Day 171: Monkey

Oh I don’t want to write tonight. My inner child is throwing a paddy. Fran is over and we’ve eaten Indian takeaway and watched the first four episodes of Fleabag, and now all I want to do is lie in bed and watch more Fleabag and go woozy by the radiator and play on my phone. But I can’t I have to do my writing.

I don’t want to do my writing! I want to march up and down the street banging pots and pans with a wooden spoon. Tra-la, tra-la, boom boom boom. I want to build a den or a treehouse or possibly fly in a hot air balloon. I want to show Fran my curry belly and burp in her face.

But I gots to do my chores. My chores. Stupid chorey chores. Stupid dupid chorey chores.

Writing is tough because you can’t let your inner monkey-kid be in charge, because then you’d do nothing but eat ice cream in your pants and nap through the day. Monkey-kid is a bad project leader. Very disorganised and flakey and unpredictable. Poor time-management skills. Poor self-discipline. Not one for routine.

But he’s also where all the playfulness and curiosity and energy comes from. Without him anything you create would be dry as chipboard. Without him you’d only ever make what you set out to make. There’d be no spontaneity, no exploration, no bizarre midnight tangents. No creativity, in other words.

So you have to find a way to get monkey-kid along for the ride, and to give him space to play, to scamper, but also make sure he knows he’s not running the show.

How do you do that?

I DUNNO.

I spend many days letting monkey-kid lead me off into procrastination and misadventure, and then it’s 1am and I’m forced to scribble down some nonsense and post it to my blog. But I guess at least I’m doing that, which means at least once a day I’m taking control and telling the monkey-kid who’s boss, and yanking him back by the tail every time he tries to slink away. But also you’ve gotta just… indulge him a little. Tell him that he’s not having all his own way, but within your way he can have whatever control he requires. He’s a horse that you’re riding (a monkey and a horse and an inner child? Yeah whatever) and he has to go to the field to which you lead him. But when there he will be allowed to gallop and canter and trot, to let off steam, to be the wild horse that his wild horsey heart desires.

You’re not enslaving the animal within, you’re taking it to places it could never have gone by itself (your human brain can lead that horse around rocks and ravines it couldn’t navigate alone) - and it in turn is helping you.

It’s a relationship, between different elements of the self, and you have to find a way to nourish all the parts.

So I don’t bang pots and pans, I do my chores - but in my chores I get to write about banging pots and pans, and that turns out to be almost the same.

And now the chores are done for one more day and it’s time for Fleabag.

Fleabag is good. Very good. Both me and the monkey-kid approve.

A new plan, again: Day 22

I feel I've regressed today. Feel like I'm slipping backwards. Lots of negative thoughts. No motivation. Brain a big ol' pot of depression soup.

But that's the nature of progress, right? You have some success, you feel yourself improving, then the road becomes muddy, you retreat a little, you doubt yourself, you question the whole endeavour.

Life grows forward in a naturally wary way, and this is all to be expected. But it's a dangerous point, nonetheless. Easy to give up and trudge back to the safety of old routine.

I need to focus on everything I've been thinking of late. It's like a test. And tests only exist to ensure we've learnt the lessons that have been presented. So:

- The point of this isn't to get anywhere, it's to be more present and alert and alive right now, in this moment, the only moment we ever get. I may entertain the dream that by doing this enough I'll stop having any negative thoughts and I'll heal my depression and life will become easy and beautiful and perfect all the time, but that is an illusion. Life will always be thus. Always at times a struggle. I'll have periods not wanting to write, not feeling inspired. I'll always have that voice in my head worrying I'm not doing it right, that I'm uniquely dumb and awkward and broken, that everyone else has been handed an instruction manual that by some accident or design was never passed on to me.

- And that is all right. And there are things to do about that. Don't feed the negative thoughts. Notice them arising, become an expert at recognising their shape, their smell, the emotional valence with which they are felt. As soon as I perceive one having arrived, pause, speak to it. "Ahh, it's you again. Right on time. Come on in, make yourself comfortable, have a cup of tea. Stay as long as you need, for you are welcome in this head, but I am busy, and I don't have time to listen to your dark words. I care deeply for you, for who you are at your core, but I care not at all for the rubbish you spout. I will not be having one of your pamphlets. I will not be engaging in arguments with you. I love you, but I'm going to be firm. Now I'm off. Let yourself out when you're ready."

- Do the things I want to be doing. Just do them. If I have lowered resources, if I'm drained, my mental health is poor, then do only as much as I can handle. An overweight person doesn't immediately run a marathon. They put into place a habit of walking once round the block, every day -- and they stick to it. In yoga you don't contort yourself into an expert's pose first time. You stretch only as far as your body is comfortable (and maybe a touch further). It's not about achieving everything right this second. It's about living the rest of my life.

- Conversely, do not do the things that I know will keep me away from what I want to be doing. We all sense what these things are for each of us. Your heart will tell you. If you want to be making music but you keep getting drunk instead, stop getting drunk. If you want to be planning a travelling trip but you keep smoking weed, put down that bong. If I'm always scrolling aimlessly down Instagram instead of writing a blog post, turn my phone off. These things are distractions. Cut them out and focus on what we truly want.

- And finally, bring focus continually back to the process, not the results. We do not exist in static nouns -- success, victory, achievement -- we exist in the flux of verbs. Living, breathing, doing verbs. The abstract concept of winning a race sounds nice, but if that happens you're still just there, with the gold medal round your neck, sucking down air, adding oxygen to your blood, removing carbon dioxide, passing electro-chemical signals between neurons, thinking about how your feet hurt, you need a wee, which way was the winner's podium, is this enough, this isn't enough, what are you doing next, what is for tea. It all flows. We are not objects dropped in the river of life; we are the river; it flows through us.

So the more you can concentrate on what you're doing as you're doing it, rather that what it might bring, the happier you'll be. Not happy as opposed to sad, because there will be plenty of sadness as well. But happy as opposed to... out-of-sync, maybe? As opposed to... unbalanced? Happy and sad emotions are important, but they must be experienced in fullness as they arise.

- - -

So here I am, typing away, rushing to get this finished before work, swapping out first- and second-person pronouns because I can't decide whether this is advice for me, or advice for you -- perhaps for all of us... and it's not perfect, and I don't know where it's leading, but it's good, it's all right, I'm content again I think to be on this path putting one foot in front of the other, with the sun beating down and the world humming around me, and that is the most you can ask for, I reckon, to be here and to be OK with that.

A new plan, again: Day 21

Quick one before work. Three weeks today since I stopped drinking and distracting myself, started blogging every day.

How do I feel? Honestly, not great. I still wake up depressed every morning, bleak and hopeless, not wanting to face the challenges of the day. I still hear negative, self-critical thoughts in my head all the time. It tends to settle as the day goes on, then evenings bring loneliness and an aching sense of loss. And I am tired, all of the time, a kind of morass of lethargy coiling about the base of my atoms (I don't think atoms have bases, but if you imagine them like trees, and the tiredness like a morass or actually more a mist wrapping around their trunks, that's the image I mean), weakening them, calling for me to climb back into bed.

Right at this moment I am not much enjoying writing, feel uninspired, stressed that I've got no time to make this good before leaving for work.

But all of that is OK. Because now isn't everything. The unhappiness is still there, but I'm getting better at not adding to it. Getting better at letting myself be how I am. The petals of my flowers (new metaphor, we're done with the trees and mist now) may still be coming out shrivelled and brown, but I'm watering the roots, tilling the soil, trying to pour in no more poisons, let the acid that's in the ground slowly work its way out.

Be miserable now, be pissy, feel like giving all this up. It's fine. I'm still not drinking. Still coming here every day to write.

And along with the shrivelled petals there are, it's fair to say, brighter ones starting to come through as well. I'm feeling spurts of energy, especially this last week, of joyousness and warmth. I'm noticing colours looking more vibrant. It's easier for me to cry. I'm a touch more alert, more confident, my head is slightly less full of silt. I can weirdly sense my physicality more, my grounding within my body, and the bodies of the people around me. Like depression is an illness of the mind (duh), a distancing, a removal into cold abstraction, and what I'm sensing is a return to the incarnate reality of the world.

And with that I can sense not just the matter but the space between us, the nothingness that holds us together, the glorious silent potential of the void.

Interesting thoughts there, at least to me, but I'm going to have to leave them for now because it's time to get ready for work.

Three weeks in, then, and plenty of downs, but plenty of ups, as well, and plenty of room for things to improve.

Until tomorrow. Take care x

A new plan, again: Day 11

Howdy. I awake at 9 this morning, hoping for a leisurely day of reading my book and blogging. But almost immediately my brain starts spinning up into dark places, and won't stop. So here, instead, is a list of all the negative thoughts I've had thus far today:

• While buttering a muffin for breakfast it strikes me that I've never truly applied myself to anything in life and that all my problems stem from a fundamental lack of courage on my part. Which is nice to know.
• Halfway through the muffin I think it'd be interesting to make today's post about all the negative thoughts I have, thus externalising them, bringing them to awareness, showing people what I'm up against. Then I think that's a lame idea and it will make me seem completely miserable and pathetic.
• I go upstairs and write a Facebook status I've just thought of about bar workers going to offices after the bank holiday and acting the same way as the office workers just acted in our pubs. It seems quite funny, so instantly I start worrying that I'm trying too hard and that it's a statement of impotence, like that quote about irony being the song of a bird that has learned to love its cage, and that really it's just embarrassing that I'm still working in a bar after all these years.
• Some people like the status, and comment on it continuing the theme, and that makes me feel good -- so then I start thinking how sad it is that I'm back on Facebook pretending not to be but really checking the status for likes and comments, like some kind of fucking tragic goblin-faced loser.
• I get really tired, and I think how pathetic it is to be tired after doing so little so far with my day.
• I write up yesterday's post, and I feel it works, so then suddenly I'm thinking that it's pathetic to be happy about some dumb blog-journal when I could be writing a novel or something. That the blog doesn't go deep enough, is too cowardly.
• I look at all the negative thoughts I've noted down so far, trying to tell myself it's not cowardly but brave to be open about this stuff -- and next thing I'm worrying that it's all totally self-obsessed and narcissistic instead, all grist for the mill of my ego.
• As I'm going down to make a brew I half turn, remembering that while reading in bed last night I was playing with my beard and some hairs came out, and I put them by my bed to throw away later. So I sort of pause in my tracks to go find them, but already in that instant I'm turning back, having decided I can't be bothered, that I'll just go make a tea instead. This is all automatic, and the next few steps away to my door it strikes me that I'm axiomatically lazy, weak, that I will always avoid the stitch in time that could save nine. It genuinely gets to me, like it's some judgement on my entire being. Over three beard hairs. I wish I was making this up.
• Then in the kitchen I see the washing machine and remember I was going to put washing on, but I'm already feeling sad and cowardly, so what I think is that of course I haven't done my washing, of course I won't do any now, I'm too lazy and pathetic, I can't do anything in my life that needs doing, I might as well go and get drunk and forget everything, because that is all I'm good for.
• That belief, that I am lazy and pathetic, now roves around looking for all the examples it can find to validate itself. Haven't put away my dry washing either. Haven't messaged Fran to see if she's OK. Haven't watered my plants. Haven't thought about my career. Haven't cleaned my bathroom. And I'm at the centre, unable to do any of it.

Now, all of these thoughts are real. I really have them. But they also aren't the full story of today. They aren't indicative of my overall mood. I am an experienced self-hater, and experienced at coping with self-hating thoughts. None of these moments I have noted consume me. I am able to struggle above them, question their legitimacy -- Is it true that I should be better than I actually am? Isn't it entirely normal, healthy and human to go back on Facebook to see how a statement has been received? Is it a fundamental weakness that makes me unable to put the washing on, or is it believing that thought itself that keeps me weak?

I do do the washing. I do write my blog post. I never get those beard hairs, but who the hell cares?

Yet those dark thoughts are always there. They never leave. A continual stream of negativity running parallel to all my better thoughts, watching from the shadows, coughing when I would kiss.

Having that voice in my head is enervating. It depletes my reserves, grinds down my spirit. If I have less energy than other people, that's why. If daily life is more of a struggle, there is good reason.

Those negative thoughts aren't going away. But I am getting better at being mindful of them, letting them arise, not rising to them, and watching them fade away. They are allowed along for the ride, because they are an innate part of me -- but they sure as shit aren't driving. The longer I go with this the more chance they have of learning that. And they better learn, because I'm staying here.

I hope if you have negative thoughts you are able to feel the same. They do not have to be your truth. You are more than them. You are wonderful. Keep going.

Would You Just... Do What You Can?

Eeesh, another rubbish day today. And for no discernible reason, either. Things are going very well for me. I had a weekend better than any in recent memory, although I don't want to write about why just yet. Work is good. And this blog is giving me a sense of purpose that I have not had in years. I woke up this morning with a full day off ahead with which to catch up on washing, potter about, concentrate on writing.

And then I couldn't get out of bed. I read longform journalism on my phone, which initially felt like a worthwhile start to the day. Then I progressed/regressed to scrolling Facebook. Then my phone battery died and I lay back down and napped a little, which turned into a full sleep. Then when I finally woke up the day was ruined, and I spent the remaining hours shlubbing around, dazed, watching garbage on Youtube, feeling an invisible weight on my chest, wanting to write but unable to, filled with anger and frustration and self-hatred.

So apologies if this post isn't polished or perspicacious, but this is all I can get out right now, and I do think it's important to get something out.

I'm just so tired of my old way of looking at the world. It is so boring, it is so unhealthy. So let's just say I've had a tough day -- no idea why, when things are good, maybe anxiety about losing it all, about when the inevitable crash will come, maybe the old ego sensing threat and trying to reassert itself, who knows? -- but now I've become mindful of the storm I can do my best to hunker down and let it pass in its own time.

Depression kills complicated thoughts, saps mental energy, so I can't write anything big. But I can write these few simple lines, I can focus on the positives, I can accept that I might feel like this but it really doesn't matter, it's not worth getting stressed about. What matters is whether others are OK, what I can do to help. In this moment the best I can probably do is to stay calm and let the storm pass.

I've washed up, I've cooked a small tea, had a mug of Earl Grey.

Now I'm going to watch an episode of an easy show, because mental illness is like any illness, and when you're suffering you need to go easy on yourself.

And then I'm going to get an early night, because rest is important.

Working till five tomorrow, so I'll come home in the evening and write something then. See you soon x

On Obstacles

Hey, poppadoms. Sorry this is late (like you're sat hammering F5 on your web browser of choice staring in increasing panic at your clock going, "Where the hell is that update from Rob, anyway?"). But still, apologies. It's been a tough week. In typical fashion I got the forms I needed to register with the doctors' near our new flat in plenty of time, then proceeded to fill absolutely none of them in until it was too late to sort an appointment before my meds ran out. Which meant: no antidepressants for a few days. Which meant, it turns out: really bad things. Anyway, I'll let the diary tell you. Onwards!

Monday

12:35 -- You know in the Redux of Apocalypse Now when the French woman on the plantation says to Willard, in some let's-be-honest painfully clunky dialogue, "There are two of you, don't you see? The one that kills... and the one that loves"? Well, that's like me, except rather than killing, the fundamental duality of my nature is expressed in a shadow side of me that wants to do nothing but sleep.

I'd set my alarm for 08:00, put it on other side of the room so I'd have to get all the way out of bed for it (the good me clever like that) -- then next I know Morning Rob is in charge and he's having none of my shit. "I'm running this ship now, boyo." He stumbles across the room cursing, gropes for the phone, jabs at the screen until the banshee death-wail desists, stumbles to the bathroom for a piss, then stumbles back into bed, muttering to himself all the while. Then darkness. Then it's hours later and I realise I've totally buggered up the first day of my diary. Then, instead of getting started, I sit in bed on my laptop drinking coffee and looking up quotes from the Apocalypse Now Redux.

13:10 -- Been reading about Updike's Rabbit Redux. Not sure I liked Rabbit, Run -- there was something cynical and cold about it to which I couldn't connect. Anyway! Going to work on an essay for next week's post now.

15:32 -- Did some writing, but also read a Guardian list of 100 greatest English language novels, felt bad about not having read any Hardy, or Dickens, or Poe, or... &c, then ate wraps and made more coffee. Back to work now.

16:18 -- Thinking. What I wrote in last post about pesky demon of procrastination -- maybe first step in defeating him is accepting him. So I slept late today. So what? My usual response would be despair, that it proves everything I fear about myself, that I want to do something worthwhile with my life but I never will. And that leads to shame, then self-loathing, then a black depression that lasts for days and blankets everything. So why not instead just go easy on myself and feel nice and let it go? What's so tough about that, Robbie-boy?

Immediate thought crashes in: You're making excuses for being lazy and weak, making light of it, revelling in it so don't have to take responsibility and can carry on like this. When you gonna grow up?

But hang on. If I don't take that voice as gospel (always take that self-critical lashing voice as Honest Truth) but instead look at it impassively, analytically, then not sure I was making excuses. Wasn't I instead saying that the milk is already spilt, no use wasting time feeling worthless for knocking it over, instead just clean it up and be happy and move on?

Maybe actually it's voice saying "when you gonna grow up" that's keeping me from growing up. Piling on self-loathing talking so venomous because it's scared of change.

Urg, I don't know. To be perfectly honest I feel like dirt. Like dredged canal waste. Like those spirals of mud that have been chewed up and secreted by worms. I've run out of antidepressants because I'm stupid. I've not registered at the docs' yet and it's going to be who-knows-how-long before I can get an appointment. Goddammit.

18:40 -- Done what I can for the day. Off now to watch X-Men Origins, thinking of writing reviews of stuff on Wednesdays. At the least the film will be dumb noise to lose myself in. Need that.

Tuesday

10:44 -- I've done it again. Staggered to phone, switched alarm off, crawled back into bed. I thought writing this diary would create accountability, incentivise me to get up, but of course I can just sleep in and then come here and apologise. Blurg. I really hate mornings.

11:00 -- Okay, let's focus on positives. I've had cereal. I've got coffee. I'm here. I'm musty and hollow and unhappy, but I'm here.

Can feel a spot coming on on my chin, one of those buried-deep ones that you know is going to hurt like all hell. Closing my window. The days are getting colder, the nights drawing in. Is summer over already? Feels like we only had about three pleasant days. Yeah. Anyway. Off to write about stupid X-Men film that was stupid.

11:15 -- Quick thought: strikes me that these posts are getting worse, but that's maybe a good thing. Need to throw away every desire to write well, to impress, and rediscover joy of writing for its own sake. Never used to post anything on old blog that gave away what I was really like -- except it always in the end did, and I'd hate it anyway. Cast off all conceptions of myself, demolish desires, build back up from basics. Might lose a few people's respect, bullshit people on FB might think I'm weird, but also lose all fears of that. Go into darkness but carry on going. Do the blog every week for a year. If still shit after that, at least I finally tried something. Yes. Yes.

16:08 -- Been writing all day. Also reading loads of Wikipedia pages on X-Men and Marvel characters and film writers and directors and loads of stuff. Re-watched scenes from film for quotes and whatnot. Paused few hours ago, did weights, went for a walk, made lunch, drank coffee. Then more writing. Turned into good day.

17:26 -- More writing, then took forms to doctors' and registered. Was easy. Got an appointment for tomorrow morning. Feeling good. Well, feeling acceptable. Hurray.

Wednesday

11:46 -- Been to the docs', got more meds, got some baby shampoo for eye infection I've had forever, done some writing on the X-Men review, and, perhaps most importantly, Co-Op had special offer on Special K cereal. What a day this is turning out to be!

Also, it's summer again. Blue skies, clouds ambling about, insects at work. Why was I so maudlin yesterday morning? Though it does worry me that I had no meds for a few days and I've been feeling so much better. Are they actually helping? Maybe I'm just forgetting how bad things were before I went on them. I don't know.

17:13 -- Rushing to get film review done. These constant deadlines are good. Same old desire to slack off, but no time. Like lifting a weight, like turning a screw. Just gotta -- nnnrrrghh, tighten the muscle, strain, and do it. Either that or carry on how I was living, working chain pub and drinking too much and spending days off in bed staring at nothing feeling like been fuckin hit by an oil tanker or something. To hell with that.

18:49 -- Review is done and posted. Don't look back. Enjoy having done it, meet friends for drinks tonight, and move on.

Thursday

13:27 -- No desire to do this. Charlie and I stayed round friends' last night, woke up this morning to work stress Charlie had to deal with, not nice at all. Missed my tablet last night because of staying out drinking, right after getting more meds as well. Stupid, stupid. Like I'm purposefully doing the dumbest stuff. Why am I like this?

Need to get back on meds, start getting up early again, sort myself out. Just... I don't know. Last night's post seems so awful now. Disgustingly, painfully crap. Why did I put it up?

14:17 -- Everything feels so fragile at the moment. I'm writing all this stuff and it seems so shit and I'm swinging between feeling like it's what I have to do to make progress and like it's all an awful embarrassing mistake. Thought it was a good idea but I was mistaken and everyone is laughing at me or else bewildered like what the hell is that weird guy doing, or else couldn't care less, that I'm shouting into a void and old voidy is staring back silent waiting for me to expel all air from lungs then going to swallow me up anyway. No sound, no art, no love beats that void.

Urg. Shh. I've enjoyed writing the previous posts. I have. Especially the X-Men one. So what if it was loose and rambling? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Don't know. I can write that. I can't believe it though. The positive thought is there and I just can't hold it. Feel so lost. I'm sorry, I don't know. I'm having a panic attack or something. Can't catch breath. Everything is too much. Had the worst nightmares last night. Drowning in distant lightless caverns, groaning walls, peristalsis throb of furious insectoid bodies... then racing angles, tall worlds at every turn, foamy shores of crab-like movement, basin dripping in empty room, bone dissolves and blooms in lichen and explodes and blooms again. Galaxies, lives rushing by, and something of myself awake, aware but without control, one eye watching trapped in terror racing down pulsating clay passageways through electric sandstorms wanting to scream but able only to realise what it was seeing and all the silent horror was but the contents of its own brain.

And I awoke soaked in sweat. Lay in bed thinking over and over that this is what it'll be like when I die. Tried to calm myself but that part of me very small, far away. Most powerful people on Earth, wisest, richest -- none of them know the answer. All of us are alone, I thought. Fell asleep again and don't remember dreaming but must have because when I woke up I'd been crying and my eyes were wet.

Friday

08:54 -- Is this the first day of the week I've been up before 9? I think so. Yesterday was bad. Spent afternoon and evening playing GTA: San Andreas, something old and comfortable, falling into familiar routine, driving back and forth down streets I know so well, finding solace in the systems, warmth in the simple digital rules, hiding from something terrible and unnamed. First antidepressant back on was awful, all evening last night nauseated, confused, misplaced, like a wraith watching my life from the outside.

Don't feel much better now. Nausea has receded but everything still feels cold, bleak.

09:28 -- Just burnt my coffee. Got to it before it boiled over, but the taste is gone. Can't cope with this. Want to fling mug against wall. I know it's stupid. I know I'm overreacting. Can't get a foothold though.

Is the act of writing this diary making the depression worse? Making me concentrate more on it? Or do I always go through these days and now I'm just letting people in on it? I DON'T KNOW.

Sunday

15:40 -- Been at my mum's since Friday looking after her dog. Not been writing. Come back to this now and looked it over, need to put it up. Conclusions? I'm all over the place at the moment. I guess I have been for a long time. This week especially bad because of missing antidepressants, but I think there's a constant battle like this going on even on the meds, though guess the meds have been giving me just enough space to plant my feet and fight back. Been on them eight months now. Think I'd forgotten how bad things were before them -- this week has reminded me.

Plenty of acceptance and change looking back at this diary as well though. Problem is that reach a sensible conclusion (like spilt milk thing), then sort of lose awareness, fall into ingrained negative thoughts and it's only later looking back that realise it's happened. Like I put on Tuesday that I needed to focus on positives, then I immediately listed a load of negatives! It'd be comical, if it wasn't so obviously not (also just realised: might not be a coincidence that all this happened the week I'd said I would write a diary. Like something in me attempting to sabotage myself).

But in the end I got through the week. I wrote a post on Wednesday and I've written this one now. I had a few of my worst days for a long time, but I'm still here, tapping away on my keyboard, listening to the patter of rain against my window. I've not quit yet. That has to mean something. Hold onto that. I don't know where I'm going, but I know I am still going.

And, in fact, screw it. What I'm going to do for next week is carry on writing a diary, but every time I'm negative I'll force myself to come up with an alternative interpretation for reality that is a bit nicer. I won't say that's the truth or anything, I'll just jot it down, like an exercise, and move on. And I'll do film reviews and stuff on Wednesdays so this isn't all self-involved (though personally speaking pretty necessary) navel gazing. See you soon, then. Love love.