The house is so cold, yet I keep hearing on the weather forecast that it is warm for this time of year, usually without them clarifying that they are in fact talking about London and the far south as always. It is odd how that annoys me, as I never watch any of the so-called Scottish channels, they drive me up the wall with their small town attitudes and they’re stuck in the past profiles. Sorry but I really don’t care who won the ‘Mod’, or what happened in Ballater yesterday and if I hear one more person trying to draw comparisons between now and the battle of Bannockburn, I think I will explode. Honestly, you can be a proud Scot without wearing tartan, dying your hair ginger and draping the Soltar over your shoulders. All I can say is thank God we have Sky and that we can choose which versions of life we prefer to live in. I guess that is one of the things that truly divides us from previous generations, we have choice over how we want to live, who we want to be grouped with and what we make of our lives, we are not dictated to by the vagrancy of birth. Even now, I still have all those options open to me, I would go as far as to say that if there has ever been a good time to have a serious chronic illness and to be housebound, this has to be it, it may not be perfect, but we all still have free choice and possibilities open to us. Just 60 years ago we would have been shoveled out of sight and dismissed as not worth making an effort to help, beyond nutrition and hygiene, which is exactly what happened to my grandmother. My grandfather divorced her when she became chronically ill, I don’t know what was wrong with her, I have asked but the answers were always the same, no one really knew. He bought her a house and supplied her with a nurse, but none of the family were allowed to see her again, not that she lived that much longer, only 5 years or so. I used to hate it when people said to me that I should count my blessing, probably because I didn’t really understand the saying in it true sense, as to be able to count our blessings, we first have to have lost something life changing. I know it is the proud scot in me that makes me angry with the weather forecasters, stuck in their cupboard in broadcasting house in London, their worlds are as narrow as the studio they work in, to them like most people, their life, where they live and what they do, is where the world starts and ends, so it’s odd that it has taken me to be housebound to really start to understand the extent of the world we live in and blessing that we all really have.

I was feeling sorry for myself yesterday, yes I am human, I do have days when all that whirls around in my head is why me, what did I do to deserve this, there isn’t a person on this planet who doesn’t have days like that, just as we all have days where the world is filled with flowers and butterflies that no one but we can see. It can be hard when you are sat alone in your home, cold and in pain, just wishing your day way, as you know that it will change when the front door opens and in comes the grumpy monster from work. Adam comes home every day with this black cloud and lightning bolts over his head, but it makes me laugh as, stomps around the kitchen swearing at himself and getting even more angry over stupid things, like his sleeve being stuck to his hand as he tries to take off his jacket. I know that within 10 minutes of him leaving the kitchen and putting away his outdoor clothes, then slumping on the small settee with the belt of his jeans undone and his hands up behind his head, that it will all start vanishing and he will then be home with me for the night. For me it was a day where that was all I was waiting for, all that I looked forward for, it doesn’t matter how busy I keep myself or how well planned out my day, once you have slipped into that feel sorry for yourself slot, climbing back out is hard. Unlike Adam I can’t stomp around the house slamming doors and turning the air around me blue, I don’t have that coping mechanise in me, I am a pusher, not a stomper, I push myself and I push myself hard.

I don’t know where it came from or why I even did it, but it has always been my answer for feeling sorry for myself, I start pushing my abilities. It used to be doing a workout, or a frenzy of cleaning, anything that would make my muscle ache and meant I was too busy to allow myself to feel down. I used to push myself for days, not hours, not allowing myself to feel anything mentally and it worked in its own way, but with that option gone, all I can do is to push myself to do things faster were possible. We all have our own coping mechanisms and those I have seen or read about mostly seem to have a physical aspect, whatever the action is, it comes down to distraction and controlling the release of our feelings, so we can work our way through whatever it is. It is very ease once you spend as many hours as I do alone to start over thinking everything, to invent things that aren’t really there, or to blow things up from minor to major. Routine and distraction can only go so far and once your concentration levels are low, slipping off into thought is amazingly simple. Every one of us looks back on our lives and compare what we have now, to what we had and then we project that into the future, you don’t have to be disabled or ill to do that, it’s just human. I like anyone can list the things I have lost simply due to everyday life that hurt me the most and yes, most of them still hurt, but then on top of them I can add what I have lost due to my health, but the real issue is that no matter how positive your life, or how much you have in your life that is good, there will be times when it all gets just that bit black.

For me now, the best way to bring myself out of the low times is to bury myself in the things I love, to watch my favorite TV programs, especially history documentaries, they always put my life into perspective. It’s hard to feel sorry for myself when I compare my life to that of someone in the trenches of world war 1. I guess it is still distraction, but it feels kind of tame compared to lifting weights or doing sit-ups until I can’t move, which would now be less than one. I guess what I am trying to say is that low days happen, sometimes they might even group themselves into a few days, but don’t write them up as depression, they are just the things we all have to work through so that life can go on. The real trick is to work out what works for you, for some even wallowing for a while is correct, but don’t let it hang around too long, as the truth is life goes on, so why not make it the best we can.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 29/10/12 – Strange day.

There is a great temptation today to simply have a rant about Twitter as my account was suspended yesterday evening as I had unfollowed a large number of people who hadn’t followed me back, apparently this is against their rules and well my account suddenly went offline. The system they have actually……