Friendship

This is the column, first published in the York Press on Tuesday, April 24th, 2018.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/16172952.COLUMN__Get_by_with_a_little_help_from_your_friends/

I have just returned from a short holiday in Wales and met up with one of my friends from college days. We’ve only been able to meet a handful of times over the past decades, but in her company, we’re eighteen again and anything can be shared.  No pretence, no judgement, just true friendship. When I read problem pages and people write that they don't have any friends, I feel a sadness. I'm not sure what I would do without my friends, some of whom I have known since primary school. As the decades pass, I can identify with the truth in the saying that friends come into your life for, ‘a Season, Reason or Lifetime’. Sometimes that lifetime is too short.

Thinking about friendship brings to mind the word, ‘sharing’. Reflecting on the time spent with friends, it’s been about sharing the present times and past times with all the challenges, difficulties and fun times too.  Together we’ve laughed and cried and had some extraordinary experiences, as well as mundane. I hope I have been able to support my friends, as they have supported me. 

The days of spending time talking on a landline are dwindling and email and social media are taking over. Some say that friends on social media are not true friends, just superficial. I disagree. My Facebook friendship groups span six decades. When my husband was seriously ill in hospital, the Facebook community provided genuine support. I didn’t feel alone. I do understand that it’s not for everyone and that, sadly, as with all means of communication, the internet can be abused. 

On my own in middle-age, I was thankful for keeping in touch with friends, even the once a year Christmas cards. One friend was a man, who I had known as a teenager and also on his own. Unexpectedly, a mature friendship grew and at our Blessing service two years later, the poem’ Friendship’ by the 17th Century Quaker, William Penn, was read. This is part of it.

“a true friend discloses freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously and continues a friend unchangeably.”  

Time passes quickly. If you haven’t been in touch with a friend recently, get in touch soon. 

©AlisonRRussell2018

Changing attitudes - would you be a friend to yourself?

This is the article that was published in the York Press on Tuesday, March 27th, 2019. It was not published online.

In the recent bad weather, we arrived at our favourite cafe for Saturday breakfast. The flood barriers had become stuck over the entrance and the staff couldn’t remove them. My husband helped and finally the job was done. I set out the tables and chairs, while the staff turned on the coffee machine and ovens. The fire was lit and soon we were able to eat a delicious breakfast.  All hands on deck, helping one another, during a time of exceptional weather. Community pulling together for the greater good, demonstrated all over the county, in the challenging weather conditions.

The following week we met with the usual early morning crowd. People were understanding about the previous week, except for one person who moaned and complained about the cafe opening late. They couldn’t have their breakfast exactly when they wanted it. Afterwards, it occurred to me that if their attitude had been different, they could have helped too.

Taking the opportunity arising from a cancelled meeting, I went to the cinema to see ‘The Darkest Hour’, with a mesmerising performance by Gary Oldham as Churchill. The venue is undergoing renovation and after the film I started to descend three flights of stairs with another woman. I commented on the improvement of lighting and other decor. Unfortunately she didn’t have anything good to say and moaned all the way down to the foyer, where a light-hearted comment from me about the weather outside, was met with further negativity. I felt quite drained and thought that I wouldn’t like to spend too much time in the woman’s company.

The subject of loneliness is mentioned regularly in the media. Circumstances can be difficult for many people, but there are those who do not help themselves by only complaining and speaking negatively. Sadly, this further alienates them, as friends, family and neighbours find being in their company draining and difficult, so visits become less often and shorter. A vicious circle is set up and generally, blame is apportioned elsewhere.  

A question we should all ask ourselves is, “would I want to visit me and spend time in my company?” If not, can we change our attitude? The answer is “Yes!” and then enjoy a more helpful outcome. 

* A man told me that he didn't have any friends. It was difficult for him to tell me why he thought this might be. I suggested he imagined that he was taking me into his local pub and as we walked in, we noticed him sitting at the bar. I suggested we go up and say hello. He immediately said strongly, "No"! I asked why we shouldn't say hello. His rely was immediate. "I pinch all my friends' girlfriends.". We were then able to have a discussion.

*It's called The Observing Self or as I prefer, our personal CCTV. Not always comfortable to view, but helpful if we look and learn.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Maya Angelou

©AlisonRRussell2018 

Would you be a friend to yourself? Self awareness.

This is the *extended article, which was published in The York Press on Tuesday, April 5th, 2016.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/features/14421072.Body__Mind_and_Soul__Observing_ourselves_is_the_way_to_develop_real_insight/?ref=mac

I have been visiting friends, who are unwell and feeling rough.  Ann is post operative and Sarah is having chemotherapy. Both friends have experienced some truly horrible times through life, as well as good times. We talk, discuss problems and laugh. I commended Ann on her attitude and she replied, “Well, if I was miserable all the time, no-one would want to come and visit me.” When I said much the same to Sarah, she replied, “What’s the point of making everyone else miserable, just because I’m going through it?” 

Ann and Sarah have personal insight and a mature level of self-awareness. They are not self-absorbed and think of and help others too.  

Their comments made me think of the focus on loneliness in the media at the moment and I thought of people who moan rather too much.

* In life there are people with whom we interact and can come away energised, even if the conversation has contained negative elements. There are other people where we can feel drained after spending time in their company. Therapists are taught to protect themselves from the negativity that can naturally exist in a therapy session. There can be times when, if not careful, a therapist can feel  that the client has plugged into the therapist's energies and drained them. It's one of the reasons I chose to be a solution-focused therapist. Despite the problems aired, how much more positive it was to focus on the client's resources and how they were going to be used in finding solutions.  

One of the motivators in finding a more positive approach in mental health came as a nursing assistant and thus, an observer, working on an acute psychiatric ward twenty years ago. I was appalled after the morning get-together, when the patients would come out of the room, most of them with heads down, crying, walking in a line along the corridor (lined with boxes of tissues!), as if they were covered in a shroud of misery, which of course, they were. Sitting in a room for an hour, all feeding off each other's misery could only lead one way. That way was downwards.

In my studies, I was taught about the invaluable ‘Observing Self’. Imagine an internal CCTV.  The ability to look at yourself in situations and think about how you are behaving. Perhaps not a comfortable exercise, but very helpful. I’m tall and sometimes use my Observing Self in situations where I become aware that I’m perhaps standing a little too close, maybe speaking too loud too, perhaps too intrusively. I don't always get it right, but I try to be self-aware.

A client told me that he didn’t have any friends. Despite further discussion, he couldn’t elaborate. So I asked him to imagine he was taking me to his local pub. He had to imagine that we walked into the pub and could see him standing at the bar. I suggested that we went to talk to him. As quick as a flash, he told me not to, because he wasn’t very nice. I asked him why he wasn’t very nice. He said he pinched his friend’s girlfriends. He had used his Observing Self and now we had something concrete to work with.

*I have had to withdraw from a couple of friendships, because the negativity and lack of self awareness was draining me. It's sad, because others have felt like that too. It may appear selfish to some people, but we need to protect ourselves from harmful relationships, otherwise we can become unhealthy, both physically and emotionally.

We all love a moan and a gossip, but there is a limit.  The limit is when people withdraw from your company. Would you want to talk to you, visit you, help you, introduce friends to you? If not, why not? 

Can you change your attitude? Ann and Sarah know that you cannot change events, but you can change your attitude to them. 

Small changes can bring big differences.

©AlisonRRussell2016

Takings steps to beat depression - York Press Column March 2015

This is the *extended Wellbeing column from York Press on Monday, March 9th.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/health/11843396.Taking_steps_to_beat_depression/

Last Monday morning and before I settled down to put the final touches to this column, I read The Press, giving special attention to my fellow columnist, Dr Andy Field. I agreed with him about antibiotics, but then winced as I read on. He’d written about what I had written about. Bother! Did I have to start again? I decided to build on his sensible advice.

Dr Field wrote about this time of year and low mood. I didn’t expect to have first-hand experience last month. It is often thought that people who have an optimistic, outward-looking, positive attitude to life, as I generally do, don’t have low moods and depressive thinking. They do. I thought JK Rowling must have experienced depression when she created the Dementors in Harry Potter. “Get near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you…” 

*This from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In workshops, I have used the full, descriptive passage, without mentioning JK Rowling and Harry Potter, to describe depression. Then I inform people, what it's actually describing. Later on Harry is given the antidote - something described as a Patronus charm. But unpack the description of a Patronus Charm and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can be indentified in another form.

In the past, I have felt as if I was under duvet made of lead, pressing down, making movements impossible. That’s where, in the past, I have wanted to stay, in bed, not confronting problems, just introspecting and misusing my imagination. But nothing gets solved lying in bed. 

*A client said to me, "As I lay in bed, I suddenly realised that nothing was going to change in my life if I stayed there, so I got up." I recall a morning many years ago, where the Dementors were forcing the duvet down, while I struggled to get out of bed. The force seemed so strong and I wanted to give in to it, but I didn't. From the actions I took that morning, my life changed.

I had a brush with that duvet last month. There wasn’t one trigger, but a variety of all sorts, topped off by a book, which I found demoralising. 

* Someone suggested that I could just live an easy life and I wondered why I didn't make life easier for myself. That led to guilt from not helping those less fortunate. I developed a cold. I read a book called Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre, which confirmed what I already knew, but despaired about.  I was left questioning my actions, as in, "What's the point of trying to make a difference?" and it unsettled me.

The Dementors were nagging away in one ear, while Pollyanna was attempting to be heard in the other.  Age, experience and knowledge has its benefits and I now know how to fight these Dementors. The highly emotional state needed to be broken and only I had the power to challenge and change my thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and actions. (See Patronus Charm above.)

Step by step, I waded through the treacle that my mind and body had become stuck in and the demented thoughts slowly faded away.

These were some of my steps:

1. Get up, showered and dressed. Tough, but crucial. 

*Little can be achieved otherwise and sometimes beating the demons and winning a challenge feels good. Thus releasing the 'feel good' hormones. 

2. Ate healthily. The mind and body need the correct fuel to work properly. I fought the urge to self-medicate with my choice of chocolate and alcohol. 

*I didn't abstain, but didn't overdo it.

3. Fresh Air. I unearthed an old pedometer and set a target of 10,000 steps a day. Gardening.  Helps sleep too. 

*If I managed 10,000 steps by 2/3pm, I knew I would be tired.

4. Enjoyed the simple pleasures in life. Signs of spring and hope. In York I looked at The Minster and wondered at its magnificence.  Another day I sat overlooking the sea, marvelling at the always changing scene. 

*Watching the waves coming in and going out can be relaxing as it slows down the breathing.

5. Spent five pounds on a bunch of flowers. 

*Just putting them in a jug on the table lifted my spirits. Worth every penny.

6. Telephoned two friends and talked about their lives and problems. Counted blessings. 

*In fact, I rang one long-time friend for a long chat and the very next day another long-time friend rang me, out of the blue. Then I exchanged long emails too. Both have challenges in their lives with family members, so it was good to listen.

7. Booked a neck and shoulder massage. 

*A massage, manicure, pedicure etc: can all help aid relaxation for a period of time. Touch is good too.  I believe that these treatments should be offered in all mental health units and elderly care homes. Far more effective than medication. 

9. Restricted TV watching. A demotivating, energy sapping activity.

* Dark days, multi-channels, a comfortable sofa and the remote control makes this activity so easy to get sucked into. 

10. Stopped worrying about what I can’t do in a troubled world and concentrated on what I can do, which is to help a few people, not thousands. 

*It upsets me to see good people having their lives ruined unnecessarily and scandalously.

I also recognised the truth in ‘This too will pass.’ It has. 

*The memory is useful here, as it can act as a reminder of how a change of thinking and behaviour made life better in the past.

©AlisonRRussell2015