Reflections on a Struggle, running the Great Scottish Run 2024. This is a slog. A hard, painful, boring, slog. At times, it feels endless. Places feel endless. Will Paisley Road West never end? I see it before me, stretched out, as straight as a rule, until it disappears into the horizon. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why do we keep on going, minute after minute, step after step, mile after mile. My whole body, my whole being, is telling me, warning me, that this isn't

After Brene Brown, from her RSA talk 'The Power of Vulnerability' - see links at bottom of page There's a huge, yet subtle difference between sympathy and empathy. I want your empathy. I don't want your sympathy. Sympathy, or, to give it its real, dirtier name, pity, is an unwanted gift. A gift that you give me, that I didn't ask for, and one I don't want. But it's worse than that just a superfluous, unwanted present. Your pity is not benign. Rather, it's a malignant force in

You just made me so upset. No. Not upset, that’s the wrong word. I sit in the pool and introspect, actually what I am feeling? Upset is passive, quiet, small. This doesn’t feel like that at all actually. What does this feel like? How does my body feel? I am shaking. I am energized. This isn’t upset. This is anger. This is rage. You didn’t make me (passive) upset. You gave me the unwanted gift of this rage. You’ve placed within my hands the radioactive, pulsing heat of rage. Y

First section is the original 'Bad Thing' written on 3rd December 2023 I need to learn that I can do the bad thing, and 'get away with it'. I can do the bad thing, and I won't be hated, or disliked, or punished for it. Or that if I am hated, or disliked, or punished for it, that's ok. That's survivable. It won't destroy me. I've always done the good things, because that means they will love me, they won't reject me. But it wasn't me they loved - not really. It was the other m

At times I think this isn't working - the therapy, the time off work, the talking, the endless talking, the endless sleeping What if I'll never be better? What if my life will cascade downwards until the end? What if I die having lived a life full of regrets? What if I fail to achieve the incredible things I know I am capable of? Living an ordinary life is NOT ENOUGH They never listened to this - they said it was fine They said I was too sensitive They said I was a dreamer Th

All excerpts taken from the audio version of The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, which can be found on YouTube This excerpt begins at approximately 2:35:07; As the child grows up, he cannot cease living his own truth, and expressing it somewhere, perhaps in complete secrecy. In this way a person can have adapted a completely to their own surroundings, and can have developed a FALSE SELF, but in his perversion, or his obsessional neurosis, he still allows a portion of

Full of doubts, I ask myself how do I know any of this is working? The therapy, the pain and shame of being signed off sick at work, the yelling and screaming at my husband, the awkwardness, the pain -what's it all for? SO, I made myself a list of 'evidence' - things to look out for, and be aware of, that I begin to do, either intentionally or unintentionally, that 'prove' that it is. Update, additions to the list added on 22nd January 2024; I don't get so angry at perceived

All excerpts taken from the audio version of The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, which can be found on YouTube This excerpt begins at approximately 2:31:24; In an effecting and angry letter from Steten (Hermann) Hesse wrote to his parents; If I were a bigot and not a human being, I could perhaps hope for your understanding. All the same, his release from the home was on the condition of his 'improvement', so, the boy improved. In a later poem dedicated to his parents

All excerpts taken from the audio version of The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, which can be found on YouTube This excerpt begins at approximately 39:54; I constantly feel that the demands are too great, but I cannot change that, I must always achieve MORE than others. ... Accommodation to parental needs often (but not always) leads to the as-if personality, to a FALSE self. This person develops in such a way that he reveals only what is expected of him, and fuses s

There's at least 2 of me. We talk about there being 2 sides to a person, 2 sides to every story. But this goes much deeper than merely sides. There are 2 quite distinct, quite different people living within this frame. There's the one you may know. He's the confident, funny, outgoing one. He can be pretty opinionated, rather loud, and is never short of a word to say. He's the one who confidently leads a team of 4 people at his work - one of them much his senior. The one who t