It seems about time for a cheery post to fit in with the improving weather and to distract my mind from thoughts about cars. Thought it might be nice to periodically describe some of the best moments from my life. I was inspired by hearing Michael Jackson's "Black or White" on the radio yesterday morning and it triggered a vivid memory from last summer.
I am dancing in a circle full of girls some of whom I love very dearly, some of whom I met for the first time yesterday. It is a sweltering summer night, my body feels relaxed from spending the day in an outdoor swimming pool and a spa. I've had a glass of wine and am feeling hyper and part of a party. We are all dancing to "Black or White" and during the chorus we are all yelling as loud as we can over the music "it doesn't matter if you're CHINESE OR GINGER!" I look into the eyes of my best friend and see that she is also completely happy and that is because of me.
This was in fact my best friend's hen do last June. I was organising it, as the chief bridesmaid and a group of us spend the whole weekend at her parent's house in Birmingham. We had a Julie Andrews themed night in on the Friday, spent the Saturday at the pool and spa at the local Virgin Active gym and then went out dancing on the Saturday night. Everything had gone really well, the group had bonded, the weather was fantastic, and Best Friend seemed to have had a great time. My little surprises and organisational responsibilites were all over and all I had to do now was dance (which is one of my favourite things to do). Best Friend's groom-to-be is British Chinese and mr me is ginger, so one of the other girls started the new words to the song and it gave me this fantastic moment of togetherness and elation. Planning hen nights is the kind of thing I love to do because I love to surprise people and make them happy and I was so proud that I had managed to do it well.
Wednesday 28 March 2007
Wednesday 21 March 2007
Worrying Judderings
Oh dear! My poor little car, which has had a bit of a rough time of things recently, seems to be in trouble again. It is terminally ill in the sense of burning oil a bit and not being worth enough money to make it worthwhile stripping the engine down to fix it. Then I bumped it into someone else's car on a very bad day in December. Logically it wasn't worth fixing this dent if not worth fixing the engine. Now this morning on the way to work, it started juddering in an alarming manner whenever I was stationary in traffic, feeling like my old diesel car instead of its usual smooth-running self.
We do seem to have a very bad time with cars. Over the past 4 years we have had 5 of them. Admittedly for the last year we have had to have one each for work, so that accounts for one - and the one that belongs to mr me has done pretty well over the last year and only had about 2 minor problems, so maybe it is just me who has a terrible effect on the cars. Of the others, one was written off by a hit and run in the middle of the night and 2 had mechanical problems that were too expensive to fix. We are forever having this problem - the problem is more expensive to fix than the car is worth, fixing it will be throwing good money after bad and you just know that if you do, next month something else will go. But when you come to buy a new one you don't have enough cash around to get a much newer one, so it starts to go wrong again. Having said all this, I know plently of people, my parents included, who drive older cars around all the time without having this kind of death rate. Maybe we will end up having to get a car loan. But I really don't want to. A mortgage and a student loan feels like quite enough debt for me and car loans are different because by the time you finish paying the item you bought has much less value instead of more, and there's always the possibility bad things will continue to happen to it. Boo. Going to take my little car to the garage after work, so hopefully they will tell me it's just a spark plug, that will be £5 please. Somehow though, I have a dreadful feeling that's not what will happen...
We do seem to have a very bad time with cars. Over the past 4 years we have had 5 of them. Admittedly for the last year we have had to have one each for work, so that accounts for one - and the one that belongs to mr me has done pretty well over the last year and only had about 2 minor problems, so maybe it is just me who has a terrible effect on the cars. Of the others, one was written off by a hit and run in the middle of the night and 2 had mechanical problems that were too expensive to fix. We are forever having this problem - the problem is more expensive to fix than the car is worth, fixing it will be throwing good money after bad and you just know that if you do, next month something else will go. But when you come to buy a new one you don't have enough cash around to get a much newer one, so it starts to go wrong again. Having said all this, I know plently of people, my parents included, who drive older cars around all the time without having this kind of death rate. Maybe we will end up having to get a car loan. But I really don't want to. A mortgage and a student loan feels like quite enough debt for me and car loans are different because by the time you finish paying the item you bought has much less value instead of more, and there's always the possibility bad things will continue to happen to it. Boo. Going to take my little car to the garage after work, so hopefully they will tell me it's just a spark plug, that will be £5 please. Somehow though, I have a dreadful feeling that's not what will happen...
Saturday 17 March 2007
Hearing the voice of God
Here is a quote from "Psyciatric Interviewing and Assessment" (Rob Poole and Robert Higgo, Cambridge 2006) about pseudohallucinations.
"there is a heterogenous group of experiences that is very similar to hallucinations. They are almost invariably associated with underlying severe emotional distress. The only major exception is a small group of individuals in the general population, neither evidently mentally disordered nor distressed, who have a strong religious faith and who hear the voice of God in their everyday lives. We recognise that they may be right about the origin of the experience, but we prefer to believe that it is due to some other, as yet poorly understood psychological process."
I first ran up against this issue in medical school - the issue that may cause other doctors to think I have an "as yet poorly understood psychological process," and normal people to think I am a bit loopy - the fact that I believe that I hear God speak to me. A hallucination is defined as a sensory perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus. However, beliefs or perceptions which can be accounted for by the patient's religious or cultural background are not considered true delusions or hallucinations. Also, for it to be a true hallucination, you must be convinced that what you can see or hear is real, and perceptible to anyone close by. We had some examples to work through in small groups to force home these points, and had to say whether they represent hallucinations or not, eg "you are walking home alone late at night, and you are feeling anxious about being followed. you see a shadow in the trees and become convinced it is a person" - that kind of thing. (not a true hallucination by the way) One of the examples was "you have a friend who is devoutly religious. He tells you that he talks to God and God talks back to him." The group started to debate it, but I said "no - that's normal." They knew I was a Christian, so looked at me weirdly and left it at that. A Muslim girl in the group said that this would not be normal for a Muslim, as God spoke only to the prophet, not to other people. (Not sure whether this is the mainstream Muslim view or not, by the way.) Came away from this session feeling slightly uneasy, as I normally do when people think I'm mad.
Now I have never heard God speak with an audible voice that I can hear with my ears. I know of people who have, but for me it's a lot harder to explain than that. It kind of comes like the internal monologue that most of us have all the time. I think I may have this inner voice more than most, because whenever mr me asks me what I am thinking about I can tell him the 2 worries, one random wondering thought and the plan for the curtains in the back bedroom that were chasing each other around my head. When I ask him what he was thinking about, he normally says "dunno - football I think." Anyway...when God speaks, the internal monologue suddenly seems to turn into a conversation - i.e. an answer comes back at you different and faster than what you would have thought for yourself. That is my experience sometimes. I can normally tell it's God by what He says - it is in line with the Bible and what I know about His character, it's frequently something uncomfortable or out of left field, but when I try to follow it or pray into it or whatever action is required, I get a peace about it, which is again difficult to explain.
It's not always like that, and particularly if I am praying for guidance about a specific thing and waiting for God to talk to me like that I can become very confused between my own thoughts and His voice. Sometimes God speaks through reading the Bible - I can be reading and suddenly something jumps out of the page at me and applys itself to my life - I think a lot of Christians have that experience. Sometimes God speaks more through feelings and emotions - normally to let me feel His love or a sense of peace at leaving things in His hands. This happens mostly when I'm worshipping and open to Him. Sometimes God speaks through circumstances in my life, and I know some of the times when I've been closest to Him have been when I'm going through a really hard time and having to depend on Him completely. I'm not one of these Christians who prays about what colour socks to put on in the morning etc - I believe God gave me a brain to decide that kind of thing with, and sometimes I think even the bigger decisions can be taken with some common sense, a background of what kind of things God wants for you and a willingness to hear Him if you're going the wrong way. I think sometimes the decisions which are most significant to us (eg which job should I take?) can be different to the ones which are significant to God (eg He might want us to forgive somebody because otherwise we will do something which hurts them or us and will somehow affect the rest of our lives.)
So anyway - this is my confession. I hear God talking to me. Do you think I'm mentally unwell, or subject to a poorly understood psychological process? (feel free to say so) If you're a Christian, do you hear God's voice and if so how?
"The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice." John 10:3-4
"there is a heterogenous group of experiences that is very similar to hallucinations. They are almost invariably associated with underlying severe emotional distress. The only major exception is a small group of individuals in the general population, neither evidently mentally disordered nor distressed, who have a strong religious faith and who hear the voice of God in their everyday lives. We recognise that they may be right about the origin of the experience, but we prefer to believe that it is due to some other, as yet poorly understood psychological process."
I first ran up against this issue in medical school - the issue that may cause other doctors to think I have an "as yet poorly understood psychological process," and normal people to think I am a bit loopy - the fact that I believe that I hear God speak to me. A hallucination is defined as a sensory perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus. However, beliefs or perceptions which can be accounted for by the patient's religious or cultural background are not considered true delusions or hallucinations. Also, for it to be a true hallucination, you must be convinced that what you can see or hear is real, and perceptible to anyone close by. We had some examples to work through in small groups to force home these points, and had to say whether they represent hallucinations or not, eg "you are walking home alone late at night, and you are feeling anxious about being followed. you see a shadow in the trees and become convinced it is a person" - that kind of thing. (not a true hallucination by the way) One of the examples was "you have a friend who is devoutly religious. He tells you that he talks to God and God talks back to him." The group started to debate it, but I said "no - that's normal." They knew I was a Christian, so looked at me weirdly and left it at that. A Muslim girl in the group said that this would not be normal for a Muslim, as God spoke only to the prophet, not to other people. (Not sure whether this is the mainstream Muslim view or not, by the way.) Came away from this session feeling slightly uneasy, as I normally do when people think I'm mad.
Now I have never heard God speak with an audible voice that I can hear with my ears. I know of people who have, but for me it's a lot harder to explain than that. It kind of comes like the internal monologue that most of us have all the time. I think I may have this inner voice more than most, because whenever mr me asks me what I am thinking about I can tell him the 2 worries, one random wondering thought and the plan for the curtains in the back bedroom that were chasing each other around my head. When I ask him what he was thinking about, he normally says "dunno - football I think." Anyway...when God speaks, the internal monologue suddenly seems to turn into a conversation - i.e. an answer comes back at you different and faster than what you would have thought for yourself. That is my experience sometimes. I can normally tell it's God by what He says - it is in line with the Bible and what I know about His character, it's frequently something uncomfortable or out of left field, but when I try to follow it or pray into it or whatever action is required, I get a peace about it, which is again difficult to explain.
It's not always like that, and particularly if I am praying for guidance about a specific thing and waiting for God to talk to me like that I can become very confused between my own thoughts and His voice. Sometimes God speaks through reading the Bible - I can be reading and suddenly something jumps out of the page at me and applys itself to my life - I think a lot of Christians have that experience. Sometimes God speaks more through feelings and emotions - normally to let me feel His love or a sense of peace at leaving things in His hands. This happens mostly when I'm worshipping and open to Him. Sometimes God speaks through circumstances in my life, and I know some of the times when I've been closest to Him have been when I'm going through a really hard time and having to depend on Him completely. I'm not one of these Christians who prays about what colour socks to put on in the morning etc - I believe God gave me a brain to decide that kind of thing with, and sometimes I think even the bigger decisions can be taken with some common sense, a background of what kind of things God wants for you and a willingness to hear Him if you're going the wrong way. I think sometimes the decisions which are most significant to us (eg which job should I take?) can be different to the ones which are significant to God (eg He might want us to forgive somebody because otherwise we will do something which hurts them or us and will somehow affect the rest of our lives.)
So anyway - this is my confession. I hear God talking to me. Do you think I'm mentally unwell, or subject to a poorly understood psychological process? (feel free to say so) If you're a Christian, do you hear God's voice and if so how?
"The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice." John 10:3-4
Thursday 15 March 2007
Monday 12 March 2007
Crying in the car park
Yesterday I couldn't help myself, being about 30 pages from the end of "The Time Traveller's Wife" I had to take it into work with me. I started trying to read it in the doctors' common room at lunch time, then realised I wasn't going to be able to focus on it properly, so I took my lunch out to my car and sat there and read to the end and cried a little bit. The fact is that recently my bookaholism has had a bit of a resurgence. For anyone reading this blog who doesn't know me - my name is doctor/woman and I'm a bookaholic. When I am hooked on a book it makes me turn up late for work with my hair not done properly, it makes me stay up late when I'm tired, it makes me unable to engage with my normal life because I'm lost in some little dream world with my book people and then as soon as I've finished I want another one.... Fortunately I read books lots of times, otherwise my out of control appetites would cost me lots of money as well, and who knows what kind of junk I would be reading just to find something new?
The recent rekindling of my love affair with books started I think with getting some new ones for Christmas, then with reading the whole of Watership Down in 1 day when I had a nasty cold back in Feb, and then continued with a trip to the old Oxfam bookshop where I used to buy all my books as a teenager when I was back in liverpool with my sister. Thought I might just make a note here of what I have read so far this year. By the way (R) means I've read it before - like repeats in a TV book
The Time Traveller's Wife, Audrey Niffeneger (R) - oh yes this book is sooo good. as I may previously have mentioned...
Duncton Wood, William Horwood (R) read this when I was a teenager. Book about moles - my reading this year seems to have gone along a bit of a talking animals theme! It's a good storyline - this is the first book in a series - some of the later ones were a bit weird if I remember rightly, but this one is a good read, although not earth shatteringly good.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson - hadn't read this before - found it in the Oxfam shop and was intrigued to read it, as the theme is about a very well-respected doctor finding an outlet for the darker side of his personality, which is kind of what I'm doing here. Not the dark side exactly, just the unprofessional, ranty, emotional and independent side. Maybe I had better be careful my blog personality doesn't take on a life of it's own!
Girl Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen (R)- thought would be interesting to read this again when starting psychiatry - it's the account of a girl who was a psychiatric inpatient for 2 years in the 60s. Interesting read - makes you look at things from a different perspective and deconstruct them a bit. Also makes you think about things from the patient's point of view.
Surprised by Joy, CS Lewis (R) - biography by CS Lewis of how he became a Christian. Interesting because he makes lots of very logical deductions from the fact that he experienced this feeling he calls Joy, which led him to his faith in a very intellectual manner, but the feeling he is deducing from is an emotion - the feeling of longing for beauty and fulfillment which is experienced as a sharp pleasure. I'm not very good at explaining it, but he is always very good at explaining things, so read the book if you want to know what I'm waffling about. Also interesting because when he wrote it he had not yet met his wife, who was called Joy.
The Heroes of Asgard, E & A Leary (R) - Norse mythology. Read it because CS Lewis talks so much about it in above book. Can't say it really does a lot for me. My favourite mythology is Tolkien's, which is not a real mythology but an invented one. Also love Arthurian legends. Are legends different to mythology?
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor (R) - Another book I really love. The story of different people's lives running parallel on a terraced street in a northern city with really beautiful prose that is almost poetry. Everybody should read this one. I've just bought his new one - So Many Ways to Begin.
I dared to call him Father, Bilquis Shah - Autobiography by a Muslim-born woman in Pakistan who became a Christian.
Outcast of Redwall, Brian Jacques - Read this because people who read Redwall as children kept telling me how amazing it is. It was ok, but I think it might be one of those things you had to read as a child to love it.
Watership Down, Richard Adams (R) - I always forget just how powerful and wide-reaching this book is. I started it because I was ill and wanted something easy to read, but it's one of those books that completely hooks me every time and I read it all in 24 hours. I love the fact that the rabbits have their own mythology, which adds this other layer to the story.
Have I bored you now? Maybe I should start a book blog as well, but everyone's got one - I would feel a bit unoriginal.
The recent rekindling of my love affair with books started I think with getting some new ones for Christmas, then with reading the whole of Watership Down in 1 day when I had a nasty cold back in Feb, and then continued with a trip to the old Oxfam bookshop where I used to buy all my books as a teenager when I was back in liverpool with my sister. Thought I might just make a note here of what I have read so far this year. By the way (R) means I've read it before - like repeats in a TV book
The Time Traveller's Wife, Audrey Niffeneger (R) - oh yes this book is sooo good. as I may previously have mentioned...
Duncton Wood, William Horwood (R) read this when I was a teenager. Book about moles - my reading this year seems to have gone along a bit of a talking animals theme! It's a good storyline - this is the first book in a series - some of the later ones were a bit weird if I remember rightly, but this one is a good read, although not earth shatteringly good.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson - hadn't read this before - found it in the Oxfam shop and was intrigued to read it, as the theme is about a very well-respected doctor finding an outlet for the darker side of his personality, which is kind of what I'm doing here. Not the dark side exactly, just the unprofessional, ranty, emotional and independent side. Maybe I had better be careful my blog personality doesn't take on a life of it's own!
Girl Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen (R)- thought would be interesting to read this again when starting psychiatry - it's the account of a girl who was a psychiatric inpatient for 2 years in the 60s. Interesting read - makes you look at things from a different perspective and deconstruct them a bit. Also makes you think about things from the patient's point of view.
Surprised by Joy, CS Lewis (R) - biography by CS Lewis of how he became a Christian. Interesting because he makes lots of very logical deductions from the fact that he experienced this feeling he calls Joy, which led him to his faith in a very intellectual manner, but the feeling he is deducing from is an emotion - the feeling of longing for beauty and fulfillment which is experienced as a sharp pleasure. I'm not very good at explaining it, but he is always very good at explaining things, so read the book if you want to know what I'm waffling about. Also interesting because when he wrote it he had not yet met his wife, who was called Joy.
The Heroes of Asgard, E & A Leary (R) - Norse mythology. Read it because CS Lewis talks so much about it in above book. Can't say it really does a lot for me. My favourite mythology is Tolkien's, which is not a real mythology but an invented one. Also love Arthurian legends. Are legends different to mythology?
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor (R) - Another book I really love. The story of different people's lives running parallel on a terraced street in a northern city with really beautiful prose that is almost poetry. Everybody should read this one. I've just bought his new one - So Many Ways to Begin.
I dared to call him Father, Bilquis Shah - Autobiography by a Muslim-born woman in Pakistan who became a Christian.
Outcast of Redwall, Brian Jacques - Read this because people who read Redwall as children kept telling me how amazing it is. It was ok, but I think it might be one of those things you had to read as a child to love it.
Watership Down, Richard Adams (R) - I always forget just how powerful and wide-reaching this book is. I started it because I was ill and wanted something easy to read, but it's one of those books that completely hooks me every time and I read it all in 24 hours. I love the fact that the rabbits have their own mythology, which adds this other layer to the story.
Have I bored you now? Maybe I should start a book blog as well, but everyone's got one - I would feel a bit unoriginal.
Mangling Medical Careers
Just wanted to put a link in for anyone who would like to understand what is going on but is not a medic. This post explains it very clearly.
Sunday 11 March 2007
On call and resting
So I had a completely manic week last week. Was out somewhere every single week night. Monday night I went out for dinner with 2 friends I know from church (although one now goes to a different church) at Wagamama and gossiped enjoyably about weddings (one is marrying an army boy) and ex boyfriends (the other was visiting hers this weekend). Was fun, although sometimes I feel a bit like a boring Old Married person when meeting up with them. Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday I was on a Child Health Promotion course instead of being at normal work, which was quite fun, although I got a little alarmingly broody at times. Tuesday night me and mr me were at our Alpha course where we have been leading a disscussion group. Wednesday we went to a church baptism service, and I was baptising one of the people - which was very exciting. Thursday met for the first time with our girl's group on marriage (I blogged about this here). It was quite good and helpful, although parts of it left me feeling that I am not a very normal girl. Friday watched videos and ate mini chocolate eclairs with some friends and my sister. Then Saturday was the Alpha course away day - at which one person from my group and one other person I know decided to make a commitment to becoming a Christian. If you are also a Christian you will know how VERY VERY VERY exciting this was for me. Went into town with one of these people to look at Bibles in Borders, and discovered we have a shared love of lots of books, which was cool. Then came home suddenly aware of how utterly exhausted I was and watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" on video with mr me.
Today I have been on call from home. Decided to skive church because a) was knackered, mostly due to overcommiting myself to church things this week and b) might well got called in anyway. Was woken at 11am by the ward calling to ask me to come in and do a couple of jobs. I woke suddenly from a really deep sleep and felt really grotty for an hour or so. Did the ward jobs, gave my colleague who lives at the hospital a lift to the train station with her husband and daughter. She was catching the train to London for her interview tomorrow and was very nervous. Then I came home and spent the afternoon gardening and reading. I am reading "The Time Traveller's Wife" for the second time and am totally bewitched by it again. This is another cause of my knackeredness this week - I keep staying up past midnight reading it. It is such a fantastic book - tear jerking, plot twisting and at its heart an old fashioned love story. V morally questionable in places but I love it and find it totally addictive and very believable for such an unbelievable premise. I quite like being paid to be at home reading and gardening, but being on call does mean I can't really totally relax.
Sorry about the excessive amount of detail. This is a bit of a diary post - more for me than anyone else.
Today I have been on call from home. Decided to skive church because a) was knackered, mostly due to overcommiting myself to church things this week and b) might well got called in anyway. Was woken at 11am by the ward calling to ask me to come in and do a couple of jobs. I woke suddenly from a really deep sleep and felt really grotty for an hour or so. Did the ward jobs, gave my colleague who lives at the hospital a lift to the train station with her husband and daughter. She was catching the train to London for her interview tomorrow and was very nervous. Then I came home and spent the afternoon gardening and reading. I am reading "The Time Traveller's Wife" for the second time and am totally bewitched by it again. This is another cause of my knackeredness this week - I keep staying up past midnight reading it. It is such a fantastic book - tear jerking, plot twisting and at its heart an old fashioned love story. V morally questionable in places but I love it and find it totally addictive and very believable for such an unbelievable premise. I quite like being paid to be at home reading and gardening, but being on call does mean I can't really totally relax.
Sorry about the excessive amount of detail. This is a bit of a diary post - more for me than anyone else.
Sunday 4 March 2007
Girly Saturday
Had a great Saturday yesterday - felt like some kind of high-maintenance lady-who-lunches. One of my Christmas presents from mr me was a voucher for a back massage and facial at a hotel up in Headingley, and I finally managed to book it in for yesterday afternoon. It was amazing and really relieved a lot of tension in my jaw and shoulders and also now my skin is all soft and velvety, (although some spots coming now). Decided that it would also be good to get a much needed haircut the same afternoon, and spent the time in between in charity shops, where I purchased 2 handbags and a jacket for £8.50. The jacket is a rose pink velvet one and I got one black and white handbag and one brownish tweed kind of one. I came home very relaxed, with shiny straight hair and feeling quite pleased with myself. tee hee.
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