Deep Breath....and relax

This week has been frustrating, upsetting and exhausting in equal measures, upon leaving work I stood in the rain and took a deep breath before getting into my car. I need that breath to enable me to leave work behind for the bank holiday weekend, to stop dwelling, to stop thinking of what needs doing every hour, to stop thinking of how disrespected (Veterinary) nurses are.


I have quite a negative, cynical view on the world, and many a times this is my only way of coping with things. I used to refer to the human race as "human lab rats" because my depression threw me so deeply into turmoil that emotions failed to register and I felt as though I was watching others experience life I merely existed in it. I lived without comprehension of happiness, sadness, attraction, etc. I got pretty good at faking a smile though! That smile is still used on occasion to stop the awkward explanation of why I don't care about what people were doing three weeks before their animal became ill. The last few months my depression has subsided, but my migraines have increased in force - which I find a little unnerving. Unless it's a parasitic twin living out it's days in my brain then I won't be happy with the diagnosis my neurologist is going to give me.

I find myself thinking more about the fact I'm 24 years old, and have not really lived life yet. I haven't travelled somewhere exotic, gotten lost while hiking, tasted sea slug etc. I do some extreme sports, I do running for charity, I donate blood, and yet I still feel empty. Something, somewhere, is missing. A year or so ago I experienced what it was like to nearly lose my life, my car lost control (not something I could even control as the driver) on a motorway in busy morning traffic. I passed a few lanes of traffic and ended up on the hardshoulder with my heart lodged in my throat and my stomach beside my rectum! I didn't hit anyone, no other car was involved, somehow I had navigated traffic with a car not fully working and come to a complete stop. As the adrenaline invaded my bloodstream and that dreaded light headed feeling came I realised that the probability for surviving something like that was slim to none......so imagine my surprise when something similar happened months later in a different car!!! Ever since I passed my driving test I was positive that I'd die in a car, I spend most of my life driving, I spent more time on motorways than I do at home. Those two near misses made me totally re-evaluate everything, and I established that it's time I got out and saw the world......experienced life. I still haven't fully. But at least now I do things for other people rather than seeing them as merely huge lab rats.

I read a study today about how people cannot be truly altruistic. This is something I have been contemplating for a while now, well, since my last blood donation. The main difference between the two theories was the definition of selfishness - I donate blood in case I ever need a transplant, the brain box behind the study says that people are altruistic to get that "buzz/high" from knowing you helped someone else. Which I suppose is true. I took part in a charity run a few months back in memory of someone, and to raise money in support of finding a cure.... and though the initial buzz was good, it soon wore off with the realisation that she should have been there to see me run for her as a survivor rather than in her memory. Could it be that there is no such thing as pure altruism? But if this is true, then what about those people who risk their lives for strangers, they don't think at the time, "oh I'm going to get such a buzz from saving this person".

Hmmm