The Man With His Head in the Clouds

by Richard O. Smith

  I continue to undergo various homework exercises designed to dissect my emotional responses. Eventually it becomes apparent to me, that Steve and Claire’s presence and questioning are designed to re-examine my reported experiences from an entirely different perspective, freeing me to evaluate and process recurrent experiences and anxieties. Once my thought processes are projected onto another person, the irrationality becomes far easier to spot, like an image under ultra-violet light.

  We all project an image of ourselves to the world - often if we’re honest (which we rarely are, especially to ourselves) containing considerable photo-shopping embellishment. Then it clicks. A piercing realisation of what the talking therapies and CBT can achieve. Counselling provides a rare opportunity to flip over that photograph and read what’s written on the back. The information contained there is vital to establish who you are, and what others are really looking at when they encounter that image.

  Anyone going to Thailand to “find themselves” or contemplating justifying a twelve-month holiday after university (twelve months off from what? Texting your friends, playing Grand Theft Auto and two for one cocktail promotions?) is seeking enlightenment in the wrong place. CBT can provide insights. The counsellors lead you to the truth, but you’re the one who still has do the actual picking it up. Relearning key areas of my phobic fight-or-flight activation is crucial to re-programming my brain. Perhaps counselling is akin to downloading an anti-virus software package for the brain.

  Intellectual processing responses are exercised, and the more muscle they’ve got, the less they can be bullied and ordered around by unhelpful emotions. A primitive emotional response can be dismantled at source by better thought processing - that’s CBT’s mission, and also Claire and Steve’s mission.

  At its best CBT confronts irrational belief. Responding to non-verbal cues, CBT’s approach interrupts destructive thought loops, challenges them. My negative catastrophizing thoughts have been getting their own way, unchallenged for far too long. Thoughts need to engage with emotions to produce a considered, rather than irrational, response. In its purest form, CBT aims to change how a person thinks, in order to change how they feel.

  I am encouraged to spot the false danger signals. Counselling helps me identity and label my thoughts, tagging each response to my fears. My counsellors help me sort my thoughts, allocating them into either helpful or destructive responses. Recognising this is important and interpreting them as false alarms is crucial. This is what my counsellors term “image restructuring” - I have to interpret the difference between image and reality. My brain can do this in front of a TV screen, but is apparently not so good at interpreting live action. Yes, I will jump if watching a scary scene in a thriller, so my brain is being suckered in by the experience, but thankfully the mature, grown-up, on-duty part of my brain is aware that I am in a safe environment and that this is just a telly programme. It’s just not so good dealing with live images, where my external perception apparently competes for resources with my brain’s memory store of internal images.

  Pattern matching is only going to reinforce my terror. My counsellor calls this “time for some cranial photo-shopping”, meaning that my scary images stored in my internal memory have to be edited - and re-shot to reflect life more accurately - to replace my brain’s stock library footage of terrors.

  It is as if my brain has been asked to draw a picture of a landscape or a still life bowl of fruit, and instead of reflecting reality, has covered the Wiltshire landscape with threatening lions or added grenades to the fruit bowl. Once armed with this knowledge of how the brain is tricking itself into becoming more fearful than is necessary for given situations, it is surprisingly helpful. It soon becomes possible to catch yourself falling into these deep troughs of worry, and become better at recognising the trigger signs and, conversely, avoiding the dangers.

  In a way I am disappointed with myself that such a simple fix can help. Part of me wants to reject such simplicity, stating that surely my brain is so advanced and smart that it requires prolonged exposure to complex theories - probably involving equations - than merely what I’ve described above. But then I’ve known since an early age that I was an idiot. “You’re not an idiot,” my counsellor Claire reassures me. Which was very nice of her, though I hadn’t mentioned the subject of idiots out loud. Or assumed, frankly, I was one until she took pains to dissuade me of my idiot status.

  My counsellors continue encouraging me to examine my fears, and by so doing defuse the potency of those thoughts’ tagged emotions. If my thoughts are sheep, then I am being encouraged to place them into pens. “What are the listed advantages and disadvantages of my current behaviour?” “What are the failings and benefits of my desired behaviour?”

  These are then further sifted into short-, medium- and long-term benefits. Indisputably the lesson I learn - and I hope my brain is also paying attention and not doing what it usually does in classrooms, trying to order Prog Rock bands into order of which one had the most facial hair - is to accept that the bad thoughts my anxiety triggers are not based on reality. This separation of real and imagined danger sounds obvious, but so does anorexia. In the latter case the absolute necessity of nutrition to survive is distortedly re-imagined and reinterpreted by the brain as damaging to the body. It’s so obviously wrong. So just eat something, right? Well, the majority of people who contract anorexia fail to recover. Over half literally starve themselves to death - often, though not exclusively, young girls - blessed with healthy, youthful bodies. But the brain can be this wrong, and this destructive, that it kills its owner.

  ***

  Unusually for an artist, he doesn’t have a fulltime job in a call centre. I know successful comedy writers who regularly have their work aired on BBC Radio 4 who still can’t afford to escape the tyranny of the call centre job; one recently calculated that their rate of pay was £6.84 an hour, which equates to roughly £1.14 per “fuck off”.

  But a fellow comedy writer supervises my confrontation with stairs. They are nasty stairs. Not the worst possible stairs - those protruding bars from the side of a wall with no backs or handrails are the worst. But bad enough.

  I complete the task, my practical exercise, but cannot banish feelings of embarrassment. Also I am aware the stairs were shallow, wide and easy. Then I remember Claire telling me specifically to award myself the credit, not delegate it to spurious circumstance.

  If my ambition to succeed remains undimmed, so do my feelings of guilt. There are numerous elderly people in this country who cannot afford to fall over, as it will mean serious - possibly permanent - injury. They have a real rationalising reason to be terrified of stairs, and an understandable justification to adopt avoidance techniques. While I am not as young as I once was - nor is anyone, since that seems to be how time works - my bones will not shatter if I fall over. My dignity and limbs may be bruised, but that’s about it. Hence, as per usual, I am flooded with guilt for being frightened of stairs, and wobbling in anxiety. Frankly, I do not consider myself a justifiable burden on the over -stretched, creaking NHS. That is why many anxiety and phobia sufferers never address their debilitating conditions. And yes, there may well be recognisable self-esteem issues in play here.

  Mine was not the happiness of childhoods due to low self-esteem. In fact my self-esteem was more subterranean than low. But I did have a best friend and a girlfriend - although they were both imaginary. I think I could have coped with that fact, had not the stinging rejection occurred when my imaginary best friend had an affair with my imaginary girlfriend and they ran off together. That’s the sort of self-esteem issue it’s hard to rebound back from straight away. Okay, so I’m joking to disguise a truth, yet by so doing expose a truth. Low self-esteem and leaking confidence are inevitable when you suffer from phobias and multiple anxieties.

  This is something picked up by Steve and Claire. My counselling sessions have added a sense of buoyancy
to my self-esteem. In addition to this, my sessions have also made me develop a sense of wanting do well for Claire and Steve because they must also be wondering if they can shape a difference in their clients. If I, their first client in the wild, end up continuing as a spectacular failure after the hours of indulgence they have afforded me, this will potentially not reflect well on their confidence - nor the Supervisor’s opinion of them.

  Steve and Claire both feel it is their destiny to be counsellors, a focused assumption that I genuinely envy them for possessing, an assured realisation of unbreakable confidence that there is something in the world they fit and want to do. There are many people who I can imagine working on the tills at Tesco - myself included - but I cannot image Claire doing that job. “Have you got a Reward Card? How does not having a Reward Card make you feel? Where there any traumatic occurrences in your childhood involving not having a Reward Card that you’d like to share? You’re a marvellous, wonderful human being with so much to offer, so how fair is it to define yourself purely as a person who does not have a Reward Card?” At which stage Claire would be sacked after the tills supervisor noticed the disproportionately long queue constantly formed at her till: “How does sacking me make you feel?” (By the way, I currently hold so-called “loyalty cards” for five separate supermarkets, so it is clear I am a disloyal serial non-monogamous supermarket infidelity practitioner). I like Claire and Steve. They have a genuine attribute of wanting to do good for people, wishing to release them from imprisoning worry loops. It’s a borderline angelic quality.

  Actually this is getting stressful, but I do not want to let them down. Myself I have never had a problem with letting down. This is an aspect to counselling that no doubt contributes to its success - the feeling of connected responsibility to your counsellor. We have moved from awkward small talk to a sense of emotional investment in each other, something that would be unlikely to be formed in any other relationship with someone you never see socially, and only meet for one hour a week.

  After a while I realise that a key component of counselling is the act of establishing an unavoidable reporting structure. Someone to inform of your progress and setbacks that drives you forward, motivating the bolder push of collected fears up an incline to reach a summit with higher views of yourself where it can be rolled away. I am here for the psychological insights that will enable me to roll away my restrictive foibles that rob life of its multiple flavours.

  ***

  Counsellors are fearless truth tellers. At least good ones are. They are the critics who encourage you to write your own reviews, plot your own constructive improvement. And I want to tell Claire and Steve the truth in my next scheduled session: that I went upstairs on a bus. They have set me this frankly enormous task - something I have failed to do in my entire life. Unlike school homework - and if you’re a school kid, prepare to experience a pang of envy here - my homework has to be done “whenever I feel ready”.

  My ambition to go upstairs on a bus remains undiminished, but is bolstered by receiving a supportive shove up those bus stairs. In my desperation to escape the swarm of morons seemingly resulting from an unchecked idiot breeding programmes throughout the UK, I receive the extra impetus I require to go upstairs on a bus for the first time.

  What most other people do unthinkingly, often on a daily basis, I am now going to attempt for the first time in my entire life. That’s a long time to avoid something. Previously I was locked out of this place by phobic anxiety, but now I am going inside.

  I am waiting in a bus queue and two young guys, probably students, stand behind me. One is freakishly tall and thin with a Beatles-like haircut, the other short and stodgy. Viewed from a distance, they resemble a mop and bucket.

  Then two undergraduate girls join the queue, and I become increasingly aware that I am the only person here who is not a student. This appears to render me invisible as students continue their conversations around me. The more brunette of the two girls is wearing a short pink jacket the colour of strawberry ice cream. Noticeably, she is also wearing a pair of shorts so tiny that she evidently sourced them from a doll, then washed them at a high temperature to ensure they shrank a bit more. Her friend has struggled into a miniskirt and low sleeveless top. Between them they are wearing just about enough clothes to dress one person.

  The tall and short guys start peacocking behind me. “Yeah, so I was out wearing my best pulling jacket - £300 of hand-stitched material, worth every penny for the action that’s brought me.” Annoyingly, he continues: “I went to this new place. I was only there two minutes when this fit bird wisely starts to gives me the eye...” I assume he’s talking about a visit to an owl sanctuary.

  Only he’s not. I’ve never hoped more for an imminent bus arrival. “Problem being, and not for the first time, her equally fit mate is also giving me the eye, you get me, bro?” Stop talking with a Jamaican accent: I know you’re from Buckinghamshire.

  After only ten seconds of enforced listening I conclude that it is because of guys like him that many women end up settling for a life with cats.

  “Oh yeah, that is so totally me too - I always get fit birds and their mates both wanting me,” boasts Loud Tall Guy’s short stodgy mate. Unconvincingly.

  What are the remarkable statistical chances of this occurrence? Being in the same place at the same time with both Britain’s biggest and second biggest idiot? Really, what are the odds?

  Boarding the bus, I take my customarily lifelong position on the lower deck. Britain’s two leading idiots come and sit behind me carrying on their conversation at window-rattling volume. “So I thought, why not ask them both if they want a drink and get myself double the action?” bellows the tall one. “That’s just what I would have done,” confirms the Deputy Idiot, struggling to see through his ridiculously low fringe that blows upwards when he speaks.

  “Did I tell you I made two grand on selling that piece of crap motor? Used it for my golf holiday in my brother’s Portuguese place... got my handicap of nine down.” What’s “a handicap of nine”? Does that refer to your reading age? It‘s certainly way too old for your emotional age.

  Then the two undergraduate girls occupy the bus seat directly in front of me and proceed to start a conversation at a volume more appropriate to making yourself heard between rescue boats in a storm.

  “Do you like my latest impulse piercing? I’ve just had it, so there’s still a lot of pus,” announces Tiny Shorts. The man next to me stops his coffee cup lift midway to his mouth, places it back down on his laptop bag, reapplies the lid and pushes it away. It will be a while before any of us will feel like eating and drinking.

  Then a scream of feral schoolgirls get on and take up the remaining seats around us.

  That’s it. Like a man working at McDonalds after three days of missed beverage accessory deliveries, I finally announce, “right, that’s the last straw”. I have to escape these “people”. I have to go upstairs, on a double-decker bus.

  The bus is stationary, so now is a good time to start the ascent. A small child gets on and bounces up the steps; feelings of intense inadequacy start to flower within. But I can do this. After all, I am physically fit, over six feet tall and able bodied. I am incredibly fortunate - a lot of people are physically unable to ascend stairs.

  I grasp the handrail more gratefully than an out-reached hand offered from a cliff top. Instead of pacing steps one at a time, I deliberately put my right foot down, and then bring the left one up to rest on the same step. Slowly I reach the top. So, this is what the top deck of the bus looks like. My first observation is that there is no driver on the top.

  People reported to me that in previous decades all I missed out on was a fog of tobacco smoke so thick that no one could see when their stop arrived, so would randomly guess when they needed to ring the bell and go downstairs.

  But I’ve made the top deck. There are good views into peop
le’s front gardens. My school friend Patrick Allen told me that he could see a naked woman through her curtain-less bedroom window every day from the top deck on the bus home from school, but I did not believe him. There would have been too much smoke. Bedsides, who’s naked at 4pm?

  Descending the stairs on buses is never easy. Mail bags are allowed more time to depart a moving train than upstairs passengers are allowed to alight from a bus. I take such an unnecessarily long time to descend the stairs, deliberately ensuring my left foot joins my right, before my right foot takes the next step, and holding the rail tighter than a Yorkshireman holds his wallet. Disembarking from the bus, I actually pretend to limp as I leave the bus stop environment to justify the time I’ve taken. But I’ve done it. And feel proud of the accomplishment. Perhaps more for Claire and Steve than myself.

  ***

  At the next counselling session it dawns on me that, as an ex-journalist, my big story that I am proudly reporting is basically: Man Goes Upstairs On Bus. They are not going to drop the dead donkey - or even dead hamster story - for that on the news. Yet Claire is so impressed with me, she looks like being the first one to require the tissue box.

  Counselling rooms always provide an immediate visual clue as to the likelihood of emotions clients can reasonably expect to encounter within, in the same way that betting shops always provide multiple “Bet Here” windows, contrasting astringently with a lone “Pay Out” window. Sure enough, as a signaller of the turbulent sentimentality ahead, a tissue box is provided as standard in all consultation rooms. It is always on the side of the table nearest to the client. Claire is so overcome that her voice audibly wobbles. She disguises a preliminary blubber as an elongated sniff. I have done them proud. I am more pleased for them than me, and carefully share the proportioned credit, ensuring all three of us receive exactly one-third each.