How in hell did I get here? (Part One)

I wrote the following about a year ago. I didn't finish it and it goes on a bit which may be why I didn't carry on writing at the time. Apart from the odd correction to punctuation or grammar, the italicised text is exactly how I wrote it. However, I didn't have an entirely healthy state of mind at the time; despite what it says about also being for others, I was writing it for myself and the selfishness that comes with the illness may be apparent. As Sue has pointed out to me, some of the people involved in the story who may read this could/will be offended by things in the original text. So, I have edited it, adding in and changing bits for clarification (non-italics) or removing some of the text and, as it's quite long, I've split it into two parts. This also gave me the opportunity to add in some more recent observations.
"I decided to write this journal / log partly as therapy, paradoxically after I began to feel much better, and partly to record the experience for myself and others of living with an anxiety disorder and living through those events that either caused or triggered the illness. As you may tell from that tortuous sentence there are many questions posed and raised by anxiety.
One of the first questions I keep coming back to is whether this sort of illness is a learned behaviour. Did I, for example, learn to panic because of something my parents did or did not do when I was a child? I was taught early on in my professional career that all behaviour is learned. People tend to see behaviour as just behaving without recognising or understanding its emotional or cognitive content. A 'panic attack' is very real to someone experiencing one; the fear, the thoughts, the physical needs (often to run or hide or both) and the physical experience cannot be easily denied or rationalised. So when did I learn to panic and why did it only materialise as a serious disorder later in life when going through a major life-changing experience? After all, this was not the first major change in my life, even if it was perhaps the biggest and most significant.
Actually, I know some of the answers. Truthfully, there's always been times when I've been nervous and slightly panicky. Everyone's the same, right? Well, maybe. There's always been times when I've put off doing something until I felt right about it. I've always been cautious about money and decisions. I've usually felt more secure in employment rather than risking self-employment. As a young man I was very insecure about talking to women and I think I've continued to be unsure about relationships of all kinds, although a lot of that is about communication skills.
So what was the major life-changing experience? Well, we emigrated from th U.K. to Greece. I don't particularly like using the word 'emigrate' (and all its forms); it doesn't seem to quite apply to moving within Europe now. To me people emigrate to Australia or Canada or anywhere further afield, but perhaps that's just me expressing insecurity in another way. Actually the change and the anxiety started with first steps. I said to Sue (partner/wife), after my first visit to Greece in 1987, that it might be nice to live there. This idea developed into a plan for the future. Whenever we holidayed in Greece we'd look at each place and assess its potential, how much we liked it and what we might do there. One thing I always fancied was trying to establish myself as an artist.
After the mortgage on our house was paid in 2005, Sue started seriously to look at houses in Greece. She says she did this for me, as I had never done anything seriously about planning a move. But things had changed for me; in 2002 I moved from a job I was stale in to an exciting new role. Despite the usual stresses and problems that go with any job, I enjoyed this role very much. Sue started to spend a lot of time on the internet researching estate agents and property. The closer she got to choosing an area and agent, the more worried and panicky I got. Her ideas were based on carefully checking who she could trust and a price based on re-mortgaging our U.K. house. We discussed selling it, but thought that we ought to keep it for a while in case things didn't work out and we had to move back.
My panicky feelings were probably exacerbated by stress and hard work I was putting into a part-qualification over the latter part of 2006 into early 2007. Also in 2005 my father had died and maybe I hadn't (or haven't yet) dealt with this properly. I also felt, although I know it's not true, that Sue was not involving me in the planning; actually I was avoiding involvement because all I wanted to say was "stop, I don't want to do this". And yet, the idea of living in Greece and getting away from Britain still attracted me, so I went along with it despite feeling that I had no control over the process. Ultimately, the source of my anxiety was stress; a perceived lack of control over events."

I know I was expressing and acting out my stress and anxiety at work. My colleagues must have found some of my behaviour quite strange and challenging. One thing I did was to do some odd drawings on the office whiteboard. It started out with doing some characatures of colleagues and (borrowed) one-liners just for fun, but following some political upheavals and questionable management approaches I began doing some satirical stuff. Actually they were quite creative (well, I think so), but also quite bizarre and in hindsight a real indicator of my state of mind. I took some photos of one on my phone so see for yourself:

"So, we set about applying for a mortgage - one which would allow us to rent the house out when we left - and planning a trip to Stoupa in the South Peloponnese to view some properties in our price range. Sue had, for some time, conversed by email with an agent she felt was okay (actually she had fully researched all the agents and knew this one was okay). Then...Two weeks before we were due to go, Sue's father (Don) died suddenly. Perhaps we should have cancelled our trip, but Sue's mother insisted that Don would have wanted us to go ahead. It was all a great shock. In hindsight...I don't think any of us could have been thinking entirely straight (I certainly wasn't); some things were perhaps not questioned or thought through properly. To my mind at this time...it was all wrong. (Maybe that's me feeling that at this moment as I write - I'm not feeling as good as I did when I started to write the log. This is one of the difficulties of anxiety disorder; identifying what is real or appropriate in my attitude).
The reason I'm not feeling as good as I was is that I tried to reduce my medication by just a little bit (a phased withdrawal). It seems that reducing it by even the smallest amount results in negative physical feelings and anxious thoughts. I know it's just the medication causing it; nothing has particularly changed otherwise and I should be able to work through it until I settle again. However, it will probably make me bad tempered and nasty to Sue and is contrary to a doctor's advice. Still I do want to get off the medication; there are other effects I don't like such as weight loss, poor sleep and twitchy limbs. I've upped my intake again and hopefully when I'm settled I can try again, even more slowly next time." My second attempt, reducing the intake even more slowly, was eventually successful and I am no longer taking or feel that I need to take anti-depressants...touch wood! It was a slow process with many days when I was a complete bastard. I can't say that the negative feelings or behaviours have completely gone away, or will ever, but I'm much calmer and in control now. However, all this was after the the second and arguably more devastating eruption of my illness and we haven't even got to my account of the first one yet. This is all covered in Part Two.

This is Tzokeika

Welcome to Tzokeika (pronounced Jo-kay-ka) or Tzokeika San Basilios to give it its full Greco-Italian name. Conceived, designed and built by Vasilis Tzokas and family, all the houses in the settlement are traditional in style, based on medieval architecture similar to that found at Mystras near Sparti, with hand-cut stone walls, but also having reinforced concrete platforms and frameworks to protect them from earthquake damage. The houses in these photographs, in the central area of the settlement, all belong to the family and are show houses with additional features that potential buyers might want to include in their builds. (If you want to see more photographs go to http://www.greek-houses.gr) All the bought houses are situated in the wider surrounding area and further up the hill. The central area and the houses were put to spectacular use last summer when Vasilis' son Thanasis married Serena. As you can see, the meadow area in the middle was lawned over and was used to host all the tables for the meal. There's also a small concreted area where a jazz band performed and everyone could dance the night away to a variety of musical styles provided by a disco. The whole area was illuminated by coloured lights strung around the olive trees. Prior to all this the couple were married in a traditional Orthodox ceremony in their little private church. It was a wonderful atmospheric evening which was just as well since all the residents had watched the lawn area being constantly watered for about three months over the summer while we were frequently without; very frustrating!

Now if you were interested in having a house built in this area I would recommend Tzokas Architects to you. Not that their houses are perfect; none of them seem to be around here, but they are one of the better builders. There are many horror stories about houses here. Most of them are about how they cope with winter weather. Because winter is so short, the builders don't seem to bother too much about whether the houses leak when it rains or how warm they are. Insulation seems to be a minimum to meet regulations rather than a feature and the houses seem to be designed to let water out rather than stop water getting in. I suspect the so-called traditional builds are worse than modern houses with traditional styling, although the latter are not immune to problems. Originally stone houses were built of thick stone walls with mud mortar and when it rained water seeped in, but drained down to the ground before getting inside. With cement mortar, if it gets in, water tends to follow tiny tracks right through to the interior. The only answer is to coat the walls with waterproofing solution, but this needs to be done every year to combat gaps occurring due to earth tremors. Because the sea is close, the air in winter is always damp. If your house catches the sun adequately this dries most of it, but there will always be some rooms that need some heating to dry them. Also, at night time in winter, it can get quite cold, so you would think good insulation would be included as a feature, especially as everyone is aware of global warming. But no; sometimes I think most Greeks don't believe global warming is real, or else it has nothing to do with them, and yet they can see the climate changing. In a country where the dumping of rubbish anywhere and everywhere is endemic, a high level of environmental conciousness is a lot to expect. It doesn't help that the country lacks financial resources at the moment and that the environment wasn't the appropriate priority in the past. Things are changing; I think the government is trying and there are local community groups fighting for change, even here in the Mani.

There are about 20 permanent residents at Tzokeika with a few others in other Tzokas houses in the surrounding area plus as many again who come regularly for short or longer stays in the other houses. Vasilis and his wife also regularly stay in their house here. The expanded population usually occurs in the spring, summer and autumn periods, but some come for winter breaks as well and have experienced the full force of a Greek winter. A week or so back, as well as the normal wind, rain, thunder and lightning, we had hail the size of marbles; now that was very noisy on our open beamed roof. At one point we were worried that it might break a tile or two, but it didn't. Afterwards there were piles of ice in the gardens and on the beach! All the residents get on well and are very supportive of one another. We have found that community support is quite strong, both amongst immigrants/ex-pats and within the local Greek population. So, as well as within our little community, we are gathering many new friends in the wider area. Obviously getting to know non-English speaking people is more difficult (my Greek is only very basic and I know no German), but English is spoken by many. Despite an initial reluctance on our part to be over-involved in the ex-pat community (desiring integration into Greek life), getting to know those who've done it before us and learning from them is essential. Besides in the winter, particularly, 'foreigners' are the majority of the population here. There are some well developed community organisations. The main ex-pat one is Parea Sti Mani (Friends in the Mani) with a good web site; www.parea-sti-mani.com . Closely associated with them is a local Greek environmental, mountain rescue and fire fighting group called GAIA. They provide volunteer services to supplement official organisations and are doing a great job.

Since we've been here I've done a number of drawings for Vasilis, mainly of herbs to be associated with each of his own houses. He's had keyring fobs made for four of them and has said he will want more. He has also talked of me illustrating a calendar for Tzokeika. These will probably be pen and wash illustrations. I've done some others you've probably seen already, but if not, here are some of them:

What's this all about then?

I've been vaguely aware of blogs and blogging for ages; people's on-line diaries and general dribble for all to see, but until recently I hadn't seen their potential to inform, connect, promote and proselytize. I started a blog last October to try to promote graphic facilitation and work I'd done in that field, but I haven't really got past writing basic information. Recently, however, I've been inspired by a blog a friend did of her trip to India and how she linked it into her Facebook posts. I also read somewhere about authors writing stories on-line or using blogs for research by getting feedback from people following them.

When Sue and I moved to Greece (and for quite a long time before) I really wasn't well, mentally that is. I'm a lot better now, but not entirely together. One of the things Sue suggested I do was write down how I was feeling regularly - sort of therapeutic writing - especially when I was very depressed or manic. Well I did some of that on paper, but not in a blog. As I eventually shared with friends on Facebook, I realised I could be expressing some of my thoughts and feelings on-line and  I did write a few comments on my page. However, I'm not like some people who can share all sorts of stuff several times a day. I haven't made a regular habit of using Facebook like that. Mind you, it's fascinating to read what others do write.

Learning to live in Greece (I can't speak for other countries) involves major culture-shock. Now, that may seem like a bit of a cliche, but there are two sides to this. The first revolves around how you personal feel about that change in your life. Sue and I had had this plan to live in Greece since 1988 and we told everyone, even though we didn't do much about it. The long-term idea was that we needed to get some kind of security by paying off the mortgage on our house before we could seriously contemplate leaving the UK. In the meantime we visited Greece as often as we could, going to different parts each time. But, also in the meantime, life doesn't stand still. I moved on in my work, albeit quite slowly. We and everyone we know got older and in particular older relatives, our parents, etc., reached the later years of their lives. Our standard of living gradually improved over this time as well and life became more and more 'comfortable'.  

So, I think gradually I went into denial of us ever actually moving and was less and less inclined to want to move. Sue on the other hand, saw the whole idea as my dream that eventually must be fulfilled. Although she loved her relationships with her clients, work for Sue was getting physically harder all the time, so she saw a time when she would need to give it up. I, on the other hand, got a job in 2002 that I thoroughly enjoyed. What's more, I was good at it! I put a lot into the first year, eventually establishing a settled routine. Then, as the main role got easier, I got more involved in additional stuff. Looking back on it, I didn't really give myself much breathing space in the main role, never mind anything else, and no-one really recognised this. 

Eventually, the mortgage was paid off and Sue started to look seriously at how and when we were going to move. That's when I began to lose the plot; not obviously at first, but when Sue started researching into buying a house here I kind of closed up and began to panic. Other events contributed; my father had a stroke and was immediately mentally disabled. Over a period of about 5 years he became more and more dependant and eventually died in a nursing home in 2005. The final straw, in terms of my mental health, was when Sue's father died suddenly just prior to us coming to look for a house. And, of course, Sue was totally devastated. Well more of this, perhaps, in other posts except to note that when we finally moved here I wasn't exactly predisposed to being here; here I was in 'paradise' and I was screaming in agony and making everyone else's life a misery too!! Sue, on the other hand, held onto the dream.

The other side to the culture shock is the more obvious one. Greece is often seen as this easy going, laid-back country with beautiful scenery, friendly inhabitants and a rather complicated, but exotic language. Well, the scenery is outstanding (despite all the rubbish dumped everywhere), the people are friendly and the language does have lots of very long words written with a different alphabet. But, as the current economic crisis has revealed, Greeks are actually far from laid-back and have modes of thinking and behaving that are, at best, somewhat self-centred and, at worst, utterly bizarre (to the more Western mind, anyway). Dealing with the language barrier and trying to understand how to get things done could drive a person hastely back to the UK, where everything is relatively easy. Actually, there is a third, but similar element and that's the thinking and behaviours of ex-pats!

So, I'm going to try to describe all these things and my thoughts on them in my posts here and I would welcome any comments or discussions that you might like to contribute. Because I didn't do this from when we first came to live here, I'm hoping it wont read like a boring diary. I may transcribe some of my 'therapeutic writings' for future posts, but mostly I want to make each post about a separate subject. So why is it called the 'Tzokeika' Diaries? Because that's where we live.