i hate how my friends refer to the whatsapp chat group as a blog.

ITS NOT A FUCKING BLOG YOU PIECE OF SHIT LUDDITES.

totally related to this earlier remark. I just googled the meaning to the word 'passive-aggressive'. I wrote the meaning on my notepad just now:

...of or denoting or personally characterised by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation

Dear Diary,

It's christmas day.

I remember it last year.

This year is another year. Life has changed for many around me. Certainly my life has too.

I think I had a realisation yesterday.

I'm disappointed in myself that I couldn't be the best version of myself.

I'm disappointed in the world around me for not giving me the chance to be the best person that I could be.

But foremost, I am responsible for making my life and myself. I made who I am someone that I don't always like and someone who is flawed. I can't place the blame on that on anyone else.

I try through the day to be some kind of best version of myself. THat involves eating right, being as nice as I can to people, and pushing myself at work and the gym. I am not so dedicated in my personal affairs at being the best person that I could be.

Perhaps that's something I need to work on.

I'm sitting at my desk. I'm listening to Beethoven on Spotify, I have a beethoven playlist. I'm around all the things in myroom and surrounded by my personal affects.

Perhaps that is the vest that I can be right now. Maybe next year could be better.

Today I packed up and sent off two Christmas presents to people who dislike me. I did it with no malice.

That wasn't easy for me. If it felt hard, that implies that it was the noble thing to do right?

Dear Diary,

I think to myself lately that the most aspirational thing I can do is sit in front of a computer in quiet conditions, on my own terms.

I'm trying to do that today. I'm working on a backlog of things, as well as planning my week.

December is a hard month. The dark months are hard for me, but I've been fighting well lately.

Dear Diary,

Lately I've been doing some online betting, and doing fairly well (at least sofar). I need to do it in a more controlled fashion.

My night terrors have taken a turn for the worse lately. Nightmares bleed into my waking hours.

I feel that my best response of dealing with it today is

Dear Diary,

I have been wondering if depression makes me smarter. I remember reading that people with depression have a tendency to think in a certain way that involves critical thought (which could be an aspect of intelligent thinking)

On the other hand I've also read somewhere that many patients with depression have a reduced brain section which is related to memories.

My mind is a depressed mind at the moment. I'm trying to navigate what that means for me, outside of third personal hearsay of scientific studies.

I woke up a bit earlier than usual today, that's good. Another positive is that I engaged in a new situation or two today. I saw a new shop and had brunch in a coffee house. I've also been working on setting tasks for myself during my working days over the next month.

When I'm at work lately I've often requested a few things from IT and site management that help me with my work, namely, past editions of the sentinel. I have noted that this is an habitual pattern and so I've looked at the calendar to decide upon which editions I'll need a look at, and i've listed them in the upcoming work days that I'm doing.

That basically means, I am purporting what my mindset will be like in the future (assuming consistency) and making the decision already in my head and just writing my outcome.

I call it outsourcing my brain to the cloud.

I also feel pretty low.

In other news, my diet has gotten better.

Positives:

• I am in love with the winter jumper that I bought
• I love my blue lit desk tools
• I like getting free stuff
• I've got a lot to do, in the sense of many plans and many things - probably too much actually. But I am not short on things I could do. Just the energy and attention for it all.
• My relationship with my brother is pretty good at the moment.

i remember a younger version of me would pride themselves on saying the unsayable. exploring social taboos by bringing it to the air.

I've found people don't always want to talk about things, that's a given. But the other thing is that people also don't want to listen, or listen selectively within the locus of things they consider taboo and acceptable - avoiding or filtering out the bad stuff.

I think I am no different.

I should write on this blog more. I've been quite depressed lately. My head hasn't been in a good place of late, then bad stuff happens on top of it.

It could be very easy to make this about my weight.

Yesterday I wrote about how I'm eating better and how it's making me feel better about my body.

Someone I chat to on facebook suggested that I make a list of positives when I feel low. So i can make it a balancing act. Focus on the positives, the negatives are very much there and I just have to accept that. But the positives can also be there too.

I have one recurring fear. That is I may one day be alone for christmas. No family, no friends. For whatever reason (and I'm sure there will be many), they wont have me around.

When I started writing this blog I had a penchant for gap long sleeve tops.

During my first depression (that's what I'll call it), I felt lost because the life I knew changed so much that I realised it couldn't continue anymore. One response to this was to change myself in various ways. I got into new music, developed new routines and I tried to be different sartorially.

In 2005 I had a pair of shoes. They were climbing shoes with really thin soles but also light to walk in. I developed a relationship with those shoes. They eventually died, then I got into brown Chelsea boots. I've replaced them a few times but I still wear the same type of shoes today.

This week I bought a lot of winter gear from uniqlo. At the gym today I realised with my unshaved face and slightly longer hair, combined with some slight weight loss recently; I looked in the mirror of the gym studio and I saw a future of the 2007-8 version of me. I saw that old look, re vitalised or reborn.

My old look. It makes me a bit emotional. I feel its 'classic me'.

when one of my friends tells me that it's time i need to change my behaviour and act more maturely, i think its time i need to soberly reflect on my life.

Not that I haven't been doing that anyway.

But I could do a better job at life, a better effort in giving a shit about other people, myself and respecting other people.

I have a confession.

Recently I've been slowly more and more drawn to religious (specifically Catholic) upbringing


There's an idea in Catholicism - called venial sin, that everyone is a scumbag, potentially and actually. I think that's really powerful for me because I realise how much of a potential and actual scumbag I've been, that I am and that I could be. It makes me sad, it makes me feel ashamed. It makes me feel like I'm a scumbag both from my actions and from my inherent design.

That's what I might call step one.

Then there's step two. Owning up to it. Acknowledging I'm a scumbag and working on being a better person.

Then maybe there's a step three - trying to make good on in the future potentially or intentionally being a dickhead.

Maybe I was brought up catholic and brought up with guilt. I'm not saying that's wrong or right, right now, my sense of regret and guilt is valid.

Now, how do I use that to do the step three thing, and make it right, make me better.

Dear Diary,

My head is a cocktail of fuck, a fucktail if you will. Insomnia, panic attacks, hot and cold coming over me constantly.

I got up 'early' at 12. I fell asleep about 7:30am due to the insomnia. I'm so tempted to get some sleeping pills - but I'm worried that I could get addicted to them.

Today I'm sitting at my desk, listening to the smiths. My desk is a mess. I haven't eaten much between last night and today. I'm really into sparkling water right now.

I better get back to my work.

Hello old friend.

Depression, you are the friend who comes back after ages and its like you've never left.

This isn't an odd day where I worry about it coming back. It's back. It's really back. That episode that I keep writing about on this awful blog and even the time after where I talk about how it has moved past and I get through life after the episode --- well now I'll talk about how it's back again.

It's different this time. I felt that before it was linked to my past, linked to specific things. Now I feel as if it is timeless, pure, Platonic, even.

I'm trying to get by my life despite it. But it's hard when you sleep 14 hours a day and feel like you are 150% your body weight.

It's hard to concentrate, I've lost my interests. I feel frightened to go out. Then there's the panic attacks.

I write about this but I'm cautious not to sound like a victim. To some extent I am the author of my own depression. As Ultron says in the Age of Ultron film: Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Today I'm off. I've been off for a while. My job situation changed over the past few months - I'm sitll not full time in a 'proper' job. But I work casual/freelance sort of thing. It doesn't feel great but it is increasingly common these days for folks to work in this way.

For the past few hours I've been reading a stack of papers and magazines that I've collected. I'm trying to catch up with the world, in so doing, catching up with trying to be 'me'. Whoever that is.

I have depression again.

For me, there is not as much emotion as the first time it happened.

For me it's more like: oh shit, I'm too tired to do anything, I'll just put youtube videos on my phone and I'll pass out to sleep.

It's hard to fight, because its like being constantly tired.

There isn't an emotional component as much as a physical side. I think my emotional maturity is able to separate it.

Right now I'm just trying to keep upright, I'm trying to stick to a few priorities. Keep my room tidy and keep afloat.

My brain's in a haze. It's sort of like being drunk, except no booze. If I pull through this I should say to myself that I should avoid alcohol. There's no point in having alcohol if I don't need to drink it to feel this way. It's like I'm drunk for free.

I'm trying to be optimistic and funny. Although really I'm just --- really really tired.

Really really tired

Dear Diary,

I am listening to Babyshambles. I'm not sure why but my mind is taken back to the mid 2000s a lot. I can't believe I'm saying 'mid 2000s' like its a concrete thing. I started blogging with Conatus at the tailend of the mid 2000s. I'm a much different person now. I think I might not even recognise who I am inside.

I've been working almost full time for the past 2-3 months and Today is a day where I can just sit at my desk and relax for a bit. Well, not relax, I mean catch up with stuff.

Maybe some things I might update you with

• I am now doing a job which is done by subeditors. Does that make me a subeditor? I've been wrestling with that question for a while.
• I think I might have PTSD. The memories and other bad things of life weigh heavy on me.
• I think that I've changed on the inside in being much more laid back and much more consumerist. I feel like consumerism can fill the holes inside me. Getting a new backpack or arranging my financials seem more a reason to get out of bed than philosophy or a pursuit of truth.
• I'm still on meds. I'm quite dependent on it. I can't soar with them, I can't live without them.
• I'm still really shit at writing and communicating. How the fuck did I become a subeditor??

I'm going to quit blogging now and tidy up my room.

Wish me luck. 

Dear diary,

I have a desk drawer with 3 drawers, and they are almost full of plastic cutlery.

I have been collecting plastic cutlery for the past 9-10 months.

I don't know why, I just feel like I have to.

I think there's something wrong with me.

I've not made it out. I've just survived and endured

Good morning,

One of my recurring dreams seem to be about me being back in school. Not necessarily being in school but being in the role of being a pupil. Being around authoritarian figures, being under their complete control and trying to get ahead in that environment.

I had a weird recollection in my recent dream that I was forced to do some kind of PE/games session, but then it turned out that I was pretty good on the boxing pads, and it felt at that moment that re-living things as a pupil were quite different to the old days when I was an actual pupil.

I'm not sure what to make of that. I was in a dinner party conversation a while back, in which we talked about the significance of dreams. A psychotherapist (I have a psychotherapist friend now) said to me that he loves hearing about dreams and is open to the interpretation of them. A psychiatrist (I also have a psychiatrist friend [they don't know my history]) then said that was utter tosh and dreams don't tell us reliable things.

I like to listen to dreams. Interpreting them is another issue. I make a point of trying to write about my dreams.

Lately I haven't been posting on my blog because I have been posting elsewhere. I have been expressing myself through a tumblr and instagram account. I have been trying to express myself in pictures of the world around me, instead of the feelings inside me. I guess, like the symbolic dream; what I do in the pictures is attempt to communicate what is going on within me through the pictures.

I suppose I'm trying to say that the world around me and that I've grown up in, has affected who I am and what I am. The world around me, if you want to know, isn't so great.

Neither am I.

I'm off to work later today, I'm doing a subeditor shift.

I am really surprised I could say that. There's a depressed past version of me whom I suspect things that 'I've made it' out of the hell that was my past and my pain.

I've not made it out. I've just survived and endured.

Dear Diary,

the phrase 'hit the ground running' comes to mind when something that holds you back no longer holds you back. But, I feel too tired to hit anything or run while hitting it.

My biggest challenge to day is staying upright on a chair.

Dear Diary,

It's been quite a while since I've posted. Every post I seem to say that.

My computer hasn't been in the best health of late. I think that's going to change now after some tweaks.

I realise that I have a lot of problems, a lot of challenges in my life and inside myself. I realise my greatest demon is myself.

I'm quite depressed lately but ...lots has happened in life so I haven't lost all that time to depression.

Let's see where to start:

• I'm an almost subeditor lately
• I have a bit more money due to more work
• I bought some new clothes
• I like reading print newspapers and magazines more 
• I have more grey hairs
• I have a greater receding hairline
• I have night terrors
• I feel constantly tired

On pain of being melodramatic.
I will have to go to a life changing event tomorrow. It will be life changing for me.

I feel like I won't be around for very longm. The past few months I've known about this and I've lived in a way as if that 10am tomorrow is going to be my last day on earth, or my end.

So today is akin to my last day. If I'm still alive, I won't be the same and I know I won't like who I will be. This has to happen and ...I still don't know how to be truly candid and expressive about the shit gong on in my head.

The way I can express myself lately is... Collecting salt packets, wet wipes, coffee stirrers, receipts, free newspapers, PR review albums and academic book review books. You might call it obsessive collecting behaviour. I call it a desperate attempt at some stability.

Goodbye

If I'm alive tomorrow. I won't be the same person

Just earlier I went on Facebook. I did something I haven't done in a while. I was 'stalking' a few profiles. Mostly people I went to school with. Looking at their pics I see their lives and I feel as if a fly on the wall of their most hallowed memories.

I feel a sense of detached happiness for them. They have beautiful lives and happy memories. What feels odd for me is seeing their not so recent pics. Pics from times since I last knew them. When I was going through my own life, they were living their own adventures and challenges.

I feel an odd closeness to people I knew from primary school. They are almost certainly unrecognisable now
But I still feel happy when I see them smile on their Facebook memory wall.

Perhaps this is what magnanimity is like

dear diary,

lately i've not posted much. I guess I have had less interesting thoughts, or scary realisations and dark revelations that I'd rather not share. I don't like much of who I am. but I do realise I need to work on my problems.

dear diary.

today I'm trying to motivate myself to get some boring shit done.

I think my best motivation presently is to say: iff you get enough stuff done in a couple of hours, you can go to the gym.

If it works...

I was watching the fim Ghost Rider (the second one) in recent days. I was drawn to the idea of Nicolas Cage as a person who had a demon inside him. The dark side inside him that was a perverse senes of good. I guess I can relate to that at the moment.

I have a lot of demons at the moment. Demons which are ruining my life. I really want to change myself and I must change with every draw of breath and every sinew of effort.

I woke up about 7am today, and I listened to the radio. Radio 4, it was quite ccomforting. Then I felt exceptionally tired and then I managed to get up and out of bed by about 10:30. Since then I have been attempting to blaze through a pre-ordained set of tasks that I have set for myself today.

I still feel the demon inside me callling, sloth, pride, accidie. All of those horrible things. I am looking forward to a few things in social life coming up:

• A friend of mine is in an opera and I'll be seeing him after work on wednesday next week
• tomorrow I have a discussion group
• I might be going on a date next monday with a person i've not been out with before, but whom I know.
• Stag party in a couple of weeks. 

Dear Diary,

I've not been posting much. I think that's partly because I have a slow computer where RAM is a bit difficult to load a page, so I've stripped down things to the essentials.

In other news lately:

PhD

One university is asking if I'll take up their offer from last year. While another I am considering applying to.

Money

I'm worried about money again. I've lately started betting to try and get some more money. I've been making slow gains in terms of the betting.

Health

My health has good and bad days. My body has gotten better from doing the gym and weating a weighted vest, oh yeah, I've bought a weighted vest. I have , as of today, re-started my Sertraline. My night terrors continue and I'm not very well mentally.

Work

I am still doing 2 temp part time casual jobs. I re-start at the Sentinel this week. I'm kind of relieved/glad to do so. That will help with my money woes.

Relationships

Things are going well with Hannah, I am starting to feel all goey and lovey about her with really small things, like listening to the lion king soundtrack and we have nicknames for each other. In other news, my ex Antonia has re-contacted me and things are on okay terms. Casual, as it were. Another woman-girl whom I have had some online contact with over the years has started to contact me a bit more, and I'll be meeting her next week I think. Details to come soon on that front.

I feel frustrated because:

- of the horrible ambient sounds around me
- my NHS form was rejected and I will need to pay more for my treatments
- I can't speak or act freely in the environment I'm in. My interests in things like learning are not valued
- my sense of indecision is eating at me

My demons are haunting me very badly tonight.

Dear diary,

I realise a few things

• My life needs to change
• I need to do some spring cleaning (currently underway
• I have compulsive behaviours that I need to work on that potentially is destroying my life and my body and my mind

Recently my brother got engaged.

I think he's changed a lot over the past few years. If I'm honest, I preferred when he was edgy and cool, not some fuck that watches true blood and has to sleep before 10pm.

But everyone changes and we have to accept them for that. I changed too over the years.

I'm going to split this post into two themes. Firstly, real life, and my inner world.

Real world

I find it hard to get up most days, but not as hard as it used to be. Mum keeps grating at me for being 'overweight' and saying I should get a haircut (probably because my hair loss is more and more evident).

Lately I've taken to some new special interests. I like making scrapbooks from magazines and newspapers. I like to put together political stories with celebrity stories; stories that try to show the newspaper's line on being all forward thinking and revolutionary in terms of gender equality, and then the next page: WHICH OSCAR STARS HAVE UGLY FEET? We all have a sidebar of shame in this modern 4G age.

I've also taken a liking to buying action figures. I started off after seeing a really cheap £1.50 action figure in wilkinsons, then I bought another, and another, then a 3-pack with a vehicle, then another, then another. Then I bought some halo action figures from the entertainer toy shop. They were about 10x cheaper than I see them priced in nerd comic shops. I'm kind of reminded of Hank in Breaking Bad (which I have recently finished watching) who has a fascination with rocks after his injury left him unable to walk.

At work, things are ...changing? My contract at the sentinel ended. I'm now on track to re-sign in June. I'll have to take some mandatory time off (so I don't get full employment rights). I'm doing some shambly work later today. I haven't done any shambly work in a good while, possibly 2-3 months. I have been less and less available for working in events, I also suppose that I have been less willing too. Not as many hours plus the labour is more intensive than doing admin/payroll/PA stuff.

At the moment I am in my underpants feeling that my life is in a shamble. It has been worse I should be honest, It has been better too. My feeling at the moment is something like this: I need to make my future now, from everytthing I do from putting away the recycling to sending out PhD applications.

I also went to a university open day - my former headmaster and a few alumnus were there.

Head World

About once or twice I have been laying down, and I entered an imagined scenario. Throughout my life, since I was about 9 or so, I used to imagine worlds in my head and other adventures that I might be having in some parallel world. In doing so, I would imagine things from piloting the millenium falcon (I was 9, give me a break) to in my later teens imagining that I would meet future versions of myself. I imagined that we would all meet together in this odd psychic domain of imagination and talk about things. As I get older, I return to this thought, this meditation. I saw myself now in that psychic imagination and I envisaged myself around the time I was doing my masters. The younger me was imagining another world, as he was in the throes of purging, in real life that younger me was laying on the floor of the grad school toilet, between vomiting sessions. The current, older me was laying down also.

In this domain of imagination, the younger me and current me talked. I asked him if he had any general life advice, his advice was to fight everything with every aspect of my being. I asked him if that's how he lived his life and he implied yes by flexing his muscles (which as it happened were less than mine are now but he thought he was big). The current me asked younger me if he lived by that credo, why was he hiding in a toilet, imagining a world away from the one he was with me. A metaphorical door appeared, two doors. One that went back to my time and one that went back to his.

I said to my past self: you could follow your own advice and go through that door, get up and get out of that toilet. The younger me found it difficult, for that moment I felt exactly what that younger me did and I was taken back to that day I was laying there. The floor was clean and the toilet didn't smell too much of piss. The younger me paused and struggled, asking me: what advice would you give me?

Take care of yourself, I said. I knew what he was going to ask then, which was whether I took that advice. I said something like: I do more than you currently take care of yourself, but I could probably do better. He then asked me why I am staying in this domain of imagination, why I haven't walked through my door and faced the demons of my present.

I paused and I realised that I should. I then said: "I just want to be here a little bit longer, with you, with what you are feeling and who you were, before I go back to my world". I stayed just for a moment, like that last hug or kiss goodbye with a lover, knowing it has to end and knowing as your lips partt and your bodies move away, its truly over. I held on but not for too long. Then I went through that door, I didn't look back but I knew he stayed in that room for longer than I did.

I walked out of that door and entered my real world. My problems of the present, my situation. It is very hard to do, and to some extent its quite boring. But its what I need right now.

Dear Diary,

I'm living in a way as if I died at the end of the month. No, I'm not committing suicide and I'm not dying (not immediately soon anyway).

I will go through something wherein life will not be the same ever again and I may be a different person unrecognisable from before.

For now I've got to do all the boring stuff, get all the basics of living life down to a tee. I don't think I can do very much in my life, the things that I can do I suppose I will focus on. Today I've set up a to do list of things to get on with. I'll get on with that, I suppose.

I'm trying not to feel panic. I'm experiencing panic fairly regularly, and night terrors. It sucks. On the plus side, I think I'll get my contract renewed from June. That juicy money coming in will be good I hope.

Dear diary, today I was working on a Sunday and I went to see some friends afterwards. It felt nice, almost normal. Life with a paying job feels good. I like ordinariness

Dear Diary,

I am posting less and less on here. Fear not. I'm not quitting this blog. Christopher Robin hasn't outgrown Pooh just yet.

Life's changing a lot. In ways you can't imagine. Things aren't great. But, once I accept that I have to ask myself: okay, now what?

'Now what?' is the question.

I've got to face the consequences of the mess that I've made of my life. Last week I was told that my contract at The Sentinel was ending soon. I told HR that I'd really like to still be considered for work there, the response from HR was: tell person J about it. Person J said in reply to my email: 'Thanks, C'.

I hope I can still work at The Sentinel. I don't think my life's very good at the moment, but it's my life, and I'll make of it what I can.

I have my demons facing me. My demons are very promient, very prevalent.

Lately I have been taking more to writing on paper. I feel that it helps me. There is something about paper that helps me. It also makes me realise that I can't rely on paper. I need this blog, but using paper makes me rely on the typed word less, even though it is what I need.

I'm working 2 days tomorrow. Yesterday I wrote up a pricing/spending matrix over the next 6 months.

I think that the next pay check after May will be likely at the end of July, which pays for August. Even if I get a job offer in May, I will still be paid next in August. As things currently stand, I will be working over the next

Dear Diary,

I'm a little bit too busy to talk about the minutiae of my life lately. However I thought that I would try when I can to express thoughts here and there.

Maybe an update on my life:

• I'm the desk administrator/payroll/freelance contact for a magazine in the Sentinel right now - that involves 1 day a month of cover. I'm still a temp, just one who is setting up the administrative systems of a single magazine, it seems.
• Last week I spent 6 days working from sunday to friday. God damn was it tiring.
• In that last week I was working on the foreign desk of the sentinel newspaper, and the illustration/pictures desk. I have worked with the woman on that desk before, but usually to cover for her when she's on holiday. Let's say that her name is Janelle
• Janelle makes me feel a lot of unease -- but I think that she respects that I am doing a job very well, she got me to do all the caretaker and dull tasks. I used my coding skillz to make a super sophisticated pay spreadsheet and a semi-automated interface for logging holiday.
• The thing that I feel is unsettling is the amount of unresolved thoughts that Janelle throws at me. For one, she said that 'I wasn't supposed to come in for 5 days' when HR told me that I was. Eventually she told me that her manager said it was 5 days and she wasn't aware of it and I felt for that whole week that she was reluctant to let me do the 5 days. That felt very unclear to me.
• The other thing that felt exceptionally unsettling about Janelle was that through the duration of friday, she was sort of asking if I'm coming in next week to help out, she then said that her boss wanted me to come in on a semi-regular basis to help out at her desk, but without any resolution or confirmation either from herself, her manager or HR about whether they want me to cover. 

In other news - I'm having regular night terors, anxiety, eating problems and my room and life is a fucking mess. I'm trying my best to live with what is moderate anxiety and moderate depression. I guess it is a matter of life with blight --some of it is sunshine, and some of it isn't.. It's not all bad. I've got to see it like that. I didn't really accept it was possible to enjoy life with depression. Back in the day i thought life was a lot more absolutist and anything that wasn't perfect success was an abject failure.

Okay,, so that's me expressing myself.

Good night.

Around February or so, I bought a safety Razor. I thought that I was sick of buying extra gillette cartridges and I was reading for some time about possible alternatives. The safety razor is the old style of blade that granddads and dads of my generation probably used to shave with.

Shaving with a razor is a refined act, it involves time, effort, precision, repetition and and class. It takes longer to shave, but it is also more robust and arguably cheaper, once you’ve bought the handle. The handle of the blade feels like a master’s tool. The handle weighs heavy yet is small. The handle opens up the head where you put the double safety razor in. I love the way it is so easy to replace a blade. I love how I bought 100 blades on amazon for like £10. I am not sure if the safety blade is a more ‘sustainable’ option. Is it more sustainable ecologically to use blades and dispose of them once they are ‘less than perfect’ compared to those plastic packaged ones which possibly last about 2-3 times longer? Perhaps I could make the blade longer if I polished the blade a bit after I was done with it. I feel an attachment to my new razor, it feels like a talisman, a tradesman’s proud tool. If I had a son I’d pass it on to him, if not just for its sentimentality.

Dear Diary,

I can't begin to address the things going on in my life at the moment. To some extent I am not interested in talking about it or sharing it right now. I'm just interested in getting through.

One thing I might mention is that my working situation has gone to a point where I can choose not to work at so many events at Shambly arena. I do still want to work there. But I can afford to work there less. Lately I've been fighting for every £. I've been invited to do a book review on my favourite cultural figure, and I have 2 potential ghostwriting jobs. They usually come around this time of year.

dear diary,

I've been away for a while because I've been using a computer that didn't have easy access to blogger. In addition I have been busy with housework/life/illness/health/work in various combinations. Until about 2 weeks ago I've been working full time -ish.

Now I'm working part time ish.

It's my first free day in ages. I call it a free day becasue I haven't had a day like this in...you know what I can't keep comparing and saying 'I've not had much time for blah blah blah'. It's hard to sustain a blog about my life when I'm busy living it.

I've not had much time for reflection. If you don't count the night terrors. My sertraline is reduced.

Today I'm doing receipts? why? Because my documents are in a mess and everything in my life and room and home are in a mess. I'm trying to deal with it, so I've categoriesed all the things I need doing, but then I realised how absolutely arbitrary that is and how doing a categorisation task of what I need to do isn't actually housework or admin, and I realised everything is ccovered in receipts.

So, I'm doing receipts, before doing everything else.

I've got a to do list. It's well fucking long.

I'm listening to some nice jazz music on my computer. I have a stack of newspapers to read. I've caught up on some archiving (always could catch up on more)

Now, I'm getting back to my receipts.

lately I have been feeling all sorts of vulnerability and fright.

There are a lot of things haunting me.

I went to the GP today. I asked the GP if I could reduce my dose of sertraline. But I said I don't want to go off from it. I felt that the upped dosage that I had was too much.

It's spring already. I can't believe it.

I'm not ready for spring

• I think that I have addiction problems. 
• I thin that I experienced a trauma that will haunt me for the rest of my life, but that is not a big deal, so long as I have a rest of my life
• I bought a hand puppet to try and express myself better
• I've been doing a lot of housework today
• I bought a saxophone and it is shit so I want to return it
• That saxophone issue has been more on my mind and takes away from my ability to think about other issues.
• I think that problem of me overly focussing on singular issues and their resolution take away from me being able to deal with other issues that are contemporamous to the perceived larger problem
• I don't like how the saxophone smells
• I am having a lot of night terrors lately
• Hannah and I went on a date last weekend

A lot has been happening in my life. I've not had the space or the energy to update you on everything. 

I'm a different person lately. I wonder sometimes if I even know who I am.

dear diary,

my brain is going a mile a minute. i'm thinking about so many things to do over the next few weeks and days. It's almost too much.

I bought some cosmetics today. I also made massively long to do lists.

That would keep me busy

I need to fight. Despierately.

Need to fight.

Often i've talked about how I should satisfice rather than maximise.

Lately I'm doing maximin. Maxi min is the most amount I can do with the minimum of effort.

Well I say effort, it is a massive effort to get out of bed. I did a lot of correspondences lately through email on my phone while on bed. Those correspondences probably netted me about £250.

I will be working a few extra days. I was asked to work at the sunday sentinel tomorrow (which is my favourite shift) and I will be on the sentinel's newsdesk on sunday. I will be in about 4 different departments next week and I'm in talks about possibly covering some more the week after.

I have to take things day by day, pound by pound. Life isn't so great at the moment but I need to do the best I can.

I've not had the most chanc e to write in this blog/diary lately. I suppose I've been soul searching. I've lost a lot of my interest in music and I am enjoying things like updating my tumblr, archiving and playing games on my tablet/phone. I have also had a liking for watching religious videos on youtube. Don't ask me why but I find it oddly satisfying and cathartic to listen to fundamentalist christians talking about their faith. It feels like a comforting worldview and simplifies the world. I guess when I'm feeling like shit I suspend critical thought and just put it on and it feels ...well, I can't really describe it. It helps me sleep.

Yvonne Roberts of the Observer quoted Kurt Cobain allegedly saying 'better to burn out than fade away', which in itself is another song reference I think. Article here : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/08/depression-drives-many-men-to-commit-suicide

Depression is a bitch. I must accept that I have it now. I feel constantly tired and motivation is very low lately.


I'm trying to make my life simpler, I'm trying to cut down a lot of things in my life. I also aim to try and make things work, work in the sense that I don't miss appointments and I don't fuck up at work. I am just about doing that.

I think by an ordinary measure, my previous week has been productive and despite the shit going on in my mind, I think I 'fought'.

I've got a list of things I need to get on with today. I sincerely hope just to meander on with it all.

It's reaching the 2 year point where I've had my glasses, so I need to get another eye test and order some new glasses. I've just set the appointment now, I've been putting it off for a while, as I have been putting everything else in life off.

The Mcdonald's coupon thing expired yesterday. I was at a kids party yesterday and I popped out with some friends who ordered some burgers for me so that I could consume 3 burgers at once. I did successfully manage to do it. It's funny how people have observed that I've lost weight when I am eating in this otherwise deviant and destructive way.

I am currently listening to some shitty indie band called the 'augustines'. I can't bear to listen to music I like at the moment. But it's background music and it helps me feel productive.

I am going to get some lunch. I might think about cancelling gym class later tonight.

Wish me luck, if anyone reads this. I'm really struggling at the moment.

dear diary,

Lately I've been living in extremely parallel worlds. I have been bed bound a lot lately, with some weird stupour like feeling. I think it is my depression that has returned. Basically it feels like I'm tired all the time. But I can't distinguish between being actually tired and the kind of depression that keeps you in bed all day.

The weird thing is that this feeling of miserly fatigue does not affect me at night. So I lately have taken this as a sign to work in a more cicadian (sic) manner.

Right now I've read through blogs and articles and left wing blogs about the recent 2 months. Apparently there are several professional issues going on in philosophy that are quite interesting but I am too tired and mentally exhausted to follow them with the problems in my own life.

Perhaps I'll say 3 positive things:

1. I think I'm getting more used to my meds
2. I have managed to do gym through the week
3. I have experienced pleasure and joy lately - through the form of eating McDonalds

Lately I've had a weird fixation on McDonalds. Basically a few weeks back the Metro had a coupon offer and my mum always liked cutting them out and it sort of rubbed off on me. That coincided with my recent fascination with cutting things out from newspapers. I got like 40-60 coupons after taking multiple copies of the metro on the days these vouchers appeared. I ended up eating mcdonalds between 1-2 times a day at a normal day. In recent days I have had mcdonalds 3 times and on friday I went 4 times. I nearly went 5 times in a single day. I am eating obsessively because I feel this sense of achievement of using up all of the vouchers. Lately I am not spending much money on stuff and it feels 'frugal' to be using those coupons. It comes to points (on the 2nd, 3rd burger) where I am not interested in the food and I just feel like I have to finish this task 

Combine that with the fact that I have had some weight loss in recent weeks, which means my eating habits have not been noticed by many people, except those I've told. 

In other news: my money worries are pushed back until about...april or so.

Dear Diary,

For the first 3 or so days that I upped my Sertraline dosage to 75mg, my brain went all fucked up and it was like I was severely depressed. I was bed bound and completely exhausted mentally and physically and ...spiritually. It wasn't a good feeling.

For the past couple days I feel that I've picked up a bit. However I still have anxiety and other worries hanging over my head.

I feel like I've died a little lately. I feel like my big social death is coming up soon. There's a big shitstorm coming soon and I'm frightened by it. I also have to accept it's coming as well.

today I did the following:

• had a haircut - slightly different style to what i usually get
• had insomnia
• lunch at mcdonalds (twice, in two different restaurants [i have a bit of a mcdonalds addiction at the moment])
• met a friend sporadically at mcD's - we talked a bit.
• Sent off my watch to the jewelers to change the strap
• went for a walk around in wimbledon, and also noting places that scenes from the it crowd were filmed
• Updated my pay matrix (I got 7 + 3 extra work days)

Upcoming I have the following today:

• Apply to a job at The Sentinel's news desk
• Go to body attack
• go to body combat
• Possibly get soem more mcdonalds on the way home

Dear Diary,

My fatigue reaction to sertraline is less intensive and less clawing at me. I'm still a cocktail of fuck at the moment.

In other news, I feel utterly depressed and of low motivation. I feel like I've undone 10 years of mental health wisdom and healing through my distress episode.

In other other news, I was given 2 days cover yesterday, which is now 3 days cover. And I also have been given 6 days of extra assignments/ shifts between feb-march. Which is nice. That will pay me through March-April-to maybe even may.

I've been bed bound for a lot of the past few days. which I don't like. Life is a struggle for me right now.

I'm off to badminton now.

p.s. I need to shave, and get a hair cut.

dear diary,

I'm going through hell right now. I'm exhausted and my brain feels like it's shut down. I don't know how I am going to face life feeling like this. It feels so hard to fight, I really need to shake out of it, but I can't seem to will myself out of it.

It's official. Depression is back.

The good news of today is that I am upright and can manage to sit on my chair.

Things I did on friday:

• Got paid
• Gym class
• Went for a walk - got lunch and put money into oyster, got a metro from the train station 
• Picked up my new meds
• Upped medication of sertraline - 75mg for a week, then up to 100
• stupour (if i'm honest)
• TV Catchup
• £20 in oyster
• went to restaurant

I don't think I'll ever feel normal. 

I fucked up.

dear diary,

I've upped my dosage of sertraline.

I've not been so well over Wednesday. The most effort I applied was to having a shower, getting out to the GP and picking up dry cleaners. I did watch a lot of netflix.

I'm going to try sleeping.

there as a time back in 2007 when I was in a really shitty place, or maybe it was 2006. I threw all my books off the shelf in a rage. Nobody else was there.

it felt a little bit good.

But then I had to put the books back together again.

I left the books on the floor for a day. Some of the books are still dog-earred and folded as a result of being folded over at the cover and first few pages having been thrown down.

I picked up those books. I learned a lesson then.

Anything I want to throw that's mine I'll have to pick up again.

Life's not too great at the moment, I'm remembering that moral quite poignantly.

Dear Diary,

My life's not what it was before.

I'm adapting.

I need to stay on the anxiety meds for a while. The anxiety attacks I feel are never too far away. Also I have lost a lot of my 'entourage' (a euphemism) that kept me sane. I have had to start over with a different crew.

I have a sudden urge to shit. I thought I was going to blog something deep tonight after my long day.

I better go...

no wait. It's an anxiety sensation, not an actual need to use the toilet.

I've finished working at the pictures desk of the Sentinel. It was a really interesting time. Now I need to carry on with life and move forward in some way. In some way...

10 positive things about me. because an app suggested it

1. I'm a survivor
2. I'm an adaptor
3. I'm open minded to change
4. I'm a learner
5. I'm determined
6. I'm a fighter
7. I'm loving to my friends and family
8. I have a good memory, too good sometimes
9. I don't have insomnia
10. I have redeeming features

dear diary.

i've been away for a while.

I'm going to keep a bit of a lower profile for the time being.

Everything is on emergency/panic mode right now.

Things are not as they were. Things have changed and I have changed.

Went to a party today. I felt almost normal.