Jonny McCambridge: Knowing what to do when the bucket is full

It’s a fleeting loss of my bearings, but still disconcerting and scary. A blip in the linear processes of experience and awareness.

I look around and see that I am inside a shop. That’s a start. Some more inspection tells me that it is the store near my home.

From somewhere I summon the memory of leaving the house to come here. But then there’s a gap, a few lost seconds which are in some dark part of my subconsciousness, beyond retrieval.

I can’t remember what I came in for. I walk up and down the aisles in a hazy state of confusion, before eventually tipping some random items into the basket which seems to be in my hand.

When I’m at the checkout I pray that the contactless payment works because I have little hope of being able to remember the correct PIN for my card.

As I walk home a car passes and a woman waves at me. I may know who she is, but I can’t be sure. Or perhaps she didn’t wave at all.

When I go through the front door my wife gently enquires if I remembered to get what she had asked for. I did not.

I sit down. What has just happened is not a complete surprise because I have been having a bad day. In the course of a long working shift I composed an email and then sent it to the wrong person. A short time later I sent another which had instructions which did not relate to the attached contents. On a third I misread an embargo. Family members came into the room where I was working on several occasions but I barely noticed them. All signs of a mind that is under pressure, worn out and not quite operating as it should.

For me this is a path on which the grass has been well flattened through hard and bitter experience, a symptom of a form of mental stress that is as much part of my personality as the jokes or sweet anecdotes which litter this column in other weeks. On previous occasions it has resulted in breakdowns and hospital admissions.

Several years ago I had a counsellor who used an image to explain how the brain worked. It was devastating in its simplicity and directness. She told me that my mind was like a bucket which has been repeatedly filled. When it reaches its brim the contents begin to spill out. That is where I am now, the bucket is overflowing and the dirty water is cascading dangerously around me.

This can manifest itself in several forms. Today it is a temporary incoherence of thought, an inability to order ideas. It’s like looking back on the earliest memories from infancy and not quite being able to piece the narrative together.

So how have I ended up here? Well, circumstance is certainly part of it. The last few months of lockdown have created strain as I have tried to balance work and domestic duties, particularly looking after my son and attempting to continue his education. The WhatsApp group that the parents of kids in his class has established keeps me constantly updated on how much other families are achieving, while I flounder.

More than this, the pattern of the my days has changed because of home working. Whereas in a previous existence my employment was limited to office hours, now it stretches on and on and I find myself accepting more tasks and responsibility.

But while circumstance is a factor, it only tells a small part of the story. By far the bigger explanation is personality, and my own stubborn habit of pushing myself beyond the point where I need to stop. There is no person who asks me to turn my computer on earlier each morning and keep it on until night, I do it because it is my nature to always try to do more, to expect more of myself. I have always found it hard to walk away, even at the point when I know I am causing damage.

And just because I have been here before does not preclude me from finding new ways to create stress within my own mind. If I was not working I would be just as prone to discovering other methods of reaching this state of nervous exhaustion. It is not unknown for me, on rough days, to get distressed over whether or not I have stacked the dishwasher competently.

And yet, despite it all, I am able to write these words as an expression of hope, rather than despair. Just being able to tell those around me when I am struggling transforms the experience into something which can be conquered, rather than submitted to. The real trouble would be if I could not talk about it, if I was too afraid to write this. It is the first step in making it better and restoring balance.

I will, from now on, be turning my computer on a bit later in the morning, and off a little earlier in the evening. I will be retuning the radio, at certain times, away from the news channels to the one which plays classical music. I will make time to bake some bread and to cook up some curries using fresh produce and spices.

I will reacquaint myself with exercise, beginning with a short run in the morning, rather than sipping tepid coffee while I stare at a computer screen in my dressing gown. Breathing techniques, meditation and mindfulness have all helped me before.

And, at the end of it all, if I am still struggling with stress, I also have the phone numbers pinned to my fridge door of the people who are paid to listen and who helped me in the past. It is reassuring to know that there is always a sympathetic ear available for a tortured mind.

I will also indulge in the most powerful treatment of all. It is time for a holiday with my family. We will not be going far this year, but, by the time you read this column, I will be walking somewhere on the north coast with my wife and son. The slower pace will, I hope, allow the jumbled sequence of thoughts to once again fit together in a way that I can understand.

In future I will try to do a bit less, but to do it better. As a wise counsellor once told me, when the bucket is full, you empty it out and start again.

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