Aches & Pains (5 page)

I checked it out with my mother. She had been a nurse and was always more graphic about things than other people. She said that when we were frightened every pore in the body opened and let out gallons of sweat. The thinking was that if we were all sweaty then it made us difficult to be grabbed by anything that was pursuing us, if anything was, which it usually wasn’t.

She said that this was the reason our hair stood on end too: more difficult to pick up and walk off with something bristling, I suppose. We agreed that it probably wasn’t as useful a response nowadays, when humans weren’t all covered from head to toe with hair as they used to be. Still the principle was the same, and the old nervous system hadn’t quite understood or caught up on how things had changed.

And somehow that helped me a lot. I realised there weren’t any gorillas behind the bus shelter. The reason I was so afraid wasn’t that I was a coward at all, it was only years of heart-racing and pore-sweating and hair going bolt upright.

So I got cured. It also helped that I realised I couldn’t have a good time in life if I was going to be afraid of everything, and I was mad keen to have a good time.

And so the gorillas slunk home, the tidal waves receded, the hostile comets stayed where they were in
space, and even the aeroplanes seemed safe when you read the statistics. Not everyone is able to have such enlightenment at the age of fourteen, but it could work at any age.

And the facts are all correct. I checked it out recently in a biology book for you. Not as clearly explained as here, of course; a lot of stuff about the autonomic nervous system. But the bottom line is that though it’s normal to feel afraid, almost all of the time there are no gorillas or snakes or personal appearances of Lucifer. There is only the poor old over-reacting system that hasn’t quite worked it out yet.

Your body has forty-five miles of nerves.

Remember the doctors are all on your side.
If you want to get better, have nothing to hide.

The doctors have heard every story before –
They will not keel over, and show you the door.

When asked do you drink, then you must not be shy –
Admit that you’d drink any harbour quite dry.

If they ask about cigarettes, don’t make a joke.
Don’t say a few puffs, if it’s fifty you smoke.

Doctors are often obsessed about diet.
If you eat like a glutton, then don’t keep it quiet,

But tell the bad news about chocolate and fries –
It’s not going to come as a total surprise.

If you think you’ll forget the things that they tell,
Try writing them down in a notebook as well.

Doctors can’t be clairvoyants, you have to explain
Just where you are feeling the ache or the pain.

Say what tablets you’re on, and if you are able,
Bring in the right bottle, its name on the label.

Though their writing is hopeless, they’re really quite kind –

They’re doing their best the solutions to find.

Take conserve of red roses and rotten apple in equal quantities, wrap them in a fold of old linen and apply it to the eye; it will relieve the bruise and remove the blackness.

(
The Complete Servant
,
Samuel and Sarah Adams, 1825)

If your sister, father, friend or lover doesn’t have a physical illness but a mental one, bunches of grapes, expensive soaps and heavy helpings of good-natured common sense might not be at all appropriate.

It goes without saying that as a good friend you will

…make sure you are available for them and say so.

…help them to find and urge them to stick with professional help.

…never tell them to pull themselves together or to cheer up.

… stay alert for any signs of possible self-destruction.

…keep cheerful, show no signs of panic and give no analysis whatsoever.

Mental illness is less terrifying these days, in one respect anyway: at least today it is generally accepted as being just that – an illness which can more and more often be successfully treated.

Those who suffer from the distressing symptoms of a mental disorder don’t have to try to hide as they did when sufferers were considered insane because mental illness bore a stigma. Nowadays at least, we have all known so many people who have recovered due to counselling, therapy and medication that such old-fashioned views are no longer current.

Most people I know who have had a mental illness talk about it, and so do their families and friends, which surely must be a healthier way to go on. But even so we don’t always get it right for them. And there are things that I have learned from friends who have been through serious depressions, things I would certainly, despite all good intentions, not have known.

It’s not a great idea, for example, to keep suggesting things that would cheer you up, automatically thinking they will cheer them up. They might not feel ready or willing to take on a film and supper in a noisy restaurant, but will go out of sheer guilt because you are being so kind. In fact, you could be adding to their misery. Depressed people are not being deliberately obstinate when they refuse to come out; but it would take the pressure off them if they were allowed instead to suggest the activity, and only when they feel up to it.

Sometimes too, meaning well, you can tell a friend
in distress you know exactly how it feels. This is not a real help to someone in a serious or clinical condition. You don’t know how it feels. In the end they’re only words. If you knew how it felt, you’d be feeling the same way. It’s better to ask them to talk to you about what they are feeling, and to stay calm even though what’s said might be sad, bleak and alarming. It’s more help than what we might mean as words of comfort, but which come across as meaningless platitudes.

Don’t tell anyone who is depressed about someone else’s depression and how it was conquered. This is at best empty and irrelevant, and at worst it is seen as a betrayal. If you are blabbing and speaking lightly about another person’s depression, will you do the same in this case?

It’s not always good to cast aside and reject apologies either. Someone who is suffering mental distress might keep saying to friends and relations, ‘I’m so sorry for being like this, and leaning on you so much’. Sometimes they just want to apologise, to show that even from the black pit of despair they do know they are being tiresome, repetitive and by your standards, unreasonable.

In this situation, a lot of people have found that it’s better to simply accept the apologies. You might just say you know they’re sorry and know they’re not in any way at fault. At least that way you are acknowledging the fact that despite their own pain they realise they are causing you anxiety or upset or difficulties of one kind or another. This is better
than dismissing any expression of regret or insisting their behaviour is absolutely normal or no trouble at all, which they know is not the case.

Humour is not always out of place in such conversations. Not stand-up comedy or set pieces, but people who suffer from depression have told me they love bleak and even black jokes. This obviously won’t be right for everyone, but for a few, it’s a relief.

For some reason people always peep into your medicine cupboard. Fool them totally. Have lovely fresh-looking things in it with no sign of suppositories, false teeth fixative, violent laxatives or unmerciful cures for diarrhoea. Instead have:

– harmless-looking vitamins.

– hangover cures to show what a racy life you lead.

– some essential oils for aromatherapy.

– a small whip that will have them speculating about you for years.

Put the things you really need in a different box entirely. Cover it with a nice towel and leave it as a little stand for the lavatory brush. Nobody will dream of investigating it.

These are terrible things which apparently are hugely beneficial. Nobody ever tells you about them in advance so I thought I would warn you.

They are to stop clots which might form if your legs were to be allowed to roam free, and somehow they are meant to hold you together after operations, or ease your varicose veins, which is all very admirable and much to be desired. They don’t hurt at all when they’re on. In fact, they actually feel very comfortable when they’re in place.

That’s all the good news.

The bad news is that it’s like having a skin graft putting them on and taking them off. You see someone approaching, holding this unyielding white cloth container which looks as if it wouldn’t fit over your thumb let alone over your whole leg, and you grit your teeth.

But first the stocking that is already on has to come off. You’d be afraid to look in case most of your flesh had gone with it, but amazingly your poor leg looks intact. Sad and white, but still all there.

You remember the times when you didn’t have this ritual every day and you wonder why you didn’t feel ludicrously carefree and happy from dawn to dusk.

It’s no use suggesting, as I did, that maybe you don’t need to wash your legs all that much, and that possibly you could keep the elastic stockings on for a week or so. They don’t like that as a notion.

It sounds filthy and disgusting. No use offering the theory that your poor old legs couldn’t really get very dirty just lying in bed going nowhere. They hate that as a theory. Legs just have to be washed every day, that’s it. And they can’t be washed through stockings, so you have to have the things removed and replaced daily.

I used to hate this more than anything else in hospital, more than giving blood, getting blood, going through that scanning machine, which was very expensive apparently, and where I always thought I would get stuck because I was too chubby and they would have to sacrifice me or the machine.

But bad and all as it was having the elastic stockings put on and taken off by kind, trained hospital staff, it was totally horrific trying to do it at home.