Where is my mind?

Just went to see "the Scotsman". So I'm under the influence right now. Stoned you might say.

Stepped out of the door today and bumped straight into Howard, The Don. Chatted about his dog that he recently had to have put down, and told him to take it easy. He looked really down, the lad.

Walked down to the post office in Hyson Green. 10yards short a car mounted the pavement, blocked it, and got out to get a takeaway. Now at this point I should have stopped, walked around and carried about my business, but of course Billy Big 'nads decides to do different. "Oy, what the f*ck are doing, dickhead?", says I. Someone's going to call my bluff one day, and my 'act hard and they won't give me any grief' technique'll land me on my arse with a sore face!

Went into Asda, used the self service checkout, and when the assistant comes over to authorise my alcohol purchase (me? never) I tried to make smalltalk by saying how I'd never seen the self service area so quiet. Poor woman looked absolutely knackered and tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. I think I know that feeling.

The bloke from the shop on Foxhall Road, the FatBoy as he's known, or Indian G Man as he'd like to be known was sat in his car as I walked home on Berridge Road. Offered to get me some 'Chronic' like he was Ice Cube or something. No thanks mate.

Now before I forget, I wanted to blog about IDS, the DWP, ATOS, and touch on local mental health services in my area and how to access them.Then I read the news that ATOS have quit, or been pushed. So I'll do that another day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26766345

Good news but IDS will still make the rules, they'll use the same software, and of course who will replace them? Capita? Don't start me off on that company. If you give a monkey's about this stuff then I'd urge you to look them up on a popular search engine (or an unpopular one, what the hell? go crackers).

Anyhow, in this medicated state I'm inspired to download and listen to music. Cannabis makes me feel like I do in my manic moments but without the feeling of being out of control. Music becomes richer, brighter, amplifying any emotions I'm picking up from the music. So put the last 50odd albums in a playlist and play at random.

Hard Times.  Run DMC       Pretty apt if you listen to the words.

Pill Hill Serenade.  Mark Lanegan.         Love this bloke's gargling razorblades vocals.
Old Man - Neil Young.

Love this song, especially the lyrics.

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things
that don't get lost.
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

So this is a Diary, with more detail, more content. To be honest with you the writing of this is hopefully going to prove to be therapeutic for me if that makes any sense. I've only 'published' it because at this stage in my life I don't really care an awful lot about what people think of me. So people can read if they like, I hope that they do, and if it helps anyone then yippadeedooda.

Turns out it's harder than I thought to get this stuff out of my head, and it also turns out it doesn't shut up that voice in my head. Since I've been doing this I've found it even harder to sleep.

Mindfulness is the thing I need. Read an interesting article from Ruby Wax that might be worth a read.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ruby-wax/ruby-wax-mindfulness_b_5028008.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Still. I'm allowing myself to self medicate or whatever you'd call it tonight. Really need to be able to relax and get's some sleep because I'm mentally and physically shattered. And it's a really strange and unpleasant feeling, like long term sleep deprivation.

I'm seing a Wellbeing plus advisor. I'll talk about this in a post about Mental Health Treatment Provision that I really want to write soon. Need to take my advisor with me to the GP. Need to be able to get more sleep.Gotta be done or I'm going to crack on one of the really bad nights, like last night.

Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

About the shooting of students protesting against the Vietnam War at Kent State University.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Makes a beautiful song out of a terrible act. Brings out the raw emotions. That's one of the things I love about a good song. Cannot stand some of the bland, soulless stuff I hear.

 Zombie Blocked - Left Lane Cruiser.  Good old dirty blues.

Magdelena - Pixies  Just that rhythmic Pixies sound, the Francis falsetto and Santiago's atonal guitar. Will miss the crazy Ms.Deal though.

Beautiful Drug - Thievery Corp from Radio Retaliation.     Beautiful vocals, loping trip hoppy beats and you can't beat a few strings in the background now can you?

Don't Let It Bring You Down - Neil Young

Blind man running
through the light
of the night
With an answer in his hand,
Come on down
to the river of sight
And you can really understand,
Red lights flashing
through the window
in the rain,
Can you hear the sirens moan?
White cane lying
in a gutter in the lane,
If you're walking home alone.
Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

Peace Sword (Open Your Heart) - The Flaming Lips       Love this band.

Psalms - Heliotropes.   Female indie style guitar action, but sounds much better than that pathetic description.

I'm obviously no John Peel just yet.

Child is Father of the Man (Part 2)

So, Castle Donington 1976, a bit warm! A nice house, nice road, nice village. Big field full of cows behind, then beyond that the power station.

Then I start at Orchard County Primary School. Nice enough, can't remember much about the first couple of years apart from a paint fight with Alison Lawley. I remember another girl called Kerry Clutterbrook. I was a 'latchkey kid', walking to school and back myself, as both of my parents were at work. No problem.

 This must be where the bullying starts. Think his surname was Austin. It was the old "I'm gonna kick your head in after school". How many bloody times did I hear that? So leg it home the long way and hope noone noticed or walk in his direction and get a slap. I had a recurring dream for years (and I can still see this image so clearly) of a massive lion blocking my way at the exact spot he used to wait for me.

The other kids noticed that I was being bullied, walking miles to avoid them, or just taking the beating without defending myself and I think I was marked man from there, open season.

At this time my best friend was Andrew Weaver, lived just round the corner on Bosworth Road, on the council estate. I also hung about with David Barlow and his brother. Bruce Weston was another mate from that estate.

Can't remember exactly when it happened but I bought a poster of my favourite football team and put it on my wall. Andrew threw a lump of blue-tack at it and ripped it. "It was already like that.", he said and left. This was not long after the incident where he fed me Ex-Lax chocolate. Cheers. He beat me up on my own back doorstep.

I'll talk more about my family later but we were never a close family, but as I said earlier, I didn't know any different. If I was punished it was a smack, a belt, or the back of the hand across the face. As I say, normal to me. When he was gardening, or doing DIY, halfway up a ladder or whatever I basically had to follow him around, handing him the correct tool at the correct moment, almost having to read his mind, and I hated it. If you could shout "Screwdriver!, no! the phillips one!" at me in his voice I'm sure I would shiver.

I liked going to primary school because when I was there I was safe. Then one year I was somehow put in the year class above the one I should have been in. That was a nightmare year. They saw me coming and they were merciless. Think I blanked most of that year out because I only just remember it now. It was then that I was basically attacked during a game of British Bulldog and as a result one of my front teeth was broken. I still have an ill-fitting crown to this day that stands out a mile.

I loved playing sport, and I took up cross-country running. I was bloody good at it because I'd had plenty of practice on those long diversions to get home. Mr Dickinson was the bloke who encouraged me to take part.

My nemesis came by the name of Robert Dix. Don't think he was what you would call hard, but he obviously knew I wouldn't fight back. That little shit made my life a fucking misery. On one of my roundabout detours to get to school he came up to me, said "Have you ever seen apples this big?", while holding his hands 18inches or so apart. Now I was obviously naive (maybe still am), and you can see what's coming. "No", I said. Quickly followed by BOOM, a nice hard punch in the middle of the face. If I ever come across that piece of shit I hope I recognise him so he can get a taste of those apples.

Phew, gonna need quite a few parts to this story. Keep Smiling folks.

Child is Father of the Man (Part 1)

So maybe if I look back at my childhood I can find some clues.....

As far as I can remember

My parents come from Nottinghamshire mining towns, mother from a town called Blidworth.My grandfather from fathers side worked for the National Coal Board. He and my grandmother lived in Ollerton, Notts. I'm not sure where my parents were living at the time but I was born at Kings Mill Hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield, in 1970. I have an elder sister, born in 1967.

My earliest memory is of sitting on my father's shoulders, walking up the hill towards Wollaton Hall in Nottingham.

 I think I was three, we lived above a grocer's shop which was run by my mother. My father worked in the construction industry. 

Before I was old enough for primary school i went to a 'private' school, Dagfa House School. My only memory of that school followed an incident where my sister and I were bouncing up and down on a bed, trampoline style. I managed to miss the bed and break my collar bone. I think I'd been to hospital and then to school in what I think was an orange T-shirt with a cartoon character on the front, rather than the uniform. Then I just remember the 'posh kids' chasing me around because of this. I don't think I was too upset at the time but I may have to speak to my mother to see if she remembers.

 I then started primary school, Middleton School in Wollaton. Only vague memories here, my sister and I used to walk to school, you could do that in those days. I vaguely remember my best friend who lived nearby, a boy from an asian family. My mind may play tricks on me here but I always went to see him, I don't remember him coming to my house. Remember this bit regular readers.I remember enjoying school days there, vague memories of my friends, big scary dinner ladies, and rank school dinners.

My only other memories of living in Wollaton amount to, insisting on lemon curd on crackers for christmas dinner, finding 20 quid and taking it to the police station, a really smelly customer who stunk out the shop, and going with my sister to her friends house nearby.

In 1976 we moved to Castle Donington, in Derbyshire. To a bigger house on Park Lane, "the posh bit." I was gutted to leave my friends but shit happens. In my mind this is where things start to go wrong.

 Now, before I go any further, I want to say that when I was a child, everything that happened was normal to me, I didn't have anything to compare it to. I thought it was the same for everyone. I blame my parents for almost nothing that has happened in my life. I'll mention the exceptions to this in due course.

Me and my shadow.

Write a blog, you say. OK, here goes. I'm not the most eloquent of people. I don't know how to structure this & it might be a rambling mess but ho hum.

Depression. Anxiety. Bipolar Disorder. Mental illness.

Scary words? Not to me. You might have a physical illness such as, I don't know, diabetes. You have to learn to manage it with diet/exercise etc.

I have a mental illness. I have to learn to manage that too.

The difference seems to be that people see physical illness as a concrete, visible thing. Whereas a lot of people think differently about mental illness. They can't 'see' it, so how can they be sure it's there. Comments like "we've all felt down now and again", "we all get stressed from time to time", and the old classic "pull yourself together" back up this lack of understanding.

People are scared of mental illness, understandably, but people have always stigmatised things they are scared of. "That won't happen to me", "i'm not a mentalist", "that guy's completely nuts" etc. This ignorance is hurtful, understandable but hurtful. Still, been there done that. Old news. Think what you like about me. The opinions of ignorant people don't mean much to me.

This Illness has robbed me of friends, relationships, jobs, and left me on benefits (a subject I'll certainly be talking about.)

Most of us know how this feels. I sometimes try to explain how I feel. When my depression is really bad, I feel empty, numb, tearful, hopeless. Pull the duvet over my head and let the world take care of itself.

When my anxiety is in full effect the idea of getting on a bus, dealing with people, or going to a new place is just terrifying. Rationally this is bizarre, I've done all of this before. When i just HAVE TO do this, and have completed the task I wonder what I was worried about but that does not make any difference the next time.

Then there are those fleeting moments of mania. When for some reason I'm inspired to do things. When a piece of music seems to jump out of the speakers, when I want to do everything, buy everything, meet everyone, fall in love and put the world to rights. I'm sure I must drive my housemate crazy at these times, full of energy like I've had a dozen espressos, darting around the house "guess what just happened", "I'm gonna do something amazing", "this band is brilliant", just manic basically.

BY FAR the worst part of my experience is not the loneliness, the isolation, the opinions of others, the inability to establish friendships & relationships, but the fact that AS SOON AS THE HEAD HITS THE PILLOW my brain wakes up and decides to run a playback of the day. What went wrong, who said what, etc so sleep takes a couple of hours to come. My relationship history is patchy to say the least. During my longest relationship I could not handle living together, we moved to seperate places and tried to carry on. I loved this person, and I wanted children but I was drinking an alarming amount, self medicating with cannabis, and eventually she had enough. I was in the wrong place (This person has gone on to show I had a lucky escape, but that's another story.) When my heads on the pillow her name just pops into my head, it feels like my brain is torturing me.

The urge to drink and drug is always there. To basically pass out into bed, to be unconscious. I do this when I cannot cope but I've gotta fight that urge because there's only one way that would end up. The words "Class A" and "dead" spring to mind!

So that's me and my black dog mate in my head. These things DO NOT DEFINE WHO I AM but at the moment they dominate my life. It's done this for most of the last 25 years, since I was 18/19.

That is all about to change...... Watch this space.