The truth is rarely pure and never simple

This is my quote of the month, and it made a fitting title. It is of course from The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I happened to study this text for English A Level, and it is genius.

Another great Irishman, my accountant, says there are always ‘at least five sides to every story,’ which I love. It is also why, as I have managed to squeeze into every post, I love The Affair, much of which is shot from the perspectives of different people, Alison and Noah, but also Noah’s wife, but also their spouses, Cole and Helen. You would think subsequent episodes of the same event would be boring, but far from it – it is gripping to see how different characters perceive the same event. What we tell ourselves is true, and we do, to some extent, really believe that truth. Others may not see it that way. The truth really is never that simple. This week is surely an example of that happening on the global stage.

I have just finished the second series of Showtrial on BBC iPlayer (the first series is brilliant, unconnected to the second save the theme of a trial being put firmly in the public spotlight, or ‘Showtrial’). It is another drama that captures different points of view to fantastic levels. It leaves you wondering, who was in the right? It asks questions and it plants seeds, just like I raved about it my last blog. 

As you also may know if you’ve read any of my other posts, I have been trying and struggling with the theme of my novel for a couple of years now. That sounds an awfully long time for grappling but actually, the theme takes ages, for me anyway. I started with infidelity, and infidelity is still there, save through a very different lens. I think the theme is now the story of two women, of how they fit into contemporary society. How they have sufferered the ravages of early millennial under developed feminism, which I did. It was confusing to be born in 1981 (If like my grandmother you were 18 as war broke out in Europe, you would fervently disagree. This is a topic her and I debated many times while she was alive, that of who had the easiest ride. It’s a bit like the parents of very young children debating who is the most tired. War sounded romantic (ridiculous I know). Choices and freedom are hard. Give me a hamster wheel any day, but then, I suffer from grass is green-itis (which I think is inherent to the human condition and is also a huge part of my novel, and why The Affair was so brilliant and so popular – look it up on Sky Atlantic if you haven’t seen it). 

Lavender and I (my grandmother) were very close but very similar and we used to entertain each other by winding each other up. She would cast the bait and I’d take it. She would also tell me, and anyone who would care to listen, exactly what she thought, at times sounding harsh. Annoyingly, she was always right. There was a deep love between us, and I miss her more than I thought possible, and deeply regret not listening to her and her life experience more. Youth is wasted on the young. She also never got to see me have children, something which would have amused her hugely from her annexe opposite my parents where I have frantically and frequently chased my children around since her death in 2014. She did, however, see me get sober, and gave me an incredible present for my first sober birthday, a jewellery box which has a key in it from Elgin Post Office in Scotland, where she came from. 

I didn’t mean to talk about “Lala” today, and I am not sure who you’d side with if you were in there on one of our debates about a stressful war or choices, but as I said, the truth is rarely pure and never simple. 

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Us 80s kids, the children of baby boomers and the grandchildren of war afflicted society, were coming of age at the turn of the century and millienium. You were told women could have it all but no one was really showing you how, modelling it for you, because save a fair few, no one had really done it before – not that I had seen, anyway. We were told there weren’t many other options than university but that we also had to get married and have kids. We were told we could drink like the lads (think ladette culture in the 90s) but that ‘there was nothing worse than seeing a woman drunk.’ Both are true… but the truth is rarely pure and never simple, is it? We were free sexually but also told that it takes five minutes for a ‘girl’ to get a reputation and ten years to lose it. It’s very confusing being a woman. Perhaps it’s just straight up confusing to be human. It’s why we need each other, we need community, and in my case, therapy of different kinds. Straight up therapy, hanging out with other women, family, and fellow recovering addicts. 

For me the next stage of life has been mid life alongside young twins and coupled with menopause (I had them at nearly 38), running in parallel with the furore in the press on this hotly debated subject (excuse the pun). Who is right in the great HRT argument? I have to backtrack and apologise to my readers as I did write a post saying HRT had not worked for me when I had a massive blow up of OCD last year. I was saying how anti depressants had been the holy grail. I now take HRT alongside anti anxiety medication and it’s been a real help. Hot flushes stopped almost immediately. 

Louise Newson has written extensively and in turn been vilified in the press for over-prescribing HRT. On a recent LinkedIn post Newson said ‘far too many women are being offered or prescribed antidepressants instead of HRT which is often unnecessary and inappropriate. Most psychiatrists do not prescribe HRT which is a massive missed opportunity for women.’

When I mentioned to my psychiatrist that I thought I was in peri menopause he asked my age (then nearly 42) and he said ‘you’re probably too young,’ as did my GP. However, both suggested antidepressants that really, really worked, but since HRT so many of the physical symptoms have been alleviated. Is it a little bit of both that is sometimes necessary? The truth is rarely pure and never simple, you see. 

Writing always teaches me, and what I’ve learned of late is how much of a soap box I can climb on, saying one thing, and only one thing works and nothing else does. I am then served up the humble pie of life, as did happen with HRT. Humility is key if I want to grow as a person, mother, wife, therapist, friend. 

Over the 13 or so years I’ve been in and out of therapy, trained as a therapist, sat in countless hours of therapy training rooms and CPDs, conferences etc., I have had two different practitioners do the same arm movements to me, in response to my thinking. It’s a tipped scale movement like a set of scales where one side carries a feather and the other a heavy weight. I think you’d call that black and white thinking. 

The truth is rarely pure and never simple, and I think it might be that way because in the middle, it’s quite awkward, really. There’s not much of a dopamine hit to say ‘I don’t know,’ yet it is the most peaceful response, the one that doesn’t really get you noticed around the dinner party table. You could say it’s boring, especially for someone with a neurodivergent brain like mine. Sitting in the middle isn’t compelling. Yet the middle is where peace might be found, where, if you follow a path of spirituality, you may say that God is. I have heard it said before that God is in the present moment, and the present moment is of course sat right there, in truth, in the middle. 

Looking back on the work I have done over the years since getting sober I have discovered that peace isn’t’ trendy but it’s really necessary for me. Perhaps it is for you, too. See my website below if you want to get in touch to discuss further. 

I have and can still behave in ways that have repelled any semblance of tranquility. No substances inside me, I think I’ve subconsciously searched for that adrenal hit of anger and stress. It is quite compelling to be in those states, until it isn’t. Therapy has helped me to make friends with the middle a little more, to see peace not as the enemy, but as a long lost friend, and to forgive myself when I act out. If you come to therapy with me, then I will help you get to a place where you can do the same.