A Personal Update

It seems I’ve been neglecting my blogs somewhat, in my defence I’ve had a very busy few months.

I don’t often talk in too much detail about my work, I usually just moan about it or complain about, what I see as, poor decision making or lack of understanding in the companies upper management structure. I’m a low level manager heading up the estimation team, my team is the smallest in the company, normally consisting of myself, two product estimators and an estimation apprentice. The company I work for is quite fortunate in that it is part of the building industry and hasn’t really been affected by the pandemic. In all honesty the current situation has actually been beneficial to our business as it’s restricted the flow of cheaper, lower quality, alternative products, manufactured abroad, from flooding the market and has allowed us to pick up a larger market share. As product estimators this has meant my teams workload has increased, couple this with one of my estimators leaving in august, it has meant that we’ve had to pick up a lot of the extra workload. Because of my teams hard work we’ve managed to cope fairly well, though it does make our jobs very intense and often means skipping breaks and working extra time (I’m not referring to this as overtime because we don’t get paid overtime), unfortunately our success has meant that I’ve not been able to convince upper management to replace the estimator that left further intensifying my teams jobs.

What this means to me is that most nights, when I get home from work, I generally don’t have the energy to sit at my computer or laptop and write anything. It also means that I’ve not had the drive to actually try out any new recipes or think too much about reviewing anything that I’ve bought or anywhere that I’ve visited. Since my blogs are generally just my own personal thoughts, recipes or product reviews, I’ve not really written anything about anything at all.

It also means that I’ve been somewhat neglecting my diet and exercise regimes and have slipped back into some of my old habits. This has led to me putting on quite a bit of weight, has lowered my self-confidence and has led to me not feeling comfortable with sharing selfies or other images of myself.

Hopefully in the New Year I’ll be able to get in a new employee, get myself back on a more even keel, lose a little bit of the weight and find more time for myself.

I want to embrace my slightly eccentric aesthetic, be a little more wizardy (yes, wizardy is definitely a word) and learn about herbal remedies, foraging, vegetable and herb gardening and tarot reading (more because I love the artwork and the idea of interpreting a narrative than any actual belief in physic abilities or the cards power to tell the future).

Obviously I intend to write and post about my exploits, but whether I do or not remains to be seen.

I hope anyone reading this has an excellent holiday period and finds the opportunity and time to visit, or at least talk to, family and friends.

Be safe.

June 2021 - Body Image

I’m having a real body image crisis at the moment and I can’t see a way out of it.

November 2019, I was the healthiest I’ve been in my adult life, I’d dropped 8 or 9 stone in weight, was exercising most days and was fitting into a 34 inch waist jean and large t-shirt. By mid February 2020 I’d slipped back up to a 36 waist, extra large.

I’d been quite proud of my success, I didn’t want to slip further and really had to do something about it. I dropped my maximum caloric intake down from 2000 a day to 1800 and increased my workout schedule from 3 to 5 times a week, I figured I’d be back on track in 3 or 4 months.

It’s now June 2021 and I’m still in the same place I was in February 2020. 18 months of 1800 calories a day and exercising 5 days a week and I’ve lost no weight, if anything I’m looking slightly more portly than before.

I’ve tried increasing my protein by swapping out a meal for a shake, I’ve tried upping my vitamin intake with supplements, I’ve tried cutting out carbs and reducing fat, I’ve increased the amount of water I drink. I can’t decrease my caloric intake further because I lose all energy and get a pretty hefty brain fog on much lower than my current level.

I’m completely stuck, I don’t know what to do and it’s really eating away at my already virtually nonexistent self esteem. I look at myself in the mirror and see a fat tub of lard. I look worse to myself now than I did before my original weight loss. My self loathing is a constant companion.

I Binged Today...

I binged today, it’s been the worst binge I’ve had in a long long time.

About 2 years ago, over the course of 10 months, I lost 8 stone (that’s 112lb or 51kg for anyone outside the UK). The last 2 years have been a real struggle to keep the weight off, a struggle that I’ve been slowly losing. As I relaxed my calorie count old habits re-emerged and I started to occasionally binge eat again. Since the peak of my weight loss I’ve managed to regain a around about a stone (14lb or 6.5kg) and I currently weigh in at almost exactly 17 stone (238lbs or 108kg).

Whilst this is nowhere near what I used to weigh, that being 25 stone (350lb or 159kg), it is by no means small and I’m still classified as clinically obese for a man of my height.

Unfortunately I’ve discovered that losing weight hasn’t really affected my ability to binge large quantities of food, nor has it really altered the maximum portion size that I’m able to eat. Today something in me briefly gave up and in the time it took me to regain control, a period of around 20 minutes, I ate 8 packets of Maltesers, 6 packets of Hula Hoops, 4 KitKats and 2 toasted crumpets. Considering this happened after I’d eaten my main meal, and having already consumed in the region of 1800 calories for the day, I should be feeling horribly bloated and generally ill. The problem is that so many years of constant binge eating has left my capacity to eat extremely high and because of that I barely even feel full. Had I not regained control of myself when I did I really don’t know when I would have stopped or how much I could have consumed.

Needless to say I’m extremely disappointed in myself and am currently feeling quite a lot of self loathing.

Happy Birthday God

Today would have been Lemmy Kilmister’s 75th birthday. He was a legend in his own life time, the only true God of rock and an important influence on me.

Music has always had a role in my life and, as a very young man, with very few friends, and almost no social skills, Motorhead were the first band that I discovered by myself.

No matter how much my musical tastes have changed, and will continue to change in the future, Motorhead have, and will continue to, always remain my all time favourite band.

Lemmy was always a big part of that, he just wanted to play rock n roll. He lived his life and played his music, he did it his way, whether it made money or not and that is something that deserves respect.

For me he seemed to embody the spirit of being your own person and, as long as you’re not hurting anyone else, doing what you want. Growing up as the weird outsider, that perceived attitude really spoke to me.

I’m not going to say that Lemmy made me the man I am today, because that’s simply not true, but he definitely affected me. The attitude I perceived him to have inspired, and continues to inspire, me and give me pause for thought. In a world where everyone, and everything, is constantly telling you how to think and feel, the ability to think to yourself “what would I do?” is an important one and I feel like Lemmy played a major role in teaching me that.

Happy Birthday!

The Midnight Rambler Rambles At Midnight

It's 1:30 in morning and I'm topping up the bath with hot water for the second time. I don't really have anything to say, but I felt like it was the right time to write something, so here I am chatting absolute shit into the void.

I do love a long, very long, soak in a hot bath, especially when I know that I have no reason to get out of bed in the morning. Candles lit, lights off, incense burning, a selection of beverages and an audiobook playing in the background, it's absolute bliss.

Today was my last day at work until the new year. With all the shit that's been going on I kind of forgot to use my holidays and if you don't use them then you lose them.

To be honest I kind of like using my days off at this time of year. Work is winding down, because of the bad weather, so I know that I won't be going back to a shit storm and it means I get a decent amount of time to enjoy the festive season at home.

I'm kind of hoping things ease up enough for me to risk visiting my parents and dropping off a few gifts for them, my siblings and my nieces. We're not a religious family, though some people I consider family lean towards the pagan side, but we all still celebrate Christmas. I know my parents will have the old family Christmas tree up in the bay window and I know that there will be a small pile of gifts sitting under it. I know my mum will still insist on cooking a huge turkey, even if it is just the two of them this year. I know that if I wanted them to they'd still set a place for me, even though it's been years since I last came home for Christmas. 

We might not see eye to eye and I don't talk to them much, I visit them even less, but I do love my parents and sometimes I even miss them. The house they live in has been the family home since I was 4 years old and that was a very long time ago. I hope it will continue to be the family home for many years to come, though I guess only time will tell.

When my previous relationship broke down I, and as much of my stuff as a car could carry, moved back in with them and, even though I no longer live there, a good chunk of my stuff is still in my old room. I know that I'll have to collect it one day, but I hope that it's by choice and not by necessity.

I kind of amass stuff, some of it potentially useful, some of it potentially collectable, some of it potentially interesting and probably most of it just tat. Because I'm never particularly sure which stuff belongs in which category I generally keep all of it, that means that I have a lot of stuff, spread over a lot of different places, and, because some of it genuinely is useful, but isn't necessarily were I need it at the time, I have quite a lot of duplicates. One day I'll get around to sorting it out and actually make use of my eBay account for a change.

I guess I'm rambling, it's now 2 in the morning, I've just finished smoking my pipe and I'm currently topping up my bath for the third time. I could probably ramble on some more, but I know most people won't read this and those that do probably got bored a while ago. I should probably sign off, finish up my drinks and make my way to bed… good night.

The Storm

I’m currently lying on my bed, by candlelight, listening to the storm. This is the most thunder and lightning I’ve experienced in years, I’m probably misremembering, but growing up it seemed like we had thunderstorms most summers. I do love a good thunderstorm.

Now, to make me feel more human again, all the weather has to do is actually rain and lower the temperature by about 15 degrees.

This heat is killing me, my body can’t handle it, it’s also almost destroyed my garden, the sun has been so intense it’s scorched my herbs and shriveled my strawberries.

Lockdown Life

I’ve been in lockdown for a full 3 weeks now, my company went into shutdown later than most, and for the first few days of which I was working from home. I work for a manufacturing company producing for the construction industry and that has been allowed to keep operating throughout the crisis, though after the first few days of lockdown most companies went into shut down of their own accord. I’ll have been on furlough for 3 weeks as of Friday evening and that essentially means I’ll have had a full 3 weeks of not working, I didn’t want to risk losing the money I am getting by continuing to work from home despite being furloughed, though I’m sure some people will have.

It took a few days to get used to it, but now I’m really enjoying not being at work, though I do wish I’d had slightly more notice to get a few things in so I could do a few of the odd jobs I’ve been lazily (partially due to lack of free time) putting off. So far in the past few weeks I’ve helped repair some fencing that came down in the most recent storms, I’ve cleared out and turned a bit of garden into a veg patch and set some seeds into pots to grow a little before being put out (we still get occasional morning frosts at this time of year), I’ve cooked a few bits and bobs that I particularly enjoy, I’ve set myself an exercise regime and dietary controls with the aim of increasing my physical fitness, I've listened to a lot of podcasts (thank you CheapShow, www.thecheapshow.co.uk, for being thoroughly entertaining) and I’ve played a few video games that I’ve been meaning to play for a while (though I still haven’t started replaying the Witcher 3). It has now gotten to the stage where I’m genuinely dreading life going back to normal, me having to put back on my mask (metaphorically speaking... I’m an antisocial, neurotic git and it takes a lot of work and fakery for me to be around people), returning to work and having to deal with the general shit show that is humanity (I’d like to hope that all this will make people more thoughtful of others, but I’m almost 100% certain it wont and that people will return to their normal cuntish selves very quickly).

As I’ve not really done anything of note, and because I’m boring as all hell so I don’t have anything interesting to say, I’ve been very inactive on the social media/blogging front recently and the current crisis we are all suffering through hasn’t really helped. I thought I should at least add some sort of narcissistic update as to how I’m doing and what my daily life currently entails and here it is.

Thank you for reading.

I Hate Humanity

I’m getting thoroughly sick of the thoughtlessness of the human race, and I don’t exclude myself from this, as a species we are absolutely reprehensible and, if it does nothing else, the current panic buy culture just drives it home.

I went out after work on Friday to do my normal weekly shop only to find the supermarket absolutely desolated, no fresh fruit and veg, no bread, no milk, no meat, no rice, no pasta, no loo role, no soap, it was ridiculous.

I ended up going back on Saturday and it was possibly even worse, the shelves had been restocked, but it really showed just how horrible people are. There were people literally emptying the shelves faster than the unfortunate folks trying to restock could possibly keep up. People buying things in huge quantities while preventing others just getting what they needed. Blatantly ill people wandering around coughing and spluttering all over the place, making no attempt to cover their mouths.

I’m genuinely starting to hate the human race.

My Car Had Its MOT

My car had its MOT on Monday, I went into it sure it was going to fail spectacularly and was expecting a long list of expensive repairs, that I had no idea how I'd pay for. I don't have a lot of knowledge of cars and bought this one mostly on a whim, without doing any real research or checking the car over fully (not that I'd know what I was looking for if I had been more thorough).

Since buying it, and having now driven it a fair few miles, it's become apparent that the tyres are wrecked (or at least they look it to me), the brakes squeal like an army of cats simultaneously being violently skinned alive, the suspension is as rough as unexpected buggery, it sometimes makes odd clunking noises if you steer too hard in either direction and the electrics are… eccentric possibly describes it best. All of these things are checked on an MOT, all have to meet a minimum standard of condition and performance and all of these things can be very expensive to get repaired.

In an absolutely shocking plot twist… it passed and with only one advisory, the tyres will need changing in the next few months. Being obviously surprised by the pass, and still having some concerns about safety, I asked the mechanic and apparently the brakes are fine, they're not sure why they're squealing, but there's plenty of wear left in them and they're working within legal safety parameters. As for the suspension, steering and electrics, they are showing no overly obvious signs of wear, or damage, and are all working well enough not to be a safety issue.

If the mechanic is happy, and at the end of the day it's his livelihood on the line, then I'm happy... In fact I'm very happy, my car is currently safe, it's put my mind at ease somewhat and I don't have to pimp myself on a street corner to raise cash for repairs.

My New (ish) Phone is Cursed!

My last phone was a first generation Moto G, I purchased it when it was a new release from phones4u. For its price point, it was well spec'd, very reliable and fairly rugged. The only reason I replaced it when I did was down to the battery, it's none removable and had come to the end of its life. Over the years I'd dropped the phone countless times, used it in very damp conditions, used it as an entertainment device and used it as a satnav when hiking and camping, nothing ever really phased it.

About 5 months ago, when the battery finally stopped holding a charge, I replaced my Moto G with the Moto G7 Power, expecting a similar level of reliability and ruggedness. My new phone is already almost completely knackered.

I'm not well paid, I understand the value of money and I like to look after what I own. The first thing I did when my new phone arrived was to install both a tempered glass screen protector and a shock resistant case, two things that served me very well on my previous model. This time around, however, it's apparently been a pointless endeavour.

As the name suggests a mobile phone is mobile and, as such, should realistically be able to withstand being used outside. I'm British, something which I'm increasingly embarrassed to admit, so when I'm outside it's inevitable that there's going to be a degree of moisture in the air. I answered a call in some fairly standard British drizzle, no real raindrops, mostly just moisture hanging in the air and just that small degree of dampness absolutely ruined the speaker. During the call the sound went from being fairly clear to heavily distorted and painfully tinny, at the time I thought this was just down to signal and didn't think too much of it until after the fact. To be honest this might not be an issue if it only affected my ringtone or the call quality, two things that I only experience occasionally, but it doesn't. My phone is an important tool in my day to day life, it's my alarm clock, my calendar, my navigation system, my word processor, my calculator, my primary source of entertainment, my main media access point and more. This essentially means that I hear sounds from the speaker dozens, potentially hundreds, of times a day, and it's causing me a real headache.

To make matters worse last weekend I dropped the phone, something I'd done to my old one hundreds of times with little to no ill effect, and, despite the protector, the screen actually shattered. To make it more annoying it's shattered underneath the screen protector, which remains fully intact.

How is it that technology and materials keep getting better, tougher and cheaper, but the things we rely on most seem to be getting worse, more fragile and more expensive? To say that I'm extremely disappointed in Motorola is an understatement.

Epicly Lucky

I’ve owned my car for about 6 weeks and in that time the battery has stopped holding a charge, the aftermarket immobiliser has failed and frequently prevents me from starting the engine, the windscreen has cracked, the brakes no longer brake and a tyre has burst. It’s always nice to see that my epic streak of good luck is continuing.

I Suck At Existing

I had every intention of starting this year right, but getting up early, exercising and getting ready, with plenty of time to spare, is a total ball ache and, now the morning is here, I have absolutely no drive or inclination to do it.

Back To The Shit Show

I’m back in work on Thursday and, after nearly a month off, I’m starting to get really anxious about stepping back into the office.

It may not sound like it should be, but to me this is going to be a real challenge.

I honestly don’t feel like I’m mentally built to cope with the daily grind, but I don’t have the talent/creativity/intelligence/skill/drive required to be anything but a slave to it.

Not The 10 Year Challenge

I keep seeing the ‘10 year challenge’ popping up in my various social media feeds, there’s 2 main reasons why I won’t be taking part.

1. I don’t have a picture of me that’s 10 years old.

2. I’ve achieved almost nothing in the last 10 years, in fact my decade has been a litany of failures.

Getting Back To Normal… Ish

It's been nearly 3 weeks since I failed my driving test and had my first full on public panic attack in about a decade. I considered these to be 2 heavy knocks to my self confidence and they pushed me into something of a spiral. After a particularly rough week, the combination of anxiety, depression and insomnia (largely caused by the anxiety and depression) had left me emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted and I made the decision to do something about it. 

I used my remaining annual leave to break up early for the Christmas period, headed to the local chemist to get some over the counter sleeping tablets and ordered  some St. John's Wort herbal tea bags (St. John's Wort is supposed to be good for anxiety and insomnia, the tea tasted pretty rank and I'm not sure if it actually helped, but I thought it was worth a try.) from Amazon. Whilst the tea and tablets didn't really help me to sleep through the whole night, they did make it considerably easier to fall asleep in the first place and that was a step in the right direction. The combination of not being at work and sleeping a little better helped me to break the spiral and get into a better frame of mind. 

To cut a long story short, I was able to force myself to have another couple of driving lessons, rebook my practical and even manage to take advantage of a last minute cancellation to get the test in earlier than I otherwise would. Thankfully this time I passed, I don't even want to think about where I'd be mentally if I'd failed, and, although I don't have a car yet, that is one less thing for me to worry about. 

My anxiety is still pretty high, I'm still struggling to get a good night's sleep and I'm still not coping with being out in public in general, but the depression has more or less receded back to my normal manageable doldrum, I'm starting to feel more like, what I've come to accept as, myself again.

Missed Opportunity

We had the opportunity to say no to dishonesty, no to bigotry, no to massive corporations avoiding taxation, no to pandering to the whims of the richest 1%.

Instead of this we chose to say no to having more say in the Brexit process, no to protecting the NHS for future generations, no to helping the most vulnerable in our society, no to a fairer distribution of taxation.

To say that I'm massively disappointed in the outcome of the general election is an understatement, to say I understand why people choose to vote the way they did would be a lie. What I do understand is that the majority of people who voted Conservative, the rich, the misguided elderly, the middle class with poorly informed views on climbing the social ladder, the outright bigoted, are the people least, or think they are, likely to be affected by their policies and that all they've really done is shown the rest of us just how little understanding they have of the world at large and just how little empathy they possess.

For those of you who voted Conservative 'to get Brexit done' or just because you're sick of hearing about it, you seem to have forgotten the most important fact. They are the party that put us in this mess to begin with, the one that kicked off the whole process with little to no understanding of what that would entail, who, after months of nothing but bickering and infighting, invoked article 50 with no deal, or even a deal in principle, in place, who to this day have no viable option for our withdrawal on the table and seem to care very little about actually doing so. You have voted for a party that is literally incapable of getting Brexit done and will allow us to free fall out of Europe with nothing to stop us but our face and the jagged, broken, rocky ground that is reality. 

We are in for years, if not decades, of economic slowdown and potentially even recession. Don't worry though whilst the Conservatives are in power they won't let this hurt the wealthy, they'll keep tax on high earners low, they'll still use tax payers money to bail out failing big businesses and continue to give the most lucrative government contracts to their already massively wealthy friends. They do have plans to fund this... They'll cut funding to the social support structures that help the most vulnerable amongst us, they'll make it even harder for the disabled to claim benefits, they'll further cut funding to police forces, fire brigades and other emergency services, they'll cut funding to our schools and education systems, they'll cut funding to and further privatise the NHS.

This may all seem like liberal scare mongering, but you only have to look around to see that this is already happening, the truth is out there to see if you're willing to look for it. I'm not even that politically minded and I can see this, how are so many people living in willful ignorance?

Craving That Good Weekend Oblivion

It’s Saturday morning, I’m tired, I have literally no need, or desire, to be awake and all I really want is the silent oblivion of a deep and dreamless sleep.

At 6:30 am my brain is like “Wakey, wakey, rise and shine… here’s all the shit going on in your life that’s making you anxious… enjoy” and now my heart is absolutely thumping out of my chest and there’s no chance of me getting back to sleep.

Why Do I Only Remember The Bad Dreams?

To be honest I stopped remembering the majority of my dreams a long time ago, some nights I’m not even entirely sure if I dreamt at all, but tonight I definitely did.

A tallish, chubby, bearded man (not me, it doesn’t look like me and there’s no sense that he represents me in the dream) puts his kids to bed, he kisses both of them on the forehead, shuts their bedroom door and heads downstairs into the kitchen and makes two mugs of cocoa with marshmallows.

His partner/girlfriend/wife calls to him quietly from the darkened living room “the films starting hurry up”. He takes a partially melted mallow from a mug and eats it before heading into the darkened room.

The film ends and they’re both sat on a sofa under a blanket. She says “OK, I’m going to bed, you coming?” And he replies “Go get yourself cozy, I’ll be up in a minute, I just want to tidy this up first.” He gestures to a coffee table in front of the sofa.

She heads up to bed, the focus switches to her (she doesn’t look like anyone I know and there’s no sense of recognition), she lays down on the bed and instantly flashes into a flashing dreamscape of horror film scenarios. She wakes up in the corner of the room, clothes torn, covered in blood and something organic looking stabbed in to her thigh.

She screams, pulls the thing out of her thigh and covers the wound with her hand. There’s panic on her face as she looks around the room, it’s covered in blood, gore and what looks like chunks of torn up meat.

She leaves the room and slams the door behind her, the landing is empty and looks entirely undisturbed. She tells herself that she was still partially asleep, the bedroom was just part of her nightmare and it calms her down. She can hear loud TV static from downstairs and thinks it’s her partner, he’s put on another film and fallen asleep on the sofa, it was the noise from his film that caused the horrible dreams.

She goes downstairs into the kitchen, it’s dark, she can hear quiet sobbing and sniffling mixed in amongst the now extremely loud static.

She turns on the light, the room has been wrecked, the table is overturned, cupboards are hanging off walls, the contents strewn across the floor and again there’s blood, gore and unrecognisable chunks of meat all over.

She’s panicking again, she’s trying to tell herself she’s still dreaming, she’ll wake up soon and everything will be OK. The sobbing is louder now, it sounds more desperate and it sounds like a child. It’s coming from behind the table, she rushes over, shoves the table aside and she’s her son. His legs have been broken, almost crushed, he’s cradling the remains of his sister, her belly has been torn open and it’s contents are spilling all over the floor.

The son screams at the site of her and tries to back further away. He’s crying harder now, “Please, we’ll be good, please, it hurts, please, no more mommy”. She steps back, looks desperately around the room and the unrecognisable chunks of meat come into sharp focus, they used to be her husband. She looks down at her hands and remembers, in violent flashes, what she’s done.

I'm Still Just A Broken Child Under All This Hair

I know that I often come across as a little whiny and self indulgent, on here at least, but that’s because I tend to use my blog as my emotional dumping ground. If something that I consider bad happens to me I post about it, if I’m upset about something I post about it, if I’m feeling generally shitty I post about it.

I don’t talk about these sorts of things in real life because I either don’t have anyone to talk to them about or I don’t want to burden people with my problems or I feel like my issues are trivial and I’m making a big deal over nothing. Even so there’s actually still a lot of stuff that I don’t post about on here because I’m probably just being stupid and I shouldn’t be letting it bother me.

I know that not a lot of people read my posts, but those that do are often seeing a side of me that very few other people get to see. Almost everyone that knows me has seen the overgrown child, who’s well into adulthood, that still loves video games, action figures and comic books (though I hardly ever buy either of them and it’s even rarer that I read/play with them these days). You get to see the broken child who’s still scared of things he should have grown out of years ago, who’s still struggling with understanding his emotions and never quite learned how to interact with other people.

I don’t think that the people I do somehow manage to interact with in my day to day life would understand the broken child…

I’m tired…

To Put It Plainly, I'm A Failure

I had my first panic attack in over 10 years today, I’d forgotten what they felt like. I was in a supermarket, I wasn’t coping well, and I suddenly couldn’t catch my breath. My heart started to race, it was beating so hard, it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack and I didn’t know what to do. Thankfully my memory kicked in, I remembered what to do and I got myself under control.

My self confidence was hit really hard on Friday, there’s been a big chunk taken out of it and I didn’t really have a lot to begin with. I failed my driving practical test after nearly a year of lessons and it’s just knocked me for six.

It doesn’t sound like a big thing and probably isn’t to most people, but to me it really is. Passing my driving test should have been the culmination of many years of fighting my own stubbornness and anxiety. I was sure I was ready, I honestly thought I could do it, I’d spent weeks preparing myself and was at a point where everything felt right.

The depression has kicked back in, it’s the worst it’s been in about 15 years, my self loathing is currently through the roof and my anxiety has made a hell of a comeback.