Grey dawn seeps into your flat and you wake to a tattoo of raindrops,Smethurst ! Its Sunday 23 rd of December 2012 and there s hurtful reminders on the doormat On January 3rd 2013 you will be homeless .Shower and put on decent enough clothes.Even a tie .Breakfast and prepare to set out along the A 82 Hope that you are not stopped by the police You could buy a return to Tyndrum on the Citylink No that would complicate matters if you keep to your intentions Yes you would be very uncomfortable The passengers seats have been dumped In go all the extra blankets and a bottle of whisky in the boot at the front as well as the painkillers
You wince with every step ,Smethurst ! The geriatric 1972 Beetle starts and you leave Partick , and join the A 82 with its destination boards to all those hallowed places where you created yourself a man ,Smethurst in your university days Glasgow slips behind as you see a glimpse of white ahead on the Kilpatrick hills On you flow downriver to the Dumbarton bypass and so to Drumkinnon roundabout where you see Loch Lomond gunmetal grey and Ben Lomond with cloud obscuring its summit
You remember your first drive in the Beetle with Fiona MacArdle in the passenger seat,Oh how you feel an atom bomb going off in your brain ! She ran off with a burly rugby playing type from the Borders by the name of Brian Kelly after ditching you And then come flashbacks of all the other girls whom you took hillwalking CRAMP ,Smethurst CRAMP Pull into a layby and writhe Tuesday is Our Lord s Fucking Birthday and all Scotland is in lockdown
..Ralph will be living it up in Mombasa …or perhaps even arresting Somali pirates !
He will be told …about you …and what you have resolved to do ..The pain eases .On you drive past Inverbeg where you stayed in the long closed youth hostel during your first year at university …enchanted with the Highlands after your schooldays in that awful school for Officers Sons in Sussex
Tarbet No need to fill up here Careful where the road narrows .Inverarnan and the last glimpse of Loch Lomond A sharp flashback of a mountain hidden by cloud and Janice Blake with her ginger hair whom you took up there … .. Up Glen Falloch and over the top of the pass Cloud is down to five hundred and fifty on Ben More ahead but breaking to the east …Down the bank past Crianlarich Station and stop to watch a train crawl over the viaduct Walk as you always did across the boggy meadow and see Creag Liaragain clear of cloud –oh March 1982 the day you walked to the summit .Stride back to the car Try to be rational ,Smethurst
Since Albajet went bust you have been banging your head …against closed doors You had faithfully served the airline from its start till its collapse in 2008 For that you have been rejected out of hand when you applied for jobs in the travel industry You spent hundreds of pounds in fares to interviews You cut corners with such matters as car insurance and you were caught and convicted for doing what everybody has to do,,then the matter of what you earned on the side in one way or another just to keep alive And credit cards that got you lumbered with debt You are no more indebted than the average fellow Now your practices of having multiple accounts and switching funds and then of course moving from flat to flat in central Scotland when you fell behind with the rent-all your worldly goods stowed in the Beetle at dead of night – why Dougie Dawson did it all the time – and even Maggie Oakes that prim woman from the mailroom had to do it when her husband walked out on her Who was it who declared that an honest man steals from his family because he does not play the old game that was played since fucking Jesus Christ s day ? ….The fucking Christians rant on about honesty yet they are behind such iniquities as hiked up interest rates on credit cards ! Cramp abates On you go Smethurst !
Tyndrum .Fill up Pay cash Just £35 left in your wallet THAT’S ALL YOU HAVE LEFT ,Smethurst Now set off for the County March
Ben Dorain peeks through swirling stratus and you remember your photographs of it and from it that await collection by …Ralph ! or your nieces in Plymouth ! Empty Glen Auch invites your feet ..no you d better do as you intended A stroll along the West Highland Way Now its twinges in your knees Snowflakes tumble onto your bald head Hurry back and oh CRAMP smites so rub both thighs and bear left On through Tyndrum and wait for the lorry as you swing onto the abandoned oxbow of the A 82 and so to the far end by Auchtertyre Bridge as the day dies You stagger to the middle of the bridge and watch the cloud sink onto Ben More as dogwalkers spot the Beetle and one makes a remark that it is nt taxed Well it won t matter any more
Ralph will get to know about you before he wallows in indulgence at the taxpayers expense in stinking hot Mombasa And what will your nieces think about your life,Smethurst ! A pile of mountaintop snaps for them to keep all taken by their wicked atheist uncle who was DISLOYAL TO THE FAMILY for studying and working in Glasgow at the other end of Britain ! What lies has Ralph been saying to them about you ever since you failed to appear at their christening services ? What ship is he now serving on ? Was it named after a Roman god ? Him,Ralph,four years younger than you ! and he actually enjoyed that awful school …which Father had attended ..where you got into trouble for dodging Sunday Eucharist and hopping on and off buses to explore Sussex ! Ralph so word perfect at his prayers ! And when you leave this world will he scatter your ashes on the summit of Ben Dorain ? with a little plaque like the one on the craggy hill without a name …dedicated to one ,Ronald Harvey who would have been one of your contemporaries ?
Will you change your mind and drive back to Partick to become one of the beggars in the Glasgow streets ,or keep to your intentions ? It will serve Ralph right if it costs him a grand to dispose of you .so go ahead ,Smethurst and stick to your plan !Chill wind smites you so back to the car and prepare with all the things you brought and you have made up your mind Smethurst …to go …where ? Beyond ? Slip the gear lever into neutral Start the engine and heater Partake of those things that will ensure a good exit
Slip into the sleeping bag close all the windows and let yourself go,Smethurst !
David Seagrave ,Dunfermline Library 21-12-2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
THE EXTIRPATION OF IRRATIONAL GUILT
In this essay I shall be disclosing how I have been crushed by guilt feelings since I was a small boy and explore both the hurtful aspects and paradoxes that flow from my inextirpable irrational guilt In making these disclosures my goal is to get FEEDBACK from all on the autistic spectrum who have been crushed by guilt and also find ways of dispelling that guilt and a much more realistic way of dealing with the moral tightropes of our society
My first recollections of guilt arose around 1948 or 1949 for dismantling a clockwork toy engine and for strife with my brother 4 years younger Then followed guilt about sexual and excretory matters and the use of “bad language “ In memories of life in Lancing /Sussex from 1947 to 1952 these memories are like a badly faded photograph .In 1953 I was sent to a grammar school reached by a 20 minute train journey in trains with separate compartments then ubiquitous Three boys named Angood Malfroot and Robinson plied me with smutty talk ,amongst other things and at their instigation I took part in pranks with sexual overtones that caused no tangible harm even to a schoolgirl we met in a train compartment where one of the trio dared me to ask her if I could shag her I knew that a shag was a bird that lived on the sea and shaggy meant untidy It was as absurd as asking to be guillemotted .
For that I was “suspended “ but never went back Instead I was plunged into such desperate mental pain that I wanted to end my life .After 60 years the scar abides .I felt worse than either mad or bad , and this experience gave rise to a conviction that people were human land mines ,women in particular Another sexually related experience even now too painful to write about concatenated to impart a fear that I would go mad and indecently assault women or girls which has been reactivated whenever I saw reports of sexual offences .At one time I even had delusions that I had committed these offences .This has totally poisoned my capacity to form heterosexual relationships ,
I was sent to a Remedial School where the headmaster administered psychoanalysis In the course of these sessions he required me to write down absolutely everything I could remember and I duly did I told him all about the schoolboy pranks ,and sibling strife and about sexual matters He convinced me that I was neither mad,nor bad but I had special gifts and staff members egged me on when I took to demanding pursuits Whilst I became a school livewire and at last discovered my dignity and self respect, it was wrested from me by my parents during school holidays The psychoanalysis was to bring about lifelong family strife .
My father took no interest in my schoolwork I TAUGHT MYSELF GERMAN in 1958 He was dependent on me during a trip to the Continent when I alone had command of French and German He could not accept that So on leaving school I was frogmarched into the Civil Service to add up salaries 8 months later I was sacked for being too slow All the good work of the remedial school was unravelled in a week when I had to sign on at a labour exchange and I was crushed by the stigma of unemployment This concatenated with the scars of the school expulsion to exacerbate my guilt complex At a time when I needed friendship I feared it so much that I fled from it I withdrew into myself during all the spells of unemployment
Whilst working in London I studied A level subjects and passed ,to earn a place at Glasgow University My guilt complex diminished until I graduated and underwent a fruitless search for jobs or post graduate courses It flared up and again I felt crushed family strife resumed ,and I felt my dignity drain from me as soon as I alighted at my father s home town I then accepted an offer to study computer science at Stafford Polytechnic but within a week I was in acute difficulties Then it was my brother Jonathan who was on my back accusing me of not trying hard enough I dropped out with great family acrimonies and so my Guilt complex resumed stronger than ever As after graduation I travelled far and wide to interviews .I discovered that 2 short spells in mental hospitals were to debar me from employment as surely as prison sentences
When I was maimed in 1981 I was able to shed my stigma of graduate dole scrounger but in 1984 family strife resumed when my father gratuitously humiliated me in front of a huge crowd –and I recall other such humiliations in sharp detail , Having climbed almost every Welsh mountain with artificial leg I moved to Cumbernauld Soon afterwards I was subjected to unremitting abuse from neighbours and acquired a CRIMINAL RECORD for a sarcastic remark about Catholicism which could have been a catch-line from Sir Walter Scott s contemporary Prosper Merimee who had written a novel about a religious war which I had studied .
At times my Guilt Complex flares up when I realise that my last prolonged spell of work was in 1971 yet I had made repeated attempts to get jobs only to elicit empty promises or hurtful rebuffs and even reprimands for my lateral thinking such as my proposed Photosouvenirs Livelihood Project.I feel irrational guilt overwhelm me whenever I make the slightest gaffe or I am careless like mislaying my doorkeys I IMAGINE THAT I have offended people merely by raising my voice and for my Aspergerising – talking about subjects that are TABOO FOR CHRISTIANS like even meteorology !
There may still be the Lo Fi camera Club run by WOMEN in central Edinburgh Acting in good faith I provided them with the texts of 2 pamphlets about photography and other assets that would have drawn new members I was thrown out for having Aspergers knowing too much about photography and allegedly preventing them from selling their abysmal photographs at an arts fair I was overwhelmed with guilt for what I had done until Andy Born reassured me that camera clubs are monopolized by cliques whose ossified practices drive away newcomers When a neighbour cut down a boundary hedge and set fire to the branches IN MY GARDEN I was very hurt yet by some strange process I felt as if I had OFFENDED HIM I could not bring myself to say to his face that he had trampled upon me by using my garden as a dump .
Edward de Bono has advanced an explanation for the formation of habits in his THE MECHANISM OF MIND He likens the developing brain to a sandpile being eroded by random action of rain and wind ,or a mountain being sculpted by the action of ice ,rain and other agencies upon layers of rock which have varying hardness From that I speak of “FAULT LINES IN THE BRAIN “ and how an otherwise normal person can undergo permanent personality damage by such matters as the reaction of his Christian parents when he uses smutty language or even the sensory overload of 400 children singing hymns at school assembly It is exceedingly commonplace for acute aversions to develop in normal people because of early experiences So giving rise to apparently irrational behaviours and indeed inextirpable fears of the opposite sex
I have maintained that in any authoritarian home a child will tend towards developing extremes –becoming an obnoxious clone of its parents or an incorrigible rebel This is borne out by the criminal records of the offspring of Victoria Gillick and Mary Whitehouse Meanwhile other evidence builds up to show that this personality deformation is very marked in children of services families If the child fails to conform to the tacit expectations to join the Forces or marry a Serviceman he or she is put under increasing pressure I have met very severely scathed adult children of services families
The paradox arises from single parent families where the sons have NO fathers to emulate or introject Without such adequate role models they have NO moral compasses they are readily corrupted by their peers and never develop consciences
I seem to have introjected my father s conscience because even 12 years after his death I am so overwhelmed with guilt for being normal and I cannot bring myself to be realistic about my trivial peccadilloes Only when typically of a SUNDAY and at CHRISTMAS it is as if my father s ghost is shouting in my ear and I plummet into a state where I am shouting derogatory words at myself as I am totally trapped in guilt
I anxiously await the views of fellow Aspies
David Seagrave Dunfermline Library 22-12-12
My first recollections of guilt arose around 1948 or 1949 for dismantling a clockwork toy engine and for strife with my brother 4 years younger Then followed guilt about sexual and excretory matters and the use of “bad language “ In memories of life in Lancing /Sussex from 1947 to 1952 these memories are like a badly faded photograph .In 1953 I was sent to a grammar school reached by a 20 minute train journey in trains with separate compartments then ubiquitous Three boys named Angood Malfroot and Robinson plied me with smutty talk ,amongst other things and at their instigation I took part in pranks with sexual overtones that caused no tangible harm even to a schoolgirl we met in a train compartment where one of the trio dared me to ask her if I could shag her I knew that a shag was a bird that lived on the sea and shaggy meant untidy It was as absurd as asking to be guillemotted .
For that I was “suspended “ but never went back Instead I was plunged into such desperate mental pain that I wanted to end my life .After 60 years the scar abides .I felt worse than either mad or bad , and this experience gave rise to a conviction that people were human land mines ,women in particular Another sexually related experience even now too painful to write about concatenated to impart a fear that I would go mad and indecently assault women or girls which has been reactivated whenever I saw reports of sexual offences .At one time I even had delusions that I had committed these offences .This has totally poisoned my capacity to form heterosexual relationships ,
I was sent to a Remedial School where the headmaster administered psychoanalysis In the course of these sessions he required me to write down absolutely everything I could remember and I duly did I told him all about the schoolboy pranks ,and sibling strife and about sexual matters He convinced me that I was neither mad,nor bad but I had special gifts and staff members egged me on when I took to demanding pursuits Whilst I became a school livewire and at last discovered my dignity and self respect, it was wrested from me by my parents during school holidays The psychoanalysis was to bring about lifelong family strife .
My father took no interest in my schoolwork I TAUGHT MYSELF GERMAN in 1958 He was dependent on me during a trip to the Continent when I alone had command of French and German He could not accept that So on leaving school I was frogmarched into the Civil Service to add up salaries 8 months later I was sacked for being too slow All the good work of the remedial school was unravelled in a week when I had to sign on at a labour exchange and I was crushed by the stigma of unemployment This concatenated with the scars of the school expulsion to exacerbate my guilt complex At a time when I needed friendship I feared it so much that I fled from it I withdrew into myself during all the spells of unemployment
Whilst working in London I studied A level subjects and passed ,to earn a place at Glasgow University My guilt complex diminished until I graduated and underwent a fruitless search for jobs or post graduate courses It flared up and again I felt crushed family strife resumed ,and I felt my dignity drain from me as soon as I alighted at my father s home town I then accepted an offer to study computer science at Stafford Polytechnic but within a week I was in acute difficulties Then it was my brother Jonathan who was on my back accusing me of not trying hard enough I dropped out with great family acrimonies and so my Guilt complex resumed stronger than ever As after graduation I travelled far and wide to interviews .I discovered that 2 short spells in mental hospitals were to debar me from employment as surely as prison sentences
When I was maimed in 1981 I was able to shed my stigma of graduate dole scrounger but in 1984 family strife resumed when my father gratuitously humiliated me in front of a huge crowd –and I recall other such humiliations in sharp detail , Having climbed almost every Welsh mountain with artificial leg I moved to Cumbernauld Soon afterwards I was subjected to unremitting abuse from neighbours and acquired a CRIMINAL RECORD for a sarcastic remark about Catholicism which could have been a catch-line from Sir Walter Scott s contemporary Prosper Merimee who had written a novel about a religious war which I had studied .
At times my Guilt Complex flares up when I realise that my last prolonged spell of work was in 1971 yet I had made repeated attempts to get jobs only to elicit empty promises or hurtful rebuffs and even reprimands for my lateral thinking such as my proposed Photosouvenirs Livelihood Project.I feel irrational guilt overwhelm me whenever I make the slightest gaffe or I am careless like mislaying my doorkeys I IMAGINE THAT I have offended people merely by raising my voice and for my Aspergerising – talking about subjects that are TABOO FOR CHRISTIANS like even meteorology !
There may still be the Lo Fi camera Club run by WOMEN in central Edinburgh Acting in good faith I provided them with the texts of 2 pamphlets about photography and other assets that would have drawn new members I was thrown out for having Aspergers knowing too much about photography and allegedly preventing them from selling their abysmal photographs at an arts fair I was overwhelmed with guilt for what I had done until Andy Born reassured me that camera clubs are monopolized by cliques whose ossified practices drive away newcomers When a neighbour cut down a boundary hedge and set fire to the branches IN MY GARDEN I was very hurt yet by some strange process I felt as if I had OFFENDED HIM I could not bring myself to say to his face that he had trampled upon me by using my garden as a dump .
Edward de Bono has advanced an explanation for the formation of habits in his THE MECHANISM OF MIND He likens the developing brain to a sandpile being eroded by random action of rain and wind ,or a mountain being sculpted by the action of ice ,rain and other agencies upon layers of rock which have varying hardness From that I speak of “FAULT LINES IN THE BRAIN “ and how an otherwise normal person can undergo permanent personality damage by such matters as the reaction of his Christian parents when he uses smutty language or even the sensory overload of 400 children singing hymns at school assembly It is exceedingly commonplace for acute aversions to develop in normal people because of early experiences So giving rise to apparently irrational behaviours and indeed inextirpable fears of the opposite sex
I have maintained that in any authoritarian home a child will tend towards developing extremes –becoming an obnoxious clone of its parents or an incorrigible rebel This is borne out by the criminal records of the offspring of Victoria Gillick and Mary Whitehouse Meanwhile other evidence builds up to show that this personality deformation is very marked in children of services families If the child fails to conform to the tacit expectations to join the Forces or marry a Serviceman he or she is put under increasing pressure I have met very severely scathed adult children of services families
The paradox arises from single parent families where the sons have NO fathers to emulate or introject Without such adequate role models they have NO moral compasses they are readily corrupted by their peers and never develop consciences
I seem to have introjected my father s conscience because even 12 years after his death I am so overwhelmed with guilt for being normal and I cannot bring myself to be realistic about my trivial peccadilloes Only when typically of a SUNDAY and at CHRISTMAS it is as if my father s ghost is shouting in my ear and I plummet into a state where I am shouting derogatory words at myself as I am totally trapped in guilt
I anxiously await the views of fellow Aspies
David Seagrave Dunfermline Library 22-12-12
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