living with a rock at your face and a hard place somewhere else…

So I’m going to cut to the quick with this and let the marrow show.

I’m not well. I haven’t been for years. Its not a constant illness, a lot of the time I have a hard enough time believing it is there myself – let alone the people who love me, who seem to settle on the idea of my getting better like I’ve got a broken ankle and just need to get the plaster off.

I can’t sleep again. I know the signs. I’m going to wake up one day soon convinced (like never before, but just the same as every other time) that I’m different.

Just like the million times it has happened before. I’ll take my head from the pillow and a new adventure will begin, one where I change my name, my loves, my taste, my friends… everything is thrown out and I just linger on the hinge of sanity.

Fuck it.

Truth is. Every few weeks I’ll have a down spell and I’ll feel worse than hell. Every now and then (Once or twice a year) I’ll wake up and do something about it. Delusion will push me into a new skin.

Right now, I’m in the grip of this nasty, evil, vindictive and destructive emotional state. I could, in this way, be very well described as bound and gagged by life.

I’m so distraught with the way I live. I’m always compensating for one or other element of my fractured character. Who the hell am I?

Am I Ric, the boy who wanted to be a grown up so bad that he sold innocent years trying every sin he could. Who was so in practice by the time that adulthood arrived he was driven to new and lower levels of sickness and depravity to get kicks, so desensitized to intimacy that he still now feels nothing from a kiss. That a fuck is a handshake to him.

Am I Richie, who traveled to many cities with a few people on his mind. Who got so close to giving in to a feeling that he jumped ship and escaped back to the city that was small enough that he was noticed, but big enough to get lost in. Who broke as many hearts as he did because love was meaningless – not least of all because its easy enough to kill it when you first feel it stir up. Who shaved his head to ditch a girl and met another the same afternoon. Who took out his upset at being ditched by his first university love, because she left him wanting more of her, on everyone he met who fell for his innocent looking blue eyes.

Am I Young Cup, the kid who had two dates lined up and shacked up with the one he got to fuck first. Who went out of his way to be a loving partner because it was easier to live with a happy woman than an unhappy one. Who two years later cheated on her out of spite and then went on a drinking binge out of guilt for something she never actually found out? The kid who knew she’d done the same to him, but he never spoke a damn word of contempt for it. Never treated her any less. Who had a down spell at the wrong moment and had the rug pull from his feet. Who fucked things up for trying his best to keep them going.

Am I Old Cup, the kid who being single and lonely found an anarchist to fuck senseless in the grip of such a life of senselessness. A girl who his best mate fell for (who she didn’t like). Who was outed by so-called friends for tearing an  Anarchist’s heart out and then (not one month later) fucking the same girl in my hometown because she was anything but heartbroken! She was a firecracker and sure she wanted more of me than I wanted to give, but that’s no-one’s fault! No friends left in the place he’d loved, because they didn’t have the good courtesy to ask me how it went down? A lost boy, who’s ex got the city and he got the boot.

Am I Jensen, the boy genius, who became an artist and traveled to the height of traffalgar square in support of some ill-thought out agenda? The boy who determined to surround himself with artists and writers of liverpool. Who went to every writers night and hippy hang-out and made friends with so many bands he was heavy with demo cds. Who’d live without a penny in his pocket, without a voice if he could wing it. Who wouldn’t eat for days because it mades him superhuman, and it still does. Who made a promise not to lie again and kept it.

Am I Richard, the friendly bookseller and lark-about who has no trouble making friends. If friends is what you call it. Who can deal with work for as long as it lasts. Who can just about shut out the noise of the rest of his life for the few short hours he’s in work?

Am I The Boyfriend? In a relationship where there’s never been a single crossed word, where we respect each other and anticipate most everything the other needs ahead of time. So in tune its a shame its anything but upbeat. The guy who can’t lie, so he just doesn’t tell her how bad he’s feeling. The guy who can’t hide what’s hurting, so he gives up the name of the lesser stress to hide the larger. The guy who still now doesn’t want to love, for the guilt and agony it causes him in his darker moments.

Am I The Fractured Man? Who wants so much for the world to melt away. Who is in agony for wanting the world to stay the same for just one day, to get to grips with the pace of it. Who can’t deal with an ounce of stress. Who buckles and flays his wrists at the first sign of depression. Who wants to shave his head, don rags, drink bottles and bottles of whatever booze he can conjure up. Who he has been since his second university year, where he gave up on living, but didn’t have the guts to finish his own sentence.

Truth is… there is far more of me than this.

Fact is… I fucking hate the lot of it and I don’t want to keep being so many shades of myself. Because I’m not stupid enough to think that I’m actually many different people, just I find it deadening to try to squeeze all of me into this tiny little slip of a body.

I’m tired.

I want to wipe the slate clean.

I want to hit reset and go back to year dot. I want to forgo love in favor of lasting friendship. I want to ditch desire for the better elements of feeling.

Here’s who I want to be.

The guy who cares enough and is courageous enough to say so. Who doesn’t hold back his feeling because he wants to look like he’s a tough guy. I want to be anything but a tough guy. I want to be a guy that doesn’t lie, because the truth is hard enough. I want to be calm, content and able to challenge myself. I want to be able to deal with a pinch of stress now and then without getting ulcers, quivering hands and headaches. I want to make friends and not worry that they hate me, because that’s what I’ve been faced with up till now. The sudden removal of faces from my life. I want to be able to rely on people, not just myself (barely). I want to make friends and not get paranoid about them changing team, becoming the enemy. I want to admit that I loved people. Not lie to myself and everyone because it means I failed at staying in that great way of being. I want to be the guy who doesn’t just chuck about ‘sorry’ but that adds a little weight to it with some honesty.

‘I’m sorry, I was sick’ just doesn’t cut it. Truth is, sickness is no account for action. I did some horrible things because I chose to do them, because I wanted to feel something, or I wanted to prove that I didn’t. I did things because if I didn’t do something I’d have lost the fight a long time ago. I have done awful things, but I need to bury them and I need your blessing to do it. Everyone should know that I suffer for my sins, if you read this blog at all then that much is clear.

I just roll the pattern over and over in my head. Or it is a bitter pill on the tongue. Whatever cliche works best.

I’m the cause of most every one of my troubles, yet I can’t seem to turn things around. I feel like a time traveller, like every mistake I try to fix causes a bigger one. I feel like everything I do just brings its own troubles.

I’m still here, a month away from the anniversary of my first real attempt to get some help, to get better, to change. I’ve not had any appointments because the NHS is shit. I’m not a woman and I haven’t actually tried to kill myself, so in the eyes of the medical world I DON’T EXIST!

Except, I’m still here aching. I’m no better, though I am better off. I’ve a great life, except I still don’t think I deserve it. I still want to end things before they’ve even begun. I’m 23 for god’s sake!! I should be half as experienced at life as I am. I know people who are 10 years further down the road of life and haven’t had 1/100 of the life I’ve had.

Except it isn’t a matter of pride. Its just disbelieve. I can’t understand why I’ve not cracked the code of life. I’ve gone through a run of combinations and still don’t know a single way that works. I want to have it easy, but easy is hard to find.

I don’t want to start my life 9 years from now, when I enter my own Rosy Crucifixion saga. (I’m reading Miller)

Either I’m a better man now, or I’m just not worse than I’ve been so far.

Only time will tell, but god help me! I want some sort of sign – I want some idea that what I’m after is achievable. Otherwise it’ll just be another few years of holding on, before I work up the courage to let go.

I’ve never held anything back from this blog.

This is truth, this is me (all of me), laid bare.

(This was written at 3am 09/12/09 – please forgive the typos and the lyrical style is just because I’ve been writing a lot of poetry recently.)

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.

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.

Joint

Met her in Porter. I’m reading Philip Larkin and she asks me what I’m reading, so I tell her “only the best poet who ever lived.”
“Oh,” she replies, “Keats?”
“Nope.” I say, trying my best to avoid telling a cute girl that her taste in poetry is flawed. “Larkin.” I say finally.
She’s a brunette with long hair and a white and red striped top. She’s got small breasts and a smile that says yes. She’s the kind of girl that you can throw about in the sack. And I did.
We smoked a joint and fucked for an hour, then she grabbed my cock and jerked and sucked me till I came in her face and she fell back on the bed, giggling.