When she could see it she stayed when she couldn't she left

The below was my first attempt at writing and then submitting it to The Mighty. No luck do far so here it is in full. Reveals a little of what led me here.

I’d had a knee operation, a replacement for my anterior cruciate ligament that had been shorn just over a year earlier due to sporting activities. It was painful and took time to rehabilitate with pain killers, physio-therapy and time. My then fiancée helped me through it all, every aspect she helped me with. The medication, the anti-thrombosis drugs that had to be injected, helping me move to places that my crutches could not take me, made my meals and assisted in washing me when showering just wasn’t possible. She also drove me to hospital when there was the threat of a clot in my leg and comforted me when I was in literal tears due to the pain. When I struggled to look after myself she looked after me. 

When I needed her the most she was there.

Almost exactly a year later when a mental condition threatened to take over me completely my then wife stopped being there.

I have had depression since a teenager and it has flared up during various points in my life. When my second great depression came and I eventually recognised it as such (or rather stopped ignoring what was happening to me), I told my wife. I opened up to her and it was she that took me to the doctors. It was she that listened to me and told me that she wasn’t going anywhere and she’d always be there. She told me this after I had related to her a particularly nasty episode that saw me overwhelmed by thoughts of suicide a few days before. I’ll never forget her holding my hand in that café that evening. Both of us were sipping overly sweet coconut hot chocolates as she looked me in the eye, held my gaze and made sure I understood that she wasn’t going anywhere I really felt that I could open up to her if I ever needed to. She would be there for me. Unfortunately, as the days and weeks carried on it was not to follow like the rehabilitation of my knee. The medication I was on, after the visit to the doctors, wasn’t quite working as well as I’d hoped and the suicidal thoughts weren’t going away. So I opened up to her, thinking it would help us both. 

I was also bouncing between no sleep and oversleeping and I was self-harming. Not a lot but enough for her to notice. As time went on and the family we had planned on starting wasn’t even close to coming to fruition she gradually began to mention me spending time away to try and recover. This went from going back to my parents to separating to finally her mentioning divorce. She wasn’t going to be there for very much longer. In fact she wasn’t going to be there at all. Everything I had feared when this illness was taking hold had come true. Those fears that deep down I knew were just that, fears, were now all too real. 

Now I don’t pretend that I was fun to live with and I know our intimacy had dropped. 

Being in the depths of a severe depression doesn’t make you feel very sexy, shall we say. 

But if we return to my earlier physical problem and my knee and how she treated me and now apply that scenario to this it all seems faintly ridiculous. I wish I could make her understand that now if I met her again. How her reaction to one mental condition made no sense when compared to her compassionate reaction to my physical one. I try not to think too much about it now and even when I do it all feels like a dream and one I am only now just waking up from.

Divided me and Conquered

When I was on my way to Uni practicals at the start of the week a thought came to me which was that when it comes to events and experiences I view them this way. 
They are obstacles to be overcome rather than experiences to be enjoyed. 
It has been that way for as long as I can remember and I can't really see it changing. In fact as I've gotten older it seems to be that more marked. Everyday events, getting a train to someplace is, for me, an exercise in controlling my mounting anxiety at such a task. The location of the seat, if I'll even get a seat, will the platform be full with lots of passengers waiting to get on the same train?
The same goes for entering a coffee house. Is it a big queue? Will the shop be full? Will I have any place to sit? Can I sit near the exit? And on and on it goes. It just seems like these last few years or so have been harder to control those fears. It was something I could just about control but now it seems as though it is controlling me. I also know that when my anxiety is too bad and my black is equally so that is when I get ready to Control, Alt, Delete.
I've lost many battles, as I have blogged here countless times the war continues until I don't. 
It will be my choice whether or not that happens.

What happened to forever?

Three

3

3 years since the divorce.

Might as well be 3 months. Then again it might as well be 3 decades. Both time spans feel familiar depending on what sort of day I’m having. If there is one thing I have learned in that time it is that you are constantly trying and learn to live without that former permanent presence in your life. I know that sounds like a blatantly obvious thing to type but there you go. It’s not only trying to carry on without them but also learning to shut away those things about them that you liked and found comforting. Learning that, if the day comes when and if you meet someone else, everything will be new and that sometimes that newness can be scary and disruptive. But it has to be. Everything has to be new. Trying to think of the next one as a revamped former will only lead to more messy heartache. It’s easy to forget how comforting a partner can be, their likes and little ways become a part of you and your day to day life. The way you can both shut out the world briefly and just enjoy each others company with a DVD and some wine and some intimate chatter that is something you miss acutely.

There is also something else that becomes apparent and something I’d rather not have to live with. That being past mistakes in the relationship in the magnifying glass of your mind’s eye with an all too apparent HD like clarity. It’s there whether you want it to be or not, stood there; silently staring at you breathing softly but noisily in that way that lets you know they are there. Past arguments, mistakes that you would have done differently if given the chance to go back, everything.

'Hey, remember that time when you weren't nice during that argument?'

Not now.

‘Deal with me.’

I can’t.

‘Remember me.’

I don’t want to.

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

And the guilt grows with nowhere to go with no way to assuage it or even manage it. 

I just have to hope that time will allow it to shrink away because what else can I do with it?

There may be some hope as the last few times I have dreamt about her I no longer wake up wanting the dream to carry on or waking up in an emotional state.

It’s not much but after these last few years it’s a... well, see below.

I never thought you'd lose that light in your eyes

Today is a struggle. And what seems to be making it a slow crawl through treacle sort of day is the slow onset of suicidal thoughts. I just can't seem to shake them and the longer they sit there in my mind, sat there quietly but breathing heavily reminding me of it's presence the more I think of ways to do it.
I follow it through, what I would do, how I would leave things behind me. It'd be a train station, a smaller town one, fairly quiet, park the car with a note for whoever finds it. And then, wait until.... 
But would I take that step? I don't know but it is something that is playing over and over at the moment. 
I'm trying hard not to think about what I have in my life future wise as I'll just panic and worry over them. I won't seem them as opportunities, more obligations that I will screw up through my own passing which will add further stress and increase those thoughts.
This near constant brinkmanship is wearing and boring but I don't know how to stop it.
I've been in my bedroom all day, feeling empty, worn and tired, listening to MSP and PF. Thoughts of my ex-wife have brought me to near tears as I try and deal with the past and my missing her but I don't know how to. I think it's just this cold numbness inside that I'm finding hard to see past or shift that is making me crave her presence and a warm embrace from her. The urge to write to her an open letter on Facebook is once again very strong.
But what would I say? I guess how much I miss her and how much it hurts not seeing her now. 
What would it accomplish though? What do I want from it? 
Do I want her words, do I want her back in my life? What is the end result here? What do I want?
I ask myself this but I don't know the answer. 

I just... want her to hold me close...

This mess of a man.....

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.

Meme time

Winter is Coming

Recently my dreams have been quite vivid. One I had recently had me watching a thick freezing fog slowly envelope me and all the while I knew it was happening and that I couldn't do anything about it. I think I was describing it as it was happening to me, knowing that it would be hard to escape from. I’m hoping that this was more a reflective type of dream rather than anything of a forewarning. 

Really hoping. Hoping hard. And my ex-wife has featured in these dreams too. I can’t remember how she featured but I do know that she did feature in them. 

My dreams, depending on what I’m up to do that day, tend to be layered. A big involved dream, wake up briefly and then lots of little dreams afterwards. Those dreams still unsettle me but at least they don’t ruin me for the day like they used to. But they still leave an imprint. I don’t know how long it will take until I’m free of her and the past. Maybe I never will be. But where does that leave me with regards to future relationships? It makes me very nervous indeed and not at all keen to pursue one. The trouble is I am craving going out with female company, window shopping, coffee shop chats, playful flirting meals and the such like but it’s not happening right now but considering what I've just written maybe that’s just as well? To pursue or not to pursue?

And if that wasn't bad enough, Xmas is coming. 

Xmas’ for me haven’t been the best, last year’s after my return from the US was particularly bad and seemed to be the precursor to an awful start to the new year. I did have plans to leave for another country but the problem with that was being alone and having no agenda as to what to do when away. Maybe it would have made me feel worse? I’m not sure but I wasn't keen on taking the risk so here I will stay this Xmas. I had dreams about y fears in the summer, I was worrying about it that much but the dreams had me doing other things, coaching in Germany, time spent in the US, enjoying Xmas and completely forgetting my previous bad Xmas’ and previous Xmas worry. 

Now hopefully those dreams were a foretelling of a possible future. 

That’s what I’m hoping. Really hoping.

The loneliness of the goalkeeper

Whenever I arrive in a new place, be it city or shop I'm always comforted by the presence of foreign students or newly arrived immigrants. This is because seeing them and hearing them makes me feel less isolated and alone because I know that they too are getting used to their surroundings and a potential new routine as well as me. 
It started years ago when I used to gig in London. I used to feel like a tiny any lost among the throng of locals. It didn't take too long for me to soon moan about the tourists and their incorrect use of the tube escalator like the natives but it is something I still seem to fall back on whenever in a new situation.
At the moment I'm playing 11-a-side football as goalkeeper. This is a stressful position at the best of times and may seem an odd choice considering my depressive past and current present. Since reading Robert Enke's biography, A life too short, it inspired me to get back into it all. It was the last position I played at 6th form so it seemed a natural position to get back into. What I didn't take into account, however, was my state of mind in playing. The nerves, the fear of messing it up, thoughts of others and general pressure of play. All of these mixed together presented a mountain to try and climb. My first game this season went to expectations that I had to deal with. My first game pretty much matched those expectations as in it went badly. First shot on my goal, I rushed it and it went between my legs. 
Swallow me up now ground, swallow me up now! It didn't and after that it got a little bit better, hey, it couldn't have gotten any worse could it? 
It's a lonely position but for all the perceived minus' it suits me to play it. It's taken a long time but I finally seem comfortable playing and do, just about, look forward to playing it.
I have had my moments of not playing and thinking up an excuse to not play when at my lowest. Like I've stated previously on this blog I'm getting quite good at lying. It has helped me enormously. It's just a lot easier than saying, 'Hey, I'm having a bad day. Probably best if I don't play today.' 
I just dare not risk putting that out there yet.

So Why So Sad?

So why so sad?

So sang the Manics and when you disclose the issue of black to some they sometimes ask a similar question. ‘So what’s making you depressed then? What’s causing the depression? What have you got to be depressed about?’ I myself when answering tend to shrug my shoulders and say, I dunno. 

Because I really don’t know. I see my black’s origins like a pie chart, a certain percentage of this may have contributed followed by a larger percentage of that. Ultimately I don’t know why I am depressed, it could be combination of actual events, a lack of positive mental attitude (though that’s more the symptom now rather than the cause, I think) or a lack of those feel good chemicals in my melon of a head.

Depression to some though seems to be more a feeling than an illness. The word is bandied around so much in our language, (I’m a bit down and depressed today) that when you tell some that you have it they see it more of a temporary passing feeling than the knock you on your botty illness that it is. Imagine if there was an illness associated with the word happiness. ‘I’ve got happiness. Have you? What have you got to be happy about then?’  Adjectives and illnesses cause confusion. And they annoy me as I have to answer the same flipping question everytime I let slip about the black!

Song of the day: Manic Street Preachers, So why so sad?