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

My blueprint

In Jack Kerouc's novel The Town and the City George Martin attempts to impart a little fatherly wisdom upon his favourite son Peter. It's not about pointing Peter in the direction his father would like to see him. That time has already passed by. It's George's idea of the Golden Rule for anyone who truly wants to live their own life:

 ' Keep your chin up and just wait for the best, or the worst, whichever fate chooses to deal you. But be brave, be gay, be a genuine man whatever you do! That's the way to live. Don't worry, don't repent. Work hard and do your best. It's the most any of us can do.'

Yeah you really do need to be genuine whatever you do. Otherwise you're just pretending. Admit your faults and motives, especially to yourself. Like the things you really like and don't feel embarrassed because collecting Boyzone memorabilia probably isn't cool. Wear whatever clothes you want even if you live in a fashion vacuum. You look so much better when you display a genuine personality. Show your real emotions to people because it is the only way to feel as if you are really being yourself.

Be brave and live your own life. Attack it when the time comes to go after what you want. Believe in yourself with conviction. Prepare well and don't drift. Don't become your parents unless that is genuinely what you want to do. Avoid unnecessary restrictions and procrastination. Make the iron hot by striking. Learn every single day.

Work hard. Man you have got to work hard. This is the one I never truly believed when I was younger. I thought I was smarter than everyone else, better than everyone else. Perhaps I was a long time ago but I've lost it all because I considered working for anything to be trying too hard. I was wrong. There is so much satisfaction in knowing that you really have put in a shift for something worthwhile. Remember that tired happy feeling you get when you have really pushed yourself for something and now you can relax on the sofa?

I try to be genuine but it isn't always easy. Sometimes laziness and lies are an easier option. I am a terrible son, an apathetic brother but only maybe sometimes a good friend. A slave to demons and historically unmotivated as well as a propensity for pathetic attention seeking. Underachieving by my own standards, no-one else really matters here. Still, I'm not a bad person, it's just that there is this one chance at life and then nothing so I might as well make it really me while the game is still running.

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.

Badly expressed thoughts

I haven't written anything down in a while so let us see if I can't string a few lucid sentences together. Stephen Fry said once that a thought badly expressed is a lie so going by that standard I would not take any of this too seriously.

How can I express an uncertain emotion or vague yearning? With words for sure but I'm out of practise. I seem to have forgotten how to make the dance. I feel like there are a lot of things I am unable to make dance these days.

Lately I have been stirred by restlessness and unsettled by the trajectory of life. Waking up from dreams truly disappointed to find that the brief moment of perfect excitement never really existed in the first place. Waking up from dreams to drag my feet through the muddy water of the set routine. It's not all bad, it just isn't living the dream.

This life I lead now, the transitory phase between old and new, was meant to be an exciting time in itself. That was my expectation anyway. By now I was expecting a thousand fold increase in intelligence and roadmap all laid out. Things rarely work out how you expect, especially when expectations are so often unrealistic.

Tell me Mr Cooney, what exactly were you expecting?

I expect to be high all the time.

Feeling like I'm the passenger of a train with the sensation that the station is moving rather than the train.I haven't even begun to make my mark on the world yet and I am floundering. This life I lead, Work-drink-study-work-t.v.-dream-run-standstill, seems good to many people, perfect to a few more. It just seems a little unambitious to me. I am not judging though.How could I when I comply like all the rest.

I understand that there is comfort in the monotony. From an evolutionary or even anthropological point of view I would imagine it all began as a way of prolonging survival. Every animal wants to survive and the most effective way to do this must be to make it a matter of routine. For many people this is the only way to live. Everyday predictable and boring but safe. Flip it over and it's soul-destroying, imagination restricting and a graveyard.

Here we stand together, a few of is in the wrong time and place. Frustrated and jealous and grasping for something that just isn't there. Pining for something different without understanding what it is. Sometimes wondering if it isn't a what but a who. Whatever it is I need to satiate my yearning heart it isn't in anything I see everyday.

So once again I sit here staring at a computer screen unsure of my conclusion or what even lit the fuse for me to start writing at all. Perhaps it's just a part of my personality. An hereditary gift that leaves me in an almost constant state of longing. But then I think believing that would be nothing but a cop out.

My genes are sealed but I still have time before my fate is.

Heads or tails?

What if I could prove without contest that it really would be better for everyone if I just did it? Who could deny me then? Surely it would be okay if I could show you all that the short-term trauma would make things easier in the end. Easier for you, easier for me.

Maybe it is a moral issue. Maybe it is just plain wrong. I didn't ask to be born but I sincerely hold it as privilege, if not always a pleasure, that I was. I know all the things I have that should make me happy. Would it be viciously disrespectful to do it in the face of those things other people might die to experience once? But then I'm not one for top ten lists and besides I am well aware of all that good stuff I have. I'm depressed even with that. Not sure I want to stick around to face losing it.

I'm not expecting to go anywhere after leaving here. This is it and when it finally isn't any more then my one chance will have expired. There is nothing more for us after. Maybe this will disappoint some people and I can sympathise if it does. However, I have this curious sensation that it's this one conviction that is keeping me here. If I thought I was moving on to something better then maybe I'd be gone already. But is nothing better or worse than this?

Do you think it's fair to leave everyone who cares? Everyone who would be devastated by your absence. The domino effect could be more staggering than is possible to predict. You might not be taking only yourself off. Can you justify bringing them down to where you are? Seems to me this is not how you have lived thus far, Ciaran. But of course you know how much that need to help fix other people is another symptom of what's got you here. Perhaps this ultimate act of selfishness is merely selfishness long overdue.

This soliloquising like Hamlet is my daily bread at the moment. Often the only interlocutor in my discussions is myself so it's important I try to look at things as objectively as possible. Not an easy task but I must continue. If the cataclysmic finale is ever too occur prematurely I'd like everyone to know that I can see all the things I'd be leaving behind. All the people I love infinitely more than I will ever love myself. The beautiful sensations on earth that only humans are lucky enough ever to comprehend. The hopes for a time when things may seem better for me. All of this and more I couldn't bare to live without. But living with them can be a difficult task too. I don't want anyone to think I didn't realise how lucky I am. I won the lottery when I was born. The problem is that even with that being said I'm still not happy. I might never be. I think I am just a sad person.

Isolation

I am not the only one here. Lets just be clear on that. Your brother might be depressed. Your mother or son or best friend might be in unimaginable turmoil. Most people refuse to talk about it or stick to sweeping generalities on the topic. It's a little awkward to talk about, is it not? I understand it with crushing clarity and often I find it hard to talk about. 

I tell more people than most that I am depressed. People I've just met, even when I can't tell people I've known forever. Acquaintances and friends, family and colleagues get the mundane privilege of hearing about the essence of my wilful self-destruction almost on a daily basis. I know some people think I talk about it too much. I know that there are some people who simply do not want to know any more. I can understand it if they think at times I do it for shocks and attention. I wouldn't even attempt to deny the charge. Sometimes I crave attention, even the bad kinds. But the reasons for talking about it so openly are precisely because of the contrast with many people in the same boat. People die because they can't talk about it. Because they think nobody will listen or care. People suffer pain in silence for years because this isn't something we talk about. 

There is a generally accepted opinion that the stigma around this thing has largely disappeared. No doubt it has but nowhere near enough. I hear all the things people talk about all day every day. All the food and the clothes, the quantity of alcohol consumed and the xfactor. These aren't bad things. All I'm saying is that in the middle of all this if you ever get the feeling that someone around you isn't feeling good, even when it doesn't look like they want to talk, please make an effort to speak to them. I know myself how difficult it is to talk to me on my worst days. That I don't respond or engage is typical. But it's not that I don't want to talk to people it's often that I physically can't. I apologise for that but I'm not really sure I should.

The stigma still persists. Not in me or in many people I know but still it's a hushed conversation with many. There is no reason it should be anymore. This is why I'm happy to talk about. It might help somebody else talk too. Someone forty years my senior recently asked for my advice on depression. It's only because I am open to it that I can help. It isn't something that should be pushed into the background only spoken about in whispered conversations. Ask me about it any time. 

The quest to de-stigmatize depression is undoubtedly a current personal crusade. You see I had an episode a week ago. Perhaps feeling no worse than I have at times before it became a crisis because I allowed the symptoms to manifest themselves in the physical dimension more than I ever have before in public. I'm glad people saw it. They need to because like I said, I'm not the only one here. Now I'm not allowed to work because people had to confront what has always been there and what will remain there when I do go back. Isolation seems a bizarre treatment for an illness often directly caused by it. Out of sight out of mind I guess. Up to a point I understand the policy of getting me out of there and keeping it reasonably quiet. Then I thought again. It doesn't really encourage anyone who saw me that day to open up about their problems. Better to keep sitting on them until they're fatal because this type of thing clearly isn't acceptable. I'd be scared to talk about it too if I thought that would be a typical reaction.

It's easy to think I was always so open about the illness but I most certainly was not. Years I spent hiding it, denying it, putting it down to a bad day or tiredness. This, unfortunately had a profoundly negative effect. Over time the depression became the general perception of my personality and so how could anyone see it for real. I left it too long to get help. I won't ever see a definite end. It is part of me now. I was convinced the doctors thought I would be lying to them when I first went. Perhaps I had contrived the whole thing and they would be able to see through it. Most people I have spoken to are quite receptive however. I only wish more people would be willing to speak up.

One million people a year die from suicide. That's more than through war and murder combined. I'm not shocked by that at all. It's under reported because it's still a taboo subject. There is no way all of these could have been prevented. Unfortunately some people are beyond help. But I know a lot of these could have been prevented if people felt more confident about talking or seeking help. Even in a few cases if one person had made the effort to offer some help. People with broken arms don't pretend they are fine although people with cancer do. Imagine how well that works out. I suppose we could just continue to brush it under to save that awkward conversation. It'd be worth a million or so lives.

Behind the Fossette

It was by mere chance that I was born this way. There was no divine plan, no omnipotent overseer of my fate. It seems to me to be a ludicrous pretension that any heavenly king would have the remotest interest in any one of us. But that's just me. The odds of my existence at all are severely negligible. The combination of factors leading to my appearance on earth, from the cosmos exploding into life to the chance moment of conception, are so unlikely to have lined up with such definite perfection that I might be forgiven for believing my life was not only an accident. Perhaps even some part of me wants to believe I am here for a reason (everybody likes to be needed). But it's clear to me that there never was any plan for me being here, even if there are any number of reasons for me to stick around. It was nothing but an accident, and in my present state of mind I see it as a rather unhappy one.

Strangely, my implacable godlessness has in my happier moments had the effect of stirring something like true wonder and awe inside me. The world is a beautiful place, what does it matter to put a label on a maker when we can't ever possibly know? I don't need false piety to exert twisted morals on me so that I know the right thing to do. I'm still a good person. I know what is right without having to be told. I try to look out for friends even when it takes more from me than I can really afford to give. The most enduring effect of my Roman Catholic upbringing was undeniably a poisonous lie. The feeling of guilt so intertwined with all christian theology has left a lasting impression on my personality. I am predisposed to self-doubt and self-loathing among many other personal failings but throwing an unnecessary weight of guilt onto my shoulders for things I don't even believe are wrong is a sin I find unforgivable.

For about a month or more I have been holding back a leaky tap that disguises a waterfall of existential dread behind the fossette. Incrementally, my words are drying up as my days spent in bed become more frequent. God can't help me. No-one can. Not that I am contemplating suicide at this moment. Maybe if I had the conviction that I really had nothing I wanted to stick around for or wasn't grasping at something I can't grip. Maybe then I might have gone ahead and done the job already. On that point however, the knowledge that when I am dead and gone means just that, and not an eternal sleepover at a celestial retirement village fills me up with excited certainty that life needs to be lived all the more intensely now.

All I really feel I know now is how much I dislike this improbable collection of genes and protein cells. I'm not sure what it is I wanted to be but it is not this. It occurred to me today that one of the most evil long-term effects of depression on me has been the absolute and final destruction of any shred of true inner confidence I might have had. The outward show is only an act. As it happens, put on more for myself rather than anyone else. If I decline further inwards then I return to a useless waste. I will cease to improve but regress. I won't be a good friend, although I am beginning to feel like I give more than I get anyway. My brain will turn to mush and I will return to the days of crying at soap plot-lines hiding in my bedroom. It's already started.

It was suggested to me that I don't want help. Implying my depression is contrived, I assume to exude pathos. It seems an unfair criticism to someone who has spent his entire life considering how to be at least contented. I have lost count of the number of doctors waiting rooms, anti-depressants and therapy sessions I have had. The number of self-help books I've been through to find the treasure map to confidence. You may laugh but I've even gone to the bible for answers (there weren't any). If I were in complete denial I might claim there was no truth to the charge, but we both know better.

It is a shame that we only experience the world from inside our own bodies cage. Perhaps if I could interchange the senses of others with my own I might find myself not thinking as I do. Maybe in a far off evolution. As it is I am stuck with myself. On the flip-side we should be grateful that no-one else is.

Anyway, I guess I have spilled over enough for one evening. It is approaching quarter past two in the morning and I want a cigarette.

I should finish by crediting Christopher Hitchens with helping to put a lot of these ideas in my head. Unfortunately his effect on me was posthumous but nonetheless impressive for it