anxiety – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: anxiety

  • Winter is a Nightmare

    This is a story about the worst of all worlds…

    Snow

    I was already depressed and anxious before the winter started, but now I’m really depressed. I get seasonal depression very badly every winter, but this winter seems worse than ever.

    The most dreadful combination of factors, includes the exacerbated isolation of not having any local friends or family, magnified by the pandemic lockdowns, being single, not drinking, unmedicated, on a diet, tired, hungry and generally pretty pissed off with life, having worked 16 months back-to-back without a holiday; only a single day off, except for the very occasional bank holiday and a period where I was hospitalised with multiple organ failure, which doesn’t really count.

    Poor me. Poor me etc etc.

    Yep, this is self-pitying stuff, but I don’t care: I’m miserable and this is the only coping mechanism I’ve got.

    In an attempt to count my blessings, I guess I’ve only gotta work for three more weeks before attempting to take a long-overdue holiday. My finances are heading in the right direction. My weight is headed in the right direction. My fitness is headed in the right direction. The project, which has been my all-consuming passion for the best part of a couple of years, is at least not in terrible shape, which is something of a minor miracle. I don’t have to waste my life commuting, which is good. I don’t dread my alarm clock going off or struggle to get up in the morning, which is definitely a miracle.

    My mental health is definitely in tatters, as I swing from suicidal depression to manic ranting, but the rigid structure and routine I’ve installed in my life, is holding me steady. It beggars belief that I have managed to save as much money as I have, work as much as I have, and produce as much as I have, while undergoing a near-continuous mental health crisis, which very nearly killed me less than a year ago… even getting hospitalised with multiple organ failure didn’t much disrupt my stride.

    I know that winter is a dangerous time – a threat to my life – and I had successfully employed some great techniques to cope: namely, getting the hell out of this miserable country and going somewhere hot, as much as possible during the winter. Of course, as soon as I found myself trapped here last winter, it was curtains. We will see what happens this year, but there’s a glimmer of home that I might escape both the terrible winter weather, and the threat to my life which implicitly comes with being in the UK during the winter.

    The period when I had the most face-to-face contact with other humans, was during the height of the pandemic, when we stood on our doorstep and clapped for the NHS. I was getting a daily dose of talking to other humans, in-person. Now, I spend the long winter evenings and the miserable weekends totally alone.

    Of course, almost everything which I hate about my life, appears to be a choice: I’m choosing to not drink any alcohol, I’m choosing to diet, I’m choosing to be single, I’m choosing to be unmedicated. All of these choices are good for me though, so it’s not really a choice, but a necessity. I know that in the long run I will have substantially improved my bank balance, flattened my tummy, and maintained my sanity, none of which would be possible without short-term sacrifice.

    I’m sitting here with my stomach gurgling angrily. I over-indulged with food at the weekend, although I was still well below my calorie requirements and as such, still dieting. However, my weight loss is not progressing as quickly as I want it to, so I’m fasting for 40+ consecutive hours. The hunger is made all the worse, by all the other things I’ve got going on.

    Still, just three weeks to go, I tell myself. Just three weeks before I attempt to take a long-overdue holiday.

     

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  • I Recant

    This is a story about irresponsibility…

    Collapse

    I did something which I knew was wrong. I looked at my website visitor data and it went to my head. I acted irresponsibly.

    I’m just one guy, writing in my spare time.

    Even if I worked full-time at this, there’s a very finite limit of what I can offer people one-to-one.

    With the power of the internet, I can reach vast numbers of people, but there’s not a lot I can do for them as individuals. The power of a website is to broadcast, and the ability to meaningfully reply is a problem which hasn’t been solved by technology yet: there is no machine which can pass the Turing Test, let alone provide effective crisis counselling.

    I never promoted myself as a crisis counsellor, but I did very vociferously talk about the need for people to be able to talk about their suicidal thoughts, without being shouted down with “YOU’VE GOT SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR” clichés. I did write, at great length, about the vast numbers of people who can’t find anybody to talk to who’s going through what they’re going through, and isn’t some well-meaning busybody whose misguided good intentions are actually driving some suicidal people away. It’s undeniably true: people are searching for stories which aren’t bullshit fantasy make-believe nonsense about how everything’s going to be OK and “this will pass soon” because people know that’s not true: they’ve lived with suicidal thoughts for so long, that they know that it doesn’t pass, a lot of the time.

    However, I am not equipped. I am not equipped to read and respond to vast amounts of people’s tragic stories, all day, every day. I very badly want to be able to, but my mood and energy fluctuates wildly, and so does my ability to read and respond. I can’t promise to always be available to chat. I can’t promise to always be able to read and respond in a timely manner.

    I’m not sure if I ever made a promise to anybody, but I suppose I got carried away, and I had increasingly encouraged people to write to me. I don’t discourage it, but I think it was irresponsible of me, to be reaching so many people in crisis, but yet to be so ill-equipped to deal with that deluge… it’s heartbreakingly tragic that there are so many people out there in the world, searching for the “easiest” way to kill themselves.

    I’m not a wishful thinker. I’m not an idiot either. Although I applaud those who say “if I just save one life, that’s enough” and indeed that attitude is theoretically enough to save everyone who needs to be saved, if we all adopted that attitude… unfortunately, the statistics and data points that it is not enough. That’s not to say that those who volunteer to work on crisis counselling phone lines aren’t working hard enough. It’s a simple statement of fact: whatever we’re doing in the world of suicide prevention, is not working.

    So, I’m taking an unorthodox approach. I’m writing about my struggles, without trying to create any Disney Hollywood fairy-tale fantasy happy ending. There’s no happy ending to my story. My story doesn’t have an ending like: “and they all lived happily ever after”. Nope. This is not a rags-to-riches story. This isn’t a story of recovery. If you came here looking for that, you came to the wrong place. In fact, I know why people came here, and they are not looking for saccharine-sweet sugar-coated false hope, because there’s plenty of that already in the world. So many people write to me to tell me that they’re so glad that they found somebody writing with honesty in a relatable way, that I’m never going to stop doing that.

    My mistake; my irresponsibility… that’s been in getting greedy and actively trying to get more readers. My crime is in letting the huge number of readers go to my head, and starting to think that I was doing anything more than simply telling a relatable story, with honesty.

    In short, I’m sorry. I don’t have anything other to offer you than my story. I’ll stop being so arrogant and pretending I’m anything other than an ordinary guy, telling his own story of depression and suicide attempts, for anybody who wants to read it. I’m sorry I got big-headed and thought that I might be making a different. I’m sorry for my delusion of grandeur.

    I’m going to now delete one of the blog posts I wrote, which was definitely straying into the territory of delusional; written when I was thinking that I was making a difference, in some way… when I thought I was doing something useful. Now I see that it was irresponsible.

    I’m sorry.

     

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  • Minor Discomfort

    This is a story about unrealistic expectations…

    Cleaning cupboard

    I’m not sure where this ‘unrealistic’ thing came from. Realistically, we will succumb to a horrible disease, and then die. This much, our parents knew for certain when they decided to have children. Realistically, our parents knowingly condemned us to a life of deprivation and want; disease and death. Realistically, our expectation should be to die in fear, agony and discomfort, after struggle and suffering.

    Is there any point in counting our blessings? Why not count our curses? Either option is comparably meaningless as a mortal creature in a godless universe.

    I wonder how frequently a minor inconvenience seems sufficient grounds for suicide, to me. Certainly in the past few years, I’ve been so consumed with horrendous anxiety over ‘trivial’ life events, that I’ve lived with near-constant suicidal depression. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve promised myself that I’ll end the suffering if a certain unfortunate event occurs. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve felt, for a moment, on a knife edge about to end my life, triggered by seemingly the most minor of things; the most inconsequential and hard to fathom, for those who aren’t troubled with such extreme sensations.

    It’s hard to know if things are getting better or worse. Certainly, I overcame problems with moving house, potentially losing my income, some invasive background checks, plus the hurricane-strength headwinds of debt and other money worries, which completely eroded any hope and sense of wellbeing, constantly. I dealt with breakups, losing my cat, a car which had to be scrapped, another car which got crashed into, multiple organ failure… you know, that kind of stuff. Normal everyday ordinary kinda stuff.

    I’m no fan of the contrived platitudes about counting blessings, or suchlike idiotic nonsense. However, it did occur to me that I’m grateful that, for example, I have no need to deal with doctors or dentists; I have no need to deal with solicitors; I have no need to deal, on the whole, with the general public. I suppose it’s a somewhat charmed existence, certainly versus being one of the oft-mentioned starving African children, or indeed the one any only person on the entire planet who’s got it worse than everybody else, and therefore by extension is the only person out of nearly 8 billion, who’s legitimately entitled to complain or feel sorry for themselves: everyone else has to suck it up and “count their blessings”.

    I reserve the right. I reserve the right to complain. I reserve the right to feel sorry for myself. I reserve the right to kill myself, whenever I want. I reserve those rights.

    It seems to me, that the only way that humanity’s self-awareness can be balanced, along with the curse of intellect which allows the perception of the futility of existence, is with the ability to end one’s own life. Sure, vast swathes of humanity are too stupid and ignorant to be cursed with the comprehension of the awfulness and meaningless of existence; afflicted by angst, ennui, anxiety, depression and other horrors visited upon those who are elevated above the level of rutting beasts. Sure, it would be soul-soothing to be swept up in the mass hysteria; too busily acting like a slug or a wasp, intent on passing on its genes, like a mindless beast… sure that would obviously be better, in terms of personal suffering, but it’s unethical to knowingly inflict such awfulness on an innocent victim: namely those children who did not consent to be born, nor indeed should have been born into such a dreadful world. There is no excuse for the crime of bringing children into this world, to suffer and die afraid, in pain, after a life of struggle, discomfort and unmet want.

    I suppose it’s an incredibly unoriginal and banal observation, that organised religion provides a convenient but provably wrong fantasy for those who wish to justify and forgive their own wicked deeds. You might argue that morality is the sole preserve of organised religion, and in a way you are right: there are no supernatural entities who sit in judgement over any of us; there is no objective morality; everything is permissable, within the confines of the universal laws of physics.

    So, in conclusion: commit suicide, or commit murder, or don’t. Nobody gives a shit. Nothing matters. Life is meaningless and all human history will be obliterated such that any and all existence of humanity’s existence will be utterly undetectable; totally and irretrievably destroyed.

     

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  • Raw Dogging Reality

    This is a story about taking the edge off…

    Mulled cider

    There’s a popular meme which asks what’s classy if you’re rich, but trashy if you’re poor. Among the answers is daytime drinking. Certainly, what gets classed as alcoholism for poor people, is just considered taking the edge off after a long hard day, for the wealthy.

    Drinking and the United Kingdom go hand-in-hand. The weather is pretty atrocious for the majority of the year, and not in a Skandinavian way, with pretty snow and ice, but instead in a miserable grey-skied, drizzly rain kind of way. The UK doesn’t get cosy during winter time, it just gets depressing. While the UK has a bad – but deserved – reputation for being the home of larger lout football hooligans, and horrendous rates of alcoholism, is it any wonder, considering the dreadful weather?

    If we examine humanity’s need for intoxication, we can see that it’s well correlated with dreadful weather. The longer and more miserable the winter, the more people drink.

    Looking at wider habits of intoxication, we can see that life is unbearable, for the majority of us, without something to take the edge off.

    Why then do we fetishise brutal sobriety?

    There’s noting admirable about being teetotal. I’ve been teetotal for a month and a half, and I doesn’t make me morally superior. I’m not a better person, just because I’m not imbibing alcohol. The only reason not to drink is pure vanity: that I’m dieting, and alcohol was contributing the vast majority of calories which I was consuming.

    Without alcohol, I’m struggling. Without alcohol, I’m unstable and finding it almost impossible to plod along at snail’s pace, bored out of my mind. I’m finding it impossible to get through the day: it’s unbearably horrible.

    I do not recommend experiencing raw unfiltered reality. It’s awful.

    Of course, nobody does experience raw unfiltered reality. Everyone drinks. Everyone smokes. Everyone pushes their buttons in some artificial way or another. Everyone takes medications. Everyone finds a way to artificially alter their brain.

    I suppose that when I said we don’t have the Scandinavian kind of cosiness, with warm sweaters, open fires, great central heating, insulated houses and snow outside, we do have a British kind of cosiness: country pubs, with lots of British beer. The Britons have always been big consumers of beer, and never moreso than during the dark, cold winter months. The British adapt to their miserable British winter weather, by retreating to the pub, and drinking more.

    The idea that we should be able to maintain a certain constant level, in all areas of life, year-round, is complete insanity. Of course we need to sleep more when the days are shorter, the nights are longer, and it’s colder. Of course, we need to be less active in the winter. Of course, we can’t work the same hours. Of course, we can’t go outside as much. Of course, we’re going to eat and drink more. The seasons are not constant – there is summer and winter – and neither can we, as biological creatures, be constant either.

    Doing a very extreme diet at the same time as being teetotal, coinciding with the clocks going back, the nights getting longer and the weather getting colder: this is something which is awful to experience, raw and unfiltered. I’m tired, hungry, cold, and I’m hit with the full force of the horrendous anxiety which human existence induces. This world is fucking shit, to experience without anything to take the edge off.

    While the whole world is drinking alcohol, smoking, taking tons of pills, drinking tea, coffee, energy drinks, eating super sugary foods, upregulating themselves with gym workouts and suchlike, and bombarding themselves with a ton of dopamine-inducing entertainment – film, TV, video games, news media, social media, internet, pornography – I’m struggling along, experiencing raw reality, which is truly terrible. Do not recommend. Stay with your trusty pills – you need them!

    The phrase “raw dogging reality” is stolen from a Tweet I saw, but it very aptly sums up the horribleness of human existence, without pills, booze, drugs, cigarettes or any of the other vices which make life liveable.

     

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  • My Own Worst Enemy

    This is a story about self sabotage…

    Bruise

    Why can’t I just keep my big mouth shut? Why can’t I just smile and nod, and think of the money? Why can’t I sit back, relax, and just take the money? Why can’t I just focus on the money, and not worry about anything else? I’m getting paid, aren’t I? That should be enough, shouldn’t it?

    No.

    It’s not enough.

    Not for me, anyway.

    Of course, when I’ve burned the bridge I will be filled with regret, remorse, shame and embarrassment. Of course, when I’ve burned the bridge I’ll be depressed and anxious, and I’ll wish I had kept my big mouth shut. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I’ll see that I threw away something really good; that I made a huge blunder.

    All of this presupposes that I’m in possession of free will. All of this presupposes that I’m able to make choices.

    I’m not able to choose.

    Of course, if I could choose, I would switch off my brain and sit mute in my chair, collecting my paycheque. Of course, if I could choose, I would press the fast-forward button, and get myself to the point where I’ve collected all the money. In order to get the money, all I have to do is nothing. They’re going to give me the money, but only on the proviso that I keep quiet. I’m going to get the money, but it comes with strings attached: I have to sit in my chair and keep my mouth shut.

    Why can’t I keep my mouth shut, and just think of the big fat paycheque?

    I’m grappling with the idea that I’m not a very nice person. There are plenty of people with the same mental health problems as me – bipolar disorder, anxiety etc – and they’re lovely perfect Jesus-like individuals who spread joy everywhere they go; infinitely charitable, kind, helping old ladies, sick animals, orphans, starving Africans and suchlike. Why am I such an asshole? I certainly can’t blame my mental illness, because every other person on the whole wide entire planet with a mental illness is a saint who would make a nun blush with shame at their lack of piety.

    For sure, having a mood disorder makes life in civilised society pretty challenging. For sure, being shackled to a rigid organisational structure, where everyone’s expected to fit in or fuck off, is a massive problem when my mood is not stable like an ordinary person’s. We all want to lie in bed with the curtains closed sometimes. We all want to go a bit crazy sometimes. Sure, you can say that it’s incumbent on me to fight my mood, with willpower, mental strength, medication, or whatever it takes… or else fuck off and die in some dark dank hole. For sure, it’s my problem, nobody else’s. Everyone else is getting on with life, neatly compartmentalising themselves into their assigned slot; fitting in. What the hell gives me the right to be eccentric; different?

    Aside from lying down on the floor and resigning myself to death by multiple organ failure, last Christmas, it shouldn’t be understated just how hard I have been working to overcome my mood disorder, and to fit in. For the last three years, I’ve forced myself to battle through severe depression, social jetlag, overwhelming anxiety, panic attacks and suchlike, in order to keep working and rebuild my shattered finances. If I wasn’t battling my mental illness, you can be certain that I would have been at home in bed, in a darkened room, instead of turning up at work, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

    The other side of my mood disorder is mania, which I’ve employed to make myself incredibly productive. I can quite rightly feel proud of a lot of achievements during the past three years. My productivity has been sky-high.

    High productivity has come at a high cost.

    I’m crashing, predictably. I’m exhausted and irritable. I’m getting physically sick. I can’t regulate my mood. I can’t act appropriately; professionally. I’m losing it. I’m having a breakdown.

    All of this was inevitable, sure, but I don’t think it was avoidable.

     

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  • Second Lockdown

    This is a story about a broken record…

    Names

    What’s the exact idiom? A broken record surely wouldn’t play at all, so I always reject the idiom “broken record” thinking it must instead be “scratched record”. However, I don’t think we really use the idiom “scratched record” so I’ll stick with my original preamble, which was probably correct insofar as being a well-understood idiom, but literally wrong, like so many things in life.

    Anyway.

    I’ve been a bit of a broken record, meaning that I’ve been repeating myself a lot.

    I’m in lockdown, again. Last time I was in lockdown, I stopped writing because I didn’t want to drive myself and everyone else round the bend with my repetitive days; I knew that it would be a marathon, not a sprint, to the finish. The first lockdown lasted longer than almost everyone had anticipated, but I had psychologically prepared myself for it to last many months, so I was OK. I also anticipated that this second lockdown was a certainty, so I was psychologically prepared, except I haven’t taken the step of stopping writing.

    I was planning on having a totally sober October, as has been my tradition. Also, I was supposed to get a new mountain bike, so I could start getting fitter and shedding some korona kilograms: I’ve put on weight, having been more sedentary than normal, and also utterly devastatingly depressed about the lack of opportunity this year to have travel and adventure, like normal.

    I’m not sure I could stand the sound of my own voice – or my words – if I have to write for a whole month, sober and in lockdown. I might have to take a break from writing again.

    The world is pretty toxic to mental health at the moment. The impending US presidential election, the impending no-deal Brexit, the never-ending pandemic, the impending economic armageddon, the rioting… the lockdown of course, and the effect of being under the same roof 24 x 7 x 365.

    I find writing therapeutic, but what am I going to tell you about my present situation every day: it’ll be the same. Still need that mountain bike so I can go and exercise, still need to stay sober, still need to eat less, still working on an important project I can’t tell you about, still under lockdown, still depressed, still suicidal. It’s going to be groundhog day; repetitive.

    So, I’m warning you: if I keep writing and you keep reading, things might get pretty samey.

     

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  • Agony Aunt

    This is a story about pen pals…

    Inbox

    I invited people to write to me, and they do. My DMs on Twitter and Facebook are full of messages from readers. My email inbox is full of emails from readers. This is good. This is what I asked for. This is what I got.

    I agonise a lot about whether it was the right thing to do, to write so candidly and brutally honestly about suicide. Some people would expect a massive content warning, trigger warning, or some other kind of disclaimer. Some people – including most responsible journalists – wouldn’t even grapple with the topic at all. There’s a widespread fear that suicide is contagious, which is not a wholly unwarranted fear, given that suicide does seem to occur in clusters; there is fear of copycats.

    Being in touch with so many people who’ve read what I’ve written, is somewhat reassuring. Nobody is saying “I wasn’t going to kill myself, but now I am, because of what you wrote”. Of course, you might say that the ones who think that don’t get in contact, but that’s a preposterous idea. I have an ever-growing dataset, and almost without exception, people get in touch because they’re already suicidal.

    Of course, you might say that if I push just one person over the edge, that’s one too many. I agree. I’m not pushing anybody. If anything, I’m trying to nudge people back in the other direction. If they want to research suicide methods on the internet, they’re going to find the information they need. At least what I offer isn’t a dry step-by-step instruction manual. I’m genuinely just saying “yes, suicide can be achieved by these methods, and it’s OK to feel like you want to end your life, but I’m upset that anybody feels like life is not worth living; I feel like life is not worth living a lot of the time”… and that’s OK. I’m allowed to say that, because I feel it, and it’s not doing anyone any harm. I’m not trying to inspire or provoke anyone into committing suicide. People die in darkness and ignorance, not in a world of honesty and openness.

    Will I one day have angry friends and relatives contacting me to accuse me of being to blame for their loved one’s suicide? Probably, but they should probably ask themselves why their loved one was driven to searing the internet for suicide methods and other information on self-murder, instead of finding whatever they desperately needed from their loved ones. I didn’t invent suicide. I’m not in charge of suicide. I’m not telling anyone to commit suicide. I simply exist, sharing my own story, which people tell me is relatable, for those who are in crisis.

    Anyway, I’ve got to go… I’ve got emails to answer.

     

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  • Emotional Burnout

    This is a story about stress…

    Beans

    We all experience periods of stress. Most of these are short-lived. There’s a natural limit to how much stress we can take, for a given period of time, before we have a breakdown.

    This snapshot in time – eating beans directly out of the can using the business card of a lawyer specialising in mental health cases as a spoon – tells an interesting nonlinear story.

    We like our stories to be linear.

    I have no idea where to begin my story.

    If I start my story on the day when I first slept rough, I would say that things got worse before they got better. Sleeping rough was not “rock bottom” at all, and I find the whole notion of “rock bottom” to be ludicrous and unhelpful.

    If I start my story on the day when my homelessness ended, again, the arc of the story is complicated. Although I never slept rough again, I would say that my life was – at times – a lot worse than when I was no fixed abode; homeless.

    If I start my story on the day when I got myself into my latest period of employment, uninterrupted for 3 years as of today, then the photograph above is a confusing one. Why the hell was I eating uncooked beans directly out of the can, in the dark, using a business card as a spoon?

    I can’t think of any good time to start my story. This year started with a hospitalisation for kidney failure and a breakup. There is no time which I can point to and say “THERE!” to indicate the point where my life got steadily better and better.

    The problem with a precarious existence, is that it’s incredibly draining. I live in a hypervigilant, hyperalert, super focussed and energised state, where I haven’t been sick for many years, except to be hospitalised in a near-death state… although frankly I would have carried on working if I could. I just want to dig myself out of the hole.

    Perhaps I’ve done OK at times, allowing myself to have a few holidays in recent years, which has been awesome for my health and sense of wellbeing. The prospect of a sustainable life has seemed more within grasp, having granted myself the luxury of a few holidays, but also we must accept the facts: security continues to elude me, despite many years of hard work; my life still hangs by a thread.

    Thinking back to when I first escaped homelessness, the first time I recovered within a matter of months; unencumbered by debt or other problems. The second time, I seemingly bounced back quite quickly, although my finances never really recovered. The third time was bound to sink me – without a trace – but a few lucky breaks and I’ve been able to cling on by my fingernails for a few years… but I always ask myself “was it worth it?”.

    We shouldn’t underestimate the toll that the desperate attempts to regain stability, health, wealth and prosperity, have cost me. To live on the edge of losing everything, and being cast out from mainstream society, is an unbearable burden that nobody should have to endure; yet alone for years and years on end, unrelenting.

    Presently, the situation is particularly unbearable, because I am seemingly on the “home straight” where everything seems to be within my own power to succeed; the only person who can screw things up now is me…  or so it seems. In reality, it’s not like that. The demands of recent years are catching up with me. You can’t put a person under such extreme pressure for such a very long time, and not expect them to crack under pressure eventually.

    My worst fear – of course – is that I will crumble before I reach escape velocity. Many people feel this, but few have a story to rival my own.

    It’s strange. Seeing the finishing line is worse than when I was just plodding along with the vague hope that at some future point I might recover. Living eternally in a “nearly but not quite” state is unbelievably exhausting.

     

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  • Dark Thoughts

    This is a story about storm clouds…

    Rain on glass

    I often assume that after a lengthy period without abusing drink, drugs, medication and other mind-altering substances, I’ll reap some rewards. I tend to think that a period clean and sober will bring good health, and in turn, that life will improve. It’s certainly true that drugs have brought nothing but chaos and turmoil into my life, making it completely unmanageable, as my mental health problems are exacerbated. Eliminating most psychoactive substances has certainly turned my life into something which looks – to the outside observer – to be stable, productive, functional and indeed, at times quite enviable. To all intents and purposes, I look, smell, sound and act like a normal member of mainstream society.

    Internally, there’s nothing to help me cope with the intrusive thoughts; the traumatic flashbacks.

    In the comfort of my own home, as I’ve already written about, I yell out, grimace and flinch, as I’m assaulted by all kinds of post-traumatic flashbacks. I have horrible nightmares. I suffer lengthy periods of skin-crawling agonising anxiety, where the hands of the clock are barely moving; it lasts for an eternity.

    There are no rewards for being clean and sober; only suffering.

    It’s unthinkable, lifting the lid when there’s so much trauma. It’s insanity to have it all hitting me like a freight train, every single second of every single day, even when I’m asleep.

    I like to think that my brain is mending itself. I like to think that by reliving those traumas, my brain is kind of re-organising itself and exorcising stuff. I allow myself to yell out, flinch and grimace, because it seems better to let it out than to fight it and attempt to suppress it.

    Thinking about it, there’s mountains of stuff. There’s an unimaginable amount of stuff.

    The memories – the bad memories – come thick and fast, intruding into whatever I’m doing, unless I’m really working hard; really concentrating on something. I have so few distractions that there’s plenty of time for my brain to throw a relentless torrent of terrible, dreadful, awful traumatic memories at me, which are so bad that they’re physically painful and cause me to cry out in shock.

    I don’t think I’d have been able to cope without medication, but now I’ve lost that crutch, it feels like I stored up years worth of terrible stuff without dealing with it properly. Now it’s all hitting me, seemingly all at once.

    I’m unusual, in that I’m one of the least psychoactively altered people – I don’t have any tea, coffee, coca-cola, fizzy drinks, nicotine, cannabis, alcohol or medication. I don’t eat, drink, swallow, smoke, inject, snort or otherwise ingest anything mind-altering. That’s very unusual. To give you an example, out of hundreds of people I work with, I’m the only one who doesn’t drink tea, coffee or other caffeinated beverages, and my teetotaling makes me even more unusual.

    As a friend said to me, quoting a popular Tweet: I’m raw-dogging reality.

    It’s really brutal. It’s really awful. I don’t recommend it at all. It’s not nice. In fact, it’s thoroughly unpleasant and intolerable. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. It’s not healthy, it’s hell.

    Why am I doing it then?

    I have the unshakeable belief that I can achieve mood stability by avoiding all mind-altering substances, including the things we don’t usually bother to think about, like tea and coffee. I feel a lot more stable – mentally – having given up everything. I’m trying to regulate my mood by doing other things. I’m hoping that I develop some healthy habits.

    Certainly, after a couple of weeks teetotal, I have a lot more energy and enthusiasm; I’m a lot more active; I sleep better. These are not things to be sniffed at. Alcohol and depression combined to create a very sedentary lifestyle, which was horrifically damaging to my health. I was drinking myself to death, even though I appeared very functional and otherwise doing very well in life.

    So, I’m suffering the dark, horrible invasive thoughts, driven to find out whether my brain will eventually rid itself of the toxins and settle down. Certainly, there are health benefits, but I am suffering a great deal.

     

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  • I’m Scared

    This is a story about faking it until you make it…

    Taxi

    Being at zero – break even – is perhaps the worst possible position to be in. I’ve put in two years of continuous hard work and I’ve got nothing to show for it, but it’s been incredibly difficult to reach this point. In fact, I’m not even at break-even, but on paper it looks as though I might possibly reach that break-even point, provided that I continue to bust my balls for the next two months and I don’t get sick.

    Of course, there might be other obstacles; bolts from the blue. I feel certain that somebody is going to take a dump on me. In my experience, there’s always somebody who wants to take a dump on me.

    Given that there’s only one way I can travel in the event of a somebody taking a dump on me, there’s only one place I can end up, and that’s back in the nightmare which I’ve suffered through, while desperately trying to get back on my feet.

    I have gritted my teeth and worked through the adversity and the uphill struggle of coming back from being discharged from hospital after nearly dying, only to be sacked and evicted and nearly go bankrupt. I had psychologically prepared myself for the stress and the anxiety and the exhaustion. I had anticipated the likely setbacks. What I cannot deal with is having to re-live the f**king nightmare.

    If I get sent to jail, do not collect £200, do not pass Go, then I will tip the board on the floor and refuse to carry on playing, because this stupid game has gone on too long. I’ve been too close to ‘winning’ for far too long and the suspense is literally killing me. I have suspended all self-care and concerns about my health. I have suspended all my needs. I have suspended everything. I just work. I work and I work and I work. I work all the f**king time and I’m not prepared to have that hard work not pay off.

    This isn’t a game to me. The threat of homelessness, bankruptcy and career ruin hang over me, threatening. My health is not reliable; cannot be taken for granted. The consequences of somebody taking a dump on me are severe. I fear it.

    Even if I bust my balls for the next two months, all that happens is that I reach zero; break-even. I’ll be able to pay my tax bills. I’ll be able to clear my debts. That’s it. That’s all I’ll have achieved. That’s my lot: zero.

    I’m not prepared to suffer any setbacks. I’ve worked too hard for too long to suffer any longer.

    I don’t have the luxury of thinking about what would be best for my health. I don’t have the luxury of thinking about what would be less of a risk to my life. I don’t have the luxury of thinking what would be more pleasant and bearable. I don’t have the luxury of thinking about what would be more enjoyable or rewarding. I don’t have the luxury of thinking about anything except the rocky road which leads to zero.

    It’s not fun. It’s thoroughly awful. The constant threat of someone taking a dump on me, wrecking my efforts, leaving me bankrupt, homeless and ruining my career… it’s a heavy burden to bear, on top of working hard doing something which is purely to keep the money rolling in. Other people do jobs that they enjoy. I do the job that’s the only one that’ll pay the bills and allow me to reach zero.

    Reaching zero is not that great.

    Think about it.

    Would you be pleased with yourself if years of dedicated hard work amounted in nothing? Zero. Zip. Nada.

    Would you be pleased if you made tough choices, to live and work in unpleasant circumstances, living out of a suitcase in places where you don’t have any friends and family, only to achieve seemingly nothing? Would you be pleased to achieve nothing, having spent years doing work which was incompatible with your health and somewhat intolerable?

    There is of course some potential in reaching zero, because at least from that point there’s an opportunity to build something, but not if somebody takes a dump on you and your opportunity is taken away. There’s no opportunity if somebody takes a dump on you and wrecks your hard work. Hence the fear. Hence why I’m scared.

    I’m not even close. There’s still at least 2 months hard work just to reach zero. Even when I reach zero, I still have to find another contract, potentially move house… there’s a lot more stress on the horizon. However, my concerns are more rooted in the present: I’m scared that somebody is going to take a dump on me and deny me the opportunity to even reach zero. It would be so easy to f**k up my fragile life. It would be so easy to destroy me. Tempting, huh?

    Most of my waking hours are plagued by fears of somebody taking a dump on me. The anxiety is awful, not knowing when somebody’s going to take a dump on me, but feeling certain that they will. The dread keeps me awake at night and distracts me. I can’t concentrate. I can’t relax. From the moment I wake until the moment I finally pass out into fitful sleep, in the small hours of the morning, a dreadful fear and anxiety and worry follows me around, making my existence miserable and stressful and thoroughly unpleasant.

    I crave a tiny crumb of security, yet instead I have the threat of ruin wielded against me; the threat of somebody taking a dump on me is ever-present.

     

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