Why some kinds of grief never die

Posted on 11/03/2013 by inktuition

My father died 14 years ago this evening: 10 minutes to 10pm on Thursday 11 March 1999. I don’t think there’s been a day gone by when I haven’t thought about him.

It’s worse in the early days, of course, when the thought flashes across my mind that I want to make that phone call to him to joke about something funny I’ve read in the paper or heard on the radio. And then I realise with searing pain to my heart that I can’t. Because he’s gone. Fourteen years down the line, the urge to speak to him is the same, and the pain of loss around his anniversary is almost as keen as when he first passed away.

I remember three months after he died, a so-called ‘friend’ said I should be over it by now. Be over what, exactly? The tears, the numbness, the inability to accept that such a mighty man had been snuffed from my life?

After the shock and all the fuss of the funeral and the sympathy cards, people’s interest wanes. Their life gets back to normal. But for a bereaved daughter there is no getting back to normal. There’s only the day-to-day getting through, and the renegotiating a life whose volume has been dialled down several notches. Whose colour is a few shades faded. Whose fabric of hope has been ripped to shreds.

So I don’t believe in ‘getting over’ grief. Yes, there are ‘stages’ of grief to be ‘worked through’ and the loss to come to terms with. Eventually. But I defy anyone who’s lost someone darling and dear to them to say that one day they’re completely ‘over it’.

Grief will always have a grip on my heart. But perhaps by remembering my sadness, by honouring my grief, I am keeping alive my father’s spirit within me.

How can I celebrate Mother’s Day when my mum has dementia?

Posted on 10/03/2013 by inktuition

Mother’s Day hasn’t been the same to me for the last four years. Yes, I have a mother who’s alive. But no, she hasn’t known I exist for the past handful of Mothering Sundays.

My mother is 68 years old. She has Pick’s Disease, an aggressive form of dementia. The illness has had her in its vicious and unrelenting grip for at least 10 years.

Unlike other gradual forms of dementia that strike when the person is older, my mother’s strain came early and was swift and debilitating. Four years ago she knew me, she came on holiday with me, and she looked like a ‘normal’, healthy woman in her mid-60s. Yes, she was conscious that she was losing her memory. But she could still walk, talk, feed herself and go to the toilet and have a bath on her own. She could even dress herself and order herself a cup of tea – though money could be an issue, as she’d be inclined to forget where it was or just hand over far more cash than was required.

In the space of four years, she degenerated from a functioning human being to a bedridden soul who has the cognitive and physical abilities of a six-month-old baby. She can’t sit up. She can’t walk. She can’t tie her shoelaces. And she can’t count. She doesn’t know her own name. And she certainly doesn’t know who the strange person is sitting beside her bed. Just as a child learns new skills, she has gradually been stripped of hers. As I am stripped of hope.

It’s been about two and a half years since she last recognised me. The last time she was able to talk coherently, she was fighting with her carer who was trying to get her into the car. And when I said, hey, it’s your daughter, come with me, she replied with much authority: “I don’t have any children!” At that stage she was regressing into her very early years, the way people with dementia do. And I had to hold the hurt of rejection without being able to show it.

So, the poor soul into whose eyes I look for some kind of flicker of remembrance remained lost and on the tips of her own netherworld today. Just as I remain lost in that space with a mother in body, and yet without a mother in mind.

What gets me through Mother’s Day is knowing that, somehow, I still have a mother in spirit.

Poem: The Creative Escapee

Posted on 16/02/2013 by inktuition

Your boss is always right, she says,

As she wields a pen of heavy red

That bites and wounds my worried words,

And my former self-belief goes blurred.

Your boss is always right, she mouths,

As my typo sends her humour south.

I hang my head, gut full of shame,

Have all my creative leaps gone lame?

Your boss is always right, she shouts,

As my brain cells begin to cower in doubt:

Is my work that flat, that nondescript,

Does her critique always have to be sour-lipped?

Your boss is always right, she yells,

As I reflect upon this straitjacket hell

Of rigid rules, of constant digs.

A model of how you can’t forgive.

Your boss is always right, she screams

Hysteria’s norm? That’s what it seems.

A dumbed-down doer is all she wants,

But there’s more to me than a size-12 font.

I may type your amends

With intentions well meant

But you can’t reach the real me

‘Cos I’m a Creative Escapee.

So yes, the boss is always right

But the red pen certainly doesn’t delight.

What rules my world is being in sync

With my authentic guide of true-self ink.

I Am Enough: a poem to fight feeling ‘less than’

Posted on 31/01/2013 by inktuition

When somebody makes me feel less than,

Says I’m too much can’t, not enough can,

There’s a fear that jellies my thighs,

And my heartbeats double their size.

My essence of soul gets lost

As my fingertips turn to frost.

And I scrabble to save my self-esteem

As it’s chased by monsters in my dreams.

My sense of self loses all its shape,

My presence shrivels like a sad old grape.

As I creep away, full of blame and gall,

The shivers of shame make my skin cells crawl.

I feel nothing of worth, my confidence kicked,

My value rusted, my optimism pricked.

I retreat to a cave, all dark and dank,

Knowing I’ve only got myself to thank.

But at my core there’s a flicker of flame.

Really, this time, is it same again?

Will I let them all tread

On my bowed, mournful head?

Or will I rise from the wreck of this feel-sorry stuff

And say to the world: “I am enough!”

When too much criticism cripples creativity

Posted on 21/01/2013 by inktuition

My heart goes out to the artist who painted the first ever portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge. Paul Emsley’s work of art, on display in London’s National Portrait Gallery, has been slated by the media and the critics. One even called the painting ‘rotten’. And that criticism cut him deeply to the point of making him doubt the value of his work.

An article in London’s Evening Standard, Mr Emsley says the reaction to his portrait of Kate has been like a ‘witch hunt’. He is quoted as saying that some of the words said about the painting were vicious and personal, and “I’d be inhuman if I said it didn’t affect me”. He added that there came a point when he “doubted that the portrait of the duchess was any good”. But he has coped with it by going back into his studio and “getting on with it”.

All artists, whether they use a paintbrush, a pen or even a pair of ballet shoes, express themselves through their creativity. And that creativity can get crushed when some people believe they’re in a position to tut with superiority or wag their finger with self-righteousness. The act of creating can be fragile. And the door to the creative unconscious can be slammed shut by unthinking, unfeeling criticism.

Mr Emsley just got on with it. Not everyone can just ‘get on with it’ when they’ve had the kind of criticism that cuts to the core. But it’s the act of continuing to do what you believe in that encourages creativity to come out of hiding. Plus, Mr Emsley I’m sure can take some comfort from knowing that the postcard of Kate’s portrait is reportedly one of the fastest selling ones in the gallery.

The ‘write-rip-throw’ approach to ditching negative thoughts

Posted on 27/12/2012 by inktuition

Negative thoughts making your life a misery? Well, rather than ruminating on them and giving them oxygen, there’s a simpler way of getting rid of them. Just write them down on a piece of paper, rip them up and throw them away.

Write your bad thoughts down and let them go to be free of them. (pic: istockphoto.com/AnikaSalsera)

Sounds too easy? Too free of angst? No use if you just can’t let go…?

Research begs to disagree. It’s people who hold onto their negative thoughts who preserve them. Physically binning them – rather than just imagining you’re throwing them away – takes away their power. Here’s how… Continue reading →

Can writing mindfully be more healing than writing expressively?

Posted on 17/11/2012 by inktuition

I’ve always believed that writing down feelings is a route to healing them. For me, as a writer, the mere action of putting fingers to keyboard and letting my soul spill out onto the screen is healing in itself.

Write mindfully about everyday happenings can help divorced people face their feelings. (pic:istockphoto.com/nameinframe)

But that’s not the case for everyone – especially people going through recent separation or divorce. Or so says this fascinating report from Huffington Post on a scientific study into the different kinds of writing therapy that can have different kinds of emotional effects.

Researchers asked one group to write about their anger, guilt and all the other feelings that come up post-divorce. A second group wrote their story with a beginning, middle and an end, like a novel. And a third group merely wrote down what they did during the day (went shopping, sent emails etc). The groups were also categorised into people who brood over things and people who seek meaning from their trauma.

The outcome of the experiment wasn’t at all what scientists were expecting, however. The feeling writers and story writers fared worse emotionally than the people cataloguing their daily deeds – suggesting that brooding on your feelings when they’re raw really doesn’t help separated people feel any better.

I’m surprised and fascinated by the article’s conclusion. Author Wray Herbert says: “Writing about boring and ordinary stuff helps divorcing men and women to re-engage in their daily lives without focusing on emotional pain and loss. Thinking about lunch and laundry may distract brooders from their brooding.”

So there we have it. Being mindful of the boring stuff in the moment is what can really help.

How many signs does the Ego need to surrender to the Soul’s wisdom?

Posted on 15/11/2012 by inktuition

OK. So you’re on the verge. Of surrendering all the coping mechanisms you’ve ever relied on. [Full stop after ‘verge’ is significant.] All the stuff and guff of your environment – your behaviour and all the interpersonal relationships that you believe define you – are clinging on for dear life. And about to lose their stranglehold grip.

Except they don’t. At least not just yet. They’ve just been there to defend you. They think they’re saving you. But really they’re strangling you.

Having a life crisis, where you feel the entire planet is conspiring against you, is really an opportunity for you to realise this. The crisis creats porous entry points in your psyche for your real stuff to sneak in. Often before you’re ready for it. To catch you out. It has to create the opportunities it can, because you’ve been denying and dancing around the truth for decades. Tough, huh?

However, it can take some time to tune into what those signs are. They may have to really poke you in the nose before you spot them. Some people spend a lifetime oblivious to them. But there’s something about being able to spot the signs nudging you soul.

Here are three of mine from today: Continue reading →

If creativity helps you live longer, let’s give more freedom to our inner child

Posted on 25/09/2012 by inktuition

I do love psychological research that tells us how to live longer – especially if one of those behaviours or qualities is what I do already. So I was delighted to read on Psychology Today a report on a study that has evidence to show that being creative can help you live longer. (Well, at least among men, anyway).

Basically, the study of 1,349 men over 18 years shows that being open to new ideas and being willing to try new things can lengthen your lifespan, with a 12% reduction in mortality risk.

How does creativity help? It basically exercises the brain to keep it fit and it helps to reduce stress levels (or at least helps to manage stress better and make it less daunting). Creativity is recommended throughout the whole of life to cope better with the onset of aging, and our thoughts and feelings around it. (Who doesn’t feel better after having externalised our stresses through painting, writing or even dancing).

When you see kids playing with paints, being clever with crayons, and lacking any kind of self-consciousness when they sing, dance and play, I often wonder where that innocent sense of playfulness and creativity goes when we grow up.

Let’s bring our inner children out more often and let them have a play. I think that the creativity the researchers talk about is also related to a sense of fun and a feeling that life is still full of wonder and curiosity, no matter what age you are.

If printer ink costs more than vintage champagne, what does that say about my writing?

Posted on 12/09/2012 by inktuition

Today I discovered that printer ink, drop for drop, costs more than the finest champagne. This may not be news to many people, as the story came out nine years ago, but it’s a fascinating new fact for me.

It got me thinking of all kinds of metaphors about sparkling prose, effervescent poetry and vintage style all served chilled in the finest crystal flute. Writing, for me, can feel rather fizzy at times – when it flows, of course. And at other times it can fall rather flat.

However, I rather love the idea that ink on the page from my home printer is more valuable than the bottle of Bollinger on my wine rack.

It has certainly put a new value on my writing. And I’ll drink to that!

inktuition

writing my life and soul

Category Archives: writing