I am learning in here the different levels of conversation possible from within me. Far from being one-track, as I have often feared, there is a definite capacity to be able to converse with many levels of intelligence and in many topic genres. There is a different between capacity and willingness, though. There is something that turns off my willingness to do the conversations at times: my energy levels, my patience, my mood. And sometimes the same conversation types can be less rewarding some days than others.
I’ve just been having a really familiar chat with two of the young housekeepers who work on a weekend. Still going out regularly just to get drunk they are of college age which is, I suppose, the last age I ‘remember’ being. In a funny way it’s the last age that I actually was. Reality stopped when I was still having the conversations about going out, drinking, boys and girls flirting and competing for attention, falling out over petty romantic problems etc. I always found it hard to relate to such conversation but could find myself taking a half-hearted part. I’ve just discovered I’ve still got that capacity.
What I suppose is no longer present is the complete compromisation of myself within these conversations. That used to be so easy to do – uncertain of who my ‘self’ actually was, I played each role which I am capable of playing as if it were really me. Every facet of my face was simply another performance category/element and yet I naively had no trace of any reality beneath it all and so could not relate to any of them specifically. Discovering that I wasn’t simply being vacuous and identity-less…
Sorry…after recognising that this was largely waffle and interesting but hardly important I recognise why I am writing. There is something going on this morning. Whilst I was not watched having my morning drink, Priscilla came and asked me at around 11am whether I had drunk it. I obviously replied that I had – having finished obligingly about 20 mins after she gave them to me at around 9am. She asked if the pots had been thrown away – they have, actually by one of the nurses themselves as I asked her to lower my table. Priscilla has no (11.43am) come in and asked me a) if I was weighed recently and b) what my height was. What are they playing at? I’ve heard my name a couple of times this morning and I am just intrigued as to why I am a topic of conversation today when they, by their own admission, are only here to follow orders and seem to be uniquely incapable of doing the simplest of tasks.
After such over-monitoring yesterday, today not a single item of what I have eaten or drunk has been recorded in my notes. All that has been done is that Priscilla sympathised with the fact that I was drinking Resource drinks because she hates the taste. OK…but…? It is obviously going to be a time of extreme discomfort on everybody’s level whilst I undergo the process which I was speaking about last night – getting me out of here. There will be, I hope, rapid changes which mean that any routine and acclimatisation on the nursing staff’s behalf will not be necessary or possible as the diet plan will change frequently and regularly as I recover and reintroduce solid food and meals. I cannot quite see yet whether that will be a seamless case of bringing in the things or whether I am going to have a battle on my hands to exact the necessary result from the nurses. I feel currently that there is a limit to how fussy or demanding I can be – probably because I sense it could come across in an inappropriate way which is unintentional.
Basically I wonder why I would be fussing – well no, I don’t really. The hospital food sounds like, looks like and probably tastes like mush. Its also uncontrollable – by anyone. It worries me that I want it to be controllable because it is so reminiscent of the older behaviours where I had to controls were rooted in paranoia and petrification, where pushing food around on a plate was a way to figure out how to control the amount I took in by hiding some of it. And bizarrely I know that the same behaviour and requests are emerging now and it takes me writing this to identify that they originate from a different source.
They originate from a desire perspective, not a lack of desire perspective. I don’t desire the hospital foods – beef stew, creamed potatoes and basically a lack of choice and effective variety and/or nutritive qualities is not the way I wish to go. For breakfast – their bread, jam and milk is fine but I would want to bring in some cereals. Why? Portion sizes – I know that I cannot eat the size of some of their bowlfuls of cereal, especially given that the nurses will try to feed me up by layering on milk and sugar – something inappropriate and not where I would wish to intake the calories…
…ah-hah – that’s it, of course. Express always when talking of my own preferences with regard to food intake that the reasons behind my specificities is due to the preference of the way I take in the same amount of calories – I don’t want an airhead ice-cream when a yoghurt feels nicer. Nor do I want fish pie when a sandwich might be better. And I think that some days I will be actually consuming more than if I selected hospital food by having stuff from home. Some days I’m sure I will be having less in certain areas, but provided over the course of a day I have intaken all of the calories I deserve then there should be no quibbles or worries.
Yesterday Mum and I were caught in comparisons to Darlington’s hospital visit – calorifically, activity-wise and food-wise. It was a different situation then, and convenient and all-too-easy as it is to compare it really is like chalk and cheese. I’m a different vehicle, with a different head space and different mind chatter, different likes/dislikes and a completely different attitude, acceptance and outlook – confidence is fundamentally mine whereas before they were ‘right’ and yet their cures were not. With regard to the energy output – I do a lot now. I want to do it though and so am willing to come upwards in terms of intake if I need it. Its only what’s necessary because I will not feel imprisoned by rebirth – that’s unfair…
…and I’ll stop it now. Because I’ve seen the meals and know that the calories I’ll have from a homemade rice salad will be vastly different to sausages and chips here. The nutritional levels will be diversely different and so I will have in-depth chats with Natasha to ensure that I get what I need and want – health, not compromised blurgh-ness.
And it may require assistance from Mum to guarantee that I result with the right food. It sounds odd but I have no strength of words here. I can assert myself but it is read through a veil of scepticism, worry and inherent reservation. I could be speaking from any perspective – Mum, on the other hand carries authority…simply because of an old, incorrect diagnosis. I am thinking of writing a novel surrounding this aspect of my treatment – the impression created by a back-catalogue and a physical impression which allows (or doesn’t allow) accurate representation and interpretation of oneself. I have no strength at the moment not simply because I am weak but because my words, as well as my frame, carry little weight. And yet as the frame builds up so too will my words because my actions will be finally proving the aspirations that I have spoken about all along.
It won’t of course change the world overnight. People will imagine that I once was everything they thought and think I am and still stick to their own perceptions, but as I grow stronger they will have little comeback and little capacity to actually hold their opinions in front of themselves as they greet me – and I prove them wrong.
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