Grief and fear can feel similar because they both involve a sense of danger, uncertainty, and disorientation. When grieving, you might feel like you’re in uncharted territory with no direction, similar to how fear can feel when facing an unknown threat. Both emotions can also cause physical sensations like a fluttering stomach, restlessness, and difficulty breathing.
Here’s a more detailed look at why grief can feel like fear
Several videos about borderline personality disorder suggest symptoms that are everyday experiences – such as feeling anxiety when people change plans, experiencing mood swings, a fear of abandonment and mirroring people’s behaviour to be liked.
This is interesting but I don’t think she is right because many years ago I had a friend who had just done a degree in a modern language art Oxford and she had a breakdown and spent a whole year in a psychiatric unit but she told me that she was cured over depression after reading a book called born to win by Muriel James and someone else.
But also there’s something odd about buying hundreds of self-help books. If you read several and they don’t help you then it’s pretty plain that the rest are not going to help you either.
It’s terrible going through severe emotional suffering so anything that helps at all is very useful. But like bereavement these things have to be suffered and borne until they go away of their own accord
But like bereavement emotional traumas never go away but you learn how to live with them.
It’s like a journey through a horrible place that you just have to keep going on until you get through.
My friend called and asked for hot tea. I said,dearest it’s alright by me. You ought to drink brandy In gin mixed with shandy… but unethical tea is quite free
I like to know people’s desires.. Some like to collect copper wires; some collect wool and others tease bulls… I soon will try playing with fire
Did you know that nude shoes are the fashion Kate Middleton wears them with passion but the Times says, go flat. Your shoes not your hat. A ball gown and trainers looks dashin’
Catholics must not enjoy sex… Whatever will the Pope think of next? Recreation with balls, is not for us all.. I so do feel angry and vexed
St Augustine thought babies had sinned As they came out of the vagina not in. They might never know but it’s wicked even so….. A pity they are not sent out in a tin.
God can’t make any tinned goods. Like leopards cannot chew the cud. Ravines don’t rave Nor canyons’s behave…. and hearth stones will never give blood
When I looked to the list of my Gmail accounts I thought someone had hacked me because there was a name at the bottom of the list which I did not recognise.
I felt rather nervous about this wondering what to do
On further study I discovered that it said Choose another account
but in Indonesian so it looked like a person’s name
Why it was Indonesian I do not know although I have another blog on blogger which is read a lot by somebody in Indonesia.
It proves that if you can it’s better to try to find out about what’s worrying you rather than trying to forget about it and there was relieved to discover the meaning of this phrase
I’m sorry it is so long since I’ve written but I couldn’t find any ink to put in my pen
Then when I found some quink I couldn’t unscrew the top. I stood it in some very hot water upside down for half an hour and now I have one is to open it
Why am I so out of date as to write with a pen?
To me it’s rather like drawing and I also used to love looking at handwriting on envelopes when I got birthday cards or letters etc because every person’s handwriting is unique m
At the moment I’m looking through the window at an elderberry tree. I believe that there is a bird nesting in it and I’m hoping to see it flying in and out but so far I have had no success except that it’s very nice just looking at it all the time through this French window
The beautiful big flowers have a lovely perfume though I’ve never seen it in a shop or pharmacy.
Mysteriously my neighbours tcats that used to frequent my patio have disappeared. Perhaos staying indoors because of the heat?
They are very large with thick coats
My great niecw is only one year old and she’s already able to run
To think that she is running where others crawl it makes me wonder what she will become in adult life? Perhaps it’s dangerous to be so different from the norm.
Yesterday I was having trouble with my front door as the bolt on one side seemed to be very stiff
I have discovered the truth of the maxim
Two heads are better than one
Last night I couldn’t think what to do until I rang my friend and she didn’t know what to do but just a very fact that she was there made me feel more confident that I managed to do what was necessary and then today it was the other way round when she was trying to bolt the door and she couldn’t do it until I went stood next to her
It adds to my belief that it’s not natural for us to be alone all the time or even a lot of the time but if you’re in a good mood and relaxed it’s very nice to sit looking through the window at the garden in tll full bloom with the sun shining or even to sit outside and eat one’s meal in the fresh air.
We’ve already had quite a lot of hot weather this year I hope you were experiencing the same in Ireland.
Of course when you’re working full-time and sharing your home with someone then being alone can seem a luxury that’s hard for you to achieve but equally the other way alround one might long to have another person here who loves you or at least cares about you or is it interested in you in some way.
There is another saying which is
A problem shared is a problem halved
And although I don’t believe in vomiting out all our life story or problems onto anyone nearby it certainly true that talking to someone who listens (not as common as you might imagine) yes indeed sharing a problem can put it into I absolutely sure about is that if someone especially one of your children or young relatives confides in you you should never tell your friends what they have said. If they find out which is very painful that the secret itself shared with you is now going around the gossip in your street or in your family
Well I’m afraid this letter is not very exciting but I’m hopeful when my health improves I will get more energy to write something more interesting as even when you’re restricted to a small part of the world there are a lot of things that you can observe and participate in.
Mary was sweeping the floor with her new Shark cordless electric carpet sweeper just replaced by Lakeland Plastics, that store beloved of British women.Emile was watching her from the lid of the old gramophone where he sat surveying the sitting room.
Leave that spider alone,he called to Mary
Why? she asked kindly,are you planning a date with it?
No,it’s a good thing to keep them as they may catch flies and other nasty things.
Mary turned and gazed at Emile.She was wearing some blue Tencel jeans and a bright pink top with embroidery round the neck.Her thoughtful face w as covered in Radiant Glow foundation as her friend Annie was trying to make her look more attractive to men.Which men was a puzzle as Mary liked to spend time alone or going out with her female colleagues to search for books on Dirac’s owl,Schrodinger’s cat or Godel’s ants.
Her male colleagues were mainly very conceited or shyer than rabbits brought up in the cliffs at Lyme Regis.
However Annie wanted Mary to marry again, as she saw her own vocation in life as being a mistress to a bright and intelligent retired man whose wife worked full time or was in the Library studying the Babylonian number system or other esoteric topics
.So she could help Mary and herself at the same time.
Shall we have a party,she chuckled to Mary as she came in through the ever unlocked back door.
What sort of party,Mary asked nervously.
I want you to meet some men,Annie reminded her.
I believe that like bombs falling on London in WW2,that if a man has your number on him he will find you,Mary teased.
Maybe your phone number,Annie retorted.Why don’t you get a spare mobile and I can put some posters with that number on the trees down the side roads saying you are looking for a new partner.
I thought I had made it clear that as some Orthodox Jews believe that Zion will only come when God wants it to do,so a man will turn up when it is God’s will.
That’s a bit much.Do you think you are God’s chosen person? Is God interested in finding you a new husband? Annie shouted.
Well,it may seem strange to you ,but even seeming trivia like me being married to some new man can have deep consequences for the whole world… a bit like the butterfly’s wings If I am happy it spreads around me and makes others happier too.Or if God wishes me to write a book and I need a man to cook for me then one will turn up,Mary responded in her low and musical Tyneside accent.
On the other hand, God may wish me to lead a contemplative life,she carried on.
Annie was puzzled.Why do you think God has all these plans for you,she enquired.
It’s not just me,said Mary.It’s everybody but that does lead into difficulties as we look at the world around us.Does God want all. these refugees to drown or for Britain to stay in the EU or leave and please Florenc Tonson? It reminded the women of their convent school classes where they had studied a simplified version of the writings of Aquinas and his proofs of the existence of God.
It was this book which had given Mary her first doubts about religion and, being somewhat dim in the tact department. she had shared her misgivings with the headmistress, who was not happy to be questioned even in front of mere school girls.
Emile,she cried,I wish I were a cat.My schooldays were so terrible
It’s your own fault, said Annie.I just pretended to believe it and kept quiet by fantasising about my new lingerie and how my boyfriend would like it
How remarkable it is that girls and boys can be so different in their personalities and ways of coping with puberty.
It was like a prison,Mary said.Still it made later life seem happier.
How did you afford new underwear so often,she asked Annie
I wore my mother’s! this dear friend informed her.
My mother didn’t have that sort of underwear,Mary told her.And see how something seemingly so trivial can affect one’s personal development so much.Still I was fed and allowed to study and play the piano and do my homework to the sound of Horace Wagner and Richard Straussbumt.
Did it help you to concentrate,Annie asked in a puzzled way.
No, it allowed my brother to dominate me and otherwise he might have hit me or knocked over the folding table where I kept my exercise books ,and pen ready to write essays on Twelfth Night and the periodic table.
Annie burst out laughing.Sorry,Mary,I am not laughing because you were bullied but it just sounded as if tables had periods,the way you said it.
Imagine how hard it was dealing with all that in a tiny house with the loo in the back yard.It was taboo so had to be concealed.When we went to Dublin for 2 weeks my three sisters and I all had our periods and we brought back all the blood stained cloths in our suitcases.Luckily the customs man did not look inside.
Was there nobody who could have burned them for you?
The landlady never mentioned it so neither did we.
No wonder I am so peculiar.
Well,I like you,said Annie.You are so kind and sympathetic and good to talk to.And you are always coming up with new ideas and interesting books.
I suppose we complement each other.Mary said shyly.Maybe we should get married and forget about men.
Annie’s eyes opened wide.
I think I’d better ring 999.she screamed.
And so say all of u
When Mary got home,she took off her coat and put the kettle on the fire!
She got the tea caddy out and put some tea into the pot.Suddenly the door burst open and Annie her exuberant neighbour fell into the kitchen like a teenager Are you ok,Mary asked her gently.
Those 4 inch heels are rather dangerous.
Annie was wearing a sky blue track suit,red stilettos and a big green pashmina. Her make up had melted all down her face as she was so warm with running
She had some waterproof make up but had the feeling it might be dangerous to clog the pores.
Where have you been?she asked curiously.You were ages.
I forgot to get off the bus as I fell into a reverie,Mary told her
That sounds like a black hole!Annie cried
I was daydreaming so I ended up by the river and a policeman asked me for a date,sort of.
Did you have any dates with you?
No,I only had Stan in my bag,alas.
Where is he?Have you put him into the wardrobe?
It’s already full.He’s still in the bag at the moment.
The two women fell into a sad mutual silence realising Stan would never now teach Emile to swim in the bath nor return his overdue library books.
Am I liable for his fines,Mary wondered.
I can pay if you like,Annie,said generously.She got out some home made biscuits and gave one to Mary who was wearing a long black dress from Lands End which resembled a defunct nun’s habit.
Are you thinking of retiring to the cloister soon ,she continued.
No,I don’t believe in Christianity any more.Christ.yes,Christianity ,no.
What about Xmas?Will you celebrate?
I shall pray and do out the kitchen cupboards.
Are they that bad,asked Annie curiously, twiddling a ringlet with her fingers.
Possibly,Mary giggled!They didn’t teach domestic science at Oxford!
And Mother was always busy cooking and cleaning the grate after she got home from work.
Talking about grates,I’d better look at the kettle.She lifted it off the fire and held it up in the air.It was very black on one side,just like the one Mary’s mother had had so many years ago.
Why don’t I make some tea,she asked.
I don’t know,said Annie.Is this the Xmas quiz?
No,you don’t understand.It’s a rhetorical question.
Oh,do stop showing off,Annie told her.I only went to Knittingham Polytechnic and we never did Greek,just Aramaic.I have forgotten it now.
Mary poured out the tea into two pint sized mugs and the women sat silently warming their hands on the mugs and meditating on the wilful backwardness of the local poly which now only taught Latin,Hebrew and chemical engineering.The latter was an error as the professors thought that was what Wittgenstein had studied before finding Bertrand Russell more attractive. How to be more precise it was Russell’s ideas that he found attractive to start with until he saw the errors Russell had made
Russell’s paradox had haunted Annie ever since those happy student days.
Though she would have preferred Russell to his paradox if she had been given the choice.
Inside my mind I dream of pearls, Caterpillars,snails with whorls. I dream contented, all enwrapped; With reverie and dream I’m lapped. The inner seas will comfort me, While gods open my eyes to see
Oh,sweeter than confectionery Is my Oxford diction’ry. The words whirl round then fall to shape The sentences which my world make. This furnishing is rich and strange And magically self arranged.
Oh,sweeter than the love of man Is reading works of poets long gone; Feeling deeply their dark tides . Upon which our boat may glide. The sea infinite we float upon Is the same warm sea the ancients swam..
Sweeter still is the spring air And the blossom spreading fair. We’ll drown our selves in grassy fields To the gods of poetry yield. We’ll rise again and spring up tall To grow more rich until we fall
And yet so much of our communication today is defined by a rather ungenerous unwillingness to listen coupled with a compulsion to speak.
“Words,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in her abiding meditation on the magic of real human communication, “transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.” But what happens in a cultural ecosystem where the hearer has gone extinct and the speaker gone rampant? Where do transformation and understanding go? What made, for instance, James Baldwin and Margaret Mead’s superb 1970 dialogue about race and identity so powerful and so enduringly insightful is precisely the fact that it was a dialogue — not the ping-pong of opinions and co-reactivity that passes for dialogue today, but a commitment to mutual contemplation of viewpoints and considered response. That commitment is the reason why they were able to address questions we continue to confront with tenfold more depth and nuance than we are capable of today. And the dearth of this commitment in our present culture is the reason why we continue to find ourselves sundered by confrontation and paralyzed by the divisiveness of “us vs. them” narratives. “To bother to engage with problematic culture, and problematic people within that culture, is an act of love,” wrote the poet Elizabeth Alexander in contemplating power and possibility. Krista Tippett calls such engagement generous listening. And yet so much of our communication today is defined by a rather ungenerous unwillingness to listen coupled with a compulsion to speak.
Stan was sweeping the garden path.He had a stiff broom with a small head that was useful for cleaning the edges of the steps.Emile, his beautiful cat was sitting in the old apple tree gazing down on Stan.
“Is it time for coffee yet,”Stan asked himself.He had forgotten to put on his watch.
Suddenly he heard a shriek.He peered through a hole in the fence.His neighbour Annie was lying on her back in some mud.
“Hang on,I’ll come round!” he called.
There was a gate in the old fence which was rarely locked
since Annie loved to drop in on Stan.
“Oh,Annie,how are you feeling?” he asked her anxiously.
“Bloody annoyed.I’ve only just bought these,”Not your daughter’s jeans” and now I’ve torn them,” she replied politely.
“But you don’t have a daughter!” he informed her loudly.
“I know that.It’s just they are better cut for the mature figure.”
“Your figure is not mature.You are quite slender.my dear,” he murmured lovingly.
“Well,I never feel happy with it!” she said mutinously.
“Whereas I am very happy feeling it,” he responded romantically. Tears came into her green eyes lined with purple eye shadow.Alas,it was not waterproof and purple rivulets ran down her cheeks across the peach blusher with which she had valiantly decorated herself earlier.
“Can you get up?” he asked tenderly.
“Yes, but it would be nice if you picked me up.”
He leaned over her and licked the purple streams of tears off her cheeks.
“I hope it’s not poisonous,” she murmured.
Then with the aid of Emile,he lifted her to her feet and helped her into her large trendy kitchen.
The kettle switched itself on as they entered and a robotic voice asked if they’d like coffee.
“God in heaven,what the hell is that?” he cried confusedly.
“It’s my new computerised hot drink maker.After that fall I think a double espresso would be good.”
Emile ran in and asked for coffee too.
“Emile,you usually have milk,”Stan reminded him softly.
“Well,coffee is a new taste for me but I like a little.”
the cat whispered sweetly.
“I’ll give you some of mine in a saucer,” Stan replied.
Emile began to sob.
“Why Emile,whatever is wrong?”
“I want a cup and saucer just like you” the cat howled.
But you have no hands,Emile,” Stan reminded him. The poor cat was crying loudly now.So Stan rang 999.
“Can you please send the emergency ambulance round.the cat’s crying and all his hankies are in the wash.”#
Soon Dave,the transvestite paramedic appeared.
“I love your light teal kitchen,” he informed Annie,
“And your eyes look like two deep pools in a coal mine.”
She slapped his cheek naughtily.
“Have a look at Emile” she ordered him sweetly.
He turned to the cat who was sitting on the dark pine table.
“Here,Emile,I got you some Kleenex for Cats in Sainsburys.” he said gaily.
“I want a real hanky,”cried Emile.Dave took a clean hanky from his own pocket and dried the cats tears.
“What made you cry.Are you feeling bad.”
“Yes,I want to go to Cafe Nero,” Emile mioawed.
“Who told you about that?”
“Another cat down the road has been and he said it’s lovely for people watching.”
“The town is not safe for cats like you,Emile.”
Dave urbanely replied,
“But when summer come I’ll take you to the out of town Marks and Spencers.They have a cat’s coffee corner upstairs.”
“Wow,isn’t it amazing,”Stan wondered out loud.
So Dave poured out the coffee and they all sat down and discussed Ray Monk’s Life of Wittgenstein.
Ray has discovered that Wittgenstein liked cats but as he moved around quite a bit,he never owned his own cat
though Elizabeth Anscombe let him play with her three cats now and then.
We may all be different but most of us value the love of a good cat.Even boiling their hankies and ironing them is very nice.We all have this problem though.
Where can a cat carry his own hanky?
Do cats need shoulder bags?
What would Wittgenstein say?
Mary was admiring her curtains :;what a wonderful sense of colour this woman had. It was the one thing which her mother had praised her for . She had not been praised for becoming top of the class at the convent school not for getting a degree. No Mary realised that her mother has a sense of colour because it will be useful when Mary got married and had to make her own curtains.
What a nuisance Mary was no good with the sewing machine. In fact she was afraid of it. That’s one sure way of getting out of a task. Be afraid of the sewing machine clumsy with the knitting needles and when asked to make a cake always put the oven at the wrong temperature so this is either burnt or it is not ready when the visitors come.
And if people know you’re good at making cakes you will get more and more visitors and you won’t have time to read the Oxford dictionary of abstract words or the Oxford dictionary of new words. It is be very hard if we had to spend all the time making cakes and not being allowed to read a book.
Mary was no good at making her own clothes. She had to get a science degree so she could earn her own money. She was terrified of being on the dole and did not want to go on the game as ehe was a virgin. That’s her version of it
When Mary got married to Stan she told him that she did not make cakes and she did not make curtains. Fortunately they could afford to choose the fabric and then get someone else to make it into curtains,
It’s very important to learn about colour unless you go to art school it’s not often discussed in school. Colourcan help you to recover from illness…….
Be obedient only when absolutely essential, be obedient to this particularp person
Children need to be obedient because they don’t understand danger but not everybody is your parents and even if they are your parent there may be wrong when you are adults to try to control you
The geese have moved their flight path to the East
I miss the gladness of their graceful wings
And wish I were a bird and not a beast
In the river, they have had their feast
While the sparrows watched and gently sang The geese are gone, their flight path’s to the East
Seeing their grace at sunset gave me peace
The natural world such beauty to us brings The wish I were a bird and not a beast
North East London’s cut up by the Lea
No bridge destroys its power, its currents sing The geese have moved their flight path further East
The geese do not make nests in a tall tree
But dwell upon the water like the swans I wish I were a bird or honey bee.
As the infant wisely grabs and clings
So the geese will fight if threat descends The geese have moved their flight path to the East Oh, to fly at sunset with the least
(however good or bad my poetry has been or is now it has been a marvelous experience writing it.)
Autumn’s coming,geese fly by, Autumn,rust,red,gold,so gay Drystone walls edging fields. Apples gathered,holly berries Flash so brightly,look like flowers Sun shines sideways,shadows long Of trees appear.I dwell among Woods where gentle beeches sing Swaying with the sideward wind
See their roots, all intertwined. Feel their geometry in your mind. Look up now into the sky, See the V formation high.
Geese fly home at end of day.
My heart is moved by patterned dance In this peace and great silence My mind widens like the sky And in this moment I would die, So I could stay with this still vision Of geese set out on autumn mission.
Snails in rain pools slither near My feet upon the terrace here Yet how swiftly life’s destroyed When blind foot steps into the void.
I learned a hymn in our old chapel
I realized then God ate that apple
Eve took the guilt and asked no, Whys.
Since then all women need to cty
Yet we went to church and we all sang.
The organ played and the big bells rang.
But we never heard the answer then
till a strange loud voice called out,”Ah! Men!”
I’m not sure if we were made to sing.
Yet, what but joy can we each bring?
The psalms will comfort us at night.
And in the dawn we see the Light.
Then we rise up and our songs float out.
The cats miaow as they run about.
The dogs join in to bark and growl.
And from the sky we hear God howl!
How my heart speaks 