my bloghead 14-Mind Pollution

Mind Pollution

I was listening to a track by The Stranglers the other day called 'Get a Grip on Yourself' and the title and lyrics rang familiar with my current situation with prostate cancer:

'Now I find from week to week the sentence sticking fast

Turn the corner, rub my eyes and hope the world will last

Stranger from another planet welcome to our hole

Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock 'n roll'

I know the song is probably about a prison sentence. So, consider this. A political prison sentence in a foreign country. Locked away for your beliefs with no outside communication. Isolated and lost. Frightened. Familiar?

I watched a BBC documentary recently called 'On Thin Ice: Putin V Greenpeace.' The Greenpeace teams objective was to stop the Russians from drilling for oil in the Arctic. Unfortunately it turned into a political fiasco and all thirty of the Greenpeace staff were imprisoned for piracy. They were eventually released after a long legal battle. But the battle scars were left.

Now, somehow, for me this all felt oh so familiar. No matter what anyone says for some reason being diagnosed with cancer is like crossing that unknown borderline. A step into the unknown. You are entering an area in your life you have not been prepared for. It can feel like you have been given a life prison sentence and accepting that sentence can be a hard pill to swallow. So, how do you fight and deal with such a sentence?

The aim in life is for us all is to enjoy good health and wellbeing and most of us will hopefully experience this. I know I enjoyed good health and wellbeing for nearly sixty years (albiet with the odd so called hiccups). 

But since my cancer diagnosis, I felt that I to had been given that sentence and over the past eleven months or so I to have been cautiously peering round that dark corner, wiping tears from my eyes in the hope that my world would last and that I to be rescued from this turmoil.

We human beings are strange things. Aren’t we? I think we seem to work in levels. Right now, for me, I have moved from 'normal' to 'unknown' and now at the 'victims' level. Some friends from the old side of the border (the normal level) have grown distant. Some do try to keep up appearances with me (remember Hyacinth Bucket or bouquet from the TV? constantly trying her best to cover up her real level with another?). But, the problem for me at present is most of the people in the 'normal' level can't handle the 'victim' level. Is it too much of a stretch?

Look, I do appreciate how difficult it is for some to communicate with the word 'cancer'. It's as if once the word enters your mind, the word starts to pollute your mind. Have you noticed when the word 'cancer' comes into a conversation, people tend to say it quietly? Why?

Some of you may Remember Les Dawson, a comedian who  dressed up as a lady who would chat over the garden fence, busy gossiping to her neighbour? And. Whenever they raised a sensitive issue, they talked and mumbled quietly.

Nowadays there is a greater understanding of cancer which will hopefully eradicate this stigma and over the past twenty years or so there have been great advances in cancer medicine and more publicity as well. But I still detect that little whisper during conversations when the person has to say the word 'cancer'.  "Eddy, how's your cancer ?

Also. Have you ever noticed when some people approach you they say the most inappropriate things. Things like "hang on in their Eddy." Huh, a loaded sentence filled with the assumption that I might not have long to live. Or "Your a fit man you can fight it off." This makes me feel like I have a massive fight on my hands and if I was not physically I am close to dying. Then there is "Wow Eddy, you are looking really well." Mmm. In comparison to what? I know they mean well  and I know I am not looking well but actually I had a terrible night last night and I don’t feel great. And the one that really annoys me is "At least you have the one cancer they can cure." Eh?

Now I am not blaming or shaming anyone as this is not the purpose of this piece as I to fell into that trap in my previous life whenever confronted with a friend who had cancer. The purpose of my blog is to try and give you, an insight into one cancer persons psych with the hope of bridging an understanding between the 'norm' and the ‘cancer norm' and rid ourselves of that border or level that makes understanding cancer difficult.

We all have the right to self expression and sometimes it can be a powerful tool for a sufferer to utilise. 

My way of utilising my emotions is to be like a modern day comedian. My blog is my personal expression and I am telling you from this page how it is, for real. 

Since the days of Lenny Bruce, comedians no longer use the quick well rehearsed one-liners, the 'boom boom' factor, comedians nowadays trade their humour through personal expression and social observation. They have become our sound walls on life. When they tell a story about their own personal situations we respond by laughing but really we are laughing at ourselves as in our minds we say "oops, that's so like me." I like the idea of being able to take the essence of that comedian and use it to free up my own mind and hopefully attempt to encourage others to follow and find their own routes to self expression and understanding.

Given this, I’m at a stage in this life (triggered by my cancer) to no longer want to internalise my emotions, be it dark or light. I am fed up suppressing them and wasting my energy on the useless mind pollution it creates. Society has played a game with me and I no longer want to play that game where you have to curtail self expression in order to save self embarrassment or ambitions or hiding what you truly feel. Sometimes I wish this had happened years ago and I may have changed my approach to a few things. But, as they say Its never too late.

I was raised as a good old fashioned working class lad. A 'westy' or someone from the west coast of Scotland. A time when, if you had a 'trouble', you were told just to 'get on with it' or 'get a grip of yourself' or 'it could be worse' or 'men don't cry over things like that'. The very thought of admitting to others and/or even yourself that you had a problem of the mind, appeared to place scorn upon you and is still prevalent in todays society.

Take when I was a child. Only four years old. I asked for a peddle car for Christmas and was told I would get it on the big day. There I was counting down the days and when I woke up that special morning to open the presents I noticed that under all the wrapping paper there was not one big enough to cover my peddle car. To say I was disappointed is an under statement. I remember for days before, telling my 'pals' about this peddle car. But when I went out to play that very day, they said ' Where's the fancy, dancey peddle car you were bumming about? Your just full of it Gemmell." The shame I felt was unbelievable so I ran off to tell someone I looked up to, an older person who just looked at me with a stern look and said "get a grip of yourself son, be a man and stop that whimpering." Or words to that effect. I had nowhere else to turn to as I did not know how to let others know how I felt so i just had to 'suck it up.' Years of sucking it up can take its toll on the fragile minds of us humans and sometimes it takes something extraordinary (in my case cancer) to shock us out of it.

That Christmas day has haunted me all this time. That one infant experience laid the foundation of suppression for me. 

Our minds have been polluted enough with stuff and things and if your head is like my garage, crammed full of stuff and things, time to clear out that stuff and things and see the world as you want to see it.

So, nowadays I just strap on my old guitar and get down to play my own rock n roll.