Where D'Ya Go, Rho? Ep10 Lost Connections

So here we are again. I’m still Rhona- 40 something wummin who in the last seven years has faded into the background that I’m beginning to match with the wallpaper. My confidence has done an Elvis and left the building leaving me doom scrolling in hibernation under a duvet. I finally poked my head from under the duvet at the end of the year and have been trying to solve WTF is wrong with me and find a solution to my feelings of meh with the world.

When in this state I am prone to lose connection with people. I stop phoning and all bar a shout into the ether on FB, I tend to see only the people in my house on the day to day. In lockdown that made me a perfectly compliant citizen, protecting myself for the benefit of the whole realm but now that the barriers have been lifted it just makes me a smelly wee hermit. I am one steel bin away from Oscar the grouch.

However in my reach out for help, I touched base with my old school pals. These women I have known since age 3-4 and in the case of Lynn, since age 11 and our Academy days.

This week Lynn came up to Glasgow to have a wee day out with my eldest and me. No particular reason but we thought it would be fun to break the wean early out of school for a look around some record shops and catch a bite to eat. We had no real plan. All bar we would have a nice meal and wander round town.

First of all I drove to my daughter’s school to break her out. She knew we were coming but not the time so I thought she would be on alert. Nah, instead I was banging on the reception window glass as I watched her go running past. I thought she was doing PE as she looked like she was on some orienteering expedition but apparently it was part of Maths- oh how times have changed. To even leave the maths class could have resulted in a flying duster coming at your head at high speed. Instead she was leaping around the corridors while I watched from behind the glass. I would have been on report for running in the corridors for a kick off and the only maths I would be doing is counting the lines on my detention exercises.

A month before this I initiated a LONG awaited meet up. Our last get together a few years ago was delightful and we promised to do it again but life gets in the way. I knew was partly to my own lack of connection with the girls. There is a voice that lives in my head that likes to interject when I am about to do something.

“What are you getting in touch with them? Do you think they give two shits what you’ve got to say?”

And with that, I stop and don’t contact anyone. Instead I get a long talking to from the voice in my head. And so it goes.

On this occasion I was brutally honest and said I missed them and let’s make it happen and for a change it did and I am so grateful I did. What a brilliant day we had. Yeah, cocktails were involved but just a few hours in the company of these women were just what the doctor ordered. We had changed and grown yet we were the same anchor point we had always been to one another.

The chat flowed as did the cocktails and in no time the chatting had turned to coats and the coats turned to trains and we were all on our own separate ways. Plans were made to rekindle the friendly fire in a few months' time. This time we have solid plans afoot.

Meeting the gang for me is like chicken soup for the soul. It’s warm, comforting and reminds me of quality time spent with quality people. The people who know me better than most and with whom I can be my authentic self.

We chatted about bygone days and fun times had. We caught up on more recent adventures and how everyone’s families were getting on. We raised a glass or two to Garth (if you know you know) as we did when we were 16. Sorry, should I be saying for legal reasons 18?

Again seeing Lynn even for a few wee hours is like a reset for me. Touching base with my best pal and introducing my daughter to our gang.

Ruby wanted to go to record shops and while it was a new century we were back at Record Fayre and HMV like years before. My daughter came home with new old records for her player. Old tunes from generations past but new to her.

These reconnections with points and people of my youth are much needed in my search for self. When my mood drops I retreat to safety. I go further and further back to the stage whereby I have backed into the bedroom and descended under the duvet to wait it out. The chatter in my head that is a major factor in my melancholic mood doesn’t silence once I get horizontal into my bed. The talk gets snarky and loud. Bertha my mental health monster holds court and berates me to a pulp and there is little other sound to counteract her running diatribe.

I read a book by Johann Hari called lost connections and it details how losing connections with your bases can be a source of depression rather than biological ones. It was an interesting take.

Causes of Depression:

1. Disconnection From Meaningful Relationships: Deep rooted in evolutionary history humans banded together in tribes. This meant that we built up a need for a tribe. Now, humans are more socially isolated than ever before. Also, it is important to have meaningful connection with others, not just close proximity.

2. Disconnection From Positive Social Status: Some scientists think that human depression is a stress response from our evolutionary history, linked to a feeling of low social status. Common hardships like financial insecurity can make us feel though we are of a lower-status and we react with a stress response. Also, when our status is threatened we are prone to depression due to constant worrying of threats.

3. Disconnections From Your Past and Future: Being disconnected from your own trauma history and from a sense of a hopeful future can both cause depression. Childhood trauma is one of the most reliable predictors of adult depression according to a study on adverse childhood experiences. With less security about the future and losing the ability to plan the future, it becomes impossible to picture and imagine and therefore easier to get depressed.

4. Disconnection From Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation is what drives you to do things purely for the joy of them. Studies show that achieving intrinsic goals increases happiness, but achieving extrinsic goals doesn’t.

5. Disconnection From a Rewarding Work Life: Meaningful work is really important for us, and with a recent study showing only 13% of adults are enthusiastic and committed to work, this can lead to depression. This is often due to a lack of control over the job, low professional status, disconnect between effort and reward, and increasing working hours.

6. Disconnections From Meaning and Purpose: With increasing numbers of people living in cities, struggling to find stable work and surrounded by unhelpful, shallow advertisements, fighting back against that sense of meaninglessness becomes very difficult. Our consumer-driven society has left us detached from worthwhile values, which in turn contributes to depression.

7.Lots of Materialism: Materialistic people have shorter, lower-quality relationships with others because they’re preoccupied with accumulating money and status. Furthermore, more materialistic orientated people are less about their self-worth due to them constantly worrying about impressing others in order to earn external rewards.

8. Disconnection From Nature: Because we have become more disconnected from the natural world, we often become caught up in our own problems and lose sight of the greater sense of meaning in our lives. Humans living in dense cities are similar to unhappy wild animals in captivity, and we’re similarly distressed. This is because: modern, sedentary lifestyles don’t meet our evolutionary needs; we have an innate preference for natural landscapes; connecting to nature breaks the grip of the ego.

Now I am not gonna drink the kool-aid here and swallow this as gospel but I can find elements of this book that I think are helpful.

Reconnecting with my mates and the history I share with them has been vital for me. They are a meaningful relationship to me as are those with my family.

I definitely feel disconnected to positive social status, rewarding work life and meaning and purpose since not having FT employment. Working in welfare benefits meant I was making a true difference to people’s lives on a daily basis and for me working in the arts doesn’t create that same buzz due to the instability of work. Some thrive off that inconsistency but as a Disabled artist, I find that it’s another stressor.

Access Coordinator work does give me a lot of pleasure but again it’s not full time and the consistency of work is not there. The instability of work is a factor I feel greatly. Media in general employs people at the last minute, expecting you to jump and adapt at a moment's notice. Adapting is something disability had taught me well but as a Disabled breadwinner to a family it creates much stress and worry as to how I can provide family stability in such a chop and change industry.

I attend many meetings and seminars about Disability in the arts and it often comes from an ableist point that we must be supported individuals and not independent family heads with dependents to support. I saw a job advert today looking for someone to start in two days time. The job also only will last a few days. The paperwork alone for these last minute jobs can leave families without cash while benefits etc catch up. Advice I was given was to have a pile of savings in reserve to account for gaps. Oh what a middle class ideal that is. As someone with no parental support back up and no trust fund how does the average working class person do this? Enjoy the Silence- thanks Depeche Mode.

I do feel materialistic and that is something I will be tackling in a future blog. I will also explore my childhood trauma. If only that were so easy but I am on a path to dealing with it after many years. I have made a real breakthrough after 40 years so can’t wait to share that with you.

For now, I am happy to have reconnected with my friends and touched base. I am currently at my sitooterie by the sea with my dug so looking out onto the Irish Sea, Arran and Kintyre beyond me. Ailsa Craig is more than just Paddy’s milestone to me, it’s my keystone too. I regard this view as my home, the triangle of Glasgow and Sanquhar closed by the Ailsa Craig to encompsss my roots. I have always felt like a mongrel. Not truly Sanquharian as an incomer despite being born and raised here but incomer by parentis. Not truly Glaswegian despite living here for of the majority of my life within the G51/52 of my generations past. My mongrel accent always being the giveaway of not a true weegie. Glasgow is so welcoming to incomers but I still feel my passport is not fully stamped due to being Doonhamer born.

Ayrshire was my trifecta, my inbetween hame for a wean that was often inbetween hames. A child of divorce, forced to live a spliced life between here and there but thanks to my Dad for many years I had a base in Maidens. A place where most of us were from somewhere else but had also been here for years. We nomads in our wee tin huts with wheels but with no plans on moving anywhere else but here. And why would you? The view is breathtaking.

I was gutted when Dad sold up and when the chance came to have a wee bit of Ayrshire heaven for my family I couldn’t say no. We may not be the Disney family who go the big adventures abroad but we are lucky to have a piece of Paddy’s milestone by the sea to look upon. We have a place we can escape to at a moments notice and feel transported without being too far from home to get back to reality when required.

I wanted to write and sew this week and Mark needed peace to deal with the house without my interruptions. The weans needed to be in school but with our caravan just an hour away the possibility of a result for all is doable.

I will reconnect with nature by just opening the French doors and breathing in the sea air. I will hopefully have more blogs to post soon. I definitely get something from jotting my journey down and sharing it for you to enjoy. Hope you get something from reading it. Let me know if you do.

I also hope that I have a fair few trousers that will fit my short arse as I am about to go into crazy hemming mode with my sewing machine. Thanks Levi’s for not making hobbit size jeans for those of us with junk in the trunk. And don’t even get me started on you Cider- you promised so much comfort but only if I was the height of Greg Davies it would seem. So seems as though the seams will have to be adjusted about a foot or so. Ya so and so. Or is it sew and sew? Tatty bye for now and see you soon hopefully with new strides on.