Two Years Today

Caroline Asher 

10/7/59 - 24/1/14

Having read many articles about grief I see that experts tell us two years is the average time it takes for one to get over the death of a loved one. These same experts will soon weigh a rainbow and tell us the length in metres of anger, or love, or will accurately measure the volume of creativity. Yes, memories might not hurt so much, but damage was done and though scar tissue forms, how well do things work underneath that?

When Did The Dreams Stop?

I have read various self-help books, psychology books and articles online. From these I've learned that most problems between the ears, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, paranoia etc stem from, quite simply, thinking negatively. Here's highly relevant section from the book 'Conquering Your Critical Inner Voice'.

Yes, pills will help, meditation will help (and meditation might be the whole solution), but the problem may come back if your habit is to doom, gloom and catastrophize. If you're perpetually hypervigilant for disaster because you have little faith in your ability to cope. You need to break the habit; you need to think positively. But you can get setbacks. I was pushing myself in that direction but, with the perpetual anxiety I was getting, and the panic attacks that had now decided to move into my meditation sessions, I couldn’t help but sometimes think I was fighting a losing battle. However, a recent low point pushed me back to reading and looking for answers, and, in the same book as above, I found this.

This gave me encouragement because rather than a sign of failure the anxiety and panic attacks are a sign that I am progressing … no, that I am winning! This pushed me back to reading Rob Kelly's Thrive. There I learned that a good technique is to go somewhere quiet, a few times a day, and make yourself have, effectively, positive fantasies about the future.

So at 10 o'clock on Sunday I spent 10 minutes doing just that. I then set my alarm clock for 11 and thereafter for every hour on the hour for 14 hours. The result of this was that Subcunt (my name for that critical inner voice), the horrible little devil I have felt sitting in my mind like an abscess, shrank. He no longer had something to say to my every thought or hope. I felt good. I did the same on Monday for a total of 170 minutes, and I am doing the same today.

There have been some crappy periods when I’ve gone down for a couple of hours. And when I go to bed at night I don’t pleasurably contemplate the day or the future, but seek oblivion. I use a hypnotic recording to shut up my mind. I don’t expect miracles. However, I do expect results. I have felt some immediate ones and see that this is definitely a positive step. In Thrive Kelly cites two weeks as the time to undergo a complete change. I'm aiming to do it quicker!

Anyway, while I’ve been doing the above, other thoughts occurred to me. The fantasies I have been running through in my mind are of the kind I used to have when going to sleep at night. And yeah, including the dirty ones, but overall about happy future scenarios. Sometimes I see myself at my desk banging out the next book, energized and positive and happy about what I’m doing. I’m laughing often. Things are going the way I want them to go. I’m strong and getting stuff done. I’m enjoying my life. This is the kind of stuff I used to dream about in the past, so when did it stop?

I think I know. Prior to 2000 I used to dream about a big publisher taking my books, about seeing them in bookshops, about succeeding at my writing. Beside the hand-on-cock fantasies, these ones about writing were my main ones. They were fantasies I had for over 20 years. But after 2000 they (not at once) ceased to be fantasies but the reality. In a brief spell during that period I can remember allowing myself to feel depressed and empty and, back then, I identified the reason why. I no longer had that aim to fantasize about and it left a hole in me. The dreams stopped for a time when they came true. Later I filled the hole with ongoing success, buying a house in Crete, enjoying life. Of course recently they have stopped again through all the negative shit I've been allowing to occupy my head.

I want the dreams back!

Getting Angry.

I just put a couple of posts to Facebooks, and since someone sent me a message thanking me for them, I thought it would be an idea to expand on them here...

I can see now a disparity between the aim and the final target of meditating, or taking pills, or using anything else outside of yourself in the fight against depression, anxiety and panic attacks. To hit the final target of being without them, using measures outside of yourself, requires an acceptance of something being wrong. It is accepting that you are weak, ill, needy, crying for help, being a baby. I see now that maybe the real route out is to grow a pair. You must start out by telling yourself no, nothing wrong with me. I am damned fine! It is to look at a malady that is simply in the mind and tell it to fuck off.

It's about the internal or external sense of control (as I have been reading). External and you think your problems come from outside you, and think they require something external to fix them. Internal, and you believe that it is you that has the power over your problems, not something or someone extraneous. Internal and you work at it, external and you cry for someone to fix you.

I will, however, continue with my 8 week mindfulness course because maybe it, as well as some other recent events, has helped me to gain this clarity. Maybe for others it takes the pills to lift them far enough out of the pit that they can start fighting for themselves. But in the end the battle is their own, and internal. 

My changed attitude to depression, anxiety and panic attacks stems from a lot of sources. I started out by accepting that it was chemical imbalances in the brain and tried to correct that with pills. I didn't like the side effects of the pills and tried meditation. I then discovered that meditation has been proven to be as effective as the pills which, in essence, proves it is NOT about chemical imbalances. My reading of various self-help books has brought home to me that your thoughts are no more you than the turd you put out of your body each day. You can control and alter your mind using methods similar to those you use to change your body. You exercise it, you stop the unhelpful stuff, you emphasize the positive and you stop letting your mind butt fuck you.

The sources I mentioned above in order... The meditations started with Headspace, led on to various apps I downloaded to my Ipad and a free one from Paul McKenna, this last led me on to his various self-help books along with their hypnotic meditation CDs. By this time I had heard of mindfulness and bought a book on that containing an eight-week course. A hypnotherapist I went to see put me onto the 'Thrive' program by Rob Kelly – a book you work through doing various exercises, some of which produce painful revelations.

In Thrive I learned that it is not even about your past. It is about the you now: unhelpful thinking styles leading to catastrophising, hypervigilance, low self-esteem and other crap. I started by blaming my problems on the death of my wife. Yes, this put me on that road, but it was me that kept walking. I have also blamed pressures of a new relationship, inability to assimilate a different culture, stopping smoking, drinking, also stopping drinking ... but do you see the pattern: all external shit. If you have a problem with the way you think then it is the way you think that you must change. It's difficult, but it is not rocket science.

It has to be corrected at its roots. And this brings me back round to the start of this post. You have to do it yourself. You don’t say ‘I’m depressed’ and wait for pills, you say ‘I am allowing myself to have depression today, but I will stop it’. Like I said, at the roots of the very way you think. ‘I’m depressed’ are the words of a victim.

And that too is a point. I now believe one has to decide, firmly and finally: fuck off, I am not going to be this person any more. No more being weak, no more whimpering and telling myself I'm not well. It can all get the fucking hell out of my head. In the end getting angry helps, too.

Stop being a victim.

Neal Asher Video Clip 03/01/2016 Part Two

Neal Asher Video Clip 03/01/2016 Part One

Loading the second one right now...

Neal Asher Video Clip

Okay, I've just spent a fruitless half an hour looking for a post I put on Facebook some weeks back. I asked for questions from my readers to be answered on a video clip. Now I'm asking again. Please put your questions in the comments here. I'll answer them on another clip like this one below from a couple of years back...

Resolution...

So, on the 30^th December I hopped in my car and paid a visit to my ex editor in his new abode in Hove (Brighton). I was there to deliver a chair I had repaired for him and I took my drill down to bang a few holes in his walls to secure a bookcase and a mirror. The plan was then to head over to Hastings and meet up with someone there for a drink, then go to a party on New year’s day.

(Pictures here from Hastings)

On the 30^th I drank red wine, maybe a bottle or more – as had been my custom in the past when visiting down there. I didn’t feel great drinking it and then the next morning I woke with panic attacks and anxiety. I persevered and the next day in Hastings I just stuck to a couple of beers. Almost from the first sip the anxiety kicked in. I felt sick with it. Returning to the flat early I just stayed in my room. Mediation brought me out of that but I felt incredibly tired and went to bed at 10.

This morning, waking with panic attacks again, I packed up early and said my goodbyes – I simply could not face that party.

Back here a meditation raised me out of it a bit and I went shopping. Next, after eating something, a second meditation left me incredibly weary and miserable, but I have since shoved myself up out of that.

I begin to wonder now if my years of heavy drinking are the biggest problem, while the grief and accompanying shitstorm just knocked the scab off that wound. If you drink a lot you lose your natural mechanisms for coping with stress. Without alcohol you cannot cope and along comes the depression, anxiety and panic attacks. I of course ended up in a cleft stick because the alcohol also had the effect of making me more depressed, so I couldn’t use it as an out.

Anyway, after this wake-up call I have my New Year’s resolutions. No more alcohol. Frankly I’m getting frightened of what it does to me now. I’m also starting – today – an eight week mindfulness course. These resolutions sit on top of my ones for exercise, learning Greek and writing. I’m tired of this shit and will work every waking moment to beat it.

Happy-fucking-New Year.     

Christmas - Chester

Pictures scattered here of Chester…

Christmas was approaching and so was a house buy so I was clearing out my loft. It was quite satisfying to lose all the accumulated decorations. Christmas was Caroline’s thing that to me involved pointless effort, money blown on tat, and numerous glittery objects getting in the way in a house that was not particularly spacious.

Of course Christmas cards arrived, like the one from some couple who still don’t know that Caroline died nearly two years ago. I left most of them out but was all set to see the 25^th December with no change to my routines at all.

But then, maybe that was not such a great idea. Maybe, considering my recent problems, I need to take any opportunity offered to get my thinking outside of that dark and slightly stinky place between my ears, so I accepted my brother’s family’s invitation to spend Christmas with them.

The drive up to Chester took the best part of 6 hours what with the endless queues on the M1 and M6. I set out feeling a bit dopy and got steadily more tired. At about 2.5 hours I stopped for a large Costa Coffee Cappuccino with an extra shot. This certainly did the trick. Big time.

Later I got some mindful moments on the road actually seeing some views and thinking them quite beautiful rather than them passing in a haze. Finally arriving I got into my version of the Christmas spirit, which involved trying not to be a miserable git.

Bob, Christine and Samantha were great. The food was excellent. It was a good hotel! They bought me presents which mainly consisted of sweets, but the oolong tea was a revelation I will investigate further. These gifts were obviously something for me to do while Samantha turned the house into a bomb site unwrapping her haul.

I spent a nice relaxing few days there with some walking into Chester. The Boxing Day walk was the most needed and at near nine miles certainly cleared cobwebs. During one of these walks we stopped at a pub it had been our custom to visit. I had a pint of bitter and, frankly, didn’t enjoy it very much. This was my total alcohol consumption over these days.

I even watched an enjoyed a few films, which is something I hadn’t done in a while. Django Unchained was great – thank you Mr Tarantino. And Fury with Brad Pitt was pretty damned good too. Maybe I’ll clean the dust off my TV and start watching some more.

The drive home was a half hour shorter but I still spent plenty of time sitting in queues. Back here I’ve started on a portion of my planned routine. I’m walking, have started doing sit ups, learning Greek, meditating, reading and weight training. Writing, the eight week mindfulness course and redecorating the house will have to wait for the new year.   

Trying out Blogger App for Ipad...

Okay, 70,000+ words of the book done. I can safely say I am at the halfway mark into the first draft. I'll put it to one side now while I go visiting over Christmas, then return to it in the New Year. I'm not heavily into New Year's resolutions but I'll make some now. Tendonitis is clearing up in my arm so I'll get back to some weight training. I will start the 8 week mindfulness course in a book on it I recently read. I'll do at least 3 walks every week. I will read more books. And I will definitely get more writing done!
Καλο βραδυ!

Update: Reduced the size of the picture, which from the Ipad app was spilling over the edges.

The Last Colony - John Scalzi

If I have any criticism to level it is that for a book about competing alien civilizations this is sadly lacking in aliens. Yes, you get the occasional reference to a long neck, or thick skin or short stature, but that’s it. You know they’re stand-in for humans when one of them dies by accidentally impaling himself on his own dinner knife. But in the end this is about ‘people’ – characters whose story you invest in and who you care about.They also stay in your mind as does the main character here right back from the first book in this series. This was a leisurely enjoyable read that I polished off in about a day and I will gladly read the next and the next. John Scalzi’s writing engages you. For those of you that haven’t read his books I suggest you go and pick up Old Man’s War and start from there.

Recommended.

Note: Genuinely puzzled by the Guardian quotes on this book. Ignore them.

In the Moment

As I mentioned in a FB post, strange things happening in my skull, so I thought I might elaborate on that here. A few days ago I went for a walk in morning, trying to buck myself up, get the blood pumping. I just felt tired for the first few miles, but then perked up. I don’t know if I made a conscious effort or if it just came, but I started to feel very mindful of my surroundings. Why? I think it is because of the meditation and because I'm killing the tendency of my mind to get in negative thinking cycles.

So what is this mindfulness? For me it is living in the moment; actually seeing the stuff around me and engaging with it and not having it as just a backdrop to the shit going on inside my skull, not just registering it as ‘seen it before’ and not really seeing it. I feel more alive when this happens – almost like a child discovering the world for the first time. I guess this is the thing about the adult brain. It has seen and done so much it has fewer new experiences to process and just continues through life like an automaton. Before I started reading all this recent meditation/mindfulness stuff I always contended that the reason time seems to pass so fast when you are older is that you do so much in a day you’ve done before that your brain fails to record or clock this. This was also the basis for the ennui of immortals at about 200-years-old in my books.   

A result of the mindfulness was that creativity started to kick in and in a way that surprised me. Actually looking at my surroundings I started writing about them in my head. In fact I started to put together some verse (well, I'm no expert, so probably doggerel). Surprising? Well, yes, since this is something I haven't done in about 30 years.

Hawes clinging, the colour of old blood,

Ice melting, in puddles of mud.

Twigs etched black upon the grey,

Sloes shriveled, briars drip wet,

Spring is it coming? Trees whisper:

Not yet.

Yeah, don’t tell me – it has been 30 years. I might play around with that at a later date, though better I stick to SF. But the point here is that I entered a mental state I had not seen in a long time.

Later, effortlessly, I slid into thinking about my present book and the next section to write. I like this because this is precisely what my mind should be doing while I walk. It should not be catastrophising. It should not be hypervigilant for shit stains. It should not concentrate on the negative and fail to see the positive. It should not be constantly miserable!

Anyway, meditation eh? Mental reprogramming seems to work. You can change what you do in your head – you can make it healthier. I mean fuck, I should know this! I’m the one who always talks about how you can exercise your mind just like you exercise your body, that imagination is just a mental muscle!

As I noted in my FB post. Don't worry. States of bliss and all that nonsense aren't really becoming evident in my fiction. I finished writing what I was thinking about on that walk. It left two human heads on the floor and one guy being eaten alive by a prador.

Peace and Love.

Heh.

Walk to the Crouch

I went for a walk yesterday and this time took a camera. Last year I took some pictures of a water tower that was in the process of being converted into a home, and this year it appears all but complete.

Sorry, but I am not impressed. To me the additions are not in keeping. It’s a bit like someone wanted to extend their home but couldn’t afford real foundations and matching materials so bolted on a wooden shed. Personally I would have enclosed the space below with curved walls matching the tank of the tower and if I’d wanted to extend above I would have used a matching wall too. Perhaps they wanted to retain the water tower’s … water toweriness? Perhaps they weren’t allowed to do more than they did? What do you think?

Anyway, whoever lives there will certainly have a  good view of the Crouch from the upper balcony thingy.

As usual I walked along the road then down by the river. All was grey and bit naff and I was layered up with clothing to keep warm. Here are a few shots of the river and the boat yard but, as I well know, very little looks good when the sun isn’t shining on it.  

  

It was a good day for me yesterday – surprising considering how grey and horrible it was – only spoiled a little by some negative shit visiting my skull in the evening. Was it because I was tired? I don’t know. I’ll take the day as a victory anyway. I still feel a bit crap this morning but I’m fighting it, aware that I can sometimes feel normal/happy.

Putting out the Rubbish

Interesting things happening inside my skull just lately. Over the last four days I’ve had periods when I hit rock bottom. Yes, though I am a rough tough Essex boy SF writer, there was crying involved. But it was all a bit odd because I would go through that then come back out of it quite quickly. I wondered if my depression was being exacerbated by the dull grey weather here and I was heading downhill, but it just wasn’t like that. I then remembered something and checked up on some of the effects of meditation and there it is. This is just one of the many references to it scattered across the internet:

“…initially, meditation can involve a lot of upheaval as those parts of you that are blocking your inner peace and happiness come to the surface to be released.

This means that there will be times when meditation feels very uncomfortable and you may experience a lot of unpleasant emotions.

You may feel very sad for no particular reason, and find yourself crying at the drop of a hat. You may get irritable, anxious, angry, snappy - but you don't know why. You may feel a tremendous sense of grief, or a thousand other types of emotion.

This is all very normal. In fact, it is highly beneficial, for when you experience such emotional release you know you are healing yourself.”

Being me, I would of course prefer a more factual description but reluctantly accept that this covers it. I do, however, pull back when this stuff starts wandering into spiritualism and mysticism. My brain is a computer that has been running for some time. A lot of rubbish has accumulated, some of the programs are a bit wonky and, since there is no ‘reset to factory settings’ other methods have to be found to get it working properly.

Anyway, yesterday I woke up feeling a bit crap again, but soldiered on and went to my 11.00 o’clock appointment with a hypnotherapist. The session was pretty much what I’d been getting from some of the hypnotic/meditation recordings I was already using but, okay, this was supposed to be a clear out of the accumulated junk in my skull. I drove back from this feeling pretty good, but then crashed in the early afternoon. This lasted to about 4.00 when I started to come up again.

At some point I got up and set to work on that chair I’ve been repairing – that one that’s been in pieces on my living room carpet for a week. I cleaned out its joints and glued and clamped it. As afternoon progressed into evening I wrote in my journal, and read (a book on mindfulness) and played on the internet. As bedtime approached I found myself feeling something I had not felt for some time. I didn’t want to go to bed because I wanted to carry on feeling like I had felt all that evening.

So was this the result of the hypnotherapy or did that just top off what I had already been doing with the recordings? Is it my growing mindful awareness working? Who can say? All I know is that I also feel good this morning and really want this to continue. I have further appointments with the hypnotherapist and some reading to do of something called the ‘Thrive’ program.

But, right now, to work. These books don’t write themselves you know.  

David Davis MP

I’m not even sure how long ago it was now. Four years maybe? While in Crete I received an email from a guy called David Davis. He apparently enjoyed my books and invited me for a beer in the House of Commons. I thought David Davis MP? The guy who fought David Cameron for leadership of the Conservative party and, unfortunately, lost? The guy who was in the territorial SAS and took Bscs in molecular and computer science before becoming a politician? One of the few politicians I have any regard for? Somebody is winding me up. I did, however, do some research and discovering in an interview that some of his favourite books were Iain M Banks’ Culture books I thought there might be some veracity in it. Incidentally I passed this on, I think to Banks’ agent, who then passed it on to him. Banks was apparently much amused.

Returning from Crete that year we just didn’t get round to following up on the offer. I’m not sure why, but things got in the way. The next year, when we returned to Crete, was when Caroline got sick so, that year was out and the one after. This year I got another email and decided I must follow up on it. And yesterday I did.

So, with my head aching from the dregs of a cold, I hopped on the train to Liverpool Street Station and took the tube to Westminster. I arrived about an hour beforehand – I was due to meet him in Central Lobby at about 7PM after some vote. Since I was early I wandered about a bit taking a few photos and looking for a can of coke to wash down the Paracetamol and Ibuprofen I had with me. After failing to find a drink and feeling cold I went into Parliament through the Cromwell entrance. I thought better to wait in the warm, but spent some time in a queue of people going through security checks similar to those you find in an airport.

When I got in I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to wait, but the large numbers of cops and security staff all around were all cheerfully helpful. I ended up sitting in the Central Lobby still wondering if anyone would turn up. He did, I of course recognized him at once and he recognized me. He took me through into a very plush restaurant, where I felt a bit under dressed, and an enjoyable dinner ensued. Conversation spanned books, pilots’ examinations, civil liberties and much else beside. A friendly and agreeable guy.

After this he took me on a tour of the House. I got to stand in the Chamber and elsewhere, saw the Shadow Cabinet room, David Davis’s office. It was all a bit surreal (not my favourite word) and I just wished I hadn’t felt so crap and could have appreciated it more. Thank you the Rt. Honourable David Davis MP.

Oh, some of these pictures are from places where cameras aren’t allowed. I’ve absolutely no idea how that happened. I particularly like the one of me standing by the statue of Margaret Thatcher, mainly because of how it will annoy so many…

Off to the Smoke

Bit of a wasted day today. I got up with all good intentions to do some work, but the cold I have had was still lingering and I felt thick-headed and a bit rough. I had myself a nice breakfast determined to get to it, but then felt incredibly tired. I fell asleep on the sofa for an hour and a half, woke up feeling cold and with a stinking headache. Not much achieved I’m afraid.

But do not despair. My current work has just passed 60,000 words and advances nicely. I just need to find the concentration to work in some further needed plot elements and characters and it should roar along thereafter.

But back to this damned headache. It has occurred at a quite inconvenient time since I’m off to London to meet someone. This is an interesting development that occurred some years ago. I got an email I at first thought must be a hoax, but further investigating showed that it wasn’t. There’s a guy, high up in the British political establishment who likes and has read all my books. He also likes Iain M Banks but I guess that won’t stop those on the left sneering. Anyway, things got in the way of meeting him – obviously – and only now do I have the opportunity. I may write something about this later, if I can and if I feel I should.

On the mental front I’m getting somewhere but not sure where. The meditation has definitely stirred things up inside my skull and the immediate results of that have often been good, but sometimes have been unpleasant. I also went to see a hypnotherapist yesterday for an initial consultation and will be seeing her for my first appointment tomorrow. She seemed to grasp my problems straight away and is confident she can do something.

Onward and upward!    

Shaking Loose.

Interesting experiences with the meditation. It seems that sometimes when I reach a certain depth of relaxation something in my head doesn’t want me to go there and I get a panic attack. However, the mindfulness stuff is helping in that I now manage to divorce myself from the attack and just watch it pass. Sometimes when I feel one coming I can stop it.

Interesting yes, but is this doing me any good?

I do often feel calmer and more in control afterwards and, if I don’t let the anxiety go too far I can kill it with a session. I felt I was getting somewhere until yesterday when the phone rang three times during a session and instigated a panic attack each time. Afterwards I felt really low – everything was black. But, standing back from that, this period wasn’t long lasting.

Certainly this meditation and mindfulness seems to be shaking something loose in my skull. For example, some unpleasant memories have been surfacing. I’m also more aware of my own thought processes and can quickly detect the slide into negativity.

Sometimes wonder if this is like belting a malfunctioning engine with a hammer. Yeah, sometimes it will work, but it’s hardly ideal. I’m shaking things up but there is no guarantee that the shape they then fall into will be a good one … except… I have to take into account my own will and desire to push my mind into a certain shape. Surely this factor is why so many people get a good result from meditation?