Mar 18

I'm writing this a day late. My day today has barely started. So, I'll do yesterday.

Another day, another migraine. This one fortunately was short, cut off, and didn't get very far.

But a migraine it most definitely was. Came out of nowhere, spiked up pretty fast, grumbled off into the distance with the application of pain killers and sleep.

Still.

Another back to back set of days with migraines.

Today I went for a walk with Hazel for the first time in a week. She needed some bits and pieces, I tend to be her grocery and bits and pieces wheels. She had had a bad week herself. Nightmares. Shitty neighbours. Bad experiences in public. Not great. A good deal of screaming, swearing and hostile interactions.

It could be coincidence but I've also noted she tends to do worse when I don't see her for a while. I think our little low stress ambles with the mutts do her a lot of good. And I tend to spoil her a little from time to time. A coffee. A burger. Cake. I'm not sure. There is probably at least a reasonable dose of coincidence in there. But I do think it also has a very positive effect in that low key kinda way. She's definitely a lot happier and open to people when we are on walks, she has gone from being negative about absolutely everyone, to being positive about everyone - in the domain of walking dogs and other dogs we meet. She will chat to people. Be friendly. And burble along happily about the good boys and girls we meet. But. It's much more noticeable when she's with me. And much more subdued when she isn't with me, where her interactions can tend to be shitty. Perhaps Athena and I are something of an unspoken comfort - she can drop her need to be defensive.

This all in all is quite the change from where she used to be, singularly negative about everyone and everything.

It's a slow slow change. But we've gone from people are shit. To. People are shit except around you ( me ). To. Not everyone is shit. To. People are nice to me too when I'm with you. To. People are sometimes nice to me when I'm on my own. I think it's like a very slow evidence based progression. Last week for instance we made friends with a young family with their own dog, young boy, and just about walking girl. She chatted happily with them and you could tell, really enjoyed just getting a chance to be human with people. Instead of anxious, and hostile, sneering and suspicious.

It is, of course, the trauma. The beaten animal. The borderline disorder. But still. Some of it seems to be thawing. Very, very slowly. I have a very vague theory, that the amount of time it takes to recover from something is connected with the amount of time you spent in that situation. Nothing gets fixed overnight. Or in a week. Or even in a year. It takes a lot of time. Patience. And actually giving a shit.

We ended up going to M & S after the walk. Hazel wanted an easter cake she got in there on our last walk - a week ago. She reckoned it was amazing. So I took her there and she got to pootle around M & S, and also pick up some things for me whilst she was in there, all on my tab. It makes her happy. She came back with an armful of chocolate, cakes and biscuits.

I needed another bag she said.

Uh huh.

We both smiled because that's what I had said before she went in.

It's our ritual. I'll say something sensible. She'll ignore it and scoff. Then afterwards admit the wisdom of the sensible.

That's also part of her Mental Thing.

The week before it was - Take a bag. I don't need a bag. Afterwards - I needed a bag.

Uh huh.

I don't berate her about it. Or lose patience. Or anything negative. I just let her gently make her own choices and see the results she gets - in a safe environment. I think, on the whole, this is what works best with her. Give her lots of room. 

Of course. These days, more often than not I am out of it. I can't maintain a grip on reality myself, let alone plot someone elses. But on slightly better days I still observe.

Moving on.

As time goes by, life for me is about all the things I have lost. And not about all the things that yet may be. Pretty much all about people and relationships. Whether they've died, or moved on, or whatever. Some I am glad to have moved on from - mostly work. Some I am very sad to have lost. But that to me - probably dysfunctionally - is what life is to me. A growing collection of things that have slipped through my fingers and are now gone. And the future a darker and darker place of nothing new, no good things.

There must be, I reckon, a tipping point in everyones lives. Where the the things behind them massively outweigh the things in front of them. It is the nature of a finite life. At some point, you're more done than not done. Add ill health, slowing down and all the rest of it. And eh.

I suppose the "correct" way of thinking about it, is that there is always life to be had. New experiences. New amazing things to come, just like they have in the past.

But to me it rings hollow. The math doesn't stack up. It reeks of wishful thinking and avoiding the elephant in the room.

I reached that tipping point myself a while ago. The whole illness thing hammered that nail in flat. You're Done. The whole hitting 50 thing was just an underlining of that headline.

No doubt, the shrinks would say I am wrong.

But I would say everyone ages at different paces. Everyones lifespan is individual. Their experiences, wider or narrower are different. And for some. Life can be brutally short and brutally dark. The happy clappy convention is that things are always possible. The reality is that for many, it just isn't that way. 

You can die at any decade of life. *Any*. You can sometimes get some inkling of where you are on that path. And if you're handed a terminal sentence, a very clear one. Is it stupid or dysfunctional to know where you are on that path. To know that the majority of life is behind you, that maybe all the good times are behind you ? I don't think so. Is it good for you ? Also no. It comes down to the usual quandary of you can be right, or you can be happy. You can know stuff or you can be happy.

The more you know. The less happy you get.

Still. Something to work on. Always look on the bright side of life. You never truly know what's around the corner, and perhaps right now, is just the worst it gets and from hereon in, it's all up.