Posts

Transition

As I described in a previous post , after reading a fanfiction chapter in which someone seemed to draw comparison between depression and being transgender, I worried that this implied that depression is hardwired and unchangeable.  After all, being transgender, like being gay – and like being autistic, as I am – is something that people are born with.   Children aren’t likely to show signs of autism until they’re a year old, and probably won’t realise that they are transgender until they are old enough to notice that there is a difference between boys and girls, or won’t realise they’re gay until they’re old enough to feel sexual attraction, but the neural wiring was there from before birth, and it isn’t going to go away.   Attempts to ‘correct’ any of these by training young children to behave in a socially acceptable way do nothing but hurt the child and teach them that they are unacceptable. So, is depression something similar?   Some people consider being sui...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fanfiction

I love fanfiction. I’m not sure how much I need to clarify this.   One person to whom I mentioned my hobby of writing fanfiction asked in puzzlement what the term meant, and whether it was short for fantasy fiction.   I explained that no, it just meant not-for-profit stories written by fans of any book, film, TV series, comic etc, imagining other episodes in the lives of the characters.   However, I must admit that most of the fanfics I have written have been based on science fiction or fantasy series. Fanfiction offers almost limitless possibilities for exploring the lives of characters.    I love humour, exploration of the interactions between characters, missing scenes of conversations the characters might have had when the original author wasn’t looking, and crossovers where characters from two different stories meet.   But in particular, I enjoy stories about characters recovering from emotional or psychological trauma.   There often aren’t e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ears

Image
I started working on Project Change My Brain back in January.  As most of my problems are to do with the way I think with the left, verbal side of my brain – worrying for decade over possible meanings of things people have said – I decided to spend more time on non-verbal relaxation.  I would try to learn yoga.  I would spend more time colouring, and listening to instrumental music. Finding a yoga class turned out to be harder than I had expected, as there is no longer one in the local Village Hall, and the one I saw advertised in a studio in Shepton Mallet that I pass on my way to work wasn’t currently running.   I did enjoy colouring designs to make greetings cards: a big, bear-like dog for a greetings card for a friend, a tree-stump for a condolence card, a semi-abstract Egyptian-looking design of two facing figures for my wedding anniversary. Listening to music had seemed straightforwardly relaxing.   I don’t take recreational drugs, but I love the hallu...
Post a Comment
Read more

One Year to Change My Brain

Image
This year, I badly need to get a grip on my mental health.  But then, I have been telling myself that for most of the past ten years – or perhaps nearer twenty. I am not alone.   According to the World Health Organisation, nearly a billion people worldwide live with a mental illness.   The commonest is depression, affecting around 300 million people. However, I suspect that most people in poorer or war-torn countries aren’t worrying about their mental health itself, so much as the specific things they are depressed or anxious about, such as ‘My entire family were killed when the country next door bombed our town,’ or, ‘How can I feed my family when all our crops are dying of thirst?’ I am hugely privileged compared with many people.   I am happily married to PDB11 , a wonderful man who, for reasons I don’t understand, thinks I am a wonderful person too.   We live in Somerset, one of the most beautiful parts of the world that I know.   I have mostly go...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Holy Quorans

Image
Lately, I have been wondering about whether to remain a Christian.   The evidence around us indicates that there isn’t nearly so much difference between all Christians and all non-Christians as Christian preachers try to make out, nor so much difference between all religious believers and all atheists as some atheists try to make out.   Not only European Christians like PDB11 and me, but also probably plenty of American Christians with liberal political views, probably have more beliefs in common with liberal atheists than with fundamentalist Christian Trump-supporters, for example. PDB11 mentioned to me a question on Quora about a quiz, the Religious Values Test , which a Quoran we follow, Melissa B , had taken.   Melissa, who is a Catholic, took the test and got – Pantheist.   According to her results, she was 59.8% pro-Catholic, compared to 68.5% pro-Jewish and 65.5% pro-Hindu.   PDB11 , as a Protestant, also got Pantheist, but scored 59.4% pro-Protestant, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Christmas Is Coming - Is This Good News?

Image
‘And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…  After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.  “The time has come,” he said.  “The kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news!”’  Mark 1:4, 1:14-15 When it’s coming up to Christmas, I am frequently ambivalent about whether this is good news or not.   It’s not that I don’t believe that Jesus was born (even though he probably wasn’t born on December 25 th ), but that I’m not always sure that I trust him to be good news for us.   If he isn’t, then Christmas for me carries similar overtones to the spoof Christmas carol my friend Doom Metal Singer found for me: Death to the World!   About ten years ago, a visiting preacher at the church I then went to asked the congregation how we would sum up the message of the gospel in one sentence.   We wrote various answers, generall...
Post a Comment
Read more