another visit

Life is full and busy and it's been a while since my last visit to Dr P. 

It was a while a go so I'm looking at random notes I scrawled in my journal. My High Beta is till high. Still some 'jangling' as Dr P says. 'The brain has pushed up the alpha', she said at one point  and something like brain function is 'compromised', strangely, I like that word, but that my 'neurones are so much better' and 'we strengthen.' The excess of theta has dropped, mercifully. Although I meditated for 22 years or so, desperately trying to up the old theta (among other things) it's not good when you have it going on in the wrong time and place, makes you zoned out, de-focused, harder to concentrate.

I had noticed a decrease in my tinnitus after the last visit - but it's up again. I am a bit concerned that we are focusing on the Tinnitus when really I can live with that, and  I'd rather be smarter. Dr P says that the work we are doing will be fixing the brain in general. Good.

I do notice I am making less mistakes on my invoices and lesss dazzled when looking at tables eg timetables.

My watch (dropped it on a hard surface a while back) is doign something stupid - it looks find for a god part of the hour , then the small hand gets ahead of itself and it looks like tit's a whole hour later than it is. This got really interesting when I was on a short holiday in Europe with the one-hour time change already...

on my lust for self-improvement

I laugh to think that I have my father to thank for my devotion to self-improvement, because my father was a steadfast non-improver and hater of change in general. He was fixed in his ways ever since I knew him and allowed himself to become ever more fixed, incurious and unquestioning as time went on.

But it just so happens that I first met the literature of self-improvement on our family bookshelves. I am not at all sure that Dad actually read a single volume. Or even a chapter. He did have a hypnosis relaxation record he used to lie on the lounge room floor and listen to, though. The LP had a black and white cover with a giant scary spiral (Hitchcock's Vertigo no doubt helped with that) and the record label's grainy logo of the Sphinx added an extra gloomy mysteriousness to it.
But over on the bookshelf was Dale Carnegie's classic 'How to Win Friends etc' and a book by a man who was an exponent on multi-tasking one's way to achievement and success. He had his family learn foreign languages as they brushed their teeth, and such like. I have pieced for myself a story of why and how these books got there. My Dad worked as a Singer Sewing machine sales repairman. He saw his job as an excuse to drive around the vast dusty suburban roads of Brisbane and the flat Redland Bay Area between brief visits to women needing their machines repairing. I think his boss must have tried to get a more pro-active attitude out of his employee - and possibly a few more working hours to boot. It wasn't a position he held down for long. Dad wasn't really cut out for sustained regular employment.

My father had nervous problems. Official diagnosis: 'nerves'. This was said dismissively to my poor young country-girl mother (so she told me) when she had followed Dad's panicked demands for a doctor to be sent out in the middle of the night (yes those were the days when you could call a doctor out to your home and they would actually come). I think she also once used the phrase 'anxiety neurosis' or some thing like that.

It was an interesting environment to grow up in. Dad ran our family, well his moods did, managed by my mother. And my mother told me stuff about my father. My early life was curtailed by my father. 'Play quietly in your room and don't disturb your father'. Mum told me she had schooled me with this. Told me when I was about 30. I was surprised, I thought I had chosen to tinker in my room with tiny dolls and packs of cards (as I couldn't play card games due to lack of playing partners and as no one had even taught me solitaire, I used the face cards instead as characters in my story scenarios). Mum had another story that I used to stand in front of the mirror for hours talking to myself. I was always a bit embarrassed by this - did it mean I was vain? I realized eventually that I must have been profoundly lonely. But it's like the fish looking for the ocean 'you're in it!' it doesn't need identifying, it's invisible and impalpable, it's just ...existence.

When I was 7 about to become 8. The family took a 4 day car journey to teh Queensland outback. The last three of those days I experienced travel sickness to the point of nausea and remember standing by the roadside, voiding my foodless stomach of the very last of its stock of bile and then my very recently swallowed saliva, while my father loomed over me bellowing 'it's all in the mind!' Which is ironic and un-compassionate of him as that's exactly where all his problems were. 

When I was 17, I once had to cancel a driving lesson at my father's request so I could hold his hand as he lay on the floor and moaned. 'If only a man had a broken arm, he could understand!' He couldn't understand and it's probably fair to say he refused to understand. The fact that he mentioned understanding was startling to me as I was required not to understand, required not even to be aware of Dad's 'nerves'. I had been briefed by mum never to mention it. And yet, regrettably, here I was on this day, having to be sudden witness to non-existent thing. He wanted to hold my hand. I felt trapped. Before you think me heartless, a little back story - once when I was three he had made me sit on his stomach (while the morbid baritone drone of the Hypnosis record relentlessly intoned) because he had a stomach upset. (Yes, I have been through this with my therapist.) You see, Dad's ideal child was an inanimate one. 'Children should be seen and not heard' was declaimed often. Clearly 'children are also a handy alternative to a hot water bottle' was another of his deeply cherished beliefs.


On this exquisitely uncomfortable occasion (hand, not hot water bottle) the sound track was provided by the radio which rode the airwaves always. It was interminably tuned to his favoured jabbering, MOR station. (Actually more lowest common denominator, than MOR, but let's not dwell). The radio was playing a merry American tune 'There's such a lot of living to do!' I sat there, desolate that my lesson had been cancelled, afraid at what this state of my father's meant or would lead to and feeling - how can I put this? - in a dull panic of claustrophobia and aversion, combined with a prayerfulness that Dad be deaf to the song that was playing so that he not notice the hideous irony of it all.

There's music to play
Places to go, people to see!
Everything for you and me!

Life's a ball
If only you know it
And it's all just waiting for you
You're alive,
So come on and show it
There's such a lot of livin' to do

My father wasn't the most aware of men, or so I felt, so I was hopeful. 

And that was when he said, with a sentimental-to-melodramatic cadence: 'Ah, Peta, It doesn't feel like there's a lot of livin' to do.' which capped it all off nicely. I was left me to wrestle down yet a billowing cloud of sickly absurdity while I simultaneously entertained the somehow horrific concept that I might be expected to comfort him in some way.

And people wonder where my sense of absurd dark humour comes from.

new brain

There was a wonderful Python sketch where some 'Gumbys' in their corner-tied pocket hankies gurned 'new brain', or so I remember.

I watched Limitless the other night on DVD.

I so want to have that level of smartness - the 

drug usage and violent drug barons I can do without but I so want the smarts.

Anyway - here's my update.

I was weirdly disappointed that in our recent session we were focusing on the tinnitus - though I'd love to be free of it, of course! - because I am so invested in being cleverer. I asked Dr P and she seemed to agree with me saying - well if we fix this we are helping the brain overall, aren't we? She seemed to say yes but she could have been humoring me.

However - here's a cautious thought. I feel a tad smarter. I am sitting doing thing on the computer and my memory as I go about my email tasks seems better - I make fewer mistakes with numbers. I feel less fog. I can look at the top title bar of a document with more ease - that seemed to be too effortful in the past - hence me gettign into a muddle with which document I was working on - relying on a motor skill memory (when had I last clicked from doc to doc) rather than simply looking! How bizarre. How wonderful.

Also exciting news...if the volume indicator on my TV is accurate (variables, variables, subjectivity)  I seem to be hearing  better!

FANTASTIC.

I have always suspected that it's the high frequency sounds of my tinnitus that are obstructing me hearing consonants so clearly. At the hospital ( I must write about my Tinnitus Therapy session) they have told me I have lost upper range hearing - I don't like to take it on. Glasses one can accept, but the hearing aid is far from a fashion accessory at the moment. Even if my hearing is slightly impaired, I'm sure that the tinnitus lowering will be good news for me.

It's rather exciting.

If I were to rate my tinnitus - I might say 25% in right ear (it's actually seems  hard to gauge each ear level - my access to right hear hearing is impeded by the sounds in my left) and 65% in left. Which is a big reduction. Yes, it really is.
Miracles may be possible. 
Or rather, Science works.
I'm cautious of course, 
but a tad excited.

tackling the tinitus

I've been working hard and away for a bit. Recently visited Dr Parkinson for another session of Brainwork. Four Protocols all on the central strip of the brain.

Dr P asked which side the tinnitus was worse on. Usually the left, I said.

We worked with the first three protocols. I scored pretty well compared to the sluggishness of the fist attempt at these trainings last visit. In Bar form you could see a healthy and satisfactory ( to Dr P) downward trend.

And in the format where tit looks like a multicoloured carpet being woven before your eyes, it was all looking very smooth and coherent indeed - apart from on sudden spike that mystified the Doctor.

Then the final area - the electrodes had been moved over to the right side for the last two. One still remaining glued to the bone behind my left ear (with the milky gel product Dr P was finding it hard to deal with on this warmish day). 'That one monitors your heart. The heart sends a much stronger charge than the brain (I'd heard this in personal development contexts and here was this scientist verifying it!), so we gather that data and subtract it from the brain data.'

This last reading was crazy - very incoherent. Dr P was surprised. I was scoring ok, about 200-odd by the end of the session, but everytime my synapses hit the targets, they jumped back to their scrambled default. 'This proves that your brain agrees with you - the right side monitors the left ear - the tinnitus will seem worse in your left ear.'

The carpet graph looked very jangled, a weaving machine gone wrong. I thought about the jangled nerves I had when my neighbours played techno - the way my skin prickled and I walked about the flat as if on knives - the time I first manifested tinnitus, a whole 13 years ago.

A bit of me is afraid that the tinnitus will go - strange to admit, I know but it's a real sensation, it's like: miracles will be possible, world-view overturned, scary!

But of course I'd love to hear quiet again.

Sitting typing this today - right ear much quieter. left ear still audible, perhaps more like 7 than the 8 I gave it in the consulting room on Tuesday.

too much theta?

So, another session on the 6th June. Two new protocols and I think still the 4 old ones - I had thought that I had fixed three and it was just one to polish. But I am not complaining - get those brain bits spic and span. I like thoroughness.
And am chuffed that I am on 2 new 'protocols' - they are targeting one area at the side and one at the top of my brain - both temporal zones...I think.

I do ask but a couple of times Alan misunderstood what I was asking (I failed to ask clearly enough?) and hey, I'd rather let whoever is doing the session get on with it correctly rather than pin them down. 
I am sitting here with my journal now to find the notes I made after that session. Let's go back in time a bit first.

Here's a note from my journal 25/5/11 'I feel like I am experiencing things more directly. wondering at pigeons, excited by mudflats outside the train window (on a trip down to Plymouth) like I am observing natural life rather than noticing the concept of it as in 'ooh, rivermouth''. Hard to capture this stuff, I think I felt less like I was gripping reality from the language side but sensing things more. And that nature seemed more three dimensional because of it.

I had a couple of nights where I woke and spent two hours or so reading, then late lie ins to catch up. Not ideal. Is this still brain fatigue (which should be reducing) or due to something else?

I do feel life is getting better clearer. I am doing the brain work but I am also listening to a Sedona CD each morning during yoga. I had a leak in my flat and as part of the clear-up of things damp, I did some extra cluttering. That always greases the wheels, I find.
4/6/11 'I notice when I rush I feel good. As in 'good girl'' I remember that my father always required us to jump to it. It was usually not clear what we were jumping to, but the required reaction seemed to be to instantaneously achieve a state of - I might have said alertness, but it was not,  it was panic. Panic was the required , correct, safe, 'good' response. In this state, I also seemed slightly nervy and pathetic which was also 'good' because I was fulfilling my family role. A day at the beach could be interrupted at any time by a loud whistle. This meant run back to the car instantly or you risk being left behind. I finally retrained myself not to respond to whistles. Hassle from workmen on scaffolding was part of my father's legacy. I did ask Dr P if a habit of hyper-vigilance in childhood (and this is just one of a thousand of examples I could give to demonstrate that) could have caused some of my dyscalculia and she said yes. But enough of the turgid childhood reminiscences and recriminations: Brain Training!


Again the speed of my brain to make corrections is commented upon. Anything over 20 is good, apparently, but on my old familiar protocols, I score 40 a minute. Feel pleased.


On the new protocols it's 'less forgiving', Alan says. The chirruping and cheeping 'rewards' have gone and there is only one sound, the metallic 'clunk' - which occurs each time all the targeted conditions are met (this is reduced delta and high beta reducing and the normal or slow beta rising). I was slow on one of these new protocols, but that's ok.


Alan shows me another graph where there is a peak a sharp witch-hat triangular spike, that is a surplus of theta activity!!


Now theta is the stuff of meditation. I spent years meditating. I used the Holosync programme, too...I thought that the aim was to have all your usual brain functions ongoing but with high theta to boot. Like great Indian saints or Buddhist Masters, do, if I have this right....
And here we are trying to eliminate my theta. Ok, let's do it.
I started to make story-sense of things that probably aren't related at all.
People who have seen my show Invocation will know of my chagrin of getting a nun who adored transcendent silence on a Past Life workshop. I wanted something I could more usefully channel to deal better with an ambitions colleague and increasing demands to be more business oriented.
In another workshop I got a meditative figure again as guide and remember being very troubled about it - meditation is all well and good. I am doing plenty of it but I need to be left-hemisphere function sharp. I need much more of the hard crystalline smarts, not the deep indigo and gold transports, please.
Was a part of me getting this - too much theta in an area it shouldn't be, causing me an abstract fog or a transcended absence right where there should be engagement. I did use to zone out sometimes in conversations or during talks...


Alan said we did 5 minutes each of the new protocols and 10 each of the old ones.


The second new one I scored well, even thought there were two lulls. I increased my target score from 2 to 4 ( was that double or just 2 points more?) either way I was satisfied. 


Came home at 3.30 after running some chores and I slept for an hour and a half. I was meant to be in Belgium today and tomorrow, but my client cancelled. Inconvenient on one way but actually I was delighted. I was tired for some reason anyway, and after the new brain work I think packing for travel and an early start would have been hard work.

what's normal?

I've made only a couple of stupid mistakes of late and have not recorded what they were and so have forgotten.

Other people lose their car keys or something with regularity. I love reading Tim Dowling in the Guardian, who records his shortcomings with passports etc. Was he dropped on his head at some point? Or are all humans just simply imperfect?


What I feel mostly at the  moment is the absence of panic. And perhaps I am experiencing less weighty fatigue. It's not a spectacular outcome, I'm not suddenly able to do calculus or anything, but it's huge. Less brain freeze. Less brain fug. Came in handy when Thames Water caused a leak from my apartment to the flat below...while I was out of town. I failed to experience brain-freeze and although I felt the temptation for the wheels to freeze in their tracks, I pursued options one by one. I have to reflect though that I was not alone - someone helped me google a local 24 hour plumber which was causing me a tad 'frazzled blindness'. Never used that phrase before, but it sums up what i was experiencing.

Often in life I have not attempted things or avoided things for fear of that feeling of panic and failure. That state is so unpleasant and one feels so helpless and humiliated in its grip. It is more than the event, vastly hugely more. And somewhere one realizes that and the urge then to gee onself into capable, adult action at that point only makes things worse. 
Hm, now that I accurately describe it to myself like that, this calm is a huge outcome indeed. Can one only clearly describe a mental (slash emotional) state accurately once one is OUT of it?


I had another visit with Dr P. on 3rd May. She had recently attended a conference on tinnitus and the speaker had kindly shared his power-point presentation with her. The 'event-stress-further activation-stress' cycle was supported by his research. I also learned that the tinnitus noise is created like this - there is the 'inciting incident', so to speak, then the symptom (the noise) followed by ensuing concern, then anxiety at the symptom, fear of the return of the 'inciting incident' (in my case the techno playing neighbours), which is when the brain starts looking for the original offensive sound and.....
that brain activity of looking is (or creates) the noise that you hear, if I understand correctly. Nature can be cruel. Or at lease counterproductive, it seems.


Three of my four 'protocols' (or little bespoke programmes for selected parts of the brain) are regularizing nicely and Dr P wants to get the last recalcitrant one sorted out before we start on the Tinnitus. 

Then I want to go for the brain brightening. Calculus here we come. Only kidding. Shakespeare memorization perhaps, better problem solving definitely. Financial acumen, that would be great.


I have been directing/devising a piece of outdoor theatre. There was a day when I looked like it wasn't knitting together. I went to bed affirming that the idea had to come up from my unconscious. And indeed it did. At 3am. I began having extra insights. I'd lurch up and scribble in the book beside my bed, switch off the light, lie down and then lurch up again. This happened about seven times. I did get my solution. This may or may not be related to the brain work, but I found it interesting to observe nonetheless.What's new is the sure belief that it's not me  who comes up with anything it's the 'everythingness' as my friend Drew said the other day. The universe, the great collective unconscious, the Field, Unity, however you want to call it. Not just brain work but The Artists Way and The Sedona Method have helped me not just think that this is true, but to experience the trust that it is true.
Oh god (there is none?) do I sound evangelistic now? I just came up with another word. The Universal Genius. That's what we plug into when acting, or when clowning. Create the conditions as best you can then in that fullness of emptiness, await the impulse in the moment.

running on

I can report:

feeling calmer and less panicked, less self blame, more seeing others objectively.

There's a lot of work I am doing at the moment and a lot of stress - actual heart pain, promoting my workshops.

Back to Brain training - on Tuesday May 3rd, I think it's session 4. I do 4 protocols again. Felt the green wasn't high enough and the yellow not down enough but the black was well down.

But Alan and Dr Parkinson note a high score, in the 400's - 'anything over 200 is good.' And on the graph all the lines are calming down over all and looking more orderly.

Dr P is going to assess my progress with all the recorded charts and I will hear about that next session, hopefully.

I have made my follow up session appointment with Julia, much later than the stated '5 weeks time'.

Last night I did a task on the computer that would have made my old self give up and possibly cry. My hopes are rising. My appetite for the smarts is high!

mistakes and small successes

Right - I am meant to be improving my brain, but I am also wanting to log my progress ( and after all the repair work has only just begun.

So I am more and more aware of my mistakes. And how I deal with them.

When I am around people who are stressed, it seems to jangle my brain.
Sudden urgent questions do the same.
But surely everyone feels this.
I am learning to say - just one moment, I will get out my timetable/sheet of paper/list and then I 'll give you that answer.

At lunch on this job the stress is on - I am working on  my focus, working to breathe through everything. Using Sedona Method to let go of anything that is not essential. But when there's a lot of extra things happening, I sense my physiology and demeanour getting a tad ragged, which  disappoints me.

I do a few stupid things. Like:

I ask the student leader where are the folders? - but it's the morning and they come in the afternoon.
It's like I am relying on / responding to visual cues, (the student coming to the door) rather than having a clear narrative grip of the processes through time.
I make notes from moment to moment in my journal in the lulls or over my 11am to 12pm lunch break.

I write:
All the systems make me stupid. Questions make me feel dull and confused. Annoying that my brain doesn't work as well as I'd like. (I partly use my journal for stream of consciousness as a kind of cleansing). I seem to be stupid in the mornings, then a bit better after 11am. I say Cafe Nero instead of Costa and am corrected. I want to shout 'who cares!' I have been corrected in the past over numbers or clock reading (google dyscalculia symptoms). Once someone was furious with me for saying up instead of down. My reaction in theses moments is : but what does it matter! and I justify myself with something like 'but all the evil high street coffee barons are the same!'
Ah the treacherous workings of the brain in cahoots with the small emotions and the ego/identity!

One day I cannot find an applicants form ( it is where I didn't expect - simple manual error, moving the form without recording it on the front of the folder it was moved from.
We are very late getting to the assembled after lunch. I read the names in a state of humiliation (hopefully invisible to any but me).

More mistakes:

I say April but what comes out of my mouth is August

Speaking with another colleague, I confuse students Sascha and Natacha in my memory

On April Fools Day I write 4/1/11 on the folders - correct it.

One of the Student Leaders makes the kind of mistake I do - It's interesting to observe how it makes one feel about that person...well at least I understand and sympathise to a degree. I can almost see his lack of focus...he's greta with the interpersonal, like me, but you need the other to lead well.

I think I am copying a Client's number into my iphone - I try to call her but each time I do the office phone rings....I have copied the office number. Classic Clown routine.

I am focused on the person I want to ring - can't spot the mistake right away.

But!

I figure out a way to overprint the forms that are bamboozling the panelists - with the YES and NO at the bottom missing. It's a tiny thing, but it is appreciated.

Helen is great - she really wants to get the whole process as right as it can be.

I get disappointed when I miss a something.

Later she reminds me that she too, makes mistakes.

I spend a lot of time one day dealing with students who have not learnt the required speeches. I am firm and kind and offer counsel occassionally. 

I finish taking the antiscar (correctly this time) - there seemed to be fewer ampules in the box this time...

I write:

is it that tracking and spotting mistakes is making me smarter?

Or is it that the Homeopathy has take it's slow effect. Or because I have stated my need for focus and received fewer interruptions. Am I simply learning the job?

Noticing someone today - their use of language is less than clear - I can see them creating momentary confusion. I know hoe to spot that and remedy it. I know how to rephrase and order the information to take the frown off their brows.

My earliest memory surfaces of my Father using poor communication and of me feeling incredibly stupid. 'The plane!' He yelled! I look in the sky. 'No down there!' he's furious! A small toy plane, how nice, he's showing me something but why is he so unfriendly while he's doing it, it doesn't compute. 

Ridiculous that he was asking a 3 year old to pick up and bring him a large woodworking plane anyway.

In the evenings I am achieving much - I prepare an eflyer and posters for coming workshops. I am on fire with achievement.

A colleague says she has heard 'good things' about my teaching.

On the weekend, I go to hard pilates. I am learning to have a more positive feeling for the concept: Heroic. It's putting pain to one side and letting go of all the emotions and judgements. It's not longing for things to stop. Seeing discomfort not as a punishment, or a warning, but part of reaching something else, something better, eek, a goal.

I have a meeting about my website. I read about a 91 year old body builder and am inspired. I watch the people cheering on the marathon runners and I am touched.

There is a process Helen does at lunch which I cannot do as quickly as she can.

Part of the problem is my handwriting is scrawling and I cannot stick to columns of lists, keep changing the format.

I write: 

keep own notes

photo copy ( because Helen hand-writes this information in duplicate)

there has got to be a way

carbon paper

or a scanner

I start to concoct an idea for a form...(yes, I who 'hates forms' starts to dream of a form that will help me order the actions involved in this process!)

I work on it on Helen's computer when I have a moment. After a day or two, it becomes a part of the process and the student leader thinks it works really well from his point of view. I am ridiculously so pleased with myself.

I dream of a flood coming. I run ( with unaccustomed athleticism) from it.

inbetween

I have 3 week of 9-5, well actually 8.30 to 7pm.

I am normally freelance, each day is pretty much different from the last - it keeps me on my toes and makes  my little  vertical filofax year planner (the most light-weight diary I can find) the most precious thing in my life.

So now I have three weeks and a day of heading to the same destination each day. I have been looking on it as a kind of retreat, a kind of holiday. I am working up to 13 and a half hour days, yet it's a holiday of sorts.

The job is 'chairing' an audition process. It involves dealing with people which is familiar ground and a strength of sorts. It also involves overseeing a system that has several components: student helpers (who in the very first moments of arrival perform at least 5 different functions for starters), a student leader, panel members, candidates, the admissions department, the school's reception, the maintenance team sometimes and 13 - 14 rooms with slightly different setups and different functions. It involves looking at tabled lists of panelists, student helpers and remembering the protocols for each of these roles. It involves knowing the time flow for the day for each of these different roles and mini protocols and holding in mind do's and don'ts. It also involves a lot of collating and cross checking. It also involves making sure things happen on time and it requires a lot of running up and down stairs. There are three pathways on the course with shared aspects and different criteria and priorities. There are a host of panelists who work in shifting pairings and often in different rooms each day and they all have names and faces to remember. There are special considerations - among the 100 or so candidates daily there are up to 15 people whose disabilities must be communicated to the panelists so they can take these into consideration. There are 4 panels and three kinds of workshops (one of which is mixed between two pathways).

At lunch my colleague and line manager and I must open 10 folders containing 7-10 candidates each (sometimes more), open each applicant's UCAS form, check the markings from each of three different panels and initialise these in the appropriate column on a table format form on the front of each of those ten folders. There are other names on this form - there are always no- shows and we mark these accordingly and record on the folder form as well. We move the forms of successful candidates to the appropriate folders (now six of these) for the afternoon sessions. We create a flow sheet for the afternoon - some candidates get called for all 3 pathways, some for two, some for just the one. This must be written manually in duplicate - well really in triplicate. If I don't write my own copy I can feel at sea or embarrassed in the afternoons.

The old me could never have even written all that. I am proud of my enhanced ability to categorize and list. This is due to knuckling down as my ability to begin to learn this system predates the brain training.
When, at moments, I flail at this task, I wonder - would anyone find it difficult? Is this just what is entailed in learning a system? Is it particularly hard for me? Is it because I led such a solitary childhood and even adulthood (solo performer from 1983 to 1988 - therefore simple lack of habituation)? Is it due to brain damage from the car accidents?

My colleague fires questions at me sometimes and in the name of honesty I must record my immediate experience is fog - then reach for a piece of paper. I notice she has the ability to remember first and last names of candidates over a period of minutes. I must have it written down or I am lost.

Day 1 - unusually, a duplicate of the form stapled to the front of the folder is also contained inside (uncollated by the Student Leader) - for some unknown reason I fill out this duplicate. As I am stacking, with a cautious sense of satisfaction the folders, I am amazed and perplexed to see the front form black and I hurriedly complete it, wondering worriedly at my brain ....'I thought I did this'  is a horrible thought. Later I find the loose sheet (and erase it). 'Oh ok, I did do it, and I can trust my memory...to a degree'. But now the worry is - 'how did I confuse that loose sheet of paper with the normal format?'

I have instigated checking and checking again procedures for previous mistakes I have made - eg two pathways share a form for a certain workshop and I get a bit blind when a yes and a no are both circled.


Today on the front - of folder forms I forget to highlight the name and pathway of two successful candidates. I had counted and recounted. Three times in all and was feeling pleased and confident. But I failed to run my finger carefully down the column to ensure I had highlighted. I counted and courted and could not match my colleagues' count. Disorienting and humiliating.

I am so thrilled to be doing this work as it is a growth area for me. I am really am not methodical /was not been taught how to be methodical. Years ago I was doing a mailout of scripts and introductory letters for a cast for a play I was directing. I felt it was boring to do each task one at a time and would vary it by changing the order. Completing three steps for one envelope, then having to open the envelope because something was not included etc etc...


Today I also noticed myself failing to see a name on a tabled form right in front of me. I am getting better - a year ago I spent a panicked hour looking for a person's form - I had placed it in the wrong folder because two people had the same surname. It sounds dumb but I was so overwhelmed before - now the boxes on the table panic me less (it took a while for me to get that I only need scan the highlighted names in the afternoon/evening process - now I can scan first and last names).



Several times today and yesterday I said ' I am a moron.' That unpleasant feeling of not being able to trust oneself, of fearing people will lost confidence in me. The look when people raise an eyebrow at such an obvious mistake.

Yesterday at lunch I got in a flap form filling under time pressure. I am working through forms when my colleague has moved onto the flow chart. Today I was thrilled to do my own flow chart - I did it as I went, but that made me miss the highlighting step, I think. My aim is to be Zen and clear headed and unflappable and professional and an exemplar of non-violent communication (Marshall Rosenberg) and clear and nonreactive and impartial and flawlessly professional and helpful and quick to pick things up and a great role model and loving to all. I want to be clever. I want not to make any mistakes.

My sense of humour is outspoken and clownish. To some degree a coping mechanism. Can be fun - and occasionally it doesn't serve me. I feel I have undermines myself and that's when I crave a demeanour of 100 percent Gravitas or Zen-like-calm!

brain training sessions 3 & 4

I got confused about the time this morning. Got to Oxford Circus and the shops were closed. 'This is odd, have the clocks changed?' I thought. Trying to write about it now I can't even imagine HOW I got the time wrong - did I suddenly think my appointment was at 11am? Did I momentarily forget/trust my memory that shops in the West End open at 10 and think they opened at 9, and think it was 9, therefore they aren't open and that explains it?

[It's a week or two later and I venture in this bracketed-bit, an attempt to fathom out for myself what happens in a moment like this. Here goes: My brain was juggling 10am and 11am and 9am around...To do with 9 an 10 being closely associated because with the appointment at 10, I have to leave at 9. Then, concentrating on the 10, thinking, (but all non-verbally) well, perhaps I left at 10 for 11 and then: '....why are the shops closed at 11 am? They should open at 10 am?' Then thinking more about clocks back and not having the brain space to think 'it's a week day they never go back on a week day'...and finding it impossible to remember the mnemomic 'Spring forward, Fall back' and even less possible to compute what that might have meant...let me try that now: it was 10 therefore it would have been 11 and the shops would have been even more likely to be open...even if ti were a Saturday. And then just writing that I got the real situation - and am astounded at how simple it is. My appointment was for 10am...therefore it would have been 9.50am (with a 10 minute walk from Oxford Street to New Cavendish Street ahead of me) and it was a mere ten minutes before the shops opened. From this I see one of my coping strategies - relate to the number of the hour strongly...this is why 50 and 40 minutes past the hour are hard for me. And 28 minutes and 48 minutes...forgetaboutit. 
I feel a bit ashamed having written all of that.]

Anyway, that's a little sample of the unnecessary confusion I normally hide and keep to myself, and which I am hoping will become a thing of the past.
I got to my appointment at the right time, ten am. 
I also slipped up on texting a friend possible dates to meet. I was a fast texter on the Nokia (not predictive text, just inputting) but now my iphone has a spellcheck thingy which if you are not vigilant corrects you and getting used to the touch screen doesn't help. I had asked my friend about 24th and 25th when I meant 14th and 15th.

Dr P is struggling with email when I arrive. She wants to send me a questionnaire. 
I ask Dr P some questions - might this brain training help my friend who has just been diagnosed with MS. Yes. When will we work on my tinnitus? We will correct these two brain areas and then move onto that. 
I work again on pumping up the green thermometer - low beta waves are go.
'A brilliant scoring rate,' says Dr P.

'How's the fatigue?' she asks. I say : 'well I am less sleepy tired, and I seem to wake more easily and more refreshed.' Hm, it's true, I feel less of that dragged from the depths of the earth with alarm, by the alarm. Less of the buried-in-concrete feeling on awakening.

My brain waves (or angles - this particular readout is linear) are flatter, more coherent, with occassional jumps in to jagged lines.


'That looks much healthier now, that's what we would have expected,' says Dr P.


We are integrating the systems. We work on the two brain areas and we add a new 'protocol' or programme. I do FOUR lots of looking at hte bars pump up and down.
I am thrilled about this - I am getting more work done, yes!


The first minute of each programme is all about the machine getting a 'baseline' reading, so it can set up targets. Dr P praised me and my brain made a negative blip. 'What's your relationship to praise?' Interesting question.
I remember being praised and my brother being criticized in the same question. It was normal practice at home and you'd think a positive thing for me to hear, but I guess actually stressful: to have Paul insulted and almost being the cause.

It's hard to describe this process of improvements. It's not liek recovery form a car crash I suppose - 'I took ten steps yesterday, twelve today, I am getting better!' I have a buzz of expectations, fears, hopes, aversions and frustrations around the process.


I do feel tired over lunch after wards, 'I could sleep.' I write in my journal. Am I just a malingerer? Am I babying myself?

I sleep badly that night - I aware at 2 am buzzing. I have to read for a bit, get up and rinse my arms with cold water. A long day traveling and teaching in Cambridge. Fun work, but tired on my way home. 


Next day it's session 4, the four training sessions. Not much to report. I try not to watch the score. I was getting the the 4 or 5 hundreds, now it's more like 200 something. But overall I can see there is a new trend. when the graph line starts to incline up again, Alan stops it in case it's tiring the brain. I never feel tired doing the training, though. I feel hungry for it.
I ask if protocol is just another word for programme. Alan tells me that 'protocol' is a term for when two electronic systems communicate with one another. 


I have a wonderful afternoon with my friend and her gorgeous baby looking at the Susan Hiller exhibition at the Tate Britain. The following day I set the alarm for 6 but snooze till 9. Damn. 

It's Thursday 24th March. I take the new ampules. I put the homeopathic pills in a little tin to take before lunch, and start to look for something for the ampules to go in realize. It's then I realize my mistake was even more disastrous. It's one of each of three ampules, three times a week. I was taking one of each three times a day, every day. Dear sweet lord. My fear is that I have made my self even dumber.

I am a moron

Today I realised I took the ampules wrongly - it should have been only 3 times a week and I took them every day. Julia had told me and written it on the back of the prescription slip and I had remembered it on the first taking, but then completely forgotten.

Also last night, despite constantly referring to my diary, I went to the student showing I had booked for on the Friday, and had carefully arrived at the Diorama in plenty of time...but a whole day early.

People were helpful and I got the comps re-organised without having to pay for my ticket. Will this nonsense become a thing of the past? I certainly hope so.

Have I made myself stupider by taking the ampules wrongly? I will have to wait to speak to Julia to find out, having left a message at the Clinic reception for her to call me.

brain training session 2

Yesterday I started taking the remedy for the brain scarring. 7-10 drops in water.

Not with Dr P, today, with the same colleague who did the brain-cap reading.

We work with the same two areas of the brain.

I learn on this session that the chirruping noises the programme makes are part of the training. I had wondered but just assumed they were a 'programme running' sound. There are cicada-like chirrups, tweets and little clunks, a bit like the closing of a small metal bin.

The machine sets targets on an increment. Small changes to the start pattern are targeted to lead the brain to decrease or increase the various waves. When your synapses change the pattern (or whatever the heck is actually going on), it  results in a reward. The noise is the reward. It's hardly a trip to Paris, but the brain, like a good dog, takes it as a treat. Fascinating.

The instruction I am given is to 'relax and let the brain adapt.' Oh that's interesting , last session I was willing the green to go up..in a soft playful way.

Today my green medium waves start low. First test I score 483, around 48 correct changes per minute. I am told that anything over 14 points per minute is good.

Next, the central motor strip. I see on the desk the name of the conducting gel : 'alpha conducting solution.' At least I imaginge this is the one that's being. used to connect the electrodes.

I get a score of 530 which sounds good to me. The sluggish green bar has been raised up, but so has the yellow bar, which I should have lowered. I had one or two less than pleasant thoughts during this session - is that the cause?

Alan, who's running the session says: 'it could be hyper-vigilance or over-analyzing it could be compensating for something else.' But my theta waves went low and remained like that for the whole session.

I come away feeling grumpy. 

I wonder why we only do two things in the session.

I wonder when it will start to help my tinnitus.

brain training session 1

I cut my finger on one of the ampules on the morning I have been looking forward to - my first brain training session.

Still hitting the snooze button on awakening but more calm on the tube. The lack of caffeine in my system is the big factor here I think.

I feel disgruntled, though. Today I am full of doubt whether this treatment is going to work and whether the investment of my time and money will pay off.

I go upstairs for the session - Dr P wires me up with I think three electrodes. Two on the top of my head and one behind my right ear. 

The computer programme measures three waves that my brain makes. These are expressed as 'thermos' i.e. bar graphs with thermometer type bulbs at their base. Inside the base there's a minus or plus sign. 

The first 'thermo' is black - a pumping black line pulsing like mercury in a thermometer. That's my delta wave and I have too much of it. Over on the right is a yellow bar and it's showing my high beta wave - I'm also pumping out too much of that. In the middle, the green one has a plus sign in the bulb - I need to create more of it.

One session of ten minutes is for my prefrontal cortex.

Then a second session focuses on my sensory motor strip.

Apparently the high jumping yellow bar - excess fast wave - is a classic fatigue disorder.

I tell Dr P how depressed I was about giving up coffee and how uncertain I was about Homeopathy. I used to be a believer in all things from a Health food store but I've recently read a number of articles that say there is no scientific evidence at all for homeopathy.

Dr P says she understands. As a scientist, she loves the hard data. But she has also has seen unequivocal change in many patients taking homeopathic remedies like the ones I am taking. You can't do blanket control testing for Homeopathic remedies, she explains. 'It's so specific. You and I could have the same condition, but the same remedy will not treat us both.' We are complex and unique. Dr P finds the effects of Homeopathic remedies 'powerful'.

Anyway back to the graphs. I still have far too much fast and slow waves....'possibly one trying to regulate the other.' Although I have had the three car accidents and one drop on my head, I suddenly feel impelled to ask Dr P. 'Can this condition come about due to emotion, for example, being hyper-vigilant as a child.' 'Yes, possibly,' she says.

DR P talks about getting a adrenal test - it could be expensive so she wants me to know how much so I can make a decision on it.

DR P keeps popping up different graphs. There's the kind of earthquake scratchy line graph and another graph that fills the screen from the top down like a woven rug. It's all fine, then every so often big jagged holes open in it. 'Pattern of regulate and dis-regulate,' says Dr P. 

She asks me in a hurried voice - 'are you okay?' I am surprised and answer 'yes, fine'. I could do this all day.'You have good stamina for training.' And apparently my brain has scored well.  

'You have a very bright brain,' Dr P says and I love to hear it. I know I am articulate but often the mistakes I make, make me call myself 'stupid'. Down by the front desk, Dr P kindly show me how she opens the ampules.

I walk out from this session feeling braver, taller. I feel I can see more clearly, but then it's a glorious sunny day (perhaps that's all it is?) I have lunch with a friend, and explaining the gooey dabs in my hair from the conducting gel, I tell her a little about the treatment. She looks at me as if I am mad. She's seen me pursuing a number of things in pursuit of fixing myself, making myself better, and I think she thinks I am mad.

I feel in a fantastic mood all day. I walk with a new calm. I feel more quietly alert. I seem to misconstrue objects less. Often, before today I would see a shape, say from the corner of my eye, or  a silhouetted shape on a brand logo and see it a several random things before I work out what it actually is. I sit in a health food cafe waiting to my friend and I see that teh store's logo of two ducks is just that, two ducks. It's an upmarket place I've not been in before. I enjoy looking at all the unfamiliar brands and products on the shelf, noticing the absense of a kind of fug of overload. I cannot wait for the next session. Relaxed, playful, in a good mood all day, even on the tube.

Last night I watched a dvd called 'Is Anybody There' with Michael Caine dissolving into dementia. I think of my father and trying to relate to him in his declining years.

I read the news of Japan, ashamed to be thinking so much about myself and feeling grateful for the normalcy around me.

pills and ampules

The first package arrives I think on Wednesday 9th March. I have 3 types of pill to take and three types of tonics and various remedies in ampule form. 'Just crack them at the yellow mark,' said Julia, the Homeopath.

I put the still-sealed box on the dining table, along with my other unopened mail. My flat is a mess. I do my work, but life is exhausting. Other people have had that bad virus I I stayed well. Maybe I am fighting something off. Julia said that physically I was strong, though. Good. As a self employed person I must always be well. sometimes I see illness in others as a sign of moral weakness. (When they were all coughing on the tube late last year I judged them harshly. Anger is always borne out of fear. I had to work all through December, I wanted and needed that money. 'Malingerers, and selfish for having ventured out' I would be judging the coughers silently.)

I have a lot of uncharitable thoughts on the tube. I am not proud of them. I had been noticing how angry I got on the tube lately. Always charming with friends and colleague but invisibly angry with the anonymous world. I started to think: my father was very angry before his last stroke - crikey I better be careful.

I look at the box. Food needs a half hour halo round it and coffee needs an hour. I would need to wake up so early to take the remedy before breakfast. My usual breakfast being morning coffee. I start to reduce my coffee intake, each day a smaller ration. I am amazed, I should be wanting to get started. I am waiting for one more remedy from a different supplier - the one that's going to take the old scarring away, apparently. 

It's now Friday and I should really get started. I work too late emailing and have to leave in a rush. I am determined to start the dashed remedies though, so I start to attack the pills. The caps are not just child and moisture proof, the are adult proof. They rip my fingers, they damage my nails. I am internally cursing the manufacturers, Homeopathy in general and myself for my clumsiness and lack of preparation. I grab one each of the ampules and put some water in a bottle and head out of the house.

On the bus I struggle to open the ampules. Ok first one snapped. It's in half but each  half is like those joke brandy glasses when I was a kid - the liquid is still somehow sealed in each half. Did I not break it correctly? I try to pour the contents into the mouth of the water bottle. Nothing doing. I try to shake the liquid free. I wait for it to settle and try to pour, to shake. Finally I suck the halves. 'Great, I will have a moment of pure genius and mental clarity and then die of cracked glass in the stomach', I rail silently. I am aware of more than one person looking at me. They must imagine I am a methadone addict or perhaps someone with nitroglycerin and a nefarious and panicky plan. I go onto the top deck to repeat this frustrating process two more times.

At least I've begun. I forgot to mention Julia gave me some treatment - by sending pulses down those wires? - when I was there. Something for the endocrine. She mentions she expected to see something to do with epilepsy. Epilepsy? No you are not going to develop epilepsy, she explains and I guess it's some tendency or condition that just includes that term.

These are the first remedies and maybe my system will 'ask ' for that one later.

At least I have begun. First session of bio-feedback with Dr P tomorrow. I am looking forward to it.

I had the weakest little coffee this morning. I wend through two days of headache, thankfully not at migraine level. Monday will also give me a chance to see if my tube rage has subsided due to the phased out coffee.

testing testing

The first test is an undignified process of having head measured and cap fitted and a strap put under ones arms to which the cap is attached to pull down for a snug fit.

Then a needle of sorts pushes conductive gel through holes in the cap to make a connection. There are about a dozen holes that have to get a good reading. Then the machine is switched on and your brain waves are recorded. A combination of high tech and medieval grotesque. It's done sitting in a chair in a small office.

There were two recordings - two sessions of 6 minutes just sitting there with the instruction 'try not to think unpleasant thoughts'. Before he presses record, he asks me to first blink and then to clench my jaw so I could see for myself the massive impact that has on the series lines the 'needle' is making. So I sit there with eyes open for 6 minutes and then I sit there with eyes closed. Apparently I have to take care not to go into too meditative a state. He says he will assess the data - presumably some mathematical procedure to cancel out the irregularities from blinking etc and spot the real brain wave irregularities.

A week or so later I am back at the clinic. This time with Julia. I have wires like straps around my ankles and wrists and one around my head which annoyingly scratches the top of one of my ears. I am comfortably on a reclining treatment bed for the duration of the visit. I don't enjoy the 'patient' state I have gone into. I guess what was happening was I thought I was going to have a reading taken. Like the last time, I have had to answer a lot of questions again. Maybe that's a good process, in case something new comes to light. But I feel  little like now I am creating a story of my symptoms. I don't like answering the questions from the bed. It makes me feel passive. I wish I were in a chair. 

Here's a thing. Since seeing Dr P and her suggesting fatigue I have been feeling quite tired. I worry that I am overly suggestive. I am, I know that. Alternately, I wonder whether it's because I have been given permission to feel the fatigue rather than fight against it.  Dr P or Julia mentioned something about adrenaline. The injured, limping brain fights against its own disability by trying harder - that's how I understand it. And is doubly fatigued, from the impaired function and also from the fight.


I have been more at rest on the tube, a feeling of not trying so hard, or not being so self-conscious (hyper-vigilant?), as if before I felt on show at some level (even as I tried to exclude the anonymous others) and now I am just there, simply taking up space. As I know from Chi Gung practice less extraneous energy is good. And from my own teaching right energy, more relaxation, empty mind is best. So this must be a good thing (even if 'worry brain' tells me it a greater excuse for laziness and babying self and inaction). Perhaps it's a moment of surrender as one does - 'ah, diagnosis has been made and cure is at hand', that has to have a big psychological impact.

I didn't realise that Julia is prescribing homeopathic remedies. I am concerned that it is an unexpected added expense to this already expensive procedure. I have read articles recently that say there is really no scientific evidence for the efficacy of these medicines. The Homeopathic hayfever cure never worked for me. I figure out that what she is doing over there at her desk is reading the output from my wiring and then going over to the cabinet to get various remedies and popping them into a little box which is part of the circuit and that is affecting the readout. She calls Dr P on the phone and even calls her in and keep saying that 'she's asking for this or that remedy'. Julia is saying not brain stem but scarring. I will be given remedies to break up the old scar tissue. 


My other adverse reaction to Homeopathy is my beloved coffee. I know I shall have to give it up. I feel resentful, or the addiction does. And I am so tired, lying there on the bed. What I am not appreciating is that I have worked all or part of the last 3 weekends. I had two days off the previous week but it really hasn't made up for it yet, it seems. I am now really feeling that I am allowing myself to slump into being in love with having a problem. I remember how happy I was in a way when I was diagnosed with cancer in 1996 (now all clear). It was a delicious excuse to stop. It was terrifying financially and psychically and identity-crushing and often anger-making but so many aspects of it were comforting. Not least the drugs they gave me as pre-med. I felt a well-being that I realised even normal healthy or at least pre-diagnosis life had never afforded me. Just writing that now I realise, of course, that's some opiate - but st the time I took it as a sign that I was living life wrong, or not having the perfect life, when I should be feeling that all the time. Despite all the darn meditation I was doing.


Julia is telling me about all the different remedies and when and how I take them...I feel more stupid than usual - again, is it because I feel I have an excuse now that my brain has flopped into inattention. Or is it that I feel I don't have to pretend here and so I am not employing my usual social maskers: 'Ah,' said cheerily and eagerly, 'let me just jot this down so I've got it.' Or when I get off the table, can we go trough that again. I don't like what has happened to me on this table. Julia did say at the start of the session that I could rest and gosh I certainly had and look what happens then - no resistance to fatigue, impassive and can't think straight.

a bruised brain

In February this year (2011),  I went for my first consultation with Dr P.

She asked me a whole list of questions. I'm here to get smarter. I think I have Dyscalculia. I have Tinnitus. I want to be smarter with numbers. I hope to be able to categorize things better, to think more systematically. To retain information better. 

Did I also tell Dr P this: I want to remove all the impediments that stop me getting on with projects. I've tried to work on the courage and commitment and passion, but still some important things stall me: doing budgets (can't won't) doing timetables, thinking in terms of schedules, projecting plans and sticking to deadlines (aversion and mental shutting down). I've heard and fear the term self-sabotage but have never read about a clear cure for it. Although the CBT work I did last year was extremely helpful.

I have done all the soul searching involved in re-inventing myself after a personal crisis and come back to theatre (while continuing to enjoy doing coaching work). But applications for Arts funding (necessary, because it's hard to save on Theatre earnings) involve form-filling and budget-making and systematic thinking and reading up on funding schemes (I dislike reading from the computer screen). 

But there's only so much time left. I urgently need to be better, cleverer, quicker, smarter, more accurate and more confident.

Dr P asked about blow to the head. In my physical theatre work I have received a number of blows of various kinds, including being dropped on my head. As an actress in Brisbane in the 70's, I was slapped on the face nightly (theatre in the round, can't really fake it) by a tall young man with a large hand. One night I felt my jaw swing what felt like inches in what seemed like slow motion. There was a period in the 80's when - heaven knows why - I repeatedly would crack my head opening the kitchen cupboards.


There were also car accidents. I walked away from each with no blood or bumps that I recall, but no doubt with whiplash injury. One when I was 20 and rolled my car - an interesting experience, with total calm and slowed time: 'ah, doesn't the cracking windscreen in the rain look pretty!'. Another around 1997, misjudging the time I had to turn and a car coming at a greater speed than I thought. The last in 1999 when a guy ran into the taxi I was in. I really remember this as I had perform that night. I was lucky to be able to book some kind of a session - osteo or shiatsu. I felt my whole torso to be hanging or bending over to the left. I mean I was standing straight but there seemed to be some kind of invisible shock body pushed over in a curve to the left of me. 


Dr P wired me up a little and had a first look. I mentioned the invoices and Dr P said, yes, you find detail difficult. She said was thinking possible Brain stem injury. Sounds scary - 'all fixable' says Dr P 'and it's good you do this now so that you don't have more problems later'. Good point.

She said she wanted to send me off for two diagnostic sessions with two different people. Car accidents can cause bruising. And sometime scarring.


She asked about fatigue and I was puzzled, I knew I liked to chill out in the evenings but wouldn't have used the word 'fatigue'. I replied 'well, I can sleep for Britain, but I thought that was me being lazy or depressed'. I can always get up to make work appointments. At 5am if necessary. And stand for hours and be attentive and alert, and hold the focus for a group. And I do my yoga and pilates routine before I leave the house. I can get by on 5 hours a night or even 4 and teach or coach well. But on days when I am working for myself, at home...it's the snooze button again and again. If I can be released from that, that's a significant plus.

I want to be smarter

At school they told me I was smart. Scored well on tests. Even an aptitude for Maths they said - I should have asked for a copy of the papers.

I was top of my grade mostly, but was mystified that at high school I was not ripping through the reading lab system that we had as quickly as others. I wasn't scoring high enough on comprehension or speed. But I loved English and I wrote well. Well especially the creative, imaginative stuff.

And in high school I hated Maths. It was so abstract. I wasn't getting it. I must have heard about others who bunked off - this was so not in keeping with my scared good girl style. I think maybe it started when we hid from sports and there were no repercussions. I stayed away from Maths for so long it became irrevocable and I had to shift from science to arts.

But there were problems before this - telling time. I could do it but it took a while to do it on an analogue face. 'Iiiii'ts 4 thirty (six seven eight) 4.38!'. I notice that when I teach an hour-long class I'm fine, but a 1 hour 40 minute class - what are they trying to do to me? Or a 1 hour fifteen class - I recently taught at a school with three of those sessions in a day - remembering the start and finish times was a chore. Once, years ago, I finished a class a whole half hour early. For a couple of years I got behind on my tax. (My now-divorced husband and I used to share an administrator who did it, but my husband's business got so big he took her on full time and I was on my own.).The columns, the numbers, the fear. When I run workshops and schedule day events...it's a pain to have to clunk my brain through the timings and check and double check, because I had noticed that people get really angry at something so obvious being wrong. It was unprofessional.

I was tempted to put these things down to an emotional reason. For example: my bully of a Father taught me to tell the time - in the garage where I had once received a beating, could that be it.... Or a weakness of character - I'm lazy. I dislike it and am nervous of it. 

I'm creative and was for many years a nervous scardey cat (cortisol was my middle name). Once I lost an opportunity to make a lot of money on some shares (sadly no, I am not stock-market savvy) I had been told to buy them as a sure thing by my then boyfriend's father on my coming into some money from my grandmother.I had moved abroad and thought I had set up everything so that action could be taken in my absence. I looked at this letter which in later years I looked at and realized that it simply required signing and sending back and I was frozen. I could not take action, the boom passed and...ugh I can't talk about it anymore.

Maybe that's more about nerves and unworldliness than brain function but I'm not smart enough to know....

I was having lunch with a friend. Have you heard of Dyspraxia, she said. Yes, I said. 'I never knew', she said, I thought  that was 'just me' banging cups down on the table and stuff like that.' I joked that i thought I had the same thing with numbers. Two days later she emailed me - 'it's called Dyscalculia!' I googled the symptoms and (I know, risking classic google hypochondria...) a number of them, including difficulty inputting numbers in a calculator (years ago a friend kindly led me through how to do my tax myself).

I have also trained myself to think more clearly by writing up notes for my coaching Clients and starting to write down exercises I taught and formalize my theatre teaching, too.
Perhaps my laziness and aversion are a character flaws. I applied new strategies and practices to shake them loose.

Last year I had a few inaccuracies on Invoices. I had been feeling good about myself training my 'bohemian brain', teaching myself to love being professional and organised, affirming that my memory was amazing, comprehensive, perfect. I managed to remember to attach the attachments. I got more savvy on the computer. But here I was again this year putting the wrong date on or adding up wrongly. Each year when I do my tax I fancy I get better with the arithmetic. But I caught myself the other day doing a sum half addition and half subtraction.

Though Dyscalculia is about numbers it also mentioned problems with names.... I would notice that I was quite capable of thinking Sunday and saying Wednesday. Thinking November and saying April. I would have to concentrate really hard to know whether I was being told Liverpool Street or London Bridge....that sort of thing.

For years I have been into self improvement. 22 years of deep meditation, which was meant to prolong life, support health and I hoped, make me smarter, too. I have used NLP and Holosync. I bought a photo reading course to help me read all the piles of books I have bought in the hope of getting smarter. My work as a facilitator and coach in the business world began as 'us in the arts bringing something wonderful to the poor people in conservative clothing'. As the years went by my work in the corporate sector evolved through facilitation to coaching and I had realised that there were some fine people with very good intellects and cultural lives in business and I was also grateful for learning how the systems of the world worked (I had no uncles who were lawyers or doctors or even in business so my general knowledge was very poor and my parents had been terrified about and reactive to tax, accounting, legal matters, all the systems stuff). 

I had learned what a big impact people's preferred perceptual modes had an incorporated that into my teaching and coaching work. I had gone from being unconsciously smug about my creative nature to realizing that even the art world required you to be good at the business side  of Show Business. I started to will myself to develop better left hemisphere brain functions. Logic, systems thinking, numbers.

Recently friends recommended bio-feedback. A woman called Dr Lesley Parkinson - specialist in Neuropsycho-Physiology. In fact: Dr. Parkinson is possibly the United Kingdom and European most experienced consultant clinical-psychologist in BioFeedback, Neurofeedback,  Hemoencephalography  and quantitative electo-encephalographic assessment (QEEG) and brain health. 

My friend went because he wanted to sleep better and remember names better. He said he felt a creative boost after treatment. Another friend was prey to fatigue and he became cured of that and also became more verbally adept and even seemed more socially at ease afterward. Another friend reported that she felt she was better able to write applications. They also told me Dr P can cure tinnitus. I have had tinnitus since 1997 and although I have made my peace with it, it would be a bonus to hear silence again.

Dr P has been part of a small experiment with dancers doing a production - some were having 'brain brightening' treatment and even though artistic endeavours are hard to judge to subjectively, this group was somehow pronounced superior to the other group. By rights, and by my limited understanding of science research there may have been three groups. One group to do nothing different, one to try harder and the other to try the research. Any rate the other, or one of the other groups who were meant to just do what they would normally, worked super hard - and still lost to the brightened brains.