I nearly died and now everything seems pointless

I’m hoping everyone goes back to treating me normally. I’m embarrassed I caused a fuss. I don’t want people to ask me how I am or if I’m “better now”. Life was going … well it certainly wasn’t okay, but it was going.

At the same time, I can’t focus. I need to talk about this.

I woke up after my seizure in so much pain I wasn’t capable of thought, then spent the next agonising portion of my life barely concious covered in my own blood, shit and vomit on the bathroom floor yelling for help in a country I’ve never been to before with a language I don’t understand.

People don’t seem to understand that that changes things.

The next 24 hours in the hospital gave me a lot of time to think about how I came to that position and how I could ever avoid it again. Everything I do now seems pointless. Recently I had been questioning what my aim is in life and realised that all I wanted to be was happy. Shocker. So I started to think about what makes me happy and unhappy.

I wasn’t happy in my PhD and had constantly questioned why I was doing it (pro-tip: don’t do a PhD because you love a topic, you’ll spend >95% never actually looking at and doing admin and reports instead). I felt like I was wasting my time.

I wasn’t happy in my body and kept desperately trying to eat healthier, sleep better, exercise more etc. despite all the time constraints and restrictions life can throw. I felt like I was slowly killing myself.

I wasn’t happy in my relationship because I felt that all this narcissistic, self-pitying, “what am I doing with my life”-ing was dominating any conversation, killing any time we spent together and overriding any problems my partner may have had. I felt like a bitch.

Now I’m “back to normal” – these are things that need changing.

The problem is I feel trapped.

I’m stuck in this country for nearly 2 months. I’m stuck in this PhD for probably another 4-6 months until I call it quits (because I’m a scientist at heart and I can’t leave my samples). I want to love my PhD, I want to want to stick at it.

But the only thoughts I am having right now are those the doctors planted in my brain and my own twisted fears to never go to sleep in case it happens again.

“You were very lucky”
“Do you think anything’s broken?”
“Have you severed your tongue? I need to see your tongue”
“Do you remember choking or passing out?”
“Can you touch your nose? Say this back to me…”

I escaped broken bones, permanent disfiguration, brain damage and choking to death on my own blood and vomit.

I was very lucky.

Help.

There is a shadow on the back of my brain

And I don’t know what it is.

When I was a child I used to give it a name. As if making it somehow separate from me meant that anything I didn’t like that it made me think or do was not my fault. Something out of my control I didn’t have to worry about. Now even thinking about that name makes my stomach tighten and I feel the adrenaline move around my body.

I still call it “it”. As if that makes any difference.

I know it is part of me, I know it is me and I know I need to start referring to the thoughts and one-time actions as my own. I have, of course, painfully learnt that those types of thought I have are ones never to put into action.

So here is the realisation that some of the thoughts I have scare myself.

I am terrifying. I am powerful. I am strong and weak and fragile and alone and never alone. I feel like a contradiction. Brains are essentially computing machines that have been passively designed to ensure we pass on our genes. So why does it have to be so painfully complicated?

The problem is that the brain builds upon itself. Constantly re-writing, improving, refining. Sometimes I’ve thought that my base material is flawed. I have these thoughts and feelings because my brain is somehow broken at a fundamental level.

But I don’t think I believe that.

Children can suffer massive head injuries and brain trauma and have no long-term effects because their brain is in a state of complex development and just “builds” around it. If a brain were fundamentally flawed it would have corrected itself.

So what is my Hyde to my Jekyll?

What makes me so paranoid I cannot move position for fear? What makes me so angry I want to kill the ones I hold most dear to me? What makes me so cold I want to hurt people just out of curiosity or for seeing the hurt flash behind their eyes?

What makes me perfectly happy and fine and, yes, actually normal for 99.9% of the time?

Well, for both of them, my brain.

That fantastic, horrid thing that can adapt and re-write can change me from light to shadow in an instant. I don’t know what I can do about the shadow. But since it’s part of me I guess I have to accept it. I don’t know how I feel about this and, really, I don’t have a choice.

If your brain makes you you, you can’t be anything else.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. Normally I manage to figure something out. Normally my methodological training wins out, perks of being a scientist I guess.

But brains don’t really follow the laws of science, do they?

Hello me, it’s been a while.

Do you ever forget to think about you?

There’s so many things out there needing our time and attention, even the good things, the hobbies, friends, family, take time. But the weird thing is that whilst our brain is engaged keeping our lives on track, we’re not on track keeping our brain happy.

Sometimes everything has to stop.

I hit a point last week. I don’t know what caused it, but I couldn’t go on. It was like a line had been drawn. This was unexpected and it threw me – recently my life has been on the up: I managed to find a job, one that I’m enjoying, I was accepted on a PhD, one that I think I’ll enjoy, and I’ve been spending a bit of time with my partner whenever I can. So what happened?

I just sat there thinking “I thought I was ok”

And I worried about myself, and moped, and felt sorry, and mostly just thought “I thought I was doing better, what happened? Will I never be happy?” Which is frankly bollocks.

What had happened was my brain just needed a bit of tlc. Even having fun is hard work for the brain. I hadn’t sat down and just let my thoughts wander, let my background noise of emotions and fears come to the fore. I had ignored the part of me that makes me me.

Good news – the brain is nothing if not changeable.

I realised I just needed some off time, whereas before I would have fallen into a spiral of self-doubt decreasing my confidence, ]ridiculing my hopes, despairing of my abilities, doubting myself further.

Not everything is a sign of going wrong.

Maybe  this mental line drawing could even be seen as a good thing – like the ache in your muscles after a good day’s hard work. It’s my body’s way of saying “Well done, you’ve done a lot, I need to rest now”. But since the brain doesn’t ache I guess in the past I’ve found it harder to tell and have confused by brain needing a rest with my brain slipping away from me again.

So it’s been a while since I thought about my brain, which is strange, because that’s all there is to me.

Separate Brain, Separate Lives

I need to think something through. Something I did that I’m not sure if it was right or wrong. The fact that I don’t want to say it means I know it was wrong. Because I want to hide it. Because I have to.

I’m engaged and I spent “an evening” with another guy.

I kept saying no but acting yes like there were two parts of me and I didn’t know which to go with. I eventually told him to leave and he did, but it went further than I wanted. Or did it? What was that other part of me that wanted to throw caution to the wind and go ahead and embrace life and dam the consequences? The part that kept going. Is that what that part of me truly wanted to do?

I don’t think it was.

I think that part of me was grateful. Just so grateful that there was someone else. That I wasn’t lonely and that I was wanted. Another warm, living human being next to me. If I could all I would have asked was to fall asleep in his arms or just knowing he was there. Is longing to feel wanted, to feel connected to another person, such a bad thing?

I don’t think so.

What I think was bad, and what I’m going to make sure I don’t do in the future, is let that part of me be deluded. I didn’t want him, I wanted anyone. I didn’t want to do that, I just wanted something. I could have set out the lines and the first time I said no I could have stuck with it. But I didn’t because it felt good to just be with another human being. I should have found another way.

And now I’m stuck, in a position I hate, dishonest, cheating.

I love my partner. A lot of people will hate me for what I’ve done and I don’t blame them. I hate myself, but I’m trying to understand why I did it. And I think it was because I was lonely and just appreciated another person being there. They wanted the intimacy and I went along with it, even though I said “no” and “don’t” and “stop” – I couldn’t even convince myself so no wonder he kept going.

There’s two parts to me.

There’s the part of me that’s lonely and will relish in any attention and desperately seeks to make any connection with a human being, and there’s the part that loves my partner and knows right from wrong and should have put that first part of me in check. And didn’t. And now feels terrible. And needs to work in the future. So what if I’m desperately lonely? That is no excuse.

And there’s two parts to my life.

The part where I barely see another human for weeks at a time, where I go to a cafe and eat a meal I can barely afford just to feel like I’m out in the world and normal. Even my job, the only one I can currently get, a few hours an evening a few days a week, driving on my own with the radio as company, making boxes in silence surrounded by people whose languages I don’t understand, dropping off deliveries for people who see the box, not me, for the 10 seconds I’m at their door. Sitting at home pretending I’m ok, keeping my head in my job applications, laughing at my “friends” on YouTube, finding solace in their lives because it’s like they’re talking to me. This part is that bit I need to improve so that I don’t feel the need to do this again.

And then there’s the part of my life with my partner. The sunlit days where nothing can hurt me and I’m just content and happy. The few, very few, very far apart days.

This can’t happen again. But it’s just a symptom of a bigger problem. One I have been shocked into realising I have. And I need to treat it.

The future’s bright, the future’s … well, going to happen at any rate

Ok, so it’s been a bit heavy recently over here in my brain space. You may have noticed.

I’ve been lonely, scared, paranoid about my memory or occasionally questionable sanity. I’ve had job rejections, PhD rejections, long shifts delivering pizza leaving little time to get the rest of my job and PhD applications done. And I’ve been shattered. No matter if I give myself 6, 7, 8, 9 hours sleep – truly knackered from eyes open to close.

But I’m actually a little bit optimistic.

And I’m, by now, pretty wary of being hopeful for the future. This seems a bit sad and pitiable to me, but there’s only so many times you can fall in love with a job, spend weeks applying for it waiting, then further months preparing for tasks and interviews and waiting and waiting, all the while hoping that this one will be the way out of this stale-mate, this one will enable me to get on with my life, this one will be a yes. Only for it to be a no.

So hope is not my friend.

Hope makes me care, makes me feel bad. Hope offers cookies then snatches them away and stabs me in the back. The thoughts set in: I’m worthless, I’ll never get out of this, I’ll never get a job, I need to resign myself to being pointless, I’m such a burden on everyone who loves me, how could anyone love me. An all too familiar cycle.

Is agonising over loss a trait I have?

Well, looking back over it, yes. I have a strong memory of lying awake at night, crying with worry, wondering whether my life would ever be the same again – because one of my best friends at school had randomly stopped talking to me. For a day. At the age of 10. This, to put not too fine a point on it, stressed me out.

But it was fine. We’re still good if geographically distant friends now. No panic was necessary.

And my mum never ceases to remind me when times get tough, when it came to choosing which subjects to keep at school and which to ditch, I had the same problem. “It would affect the whole future of my life! Doors would be closed to me forever!” Well, it didn’t. I chose what I enjoyed the most and found the most interesting, with a little bit of stuff-I-knew-I-had-to-do-but-didn’t-especially-want-to thrown in.

It was fine. I loved my GCSEs, A-levels, degree and Masters. No panic was necessary.

It seems, then, that getting stressed and obsessive and hyper-analytical and morbidly pessimistic is just a character trait I have, and have always had, and it’s always got the better of me in times of uncertainty and transition. Certainly I’m normally happy as Larry when things are routine and going swimmingly.

I need to recognise this is part of me.

I also need to recognise that it doesn’t help. Me staying awake getting worked up isn’t in any way going to affect anything, especially not for the better. So I need to realise when I’m feeling like this, and try to stop.

So how do I do that?

I don’t know yet. I’m working it out. Maybe by realising that I won’t be stuck forever, no matter how much it feels like it. Ask myself if in 1 or 2 or 5 years time, will I a) still be stressed about this? And b) even think it was worth being stressed about at the time? If the answer to either is no, then I’ll be fine. Maybe by writing down what my problem is, then writing down what I’m already doing to solve it, then feeling better because I’m already doing what I can or identifying what I can do to help and doing that. I’ll be fine.

So there is a little bit of hope. That no matter how daunting and scary and impossible everything seems now. Now is only a little bit of time. It’ll pass. I’ll be fine.

Knife edge of mind and memory

Which would you prefer? Or rather, hate the least? Losing your mind or your memory?

I know, somehow, somewhere inside, that I have a threshold. A tipping point, a breaking point. I know that the love I feel for my partner is not indestructible and that at some time in the future I may pass a point where there is no feeling. When I wouldn’t run to them. I know there will be a point in my life where I truly give up. Not on my dreams and hopes and ambitions, but on me. The inside me. Me who I am to myself.

And I don’t know what will trigger it, or if, or when.

It’s that constant feeling in the pit of my stomach knowing that I will, and that constant thought in the back of my head wondering when. It’s terrifying. I don’t expect my family, my friends, my partner to understand why I sometimes seem to find it hard to take a relationship seriously and want to continue with it. The amount of times I’ve nearly broken up with my partner is probably close to the amount of times I’ve spent in their company. And it’s not their fault. I love so many things about them in so many ways.

It’s not that I find it hard to love them. I find it hard to love them knowing that one day I might not, and I may not even know why.

And if my mind doesn’t go, I know my memory will. And that’s also terrifying. I’m solidly in the young adult bracket, yet over the last few years I know my memory has become markedly worse. And I don’t mean in the “I’m so bad at keeping organised” way. In fact, a lot of effort and bombproof organisational skills are what has held my life together so long. Organisation and a solid daily routine helps keep everyday life ticking, but it can’t make a person.

You know, I don’t remember holidays with my partner. Our “firsts”. Or when they proposed.

3 years ago? I don’t even know when.

I know it hurts them that I don’t remember. It’s not because I don’t love them. These memories that make the building blocks and happiest days of my life are composed of no more than the photographs that were taken and the words I have heard them say recalling it. I have no actual personal memory of them.

This makes me paranoid.

I second-guess my every action. Every small thing, such as just putting my keys down in a different place and not being able to find them again, or forgetting to re-mark on my laminated map where I parked my car and having to walk for half an hour in increasing circles in the rain until I find it again then turning up late for work with “I forgot where I parked my car”. I forget to do the things that make me remember. These things I over-analyse: is it my memory continuing to go? Is this the start or the down-ward spiral?

What else in my past have I lost today? What can’t I remember? What experiences will never come back to me?

I constantly feel like I’m on a knife edge between losing my mind or losing my memory. A black abyss on each side there’s no climbing out of. And I’m always, always scared. And I don’t know when I’ll be pushed off that edge. If our past and our feelings and our experiences make up who we are, what happens when they are gone?

And again, deep down, I know that anyone who stands in my way of keeping myself me, or could push me off that edge, I will leave. It would hurt me, but I’m a coward. I’m not the sacrificial type. I will cling to whatever mind and memory I have left with every last shred of mental and physical strength I possess, no matter who gets hurt in the process. It’s cold, brutal and I scare myself. But that’s the truth. Maybe that’s the tipping point. I don’t know.

I feel like I could just slip away. I don’t know when.

Is my brain ok?

I have a bit of a cold. I’m a bit sniffly, I wake up feeling a bit nauseous, bit lethargic. But I’m not ill. This isn’t something that’s affecting my life, I don’t even need anything for a headache. It just takes me a bit longer to do things. No one stresses, everyone understands when you say “yeh I feel like I’ve just got a bit of a cold today” because we’ve all been there, so please excuse me always reaching for the tissues. I also sprained my ankle a few days ago, I couldn’t walk on it for a day, it swelled up, it hurt, but it was fine. Again, not a big deal, just one that people need to have a bit of consideration for when I couldn’t walk as fast.

So why is it that when it comes to the health of your brain, as opposed to any other organ or your holistic self, is it so black and white?

It’s black and white in terms of analysis. I feel like these days you’re either anxious or not, depressed or not, a problem or not, mentally ill or not. I’m not mentally ill by any clinical standard. I have days I can’t open the shutters because there’s a big world out there and it’s scary and I feel I have no place in it. But that’s 1 day in 100. I have times I cry and feel like all my emotions have been scooped out and I’m worthless and never going to achieve and maybe everyone in my life would be better off without me. But that’s 1 day in 100. And I’m lucky with this. In the long run, it doesn’t bother me because I know there’s the good days in buckets. But that doesn’t mean I’m always mentally 100% and fine and happy.

Why is it so accepted to be physically unwell – “a bit blue”, “off your game”, “off colour” – but not mentally?

Sometimes I have a brain cold. There’s no other way I can think to describe it. Colds are so acceptable, medically and to others, as just feeling a bit bleh. So when I have a few days mentally feeling a bit bleh, I’m not clinically depressed and I’m not attention seeking. And I’m certainly not wanting to dilute the severity of actual, long-term mental illnesses.

The attitude I seem to get from people is completely polarised. Either they start treating me like I’m about to jump off a cliff and urge me to go see a doctor, blind and deaf to me trying to explain. Or I get people ranting about how “everyone has to have something wrong these days” and “there are people out there who have a serious mental illness, you know”.

Yes, I do.

I can’t ever say “sorry I’m feeling a bit unwell mentally” because I’ll be attacked from all fronts. What I’m trying to say is that, sometimes, like a physical illness, it’s a gradient. I didn’t sprain my ankle and instantly go from fine to hospital, and I also didn’t sprain it to seek attention or lessen how terrible it is to have a broken leg.

I’ve just got a brain bug.

For me it’ll pass. Like anything else.

But facing these two extreme reactions makes me feel that I can’t say to someone that I’m feeling mentally under the weather. I can’t open up about how I’m feeling “in myself”. That my feelings at the moment somehow aren’t legitimate. I start using what they say against myself as well, thinking that I shouldn’t be how I am – not a good idea. And I think it affects a lot of other people and I’d like to know how many suffer from the exact same situation as me. You aren’t a bad person for feeling a bit depressed, a bit anxious, a bit lonely, a bit paranoid. It’s not bad to feel a bit unwell. Mentally or physically.

I’m not mentally ill. Just, sometimes, I’m not mentally ok.

Nice brain and nasty brain

My brain is great. It tells me everything I need to do to be happy, to be healthy, to be successful.

My brain is also a dick. Because it also tells me to do things that make me, in the long run, unhappy, unhealthy, and feel like a failure.

I’m fed up being stabbed in the back by my own thoughts.

I, like many of you I’m sure, am trying to lose weight, get fitter, healthier. I want to be free of health worries, give myself the best chance of a long life, run around with my family, friends, fiancé, kids – be able to take whatever life will throw at me. I’m trying to learn a new language, and have been for a while, which I greatly enjoy doing but spend so little time doing. I want to make videos and bake things and have a great career. Or at least pick my clothes off the floor and wash up the plates. So why can’t I? I know what I need to do. Why don’t I do it?

Accountability.

If I have someone coming over, the flat will look lovely. If I’m cooking for someone, you can bet it’s not going to be my everyday “on toast” range. If I need to hand in some work to my boss, it will be done on time. If I’m going on holiday to Italy (oh I wish), my Italian would come on in leaps and bounds. But anything where there’s only me and my brain to make me stick at it, I fail. “No treadmill today, my ankle’s still a bit stiff, I feel a bit sniffly, I’ve got that application to work on, I read too late last night and didn’t get up early enough” etc etc etc.

Do we only perform well when people are watching? Will I only work if someone else recognises it? Are we so trained that an action is only worthy if praise instantly follows?

Well, no. At least I’d like to think I’m not like that. I hope not, but it does play a big part in stomping down the dick brain. If others’ voices are reinforcing what I want to do, what I feel, what I think, of course I’m going to feel better about what I’m doing and carry on doing it. And that’s ok. It’s not self-glorifying, just natural that we want to fit in with the pack, feel like what we are doing is right, feel encouraged. And without that, when it’s all up to you on your own, the voice that says “not today, why bother?” can be the loudest one.

So resolution number 1: Recognise dick brain and stop listening to it.

Resolution number 2: Recognise awesome-friendly-wants-everything-for-you brain and do what it chuffing well says!

Happiness and health are worth it. And it’s still fine to have the occasional Jaffa cake. Because treats are ok, when they feel like a treat and I’m not just filling a void.

Plan commencing.

My brain writes through me

Do you sometimes find you don’t know something until you say it? And it surprises you. Like when an idea leaps out of your mouth and all you can think is “where did that come from? Dam it me, you’re so smart!” Please say it’s not just me.

I am in awe of me. I am in awe of you. Literally in comtemplating-the-universe-style awe.

Here you sit (presumably), looking, hearing, thinking, feeling, reading, digesting, breathing, maintaining a steady heart beat, adjusting your eyes to take in the brightness of your computer screen, processing the shapes of the letters that make the sounds you were taught to make to form the words with the meanings you were taught they had, stringing them together, hearing their colour, seeing their sound, listening to their emotion, reflecting with your own words spoken inside your own head, making your own ideas in response and playing them together with the ideas I am giving to you in some great mental orchestration. And possibly even dunking a biscuit into tea at the same time!

I mean that’s real talent.

And because sometimes it feels like my brain has more waves than the water on this world it can get confused. Thoughts never fully form or travel to where they have to go, important things get cut off half way, wires get crossed, some thoughts turn up late, or never happen at all, or hit the wrong button to release the wrong chemical at the wrong time. It’s an organisational nightmare.

So I write what my brain needs to think.

I write the thought it’s trying to focus on at that specific time. Maybe if I write it out the thought won’t get away and my brain won’t get distracted (ooh maltesers) before I’m through thinking about the important stuff. Like how it’s stupid to spend my energy and my evening worrying about my PhD application instead of getting on with it and ultimately stopping the worry sooner.

And that is why my brain needs to speak.

So it can sort me out, tell me what I need to do and I can then go and get on with it. It’s only recently I’ve started to take the time to listen. It’s surprising what wisdom and common sense is in there when I stop panicking and calm down and learn how to listen. I still ignore it sometimes in the heat of the moment and the argument and follow whatever thought has managed to route itself through to the speech-centers of my brain, correctly or otherwise. But I sit and think, later. I listen then, when the tempest dies down. I think I’m getting better. I can cut my brain a little slack when it doesn’t provide me with what I need exactly when I need it to make my life perfect (like when you say something daft in front of your boss), but it’s got a lot on its plate, and I’m now realising that vast store of knowledge and wisdom and guidance I’m looking for is actually already here if I’m willing to take the time to listen – to think.

My brain has a job I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Why I cry and why it’s not a problem

Sometimes I cry reading a book, watching TV, making dinner, in the shower, just sat there in my head living my life. No reason.

And sometimes I want to cry; I’m angry, frustrated, worried, lonely, resentful, hurt. And I can’t. My body will give me no release. Blind anger. No reason.

Am I pulling an Amy Pond, crying for someone I lost even though I never met them? Maybe it’s just my emotions are scatty, or I ate some bad cheese, or I should stop watching those movies, or need more or less sleep, or just to get a ruddy grip. Come on now.

I honestly have no idea.

The brain is so complex it makes us feel basic emotions, fear, sadness, anger, in unconscious response to something we don’t consciously know. I’m not threatened. I’m in a lovely, if horrendously untidy room, with a jaffa cake, in a moon chair (myself, not the jaffa cake) next to a warm radiator. Unless my brain is upset over the sheer imbalance of clothing on the floor compared to the wardrobe (which is entirely possible), or some grey-matter corner has gotten itself worked up about some random event from 10 years ago that I don’t realise I remember in the same way you know you know something but don’t know it – like that name on the tip of your tongue – I have no idea what I could be so upset about right now.

Am I upset though? No, just crying.

Is that in itself a problem? Well, as long as I keep hydrated and a pack of tissues handy, again, no.

Maybe the emotions I feel and the emotional responses I display are not always connected. This gives me a certain control over how I think about it. I now know that I’m not upset, I’m just crying, so I don’t have to worry about the reason I’m crying and why I’m apparently so sad when I thought I was doing ok. And if I am upset and I’m not crying it doesn’t make me less upset or less justifiably so.

I wonder if it can go the same way for happiness as well?

Sometimes I watch a very funny video and don’t laugh. Sometimes I laugh at the weirdest things I wouldn’t ordinarily find amusing. So just because I’m not smiling 24/7 and jumping around singing like I’m in a teen musical doesn’t mean I’m not happy. Even if something throws me off has it affected my actual feelings? Or just the physical display of my feelings to myself and others?

Maybe I’m happier than I think, I just need to take the time to realise it.