Purged

I'm going to type without thinking: for thinking involves distress

My ex called me last night, she said that she is in a relationship with this guy who is in his mid 50s, he is a hippy and lived in a caravan. I suppose I should not be surprised that thsi had happened. She said she wanted to take out her coil  and try for a baby with him. I think history is going to repeat itself for her; the man is going to run off likmy ex's other deadbeat ex partner, pregnant and alone. I hope she aborts if that is the case.

My parents are out of the house. Today I have been debating with myself whether I should purge or not. I am writing this post very flippantly and tryingj ust to state my feelings bluntly. I feel like I am a bulimic again. I want to purge again, I feel utterly distressed. I feel strangely more calm as I express this, and less disposed to purge. If I purge, I will be loveable, tortured. Desirable, thin.

I'm going to purge now.

Five things I am grateful for

I have been reading a blog post on a mental health sit that concerns whether one should let go of something in their life through certain symptoms.

Here are some things I would like to list that I am grateful for, I overlook them because I focus so much on the bad. Here is what I am thankful for:

1. I am thankful for my parents who love me
2. I am thankful for not being in debt, like student debt, council tax, utility bills, rent, or loan problems.
3. I am thankful for the luxury of having my own room, my own bed, a computer, good internet connection, a nice laptop that I got for free, free food, warmth and all the things I cherish and own I have not lost.
4. I am thankful for living in security, my person is not under threat and no one is currently intimidating
5. I am fortunate for achieving lots of things in my life. I have performed as a pianist in the past, I have written journalistic pieces, book reviews, I have given talks, seminars and run discussion groups. I have a masters.

The last one perhaps could easily turn into a negative, but I want to say that those things have made my life unique and a blessing. Not many others would have done those things. I must see unemployment as temporary, and that resolution is only around the corner.

A clear desk is a clear mind

I cleared my desk at the moment. I was watching a documentary on Iplayer about past university challenge winners. They are all exceptionally underconfident and have something very 'other' about them. I'm glad that I am not like that, although I do see a little bit of myself in them.  I suppose we have a bit of ourselves in everyone, we have those things that we see in ourselves that no one else may, or those that people see in us but we do not have any personal association with.

I cleared my desk. It made my mood change immediately. I feel a bit different now, I have brought up a small shelf from the shed into my room, that will keep somd of the artefacts in my room more organised. I have also got a big rock on my desk, that has been thtere for a while but was hiding behind my book butler, for the past 2-3 weeks I had been ripping 496 CDs, I have finally finished that now and I dont have an excuse for keeping my room in a temporary sty. It felt like a very short time in which I had all those CDs in a horrible order, it felt realyl like 3-4 days. The first day was bringing it all up, the second day was havnig a system, the 3rd day was the lazy state when I waws getting them done in any old way I could, and finding problems with the system. The last day was the finalisation and the creation of my music playlist that is about 448 hours now.

It feels a lot different having a clearer desk. I feel a lot more erratic. I miss the person that I used to be, I feel a bit dead these days not having a job and all that. I am embarrassed to answer the question 'what do you do'?

I feel a temporary sense of pleasure and that I am actually getting something done, I feel that this may just be an appearance but not a reality. It is nice to feel a bit more mentally active. I hope it lasts so I can actually get something done.

I should write poetry.

11am remarks

I've gotten up about 10, properly woke up about 10:45, breakfast comprised of orange juice and watching in the night garden, I still miss my ex and her daughter. I miss them dearly. I must move forward with my life, she certainly is. I have to rely on that big reserve of strength within.

There is a saying from Aesop that the one who complains the most suffers the least. That's probably right. The only time I ever saw my dad cry was when his brother died. One time my grandmother died and my mum cried very much. Understandable as it was her mother, but I was alone in the house. It was quite distressing to be alone with that. I called a neighbour to come over. Except for housework, my parents rarely complain about things.

I was listening to some old cds from my dad's archive. I'm listening to some pepsi chart 1997 or something. There was a song that was a theme to the tv series friends. I was actually listening to the lyrics. I forget how bleak they are: friends was a series initially about how life fucked up and didn't end up the way you thought it would when you are a young adult. The song is by a band called the Rembrandts. I bet they hate themselves for not being recognised beyond 'Friends'. It reminds me of when a girl says to a guy 'we're just friends'.

I weighed myself this morning. I have the same reading of 222.2. This means two things, one; my weight is stable, that is good. However, I'm still fat. I am definately fitter. I am that fit guy who also happens to be overweight. I see this really as a tipping point for me. This is the edge of the sword. Do I plunge the sword and continue to lose weight? or do I dance on the tip and then get fat again? My friends have pointed out to me that when I train, I must get my heart beating to a high rate so as it is 75% of capacity of what is maximum bpm. I will look at that right now as very positive.

I have been staring at this blog page, in essence, procrastinating. I feel like If I say the right thing; if I get out all of my thoughts and feelings on this page right now, I might say something that will make it all better. I think this is a sign that my will is weak right now.

My scheduled task for now is updating my CV. I'll be off to that now. Must avoid procrastination. I can return to the hell of lifelessness and accidie in the evening. Now, I can fight, I can concentrate, and win.

I missed an interview (and I don't like it...)

I  woke up about 07:30 from my phone alarm. I felt horrible. I felt that the only thing that would relieve my anxieties and sense of distress was the option that I had of skipping the interview. I thought to myself:

i. Oh, other interviews will come
ii. I probably won't get it anyway, given my past record
iii. I feel exhausted
iv. It's unpaid, why bother
v. Its an internship to something I may not want to go in to
vi. I might end up a teacher anyway
vii. I might get the belgian PhD
viii. I might not get the belgian PhD, oh, woe is me, I don't want to do anything
ix. I would feel better if I didn't go, it would be temporary relief

I then got a call about 9:30 from the local GP. I had also gotten a call from the GP at 6pm last night. Let me address the latter first. The GP from my new surgery has a habit of calling me in the evening, and i find my evening time sacred, my parents do not go into my room, I don't talk to them very much at that time, and I wank myself silly, feeling the only sense of self-inflation (no pun here, i mean in terms of ego). The GP called last night to ask me to fill out a questionnaire, which I had already done the previous week. I was called in the morning to call a psychology appointments service. So, while they are not really answering my request for counselling by actually saying 'here's an appointment for counselling', or 'we are referring you to counselling', or 'we can't refer to to counselling'; they refer me to some psychologist fuck.

I Thought to myself, okay, I'll be stoic about this and just agree. I feel close to that anger that I used to have back in the day. But I can keep it at bat more or less these days. I don't want to sound negative all the time, although this morning was pretty depressing. I admit that I am feeling less bad today, although I could easily rationalise to myself a reason to feel bad. I also have, by another challenge, reasons to feel good. I got up today, I brushed my teeth, I am wearing jeans (human clothes, rather than undignified 'b' -team clothes that my mother insists I wear to ease her ironing duties). I have also moved forward with this counselling situation.  I might go even further and book an appointment with the GP, maybe the Nurse. I can make up a reason, I just want to go and feel human again. I can go on account of my fucked up knee; or I can make some bullshit excuse to talk about my treatment options for depression, as the GP had invited me to discuss (namely, the drugs he prescribed that i did not take). I could also go to ask for some drugs. Drugs might ease the pain of my RSI, and my knee.

Really,  I just want someone to pay atention to me, call me Mr. Conatus, and for me to feel like a person again, not a guy in a primark t-shirt that happens to be in the house when they are really seeing my parents. I'm a non-person, that's exactly what my supervisor called me when I finished my dissertation.

Card shop

I went out to the card shop today. It is a number of notable birthdays this month, so I had decided to get some cards, and go outside for a walk. The last thought in my head was reluctance on account of my injury yesterday. My reluctance was based upon my accidie instead. I managed to go out and walk to the card shop. I had observed that there are a lot of gendered cards. I am not close to my sister, and I am not in a position to make jokes with my dad, being entirely dependent on his money and house and food. I had found cards that do not express too much sentiment that I am likely to give. I decided to give a card of simple sentiment. I don't say 'I love you' to my sister, I've been somewhat physically and emotionally distant to her. My sister and I used to be really close, but that was a very long time ago. I was a ten year old who used to knock on her door, her ideosyncratic response was "entree".

My sister used to inhabit a very small room, it was probably quite oppressive, as I felt oppressed living in that room a decade later. I should now scrawl on the cards and dish them out for birthday purposes. I feel that my motivation is very poor today. I can say that I have done a few things today, but I feel like it isn't enough. I shall continue to strive for today.

...as mud

Moving forward is a bit difficult when you choose to struggle with the present.

I have a lot of things to dwell on, lots of things that I can say that upset me and that push me into a depressed state of mind.

What is important, however, is to move forward, move to the future and immerse myself in the future that I am building for myself. I have felt myself reluctant to move with my schedule this week. I attribute this to the task I have set for myself last week, I have been ripping CDs into my Dad's new hard disk drive. It has been a lot of effot and some agitation.  It has been an agitation because my dad was supposed to do this task but seems to make excuses or be terribly defensive if I take up the point that he is not doing it and is wasting time. My dad replies that it is not an important task and there is no rush. My reply is; you could have done it over the past three weeks when I have been reminding you, but you have just lazed about doing things on a whim instead of planning tasks and getting things done systematically and in an ordered fashion. My parents and their flaws are so aggrivating that I feel inclined to just give up complaining and pointing out their flaws, I think that I have already reached that stage. I am powerless financially to criticise them. They say how they paid through my university fees and my living fees and I have no right to criticise them. Not even if the point is valid, they would say.

There is a saying that goes something ilke: take the log out of your own eye before noticing the flaws of others. It is biblical, I suspect. I need to focus on my own flaws, and I have a lot of them; here's a list:

1. I am a giver-upper
2. I didn't fight hard enough for my relationship
3. I am slothful
4. I don't push myself hard enough
5. I am too complacent with this limbo that I am living in.
6. I am not envisaging the future that I want.
7. I am not where I want to be
8. I have disappointed myself
9. I am fat
10. I injured my leg
11. I am not confident and assertive enough
12. i fucked up my masters degree
13. I am 23 and wasting my life
14. I have jealousy and envy and hate, and yet i find it difficult to face myself and improve who I am, find it difficult to make things right.

I will make things right, undo the mistakes that have ruined my past two years. I will move forward and become a new person, I will make it all better and improve this situation. It will all be resolved when i use the strength of my will and demonstrate my strengths and realise that I am in control of my destiny and I can make it all right for myself.

The small step forward

This week I think that I shall acknowledge a small step forward in what is the pessimism of my life. I have recieved two messages from nice girls on social networking sites. Although in a sense they have similarities to my ex; I acknowledge that they may not be looking for anything serious and they like me because they find me in some part physically attractive.

The other thing I am ashamed to admit is that they are looking at pictures from my bulimia phase. People seemed to think I was sexier when I was bulimic. That very thought is a temptation to revert back. In other news this week, I have been upping my training regime, and last week I did (as it was noted), 135 minutes, on wednesday I did light training with my buddies which lasted 45 minutes, which included a .5 k sprint and my new personal best of 75 situps. Just now I have come back from shouting at my dad for his slothful nature, as well as reflecting negatively on my own sloth.

I am angry at my dad for being so lazy, more angry at him, I am angry at myself for his laziness affecting me. I want to be the better person and encourage him to be a better person. It is challenging as my dad is a stubborn man. I hate the realisation that my da is very much the flawed person which reflects that I am also similarly flawed. I want to improve, and its difficult. My training session today included some chest presses, about 35 situps and 5 laps around the marsh. I haven't calculated the distance exactly but I suspect that the distance is 5k.

I am now warming down. I feel that I am less articulate in the expression of my thoughts. I am not posting as much, and I feel like I could get to writing something creative, prose or poetic. I need to fit it into my schedule. I have found my schedule to be quite daunting. A single day lasts longer than a single unit of time that it should be. It feels like a phase, I feel that a lot of time has passed since I have been beyond the socailly acceptable answer of 'what do you do?'.

I feel like deep down I want to emotionally invst and put my bets on those two girls who messaged me on the social networking site. I feel desperate to be loved and to be wanted again. Last night I allowed myself to reminisce little things about being in a relationship. I felt a bit in control unlike the trigger of the friday previous (when I ate takeaway chinese). It is still distressing to remember the fondness of being loved and having someone to love. The crazy girl (I think I named her Helen in a previous post) called me at 9pm last night, essentially saying nothing at all but wanting someone to talk to. I felt distant, like the boy I used to be, inadequate and twiddling one's thumbs. The crazy girl was saying how she was networking with other girls who were victims of this particular sexual offence that she ws, and she was going to help them (explicitly with the caveat that they would promise to help her in return).

I remember this girl at university. I told her that I had a breakup which was related to why I was living with my parents. The girl then said how she relates to how I feel, she once had a boyfriend at uni for 5 weeks and then they split up after they graduated. I wanted to say quite bluntly: "NO, I don't think it is the same to compare your relationship of 5 weeks to my 2 year ordeal".

I have sent off more applications and I did wake up earlier than my poor record of 11am. I feel like I have my feelings more under control and a friend of mine who I talk to online said that she allows herself a specficit amount of time in the day to feel down, and then gets back to her routine. After hearing that note of assurance. I have allocated times for myself to allow all those thoughts to air; those thoughts that I give suppression in order to survive life.

seeing the end of the tunnel

I feel life may be betting better, that the more applications and things that I apply for, the more seeds may flourish that I had sown. That there may be more oppurtunities and a possible way to survive this life is a thing that motivates me. Yesterday I entitled myself to a 'day off'. I went training with my two friends, the regular jogging buddy, and his brother, another good friend, who was over having a visit for two weeks.

I spent the rest of the day with them, we saw three films, ate some pizza and laughed a few times. Upon coming home, I found that I had gotten a message from a girl on OKcupid; she was also on a social networking site that a friend of mine had invited me on. I also was trawling about the website and met a girl who had similar music tastes to me, and wrote their profile in a way that anticipated it was meant for me.

I had gotten a message from the social networking site on Monday from another girl; she called me a pretty boy. The other girl yesterday called me "pretty, VERY pretty". The latterly girl, as I late r found, is in a relationship and loves him, but is non-monogamous. If I were to get closer to her, it would only be as a 'bit on the side'. It would be nice to have a friend with benefits (and I don't mean council tax or housing benefits). Being called 'pretty' 'cute', 'pretty boy' or 'beautiful boy' is perhaps the one only validation that I have in my low esteemed life. To end yesterday was on a low, however. I had noticed that my ex facebooked me and not only that, she also made some insinuating comment on my brother's wall that was flirtatious. That's really crossing the line, ex or not. I thought to myself, how shall I cope with this trigger? I reacted by doing something unconventional. I shut the lid of my laptop and lay in the complete dark, with nothing but silence and my thoughts. rarely do I leave myself to face my own thoughts and feelings, I always have myself half doing something else, or completely doing something else, so that I do not have a comprehensive apprehension of my feelings. I had found that constructive, not only that, I found it helps me not be so depressive.

I had a few moments of utter terror and despair that night. Not much can be said of it, other than, it has now passed.

Today, I had done quite a few things. I had worked enough to cover the GCal block that I had over the past 3 days. I had applied to a disability graduate scheme, a low paid job for a policy research body, and the Open university as a tutor. I've also been burning CDs and I do quite feel that I've gotten a fair bit done. Tomorrow I am scheduled to write a PhD proposal for an obscure european university. I'm looking forward to whatever the future holds. I do quite look forward to having a new girlfriend.

In other news, I got a call from the GP surgery, and they asked me to complete a survey befoer going to counselling. I hope this advances things on the front of trying to sort out going to counselling. i then had an anger trigger.

Anyhoo. tdoay is a good day. I slowly feel like I am a normal person, and an attractive boy :)

16:12 I think I'm allowed to be angry

I missed the train to get to the job centre.

I decided that I would go home and, since I'd be at the job centre tomorrow anyway, I would ask to go maybe tomorrow and sign in.

I went home, talked to my piano teacher, who used to teach me years ago but now teaches my mum. I then had a croissant, got annoyed by my dad. I need another box for all the CDs that I am scanning for him. My dad says there are no spare boxes in the shed, so I should get some. I felt a bit thrown, and offended by what he had said, it seemed audacious that he would tell me to go to a shop and ask for spare boxes. My dad said it in a manner as if it was question begging, you know, when someone asserts something as a question, or states a question as an assertion.

I felt that it was too much effort, most of all. Perhaps a part of my own laziness. I then felt a trigger, I was reminded of the time I went to ask for boxes in the little down where she used to live, so that she would move out and use those boxes to carry her things.

After eating the croissant, I went upstairs to call the job centre with the number that the person who i called from the number on my job centre sign in book. The sign in book says ' call number p' if you cant make the signing in. P says 'call number Q' . I called Q after croissants and feeling annoyed with my dad. Calling 'Q' was annoying, she called me 'honey' aned put me on hold, twice. She then concluded that I needed to call 'R' to arrange an interview. She then said 'why don't you come into the job centre now?'. I thought Okay, I might do that, and then she said 'oh wait...', she puts me on hold and says I need to call another number. just for that, I lost hope in bothering to go, the audacity that P told me to call Q who then says I need to call R. After calling R, my sense of self-worth, self-esteem and bothering with it pushing me to the limits of stoicism. If you are cruel, or think humour is appreciated here (which it is not), I called R, and guess what she told me?

Firstly she made me feel guilty that I couldn't sign in. In a sense she has a fair point, but all this P telling me to call Q who told me to call R. R then tells me to call S to arrange an interview.

I thought at that point that I would just give up. I give even bothering. This is causing me more upset than £50 a week is worth, furthermore. I AM NOT EVEN RECIEVING THAT MONEY.

I think that for the rest of today, I am just going to take it easy, take it slow, and maybe get drunk. This is just a bit too much for my sanity. I think I am more encouraged to write to my MP