The Monster Inside

Here I am, sat at my desk in my little house in Sydney, Australia. It is dark outside on this Halloween night. Louis is curled up on his favourite spot on the table, where he can look out of the window and growl at any beasties that sneak through the garden. He is a rather dog-like cat in many respects.

My aromatherapy burner is doing its magic in the background. Following the sage advice of my aromatherapist friend Stephanie I’m sticking to scents that should help me sleep, deal with my nervous tension and ease my high blood pressure. She blogs here for anyone who wants to check out her aromatherapy advice, this post was inspired by me, oh yes! I have my very own aromamuse:
http://www.suite101.com/content/top-3-essential-oils-to-reduce-high-blood-pressure-a302766

Rufus Wainwright’s fabulously emotive voice is soothing the sharper edges of my mood. I’m not a big fan of overhead lights, so I have several lamps on creating multiple warm pools of lights surrounded by inviting shadows. My house is clean & tidy, the washing has been done and all I want to do before floating up to bed is write my blog post and decide what new book I’m going to start reading tomorrow.

It being Halloween (or so I’m reliably informed, but the Celebrations that I bought for trick or treaters will need to find an alternative home as a rather impressive storm seems to have scared them off) I felt that demons and monsters would make a great theme for today’s post.

The imagination of humans is extraordinary. Over time we’ve created some amazing mythology around monsters and demons. This dates back to the first days of human communication and is not, as some might believe, a product of Hollywood. In past stories were spread from person to person, from tribe to tribe and eventually, once we discovered the world beyond our own respective shores, by sailors and other travellers. As these stories moved around they evolved (as any game of Chinese whispers will demonstrate) so that the mythology of different countries and religions can often seem similar but different as they are adapted to fit with the local culture or even the motivations of the storyteller. The only consistent component of these stories is man himself. After all, a story requires a narrator: it can’t exist independently of us.

This sends my thought back to my blog about the magic and power of words. Positive words breed positive thoughts and emotions. So why do we create monsters? Strange creatures that hide in dark corners, wait for us under our beds, suck our blood, eat our brains or steal our souls. Why do we need these creatures? Personally I have plenty of monsters lurking inside my head which make the imaginary external ones seem positively fluffy by comparison. Is that why we need to invent these personifications of evil? Does it help us cope with the bad things that can happen to us? If we scare ourselves silly with these stories, does it make our day to day gremlins less intimidating by comparison?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I just like to ponder them gently. See what they stir up in my mind. I can only assume that they originated as a means to explain the bad things, like disease, that could happen to us, back in a time when medical science did not exist or was in its infancy. But despite all the things that we’ve learned since about ourselves these creatures continue to thrive and grow. I find that very interesting. Science can’t replace our love of stories. Fact and fiction will always sit side by side.

In the interests of complete honesty I must stop procrastinating and confess that this has been a tough week for me. I’ve felt like a squatter in my own body for a very long time and my squat has decided that enough is enough. I’ve been de-prioritising my physical well-being for far too long and am now paying for it.

The problem is that my inner monsters are masters of misdirection. I have one monster in particular, the one that likes to swear at me and tell me I’m useless, that has been encouraging me to throw all my energy and emotions into my work. Tapping into my fear that, because I’m working through depression, I’m not good enough at my job, this monster has driven me to work harder and harder: to stress more and more about the quality of my work; driving me to not just meet, but exceed, my clients’ expectations.

This has created an unsustainable cycle of nervous exhaustion that means that I inevitably keel over because I’m physically not strong enough to work myself that hard. Plus, they don’t half love to pile on the work at my current company and there is no one to defend me from this, as the monster discourages me from simply saying “no it can’t be done.” To make the cycle all the more pernicious, my sense of inadequacy is fuelled by my frequent collapses, as my monster lurks by my bed whispering about my failings and how no-one wants some sickly piss-taker working for them.

That sets the context for this week. On Thursday I suffered from dizziness and palpitations. I’d been working like a fiend to finish a project for that Thursday and the deadline had just been moved back on the Wednesday. I think this was the aftershock. My energy had dropped to scarily low levels and I couldn’t get out of bed. I aimed to work in the afternoon instead but no can do, the more I worried about not working, the more stressed I became and the worse I felt. By the Friday I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I gave in to the collapse and slept like the dead until 7pm. I woke because the cat was meowing at me, clearly worried and probably hungry. I got out of bed for a few hours before going back for another full night’s sleep. By Saturday morning I was feeling much more human but my monster has been very vocal all weekend.

I have 3 weeks left in this job and I am determined to tie everything up, make sure I sort out everything that I can and pass the baton on knowing that I’m leaving things in good order. My monster feels that I should go beyond this and really kick work arse over the next 3 weeks: “show them you aren’t a useless slacker” it tells me and “you can make up for being sick by working late and at the weekends, if you do that it will be OK” and “come on, you have 3 weeks left to show them how good you are”.

To this monster I say “stop it!” I already work weekends and bring work home with me on a regular basis, why do I still think I have something to prove? I’ve had the flexibility of working from home recently (due to the big document I was writing but also as I’m working my notice period and I’ve noticed I’m left pretty well alone so long as I deliver on everything), which has been great as I get the opportunity to really concentrate on my work. Working in an open plan office with a very lively team of rather wonderful people isn’t conducive to concentration. I love it the rest of the time but when you actually need to get stuff done, you can’t be there to answer everyone’s questions. The monster likes to tell me that this is bad, that I should be in the office where people can watch me working and appreciate my dedication.

I am determined to leave this monster behind when I go to my new job. New beginnings and a healthier me, that is all I can hope for. But hope isn’t enough. I need to actively exorcise this demon. So, does anyone have any advice about how I can ensure that I remember that my needs are more important than those of the company that pays my salary? I’m not saying I want to slack off but any tips on how to keep fit and healthy while working in a very busy industry would be gratefully received.

Having re-read this post I've realised that the spirit of this post is still very much in the monster's hands. I'm asking for help to be a more productive worker and I'm not being motivated by concerns about my health. Wow, that is something that I really need to work on!