Ok then.
So I had a UTI raging inside my body for I imagine no more than 72 hours. In that time I managed to be argumentative on Facebook, be snappy to my girlfriend, not want to go and meet up with mates and think about suicide a fair bit.
As none of the above count as habitual behaviour, I can conclude that a UTI is an INCREDIBLY DESTRUCTIVE thing for me. I was aware in my interactions over a few days that my impulse was to see the negatives in any situation, and that my responses ought be/ were justified in being, negative. I was aware of my thought process, wondered why to myself at first ( but didn’t stop myself ) , then once I realised I had an infection had the thought, analysed why, put it down to my infection, but still couldn’t stop me being adverse. As the antibiotics took effect, I’d have negative impulses, but found myself able to now rationalise those impulses, realise they weren’t helpful, and suppress them from being expressed.
So now put this situation into a TWO YEAR PERIOD where I either had a UTI, was getting a UTI, or I was ‘ recovering’ from a UTI. Two years, 830 days of it. And not even bloody realising the connection between my negative mindset ( which trust me isn’t ‘ me ‘ at all ) and an infection. They don’t tell you at the doctor’s, or in the hospital. The psychiatrist ( well several) I saw asked all about my medical history, but didn’t once make a connection and EXPLAIN it to me.
So there I am, freshly paralysed, beyond sad about that, but also now in the grip of a mind and personality altering, unbeknown to me, internal fever that I didn’t even know I had to try to control at all costs.
Rétrospectively it’s no surprise to me that in that 2 years I lost my marriage, my home, my business, many friends, and my children.
And the thing is that once people form an opinion of your personality, they are generally pretty unforgiving. I bet the vast majority of people reading this have fallen out ( quite possibly permanently ) with a friend or acquaintance because of just ONE comment/ incident. So imagine if you knew me, met me 20 times and every time came away thinking
‘blimey, that wasn’t much fun, can’t he just cheer the F up, it’s not like he’s dead ‘… well to be honest there’s not much impulse to meet up with me a 21st time, is there? And once you’ve ‘decided ‘ about me, then that’s generally it. The next time you see me and I smile at you, the smile makes no difference, because you have already ‘ decided’ about me. The next 20 smiles also make no difference, and now actually the one at fault is you… and bear in mind that the smiling person ( me ) doesn’t actually realise what he’s guilty of… because it wasn’t deliberate. He’s then bewildered by your coldness to him.
The only person who unfailingly ‘ stuck by me ‘ through it all ( out of the people that saw me day in day out, that is… because to ‘know’ you do have to see it all )
‘ whatever the weather’ was Pia. She always had time to help me, and yes, it was help without which the consequences would have been terminal on many occasions.
UTI’s can massively affect the moods of people who have dementia onset, the elderly in general, and take it from me, at least some of those who have trauma to their spinal cords.
So the lesson here, in general, and not specifically about me at all, is to understand that the reaction of a relative, friend or colleague in a certain situation, is really really NOT necessarily at all a deliberate one, or a spiteful one, and not necessarily AIMED at you, but could be simply due to events or illness or medication that have temporarily adversely affected that person’s disposition.
Please do your best, after a negative incident, to FORGIVE… and not condemn, and not throw away a friendship.
Neither of you benefit from the loss.
