My head is telling me lies

2:07am is NOT the time to be thinking. It is not a thinking time at all. But sadly, it’s the time I get ‘home’ from doing a job I absolutely love, presenting The Late Night Alternative weeknights on talkRADIO. It’s my dream job – a late night phone in show that tries to build bridges rather than walls. Some nights it works better than others. I’ve actually had a bloody good run recently. The last 3 or 4 weeks have been pretty good, even if I do say so myself. Dark, frothy, surreal, educational, moving, silly. Everything I would want to listen to. Tonight’s show wasn’t as good and its hit me hard. Some bits were dull. I allowed myself to get distracted by a bully online. I wasn’t focused.

My head is telling me I’m shit at my job. That the lucky run is over, if indeed it ever really existed. That someone better is going to get my job. That my figures will suffer. That the tiny bit of affection I may have garnered in the jungle has turned sour. That I am worthless. That my body is fat and ugly. That I’m not funny. That I should stop whinging like a fucking baby and sort myself out. That I should jump off a cliff. My head is noisy and it is telling me lies.

I know that most of the above is untrue. I KNOW IT. And yet I still believe everything in that previous paragraph. I know they’re not true, but I believe them. Some of you will understand how that apparent dichotomy works. Some of you will think its nuts. Well, it is nuts, and this is the struggle I seem to have to endure every single day. And it is so fucking exhausting. I’m tired. Really tired.

I don’t want to be a poster boy for mental health. And I’m not the main one. That role seems to have landed on Matt Haig, author of the brilliant ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’ as well as some superb novels. To be honest, I don’t know how he handles it. Everyone wants to share their story with him. And those that don’t seem to want to tell him to man up, to stop being a baby, to kill himself – all the fun stuff. I’m not as brave as him. I’m a tease. I drop a handkerchief then run away when people pick it up and try to return it.

I bore people on Twitter talking about how I feel.

I bore MYSELF with this shit.

My mental health is wobbly. I’m going through a lot at the moment. The Jungle was a trip I don’t think I’ve recovered from. I’m getting divorced. I’ve been living in a shitty little room for a LONG TIME. I’m buying a house. These are stressful things and pour that on top of a head and soul that don’t seem to be working very well and my low self esteem, my self hatred, my distortion of reality (or is it a distortion?), my need to be both loved AND hated at the same time – all of these things tear at my body and mind. I can feel them pulling in an infinite number of directions and I have very little I can do to control them. In fact control is impossible. I am powerless. Just a little respite would be great.

I’m cutting down my meds. I was on Mirtazapine. A powerful anti anxiety drug that really calmed me down man. It made me sleep for 11 hours a time. But gave me really awful and thrilling anxiety dreams and made me put on a lot of weight. With the aid of my psychiatrist, I’ve come off them. I lost a stone in 2 weeks. Sadly, I put it back on.

I’m on Venlaflaxine. I want to come off that and I’ll see my doc again in July to start cutting back. Why do I want to come off it if I still feel shit? Because I need to see what it feels like without the drugs. Is the pain worse? The same? Better? One of the many side effects of anti depressants are the fact that cumming is REALLY DIFFICULT! I saw the comedian Dave Foley share this observation and I realised that yeah, its true! As a caller to my show said, its like running a really good marathon but they keep moving the finishing line.

I hate myself. I punish myself. I don’t deserve to be happy.

I don’t write this things to further my career, or to get more follows on Twitter. In fact I’ve lost about 5,000 followers recently. A combination of bots being cleared and people bored of my mental health ramblings. That’s not imagined. I’ve had people tell me they’re bored or that I should just kill myself. I hope I don’t. But that is a real possibility. Who knows. I won’t do it today, but I have no idea where I’ll be tomorrow. Anyway, I share and write this stuff not in some altruistic way to help everyone. I know it DOES help some. But that’s not why I am doing it. I’m writing to try and get my head around this, to work out what I am, what my problem is, how I get better. If I can. Maybe this is as good as it gets. OK, if that’s it then can I live with THIS? I don’t know.

I’m lonely and I am so fucking tired.

Peace and Love.

X

PS this is NOT a suicide note. I am not going to kill myself, so please don’t read it like that. I’m playing mini golf on Saturday with my kids and I’m really looking forward to it.

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