writing as therapy

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“Never mind dear, learn to type.”

first typewriter lookalike

My education had to stop when I was 15 as our single parent and elderly person household was not able to manage without a little more income.

In preparation for NOT going to 6th form at the Ilminster Girls’ Grammar School, I was advised by my head teacher (wonderful but scary woman) to take typing and shorthand lessons and get some sort of qualification suitable for a working class young woman of slender means.

I remember the strain of carting my typewriter – similar to that in the photograph – across Chard, typing for the evening and then carrying it back home.   I did get both 25 and 35 wpm RSA typing certificates.  Shorthand – it didn’t happen. English is a struggle and being dyslexic and dyspraxia means that any symbols do not dig themselves into my memory very well.  It was the same with music theory…

However,  I am very glad indeed that I did get typing lessons as well as exercise for my bicep muscles.  Touch typing is a great skill to have in this computer age.  Upgrading to 60 wpm audio typing also got me a job when I desperately needed to put groceries on the table. That speed wasn’t achieved on an upright typewriter I hasten to add!

Computers have also supported me in my quest in my mid forties to upgrade my education.  Various software programmes have helped me organise myself, remember things and be able to get my thoughts out in some semblance of clarity.  Although being rather unhinged when numbers and arithmetic come into things, I took like a duck to water on the software for analysing social sciences data and I loved the graphics I could produce to visually explain my findings.    Nowadays, I can even speak into the computer and it types up my words (although my lingering Somerset accent with  soft consonants and broad vowels gives it a few puzzles…).  I still prefer to type though – I don’t misunderstand myself.

Out of need, in my late twenties, I learned the therapeutic value of writing out my frazzled emotions and tangled thoughts.  In the last five years or so my fingers and hands have decided to become tiresomely lacking in strength making it difficult for me to keep my hand-written journals. Hyper-mobile joints with lax tendons and ligaments rather than arthritic stiffness is the problem apparently. I have adjusted to writing my journal notes straight onto a keyboard with those touch typing skills coming into their own yet again.

I must admit that am glad that I do not have to haul a huge upright typewriter around with me anymore. It was hard when I was a teenager let alone now I am approaching my mid-sixties! I have a smallish bag with my iPhone, iPad, Bluetooth keyboard, various chargers and wifi equipment.

I remain grateful for the advice given to my 15 year old self, although I don’t think my head teacher expected me to go any farther than the typing pool and certainly not to a doctorate and private psychology practice!

 

 

 

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perception and bucket lists

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This I saw on Facebook.  I like the idea of seeing myself positively don’t you?

“What about realism though?”  you argue.  Well, yes, that would be good, but how many people have an over-inflated view of themselves?  Not that many, I would suggest, as many people I have counselled over the years see themselves as much less than they actually are.

This morning, while putting archive boxes for our business in our already heaving loft, I dropped a lid of a plastic storage box farther back than I could easily reach.  Annoyed because its dusty up there, getting down on my knees I saw a cardboard box and – as I often do – got distracted.  “I wonder what is in there?”

Lifting up the lid I saw several colourful lever arch files and two box files. The lever arch files contained journals written as therapy during my struggle to do my PhD.  The box files contained: YES! my original copies of my poetry (some dating back 25 years or more), articles, short stories and my early attempts at writing down my personal story.

Excited?  Yes very, and intrigued because at Christmas my other half’s brother-in-law (i know, family links are confusing…) gave us his ‘old’ lap top in case any of our adult kids needed one or knew someone who would benefit by having a lap top.  This lap top had an ‘A’ drive – floppy disks.  Bear with me here; the last time I was in the loft, I came across a floopy disk storage box with two disks in it:  my archived poetry, writing, short stories etc.

Put the two finds together and I find my heart leaping with a sense of anticipation and intrigue at coming across the hard copies and the computer files of my non-professional, non-academic work.

Still with me?  One of the tasks given to me the last time I saw my ADHD psychiatrist was to write up a plan to breakdown the first of the academic papers I had outstanding.  Anti-procrastination exercise.  I mentioned that my back log of paper writing had been causing me concern because no matter how I thought I ‘must do this’, I never seemed to get going on it:  other more immediately gratifying tasks or crises got in the way.  I dutifully completed this task – I am paying the guy! – and furthering it to include other papers on my list of things to do at some point (I think it was becoming a ‘bucket list’!), I started to wonder about my creative, literary and therapeutic journal writing…  was I ever going to do that before I swanned off to Heaven?

Two things have miraculously emerged at almost the same time. I reckon this is a ‘sign’.

I have decided to view myself positively like the old girl in the cartoon.  I am more than capable of finishing my academic writing and now and then blogging my poetry, short stories and so on during that time.  I can treat myself with some creative blogging as a carrot to help me drag through some of the dry formal prose needed to get my papers published.

Later on after my list of projects have been done, I can address the issue of publishing more of my writing in a different format… unless Heaven comes first of course?

(C) drsharman.wordpress.com/ 2013