Serve the Servants

The 11th to 17th of June is national carer’s week here in the UK. I’m not usually a fan of weeks for this and days for that as I think they can often provide a pinnacle of focus for that week’s highlighted charity or issue which then gets forgotten about until roughly the same time next year. They are horribly media centric – perfect for journalists and bloggers who need a prompt for something to write about that day (self obviously guilty here). The activities that surround them are usually very cheesy or horribly decadent, designed primarily to pull on heartstrings and generate direct debits from as many people as possible. However, then I start getting into my feelings about charities in general which I surely will another time but not now. For the time being I am going to take the sound bites I’ve heard on the news and Woman’s hour as bait and talk a little bit about carers and caregivers rights in this country.

I feel qualified to talk about this as it is a subject that is deeply, deeply close to my heart, even though I wish it wasn’t. In an ideal world it wouldn’t be me who was writing this blog at all, but Owen- he’s the expert on this subject and I would love for him to guest blog on this page. I’m sure he, circumstances permitting, would have gladly obliged. Like a lot of people in his position, he’d love to have time just to write articles about things for fun, too. However, for his sins Owen is my long term carer. As well as being an ambitious full time PhD student (sans funding) with a two hour commute to his University, he additionally has to look after me and work two jobs spread over thirty five hours a week to support us both enough just to scrape by. Today, Owen got out of bed at six am, started work at seven, and isn’t planning on stopping until midnight or so. It has been this way for a long time now; he barely even takes a day off. He usually falls asleep at the keyboard sometimes around one o’ clock and staggers to bed after I have spent ten minutes giving him a list of reasons why he will make himself sick if he doesn’t at least get some rest.

We don’t get any help from the government, nor have we ever done, for many complicated reasons, not least the fact that he is a student and financial help for those in higher education is pitifully hard to come by, even if your wife is so sick she can’t get out of bed and doesn’t know what day of the week it is. We don’t get any support, despite the fact that, as part of the army of unpaid carers, Owen and those like him are saving the government billions of pounds in labour costs – for the government to actually pay these carers the same as paid professionals the work they do would involve spending the same again as the annual NHS budget (57 billion). In terms of carers, Owen is one of the relatively lucky ones. Most of the time I am fairly high functioning, and can do things for myself, even if they are within a limited sphere. However, for the last five years I have been unable to work for more than a few weeks at a time and several times a year we will have a bad spell where Owen has to really take over.

During these times, which can last from a few days to a few months, Owen suddenly finds me incapacitated to the point that he has to do all my domestic jobs; the cooking, the shopping, the cleaning etc which are time consuming and annoying, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. For twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, for long stretches of time I might go into ‘I want to die’ mode, which (as I guess the name gives away), means I am actively suicidal. So, not only does Owen have to do his studies, his teaching, papers and conferences, as well as everything around the house and his mundane paid employment in museums and cafes but he has to spend countless hours watching and caring for me. On the days he doesn’t call in sick at work because he’s too scared to leave me (I think most of his employers think Owen’s immune system is pathetic when in fact it is steely) he will phone me from his desk and we will talk in code every fifteen minutes to make sure I am still alive. It is embarrassing for me to admit, but during these times he becomes responsible for everything about me; from making sure I eat, sleep, wash, dress, brush my hair, and clean my teeth and all the other things that most couples don’t think about. It is not unusual for him to take hours in the morning just getting me out of bed and looking like a human being. At night time, he has stayed up all night, for days on end, just watching me, making sure I don’t do anything daft. He takes me to appointments, liaises with doctors, psychiatrists, nurses, he learns names of drugs and therapies, negotiates what medication I should be taking when and makes sure I take it, even though this can lead to some blinding rows. He sits with me whilst I cry, listens to me for hours moaning about what an ugly bitchy shithead I am. He eats microwave food with blunt cutlery because all the knives are locked away. He accompanies me on bus and train journeys because I can’t face them alone, he walks with me in town because all the people can trigger psychosis on a grand scale.

These are just a small selection of the daily sacrifices Owen will make to give me the best life he can. Our relationship turns, (sometimes overnight) from one of absolute equality to total dependency. My personality is transformed and my functioning is grossly impaired. Yet Owen just gives and gives and gives. He does all the above and more, and has never, ever complained. Sometimes he gets tired and down with it all, sometimes he can get very upset, but has he ever snapped at me or lost his patience? Never. Not only does he do all this but he tries to give me a good quality of life; despite being so tired that he needs twenty five cups of coffee just to get up in the morning, he tries to do this all with a laugh and a smile, a hug and a kiss, a joke, a giggle and lots and lots of sympathy. He tries, whenever possible, to keep me out of hospital. He cares for me with dignity and respect and makes sure my wishes as regards my treatment are upheld as much as is humanly possible. He slaves away to make an awful situation bearable, and every night before I go to sleep he says to me ‘I believe in you, this will get better and even if it didn’t I regret not one moment: I would do it every day for the rest of my life.’ And then he is asleep before his head hits the pillow.

I know. I know. If there ever was such a thing, I am one lucky manic depressive.

But, as special as he is, Owen is not the only one.

Up and down the country there are friends, relatives, neighbours all caring for people they love not for monetary value or job satisfaction but because they feel it is the right thing to do. Many have given up well paid jobs to do so, and have to eke a living out of the pittance that the government provides for the ‘lucky’ few carers it deems eligible for financial help. At the moment, the maximum weekly carer’s budget is around £48.68, (for a minimum of 35 hours a week- equivalent to £1.39 an hour) which is significantly less than many of the other benefits going and many carers find themselves in financial dire straits. These are real people with real lives every day losing their houses, jobs, cars, and possessions in order to give their sick loved ones a life away from institutions and the slow decay they bring. The support they generally get from the system is laughable. Their hard work is often unrecognised or treated as a nuisance, their relationship with the patient undervalued. When they ask for vital support, for respite care, for some kind of state provided home help in addition to their unpaid labour, for some much needed money or equipment, it is usually an uphill struggle all the way. Forms are piled upon forms for even the most basic means of assistance and the lists of excuses soon mount up as to why you are not eligible for this or that. Many carers feel like the authorities are entities they have to constantly fight, rather than vehicles they can turn to for support. The strain is enormous, the pressure huge. Yet many of these carers are themselves are vulnerable people. A huge percentage of them are elderly, often hardly able to move properly or fully function themselves. On the other end of the spectrum, some are mere children who find themselves looking after their parents and siblings instead of concentrating on their schoolwork or social life; terrified that if they, as a ten year old child, don’t keep the family functioning then social services will get involved and split the family up. These are truly the unsung heroes of our society, for those people who have never had to care for someone day in day out then all I can say is you have no idea what it is like. I have no idea what it is like and I’m a lot closer to the action than most.

I sometimes ask Owen; ‘what do you get out of this?’ After all when we met he was just turned eighteen. He was barely an adult with patchy facial hair and a passion for computer games. He is not a super stud but he is not a bad looking bloke and he has a great personality. I think at university even if he couldn’t have pulled the Julianne Moore look-alike that he dreamt of, he could have at least chosen someone whose idea of an evening in wasn’t drinking a bottle of whiskey and locking herself in the toilet with a razor blade for three hours. To this day it mystifies me why he didn’t go running for the hills. I would have done. I have asked him this question a number of times. Sometimes I am genuinely curious, sometimes I do it when I beat myself up. He has only ever responded with these four words: ‘Jen, I love you.’ and refuses to be drawn any more on the matter.

It is, clearly, not all one way. I support Owen in many of the things he does and bring happiness into his life in many capacities other than the ones I have mentioned. Most people who care for someone deeply love the person involved and find caring for them rewarding and fulfilling, even if it is sometimes a soul-destroyingly exhausting and strenuous process. But it seems to me that it is precisely this love and devotion that the government are exploiting. They know that Owen and the six million others like him are not going to just turn their backs on their loved ones. It basically boils down to this, why pay someone for something when they are willing to do it for free? They know that Owen means it when he says ‘Jen I will do anything for you’. Even if that means year upon year of little sleep, no money, overwork and battle after battle with the authorities. When the alternative is to see their loved ones go into hospital or residential care, out of their lives and control, often putting them at risk of abuse and exploitation many carers simply say ‘over my dead body’, and battle on. That is what Owen and the rest of my family have done for me and I owe them my life several times over.

Carers, in my experience, are not asking for much.

They are asking for:

a) Enough money to provide them and the person they are caring for with a basic standard of living where crippling financial worries do not make an already fraught situation 1000 times worse.

b) Recognition of their efforts and respect of their own wishes and needs as well as the patients.

c) Respite care and more short term intensive inpatient services for when times get really tough. When they judge the situation to be unmanageable, that is, not some government crisis team’s checklist.

d) Specialist help for the things they cannot afford to provide themselves, or are not trained to do.

There are other things, but these are the main complaints I find most carers have. Of course, as a patient myself, I do realise there is a debate around giving carers too much power, in that I believe as a patient it is me who should always have the final word, if I am able to do so. Some carers may have ulterior motives and it is the authority’s job to ensure abuses do not happen. However, the truth of the matter is ‘what’s the alternative?’ If, as a patient you are not supported by those around you then there might be some limited care in the community stuff, but if you have a time of crisis or get too ill to cope, you will end up in an institution. Enter a hospital or a residential environment and you relinquish all control anyway, to people who are much more likely to abuse and neglect you than your own friends and families. Ask most patients who’d they’d rather have the power over them and I’d hedge a bet it wasn’t the syringe wielding electro-shocking multidisciplinary team at the hospital, but their loving husband, or their mum or dad or their grandparents. In most cases, patient’s rights are the one and the same as carer’s rights. These devoted caregivers are sacrificing so much and getting so little in return. That’s why we, (especially those of us who are on the receiving end of their love and attention) should be fighting together to get these unsung heroes the rights and privileges they deserve.

Through a glass, darkly.

5. I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicants which lead to heedlessness.

My response when I first read this precept was a bitterly muttered, brow knitted ‘fuck that’.

It hasn’t really changed much since then.

This could be the one, the big one. More challenging than the lying and the stealing and the killing and the lusting that I have already quite openly admitted I indulge in. Those, push come to shove, I am prepared to forsake in the name of enlightenment and release from samsara. However, turning my back forever on a glass of Shiraz over a home cooked meal, or a crisp, ice cold bottled larger in the beer garden of my beloved local, I am not. At least not right now, anyway. And yes I know how lame that sounds.

I am not a booze hound but I like a drink. I would say I get fairly sloshed at least once or twice a week. If it was up to me I would drink something most nights. Especially wine, but I love most alcohol from stout to asti to whiskey to just plain run of the mill 3.99 bottles of plonk that are on offer at sainsburies. It’s the taste, yes, but not only that, it’s the intoxication. Definitely the intoxication. I like the numbness that spreads from the tips of your fingers and loosens your muscles and your tongue. I love the feeling of detachedness, I adore the way it makes me want to laugh and laugh and talk and talk and even, scarily, (at least for observers) dance. I am less into the whole vomiting- crying- arguing- depression vibe that sometimes comes along with it. But I, over the years and many bad trips have basically got to the point where I can control my drinking so I hardly ever get bummed out.

The catalogue of strict rules I have created to govern my drinking is quite impressive: I don’t drink when I’m having a bad day. I don’t drink when I’m depressed, or, god forbid, because I’m depressed. I don’t drink when I’m nervous or in a crowd of people I don’t feel comfortable with. I don’t drink in very busy places, I usually only drink with food. I don’t drink alone, unless it has been specifically cleared that I can and even then this is a very rare indulgence. I don’t drink neat spirits and treat spirits full stop with great caution. I don’t drink the day before something important. I don’t ever, ever, drink in the middle of an argument. I don’t drink on antibiotics or painkillers. I don’t mix my drugs; Valium and booze is a big no no. I very rarely mix my drinks, either, I tend to have a wine night or a beer night or whatever; I’ve just found it works better that way. I don’t drink and watch horror films. I don’t drink and listen to sad songs for hours on end. I don’t get sloshed in places I don’t know very well unless I’m with people I trust who do. I do drink a pint of water before I go to sleep. I fetch a bucket to keep by the bed; just in case. I do sleep on my stomach. I usually eat something before unconsciousness hits me. I do sleep straight through. I do set an alarm. I do eat breakfast. I don’t let the hangover wreck the next day, however bad I feel.

Each of these rules (of which I am sure there are many more) has a history and have been devised over many years of mistakes and practice. They may seem strict and not very rebellious, but I don’t mind keeping them, as they in turn keep me safe.

More importantly, they keep me drinking.

The beauty of booze to me in a nutshell is lubrication. I can do without the giggling, without the double vision and the crazy stupid dancing. But the systematic destruction of inhibition glass by glass, the way it turns an awkward group of strangers into a dancing, hugging, swaying rowdy crowd is just magic. Talking as someone who sometimes finds speech very difficult, alcohol has saved the day on many occasions. Even amongst close friends, I find there’s nothing better than the sensation of an alcohol induced revelation; the more shocking the better. The times when you confide, push boundaries, deepen friendships, delve deep into your psyche and your relationship and talk straight from the heart you are proudly wearing on your sleeve. It makes people closer and gets people talking. It kick starts an evening that otherwise may have collapsed from nerves and tension.

I totally know it’s a crutch that I am leaning on here. From a Buddhist point of view this reliance on alcohol is a massive hindrance to my happiness; taking me regularly away from the virtues of seeing true reality, clarity, and awakening. Hopefully I will do without it one day. The long term plan, in my own mind at least, is that I will get so strong in my meditation practice my personality will become properly integrated and I will become so self assured that the very idea of having to pour chemicals down my throat to cope with a night out seems ridiculous. But for now doing without it is beyond the realm of possibility. I have always turned to chemical assistance to avoid reality or at the very least to blur it. Alcohol and intoxicants to me have always been the mental version of taking my glasses off; in drunkenness everything seems that less bit dangerous, less intense as the edges blur and swirl into each other. Inside, the damn inner monologue shuts the hell up for a couple of hours. I usually pass out in a state of happy oblivion. It is bliss. Is that a sad admission?

As I write these words I suddenly hear the imaginary voice of my teacher ringing in my ear. He is as pesky as a gnat sometimes that man!

He sits down beside me, smiles that peaceful smile, adjusts his robes slightly, and speaks:

“Jen, there is a better way to seek bliss than at the bottom of a glass. You know that deep down or you wouldn’t have sought me out in the first place. Stop fighting, stop struggling. Just learn to let go. Through meditation I have taught you a way to still your thoughts and bring you release in a gentle way that will not rot your brain and your liver. Use it.

You know that the peace and confidence you seek can not be bought at an off license, but already lies within you. You know that the heart of this precept deals not with outlawing the odd glass of Chardonnay in the summer sun but eliminating the dependence and desperation you still feel when you are sober and a night of socializing stretches ahead of you.

You know where it is to be found; the real deal, not a chemical band aid. Strive for enlightenment in all you do, through that process you will find the peace you so desperately seek. ”

It is then that I realise that the root of this clinging to the bottle is not a love of a harmless beer with my chicken drumsticks at the family BBQ, it is much darker than that; it is my deep yearning for oblivion that I can’t relinquish. This is something that is hard for me to dwell on and is tricky to explain. It is a difficult thing for people to grasp that right now I am extremely happy, leading a fulfilled life with a loving partner and lots of friends and family. I have a very happy life and have no complaints. Yet for as long as I can remember; day in, day out, I have battled deep suicidal urges. Even when I have been incredibly happy I have had the visual image of myself as a dog chasing its own tail, going round and round in circles and a lot of the time I just think ‘enough’. I’ve had enough.

When I discovered Buddhism it was mind-blowing because here was a group of people who had this same image in their heads. Here was a religion that wasn’t demanding I rejoice in the splendor of all God’s glorious creation. Buddha said the first noble truth is that life is suffering. I can relate to those words more than anything. Not in a really miserable eeyore kind of way, I do laugh a lot and go outside and walk with the birds and in the mountains; I do so often enjoy a rich fulfilling life. Not either because I have a hard life. Yes I have a few health problems and I don’t lead the regular life of an average 25 year old. But I have, in many ways, had a very easy, comfortable existence. I was blessed with many talents, a wonderful family and now a fantastic husband. I am not materialistic, I think I have my priorities right in terms of how to be happy. I may be on speaking terms with despair, it is true, but in my life so far I have also experienced genuine joy and love. But it has always been there; even in the happy times this dull voice that says ‘enough’. It is not, actually, me or my life I have a problem with. It is the act of living itself I find so difficult. The process of birth, growth, decay, death. The suffering I see all around. The corrupt society. The miserable people. The madness. The greed. The lies. The disease. The eating, the shitting, the washing, the dressing, the walking, the endless endless talking. Even the laughter, sometimes, when it often rings so hollow. The act of breathing is so difficult, sometimes I just feel like I don’t ever want to take another one. The empty futileness of it all often weighs heavily on my heart.

Anyway, happy thoughts.

But that is why I drink I guess. That’s the root of it. It’s my own way of saying ‘enough’, of hovering for a couple of hours in the exit without actually going the whole hog and jumping off the Ouse bridge. If I didn’t have the release of alcohol then I’m scared where it would end up. Getting trashed is like a valve being released in a pressure cooker, at least sometimes, anyway. Not that I’m trying to paint a bleak picture, its not like I consciously think ‘oh I must get wasted tonight or I’ll kill myself’. It’s not like that at all. But I think the drinking does act as a release of these negative feelings and allow me to take a break from reality for a while, a reality that sometimes I find difficult to exist in.

Fortunately for me Buddha’s four noble truths do not end with the fact that life is suffering. In the rest of the truths and in fact in the whole body of his teachings he details a ‘cure’. It is the fact that Buddhism provides a practical system for finding genuine happiness (and eventually genuine oblivion, I suppose) detailing a way of escaping the cycle of suffering that makes it so appealing to me. I have already learnt so much from its teachings and found so many of them to be sound. I am already, since discovering the Buddhist path, that bit less desperate on a Friday night to get off my face. I am finding my teachers words to be the truth; through my meditation I am more peaceful, more satisfied and most importantly, now I have the goal of nirvana in my life, it makes the notion of suicide seem inferior and unappealing. My steps might be small, like those of an infant, but I am making progress all the time.

So one day maybe I will be writing this not with a vodka lemonade in my hand, as I am so accustomed to but a cup of green tea. Maybe I will take this precept or maybe I won’t. What I would like to live without though is the need to escape. I would like to face reality and myself without the crutch that alcohol gives me. Maybe one day I will actually listen to my wise, wise teacher and seek my release in more constructive ways than drinking. But for now I am drawn to the allure of the booze: Tom Waits is on the radio and Bukowski is in my bookshelf. I realise that for the time being, at least just yet, I’m not quite ready to hop on the wagon and ride into the sunset.

The Wall of Pain.

This excellent blog by my friend Dave got me thinking about what he terms ‘emotional porn’. It’s one of those things that now my eyes are open I have started seeing evidence of it everywhere. Including when I’m least expecting it…

Owen got given some book tokens as a present when he left his last workplace so yesterday we went to Borders to spend them. It was about 6 o clock and eerily quiet which made for some good, if slightly unnerving browsing. Now, I’m not much of a fan of Borders. Not just because it is a huge corporate brand that is pushing the independent bookstores of York out of business, but also because it is often hugely crowded and I tend to find it hard to track down the things I need on the rare occasions I do shop there. It is just too damn big! The vouchers, though, were only redeemable in the Borders franchise, so that’s where we went.

Now we both are guilty of this, but Owen in particular takes hours and hours and hours to spend money. Mostly because we don’t have a lot of it and so when we get some spare we like to be careful that we are spending it wisely. Bear in mind that he has had these vouchers since February and he has been pondering over what to spend them on ever since. It’s actually quite a fun process; that ten pound note that your Nan sends you in the post for your birthday opens up a huge world of possibilities to be deliberated and chewed over during long strolls down the river and lingering coffee breaks. It’s more fun anyway, in our minds, to really give these things some serious thought rather than simply spending it on what ever shiny thing catches your eye- soon to be forgotten about. The Jowen method makes a little go a long way, it makes the anticipation almost as fun as the event and from an ethical and frugal point of view it makes you remember the value of money. It means that whatever you end up with, you know yes I really wanted this. When I have ten pounds to spend, I often think about the implications of the note in my hand; ‘Owen would have to work two whole hours to earn this, so is X really worth that? In five years will I still be valuing this, or at least its memory? I picture Owen’s aching back, his tired eyes and throbbing head, then think ‘Do I need to spend this?’ My antidote to advertising has always been the power of careful thought and a deliberate harnessing of my imagination. But anyway, I am digressing miles from what I was supposed to be talking about. Back to the story…

When Owen finally felt mentally prepared to actually go to the shop and wrestle with the big decision of what to purchase, he warned me when we got there (with that look in his eyes) that it could take ‘some time’. Sigh. So we agreed to meet up an hour later and see how he’d got on. In the meantime I went round the shop. I spent most of my time in philosophy and religion, but also swung by gender studies, erotic fiction, and the cookbook section. In the space of fifty five minutes, I went from Socrates to Jamie Oliver and back again. Then, on my way back to the DVD section to meet O, I noticed the psychology wall. Now, it’s been a while since I last browsed a well stocked psychology section and I have my reasons for that. But something caught my eye. One whole subsection, wall to floor, was covered in a particular kind of book.

You would know the kind if you saw it. They are always white, usually with a blurred picture of a child hunched over looking scared or teary. They have a jagged font and a punchy title. Quite eye catching, really. The craze was started by an autobiography called ‘A Child called It’ and by the looks of it there have now been literally hundreds of spin offs and copycats. I had no idea there was such a market for these hundreds of tales detailing bleak, graphic, horrific abuse. Yet I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. This trend is nothing new. We have always, as a nation, been a bit obsessed by the neglected child. In terms of literary history look at David Copperfield, Oliver Twist or the recent spate of gritty nostalgic biographies inspired by Angela’s Ashes. Even modern day Children’s heroes like Tracey beaker and Harry Potter are renowned for their hard lives and the books don’t skirt around issues of abuse, hardship and neglect. The books I read yesterday, though, take the obsession to another level. I looked at the wall to ceiling display and felt profoundly nauseous. There was something not quite right about all this, not right at all.

I read the back of one of the books. There was one of the most graphic descriptions of child abuse I have ever read. It was a boy having his face pushed in the fire and branded with a poker. Then I read another one, it was a creepy description of a girl about to be raped by her father. I read another; it was the story of a five year old child having their hand smashed with a hammer. I probably read about ten of these dust jackets, each to design to shock and horrify, and… titillate? Surely not. As I read the covers, I became aware of a sort of competitiveness that was going on between the books. There was a definite vying for top dog. Each was trying to be the most shocking, the most horrific, the most stomach turning. I got the distinct impression that the authors and publishers were appealing to a certain audience; the people who were reading these books were enjoying the shock.

When I, as a writer, examined the language, it was written to hook, to thrill, to entice. Of course these are books; commercial entities and the publishers need to sell copies. So there’s got to be some kind of emotional worm dangling as bait. But I think it goes deeper than that. All the while, I was just thinking to myself, this phenomenon is pornographic. Emotionally pornographic. People are getting big kicks out of this shit and not the legendary men in long coats who hide behind school bus shelters but middle aged women who knit jumpers for jumble sales and middle class students who read this stuff on the bus on the way to college. Maybe, I thought, trying to be generous, these books are serving a purpose in educating us about the horrors of child abuse. This is such a taboo that maybe I’m reacting to it in a funny way, maybe I’m seeing it as pornographic when it is just a highly charged emotional subject, one of the highest charged in this society and consequently I’m not being fair. After all, abuse is emotive. Hence the emotional packaging, right? Or maybe the intended readers of these books are the many millions of people who have lived through abuse themselves and reading such graphic descriptions might be, in the long run, cathartic and healing. They might help you to come to terms with the deep wounds and long lasting scars, safe in the knowledge that there are others who have been to hell and back.

I tried to be fair, I really did.

But none of my theories rang true. The display just seemed more and more horrific the more I looked at it. It stank of profiteering, not healing; it was one flea ridden cash cow right there in the middle of the bookshop. And people were lapping it up. Even at such a quiet time at least four or five people came and picked up one of these books in the time I was browsing. They were not reacting to these stories with solemnity and reflection on the evils of abuse and pedophilia, but responded to them like the soulless commodities they were; flicking through, reading the juicy bits, occasionally raising eyebrows, putting them down again.

Then, as I was turning away, one woman reader tutted to herself and shook her head.

And I just thought; 'that just bloody well sums it up, doesn’t it?' Yes, I accept that people read these books for a variety of reasons, but I believe many buy them to gain themselves a hollow victory. Through reading the hardback highs and lows of some poor bastard’s misfortune they attempt to salvage some posititivity about their own lives. People read these so they can be assured of their own morality and so called happiness. They think ‘Thank god my life is so much better than that. True my daughter may hate me and my husband drinks a bottle of wine a night and we hardly speak to each other. I may hate my life, but God, I never poked his eyes out with a nail gun and even though when my baby girl kept me up for two years straight I wanted to throw her out the window because I was so exhausted, I never did. I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m a good person.’

So we fall into the trap that the ruling parties and state apparatus (of which major publishing houses are a part) have set for us. We read, devour (and maybe collect) this emotional pornography rather than facing our own problems or examining the genuine injustices in the world and the systems and attitudes that make abuse such a common place thing in our society. We think poor sod and like the woman in the bookshop we shake our heads and say that’s terrible, maybe rant about it to our friends later. Maybe, in rare cases, we go and give ten quid to the NSPCC. We do this not out of a state of genuine compassion and empathy, but simply to make ourselves feel better, maybe even to make us feel something. After all, as any psychiatrist in the world will tell you; a lot of people go through life feeling emotionally numb and these books which use language so skillfully to drum up deep emotions are almost like drugs to some of us. That is why when I went on Amazon to examine some of these books again, I noticed in the reviews a trend; there are a lot of people out there who are reading a lot of these books. There are people who are ‘into’ the child abuse genre. These people are not sick or depraved; it is much more complex than that. They are just the extreme end of people who are addicted to this widespread emotional pornography and they need help.

As a society we need to learn to face our own genuine emotions, even when they are dark and scary. We need to learn to stop demonizing people and seeing the world in such black and white bipolar terms. Whilst this attitude may temporarily give us an ego boost, the I’m a good person effect, it doesn’t get to the root of the matter and leaves us genuinely unsatisfied. Emotions are deep, complex things. Pornography, by its very nature is surface based and fantastical. That is why emotional pornography is seductive, but ultimately is an empty promise. It never really grapples with the heart of the problem and is designed to always leave you wanting more: the next thrill, the next drama, the next more graphic book. It distorts the deepest truths of human existence and turns deep suffering into a simple commodity, to be sold as fixes to us, the numb dumb masses. We are junkies, plain and simple and as long as we are hooked on this shit, believing the lies, we will never know true compassion, or wisdom. To be happy both as a society and as individuals we need to kick the habit of emotional porn and start to wrestle with the huge complex grey areas of our existence. Human experience is rich in depth and intensity, encompassing a huge rang of emotions. How sad then that most of our focus is on the negative ones, such as sadness, anger, jealousy and endless, endless craving. We must learn to renounce this pornographic quick fix, see it for the trap that it is and settle for the real deal. We must come to terms with our own feelings and not be afraid to express our genuine thoughts. Just as a sexual pornography addict must learn how to enjoy genuine flesh on flesh contact again we also have to learn how to connect. Authentic emotions expressed within connected communities of interdependent people is the way out of this sad situation. Most of all, we must learn to face ourselves; otherwise if we’re not careful our inner lives will be reduced to the emotional equivalent of an unfulfilling and lonely mess in a tissue.

The Political is Personal.

At the moment I am busy listening to Tori Amos’ latest offering, American Doll Posse. I have been excited by the concepts behind it for some time after seeing and reading interviews with her in different places (including ‘Loose Women’ of all programmes- I don’t think they quite knew what to make of her!) On a first listen I am pretty impressed, but I imagine as with most of Tori’s work, it will be a grower.

Things I like about Tori Amos:

• She is, first and foremost, a musician; a classically trained pianist to be exact. She is also a songwriter, and, when she’s on form, one of the finest ones in contemporary music. This as opposed to being a singer of other peoples songs (usually men’s) like so many world class women artists are, or worse, being foremostly a model or dancer with not much musical talent.

• She is an interesting character with strong opinions about life, art and the world. I don’t always agree with her, I sometimes find her pretentious and annoying, but I can never tear my attention away from her when I watch her perform, or in an interview.

• Her lyrics rock the house. She is a poet who is not afraid to experiment with language, form and style.

• She is unashamedly political.

• She is not afraid to be herself and since ‘Little Earthquakes’ was released has fought for control of her own sound and image in an age where artists are more and more dictated to by record companies. Kudos to someone who would rather turn down their first significant record deal rather than have her record and musical vision massacred.

• She can be silly, whimsical, earnest and poignant within the same song, sometimes even in the same breath.

• She makes me think

• I like her voice.

• She tackles taboos.

• For example: She explores female sexuality in an honest, genuine way. This is all too rare in an age where despite an abundance of page three models and Ann summers shops, an exploration of woman’s true sexual psychology and drive is a deeply taboo subject.

• She has a sense of fashion and aesthetic style that even I can appreciate is interesting.

• She pours scorn on the fickle ‘celebrity’ lifestyle.

• I believe she genuinely cares about her fans.

• She pushes the boundaries of her own music in her live performances, and never plays the same show twice.

I could go on, but won’t. Anyway, when I am excited about an album, especially an album from an artist with a lot of depth, I like to read a bit about it first. So before listening to American Doll Posse I went on Wikipedia to see what it had to say. The thing that really caught my eye was this quote from Amos herself:

‘The main message of my new album is: the political is personal. This as opposed to the feminist statement from years ago that the personal is political. I know it has been said that it goes both ways, but we have to turn it around. We have to think like that. I’m now taking on subjects that I could not have been able to take on in my twenties. With Little Earthquakes I took on more personal things. But if you are going to be an American woman in 2007 with a real view on what is going on, you need to be brave, and you need to know that some people won’t want to look at it.’

Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the first time I have heard this kind of argument. Recently, Natasha Walter wrote an entire book on the subject, and there has been (especially post 9/11) a call from within the feminist world to become more linked with wider issues than feminism has traditionally focused on. More and more articles and books are being written by feminist authors on a diverse range of subjects, including what I call ‘big P’ politics.

I say, right on. To this direction, to all of this.

It’s not that I don’t believe that the personal is political, I blatantly do. If it is already not obvious from the small amount of posts I have written, then I will spell it out: thinking about the significance of my day to day actions is of tremendous importance to me. I believe that the devil is in the detail, as they say, and huge victories can be won by focusing on what might initially seem like small aspects of your daily routine. You know, the whole Rosa Parks thing. The greatest injustices, I have always found, often manifest themselves in a whole range of day to day inequalities and it has only been by reclaiming this personal sphere, and politicising it, that feminists have managed to make the gains they have.

However, I read a lot of feminist blogs and over the last couple of years have been more and more concerned by the fact that the overwhelming majority of posts, especially by young feminists, seem to revolve around traditionally ‘female’ spheres. For example, feminist posts on fashion, makeup, food, family, relationships, motherhood, domestic chores, childcare, body hair and at the more radical end of the spectrum, sexual issues like abortion, pornography and rape can all be found in abundance. But the feminist bloggers and journalists who are writing about law (that’s not abortion law), science, Party and international Politics, global news stories, religion, critiques of capitalism, human rights, war and conflict, technology, space travel, economics, philosophy etc. Where are they? I don’t come across them very often, and when I do it’s the same few names again and again. I find this compartmentalising of the feminist movement very worrying. Life is a rich tapestry, yet the vast majority of the feminist movement seems to just focus on things designated as ‘women’s issues’, and by focusing on such narrow topics we seem to get into such wars amongst ourselves.

Sometimes, the personal can become too political. We get obsessed with tiny little details and lose sight of the bigger picture. We turn on each other and forget that there are different ways to live life, different ways to express feminism. We forget completely the concept of sisterhood, and instead behave more like cliques at a high school, obsessed with dogma, labels and outward codes of behaviour rather than the true spirit of liberation. Anti porn or sex positive, Pro choice or pro life, to wed or not to wed? Yes, the personal is political and I’m not disagreeing that these issues are important to many many women (including me). However, I’m right there with Tori on this one, there is so much more to the feminist vision than simply debating for hours whether having hairy armpits make you an authentic feminist or a hardcore loony that gives the women’s movement a bad reputation. After all, there surely comes a time where you have to say to yourself a hairy armpit is just that. Women are dying and starving all over the world. Atrocity after atrocity is being committed on our behalf and in our names. There comes a time that, as western feminists we should stop fighting amongst ourselves. Then, with or without a Venus razor, we should stand up, united, and do something to help.

X Marks the Spot

Well, the deed is done. I put a cross next to the candidate’s name, dropped the ballot in the box and in doing so exercised my democratic freedom. Waiting to give my name to get my voting slip, I couldn’t help thinking ‘what a fucking joke.’ Not just because of the depressing details that I couldn’t help but notice; the fact that, at six o clock it should have been a busy voting time but there was only me and Owen in the entire building. Not just because the party Owen wanted to vote for didn’t even have a candidate standing in our ward, or because the women who took our names had a look on her face of utter despair and boredom. All these things were pretty lousy but above and beyond that, to me the whole thing just felt like one huge big ridiculous fucking farce.

What I wanted to write all over my ballot: ‘There is no such thing as democracy anymore in this country. I will not play along with your pointless charade.’

What, in reality, I did write: X (next to the Green Party candidate)

Why? For the same reason that I will not allow myself not to vote, even though I am totally disillusioned with British party politics and the utter corruption of local government. I am an idealist, a dreamer, and I just could not bring myself to spoil my vote. It seems such a negative, wasteful thing to do, even if it does reflect my line of thinking more than any positive vote could. I told myself that I was acting out of respect for the people who died trying to get me that vote. I stood in the cubicle, thinking of those women and men chained to railings, thrown in prison, dying all over the place so I could put that cross on that paper. That does, undeniably weigh heavily on my conscience and it did influence my decision. Also, I do agree with a lot of the Green Party manifesto and have voted for them many times in the past. Still, I feel like a bit of a coward for not putting what I thought. Even if only one vote counter had read what I said it would have made a point.

We are not living in a free and fair democracy. Our vote does not matter one jot. The truth is that Corporations are the real policy makers, both locally and nationally, rather than just lowly politicians, or, perish the thought, voters. If you want to make a difference then it’s probably more effective to vote with your talents, your money and your time. Some humble suggestions (aimed at myself more than anyone else): don’t shop at the out of town Tesco that’s ripping the city centre apart, even if it’s the only place that does stock the organic pink grapefruit that you love for breakfast. Make sacrifices. Simply don’t buy the local newspaper that devotes page after page to scaremongering, shitstiring and racist gossip making the streets feel unsafe and causing deep divisions in the community. Consider spending a couple of hours a week volunteering at a local project or charity that is actually something you believe in and helps bring people together for a cause other than money. Treat others with respect; maybe there isn’t such a thing as true altruism but looking out for your neighbours; saying hello, getting to know their names, offering to feed their cat when they go away is always a good start. If someone in the street falls over, help them stand up. If you bump into someone, say sorry. Support local arts events, rather than always going for big names, go to concerts of small local bands who have something to say. Visit galleries of promising regional artists, book tickets to see the amateur dramatics or youth theatre productions. If you are confident enough, join a committee. One night a month on the school governors or the local hospital might make a difference to something of massive local importance and you will find yourself with a surprising amount of power. There are loads and loads of things you can do to help local issues.

If we really want to think local on this Election Day, then we should probably commit more than just a pointless cross. For a long time I have believed that corporations are winning this battle by alienating us from our environment and our fellow human beings. I have always believed that acting locally is the way to fight a global war. It makes the problem more manageable, less overwhelming, more rewarding (in my head I think of it a bit like the GCSE bitesize course run by the BBC!) Let’s face it, if everybody, self included, was more involved in their community, we would be a lot less alienated, far less divided and therefore a step closer to solving the global problems.

Don't Take Your Guns to Town, Kid

This week I have read quite a lot of blogs from the US, and obviously the Virginia Tech massacre seems to have brought the gun control issue to a head, as you would expect.

So I want to talk about guns. Not a subject I am hugely knowledgeable about, do not read the following blog for lots of statistical analysis or personal anecdotes. I have never held a gun. I have never, therefore, fired a gun. I have never had a gun fired at me. In fact, my only real experiences of guns are the fact that I have traveled in Gaza where I frequently heard gun battles, but they were usually a long way in the distance (still scary though). The only other time is spending a few minutes in an air gun shop with my brother in law (he made a few Beavis and Butthead noises to himself "cool…uh huh….awesome….") and then we moved on for a cream tea with extra strawberry jam at the nice shop at the end of the road. Hardly life in the ‘hood.

So I guess some people would think that it makes me very under-qualified to talk about the subject. I don’t agree.

I may not be knowledgeable enough to do an in depth analysis of the world gun trade, but I would just like it to be put on the record that, from my perspective, life without guns is fabulous.

I attended a state comprehensive school. It wasn’t the worst in the country but it wasn’t so far off the bottom of the league tables. It was enough having to cope with the hair pulling and verbal abuse I received at the hands of the other students. I am so glad that I was able to partake in my classes without hearing rumours along the grapevine that so and so has a gun in their bag and is waiting for you after school. I am so glad that there whilst there was undeniably a culture of violence at the comp, it never did and never has ended in a fatality.

The school was in a working class town. It wasn’t the safest place to live. People got beaten up for standing out, there were a lot of drugs and gangs. Despite that, I still managed to have a happy childhood where I was allowed to roam most of the streets, my life was not characterised by fear and danger. I feel that without the strict gun control we have in the UK this would not have been the same. I’m not saying I would have got shot. I’m just saying that with all the gun crime on top of everything else, my neurotic mother wouldn’t have let me leave the back garden and a lot of my fun childhood memories would have been stolen from me. I wouldn’t have been the only one. The lives of me and my friends would have been spent in front of computers and TV’s rather than walking through the woods behind the old pit or running through the fields on the common. I may have sometimes walked the long way home to avoid the bigger boys who shouted lewd things after me and my twelve year old girl friends, but imagine the power those bigger boys would have had with their dads stolen gun in their pocket. Guns are not just used to kill, but to cajole, to threaten, to rape. The bigger boys in my home town just had catapults and the real psychos had knives. But I’d rather take my chances with a man and a knife than a man and a gun, although neither, admittedly, is something I’d put on my wish list.

Finally, and this issue feels a lot closer to where I’m standing now: if guns were legal in the UK, I would be dead. I say this sincerely and honestly. Every depressive who has wrestled with the big one has a preferred method. A single, simple gunshot wound has always been mine. Less than a six months ago, I was so fucked up that had guns been legal I can say with certainty that I would have bought one, pulled the trigger and hey presto, exited the planet. 1 in 4 people in this country suffers from a mental illness at some point in their life. I don’t know the exact statistics relating to methods but I do know that studies have shown that in countries with guns, suicide rates tend to be higher as many more attempts are successful. I’m not saying that gunshot wounds are the only way to kill yourself, far from it, but it my own case, the method I was forced to use was much less effective and therefore there was time for me to be rescued by the paramedics and then time for me to be saved in hospital. If I had found easy access to a gun, I simply wouldn’t be here writing this now.

So, people, from where I’m standing, I say: fight to keep Britain as gun free as possible. Those in other countries who own a weapon: know that you are 41% more likely to be murdered if you have a firearm in your house, which to me would be as cold a comfort as the hard metal casing you so foolishly caress under your pillow. Let us not forget that guns are designed for one thing, and it’s not protection. Guns are made to kill. They tear apart communities, wreck lives, mame, wound and torture. I’m pleased to say that today I haven’t been one of the approximately 1000 people who died because of a gun. I hope I never will be.

Look at it this way: today I have been able to walk through my city’s streets unattended, carefree, feeling safe. For billions of people all over the world, because of the threat of the bullet there is so such feeling, no such freedom. I know you’re all going to laugh and call me a sucker idealist but for me there will never be any peace in the world until the firearms trade, both legal and illegal is dismantled. So why stop at Britain? Lets fight for the belief that the only place that people should to see guns in the whole world is stuck behind a glass cabinet, in an armory museum. Sure, it’s not a guarantee against the human violence (both headline grabbing and unreported) that dominates our planet, but it sure would be a step in the right direction.

Grandma

I have spent a lot of today thinking about old age. My grandma died at around about this time of year (such a dutiful granddaughter: I can’t remember the date/month/year), but I’m pretty sure it was in the spring, with the daffodils just about to die. So she has been playing on my mind for the last few days. She died in an old peoples home as the family couldn’t cope with her severe, aggressive dementia. Within eighteen months she went from being my lovely cuddly grandma to a husk of a woman. Being witness to the journey she underwent; the accelerated decaying process that left her unable to remember her own name or the name of her husband, children or, well… me… it was one of the most influential things that has happened to me. You just don’t forget shit like that. I was walking the walls of the city, and memories of her last months floated back into my conciousness: the smell of the pine air freshener that she had to breathe all day and the fish tank in the home's hallway with the moldy goldfish that swam in tiny circles. The guest’s "sign in" book that recorded our weekly visit and the tragedy of the fact that on more than one occasion there were no other names in the book to separate our Sunday signatures.

I have always hated old peoples homes. With a passion. I used to work at one, I know the shit that goes on there. People, good people who have given so much to their families and their communities are just left in high backed chairs to rot. There is no respect for the intelligence, individuality, history or needs of that person. Yes, they will get fed, even if it is the same tinned grapefruit or stewed prunes every day. Yes, they will be dressed, if they no longer can for themselves. Yes, they will get toileted once every couple of hours. Unless the staff forget, and then they have to physically sit in their own piss and shit for hours on end. In these places, there is no dignity. None. Most people in old peoples homes are not really people at all, in my experience, they are just empty shells waiting for their next 10 minute family visit, or if they have no relatives, they sit there and look forward to the day they finally stop breathing.

Now, call me silly if you will, but to me that’s no way for even one life to end. And for thousands upon thousands of these broken people to be abandoned, (not just by their families but by their communities), exploited of their hard earned life savings, neglected, drugged beyond recognition until they finally lose the will to live and croak…well….to me it is beyond dubious. This is abuse, plain and simple. Abuse of a whole generation, abuse of the most vulnerable group in our society. This is happening now, every day and it’s a fucking travesty. The friends and the relatives of people who have had to go through these systems and have seen our mums and dads, grandmas and granddads, friends and even enemies destroyed by them should be screaming about this abuse through megaphones outside polling stations and TV stations. We should be burning the places to the ground. We should be suing the corrupt owners of these establishments who bleed their residents dry. We should be going into the thick of it and helping those poor bastards who after all did much more than fight in the much toted wars; they raised us, read us stories, fed us home cooked meals, made sacrifice after sacrifice for both this country and our communities and our own families. This is the thanks they get? We should be so ashamed.

Yet I am not talking from a holier than thou perspective. My immediate family committed my grandma to one of these places. It made her worse and she died. We have that on our consciences forever. However, like many people in that situation we believed all the shit the system told us, that we couldn’t manage her at home, that she’d be better there, that she was a danger to herself and others, that she was unsafe in the community. We acted with the best of intentions. So do so many of us. But I think most of us know, I think in my heart of hearts we knew, that we acted with blood on our hands. Who hasn’t been to an old folks home and retched at the barely disguised smell of cabbage and piss? Who hasn’t noticed the woman in the corner with her dress on back to front and her teeth hanging out? And who hasn’t looked around at all the vacant expressions staring at countdown on the telly and thought; "shoot me, please, before I get to this stage"?

There is a cancer at the heart of our society. Maybe one of the reasons we’re all so obsessed with botox and anti wrinkle cream is because we know what’s waiting for us at the end of the line. It's not the thought of endless bingo nights and tepid institution food that creates the horror of the situation, it's the fact that these things are, in an old people's home, life's highlights.

News flash, people. We’re all gonna die. You won’t avoid it however hard you try. Science isn’t going to find a miracle cure, you’ll be pushing up daisies before you’ve even really had a chance to realise the implications of being alive. And when you do die you will probably be in a lot of pain and very scared. Dying well and dying bravely is one of the hardest things there is to do. Trust me on this. Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if our very last years were spent with our families, or if not with them, then in places that valued us and our wisdom, where we were treated with respect and compassion rather than as if we were nuisances at best, simple commodities at worst? Wouldn’t it be good if, even on our death beds, we were still being asked; "What can you teach us?" A dying person has access to some of life’s most potent wisdom, yet he is dosed up with morphine and goes screaming into the night surrounded by people who don’t know how to help, or have been taught, for professional reasons, not to get too involved.

My grandma died four years ago, almost to the day. I don’t know how yet but I don’t want her to have died in vain. I tried writing a play about it, one day I will try to write, or do, something else.

For today this little blog will have to do.

Body Image- (To Joan)

I loved your fat,
handfuls of it.
Breasts so big
they flattened me against
the wall in the hallway.
A scuffed knee,
a broken toy,
a sore throat;
all my worries
ran to your open arms.
Clasped to your chest:
rising and falling,
rising and falling.
Your heart beat
a tribal drum
that spoke to me
in ways your
stubby tongue
and cracked lips
could not.
Your clothes bursting
with rolls of blubber.
Wild eyes
and double chin.
No lipstick,

a faint moustache,

false teeth.

I had yet to encounter
Miss World on her
callous catwalk.
To me you were
woman,
old woman
in all her glory
and I was proud
to sit beside you
on the bus.

The rules

1) I will not talk about anyone using their real, full name in this blog.

2) I will not post real life secrets, or things told to me in confidence, even under a pseudonym or using friends only posts. I have more respect for my friends and family than that.

3) This is a blog about me and my ideas. It is not a blog to analyse the people in my life, or a psychoanalytical dissection of my relationships. To me that stuff is personal. I am a people person, and they will be mentioned, but mainly as gateways to bigger ideas and issues rather than character studies in themselves.

4) I will endeavour to be accurate, and honest.

5) I will endeavour to write at least once a week.