Forever grateful for memorable moments

Last week saw me take a walk down my memory lane. My beautiful dog Cello, died, suddenly but peacefully last week. He was 17 years old. His death stirred up all kind of memories, some good, and some not so. But, lets get to memories later. Whilst regular readers of this blog will know I try and steer clear of politics, but it is hard to ignore the news this past week from the US. America has chosen Trump once more as their president. I have no interest in commenting on this, but my eye was caught by a Trump related story. It involved Rowan Mackenzie, a so-called Doomsday fanatic.

Although I have never heard of her, she is apparently quite famous for sharing survival tips in preparation for apocalypse-level events. Over the years, Rowan had spent over £270k on both building an underground bunker in her basement and stocking it with food, water and other essentials necessary to survive for a long period underground. Following Trump’s election, she now feels she doesn’t need to keep her stockpile going as in her words, he is the ‘hero’ who will ‘save us all’. Time will tell, I guess.

Her story piqued my interest, as I too have been a long-time hoarder. It started when I lived in a remote part of rural Wales, where each Winter and on a regular basis, we would get snowed in for weeks. Despite being mocked by others over the years, I have kept up my hoarding practice. As I do our weekly shop, I try and buy one or two extra things on top of what we need. These go into our storage room. When the pandemic struck, our storage room was renamed the Covid cupboard. As a consequence, and fortunately, we had no need to buy any of the things that due to panic buying, suddenly became hard to find on the supermarket shelves. The room’s name changed to the Brexit cupboard in preparation for leaving the EU. However, these days, J still refers to it as the Covid cupboard.  

One other nudge down my memory lane came from being asked by a colleague for advice on getting a paper published in one of the international mental health journals. We met and discussed what she wanted to say and how she might best construct her paper, what was an average word length, references and so on. We also talked about the peer review process. This can be brutal as well as rewarding. I can’t recall ever having a paper accepted without a reviewer (or two) suggesting an amendment for me to consider.  Of course, you never know who your reviewers are.

I have long ceased being a reviewer myself, but the anonymity of the process allows all reviewers to say whatever they want without any fear of any repercussions. Although you can, as the author, address any challenges made to you, the anonymous reviewer has the advantage of being able to recommend or not, your paper being accepted for publication. At conferences and meetings, I have often wondered curiously if the person I’m sitting next to ever reviewed one of my papers.

Last week also saw me finally revising and updating a chapter for a new edition of one of the best textbooks for mental health nursing ever published. The first two editions were edited by Professor Phil Barker*. It was his brainchild. Phil was a phenomenal nurse and academic, and was the first professor of psychiatric nursing practice in the UK. He was well known for his bright patent leather red clogs, his ZZ Top beard and being fabulous company. I met him at conferences in many places around the world, including Manchester, Alice Springs, Dublin and Turku. On the first occasion we met in person I discovered that we both wore clogs as our chosen footwear, both liked to wear black, and both had a penchant for silver jewellery.

As an academic, he was a generation ahead of me, and his work inspired my desire to find a voice in mental health academia. Fortunately, I found an equally likeminded colleague, someone who not only became my long-term co-author, but my best friend too, Professor Sue McAndrew. We enjoyed great success in getting our ideas published, and for many years enjoyed presenting our work at conferences around the world. These days, we don’t tend to write many papers, so it was a refreshing change to revise our chapter, a chapter first published in 2017.

The first two editions of the book saw chapter contributions from some of the best mental health academics ever.  I’m not sure how well known some of these authors are outside of mental health circles, but just look at the author list here. Many of these folk have become long term friends and colleagues to Sue and me. One of whom is Professor Mary Chambers.

Mary took over from Phil as the book’s editor. It’s great that the third edition (and now fourth edition) contributors continue to develop and build upon the work of the previous generation. I felt inspired and will meet up with Sue soon to discuss how we might revise our edited book ‘Using Patient Experience in Nurse Education’ and in so doing, increase the number of service users and carers contributing their experiences.

 

*Phil retired from active academia in 2008 to pursue a new life as an artist – have a look here at some of his work – in my opinion, it’s simply as brilliant as his writing

A pandemonium of parrots, the revenge of crows, and me

I loved reading about Lily and Margot’s story last week. This was the story of two blue-throated macaws, who decided to go on a bit of a six-day jolly and get away from the hustle and bustle of London Zoo. Lily and Margot fly freely each day, but always return home to their enclosure at the end of the day. On the 21st October, they decided to just keep going. Eventually, they were found in a back garden 60 miles away. Reading the story, I couldn’t help but wonder if Lily and Margot had actively planned their trip, or whether it was a spur of the moment decision. Parrots are quite capable of coming up with a cunning plan and they have the patience of Job when it comes to getting what they want. So, I wondered if they had simply decided they needed a bit of a change, worked out how to do it, and away they went. However, once the zookeepers arrived to try and catch them, Lily and Margot simply flew to the keepers and tucked straight into their fruit and nut treats. I’m sure they knew they were safe once more.

I can speak from many years’ experience, as to how parrots operate. Our parrot, Billy, is well over 35 years old now. He has lived with me for all that time. Whilst he is not as pretty as Lily and Margot, he is super intelligent. He is a brilliant mimic, has a fabulous repertoire of words and phrases, but most all is totally aware of context, mood and presence. If he sees J and I hug, he makes the kissing sound even before we kiss. If he hears the front door open, he will say ‘see you later’. If he sees me walking into the kitchen with a bottle of wine, he will make the sound of the screw cap coming off and the sound of wine being poured into the glass. His favourite music is the blues and he will sing and whistle along to the blues for hours.

Over the years he has changed. When I first got him, he liked to fly about the house, but my goodness, he was destructive. I remember once coming home to find he had flown onto my bookcase, and had systematically stripped all the spines from most of the books. So, I started to clip one of his wings, but this was a real trauma for him and for me. Eventually, I stopped doing this, bought a much larger cage, and he has lived happily in this for the last few years. These days, Billy doesn’t try to escape, even when his cage door is wide open and I’m cleaning him and his cage. It is his secure place.

One of the other ways he has changed is in his acceptance of change. For many a year, if I went away from home for a week or more, when I came back, he would go into a sulk and not speak nor interact for a number of days. Billy would literally turn his back on me and I would be ignored. He would eventually thaw, but it could take a while. These days he doesn’t seem to mind at all and always greets me with a ‘hello Billy’ and a cry of exclamation – like ‘where have you been?’ He doesn’t bear a grudge at all, unlike crows apparently.

John Marzluff, a professor from the University of Washington, has studied crows for over 17 years. His research has shown how crows bear grudges against folk, who they feel have upset or threatened them. Even after many, many years, crows will attack those who they remember harming them, if they see them again. It seems to me that there might be many folk, who display the same behaviour. Last week I came up against three people like that. They appeared to be out to seek revenge for harm that had happened to them and/or their loved one, and harm that had occurred many years ago. Unlike with crows, I happened to be the person in the firing line albeit, I hadn’t directly caused them harm. My sin was simply to work for an organisation that, in their experience, had.

Now for as far back as I can remember, and certainly as a therapist and manager, I have tried to practice unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers’ concept is easy to understand, but difficult to always put into practice. In a therapeutic sense, it requires the therapist to have a complete and non-judgemental acceptance in caring for and supporting their client, regardless of whatever the person says or does in the therapeutic interaction. Positive regard is not withdrawn even if the person does something, or says something that challenges the therapist’s sense of self.

Last week I experienced a similar challenge (and threat) to my sense of self from a number of different folk. Whilst I no longer seek or receive supervision, I’m thankful to have several very supportive colleagues. Along with the always listening ear of J, their support makes a difference and helps me maintain that sense of unconditional positive regard for those folk, who appear to want to harm me. Their support, and attentive listening, collectively helps provide me with my own secure space. Like Lily and Margot, at the end of the day, last week, I was grateful to tuck into their hypothetical fruit and nut treats.