Calamities

I have always said my life is just me stumbling from one calamity to the next.

Right now I am so despondent. I can't believe how much my self esteem has suffered in just a week. I haven't been sleeping properly which is making me so tired during the day. I can't bring myself to do my hair or make up. I don't see the point.

Tomorrow the kid is 11. I have been working full time since she was 1. That was never easy. I missed out on so much. But I was always lucky that my sister helped me so much with childcare. 

I always wanted to work. I wanted to provide all the awesome things and experiences in life for the kid. It's never really worked out perfectly. There has always been a broken car or a gas bill to pay. 

Now though I feel further away from any of the things I wanted for me and her. 

It's been a horrible week. It's only going to get worse. 

It is the times like these when I wish I wasn't alone. But my mind keeps pissing me off 

"hey, hey Dougal, why would anyone be interested in your life, you don't have a job" 

"Oi Dougal, don't bother texting that boy, he has loads of women in his life, he doesn't need you"

"Yeah right, like you can do that job"

God I sound fucking miserable, well I am. 

I say it every year, I hate christmas! Well this year I think I mean it more than ever. 

Confusing people

I don't know if it's just me but I don't understand people. 

They confuse me with complex behaviour that I can't get my head around. 

I always have and always will wear my heart on my sleeve. "This is me and this is how I feel". 

It's so much easier to just say the thing on your music mind or answer the question directed at you than skirt round an issue. But maybe I am going about things wrong. 

I'm socially awkward. I don't get the conventions. I just want to laugh and be happy.

Laughing is the bestest. 

Dear person I like

Now what angle do I take with this? Is it the person I like, the person who is my friend. Or the person I like, you know, like like.

Based on my usual writings it should really be the latter.

"Dear person I like,

I am not sure if you know the little smiles you bring to my day. The pictures and texts I get just add a little happiness to what can be an otherwise monotonous day.

When thinking of the little time we spent together its the laughter that is most apparent. Or is that me just laughing at my own jokes like I usually do?

I am not saying I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I am not saying you're the one. I just want to spend more time with you and to know you better.

You remain remote and casual enough but every now and then I get the feeling there may be something more. It's a cycle I know only too well, and as usual I hope it works out and becomes something more."

After the crappy interactions I have had with chaps of late I am happy to just sit back and watch this unfold, or maybe not unfold. 

I have really laid my soul bare on this one. There isn't really anything to bear. 

I think I will revisit this. Consider this a post of no interest.

Dear person I hate

The purpose of this blog is becoming less clear with time. It started as an outlet for the ickyness of depression. It has become since then a random mess of all my thoughts. I don't suppose that is a bad thing but maybe I should have more direction in my writings. Or maybe not. Maybe you lot like hearing about my ever failing love life. 

Well on the love life front there is nothing to report since happy place. I do miss him desperately sometimes. I will not try to win him back, I do not want him back. But I miss that person I laughed with all those months. Still, life goes on and I have chosen to ignore all the negativity that I feel gets unfairly filtered in my direction. 

I don't tend to do those internet challenges you see pop up. 100 days of happy. Monthly photo challenge. Etc. This one interested me though. The 15 day letter challenge. I'm not going to do them all, some would be wrong to be published on the internet. I do have some boundaries you know. But I will have a go at some.

So the first is Dear person I hate.

I don't hate anyone. It's too much effort to hate anyone. There are a lot of people who I dislike. But my feelings for them are so inconsequential that time spent thinking about them is time wasted. Time I could be spending right now reading World War Z and then getting overly paranoid about Ebola. 

So maybe this first one should not be Dear person I hate, maybe it should be dear person that I no longer need. From friends whose lifes took a different turn and drifted away, to the people that hurt you that you no longer need. For reasons that probably neither of us remember we don't talk any more. We don't spend all that time together anymore. But I don't see it as a bad thing. It is a shame that things can't be like the used to. That is what happens though. People change, ideals change, lives change. 

One thing you can't escape are those memories that catch you off guard. Those little things in life that remind you of happy times and sad times also remind you of the people that made you happy and for whatever reason are no longer in it. 

The song that you all sang before every night out in the far away city.

The smell of the aftershave he uses drifting across from a stranger on a adjacent pub table. 

The silly sayings you made up on that holiday in the sun. 

All these things can make you nostalgic. But your life is not in that place anymore.

Enough with the looking back now. I don't think I need to look forward either though. I just need to be right here. Doing the things I want to do right now. Being happy with all I have and the people that turn up in my life and make me laugh till I cry but never want to make me cry. 

This isn't the way I thought this post would turn out. But I guess this isn't the way I thought my day, week, month or year would turn out. 

Blue eyes and happy place

Have you ever spent any time with a stand up comedian?

They are one person in the real world, but the minute they walk in to a comedy club they change. They put up front that is pretty much impenetrable.

This was blue eyes. He was two people. The one I knew and the one he portrayed to his public and fans.

The one I knew was all of the things I was looking for. So I admit it, since I he left me I have been hung up on him. Looking to replace the relationship.

When I found happy place I saw he same qualities in him, the person I wanted to make a future with, the public front, the mental state and the baggage. It really was a bad idea to get involved. But I did. And we all know how that turned out.

The more I look back on both situations the more similarities I see.

I get the same feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see either name. But after reflection it's the not the same feeling. It's not the same bitter annoyance of 'what if?' It's a sad feeling that these men that said they loved me  either lied or didn't love me enough for me to be worth it. 

A wise man once said "two crazies don't make a right". That wise man couldn't be more right. 

That advice has finally made a marked difference in my outlook when it comes to all matters of the heart. 

Careful with your words

The sad death of Robin Williams had led to a public outpouring of grief. It is a deeply upsetting thing for anyone to take their own life. But lucky for us the internet is there to hold our hands with the meme.

I noticed the one below earlier this week.

Now I want to state, what I am about to say is based on my own experiences, opinions and life.

The one thing I take most from the death of Robin Williams is the increased awareness of depression, anxiety, addiction and Parkinson's disease. 

For us or anyone to say someone is happy or unhappy is us projecting an emotional state on to someone. Happy, sad, angry, sorrow are emotions. Emotional dispositions are character traits. Depression is an illness, a medical term.

Depression is not feeling sad, it is not being a bit miserable. It can and does change your life. It makes everything harder to do from getting up in the morning to doing simple tasks such as paying bills or doing the vacuuming. It makes life seems less worthwhile and can make you want to give up the will to live. And it can make you suicidal. 

Depressed people don't want to be depressed. Well not the ones I know anyway. They want to be happy. On the whole they can be happy but still live with depression. 

I don't want to bleat on and on as I no longer want mental illness to define me or the relationships I have. Just a word of caution, be careful with the language to use. Monday mornings aren't depressing, the are just moments in space-time that occur and then pass. Your good friend isn't avoiding your phone calls because they are miserable, they are genuinely struggling with an illness.

RIP Robin Williams - Your memory will live on in all the happiness you brought Generation X and Y.

Accept, change, leave

How do you do?

When I last wrote I said no more sad. And for the most part I have been achieving that. I have had moments when I have sat and stared in to the abyss and wished it all away but they have been few and far between. 

I've been dealing with my problems a lot better. Instead of ignoring the crap and hoping it goes away I have been looking for meaningful solutions or in the case of many things, just solving the problem. I even got my car fixed (with a little help from big sis).

When I talk of sad things I mean the things that were sent to try us. I do not mean depression. Depression is an illness that requires medical treatment. Sadness is the feeling you get when you come home and realise the dogs have eaten yet another pair of beautiful shoes. 

Eckhart Tolle said, and I paraphrase, if you don't like something accept it, change it or leave. I thought about this for a long time over the weekend. Changing certain things is not an option so I am choosing to accept them. 

Hurt feelings, upset, anger are just moments in time, phenomenons if you will. Accept that they happened and move on. I can't change the past, I cannot change them moments. But I can decide not to dwell. 

Well what about leaving? If staying in a situation will cause me to keep having these moments of sadness then I will leave. It is almost inevitable that things will be better, things will change of their own accord. Change is the only constant in this life but change is in the past once it's happened. 

I am happy now. In the moment. In the now. With friends who love me. With people who care. 

I'm not cured. I am clinically depressed. I will sometimes walk in to work shaking and close to tears because facing the day has been an almost insurmountable challenge. But I will have made the decision to accept that feeling, leave the house and try and change my outlook. 

That's all I can do.