Day 282: Tightrope

Hullo. I’ve been feeling bleak as a barrow today. So that’s good!

No, I’m OK. Just been a bit hollow and sluggish, a creaky old ship with the wind howling through my timbers, but I’ve been sailing on through. Spending recent days trying to let go instead of grasping at negative thoughts, trying to relax away from the swirling vortex of rumination, has been tiring. It brings them all on worse. It’s frightening, in a way, an act of faith - I guess there’s something of a defense mechanism at play - you get a negative thought smashing in from nowhere and it’s like you’re being attacked, and you tighten yourself all up, tense yourself, get prepared for battle. The rumination is like analysing the attack from every angle, replaying it over and over and over, without being able to diffuse it.

So to practise the art of yielding, of nodding when a negative thought arises, ungrasping, unclasping, and moving on, is distinctly bizarre. It’s counter-intuitive, you feel dizzy, worried you’re making yourself vulnerable.

And the negative thoughts come thick and fast. They have been today, yesterday, the day before. But I’m telling myself this is because they’re worried, they’re doubling their efforts, hitting me with all they’ve got, because they sense me breaking away from them.

So I’m trying to walk the line, to do the things, to go to work, do the work, go food shopping, cook vegetable chilli, portion the chilli out for the next three days, write my blog, sleep, get up, keep on going.

Trying not to wobble. Trying not to look down. Just go, step at a time, over that chasm.

So I guess I’m not really feeling bleak. There is a lot of bleakness. But I’ve got a tightrope strung out across it. And I’m walking.

...... 

Music: I Forgot to Be Your Lover, by William Bell. What better way to soothe those tempestuous mental waters than with a classic slice of sensual sixties soul? Oh man, this is just, stone cold, the sound of healing. Wait? Did I do this song already? This all seems familiar. After all these days, who the hell knows? And who's counting? Ta raaaaaa.

Day 217: Necessary recuperation

Yo, super quick, super late, gotta get something down and get to bed. Been off today, felt out of it, out of sorts, head killing, keyed up, cold, achy. Walked to town with Mike on his way to work, looked at the shops selling gaudy junk, the neon lights, the dull faces, felt that there was nothing anywhere worth buying. Just distraction promising to take away pain, but only putting off pain, making it come back all the worse next time. So you buy more, shove the pain away again, it comes back even worse. And on and on.

Mike left for work, I thought about going for coffee. Just money that I don’t want to spend; I had coffee at home. I went for the bus, but there was a long queue, I stood in the queue, I waited, eventually I moved off. I walked, walked, walked. I got home, up the hill, sweating and uncomfortable in the cold night air.

There was no one in.

I sat in my room and listened to podcasts in the dark. I went to the shop, bought tea, ate it alone. I had ice cream. The night wore on.

My head is throbbing now. Been a wasted day. Ahh well. There are those negative thoughts again. Hear them. Understand that they are not me. They are not reality.

Say instead that today I have been recuperating. Necessary recuperation. I couldn’t sleep again last night, I really am not sleeping at the moment. So go easy on myself, feel the love, be compassionate, and the productivity will come when it is ready.

Music? Umm. Something nice. Reincarnation by Susanne Sundfør. Yes. This will do. This will definitely do. Now: sleep.

Day 216: Clockless

Oh hey, you. I’ve been slepping. That’s like sleeping, but lighter, when you were so tired last night you couldn’t get to sleep, your brain kept scrunching everything up tight yelling “Get to sleep! You have to get to sleep!” - and in the end you drifted off about six, then your alarm is piercing the emptiness of your room two hours later, a muddy daze of shower and walk in rain and bus and work, mind twanging in and out of focus, useless all day, then you finally come home and your legs are throbbing, your eyes are diodes, too zonked to eat tea, sit in your office chair for a while and then go fall in bed, and there you are slepping, in and out of consciousness, knowing you can’t be properly asleep, that you have to do the day’s blog before you can rest, but you’re not getting up yet, another ten minutes, another fifteen, on right through evening into another time - not night… the reverse side of night, with the phantasms howling and dark spectres creeping down your spine.

And it’s in this time when the negative voices start up. They’ve been looking for an in for a few days now, since you kicked them out, and in this clockless time with your basic consciousness too tired to switch off but higher awareness fizzling and sputtering out of focus, this is when they make their play.

“You know, it’s only reasonable,” they say. “You’re just a failure, aren’t you? We’re not being cruel, it’s just facing the facts, isn’t it. Look at the facts. We’ll go through them, together, sensibly…”

And then they list everything you dislike about yourself, every secret shameful gesture, memory, moment. All your weaknesses. All your fears. One after the other, a litany of loathing, an entreaty to broken ego.

AND THAT’S WHEN YOU TELL THE VOICES TO GO SUCK IT.

Not a chance, you pesky mutts. Goddamned voices. Not happening. You shake yourself awake and go make a Lady Grey, eat a banana and satsuma while kettle boils, and you go write your blog post, not being despairing or angry or anhedonic, but hopeful and content. This is your life. These voices are your voices. But they are such a small part. They’re echoes of past trauma, no longer holding any but the faintest residual power, so long as you don’t bestow them with more. And that is your choice. Sit through the voices - you gotta do that. You force them down and they just come back out another opening when you’re not looking. You gotta sit through them. But believe them? Naw, man. To hell with that.

MUSIC: Saint Huck, Nick Cave. What the hell put Nick Cave in my head? Where did he come from? I don’t know, but he arrived, from some other place, clanging and crashing cymbals and wailing into the void. Saint Huck is a song about Huckleberry Finn, recounted by a mechanical spider vomiting up its metallic innards after some bad lysergic acid. Jagged, piercing, and spasmodic, it is made for nights like this.

Day 212: Wonky art

Wotcha. I’m just home from work. I’ve not got much to say tonight, I did a load of writing this afternoon, but it was more the first delicately reaching fingers of a hand palpating a subject, feeling for the size, the shape, whether there’s anything there to necessitate further action. Maybe the words I wrote will coalesce into something later down the line. Maybe not.

But I can come here and just write this, and see what happens. I know eventually something will come out, because I’ve got my mojo back.

I had a confrontation with the negative voices in my head the other night, shined the light of awareness directly on them after a long time of them bubbling away in the dark, and they hissed and fled, and suddenly I was alone, myself, free to laugh and think and write again.

And, Christ, does it make a difference, believing in yourself! Who cares if this all is pathetic? It’s aflame for me right now. I’m where I want to be. Who cares if no one reads it? Write for the stars and the moon - and if the stars and the moon whisper that you’re a loser, give them the finger and write what you wanted anyway.

… Uhh, not that I’m bragging, by the way. About having my mojo back.

Why would that be bragging? Why would I be ashamed about having my mojo back? It isn’t shameful to feel good.

So why do I feel ashamed?

Because those negative voices haven’t truly fled. They’re just on the periphery of the light, looking for a way back in.

But not today, you pesky buggers.

I’ve got a lifetime of experience squishing myself up really tight, and trying really hard, and using stress and self-loathing and perfectionism to try to sort of trick people into thinking I have talent. Like if I obsess over a piece of writing for months then, provided it doesn’t implode under the weight, I can make it read pretty well.

But the secret to creating things is to just do them naturally, and badly, and not worry that they’re bad, but love that they’re natural, and encourage that natural element, the organic, artistic element - foster it, nourish it, and let it slowly develop and grow. And only when this instinctive joyful chaotic process inside you has parity with that squished-tight, try-hard process, that voice that criticises and frets - only when the two are equally powerful can you have a fruitful creative life.

The try-hard process hones and shapes. But it is the chaotic process that spews the clay initially that may then be honed and shaped. Be overly critical and the clay well will dry up (that’s a weird metaphor, but screw it!), and you’ll be left criticising an empty hole, and then, eventually, yourself.

So no more of that. No no. I’ve done that for so long. But I’ve also got 212 days practice just chucking out whatever clay I can find. The clay well got clogged (I’m not letting this metaphor drop) recently, but all it took was hauling out the clay blockage and slapping it into some sort of shape and saying, Hey, I made this wonky clay thing, and it might not be a Grecian urn, but it came from me, and that’s good enough - all it took was that, making a concerted effort to accept myself, and the clay was flowing once again, the beautifully flowing clay well… or maybe fountain... maybe this metaphor works better with the clay coming from a fountain, because wells don’t flow, do they? They just sit and wait for you to dip your bucket in them.

Do wells flow? Fountains flow. Or spray. Can wells be fountains? It’s too late at night and concepts have stopped making sense to me.

I don’t know. But I do know you should go away and make something, and love whatever it is you make, and when those negative voices come out to tell you that the thing you made is wonky and disgusting, well, tell them it does not matter.

Your wonky art is wonky because it’s true. And I believe Keats had a little something to say about what is true, whether Grecian urn or no.

So get to it.

Day 209: Present

Voice of negativity has been howling of late, stomping its feet, threatening to blow down all my houses of cards. "Blog is pathetic," it screams. "You're a heap of dirt. You're grosser than the matter you find collected under the nail of a big toe."

The voice wants me to give everything up, crawl back under the covers, slink away to where it's dark and silent and safe.

Yeah, it's been howling. And in fact it turned up just then. "How many times have you written this exact post? How many times have you thought you had something interesting to say, but you never learn, you never move on. You should just admit that you're making a fool of yourself, and quit this blogging nonsense once and for all."

But it's good to hear that voice. Good to be present as it attacks. Because normally it sneaks in the back entrance, slinks up the stairs, and before I know it there it is in the control room of my brain manoeuvring me around without me ever giving permission.

I'll be distracted, lost in this or that, and then from the depths of my mind a thought arrives, like I'm figuring something out, finally recognising, that, for example, everything I create is worthless - and there's no arguing, because it doesn't feel like an opinion with which you can argue. It's more that I myself have finally noticed, or perhaps admitted, something that has always been present in reality. I have always been pathetic. Every word I write has always been atrocious. Yes, I am like that sad hopeful in every season of X-Factor, shuffling into the audition room certain of their secret ability to sing, but they can't, they can't sing, and it's clear to everyone else, and they're not the freak show or the star they're just another nobody, filled with delusions, to be summarily dismissed halfway through a long day with the judges thinking only of how long they still have to wait before they can break for lunch.

And there's always the sense of shame and despair in recognising that to be true, the feeling of all the energy seeping out of my muscles, and the voice becomes self-loathing, gathers momentum, spirals, and soon I'm actively searching out every example in my life that proves the initial thought to be true.

But it's not true. It's not reality. It is an interpretation of reality. An opinion about reality.

And, like the voice of a smoker screaming that they have to have a cigarette, that they cannot cope through the day without one, the voice of negativity has a motive. Addiction wants the smoker to smoke, and will tell any lie, warp reality in any way, to make it happen. But if the smoker doesn't take up the impulse, if they watch the craving, then the craving will rise, and peak, and fall back, and the person will be left, still there, like a beautiful blue sky after a storm.

And so it is with depression, with that voice of negativity. It wants me to give up writing, because writing is scary, and leads into unknown places. It wants me to stay small, and beaten, and not make a fuss. And so it twists truth until it has ammunition to use against me, and it deploys it, in a voice engineered to be effective. It explains, beseeches, begs, or shouts, depending on what works best. It doesn't want discussion, ambiguity, consideration of alternatives. It wants to take control, and to have its way, and everything it says works to further those aims.

But smokers do give up smoking, although the urges always stay with them. And I will give up depression, although that voice will always remain.

I'm getting better at catching the voice. Standing here, in the light of awareness, and watching the creature creep up the stairs, settle into position, clear its throat.

I'm getting better at staying present as it speaks. Hearing how what it says is not reality, but the same old voice spouting the same old warped interpretations of reality.

The creature turns malicious, thunders, threatens to smash apart the world. And I'm getting better at remaining still, giving the voice space, and letting it thunder out of steam, falter, fall silent. I stay present, and the creature sighs, retreats, slinks back into the dark.

Until, of course, thirty seconds later, when it returns for its next attack. But it has only a few strategies, it's all bluster and no bite. My approach need never alter. Be mindful. Be here. Be awake to watch the voice arriving, to not react, to let it exhaust its bag of tricks.

Negative voices can do nothing without our permission. We need only be alert enough to ensure we do not give it.

Day 207: Remember

Been off work with a sick bug today, spent last night throwing up, today huddled in blankets eating soup and fruit and watching Netflix.

Not feeling as down on myself though. The world is difficult and painful enough, there's no need to heap more suffering on my shoulders in the form of self-loathing.

The old negative voices have been seeping back in steadily for a while now. Been falling back into unhealthy habits, sleeping all day, staying up all night, eating junk food and staring at Youtube and scrolling down social media, squeezing out a few meaningless words onto the blog last thing before bed, feeling the pressure of depression forcing me down as a voice of shame whispers that I'm 33 and I just work in a bar, I can't drive, I'm going nowhere with this blogging and I've got no forward momentum and I've saved up no money and my skin is awful and I've utterly failed at life.

But you know what? That voice can get fucked. Can get itself directly to fuck.

I've heard that voice so many times before, and dealt with it so many times before. I know how to deal with that voice. I know what to do. I've forgotten to do it of late, because I've been tired and stressed, and worried about breaking up with Fran, but I do know what to do.

It's like meditation. You bring your attention to your breath, you forget, you bring your attention back, you forget again. Over and over. You don't fail because you forget. The forgetting is part of the meditation. It is training.

Well, here I am remembering. Bringing my attention back.

I know the steps. Be mindful of the negative voices. Hear them, acknowledge them, bring them out into the light. Then challenge them. Find alternative interpretations for reality. Keep working. Keep taking baby steps. Focus on the positives. Accept help. Accept praise. Work on feeling worthy of love.

I've learnt how to do this and then forgotten again a thousand times before. That just means that remembering is easier than ever.

I can do this.

Day 194: Memories

Blog once a day? Stuuuuupid! I don’t wanna. Nope nope nope. I wanna lounge in bed with South Park on in the background and fiddle with photographs on my phone and browse indie games on my Switch and roll over and go to sleep. I’m too tired for this.

Ooof. OK. My eye is falling out. My eye is a putrid lumpy mess. My eye is… I have a stye. That’s what’s happened. I have a stye. There’s nothing to do but put warm compresses on it and wait for it to go down. Work today was grim though, I felt self-conscious, took me right back to days of my acne being bad. Struggling to make eye contact, scanning the faces of everyone with whom I interacted, noticing them noticing, fighting the constant desire to hide away. I told myself at the beginning of the day that I wasn’t bothered, although I’d woken up with the stye huge and inflamed and poking into my eye with a big whitehead on top of it, I’d said to myself that these things happen, I’m too old to care what people think, and mostly they don’t notice, people don’t; you’re the centre of your own world but to everyone else you’re just passing through, you barely register, if at all, and your embarrassments are tiny and external and distant to them.

But immediately once at work I was back into that mindset of the spotty kid shamefaced and looking down at the ground, keeping my head turned away from people, pretending to be distracted and avoiding conversations and closeness.

I spent years doing that growing up. Years and years. It’s no wonder I’m so screwed up now. It’s no wonder I have issues with confidence and intimacy.

My skin was always bad, so I always had to deal with the low-level anxiety and misery of knowing people could see, knowing it lowered you in their eyes, even if they felt compassionate you were still below them, knowing my pain and shame was right there plastered across my face for everyone to stare at and there was not a thing I could do about it. And I just plodded through it, tried to ignore it, tried to reframe my thoughts. But it was always there in the background gnawing away.

And then there were the times my skin got really bad, covered in pus-filled nodules and red raw and disfigured, painful to smile, worrying I would burst spots and spew yellow juice everywhere if I frowned or laughed or chewed food. And then the voices of shame ramped up into top gear, and I would do anything to get away from other people, from social events, from school, uni, work.

Part of the shame was not being able to talk about the shame, so I couldn’t just say “I don’t want to go to the party because I feel like a monster.” So I made up excuses. And friends came to know me as flaky, disappointing, a let-down. And I knew they felt that, and I knew I couldn’t say anything, and I hid in my room alone and festered.

… Hard memories tonight. My skin has been far better since going on Roaccutane when I was 25. These days the breakouts, regular though they are, are mild enough that I would have killed for them a decade ago. Yet still sometimes it’ll be a bit worse, or I’ll get a stye, or a rash, or something, and it’ll trigger that social anxiety response, and I’ll be right back there again, an ashamed and awkward creature, wanting to scuttle away along the sea floor and hide under a rock.

Our issues never truly leave us. Some scars go all the way down. I guess we just have to be as honest with ourselves as we can be, as caring, and treat ourselves with kindness on the bad days. We can’t help being the way we are.

And remember that other people seriously do not give a shit about the ways we think we're ugly. They are far too concerned with their own massively important pains and woes, of which we know little, if anything. And on it goes...

Day 190: Scores

Tired from work, from writing late last night, from fighting to get that post done when the thoughts were fizzling and evaporating somewhere between mind and screen. Stumbling after them in the dark, grabbing their tails, forcing them back into existence. Forcing myself through the misery of writing so badly, of the words being such a malformed betrayal of the initial impulse to write. Forcing myself to finish a draft that made no sense, that was so clumsy and hesitant, that simply did not work. The night getting late, seeing the time, grabbing tufts of my hair and wanting to scream that I flat out could not do it, that I could not get a post up, that I would have to write just a single sentence saying that I'd failed and I had nothing for today.

...But then doing star jumps in my room to get the blood pumping. Making another mug of tea. Slapping myself back awake and grinding out a second draft that made slightly more sense. Tidying it up, trimming it, making it as presentable as possible. Publishing it to the blog, letting out a sigh of relief, and then going to Red Dead for half an hour to unwind my frazzled brain before bed.

Riding my horse far out into the wilderness, watching the ground change beneath me, the rustling of the grass. Listening to the wind soughing the trees. Seeing silhouettes of trees on distant cliff tops, stark and lonely with the moonlight shining through them. A gully far below me. Unseen water flowing in the dark.

Then PlayStation off, six hours sleep, and up for a Saturday open. I'm stuck working a perpetual Saturday open. It always seems to be Saturday open, I'm trapped in purgatory, or in an American TV show where the twist is that they're all really in purgatory. Hey, American TV show writers - come up with better twists!

And now I'm home again, feeling flat and low. But I don't need to be low. It was so tough getting that post finished last night, yet I managed it. If I'm going to focus so intently on the times I fail - and I am, I am going to focus on that - then it's only right, only fair, that I also focus on the times I succeed.

If you keep track of all the goals your team concedes, but not the ones they score, well, then you have no idea how the match really went, do you?

Except, of course, the problem with depression is it finds ways to discount the positives. "That goal doesn't count," it says. "You were offside. You were lucky. It won't happen again." Or else it says the other team are too easy to be worth winning against. "Happy about beating those amateurs? Get real. They're awful. To have only won by the amount you did is embarrassing. It's actually more like failure..."

But that's depression. We know this. I know this. It is the nature of the beast.

I've been playing better recently. That's all that needs to be said. I've been improving. I've scored 190 goals in 190 days, and that's pretty special. Some have been halfway-line belters; some I've walked in after tussles in the box.

But they've all gone in.

Take the victories. Appreciate them for what they are. Keep turning up, let the result be what it may, and remember to enjoy the game for its own sake. It's all just a laugh on a Saturday in the rain, eh?

And make sure to rest. Rest is important. It's what I'm going to do now.

Day 183: Six months

Another busy Saturday shift. Another long bus ride up the hill, eyelids dropping with head bumping gently against glass. Played an hour of Red Dead when I got in, tramped around the first town, looked at new revolvers I couldn’t afford, thought about buying an engraving for my current pistol, hung out in a saloon, squelched through mud, went to a church, took in a show, had a fist fight… then let my character lie back in a bath in the town’s hotel, the drip of water, muffled voices through the wall, moody cowboy blues playing lugubriously in the background.

I’ve had rejuvenating carrot and ginger soup for tea (back in the actual world), with plump brown rolls and lots of butter. I’ve eaten an apple and an orange for dessert, and drunk a mug of steaming blackcurrant tea. I’m going to put this up, and then get an early night, for the first time in far too long.

I’m trying, trying to go easy on myself, to resist the gravitational pull of negative thoughts. To carefully direct myself away from their orbits, to learn to rest in the empty space outside of harmful routine.

Day 183. Somewhere between yesterday and today I reached the halfway point; I have now been doing this for six months. It never feels like it but I have made real progress. I am better than I have been in a long time.

Keep going. It will get worse, and harder, and easier, and harder, and better. And gradually, gradually, life will change.

Day 181: Filling up

Home from a day with the Van-Shallows, playing videogames with Jake, nattering with Missy, getting my hand and jumper and zip and bag straps gnawed by Hagrid. The pup is splitting his time between chewing everything in sight and weeing on the floor at the moment; Jake and Missy looked tired.

We drank cups of tea, hung out in the front room around their drawings and baubles and trinkets, watched old episodes of Friends on Netflix.

We didn’t have anything exciting to say. Anything new to do. We sat and spent time. Missy went out to her GP appointment, came back, went to her play rehearsal, came back. Jake and I ate pizza and looked for a co-op game to play together on the Switch.

It was a nice day. I’m really struggling to stay on top of my mental health at the moment, but stay on top of it I think I am. It’s a beast that’s thrashing beneath me, inside me, and I’m trying to give it the room to thrash while not letting it take control. (I have a different analogy for mental health every day. That’s because it shifts forms every day. And because it’s a great shrouded thing that has to be approached from many angles to get even a loose idea of its shape, its heft.)

I had moments today when I felt like everything was empty of joy and worth. When I thought about how I’ve got so little vibrancy inside me to write with, to interact with friends with; that there’s nothing in my heart or in the wider world but habit, routine, and ash.

But those are only thoughts. Scary thoughts, but only thoughts. Not reality, but judgements about reality. Sometimes I think they’re true, and then later I see that they were nothing but shadowy spectres, dissolving in the light of awareness.

I’ve seen that before. So I allowed that that was a possibility today. "I feel that everything is broken, but that doesn’t mean that that is so."

And other moments, more moments, I played with the dog on the sofa, shot Rabbids on the Switch with Jake, laughed with Missy about Joey’s antics on Friends.

We drank more tea. The night swept in. Another day passed on Earth. Not the best day. Not the worst. But another that my negative thoughts did not win.

The brighter column is filling up.

Day 177: Windscreen

It's past midnight. I've been asleep. I got in from work, turned my computer on, then passed out. It was 10pm when I awoke, lost and lonely, knowing I needed to eat. I cooked a pizza and ate in front of YouTube, my plate lit by the glowing screen.

I find it hard not to waste my life when I’m tired like this. I get tired really easily, because I’m always depressed in the background, and then I get more depressed because I’m tired and I don’t have the energy to fight off the negative thoughts. It’s like dirt on a windscreen, being prone to depression is like having windscreen wipers that don’t work. Everyone has dirt splash up at the windscreen of their consciousness all the time, but people with good mental health have an inbuilt ability to wipe their consciousness clean as they move through life, allowing them to see out at all the beauty in the world. And there is a lot of beauty, and it makes the dirt that splashes up worth it, and these people know from experience that the dirt never sticks around, and the tough times don’t last.

But if you’ve got faulty windscreen wipers then the dirt starts to accumulate. This dirt isn’t necessarily worse than for anyone else - although the windscreen wipers may have initially been damaged by too much dirt early on (in fact this is the number one cause).

So depressed people have to reach out of the window continuously and rub off the dirt. It’s difficult to reach. It’s cold. It’s hard work. You clear the windscreen and almost immediately it needs clearing again. You look at those other cars and they seem to function so effortlessly. And nothing for you happens easily. It’s all a slog.

It’s exhausting. And here’s where I’m at now. You’re working long hours, you’re trying to do as much as possible (less than most people, a lot for what you’re used to), and it’s so hard to find the energy to reach out and clear that windscreen of the dirt. So you drive along in the gloom behind a filthy pane of glass, and everything you see is clouded, murky, undefined. You go slowly, in low gear, gripping the wheel, and still objects loom from the fog, and you have to swerve to miss them.

All your attention goes on just staying on the road, and it’s even harder to find the energy to reach all the way up and outside and scrub the windscreen of that ingrained muck (knowing if you do it’ll just be back soon anyway). So you resign yourself instead to just coping like this.

Eating oven pizzas. Dozing in front of YouTube videos. Sleepwalking through work.

And of course without forcing yourself to clean that windscreen the dirt only gets worse. The view out darker, lonelier, any beauty impossible to see. And so it’s even more effort to simply stay on the road. And even harder to clean the windscreen. And the dirt gets worse…

So I guess it’s good at least that I recognise this? Good to be aware of myself on these terms.

The writing helps, sometimes a lot, sometimes only a little, but it is building structure and routine. Many days (most) it’s not a full wipe of the windscreen, but it’s at least bringing my awareness to the glass, checking in with myself, remembering where I keep the cloths and soap.

I just need to stay the course. Keep turning up. And be aware that this is not an easy ride. This is not a nice thing to go through. It's no surprise I don't achieve as much as some people, that I'm tired absolutely all the time. But others have it far worse, and in a trillion ways I'm lucky, getting to drive this vehicle of being through life.

So a reminder: go at the pace I need, relax the fingers on the wheel, keep cleaning that glass.

Day 160: Storm

I can feel myself getting depressed today. I can feel it coming on. Everything is slower, more difficult. I'm wading through sludge, there is black tar between objects. My thoughts are dragged downwards into negativity. I force myself to think something positive, and immediately a weight is tied to it and it plummets down through the clouds into frustration and despair. The flowers of thoughts begin to sprout and immediately curl into weeds and rot and die as ash.

It's tiring. Getting from one thing to the next takes so much effort. Nothing flows. There's no buoyancy, no accomplishment, no reward. I must drag myself by my fingernails into the next moment, and all that is waiting is the need to drag myself again to the moment after that.

My soul has no poetry. Words are leaden and crusty and weak.

So I do what has to be done. I write long lists of reasons to be grateful. I shower, put on clean clothes. I do three loads of washing, clothes and towels and sheets. Drink water. Eat food. Walk around the houses as the sun goes down.

And I don't ask too much of myself, I accept that when I'm like this I can only get a basic post up on my blog.

It's so disheartening being like this, falling into this mindset every couple of weeks, every week.

But what does arguing with reality get me? Nowhere. Better to stay completely still, be very calm, do the things that help even though they don't feel like it, avoid the things that make it worse though they whisper of momentary relief.

Stay still. Accept this. Let the storm within me bluster, rage, and pass.

Day 131: Untangled

Woke up hating myself this morning. All the usual reasons. I'd overslept; rather than seizing the day I'd rolled over and spent the last two hours feeling pinned to the bed, thinking how the healthy decision would have been to get up, but feeling unable to do so. And I was thinking about my writing, how I'm not pushing myself enough, how disappointing it all is, how simple and safe and boring. How I'm not making any progress. I'm trapped in stasis. How I've been eating ready meals and oven pizzas most nights again, and averaging one piece of fruit every other day. How I haven't been shopping at Unwrapped. How I never follow through on plans. The moment things get difficult I give up. How I'm a worthless waste of space, a pathetic ugly moronic loser.

Like I said, all the usual reasons.

And then I got up and stood in the shower. I got out of the shower and dried myself with my towel. I did my teeth, did my beard. Put on clothes. I took a bag for life and an empty Kilner jar and walked to Unwrapped, and then to the greengrocer's on the corner. I ate breakfast - cornflakes with milk, satsumas, an apple, a banana, a croissant - washed up, made a large pot of coffee.

I paid my rent, checked some dates on the calendar, did some other sorting work. I briefly felt awful that I still don't really get the next part of the story-structure stuff I've been putting off for weeks - but then I watched an episode of Community and made notes about the hero's journey, made notes about Bourne Identity, read up on story circles online... And by the time I had to get ready for work I felt like I had a better grasp on the subject than ever before.

And, OK, I know all that is not very impressive. It's pretty much the bare minimum that an adult should be achieving. But for me it was a big deal. This self-loathing I feel every day is such a weight on me. It is self-sustaining. It perpetuates itself. You feel worthless and that saps you of all energy, which makes it impossible to do the things you know you should be doing, which makes you feel all the more worthless.

I have had so many mornings waking up like this morning and letting that weight of negative thoughts crush me. Churning over in my head all the reasons I'm a failure, each reason leading to ten more reasons, which each lead to ten more, spreading outwards, forming strands between what were disparate incidents - the social failure last Thursday, the sense of loneliness in the corner of the party last month, not buying enough fruit yesterday, classmates laughing at me decades ago - the strands solidifying into a thick web that encompasses my entire consciousness, with me enmeshed in the centre, trapped and tiny and helpless, unable even to struggle, unable to move even a finger.

And once that process starts spinning up it's so difficult to halt, it carries its own energy and the energy builds as it goes, and often I'm not conscious it's begun, and then suddenly it is everywhere. And struggling only tangles me worse, the energy to fight back can so easily just go into energising the self-loathing, and then I get frustrated, and then feel helpless, and then suffer more.

So to feel the beginnings of that happening this morning, but then to gently, lightly climb over the first of the webs, to walk away and get on with the mundane work of my day, well for me that is huge. I'm going to recognise that that is huge. I'm going to feel good about it.

I'm going to give myself that.

Day 126: Coaxial cables

Well, I never showered. Mike messaged me as I was necking coffee in my boxers to ask whether I wanted to "do something" before he went to work, so I threw on clothes and walked round, and we drank more coffee, chatted about literature and politics and videogames, mostly videogames, and then we went geocaching, as is Mike's wont, and explored city centre backstreets and parks full of unconscious homeless people and cathedral grounds pocked with bird shit, and we ate sandwiches and made jokes about being depressed, and then Mike went to be a twilight file clerk and I went home, and I took photos on the walk back, got in and edited the photos, sat down to write.

And after putting down some thoughts about Zelda on the Switch I forced myself to engage with the story structure notes, and I remembered that I was stuck on the next bit, it wasn't clear in my head how it flowed, and I didn't know how to explain it in my own post.

Even yesterday this was a sign that I was a moron and a failure, but today I just went away and read up on the stuff that confused me, made notes, thought about the plots of films that overtly follow the hero's journey and how they dealt with the areas that I didn't have straight.

And it's weird. When creativity is stuck just go and work anyway. When the well is dry just do what is necessary to fill it back up. I've learnt that lesson so many times before, and forgotten every time.

And yesterday I would have seen that as a sign that I'm a moron and a failure, but from today's perspective it's fine. Every time I forget, the lesson is easier to pick up again the time after. Every time I fall it becomes easier to rise.

Negative thoughts are strengthened pathways in the brain. Neurons that fire together, synapses that have thickened their coaxial cables though use. Except they're not called coaxial cables, because those are the things that connected your TV to your antenna before Netflix, but it's a word like that, and it's late, so let's just go with it. The thickened synapses are like deep grooves worn into the ground. And when the rain of thought falls that water will run down the grooves easier than it will run across open land. So changing your mind, learning new patterns of thought, is about going down again and again and chiselling out new channels. And at first these new channels are very shallow, and the water quickly starts running back into the old riverbeds. But then you go back and dig the new channels out, and it's less effort than the first time, and you dig them a bit deeper. And then the water goes back into the riverbeds. And then you go down again and dig out the new channels...

I'll forget everything I'm saying here, and I'll feel blue again. I'll lose hope. But I'll keep remembering, and it will get easier. And one day I'll look back and find that I can barely make out those old ossified riverbeds, while the roaring rapids of healthy thought will be connected to a hydroelectric dam powering machines that change the world, and I'll dip the coaxial cables into the water and short-circuit my house and the power will go off and then I'll never be able to have a shower.

See how by referencing my mixing of metaphors and the lack of symmetry in the post I get to both show that I'm aware of those problems and provide a sort of solution to them? Writing is great.

Day 125: The right path

I’ve been drifting of late. Going to work, coming home exhausted, feeling a miserable and stubborn thing inside me refusing to engage with my writing, so I’ve spent the evenings instead watching Netflix or playing Zelda or napping, and as the night has gone on I’ve felt worse and worse, and finally forced myself to write a few paragraphs, and then stayed up too late, got up the next day on four or five hours sleep, repeated the whole process.

Isn’t it odd how we can work out precisely the course of action that will be unhealthy for us - and then go and do it anyway? How sometimes it’s like we’re wanting to punish ourselves, or wanting to prove to everyone what screw ups we are? How when your self-esteem is low enough you simply can’t accept that you are capable of creating value, can't accept that you are worthy of love. It doesn’t compute. You have to sabotage your life until external reality corresponds with the ruined reality inside you, because that makes sense.

Well, I’ve done that for so many years now. I guess it’s time I started working on it. I’ve got a day off tomorrow, and I plan to spend the time showing myself some self-care, doing the things that need to be done - showering rather than staying in the t-shirt I slept in, getting exercise rather than sitting slouched in my office chair all day, changing my sheets, putting on washing, working on that bloody story structure post and the film reviews…

Instead of lowering my external reality to make it line up with how I see myself I can put that energy into raising my inner reality up. Even when I’m tired and my mental health is bad and I’ve got very little to give, I can still treat myself kindly, I can still go ten steps, two steps, half a step in the right direction, rather than curling into a ball and letting myself roll backwards.

Now for step one: get some sleep.

x

Day 123: Slow

I’m going to finish that story structure stuff one day - that stuff that was only supposed to be preamble to discussing the story structure of Bourne Identity, which was itself only supposed to be a brief scribbled thought before I went on and watched Bourne Ultimatum, which films were only supposed to be easy thrillers to watch and review while I had nothing else right that moment to write about.

Depression always slows everything down, it’s like being encased in mud, your whole being, your thoughts get sluggish, your plans thicken and congeal, even rising from bed takes a decade, a shower takes an aeon, you focus all your energy down into an interminable battle to get one foot in front of the other, to take a single step.

All while a voice is bombarding you with criticism, with self-loathing, telling you how weak you are, how wretched, all the reasons you’ll fail, all the reasons to undo that eternity of struggle and just climb back into bed.

But, hey, considering all that I didn’t do badly today. I got up and showered. I made coffee for me and Jiggs. Chatted with Phace. I spent a few hours preparing a training session about Belgian beer to give to the staff at work, walked the 40 mins down to town, overcame the social anxiety clinging to me like a blanket, gave the training, sat with the staff afterwards and drank coffee while they drank beer, went with them for two-for-Tuesdays burgers at a nearby bar, came home before 10 and watched some filmmaking videos on YouTube, forced myself not to go down into negative thoughts, not to let the depression overtake me.

I reckon that’s pretty good. I’m going to think about how much better that was than it could have been, and take solace in that. Like I said yesterday, things are improving.

And now I’m going to bed because I’m at work for 7am tomorrow for the delivery. Toodles x

Day 122: Improving

Another day not feeling good. I’ve done a few paragraphs of writing about story structure, but I couldn’t focus on it. Other than that I’ve played Zelda, watched Matt Groening’s new show on Netflix, Disenchantment, and drunk a lot cups of tea. Drank a lot of cups of tea? No. I have drunk.

Trying really hard not to go into self-loathing mode here. It’s so exhausting doing better for a couple of days and then feeling awful again and having no motivation to write and then beating myself up for having no motivation to write and then really not being able to write anything, and all the negative thoughts and sadness and emptiness swirling into a huge storm that rumbles on and on and on.

It’s exhausting enough feeling depressed, this time I’m not going to add to it by hating myself for feeling depressed. I’m just going to feel depressed. And that is OK. And I’ll drink another cup of tea, find some simple words to write here, then watch more Disenchantment and go to bed.

I was thinking a minute ago about how pathetic I am for writing those periodic posts where I pretend to have some wisdom to impart about depression, some insight into it, into how to move past it - the posts that people get in touch to tell me were really meaningful, or illuminating, or that helped them out - and but how it’s all lies, I never learn the lessons, never practice what I preach, I don’t have the strength, I just make the same mistakes in the worn grooves of my wretched brain time and time again.

But that’s not true. That simply is not true. I will not allow myself to listen to whatever voice just said that to me. That negative voice that wants me to believe I'm weak and worthless, to keep me small.

I am improving. I am getting better at dealing with this. I'm not stuck in a loop. I'm climbing out of a deep pit. Gradually, for sure, and the path is not always upwards, but I am climbing. I write a blog post every day. Sometimes I have the energy to write things that excite me, like film reviews, or silly scripts, or discussions of story structure. And some days I only have the energy to do this. But if a couple of posts a week feel worth doing, then that’s still a couple of posts a week more than I was doing 122 days ago. And I’m still posting something on those other days. I’m still coming here and putting a few paragraphs down, which is better than nothing.

In summary then: depression, you're a moron.

Yes, yes, you're part of me, and I accept that, and I'm not going to fight you. But I am going to tell you that you're goddamned wrong.

Come in, sure, if you're standing out there berating me in the cold. Have a blanket. Sit by the fire. If you're sticking around then I'll treat you with love. But don't think I'll listen to that nonsense you're spouting.

I love you, dark parts of me, but that does not mean I have to put up with your shit. So sit there quietly and drink this cocoa, and we'll watch another Disenchantment together before bed. There's a good depression.

Day 121: Choose

I have no energy, mental or emotional, to carry on that story structure thing tonight. Home from work and done in, depressed, empty, low. Tried to write when I got in, fell asleep, crawled to bed and napped, in and out of consciousness, my brain yelling all the ways I’ve failed, every reason I won’t make it, why everything will fall apart. No energy to answer back, no energy to stand outside of the thoughts and let them be, just lying there listening to them, not sleeping, sleeping, not sleeping again.

Finally got up to make tea. Met Jiggs in the kitchen. Chatted about whatever. I put a pan to boil, emptied in handfuls of pasta, chopped onion and red pepper and courgette and garlic, fried them up and added tomato, basil. Quorn pieces for protein. Jiggs went to his room to carry on watching a film. I watched the pasta swirl in the pan. The world dark outside. The kitchen cold.

Hey. I’m not out boozing. Booze was medicine, and it made me feel good, or at least numb, and I’m not numb anymore, or good. Am I good? I’m OK. Am I?

I am. This is life. There’s so much sadness here and so much pain, and now I’m fully here to experience it. It’s harder than when I was boozing, much, much harder - but it’s also more real. To feel this pain and to not turn away from it, to stay on the path, to remain upright, to carry on going: that's the only way that matters. I choose this way. Even on goopy black nights like tonight, I choose this way.

Day 93: Day off

We've taken a day off in my house today. All of us. We've taken a day off from the world. Jiggs has sat downstairs with my old Wii U and played Breath of the Wild for eight hours straight. I've sat in the armchair beside him, giving hints, playing Switch with the volume down, eating chocolate. Phace has lain in bed under blankets and watched formulaic detective shows on Netflix and snoozed.

We all work fatiguing low-paid jobs, all struggle with various issues, and life is not easy. So today we've taken a day off from everyone and everything, we've asked nothing of ourselves, we've eaten crappy food and not showered and slobbed about in old t-shirts and baggy pyjamas, and it has been glorious. Another week of this before I face reality again, please.

I still feel down. I don't know what's wrong with me. It's like I've reached 90 days and my brain has folded in on itself. All the negative voices that had retreated to a corner somewhere have flown back out. My skin is bad again, my forehead is spattered in tiny spots. I feel small and untalented and broken.

But I'm not going to worry, and I'm not going to stress. If I feel this way, so be it. I'm not going to ask more of myself than I can currently give. And what I can currently give is: very little.

I think I need lots of sleep, and to be gentle with myself, more than anything. So I'm not going to stay up for hours trying to make this blog post good. I'm not going to work on it until it feels like something of worth.

Sometimes the worth comes from simply not allowing yourself to go backwards. From not slipping any further. From putting your feet up with your housemates and eating junk food and saying, Sorry, world, but not today. I'm off today. Try calling again tomorrow.

Sometimes that's enough.

Day 67: Traps

I'm in the bathroom brushing my teeth and looking at myself in the mirror and thinking about how disappointing I am, when it strikes me that it would be possible to not think like this.

What an insight. What a radical thought.

"You know how you always feel awful about yourself?" I think. "Why not try not doing that?"

It obviously wouldn't be easy. I have decades of experience feeling awful about myself. It's second nature.

"And well it should be," the negative voice in my head chimes in. "You are, after all, awful."

Hmm. Hard to argue with that logic. It's so... axiomatic.

But what if I perhaps pretended I wasn't awful? Just for one day. If I pretended that I'm proud of myself, pretended that it doesn't matter that I have no idea what to write for today's blog post, that when I try to do more of those writing prompts there's a wall there, that I'm completely lost and confused and afraid and miserable and...

... OK. That is exactly what I need to not do. Dammit.

So, yeah. If instead of that stuff I just pretend it's all fine. What if I try acting like everything is as it should be? Like it's all right that...

... No. Don't go down into spirals about why it's not all right. Stay here.

And I can hear you yelling, negative voice, I can hear that you want to remind me that all that terrible stuff does matter. I'm not saying it doesn't, OK? Simmer down. But just for today how about we pretend it doesn't, just as a sort of game, just as an experiment, to see how it makes us feel?

"Can you do that?" I ask my inner voice. "Can you be open enough to give that a fair go?"

"No problemo," the inner voice says, cool as a cucumber, swirling a brandy in its non-corporeal hand.

Then I go to put my socks on and the only pairs are hanging on the line and on the way downstairs I instantly forget what I'd just decided and I spend the next two hours feeling awful about myself.

- - -

I remember the plan while walking around Weston Park, and I feel awful about myself for forgetting to not feel awful about myself. Then I see the irony in this, and feel awful about myself for how stupid I am for not immediately seeing the irony in this, which is itself ironic, which...

... I mentally slap myself across the face. STOP IT. Just stop it. Just accept whatever this present moment brings. Decide to feel good about yourself. It's a simple choice. Make it.

I breathe out a long way, and look at the park around me. The sun is shining through the leaves, casting dappled shadows on the ground. The fountain is splashing loudly. The splashing is very matter-of-fact. There is a calmness to it. It is nice. Everything is beautiful.

I walk on a way, then forget what I'm thinking about and start feeling awful about myself again.

- - -

Later, in the trendy coffee shop I've begun frequenting, I see my usual table is taken.

Then I think how weird it is to have a usual table after three visits to a place, that it betrays some unique and fundamental failing on my part, a debilitating need to retreat to safety, an inability to try new experiences, and that everyone can see this in me, that it will be obvious to the staff of the coffee shop. It's good that I have to sit at a different table.

But because I'm caught up in these thoughts, and in how paranoid, not to mention narcissistic, the thoughts are, how much of a mess I am inside my head, I get to a seat and then realise I haven't picked up the wooden block that serves as the table number to which the waitress will bring my coffee.

I go back to get it. But I find I'm hemmed in between the breakfast bar and a customer's seat. There's not enough room. I start to turn around, then turn back. There might be enough room. I look. No. There's not enough room. I could ask the customer to budge in a little, but let's be honest, I'm not doing that. So I turn around again, walk back round the long way, now convinced that I look both weak for not asserting my right to pass the customer, and also utterly insane for walking to the middle of the floor, pivoting wildly on the spot, then looping back to the till.

It would be nice to make a joke about this to the waitress, to make myself look silly for the staff's amusement, to show I don't take myself seriously -- I feel that's what a normal human being would do -- but I'm on that cusp of blushing where everything is heightened and prickling, and the sweat is already running down my forehead from the heat, so I just take the wooden block proffered by the bored waitress and mumble my thanks and clomp back to my seat.

And then I remember I'm not supposed to be feeling awful about myself.

And I feel doubly awful for how awful I've been feeling about myself.

And triply awful for feeling doubly awful about myself.

And quadruply awful...

Ung. Remember the park. It's a simple letting go. A decision. It's... like a Chinese finger trap. The more you struggle, the worse it gets. You just have to relax. You have to accept.

OK. That's all you have to say. OK.

So I'm a fuck up, am I? OK.

I'm the worst person to have ever existed, not just on this planet but on all planets, and in universes not yet even created? OK.

Everyone in this coffee shop thinks I'm a loser? OK.

And then you go from there. Probably everyone in this coffee shop hasn't even noticed me, probably they're far too caught up in their own lives to worry about mine -- but if they have noticed me, and they do think I'm a loser, then OK. The truth is the truth. It cannot be argued with. This moment is already all it will ever be. You can only accept it. The next moment, you can try to change that one, sure -- but that action has to come out of the stillness and acceptance of this present moment, or it will be doomed to failure.

Reality is what it is. I am who I am.

- - -

So I sit there and think about that for a while. I work like that on every negative thought that arises -- and boy do they arise! And I sit in the afternoon sun drinking my coffee and writing, and it is good.

And, yes, eventually I forget, and I start feeling awful about myself again.

But I remembered a few times today. That's more than I remembered yesterday. Maybe I'll remember even more tomorrow.

A Chinese finger trap is the same every time. You can learn to beat it.