To the person from the Bournemouth area

Hello!

The power of website tracking software is frightening, and very useful.

I suspect, from location and the search term that you used to get here, that you are someone I know from when I lived in that area. Hello!

Of course you may be someone completely random that I have never met coincidently searching for those things. Or you could be My Loving Uncle, but I doubt it because he should have the smarts to use a bookmark and to search for the more up to date and relevant version of the term used.

In related news, I still have numerous hits from people looking for information about the Newcastle University organic food study in 2007. Maybe I should write some more about it.

I also had a hit in the last month about gorgeous Greg Lake. Mmm, Greg Lake's voice.

I know things have been a bit quiet here the last few weeks; expect that to change in a new and exciting way in the next few days. Aren't you so excited?

Floored

We went to bed, and I dropped off. My head had been full of thoughts, mostly negative, before I went to sleep. Rather than sleep properly, I dozed lightly for an hour or two and then woke up again.

My mind went into overdrive and I spent a long time, maybe two hours, endlessly attacking my self; telling me how useless I was, how pointless my life was, how I was wasting and destroying everything. I started screaming at myself inside my head, thinking about cutting myself, and imagining that I was taking a beating in a fight. I was really tired, and I knew I was; I deliberately forced myself to stay awake, even though I knew that I could drop off if I wanted to, and particularly because I knew that doing so would be better for my body and my mind.

Eventually, I took pity on myself and reached a compromise. I clearly didn't deserve to sleep, and I especially didn't deserve to be warm and comfortable in bed. So in order to maintain one punishment or the other I could choose: be comfortable but stay awake, or sleep uncovered on the floor. So I picked up my pillows and curled up on the carpet.

Oddly enough I didn't sleep very much.

After a while my wife realised that I wasn't alongside her, woke up, and made me come back to bed. She gave me hugs and calmed me down and I fell deeply asleep.

I punish myself a lot. I deliberately don't do things that I want to or know that I should. I don't let myself sleep, or eat, or relax and do something nice. Even though I haven't cut myself or made myself sick for a long time, I still do bad things to myself. I punch myself in the head, I eat far too much, I imagine that I am lying on the floor being kicked in the ribs.

I deserve it all, and I can't convince myself of anything else. I so glad to have someone wonderful who can tell when I'm not in bed, or who keeps me away from packets of biscuits, or who presence keeps me in line near knives. I need to be better so I can give her what she deserves.

Bad period

I haven't posted for a while. This is partly because I haven't had much to say, but mostly because I have been suffering an extended period of feeling absolutely bloody awful.

My normal downward swings in mood last three or four days. My current episode is now approaching three weeks.

I am suffering from all of my normal symptoms:

• Variable mood, often changing suddenly, and easily becoming extreme (sudden crying, or easily becoming frustrated for example).
• Mood predominantly negative, and the full range of negative states: complete apathy, melancholy, fear (particularly about the future), general lowness.
• Periods of lacking emotion, I usually use words such as flat and empty to describe these.
• A desire to give up.
• Constant negative thought processes; running myself down, convincing myself that everything I attempt will fail, playing out depressing or very negative situations that could occur.
• Hints of my old paranoia and sense of persecution.
• Anxiety in public and around people.
• A feeling of being mentally blocked when I attempt things.
• Poor self care.
  

These are all things that to one degree or another I have learned to cope with, and can at the very least wait out until I find my way back into my usual rut.

That I have felt this bad for so long is starting to worry me, and is taking its toll. Being low and being tired, both physically and mentally, feed off of each other. My body is struggling with general tiredness and interrupted sleep. My mind is running out of energy and fight completely.

I have been coping quite well, better than I have in the past. Bits of last week were hell, but I fought through it and managed to be in work Monday to Thursday, only giving in on Friday. I didn't achieve much when I was there, but I tried.

Of course things have been hard for people around me as well. My wife is wonderful and has been so much help, but I worry about how much stress I am causing her. My work colleagues have been very supportive, putting up with me being next to useless and trying to encourage me along. I have gone from being mildly unreliable in World of Warcraft (WoW) to extremely unreliable.

I really want this to be over. I am running out of strength and I am getting worried. Mostly, I want to stop troubling everyone around me.

A little while ago I said that I would try to post positive things. Friday evening and Saturday bucked the recent trend and were great. On Friday evening I was part of a successful WoW raid; it was the best performance my Guild have put together and a big improvement on our previous attempts. On Saturday I baked cookies and cakes with my wife and we went to our friends' house to watch Eurovision. Which as ever was terrible/brilliant.

A letter to the National Trust, bless their cotton socks:

***

Over the past year I have sent to you a number of letters requesting that you update my address. As of December 2007 I moved from A House, Somewhere to A Different House, Somewhere. Despite my letters, and despite having received a letter from yourselves stating that you had updated my details, I did not receive any correspondence from you at my Different House address. I only received my 2008/9 membership card and details thanks to the kindness of people at my previous address. The new membership was issued at the end of October 2008, you had written to me in July stating that my records had been updated.

As you will note from the letterhead, I have not only moved again, but also, following my marriage, changed my surname from Smith to Jones.

Given that in fifteen months and with multiple letters of reminder you have failed to update the address details from my previous move, I am torn between again asking you to update my details to make them current and simply cancelling my membership. I have never dealt with such inept administration from a major organisation. However, as I do support the work that you carry out, I would like to continue to be a member.

Please update my records to indicate my new address as shown above, and to change my surname as indicated. I have included a photocopy of my wedding certificate as evidence of this latter change. Given the previous issues, I expect to receive a letter to my current address confirming that these changes have been made. I appreciate that your mass mailings are pre-printed so I do not expect to receive anything else for a month or so after the change.

Yours sincerely,

Small steps

I have many difficulties in communicating with people; I struggle to use telephones, I find it hard to speak up in person with all but a handful of people that I feel comfortable with, in situations that a lot of people would think would be easier and of less importance (OK, I mean when playing World of Warcraft) I am still very anxious about letting myself be heard.

It has long been a belief in my mind that if I practice things that I find hard, including challenging communications, I will grow more used to them and ultimately more comfortable. This is something I think applies particularly to using the telephone. The practice makes perfect, or at least not scared, theory is something that other people have pushed me toward as well.

There are times when I really doubt that it is true, when I can see nothing beyond me always being a pathetic individual too scared to pick up a phone and too self-absorbed to ask for something or voice an opinion in even the most friendly and safe environment.

Today at work I have managed the unthinkable; I have made two phone calls within the space of about ten minutes; one to a Help desk of the company that manages the payment of one of our bursaries and one to a parent of a student who left a message on my voicemail.

Do I feel good to have overcome my anxiety and to have completed a basic part of my role? Do I feel satisfied that I have taken a step in the direction of a more rational view of things? Do I buggery. I am terrified that the phone is going to ring again. I am scared of having to send an e-mail to the student who prompted the first phone call. What I want to do now is go home, climb into bed, and curl up under the duvet.

For some time I have been meaning to ask one of my WoW guildmates if she is able to make one or two items that would help me in game. All I needed was a little bit of information, it would take her a few seconds and a handful of mouse clicks to help me. She is a nice person and always seems happy to help people. I didn't even need to do it in a public way, I could communicate entirely privately with her.

Finally last night I managed to do it after hours of avoidance. Even then I still felt guilty about taking up her time and frustrated with myself for making such a fuss (an internal fuss that is, no-one else knew). At best there was a sense of relief that I didn't need to worry about not doing asking any more.

Every step that should be taking me forwards seems to drag me down as much as those that are clear mistakes.