Living with PTSD as a species, and what we can do about it in 2018

If we view the human race as suffering PTSD from all the horrible stuff that’s been going on for the past millennia, 2017 starts to make a bit more sense. Some people have called it a horrendous year, rivalled only by the year before, when the world went collectively mad and mad as hell with Trump’s victory, and Brexit being voted a great idea, and all the really good famous people dying. It is all too easy to list horror after horror in a kind of retrospective of grotesquery and decay – Trump gets sworn in and becomes the least qualified and most obviously mentally unstable president in all of history, and has multiple fights on Twitter with other toxic men with similarly unstoppable egos and vacuums where their hearts should be. And these guys have the codes to the kinds of weapons that could wipe out all life on earth over and over again many times over. We had burning buildings, poverty and homelessness rising to new levels scarily quickly, increased levels of isolationism, nationalism and ‘othering’, and other forms of hate crime and speech proliferating among a vocal and significant minority. We had tiki-torch brandishers and mass shootings and more men driving vans into innocent people and blowing up teenagers at concerts. We had the handling of Brexit being trusted to a bunch of incompetents. We saw the most catastrophic effects of climate catastrophe so far, with the devastating hurricanes in the Pacific. And we bore witness to the sex crimes of powerful men in Hollywood and everywhere, and their non-apologies. If 2016 was the year of the unthinkable happening, 2017 was the year of the toxic male, shouting and raging and harming indiscriminately, while kept in a state of legitimacy and buoyancy by the #notallmen-#alllivesmatter-#whatabout crowd.

So I think we could be forgiven for feeling a bit, well, wrung out by it all. The urge to only watch videos of cute kittens doing cute things in perpetuity is very strong. But, if we are to extend the PTSD metaphor a little further, and I’m not sure that it IS just a metaphor, the first and hardest part is acknowledging the very real hurt and damage that has been caused, either to the individual or to all of us. I see 2017 as a year of us, as a species, finally starting to face up to what has been done and what is continuing to be done in the name of maintaining the status quo that keeps a few toxic individuals in power. The outrageousness of the last couple of years means that we can no longer ignore what’s going on. After all, it’s getting closer and closer to home. We find it literally on our doorsteps in the form of environmental pollution, homelessness, drug and alcoholism, to name a few visible symptoms. Or it’s in our workplaces, it’s in our homes. What we saw as ‘normal’ once because of its very ubiquity, we are now starting to see as symptoms of a profoundly sick society.

It is painful to witness, painful to acknowledge, and the injustice of it all can have a significant psychological impact which can make us feel overwhelmed and helpless. But like all sufferers of PTSD, the next step is to work out what our triggers are, what are our toxic habits? For example, reaching for the bottle, not talking about stuff, constantly reading doomy articles on social media – the sort of responses that keep us in a state of sickness - and how to change and overcome them. Making practical changes to our lives, however small, can shift our mind-sets from powerless to powerful. When we take responsibility for our recovery, while gathering support from our friends, families, neighbours, online gaming communities, whatever, we start to feel better and we start to effect meaningful change. We connect, we empathise, we energise ourselves. We start to heal.

I can identify the cause of our profound sickness, and indeed, many people already have. Clue: it starts with ‘Pat-‘ and ends with ‘-riarchy’. Neoliberalism or neo-conservatism, or whatever you want to call the political drive towards psychopathy that seems to have gripped nations once held as bastions of ‘civilisation’ like our own, is but a mere child of it; the inevitable result of centuries, if not thousands of years, of an extreme imbalance of power that has caused untold misery to civilisations the world over. Exploitation of women, of workers, enslavement, colonialism, environmental destruction etc all stem from the same set of ideas; that to be selfish and individualistic is the only route through this thing called life. And, let’s not forget ruthless competition as the cornerstone of everything we do. That brings with it a sense of entitlement, and a lack of empathy, compassion or feelings of any kind. After all, emotions are feminine and ‘weak’, except for anger, which is only an emotion if someone other than a man is expressing it. Preferably a white heterosexual one.

This dominant cultural mind-set has been responsible for all of our collective ills, but in 2017, it took a great big sucker punch to the chest.  And please excuse the combative metaphor – this too is a symptom of the wider culture where everything has to be a ‘battle’ or ‘war’. But I think in this case, it’s somewhat apt. Weinstein didn’t see it coming, did he? It is possible that we have seen a major shift in awareness. Finally, real conversations are opening up about where we’ve been going wrong and how to change things for the better, and how to make sure the horrendous stuff is no longer coded into the system. People who have used bullying and intimidation, as well as their privilege, to get into and preserve positions of power are finally being challenged. They don’t like it. This is reason enough to rejoice.

And as an antidote to all of the horrible things that I listed at the beginning of this piece, here are some examples of good things that are or very soon will be happening. Real inroads have been made in tackling disease, health issues like smoking, and in starting to tackle some of our greatest environmental challenges such as banning bee-killing pesticides, shifting towards renewable energy, and attempting to do something about our plastic waste problem with proposed ocean clean-ups, and using recycled plastic to build roads. We’re seeing attempts to tackle food waste as well, and larger corporations seeing the wisdom in sustainability in response to consumer awareness and demand. Tesco just announced that it intends to put an end to edible food waste by March 2018, and it is hoped that other major food producers will follow suit. We’re also seeing some meaningful moves towards gender equality, with Iceland the first country to make equal pay compulsory by law, and the appointment of the first female president of the UK Supreme Court, Brenda Hale.

There is also real reason to believe that a change of consciousness is emerging. We are starting to see and hear alternative narratives. Our heroes are coming in different shapes and colours and thanks to social media, we’re actually hearing about them! Traditionally marginalised groups are finding their voices through activism and through the arts and media. In the USA for example, the top three grossing movies of 2017 were all female-fronted. Australia voted for same sex marriage. In the UK, Robert Webb and Grayson Perry contributed to conversations about gender roles and toxic masculinity; Webb with his series of talks and book ‘How Not to be a Boy’ and Perry with his book ‘The Descent of Man’ and popular accompanying exhibition. And let’s not forget that the biggest and most peaceful global demonstration against all that Patriarchy, the Women’s March, happened in January of 2017.

And this is why I am more optimistic about 2018, and I think you should be too. When I was feeling more than a little despondent about the human race at the end of 2016, a talk by Charles Eisenstein really helped me. In it, he predicted that Trump would win the election, but that it could usher in a new age of global compassion. I believe he may be right. More people are good than are not - it’s just that the psychopaths and malignant narcissists have been running too much of the show for so long, we’ve forgotten that there is an alternative way of doing things. But there are signs that things are changing for the better, and that we may yet become the compassionate, empathetic, resourceful, cooperative, and remarkable human beings that we all have the potential to be. As soon as we realise, and many of us already have, that the challenges that we now face will only be solved by a collective approach, by making equality of opportunity and preservation of our planet our greatest aims, we can achieve far more than we as individuals could ever dream of.

So, 2018? Bring it.

Newyear, newme?

It is tempting to go on a bit of a quest for reinvention at this time of year. Articles abound with announcements to renounce alcohol or animal products, or kickstart some kind of daily exercise regimen that would make Jessica Ennis-Hill look like a shirker. Every year for a while now I’ve had the same urges. Do something dramatic. I’m always naturally attracted to the dramatic after all. But, this year…do I want to reinvent myself? Erm…nope.

Encouraging a bit of self-reflection...

I do believe that a bit of honest self-reflection is necessary in life to grow as a person, and grow we must, if we are to make the most of our experience here on Earth. I know that I started last year with the good intention of spending more time outdoors, walking in nature. Things have tailed off a bit in the last few months, but I did make a point of doing it through last winter, and it definitely helped with my wellbeing. I note that now I am spending less time plugged in to my tunes when I'm out and about. Not because I've gone off music (as if!) but because I genuinely want to hear the sounds around me, the birdsong in particular, and if I were permanently plugged in, I would miss the sometimes nice things that random strangers say to me in passing. It's not all catcalls. Perhaps I'm trusting and finding that the world is a friendlier place now?

So I could probably keep that good intention going. Along with my intention to keep writing. Last year, I finished a children's story I'd started twelve years ago. I got six whole weeks through The Artist's Way (50% ain't bad)! I wrote poems, including one I read out at an open mic event. I wrote songs. I launched an EP, for goodness sake! I started a new blog (this one). I wrote articles for an online magazine. I want to write more and more and more. And if I spent a bit less time responding to comments on Guardian articles and used that time writing creatively, I could probably finish a novel by the end of March. But hey, I'm not giving myself too hard a time about it. Sometimes a good comment is enjoyed by many. I even got the top comment on one Guardian article before the end of the year. It's the little things.

Yes, I could probably do with cutting down on alcohol. Just a little bit. But I’m not cutting it out entirely because I like it and my usage and abusage of it has been trending downwards for quite a while. It seems I don’t need AA or anything that dramatic. No interventions needed here.

I could do with cutting down on sugar but I’m not going to cut it out entirely because I like it and I’ve upped the exercise so I’m not too rotund. A life without chocolate or cake is one definitely less worth living, but I will try to go for quality over quantity. Gone are the days when I’d wipe out half a tub of Ben and Jerries chocolate fudge ice-cream off the back of a Domino’s pizza in one sitting. I was at my heaviest and, crucially, unhappiest in my twenties. Food is not love, you shouldn’t eat your feelings etc. I don’t. Well, I try not to. I’ve been okay at that for a while so no diets or punishing exercise regimes for me either!

I have already cut animal products down if not out of my diet. I’m okay with that. I’m the type of person that if you say I can’t have something, I will stuff my face with it at some point out of pure defiance. I’m not an extreme sort of a person really. But if I say I can have something, that it’s not on some kind of forbidden list, I will probably just not fancy it all that much. I understand my own psychology so much better now. I guess that comes with age. I’m cool with the ‘flexitarian’ me. I certainly consume a lot more plant products, and that’s got to be a good thing. I certainly feel a lot better.

2017 had its challenges for sure. But I got to the end of the year without feeling hyper anxious, which is a small victory! Last Christmas Eve, I watched the Star Wars movie in a state of discomfort and fear following a panic attack in Exeter High Street. I don’t recommend it. I kept thinking about Carrie Fisher’s heart attack and how I was going to have one, just like her. I’d also had a massive panic attack in Cabot Circus a couple of weeks before. It wasn’t pretty. I rang my sister and she talked me through it, but I must have looked a sight, sitting outside Patisserie Valerie clutching my chest, crying and hyperventilating. This year? Chilled. Totally. Almost totally. No panic attacks though, that’s the important thing!

And there’s the most significant part. The realisation that for me 2017, though definitely a bumpy ride (when will I ever have a ‘quiet’ year?), was a year that when I got to the end, I didn’t feel like I had massively taken a wrong turn or needed to sort my shit out in some grand way. In short, I am finally pretty comfortable with myself and how things are going. In conversation with a good friend of mine today, we concluded that the only thing I could probably work on is not giving myself such a hard time. So I am winning because, so far, I’m not.

Of course, it’s only 1^st January, but I’m ahead of the curve on almost every other year in recent memory, so I’m quietly optimistic.

'You cannot think yourself into right living. You live yourself into right thinking.' 

In Praise of Breathing Space

I have not been very prolific on the blog front lately. In fact, I haven’t been very prolific on any front. I haven’t been writing music, or planning my long-gestating novel, or creating a new business plan, or engaging in the creative arts, or actively fighting for a political cause, or knitting more ponchos. I haven’t been working particularly hard at my ‘real’ job since the exams finished. I haven’t been upping my exercise regime to fill the vacuum afforded by this boost to my leisure time. What have I been doing instead? Not a blinking lot because, frankly, I’ve been a bit knackered.

I have been eating, sleeping, breathing. I have been looking after my body more carefully than I otherwise would by doing the things I can’t usually be bothered to do like moisturising. Who normally has time to moisturise, for goodness’ sake? And I’ve got one heck of a lot of moisturiser since it’s been the go-to Yuletide present of choice for the uninspired in my life for the last ten years or so. Oh, I have been learning about plant-based cooking - this sounds better - less scary and ascetic than veganism – and experimenting in the kitchen. I do love to cook – it relaxes me.

I have also been reading more than usual. I usually read quite a lot, but I have found time to actually finish some of the books in the eight-title book pile by my bed. This might be why I have problems sleeping – the burden of the unfinished tomes by my resting place taunting me until morning – rather a neat metaphor for all the other unfinished things in my life.

What else? I have been visiting places. Catching up with people. Trying to get out into nature at least once a day, even if it is the urbanised nature of Mina Road park and the City Farm in St Werberghs. I have been going to festivals, plays, cinema, bowling. I have been having fun – or trying to. I think this might be what ‘retirement’ is supposed to be like, or rather, what it’s fabled status purports to be in the future, like some kind of mythical ‘Sanctuary’ (see Logan’s Run – a lot of my references are from Logan’s Run, which made a disproportionately enormous impression on me as a child).

Let me turn your attention, in case you missed it, to the important phrase ‘trying to’ in discussing having fun. Have you ever experienced the phenomenon of busy-ness, fetishized it to such a degree that even the ‘fun’ things you plan with as much seriousness and vigour as anything else in your life, become almost as much of a chore as traditional ‘work’ or important appointments like the dentist? All too often I have. It’s like a little mantra in my head. It has the same volume as the one that tells me I should be doing something, like, all of the time, and that I’m lazy if I’m not. I should be having fun, goddamnit, not wasting a single second of my precious existence on this blue and green ball of rock. And it’s exhausting. Anyone else know what I mean? I think one or two of you might.

Yes, in the developed world (for want of a better term) we at least have some leisure time to fill with innumerable activities and pursuits in the name of fun.  But the pressure to have a good time, or the guilt attached to not doing something wholly 'productive', can often taint what should be pleasurable activities. And yet, doing nothing of consequence, or even just nothing at all, is so important for our wellbeing.

So I'm learning something from this extension in leisure time. Things have started to slow down for me in a good way. My anxiety symptoms are abating, and so I can only conclude that doing nothing is GOOD, and just being is EXCELLENT. We should feel no guilt from this, in spite our deeply ingrained cultural ideal of doing things equating to virtue. The very rich are idle as hell and you can bet that they feel no guilt whatsoever. So, if you can afford a little bit of breathing space, I highly recommend it for shutting out the chattery monkeys in your head. You’ll be surprised just how productive you can eventually be when you are not distracted by a million thoughts and feelings of not being quite good enough because you’ve not done any one thing particularly well. And productive in a shorter space of time too, which means you have more time to be ‘idle’, or in other words, see friends, smell the roses and do all the things that make life worth living.

I read Bertrand Russell’s essay ‘In

Bertrand Russell idly chewing his pipe

Praise of Idleness’ once. It seemed like a good idea to me. I re-read it yesterday just to make sure that I still agreed with it just as much as I had done the first time. I found myself nodding very enthusiastically indeed. It’s not just that he lets you off the hook for not multi-tasking for a million hours a day, it’s that he explains why being ‘idle’ is good for me, you, for everyone (except perhaps for the very, very rich who are already using up everyone else’s leisure time and then some) and that the very act itself is a subversive one. And who doesn’t love a bit of subversion? I know I do.

Rewiring my beautiful broken brain

My name is Jo Priest and I am an anxiety (and depression) sufferer.

This is how I feel I should introduce myself to new people at times. Just get it all out there in case I act weird in any way whatsoever, because that’s what I’m bound to do sooner or later. And that will explain my weirdness, surely? And so the spiral of self-doubt goes and goes, until it turns into a double helix of self-recrimination. This is usually, though not always, accompanied by heaving sobs and plenty of snot which I need some serious woman-sized tissues for.

The Doctor c. 1980, a true style icon

Where did it all start? Not to put too fine a point on it, I can’t remember much of a time when I wasn’t suffering the symptoms of anxiety. I can vaguely remember being a gregarious, happy little kid. When mum took me to playgroup, apparently there was no clinging on of skirts or tears for me. Instead, I shot off and got stuck in. But then things changed. From about three years old, I learned that my world was not safe.

My teachers and others outside the family thought I was shy and quiet by nature when in fact, I was just very stressed and very sad for quite a lot of the time. Sometimes my native personality took over and I would be a happy, smiley and sometimes cheeky little thing. At other times, I would be withdrawn and retreat into my own little fantasy world of drawings and books and made-up stories and cuddly toys with fully formed personalities. And I always had music – Top of the Pops was my absolute favourite. Well, Top of the Pops and Doctor Who. I used to pretend to be the Doctor circa Tom Baker replete with felt hat and scarf. Make believe always formed a huge part of my play and I almost always pretended to be men! Robin Cousins anyone? Showing my age here.

I had sleep problems throughout my childhood; insomnia and nightmares were routine, including the kind of night terrors which would leave grown men quaking and tearful. Nobody ever came to comfort me when I woke up crying and distressed. I called, but no one came. I had a permanent knot in my stomach. Little things terrified me. Actually, almost everything did. I’ve since learned that this is because my brain got stuck into a hyper-aroused state and, well, hasn’t come out of it much since then or at least, switches up to a very high gear very easily.

My panic attacks didn’t start until early adulthood but I was not diagnosed until much later once they were really bedded in. Instead I was forced to undergo test after test for heart problems and multiple sclerosis among other things. Believe me, that sort of thing does NOT make the anxiety go away! Luckily, modern medicine has since caught on to the anxiety and depression thing, but the first doctor I saw was a total prick and made me feel 100 times worse. He actually laughed at me when I suggested that it could be stress! Laughed. Well, I had the last (hollow) laugh because I was fucking right. Ha. Ha. Ha. 

Some of my earliest memories are incredibly vivid and lodged in a part of my brain that, as I’ve learned recently from reading an excellent book called The Compassionate Mind Approach to Recovering from Trauma by Deborah Lee, doesn’t usually store memories, but instead in a part of the brain stimulated by trauma. This is why traumatic memories stay with us for so much longer and are often as real to us as if they happened yesterday. And I certainly have a lot of traumatic memories to store. Let’s put it this way, I recently worked out my ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) score and it was (conservatively) a score of 4 but could be anything up to 6 if I adjust the wording of the criteria very slightly. Basically anything over 3 and you’re likely to have problems as an adult. Anyone with a score like this is likely to have mental health problems, likely to suffer from addiction, and replicate abusive relationships in adulthood either as victim or abuser. It is also supposed to knock twenty years off your life. Fun. And in case you were wondering, I scored a dizzying five out of 14 on the resilience score.

So yep, check, check and err…check. It’s been a hell of a ride so far, and by that I mean that really terrifying ride that seems to go on forever and makes you feel really really sick. Oblivion at Alton Towers maybe – I kept my eyes screwed shut for that one and screamed until my vocal chords bled. Nearly. It’s not like my life has been all bad. I’ve had some absolutely wonderful times because I’ve made them happen. When I’m in a good space, I would not bet against me to achieve pretty much anything I set my mind to. But in the dark space, I can’t remember anything good. Or rather, the memory of the good is far less real to me than the bad.

I am not willing to go into huge amounts of detail about the WHY of the original causes of my anxiety because I’m not quite that brave yet. I wish I was but I'm working up to it. Baby steps. I'm already being super open about my mental health issues as it is. But I want to get to the point when I can share at least some of what happened. It's the silence that kills, after all. I've recently joined a community on social media of people who've had similar experiences and it's helping, though some of the stories... It's not easy reading, that's for sure. But when we turn away from each other when we are in pain, a little bit of our humanity dies. We have to look at the ugly parts if we are to find a path to beauty. 

On a positive note, I will say that I have recently felt an upturn in mood and significant decrease in anxiety. Hooray! I am coming off of anti-depressants which is not an easy process. Even though I have been taking a low dosage, with the main side effect acting as a kind of sedative taken at night to help with insomnia, halving the dosage overnight was probably not the best idea. I’ve since read that antidepressants should be decreased by 10% of the original dosage and that it can take some people months if not years to come off. I fail to see how you can accurately chop up a tiny little pill into 10 parts, but hey. It seems I’ve been doing it all wrong all these years (I’ve gone on and come off these SSRIs for almost all my adult life including the ‘worse than heroin for withdrawal seroxat’) and should have asked for a liquid form. But I haven’t been taking direct medical advice, instead going it alone, as is the way I roll in pretty much everything. But this cavalier attitude to my brain chemistry is very likely the reason why I’ve had a bit of a rollercoaster few weeks in terms of mood. 

Big pat on my back here, but I have recently overcome a massive fear and applied for an actual job. I rang up the last place I was employed, my heart thumping in my chest, because I’d convinced myself that as I had spiralled into a double helix while trying to do that job and a full time tutoring schedule and was down to two hours sleep a night, that they all disliked me and would not give me the reference. I was wrong – they will. It was actually a really lovely conversation. Sometimes people surprise you in good ways. This is a REALLY BIG DEAL, because in spite of a confident exterior, I am almost always convinced that people will not want to employ me, or that once I’m in a post, I am not very good at it. I have in the past had some not so great experiences with workplace bullying, so I think I can be forgiven for feeling a bit worried about it.

In fact, in terms of bullying experiences, I think I’ve pretty much got the entire sticker set. I used to think this was because of some defect in my character that made bad things happen to me, but I think it’s a lot more complex than that. Firstly, I think that there are a lot of toxic people out there. Secondly, I think I was bad at spotting the signs. Thirdly, I put up with a lot more than I should have. Fourthly, there was some bad luck involved. Fifthly, most people don’t think a female who is a little shy of five foot three is going to put up much of a fight. For what it’s worth, most people who have attempted to bully me sooner or later learn that it is a very bad idea. But sadly, it’s usually done yet more damage to my nervous system in the meantime. Fuckers.

So, what else am I trying that I haven’t tried before? I’ve read that a magnesium deficiency can also be responsible for anxiety symptoms and insomnia. A person suffering prolonged bouts of anxiety and stress will basically experience all the vital minerals leach out of their system anyway. On the advice of a friend who knows about such things, I did some research and found a magnesium oil spray which goes straight into the skin. Apparently the tingly, prickling sensation experienced on application should last a few days but shows that there is a deficiency. It’s been a week and a half and I have not lost the sensation, though it does seem to be less intense than when I first used it. I’m hoping this is a sign of its efficacy.

I am also keeping a track of my moods with a website called Moodscope. I’ve long been curious about my moods and whether or not there is a trigger or pattern that I can discern for an upturn in anxiety or downturn in mood in general. It’s also good because it means I can remind myself to do it daily and kind of check in with myself. For anyone who experiences difficulty with their mental health, this is something you get pretty good at doing anyway, but I find I slip into bad habits if I don’t keep an eye on it. Apparently using the buddy system and knowing that there is someone out there who cares about you, and learns how you’re doing, has a boosting psychological effect.

For the time being, I am being careful of the amount of alcohol I’m consuming. Depressants aren’t the best idea for someone like me, and probably not for the vast majority of people. It seems that a heck of a lot of people in this country have a very unhealthy relationship with booze. I am also trying to cut myself some slack and do things that will keep me calm and grounded. Music is the biggest pleasure in my life. I listen to it as much as possible and play and create. I go to gigs whenever I can because it does things to my brain that no drug could ever achieve, and there’s no hangover or come down to negotiate. Music is my drug and when I’m in real trouble, Howard Jones is my happy place. It’s not cool but it works for me. For the record, he is an awesome individual who lets people download sheet music scores of his songs for free though he suggests a donation to the Red Cross. 

Howard Jones - Thrilled to know he is my 'happy place'

I’ve no idea which specific things are causing my mood to improve and my outlook to brighten as I’m throwing as much at it as I can. But I’ve a hunch that it’s a winning combination of pretty much everything. Whatever, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I also do the usual things…exercise, good sleeping patterns, decent diet, a bit of mindfulness (when I remember), talking therapy etc.

And I am convinced now more than ever that my problem is and always has been a nervous system that has been dysregulated so much that it malfunctions all too often. I don’t believe I am naturally a depressive personality (is anyone?), or melancholic by nature, which is why I put the depression into parenthesis at the beginning of this blog. I believe that by nature I am an optimist. I am also outgoing and creative and generally quite brave. I am working hard to rewire my brain; to mould it into something that works for me instead of against me. I am working hard to cultivate compassionate thinking as I believe this is the key to everything. I am working hard every day of my life. So please, if you see me behave ‘weirdly’ or act out in a way that is clearly a stress response, please be kind as in that moment, I really can’t help it.

Incidentally, it’s probably best if we’re all kind to everyone anyway. Imagine what could be solved if we were?

Last night, I saw a performance by a truly remarkable woman called Viv Gordon - 'I Am Joan' - at Circomedia. In this astonishing one woman performance, she was both open about the abuse she suffered, and the mental health issues she suffers as a result. It was deeply moving and inspiring. 

Maybe one day I'll write that book.

Women’s writing - An act of rebellion?

When asked to recall the greatest writers who ever lived, who do you think of? Shakespeare? Orwell? Tolstoy? Male writers have dominated book lists and Booker Prize nominations and indeed classrooms (for every Harper Lee there is a Steinbeck, a Golding, a Dickens etc) for a very long time. In 2015 when Tramp Press asked authors submitting manuscripts to name the writers who inspire them, only 22% were female. If our classrooms are dominated by male writers, then it is likely that people will gravitate towards male writers as readers later in life. This leads to ideas of a female inferiority when it comes to writing, an idea that is as old as, if not exactly time, then certainly the last four thousand years or so. Recently, a bookstore in Cleveland, USA turned around the books written by male authors so that only female authored books had their spines showing in honour of International Women's Day on March 8th. The results were startling. Startling, but should we be surprised given the scale of our unconscious bias against female writing which leads publishers to dismiss women's manuscripts without even reading them?

Then we come to another problem. Namely that the vast bulk of male produced fiction is about men and men’s lives. Without strong female role models in literature and popular culture in general, we struggle to provide our girls with the confidence in their abilities that they so desperately need. We also struggle to engender empathy for girls and women in our boys. For example, let’s not forget that the only woman in ‘Of Mice and Men’, one of the most ubiquitous books to be studied at GCSE, does not have a name of her own, meets a violent death, and is considered a ‘tramp’ thereby bringing it on herself. Considering the endemic and pernicious scale of male violence and sexual violence towards girls and women all over the world, this is not something we can afford to ignore.

The world's first named author, Sumerian Priestess Enheduanna

But ignoring women is one of the things humans do best. Did you know that the first named author in all of recorded history was a woman? The Sumerian poet Enheduanna’s poetry was produced during her lifetime between 2285-2250 BCE, just a little before the institutions of patriarchy were written into law and the movement and lives of women became restricted in all spheres. Prior to this deliberate dismantling of the rights and powers of women, it was not an aberration to see women holding high positions in earlier societies. This idea that our highly unequal society is just the way it is and always has been (and thus by extension we should accept the status quo as the ‘natural’ order) is completely false. In fact, this deliberate restriction placed on women about four thousand years ago, is responsible for all of the imbalances and inequalities women are faced with today. Why have we never heard of Enheduanna? Probably for the same reason most people have not heard of Aphra Behn, who broke cultural barriers to become the most popular playwright of her day in the late 17^th Century and is now buried, not in Poet’s Corner, but a more obscure corner of Westminster Abbey . We just don’t study women. Not in English and not in history.

It is worth noting that in spite of incredible odds at times, women’s writing has overcome huge obstacles of systemic oppression. Some of our most celebrated works of fiction have come from the minds and pens of women. Jane Austen, The Brontё sisters, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, JK Rowling. But how many more women’s voices have we lost to obscurity thanks to patriarchal institutionalised bias? While the male voice is ascribed the term ‘genius’ often and with ease, the female voice is rarely recognised as such. When you have a member of the European Parliament suggesting that women should be paid less because we are less intelligent in our supposedly enlightened 2017, we know we still have a long, long way to go.

In recognition of this bias against women, the history of great literature is littered with examples of women changing their names in order to be taken more seriously as authors. Even JK Rowling who made Harry Potter the main male protagonist - even though without the brilliant Hermione’s intervention, he would not have made it alive past the first book - obscured her own femininity by adopting the gender neutral initials JK over her first name Joanne so that young male readers would not be put off.

A Cleveland bookstore showing only female authors

Famously, the Brontё sisters submitted their manuscripts under male pseudonyms to great critical acclaim and success, with publishers assuming that Wuthering Heights in particular, with its visceral darkness and passionate tone, could only have been written by a man. Only once success was achieved and they no longer ran the risk of being passed over for their sex did they reveal their real identities. The idea of male and female writing being easily distinguishable from one another is an idea that persists today, though with little credible evidence to back it up. And women know from long experience, once ‘difference’ is established, it is a very short step to ‘worse’.

If we look back at relatively recent history, for example, as recent as a hundred years ago, women were assumed to have an inferior writing style to men. One such example comes from the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, who argued in 1922 that women were unable to innovate with language, and less able to martial complex thoughts into sentences with multiple clauses. He also noted that:

‘Women much more often than men break off without finishing their sentences because they start talking without having thought out what they are going to say.’

As well as being an example of overt sexism, it clearly did not occur to Jespersen that the reason for this might not have been women’s ‘natural’ intellectual inferiority, but a lack of confidence in their own views. No doubt they were as accustomed as we are today to men interrupting our thoughts and speech, or not listening at all. Compound that with the inequalities in access to education one hundred years ago, and we have a far more plausible explanation for Jespersen’s anecdotal ‘evidence’.

We might think that this is all part of ancient history, and that things have moved on so much further since the Brontёs took their precautionary move. Perhaps JK Rowling was being a little over-cautious? But, as in all things, unconscious bias otherwise known as internalised patriarchy, is still very much alive and well. If we look at the case of the author Catherine Nichols, while looking for a literary agent, she submitted an identical manuscript under both her own and a male pseudonym ‘George’. It seems that unconscious stereotypes about the key differences between male and female writing were present even in the descriptions of her words as ‘lyrical’ under her own name and the more masculine and robust ‘well-constructed’ under her male alter-ego. Indeed, such was the extent of this bias, ‘George’ received seventeen expressions of interest to Catherine’s two, prompting Nichols to note that he was ‘eight and a half times more successful than me at writing the same book’.

If the pen is truly mightier than the sword, perhaps this is why women’s writing remains a subversive act in some ways. If words have a power by themselves, then the ability to wield them competently and with influence provides women with that power - a power so often denied in other spheres. Our classrooms and our libraries and cinemas and televisions are full of tales of male achievement, daring, dominance and success, whereas there are relatively few stories of women fulfilling the same roles. This is not simply a reflection of the ‘natural’ way of things, but a deliberate construct borne out of centuries and centuries of spurious notions of gender difference, and the hierarchical nature that exists to make girls and women second class to boys and men. It is something that needs to be challenged by all people every single day of our lives so that we might see some lasting and significant push towards equality. Only through diversity and equality will we achieve our greatest potential as human beings and meet the very great challenges we face as a species.

Stage fright, anxiety, and the fine art of procrastination

I am limbering up for my first ever performance as a solo musician in a week and a bit’s time when I ‘launch’ an EP of five songs that I wrote, all by myself, into the world. I am struck by the fear. Since 2017 became a reality rather than a far-off future event, and I realised that I was actually going to do THIS THING, I have been struck with the FEAR at all sorts of inopportune moments. Maybe people have noticed my face darken slightly, a frown creeping across my brow, as I suddenly remember that I have to do THIS THING. Or I find myself ruminating in absurd detail about all the things I have to do and all the disasters that will no doubt befall me, right when I should be sleeping. I am almost immobilised with THE FEAR at times. Why am I putting myself through this? I have thought all the unhelpful thoughts like…nobody cares about your music, you’re too old for this, you’re a shit piano player/singer/songwriter (delete as applicable or all of the aforementioned) etc etc. No one will turn up. Or what if lots of people turn up, and hate it. And thus me. And I have to leave the country.

Self-doubt is normal, so I’ve been led to believe. If it’s normal, then I am achingly normal. I have self-doubt running through my very veins on a regular basis. If I were a stick of rock, you could break me open at any point and it would say ‘she doubted herself’ in bold pink letters. What is more, music is personal. These songs are personal. So I feel very vulnerable and exposed when I think about the launch. Just how do musicians do it? How do they put themselves out there and believe in themselves enough to perform without needing to go off and vomit? Or run very, very far away?

Oh boy, I know about procrastination. I have procrastinated so much on this project, I can hardly tell you of it. From playing the songs to Rich in his studio, back in November 2015, when these were very under rehearsed songs and I thought of them as a personal work, to be recorded in a very stripped back way for my own edification, through the recording process where they became something greater with all the intricate production and layers and weeks and months of work on them, and now, finally when the songs are complete, and they have to be ‘birthed’ into the world. Weeks have elapsed with very little work at all, and I realise now that these lulls have only occurred because I have felt so unbelievably unworthy of the task I’ve set myself. They’re only five songs but it’s been a labour of…what, love? I wouldn’t exactly call it that. And how does one get the energy together to self-promote when one barely has the energy to leave the house some days?

But crucially, two things have got me to this point with a finished EP with lovely, glossy artwork, and a launch event in the diary. One is the art of breaking things into really, really tiny manageable chunks and ticking them off, with accompanying sense of satisfaction. This is proving at least as invaluable a process in the rehearsal space as at any other time. And the other, the help and support of my friends and family who believe in this project, and believe in me, even and perhaps especially when I don’t. I am profoundly grateful for all the pep talks, the cuddles, the positive feedback on the songs, and the help with photos, artwork and general advice I’ve been given. I am a lucky woman, I know.

So, I will screw down my courage because like a juggernaut hurtling down a hill, nothing will stop this now. I have to do it. And I will. Because I always do the things I’m most scared of, including zorbing and paragliding and climbing up a 25 metre rock face and going to live in a foreign country by myself.

Now for the self-promotion part. Deep breath. If you fancy coming to watch me overcome this personal obstacle, and maybe enjoy some music, I am playing on Sunday 5th March in the upstairs function room of the Greenbank pub in Easton from 8pm.

Phew.

Why I marched on Saturday 21st of January - and why I will march again

I’ve tried a variety of different approaches for this blogpiece on why I marched in the Women's March Bristol on a beautiful Saturday in January, and why I will march again for women’s rights, and the rights of any marginalised group who has been threatened by the swing to the right in politics over the last few years. It’s hard to distil my thoughts and feelings into a neat piece of writing as there is so much, so much to say, and so much emotion (not a dirty word) tied up with the events of recent months. It’s hard to know what approach to take. I've tried levity but it turns into something far more heartfelt and serious. Oh, I wish I could joke about this stuff but it’s just not that fucking funny.

I’ve been a woman, or at least female, for all of my natural life. Without question, some of the most negative experiences of my life have been because I am female. Let’s just say that I am all too familiar with the orange hate-peddler’s particular brand of malignant narcissism. He invades too many of my screens -  a constant reminder of past trauma, and how dysfunctional western civilisation (such as it is) has become that such an obvious charlatan should get into the White House. I’m sure I’m not the only woman who shudders with recognition, or who feels physically sick at the injustice of rewarding a bigoted, misogynistic serial abuser with the highest office in the western world. We don’t just fail to punish the toxic male in our society. All too often we roll out the red carpet and invite them to cause even more destruction.

And I was lucky enough to be born in a country which is relatively progressive on such matters. I’m not forced to conceal my body and face with a swathe of fabric, and I was not married off to an ancient cousin and forced to have numerous babies before I even reached proper adulthood. Believe me, I am grateful for these far-from-small mercies. And when I marched on Saturday, I marched for all women everywhere. We have to spearhead the movement because our sisters in countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and Somalia are simply trying to survive. Just as the vote for women came first in countries like ours, it gradually followed in the developing world. Sadly, that’s just how it works, and if we can’t get it right here, it’s unlikely to happen in the countries where serious human rights abuses happen every day as a matter of course.

Back in November, Trump’s election to the leader of the free world (how hollow those words sound now ) felt like a personal affront to me and all the women I care about who have in their various ways put up with so much shit. It felt personal, and so to march was a personal undertaking - a way to take back some of the power we so desperately need and deserve, and which is chipped away, little by little, often not with the obviously terrible stuff but the things that grind us down and exhaust us. Things like being shouted at in the street, being trolled online, doing a disproportionate amount of the unpaid domestic work, seeing next to no realistic female bodies on any billboard anywhere etc etc, ad nauseum. It’s tiring and it’s boring. Too many women are tired of not being listened to, of not being taken seriously when we say, really, this is just too much now. When misogynistic parliament troll and Conservative MP Philip Davies can filibuster anything that has the faintest whiff of doing something good for women, and domestic abuser Floyd Mayweather gets to speak at the Marriott in Bristol for anything up to £1000 per ticket on International Women’s Day (ffs) we know we’ve still got a long way to go.

Let’s face it, marchers for causes everywhere come off rather well in the history books.

The Suffragettes, the Civil Rights Movement in America, the protests against the Vietnam War, and more recently the women in Poland who protested againstpunitive abortion laws and forced their government to back down - they are all essential to creating a decent, free and liveable society. So called ‘alpha male’ types like Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, Trump? Not so much.

So on that Saturday in January 2017, when myself and several friends and a puppy took part in what was reportedly the biggest and most peaceful mass demonstration ever, we helped make a little bit of history. Not just women’s history but all of humanity’s history. There aren’t adequate words to express my admiration for those women who pulled together this massive feat of unity against our common foes of darkness, ignorance, bigotry and division, not least our very own Carly who organised the march in Bristol in only three days. I’ve since had a chance to meet Carly properly and thank her for her efforts. She is a genuinely warm and inclusive person with a determination to change things for the better. The world needs more heroes like her. If Saturday’s marches and the subsequent demonstrations are anything to go by, there are plenty of heroes out there, of all genders and races.

On a final note, there was real love and a sense of possibility and hope in our procession from Queens Square to Cathedral Green. I want to live in the world where these are the voices I hear, where women as well as men are allowed to have a voice, where our needs are taken into consideration instead of dismissed as a fringe concern or ‘minority’, where women are not hit twice as hard by austerity cuts as men, and where women are considered to be truly, fully human. 

Together we are stronger and we must not forget that, no matter how many frightened little men and women try to tell us otherwise. We have a long way to go before we see true equality for all and we cannot let this man and others like him win. 

We are powerful together. And we will march again.