FACING THE TRUTH

I’ve never been the cheeriest of souls.

Looking back I find it very hard to even picture a time when I could have been considered the “life and soul” of anything very much. I’m told that there were times, of course, when I was likeable, fun to be around and generally not the black hole in the corner of the room sucking up all the escaping light but the truth is, whilst I’m sure that they’re not lying to me, it doesn’t sound like the me I know.

I simply don’t remember.

What I do remember are patterns. Of behaviour. Of history. Parallels with dark events in my past that seem to be resurfacing. Reoccurring. I see the same things happening all over again and I feel powerless to stop them. Impotent. I try to form the words to deal with them, to find the ways to cope and instead I rush headlong into the flippant or the banal. I dismiss them. Internalise them. Wish and hope that they will simply go away and refuse to face up to their essential terrifying truth. Or I avoid them. Hide myself away from the reality by hiding myself away from them altogether. Fear is the mind-killer (Thanks, Frank!), but keeping myself safe means keeping myself behind the barriers, under the rock and far, far away from any kind of engagement with the enemy, where the enemy is defined as the whole damned universe.

Scribbling these thoughts on a semi-regular basis has helped me to find some sort of a focus, get the interminable thinking out of my head and into some solid form that I can see, that is tangible, malleable and there to be seen, read back and understood. It helps me to know that there is something in what I said, that those fleeting passing fancies weren’t just forgotten memories that don’t even become memories, perhaps more forgotten forgets, if that isn’t putting too much “oxy” in my “moronic” outpourings.

Ah! Who knows?

I’ll admit to myself that the “media disease” I’ve developed in order to make sense of it all, that constant need to check for numbers, data and just plain old pageviews is about affirmation and recognition that, despite what I might prefer to believe, I do exist, I do matter, that something, however insignificant it might be was important enough for somebody to feel the need to go there, have a look and not be unduly disappointed.

I’m starting to realise that the situation in my head might be chemical, emotional or just plain old medical, but the symptoms are all there for all the world to see. I sit here doing this because it’s the only thing I feel that I can do with any modicum of success. Everything else remains in total limbo. I can’t make any decisions because they’re bound to be the wrong decisions. I can’t even do the basics to improve my environment because ringing, for example, that builder might cause an avalanche of other problems to surface that will escalate and escalate beyond my control and I simply will no longer be able to cope with it, afford it or deal with it.

Meanwhile everything I do has had the joy sucked out of it. All the things I thought I used to like are no longer stimulating me. I walk through this life like a zombie. The sleep won’t come, the life has gone. Nowadays I simply accumulate stuff and find no pleasure in the ownership, it’s just there to be consumed, or not, and then set aside. Looking forward to things, planning things remains almost impossible, because of the fear of getting it wrong.

At the same time, everything I thought I knew is rapidly and inexorably plummeting towards the scrapheap. Suddenly everything I thought I knew is old-fashioned, out of date and worthless, and a whole new pile of new things that need to be mastered are ahead of me and I’m simply terrified that I won’t be able to cope, that I’ll be found out as being the second rate useless article I already think I am anyway. Younger, brighter minds will come along and be able to do all those things I used to do and do them better, quicker and with more inherent skill than an inveterate plodder like me could ever do. I struggle to think of anything that I can do well enough, that somebody else couldn’t do far better and with greater efficiency and success. I struggle to clear the fog in my mind and find one unique selling point, one positive thing in my life where people could turn around and say “Only Martin could have done that!”

Everyone else appears dismissive, quick with the putdowns, eager to show me how much better they are at everything than I could ever hope to be. I can’t even open a book, or switch on a TV drama without it simply being there to remind me of the things I’m not good enough to do, the things that are being done far better than I could ever hope to by other people.

I need to get these thoughts out of my head, and I need to face up to the pathetic truth that I’m not half as good at things as I like to think I am, that the world simply doesn’t care enough, and that somewhere, buried deep inside this façade I show to the world is a terrified version of the person that some people used to know, and tell me was a decent sort of a chap, with something to offer to fulfill his tiny part in the grand scheme of things, even though I currently don’t have the faintest of clues what it might be, or whether I would recognise it if someone waved it under my nose and pointed at it, bellowing “Here it is!” at the top of their lungs into my bewildered little face.

I finally have a word for what ails me.

They call it “depression” and I’m about to embark on a journey of self-discovery.

More soon.