Thought Picnic: In the struggle to resume as I

A fog in the head

It is strange that only recently I wrote about being stuck on the absence of desire, I concept that might well be quite seriously misunderstood when it is seen as physical rather than a head and consequently a mental health issue.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Stuck on the absence of desire

There is no doubt in my mind today that I do need therapy, there are knotty issues that are affecting my flow, I cannot seem to get a grip on several things that I would have thought a few months ago would have happened without any need for encouragement or inspiration. I really do feel somewhat stuck that something radical needs to happen.

The therapies I require

Indeed, some physical therapy can come in useful in the form of spa treatments and a sports massage, however, fundamentally, mental therapy would reach down into the depth of what seems to ail me, a few sessions of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, a professional helping me unravel the pall of infirmity that inhibits aspects of productivity and expression.

The catharsis of writing is not enough and though having a conversation with my best friend might have helped things a bit. In myself, my confidence is shaken and the kind of focus that appears as sure-footed maturity is not particular manifest. It is like I am at my most vulnerable when I need support and most misunderstood that places the burden of patience on others.

Seeing more of me

I have no idea of how much time I need to get back either to my old self or to arrive at a manifestly improved self, I am just taking each day as it comes, hoping that in the process things either fall into place or I find that essential support I need.

It is inauspicious that this is happening at a time when I am with my partner, and we have ahead of us some consequential plans. Oh, I can be quite moody if not boring, these are realities that probably need to be experienced and appreciated along with everything else people know about me. What I do not know is if my human frailties can find enough allowances in the frame of reference of those on whom I depend as much as they depend on me.

Then there is a responsibility that I bear in all this, the need for others to see the 'for worse' of me when they are distracted by the 'for better' at commitment, and feel deceived about all the components of my evidently fragile being and nature.

Humans with finite mental energy

We lose virtue in helping

The woman with the issue of blood decided that her healing lay in touching the garments of Jesus Christ. However, Jesus Christ with all the miracles he had performed in that situation revealed that in human form we are limited and resources or energy to do anything is not inexhaustible. For as the woman touched him as he was thronged upon, her touch drew virtue out of him and healed her, he felt that drain and so asked who touched me? [BibleGateway: Luke 8:43-48]

Human capacity is quite limited much as is mental energy. We are affected just as much as the other person by the vicissitudes of life, our frailty and vulnerabilities too easily exposed by circumstances that appear to be beyond our control.

Ceding what can’t be controlled

We probably can account for how we react to situations, how others react towards us is not something under our control. You find that those who portend to have some sort of mental toughness have just been able to know what they can control and concentrated their resources on those things without agonising about the things beyond one's ability to conduct, sway, or persuade.

In an unkind word, a needy subject, a crude comment, a bad decision, an unfulfilled desire, a crisis of confidence, a moment of self-doubt, or the absence of consideration from others, you are left bereft of capacity. In finding ways to deal with these things you find some balance, but it can be long in reaching it. Some might read it as irritation when it is just exhaustion.

Someone to lean on

We all need some sort of refuelling, positive people who lift your spirits, exciting news of developments, encouragement from near and far, maybe some intimacy and human touch. We live in tough times that those who have company are usually unaware of their advantages where those along have to contend with lack of awareness.

Basically, the truth is, we probably all need therapy, some is reparative, some is restorative, and it does not need mental illness to require it, it is just that you don’t want to be running on empty when there is some supply about. We all need someone to lean on, yet that someone may not be available when needed.

Thing that can restore strength

I believe Jesus had much of his virtue restored when the woman came forward narrated her ordeal along with the miracle wrought in her body. A form of affirmation and validation, an apology or a sense of gratitude, some consideration and giving space, the list itself is not exhaustive.

Had she not stepped forward but disappeared into the crowd with the gift of healing she had acquired, Jesus might have agonised about who touched him, wondering what the virtue drained had done and have taken a much longer time to come to terms with the turmoil of not knowing whilst knowing something had happened.

His disciples would have thought he had become touchy and pernickety, but meaningfulness came to bear on the situation, a miracle was recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Luke because of that.

Experiencing the mental health detriments of a pandemic

One feels alright

Are you alright? I hear people ask, and I answer, I am fine, thanks. I think I am fine; I feel I am fine, generally, things are fine and well. Yet, they are not so.

Some of the consequences of the pandemic are not as studied or appreciated to any extent, the mental health consequences. In terms of relationships, I am engaged, but we are on different continents almost 9,000 kilometres apart, we were last together in January and communicate daily keeping faith, hope and love alive until the circumstances allow us to meet up in South Africa soon.

To feel human

However, at the crux of this issue is the fact that I am a lone occupant of my apartment in a big city of impersonal glances or stolen greetings. My social interactions are only on Sunday, first at church in our socially distanced seating with masks on, no singing, no touching and pleasantries at a distance. I have not shaken a hand or felt the tight grip of a handshake in probably 9 or 10 months.

Sunday evenings, I meet with my close neighbours for wine and snacks, much banter, smiles and laughter, they have companions and family, I return alone to my abode comforted by the video conferencing with my fiancé or telephone conversations with friends I have no seen in ages.

Touch feels good

The last time I hugged someone was when we hugged at O. R. Tambo International Airport in mid-January. My social humanity is under stress and seriously strained. I was probably last touched when the nurse donned gloves to take blood in April, it remains the last significant human touch I have felt.

I am at work with colleagues I have never physically met, we have been working together since May, but I have been working from home or living at work as the case might be. They have families, some even visit the campus of the workplace, so human interaction takes place to an extent, which for many like me, we live in an electronic age of sight and sound, smell is local or just home as the restaurant culture is literally gone, touch is anathema as it is to be avoided and taste is what you cook or put together to eat.

Senses feel lost

You wonder what this pandemic has wrought upon the earth, it takes away your sense of smell and taste, then robs you of the enjoyment of the sensation of touch, whilst the use of sight and hearing is constrained to a world bolstered mostly by electronics. As social animals, we have lost the social and the animal begins to disintegrate without the grooming that comes with the socially enhancing qualities of human interfaces, much of it physical.

I am fine, I have found coping mechanisms, I am working with the expectation that things will ease up and soon a semblance of living like a real human being with all senses in deployment will come. That sensation of skin on skin, the warmth of touch, the whispering that triggers and excites the ear from breath to sound, the expression of love when lips meet and tongues tussle, you melt into each other with a longing that no words can yet express.

That is what keeps me sane, for I reckon, all this shall pass, the night always ends in the breaking of dawn, no matter how long it seems to our consciousness. There is stress, there is strain, but we prevail.

Thought Picnic: The Red Hot Chilli Pepper of Crazy

Peppered in life

The joys of capsicum delight are best expressed in another interesting Yoruba saying that I will attempt to translate thus, “A life without eating chilli peppers is a flimsy life.”

I would guess that is as good an old wife’s tale as any that instructs one should try hot chicken broth for colds amongst many other similar spicy remedies.

We use the scotch bonnet (ata rodo in Yoruba) a lot in West African cuisine as well as the cayenne pepper (tatashe in Yoruba), but I will not be mistaken to notice that back when I lived in Nigeria we used a lot more scotch bonnets for our stews than we will attempt to use here in Europe. The ones grown or imported are somewhat spicier.

Scales of spice

However, this little write-up is caught up in the picture above, which came from a packet of Nando’s crisps. I could not help but notice the Peri-ometer scale, which in a way indicates the spiciness of their products.

Whilst I am not a fast food fan, I have been a patron of Nando’s from when they opened their first outlet at London’s Earl’s Court probably in the late 1990’s, if I remember correctly and now, my choice of easy cooking without the class of an a la carte restaurant is between the preferable Vapiano and Nando’s.

On the Peri-ometer scale and there are many representations of it, I do like this one because I do remember when I visited my friends’ aunt in Kaduna at the age of 9, she cooked for us, dark yam flour pudding (amala) with stew.

This is mental

Eating with hands, I dipped into the pudding and took bite-sized bit that I first touched to the stew and then to my mouth, when all hell broke loose. It was a case of “I need my mum.” Not only was my tongue and mouth on fire, I was close to spontaneous combustion as the hotness of the chilli in the stew.

I cried, I drank lots of water and then settled for a bowl of cornflakes as my friends lapped up the stew as if they could use it for eye salve. They belonged off the Peri-ometer scale.

However, today, when I go to Nando’s, their fare does not seem to be hot enough, besides the fact that chicken needs to be cooked and dry to keep me from being nauseous. The piri piri sauce made from dried chilli peppers called African bird's eye chilli helps a lot and I have my chicken at the Peri-ometer scale where “I need my head examined.”

Which is no surprise, because I guess I am crazy and to write a blog about a crisp packet, I probably do need my head examined too.

Thankfully, we are not astronauts

The American Criminal mind

The episode of the respected and excellent NASA astronaut who is now facing an attempted murder charge is interesting from many perspectives.

However, I see one particular American perspective to this matter, this is broadly a generalisation of sorts; every time there has been a serious criminal situation, the police and news people do a background analysis and most cases do not expect their suspect to be holders of college degrees, have decent jobs or be high achievers.

Generally, criminals should be genetically predisposed to vices that separate achievement from non-achievement.

An astronaut is supposed to be in the rank of the highest achievers having passed every kind of psychometric and demographic profiling to become one of America’s best.

The cult of achievement

Unfortunately, this case has besmirched the Graven Image and humongous Golden Idol of the Cult of Achievement and they who worship at the Altar of Perfect People have just realised that the astronaut is flesh and blood, human and fallible just like you and I.

However, it would appear NASA finds that unacceptable – the concept of being human, mortal and emotionally affected – that they would be reviewing from two perspectives the physical and mental assessment criteria for becoming an astronaut, as if, any tests can pinpoint with accuracy such unpredictable behaviour.

Thankfully, we are not astronauts

Something we non-astronauts would know without having to achieve these high grades of becoming cult demigods is this; none of us would drive 900 miles in diapers to achieve anything – it takes the innate quality of an astronaut’s mental prowess and genius to come up with such meticulous attention to detail.

For that realisation we are grateful but probably scared rotten that astronauts might be such a seriously calculating bunch that some unsolved issues in our communities might as well have been perfectly perpetrated by people perfectly and conveniently out of the radar range of mere mortal detectives.

I must however commend how NASA has closed ranks about its own and they way they have tried the manage the situation around the affected parties.