One Step forward, Two leaps back...

Hi, it's been a while. This is going to be a but of a ranty waffle, but as I said it's been a while...


I scare myself sometimes. Some thoughts are so overpowering its hard to tell what's real and what's not. It's been a long time since I've been able to write anything down. It's been hard to be honest with myself like I had been doing before my break away from the blog.

My motivation has been shot to pieces. Before this was really helping, but something happened that made me stop. I can't really tell what it was, my brain just stopped me from articulating how I've been feeling.
The darkness has been overwhelming, the inability to function properly has been excruciating. I've wanted to open up here so much and be honest but somehow the darkside has been winning.

I think about death a lot now. Not suicide though. I don't have that in me. I don't want to hurt anyone more than this disease has already caused me to do. But I'm getting so tired. Because of this though I've made some huge steps. I have a therapist now. I finally got there. It's both uplifting and difficult. There's so much hidden in me that bringing up things old and new has helped both confuse and make sense of so many things. I've taken that first step into battle, and I have no desire to retreat. I need to face the past, present and future and take power of my life again. I want to live. I want to live my life to its full potential. I know I deserve that. I live wanting other people to live their lives and I need to realise and hold onto the fact that I want that for myself.


I look at pictures of when I was little, Smiling and laughing, but now unable to recognise that person in me anymore. I want to meet him again. I want people to see that in me again. I don't want people to refer to me as someone who "used to laugh so much when you were little". I want to laugh now, I want to feel it through every little bit of me. I want my eyes to open and my muscles and stomach to ache from happiness and not from anxiety and tension and not being able to eat or hold food down. I don't want to be how I am now. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be me.


There are hurdles getting in the way. I thought I was making some progress the other day. I felt good for the first time in however long. I'd found an inch of confidence and I liked it. Then I left the house and got mugged on the way to see my therapist. FUCKING. TYPICAL. The experience threw me two leaps back and took away those feelings I had finally picked up after such a long time instantly. At first I felt that the universe must have something against me, that it's telling me that I'm not allowed to feel those positive feelings I was experiencing at that time. Every time I've been mugged (four times now, "Lucky Pete" they call me), I've felt really good beforehand. The spiral my brain goes down every time tries to convince me that the world is against me and that I deserve to be unhappy.
But that's not right. As much as the demons inside me try to make me believe it. It's stupid, horrible, bad luck. It makes me disillusioned with the world and society yes, but I shouldn't let it cause me to judge myself. I'm vulnerable at the best of times and I don't need a piece of utter scum to make me feel even more so. I will in a natural, "I've just been violated and it was FUCKING SCARY" way, but I can't let it in a "Pete" way. That complete and utter shit is society's problem. Yes I am part of society, but I have my own problems I need to concentrate on.    


I was petrified of writing any of that, but I'm glad I did. Feel like I'm able to take a little step towards getting that leap back. So maybe I'll be hopping around here again a little bit more... if you're lucky.

Into the wild.

So I'm going to the other side of the world by myself in less than 48 hours. I'm absolutely petrified, excited but so SO scared.

I'm proud that I'm doing it. I've always thought that I should be a bit more spontaneous and just do things without thinking. I find that really hard as I have the ideas but usually find myself thinking about them too quickly and put myself off. I find it easier to not put myself off if I've got someone else to push too. Then it's not completely about me and seems less selfish. That somehow doing something for someone else's benefit instead of just for my own somehow makes it ok to do, which I know, is ridiculous.
I know the ten days away will be so good for me. I'm excited that I'm going to a place where no one knows me or knows anyone I know. I can try and be the me that I want and deserve to be. I want to come back with that. I'm going to talk to people and make friends, I'm going to go to gigs and have fun. I'm going to fight this brain of mine and be strong. I won't let the cloudy side of it win. This will be ME time, the actual me where I'll have the opportunity to be in control of my emotion. I can try to let myself let the happy part of my brain get a proper look in.

The idea of this scares me though. Not because I don't want to feel it. I'm so excited about the opportunity to do this, but I want this to be something that helps me take a step forward. I don't want to come home and let the same things rain down on me. I'm not saying I'm going away to "find myself" or anything like that but I am going to concentrate on the part of me that needs nourishing. The part of me that deserves to be happy. I am the real me now whether I'm happy, depressed or anything else. It's just I need to realise that all the areas of my brain will have a look in when appropriate but that I'd like to spend more time with some bits of it than others. I want to come back and remember, not miss the positive experiences and learn from them and grow stronger. As with most of the advice I give myself it's easier said than done, but I've got to try and start to aim a bit higher and into the wind to help with these steps I'm trying to take.

Time to set forth into the wild and see what nature and myself have got to offer each other. I'll you know what it's like, I could get used to it... if I let myself.

Lions, and tigers, and bears. OH MY.

"Bravery or courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation." 
 
I've been told recently by a couple of people that I'm being brave at the moment. I'm genuinely uncertain whether I have been at all, so I thought I'd find a definition to help me work out whether I qualify or not.


I am trying to be brave. I'm trying so hard to confront the pain at the moment, so hard to stand up to the fear and uncertainty of the future by trying to concentrate on me. I don't know whether though I've found the courage inside me to actually go up to the door and open it yet. I think I'm probably being strong(ish) as opposed to courageous. I can't quite tell if by doing the things I'm doing count as facing up to what's happening right now or whether they count as running away.


I think writing this blog in some ways is confronting how scared and confused I am right now. So maybe this is one thing I could probably count as "being brave". But why am I finding that so difficult to accept? According to other people going away on holiday by myself is being brave, but then to me it feels like I'm doing it to escape or retreat, a way of avoiding things. But then when I actually go I might feel different. I'm petrified of going away alone, so when I actually get there, maybe that's when I'll be able to see myself as brave. I would've actually confronted that fear.


Having ideas doesn't make you brave. It just means that you're one step closer to being brave. Right now I have the potential to be brave and I may have even done some things that other people count as brave, but I'm not there yet. I'm genuinely bricking it at the moment. Can you still be brave and be scared at the same time? When you're being brave does the fear disappear?

I feel a bit like the Cowardly Lion. When his courage came out he was completely unaware, he still thought that he was a coward. Not a bloody clue. So maybe that's me. I'm the Cowardly Lion. Sure of my heart, sure(ish) of my brain but unaware of how strong I'm being due to feeling so weak about so many things. 


So maybe there is a bit of brave in me. I'd just maybe like to feel that a bit more and the best way to do that is to probably be a bit more adventurous and audacious. Take a few of those risks I was talking about.


Now where does that yellow brick road start?

Learning How to Scream.

Anger is an emotion I find so difficult to express. Don't get me wrong it's there (much more than I want right now) I just have no idea what to do with it, which scares me to bits.  


In the short term music helps, but the problem with that is that someone else is expressing anger for me. That's not my rage, its theirs and that's why listening to music isn't going to solve the frustration boiling up inside me. I might feel I understand what they are saying, but they have no idea what's going on in my head and there again is something I need to address. This is MY anger and not anyone else's and I need to get that into my neatly clippered flat capped skull that it is my responsibility to sort it out.


Ever since I was little I haven't been able to shout out how I felt in fear of upsetting or hurting someone else. One example being that I was once scratched in the face by a little girl in front of her mother. I stood there frozen wanting to swipe back but I was unable to in fear of what might happen and how it will make her feel. 

Now I certainly don't ever want to be violent, thats not who I am and it would be something upsettingly serious to bring me to that level, but I need an outlet. I need a voice. I need the confidence to tell myself it's ok to be angry about things.

I'm afraid what I've let stew inside me all my life will boil over and become messy. I don't want or need that and can't let that happen. All I need is a way to show it and to do that I may have to do something I find even more difficult than being angry. BE A BIT MORE SELFISH.

Risk Management

Life is a funny thing isn't it?


People say things happen for a reason. I've always hoped that was true but sometimes I find that saying hard to believe. I've used it myself on many occasions to try and comfort people. Realistically the only thing that can make the future better, lives within what you do with the present and not what has happened in the past. It's down to them, its down to you, its down to me.


At this moment in time I'm trying to convince myself of this and boy oh boy it's a difficult thing to accept. If things really did happen for a reason we'd just do nothing and let the future happen, but those who procrastinate, wallow and   ignore the present because of past find it hardest to see the future. Granted at our lowest moments we look to the past, nostalgia, what could have been etc. Maybe this is because the future is the scariest thing in the world for someone isn't prepared for change. 


I think we all need to remember that sometimes the only thing we can do is jump ship. Is it worth staying on the burning deck where you're certain to be in pain and have your fate decided for you? or is it it better to take the chance in open sea where there might be a way out, a place to swim to?  There are risks when it comes to anything, but the thing about risks is that no matter how likely the outcomes you don't  want to happen might, there is always a chance they won't and that things will go your way.


The thing about risks is that there is no certainty. You have to take them to get further towards the future.  After all you need to cross the road to get to where you want, don't you?