Wobble

I suppose I cannot continue on with my life and not expect the odd wobble. The relief you have from getting through that long dense period of black can be quite spellbinding though and any threat of its return makes you fretful. I have had some wobbles before after such periods but it always un-nerves me some because there is always that fear of returning back to it fully. I had one a couple of weeks ago. 
It wasn't awful but it was enough to unsteady me. I felt it after a particularly hard run the day before and wondered if the run had anything to do with it but I suppose I cant really be sure. Whatever it was or wasn't the next day was a slump. The usual feelings coupled with that heavy weight feeling were ever present and left me in bed, keen to cancel any and all activities. It's always as soon as I wake up. The fear. That panic, that anxious oppressive feeling which determines what I do or rather what I won't do in the coming hours. It wasn't nearly as bad as times before but it was bad enough to make me want to lie low, hide away from everything. Thankfully it only lasted a day or so but it did scare me. This is what I feared prior to my return home from abroad. A return to how I was. 
At the moment only the odd little wobble has seen me return to anything like that, for the most part I have been clear of all that but it's hard not to be concerned and worry about it. Keeping out and away from it, that's my goal because a return to it is just too much to bear.

Hidden away

Despite my current stable mood, even with the seemingly on-going over-sleeping that is again taking hold, I am very mindful of that black returning. Thinking about Robin William's passing and of others that I have read about I can't help but wonder if that black dog is, although out of sight, waiting in the shadows quietly biding it's time before leaping out  to encompass me once more. That fear of it one day pushing me close to that edge where perhaps I take my life this time, is there. It's hidden away but I know it's there, packed away for the time being but it's right there and always will be. Facing up to having this illness for the rest of my days is scary and, even now despite me knowing it, is a lot to digest but knowing that I could go through this all over again is something I don't even want to think about. Mostly this is because I don't know what I would do if faced with it again. It takes it's toll, depression, sucks the life out of you, robbing you of the ability to feel for anything, things you used to enjoy, people and events you used to like attending, it goes to only leave you with not much at all aside from the dwindling ability to just about stay in bed and make a cup of tea and maybe watch a film or something. Those are small victory days. I've had plenty of them and the thought of going back to that brings me to mind of that Bruce Springsteen lyrics, 
'...end up like a dog that's been beat too much 'till you spend half your life just covering up.'

Struggle Within (reprise)

No matter how many times I seem to get to this point or reach this level of feeling I still can't seem to shake it or get used to it. An event comes up I get nervous and immediately I yearn for me wife, my ex-wife. On and on it goes with no real lessening of the intensity of feelings. 
I really don't know how to shift it. And if I do attempt to shift the nerves, which is usually me cancelling something, that results in a brief pause of that feeling and annoyed feelings from who or whatever it is I have cried off from. 
I can only imagine the depth and intensity of feeling that will result from the forthcoming big move at the end of the summer.
It's like I'm in some ineffable maze that I can't find my way out of no matter which way I turn. I try the same route but always end up back to the same. Sometimes distraction works but when-ever it comes back to my mind it sometimes feels worse in it's intensity.
I really don't know what to do. 
Again.

Struggle Within

Today is a struggle. I've had a few days off from a course I'm on and as I'm back on it tomorrow my usual responses are kicking in. I have and am enjoying the course but sometimes the lead up, whether it be this course or any other activity that needs me to leave my comfort area, can be a worrying time. This can entail either me generally worrying about the course, how will I do, what will happen, will I even get up on time? to just that general sort of blackness that can sometimes cover me at times like these. Today is one of those general black days where I am struggling to get motivated or do anything. I cancelled the gym as soon as I woke up as I had no energy for it. This might have been down to my heavy session yesterday which was the first one back after a week or two. But still, I used to be great for getting to the gym on consecutive days. Not no more it seems. I'll be lucky if I can get two days in a row now.
Today has been mostly watching a Regular Show marathon on the Cartoon Network, trying to get my course homework done and listening to Pink Floyd. All whilst sipping at brews and snacking some. What is  a little worrying to me is that I'm happy with this and could quite easily stay indoors doing the aforementioned, with maybe some video gaming or drawing thrown in and be quite content. I think I'm trying to sift between my day to day tasks, courses and the such like and my 'home life'. If I can get my head around them then tackling those same tasks becomes a little easier as I can and do tell myself that once this is done it's back home to music, comics, brews and bed, if I so wish.
I am also acutely aware that this isn't the sort of behavior that will get me or keep me in any sort of a relationship.  But so what? Are they the be all and end all of existence? Probably not though they are nice and comforting to be in. Still, that isn't a worry for me right now. 
The effects of the last one are something I'm still working through.
But today, for a change, that doesn't seem to be the driving force behind this all too familiar episode.
I'm slowly coming up with strategies to deal with it. Small ones, borne from experience, that do work. The most basic one is if I wake up and am having  a really bad one then it's watch and/or listen. This being a film, dvd, catch up TV and listen being music on my headphones as I lay in bed.
When it comes to doing stuff and having commitments then what I mentioned before, the if I do this today then I can go home and get to bed type ones seem to be working at the moment. I also broke from my usual norm and wrote to a friend during my episode last week and that did help. What my friend wrote back to me helped me focus and although getting up the next day was hard and I was still feeling the black I got up and out.
What's on my mind at the moment though is, will days like these become the norm? 
Are they the norm? And if so, can I just accept that and work around them using the above?
The way the last week or so has gone perhaps so. I don't think I have much of a choice in the matter. This illness is firmly entrenched.

Not so glorious food

Lately I seem to be having a problem regarding food and my consumption of it. 
Last year I'd put on some weight, not a huge amount but enough to make me recoil in horror at what looked like the beginnings of a gut. As someone who has been into fitness, healthy diets and the such like consistently for close to a decade this was something of a shock. 
I managed to lose a bit of it when sure enough it happened again at the start of the New Year. More wobbly bits. So I took to more running and weights and the odd day of low calorie intake. Due to over-sleeping and my usual problems weights has slowed down some, running I manage to do at least twice a week, once if things are bad, like this week.
Seemingly in lieu of that activity my hunger has increased. Is this due to comfort type eating or the side effects of my meds? Or as a pal remarked, are you just actually hungry? 
Yesterday this necessitated the downing of much tea, toast, jam and tea. Today, mostly soft cookies. And despite the shoveling of those soft cookies down me I am still kinda peckish. This is of course making me feel guilty as once I cave in to my hunger demands it makes me feel over-weight and generally pretty rubbish about myself which is something I don't need to add to the general rubbish feelings I already have anyway. 
So now I find myself trying to shove in manic exercise because of the food that I have taken in that I perceive to be hazardous to my weight and that cannot be good. I seem to be on the road of manic eating, massive guilt, trying to get in a lot of exercise but failing and then worrying about putting on weight again because I haven't exercised enough or ate the stuff I should eat.
What a mess. 

Don't Let Me Get Me

I've probably put this video of P!nk up before but it bears repeating as,

A) The song perfectly sums me up sometimes
B) It influenced the title of this blog
C) P!nk's ace! :)

I remember watching this video a lot on MTV2 back in the day and loving it, not only because of the tune but how it practically seemed to be about me too. This was primarily because I was going through my first big depressive episode and it seemed to sum up what I was feeling and going through. During the second great depression it again became my own anthem as did many songs on that Mizunderstood album.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I have and as much as it has kept me going throughout all these years.

'Your wretched loneliness doesn't fool me'

Thinking about relationships or even attempting to embark on one is causing me some confusion. Confusion that is rising from do I or don't I? As I've covered before in previous posts, I still miss my wife. My ex-wife. Earlier this week when I passed a garden centre and saw an advert for coal and logs it immediately transported me back to a time when we had our own open fire and would buy logs or home make our own fire-lighter bricks and the ache inside deep inside was strong. It reverberated around like a yearning. A yearning for my old life with her.
With all of that can I really expect to start anew with someone else, with all of that still swirling around inside, ready to unleash on me whenever something of her pops up to remind me?
It feels like it's lying there dormant just waiting to unleash memories and feelings as soon as something triggers it. Much like certain blogs or websites use Trigger Warnings to warn individuals of certain elements contained within I think I should have the same scattered throughout my life to warn me of potential hazards.
'Trigger Warning: Passing through that area we used to both drive through together'
'Trigger Warning: Playing a song you both discovered and liked'
'Trigger Warning: Feeling stressed waiting for that hug she used to give you'
The whole thing is tiring but I don't know how to curb it all. 
Perhaps I can't and time is the only way. I try to remind myself of what she did and that sometimes helps but the feelings still linger.
One day soon she will be nothing more than a memory.
One day.

'It's unreal now you're gone...'

Self Inflicted

Eventually waking up today I wanted to cancel everything, shut it all out and hide in bed. Again.
I missed out on the gym but did get out for a run and I liked it, mostly because it was dark, windy, snowy and then rainy. Odd isn't it? I can get out for a run in all weathers yet the thought of going out to a party, to play in certain team sports or to just get out and do whatever I need to do on that particular day can leave me hiding under the duvet.
My face and hands were numb from cold and my lips were too, snow melted to my lips, yet on I went. I think I know why as I've mentioned before. 
Punishment. That's most of it. 
If I can't self harm anymore then this is the next best thing.

George: Just be yourself, Yosser.
Yosser: What if you don't like yourself?

Boys from the Blackstuff

This act of creation will save me from despair

I don't know how it exactly started. Was it the thought of her and the intense feeling of missing her, her presence, her calming presence that was the beginning? Or was it the general sense of darkness that slowly started to envelope me, gently but ever so surely until I didn't even realise that I was up to my neck in it? 
I felt bad, mentally and physically and by the time I got myself to bed and plugged in the Manics I was trying hard not to let it succumb. But succumb it did as it usually does and when it did feelings and thoughts soon turned to suicide. Suicide to stop all of this. It also became apparent to me that sometimes my suicidal thoughts are there to actually calm me down, soothe me, as off the wall as that sounds. Mostly they seem to pop up when I can't see a way out of this. All I can see are flat moments, the odd plateau, when I try and look ahead. If I look hard can I see another chance at a long term relationship? A career, a stable one without all of this...  illness?

Can't let love back in....

That's even assuming I try and properly look for one and stop my messing about browsing and being ignored on that POF site. The one chance I had for a relationship there, well it wasn't the right time. I think I was holding back. Miss C seemed to think so.
I think deep down I'm scared of what will happen if I do connect with someone, face to face, and a relationship begins. It could start off great, stars, rainbows, good shared times and feelings but what if it strikes? What if it strikes when we've established a good relationship? Will she be understanding or will she start off like that and ultimately do what my ex did and well, do one? Can I really go through that, put myself through that again? That's a lot of 'ifs' I know but still, the thoughts are there. How can they be not after last time?

Today hasn't been the best. I shut out the rest and made the best excuse I could to get out of my scheduled things for today, hiding under the covers, eating little -doritos, cereal, olives-  and mostly watching DVDs. It's days like these that scare me the most, especially when I consider the new job and new country that awaits me later this year.
When I was a kid I always thought that as soon as I was older, a grown up, it would be easier and that everything would be sorted and stable. I'd be instantly liked and respected because I was an older wiser adult and that life would be sorted. I'd also have a mustache.
Not quite eh?
Apart from the 'tache during November. 
That bit's simple. Not quite so the rest.

I don't mind the pain

So here we all are, a new year, a chance to... hmm, I'll stop there. 
You've heard all before, I've heard it and said it all before. Yeh.
Last year's new year wasn't the best and that kinda lingered for a while with some big peaks and deep troughs, the odd calm moments in March/April before properly plateauing around May time. 
My last suicidal urge was late February and hopefully I won't go through similar this time around. It started in January and was sort of triggered by a river I walk past most days.
Whenever I pass by that river now I always get the odd flashback as it was a place I kept resisting the urge to leap into at the start of last year. You can read through those times in last year's January blog entry if you'd like. I might myself at one point to see how bad I was.
This year so far so fairly normal, for me. I started off with a run on new year's day and have so far kept up the running and gym visits. Mind you, it is still early. I mean, what is it so far, one week and bit in?
I'm enjoying my outdoor runs though. Even if the weather isn't the best or it's rainy or windy I like it. Running in darkness is fine too as there are very few people about. I just put on some bright gear, plug in my music and I'm off. Right now I'm back to hitting the odd long hill too. The feeling of the cold air in my lungs and the heavy pain in my legs sometimes has a cleansing effect on me, it sort of clears my head as all I have to really think about and concentrate on is moving and keeping on moving trying my best not to stop and walk because I'm puffed out or my legs are too heavy. I just have to keep on moving, even if it's a slow shuffle, keep on moving, keep on running. When I'm going up that hill I tend to keep my head down as if I look at what's to come mentally it deflates me and it's hard enough to run without added pressure.
I remember during my first and thankfully so far, only attempt at suicide the walk I took was almost as head clearing as deciding to take my life. Now though, I prefer to run as at times I seek the pain from it. I'm not sure why but I suspect it's a hangover from my self harming days. 
It's my small way of punishing myself, I think. It's also helping me lose a little bit of weight that I've been carrying around in various sizes for the past year too.
Let's hope I can keep it up.

Trapped by memories

Over the summer I got into another cartoon show. What few readers I have will recall my love for Adventure Time and in addition to that I also recently have gained much love for Regular Show. It is fab and I highly recommend it. 
On a recent show one of the characters spoke about his feelings regarding a former love.
It went like this:

Rigby: "She's not coming back dude, she's gone."

Mordecai: "Look, I know, all right, I know. It's just, I mean, I don't still have feelings for her but I do in a way. It's like this thing that's inside of me and it's always just sort of sitting there waiting around and sometimes I'll see something or I'll smell something and it makes me think of her even though I don't want to."

This pretty much sums up me and my situation with regards to my ex-wife. No matter how far I think I've come and how much time I think I've put between myself and that life something will invariably pop up and take me back. How long this will go on for I have no idea and I suspect that it will carry on for some time yet. I can't just pack away a 7 year relationship with all it's good, bad and in between moments to the back of my mind. 
It doesn't work like that as much as I wish it would sometimes.

The Second Great Depression

This time of year doesn't help and what makes it pinch that bit more is recalling a conversation and a moment we'd both had in a cafe at a Sainsbury's back in Xmas 2011. 
It was then that I really opened up to her regarding what was then the beginnings of my black. Suicidal feelings were starting to take hold and I thought it best if I was open with her. I remember the awful coconut hot chocolate we'd both had and the shortbread and it's left over crumbs, me pushing them around the plate and picking them up with my finger after I'd moistened it with my tongue. 
I also remember what she said, about how she'd be there for me and that she wasn't going anywhere too. When I think about it now either she was lying to me or she was lying to herself. I'm not sure which. Perhaps a mix of the two.
The girl who always did and strived to do the right thing that time ended up not. 
All that fuss she made about our vows and us writing them and reading them out to each other on our honeymoon and she couldn't even hold to the most basic one. 
In sickness and in health.
Perhaps she thought it was more a guideline rather than a rule and besides it surely didn't mean mental health? Perhaps that made it null and void?
Another year over and still no real end in sight.

Wishing Well

This past Monday I had a little lapse. It had all started well enough but after browsing in some shops, looking for something but generally just nosing around I started to think back to when me and her used to shop. It was probably because a shop that I was in was one we did actually shop together in, only the once but it still brought to life a previously dormant memory. And as that memory came and went I saw other couples shopping together and the memory became stronger. Even leaving the shop didn't help and as I began to slowly trudge around the shopping centre I could almost see me and her walking around shopping as we had done those four years ago in my mind's eyes. As it happened I briefly wished that I could forgo everything just to go back and start again with her. 

Couldn't I? Please?

'Memories haunt me like a curse'

After that I felt myself draining away and it wasn't until I started my day’s activities that I forgot it all. It seems the only way I can keep it at bay. 

Still.

Wishes. I wish, I wish, I wish. If there was a wishing well it would surely have run dry by now. Would I really want to go back? Probably not. Even if that magical reality came true all it would do is reset the clock. All I’d be doing is rewinding the film, playing it over and over, enjoying the scenes time and again. But sooner or later the film has to stop, it has to reach it’s ending, it's conclusion no matter how painful or sad it is. With Xmas shopping now in full flow, the sight of couples and families shopping is difficult to endure and no matter who hard I wish I’ll never be able to rewind the film. Because right now and I'm sure in time to come I will want to rewind my film.

Today is a bad day.

'Let me hide under the sheets...'

Blue is the colour...

Blue. It’s a colour, it’s a (sort of) film genre and add an ‘s’ and it’s a music one too. When it comes to describing how you feel it can sum it up quite well, feeling blue. But when it goes beyond the simple, feeling a bit blue after listening to some Alice in Chains, watching ‘Warhorse’,  watching my team lose again, etc and carries on for days, weeks and beyond, is it the blues then? Hello depression my old friend. This is when blue melds into black because although rarely stated that is the colour of depression. It’s also something I’ll be calling it from now on.

Black.

I’ve had it and currently have it at the moment. It started (officially) at the start of the year although I suppose if I think about it it started long before that, maybe last Oct/Nov time? Looking back it was the  way I felt about everything or rather didn’t feel about everything. I was starting to feel numb to it all. Confidence ebbs away, not a big wash out it just slowly ebbs like a tiny leak in your mind and along with it goes your hopes and aspirations and any sense of a future doing anything. Before you know it that get up and go that keeps you on your toes or even keeps you out of bed of a morning has quite simply done one. You’d try and find it but you just feel too damn tired and low to even try. Small fears become magnified too; kinda like looking at an ant under a microscope, without it it’s a small tiny ant you’d normally ignore. However, under magnification it looks huge, frightening and something that could easily overwhelm you. And that’s the effects of black. I remember going to bed of a night, quite late and sliding under the covers with a sense of fear fear of the future (or lack thereof) fear of what I was going to do and a fear of meeting the very next day. My mind was constructing its own prison and parole was nowhere near in sight. Suicide cropped up in my thoughts and one day attempting to kill myself, to my mind, seemed like the most natural thing to do. I didn’t and I haven’t yet but the thoughts are still there. I knew something had to give when out driving back in Jan. I was listening to Pink and her song, ‘Don’t let me get me’, and as I was listening I kept thinking how the lyrics were practically describing my thoughts and my life as it was, ‘don’t wanna be my friend no more I wanna be somebody else.’ It was as Rik Mayall has been saying of late, Bang on. Coming home and listening to more music and feeling as though my world was crumbling around me I told my then wife and she had me go to the Doctors. My black had officially begun and been recognized.

Today's song choice: Pink! Don't let me get me