Recently there have been a fair few changes in perspective from me. I do not know whether circumstances or medications (or most likely both) have been the driving force behind this but I definitely feel it to be true nonetheless.
A few deep and meaningfuls with some of my closest friends have revealed a few things to me. First off is that I can't expect them to be able to help me in any capacity if I don't give them the information or tools required to do so. Shouting 'Just understand!' at someone is futile.
This is predicated on them knowing there is even something wrong to begin with. I have an atrocious habit of of appearing to be in control of even the worst things that happen, and that is almost exclusively because I allow it to develop that way. I want people to admire me and, while I acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with anyone asking for help when they need it, I'm not so very good at identifying when that person is actually me.
On a side note on this topic sometimes when you do ask for help people will run away, despite having told you that you can rely on them them for anything. This is genuinely nothing to do with you and as hurtful as it can feel there is FUCK ALL you can do about it so, as hard as this is, you move on. It's not like there won't be a queue of people who really do want to help after all. Some of the most amazing help I have had in recent times has come from the unlikeliest of sources after all. That's what we should embrace - all you good, good people.
Getting back to the point, we each (to a greater or lesser extent) have a little bit of a habit of only highlighting the really positive aspects of our lives and so interested onlookers may just take these edited highlights and extrapolate that to be the full picture. We each know from our own lives that this is nowhere near the truth so why do we take it to be for others? Is it simply borne of laziness on our part?
I don't wish to give myself a pat on the back on this front as I have no doubt let friends down previously when they've needed it because I've been focussed on myself, but I do like to think that I genuinely try to help out in whatever way I can. I empathise where I can and sympathise for the rest. It's never nearly enough but the effort is what matters I feel.
Even re-reading this last little blurb is strange though because even it presents me in my best light when it is not necessarily the truth. Truth is naturally subjective and I am, after all, the hero of my own story, so things will always be skewed a fair bit in my favour. I might actually be an incredibly difficult person to be around because my life centres round certain ailments and (even though nobody may like to admit such a thing) people could be absolutely fed up of hearing about it. For all I think that I just retreat into my shell when things aren't going the best it is just as possible that I am unpleasant to be around at those times. Overall I don't think so but 'Would some pow'r the gift to gie us, tae see ourselves as ithers see us' and all that pish.
What I'm really getting at is there's honesty and there's honesty. I never come out and tell people I'm fine when I'm not but neither do I maybe tell them all the ways in which I am not actually fine. You know, the ways in which they may actually be able to help. I've never really ascertained whether I fear being beholden to them in some way and so try and avoid that - I suppose this may be why I've often gone to the loves of my life in such moments for help (because I know I would never feel that with them) but I know that is asking lot of them, not least because it carries the complicating factor as to whether I am still in love with them. Rest assured I am not but I can understand why it could appear so.
Most of my oldest, closest friends don't read this blog. They don't understand it really I don't think. Intellectually I'm sure the concept hasn't escaped them but it just isn't for them, they don't seem to feel. I can't do anything about that either really so it can, on occasion, feel like relative strangers may understand my feelings and motives better than they might. This place helps me iterate ideas better though so by the time they do get to my friends then they are at least better formed than they would have been, and I know they are glad of that. It can save me waffling a load of old jobbies.
As they don't read it though my, often oblique, cries for help can go unnoticed and I can feel like there is nobody paying heed to me when I need it most. This isn't actually close to being true obviously but that doesn't stop you feeling it as you hit refresh on your email inbox.
This was all brought into relief on Monday there when I was down in Newcastle for my quarterly session with the post transplant clinic team. Not in any truly dramatic fashion but simply by a particular doctor walking past. I recalled needing her particular brand of help at one point and her offering nothing that was of any use at all. As it happens things improved on that score anyway but that isn't the point. The point is that sometimes being forced to find your own way is the best way. Medically that is obviously true a lot less often but in this instance it was mentally that I needed help and what she was offering wasn't any use and so I worked it out anyway. This moment of clarity about how the answers to your issues may not be forthcoming from medical professionals has been the main change in perspective on my part recently. There are a few medics with whom I trust everything, and that will always be so, but there are some I can't be bothered with and I'm coming to terms with the fact that's it's ok to think that too. They're mot exempt from being feckless idiots after all.
None of which is to say that all advice has parity. For most of the population there is simply too much complexity in my situation for them offer anything over and above what appear to be platitudes and clichés (but aren't) and so there is still a gravity attached to certain peoples' opinions but it still doesn't mean they aren't capable of being quite massively wrong. I mention this because there are simply some at the the outpatient clinic who bother me, and it stems from their arrogance. I know that may well sound rich coming from me but I have nothing on these folks. They start off by assuming you won't understand and then give a half arsed version of events when pushed and then look at you with utter incredulity when you have the temerity to question their logic.To put it bluntly some doctors aren't actually very good doctors. Some aren't even particularly good people if I'm going to be brutal about it.
Where we go from here though is getting the best out of the many good ones I do have taking care of me. They are to be prized, and they very much are.
One other thing I did want to mention, although I haven't got close to getting my head around this yet, is the stuff I have been talking abut previously regarding nostalgia. What used to be absolutely clear memories in my head now often feel like things that have happened to someone else but whose story I have told so often they just 'feel' like mine now. This is odd but it is perhaps just a compartmentalisation of my life to this point and so shouldn't be examined too closely. Not sure on that one really.
Finally, doctors warn you that a year or two post transplant there may well be a mental dip because of the 'What now?' factor. When something has utterly dominated your life and it has gone, admittedly to be replaced with other complications, then you have every right to struggle a bit with the change in things. I am not only aware now that this is a possibility but that it is happening and that it is happening right now that I suppose this might well be my obtuse way of asking for a helping hand. Ta.
A few deep and meaningfuls with some of my closest friends have revealed a few things to me. First off is that I can't expect them to be able to help me in any capacity if I don't give them the information or tools required to do so. Shouting 'Just understand!' at someone is futile.
This is predicated on them knowing there is even something wrong to begin with. I have an atrocious habit of of appearing to be in control of even the worst things that happen, and that is almost exclusively because I allow it to develop that way. I want people to admire me and, while I acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with anyone asking for help when they need it, I'm not so very good at identifying when that person is actually me.
On a side note on this topic sometimes when you do ask for help people will run away, despite having told you that you can rely on them them for anything. This is genuinely nothing to do with you and as hurtful as it can feel there is FUCK ALL you can do about it so, as hard as this is, you move on. It's not like there won't be a queue of people who really do want to help after all. Some of the most amazing help I have had in recent times has come from the unlikeliest of sources after all. That's what we should embrace - all you good, good people.
Getting back to the point, we each (to a greater or lesser extent) have a little bit of a habit of only highlighting the really positive aspects of our lives and so interested onlookers may just take these edited highlights and extrapolate that to be the full picture. We each know from our own lives that this is nowhere near the truth so why do we take it to be for others? Is it simply borne of laziness on our part?
I don't wish to give myself a pat on the back on this front as I have no doubt let friends down previously when they've needed it because I've been focussed on myself, but I do like to think that I genuinely try to help out in whatever way I can. I empathise where I can and sympathise for the rest. It's never nearly enough but the effort is what matters I feel.
Even re-reading this last little blurb is strange though because even it presents me in my best light when it is not necessarily the truth. Truth is naturally subjective and I am, after all, the hero of my own story, so things will always be skewed a fair bit in my favour. I might actually be an incredibly difficult person to be around because my life centres round certain ailments and (even though nobody may like to admit such a thing) people could be absolutely fed up of hearing about it. For all I think that I just retreat into my shell when things aren't going the best it is just as possible that I am unpleasant to be around at those times. Overall I don't think so but 'Would some pow'r the gift to gie us, tae see ourselves as ithers see us' and all that pish.
What I'm really getting at is there's honesty and there's honesty. I never come out and tell people I'm fine when I'm not but neither do I maybe tell them all the ways in which I am not actually fine. You know, the ways in which they may actually be able to help. I've never really ascertained whether I fear being beholden to them in some way and so try and avoid that - I suppose this may be why I've often gone to the loves of my life in such moments for help (because I know I would never feel that with them) but I know that is asking lot of them, not least because it carries the complicating factor as to whether I am still in love with them. Rest assured I am not but I can understand why it could appear so.
Most of my oldest, closest friends don't read this blog. They don't understand it really I don't think. Intellectually I'm sure the concept hasn't escaped them but it just isn't for them, they don't seem to feel. I can't do anything about that either really so it can, on occasion, feel like relative strangers may understand my feelings and motives better than they might. This place helps me iterate ideas better though so by the time they do get to my friends then they are at least better formed than they would have been, and I know they are glad of that. It can save me waffling a load of old jobbies.
As they don't read it though my, often oblique, cries for help can go unnoticed and I can feel like there is nobody paying heed to me when I need it most. This isn't actually close to being true obviously but that doesn't stop you feeling it as you hit refresh on your email inbox.
This was all brought into relief on Monday there when I was down in Newcastle for my quarterly session with the post transplant clinic team. Not in any truly dramatic fashion but simply by a particular doctor walking past. I recalled needing her particular brand of help at one point and her offering nothing that was of any use at all. As it happens things improved on that score anyway but that isn't the point. The point is that sometimes being forced to find your own way is the best way. Medically that is obviously true a lot less often but in this instance it was mentally that I needed help and what she was offering wasn't any use and so I worked it out anyway. This moment of clarity about how the answers to your issues may not be forthcoming from medical professionals has been the main change in perspective on my part recently. There are a few medics with whom I trust everything, and that will always be so, but there are some I can't be bothered with and I'm coming to terms with the fact that's it's ok to think that too. They're mot exempt from being feckless idiots after all.
None of which is to say that all advice has parity. For most of the population there is simply too much complexity in my situation for them offer anything over and above what appear to be platitudes and clichés (but aren't) and so there is still a gravity attached to certain peoples' opinions but it still doesn't mean they aren't capable of being quite massively wrong. I mention this because there are simply some at the the outpatient clinic who bother me, and it stems from their arrogance. I know that may well sound rich coming from me but I have nothing on these folks. They start off by assuming you won't understand and then give a half arsed version of events when pushed and then look at you with utter incredulity when you have the temerity to question their logic.To put it bluntly some doctors aren't actually very good doctors. Some aren't even particularly good people if I'm going to be brutal about it.
Where we go from here though is getting the best out of the many good ones I do have taking care of me. They are to be prized, and they very much are.
One other thing I did want to mention, although I haven't got close to getting my head around this yet, is the stuff I have been talking abut previously regarding nostalgia. What used to be absolutely clear memories in my head now often feel like things that have happened to someone else but whose story I have told so often they just 'feel' like mine now. This is odd but it is perhaps just a compartmentalisation of my life to this point and so shouldn't be examined too closely. Not sure on that one really.
Finally, doctors warn you that a year or two post transplant there may well be a mental dip because of the 'What now?' factor. When something has utterly dominated your life and it has gone, admittedly to be replaced with other complications, then you have every right to struggle a bit with the change in things. I am not only aware now that this is a possibility but that it is happening and that it is happening right now that I suppose this might well be my obtuse way of asking for a helping hand. Ta.
Rip toicfaidh ar lung
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you're gone my friend. Love you forever...
ReplyDelete