mostly david ephgrave

The other day, I dreamt about my dad, who passed away a little over two years ago. These dreams don't happen too often, but when they do, it can be difficult. It wasn't until I woke up that I remembered he was gone. In it, I'd bumped into him in a shop like Wilkinson, where he was browsing with a friend. I was in a bit of a hurry so it was more of a quick hello than anything. I may even have been a little brusque because I needed to get away. It was as I'd left the shop that I remembered there was something important I needed to tell him, but on turning back, I found I could barely lift my legs. The more I tried, the less I moved. I knew if I didn't hurry, he'd be gone, but it made no difference. It was like swimming against the tide. When I woke up, sadness hit me. The mundanity of the situation in the dream was bittersweet. I felt guilty for being irritable even though it wasn't real. It's not hard to decipher the meaning of my jelly legs. The prison o...

Today was my aunt's funeral. The first word that springs to mind when I think of her is "kind". She loved her family to bits and they doted on her. She married my dad's brother in 1965 and it was clear they loved each other inside out. And even though I saw her less as the years went by, she always made me feel at ease at family events. And as the woman who's put up with a male Ephgrave the longest, statistically speaking, she deserved a medal (he says in jest). The service itself was lovely. She'd played an active part in its planning, which made it feel more intimate. COVID restrictions meant only thirty people could be there, which must sting, but I was glad to be among them. And it was good to see my uncle and my cousins even if it was in the worst circumstances; it always strikes me how the Ephgraves have a look and sound about them, with shades of my nan and grandfather - and of course my dad - on every face. Inevitably, my thoughts turned to him today. ...

If there's one thing that brings me joy, it's watching my dog shoot around the garden. It's simple, uncluttered enjoyment for him and me. As a breed with poor recall, I never let him off the lead on a walk, but in the garden, he's free. He zips about like a nutter while I chase him, and by the time he's reached his limit, if you stand by him, you can literally hear his heart beating; it can't be healthy. The fact my dad loved seeing it too adds to the moment. The first time I brought Elwood over, he demonstrated his version of warp speed to my dad's delight. "You couldn't have a better dog" was how he put it, and Elwood's long since proved him right; he's a shaft of pure sunlight bursting past the bad bits. I'm writing this in the garden as we speak, watching Elwood sniff the air on a windswept day. Behind him, the only daffodil to break through the earth yawns open like a tiny, floral firework. The fact there's just one is appr...

I'm forty in three months and very conscious of all the negative self-talk I still do. And I'm worried that if I don't address this habit soon, it will start to define me (if it hasn't already). That may sound melodramatic, but it's meant sincerely. The fug of depression frequently slows me down and affects my sense of self-worth. I work on this with therapy and meditation, but the recent fallout from a difficult familial relationship that I had little control over knocked me sideways while  filling me with enough projected responsibility  to feel like I'm rebuilding from scratch. Add my dad's death to this - along with the financial implications of my mum's unyielding approach - and it's like I'm running on empty.  I can't help but compare what my parents were doing at my age. When I was born, my mum and dad were 35 and 34 respectively and had been married for nearly thirteen years so they had time on their side to have a baby (though they w...

I'm struggling to process the loss of both parents; one to cancer and the other to end a cycle of emotional abuse. My nerves feel utterly shot. The past year saw my relationship with my mum unravel through being built on unsteady ground. Whenever her expectations tested my boundaries, I still did my best to meet them. Some of my earliest memories are the lies she made me tell - to hide four affairs from my dad when I was a child, right up to her secretly getting married seven months before he died, yet refusing to tell him, and insisting I lie about that too. And though it wasn't fair to repeatedly put me in this position, I met her terms, because I loved her.  I was a witness at the wedding to show forgiveness to the two people who'd made my childhood so traumatic, yet within months, I was accused of homophobia by a solicitor my mum refused to correct. And she walked off from my dad's burial, seconds after I'd lowered his ashes into the grave, disappearing a...

I lost my dad a year ago today; I don't know where the time's gone. He's never far from my mind though. And nothing I do could have happened without him. Because, as he once poetically put it, "You can't even wipe your own arse".  I'm inevitably feeling a little fragile. There's a dull, heavy ache in my body and the need to take things gently. Anniversaries seldom hold much weight for me as I know the date's arbitrary, but this one's a little different as it marks the first year gone. The first full cycle. And that's not easy to consider, however matter-of-fact I try to be. I visited the cemetery today where he's buried, as I often do, and took my dog with me. It was probably due to the hot weather more than anything, but when we arrived at the grave, my dog sat down at the foot of it and made himself comfortable, chewing the grass. It seemed like a good idea, so I joined him (minus the grass bit). We sat there together, by m...

It's fair to say we're living through a difficult time, and while it's hard to know what's ahead, it worth taking the opportunity to take stock of where we're lucky. I know I couldn't manage without my wife, and how fortunate I am to have her. We've been together for fifteen years and married for a little under six, and she's my most ardent supporter. Being with me isn't straightforward and comes with its challenges, but she stands up to them and makes things better. If I hadn't had her to help me through the mental health mess I was in when we met, I wouldn't still be here today. I know I wouldn't. And that comes with a lot of pressure, but she's still with me (the fool) and, despite it all, we still have a lot of fun. And while it may be soppy, I'm grateful for our dog. He brings a spark to my day and fills it with energy and positivity. He came from Wood Green Animal Shelter a little over a year ago and is a perfect fi...

I'm navigating a situation at the moment that threatens to overwhelm me if I'm not careful.  (Thankfully, I have support, and I'm approaching things mindfully, but it takes a lot of careful management to keep my panic at bay...except I shouldn't have to do that.) To make matters worse, the other party's never careful. If they feel wronged, they lash out. And they feel wronged always. That's not hyperbole; if anything, I underplay it. And in their world, a lie's as good as the truth if it has the desired effect. And what's the difference? Now's the only reality and everything else is projection. And nothing is sacred if it strengthens their point. (With that mentality, years of abusive behaviour can be dismissed in a few seconds, because it didn't affect them negatively; not for me though as I lived through it with awareness.) Yesterday was a struggle. More than once, I felt on the verge of giving up. At one point, I looked at one of...

There's a lot to be said for those little moments of laughter and support that intersperse the pain of reframing my life with a better understanding of my mistreatment. It's easy to focus on the negative and let it overwhelm you. And at the moment, the bad stuff's easily found. But I'm also adjusting to the realisation that the worst things I experienced weren't my fault. Genuinely. It was all part of a coercive situation I had no control over despite trying my best. Yesterday, I had a chat with my aunt to fill her in on the many twists and turns since my dad's burial (when we last spoke) as I tried to protect my dad's house. And it was a relief to find - amid the inevitably incredulous reaction - time to laugh at how stupid it all was and point out the transparently obvious motivation with all its requisite double-standards. Because she and my dad's brother can see what's happening. There was also time to chat about other unrelated things t...

I'm currently suffering a real disillusionment with life, particularly from a career perspective, that's making it near-impossible to focus on what to do next. As I've already intimated, personal problems connected to the loss of my dad play a large part in this sense of frozen momentum. One thing my standard response to depression illustrates is my tendency to approach difficulty with energy and action, mostly creatively - even this blog started life as an exercise to assist my mental health - but even that's been overwhelmed by current circumstances; I think cancelling Edinburgh was the final straw as it struck from the diary my focus at a cost far more expensive than my turnover for the past two years combined. (And that's without factoring in the damage to my confidence and morale.) As it stands, I don't know how to pick myself up again. I've borne-witness to the assassination of things that mattered most to me by someone I thought knew bett...

I don't feel much momentum at the moment; everything's at a standstill. When I did the only preview that went ahead this year, I found energy I hadn't expected that drove the show along and made me feel I could still do Edinburgh, despite  the inevitable impact of the loss of my dad and the circumstances around it ; that, plus the money donated, showed I had support from an unseen audience. However, the project was inevitably on a knife-edge and still vulnerable to collapse; it was a delicate balance susceptible to sabotage from extra pressure. And that's what happened: I hit a familiar brick wall. The inability to strike a temporary compromise with a close relative over my dad's estate made me feel unable to leave home for a month with everything in flux, so I cancelled the run with a few days' notice at a cost of over £6000. And not only did the relative never mention the cancellation or the fact I was meant to be doing Edinburgh at all  until a ...

I'm trying to find a little pocket of calm in a difficult time of change. It isn't easy. I have to accept I won't be able to reason with the person at the root of it because they're in denial. So I have to come to terms with their behaviour again. I now know this was inevitable, but it's still upsetting, particularly when I consider how quickly they apparently decided to abandon me for good. I miss my dad: the other day, I had a crisis and my first thought was to ring him for advice, then I remembered a beat later this wasn't possible. Coming to terms with the fact the conversation's over is such a horrible part of grief; I get out of a friend's car at the same spot he used to drop me off at and he's on my mind; I reach the end of a pack of coffee filters I bought when he was still alive and have the morbid thought that he went first. The other night I had a dream about him, and it was only the next day that I realised it wasn't the f...

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...

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 some difficult things to deal with in my lifetime, mostly at the hands of the same person, which are being compounded in a way I just don't know how to navigate. The problem is I can't say anything without them laying the blame back in my direction; their instinctive response is to compete: "But what about me ?". It's a mantra I was hearing long before I realised they were abusing their position, yet despite the fact they experienced similar things when they were younger, they won't link it. I worked hard to fight the demons left by their treatment ( "How can you say that?") and kept secrets that weren't mine to keep ("But I'm your --- "). The first eighteen years of my life were a vortex of toxic stress, confusion and fear ("How can you put this in public? It's embarrassing") but because of they were in a position of authority with a duty of care I thought it was my fault or saw myself as the gl...

My mood's not particularly bright at the moment, which is not surprising considering what's been happening in my life recently. I'm feeling pretty defeated; there's so much to do and I don't want to do any of it. This isn't helped by the underlying sense of failure that goes with losing my dad, despite everything we did to try and keep him safe. I know there was no happy ending in store, though he might have still been here if we'd managed to get him to eat and drink or get out of bed; I know this was his responsibility too, but it's hard to keep sight of that when I was so instrumental in his care. On top of this, I'm finding it hard to get my head around Edinburgh. The financial situation's tough, though the crowdfunding's proving fruitful - as we speak, £1505 has been raised - but there's still far to go (as with Thursday's child). And the cost is just a fraction of the bigger picture when a show has to be written, rehearsed a...

This afternoon I met with my lovely PR, Paul Sullivan, at The Ivy, ostensibly to discuss plans for pushing this year's Edinburgh show, but more than anything, to have a bit of a catch-up. Inevitably, much of the conversation centred on the loss of my dad and everything that's gone with it, to which Paul offered some sound advice. I'd like to be in a situation where it didn't dominate everything I do, though it's inevitable what with it being so recent. I just try to embrace it, particularly when I'm with someone who really gets it, as Paul does. While we didn't talk about the show massively - there's not much to talk about yet, to be honest - seeing him gave me a little burst of confidence about what lies ahead. I told him how I knew full well it won't be as well-rounded as last year's show, which I was quite proud of, but that doesn't mean it can't still be enjoyable if I keep it simple. I'll just call on some of the set pieces t...