Comments on: spiral

By: eleanor mitchell

eleanor mitchell — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 06:57:31 +0000

Try eating a reasonably large quantity of black grapes when you feel depressed. Don’t knock it until you have tried it.

By: Touched

Touched — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:53:29 +0000

I hate those black dog days when my partner tries to destroy everything good between us; in fact I keep closer tabs on her cycle than she does.

I have done a lot of reading up on causes and solutions, including dietary influences. One study I came across recently recommended a high Calcium, low fat diet. The down side was that you also needed to eat a tin of oily fish a day (for its Vitamin D) and I don’t see this happening in my case as her sense of smell is heightened at the same time

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:38:24 +0000

Years ago I was in St. Corentin’s Cathedral Quimper.

On one of the leaflets there was a quote from Louis Jestin the resident priest : “You are taller than you think.”

You just need to remember that and perhaps that’s why we are here – to remind you …

By: Clare

Clare — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:40:04 +0000

Me too. Everything’g going well, I’ve jjust come back from a great hol, and yet I’m fighting dark thoughts.

Years ago I had a counsellor who I’m afraid was utterly rubbish in most respects, but he did say one helpful thing which I’ve never forgotten. I was telling him how depressed I’d been feeling at sporadic intervals, and my subtext was that I found this worrying. Which I did, because my mother and grandmother had both been debilitated by long periods of catatonic depression in the past, and I was worried it might happen to me too.

He said that maybe I was just prone to small chunks of depression, and that’s all there was to it. That it was part of the cycle of being me, and I should just accept it and put up with it and not fight it or worry about it. I found it immensely cheering.

The thing is, no matter how objectively wonderful someone’s life might be, I don’t think anyone can be unremittingly happy. Life ebbs and flows, and the colour comes from the contrast between the highs and the lows. The low points come, and then they go away again. Like the sea. And of course we all have hormones. I’m not assuming your low was hormonal, but whether it was or not, it’s never a bad idea to warn those closest to us that at times we may be irrational, and at those times the best strategy is to give us a hug but apart from that pay as little attention as poss and try not to take it personally.

By: andrew

andrew — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:34:43 +0000

#104 sums up the problem of blogging about a loving breathing relationship rather well. You can’t do both, blog and love, not if you give a damn. That’s what diaries are for and a blog is not a diary. It’s a conversation with myriad others (and inevitably amongst them, too). So its public, while a diary is private. Blogging about a relationship is destructive and makes sense only if personal catharsis is more important than the relationship. Blogging is about “getting over” relationships, not for building them. So you don’t blog about a lover if you care about them. Blogging changes the power relationship over your shared experience. It skews the public/private boundaries – ‘what do I reveal or conceal about this person?’ – it undoes love and trust and it pre-empts intimacy…

…but I think Petite’s last post is about loneliness and fear of abandonment.