Does This Mean I'm Actually Environmentally Friendly?

I ran out of loo roll days ago and, thanks to the fucking panic buying pricks, I've not been able to buy any since, however, I did manage to pick up a couple of large packs of old school cotton dish cloths and a big bottle of concentrated 'winter spice' disinfectant... Looking on the bright side, my bum smells of cinnamon and I've finally gone reusable.

Is Anxiety Still Anxiety When It's Rational?

I live in a perpetual state of feeling like my entire world is about to fall apart, a constant awareness of disaster looming in the periphery of my perception… I’d love to say this malady is of my own making, that it’s all a figment of my overactive imagination, but I’m almost completely certain that I’m only very slightly exaggerating things to myself, that it is in fact simply reality.

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.

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.

A Little Self Indulgent Moan

I’ve been wanting to move away from the area I grew up in for quite a while now and it’s really starting to wear me down. I currently work full time, although the pay is very poor, the job itself is entirely reliable and for an unskilled worker, in the current economic climate, that is a fairly big draw. Unfortunately my low pay has left me in a pretty shitty situation where my monthly outgoings are basically equal to my income, meaning that I have no real savings to fall back on. Couple this with the fact that I also have financial responsibilities that require me to pay every month or risk forfeiting my claim to them, potentially losing a lot of money and any chance of ever putting together a deposit on a mortgage. What this means to me is that, in a very real sense, I live pay day to pay day and can’t afford to lose even a single months pay.

As it stands it appears as though I’ve been left with two viable options, continue in my current job and commute to work or find another reliable job in the area that I want to live in. Whilst both of these options look fairly simple on paper they’re not as easy as it seems.

Firstly the area that I want to live in is around 35 miles away from where I work and although this isn’t a vast distance I don’t currently drive, though I am working to change that. It’s taken a couple of years, but I’ve finally managed to adjust my budget enough to afford weekly driving lessons rather than waste my time and money buying them in blocks with, sometimes long periods of time between each block. Essentially this means that, for me currently, commuting isn’t really an option.

Secondly, since the Brexit referendum economic growth in Britain has plateaued somewhat, and in certain cases has even recessed slightly, meaning that less jobs are available, competition for jobs has increased and employers are looking to fill the available jobs more cheaply. As a fairly qualified and extremely experienced employee, whilst not being the most expensive, I would not be particularly cheap to employ. I would require to at least match my current wage, but would ideally be looking to achieve closer to the higher end of the average wage for a person of my level of experience. When combined with the fact that I currently don’t drive, I have a very distinctive style and appearance, and that I have a fairly lengthy notice period in my current job, makes me a somewhat less desirable candidate for most companies.

So where does this leave me? This is a question I find that I’m asking myself ever more frequently and unfortunately the answer doesn’t really change, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don’t have the money, or support structure, to simply quit my current job and move. Annoyingly if this was an option it has the potential to make me more employable due to no longer having a notice period and being available for an immediate start. I’m basically left with having to rely on either there being someone out there willing to take a chance on employing me or on my own ability to learn and the hope that I pick up the necessary driving skills quickly. Unfortunately I’m not convinced that either of these options are particularly viable, but they’re all I seem to have.

Remember When Sleep Was A Thing? I Miss Sleep

I miss the kind of sleep that's like slipping into oblivion, the kind where, for a few hours at least, you, your worries, your thoughts and your aches and pains, mental, emotional and physical, no longer exist and your entire universe shrinks down to a point that is just still, calm, comforting darkness. I miss waking up in the morning and feeling genuinely rested. I miss actually feeling comfortable lying in bed. I miss occasionally having a positive outlook.

Not Entirely Happy

I'm not too proud to admit that I'm really struggling with just about everything at the moment. Getting up, facing the day and doing the bare minimum to continue with my life, such as it is, is currently genuinely challenging.

To The People Who...

To the people who say "money can't buy you happiness" I want to explain to me exactly how you know that it can't. It seems like it's always said by people who either have no money at all or people who have some money, but still need to work, in one way or another, to ensure they have some degree of income. I've never heard it said by anyone who is rich enough that they don't have to worry about money. My theory is that happiness can be bought, but it's expensive and only the people who are "money is no object" rich can afford to buy it. Essentially I'm saying that people who think that happiness can't be bought are too poor to afford it and are just trying to kid themselves into thinking that the super rich are miserable too. Of course, I'm far too poor to buy happiness, however, I am more than willing to test my theory, I just need lots of people to donate me large sums of money, on a monthly basis, for the rest of my life... Anyone willing to help me become "money is no object" rich?... Anyone?... No?... I thought not.

Feeling Awful, AKA Another Self Indulgent Post

I'm struggling to remember the last time that I didn't feel awful in one way or another. If I'm not physically feeling awful then I'm feeling awful emotionally, if I'm not emotionally feeling awful then I'm feeling awful mentally and if I'm not mentally feeling awful then I feel like I'm an awful person. More often than not it's some sort of continually shifting combination of all four, previously mentioned, types of feeling awful. That's not to say that I don't have moments of happiness, as with most people, being in certain places, doing certain things, being around certain people will all make me happy to some extent, however, behind every other feeling is that general background awfulness and, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to make that awfulness go away.

You Just Can’t Sleep

It’s 1:30pm and so far you’ve spent the whole day feeling tired and drained. Your whole being craves the cosy comfort of your bed and the quiet oblivion of sleep, but you’re an adult, it’s only Tuesday and you’re stuck in the office until 5:30pm.

It’s later in the day, you’ve just got home from work and you’re even more tired, but you know that you’ve got things to do before you can settle in for the night. You take off your work clothes and put on a pair of shorts and an old baggy t-shirt, you exercise for 30 minutes. Once you’ve finished your set you shower, change into your pyjamas, re-heat and eat one of the meals you prepared for yourself over the weekend and go about your daily chores.

It gets dark out, it’s finally time for bed, you’ve been thinking about this moment all day, you go to loo, brush your teeth and walk back into your room. Your bed is in front of you, it looks cosy, and you are so very tired, you climb in, turn off the bedside lamp and snuggle down… BUT… you can’t switch off, your brain just won’t stop thinking, it’s not even thinking about anything important, and, to make matters worse, no matter how hard you try you just can’t get comfortable, every position you lie in causes a different part of your body to hurt.

An hour passes and you’re still awake, you’re tossing and turning, but you still can’t find a comfortable position. You try and distract yourself, you tell yourself silly little stories, you even try counting sheep but nothing is working, you’re uncomfortable and your brain is still whiring away to itself.

More time passes and you’re still awake, you finally have to admit that you just can’t sleep. You know tomorrow is going to be shit.

Is It Still Considered Vanity?

Is it still considered vanity if you want people to look at you even though you’re aware of the fact that you’re ugly as fuck? On a related thought, you’d think that growing up ugly on the outside would encourage you to be pretty on the inside, in my case, however, I’m potentially far uglier on the inside than my outward appearance could ever suggest.

Thursday Evening

Metal Hammer is my favourite magazine, these days it's more or less the only one I bother to read, it's certainly the only one that I read with any regularity. Unfortunately I find myself with increasingly less time to just sit and read, so when I do find the time I tend to pick up a book, rather than a magazine, and this often leads to me having a backlog of several months worth of issues. Tonight I'm going to try and at least partially rectify that, I've made myself a large pot of tea, broke out a couple of sweet, energy rich, treats, wrapped a cozy blanket around my shoulders and settled in for the night with the intention of reading at least one issue. I know I could just stop buying copies for a few months, but I also know that if people don't buy it then it will simply disappear, and I really don't want it to disappear, so I actually have a long standing, prepaid, subscription. I also know physical print, particularly when it comes to potentially wasteful, throw away products like magazines (please remember to recycle whenever possible), is a dying medium, but I just love the tactile experience, I'm a fairly tactile person, of holding and interacting with something. I know digital mediums are on the rise, and to a large extent I actually support this, but I just don't find myself able to engage with them in the same way as I do a physical product. I know this is something of a personal failing, I know that it's hypocritical, but unfortunately it's the way I am.

A Bit Of Comfort

When you’ve had a particularly shit day at work, and know that it’s only going to get worse over the next few weeks and maybe even forever, it’s impossible to over estimate the sheer peace of mind, and general comfort, that your favourite blanket, dark chocolate, strong spiced tea and an old book can bring. To be honest I barely even read any of the book, just the act of holding it and scanning my eyes over the words, along with that amazing old book smell, was a comfort in its self.

Why I Won't Work Late

Some people say I'm lucky because I have the type of job where I rarely stay late and I hardly ever have to bring work, physically at least, home with me. Unfortunately for me lucky isn't exactly how I'd describe my working situation.

The reason I rarely stay late isn't because the company I work for is a compassionate employer that values their employees and wants them to have a good work/life balance. The reason I rarely stay late is because the company I work for refuse to pay their employees overtime and don't show any appreciation, or even really acknowledge, when their staff go above and beyond for them.

The reason I don't physically bring work home with me isn't because my workload is manageable and my quarterly KPI's (key performance indicators) are generally achievable within normal working hours. The reason I don't bring work home with me is because, even though my KPI's are already quite difficult to achieve, when I do meet my targets, rather than rewarding me, they assume it means that my KPI values must be too low and adjust them to make them harder to meet for the next quarter.

The is also another, much bigger reason as to why I neither stay late nor bring work home with me and that is my wage. Although I am paid above minimum wage, my hourly rate is so low that, taking into account that the company refuse to pay overtime, it makes absolutely no sense for me to give up my own time for nobody but the companies benefit.

Simply put the company I work for doesn’t make it worth my while, in any way, shape or form, to work beyond my contracted hours.

Gaining Weight Is Easier Than You Think

It really wasn't until I'd spent a fair amount of time actually counting calories that it occurred to me just how ridiculously easy it is to go over your recommended daily intake. The average man needs to consume 2500 calories a day just to maintain his current weight, with the average woman needing somewhat less at 2000 calories. These numbers sound like a lot, but they're really not and making the wrong choices can quite easily leave you consuming more than half your daily intake in a single meal.

Let's put those numbers into some sort of perspective and think of what most people would consider an average, fairly healthy, day. Let's start at the beginning with breakfast:

You're having a bowl of porridge with a glass of fruit juice and a banana. Looking at an average pack of porridge oats your suggested serving is 40g porridge oats, 100ml semi skimmed milk and 1 tsp of honey, this would make roughly 210 calories, or 150ml, worth of porridge. Taking into account that the average breakfast bowl holds 440ml of food, this works out to be less than half a bowl. Scaling this up to make a full (ish) bowl of porridge you're looking more like 100g of porridge oats, 200ml semi skimmed milk and 2 tsp honey, giving you a serving of 490 calories. Add in a 250ml glass of fresh orange juice, at around 120 calories, and a small banana, at 90 calories, and you've already consumed 700 calories before you even left the house.

You arrive at work, at 8:30am, and the first thing you do is make a mug of coffee with milk and sugar, providing you with an additional 50 calories.

10:30am arrives and you pop to the loo and make a second coffee for another 50 calories.

Before you know it, it's 1:00pm, it's lunch time and your stomach is rumbling. By 1:10pm you're sitting in the canteen slurping a capri sun with a pleasantly full belly, and an empty lunch box, having just polished off a fairly reasonable lunch of a ham sandwich, a packet of cheese and onion, an apple, an orange and a muller light for a grand total of 660 calories (including the capri sun).

You sit and read a couple of news articles on your phone, you have a chat with Barry from accounting, 2:00pm comes around and you head back to the office with your 3rd, and final, mug of 50 calorie coffee.

It's been a long afternoon when 5:30pm finally rolls around, you're tired, you're hungry and you've got a 20 minute walk home before you get to eat. There's only one thing keeping you on the straight and narrow and that is you know there's a slow cooker full of home made bolognese waiting for you and all you'll need to do is boil a bit of pasta, toast a slice of garlic bread and serve it in your favourite bowl for a respectable 750 calories.
It's 7:00 pm and you've just finished the washing up, you've popped the kettle on to make a pot of tea and the biscuits are calling your name, you've been good, you've not snacked and you've even managed to get most of your 5 a day, a couple of chocolate digestives with your tea, coming in at a total of 220 calories, isn't going to break the scales.

You climb into bed, your alarm clock reads 10:00 pm, you contemplate how your diet is going and you come to the conclusion that you're doing really well right before you drift off to sleep.

So let's do the maths:

700 + 50 + 50 + 660 + 50 + 750 + 220 = 2480 calories in one day.

Now if you're a man this isn't actually too bad for a day, you've more or less broke even and, whilst you might not be losing weight, you're not gaining weight, however, if you're a woman this would be a bad day and it would only take a few days like this a week to find yourself putting on a stone in weight over a 6 month period. So for anyone who is trying to lose weight and is having any sort of success, believe me when I say that even the slowest of weight loss should be considered success, you are doing amazingly well and you deserve respect.

The Creative Craft Show: I Made A Bit Of A Rookie Error

I think I’ve made a bit of a rookie error, based on visiting other conventions and seeing the huge amount of different things they normally have on show, I’ve bought tickets to The Creative Craft Show in Birmingham next weekend. I’m now starting to wish I’d put more research into the convention before jumping in feet first and purchasing myself a ticket.

Last night I was sitting with a mug of tea, and a toasted cheese sandwich, I thought I’d take a more in depth look at what’s there and maybe even plan out what I’d like to see. With a name like The Creative Craft Show I was expecting there to be a real variety of things going on, lots of different of stalls to explore and some interesting displays and workshops. I was actually getting pretty excited and thought things like wood working, metal working, jewellery making, leather craft, pottery, baking, paper craft, sewing, knitting etc. would all have some sort of representation, unfortunately it seems I was mistaken. Having looked through the list of stall holders, and some of the workshops available, the whole show is more or less dedicated to sewing with a small amount of knitting and paper craft thrown in as an afterthought. There is literally nothing, or extremely little, available for anyone interested in the majority of crafts outside of sewing and this is extremely disappointing to say the least.

To be honest I can genuinely understand why they’ve chosen to call it the The Creative Craft Show, naming it what the show actually is, The Textile and Sewing Show, would severely limit it’s interest to the majority and would discourage a lot of people from attending. Even though I understand where they’re coming from I still feel that it’s a somewhat misleading and quite dishonest move by the organisers.

So I’ve Been Learning To Drive...

I've been having driving lessons off and on for the last few years and up until recently I've not had all that much success, however, about 4 months ago I got a new instructor and since then I feel like I've been making some really good progress, everything is starting to feel more natural, I'm making less mistakes and I'm even starting to feel confident when I'm on the road, a total lack of confidence being one of the main reasons that I've put off learning to drive for so long. That was up until Monday morning when I received a message from my driving instructor saying that he was going to have to cancel all lessons for the foreseeable future due to a medical issue and, whilst I do genuinely hope that he's ok and gets well soon, I'm now a little worried about what this means for me and the progress I've made. Learning to drive for me has been a long, expensive slog, I'm currently on my 8th driving instructor in 3 years and with most of them I feel like I ended up spending a small fortune, but having absolutely nothing to show for it. I'm not saying that they were bad instructors, though 1 of them had to stop teaching altogether after failing his ADI standards check, another was such a dick that I couldn't understand how he managed to retain any customers and another just stopped showing up after 4 lessons, just that for whatever reason I either couldn't get on with them on a personal level or that their teaching style just didn't work for me and I felt like I wasn't actually learning anything. Essentially it's taken me 3 years to find an instructor that I can get on with and who's teaching methods have enabled me to make any real progress. I don’t want to sit and wait for him to be back on his feet and start teaching again because that may never happen, he’s coming up to retirement age, he only works part time and he’s doing it more to stay active, and to physically get out of the house, than because actually needs the income. I don’t want to stop making progress, but my worry is that it's going to take me a long time, and who knows how much money wasted, to find another instructor that I get on with and, when I finally do, I'll be so out of practice that I end up having to start from scratch all over again.

Hideous Bridge Troll

I’ve been seeing a lot of good looking people online recently, and I’m not talking celebs or models etc. I’m seeing normal everyday folks, who happen to be pretty stunning, and I just don’t understand how there is so many of them. At first I thought that maybe I’m just imagining it, perhaps it’s down to the photos themselves, maybe the lighting happened to be particularly good or the angle just framed the face perfectly, but when I really thought about it that simply wasn’t true, I’d seen them in so many different situations, both indoors and outdoors, and from so many different angles that it couldn’t be the explanation. Then I thought that it was down to great photo editing, but I’ve seen dozens, if not hundreds, of them and it’s just not feasible for there to be that much photo editing talent about in the general public. After a lot of thought, a bit of soul searching, and maybe just a tiny bit of perving, I’m now certain that I’ve come to the truth of the matter, there’s genuinely a lot of attractive people out there and, by comparison at least, that essentially makes me some sort of confused, hideous bridge troll who thinks it’s a real person.