absurdity revised…

This has always been a place for honesty, it remains that way.

The pills stopped working 3-4 weeks ago. I’ve been running up-hill ever since. Every day is a new effort to stay on top of my mood.

The doctor has doubled my dose. Little effect has been felt over the past 3 weeks, not even a superficial improvement.

I can’t tell if I’m getting worse, or if I’ve been sad all along and it has been buried. It could just as well mean that the pills never helped and I had just gone back to my default again. Just as many times before; I have recovered from a bout of depression after a month or two of rest. I sail through the storm, rather than calming it in any real sense. Calm water mistaken for a persistent force.

Now I’m back to the stage I was at before, that black hole of sadness to the side of me – stretching to swallow me, but for now just remaining a peripheral threat.

I can be intensely happy, I can run about and scream and make noises. I can read for hours and hours, keeping focus. I can play stupid little games on the Wii with a semblance of satisfaction. It seems that when I am around people I can just forget it all. Except, when it comes to trying to sleep I just lie there getting stressed. I have to take my sleeping pills to make any attempt at sleep. Otherwise I’ll lay awake and my head will just endlessly play out encounters and projects and then start to hurt.

Headaches. I’ve never had them before and now I get one a day, usually around 5-6pm. It isn’t unwelcome. It keeps me focused on physical pain rather than the inertia of melancholia. At times it will feel like my brain is breathing with the same futile effort of a bulldog.

I’m still not any nearer, thanks to this slug-like NHS, to getting any real help. The consensus is ’swallow these and wait.’

To begin with you always take the options handed to you, because you’ll try anything to climb out of where you are. You’ll clutch at the straws of wishful thinking and convince yourself you are getting better, when really you are just subtly forgetting your fault lines run where they do.

I’m still reading. I’m still writing. I’m still taking photos. I’m sailing. I’m managing to eat a little when I can. I’m exercising. I’m alive.

None of it gives me real lasting pleasure. I’m trapped in the talons of this sickness. There is no reasoning with myself, I will just find myself sad and wishing that life would stop. It feels like I’m wired up to the taproot of human misery, I’d give anything for a little of my usual apathy. I’d give anything to have my ego reclaim me. The thing is that I just don’t care.

Selfishness, I guess. Therein lies the dilemma.

Am I so self-involved that a perceived misery is unconquerable in the face of all the joys laid out ahead of me?

In the light of all the misery in the world, what makes mine seem acute in comparison? Do I have a right to ache?

Is pain relative or is that egotistical? Is pain in fact on a scale from one extreme to a far greater one?

Is comparison to other perceived ‘greater pain’ helpful? Or does it just make one wallow even more in your own limitations and self-centered attitude?

Most recently my life has been especially given over to other people. I have put myself second in the greatest of my efforts and helped (often beyond my means). I have not done so for gain. Except that I have gained friendships that I value and make me regretful for not establishing with similar candidates in my history. I have not lied. I’m not even proud, I care very little about what people get from me. My misanthropy has now been turned on myself only. I retain my skill of apathy as a challenge to myself, making more and more elaborate efforts to assist people. I suppress my selfishness when it rears up, forcing myself to do more and more beyond my comfortable inclination. I feel I am better for reducing those unpalatable parts of myself.

It gives me a question… can you be a good person by suppressing your sinful attitudes?

Can you be human and be free from selfishness? Or is it just a quieter voice over time?

These are all questions that mean very little to me. Before they’d have driven me to madness, but now (with a little help from Camus) I have seen that they are all absurd questions. They will never be answered to any great or helpful point. What matters is that I ask them and continue to act in a way that comforts me. It comforts me to ask these pointless questions because it focuses my aims. I am content to be a good force in the world where previously I have been a negative force.

I understand that it is in my nature to be sad. That is who I am. For a reason unknown, I must ache. It is not an obstacle, merely a feature of my landscape. Just as a mountain is not an obstacle to a mountaineer, but a victory he attempts to claim. The man seeks not to climb over it, but to conquer it in the name of joy. Just as to a fisherman a sea is not an obstacle, but a landscape of harvest. Not to be skipped, but endured to obtain a bounty.

Still this truth brings no real conclusion. I am a captive of myself and to myself I must bear witness.

I continue to grow, even if there are pains in doing so.

Filed under: Depression, Drugs, Existence, Food, Friends, Future, Happy, Home, Lonely, Reality, Strangers, about me, anxiety, cracks, hopes, news, sleep, solitary, vacuum

songs about me

So I’m still not feeling fulfilled.

I have a great life. No need to work. No deadlines. No stress. But I still don’t feel like I actually can be bothered breathing.

That isn’t anyone’s fault. I’m very happy at a lot of things in my life. Great relationships with people, great deal of success already with my projects.

I’ve taken to making jewellery and that is going really well.

I can now juggle. I can make my funky art. I can write (i’m really producing some amazing work). I can make clothes. Upholster chairs. Sail the family boat. Travel when i like.

I have a 32inch hd tv in my room. Surround sound. Dvd player. Laptop. Camera. Camcorder. Guitar. Typewriter. Sewing Machine. Mountains of books and dvds. I have material things to make one tear your own material to pieces in lamentation.

I’ve taken up photography and that is going really really well – as i’ve been offered a fair few opportunities of late to take photos of all sorts of events etc.

Just to touch on writing again. I’ve written the most exciting pieces of fiction ever recently!

I’ve not gotten drunk in weeks and weeks and weeks. So i know i’m not an alcoholic. I’m just a bit of twat when it comes to knowing my limit. So i learnt that lesson! lol – (On the flip side, due to not drinking i’ve picked up on inherent social anxiety, so i think that is why i drank a lot – to lubricate the old personality and push away the fact i get scared in big groups. I draw a lot of energy from people, but crowds really upset me and get me timid. Hence many times leaving parties and street festivals and declining to go on trips off to outdoor festivals too..  when i then lied and came up with some lame excuse. Least now i’m honest enough to admit i’m just a pussy when it comes to large groups.)

But it all amounts to a hill of beans when even on these bloody pills I still can’t seem the conjure up a will to live.

I had a song written about me a while back and the idea of it was – that Much came “to realise that it is life that you (I) despise.“

I’m sure that isn’t true, as much as it is too strong a thing for me to feel toward life. I’m not crying out for help, nor even really making much of an assertion past the simple honest truth.

I don’t care.

I really couldn’t care less.

With that is freedom and oblivion – but i really have no opinion on the matter of life and its vice and virtue.

The last relationship fell on a sword of my uncaring. I’d given up hiding behind a mask made of smiles. Showed a little too much of what it means to live near me. That there is very little that can stir up a case of genuine joy.

Maybe pills are making me apathetic and i’m looking back on life through these eyes, but i think i’ve pretty much always had this outlook.

She goes on to ask why I “must be so blue.” – It used to be up on last.fm, but it has been taken off now – but it is still a damn good song, despite the personal nature of it.

I really don’t try to be. I’m the life and soul. I’m happy and moving like a blur and i still can’t seem to shake this apathy.

Perhaps it is to give me a little wall between my mind and the worry of death? I used to worry about that a lot as a kid. Death became a sort of monster to me, stalking the land, killing indiscriminately, no proof of hereafter, of continuation. I feared a lack of a thereafter more than anything else. Here i am, several years later – not caring.

Perhaps i got bored of the question.

Unsolved questions will drive you mad – unless you temper it with some disinterest.

I’m quite able to hold myself out of the top floor window in my house and not fear the fall. Is that scary? Should i have vertigo to prove i mean to continue?

I’m not sure. I just get the sense that all these wonderful opportunities and skills and talents etc… are just wasted on me. I’m too ambivalent about them all.

Or maybe that isn’t true, maybe what i mean to say is that i can’t hold on to the joy of it for long? I have short bursts of intense happiness and then bam, nothing.

I don’t know, fuck it. At the end of the day it isn’t important. Except i do ache for a little purpose. I’m considering making up a god and just following that blindly. I’ve already taken up Buddhist meditation. That is too much the absence of God, but it meets with the fact i don’t care a stitch for all this junk in my room.

p.s. I’m still pretty lonely and need to meet more people to keep me entertained and motivated.

Filed under: Bath, Depression, Drinking, Existence, Friends, Future, Girls, Happy, Lonely, Travel, Women, Youth, about me, anxiety, childhood, cracks, hopes, much, prose, the novel, undervalued, vacuum, work, writing, writing the novel

broken…

Something I promised myself (and I will keep that promise) was not to stop taking my medication if I starting feeling better. I haven’t. I wont. This is a slight slip, but it acts as a good indication of how seriously I need to take things.

Yesterday I forgot to take my pill. Today I forgot to take another. I told myself it was ok and it was just because I had other things on my mind. About 20mins ago I started feeling rather awful.

Its like a creature is waking up in me and my heart is fluttering in my ribcage. I’ve got this real nervous feeling and I can’t concentrate. I’m spacing out slightly too. Headache on the way.

I honestly didn’t mean to. What will I do?

I’ve set up my mobile phone to let me know when it is time to take my pill. I always have my mobile with me, so its not a hard to be reminded by it. Not sure why I didn’t already. I guess I just thought that once I got into the habit, I’d be okay.

Anyway, don’t worry about me – I’m going to take a pill in order to sleep tonight – then wake-up and make sure that I drug myself up good.

Filed under: Day-to-day, Depression, Drugs, Existence, Sad, anxiety, cracks, sleep

a water-balloon meets a bee

So, knowing – as you do – that my girlfriend and I broke up on the 26th of last month. Well… where to from there?

I came home and took up the task of mending myself. I’ve something, which I suspect can best be described as manic depression, though i wont jump the gun too much until the fact is settled.

I was having a depressive episode about a week before my relationship collapsed. In fact, I think it was a major element that swung my ex-girlfriend’s mind in favor of separation.

20th of Jan and I’m flat-lining on one of the worst depressions in my most recent history and so I ask her to stay around for me (in the sense that she stick in the house to keep my spirits up) – she goes out, which is fine (i figure she’ll be back) – she’s gone for pretty much the entire week – under the banner of band rehearsals. Which I guess was just her way of saying ‘i’m not really feeling the whole caring thing right now!’.

I’m not saying that I’m that sick I need a carer, but I was pretty sick and I just needed someone to watch dumb movies with and eat junk to keep me high on sugar. The Great Distracto!

I’m a sad little muffin – such a pathetic creature – regardless I held it together like a water balloon meeting a bee for the first time.

I hit rock bottom and she had a talk with me – I figured there was no point fighting it (i was beyond the capacity to want to save myself or any part of my life) – so I let her go and GOD do I feel better for that.

I do. No word of a lie, its done me good. I’m certain that the feelings I had for her wasn’t real love – just a deep caring and I know that that will change shape shortly. It’ll go the way of so many past loves, there are stages that I wont go into detail about.

So a few calls later and I’m back in Liverpool (the Wirral to be exact, i have no scouse accent [in fact none at all]). I’m pretty even right now – level as a spirit, you could say. Or maybe not.

I still get these ups and downs that last maybe an hour tops – just little blips before I lose the thread of them and wander off to distract myself with something new and shiny.

For the most part the pills are working and I should be referred over to see someone more specialistic soon.

Until then, I’ve written quite a bit of stuff that I’m going to post up here. That line between genius and madness is pretty thin after all.

p.s. I ask ya, who wants normal anywho – I’m so much more fun nuts than i am on these bloody pills – *yawn!*

Filed under: Cup, Depression, Girls, Happy, Love, Reality, Sad, about me, anxiety, cracks, much, nightmare, solitary, work

the start of things

Chapter One

Re-Genesis

 

 

Reality tearing sounds a little like the extended crashing of cymbals. It had a touch of ‘Revelation’ about it, with great lightening-bolt-like rips running down from the sky in a jagged pattern and, with a rumble of earth, stalactite counterparts reaching up to greet them. Once joined it all looked like a network of veins, or the strands of an epic haphazard web; ink running down a windowpane. The storms, which were a result of the rapid relocation of air, wreaked across the trembling landscape; trees were shaken loose from their roots. Light, too, seemed to change, grew more concentrated in places and in others the sun was eclipsed by the tall pillar-like openings that cast shadows without hems. Where cracks opened and met with the sea, The News showed the water pouring inwards and breaking into vapor that started to glow like embers. Embers that scattered in all directions inside the blackness, until they eventually put themselves out. Anything entering the openings did the same, exploding into a million fireflies that could be seen against the back-drop of black, until they faded out and died. Some cracks were thin, enough that one could circumvent them, like a tree, simply a nuisance to passing; others were as broad as skyscrapers.

 

A country singer, like Captain Wilco, might have described it better. Might just have drawn out a bit more majesty and sang a tune of going home soon, but most other expression pales.

 

Scientists, infinitely less lyrical, spoke like geologists; explaining that our reality had developed cracks along its ‘fault lines’. Announced that these were slowly expanding and that they would make the binding ribbons of our reality increasingly thin. Then they became bakers to explain how, like bread, once the ‘fibers’ of our reality were broken it would be torn apart piece by piece. Last of all they spoke like prophets and philosophers, explaining nothing past apocalyptic rhetoric and idol speculation; about worlds beyond and possible re-genesis on another dimensional plane. In the end it was all just black hole nonsense; nobody sane would believe that there was anything but oblivion on the other side. So, after the first of the ‘jumpers’; who had convinced themselves that what was needed was to ‘break on through to the other side’, most people had the sense not to accelerate their demise.

 

 When civilians saw it there were as many reactions as there were faces. Some wept, some screamed, others began to laugh like maniacs; while Cup Shonee, standing above the little town of Hosannah, just brought the bottle back to his lips and stood expressionless.

 

 fin.

 

 

more to come. 

Filed under: Captain Wilco, Cup, Hosannah, Re-Genesis, Reality, Shonee, books, cracks, hopes, mount, novel, prose, the novel, writing, writing the novel