Back In Depression: Pretend There’s Something Worth Waiting For

“I Write This Alone On My Bed; I’ve Poisoned Every Room In The House. The Place Is Quiet And So Alone; Pretend There’s Something Worth Waiting For” – Richey James Edwards.

I started taking anti-depressant tablets again today. I always hated them. I still hate them. They never once helped me, but I just wanted to take one and sleep, just to remind me that they didn’t help and I’ll still be depressed in the morning. I’m not well. I’m mentally disturbed, broken, depressed and I’ve ruined other people’s lives without meaning to do that, or without knowing about it. I’m sorry to anyone I upset in anyway. I sometimes don’t know why, when, where and how it all went wrong. Or why it ALWAYS goes wrong. I’m on Citalopram again, don’t know why.

“The drugs don’t work; they just make you worse” – Richard Ashcroft.

I’ve always needed help and nothing ever helps. Nothing. Nothing anyone says will help. Doctors were all useless – talk to them, take medication, go jogging, join a gym (fucking worst suggestion ever heard) and then suddenly that will heal me. It won’t. Nothing helps. I’ve wasted thousands of pounds on doctors, medication and stupid ways to “help” beat depression. We will never beat it. It follows us until we die unless it kills us through suicide. I think I’m only on Citalopram because I know I won’t drink alcohol when I’m on it. Backpacking in Seborga was bliss but I was on the piss.

“I followed the stars and I sailed to the sun, I held it in my fingers.
Alone on a beach on my own, out of reach and you just passed me by.
I’ll give you the world if you take my hand, but you left me alone in the sinking sand” – Noel Gallagher.

Also, backpacking and football doesn’t help. Neither does teaching English or working in bars. Neither does drinking in bars or eating in restaurants. Neither does meeting friends. Neither does flying back to Northern Ireland. I’ve tried all that stuff for years…I’ve blogged it and usually looked happy, I can’t have been that happy – it’s temporary. But there is only thing that has kept me alive. It’s WRITING, so I’m writing now as it’s the only meaningful thing to me.

Writing, blogging and social media has for sure saved me. It’s the only thing keeping me here. The ability to write.

Writing is all I have to save me.

I’ve been in depression at various points in life. They were already covered in my books. The first major one was in 2009. There’s always a catalyst or a culprit. This time, the depression is hardly new, but there was a new catalyst, which I cannot go into now. I won’t explain how it all happened.

But the whole depression today still dates back to that hostel meeting in my backpacking days with a person destined to ruin me. They succeeded. I’ve tried to settle in Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan and Poland. I thought in at least one of those places I could settle down, find a useful girl to be with and find happiness. All I found was despair. My glory night in Melbourne seems a lifetime ago now.

There was another decent night in July 2016, but since then, I’ve been in a downward spiral. I was backpacking and blogging almost non-stop from July 2013 to December 2016. Don’t Stop Living was my business, my life, my dream. Since then, I wasn’t “only a blogger”; it’s never had the crazyness or diversity for me. I had to go backpacking to blog. I had to blog to go backpacking. But I’ve been to 1,000 places I’ve never blogged about. I’ve at least 5,000 blog post ideas that are still not written, because real writers will die before they have time to write everything. I hate that. It pains me. I backpacked Rathlin Island and nobody knew as I had no time to write about it, along with the other 999…

Since 2016, I have TRIED to split my life by doing these six things almost simultaneously since: backpacking, blogging, socialising , teaching, watching football, writing. That seemed perfect. But it’s not. It’s too much.

I’ve been in 16 countries already this year, including mutliple visits to 6 of them. It’s far too many. I’m in a deep depression here and I’m going to bed.

I don’t know if I want or need to waken up tomorrow.