Hurt

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

2 steps forward...

...and then a s%$!-load back.
Lack of sleep left me dazed and confused today. Not a big problem as I've done no sleep before. But my appointment today led to me to my old marriage living type area, which was nice on the one hand but odd on the other. I now know the true meaning of ghosts. More on the lack of appointment later but as I travelled around my old shopping spots and walking areas and the house memories and experiences came filtering in. An argument for no apparent reason near the supermarket, her quest to find the ladies quickly! a tour around the new big supermarket that was bigger than the one we used to shop in, splitting up to tackle each aisle and get the shop done more efficiently. I always enjoyed shopping with my former. She saw it as mundane but I saw it as a little trip seeing what we both liked, deciding on  foods and household implements. I would always catch her by the pick'n mix, filling a bag and looking at me with a guilty face. Odd memories but happy ones.
I met up with an old friend instead and told her at times I find it difficult to comprehend how I got here. It's like I'm playing snakes and ladders for real. One minute happy with new life and wife and the next I've gone back seven odd years to now. No wonder I feel so dizzy and out of it sometimes. Mind you, that could be the anti-d's.
So yes, the appointment. I got lost, couldn't find the venue, was late and decided instead of facing the shame of being late, sacked it with an excuse. Those who have read Hyperbole and a Half will get this next bit. I felt emotionless about doing it. Usually I'd stress and think it over and over pushing myself to scrap it and then when I had punishing myself for it. This time, I wasn't bothered. It's not like I'd have been missed anyway so nuts to it. This was my six horror movies and multiple packs of sweeties moment in the video store.
What came out of it all? A nice chat with an old friend, a shop for old times sake, some coffee and an odd weird dreaming sleep when I got home. 
Oh, and a call from a tea shop saying my custom made tea-cosy was in for collection.

I try to walk in a straight line

I had the oddest and not the nicest dream ever last night. It involved Steven Gerrard (not a fan of him or his team) and my wife, not like that you filthy dogs! Anyhow, for some reason I was wearing a t-shirt with his face on it to a dinner that he was attending and wearing a suit jacket over it, odd. Even odder was my Aunty suddenly appearing and telling me after I took my jacket off how silly it was of me to wear it when she knew I wasn't a fan. Anyway, Gerrard was ok with me and then cool with me. During all of this my former made an appearance and she sort of spoke to me and I spoke back saying, oh so you're talking to me then?
After that, I can't recall what I said but I know by the tone and the result I wasn't nice to her. I think my brain threw all of the subconscious thoughts and feelings I had/have in the form of questions at her which resulted in her leaving in floods of tears. not long after that, she died! And then I nearly did when Gerrard tried to kill me in  a mobile scooter accident we were both in. Blimey O!
I awoke feeling very odd indeed and a bit sad too. I never did like seeing her cry or sad though it seemed to happen during our time together. That is the one face of hers that my  mind keeps conjuring up too, her being in pain or crying. It pops up now and again as if to torture me somehow. Hmm.
The song with the link below featured in my dream and I think kick started it as I listened to it before bed, well, before bed at half 2 in the am. It was one of her favs and one we sang along to when we saw them last year. Played it today and heard it on the radio this evening. Seemed kind apt.
My mum asked if I believed it could happen and I said, no but that wasn't the point. It was the feeling it left behind this morning. 
Why does my mind seemingly hate me?
Feeling tired which is good as I'm up early tomorrow for an appointment.
We shall see if I sleep or it's another all nighter.

I wish I had a bottle

I get knocked down

I managed to do most of what I wanted last week after the no sleep all nighter. It got hard but it was done. It sort of sorted my sleeping but not that much as Thurs night I struggled again and I had to be up early too. Nevermind though. So on the Thurs night of me being away I tried to sleep whilst feeling so down and so sad. Oh my, I felt so intensely sad and I wasn't sure why. It was like a mash of various downers had come together like a load of mashed up skittles, multi coloured and hard to discern what is what. I stayed laying down wondering what to do, should I get up and wander, read? In the end I texted T. She was nice enough and tad worried and then my phone started to fade out. Damn battery. That's the trouble with camping out sometime, a lack of modern amenities. Or maybe that's the point? Hmmm. Still, aside from that and a moment where I had to sit out on my own looking in as the group yakked it up and laughed away it was a good time away. I even got to see some of the air-show. I love air-shows. Seeing all those aircraft cutting around the sky, wonderful.
Sleeping it still a bit odd and patchy but kind of better. The odd thing mostly is me waking up feeling so tired, my body feels like I haven't slept in years, all fuzzy and light. Sometimes it can mess up my entire day. I'm trying to get a hold on it but some days...

For Halfway...

Dedicated to your good self... this!

I can't get no....

....ssleeeeeeppp.
So I'm trying an old tricky that sometimes works but is hard on the mind and body especially if not kept busy. But tomorrow or er... today, early this morning even, I will be hopefully.
Debates on YouTube involving Hitchens, Fry and Dawkins and trying to learn Italian with a coffee are helping but saying that I had so much kip today...erm...yesterday? that it's not too difficult. 
Plus it's kept my chattering mind shut for the time being and I get to see the break of dawn, always so peaceful and calm.
This could be a long old day. 
We shall see.

Every post is exactly the same

So many plans, so many thoughts. All of them came to nil points.
My plan was to awake early, run, gym it and get things done. Things done? Sod all.
Sleeping done however, lots and lots. I just wanted to sleep and let the world disappear around me as I folded in on my own consciousnesses. It probably didn't help that lat night I felt odd and anxious, rereading my divorce paper didn't help. An odd dream/vision of crawling figures in black hoodies coming towards me added to the unease but didn't duly disturb me, (this is an odd side of me that is well, kinda odd. I rarely have nightmares and so am keen to experience them thinking they'll be more like personal horror films, none so far though) No, I'm not sure what it was but the usual happened, a lack of sleep and then an on/off sleep that stretched long into the next day. Everything ruined once more. 
You stupid stupid a**%$! I was too listless and apathetic to actually think that but it was there, my annoyance at myself. 
And round and round we go.
I'm getting in the habit of not eating a lot and kind of enjoying it. I know things aren't the best when I start munching on dry digestives. I've lost weight, all that work in the gym has now gone but for some reason I'm keen to emaciate myself. I guess this is another version of S.I. which is something else I've been thinking about, cutting away at my arms in a symmetrical pattern and letting myself bleed out.
Oh dear, how on earth did I get here?

What if all the world around you is an elaborate dream?

The day I tried to live

Prior to the day of that piece of the divorce coming through, I had been out with a former girlfriend. We are now friends, just about. She even attended my wedding. One of the many good things about my relationship with my former wife was the fact that jealousy was never a factor, trust was high on the agenda and never seemed to falter. Now, during a round-robin trip of supermarkets trying to find a self heating cup of hot choc for my impending weekend away, which as you'll know didn't happen due to the piece of the divorce arriving, my friend, who'll we'll call Miss Shrink for reasons that will become apparent soon, accompanied me on this lill' trip around my home city. During this trip, I'm not sure how it came up but the whole divorce thing and my black crept into the converse. Miss Shrink, being someone who is receiving counselling, reading self-help books and wanders round with a clutch of quotes and diagnosis from various self-help gurus gave her own take on the whole issue of me and my current ills. First up was reflection. How I would look upon the divorce in ten years or so. According to Miss Shrink I will look upon it all and realise how my behavior was different and see it all from  my former's point of view and will be able to forget and forgive. To which I said, 'No, I won't. She said, 'Yes, you will' and this went on for a few seconds until I laughed in derision. Next up was my current relationship with a lady where it's not quite a full relationship but it's more than mere friendship too. This was bottled down thusly by Miss Shrink who thought that, 'you should have more respect for yourself'. She has commented on this state of affairs before claiming that I need to, 'heal myself' before getting involved in any sort of naughty time with someone else. A comment about how my former wife shouldn't have married me as I wasn't, 'healthy, you're unhealthy' and how we should look at how I make, 'bad relationship choices' including, in the past, Miss Shrink herself.
Unbelievable.
My response verged between laughter, annoyance and a bit of rage too. When I look back on it I'm surprised I didn't tell her to, quite frankly, do one. Her diagnosis almost put a dampener on a day that was going alright.
Now, I'm all for self-help type stuff and if you have the funds and the inclination counselling but please do not try and project it on to me. 
Hmmm, should have said that to her at the time eh? Bugger.
Still, I'm sure I'll get the chance as more nonsense will emanate with regards to me and mine and I have to admit to finding it kind of amusing listening to such tosh. Certainly helps with filling my blog with content other than my black and blues.
The next day is where it all went wrong for a few days and if not for my current lady, I'll call her T for simplicity, then I'd probably be worse. 
But heck, what do I know? I, after all, don't have much respect for myself and am pretty unhealthy to know much of anything.

Better than I could say it...

Hyperbole and a half

Have a look, it's fab.

Right where it belongs

How many times can I get knocked down? That seems to be the poser at the moment.
I was going to write this blog entry with some fairly good news today but receiving another installment of my divorce papers kinda put a dampener on that. I wondered if I'd sensed its arrival as last night I went to bed feeling a bit anxious and awoke very tired. I stumbled downstairs to see my mother with a letter. She'd held it back knowing what my reaction would be. I opened it up and yeh, there it was. Words mentioned like, my behavior, irretrievably broken down, dissolved, all went into my head but didn't stick floating around like alphabetti-spaghetti.
For the first time in well, I dunno, probably since I was a kid, I actually sat close and rested my head on my mum's shoulder, tears followed. Same day different... no wait, same s*&t.
And all this after my last weekend where I saw her and had no response or anything from her. Barely a look in my direction. I looked in hers and could see, or maybe it was just me, that she looked different, her face seemed changed. It was the eyes. They seemed harder somehow. But I suppose I would say that wouldn't I?
Wandering around the supermarket earlier today I felt like I did the first month I was fully submerged in the black; stifled, anxious, lost, like I was swimming in a waterless swimming pool full of clear treacle, able to see and breathe but submerged into another place, inside a looking glass peering outwards.
All the while my mind kept reminding me and taunting me of my failures, the failure to keep the marriage, the failure to even live a stable day to day existence and the failure to even keep to some sort of commitment or simple activity. For example, I was due out this weekend but felt so tired and empty that that wasn't going to happen. Once again I fall out. Oh dear. This is getting to be a habit and a bad one at that.
So, back to my usual then. Drown myself aurally in music, eat a bit, try and not focus on SI and bounce between sleeping very little and then sleeping too much.

Yesterday...

No happy ending...

"This is the way you left me,
I'm not pretending.
No hope, no love, no glory,
No Happy Ending.
This is the way that we love,
Like it's forever.
Then live the rest of our life,
But not together.

Wake up in the morning, stumble on my life
Can't get no love without sacrifice
If anything should happen, I guess I wish you well
A little bit of heaven, but a little bit of hell

This is the hardest story that I've ever told
No hope, or love, or glory
Happy endings gone forever more
I feel as if I'm wastin'
And I'm wastin' everyday"

Mika: Happy Ending

Every day is exactly the same

Some days I wonder why I even bother carrying on. If I had no loved ones, what little are left that is, would I actually be bothering or would I have tried to do it and finally keep those voices silent by doing the ultimate? It’s something I wonder about especially during days like today. I awoke  in the morning and then fell asleep again and throughout until late afternoon I felt so tired and down, listless even that aside from reading a page or 2 or a Richard Dawkins book and listening to the Manics I did very little else. A bit of food, dry biccies until I got together a veg’ laden meal in the evening. Much tea too despite the warm weather. If it wasn’t for watching the Olympics my existence would be pretty minimal. It is anyway but it’d be even worse. Hmmm, maybe I’m being optimistic here and it really is. I can barely get up of a day and I am struggling. Again. I’m not sure what to do. A small cause is the fact that I may well see my former at the weekend at a place where we first met. I have to go but, damn!  am I nervous about it. More for the fact that I’ll have to see her and know that she’ll either blank me, not talk to me or both. I need to go but I do know the closer I get to it the harder it’ll be. But I have to move on, either with going there or my life in general. Life isn’t right now. It mostly consists of me not sleeping/over sleeping/wondering what I’m going to do next or constantly letting my mind mull over her. I can still barely believe the way I let the slow demise by pass me. The almost casual nature with which I took her leaving. The packing, the sign outside the door on our return from a mutual trip, the visits from others wanting the house now we (mostly she) were leaving. Memories of her crying and in pain when she was ill plague me like an irritating ulcer twisting the mental knife of torment, reminding me of good times and bad times together. A song here, a trip there or a future plan we were making all still keep throwing themselves to the front of my mind, mostly at night, regardless of whether I want them or not. At the time of it happening I was using bravado and bollocks to get by and the initial novelty, stupid I know, of being single but it didn’t last long and now I’m trying to make sense of it all which I doubt I will. ‘Closure’? Nuts to that word ‘closure’. It means nowt to me and seems like another pop psychology way of quantifying and categorising feelings, thoughts and actions. There will be no closure as it will always go on until time has given me distance enough away from it.

 At the time, deep down I knew resistance was futile (very Borg like eh?) but blimey, the effects of it now are being so keenly felt I can’t comprehend. I was in one state of affairs with a wife and future and now I’m in another with well, nothing. Ok, I have a room at my parents so it’s not awful awful but where I was and where I now am, well it ain’t far. But yeh, it could be worse but does that help me right now? F%$£ no!

So tonight I’m going to try an old trick of mine that I tried when I had insomnia years ago and that was just not go to bed. Wait it out and see in the morn awake rather than wait and think as per usual. It will mean I’m near wasted tomorrow but hopefully it’ll help me out for the coming weekend. I can write this, take in the morning sunrise and maybe get a run in too, exercise has been poorly executed by me recently and I used to love working out but at the moment it isn’t really a priority. What is? Not much to be honest and even if it were I doubt I’d have much enthusiasm or energy for it right now. I am in a dark deep hole and I don’t know how to get out. Or maybe I do but just don’t want to. Yet. Only the Lord Poseidon really knows the answer. Or is it that tube of coloured choc drops that does?

A relevant meme

The Daisy Award

The lovely coconut cream that is Halfway between the gutter and the stars has nominated me for a daisy award. So following the protocol for such things....
Many thanks to Halfway, very sweet and kind of you.

And now 7 unusal-ish things about me then...

1: I like dry foods, such as digestives, some cereal bars, rusks, crackers etc. And in some cases brekkie cereal too. That being sans milk.

2: I love cinnamon, not in a weird fetish way just in coffee and brekkie cereals. Hence my recent trips to that big coffee golden arch type chain, the one named after a bod in ‘Moby Dick’. They have cinnamon! Lots of it too.

3: I really like red heads and girls with fringes close to their eye line.

4: I love new trainer smell.

5: I love the colour hot pink. Goes great with black. And sometimes I like clothing that has OTT colours regardless of whether or not it suits me.

6: I collect too many mugs and novelty alarm clocks.

7: Sunrises, sunsets, the stars, the open sea, I can gawp and stare at them without getting bored and feel a nice calming sense of peace when I do. In fact with regards to the stars I used to stare at them and hope to be abducted from some far away galaxy. It never happened though.

As I don't really know any other blogs I hereby nominate this one for its total honesty, openness and emotional writing style that makes you think, makes you smile, frown and best of all makes you think yeh, me too!

Halfway between the Gutter and the Stars

And this one for being open and honest about mental illness and well, for being a read head :)

RedheadCase blog

Just gotta stay positive?

Words. So many of them spoken, so many of them meaningless, so many of them meaningful, so many of them hurtful. And then there’s the words that were meaningful but just remain air and vibrations.

‘You are my life.’

‘You’re safe and loved’

‘We can get though this’

They might as well have been scrawled on a beach for all their worth now.

Today I received what I think is the final divorce paper. With the title of the respondent, me, I have been found to have had an  ‘…unreasonable behaviour which has led to the marriage irretrievably breaking down.’

So, I think that’s it. Not only do I have to get through this I now have to get through this knowing it’s down to my mental illness this has happened. Great.

Reading it tears began to flow and I did my usual of lying down on my bed and plugging into some suitable tunes whilst sleep grazing. My mind did its usual. As it did one thought occurred if I hadn’t had been taken down with this damn black would things been different? Would I now still be in a marriage? My imagination took hold and I kept thinking of the possibilities of what could have been, what I would have said to myself if I could have done a ‘Marty Mcfly’ and gone back to have a word with myself. Saying that what would have I said?

‘Those fears that are hidden? Those you daren’t even think about? Well, they may come back and see her? She’ll do one.’

Oh yeh, great, real helpful that! That would’ve been enough to push me into it anyway so what good would that’ve done? So here I am. I started off the year badly and very down. Now? Well, not much has changed and in some respects it has gotten worse because my partner left me and I don’t know what to do. The strong feelings of ending it came again on Saturday but the thing is I felt quite numb to it all when thinking about it, not angry or violent or anything extreme just complete numbness like my whole body had gone to sleep. Wandering around the shops at one point I felt like Zach Braff does in ‘Garden State’ that bit where he’s sat on the couch and all those people are moving and doing things around him with him looking on? I didn’t do anything but walk and that seemed to help some. Better than leaping off into the river anyhow. It’s filthy in there.

Today I wanted to run away, where? Lord knows. I had the same on Saturday. I was having a bad day and after a listless meeting with friends, they were tired too, I came back home and walked past old haunts; places I hadn’t been through in a long long time. It felt a little odd, almost like walking back in time and after that I walked and walked until hunger and fatigue brought me home. I was tempted to go further and today I wondered if I could have walked to the coast, on and on until I could see the sea, lose myself in nature and fatigue. Sounded good but practical? Only the great Lord Zeus knows that. And well, probably me really. I think I think too much.

Song of the week: The Streets: Stay Positive

She's not there

Although I really hate throwing  up, I mean really hate it, to the point of holding it back when it starts to erupt and making possessed like noises like a drowning demon when it finally does erupt, some days I wish I could vomit, binge and purge myself of her memory; a mental emptying but that’s not going to happen. It’d be as hopeless as trying to rid myself of any memory good or bad. But the urge is still there.  I had another dream about her. This time she was pregnant and shacking up with a co-friend and then she wanted to get back with me. All very odd but significant is as much as it shows my subconscious is trying to find some sort of peace for itself and therefore me because right now there is none. Or if there is it patchy. I don’t know where I can go with this now, these thoughts and feelings. I baulk at counselling as I don’t think it’s me, truly I don’t. Talking about it has helped but ultimately I can only see time and me riding out this storm coming somewhere to helping but that will take time, who knows how much? And also a lot of discomfort. One minute she was part of my life, 7 years and now because of my black she isn’t and that’ shard to take because although she has hurt me terribly I still do miss her. Luckily friends and family are understanding but how long will that last? I sometimes worry that even the Samaritans will get bored of me.