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Friday 7 March 2014

Nail on head.

It must be difficult for those without mental health issues to understand just what it is like for those living with them, so I'm going to try to explain it...


Hold out your hand. Now imagine there is a 6 inch nail directly through the middle of your palm.

You can see both ends of it and it looks and feels extremely painful. It's been there for as long as you can remember, in fact you don't really know how it got there.

More than anything in the world you want to pull it out. But you don't know how to. You ask yourself how can you not know how to pull it out, it's right there for goodness sake, but you have no answer. You call yourself an idiot for being too stupid to not know how to take the nail out.

Other people tell you to pull out the nail. You tell them that you can't. They don't understand what you mean, just do it they say. You can't, you try to explain, you don't know why you can't explain, they get confused, you both get angry.

The nail is affecting everything else in your life. You muddle through and do things because you have to. The pain gets worse. You start not doing things because that means the pain doesn't hurt so bad, but it's still there.

Soon you are doing nothing.

But the nail is still there. So is the pain. You focus on the nail, you hate it. Nothing else gets a look in but the nail. People close to you start to back off because you are fixated on this nail. They still wonder why you just can't pull it out.

The nail starts to infect the rest of your body. Other things are sore because of it. You forget about them because the nail is the cause and you think that if you can remove it then everything else will be fixed. You still can't remove it. Everything else gets worse.

There's just you and the nail now. Nothing or no one else matters. They're still there, you can see and hear them but they don't understand that you must concentrate on this nail otherwise you'll never be able to get it out.

Something distracts you from the nail for a few minutes. You hide the hand with the nail in it behind your back. No one else sees it, you look like a normal person. But the nail is still hurting. You want to stay with the normal people, you are having fun talking to them, people like you.

But the pain from this damn nail is getting worse. You excuse yourself. Maybe if you just have some time alone you'll be able to pull the nail out. It's just there after all, it's simple, just pull it out.

You can't.

Wednesday 26 February 2014

Up the Republic!

Latest news from the basket case that is Ireland...

It has been proven that our police cannot be trusted and need to be investigated. We cannot get our politicians to investigate them because it has been proven they cannot be trusted either.

So we have decided to get someone to investigate both from that most trustworthy of all groups... lawyers.

Monday 17 February 2014

The darkness descends...

My son is running around. He is enjoying himself. There's laughter and mirth. With every passing second of me seeing this I hate myself just a little bit more. He doesn't deserve such a useless lump as a father. Sitting. Festering. Not even dying, not even existing, just... there.

Tears stream. Thoughts stream faster. All negative. All bad. Trying to think positive, it doesn't work. It is one of those days. Remind myself that future days will be better, then use that as a reason to feel worse about myself now. You are failing I say. Today I agree.

There's nothing more to say. One of those days. It'll go away soon. I hope.

Friday 14 February 2014

Life begins at 40.

By the time they hit 40 most people will have their lives figured out and be well on the way to, if not at the top, of their chosen career. Or they will at least have a job that they enjoy and which allows them to live a happy family life. There may even be the fleeting thought of retirement, no doubt provisions having already been made in that regard.

I'm a bit different; I have no job, no career and absolutely no real clue what I want to do with the rest of my life. The difficult thing I have to fight at the moment is the thoughts that there is no point in even trying because it is too late, my life is already over. My depression and anxiety will throw a million different reasons at me to do nothing but sit and wallow, but for now I don't want to think about those. I want to talk about how I got here and how sympathy is probably the worst thing you can give someone like me.

My childhood was an absolute mess. There was bullying, there was fear, there was loneliness both at home and in school. If I had to describe my life until my teens in one word it would be; alone. By far the biggest cause of all of this was the continual emotional abuse I received at the hands of my parents. It was unrelenting, a never-ending life of nonsense that is actually difficult to put into words. Not because of any emotional reason or that I have forgotten about it, I have cried enough in therapy to cause floods like we have seen in the last few days, but because it was such a jumbled mess of anger, abuse, emotional blackmail and whatever else you can think of thrown into the mix. From the outside it looked like an ideal world, as most abusive households do, but living through it was hell. And now trying to process it all and restart my life in a normal manner is hell again.

But the purpose of this post is not to regale you with tales of horror, it is to try to explain to you how dealing with someone like me by offering sympathy instead of empathy will do nothing but lead me further down the hole of self-pitying victimhood.

As simply as I can put it, if I were to sit down with you and discuss all the bullshit my parents inflicted on me there are two simple roads you can take (assuming you don't just run away, which would be understandable), one of sympathy and one of empathy. Sympathy will probably lead to a long conversation of how horrible my parents were and that they should be made to pay and how none of it was my fault. This is all pointless. It will get me nowhere, the conversation focuses on my parents.

Empathy is different. Empathy means you will listen, you might not even say anything. You will just understand as best as you are able. And if you understand that will lead to you doing the right thing, as empathy at its most basic is putting yourself in someone else's shoes. If you do that you would realise that someone like me lacks self-worth and no amount of talking about how bad my abusers were will give me that.

These were hugely difficult concepts for me to get my head around, primarily of course because I was brought up in a house where empathy did not exist, but I hope I have managed to get them across. The reason I have tried to do so is because I see so many today walking around with mental health problems as a badge of honour. They are wallowing in victimhood and are fed by a media who doesn't understand and who probably thinks that talk of the abusers will get more viewers, listeners or readers. It might well do but it is doing harm to a lot of people.

For all intents and purposes everyone with mental health issues should be focusing on themselves and in a positive way. That is difficult, hugely difficult for someone like me, but if you see me wallowing in self-pity you shouldn't be afraid to tell me so just because some others might accuse you of not dealing with mental health in the "correct" way. Trust me, I HAVE to do stuff to get out of this, I HAVE to figure out where my life is going and I HAVE to walk down that path. If you tell me that I need to move my fat ass instead of telling me that I am entitled to sit and wallow because of the way I was treated then you will be doing me a favour. And I am in no way unique.

Friday 7 February 2014

Every day the laughter dies.

If you gave me a choice between attending a music concert in a state-of-the-art venue with tickets to a private box including free food & drink or going to a grubby comedy club next door where there's holes in the seats and you are overcharged for whichever one of the two types of alcohol on offer you choose, then there is no choice. The comedy club would win every time.

The comedians may be crap and the clientele a bit smelly but you will at least get one thing at some stage during the night that will make you think. I don't get that from music, never have. The only thing that music has ever made me think is "how does this cunt keep getting away with it?" when I remember Bono exists.

But I can't laugh any more. I could listen to one of the few comedic geniuses we have left and while I might crack a smile or even snigger it will be gone within seconds. Laughter means happiness and depression doesn't do happiness. Before the thought may have been one of dissecting the joke and mentally congratulating the comic now there is only "why didn't you think of that you useless cunt".

There are so many shit comics around these days, peddling either political bullshit masquerading as comedy, falling over while wearing funny clothes or just trying to say the most outrageous thing possible without giving regard to it actually being funny that now should be a time where, contrary to popular belief, it is not horrendously difficult to break through. There are people out there desperate for real comedy.

And then of course there's the point that you should be doing it for yourself, if you find it funny then other people will, you aren't unique in that regard after all. But none of that makes any difference, in my head I am useless and there's no point in doing anything for myself because I have absolutely no self-worth.

I know somewhere deep down inside me there is the capability to be funny. Sometime it creeps out but the problem is that it needs to be nurtured, molded and trained into something that can work. The depression keeps it buried. In fact it doesn't just bury it, it comes along with a big shovel and smacks it around the head first just to make sure it doesn't get any more ideas.

Here's how it goes and I imagine this is probably the same for anyone with depression for whatever true career that they would like to have...

Think or say something funny.......... no that's not funny you useless cunt, that first line was appalling, people will fucking laugh at you all right but because you're a stupid cunt. Anyone who told you that was funny is just saying it to try and make you feel better because they know you're a stupid depressed asshole. You're not funny, if you were you'd have done something with it by now. You're almost 40 you fucking twat, people don't start being funny at your age asshole.

I could go on but the tears are coming. It's sickening. It's depressing. It's every fucking day.

Monday 3 February 2014

The "Top Reds" must now be vanquished.

David Moyes is gone. Finished. It is only a matter of time. The ineptitude that was so clear to so many before he walked through the door at Carrington last June now hits you so hard in the face that everyone who watches United knows what it was like to face Mike Tyson in his prime.

We all knew it would be this way. Moyes has always been a bad manager, he just happened to be part of the furniture at an Everton team where avoiding relegation was a success. The fact that he was there for a decade is, contrary to popular belief, not a sign of his talent. It is the opposite, it shows just how useless he is. How many times in the 10 years Moyes was at Goodison did a club above them approach him to be their manager? I certainly don't remember any but what everyone will remember is how many times in that decade were other teams looking for a good manager. Hundreds, and none of them ever thought to go for Moyes. Imagine for a second the stick United fans would have given City or Chelsea had they used Moyes as one of their many coaches. And all of it would have been deserved.

So why then was Moyes accepted at United? Simple, the man who could do no wrong picked him. Sir Alex Ferguson could have demanded the removal of George Best's statue outside Old Trafford, giving the excuse that he wasn't a good role model to some of the young players coming through, and there wouldn't have been a peep from a section of fans and any discontent from others would have quickly been silenced.

The truth is that for all his success Fergie made plenty of mistakes when he was at United. He should have won the European Cup at least three more times and not have lost the league at least twice. Is it greed to want these as well as the success we had? Of course it is, but this is about winning, if you aren't supporting a football team and wanting to win everything then you're doing it wrong.

Fergie was above criticism though and it wasn't only his success that kept him there. It was the so-called "Top Red". The section of United fans who consider themselves somehow 'better' fans. The devoted, the loyal, the one true fan. They have sat atop their ivory towers for years, using insults to control the mere ordinary fans below them.

Now they cry for Moyes to be given more time, they remind us that Fergie was even though this was a different age and United were an abject failure when Fergie took over. They say that anyone calling for Moyes to be sacked is not a real United fan. What is a real fan anyway, is there an official test? Do FIFA have a handbook to guide you? Can you be an unreal fan?

The thing is that the 'Top Reds' are not United fans. They don't care in the slightest what happens to United, all they want is for people to see them as better than everyone else. And they want to control.

Well now is the time that we must take back control. However you want to be a United fan is up to you, if this means calling for Moyes head then so be it. Do not let those who have no real interest in the club control you into tempering your passion, direct that passion where it is deserved; towards an mediocre manager and the clubs owners who now must sack him. The sooner the better. He is destroying the club more each day, a title winning side that has added £60million (Fellaini & Mata) worth of players and brought up one of the best young prospects in a long time (Janujaz) now is not even being laughed off the pitch after being beaten by a Stoke side managed by Mark Hughes. There is no laughter because it is expected, even the United haters can't be bothered laughing any more, in the space of 10 months things have become that bad.

All caused because the last man on earth who should have been picking the next United manager did. Ferguson's massive ego may have helped bring success but it also brought failure and stupid decisions, this one being the biggest.

Forget about the 'Top Reds', consign them to the same dustbin to which Moyes' reign must be sent immediately.

Tuesday 28 January 2014

So you think you don't like me?

A lot of people don't like me. This isn't some sort of depressive nonsense where I am being self-pitying or wanting sympathy, there really are a lot of people who don't like me. Some might even hate me, I don't know. All of these people could make up one long line, but none of them would be at the front. None of their dislike, hatred or even loathing could come close to the person at the head of the line.... me.

I hate myself. I don't just feel down about myself, it's not just a lack of self-worth, I actually do hate myself. With every single good thought I have about myself there is ALWAYS one that follows which tells me why the good thought I had was wrong. But it doesn't just stop there, it tells me why I am such an absolute cunt for even thinking the good thought in the first place.

Some people legitimately don't like me because of the things I say, sometimes I go "too far". This is usually because I am trying to get someone else or another group of people to like me, the opposites of the people who now don't like me.

Do you see what is going on here? I spend so much time wondering what other people are thinking about me. This shows a clear case of low self-worth in that I have to get it from others. But the stupid thing is that I am always thinking that other people are thinking about me, this is narcissism of the highest degree and one of the ironic things about mental health issues, you have polar opposites seemingly living together side by side in your head.

The really crappy thing is that I know that I'm being all of these things and that means that I get to hate myself even more because even though I know what they all are I can't stop them. There's one poor woman on Twitter (you know who you are) who, despite her experience in mental health, can't figure out what I believe about loads of stuff. The problem is, neither can I.

The truth of the matter is that I was conditioned into being this way. I was brought up in a world where up was down, black was white, day was night and there were no borders. A world of abuse. I actually didn't even know the word "borders" meant anything to do with emotions or physicality until I was in my 30s and my therapist explained it to me. Part of me finds that hilarious, party of me finds it sad and, rightly, blames my parents on it but of course another part of me hates myself for it because somehow I "should" have known it. And it's no one but my own fault that I didn't.

This is just a small part of what it's like in the mind of someone mentally ill. There is no sense, it is a jumble of everything and yet nothing all at the same time.

Basically it is the mind of a child. Because the people who were supposed to mold me as a child into an adult made me into something else completely, something that makes no sense. And then in my 30s I had to go back to being a child so I could learn everything again properly. Without abuse.

Friday 24 January 2014

So you think you've got a handle on mental health?


Think you can handle mental health issues? No, I mean actual mental health issues. Not just the feeling down all the time, not just the wondering is anything ever going to change. The real stuff. The ugliness that perpetuates those feelings. The truth.

Well here then, read on. But be warned.... it's about to get fucking ugly.

I was just in the shower. Whether there was an actual sound or not I don't know, but my brain told me there was one. Couldn't concentrate on it but it sounded vaguely like a child scream. My 3yo son was in the living room watching television, less than 20ft away. That was it. That was enough. The vision came.

I saw him lying on the floor. His head was split open. Blood was everywhere. So were his brains. He had fallen and hit his head on the floor. I saw myself come in. Now I was screaming. A blood curdling scream. Life was over. I couldn't go on. In my head I was going to kill myself. But wait, what about my wife, I had to tell her, I couldn't kill myself straight away, I had to wait. I saw her scream. The same noise. Beyond loud.

All of that happened within a space of about 3 seconds. While I was in the shower. All in my head. Because of a sound that probably didn't even occur.

This is mental health issues. This happens four or five times a day sometimes. Four or five times an hour other days. It happens when I sleep. It never really stops.

What are you meant to do? Can you just stop? No. Do I want to ever experience a thought in my head again where I see my son like that. Something I can barely even write down it causes so much pain? Of course I fucking don't. But I know I will and I don't know when it will stop. If it ever will. This is depression. This is helplessness. This is life.

Now I'll go to the shop with my son and buy him an ice cream when I stop crying. The woman in the shop will see the same smiling guy she sees every day and say "Hi". Little does she know. Little do any of you know.

Sometimes it makes me angry. Wouldn't you be angry? Of course I'm fucking angry that I have to live this way. The anger of course is really with others. The ones who caused this. The ones who treated me so badly as a child. But it's not easy to figure that out on your own when your head is full of such complete and utter bullshit. Therapy helps but no one can have their therapist around 24 hours a day. So if I'm angry cut me some fucking slack. Don't pity me. Just understand.

I'm trying to press the "publish" button for this. I can barely see it through the tears.

I am afraid.

I am always afraid.