Living With The Enemy

Not been doing much writing of late... I've barely just been mindlessly going back and forth on the manuscript without much of an idea of what I'm doing. I wish it was because I have started an intensive IT course for SQL, but even that is suffering.

After all these years I am definitely tired of being "symptomatic", but right now I can just about claim to be "coping" ... And by "coping" I generally mean that I haven't as yet curled up into a catatonic ball for six months. I feel a bit "Can't Live If Living Is Without You" when it comes to my (... "condition"?... "illness?") depression - I've had it nearly all of my life and I don't think that I would know what to do without it hovering there in the background. But that is where I would prefer it to stay. Whenever it raises its ugly little head in my life, everything tends to descend into chaos, leaving me a quivering wreck that then has to pick up whatever pieces that are left at the end of it.

Being out of work (it's like no matter how hard I've tried, I get nowhere...) and stuck at home, it's not the best situation to be in - it's prime fertilisation for a relapse. Add to that horribly painful backache and sciatica (ironically brought on by sitting for long ours in the classroom every week for SQL course to get me back into work), making walking - and just about anything - difficult and painful as hell, and all that's left is a rather miserable Lel... Even my "Angel Walk" - walking from home to Angel Islington - that I try to do most days ends up compromised when it flares up, and there goes the one thing that makes me feel a little better.

I'm tired of being tired... No, exhausted... I'm tired of being up till 4am every night - despite being so damn knackered, I can't concentrate on anything, I feel rubbish enough to not even know what "self-belief" even is in theory, and I'm so run down with almost no appetite and no particular inclination to consume anything but coffee, as it's the only thing that keeps me vaguely functioning. I'm also ending up having to take painkillers rather regularly again thanks to my back, and that's the last thing I need to be reliant on when I'm feeling not OK with things. I have enough of a checkered past with codeine - the last thing I need is for it to raise its ugly head on top of everything else.

I also hate being hopelessly over-emotional, prone to unbelievable levels of hypersensitivity and emotionally-driven panic attacks, and I tend to stupidly believe that the pills can help can calm them down because they make me think I feel better. You'd think that after 20 years of this I'd have worked out that it does nothing but cause trouble, not make things better...

I really want to get back to "normal" (normal for me)... To be more than just about functioning, just about coping. I want to be able to walk out the house and not feel scared (agoraphobia can be really annoying), talk to people without feeling like they're being really demeaning towards me (it's just paranoia - they're generally not), talk to agencies and go to interviews and sound coherent and confident whilst doing so. It's always nice when these things happen, and I can do them all without having a panic attack or descending into paranoid tears.

Actually, what I would really like is to get my mind back so I can concentrate on things again, get obsessed/ passionate (depends who you ask...) about the things I love, get back to writing, actually enjoy my course and be able to do concentrate on it and actually understand it, actually want to play games again... I miss caring about my characters (in my novels, Skyrim, Fable), and I'm annoyed I'm not making the best out of my course that cost a lot of money. Not being able to take in the lectures and trying to read my notes and textbook with the words never being retained.

The demon needs to go back in the box... A bit tired of playing games with it though.

Grass Is Greener Syndrome...

Isn't it ironic that when we're at work all we do is crave for time off to do whatever we want to do - sleep in, watch daytime TV, play XBox games, eat proper lunch in your own kitchen instead of a cardboard sandwich from Tesco... Then when you actually get given them you're bored to death within days!

Home is not so interesting when you have nothing much to do and you've done everything you wanted to do all day every day for a week, and the novelty has worn off. And when you're home alone, with no co-conspirator to keep you occupied or do anything with, it rather starts to feel like you've been kept home from school because you're ill and your friends can't come round, not even after school, because you're still infectious. It. Is. So. Boring!

As a contractor you get lulls of "between contracts" and whilst it may seem like a good idea to take advantage of it and have a "holiday", when the other half goes back to work sooner than you after said holiday because they've got a "proper job" they've got to go back to, you're left bored stiff waiting for the phone to ring and watching rubbish on 4OD and iPlayer an wanting to go back to work... Until the novelty of having a job to do wears off and you want to be on "holiday" again...

Personally, I'm taking the time to try to do some good - I'm working more on my little book (or not so little, as still working on that part...) and hoping I'll once and for all nail that synopsis that will make the imaginary gullible agents in my mind clamour for the rights to represent it within seconds of reading it... See, I'm a perfect writer with an amazingly vivid imagination!

At least what I have done so far with my time off is re-write and edit the manuscript to a more sensible size and made modifications that I think probably does make it much better - curtesy of my rather insightful partner, which was a surprising source receive such a thing given she absolutely refuses to read such works from other people!

All I need to do now is guzzle more coffee (unfortunately it's Kenko, as opposed to my favourite full-bodied Starbucks beans - unfortunately they're not bottomless never-ending bags, despite the price), convince myself I'm not really dying of boredom, and go back to writing. Which is always more interesting than trawling through hundreds of jobsites for rubbish jobs I don't particularly want to do. They always tend to come to me anyway - which works just fine for lazy-ish me...