Oct 29

 I am ostensibly, back to some level of even keeled misery. I cried myself to sleep last night. Sad. Of course. Suicidal. Yeah. I howled into the dark some. And then I slid into sleep. Gone.

I slept long. Again. The fog of sadness around me, but, the edge of suicide was gone. Just. Sad. Levelled out. Even mood. Even if that even mood is low. Perhaps no little effect due to the mental pills I am. They tend to do that. Even you out. Not allow you to go or stay too low. Ditto highs. It means, sometimes, you tend to bounce, rather than stay stuck to the floor. Depending on the med, the exact effect is different. The ones I am on tend to let me reach bottom pretty easily, but, not stay that way for too long. Ish. Sometimes. The ones I was previously on would not let me stay at the bottom for more than a blip before bouncing back.

That's enough of that. No more misery.

They ended up having some wicked "blipping" side effects however.

Today the ghost of Ares has been following me around. And I am very aware of what I have lost, health wise, life wise. The memory of yesterday has not left me. I am just. Less. Suicidal about it. I don't think being suicidal about it is the wrong conclusion. I am not sitting here the day after thinking to myself, well, that was a terrible turn of thought. How irrational to be there.

Far from it.

It's all too rational. 

It reminds me of that statement asking shrinks about why so many people were now depressed. Because depression is a rational response to a shitty world. Being miserable about it makes perfect fucking sense. It is not a stellar leap beyond that to note that if suffering is continual and acute. Suicide is again, not an irrational response to that either.

So it goes.

But we must resist. Apparently.

So today I have bumbled around. Managed to just about get my ass out to do some groceries. Home and collapse. Rest. Rouse myself do a bit of tidying. And collapse. And rest. And put a wash on. And collapse. And rest. And hang the washing up. And collapse. And rest.

For me. That's a productive day.

I achieved something of a miserably content plateau. The long suffering sigh of the damned. I am coping. I am plodding on. I even managed to get a glimmer of satisfaction about having actually done a few chores. Go me.

But. Like a fragile wine glass. I highly suspect if you were to ask me. To actually properly check me. Are you ok ? Does it suck ? I would fracture into a million shards of sadness and tears. Life behind me feels overwhelmingly full of loss and sorrow. I cannot imagine a time in which that wont be the case. I find I cannot now voice opinions of life or give meaningful advice to youngsters about the future and what to do. Because to me, all I see is suffering. So. Better just to be quiet. Smile. Who can know. I can tell you to focus on the positive. Don't imagine the worst. But it's all in the haunted eyes. I wonder if many people before me have gone through the same thing. I wonder if one of the secrets older people hold is that haunted look. Tight lipped. To not throw out despair to the younger generations. Or perhaps its just the age we are in. Or perhaps its just me. Well. It's definitely me. But how much the rest of it plays into it. I don't know. It reminds me of something that Billy Connolly recently wrote. Or dictated. Where he said that now being old and subject to Parkinsons, finds life painful and awkward and horrible and that he was never told it would be so, and that old people must have held onto those awful secrets. And now he had got there. He had found the horrible truth.

There is a ring of truth to it.

I never got to ask my mom directly that question. We danced around it a bit. I suspect she would have said similar. She was not shy at the end from saying that she had had enough. And that it was very hard.

I suppose like my mom, I soldier on. Though I am not a patch on her willpower or strength.

Perhaps I should ask the old man. I have not spoken to him since... moms funeral. Last year. Or thereabouts. I am not sure I would get much sense out of him. Ironically, as hard a man as he was. In that respect of soldiering on despite the bullshit of life, he is not as strong as my mom was. Nowhere near as mentally strong. Flawed and cracked instead. Of which I have the same flaw and crack. But. I try to do my best. Sometimes. Sometimes I am just lost to the storm.

Such is life. Some days you eat the bear. Some days the bear eats you. As the saying goes.

Yesterdays low has given me a small ground shift in perspective. It is probably nothing. But it has made me aware of how bad things are. And can I do anything to change it. Because. It's really not good. I don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps I need to strive a bit. It seems hopeless. I don't know. I am thinking about it. It will probably just pass. But perhaps I should double my efforts to make use of the small windows of non shit time I have. It's hard. I can remember a time when none of that stuff concerned me. That just getting through the next day was often taken for granted. And my mind was concerned on other things. Mostly if the whim of it took me or not. Now I find myself so far adrift from whims. I am anchored instead to harsh realities of whether I can even do something. Not whether I want to do something. The want has become moot. Only the capability of whether I can remains. Because more often than not, the answer is - no. You cannot. Funny how when the options get taken away from you, the whims go to zero, and it's just about taking whatever you can get. I guess this is no different from the drowning man, happy to get any gasp of breath into his lungs, compared to the beach lounger, not struggling for breath, and wondering which chair they should sit in. Shit circumstances have a way of focusing the mind, and trashing anything that isn't critical.

Will take Athena out for a walk tomorrow. We should have gone today. I did groceries instead. Tomorrow we will go see the cows. And see what wisdom they have. Moo.