Plus ça change, Plus c'est la même chose

Not sure what I’m supposed to be feeling lately. Everything changes but I don’t seem to. I’ve been rather happy lately thanks to a certain young lady but at the same time I’ve still been rather miserable and I don’t know why. Miserable isn’t the right word. More sort of numb, but not properly numb. It’s tough to describe. The more I want to go towards the happy feeling the more my defences kick in and try to make me retreat to safety. Trying to keep me inside my hard won buffer zone wrapped in emotional cotton wool. Its only when I’m alone though. With her I have more enthusiasm and pep and I’m happy. When im alone I return to my default state. I’m lazy and apathetic and I question everything I was feeling before. There’s some fucked up part of my brain that doesn’t want me to be happy it seems and wants me to think that other stuff isn’t real. Its only early days and I expect and hope my state will change but it plays on my mind. I guess im just so used to my way of life, so well adapted to it at this point, that im afraid that if I change up and things fall apart then it’ll be too hard to go back. Mustn’t be afraid to change. Change is good

Fear and Nihilism in My Living Room

So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, though it’s mostly not been about myself. I’ve been thinking about someone else, someone who by all logic shouldn’t be around for me to think about, and that got me thinking about myself and how I can do better and be more honest about whats in my mind.
At the root of all of this crap posted below is just fear. Its why I’m lonely, its why I’m unhappy and its what holds me back every day from doing the things I’d want to do. So what am I afraid of?
I’m afraid of rejection and being hurt so I don’t get close to people. Nothing wildly original there.
I remember when my parents broke up, it was a horrendously traumatic time for me. I still feel the pain of crying and screaming down the phone for to my mother, begging her to come back, but she wouldn’t. I guess I took it personally. You cant tell a child that its not about them, its not their fault, its more complicated blah blah. There were a lot of days like that and that stuck with me. I’m 24 and that still hurts.

I’m afraid of being dependent on people. During that same period my Dad was not able to cope. Already crippled by depression he fell apart and became an alcoholic to boot. I assumed responsibility for him. He didn’t make it easy and he also made sure I’d never forget about him or leave him. Phrases like “If you leave I’ll burn the house down” and “I’d be dead without you” still run through my head sometimes, as do attention grabbing stunts like trying to hang himself on the stairs or slitting his wrists. It was a few years before he pulled himself together enough to survive on his own. Now I have this need to be needed, but at the same time I’m so disgusted by the idea of assuming responsibility for someone again that I’ll avoid any risk of getting in to that situation. Also I refuse to put other people in situations where they might feel some kind of responsibility for me. I’d rather always stand alone than risk becoming weak like that.

You know what though, there’s a side of me that doesn’t give a shit about any of that. A cold unpleasant side that says it doesn’t matter, it may as well have never happened, it doesn’t even exist outside of your mind. It’s not real and neither are you. Most days it’s that guy that fucks me up. Its not angsty fear of rejection that keeps me welded to the spot both physically and emotionally. It’s an honest belief that none of it matters. In the big picture view I just don’t matter. When all this is dust what the fuck will it have mattered that some fat arsehole had a bit of a shit childhood. Why should I bother? What will I achieve. Does the whole concept of achievement even exist if you don’t assign it value first? Fuck. I’m going to make an effort to stop that train of thought before it ruins me for the next few days. Nihilism is like quick sand, the more you struggle the worse you make it because in that state of mind every action you take to improve, for want of a better term, your mental state is already void.
I wont go through it all but that line of thought always brings me back to the idea that I cant really know anything for certain, its all just guesswork and assumption somewhere down the line and I don’t like that. It makes me wish I could embrace blind faith. It seems so comforting. I can understand why religion is so popular on this rock. Could you imagine a world full of over thinking philosophers picking over every detail of everything? At least in religion you can have a sing now and then and go to sleep with sense of hope.
How the fuck did I get on to religion? This blog is terminated for the crime of going nowhere.

Sunshine and Lollipops

Here’s a word I have trouble saying. Depression. It’s a horrible word to describe a horrible illness. One that I have long standing personal ties with, it’s a word that destroyed my father and my family and its one that I’ve thus far refused to admit applies to me.
But it does and I have to.
Depression can feel like fighting a losing battle. It’s like a recurring nightmare that you’re powerless to wake up from. Not only that but it’s a nightmare that you know is coming. If I may continue the nightmare metaphor a line longer, you know that when you go to bed you’re going to have the nightmare and it’s going to be bad but you can’t keep yourself awake forever and you know that too.
In non metaphorical terms that means that I know when its coming and I can’t stop it even though I try. Knowing that its coming can make it worse too. Once you get that sinking feeling you can’t not think about it. Its like playing “The Game” (sorry to any long term “Game” sufferers out there) its almost self perpetuating. It starts with a single thought, some trigger, and then the mental gears are in motion. I can slow it down by keeping myself distracted. Sometimes I try meditation and mental exercises to meet it head on and deflect it but that takes real effort. I cant always muster a defence. I’ve just come off the back of a really long and miserable fucking couple of weeks. To anyone who was watching me this past ten days or so they may not have suspected anything was wrong. I went to work, I talked, I laughed and I did the shit that I had to do. But I also stayed in bed for 12 hours a day, not because I’m lazy like I allow everyone to think, but because I didn’t see any reason to get up. I talked and laughed with friends and co-workers, but it’s the bits in between when I’m not talking or cracking wise that are significant because all that other stuff was just a screen. That’s me on auto pilot, survival mode, just getting through it. And no one notices. If they do then they don’t say anything. At one point I would have been proud that I put on such a convincing act but now I wish I hadn’t learnt these coping skills because it’s got to the point now where I don’t know how to turn them off and be honest with another person face to face about how I’m feeling. But then what am I supposed to do, burst in to tears in the middle of the office? There’s been close days I can’t deny.
“But Dave, why don’t you just cheer up!?” If you’ve ever said anything like this to someone then I hope you lose your legs in a car crash and spend the rest of your life shitting in a bag. Trying to fight depression is like trying to throw a punch under water. Intense effort, zero result. The only course of action I have is to wait it out. That’s what keeps me going, the fact that I’ve been in these states before so many times and eventually they ease off. It doesn’t go away entirely, not ever, but it fades in to the background so that it doesn’t own me anymore.
I know that I’m not alone in all this. There are so many people who feel the exact things that I feel on a regular basis but not everyone will or can admit it, and even fewer can express it. Even all this I’ve written feels woefully inadequate. I feel like my piddling little episodes are doing a disservice to all the real sufferers out there. The people whose lives have been taken over by an illness that they cant understand.
I’ve seen first hand what depression can really do to a life. What it can take from you. I know I’m not there but I’ve felt its shadow and my God I know the fear of it and I think that’s what drove me to writing these blogs. Even if no one is really reading this at least it’s out of my head where it can’t do any more damage.

Taking Responsibility

Someone told me recently that I beat myself up too much, and that got me thinking about responsibility and blame. There is a fine line between taking responsibility for your actions and the situation they have led you to and blaming yourself for being in that situation. Blame is an aspect of self pity which leads to self hate. Many times I have looked at my life and remembered some poor choice I made and thought “You idiot. Why did you do that? You’re a fuck up. You’re a fool…” and so on. Rather than simply acknowledge my actions and move on, self pity takes a hold and we go in to a spiral. It’s a common occurrence for me and I’m sure everyone does it sometimes.
There are some people who do not blame themselves for their actions nor do they take responsibility of any kind. People who think that everything bad that happens to them is somehow someone else’s fault. My brother is one of these people. All my life I’ve watched him complain about everything bad in his life but somehow none of it is ever his fault. He’ll lash out and blame anyone but himself. Whereas I tend to blame myself too much. I try not to play the blame game; I try to take an impartial view. When something crappy happens my intellectual view is this - Really our lives are a combination of choices. The choices that we make and the choices that other people make and how those choices intersect. Nothing is entirely our fault but we are never entirely without responsibility either, so just admit your part in it all, learn what you can and move on. Easy. That’s the theory anyway, but when I try applying that mentality in real life somehow it doesn’t quite come off like I’d hope. It stops me from getting angry at other people and the world at large but it can’t stop me from getting angry at myself. I can forgive the universe for randomly screwing me over but I can’t forgive myself for my perceived inadequacies and weaknesses. I'll have to work on it.

Basic Instinct

Is it always the best thing to go with your instincts? Your instincts often reveal your true nature and if I look at the things my instincts compel me to do then I have to admit that I’m a tool and my instincts are shit and have frankly been holding me back for a long time.

Today someone made a rather ordinary innocuous statement about how rubbish their day was. My first instinct was to crack a joke at their expense. A fairly crude one at that. I came within an inch of doing so but paused and thought about it. Even though I thought it was a pretty funny thing to say, was it worth it? I decided no and replied empathetically instead which lead to a further discussion and an attempt at sharing and solving the problems. A better outcome for everyone overall. All because I didn’t follow my instinct to be a tit.

I now find myself thinking how many times in the past have I given in to this compulsion to amuse myself and ended up damaging my relationships with others. Or if not damaging them then at least not moving them forward and reinforcing their image of me as someone not to be taken seriously. There’s nothing I can do about that now and I have no intention of dwelling on or regretting my actions. I’ll probably still do the same thing in the future because its automatic now. Its just how I work. But every now and then I hope I’ll be smart enough to stop and think about my words and make a better choice for myself.

Also I still havent found a font that I like on here,

Communication Problems

I’ve never been a great communicator. Anyone whose spent a fair amount of time with me knows that a bit (or a lot) of silence is par for the course. Its not that I’m not a big talker, under the right circumstances its tough to shut me up. My problem is though that I'm usually only thinking about the current moment. I’m taking in my surroundings and not really thinking about anything else, so unless there’s something immediate which grabs my attention and stimulates me then it’s pretty much up to the people around me to generate conversation. I sometimes wonder how this appears to the person I’m talking to and I imagine it makes for a bit of hard work.
Do you ever hold imaginary conversations with someone in your head? Try to plan out what you want to say and how you want to say it. I do that a fair bit, but it never really works out. Sometimes its because of a response I didn’t expect which takes the conversation down an unplanned tangent but more often its because somewhere between my brain and my mouth the words are all re-written by a retard who must live in my nose. In my head I’m smart, funny and suave, like James Bond crossed with Woody Allen. When I actually speak it sounds to me more like Homer Simpson meets Rocky Balboa. Its not a constant problem, it pretty much depends on who I’m with. The more comfortable I am the more fluid I become. Which brings me to my last problem.
I’ve always been a very shy person. When presented with new people, especially women, I do get terribly nervous. Its getting easier as I get older, age brings a certain level of automatic confidence with it, but I can still remember being the painfully shy practically mute young man that I was. Its how I’ve been since I was a small child. I never really got a lot of practice in talking to people and getting to know people. I’ve always found it to be an uphill struggle, so much so that I tend to not bother. Do you know the phrase “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet” Well my motto has always been “A stranger is just a stranger so why the fuck should I care?” Well I’ve decided that’s not a great attitude to have so when I next have the chance to meet a stranger and make a friend of them I’ll give it a go. Practice makes perfect.

Stay Frosty.

So Yeah...

It seems I worried a couple of people with that first post. I suppose this kind of thing is a bit out of character for me and I know that I’ve always played my cards close to my chest on personal issues like this so some people might be a bit surprised to hear me banging on about loneliness and abandoning hope. All I was doing is trying to describe how it feels to be lonely sometimes, rest assured that I am not trapped in some never ending depressive funk. Its not a recent thing by any means but its just something that happens. It’s a part of my life and so a part of me. It hasn’t always been this way and it wont last forever. I didnt want people to worry about me but i guess I did want to draw some attention, I realised that I cant complain about not being understood and not having my feelings considered if i never tell anybody what I'm feeling. Not that I'm really looking to complain either, I guess I just want people to know. Everyone gets lonely, loneliness is a horrendous thing but its something that nobody really talks about so I figure I’ll give it a go as and when the mood strikes me.

Keep watching the skies citizens.

Confession of a Lonely Man

I am a liar. I lie to everyone I meet everyday

I don’t really understand who I am, where I’m going or why I do the things that I do at any point. At my best I live in a state of hope, at my worst I have no hope at all to hold on to. I rarely exist in-between. Neither state has any true substance nor holds any comfort. Both are a struggle, one to maintain and one to escape from.

I have never known love. Nobody chooses me. I ask myself why this is my life and I don’t have an answer and that makes it feel worse. It makes me think there’s something wrong with me that I can’t understand. Its beyond my reach and so I cant fix it and I will always be this way. That is the loss of hope and it’s a black hole from which there is no escape.

Fear holds me captive at all times. Fear is the only real reason to ever not do something, and I do a whole lot of nothing. There are so many options with so much potential and when I compare the choices I’ve made with the choices I refused to make I feel like the worlds biggest coward. I am a master of justification and shit house excuses. Reason and logic are shields to hide me from the feelings I just don’t know how to grasp. I am a 24 year old lost child too stubborn and afraid to ask for help.

This is not a self pitying diatribe nor is it a cry for help or a request for sympathy. It is a cleansing of my soul, an expulsion of my demons and a real step beyond simply hoping and towards achieving. I am searching for a new way of being which will work for me and this is an important part of it. I can’t lie anymore. Its time to let go of what I was and find out what I am, even though it scares the shit out of me.

Bravery is not being unafraid. It is being very very afraid and carrying on regardless.

This post was inspired by my friend Ray Warner. The bravest man I know.