Re-organising my brain

My attention has been brought, recently, to my own state of mind. I suppose it has been towards the back of my mind for a while that there is something not very healthy about the state of my mind at the moment. A combination of dissatisfaction at work and life in general has been growing over the last few years.

The behaviour of our eldest daughter, which, although not abysmal, was cause for some concern, prompted my wife to borrow a book by Tanya Byron, the child psychologist, from the library. There is nothing in the book that I was not already aware of from her programmes (House of Tiny Tearaways and Little Angels), but it was useful to be reminded of her approach; in particular, the need to examine ones own psychology. As she says, children are little barometers of our own mental health.

What I am most concerned about is the constant level of anxiety that I suffer. It is not a strong anxiety such as some suffer, leading to panic attacks. However, it needs examining. I have been interested in Cognitive Behavioural Therapies since I read a paper someone lent me at university to help me with depression. Previous to university, I borrowed a book from the library in Hull called "Self-help with Your Anxiety". This taught me some very useful relaxation techniques and transformed my life, for a little while, until the depression of my university years kicked in.

Depression isn't such a problem for me any more. Somehow, I have learned to spot the signs early on and modify my thoughts accordingly. I haven't been able to modify my thoughts at all with this general, low-level anxiety, however.

I have, therefore, bought a book from Amazon called "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook". It has some pretty good reviews. It takes a practical approach, which is obviously what I need.

I suppose I am hoping it will do two things:

1. Provide me with a greater sense of peace. Someone, a very long time ago, once said that I should give my soul a rest. I feel like I need to take that advice, at last.

2. That I will gain some clarity on what I would like to do in life. My dissatisfaction with work may just be an illusion; or it may be that I need to do something radically different; or, maybe I just need to change job! I am hoping, however, that I will decide that I want to write a children's book in my spare time. Not that I have any spare time!

You see, I feel as though there are so many things I would like to do with may non-existent spare time: practice my piano more, learn JavaFX, learn Scala, write an application for monitoring personal finances, write an application to help with examining data sets; but I cannot do any one of these very well or quickly. If I can gain some clarity of thought and a little more peace of mind, I might be able to decide on one thing.

And behind it all is a desire to make money so that we are not poor in our old age.

My blog entry Can humanity be redeemed describes how I have lost belief that humanity can be, in balance, a force for good. Maybe that belief is a prerequisite for good mental health.

I am lucky in that I have a life partner whom I can talk to about these things. How awful it must be for people who have to hide their innermost selves from those closest to them.