Iain Alexander’s Blog

After a few rather depressing blog entries of late, that accompanied my most recent and most severe bout of depression for years. I can happily report that I’m on the upward spiral.

Last weekend was very much a rollercoaster of emotions: good and bad. It started badly, as I had a client on Saturday, the first and perhaps the only time I’ll see them I fear, and as they left I was sure that I’d done some of the worst therapy I can remember. I felt all over the place, incoherent, mixed up and unable to convey my point of view very well, if at all. [note: I have no idea if I really was as bad I think or just that I felt it went badly] I moped around the house for the rest of the morning and early afternoon almost convincing myself that I was the worst therapist on the planet and should just pack it in right now. If you look hard enough you’ll find evidence to support any belief or point of view and I trawled up numerous example to prove my theory about how dreadful I was.

The little voice of sanity and rationality in my head, was trying his best to remind me that how I felt might not be real. Despite being convinced that he was wrong, I let him persuade me to sit on it for a day or two, (”just in case.”) Afterall, if I still felt the same, I could pack it in just as easily then as now –but i might, just might feel different by then.

Anyway, I decided to get out and take the dog for a walk; getting out and about always makes me feel better and it did. But with the all turmoil of relationship problems, possible work problems, general depression I was emotionally all over the place, sometimes feeling like I wanted to cry, other times deciding that I’d had enough of life in general. Yet on the other hand I’d feel excited about the future; what might happen, what could happen. Home life, was surprisingly good as well, I think because we’d talked and both been honest with each other.

Hindsight is a great thing, because I now realise that the rollercoaster, the up and down was the start of me feeling better, the beginnings of me moving out my depression and back into “normality” (whatever that is)

Looking back on yesterday (Monday), it was entirely uneventful, I was my “normal” cheery self, positive, relaxed and just OK. It was so uneventful, that I didn’t even notice if I was depressed or not. That’s sometimes the irony of getting better, we get better, get back to normal and just don’t really notice when everything goes back to being how it should be. Client wise: Yesterday was normal too, as it was today. In fact it was only as I was getting ready for my evening client today that I even noticed that I was feeling pretty good.

I’d completely forgotten about the notion of giving up therapy. It might seem like a stark contrast to how I was feeling a few days ago (and believe me it is), but, for me at least, this seems to be the nature of my depression – big pits of despair, self reproach and self-pity that last a few days or weeks and then suddenly just disappear, almost - and in some cases literally – overnight. It’s suprising and fascinating how my mind can shift so radically over just a few days!

Of course, the challenges that I’ll be facing over the coming weeks and months are still there, but I now feel that they’re not insurmountable. Today: they’re fixable, they’re all obstacles that somehow I know I’ll overcome.

Depression is a funny old business, it comes in waves and when you least expect it. Yet it's only when it hits you in extreme way does it start effecting your work.

At the moment I'm going through a bit of a rough patch; when I'm not working, not seeing clients I'm pretty damned low. In my downtime from clients there have been times when I've felt like bursting into tears, not for any particular reason you understand, just that for whatever reason I get these waves of emotions. Not that my clients would suspect a thing I'm sure and it's not that I'm pretending or hiding it from them it's just that when I'm working I'm in work mode and then everything is different. I'm focused on my clients, focused on their problems the solutions and just generally I take myself out of myself when I'm with them and put on my therapy hat [it's not a real hat you understand, just a metaphor!]. When I'm with my clients I am my normal self, relaxed, chatty, friendly and happy (hopefully most of my clients would agree that we spend quite of time laughing?) In fact, in some ways it seeks to enhance my therapy work as I feel even more empathetic towards my clients. Yet when they go and when I'm without appointments it all changes. The black pit opens and I feel headlong into it.

Part of the problem is that I have to time to think, time to wallow in my own self-pity, it's made worse because I'm not as active as I once was (or would like to be again) and also partly due being on my own. As someone who is a natural extravert [link required] I take my energy from other people, and feed back my energy to other people or group.

Being depressed takes a suprising amount of energy, I don't think non-depressed people really appreciate just how damned exhausting it is; sure, when we're depressed we don't want to do as much, but some of that is because we're so damned knackered all the time. There are a lot of really depressed people out there who seem to be fine, their friends, family and work colleagues probably have no idea they're suffering. In my opinion it's mainly when the sufferer runs out of depression that they can't keep up the jolly exterior any longer and becomes visibly depressed.

Here is my list of things that make my depression worse:

1. Being on my own
   Strangely, when I'm not depressed I don't mind being on my own at all, in fact, sometimes the busier I am the more I crave some me time, some alone time. Yet when I'm depressed, the opposite is true.
2. Being stuck indoors
   (or at least feeling that I'm stuck in doors) – Today, being a great example. I Spent the morning moaping around the house, feeling trapped, listless and frustrated. A Huge list of house jobs that need doing, but no desire or impetus to do them. But I have a laptop with a good battery (4 hours when fully
   charged) so here I am, outside, by the river in the sunshine actually ACHIEVING SOMETHING USEFUL.
3. Lack of exercise and activity
   This is a bit of a viscous circle, when I'm down, I need to exercise more (it makes me feel so much better) yet it's almost the last thing I seem able to do. I want to go running right now, but for some reason haven't been running for such a long time now.
4. Feeling trapped or helpless
   Again, another viscous circle that I need to work at to break out from. One of the things depression does for me, is make me feel trapped and helpless, about pretty much anything that's not therapy/client related. I know, in my head that this just distorted thinking, but it's a real struggle to break through it and actually do something to prove to myself that I'm neither trapped nor helpless
5. Lack of purpose
   I'm sitting here, writing, and this helps enormously, it gives me purpose and a goal – for the time I'm writing this I'm working towards something, thinking about what I'm going to write and NOT thinking about depressed I am!
6. Nothing to do
   I have the attention span of a goldfish and I get bored so incredibly easily. I have school reports that say "Iain is easily distracted" and 30 years on, this is still the case. Easily distracted, easily bored. If boredom was an Olympic event, I'd be a multiple goal medal winner! Perhaps I just lack imagination, but I seem to be spending a lot of time at the moment feeling I could do something with my time, but not really knowing what the hell I could do. It's no good anyone suggesting anything either, then I just feel like a bored school kid in the school holidays, with my Dad suggestion lots of really [lame] things for me and my friends to do.

Now, oddly, I've known about all these things for a long long time, but just writing them down here and now, seems to make both seem a bit silly and easily changeable. I've never written them down like this before. But looking at them all now, there is that little voice in my head saying "what the fuck are you getting down about, all these can be addressed pretty easily"

Now, this blog entry was going to be all about how I keep reminding myself that the way I feel right now isn't real. It's temporary, it's the depression talking and making me feel so bloody low and emotional. Up until right now, this has been my mantra for the past few days and weeks. "it's temporary, it's not real" But now I can see things that will help.

Notice that I'm haven't mentioned what causes my depression, just talked about things that makes me feel worse. I know that if I can tackle those, which clearly I can, they're all things I can change things will change and get better. Ok it's not a panacea, I'm not going magically cure myself but I know it WILL make me feel better. It will make a difference.

I'm out and about again, this time I'm writing this in the GLORIOUS sunshine between Moel Famau and Moel Arthur in the Clwydian range [insert picture of me working] Yesterday was a stunning day, but today, if anything is even more so, it's even hotter, the clouds are even fewer – actually now that I look around I can't see a single one. Apart from a glider, that's just swooped by there is no human sounds at all, just birds, lambs, ewes and the panting of a somewhat hot Quaver. Just in front of me I can see a Buzzard circling, playing in the thermals, and over in the distance the quietly rotating fans of a wind farm (despite their being almost no wind, they seem to turning!)

These are the kind of days that make you glad to be alive and glad to be outside – but they've got me thinking. Days like today are lovely no matter what time of year it is, but from the people I've talked to today, they seem to be even happier about the weather today, it's the first thing they say.

    "Glorious day, isn't it?" they say

    "Fabulous!" I reply

But days like today are made even more wonderful and enjoyable because it's this time of year, because it's Spring. If we had the same weather as today but in September, I'm sure it would be great, but after a Summer of good, warm days (hopefully at least), we might not appreciate them as much. It's precisely because we've coming out of a cold, damp, dark winter that makes days like today so amazing. We have to have something to contrast it with. If every day was like today, I know I wouldn't appreciate it, I know most people wouldn't – it would just be the norm.

This must be akin to why we have bad times and good times. It enables us to enjoy the good times so much more when we have something bad to contrast it with – the difference is immense, so great we can't fail to notice the contrast. When you're having a good time, when everything is going great for you, take a moment, and ask yourself if you'd really appreciate it as much, really enjoy it as much if you didn't have bad times to contrast it with?

Equally, when you're having a down time, when you're at your nadir and all around seem hopeless and bleak; remember that you HAVE to have times like this, because without them you just won't notice the good times when they happen. (and they will happen)

And your perusal: me writing this!

If you've visited my Flickr photostream you'll no doubt know that I am a dog owner. Quaver is a lovely, if somewhat dim Yellow Labrador, [What used to be called a golden Labrador, but don't ask me when they decided to change the name!] Today, was the most glorious Spring day, beautiful sunshine, bright blue sky with the white fluffy clouds that always reminds me of the opening title of The Simpsons. It was warm: no jacket required warm and the kind of Spring day when it's almost a crime to stay indoors when you don't have to.

Quaver and I were walking around Hope Mountain  – Sometimes, like today, I take a Fling-a-ring with me if I think they'll be somewhere to throw it for – she absolutely loves Frisbee-type things. It was a toss up between a fluorescent pink or yellow one: Pink one out and off we went, with me running off in anticipation of the throw, only to not be looking in the looking the right way when it landed and resulting in me having to tramp across the heather to retrieve it for her. As I said, she's lovely, but dim – every time we go out with the Frisbee she will attempt to mind-read where I'm going to throw it. She's sometimes exactly right and can catch it in mid air, other times she's slightly off and has to run at full pelt only to miss it and see it hit the ground. Most of today, she was way off, running every which way but the way I was planning to throw it – I even tried to see the direction she was running and throw accordingly, only to have bound off in another direction with the Frisbee mid-flight.

Quaver, being a lab, LOVES water, it's a nigh on impossible job to keep her away from a pond, puddle, lake, river or even a flooded field. Today being no exception; despite there being almost no water at the top of the hill, she still managed to find a small run off to paddle in, and then a mud filled pond at the base of some old, and long-disused quarrying. One of the things she always forgets to do, is drop her Frisbee (or ball, or stick, or anything else she's carrying) before she enters the water. Fling-a-Rings don't float, so as she swam into the middle of the pond she dropped it in favour of a few laps of the pond water. Bless her, she does realise she's dropped it, and sort-of remembers (roughly) whereabouts, but after 10 minutes or so of constant diving down into the murky depths I finally had to concede that it was gone, lost forever, or at least until the next serious drought. She was determined to find it, and wasn't giving up easily, she would dive down under the water for several seconds at a time and I could almost sense the panic in her face when she began to realise that she'd lost yet another Frisbee (I can't tell you how many we've lost over the past 3 year!)

As I walked away calling her to follow, I noticed that she was frantically looking around for a something else, a replacement for her lost Frisbee. She picked up and discarded a few sticks before finally spying an empty Diet Coke can (seriously, is it that hard to take the can back to the car park!). Clearly I'm not keen on her having sharp aluminium in her mouth, but she would not leave it behind. It wasn't her fluorescent pink fling-a-ring, but it was evidently better than nothing – as far as I could tell it was a terrible substitute: I couldn't throw it, nor could just dangle it in her mouth, resting it behind her teeth like the fling-a-ring, sharp and dangerous as it was, she had found something beneficial to it, even if I had not.

Amazing that even dogs feel the need to substitute things, even if it's clearly not as good psychologically something is better than the perception of nothing. Even what that something (seemingly) has nothing to do with addressing your problem(s)

Incidentally, we got back to the car, and just before I opened the door for her to jump in she dropped the can – whatever she finds attractive in it, must be lost if it enters the car. [I put the can in the bin before we left]

One of the things I spend a lot of time doing with my clients is trying to get them to change their goals from the unachievable to be achievable. One of the ways to do this is to explain to them the value of mediocrity. You’ll have to bear with me on this one, whilst I explain it - it’s not as mad as it sounds at first, honestly!

What most people do is the set themselves a goal of achieving 100% in everything they do, they have to be perfect. In theory that a great goal, who wouldn’t want to achieve perfection? But the reality is that achieving 100% - being perfect, is impossible. Yet we can always achieve something that is adequate and, so all that happens is that you achieve the adequate first and then struggle to achieve that last little bit of perfection.

It almost all of life, all we really need is to be good enough. Sometimes we want to do brilliantly, sometimes we need to do something very well, but mostly we can get away with being “just good enough”

Let me give you a example:

Assuming you physically able, everyone can paint a room. Everyone has the ability to buy a paint brush and put that paint on the walls. And of course we all want to live in well decorated home, but a well decorated room doesn’t have to be perfectly painted. You don’t need to paint every last nook and cranny, some of the places will never be seen. Some of those areas are fiddly, hard to reach areas that no one will ever be able to see or notice - the tops of door frames, or the underside of window sills for example. Sure, you can paint them and you can sit back feeling smug that you’ve painted every last nook and cranny, but no one will ever be in a position to see you’re wonderful brushmanship.

I remember a few years ago, hearing how someone at Mercedes had the idea to stop painting the inside of the ashtray in new cars. Up until then it was always painted, but it became clear that no one ever noticed the painting in the ashtray so it wouldn’t matter if it was painted or not. It saved the company millions of man hours, not having to paint it, and millions of litres in saved paint.

Getting back to my analogy.

Painting the first coat on a room, really doesn’t take any time at all, maybe a few hours at most, maybe a little bit extra to do the fiddly detail work around light switches etc…. But essentially a few hours.

When you’ve done that you’ve done enough to just get by, it’s not brilliantly painted, not amazing by any means, but if you stopped there and did no more it would be just about “good enough” and it took very little time to do that “just enough”.

So now you could just walk away if you really wanted to. But if you wanted to do more, you could build on your achievement and paint a second coat, or touch up the areas that didn’t get fully covered before. Once again, after you’ve done that you can stop and walk away, knowing you’ve not just “done enough” but you’ve done a little more. Sure there may be a few bits here and there that could do with a touch up but you can choose whether to do those little bits if you want to. You can choose to build on your other successful achievements to do just that little bit more.

My point being: if you start with a goal of “perfection” you’ll always fail and you’ll always feel terrible for not achieving your goal (however unrealistic) but if you start with a goal of mediocrity, you can achieve that in no time in at all, with little effort. From there you can build upon it to achieve more and more, doing little bits to improve what you’ve already achieved. You will still never reach 100% perfection, but when you start with a mediocre goal you exceed it early on and you feel good about it. In reality you may achieve the same amount of work with either approach, but setting a goal of “perfection” will make you feel a failure, setting an initial goal of “just enough to get buy” will make you feel successful and give you a genuine sense of achievement and give you a choice to walk away from the task at any point, feeling good, feeling successful, knowing, deep down that you’ve done a good job.

I see quite a lot of clients who have a variety of sleep problems from being unable to get to sleep or to waking up during the middle of the night and then find it hard to get back to sleep.

Here are some top tips to help you get to sleep and to enjoy a good night's sleep.

1. Go To Bed When you're tired.

This may seem the most obvious but you'd be surprised how many people go to bed and wide-awake. Losses could get into a routine of sleeping and and develop a habit of going to the similar time. There is no point in going to bed, if you're absolutely wide-awake all that will happen is that you will build up an association of going to bed and being unable to sleep. It's much better to go to sleep when you actually stand of chance of drifting off, e.g. when you're tired! If you someone who has no trouble drifting off to sleep but awakens wide awake during the night, get out of bed and do something else (that's calming) and go back to bed when are you tired again.

1. Hide the Display of Your Alarm Clock.

A lot of people who have difficulty sleeping find themselves looking at the time on the clock, either frustrating themselves because they perceiving that they are not going to get enough sleep, or just sitting watching the minutes passed by; the minutes where they are unable to get to sleep.

For those people who wake up during the night: looking at your alarm clock is one of the worst things you can do all that tells you is how little sleep you perceive is left for you. How many times have you woken up early in the morning looked at the clock and realise that you only have a few minutes or an hour or so before your normal getting up time and how many times have you felt crushed by it? In reality, it doesn't matter how long is left for you to sleep, or what time the clock tells you it is, you can still have a really good sleep between now and the time, you eventually get up. Once you've set your alarm for the following day, cover over the clock face, turn it away from you or cover it up with something. Just make sure you can't see it. You'll find you sleep so much when you're not clock watching.

1. Have a Bath Before Bed.

I'm sure you've read this, or heard this before, but that's for a reason. It's good advice. Showers are great for cleaning you, they're wonderful for waking you up in the morning, and are, of course much quicker than a bath. That's the point though, a bath is slow, it takes time to draw the bath and you need to take the time to relax into it, it gives you a chance to unwind and relax.

1. Make your Bed and Bedroom a Place of Peace, Comfort and Relaxation.

Most people find that they sleep better in a clean, tidy bedroom and often sleep longer and deeper when the sheets have been newly changed and are the bed freshly re-made.

1. Talk to Yourself in a Better Way

Think about the times you can't sleep and remember the way you talk to yourself - do you for instance, talk in a calm relaxed and quiet voice or is your internal dialogue fast and aggressive, loud or sounding harassed? Ok I already know the answer to that, if you can't get off to sleep you'll be using a fast-paced frustrated, even angry voice.

One of the simplest techniques I teach my clients is to change the way they talk to themselves. You're not going to be changing what it says (although you can) by change the way your internal voice sounds in your head.

Slow it down:

No point in talking to yourself in a fast and furious way, that will only get you excited, agitated and worked up. Slow it right down.

Make it sounds sleepy, very sleepy:

If you think of a time you were so tired that you had to work really hard to stay awake, you'll perhaps remember that your internal voice also sounded so very sleepy and tired.

Yawn:

As you talk to yourself with your eyes closed, imagine your internal voice having a yawn every few words or so, so that…(yawn) it sounds tired and… (yawn) sleepy and just can't keep your eyes… (yawn) open.

Go ahead and try this now, doesn't matter what you say to yourself, but how you say it, slow it down, slow it right down, make it sound sleepy and tired and imagine your internal voice yawning all the time. If you do it right now, you'll no doubt find yourself stifling a yawn and feeling sleepy.

When your mind slows down and sounds sleepy and tired your body can't help but follow.

1. Last but not least: Give Yourself Permission to Fall Asleep.

You'll just have to trust me that this works, but when you get into bed and are ready to fall asleep, tell yourself (in your head or out loud).

"It's OK, I've had a long day, I'm tired and it's ok for me to fall asleep now" you'll be surprised at how well this works.

Try them and see which ones work for you and which techniques work the best.