loss of control and paranoia

Interesting turn that my thought processes have taken since first publishing my previous post.

While I acknowledge that I have control issues, the bigger problem I have come to feel is that I have deeper issues with loss of control which lead to paranoid negative thoughts.

I'm not sure what I can do with this as I am basically marking time until my next therapy appointment, but my therapist asked me to consider the problems and try and work through the issues to process them in a detached way. This is incredibly difficult for me to be honest. I would like to think I am intelligent enough to compartmentalise my emotions and look at them abstractly under a microscope, but it's difficult to separate the very raw negative emotions and view them from an objective standpoint. I can of course recognise when I am having these thoughts, but I'm not able to detach from them.

Thbere have been times when I have thought seriously about quitting my work here at the university and looking at other avenues of work. It does feel that most of my issues have come from work to be honest.

Sometimes I think that the level of paranoia that I experience can't possibly be justified by psychological problems alone and occasionally, the paranoia wins a small victory in the overall war of attrition for my sanity by performing a sneak attack and getting one of their own under the radar where it acts perfectly reasonably until it sticks its needle in and starts working at that point, I start to feel that surely it can't ALL be in my head can it?

Can it?

I don't know... Having seen the way in which other colleagues have been treated in the past and having them leave employment as a result of it, I can see correlations in what I am experiencing. Sometimes it's a look or a roll of the eyes that is noticed from the corner of my eye. sometimes that's all it takes to make me spiral and let the soldiers of paranoia a loophole to climb in and start making trenches.

Control and the psyche

I only have a few minutes to write his as I will be teaching in about 20 minutes so it might have grammatical and spelling mistakes.

But that's kind of the point of today's post. I had a brilliant session today with my therapist and if I don't get it down on digital paper, I'll forget.

Basically my therapist asked me about embarrassment as I had an episode of anxiety and paranoia last week when colleagues appeared to be laughing at me due to my relative lack of academic credentials. I won't go into what happened, but it lead to a revelation (and it's only my second session)

One of my earliest (if not THE earliest) memory that I have is one where I had to relinquish control to a higher authority. Admittedly, I was little more than a toddler, but the issue with control is still there. I was not in control of myself so I felt helpless and inadequate as a result. This has gone through most of my recollections that have coloured life choices and times when I have had decisions to make. It's difficult for me to ask for help as I need to control myself.

When I was young, my mum told me that I have two ears and one mouth. This has lead me to listen more than speak. I am an overanalyser to a large degree. The control issue is central to my raison d'etre 😄. Why have I such a need to control myself and remain restrained in everything I do?

I need to process this information over the next week or so. I have a lot to think about, is it a case of relinquishing control occasionally? Is it a case of managing control issues? Is it a case of acknowledging that I can't do some things and other things are out of my control? I dunno yet, but I am determined to think about it.

When we were talking about it today, my therapist asked me why I had started smiling while answering a difficult question. It was definitely a case of the penny dropping and realising an issue when previously I hadn't connected those two neurons together.

To be continued. This might take a different turn yet again and the blog might become my virtual sounding board... A sort of dear diary if you will. If you want to continue reading, feel free. Full disclosure of everything is healthy. I want others to know who I am and hopefully neurons might start firing and connecting with them.

What's up?

I thought that I'd better let you guys know (well the guys that read the blog that is) that it's now basically the close of the season. I am utterly exhausted to my bones and have only one more confirmed trading engagement this year.
I can feel myself swinging backwards on that big pendulum towards the dark time of the year and I'm not just talking about the amount of sunlight in evidence. There isn't much I can do about it unfortunately. I did have my request granted for some more intensive CBT, but I was late for my first appointment which consequently was cut short (for obvious reasons) and my re-scheduled first session was cancelled on me due to illness.
I'm going to Brighton this weekend with my lovely missus which should shrink the dog a little.

What has got me like this you ask? To be honest, I dunno. I seem to go in waves. Which reminds me, (on a more than slightly oblique note) I finally understand Pink Floyd's The Wall now... Listening to it at a low ebb was a hell of an eye opener.

Sorry, what was I saying? Oh yes. waves. It's all or nothing at the moment. there doesn't seem to be regularity to it unfortunately and I can't measure it to see when my danger periods are. If I am going through the high intensity CBT, it may become more evident, I dunno.

One more potential magic gig this year too... Hopefully, I will be performing at Whitby in the rifle club. I won't be trading, so might just come for a day or so. I was maybe hoping that I might be asked to another event to perform, but that wasn't to be and they got another act in instead which did sting a little, but it's understandable as I am in no way up to the standard of this act.

What else is up?

Ummm... Not sure... Work continues and I get out of it what I put in basically. While there are no students around, it's difficult to get motivated and I must confess to mooching about doing a bit of tidying here and there without much in the way of conviction. Leatherworking is going to be taking a back seat for the coming year and I might do one or two events, but not on the scale that I have been doing it over the past few years. I think I would prefer to work on stuff that I want to work on rather than stuff I feel that I have to work on for the benefit of the stall...

I did enter a piece into the exhibition for judging at the Asylum this year. I thought it was pretty good (I'm now using it as my regular rucksack) When I went to collect it, I was asked not to exhibit any more as my stuff is becoming a little too well known. That made me feel good for a while as people are getting to know my style, but then it sent me downwards thinking that innovation has suffered as a result of the stall and feeling as though I need to make stuff that is marketable rather than stuff that stimulates my head. That's one of the major reasons why I'm not trading much in the coming year. I want to re-evaluate why I do what I do and how.

I'm staying off facebook for a little while as I see only the negatives now and the news has been bringing me down for a while... It's OK, I just need to climb the pendulum a little bit to make sure that the waves become shorter.

This one's going to be rough. Sorry in advance

OK, I make no apologies for this blog post (obviously apart from the one in the title). I've been mulling it over for a while and something that Derren Brown posted a link to this morning galvanised my resolve to do it.

As I say, I've been umming and ahhing for a while about it because it is very personal to me and something that I had blocked out for the majority of my adult life. In fact, I only remembered about it when a memory was triggered last year and the whole story came tumbling out to my long suffering wife.

I don't want any sympathy for this, it happened, I blocked it out, I remembered it and I moved on. This is a catharsis thing. (Again with the catharsis thing Dude! Give it a rest why don't you?)

So here it is...

My dad used to watch the wrestling on Saturday afternoon every week with Giant haystacks and big daddy and brian Jacks et al. When I was in primary school, there was a guy that used to hang around the school gates talking to parents trying to publicise his wrestling club, he had a very old fashioned mutton chop moustache thing going on and looked quite charismatic and eccentric. Friends of friends said not to have anything to do with him as he was a dirty man. At this point, I can only picture him in a grubby mackintosh now, even though I am sure he never wore one as the parents would've surely beaten him away from their kids if he looked so dirty... Maybe it's my memory playing tricks and I clothed him in stereotypical paedophile garb. 

I can't quite remember how, but one of my friends got invited to the club and asked me to go with him. It wasn't for him and he only lasted a couple of weeks. I however persevered. I wanted to impress my dad with my wrestling abilities and emulate the guys on the telly. It was held at a little hall in the Tilery area of Stockton on Tees and looked a little dingy but there were proper mats and there was a healthy uptake of boys up to the age of around 12-13 so it had to be legitimate. I have to admit that stuff like that didn't really feature in my mental precautions, but I have a feeling that it must've struck a chord with my parents and the parents of the other kids who regularly dropped their kids off at the hall every week.

So fast forward a little bit, I am getting exercise and learning something in the process as it turned out, it was very different to the display wrestling that I had been exposed to and there was a lot more rolling around in the floor. The guy that was branded a dirty man ran the club and did so quite well in my opinion, I was learning some competition wrestling and getting better weekly. We didn't go to any local or national competitions though and this began to trouble me. Why do it if there was no reward? 

Then came the yearly (apparently) inter club wrestling competition. This is the thing that I blocked out for so long. (Quick spoiler, there was no physical fiddling so don't be afraid to read on). The competition was held on a Saturday rather than on a regular training night. The weigh in was a little strange though. We all were required to wear the regulation suit when practicing, but at the weigh in, the chap insisted that we disrobe entirely to use the scales. The older boys were adamant that they were leaving their underpants on at least, but the younger boys all dutifully took their clothes and underpants off to be weighed with the chap kneeling down in front of us looking at the dial on the scales. Nothing felt wrong about this at the time and indeed I was chuckling about the older boys not wanting to take their pants off to get a more accurate reading on the scales. As it turned out, there was no-one else in my age-weight group to wrestle with so I automatically achieved a gold. I still have the little plastic plaque somewhere in the attic. After that, I kind of drifted away from the wrestling. If there was no competitive element to it then what was the point? I didn't have to do anything to get a gold so there was no challenge... After that, I started going to judo at a more prestigious and above board class at the sports centre in Thornaby when I hit senior school and consequently broke my arm at a competition meaning I would never compete again.

The point is that even though fiddling wasn't involved with me at least (no idea about with the other boys) and I can't remember the chaps name, so I can't research it. I'm not actually sure that I want to see if anything happened to the guy or the wrestling club just in case I find something I don't really want to.

There is a point to all of this. A person in a position of power abused his authority and even though I had been warned about him, it didn't even register that he was doing something wrong when he asked the boys to get naked to be weighed. He abused us without touching us, he took away our right to privacy, his authority was not questioned (except by the older boys and even then they acquiesced by disrobing to their pants). I wish I could confront the bastard now and ask why he did that. Likely as not, he's probably dead now as he was certainly getting on when I was that age. So, no closure on it. Just because he didn't touch or ask us to touch him, it doesn't mean that lives aren't ruined as a result. I think I got off pretty lightly and was only psychologically fucked up as a result. I might see if I can find the plaque to ritually burn it to placate my demons.

I had managed to block it all out until earlier this year, I am glad that I did remember as it could explain some of the problems that I had with male role models later in life. In fact, I am sure that it had soured my relationship with my dad.

He was the one that dropped me off every week and the person that I wanted to impress most by being like his Saturday afternoon heroes. 

No jokes in this one guys... This was purely getting it out of my head and onto digital paper. I seem to be doing this rather a lot recently. Is it a good thing? I certainly feel lighter for putting it here. 

Touching base.

What is it about events that you are too knackered to enjoy them at the time and afterwards, there is just a feeling of gut wrenching regrets for not enjoying it more.

This weekend I was down at MCM Comicon at the excel centre in London and it was absolutely bloody marvellous. I had a stall selling leather goods and if you follow Broadarrow Jack's posts on Facebook, I commented that I was genuinely humbled by the fact that with the amount of choice in a space as big as Excel, people actually wanted to buy my stuff. Everyone did well as far as I know. The talks were great and the exhibition just keeps growing year on year. I have to admit that during the event, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to due to the aforementioned fatigue. After the event (almost immediately after the doors had closed and the pack down had begun) I started to feel an almost overwhelming sense of loss that it was over and the vibrancy and life that was passing the steampunk collective throughout all three days was now irrevocably gone.

I think this is another one of those get it out of my head and onto paper/screen posts as I don't think I have a point here. There's no little trick to reducing the feeling of loss, the bank holiday Monday has helped a little as I have managed to catch up a little on some frivolous stuff like playing Assasin's creed. But there's a hollowness to today that wasn't there yesterday. I'm sure it's the same thing that people experience when they return from holiday, although I can't help thinking that the experience has been amplified by the depression and anxiety.

One small tip that I did find helping with me at least to cut down on anxiety whilst I was at the event was removing my shoes. When I am not wearing shoes, my brain switches to comfortable and relaxed mode. Maybe I need to wear shoes less...

So yeah... This is a brief touching base type of post today. 

Keep safe and keep going. 

Mark

It's been about a week since Whitby

Well it's been a week or so since I returned back from Whitby, how was it? It was OK. Made considerably better by the fact that I had a day to relax before setting up and the onslaught of customers etc. that was a great idea to be honest as I didn't have to be 'on' straight away. The selling itself wasn't brilliant, but it never is at the April goth weekend. It's mainly (for me at least) a proving ground for new stock lines. To test the market as it were.

Come home, I was in good spirits. However as week progressed the mood blackened and I felt increasingly under the dog as it were. A friend said that it could be something to do with mourning the loss of a weekend with friends, I'm inclined to agree, up to a point. 

There is always negativity from a small but vocal minority of goths at the 'incursion of non goths at their weekend'. Normally it's like water off a ducks back to me but this time, I took it very personally. I have absolutely no idea why that could have been but it happened.

I am not going to have a rant and a rave about what I think about those that will attack people of other persuasions openly in social media and then wave the S.O.P.H.I.E. banner with all their might when they feel they are being victimised. It's not worth it. It was interesting however to see that this made me  angry for my fellows, those that aren't that goth or that dress up in stuff they like to wear and come to a place to enjoy the weekend. I didn't go overboard with ridicule for the people that hate because that would be a little hypocritical but it did affect me.

To that end, I have been declining in mood all week and have now cancelled my attendance at an event that I should be having fun at. One of the third re-enactment events. They do give me something good to cling to, but then when we return from these weekends away, there is always someone that will have another go at us for having the wrong buttons or smiling and enjoying ourselves and informing the public in an entertaining manner rather than standing behind barbed wire and giving mini lectures. I knew that if I went this weekend, I would have to face the haters once again and take it in my stride again! Is it really worth it? I have dialled back the number of events that I am attending this year to see if the ones that I do attend make it worthwhile. At this point, Snowdon was great but there were notable absences from the ranks. This is the second event of the year and I am not feeling particularly positive about attending many others if I am goi to be feeling this way about it.

I know people say don't let it bother you but it does. If I am doing something, I want it to be as good as it can be. As entertaining as possible for the public as informative while still being engaging. Others do not roll that way and it pisses me off when they are vocal about it. 

The second reason for not attending this weekend was that I just couldn't face the public with a smile and a welcome in my heart. Friends are understanding about it to the point where they have rallied around and worked out a contingency plan in record time as I kind of pulled out at the last minute (I am eternally grateful to them for this). I am not proud of leaving people in the lurch, but likewise, I don't want to say yes I'll do it and then get there and have to spend the day in a tent hiding from the public. I realise that when I am in uniform, I am someone else although that only works up to a point.

I'm crap and I know it at the moment. I have commitments and should be honouring them. It's not like me to be like this and it is a little bewildering to be honest.

Not really a good sentence to end on, but I've sort of run out of steam on this one. People that know me, know that I get tongue tied in person but can be extremely verbose online. I think the tongue tiedness is creeping in here too.

Let's see what happens a few weeks hence...

Please feel free to disregard the following...

This post is not aimed at anyone at all, there is no ulterior motive for it other than I need to bellow at the sky for a little while.

I know it won't do any real good to do so, but I think my only real release comes in the pages of this blog. I can write it down and then it's the worlds problem what they do with it.

I've been suffering from Anxiety and depression for considerably over a year now, I've been taking pills for nearly a year and I still don't have any end in sight to it. I know that friends come off them and go back on them periodically. But I don't know if they are balancing me out. If they are, I really don't want to know what I would be like if I wasn't on them at the moment. Maybe my dosage needs addressing, I don't know. I have a telephone appointment booked with the doctor tomorrow and we can have a chat about it.

I've just had a row with Jeanette, my long suffering wife. I can't tell her how I am feeling because I don't know myself how I am feeling. My mum used to say that I needed putting in a sack and shaking? The best I can describe it is disconnected. I am disassociating with things and I know enough to know that is a very bad thing and certainly not a place I need to be at the moment.

Not that I would do anything silly at all I hasten to add. I am just not connecting with stuff in the way that I should be at the moment. I had a good weekend away at Whitby this last weekend, things were grand and now, I am sliding off the table onto the floor. 

I dunno what I wanted to say this evening. I just know that I have to say something. Even if it's just venting frustration at not knowing why I feel this way and the I can't articulate what it is that I'm feeling.

Not dark, not light, not here or there just in limbo a little without a handle to grip hold of. Set adrift amongst a sea of ambivalence.  

I don't want to take time off work again as it's a tenuous thread and the good will may just snap at some point. I just have to keep going, soldiering along keeping my head down and not causing waves where I would get noticed and singled out. It's a difficult thing to do in such a small department though.

Recently, I've been experiencing the familiar squirly stomach feeling when my fight or flight response kicks in, it hasn't actually kicked in as yet, but it's at the back of my mind and is a bit of a task to see it through. There was a department meeting today and I have to admit that I was getting anxious. The other thing is (which I might need to discuss with the doctor tomorrow) that I have been experiencing small flashes of what I can only describe as vertigo (I can only presume that's vertigo as I get dizzy and my brain kind of hiccups for a few seconds I've never suffered from vertigo in the past and I am normally as sure footed as a mountain goat but my balance has also been off for a little while. The episodes only last for a few seconds each but they are slightly disorienting and it does freak me a little when it happens.

The other thing that I am feeling a little low about is my weight. I've put on over 3 stone since giving up smoking and I am certainly feeling it. Jeanette asked me to go on a bike ride a little while ago to see a show at the local theatre and I have to admit that it nearly killed me! I know I shouldn't eat to excess when I am feeling this way, but it's damn difficult and I have zero willpower at the moment either.

So yeah, that's pretty much my fucked up life at the moment. If you've got to the end of this, you're either a true friend or so bored that you really do have nothing better to do. Either way, thanks for reading and I hope I have some good news soon. Maybe an increase in dosage may help, maybe not.