My Venlafaxine

I wanted to die again. However briefly the feelings gripped me the compulsion was always an earnest one. A more effective form of pain relief does not exist. This time I began goading myself to see if I had the balls to do anything about it. I didn't. I am very lucky I didn't.

Venlafaxine is a good drug. Maybe even a great one. It has certainly had a positive effect on my life. Almost seven months ago to the day I reached the lowest point of my depression. A complete mental capitulation whose antecedent causes I had been ignoring for too long. It spliced me right out of my work and social environment and had me bouncing from doctors to psychiatrist, to mental health clinics. I've never been as sick as I was at Christmas. I have never felt as lonely and rejected.

The point is that Venlafaxine, though by no means totally responsible, has had a dramatic effect upon my recovery. I think most people who know me would believe that my climb out of the sewers of despair has been both majestic and seamless. It probably appears as if I am more often happy and contented than I have ever been before. For the most part I would agree but there is still remaining something a little apocryphal in this idea. Depression still owns me. I will almost certainly remain its bonded chattel for the duration of my lifetime. I can have no control over the capricious malevolence of this master. All I can really hope to do is to shore up my defences as best I can. Learn from all the thrashings I have received from his hand and confront him. Eyes fixed, chest out!

It is my recurring inability to protect myself that makes me so fucking angry with myself. Despite being fairly intelligent I have a cancerous streak of naivety running through me. It encourages me to overlook obvious oncoming symptoms of depression. It allows me to completely ignore dangers I would otherwise be guarded against. It tickles me into believing that doing the same thing again and again will not have the same desultory affects.

So when I say that Venlafaxine is a great drug that has helped me massively I also have to admit that I disrespect it by pushing myself down to a place where I know I should not go. Drinking often and in high volume has in my case always at some stage resulted in a snap because the elastic has been stretched too far. I know this. I bet a lot of other people know this about me too. I am Bart Simpson continually touching the cupcake despite the electric shock.

I can't say I didn't see this Saturday night/ Sunday morning coming at me. There is no way I can suggest that it wasn't a certainty to happen if I continued as I had been doing. What does this mean? Well it tells me that I have some power to change the course of these events and by doing so resisting or at least delaying the agonising rupture of my progress. It tells me that I made a mistake once again by going beyond my safety threshold and that I am entirely to blame for anything destructive that I may have let happen.

I hope that once more the Venlafaxine has resumed its steady good work as the tyrannical alcohol subsides and my serotonin comes out to play once more. I am still a young man. Dans la force de l'âge. Still capable, still progressing, still stupid, still naive. If I can protect myself better from the constant self-criticism, the loneliness and depression by learning from my previous mistakes then perhaps I can at least allow myself to face it down with weapons more suited to the task. Eyes fixed, chest out.

Purposely chose mighty ducks over road to damascus. It's much more relevant to me

I think I have a fairly good idea now of how Gordon Bombay might have been feeling before he met those mighty ducks. Outwardly stable, inwardly tormented. Carrying around a personal sense of failure and hopelessness. Unable to avoid the self-destructive behaviour that I'm getting a little too old for. Abusing the medication that I should be submitting everything to. But like Gordon, I'm just not happy.

 I really am rather lonely at this point. Partly from my own designed isolation, partly because people I want to spend time with don't want to spend time with me. Perhaps it is more to do with being in the wrong time and place. If I'm not thinking about smashing the people I live with in the face with a hammer I am completely apathetic of any relationship with them at all. I'm the last single man standing now and it's magnifying the impression I have of myself as intrinsically unlovable, desperately condemned to my own company. I realise I don't want a girlfriend but I doubt whether I'd be capable of having one.  

I am having a heart attack now. I've been having this heart attack for some time now. 

I have to be one of the stupidest people I know. I do things that are severely damaging myself just because I can't resist for a few hours. I continue to do things I don't enjoy because I am too lazy to change. I am so stupid I was staring at a kitchen knife briefly last night before realizing that I didn't want to die, I simply wanted a different kind of pain. Something to distract me. Well they do say a change is as good as a rest.

I think sometimes that the realisation and diagnosis of my depression leads me to an expectation that it doesn't require constant treatment. That it can look after itself for the most part. Would I have the same careless disrespect for cancer? Would I continue to eat a side of bacon with every meal after a massive heart attack?

Here I am standing in the wrong clothes for the context or standing in the wrong context for the clothes. I'm a square peg and home is a round hole here. I always have been. Pressure is building with hideous subtlety for me to make something of myself but even static pressure causes opposition to weaken over time. I shouldn't be here, never should have been. 

So I went out last night and had some drinks. Had a look around, saw one thing that I like and a whole lot of shit I didn't.

Off Monday, must drink Sunday excitement! The Dj was playing this set-list in here when I was nineteen and it wasn't good then. Fat bald men throwing punches because of their paranoid perceptions. I doubt anyone was giving your missus the eyes mate. Drunken girls showering the ground with spilt super chips. Checked shirts that were out of fashion before the Apaches had their first glance at John Wayne's unsteady strut. Is this where Romeo first saw Juliet? I doubt he would have wanted her so much laid out on Monaghan street, fake tan mud-slide dressed up in yesterdays sale. Extreme emotions, we all love or hate each other that bit more at night, intoxicated.

In the middle of all this a friend of mine suggested to me that my standards are too high. My expectations of myself are too high, leading to disappointment. My expectations of a girlfriend are too high, leading too a lonely life. My expectations for life are too high, leading to depression. He thinks I would be better off doing what he has done, take a fairly average girl that I share almost no common interests with and whom I have no exceptional chemistry with and "give it a go". When I replied that there was a word I could use to describe what he was saying, he wasn't unhappy with being told I considered that settling.

I won't ever apologise for having this idealistic streak inside me. More than any other character trait I possess it's the one that make me what I am. Believe me when I say it makes me a more sensitive person, a more caring friend, a more hopeful human being. It's what induces me to pine for people and things I can't have because ideally I can have it all. But it is also what makes particularly susceptible to severe life-threatening depression. It is going to kill me or make me stronger. Unfortunately, it probably won't ever be able to make me happy.

So nothings changed has it? I say one thing and do another. I can't protect myself from restlessness. The consequences remain the same. The needy sadness, the pathetic hopelessness, the kitchen knife and the office scissors. I'm a selfish cunt really! Some people have made the effort for me when I won't do it myself. It'd be rather nice to have my might ducks moment

drinking

Briefly I was back where I don't ever want to be. Sick and depressed with a dread in my stomach about having to see tomorrow. Pathetically fearing sleep because of the hallucinogenic dream nightmares. Feeling worthless like an old 50p. Three fucking horrible black days. Body and mind ripped apart and strewn out like animal carcass. My only true interlocutor is a blank page I couldn't force myself to write to.

Greasy globules of sweat disappearing beneath my uniform collar. They leave a silkworms trail along my face, stinging my eyes along the way. I think I'm about to have a redbull heart-attack and if it were to leave me unconscious it might even be a result.

Fucking alcohol. Fucking stupid me.

  You should avoid alcohol while taking this medicine. 

I have to come clean this time. I really have nothing or no-one to blame for feeling this way. It wasn't like I needed any encouragement to push the boat out just a little further upon a tide of tequila. I know I suffer from depression. I know I can sometimes struggle with drink depressions. I know I am on anti-depressants and I know better.

Saturday was a great laugh. An absolute belter of an evening. But I think for the first time that even a really fun night on the booze didn't get to within a galaxy of being worth the days after. It has scared the shit out of me in a big way. I really don't want to have to feel like that again. My brain felt to me like it was floating around inside a test tube, banging against the glass. The worst three days of 2014 by far felt as if time had stopped and I was the only person moving. I wanted to be held, dependant, looked after. It wouldn't happen however. 

I don't recommend binge drinking to anyone ever if it leaves you in tears driving home from work two days later like it did for me. That's the thing with these drink depressions, they tend to leave you vulnerable to some emotional conflict that you can otherwise control. In my case it lead to a very disappointing end to something I didn't want to end. It was dead anyway, it's just that it has been said now.

Fucking alcohol again. Fucking stupid me again. 

When you know the risks and do it anyway it doesn't seem fair to go crying to friends even when you really need them. Sometimes a hug makes it just a little better but I don't deserve any.

2013

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. I have to thank Mr Charles Dickens for the succinct clarity of the opening sentence because it sums up 2013 in the life of Ciaran Cooney better than I ever could. However, allow me to elucidate this often strange and often sad epoch of mine in some of my own words even if they fall short of said master of language above.

I began writing my thoughts down on here in late spring as a reaction to finding it an excruciating torment to say any of those things aloud. At that point I had back-slid so far into my depression that I'd had to step up my medication to it's maximum and go to a weekly therapy session. I could barely speak to my friends any more, was convinced I would never  be able to look at another woman again let alone talk to one and figured the odds of making it to twenty-seven were reducing exponentially on me. You can probably guess that this was during the worst of times.

The year had started relatively well too. Apart from the traditional post-Christmas blues I was thriving on the sense of a new start that January brings. I was motivated in a way I have almost never been before. I had my first semester exams and I studied hard for those. Meanwhile, I breezed though seven books in the time I wasn't studying. For a month I was probably more dedicated to exercise than I had ever been and by the time of my decline I was as fit as I had been in years. I was socialising without drinking. I was enjoying my life. Maybe that is part of the reason that the fall that was to follow felt particularly hard this time. Or maybe it is just that I've grown exhausted of trying to dig myself out of that hole.

Oddly enough I can pinpoint exactly where I was when this malignant hopelessness began to settle in. I was in a Chinese restaurant on a Saturday night in February. The 9th of February to be more precise. Enjoying a meal and a drink with colleagues and friends it suddenly struck me that I wasn't like anyone else there. I felt an obscure distance from the rest and my mind fell vacant so that I was almost unable to speak. I knew what was coming. The following day the pain in my body was such that I wanted to die. I would have died, if I had dared to.

A few days later I fell victim to a flu virus that was doing the rounds and together this and the depression sewed the seeds for seemingly terminal pain. The first two weeks of being sick where, to the best of my memory, the worst I have ever experienced. The physical torture combined with the mental decline at that moment was something I could scarcely survive twice.

It went on like this for a few months. Finally I was convinced to get help. This would mean more pills and a first crack at therapy. Sitting in the waiting room of a mental health clinic for the first appointment had, in my case at least, the pleasant effect of making me feel comparatively okay. I was sure I didn't need this the way the people beside me did. Looking back now though, I know I needed it. I needed to stop myself getting lost.

Strange as it may sound, I consider this submission to another for my mental well-being as a minor victory. It was something I had always laughed off before but in 2013 I finally did it because I had to. It was good for me. I needed to hear from someone with a clue that if I kept on the same track that the probability of suicide attempts was constantly increasing and that the day was getting quite close.

Scratching my way through to passing my first full year of college was a big win, even if I hated virtually every moment of that second semester. By rights I probably should have failed. I felt myself pitching and rolling and maybe on the verge of capsizing. This mature student thing wasn't nearly as much fun as I thought it was going to be. It appears fairly obvious to me now that I made a mistake when I decided on electronic engineering as the vehicle for my return to formal education. But I'm here now so I best just get on with it and keep those credits ticking over. Anyway, deciding on the wrong thing is often better than not deciding at all.

Summer, summer, summer-time! Last day in a mental health clinic (with a little luck, ever) coincided, somewhat serendipitously, with an afternoon flight to Edinburgh for my mates stag. Not going to romanticise it as  turning point but it was a kind of happy release because now I was free to enjoy myself for a few months and for the most part that is just what I did. I guess there is no point in boring anyone with the details, especially as I've already written most of the stupid shit I got up to. From getting twerked in Rome (perhaps due to me wearing suit and sunglasses at night) to trying to leverage £80 from a mate so I could shag a stripper it was mainly just good craic. The year most definitely peaked in Rome. The wedding of my two friends was perfect. The weather was perfect. The food occasionally a little disappointing but the craic ninety-one. The hangover was interminable.

I've had to settle back down to reality the last couple of months. I am finding myself reasonably dedicated to the course I'm doing even if I lack any aptitude for engineering at all. There is nowhere I have ever felt more stupid than in those classrooms. I will take some comfort knowing that Aristotle thought knowing ones own ignorance was a sign of intelligence. Feeling exhausted seems to be my default state at the moment. I find myself doing more hours at work than I did last year. It's all good though. I don't like being a poor student and there are so many things I like to spend money on. A return to Amsterdam is top of that list. Maybe January 2013.

Apparently it seems I am living the life I missed out on when I was 18 or 19. I've been told by different people recently that I am a sleazy, cheesy, flirt. A metro-sexual (fair enough), bisexual (I'm not), macklemore look-alike. I can see where most of that comes from. I was super-depressed when I was younger. I could hardly talk to anyone, definitely not the girls I fancied back then, so don't blame me for trying to have the fun I missed out on now. So what if I want to be a bit of a slut now, that doesn't make me bad. And anyway I'm nowhere near as big a slut as I'd like to be. Still, it's all just a bit of banter at the minute.

It's not that I'm cured. I still have the days when I can't talk, can't do anything. Days when I remember what it was like to want to die. I mean even today I'm here lying in bed because I really don't want to go out, although I might make another excuse. I went seven days without taking any fluoxetine, when I should be taking three a day. Proof if needed that self-destructive behaviour still lingers ominously. It just that now I know for certain that I'm not nearly done with life. There is too much to be had to stay in bed, like I have done for years and am doing today. So, I won't be doing it tomorrow or again any time soon.

I know some people who's version of life scares the shit out of me. It's not that there unhappy. More that they don't seem to care about anything that are the really good experiences. They seem satisfied to work, eat, sleep, stay in the same town forever and never see the world. Not interested in sex and never going to have children. In some way scared to live. That is my biggest nightmare. I'd rather die than grow older and old like that. It's not even the action that is important but the attitude, I need to know that there might be something more exciting out there for me.

With all that in mind I am actually looking forward to next year for the first time in my life. I used to look at it as the depressing passing of time that is impossible to hold back. Almost like, ' we're ll going to die anyway, why bother?' But now I think I can see that the real pleasure in starting a new year is all the possibility for improvement and hopefully some fucking excellent moments. Everyone should see it that way. If I can bounce, anyone can.

I suppose the moral of the 2013 story is that I'm not finished with life yet even when I know some days I hate it. Nobody should be. It's all out there waiting for you. You just need to decide what you want and then go get it. It is hard but it can be fun too.

2014...GO!!!

sixty-nine being nothing but a number

Bend over and twerk me, force me down and hurt me. Straddle me, get on your knees for me. Stimulate or tease me. Stammer out the words s,s,s,s,sixty-nine? if you resist it will be the only time. Degrade yourself to please me. In the moment you belong to me.

That is what I want.

I trust you were happy to allow to me to park all of my trademark sensitivity for a moment. It's still here of course but right now it is being steamrollered into submission by my selfish sexual appetite, animal noises and filthy fantasies.

All men have secrets and here is mine, so let it be known. I want to rut with her. I want to lay with that girl. I think I even want to make love to some of them. I'm telling you I don't want sex with one person, I want sex with literally millions of people. Why should I limit myself? I'm not sure I've got the stamina to reach the full seven figures but when there are men so old that they need scaffolding to maintain their erections still having sex, I'm happy that at least time is on my side.

For any women readers out there who might pretend to think I'm crazy when I talk about the scale of the male sex drive I will try to illuminate my point a little. Every single day I'm faced with new people coming into contact with me or cutting across my eye-line. I am always going to have an initial instinctive reaction like, 'what are they doing here?' or 'what can they do for me?'. Now here is the controversial bit. With every single one of those people my first instinct is to ask a question: 'Can I fuck it?'. Assuming an affirmative answer, a second, and potentially more important question is posed: 'Would I fuck it?'. You might be surprised how often the second question returns a yes.

It's in our nature, all of us, to want sex. To want good sex, with the people we're attracted to. Even at inappropriate times and places. Unfortunately, at some point this fact seems to have gotten perverted to the point where it is dangerous to admit the truth. We all get horny sometimes!

It's degenerated to the stage now were a man can claim an addiction to sex for compelling him to cheat on his wife. It's not Tiger's fault, he has a medical condition. It was the same for Michael Douglas. He didn't want to have sex with all of those beautiful and willing ladies. It was simply a case of a relentless addiction taken hold. My opinion on all of this is a little different to the conventional. If these guys are sex addicts because they wanted to have sex with a seemingly endless line of women the I'm sorry to say that almost all men are sex addicts. I'm a sex addict. My friends are sex addicts. Your boyfriend is a sex addict. The difference between men like Tiger Woods and an average Joe is availability and risk assessment. Be realistic guys, if you had drunken women throwing themselves at you like you were a premiership footballer do you think you wouldn't try to have your cake. Most normal guys also have to consider whether it's worth the risk to lose out on the regular sex in exchange for the possibility of some extra sex.

Girls! Girls! listen to me. Your virtue doesn't lie between your legs. It lies in the better part of you. The bits that make up the person you really are. So, take this as a call to arms because I'm not going to judge you. Girls! If you feel like you want to have sex then why don't you just go ahead and do. Do it as often as you like. Ya wee skitter!

The truth is, it's the constant search for all the sex I can find that's really been holding me back all this time. Here I am blaming it all on drinking and depression when perhaps the problem is that I drink to give me the confidence to go chasing ass and then get super depressed with everything when it doesn't happen.

If I were truly in love with someone. Then maybe things would be different.

Don't ever pay full price

I may have mentioned before that I was on a stag weekend in Edinburgh a few weeks back. Up until now I haven't really illuminated upon any of the details. Partly because I didn't want to share other people's secrets and partly because I had other considerations in the meantime. Anyway, this one is about me in the main so I suppose I'm free to divulge.

I'll start in a nightclub we were all in called Opal Lounge. It was a little pretensious but when the drinks in who really gives a shit? At some point in the evening that Kanye West tune Gold digger came on. That lit a bit of a fuse in me. Suddenly I grew in stature, chest was out and I'm dancing like Travolta. Or so I thought. Giving myself some credit, I did dance my way into a little babes mouth although I was denied any further access this time. At this point I've shimmied over to a corner seat with this girl and I'm there for maybe an hour without seeing ant one of the lads. This is when I start getting a few oblique texts telling me where a couple of the lads are.

For the purposes of anonymity lets just call them Rod and Todd. So Rod texts me telling me that himself and Todd have left and are now in a strip club. Now, I'm with a pretty fit girl here but I'm on a stag and want to be where the craic is.

Rod's texts are telling me that the name of the place is Sunin Palace. Sounds like the name of a chinese restaurant, right? Anyway, first thing I did on leaving Opal Lounge was ask a taxi driver to take me to sunin palace. The man had absolutely no fucking idea what I was talking about. Luckily there were a few rickshaw drivers there too. I got talking to this one who told me the only lap dancing club with palace in the name was Fantasy Palace. Well it's in Edinburgh and it's got tits. Of course I said Fuck It, lead on!

Imagine the scene. Here I am on this rickshaw shouting 'Ya!' and doing the whip sound like I'm riding a roman chariot through the streets. I also had to throw in the obligatory 'Bus wankers' insult at a few people who were just walking down the road at the time. King of the World!

I've found my way to fantasy palace. Pay a tenner to get inside without even knowing if the flanders boys are even here. By the way I had lost my bank card earlier in the day so after spending that ten getting in I was pretty much down to change. Inside I take a walk around keeping my eyes open for the lads. No sign. Taking a seat in the corner I am trying to look inconspicuous because I don't even want to look at a dancer when I don't have the dollars for a show.

While I'm sitting there minding my own business this one stripper comes over to solicit poor little innocent me. I pleaded with her 'I've no money' but the silly goose persevered and asked exactly how much I had. I took out a five pound note and emptied the rest of the change onto the table. I think it came to something like £13.47. You know what? she takes my hand and says, 'follow me'. To be honest, I was thinking to myself what is going to happen in here. I mean what does £13.47 get you? Am I just going to watch her take her coat off or untie her shoe laces? I have to give the girl credit though, she put on quite a cabaret for the discounted price.

Oh yes, the reason I was there at all, to find Rod and Todd. Here I'll just change the point of view of the tale for a moment. The two boys were in the same club as me but at this point they had no idea. The two horny little rascals come strutting up through the back room of the strip club after yet another dance. At full price too! Just then Todd looks up and sees my head peering out from behind a big pair of polish tits. From what I've been told I just turned round and quietly mouthed my trademark elongated 'boooiiiiii'. Immediately I went back to my evenings entertainment.

This girl must have seen something in me. Maybe she thought I had money somewhere. She gave me her number and I was texting her the next day. You just know I went back there the next night...



To this day I still have no clue as to why Rod text me telling me the name of that place was Sunin Palce. The lad is deranged!

Saturday Night

How are you all? I hope you're feeling good. Saturday night! Are you feeling in a bit of a party mood tonight? I hope you are. Going out and having a drink and a dance. I think that's what they invented these weekends for. Out tonight girls? Yeah I know, I can see you've got the legs out. Now, don't be blaming them lads when they are chasing you later. It's all good tonight. You say you are all feeling good? Feeling like tonight's the night and all that. Good I'm glad. I hope you're all in a party mood tonight!

I'm not in a party mood. No I am not. Not going anywhere tonight. That's just how I want it tonight because I just don't have it in me to do the saturday night out thing this time. Oh if you had seen me one week ago you might think there would never be a day I wouldn't want to be out. I was pretending to be happy then. But that was then and this is now and I'm not really pretending anymore.

I am tired. No, tired doesn't quite do it. I'm exhausted. Totally drained of energy like I've been on a crash diet for a month. I can't get out of bed in the morning, can't sleep at night. In between making a cup of tea is about as productive as I've been this week. At the moment I'm still dreaming big but I can't follow through. I want to, I really do but I feel weak like a cancer patient. If they gave out prizes for all the things I'm going to do...

It's entirely my own fault. There is no self pity here this time. I did this. What this is, is the physical symptoms of depression leading from the front and dragging all the other stuff willingly along for the ride. No sympathy this time because I new it would return. Perhaps I even encouraged a backlash as I taunted myself with more and more booze. I'm not going to lie and say the last month or so drinking on the weekends hasn't been fun. It has, sometimes even too much fun. But it was fun I knew I would have to pay the price for somewhere down the line.

I don't regret it, even if I probably should have rested a week or too early. Not regretting it means it will happen again. Continually. And with that comes this feeling of wanting to put my head through a mincing machine. So, I can't feel sorry for myself and neither should anyone else. I was in control of this thing and I relinquished it in the name of drinking and fun. And when I'm back in charge of myself I'll do it all again.

There is more to putting and end to the self-pity though. My life is not really that bad and my problems aren't shit. Nothing that bad has ever happened to me so I can't sit hear feeling sorry for myself. Not when I can see the sadness in other peoples eyes 100 million times worse than in my own. Something happened last week that makes me very sad. But it give me a little perspective on myself. I'll tell you a bit...

You don't ever want to see a coffin being carried by one man. Chances are he is carrying his own child. His own little baby.

She was stillborn on Tuesday. Blessed and buried on Wednesday. Loved everyday before and since. There she was in her mummy's arms, a little bundle of human perfection that doesn't get the chance to be anything but perfect. I've never had a child, not sure that I ever will. I can only imagine the heady euphoria of it all. Couldn't even begin to explore the crushing devastation of losing a child.

I catch myself glancing at photographs of Aine and Grace lying together in their hospital bed. I take glances because I can't properly focus on the scene. It's too much reality for me. It makes me feel a little ill.

In the church two scenes compete to attract my eyes. One is the tiny white coffin with a baby inside. The other is her tearful parents consoling each other. I'm a little teary eyed but I'm holding. I don't want to cry here. Watching Neil and my Dad lowering the coffin into the ground I feel a little detached from it all. Like I'm watching television with the sound off. When the prayers are finished I line up to hug my sister like everyone else. I guess I done my duty but it felt completely inadequate. If being there was all I could do was I really doing anything at all.

That was a humbling experience. My problems aren't nothing. They are very real and maybe even potentially fatal. But how can I ever feel sorry for myself again when that little baby didn't get the chances I have?

Even more humbling than any of that though, was this one text message I received from a woman who had just buried her little baby girl barely an hour before. If the other stuff couldn't force the tears from my eyes this would. Aine wrote:

" Hey lil bro, r u ok? Sorry didn't get chance to talk to you at the grave.. but if you find things hard to deal with and need some1 to talk to im always here for u..ok, don't be getting too down, I know it's easier said than done! xx "

 That one doesn't get deleted. 

The foot in my ass needs to be my own

I woke up this morning like everyone else in Ireland. With the sun illuminating my bedroom, stirring up a heatwave that we all long for eleven months of the year. I can do anything I want today. Anything!

The thing is though, I just want to close the blinds, crawl under the sheets and disappear from it all. Depression has washed over my entire body. I feel sick to the stomach. Helpless. Hopeless. Not in depair yet but it is going to take work to hold it back. Where has this come from? It's been maybe the worst year of my life but I've been pretty happy for the last month or so. Even if I didn't believe that myself, there are enough other people telling me I'm my old self again to make it true. It was good while it lasted.

I'm lying there in bed with two choices. Retreat or attack. Surrender or fight. One means doing what I've always done and let the depression own me again. It means giving myself an excuse to fail. A reason to stay in bed and avoid reality. A chance to imagine what I could do instead of having a go. To be honest, that's what I want to do. Reach for the cigarettes, sleep and sad songs.

The second option is a little harder to define. Obviously if I'm to stay and fight It's going to take some constructive action on my part. Trying to figure out what that is makes staying in bed today seem like the only realistic way to proceed. But I'm trying to change that negative pattern of thinking. I've been going to see a mental health nurse for the past two months because I was so under the influence of depression it was making me climb dangerously close to the ledge and jumping. I'm not there today. She's been trying to put it into my head that when I wake  up feeling like I do today that I just have to do something. Anything that isn't what I've always done. It will probably be painful but it's the only way to keep me from getting back up on that ledge.

Today doing something or anything means I dragged myself out of bed. Had breakfast. Took my bike out for a cycle. Avoiding going to the shop for cigarettes. Getting on here to write this. I'll go to work later and talk to people and laugh. I am going to finish a book I've been reading. I know it doesn't seem like much but when one day in bed can turn into two months of avoidance and desperation it could be a small step to saving my life.
I'm always clinically depressed, even when I'm laughing and joking. Even when I'm focused and determined. Even when I'm so outwardly confident that picking up girls in nightclubs is the easiest thing in the world again. I'm only a mishap away from falling back again. You can forget how bad the depression can get. Like today, most people would find it difficult to remember just how cold it can get in Ireland in winter. With me in good spirits, it's very hard to look back and feel empathy with the way I felt when all I could think about was dying. I have to keep reminding myself to remind myself to be careful.

I was writing something the other day about needing someones foot in my ass to keep me moving in the right direction. It's true. I do. I went for three days at the weekend without feeding any of my prescribed anti-depressants into my body while I absolutely saturated it with alcohol, a depressant. So, I really can't crawl around in bed all day wallowing in self pity anymore. It was my own choice. It seems the foot in my ass really needs to be my own.

Prozac with a sprinkling of tequila

Maybe I need someone's foot in my ass. Or somebody to shake the shit out of me. Obviously there's potential rumbling around inside me creating thunderstorms but so far I just haven't been able to convert it. I'm acutely aware that it's down to me now. I get that in a philosophical way. But in a practical sense I have no real idea what I want to do. Where do I take myself and all my potential?  Apparently sitting around waiting for something perfect to come up and slap me in the face is a long odds game.

I'm a week away from what we hope will be my last ever appointment at a mental health clinic. A big part of me is going to miss it because over the weeks as comfort has built up I found myself more and more able to say what I really want to. I could keep going there forever and shooting the breeze but as I said, It's up to me now. The sole protector of my own destiny and happiness.

Helps to have someone to tell you your shit stinks without them having any preconceived ideas of who you are and what you're supposed to act like. She can tell me to stop putting some people up on a pedestal because I think they're so much better than I am. She tells me that I'm really quite a normal person but that I let a small part of my personality, i.e. depression, become the dominant factor in my whole movie show. That I give no credit to anything that I've ever been able to do is pretty obvious so when I'm forced to slightly change my perspective it I can sort of see that I'm not completely useless. J told me one thing on friday that I already knew. When I allow myself to drink like I always have done and find myself staring at a pavement wanting to crash into it from height, I have to stop taking the easy option to feel sorry for myself by blaming it all on the depression. In those worst cases there is only one thing to blame. Alcohol makes me want to die sometimes.

So why do I still do it? I drink for fun, amongst other things. So, although I am trying to reduce my alcohol intake, I have been crying out for some fun. So last week I went on a two day binge drinking bender with absolute conviction that I was going to have fun. After all I had managed a month since my last episode.

Three prozac, cocktails, beer and shots shouldn't sound like a good mix for any normal person.  Especially to a man trying to stop his propensity for depression being submerged by a tide of tequila. But it does sound like a good mix to me and last weekend it certainly certainly was. Four lads, away from home, off the leash and all on tip-top form is a michelin star recipe for a cracking weekend. And it was. Whether it was taking over the stage playing wonderwall with a random older woman from Derby. Falling in love with a nurse, whose name it transpired later, you didn't even know. Trying to learn a mixture of Spanish and Italian from the babe in the smoking room. Going home with a girl to a house in the middle of Belfast and wanting to cry because you left the ten pack of condoms in the car. Dolling that 40 year old woman just because you can. Or, in my case, almost being eaten by her mate kissing me like a pterodactyl. Being cockblocked by the campest of camp hotel receptionists. Chatting to a lovely looking maths teacher and deciding that the best course of action was to tell her that you too were a maths teacher. Primary five maths co-ordinator in fact. Deciding you didn't want to text a girl amymore because she spelt the word nothing wrong. Threatening to call the police on the hotel receptionist because you think he is holding your bags hostage.

Funny thing is, that's not even half of it. Just imagine the bits we can't remember...

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the alcohol. Just this once, mind you. But you definitely had a big part in making a good weekend happen. Do me one last favour? Lets all have a big performance in Edinburgh next weekend so I can come home with some stories for on here.

Back to the original point though, because it's so easy to overlook how things could have gone the other way. The path where I find myself staring into the Lagan, weighing up my options again. Because that's just it. Things can so easily flip for me that I need to be really careful. I need to be properly looking after myself from now on. It's no good falling back on the old excuses anymore. If I want to put an end to the real sucidal danger, then at some point I am going to have to accept that I will have to drop the alcohol levels much closer to zero. Shame though, because I know I'm not nearly ready yet. I think that's why I might need that foot in my ass.

I've never dedicated anything to anyone before but it seems like a good place to start. My sister is going through a really hard time. I wish I could take it all on me, but I can't. That's probably one of the few admirable qualities of my depression, that I want to take everyone elses pain onto me. I hope things get better for you soon kid. I'm sorry I'm not as much help as I should be but I am here. This one, whatever it is, is for you princess.

I'm just fucking waffling now

Twenty-five. The number of days since I last allowed myself to have a drink. Jesus, I make myself sound like a park bench alcoholic on the run from years of special brew and cheap cider. I'm not by the way but I'm nowhere near ready to finish just yet.

I hate to admit it, but it is fair to say that those days added together see me in a better place than I was before. Not that they were twenty-five consecutive steps to where I am either. I've been riding on a high frequency sine wave of moods in that time and it only feels as if it's starting to flatline now.

There are definitely some serious benefits to this not drinking carry-on. I suppose most people would assume the obvious benefit would be improved physical fitness. Especially for a pints drinker. But for me up to this been point I haven't noticed significant gains. Then again I have been smoking quit a lot recently as a part of a coping mechanism but that's just a passing phase for me. Anyway the cigarettes are primarily used as an accessory for my leather jacket.

Been reading more in the last month. I love to read when I can so it's been a real positive to get back into it. It might be a little hard to see a correlation between drinking and not reading but with me a hangover means not being able to read for a week or more. Even if it's just a newspaper article, not that I read those at all anymore. If you get a chance read some of Richard Dawkins' books. I've just read The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. Both excellent.
I would never have been the most faithful believer but the argument against a God and religion in The God Delusion is too compelling to ignore. Makes me angry some of the disgusting things done under the banner of religion. It is difficult for me to understand how humanity is so blinded by it all.

Whoa! I'm really leading myself off on a tangent there. It's like the group conversations I have with the boys. Somebody begins telling a story but half an hour later we've gone off in so many directions that we never got anywhere near the end of the original story.

Oh Yeah, so i have not touched a drop of the good stuff in twenty-five days. Now comes the revelation. I'm making a comeback this Friday. In Belfast. Returning to the scene of the crime so to speak. And it cannot come quick enough. I'm going to enjoy this one...

Wasn't all bad

Arctic Monkeys lyric from back in the day:

"Anticipation has a habit to set you up for disappointment in evening entertainment but tonight there'll be some love. tonight there'll be a rawkas yeah, regardless of whats gone before"

There is something in that I think. The anticipation building inside before a big night out, but like a rubber band, the greater the energy of the anticipation the more violent the returning force becomes. It's kind of how I feel about going out now. If I am really excited for it I want to drink. If I drink there is a good chance of the night leading to disappointment and depression.

Reflecting that I might have gone off course a little with the last couple of posts I thought this time I might try to stay on point. So where was I? Ah yes, attempting to drastically reduce my alcohol consumption, hoping that it might stop me feeling like I want to throw myself into carlingford bay.
       Last friday, hungover and on a massive downer, I stood there in Belfast considering whether or not I really do want to live. Like with most of my problems I am aware that the alcohol is a major factor in bringing out these thoughts but just knowing that ain't ever going to be enough to stop them.
       So now, a week later, somewhat refreshed and thinking with more clarity you might think I am certain to never drink again when I know the effects it can have on me. How could I ever want to feel that way again? I don't. Of course I don't. But that's not the reason I drink. When I think of drinking now it is only the good things that come to mind. Intoxication, laughs, confidence. Pure fun. The excitement rising to a crescendo as I enter the nightclub. Legs, breasts and ass. Fake tan and bleached blondes. Shots and cigarettes. Jesus, I'm getting pulling pants on just thinking about it.
       How could anyone not want to feel like that? I could go on feeling like that forever. I just can't continue to withstand the downers and depression and thoughts that I might just end it one day. I've had to grow up a bit I guess. Realise that if I was serious about getting help that I was going to have to put in the work myself. Can't keep doing what you've been doing Ciaran. Well you can but it is not going to be getting any better.
       I'm not angry with myself for drinking last week in the way that I was the next day. If anything it has helped me see once again that I can't keep overdoing it. Look on the bright side. So far I have had three nights out since starting this and I stayed sober twice. Nice one.
       Can't imagine myself ever not wanting to drink. Too many good memories to ignore. A personal favourite of mine was a friday evening pub crawl in Galway  with some of my best friends. I don't know how, but we found ourselves in the backroom of one of the pubs playing a very drunken game of djenga. I'd never played before but on this day that game was the most important thing in the world and it was epic! Following that diversion,Cooney(me), found my way over to a strip club with the help of my friend Barry. Yes, a strip club in Galway, Ireland. Needless to say with a lapdance costing over 100 euros neither of us had enough cash on us for anything like that. That is when the devil climbed up onto my shoulder to remind me of the debit card resting in my pocket. No stopping me now.
       Waking up to find a receipt from a gentlemans club with 120 euro on your bank card isn't as unpleasant as it sounds. Quite funny really. The others had a good chuckle anyways. So did I when I found the jeans I had been wearing the night before were as good as ruined because now they were covered in...fake tan. #WINNING

I think what I am saying is that I wouldn't change any of the stupid drunken things I have done in the past. Most of them were fun. Some are why I am friends with people. Now it's up to me to make some new stories in a different way if I can. Just won't ever forget what went before.

A faller at the first

I knew all along I was lying to myself. I thought maybe if I told enough people with a religious conviction that I was going to do it that somehow that might guilt me into sticking to my promise. I'm sure some of them were even convinced this time. I was so convincing. But I knew. I knew I could never resist getting wasted on my final day of exams. I start telling myself it isn't fair that everyone else can have fun when I have to look after myself. I'm weak. I buy beer. I drink it...I wake up

 Now I'm standing on the fourth floor balcony of a Belfast apartment block staring down at the road below. I've come out to smoke a cigarette because yesterday I started smoking when a funny story I was telling my friends about contemplating suicide came back to hurt me because everyone was laughing so hard I felt like crying. But that is just a pointless digression. As I stood there leaning against the railings, the thoughts of jumping start to trickle through me. I'm not suicidal at this point but thinking about that thing, almost imagining it is a scary moment. I'm there running the scenario. Feeling the sensations of my body accelerating towards the pavement as the force of gravity thrusts me at the earths core.
        Then something strikes me. I consider the reason why I don't go ahead and do it. And it is not what I thought it would be. What stops me or at least what I seem to fear most is the prospect of the excruciating pain I would feel in that micro-second between hitting the ground and oblivion. That is the frightening thing. That I'm not stopping myself because I really want to live. Not because of all the things I would miss, all the people I would hurt, all the possibilities the future holds or even watching my beloved nephews and neice grow up. Almost like the only reason I have for not wanting to die is the pain of death.
        Horrible things to be thinking, but there it is. was. A fleeting train of thought on a mildly hungover Friday afternoon in the city. Not the first, not the last. Probably not even the worst. But I couldn't keep my promise so I guess I get what I deserve

First test

Okay, so the first big big test is about to arrive and last night I could really feel my resolve begin to weaken. On Thursday I will have my last exam if my first year of college. Of course I had planned for this well in advance with a mega-rip that night in belfast. Only now I've made a deal with someone that I would make a real honest stab at staying sober.
        All I could think about last night was how much I want to be drunk on Thursday. I mean come on, I have earned it, haven't I? See, I know I'll have a great night if I drink but if I don't start here then where? when?
        Anyway I am still not convinced when I hear people say there is pleasure in abstinence. I want to indulge. No, I want to over indulge. I was going to say where's the harm in that, unfortunately though, I know exactly where the harm lies.

It's not unheard of for people to have fun sober, right?