Imagine my face in the first 5 seconds of a bungee jump

I want to do things. Somethings and nothings. Good things and bad things. Important things and damn stupid things. Everything really. So why is that I'm sitting here feeling like I've done absolutely nothing at all. Procrastination has become a lifetime habit I'm going to attempt to assail.

Today I have that massively overused quote in my head. The one that says life is what happens when you're busy making plans. Actually, I think it's time somebody came up with a new quotation to get the point across. Anyway, it does sound a lot like the title of my autobiography. But then everybody does it. Nobody more than me. I love to dream. All the extraordinary things I am going to do when...

Allow me to wander through a small sample of the things I've always said I would like to do. Learn a second language. Alternately Spanish, Polish and Italian. Start a band. Visit every country in Europe. Travel the the rest of the world(except Australia). Become a genuine PUA. Reach my peak fitness. Start speaking my mind, regardless. Finish reading every single word on my bookshelf. Bungee jump or skydive. Start volunteering some place where I can at least try to help other people.

That last paragraph is less than a drop in the ocean. Sure I have made attempts to start some of the things I want to do. Have a few European countries ticked off and even began learning some languages. The problem is the amount of time I have spent trying to make these things happen is nothing in comparison to the time spent talking about it, thinking about it or imagining it. It's obvious that I spend too much time thinking and reflecting on things. That is a big part of it but not the whole story. It's the sheer lack of action that is really hurting. If you don't go for the things you want you just end up with what falls your way. So don't complain when it's not what you thought it might be.

Thinking about all the things holding me back I wonder if they're not all excuses. I feel like I have always struggled under the burden of being the youngest child. People who aren't the baby of the family won't get this. Carrying around this guilt that if I leave the house for good I would be signalling the beginning of the end for my parents. I left the house. I came back. I felt guilty for leading my own life. But really, was that not an excuse so I could slip back to my comfort zone with no pressure to do things for myself. It seems likely to me now.

Money or lack of it could be used as a reason not to have done some of the things I wanted to. Travelling costs money. Looking at that and being honest though, I would say I could easily find the money if I tried to save properly and stopped spending on random nonsense like a book on how to save that turned out to be another terrific waste of money. Another excuse.

I use my family, my depression, my romantic interests and fear of disapointment to retreat from endeavor. Why try anything when I have all these other things to deal with? Wouldn't it be better to wait until my life is absolutely perfect before I start shooting for the stars?

You may have guessed that the above was a rhetorical question. Or you may not. Anyway, it is pretty clear to me right now that waiting for the right time is absolutely the wrong thing to do. I need to go out and really struggle for the things I want. Otherwise I'm just wasting time and not really having fun wasting it. Sometimes I think about using depression as a catalyst. What I mean is I know I'm going to sink into a severe depression once more in the future. It's odds on. I'm looking at that and telling myself that it is all the more reason to do the things that I want to now, when I have the capability.

When it comes to those last few days when I can write the school report on this lifetime it  would be nice if I could say I at least tried to do all the things I wanted to. Regret the things you haven't done, not the the things you wish you hadn't. Up until now almost all my regrets are for the things I haven't done. Oh well, can't go back now but maybe I can start doing the things instead of just thinking about things.

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.

Todays been good

Dug out this old thing I wrote down a few months ago. I don't feel like this today at all, but It's important to remember where I've been so I can focus on not going back there.To be honest I'm having a good day. Cycled this morning, did some reading and worked on some other stuff I had to do. Actually started looking into some charities to volunteer for too because someones gone and put the idea into my head. I even had time to write a love song. Okay, that last one was obviously a big lie. Not that I haven't done that before.

Here it is. Probably with spelling mistakes and bad grammar. I don't care.

Do I have an affection for depression? I always looked on it as something edgy and cool. Marlon  Brando behind a cigarette, like it was the depression that might get me the girls. Up until now I thought for the most part it was a chemical problem. But it's not. There are some deep rooted anxieties lying within me. I'm not living, I'm breathing. That is the difference.

I sympathize with some of the character traits of my depressed self. I take some morbid joy in the way it makes me feel about people. Usually love interests. I project myself as the dark hero in a story of unrequited love or passion. But it's not the way things are. That's a transcendental perception of my illness. It doesn't stem from a spiritual desire to monopolize pain to spare others. It's a fatalistic outlook. A way of viewing life as starving me of essential nourishment.

People say you control your own destiny but that is not entirely right. We are what we are when we're born, not a blank canvas to be painted in the fashion of our desires. We all have basic functional abilities that get developed unconciously through young life. So to say I can be whatever I want doesn't work for me. The best way I can attempt to emphasize the point is to say I can't be you, I can only be me.

Of course there are many threads interwoven together to make up the complete picture. I'd take up on such a thread as my childhood. We grow up reading about people reminiscing about happy childhood memories. Christmas, birthdays or summers. But for me I don't remember ever being a happy child. In fact, I don't have that many memories of my youth and any that I do, tend to have negative connotations. I have read that people with strong memories of their childhood tend to be those with positive and happy memories. For instance, I remember when I was around 10 years old that I cried because I didn't want to get older. Already frightened by the future without really understanding why.

Another factor in my story, although a few puberty affected years later, is my absolute certainty that I was clinically depressed by my mid teens. The first thing I did after school was to sleep for hours on end. I was always smart but really an underachiever. I got into mild trouble. Spending hours walking in biblical rainstorms was another favourite of mine. Never went to discos. Played golf with the men instead of the boys my own age. I look back on that time with a huge amount of regret that it wasn't detected then. How was I to know? I thought I was just of a sullen disposition. I needed help then but never recieved the succour I craved.

I shouldn't blame others for that though. I would have tried to hide it, I'm sure. But a large part of the pain is the time wasted between then and now. I really am no further on. It's said that the most long lasting and vivid memories elderly people hold onto are of the time of their late teens and early twenties. I'm not sure I have any that can withstand the passage of time. Would I have been happier if I had never been born? All I can say for sure is that I would have preferred to have never been born than to have to kill myself. But who's to say what that even means. I don't know what, if anything, lies beyond the borders of that first and last breath.

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.

Change a habit

Disregard the soliloquy in the paragragh below. I think it is mainly for myself.

 What are you waiting for? Real change isn't going to come along and shake you from the outside while you've been making no effort to do it for yourself. I hope you're not sitting back with your arms folded, content to see it through to your own version of the afterlife without giving it your best shot. If you are, stop and think for a minute. Please. Really there isn't any evidence that there is any eternal existence. It is okay to go with the facts and use logic to your advantage. This is it. This is your five minutes. You're taking to the stage on Broadway for one night only so give it everything you've got to make it worthwhile.

People think I'm comparatively intelligent but I'm convinced that we are all quite similarly gifted it's just that we all have different interests and are engaged in habits we don't even realize are controlling us.. I've read some of the classics. Books on history and every possible area of self-help too. Taught myself some instruments and at least tried to learn a few languages. Minor achievements I must concede but the point is that anyone can do these things and more if they could just allow themselves to believe they can. I'm not saying that everybody can do anything and everything. Clearly that is not true. In my minds eye I want to complete the Tour de France one day when I can't even convince myself to do a 10km cycle because it is too cold. So I wouldn't say anything is possible. But I know that absolutely anyone can excel. Anyone can focus on some things they really want to do, believe they can do it and convert that belief into hard work. It's all you. Just you.

 For the most part I think it is habit that holds most people back. We program our brains to do the same thing day in day out and it takes a significant effort to make changes but it can be done. For myself, my biggest habit is depression. All it takes is a few small cues to set me off and I lay down and let it wash over me. And that is what I need to work on. Understanding what those cues are and changing my reactions to them and I hope to eventually form new habits, positive ones. For instance, a cue for me might be someone walking within five meters of me. Presently my habit is probably to go into a bit of a shell, close my body off and avoid eye contact. My little self-improvement project for this week is to recognize the cues and use them to start making eye contact and convert that into a habit.

If I'm hearing myself right I'm attempting to inspire everyone to grasp the things that are likely to make them happy now, instead of waiting for them to hit you. It's so clear in my mind right now that we are all capable of doing so many things but not that many of us really believe we can. So try and change one habit this week if you think it's resulting in a negative behavior or try to do something you've always wanted but where too afraid to try. Change is only good. Oh yeah and if anyone is judging you for doing what you need to do just remember that you aren't even remotely doing it for them. Your happiness has to be internal. I write that without having read any books on Eastern Philosophy recently. Just got drunk and had fun. I'm aware this blog was begun by me stating my desire to change my habit of quitting alcohol but I don't quite believe in that one just yet.

 If it's going to make you happy, DO IT. And do it with conviction.

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...

Say it. Whatever it is

Today I've been reading a book entitled fuck it: the ultimate spiritual way. It speaks to me right now as the kind of attitude I would like to embrace. The fuck it in the title isn't fuck it I've had enough I want out or fuck it things aren't working for me why should I bother trying anymore. It is the kind of fuck it that says I'm going to start looking after me. The kind where you can see what really matters and just as important seeing the things that really don't matter at all.

You know what? It's time to be selfish. Time to begin doing things for my own reasons and not just to placate others. Time to just not give a fuck what the rest think because in the end you've just got to be yourself or you'll never be happy. Time to just say what I feel because that's the way I feel.

People are not going to hate me for it. Even if they do it would be well worth it if I could stop hating myself. If you've ever once left a situation seething because you decided against saying what you really needed to say, then you have to understand that speaking your mind in the long run has to have a positive effect on overall self-esteem. And maybe that is it. Self-Esteem. If your not going to love yourself then how can you ever really be happy to be alive. Furthermore, how can you ever expect someone to really love you when you're not showing them who you truly are.

People like me, we get caught up in this thing pick-up artists call one-itis. Basically one-itis means we can't see past this one girl. Everything about the target at this point seems perfect. Really, no other woman will do. I am a sucker for it. I'm a sucker. I used to think that it was the PUA's who were missing the point when they would say things like forget about her, look around, there are literally millions of women out there for you. Now I see how right they are. When I think about it now I wonder how I could ever have tied all my emotions up in one person who probably won't give a shit about me anyway. There are always better looking girls out there, funnier ones too. More interesting girls and looser girls too. What did you say? None of them are her? Good, that's just what I'm looking for. Fuck it, I'm getting mine now.

Why is it that we all seem to worry so much about what other people think of us? Sure, we don't want our friends to think we're murder's or Jimmy Saville. Or worst of all, boring. But realistically most of us really are not that bad. In fact I would say most of us are damn good people. Think of the worst thing you have ever done and I'm guessing it wasn't really all that bad. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at via that serpentine introduction, is that we have to stop giving a fuck about what other people think about what we say or do. Look at yourself and be who you are, not just getting as close to that person as you think people are willing to accept. Saying what you want is the most liberating thing you'll ever do. I started doing it recently and it felt great. It doesn't mean that everything you say is going to be joyfully accepted by everyone but I guarentee you will feel alot better for doing it. Listen to John C. Parkin

"So I said fuck it to trying to be anything other than I am. In this moment I stopped judging myself. And shit, what a relief that was. What a relief that is"

And while we are trying to stop judging ourselves why don't we give evryone else a break and stop judging them. I think from now on the only people I want to pass judgement on are those who just love to judge others. I absolutely fucking hate narrow-mindedness. I mean really we have no reason to be bothered by what other people are doing if we can just be happy in what we are doing ourselves. What's wrong with live and let live. It doesn't mean I have to like everything on earth but it does mean accepting that someone else might enjoy something I don't and letting them have at it.

So go for it this week. If you fancy someone, let them know.( by the way girls this includes you. What guy doesn't want to hear that). If you want a tattoo or a piercing, now is the time. Take a sick day without remorse. Say no to someone. Finish work friday night and take a flight to Amsterdam for the weekend. Who's stopping you. Get a fake tan. Eat an entire packet of biscuits with one cup of tea and say fuck it to everyone's diet talk and bootcamps. Smoke without feeling guilty. Admit that you really don't care about any religion. Have some impure thoughts.

Do what you want...