appalled that you have arrived at this point.

 Later, as we went down a corridor to the doctor, we passed the social room. It contained some fat, sweaty, glazed over people in tatty armchairs. It was humid, and a small fan turned pointlessly in the corner. They had a resigned air about them, as if they knew that this was the pits, but it was all they had.

I used to be fat and when I was depressed I used to find it very hard to wash my hair. I didn’t really want to talk to people. So I don’t consider myself any better, or feel anything but sympathy for them. But dear god, don’t let me be like them again.

As it happens, I’ve been feeling a bit better since this visit. And I thought it would help to write it down. So let’s hope that things continue to pick up. Pees.

Psychiatrists

Want to know my favourite headline from the recent Olympic coverage?

“Jeremy Hunt hits woman with his bell end.”

Genius.

I’m not going to write more about the games (though WELL DONE the rowing women), or the opening ceremony (stage school robs a bank and the entire BBC costume department) because it seems to annoy some people.

So instead, I thought I’d list some things that people do that annoy me:

·         Read my phone number, which starts 07710, back to me, by saying “Oh seven seven one zero”. Why the inconsistency? The extra syllable? Deeply baffling and irritating.

·         Talk you through a recipe, that you didn’t ask for, and precede and follow it with the words “It’s just SO easy!”. You’re not going to remember it, in fact you deliberately tune out while they’re speaking. Tell it to someone who can’t cook.

·         Crimes against myself. What is the answer to the following question – “Who wants to go to the swings?” What is the missing word – “Will you marry ...?” Me should never be replaced by myself. It is strangely objectivising and painfully ignorant. Apprentice hopefuls, take note.

·         Say “I’ll be honest with you”. No don’t. That’s why I asked you a question – I was hoping for a lie.

·         Use the expression “And I’ll tell you for why”. Especially when followed by “Right now”. Right now? What an honour. I usually expect a written answer by post when I go up to a shop assistant for advice.

·         Be all dark ages about e-mail addresses. I’m afraid this normally applies to my father’s ilk. When e-mail first started, I was working at The Economist. My address was lucytallon@economist.com. I used to have to bite my tongue several times a day on the phone, as it was virtually impossible just to say it, or even spell it, without someone asking “No dot?”. NO! If there was a dot, I would’ve SAID ‘dot’. But I kind of wished there was a dot, despite the extra syllable and the spoiling of simplicity, to stop people like you asking that question. And don’t get me started on “All one word?”. Or even “All lower case?”.

Oh dear, I still can’t get the opening ceremony out of my head. I liked the queen and Mr Bean. But many of the references were lost on me, eg all that Slumdog texting jazzhanding. It didn’t help that I was asleep quite a lot. But was there a hidden meaning behind the whole thing?

I thought about another possible coded meaning on Monday, after a routine appointment at the shrink. This time it was a woman – I seem to have seen a different one almost every time since moving onto the NHS – and I was reminded of the really bizarre female psychiatrist I used to see a couple of years ago.

She wasn’t one of those ordinary shrinks you can quite imagine having a family, knocking back a glass of wine as soon as they get home and complaining cheerfully about their day. The type whose friends say “I still can’t actually believe he’s a psychiatrist” and carefully position next to their most annoying other friends at dinner parties, in the hope they’ll secretly pass on a diagnosis the next day.

She spoke very quietly, didn’t laugh at any of my jokes, spent far too long writing things down (and spelling them wrong, I might add) and had a slight, fixed smile, as if she thought I might lamp her at any moment.

Jon came to one session with me, and could barely wait til we we’d left the building afterwards before exclaiming, disbelievingly “Did you see her jumper?!” Apparently it had a picture of a cock on it.

Now I admit that this seems quite unlikely, and I didn’t notice it – I just thought it was ugly and homemade. But Jon was adamant it had a phallic image stitched into it. Which probably says more about him. But ever since, we have wondered whether it was a sort of test.

Maybe someone ought to send one to Jeremy Hunt.