After a trip to see my GP today, I've found out I'm not dependent on alcohol or anything else. She's apparently worked with a lot of people who are and I don't fit the bill. So although I'm not going to be rushing out to buy 12 cans and then smash them all in at once, it's good to know that I don't have to be some kind of teetotal monk who doesn't touch anything that alters consciousness. Saying that, while I'm working with my current therapist, being mindful is really important in terms of noticing how I'm feeling and trying to change it. It's much easier to block out the feelings of misery and hopelessness or panic and fear with a few cans or whatever else. It doesn't really work, though. That's the problem. The feeling I live with is always there underneath the surface. Some days it's so strong that I feel like I want to die, other days it's just lingering in the background like a witless heckler at a comedy gig. It's not going to cause me any serious damage, but it's as irritating as being stuck in a small room with a hyperactive wasp. So although I'm not planning to be entirely teetotal, I am planning to reduce my intake significantly and may still speak to somebody about the way I frame my use of booze and weed. Oblivion is an appealing prospect when you feel like I do, but almost certainly not a healthy one.
After being on citalopram for around 4 years, maybe 5, I can't remember, I've complained about feeling so tired that all I want to do is sleep all the time. I also have problems with concentration and end up staring in to space a lot. That's what they do, they numb you. Like being stoned or on Valium without the good bits. So my GP has suggested that I change to Venlafaxine, a slightly different class of anti depressant. Where Citalopram and Sertraline are SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) this one is a SNRI (Serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) so hopefully, I should feel less tired and cloudy headed all the time. When your main skill is to write things using the contents of your brain, feeling as if you haven't been to bed and your head is full of wet cotton wool and thoughts of hopelessness tends to reduce your productivity a bit, if you know what I mean.
So over the next week my doctor has asked me to reduce my citalopram intake and increase my Venlafexine gradually and according a plan she has written up for me. I'm not looking forward to the brain zaps (electric shock sensations that shoot from your extremities to your head) or the stomach upsets, sweating and tingling skin, but maybe I'll get lucky and avoid some of the side effects by moving on to another type of antidepressant quickly. If not, I'll just have to live with it. Strange how the things that are prescribed to make you better can be so ineffective and even potentially damaging to your mood. I haven't felt truly happy in years, but somewhere in the background of all this, I do have a belief that I will beat what I'm going through. Not by going for a run or the old classic "manning up" but by going through the slow and steady process of therapy, antidepressants, mindfulness and positive thinking. It's not fun, any of this. In fact most of it feels like a massive chore. A ball ache so big you don't believe it's worth the hassle. But what's my alternative? Continue to sleep for around 15 hours a day on average and still feel tired. Continue being unable to function and work for a full day. Allow the obsessive thoughts that invade my head to win and eventually kill myself. That's not much of an alternative, really, so I think I'll stick with the plan I have.
I've got parties, stag dos and other social events coming up soon. Despite thinking of myself as the worst kind of miserable killjoy there is, I'm lucky enough to have a huge group of extremely supportive friends from around the UK and beyond. I get invited to things quite a bit and although I sometimes convince myself that I'm like a less endearing version of Eeyor from Winnie the Pooh, evidently, it's only really me who thinks that way. Well, part of me...It's complicated, this mental health business, especially when you really look in to it and believe me, I've looked in to it in quite a lot of detail. The negative thoughts that I have almost constantly come from a subconscious, inner critic, which has been so dominant for so long, I've started to believe that's how I really think. If there's anything to be done, my inner critic will find a reason not to do it. Saying it's either pointless or will be so boring that it's not even worth considering. To challenge this, I've started doing mindfulness exercises. Sometimes they work and I can observe these thoughts happening without judging them, like watching them form from outside of myself, other times, it doesn't work and all I can hear is my sneering inner critic saying "well, this is stupid." On the good days, I get some things done. Not much, as I feel so tired all the time, but something. It could be a blog like this or a load of washing that needs doing. Those things sound like five minute jobs to most people, but they currently take up a whole day for me.
Eventually and with practice, different medication and perseverance, I do believe I can beat this. It just feels utterly hopeless when even the nicest of comments, the most well meaning of gestures and the tightest of hugs make you feel nothing at all. Those are the days when suicide seems reasonable. They don't happen all the time, but over the past few weeks I've had more days like that than I would wish on anybody. I'll never be the kind of twat who goes to the gym for fun or openly admits they "enjoy a challenge." I'm just not that guy. I want an easy life that I enjoy and to live on my own terms. I've started writing for a living already so I suppose I've taken a step in the right direction, I just need to keep looking for things that make me happy. Faking it is worse than not doing it all, as I learned from my years working in education and a few experimental nights out in trendy bars and clubs when I was student. When you feel as if you don't belong somewhere, your smile feels manic and forced. I want to avoid situations like that as much as I can. You only live once and I do intend to enjoy as much of my life as I possibly can. Even if I am a bit strange and hate so many of the things that make other people happy, there must be something out there for me. I already love music so much I would rather go blind than deaf and I still have at least a passing interest in literature as long is it isn't some pretentious shite about rich bastards from the past or some pedestrian yarn about the pain of being alive. Sorry to labour the point, but I don't really need to go to fiction to experience that kind of thing, I live it every day. Maybe I'll get in to Sci Fi or something. The sneering critic in me always had serious problems with suspension of disbelief elements, not to mention the woeful acting and gaping plot holes, but I have enjoyed the likes of Bladerunner, Vermillian Sands and a few other texts here and there as well. The main thing is that I want to start looking for opportunities to be happy, rather than listening to my subconscious voice (that seems very real and very present) when it tells me that nothing is worth doing.
As always, this was done in one take so it might be a little garbled. One day I'll go back and edit these. If you struggle with mental health problems, too. I hope you find the strength to carry on and survive another day.
Wednesday 15 March 2017
Monday 13 March 2017
So what now?
Today, while talking to my therapist, I admitted I have a problem with alcohol. I don't drink vodka straight from the bottle in the mornings or hide whisky in my jacket pocket for when I'm out and about, but I have realised that I compare everything I do to the fun of getting wrecked. My depression and anxiety are so acute that when I'm sober I am either so anxious about a range of racing, unfocused thoughts that I can't concentrate on anything or I feel so miserable that I don't get any pleasure from anything. One of the reasons I've always felt as if there was something wrong, is that I don't enjoy wholesome, supposedly naturally "fun" things like country walks, football or any sport for that matter. The whole culture that is attached to sport or exercise alienates me entirely. Pushing yourself, feeling the burn, being part of a team, all that shit means less than nothing to me. I work better alone, hence starting out as a freelance writer and I feel nothing but exhaustion and a sense that all the shouting and running around taking place near to my person is not only utterly futile, but extremely irritating. I don't enjoy displays of machismo or bravado at all. I have punched people in the face in the past. Even headbutted somebody once, so when it comes down to it, I can express my inherent sense of testosterone driven lad, but it's almost always a last resort and never something I find fun. I like to think we've evolved beyond using grunts and shouts to communicate and the idea of hoofing a ball around, climbing up and over stuff or driving dead fast around a track just makes me shrug as if someone had offer me a segment of unripe, bitter orange. I'm just not interested.
When I'm at my happiest I'm dancing around at a drum and bass night or similar, noisy musical event that involves getting a little bit wrecked. I can and have enjoyed a few nights like this sober in the past, so all is not completely lost, but at the same time, the warm, fuzzy feeling of being surrounded by bass and bouncing bodies while you are half cut is literally irreplacable to me. Similarly, the lazy stretch of a Sunday afternoon high watching TV that's so basic you have to be a little bit hammered to watch it, is a definite high point for me. I'm INFJ if you go in for Carl Yung and his personality types. That means I'm not naturally sociable and need my own space to recharge as I find social interactions both enjoyable and exhausting. People irritate me, what can I say. Sometimes I like to speak to them, other times, I really don't want to hear their shit. I have enough to deal with, what with feeling suicidal at times and having been through more therapists than you would imagine for a man of 36. So happiness to me has always been cerebral. An escape from my own poisonous thoughts or a soft focus around the edges of an intense musical experience, a film or a game. Sober activities like mixing can provide enjoyment but I need to practice feeling a sense of pleasure rather than just a sense of innate criticism of my own abilities and the poor quality of my DJing equipment. I can just focus on the music when I'm high or drunk, but not when I'm sober. This and a range of many other things, is why I have decided that I need to take a sustained break until I can feel some kind of pleasure or enjoyment in day to day life.
I have always despised going to work. Not in the cheeky, wink wink, oh you don't need to be mad here, but it helps, kind of way. The actual, feeling physically sick at the thought of having to spend so much time in the same room as people you would happily never see or speak to again if you were given the choice, way. I never felt good for giving advice to young people, no matter how much they thanked me for my time and I never felt good for teaching kids English and other things in schools and colleges. All I felt was a sense that I had managed to fake it through for another day and that eventually, probably before the end of the week, I could get shitfaced and do something cool again. I know a lot of people dislike their jobs, but to regularly think about suicide because you can't comprehend a life of doing things you hate, if that's normal, then somebody has been keeping it a secret.
I have literally no idea what I'm supposed to do now. Everything that motivated me was based on the promise of getting wrecked. I couldn't give a shit about food and the process of preparing it, shopping for it, talking about it or even thinking about it too much bores the living piss out of me. I have as much interest in food as I do in taking a shit. It's just something that has to be done. I don't like kids or the seemingly monotonous, bland lifestyle that comes with raising a family, so I have no aspirations in that direction whatsoever. I appreciate that some people might want that and like everybody I can smile when people show me cute pictures of their offspring or relations, but in my gut, I don't want that for myself. The sleepless nights, the worry, the expense and the restrictions on lifestyle put me off so much that it doesn't seem worth it to me. Travel is similarly unappealing. Admittadly, I would like to travel if I could afford to stay in four star hotels and eat in good quality restaurants every night while watching bands, going to nightclubs and doing other things I enjoy; but the majority of travel stories I hear involve roughing it, living out of a backback, sleeping on trains and a whole lot of walking about and looking at temples. I just don't care about shit like that. I'm aware of architecture and art, cultural and heritage sites etc, but if you asked me to choose between wandering about looking at a thousand year old castle or getting high and listening to loud bass in a club, it would be the second one, every single time.
I've tried these things. I've tried sport, I don't like it. Food's fine but I couldn't give a shit about talking bollocks about ingredients or the cultural resonance of my black pasta and truffle shavings. Raising a family seems like sacrificing the freedom, privacy and autonomy that I consider one of the only reasons it's actually sometimes alright to be alive. I just can't imagine giving up all the things that make life enjoyable to eventually rot away watching terrible TV about other people who watch terrible TV but say cleverly written sound bites at opportune moments. If that's all there is, I'm in trouble. I would rather be dead than so unhappy that my only release is kicking a ball around or cooking an elaborate meal. Yes there's always beer or other things, but that's been my point all along. If that's all there is to make me happy, something isn't right and I need to find something else. I have no idea what that something is, but the way I'm living at the moment is doing nothing but setting me up for a fall that I might never get up from. So from tomorrow, it's done. I'm going to be a miserable, boring, angry bastard, but I will be alive and trying to stay that way.
Sorry to end on a downer, but depression tends to do that to you.
Cheers.
When I'm at my happiest I'm dancing around at a drum and bass night or similar, noisy musical event that involves getting a little bit wrecked. I can and have enjoyed a few nights like this sober in the past, so all is not completely lost, but at the same time, the warm, fuzzy feeling of being surrounded by bass and bouncing bodies while you are half cut is literally irreplacable to me. Similarly, the lazy stretch of a Sunday afternoon high watching TV that's so basic you have to be a little bit hammered to watch it, is a definite high point for me. I'm INFJ if you go in for Carl Yung and his personality types. That means I'm not naturally sociable and need my own space to recharge as I find social interactions both enjoyable and exhausting. People irritate me, what can I say. Sometimes I like to speak to them, other times, I really don't want to hear their shit. I have enough to deal with, what with feeling suicidal at times and having been through more therapists than you would imagine for a man of 36. So happiness to me has always been cerebral. An escape from my own poisonous thoughts or a soft focus around the edges of an intense musical experience, a film or a game. Sober activities like mixing can provide enjoyment but I need to practice feeling a sense of pleasure rather than just a sense of innate criticism of my own abilities and the poor quality of my DJing equipment. I can just focus on the music when I'm high or drunk, but not when I'm sober. This and a range of many other things, is why I have decided that I need to take a sustained break until I can feel some kind of pleasure or enjoyment in day to day life.
I have always despised going to work. Not in the cheeky, wink wink, oh you don't need to be mad here, but it helps, kind of way. The actual, feeling physically sick at the thought of having to spend so much time in the same room as people you would happily never see or speak to again if you were given the choice, way. I never felt good for giving advice to young people, no matter how much they thanked me for my time and I never felt good for teaching kids English and other things in schools and colleges. All I felt was a sense that I had managed to fake it through for another day and that eventually, probably before the end of the week, I could get shitfaced and do something cool again. I know a lot of people dislike their jobs, but to regularly think about suicide because you can't comprehend a life of doing things you hate, if that's normal, then somebody has been keeping it a secret.
I have literally no idea what I'm supposed to do now. Everything that motivated me was based on the promise of getting wrecked. I couldn't give a shit about food and the process of preparing it, shopping for it, talking about it or even thinking about it too much bores the living piss out of me. I have as much interest in food as I do in taking a shit. It's just something that has to be done. I don't like kids or the seemingly monotonous, bland lifestyle that comes with raising a family, so I have no aspirations in that direction whatsoever. I appreciate that some people might want that and like everybody I can smile when people show me cute pictures of their offspring or relations, but in my gut, I don't want that for myself. The sleepless nights, the worry, the expense and the restrictions on lifestyle put me off so much that it doesn't seem worth it to me. Travel is similarly unappealing. Admittadly, I would like to travel if I could afford to stay in four star hotels and eat in good quality restaurants every night while watching bands, going to nightclubs and doing other things I enjoy; but the majority of travel stories I hear involve roughing it, living out of a backback, sleeping on trains and a whole lot of walking about and looking at temples. I just don't care about shit like that. I'm aware of architecture and art, cultural and heritage sites etc, but if you asked me to choose between wandering about looking at a thousand year old castle or getting high and listening to loud bass in a club, it would be the second one, every single time.
I've tried these things. I've tried sport, I don't like it. Food's fine but I couldn't give a shit about talking bollocks about ingredients or the cultural resonance of my black pasta and truffle shavings. Raising a family seems like sacrificing the freedom, privacy and autonomy that I consider one of the only reasons it's actually sometimes alright to be alive. I just can't imagine giving up all the things that make life enjoyable to eventually rot away watching terrible TV about other people who watch terrible TV but say cleverly written sound bites at opportune moments. If that's all there is, I'm in trouble. I would rather be dead than so unhappy that my only release is kicking a ball around or cooking an elaborate meal. Yes there's always beer or other things, but that's been my point all along. If that's all there is to make me happy, something isn't right and I need to find something else. I have no idea what that something is, but the way I'm living at the moment is doing nothing but setting me up for a fall that I might never get up from. So from tomorrow, it's done. I'm going to be a miserable, boring, angry bastard, but I will be alive and trying to stay that way.
Sorry to end on a downer, but depression tends to do that to you.
Cheers.
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