Locked Down

In mid March our world changed, possibly for ever. It’s inconceivable to think of a time before lockdown, but a mere two months ago we were still accepting trips to the cinema, or a coffee shop, or to work, as mundane pursuits, rather than the out of reach concepts they now exist as. There is a stark contrast between entering spring with all it’s connotations of rebirth and new beginnings, when compared to our newly imposed hibernation and ‘hunkering down’. The longer, sun filled days, as viewed from outside of our windows, present everything with a dream like glow. This is perhaps exacerbated by the days all rolling into one, with no discernible separation or sense of difference, whether it be Easter Sunday, May Bank Holiday, or merely a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

The current crisis obviously affects everyone across the globe, and my struggles or experiences are in no way comparable to those who are going out everyday and putting their lives on the line to help others. After all, I’m not being asked to go to war, I’m simply being asked to stay at home. However, I can only write about my own experiences and reflections, however incomparable they may be.

Lockdown has had a negative affect on me, even though my life hasn’t changed a great deal. Being a reserved person, I live in a kind of self-isolation anyway. I live alone, I don’t really go out socially, and tend to do most things on my own. In theory, the fact that I live this way should make this current situation easier to deal with, as this ‘new normal’ is effectively my ‘normal normal’. Especially as I’m in a privileged position of still being able to work, not having financial or housing issues, and being used to my own company.

However, it’s the mental effect that has hit me, rather than the physical or practical elements. Despite being relatively comfortable with my own company, and used to a fairly solitary life, this particular period of imposed isolation feels different. In the ‘pre coronavirus’ times my way of life was largely dictated by certain characteristics of the depression and anxiety that I live with, and which makes solitude a necessity rather than an ideal. It’s unfortunately the most realistic way for me to live in order in order to try and negate some of the associated issues and difficulties. On reflection, this new found enforced detachment, which most people are quite rightly finding so tough, has highlighted how debilitating I find my normal need for self-imposed isolation. The fact that I don’t have anything to miss, or anyone to be missed by, is a testament to how I’ve been unable to fill my life with things that would fall into those categories.

Working remotely has also had a significant impact. Work is, and has always been, my main form of social activity and chance to mix with people. Having had that removed has left a gaping hole, and closed a door that for my own benefit needs to be open. Whilst still working from home, and counting myself very lucky to be able to thanks to a supportive company, the actual physicality of going into the office and encountering many different people on a daily basis is no longer there. Although this daily engagement has been challenging over the years, especially at times when I have been at a low ebb and wanting to hide away from people rather than interact, it has also been vitally important to my development in the decade or so since moving to London. I worry that unlike riding a bike, this extended time away from that social interaction may require more than stabilisers to get back on the road again.

Another issue is a fear and aversion to change. Shying away from change is an effect, and coping method to deal with, the effects of anxiety. This incompatibility with change, combined with a tendency to dwell on the past with a sense of nostalgia, means that change is usually repelled rather than adopted. There is talk now of ‘things never going back to as they were’, and this concept conjours up a wistful longing for the past, and a painful uncertainty about the future, as well as tinges of sadness and regret.

Will things every be the same again? Maybe not. Do we know what the future is going to hold? Not really. Is that necessarily a bad thing? My head says no, my heart says yes. A rational person would say that this could act as a new start, and a fresh way forward, an opportunity to rewrite all of the regrets and past unhappiness, and a chance to cut down the vines of loneliness that have grown around me over the years. However, I’m not a rational person.

 

 

The Times They Aren’t a-Changin’

It’s been almost 9 months since my last blog…that must mean good news right? Nothing bad to report, a mass self-improvement, and a permanent new found happiness? Sadly that’s not the case. 2019 has had it’s fair share of lows, and after re-reading my blog from last January, the reality that I’m in exactly the same place that I was at the turn of the last new year hurts deeply.

In May of this year I ended my two year run of group therapy, which I had attended most Thursday’s for that period, and this was certainly a loss. Whilst it didn’t help me therapeutically, it did provide a safe space where I could discuss my issues with other like minded people, without fear of reprisals. It probably didn’t help that this coincided with me being off work sick for over 3 months because of this black dog in my mind. This has happened before, and in my heart of hearts I know it will happen again, but it doesn’t make it any easier to cope with, nor does the well I fall into become any easier to climb from. I did manage to clamber out in the end, but I was weaker from having been in it for so long. I feel like every time this happens a little bit of me is chipped away, and a small part of myself is gone forever.

Before Christmas I had my usual festive wobble. It happens every year, although some years are worse than others. It’s a time when I feel most out of place, most like an outsider, and most lonely. It’s a time when I feel sad, nostalgic, anxious, and it’s when my inability to change is most apparent. I love the build up to Christmas, but I hate how I feel during those times when I should feel happy, but just cannot.

Of course this illness means that positives are always ignored in favour of the negatives, I realise that. However, I struggle to find any positives from this year, further exacerbated by reading last January’s blog. I did manage to get back to work, and have been in this job for over a year now, but really, that is the bare minimum I should expect of myself. It’s very much like being a flower…I’m still alive, still breathing, still standing upright, but have failed to blossom.

I don’t do new years’ resolutions, but if I were to make one it would be that this time next year my reflections of the past 12 months would very different to what they are now. But that’s why I don’t make resolutions. If I set my sights high, there is further to fall. Every January I think and hope that this may be the year when things change, but they never do. Why should 2020 be any different? Well, unlike all the other years, this one has not happened yet, and that is the one thing it has going for it. This I must cling to, for it is the only chance there is for the flower to finally blossom.

IT

It’s puts a curb on ambition, a wall up against self-fulfillment, and a cocoon around a nostalgic past that may not have existed, and a future that may not be possible. Sometimes it manifests as a deep and absolute sadness, other times as an uncompromising longing. It can present itself as a frenzied full-blooded need to work to the point of exhaustion, whilst other times it emerges as a sickening disgust at the mundanity of things. But what is ‘it’?

The short answer is, I don’t know. It is just ‘it’. It can cause you to become so sad to the point of tears, even though you may not know why. It can cause you to view change not as positive, but as a poignant example of loss, whist at the same time feeling a sense of loathing at the lack of progress against a backdrop of stangnancy. It can cause you to feel absolutely nothing, whilst at he same as feeling everything imaginable.

Someone recently said to me “you are giving in too easily”. It was said not unkindly, but all the same it typifies an understandable lack of understanding of how it isn’t that simple. The plain fact is that the days of clear skies do not signal to me the presence of sunshine, but merely the absence of clouds.

I strive for approval and acceptance, but can’t prevent the gut wrenching sadness when confronted with other people’s life successes. This is not in any way a reflection of any ill feeling towards them, but merely a self-critical examination of myself and the things that are so far out of reach. But that doesn’t stop the onslaught of guilt. The crushing, all encompassing guilt.

If I believed all the things I did when I was young, I would be soaring now. Maybe it is the not the nostalgia of a past life that I feel, but instead the yearning of a time when my future (now my present) was still brimming with possibility.

It makes getting up hard, getting through the day harder, and getting to sleep harder still. I wish it would go, and leave me in peace. I wish it would let me switch off. I wish it would allow me to be happy. I want to banish it off the face of the earth, so that it can’t trouble me again. But I can’t. Because I don’t know what ‘it’ is.

New Year, Old Obstacles

A new year, a familiar story. A fresh start, a recognisable stutter. A wish for fire in the belly, the reality of the match failing to ignite. Even though historical evidence suggests that a new year will not bring about positive change within me, it never fails to throw up the notion that “maybe this will be the year.”

If anything, the first few weeks of the year are representative of the day to day rollercoaster that I ride against my will. There are days of feeling ok, settled, and with some semblance of positivity and belonging. These are shortly followed by feelings of isolation, of not belonging, and of disconnectedness, with no sign of being able to overcome the impending fog. Often this switch can happen suddenly, in the space of just half an hour. That’s frustrating in itself, but not as discouraging as the reality that getting back to level ground is a long, seemingly unachievable process. It’s like skiing down a mountain; the descent can happen in the bink of an eye, but getting back up to the summit is a time-consuming, energy sapping journey. It doesn’t help that in the back of the mind there is the knowledge that what goes up must come down again.

In April I will have the last session of a 2 year group therapy course. Doing anything for 2 years seems significant, and you’d expect to see something at the end of it; some kind of result, or evidence of change. If you spent an afternoon a week for 24 months learning a language, you’d be disappointed if you were anything but fluent by the end of it. But I don’t see any change at all. Being a very organised, methodical person, who shies away from spontaneity, I thrive in structured settings where the end results are clear, and the way of getting there is self evident. Dealing with this hands off way of counselling (the therapist says about 5 sentences in the whole 90 minutes) is not where my strength lies. I have met and created rapport with some like-minded people, which is something at least, but when you commit to an endeavour for 2 years and fail to see any significant effects, it really does test your patience, and stifle your resolve.

The worst part of the dips are the feelings of disconnection from people. It feels as though you have become a different person; one that people don’t want to be around, despite the fact that there is unlikely to be any truth in that. Rather than other people’s view of you changing, it’s more feasible that’s it’s your own perception of yourself that has altered. You end up unhelpfully withdrawing from people, not to mention yourself. You feel as though you are looking out from an imposter’s body, as though the real you has been hijacked; like something from an episode of Black Mirror. The reality, however, is not that your body has changed, but rather your mindset. Just like a light switch can cause a house to alternate from bright, cosy and inviting, to cold, depressing and unpleasant; the internal switch in the brain does the exact same thing. And just like in a house, it’s easy to find the switch in daylight, but almost impossible to find it when you are surrounded by darkness.

Black & White Christmas

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. Or so the song goes. At it’s best, it is without doubt a magical time of the year, and a wonderful celebration shared with friends and family. The modern way of starting the Christmas build up in September, means that by 25^th December we are in no doubt that we should be having the time of our lives, and be ensconced within a bubble of good cheer and festivity. But do we put too much pressure on ourselves? And does this assumption of the need to place oneself upon a cloud of unbridled joy actually have a detrimental effect?

As a child I loved Christmas, just as any child does. It was a very special time, where anything seemed possible, and the excitement was palpable as soon as the nights began to draw in, and the air became colder. As I got older, the presents became smaller and more expensive, and my faith moved from Father Christmas to Amazon, and yet it still remained an exciting time. I still looked forward to it all year, and the feeling of breaking up from school/university/work was incomparable to anything else.

In the last 7 or 8 years, the effect of Christmas has changed for me. It has become one of the flashpoints in the year where my mood will inevitably and unavoidably take a nosedive. By it’s very nature it is an extremely intense period, with parties, family get-togethers, my birthday and much more besides. In theory this should be a cause of celebration, and a reason for good times. However, it is a period of time when I feel desperately sad. This may be in part because I get nostalgic of ‘the past’, and of Christmas’ from childhood, and of people who were so deeply associated with Christmas, and yet who have since passed away.

However, I think the main reason why this time of year has a negative effect on me is because there is a such a focus on happiness and having a good time. This causes me to ruminate over the areas of my life where I’m not happy, and engage in unhelpful comparisons with others. Social media inevitably provides a portal into this self reflection, as you are presented with marriage proposals, babies first Christmas, people having fun at parties, and perfect scenes of Christmas fun. I realise that it is foolish, and inaccurate, to assume that everyone is happy and exactly how they present themselves on Instagram or Facebook. Of course people want to portray the best of their lives; why would you want to share the negative? Especially not at Christmas.

Despite my ability to rationalise this, it still doesn’t prevent me from finding this time of year harder and harder to deal with. As each December comes, it brings with it another birthday, and I find myself another year older. I can never prevent the blanket of sadness or regret at the years that have passed, or the painful truth that I’m no different now than I was 5 or 10 years ago. Similarly, New Year brings with it an inevitable assessment of the year, and highlights how my life has not progressed in the way I want it to, despite thinking every New Years Day, “maybe this will be the year”. I still get the bouts of loneliness, I still can’t prevent the waves of anxiety or depression, and I still can’t consider myself happy. The unfair part of it is that my mind will only focus on the negatives, and not the positives. This year I trained and ran the London Marathon, and started a new job. But these will not feature in my mental assessment of the year, despite being huge challenges, and to any rational mind, big successes.

Christmas will always hold a special place in my heart, and I hold on to a faint hope that one day I can enjoy it again as I once did, and not view it as a time to just ‘get through’ as unscathed as possible.

Obviously how I feel, and the affect this time of year has on me, is nothing compared to many other people, and I am in no way suggesting that it is. I am very lucky in everything I have. For those people who have no home, or no family, or are seriously ill, Christmas must be an indescribably miserable time. It’s no surprise that last Christmas The Samaritans received 227,000 calls, many of which were from suicidal people.

As 2019 approaches I hope it is a great year for everyone. When the clock ticks over to 00:00 on January 1^st, you are presented with a blank canvas, and an as yet untarnished new year. Everyone’s goal should be to ensure that we, and those around us, don’t destroy our canvas, but instead attempt to create a beautiful artwork.

 

 

Dangerous Hope

I try to stay awake for as long as possible, because I’m afraid of giving myself into sleep and the dreams it may bring. Dreams that reflect how I’m feeling, or dreams that reflect how I want to feel. Either option I can’t deal with. I wake up, after barely a few hours sleep. A restless sleep. An unforgiving sleep. I want to banish the sadness that was unintentionally thrust upon me. But it’s not like a sadness of seeing an emotional film, or of a family holiday being over. It’s a sadness that feels like its been injected into the arm, and the blood stream is carrying it to every recess of the body. It is both mental and physical. It’s a feeling that you can never be happy again, and this sadness will with you to your dying day.

The exhaustion from working for the first time in 6 months, the hangover, and the heavy depression pressing down on me is a toxic cocktail: the dark and heavy rain clouds outside acting as a mirror of my feelings. The lack of sleep and the pounding head make me feel like I’m in a waking dream; nothing seems real and the world seems fuzzy. I go out into the sheeting rain, wrapped up; existing in the welcomed anonymity that hats, coats, and zipped up collars provide. I walk, and I walk. I walk through the rain, I walk through the temporary teasing winters sun. I walk through the even heavier rain. I don’t know where I’m walking to, and I don’t like what I’m walking from. My legs ache and my socks are squelching in my poorly made shoes. But I don’t want to stop walking. I don’t want to be back in the stillness of the quiet room, with the unpleasant sleepiness being allowed to surround me, and the sense of melancholy being able able to suffocate me .

The walk must end though. I dread having to give into sleep once again. I dread having to wake up and experience the few seconds on blissful ignorance before being conscious to where I am, to who I am, to what I’m not. The sadness caused by trying and failing is worse than the sadness of just not trying. Because trying brings with it a glimmner of hope, just before the failure strikes. Hope is great. Hope is everything. But hope snatched away is devastating.

Contemplations

I watch a group of runners, all clad in lycra and running vests, as they pound the pavement on the bright autumn morning. Drenched in sweat, aching all over, mentally and physically exhausted. Unfortunately that is me, not the runners. Although I’m doing my own form of running: trying to outrun a fractured mind, and a broken soul.

Another missed chance. Another failure to snatch a victory. Another omission that try as I might, I never seem to be able to break the habit, fulfil the potential or allow myself a success. Letting people down? Yes. Letting myself down? Absolutely. Letting myself believe? Never.

The sweating was humiliating, as I had to ask for paper towels to dry my forehead. That’s nothing compared to the pounding heart, which didn’t stop until the next day. My face was bright red as though I have been running, or sat out in the sun. Exhaustion overpowered me and yet at the same time I was engulfed with a manic energy. Thoughts buzzing around my head, bouncing off the sides, and feeling as though they were going to shoot out of my ears.

What do you wish you could do? Not have to hide. What do you wish you had done differently? Everything. What could you do to change things? Your guess is a good as mine. Another year closing, another birthday approaching, another chance for regret. A child running down the street, a couple getting married at the Town Hall, a family sat eating a meal in a restaurant, and old man shuffling down the street. All reminders of the past, the future, of what was, and what never will be. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: all indicators of what you so desperately crave, and yet what is out of your reach. How can being so connected make one feel so disconnected?

A favourite song coming on the radio, a smile shared on a train carriage, a laugh ringing out after a joke being told. All miniscule moments that offer a brief realisation of what life can be. But these are like an echo in a valley; the reverberations lasting only momentarily until they fade into nothing, and the silence returns to take over.

Ambition: unrealistic. Hope: unobtainable. Pessimism: unavoidable. A dream that one day everything will be ok, it will have all been worth it, and you will have come out victorious: more distant as each day passes.

An awful week should give hope of a better week to come, just as a bad year leads to a hope for a better year to follow. But for me that is not the case. It instead merely feeds into my perception of how I can’t break the cycle that I so often find myself in. As I watch the runners pounding the pavement it is indeed mental health awareness day, a fact I only realise the next day. How ironic. Whilst it’s an important day, it shouldn’t mean mental health isn’t at the forefront the rest of the 364 days of the year. Ask someone how they are, call a friend for a chat, or smile at someone who looks like they need it. It could make all the difference.

Writing To Reach You

Blink and you’ll miss it. That’s how the last few months have been. Since I finished work on 30th April the last three months have gone by in the blink of an eye. But not in a good way. I’ve found myself in a dark, lonely place, and haven’t achieved anything of note in almost a quarter of a year. The situational/self-imposed isolation and repetitive nature of my days have allowed me to fall into a monotonous existence; the persistent malaise evoking a sense of detachment from the world.

The only thing I have thrown myself into, other than feelings of dejection, is writing. I attended a 10 week (one evening a week) creative writing course at City University to build upon my love of the written word, and to try to branch out into fiction; something I haven’t done since writing stories as a child. Reading and writing are some of the few activities that I can get lost in, and where I do not have to address any troubling thoughts or feelings that may be engulfing me, for a few hours at least. Well that’s half true. I was able to use some of the pain, anguish and frustration that I have felt over the years within the writing tasks that we were set; the words on the page acting as an outlet for what is going on in my mind. Unfortunately this means that often the stories are quite dark or downbeat, but it’s only natural for the writing to reflect some part of the writers’ mind. And besides, ‘they lived happy ever after’ is very rarely a reality.

Here is a link to a short story which I started writing at the end of the course, and have developed in the weeks since it finished.

It’s not just in fiction that the written word is significant. In real life words can be both joyous and treacherous, depending on the way the reader interprets them; something which has been heightened in this technological age that we find ourselves in. Tone, emotion or intention can not easily be recognised in a text message or an email. Which is probably why people with an already busy mind can be affected by a message received by text or WhatsApp. I can read into something that someone says to me (often wrongly) and it can affect me for weeks, as I ruminate on it and allow myself to engage with worst case scenarios of the message’s potential meaning. It’s so easy for me to impose my own imagined tone or intention onto a message, even though the rational part of my mind knows that I will always perceive the worst case scenario, or read into something with a negative slant, because that is the way my mind is wired. However, this rational part of the brain which recognises this failure of straight thinking is always overshadowed by it’s irrational brother. Reading something the wrong way can cause weeks and weeks of regret or confusion, for example if I think someone is upset with me or I have done something wrong.

Writing can allow for a way to escape, a conduit for dreaming, with no limits on what you can imagine, and no roof to curb what you can create. However, dreams all come to an end, and eventually you must wake up and confront your own story. Ernest Hemingway said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Real life is not like that however. You may bleed through the pain and heartache, but you can’t sit down and rewrite your story; you can’t edit out the bits that you regret writing; you can’t delete a chapter that change the path of the rest of the book. More’s the pity.

Life with no Parole

The last 7 days have been tortuous. I’ve found myself locked in a mental prison and have found no way of escaping, despite banging on the bars until my hands were red raw. I don’t know how to overcome this pain, as it feels like this prison only offers up life with no parole as its sentence.

This isn’t related to not being in work at the moment due to redundancy, although admittedly that has taken away my support group. In fact the first week or so after finishing work I was absolutely fine. I had started a creative writing course, was going to some career workshops, and met a couple of friends for a catch up. Like the flicking of a switch it all turned on its head a week ago, and ever since I have been racked with guilt, hopelessness and feelings that the pain in my heart will never recede. The waves of anxiety and depression that sweep over me are like nausea, and while I try my best to distract my mind, this is only a temporary measure, and its not long before the thoughts have burrowed their way back in.

More than worrying about any pain I feel myself, I worry more that my illness isolates me from those people I care about, which is why I try so hard to garner and maintain friendships. Maybe too hard. I realise that being friends with someone with a mental illness is probably no fun, and my biggest fear is losing people because of it. Why would someone want to associate with someone who often cancels things last minute, who goes through low moods where they can barely communicate, and who constantly asks for reassurance. Why would someone want to stand by someone who can become obsessed and preoccupied by a few words uttered, reading into it all kinds of scenarios and meanings, with only the most disasterous ones being taken as the truth?

I’m directionless and bereft. I’m regretful of the past, and pessimistic of the future. I’m in a massive city and yet feel deeply alone. I feel jealous, yet ashamed, guilty, yet confused why, and wanting love, but incapable of grasping it.

This week is Mental Health Awareness week, and while attempting to combat this worldwide epidemic is a massive undertaking which is unlikely to be defeated in my lifetime, anyone can make a difference in the smallest way. If you know someone struggling, know that you can be make a difference, even if its just asking someone how they are. They will probably lie to you and say they are fine, but know that inside they are grateful to have been asked.

‘Cause I’d love to feel love but I can’t stand the rejection
I hide behind my jokes as a form of protection
I thought I was close but under further inspection
It seems I’ve been running in the wrong direction

The Wrong Direction – Passenger

Fragility of the Balance

The fragility of mental health is so finely balanced that it can take only a small thing to shift the balance and cause the scales to tilt one way or the other. It can take a feather to tip the scales downwards, but a 100 tonne weight is needed to pull them back up level again.

I’ve always tried to live my life as kind person, not just because that’s how I think we are supposed to act, but because that’s how I want to live my life. For me the greatest feeling is making someone laugh, or smile or just be happy. For all of the uncontrollable issues I have in my mind, I am able to control how I interact with others. I just wish I had control over my mind. I had a panic attack this afternoon, and am still going through it, and thought I would describe the feelings I’m experiencing, as it’s a lot harder to remember after the event.

• A sudden feeling that my heart is going to beat out of my chest.
• Feeling sick, nauseous and like my whole body is vibrating.
• A sense of doom and thinking that I have messed things up permanently, and that there is no hope on the horizon.
• A feeling of complete exhaustion and yet at the same time being completely on edge and alert.
• Tightness of breath and a feeling as though someone is clamped around my chest, suffocating me like a boa constrictor.
• Stomach cramps and a stabbing pain in the tummy.
• A complete sense of loneliness, but also a need to isolate myself totally. This can happen in a heartbeat: one minute feeling ok, and the next like my guts are being wrenched out.
• Social isolation and letting down others. I missed a gig tonight that I had been looking forward to for a while.
• A wish to go back in time and undo past wrongs.

It’s impossible to fully decribe what it’s like in a few bullet points. When in the midst of an attack of anxiety or depression you honestly feel like you are never going to get out of it or be ok again. Being rationale you know that isn’t the case, but when in the moment rationality is not a skill you possess.

I’ve had a complex relationship with people through my life. On the one hand I have always been shy, lacking in confidence, and tending to lead a fairly solitary life. On the other hand people are everything, and those that I care about are what help me get through the difficult times. I’ve always found it challenging to make and maintain lasting bonds and friendships (even at nursery school I apparently stuck to myself, and didn’t want to interact). Therefore, those people that I do befriend, especially later in life, become so important to me. And I recognise the precariousness of those friendships because I realise how important they are. I have always been someone who shies away from conflict or argument, as I hate the thought of upsetting people. While it’s not pleasant if someone upsets me, at least the only person affected is myself. But the thought of upsetting someone else is crushing. I think my illness may sometimes make me blind to how I act or behave, and while it doesn’t even cross my mind that I may have done something wrong, or crossed a boundary or been insensitive, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. If I have ever done that unwittingly to someone, it was not intentional, and would have caused me prolonged guilt and sadness when I thought this was the case. All I can say is sorry from the bottom of my heart. I’m not making an excuse, but it’s the part of my brain that I’m trying to fight that was responsible, not the part I am trying to save.

I find wisdom and meaning in music, and these words from Frank Turner pretty much sum up the difficulties of realities versus aspirations.

“But I don’t want to spend the whole of my life indoors
Laying low, waiting on the next storm
I don’t want to spend the whole of my life inside
I wanna step out, and face the sunshine”