365 Steps To Self Confidence - How to build confidence, step four

I've undertaken to try this self help book, something I normally find incredibly alien. I recognise that despite all the work I've done in the wake of Mum's death, I still find myself lack in self worth and self confidence. This leads me to become terrified and it's truly making a mess of what I really want.

I'm not going to share everything as this almost certainly needs to be a private journey, but on occasion it might be helpful to me to show what I'm working on.

Write down three beliefs that you hold about yourself which could be limiting your confidence.

Now think of three beliefs you would rather have, beliefs that would empower you and bring confidence. Cross out the limiting beliefs and write these empowering beliefs in their place.

What would you have to do for these new beliefs to come true?

1. I'm fat and unattractive. I have a handsome face and can carry myself well.

2. I'm dumb and I underachieve. I'm intelligent and adaptable; that my talents lie in other areas to my friends is not a bad thing.

3. Everyone I love will always leave me. I love me and I will never give up on myself. If another person does, it is their loss.

You're fired...

Clear your desks and get out. You are all diminishing productivity and damaging morale. Security will escort you from the building. I would advise against applying for a reference from HR. Good day.

Me, myself and eyes

Let's talk about eyes. Specifically, mine.

I was born with a fairly severe astigmatism. Perhaps connected to my jaundice, though I gather this was more likely to cause brain damage. Yay.

Side note: prenatal jaundice is caused by a waste product called bilirubin that is fat soluble. Since my Mum had psychological problems surrounding her body image and body fat. she ate very little and it stands to reason there was little fat in her body to dissolve the bilirubin. Further reading here.

But back to my eyes. I was apparently offered an operation when I was very young to help correct my eyesight. My parents decided against it, because there was a chance it could go wrong and leave me blind. Ben can simply move closer to the blackboard, they reasoned.

At 15, in the final days before my 16th birthday, I went for a sight test because it was still free. I got some glasses made up and gave them a go. The frames pinched my nose in a way I found tremendously uncomfortable and wearing the lenses gave me my first ever serious migraine. I had to go an lie downfor several hours, the full works.

I'm sad to admit, I gave up with my glasses at this point. I never felt encouraged to learn to drive and because of Mum's own sight problems my parents had picked a house that was basically 30 minutes walk from all the important amenities in Swindon, including the town centre.

So I muddled by through my A-Levels and into adult life. Once I was an independent wage earner, I could see I couldn't really afford to run a car on top of everything else, so it hurtled down my list of priorities and languished there. I knew I couldn't read licence plates at the required distance unaided, but I figured since I rode a mountain bike to and from school almost every day from the age of 11 to 16 - and never had any accidents that could not be attributed to bullying such as branches being shoved through your spokes - surely I would one day be OK to drive? The reading licence plates thing would be easy to sort out one day, but right now it wasn't an issue.

Wind on to 2009 and my Mum died. A suicide attempt combined with her malnourished state from years of under-eating led to a congenital heart failure. Apparently. At one stage, my grief made me decide I had to do EVERYTHING. I got a passport for the first time in 29 years. I booked a sight test, got fresh glasses, a provisional licence and set about learning to drive. In a classic ass-about-face way, I decided to do my theory test without having had any lessons. I was considering an intensive one week Drivers Ed course you see. Anyway, I failed the hazard perception test which meant - despite passing the theory test - I failed overall. And at this stage in my grief, one setback was all it took to deflate the sails. I had so many irons in so many fires in my need to do EVERYTHING that it was simply not sustainable.

I knew my glasses prescription wasn't quite right. The incredible sharp relief between my natural (but far from 20:20) vision and the corrected vision was not as my spectacle wearing friends had described. Things were a little brighter, but far from a revelation in clarity. However, it simply slid back to being something that wan't an issue right now.

Move on to 2011, and my life has become incredibly enriched by one wonderful soul. By her very nature, Sara inspires me to want to do more with my life. Which is impressive considering I fell into the trap of being an intelligent slacker somewhere in the late Nineties and have never really recovered!

In recent years, I'd considered that a motorbike would be the ideal balance between wanting to be more mobile and not really having enough money to run a car. When Sara decided she wanted to learn to ride, we talked about it and she suggested that we do our Compulsory Basic Training together. Seemed ideal, so it was booked and all seemed positive.

My mind wandered back to my glasses, but I assumed it would be fine. I just needed to wear them a bit more. Sadly, a combination of the constant barrage of things clamouring for my attention and good old fashioned forgetfulness meant I didn't try them till the Friday before our Sunday CBT course. But I assumed it was a mere formality. It would be fine. Plus, surely if the CBT was basic training, the eye sight test would wait until the full bike test?

It wasn't fine and I was wrong. I couldn't see to read the licence plates across the road from my shop counter. Probably only about 12 metres away, not even the required 20/20.5 metres. Crap. I did some research on the DVLA website and discovered that the first part of the course would include a sight test. FUCK. Proper panic set in and I rang my Dad and Sara. I forget who I rang first. Both tried to help and offer advice. It took a long time, but I finally calmed down enough to get another sight test that day.

This time I was very specific about why I wanted glasses. I took my existing glasses along too. The optician did the tests and concluded she couldn't do much better than my current prescription. All the way through, I could not read the bottom line on her chart.

At the end I asked her, did she think I would ever read licence plates at the required distance to be able to drive or ride?

She shifted uncomfortably and there was a long silence.

Finally, she answered. "No. I'm sorry. All I can offer you is a slight refinement on your current glasses."

I'll be honest, my world caved in for a moment. I know it sounds melodramatic, but I felt like I'd been told I would never walk again. We rely on motor vehicles in the Western world - even more in the States, as I discovered when I visited last year - and being told I may not being able to drive made me feel like a second class citizen.

In addition, some important possibilities for my future felt like they'd be snatched away from me. I became terrified that this was the end of more than just the possibility I might drive. Large parts of my rational brain lost control to my emotional brain and I began to freak out.

After the initial shock - and I really did go into shock - I recomposed myself and put on a brave face. But beneath the surface, I was a bubbling volcano of worry and fears. I tried to talk about it, but promptly returned to presenting a calm facade.

It was too late to cancel the CBT and not lose the money. So I went anyway. And washed out within thirty minutes. The instructors handled it badly and I had to do a walk of shame past the others, leaving Sara to do the course on her own. I felt wretched, ashamed, scared and guilty that I'd let her down, as aprt of the reason I was going was that neither of us would have to do it on our own. I spent the day trying to get a grip, but if I'm honest I almost managed it only to COMPLETELY fail in the eleventh hour.

This has continued to plague me this week, reawakening all manner of insecurities and self doubt. I made an even bigger mess than I made on the Sunday, but thankfully it was a wake up call. I couldn't carry on like this.

I've booked ANOTHER sight test for next week, with an independent eye specialist recommended to me by friends (thanks to the Brothers Kelly). I have other contingencies in place too - things like getting a mountain bike again and refocusing my fitness on becoming a stronger cyclist. I tried this back in 2006 when I lived in Covingham but frankly my fitness then was that of UTTER SLOB, so it's probably not a fair assessment of my abilities.

Finally, I decided to fish out all my old sight test results for comparison and write this blog entry as a way of drawing a line under what has gone on thus far.

Now, if you've been reading this blog and the sight test results I've posted you may have noticed something I did this morning (click on any of the images to make them larger if that helps). Let's look again at those results posted together:

WTF? The right eye is the most problematic and there are some clear comparisons between the tests in 1996 and 2011, but the test in 2009 is COMPLETELY different. Which is the one my current glasses prescription is based on. More over, how can the optician last week say she could only slightly refine my prescription when her results are wildly different from the one the glasses were made for? Sure, she didn't have that paperwork because it was an emergency appointment made when I didn't have time to run home and get said results. But I was assured by the staff at Vision Express that they could read my current prescription off my glasses.

Something is clearly amiss. All hope is not lost. Hopefully Keith Holland & Associates can do something about this. Failing that, I have an appointment with my GP the week after that and I'll be asking if he can refer me to anyone who specialises in astigmatism.

It's still been an awful few days. That walk of shame out of CBT will haunt me for some time yet.

But it's time to try again.

I'm better today than I was yesterday...

...but then yesterday was a real struggle. No idea what triggered it - all the little things that contributed to it seem too small to have caused the full on panic I failed to control. By the afternoon, I had to ask for help and felt like a real loser for having to do so.

No man is an island and all that, but even so. Not cool.

Today, this song popped up on the iPod. Really sums it up in many ways. And worth remembering that The Offspring are more intelligent than the chart-bothering hits around the turn of the Millennium would have many of you believe. (If you like this song, also check out the excellent but heartbreaking Gone Away, also by The Offspring.)

The Offspring - Have You Ever

Falling, I'm falling

Have you ever walked through a room

But it was more like the room passed around you

Like there was a leash around your neck that pulled you through

Have you ever been at someplace

Recognizing everybody's face

Until you realized that there was no one there you knew

Well I know

Some days, my soul's confined and out of mind

Sleep forever

Some days, I'm so outshined and out of time

Have you ever

Falling, I'm falling

Have you ever buried your face in your hands

'Cos no one around you understands

Or has the slightest idea what it is that makes you be

Have you ever felt like there was more

Like someone else was keeping score

And what could make you whole was simply out of reach

Well I know

Someday I'll try again and not pretend

This time forever

Someday I'll get it straight but not today

Have you ever

Falling, I'm falling

Some days, my soul's confined and out of mind

Sleep forever

Some days, my darkest friend is me again

Have you ever

Someday I'll try again and not pretend

This time forever

Someday I'll get it straight but not today

Have you ever

When the truth walks away

Everybody stays

'Cos the truth about the world is that crime does pay

So if you walk away

Who is gonna stay

'Cos I'd like to think the world is a better place

When the truth walks away

Everybody stays

'Cos the truth about the world is that crime does pay

So if you walk away

Who is gonna stay

'Cos I'd like to make the world be a better place

When the truth walks away

Everybody stays

'Cos the truth about the world is that crime does pay

So if you walk away

Who is gonna stay

'Cos I'd like to think the world is a better place

I'd like to leave the world as a better place

Panic! But not at the disco.

Anxiety. As mentioned before on this blog, it's something that has clearly affected me most of my life, but which I have only understood as a significant factor in recent months.

I spent years living in a siege mentality. Constantly feeling under threat became the norm to the point where it became like emotional tinnitus. I didn't even recognise it as an abnormal feeling.

I can now see the difference in my life, but that doesn't mean I have complete mastery of it. Yet.

A recent conversation with a friend quietly triggered a combination of unfounded fears and a rush of memories of past hurt to trigger a serious bout of anxiety. But rather than face up to it by writing in my Anxiety Diary or, better still, talking to the one person who could help clarify the facts so that I could decide whether my anxiety had any basis at all - I sealed it away behind a wall.

At which point a very quiet low hum of nervousness began, resonating from behind the wall.

Then whilst discussing something else entirely and nailing shiny future events to a wall, we drove a nail through that very wall and hit the cache of anxiety where I'd sealed it away. Not unlike striking oil, it began spraying panic everywhere. I quickly acted to plug the hole but that just stopped the initial fountain. Under the surface, pressure was building up.

A day later, I foolishly decided to try to run a relief well down to it. I say foolishly, because the timing was wrong for both of us that were involved. Ultimately I had a full blown panic attack. That gave the emotional side of my brain full control and allowed the remnants of my own self loathing to make a huge mess. :(

Two days on, I still feel like an idiot. The calm light of the new day made me remember that I stand by my original decisions and feelings rather than those thoughts and impulses born under intense anxiety. I desperately wish I could take back a lot of what I said. Thankfully, I am very lucky to have been treated with care and understanding.

Acting like this under extreme personal pressure is not new to me - but understanding why and realising I have the tools in my arsenal to change these reactions and a nurturing environment in which to do so - well that is a revelation.

Moving forward, this was a wake up call. I became slightly complacent, believing that I am over the worst of the anxiety now. That isn't completely incorrect, but I will have to constantly monitor my nerves. Nothing exhausting, I just need to tighten my set of checks and balances.

And remember to trust in the people I really do trust, just as I ask them to trust me.

With regards to this recent example, I'm lucky enough to be able to communicate on an equal footing and be able to accept that what I am told is the truth rather than mollifying lies.

I'm going to be fine. :)

Forty Things To Do Before I'm 40

ENTERTAINMENT

1. Learn to cook dim sum
2. Learn to play the drums
3. Watch Goodfellas
4. Watch It’s A Wonderful Life
5. Watch the Godfather trilogy
6. Watch The West Wing

FITNESS & LEISURE

7. Get down to size 38” jeans, then reassess my weight loss targets
8. Go canoeing again
9. Go orienteering again
10. Hike from Swindon to Cheltenham in one day (just over 30 miles)
11. Learn three full sequences of Tai Chi
12. Learn to meditate
13. Learn to sail
14. Learn to pilot a motorboat
15. Get back to playing squash

SELF IMPROVEMENT

16. Get a kitten
17. Get a puppy
18. Get further training/higher education
19. Learn another language – Italian is tempting, but possibly something with a more practical explanation
20. Pass theory test – car
21. Pass theory test - motorbike
22. Pass CBT
23. Pass driving text
24. Pass riding test

TRAVEL

25. Visit Barcelona
26. Visit Berlin
27. Visit Canada – to see the Aurora Borealis
28. Visit Edinburgh - go to the Fringe Festival
29. Visit Ireland – preferably for a narrowboat holiday
30. Visit New Zealand
31. Visit USA - road trip
32. Visit USA – New York
33. Visit USA – see Chris & Jo
34. Visit Venice

WRITING

35. Adapt my old recurring nightmare into a short horror film
36. Cactus Land 2 or run some other long RPG campaign
37. Write a comic book
38. Write a novel
39. Write a screenplay
40. Write a pitch for a TV series

Four things

Sometime last month, I had a real breakthrough. Having felt increasingly lost and erratic over the last few years - particularly in the wake of Mum's death - I finally found a GP who would treat me like a human being and referred me for counselling.

I've had several rounds of counselling before, usually resulting in a generic response of, "It's all your parents' fault." There is an element of truth in that, but it's no help moving forward. I had a bad reaction with antidepressants as a teenager and had no desire to return to them either. I did have some great success with hypnotherapy but something ultimately derailed the good work that had done.

More counselling was something I viewed with trepidation and sadly the first round of appointments with the new counselor were horrible. We dragged up all kinds of old, painful memories with little or no understanding of how to overcome the damage they have left on my life. I found the whole thing quite hard and I crashed badly.

Then a quirk of fate changed everything. I changed my opening times at the shop due to the needs of the business and my own need for a weekend. Unable to keep my existing appointments, I moved to a new day and in the process gained a new counselor.

Knowing I didn't want to go back to square one, I sat down and wrote out all the past memories, the context and the realisations I had already come to. I showed this document to one very dear friend and then sent them to my new counselor and my GP.

She took everything on board and met me with a mixture of empathy, reassurance and gave me an open forum to talk. I very quickly had this real breakthrough. I came to it myself, but there was definite guidance.

I've spent over fifteen years feeling miserable and slightly unstable. Ill equipped to deal with the modern world and all the inherent stress. My big ball of CRAZY. But now I see I have four issues that comprise this ball. This is huge. I can see them as separate things, try to understand where they come from and take appropriate measures. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. SELF WORTH

My self worth was shot to shit. Simple as that. I worked this out some years ago, so this isn't new. Over the last few years I have learnt to love myself and be mostly happy with my own company. I like the way I treat others and I feel I have some incredibly positive attributes. There are still many things that give me pause for thought, but essentially I'm pretty awesome. I love with my whole heart and do nice things for those I care about because I want to, not because I want or expect something in return.

2. SELF ESTEEM

This is totally separate and still a pretty large issue. I worry that I don't make a good first impression. I struggle to talk to strangers unless introduced. I can be painfully shy in new group situations. I second guess myself all the time. But now I understand some of the other reasons behind that.

3. BODY IMAGE

This is very keenly linked to the previous issue. I'm always going to be a big guy, I have huge shoulders. But a combination of school bullying, my mother's own weight issues and struggling with the next item have meant that I have tended to binge eat to cope. Now I'm calorie counting again and getting to the gym three times a week. I'm doing my best to look after myself a little better everyday, without taking it to extremes. I've still got a long way to go, but I'm a little happier with it all.

4. ANXIETY

This is new and probably the most important. I worry all the time, to the point of anxiety. I jump at shadows in my mind, constantly assess worst case scenarios for all manner of situations and frequently make two plus two equal twenty-two. Sometimes that is benign and quite amusing, but often it is debilitating and self destructive. It can lead to insecurity and jealousy, fear and unhappiness. Clearly this has been going on for years and my default when anxious was to eat something so that the brief happy feeling would slow the mental onslaught.

Now I keep a diary of the worst of these moments and can use it to debunk some of my foolish assumptions and worries. Denying myself binge eating as a coping mechanism - and given the clarity to understand it is anxiety issues - has allowed my brain to step down from siege mentality to peaks and troughs of worrying. The worst of these recently triggered a mild panic attack, but that was something I could actually tangibly deal with. It wasn't pretty, but it was an improvement.

All four things are interlinked. Having greater self worth makes it easier for me to stand up to myself and say no when I'm clearly being silly. Losing weight and improving my self esteem - however slowly - means I now feel I won't get trapped in a dynamic where I'm being taken for granted or my good nature is being abused. If someone does that, I will make my case. If it continues, I'll leave.

This is new. I've clung to destructive relationships and friendships for fear of ending up alone. I long ago abandoned the myth that somewhere out there, there is "The One". People change over time. Life is change. Something that works now, may not work in the future. Rather than cling to what is now, I hope I can remember the good times and move on. After all, there is a bell curve...

That said, despite the panic attacks and my brain making some horrible assumptions sometimes, this is the happiest I've been in a long time.

Once upon a time...

...I wanted to make videos for a living. I loved DV editing and ideally I wanted to progress to directed music videos and editing film trailers, then progress to TV series.

For various reasons, soon after finishing an HND in Media Production, I realised I don't have the thick skin or the ability to survive on no money at all required to break in. So now I run a comic shop. Having been a barman, a DJ, a doorman, an office temp and a retail manager. Funny old life.

Turns out some of my work is still online.

You can find three of my videos here on Myspace Video.


Hell Is For Heroes - I Can Climb Mountains (Demo)

Parasite | Myspace Video


Chasing Amy Trailer

Parasite | Myspace Video


Buswell - Let Me Love

Parasite | Myspace Video

I also worked on these:





All of these were shot for little or no money, with a tiny crew. I can see many, many things I would do differently, but I'm still kinda proud of them.

I hope you like them.

New Year; increasingly better mental state

Firstly, Happy New Year everybody!

Aw man, 2010 was better than 2009, but at points just as hard.

Denver was awesome and I ended the year visiting Venice which was wonderful, but the final few months of '10 were a real battle.

I fell off the wagon as winter drew in. The shop is freezing even with a heater and extra layers. It made my body demand constant fuel to burn to stay warm. Rather than eating more low calorie treats like fruit & veg and lean meat, I switched to junk like an idiot and piled some weight back on. That made me miserable in itself, but I also lost all enthusiasm for the gym which exacerbated the situation. Being cold all day, I just wanted to go home and warm up rather than drag myself to Fitness First.

Combined with the non-stop overindulgence of Christmas, it was a recipe for disaster. I did sink pretty low.

Some of this was probably enhanced further by my recent counselling sessions. I had initially wanted to talk to someone about Mum's death, but I think the coroner's report was the first step in the final stage of grieving - acceptance. So instead I went hoping to address my lack of self esteem and the effect that has on my weight. Sadly talking through my past raked up lots of difficult memories and left me feeling pretty drained - bordering on depressed.

I've recently had the chance to write a lot of these memories down, creating a document to give to my new counsellor in the hope we can quickly focus on ways to cope with the scars of my past, rather than revelling in the darkness. This has been like swirling oil paint in water, then placing a sheet of sugar paper on the surface to create fascinating patterns. The whole process has been quite cathartic and draws a line under some of the reawakened pain. I have the patterns now, so I can pour the oily water away.

Part of getting to this place has come from realising I've been here before and I know what to do. In the end I let myself have Christmas off, pledging to start again afterwards. I then made an appointment with my GP to see if anything can be done to help. And finally I've added a St John's Wort and vitamin B supplement back to my diet. Vitamin B6 helps the body convert tryptophan into serotonin.

Potentially these two only have a placebo effect, but they have helped. I think I need to be prepared to add these back to my diet every winter, perhaps with 5HTP as well.

Other than that, I'm making plans for 2011. I'm hoping to go away for New Year's Eve again as Venice was truly magnificent. I'm hoping to do more day-trips with friends too. We live in a beautiful part of the UK with easy access via public transport and/or road to exciting places round here too.

I'm hoping to spend a little more time back home too, catching up with my Dad primarily. It's taken time, but we really are building up an enjoyable friendship.

2011. Here's to it.