Most Days For Me
The image above depicts in some essence, how I feel every day — trapped and suffocating in a very dark place with nowhere to go.
This caliginous place I reside is in my mind, where I am trapped, nothing more than a slave to my inner screams of doom and despair. My constant overwhelming desire to sabotage every attempt of escaping this nightmare is where I spend my life, and it’s going to drive me insane!
Just one paragraph in, I’m already having to wrestle with the voice in my head taking its condescending tone! This voice is telling me that I can’t do this, I’m not good enough, I’ll fail again like I always do!
It drives me crazy, yet I always seem to succumb to the nagging. Why??
Right now, for instance, I’m fighting urges to procrastinate. My right ear is listening to the movie in the background that Rose and the girls are watching. I seem to be looking for every excuse possible to stop what I’m doing.
I can’t focus, ever! I’m all over the place, constantly distracted, I’m losing my mind!
Fuck! The inner monster has gotten the better of me again! I’m leaving this till tomorrow now! I just got overwhelmed.
Tomorrow (today now)
I’m writing this in Grammarly and to the right is the (pencilled illustrated) Grammarly lady telling me that “Nothing can stop you now!”
Oh, if only she knew my constant struggle with distraction!
It’s 11:20 am, and I’m finally sat down in front of my MacBook Pro. Oh wait, I need to clean the tiny spec of dust from the display, the one that’s drawn all my focus away from what I’m doing until I wipe it off!
Bye-bye dust spec, until the next time!
My night (s)
I went to bed at around 11 pm; I finally got to sleep. I usually sleep okay for a few hours until around the early hours of the morning. That’s when I lie awake, eyes wide open, ruminating. And ruminating. And Ruminating!!
I sit bolt upright in bed, staring into the dark corner of the room, because it’s lighter there than the inside of my stirring dark mess of a mind, but still so dark. Last night, this started at about 5 am, sometimes I wake up as early as 2 am.
I’m drowning in such intense upset, sadness, sorrow and remorse as the raging anger inside. Imagine a storm forming in the distance, imagine the massive black wall of clouds coming towards you, then the storm lands! Boom!
For me, this happens instantly in a violent wave. I physically feel the cortisone being released into every vein in my body. It makes me feel weak and hopeless, I just want to scream out, I want to end my life, there and then.
My thoughts are of my childhood, wishing I could go back, even though it was quite a troubled one, it was still better than this train crash of a life I’m having now. I miss not having any worries and stresses, pulling me apart at an atomic level.
It’s not only the thoughts of my childhood; Feelings of hopeless desperation and darkness consume me; this is what I endure daily. Just writing about this can never do it justice; it’s way more complicated than a few typed words.
I’m 49 – How The Heck Did I Get Here?
Who Knows how I became buried in this life, I don’t even know for sure, but I can make some pretty good assumptions.
It’s Day Three Now!
And I still can’t focus on finishing this article! Aaaagggghhhhhh!
Back To; ‘I’m 49 – How The Heck Did I Get Here?’
So, where was I? Oh, that’s right, how did I become buried in this life, blah, blah!
Assumptions, okay, go!
As a great philosopher once said
“Assumptions are the mother of all fuck-ups.”
Don’t ask me which philosopher, but he or she had a point. The times I wish I’d remembered that little nugget – Oh well!
I’ve failed my whole life, massively, on an unimaginable scale. I know we all fail and that’s how we learn, but not this one, oh no! If there were a universal contest of ‘The Greatest Failure in The Universe’, guess who’d win? Yup, you got it!
If I list out all my failures, well, you’d not be reading this now because I’d still be sat here composing the ‘List-of-The-Fucking-Century!’ Besides, the embarrassment would be too much to bear…
Trying to decide where one has failed in life is potentially as risky as making assumptions. In essence, both can lead to an unopened tin of worms that would probably be best left unopened. But without opening that tin of worms, how will I know? It’s hard; Let’s face it, who goes through life analysing every year gone past? You know, just asking myself that very question has made me think, I bet lots of people do, right?
Could I have just uncovered one of the many cracks in my long path of failure? Maybe I should start writing a chronology, then dissect the fuck out of it? Perhaps an article for another time?
[Thinking out aloud] ‘The Memoirs of a Failed 49-Year-Old Loser.’
So, back to the plot, ‘how the heck did I get here?’ And I mean ‘here’ as in here, in this situation. I don’t know, but I think I should find out, and soon! Time is running out. Did I mention, I’m 49 now? Yup, and in just over ten years, I’ll be 60! That is fucking scary!
Back to those assumptions; I think I’ll leave those well alone because assumptions are nothing more than spewed out words born from uncertainty, which isn’t going to help man nor beast.
When I’ve uncovered more cracks in that long path of mine, I’ll write it. I think I could get used to this writing, I’ve got lots of ideas now, so get those knives and pills ready!
Anyway, I think we’ve established that I’m somewhat fucked up, and yes, it sucks! Thing is, I have to try and do something about it, as hard as that will be, I do think the physical act of getting what’s in my head, out in the wild, will help.
You never know, it may help others too?
If you’ve got this far, I’m impressed, but what’s more impressive for me is that I’ve got this far. As of now, I’m 1,104 words in, and if you’re an average reader, that’s about 4 min 24 seconds. However, if you’re me and can’t focus for love nor money, better make that a reasonable hour!
So, What next?
My Escape Plan
Before I get to my escape plan, everything I’ve written here was procured from my mushed up, paper mache mess of a brain. Quietly sitting down, thinking of a subject related to my depression, then focusing on the context within that subject got my fingers going. Then voila, out spewed this lot, eventually!
My point being, I have no idea yet what my plan is, so the list I’m about to set out is just ideas plucked out of my subconscious, somewhere to start, I guess. I’ve heard that if one asks oneself questions, one will get answers. Seems to be working so far…
But pushing against this crippling wall of focus deficit is literally hurting my head! Every moment, I’m so distracted!
So, what is my plan? Other than the easy way out, how will I escape this fucked up mess? So, what is my plan? I’m not sure, but here’s that list with some ideas for now, which may change. This is new to me…
Bear in mind, in the blank space under this sentence right now, which by the time you see it, will have a bulleted list of stuff, I have absolutely no idea what the hell I’m supposed to write, but here goes…
- Focus: My absolute and outright inability to focus is probably the root of my depression? If you’re also suffering from anything depression-related, look at your focus, without it, we’re just one big pile of confusion! To start, I’m going to practice mindfulness. Rose bought me a book a few weeks ago, I’m going to finish it. It’s called ‘Daily Calm’ by the Irish Times bestselling author, Padraig O’Morain. I’m a few pages in and have already had an “Ah-Ha” moment or two.
- Read: Aswell as the book mentioned above, I’m going to read more. I’ve never been a great reader, as you may have already heard, but I’ve started to realise that reading will do two main things for me; 1. Give me something to focus on, and, 2. Expand my knowledge. Obviously, right?
- Write: I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d get into writing, I’m a trained mechanic, I love cars, I’m a born petrol-head. I’ve spent even longer in direct sales, although not my passion. In hindsight, when I took my first sales position for a home improvements company, I never thought I’d be a salesman either! So, here I am, writing for no other reason right now than it’s helping me stay sane.
The three things on my list above all seem to come down to one thing; FOCUS!
1. I will focus on focusing, which will help me with what? You guessed it, my focus.
2. I will focus on reading, which in turn will help me to what? Yup, you guessed right, focus!
3. Do I need to type 3 out?
There’s one thing I’ve not mentioned yet but is something else that has been so debilitating to me, and that is perfectionism! Jeez, don’t get me started on that one, but it will go down on my list of things to write about. Perfectionism has for sure played its part in my failings, at least, if not more so than focus.
Keep your eyes peeled for that one…
To Conclude
It’s taken me three days to write this! Three days!!! But I’ve finished it. I’ve actually finished something I started! It’s been interesting, and I actually feel a bit better for doing it.
It may not be perfect, and that’s cool. It may not be full of elaborately placed vocabulary, but hopefully, you get the gist? English was one of my many subjects at school that I found tiresome. I could never focus at school either, I was always daydreaming…
I’m severely depressed and sometimes suicidal. I think I may be Bipolar, although undiagnosed, I’ve got all the symptoms. I’ve totally fucked up everything in my life thus far. Maybe if I keep writing about this stuff, It will perhaps help me find a path that leads to light, instead of dark… Perhaps it will give me some much-needed accountability, as I will be forcing myself to practice what I’m preaching, so-to-speak?
So all-in-all, an excellent job so far, Steve!