Maybe tomorrow

Rocky 3. 

A great movie and one which I sometimes watch when nervous about some upcoming event or other. In the film, there’s one moment which resonates at the moment. 

In it, Rocky is struggling with the faster pace of training and is clearly flashing back to the battering Clubber gave him when sparring with Apollo. He stops and tells Apollo, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow.’ 

Apollo responds with, ‘There is no tomorrow Rock, there is no tomorrow!’

These last few weeks have had me leaving everything until tomorrow, that golden dawn of hope and fulfillment where all will be fine and where I’ll be stronger, energetic, ready for the gym, ready for a run and free from this burden of black.

Tomorrow.  There’s been a lot of tomorrows. Almost three weeks later of them. Tomorrow still isn't here. It’s something I’m chasing and which seems always just out of grasp and I suppose it always will as the tomorrow I want will never come.

This week I’ve put off my coaching sessions, sessions that I help out with more than actual coaching, as I’ve either been asleep or just couldn't bear to face anyone outside of the house. Every-time I think to myself, ‘Tomorrow and it’ll all be fine. I’ll hit the gym, feel good and boom! Be ready for whatever I have to face.’

Not so far.

Still, there’s always tomorrow.

The Littlest Hobbo

Everyday is like Sunday

I have decided to blog when I’m feeling at my worst.

It might serve me well to signpost these days later on.

My body aches and I feel cold and empty inside. Any thought gives rise to a sense of near overwhelming panic that I can’t control. It’s like watching water freeze in slow motion, gradually it seeps and takes full control until it's ice and immobile.

The thought of suicide is very strong and is my only comfort. I’m not entirely sure why and never have been and can only fathom that it is due to its finality. I can barely eat and my attempt to boil some eggs went badly seeing as they were mostly un-cooked. 

My attempt to stay up and do some exercise failed yet again this morning and made me feel worse for having failed. The thing is, I feel that I have nothing inside right now. 

No fire, no fight, nothing.
Another sign that all is not well is the sense that I'd rather stay asleep amongst my dreams than face up to either, myself or whatever hurt or disappointment that lies waiting for me 'out there'.

As I enter the third year of this black, it shows no sign of abating.

Save me from the monsters

At the start of a Dr Who episode I was watching recently, a little kid was scared by the terrors in his cupboard and bedroom and kept asking over and over for someone to, ‘Save me from the monsters’. This was effective enough for the Doctor to come calling. 

Forget NHS crisis, now that’s service!

The night I’d watched it was an odd one, I felt almost feverish but had no rise or fall in temperature aside from feeling very empty and needing my hot water bottle, more for comfort than warmth. I then proceeded to have nightmares that had me crying out and waking myself up during them. This happened about three times. Unusual for me, as, I rarely get nightmares and the ones that I do get are mostly based around a feel or mood.  

I also wished that I’d had a Doctor to save me from the monsters but then, who can save me from myself?

This hasn't been the best Xmas and New Year for a while. I’d started to miss my ex-wife a bit more this time and certainly missed our Xmas routine. Also, the dread that I experienced prior to the start of 2012 where my worst fears and nightmares really did come true, were making a re-appearance.

I wasn’t looking forward to things again, I was dreading them.

I have slept a lot but also not slept a lot too, over-sleeping into the day and feeling like I've wasted them in doing so. I've struggled to keep up my exercise and gym routine and my usual option of staying up all night and going to the gym early doors to break that cycle has seen me retreat to bed more often than not. I near enough hid under my duvet last night, well, early this morning. I felt pretty shabby as well when I finally awoke this morning and I felt terrible. It was a feeling that wasn't too far away from the feeling I had the next day after my clumsy piss-poor suicide attempt in 2012. My hygiene is also taking a back seat again and I feel and think that I’m getting chubby. My head is chock full of the usual nonsense and there is this sense of panic that is starting to seep into the everyday. Although I’ve had a battle with internal fears since day dot, I've managed to overcome them in various ways. I’ve done things in my life that when in the midst of those fears and worries I just wouldn't have thought possible. Now though? Now I feel as though I've it a particularly big snake in that big game of life and it’s as much as I can to get up out of bed of a day. 

What is wrong with me?

I better get my masks ready for the next week or so when I have to venture out of the house.

Tinsel and blinkey lights signify something?

So after the trip that I’d been planning and dreaming and hoping about and for, I've hit a bit of a black patch. A long stretch of black ice on my road trip of life. 

Bit of a laboured intro’ granted, but hey, it’s my bloody blog, all-right?!

The trip to the US was wonderful. All those decades of US flavoured pop culture had finally come to pass as I soaked up as much of the foods and drinks as I could. Not too much though as I am still paranoid about my weight and current stop start of exercise and training. I hate any sign of flab about my person, even the flab that isn't really flab and is just well, me.

But still, a house of pancakes? Yes please! A big bowl of ‘regular’ nachos?! Oh yes yes yes! 

A chocolate bar that makes much of its protein content? Go on then!

much of its protein content? Go on then!

During my trip, I also managed to keep taking my meds which was something I feared forgetting but thankfully, I didn't. The trip itself was an anti-depressant all on its own so if I had I needn’t have worried that much. However, all good things must reach their climax and so mine is and was no different.  Now I have a bit of rest to, sort of, look forward to. I say sort of because sometimes when I have no overall structure for a day I can become a little bit lost. Daft really, as I do have things to be getting on with, Uni’ work, clearing up my space, going to the gym, running, etc.

Thing is with Xmas looming large, I’m starting to get that fear instill itself in me. 

The one I had around the beginnings of the start of all of this, the fear that became manifest in losing a job, a marriage and well, a sense of hope I suppose. It crept in during an Xmas do this past week, near the end of the do as my mind began to weigh up, not the possibilities of a good 2014, more the worry of what was to come in 2014. 

Great way to end the year and an even better way to stat one. Deary me!

Xmas for the last few years has always been a bit fraught. Myself and the former wife used to argue bitterly around this time of year, usually on Xmas eve. It seemed to be a saving up of all the bitterness and pettiness that had infiltrated our minds over the course of the past year, ready to explode just prior to the day of festival and  giving. So lately, Xmas does render me somewhat cold and unwilling to indulge. 

The adverts especially make me shy away. The forced family togetherness and false sense of merry making with a hastily gathered crew of extras and walk-ons for a super market keen to show off, hey, we know family, come shop with us and buy into it as well.

But then, maybe I’m just jealous. Jealous of something that was taken from me. I should be in a family; wife, baby but no. Not anymore. It's gone, over before it had really even started.

So yeh, it is all so much humbug for me and if anything more of a reason than any other time of year to hide away. Stick on some films, catch up on TV, get some video game playing in, plug in some tunes and hope for the best.

Not very Xmassy I know but hey, with a blog called, Don’t Let me Get me, what were you expecting?

Still, in keeping with the theme of the month, have an Xmassy shot from my recent trip.

Happy Holidays dear readers!

Hope you both have a good one.

An appropriate song

... the bad chemicals in his head...

For those of you who may struggle with what depression is, a quick guide.

Illness: We all know what this is; a virus, an upset of some kind in the gut, some malady or other that will bring us down. usually the only good thing out of this is time of work/school.

Serious illness: Something far more sever, could maybe be life threatening depending on the illness, it is nonetheless something that could have an effect on your life.

Feelings: Up, down or in between and as mixed as a bag of melted jelly babies, these chemicals dictate mood and to some extent actions resulting from them.

Now then, mix Illness and feelings together and you have depression. Depending on the severity of it you can usually throw in serious illness too.
And that, dear reader, is depression. 
A feelings illness.

Stay with me, let's just breathe

Phantom relationship pangs

When my granddad had the bottom part of his leg removed he used to talk about it still giving him pain despite it not being there anymore. I subsequently found out that this was due to something called, phantom pains. The brain still perceiving a part of the body was still wasn't there anymore when it wasn't and giving out pain signals. 
I have had something similar but allbeit in a more gentler way. Certain songs or certain scenarios, no matter how small or brief, have lately had the ability to instill in me phantom happiness. For instance, I was in a shopping mall the other day and outside, it being the season for it, there was a big stall of pumpkins. For carving and eating and all the sort of thing. As soon as I saw it I recalled when my former, during my absence rehearsing for a play, had carved a small pumpkin in readiness for Halloween and its subsequent visitors (trick or treaters) and from its scooped out innards and made a lovely soup too. Outside that stall on a rainy Sunday morning that memory had left me with a brief happy memory quickly followed by a sticky sadness that refused to leave until later in the day. 
They pop up now and again, these memories, fooling me for a nano-second or so that I'm still in a happy warm loving relationship. A phantom relationship.
Of course, now that's it's Autumn both my natural inclination to and illness driven sadness seem a lot more at home that it was whenever the sun was blazing. It also makes to harder to leave the house and get up from the safety of my duvet. But I guess that's another blog for another time.