Wise Wisdom

It won't be long until the anniversary of my wedding, now first and only wedding, which will also coincide with the anniversary of the split/divorce. When I was a little younger I used to think that going through marriages and the such like would offer one some sort of wisdom, give one a certain take on life and make you exude sagacious wiseness. Internally I also tend to think that this has given me some sort of life experience which will in turn present me as being wise and having some wisdom on certain life experiences. Which it has to a certain extent but really all it has done is turn my heart a little harder. Now when I say this I don't mean it is the hardest of hearts as hard as stone more like it has a brittle inner that is shielding a much softer inner. All that experience has given me is a fear of becoming close and intimate to someone again. I'm not as wise as I think I am.
Lately she has been on my mind but mostly I think it's the past and those good times and feelings from that time that are on my mind, whether I want to admit that or not. The urge to get in contact with her is strong. As is the urge to go back to a time when we were together living in that small town and all that came with it. how quickly would I go back to relive that period and all it's mistakes in an attempt to rectify them and perhaps change the future? 
All too readily, I'm afraid.
And what is the one thing that calms me down, from not only this but all that is entwined with this black of mine?
Facing the end is what.
Sitting on the edge.....

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.

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. 

Let me hide under the sheets

I had a bad day yesterday. My first really off day in a while. Which I suppose is something, especially when I consider last year's New Year start. After all it was this sort of time, maybe a bit later in the month, that I had a bad dip that almost culminated in another attempt at taking my life.
It had all started so well on the Monday too. I'd played some Futsal and had played well and won the games and only drawn the once. I even had to remind myself on the way back home that it was ok to enjoy things in life sometimes. It's easy to get so swallowed up with this damn illness that you can feel a bit guilty whenever the feeling of enjoyment comes up. 
I tried to allow myself that moment of niceness as I listened to tunes on my music player letting the fays events sink in.
The next day was fine, I had some training and had an injury to my jaw area but it didn't really prepare me for the day after where I felt worn, low and empty. It was a classic black day. No emotion, no energy just nothingness. I spent most of the day in bed, thankfully I didn't have much on and what I did have I cancelled.
All I can do in a time like that is get the tea and toast on and stare at the TV. Maybe get some tunes on and read a comic on my tablet. Anything else is generally out. And that includes talking as well.
It is something I have written about before but is this what I can expect from my life now? Is my black so entrenched that all I can hope for is days off from it's grip?
And what's really scaring me, though I'm trying hard not to really think about it, is when I go abroad. What then if I have a bad day?

Words are very unnecessary

Thinking about embarking on finding a romantic relationship with that still surrounding me is worrying. 
In fact it's probably less worrying and more likely to make me not bother embarking. I know all to well how it ended the last time. The very thought of going through the closeness of a relationship scares me. And the less said about anything approaching a sexual relationship the better.
Perhaps in this regard this is all on me. By that I mean to say that as someone pointed out to me last year people are different and just because my ex-wife reacted the way she did that's not to say the next girl in my life will. If I look back then I can see that did have some merit as I girl I did see didn't react to my illness the way I  expected or feared but I don't think I was ready to try a relationship. She sensed me holding back and even though I didn't think I was at the time I must have been. And seeing what happened not long after that it was probably just as well I didn't.
It was a shame as she was lovely and now she has moved on herself with a relationship.
Still, the idea of it no matter how enticing is still scary.
Perhaps I'm better off just not bothering?

Oh the sadness will never go...

So another Sunday, another run and another day of darkness and feeling empty inside. 
It took a lot of distractions to get rid of that nagging anxious feeling and a lot of distractions to rid that empty feeling of missing her. 
No matter how much time passes I wonder if I'm dome sort of inevitable path to my ultimate self destruction. Regardless of the odd side-road that I am sometimes diverted down that can fool me into a sense of losing that feeling I always seem to find myself back on this road. Seemingly.

...will never go away, baby it's here to stay

I say seemingly as I do and have generally pulled out of it. I do this by generally trying to just carry on and trying my best not to give in to that feeling, the voice that says, give up, stop. It is tempting and at times hard to resist as I have previously written about but having been there before I know that if I do give up and give in to that feeling and that voice I'll find it harder to get out and get going and the guilt that will follow will be crushing as I do have commitments. I hate it but sometimes it is very hard to resist. Very hard.

Me vs Me

My run almost didn't happen as I wasn't feeling it at all, the urge to get up and out wasn't there. I near enough forced myself out by reminding myself that a) no runs equal a chubbier me and b) it's been one month since I last started my new year runs and one month since tackling the hill that I mentioned in my last entry. That time on New Year's Day I struggled and ended up walking a section of it. This time I completed it and managed to keep on moving in a run/jog sort of manner. That effort seems to have leveled out my bad feelings and at the moment I feel ok. Not particularly up but thankfully not too far down either. Which after earlier on before the run is an improvement, of sorts.
Still, the way I am and the way I have been I'll take any improvement. comparing this year's entries to last year's is also a marked improvement. Though saying that Feb 2014 did almost culminate in another suicide attempt. Still, baby steps and it is so far, so good.
But, well it's all getting far too repetitive. Again.
At least the Super-Bowl is on later.

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.

Wolverine Blues

Yesterday was a nice day in terms of wandering in and out of shops, buying a few nice things (Shop assistant at Forbidden Planet to me: Buying some Xmas gifts? Me: Yes, for me!) and getting things done that needed to be done.
It was an almost total reverse of Friday's feelings and I was at times quite happy, my mind racing. I've had this before and it sometimes feels like I'm exhausting these feelings of happiness only for them to run out on me when needed. 
Like today.
Today, I felt tired and worn. Again. In fact, it seemed to all hinge upon one thought of her entering my mind and laying out on bed, hoping to exercise later on, for those were my plans, but knowing deep down that I probably wouldn't. 
I then drifted in and out of sleep and each time I not only felt irritable and uncomfortable but thoughts of her ruled supreme. Each time they did I'd wake myself up on the verge of tears, the very act waking me up. 
I dreamt about her last night and that seems to have been the trigger for today. As soon as I thought back to it the effect did for me quick snap.
In the dream, I was trying to talk to her to say how much I missed her but every-time she had a boyfriend either with her or suddenly joining in to sit next to her un-moving. Sometimes, like today, I miss her so much it scares me. It's days like these that make me feel as though I'm living a life I shouldn't be, like I'm living a life that if it were in photographs  there would have a little space cut out where her place should be.
I know it's the time of year where it pinches much more acutely, her absence, but still it hurts. This isn't really great timing either as I had some good news re: my trip to London and a job interview. 
I got the job which is fab' but current black rules the roost and right now my past wants my time and it's proving very difficult to push it to the side.
Today I am totally bereft of her and it hurts.

The hating half of me.....

I found out today the result of that job interview I went to London for this morning. Well, I say this morning as in when it was sent but in reality I actually received once I woke up from a half slumber/half awake daze.

The news was good, very good. I’m in. Unfortunately due to it being one of those days it hasn’t really sunk it yet. I’m sure it will but right now it has had little effect on me. Which, I suppose, proves quite starkly that depression is not solely mood based, by that I mean it isn’t a case of feeling a bit down until the next mood or bit of good news comes along and hey, I’m fine now! It’ll suck the life out of you regardless of what’s going on in your life. Admittedly, I knew this, it, obviously, being borne out of direct contact with the illness more than anything but it was good to have it tested out directly.

…has won the battle easily

I have no idea why I’m how I am today. I can’t see any links to any triggers that sometimes preclude such emptiness. I just feel worn and empty. It’s not even that extreme blackness I've had before this time it’s more grey, a deep steel grey cloudy sky of a day that keeps threatening rain but keeps it back, instead suffocating the day with its continual cover and bleached colour. 

Or, basically, it’s a bad day.

A small worry has crept min with the news too, what of my meds? 

What of days like these that ruin everything? Will I have them over there? And what if I do, what then? I've yet to see or sign the contract and I’m already worrying. 

Have a day off will ya brain?!

But it won’t. It never will. 

When it does keep quiet it’s only slumbering until the next time.

Sometimes it comes back…

…sprouting up like little black flowers in the ashes of hell.

Very dramatic I know but heck, I’ve got depression so I’m allowing it.

At the moment things aren’t the best, again. It’s at times like these I wonder how and why I carry on. This week I actually had a job interview, of sorts. It was more a display of fitness knowledge and business acumen in a group of about nine of us. I’ve done these days before and it’s usually, best salesperson wins. This time though, I enjoyed it and got a chance to do some fitness related activity as well as business type stuff. There were six slots and out of nine of us and I thought, ‘Yeh, I should get at least to stage two.’  Cue canned laughter. Fat chance son! Glimmer of hope? Not any more, smash grind stomp! There it goes into the ground gone once more. 

So another one passes on by and I took it badly. Very badly. That coupled with everything else lately left me upset, fed up, frustrated and angry. My inner blood God demanded action, demanded a sacrifice and it got on alright. My former scratching post, my right thigh, took it. Annoyingly it wasn’t enough, the cuts and the lack of blood never going far enough, which made me more frustrated so I cut deeper, deep enough to scar and deep enough for my leg to smart considerably when I was done, the rage finally satiated. Blood wise a pathetic little tear of crimson slowly dribbled down. I couldn’t even do that right. After that I led down staring, thinking everything over, thinking how things would never really settle down, how I’d always feel this way and when I finally had some energy to stumble out of bed I felt awful. My body felt awful and my face felt awful, as if all the life had been sucked from it; it felt saggy and heavy as though it was just hanging from my skull like a melting mask of rubber. Oh dear.