Friends

 

I have one friend in particular, who strangely is not in the above lineup despite being part of that lot, who reaches out now and again. He has done for years. I do feel blessed to have good friends despite not seeing them often. This one though goes above and beyond despite being a very popular guy with a huge group of friends in all walks of life. He contacted me out the blue today a while back just to see how things were going. That is the kind of guy he is.

I'm also lucky in that despite heading to my 53rd birthday at the end of the year all my friends are still around. One nearly wasn't and he is pictured above. Thankfully despite small odds he pulled through his particular illness and appears to be on the mend. He is the oldest and has has his landmark birthday like we all have. I'm second in line. I do hope at some point we can all meet up. I do miss it but did get a taste a few years ago. 

From a long time of not being able to leave town I progressed and at one point on a New Years day when we had planned to have a family meal I found myself 30 miles away in a pub with old friends I had not seen for 15 years. To add to that quite by chance a girl we all new from Primary School stumbled in with friends to make it an even better night. It was fantastic- almost. The only downside was my lack of confidence. My wife kindly hung about. She went away in the car for over an hour with the kids to McDonalds to waste some time but when she came back they had to hang about. One of my friends said she and the kids could come in because he knew the staff but she didn't want to. As much as I wanted to stay out all night I had to cut it short because of the guilt. They all stayed on and I was away home but very happy for that moment in time I had longed.

Anyway I met up with two of my pals a month or so later and that was it. Never again. In times since I have been part of the group chat for meet ups. In the beginning I would decline making up excuses as my anxiety was back and growing. Then I got to the point where I stopped even replying because it was accepted that I was not going. Then the messages stopped and I assume a new group chat started and I was not invited. For some time now I have lost all contact as I came off all social media. I would like to get that all back. I get it. If the roles were reversed I would be saying: "There is only so much you can do." People cannot keep trying when there is nothing in response. I get that. I wish it were different but I take some heart from being here before and getting to that night I never thought would ever come. It can happen again. 

The image above was from a time long gone. For £50 each the 4 of us got a train to Northern Ireland, stayed for 5 days and returned. Quite incredible when you think about it. It was a great holiday with lots of tales to tell after. It was a time where I did not have to think about travelling, I just did it. Livingston to Stranraer to Larne to Coleraine to Port Rush. I think, it was a long time ago. At some point we were in Belfast I am sure on a bus and I remember looking at it and thinking how much it looked like Glasgow. Sketchy memories but stories after to talk about for years after. I miss that.

I still push on in my goal to eventually get there. Unfortunately where I am improving mentally I am struggling physically at the moment. Some problem with my knee has me hobbling where I was walking but the last couple of weeks it has been improving- I think. I can't go and get it looked at unfortunately so I have to work around it as best as I can. Its just one of those things I suppose. But as a result I have not walked very far the past couple of months. I plan tomorrow to start pushing it regardless. I need to get out and need to push myself out as far as I can. And if I do that regardless of how my body holds up I will get there in time. It needs patience and a bit of drive. I have been lacking that of late so hopefully in future posts I can shed a more positive light on these things. 

Unendurable

It's taken me a while and much longer than I remember it but finally I am nearing the end of "1984" by George Orwell. My first book in a long while and hopefully the start of getting back into reading again. My kindle tells me I am 91% complete so not long now. I have just gotten to a bit which really struck a chord with me...

"'Do you remember,' said O'brien, 'the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open.'"

That feels about right sometimes. I do feel there is something at the other side of my wall causing the panic. I think I know what it is but don't at the same time because I have buried it so well I cannot remember. There is something there though. Its not visible. Its there. I think I do fear exposing it. And it has been there for as long as I can remember and that is why it is buried in the past. There are times I glimpse it but its not a thing I can put into words. Its a feeling- intense dread. I remember times when I was younger feeling it but now I don't know why and memories merge into others making the waters murky. But although the sounds, the images and even the smells all fade or become entangled in one another the feeling remains as strong now as it was then like I am living it over again. It is there at the point of panic.

That is why when I read in self help books that its important to know panic is harmless and that helps ease the panic I can't relate. I have never thought at the moment of panic that I am going to die or come to any kind of harm. I know lots of people do. For a lot of people its their heart which must be scary. But for me its not that. Its this intense dark dread that comes over me and everything becomes unreal as people carry on normally but for me I have stepped out of sync into a dark alternative reality where a real fear stalks- a bit like putting on the ring in the Lord of the rings books. Nothing on this planet can make me accept that. But its always been there for whatever reason and I buried it but over time it has kept resurfacing until two decades ago the seal cracked open and all the raw fear came flooding in. 

I think Orwell describes it perfectly in his writing. I can relate to it to the point I don't want to linger on it in case my mind goes down that dark alley too far. That led me to another paragraph shortly after.

"'By itself,' he said, 'pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable - something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved.'"

In the story Winston Smith has been broken by torture and interrogation but still there is a tiny part unbreakable by force alone. This is the final method to completely break the spirit. And that is important here. We all do have something we just cannot contemplate facing. The force of that cannot be put into words. It's just something there inside us. A door we keep closed. And this is the thing most self therapy books I have read don't get. I know opening that door won't kill me. You know that. We do not think this will physically harm us or threaten our mortality. It is just something we feel unable to face. As said by Orwell the ability to face that does not come down to an overabundance of courage versus lack of it. Its something we just cannot handle regardless of how stupid it would appear to others. And this last part is what empowers it further because even if someone says they understand they don't. Even if they show support you know deep down they don't mean it. It's an anomaly that is as hard to pin down as it is to describe but it is very much a personal event. 

In recent years my progress has gone backward dramatically but I still plod away knowing I got there before and can do it again. Thankfully the periods of full blown panic have eased off considerably so its trying to now just get confidence and trust in myself to go back to the places I went before slowly. And I will get there however slowly. Small steps have been made in the right direction and that is all I can ask for. Hopefully over the coming months that progress will increase and this shrunken world I am in will get bigger again. 

Debt

 

It's a strange feeling to have a weight around your neck for so long that you just carry it and maybe even forget about it. At times of course you are reminded. You are in a good place and then suddenly something reminds you of that weight. A movement, an advert on TV, a bit of spam through the door, etc. You wear and in time you have to own it because there is no other option. 

Debt. In 1998 I got a credit card and someone put that weight around my neck. If I could go back in time to that day with the knowledge I have now I would and my life would have been so different but I can't and so I won't and in time I'll stop lamenting. But apologies if I covered this in the last, first, post but I promise it will not be covered again because there is now a very hard line drawn under it in indelible marker: FIN!

I was taking the dog out last week and on the way out the door picked up a letter off the floor. I was about to put it where we pile all the letters but I saw my name and decided to take it out with me. As the dog sniffed about I opened the letter and first saw it was from my credit card provider. I had the hope that I would not see the phrase "as a responsible lender..." sent to someone who had in most of the period struggled to keep up minimal payments but still had an ever increasing borrow amount that ended at £14,800 despite never actually using the card for at least 15 years. Instead it read: We've paid off your remaining credit card balance. I felt angry to be honest despite being in a position I had longed to be in for over quarter of a century. 

Let me explain. The remaining balance was less than what I paid for 20 years every month just to maintain a debt with that debt remaining. They had robbed me at the last of getting over the finish line on my own while lots of people I had known over the years had their massive debts wiped out by budget plans, financial advisers, caring relatives, luck like PPI claims, bankruptcy, dishonesty or other means. I have seen it all. I have a relative who managed to get a debt wiped out similar to mine at the time 15 years ago despite both he and his wife working when I couldn't and then go on to get PPI back for themselves and also another family member. I took some sort of pride in not seeking out a "get out" but paying it off. And they had deprived me of that- I felt. In my head although I should be happy regardless i felt like I'd had to carry them on my back for all 26 years miles of the marathon only for them to jump off close to the line and shove me over it and take the applause. They cited their reason for doing me this solid was the fact that I paid X amount since 2020 and showed commitment to clearing my debt. I won't do numbers but will say the amount they quoted that I paid was 24 times what was left to pay. Thank you then. I am so glad you done that out the kindness of your heart and did nothing when half of what I was getting pain for at least 15 years was going to you to maintain a debt. I am glad you are so kind to do this and not just doing it because leaving the account open would cost more in admin to maintain. Cap doffed. 

Apologies for the negativity but the episode is over and I won't refer to it again. If debt was not a part in the original cause of my anxiety disorder then it was 100% the reason I relapsed. The debt was my own fault so I cannot complain but I want to leave it there as a warning to anyone who may read this. I was not advised but instead was enticed to take on more debt. If I had been younger I would have taken on more debt but thankfully I was not. The DWP just do their job. The banks though have been terrorising people for a long time in my view and will continue to. I recently listened to a director at Bayern Munich being asked why their season tickets were so cheap when they could easily charge double. His answer was that it would make the club an extra £2 million which is nothing to the club but the season ticket increase to the fan can have a big impact. There is morality. Not just seeing how much you can squeeze out of people regardless of their situation and the impact it may have.

I'll end on a positive with my big old marker pen drawing a big thick line under this. For the first time in 26 years I am completely debt free. Something I never saw happening in that time. Regardless of whether I jumped or was pushed I got over the line. That demon can never return to undo all my progress again. The weight is lifted. 

I make a point of retelling this to my kids. My aunt told me she was taught about money and how to make a plate of soup- 2 essentials. Of course my kids don't listen but that is their journey.

Day One

 

One day you wake up and find you are past the half way stage, maybe well past it. But you are thankful to have existed for as long when many others haven't regardless of how agitated and restless that existence has been/is. And you wake to a world that makes no sense. When I was young I saw lots of narky old people asked myself what irked them so much. The world they lived in made little sense to the world they had lived in. I get that now. Maybe more than ever to be honest for different reasons. When I was young the elders had come through a world war and had bonded in the face of an enemy and were possibly hurting from the lack of respect afforded them in saving our futures. Today its a different source of irritation.

When I was young I have a memory of being in my grandparents flat in Glasgow where we used to go often from my home in a new town. I have no memories of the journeys which much had been by bus as my parents didn't own a car and there was no train connection at that point. My parents were young, 20 years older than me. I remember being in the scullery (kitchen) with a Scotland football strip (kit) that was in a plastic package and I assume in was very late 1970s to early 80s as I think it was more like they would have worn in Argentina in 1978 than the one they wore to Spain in 1982. In fact for all I know it could even have been before 1978. I don't remember that World Cup. I've seen it in highlights but I don't remember it. I would have been 6 so its no surprise. I do, strangely, remember the 1974 World Cup more in general only because I remember clearly my dad renting the video from Radio Rentals up our local shopping centre- and years later I remember watching live on a tv Brazil v Argentina when Zico faced Maradona but cannot remember which year that was or whether it was still the same company that owned the shop. Weird the things you remember in space if not time.  Anyway the 1974 World Cup was famous in Scotland because our national team were the only unbeaten team in the whole competition despite not getting past the first round. Story of our lives. Punching the chest at effort on the plane home before the competition has gotten under way. 

I am off on a tangent. It was a memory. In the scullery my gran was had the top and placed the badge over the heart area and was ironing it on. I had lots of football strips when I was younger and that is the only time I can remember a badge being ironed on. It was probably the way to go. I had plenty where the badge or crest peeled off meaning it would have to be binned. Where I was going with this though was that it was a country united. It was a time of Home Nations when Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland played each other for bragging rights. There were idiots for sure but my memory of it was good banter. I used to go down to Yarmouth and Lowestoft and argue with my big cousin over it. They were good times. Even now, or in past years at least, he will wind me up when Scotland are missing from a major competition. Its good fun. Its what you do.

That was a country united. Whatever way you fall Scotland is a country so divided I doubt it will ever be unified again. I remember reading books on 1940s Germany and the distrust and the fear it would never be bridged again and not understanding it. Spain too during the years while Franco lived. There are more of these obviously because its what happens when there is a divide. And I feel I am in that just now and its just one of many other things in this modern age I cannot comply with and which makes me angry. One party smashed a divide in this country a decade ago. I am getting too tired and old to argue about it. That is how I see it so that is how I say it. And it will never me resolved in my life time. Right now though they are more concerned with Palestine than the people living on the street during this cold snap or the drugs death eclipsing all of Europe or the poor school grades or the pot holes or dim street lights in dark parks or any number of things. Here- not there! It makes me so angry but I don't want to get too deep into it or I will be here all day.

I have issues with so much. Pronouns- that is all I will say. I have a love of genealogy. I have hung about the censuses online from 1841 (though I think, from memory, the first was 1801 but not online) and there is a column that is used as frequently as name and address without question because its based on that age old thing called biology. That is just a personal opinion and something I can't change on because I cannot understand how by using your voice you can change that by calling it identification. Surely if you identify as being something then you have to physically become that  and on that score I can understand. But I cannot refer to someone in the plural or by something they are clearly not just because I will be criticised for not doing so. Its maybe an age thing but I am just so thankful I did not having to live my younger life through this. 

Anyway I am going down rabbit holes here that I should not be going down just now. I just want to say the I have been away from blogging for a while and now come back to it after 3 or 4 years away but find the world has changed in a massive way. I don't feel part of it any more. Not here with what is going on around and not even at home. I feel totally iscolated to be honest but I have accepted that and I am OK with that. Yet still I feel a need to post. I think the main reason is I have regressed a lot. I should really explain...

I have lived with panic disorder and agoraphobia since 2006 or thereabouts. Its still there. Today its as bad as it has ever been. For a long period I didn't think it would ever change but it did and I pushed out and I managed to go places I had not been for years. I managed to mean up with family and twice I met up with friends that I never thought I would ever see again. I went up north on holidays and managed to got an hour up the road to stay at the inlaws house. They were good times. The highlight aside from family holidays that I never thought I would ever see again was a BBQ in my inlaws garden with her parents, her sisters with their partners, all the kids' cousins and some other family too that were up for a big concert at Scone Palace. It was great. I can also include in that 3 time going for a meal with my wife for our anniversary. Little things. Going for a pint on my own here, there and everywhere. Freedom. But where I had a need to blog when my problems were bad I felt less of a need when things were going well. That is natural and perfectly OK.

IT turned though. I was doing well and thinking about how I could get back to work when once again, for the 3rd time, the DWP decided to stop my money and I had to appeal. Because of one thing and another that process took 9 months. I want that long with no money coming in and had massive credit card repayments we could barely cover. I'm not going to linger on it as its a past event but that Christmas I need to pay £240 for a credit card repayment, had no Christmas presents for the kids, had £0 in my account and wife had £22 in her account. For the months leading up to that point I was waking in the small hours soaked in cold sweat and feeling consumed by dread. It was very dark. But its a past event. In truth there was a point where I could have gone one of two ways and the way I went was to go numb to it all. It is past. Cue "The Great Escape" theme tune on so many levels. It past.

The damage was done though. Physically and mentally I regressed faster and faster. That BBQ was bliss. The next time we headed up I started to panic 10 minutes from home, managed to endure it for 50 minutes more travel, walked for 8 miles on mny own when I got up there and still unable to bring the adrenaline down went into a Wetherspoons and drank 4-5 pints in 2 hours to finally find some calm. The 3rd time the panic was so much I could not go up and have never gone up again. That was 2018 I think. That same year our neighbours left and kindly gave up a holiday up north but when the time came agoraphobia was so bad I could not travel the 35 minute to the West coast to enjoy it for a week. We went out in the car to try to get through it and I just couldn't- I was of course very popular for that. Very quickly that year I went to not leaving town again. If that was not enough when I was shopping 5 minutes away with wife I started getting an unusually new combination of panic and nausea that had me leaving frequently and finally not going at all so with had to do shopping on her own- something she is still doing. 

Anyway, a bit must for a first post. I still have panic disorder and agoraphobia and once more looking to get on top of it like I did before. My financial woes are sorted so I cannot be sucker punched by that again. I should say after 9 months I won my appeal AGAIN! I want to also say at that time getting no money I was going to the job centre every week trying to push myself into work but the debt problem weighed so much that I ended giving that up too but hopefully proved that I am not doing this to be lazy or get an easy life. I do think though I was not helped by not blogging about it. Blogging is a good way to just get it out of the head and see things are not always as bad as you think. I will sign off with that. I have removed all my previous posts as they irrelevant now really. What went before does not matter. All that matters is what lies ahead. That is what I hope to blog from here on.

This is day one of a new restart. I'm not labelling that way but I did want to suggest this is a new start to a new period of my life. That is how it feels. Life is different now. I feel on the periphery of it and don't think I will ever come back from that. Its a life I don't understand now and feel well apart of but also have to say I have no desire to be part of this circus. I cannot change to be something I don't believe in and which makes no sense to me but that is just me. But its not just that. I said my highlight was that BBQ. It was such a good happy day in the sun. It brings nothing but joy when I think of it and happiness. I took lots of photos but I moved them on top my laptop and it fell apart so I have no access to them at the moment. Its all changed. Since that day my wife's mum passed away and a couple of years later her dad passed away and at the end of last year the house was sold. Its all gone. That day still exists up there in my head as that was the last time I was there. So much has passed but it has passed me by. So today is day one because I feel I am starting over.