Poison Head explained...

I can't sleep. The notes didn't help. I feel awful.

Poison head is my name for depression. I mentioned it with an amusing seagull post in April. I didn't really explain it.

Replay the most dreadful moments in your life. But not the moments of happenstance, the accidental twists of fate that have brought anguish and tears. The ones that are your fault. The moments that you made a desision and it wasn't just wrong, it was stupid, hurtful, rude and embarassing. Replay them over and over, making them worse in your mind, making yourself worse in your mind until you're pacing, unable to sit still, mentally berating yourself and then letting your imagination run wild, creating scenarios of catastrophic events that are due to your idiocy, malice, whatever. Creating conflict and unpleasantness in your head, roll-playing in your misery, attempting to take the wrongs of the world and take responsibility for them all, burden upon burden.

Knowing that wanting any second chance, wanting to go back and change it all is a sign of failure in the first place.

Knowing that you have, really, a privileged life, with people that love you and friends and family that you love dearly, that you've wanted for little and never known hunger or true fear. These things should be a comfort but instead serve to increase the self-abuse. What are complaining about when you have all of this going for you? What're you bitching about, getting so wrapped up in fantasy misery when there are people throughout the world that know real pain, and in some cases nothing else? Who the fuck do you think you are, whining about the cell you're building around yourself when there are people in real cells?

But you can't stop. That's poison head.

And it's not me. I am a nice, happy, enthusiastic person. I love the world around me. I stand in awe of the people that genuinely make a difference in this world and have the courage and determination to sacrifice comfort for their sense of duty, be it charity, aid, the environment, human rights or medicine. I stand in awe of the beauty I see every day. I have a sense of adventure that, dormant for years, is returning and I'm embracing. I truly feel that the way to make the world a better place is to be kind and generous with whatever skills or resources you have, as it will come back and be passed on to others. I am not a miserable, vicious, grumpy bugger.

But then I get poison head. I was a basketcase today. I saw it coming and kept away from civilised folk as much as I could but still managed, I think, to petrify a new member of staff, be rude to customers, rude to staff, rude about someone I hadn't met regarding a situation I wasn't really aware of to someone I care a great deal about. I managed to make my flatmate/bestmate think I'm off my fucking rocker. When it happens I feel like I'm in someone else's body and want to shed my skin.

This has been an exorcism of sorts. I'd worry that you'd think I was genuinely nuts if I thought anyone actually read this. I think I should finish this off by saying that I have the absolute best friends and family anyone could hope for, and if I needed or wanted help from any of them, I'd get it. But I have to face this on my own. I think I know how to beat it.

I can only apologise to anyone on the receiving end of this today. Just because I was miserable didn't mean everyone else had to be. There's never any excuse to inflict my bad mood onto other people. I'm so sorry.

Lotsa love,

Richard