Nov 22

 My sleep is very very slowly improving. By the tiniest amount. Maybe ? Don't get me wrong. It's very shit. And pretty alarming. But. I am trying my best. I have found splitting sleep into two parts is helping - sleep for 3 or 4 hours, get up and do stuff. Repeat. The less time prone and inactive lessens the dive and the problems.

That being said. It seems to have reached a particularly horrendous threshold.

Perhaps it's a chat I had with a friend today. Perhaps not. But. I think. I may actually need to go to the docs and Try Again and stick my head in the blender and get them to check this little bit out. Because it's pretty unsustainable.

My friend in some respects is the opposite to me. For one thing. She's a girl. Eww. Girls. Albeit I do tend to have , eh, "better", relationships with women than men. Where "better" is a ridiculous subjective trying to compare apples to pears. Women in my experience tend to be a whole heap better with actually talking about personal shit ( which I infinitely prefer to say, ooh, talking about fucking lame ass football ). It varies of course, a wide spectrum in both men and women. But take the averages. And I find on the whole women do better than men. For myself, I tend to try and bust / ignore the usual self afflicted boundaries and will ask recalcitrant guys how they are doing. Like. Really. How are you doing. Anywho. Not the point.

One of the generalisms I have found women to be stupidly better than guys with, is, ironically, fighting. Fighting your corner. Giving a shit and causing a ruckus. Particularly when it comes to healthcare. Or perhaps I am self selecting and only tend to associate with women with a bit of fire. Which may be true. But also. I think the whole mama bear, nurturing fury thing is very real. Regardless of whether I have a tendency to seek those kind of people out or not. I think - and some research seems to agree - that this fact is actually one of the reasons women tend live longer, and, also, crucially, guys that are in a relationship live longer than single guys. Giving a shit and causing a ruckus extends your chances of not dying to random shit. Who knew. So. Women. On the whole. Better at giving a shit and fighting.

Whereas dudes, especially me, will just tend to deflate and martyr themselves in the face of an indifferent health system, or even, hilariously, something as inane as getting a dinner order wrong, the women I know will instead rise to the occasion, lay hands on the nearest weapon and go on a tear. For the latter, incorrect dinner orders - rare - I am very zen about it. Don't sweat the small stuff. And sometimes accidents are happy surprises. I'd rather no fuss be caused. Particularly for under appreciated wait staff. For the former. Shit healthcare and causing a fuss about it. It cannot be stressed enough how in awe and thankful I am that there are people like that. They can do, what I absolutely cannot do for myself. In fact. I don't think it's far wrong at this point to say that in many cases, unless you do approach healthcare with a glint in your eye and an axe in your hand, you're likely to just get ignored. Hilariously, healthcare provision has set itself up that it can only be dealt with by angry people. Everyone else gets fobbed off. Put on a forever waiting list. A never ending on hold call. An appointment sometime in the vague future. The angry about the shit fucking situation people get seen. As the very old saw goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. But this is not about self entitled people raging over a hard done by service. This is about the service so normalising utter shit standards, that it absolutely demands you get infuriated by how dysfunctional they are. 

The rage, in short, is not unwarranted. 

Of course it's not ok to just lay into people. And the NHS is keen on reminding you in that heavy handed big state big brother propaganda poster kind of way to be courteous otherwise they reserve the right to ignore you ( which hilariously the opposite is also very true, if you ARE courteous, they reserve the right to ignore you - which rather destroys the threat of ignoring you if you are discourteous, when they were going to fucking do that no matter what your behaviour. Ah ha ha. ). 

Listen. Bub. You treat us like shit ? You're out of here. Gone. Get lost. Also. If you don't treat us like shit. You're out of here. Gone. Get lost.( at which point why bother with all the dancing, just fucking put a note on the door that says NO. And lock up and go home. )

That hilarious situation being said. Somewhere between the extremes of being meekly courteous and a Mongol invasion of Europe there lies a landscape of acceptable ruckus. Particularly when something is shit. Declaring it's shit, is not out of order. That's just a bloody fact. And sometimes. Getting your arse kicked for being shit is not some unfair miscarriage of justice. It's the fucking consequence of not doing your job properly. There is of course, that always sticky balance in society of not being angry and upsetting people, but also at times, things being so shit, that being angry and upsetting people IS the right reaction. The NHS can wish away the consequences for its never ending quest to dig an ever deeper fucking hole for its low standards, but sadly, this is not the case. If you're shit. At some point. No matter how hard you whine. You're gonna get called on it.

That being said about ruckus and myself. I will put up a better fight for others rather than myself. I think that's true of many of us. We fight better on the behalf of others over ourselves. But again. Perhaps that's the martyr thing for guys ( I think on the whole, guys are hardwired to go out with a bang, leaping over the battlements with blue face paint, but will abso-fucking-lutely not go get themselves help, especially in the face of surly help givers ).

Anyway. Long winded.

This friend in particular on the scale of shit kicking ruckus causing is up there with the surliest of them. She is something I will never be. There are, as always, pros and cons to being that good at fighting ( or anything for that matter ). Lines. Consequences. Too Angy (sic). But sometimes. A berserker at your side, is exactly what you need.

She has - for her - gently pointed out that I am not helping myself by refusing to deal with healthcare. She gets it. It is shit. Nothing gets done. But where I flop. She fights. We are the two opposites. Zen to turmoil. Calm to angry. Chilled to fiery. And of course she's right. And of course I see that. The question for me is not about whether it's smart to do that. The question comes down to whether I want to waste very limited energy on fruitless efforts to get healthcare provision. And the answer to that is invariably. No. No I do not want to waste what limited energy I have, having to wrestle with the unending ballache of bureaucracy and indifference that is the NHS. And also. I am being a good little citizen. I am not causing a ruckus. I am not up in faces. I am accepting of whatever the correct procedure and fuckery is and will wait. Even when that wait line has long since turned into a highway to hell that's on fire and is no longer working. Please Wait. Says the burning sign. Ok. I am trying to do what the ( utterly fucked ) system is telling me. Of course I know it's on fire. And it's not going to work. But the failure, I rationalise, is not at my end. Look. I am a good boy. I am waiting. It is you. You who are the shit. Your waiting room is on fire fuckfaces.

Which is great. I win the gold medal in I Have Complied With My Societal Expectations high jump. But ended up coming last in the, Looking After Yourself 400m hurdles.

The fucky martyr part of me, thinks this is a bad but also secret suspiciously great outcome. I get to be right. And pay a price for it and be punished. Tremendous. Hardcore martyr. Very tall morale high horsing. That the price is at the very least my healthcare if not my life is a trifling matter. You are right is all that matters. You are right and you died for it ? Awesome ! See how shiny my righteousness is.

And dumb as rocks.

In the end such a virtuous cycle is a vicious circle. Less and less energy. Less and less likely to get the help you need. Dwindle. Suffer. Die.

As my friend pointed out. It's all very well just up and dying. But you can't* die on command. There is a period of lingering between here and there. Which she then summarised in one word. Suffering. You get to suffer between here and there. Which. Is very true. Very concise. Very wise. Shit. You have a point.

Fuck.

Arse.

It's such a good point that it causes you to have to reassess the whole equation. And you know that it tips that equation into the, you have to actually try, because the alternative is, or rather can be, also very shitty. It would be an easier world were we to just get ill and die and be all over and done in 48 hours. But where it just fucking lingers on and on for years, setting you up with an indefinite purgatory of miserable existence. Eh.

As so many fucking manly warrior tropes repeat over and over again. Dying in battle is one thing. Glorious. Meaningful. Valhalla. Bushido. Brave. Lingering and fading out whilst suffering is a horror from the beyond. Stick a sword in your hand. And roll you down a hill to die in battle. But don't linger.

Lingering is bad.

Which is what you end up doing not dealing with the shit state of healthcare.

So eh yeah. Anyway.

Sigh. Perhaps I shall go to the docs and try again. But. Not this side of the surgery. Fuck that.

See how far we get. Until my energy and patience once again burn out and I return to just righteous suffering.

Change of topic.

Recently another of my friends lost her cat. Loss of a pet. Loss in general. Shit. As I have said a thousand times, I am Not Sure I Agree With This Whole Death Thing. See Ares. See. Everything. And as I have posted a few times on here, the shrink community at large understands that pets are in fact family. And that their loss ( particularly for dogs ) can be a hammer blow akin or, gasp, even worse, than losing another human. There are many good rationalisations for that. Not least of which being that pets are non judgemental. Human relationships are tricky. And can be fickle. Pets. Just tend to be a loving thing. Few if any judgements. Which as it turns out, duh, is good for the soul. But not so good for the loss side of things.

If there's one thing I am reasonably good at, it's understanding suffering. Misery. Sadness. Loss of something is close to my soul. The dark places of shadow are where I have my offices. But despite me being reasonably good with all of it. I have no real answers to it. Particularly loss. There is no answer to it I think. It is a pain. It's an awfulness. It. Doesn't go away. Rather. You grow around it. Like moss over a stone. The stone is always there. But slowly, over time, it blends into the landscape. Becomes an important part of your landscape. That stone. You can tell a story of its history. You can sit on it and remember whilst you gaze around at the rest of the forest of memories and experiences around you. Dig at the moss with your fingernail and you will find that stone beneath. Fresh and bright and awful. And all of a sudden it will rush back as sharp as it ever was. Still there. It is. One of the sad aspects of living. One of the burdens we all get to carry, as shit as that is. The stone, forevermore, will be part of who you are. Just what it ends up looking like in the overall wooded landscape is a different story. For some it can be a thoughtful place of fond memories. For others a lingering place of shadows and sadness. And some days the sun might shine on it. And some days the clouds may darken it. The passing of the weather across that forest dictating its vibe. But in the end, no matter how pretty or not the landscape becomes. At its core will be a sadness.

And so. What do you say to that pain ? It will be ok ? Kind of. Not really. I am sorry ? Of course. Does it help ? I don't know. It doesn't make the stone disappear. Nothing ever will. Cheer up ? Oh god fucking no. We know not to say that right ? Right. We have got beyond that bullshit oldschool wankery. Albeit, sometimes pulling people out of a spiral of ever sinking misery can be just what's needed. Sometimes like starting a car engine, a jump start is needed.

But. I think. In the end. Nothing really helps per se. But. Again I think. It can ease that moss growing to know that you are not alone at such times. Others care. About you. Your pain. They are there for you. And whilst it will never erase that stone. It can make the waiting for the moss to grow over it, a little less awful. 

Perhaps that's the key. Anything - whether loud or quiet - that makes the waiting for the moss to grow a little less awful. The other things in life. The distractions big and small. That makes time pass. And things move on.

And that stone to become blurred by the moss growing on it. To fade into the dell, a part of the jumble of things that make up you.

Sigh.

Life is hard. And full of sadness.

It can also be wonderful. And have moments of joy. In fact. Sometimes. It's the loss of those bits of joy, that ends up causing the sadness.

Would I avoid ever having known Ares so that I could skip the burden of his loss ?

No.

Because he was a joy.

And it is the loss of that joy that is one of the aspects of the sadness.

There are no easy solutions. No simple paths. It is difficult, and full of jagged rocks. We learn. Adapt. Fold into ourselves those experiences. Wisdom. And get to ponder on the meaning of it all.

Cherish the light. Resist the dark.

No answers. Just vibes.