mostly david ephgrave

I don't have the mental energy to write at the moment as recording my current situation is overwhelmingly repetitive and negative, and attempting anything comedic feels forced. It's been like this all year to an extent, although it worsened recently. I've been treading water, which I hate. Work has been stripped back to the bare bones and is mostly too much to contemplate. Meanwhile, negative events in my life are being reframed and debased, while my acts of support and forgiveness are forgotten. And I'm trying to navigate a situation I think anyone would struggle with, let alone when they're prone to mental illness. Perhaps the most commonly recurring lesson from therapy is you can't change the way other people act so much as how you respond to their actions, which I think is true. But, my God, that theory's being tested at the moment. Patience is the key, but it's devastating when the penny drops that you'll never be able to reason with th...

Before Thursday, I'd only been stung by a single wasp my whole life. By the end of that day, my wasp-sting tally increased by 300% and one of the culprits was dead at the time; if these trends continue, I'll wind up looking like that pin-cushiony chap in Hellraiser. "But how did a dead wasp sting you?", I hear you ask (your voice a-quiver with intrigue). By leaning on it; that's how. Despite knowing it was there and being mindful of its position throughout my conversation and the perceived threat, I still managed to rest my arm on its mangled corpse to receive its beyond-the-grave vengeance. And I won't lie: it bloody hurt. The scene of the crime was a pub-garden picnic table, and my one mistake was wearing short sleeves. Within seconds of the second squishing - my friend Stephen was the initial culprit what with his deep-seated hatred of flying beasts - my arm began to throb, and that's how an ignorant thirty-something learnt the stinging pot...

I finally received some good news today: my mental health benefits adviser - we've all got one - had a call from the DWP to say my PIP is being reinstated without appeal: apparently, pointing out their inability to count the number of people in the room at my interview worked. While I'm relieved it's set to return, I'm frustrated by the stress they've put me through when trying to prove myself, not to mention the money I'd been previously counted on that was suddenly taken away. There was absolutely no sense of being mindful about my delicate mental health situation and how it could be affected; if it weren't for the strong support I have from the benefits advisor aI would have given up around two steps back. And that's the most galling part of it: how hopeful they were that you'll just stop trying. There are countless stories in the press of people suffering from physical disabilities that are even more obvious who've been refused PIP too; i...

It's only over the past few days that the fact I'm not in Edinburgh has started to tug at the heartstrings. It doesn't help that everything's resoundingly shit at the moment and that's no understatement; so much so, the fact I had to cancel my Fringe run having shelled out thousands of pound's worth of donations and Dad's/my money for no reason has become a minor footnote to my terrible situation; at any other time, this last-minute change of plans and what it stood for - being forced to abandon a year of work - would be the overriding event, but here it's barely significant. When this eventually stops being something I feel forced to keep to myself, I might at least have the relief that comes with understanding; I had every intention of still going to Edinburgh right up to a few days before when someone's actions were such I felt I no longer had a choice. And they're yet to even acknowledge I didn't go, which says a lot by omission....

I've had this bonus track from Paul McCartney's most recent studio album Egypt Station as an earworm for much of the past few weeks whether I like it or not. Luckily, I do like it; it's typical quirky Macca of the type no-one else does and it's always great to hear; I like it when he fucks about to entertain himself not worrying what people think. And while albums like McCartney II - which this song's reminiscent of - contain some of his most questionable material of all time (*cough* Frozen Jap *cough*) it's still always good to see him experiment and entertain himself. Once again, it serves to reiterate how surprisingly left-field he can be when left to his own devices, something that doesn't match up with the boring cliche of the sentimental balladeer. It's probably why I loved his Fireman album Electric Arguments so much as it just bristled with invention. And okay, this song's just a silly throwaway, but I can't help but like it. It may...

I'm not having the best of times at the moment, as is evidenced by the radio silence, but it's fair to say that people's kindness has helped. The nature of things right now is such that when I just checked my email to see the guy I sold my dad's electric bike via GumTree (solely to raise money for Edinburgh) is still having problems with it so I'll need to refund the balance (thus lessening what's now been repurposed as the Edinburgh cancellation fund) I wasn't surprised, though at the same time I felt a little bit like pulling my hair out; the issue with the bike was entirely unintentional on my part, which he knows, but that doesn't mean I can leave it at that; when I'm down on money I still to pay for my cancellation my cancelled Edinburgh run anyway, it's a situation - albeit a totally unavoidable one - I could do without. But then I could do without it all at the moment. I'm still trying to process the loss of my dad and the fact I ...

Today I received a burst of pure unconditional support from a source I would never have expected it from a few years back, and it was so generous and illustrative of what I've not been getting it made me cry. What it reminded me was that there's always the option of kindness and that anyone who's so insistent on you fulfilling certain expectations to receive it without applying the same rulebook to themselves will only let you down. If someone finds new ways to astound and upset you with alarming regularity, then you've already been warned. And the reason you didn't get the message was it should go without saying, and if you have to say it then it's best to not expect anything else. The point I'm learning is I've never been respected from certain quarters and if the current context wasn't enough to make them instinctively lend a hand, they never will. Their hold over everything is more vital than anyone else's, regardless of whether thei...