Skip to main content

Balancing Act.

I'm struggling with dark thoughts at the moment; a familiar territory reinstated by my circumstances.

The best way to manage difficult emotions is to approach them kindly and without judgment. Being hard on yourself for being hard on yourself is counterproductive. The physio I see for my vestibular migraines uses the analogy of keeping a glass topped up to prevent my vertigo attacks; if tiredness, stress or caffeine trigger symptoms, the trick is to minimise exposure to reduce the chance of it.

With depression, that's more difficult, as with recovery from emotional abuse. You may have strategies in place to combat it, but when the problem's less tangible, it can be harder to identify the triggers, and therefore easier to blame yourself. And, like anything, the tools might not always work, particularly when you're challenged considerably. And if it's severe, you somehow have to keep yourself safe, which can be very hard when you're in a pit.

The other day it was my dad's birthday, which inevitably made me feel vulnerable. There's an unfillable hole in the planet since he left it. His presence also kept my mum's expectations more in check. She always was demanding, but the more time she spends away from his company, the more impenetrable she gets. Her inability to hear beyond your first few words when she's angry and her reinvention of the past make unpleasant bedfellows. She'll happily shift past events around until she's blameless.

I know losing both parents in different ways has made my low mood more prevalent. The fact my mum's prepared to make my financial situation worse in the knowledge it was already tested (and a trigger itself) and when she could have shown more kindness feels awful too. But that's her choice. I'm just frightened by how often these things threaten to overwhelm me. I want a future that isn't compromised by my past. I regularly find myself trying to steady my balance on a tightrope. And when you stumble, the risk of falling's all too real. It only takes one misstep.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...