They Changed it from the Book

Going down in the second round hurts but sometimes it's a good hurt.

I'm stronger than I look

I met a girl, her name is Pearl.
I'm a man who can admit when I'm punching above my weight and a few days ago I stepped I gingerly pushed open the ropes and stepped into the ring against my very own Mike Tyson.  We touched gloves, my new fresh leather crumpling lifelessly beneath the weight of his battle-hardened, blood-stained weapons.  The bell rang and a wave of fear washed over me.

What am I doing here and why did I agree to this.  My vision blurs as step forward.  I am numb with terror, oblivious to the world around me and utterly lost as to my next move.  I wait for the hammer to fall but it doesn't come.  I step forward and clumsily extend an arm to Mike's enormous chin, connecting with anaemic force.  Buoyed by this apparent success I land another shot on an implacable jaw then step back.  The terror I felt fades for a moment then pours back again, what have I done?

Colour drains from my vision and I lock eyes with the beast across the ring.  A bell sounds, I stumble backwards and sit down.  My shoulders drop, eyes roll back and I fade into unconsciousness.

I probably won't win this fight.  I probably won't win the next one either but I took this round and I'm still in the ring.  I'm still a fighter for now.

It's been a while

It's been eight months now and I still don't feel a great deal different to how I did.  I have started and then stopped seeing a counsellor, changed medication, injured my back again, seen Little Caron move to Sydney, thought about Mel and whether she thinks of me, started a full-time job, injured my back again, moved house and felt more lonely than I have in a while.

It hasn't been this bad for a while but I'd say that I feel like more of a disappointment to myself and everyone else than I have, maybe, ever.  I don't treat Little Caron as well and I should and I definitely don't give Mel the respect that she deserves even though I have almost no contact with her since Caron moved away.

Little Caron has been begging me to write down the things that she tells me while I'm way down but I honestly just can't remember them.  They do help me in the moment that she says them but I forget the words just as soon as I have taken in their meaning.  I am trying to turn myself around and find some sort of self-respect through exercise, change of diet and seeking professional help again however I don't see a future for myself beyond the next few months.

I have planned to kill myself a number of times in the past months however I still see bits and pieces of short term hope that I can cling to.  Some wise person told me that she believed a person wouldn't go through with suicide as long as they believe that just one person cares about them.  I don't feel that I am there yet though as I keep driving Little Caron away, disrespecting Mel and disappointing everyone else I shouldn't be far away.

Suicide does definitely provide some comfort to me when I am down since it offers a way in which the future may not be a bleak as the present appears to be.  That is probably the standard justification for suicidal thoughts but I guess it's worth noting.

Maybe

I saw Mel recently and it felt good. I hadn't seen her in a long time and I was nervous about how I would handle my feelings. After talking with her and hanging out for a while I felt great.
I reflected on why I felt better about this and came up with the unoriginal idea that most of my negative feelings around Mel stem from feeling bad about myself as a result of my perception of how I believe that Mel sees me. I'll fix up that sentence later. I probably won't. Seeing Mel had previously made me look at myself from what I believed to be her perspective where I am not good enough to be in her life. I know that Mel doesn't hate me and on some level she probably does like me but what I need to do for myself and for her is to act for myself.

It's a Process

I've been locked-on again for almost a week now.  I thought I was getting better in leaps and bounds but, as the blog title eludes to, nothing is ever as good or bad as it first seems.  I cried a lot tonight for the first time in a long time and having come through it now it felt good.  Obviously it didn't feel that good at the time but I guess that comes with the territory.
Even the feeling of getting locked-on seems to be steadily improving.  The locks are intense for shorter periods and the lasting feeling is less intense and slightly more rational.  When I pull myself together I do wonder if I could do something 'silly' of the fatal nature during these times but I find it fairly unlikely even though I do consider it at the time.

Even as I write this I'm starting to feel better which is a vast improvement from seven weeks ago.  According to my closest friend and constant ally the aim of all this is to stop locking-on all together but at this stage that still seems impossible to achieve and I'm not sure that I would want to even if I could.  Guess that's what I need to find out.

Fox One

There's a fair whack of wisdom to be found in Skins.
In modern combat aviation (not that I know much about it) the term 'lock-on' refers to the process where-by one aircraft's fire control computer acquires a possible shooting solution on another aircraft.  I love Wikipedia.  The term was used in world war two to describe the situation where a fighter pilot would focus on one aircraft to the extent that he would be oblivious to other threats or their proximity to potential threats, such as the ground.
I use the term 'locked-on' to describe a pattern of circular thinking that tends to cycle unhelpful and unfocused thoughts around until I'm obsessed with them to the exclusion of all else.  At the time the thoughts don't seem unhelpful, they seem ground-breaking, philosophical and unquestionably true.  At their worst they make me want to die, at their best they allow me the clarity to make completely unworkable plans with unlikely and impossible outcomes.

The difference between the modern definition of 'lock-on' and the second world war definition is one of control.

Long Way Back

I am twenty-something years old and a few weeks ago I had what has been referred to since as a 'psychotic episode'.  I tried to commit suicide but was stopped by a friend who loves me, a friend whom I love and two parents who were terrified beyond reason.  I had struggled with my mental health prior to this event however, like many men, I sought little professional help and only started using medication after I was all but dragged to my doctor.

I have written this first post a number of times since my 'episode' however each time I feel that I have come from a too emotional and irrational point of view and as such I did not, on reflection, feel that it was the appropriate way to begin.  This is not a blog about a boy looking down and watching that bottom come up at him, this is, hopefully, a blog about recovery.  I have been down there and I am tired of it.  I am ready to start the climb back up and part of that climb is this blog.  I write these words solely for myself but I click 'Publish Post' rather than 'Save As' because if my words, be they poetry or poop, find their way to a destination where they are given a positive meaning then... good.

In my writing I try to strike a balance between both art and matter.  Matter carries the message where art provides that message with context and meaning.  Likewise, I feel that my mind seeks a balance between the evil twins of rationality and imagination.  Rationality allows me to see the world for what it is and coldly calculates every piece of data whether it be light, sound, heat or one of the many ways in which I absorb information.  Rationality gives me strength and fortifies my mind against possibility for better or for worse.
Imagination is boundless freedom and absolutely deadly.  It is a sea of nano-replicators, a cluster of vibrant healthy cells and it has the power to build an organic façade around the cold rational core of my observations.  Allow this freedom to rule unchecked, allow the apoptosis of my imagination to fail and every fear can be made into an absolutely convincing replica of reality.  Imagination can even imitate reality.
My imagination has shown me reasons to despise myself, it has convinced me that I am alone and that I would be better off dead, it has, in a matter of minutes, twisted my unobscured view of reality seamlessly into an irrational darkness that seems to descend around me entirely.  Balance is essential and somewhere along the way I lost mine.  I think I can take it back.