Miss You……..

I'm struggling with sleep tonight.  My brain seems to be in overdrive, so many things running through it but only one thought that it keeps coming back to, again and again.  I miss my gran.  Mary Hamilton, my dad's mam, passed away last year. She was the last of my surviving grandparents and was someone …

Hell Is ‘Round The Corner Where I Shelter

John-Paul Satre is attributed to the quote "hell is other people". When you suffer from anxiety there's often no truer statement.  Being around other people in any way, shape or form when you're in the throes of an episode is no easy task.  Family, friends, work colleagues or strangers, everyone can attribute to that internal …

“I Tried To Talk to Him Over And Over but Always Went About It The Wrong Way” – Talking About Living With Someone Else’s Mental Health Issues with Jill

I was going through the 'On This Day' section on my Facebook profile the other day (one of the few things I actually seem to enjoy about it at the moment) when I saw mention of an interview my old band did. Cool, I thought, I wonder what the interviewer is up to now so …

This Is How You Talk To Her When No One Else Is Listening

I took some time off from things last week and headed down South for a few days. I needed a break, not realising how much I needed it until I actually arrived in the warm hospitality of my friend's home.  When I was there I took the opportunity to get some downtime and see some …

If I Speak At One Constant Volume At One Constant Pitch At One Constant Rhythm Right Into Your Ear You Still Won’t Hear

I'm sat in the small bedroom at mine right now. I'm tired and feel worn down, drained of everything. I'm trying to relax but my brain doesn't feel like it belongs in my head. I've got a small light on whilst Paul Miro's 'Based On A True Album' plays quietly. I'm trying to focus on …

Nothing Ever Changes But The Shoes

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Same day, different date.  Just feels like everything is a constant loop at the moment. No routines change, nothing feels any different. Hopes rise then get dashed.  It's now just over seven weeks since Gran came into hospital. Seven weeks of us trying to keep together, hoping desperately for some change, any …

Lord I Have A Broken Heart

Here I am. Another day, another hospital visit.  It's early evening and I'm sitting at the foot of my gran's hospital bed. At the moment she's asleep, her leg twitching every now and again. Her hands are pale and slighty puffy. We're quite high up, on the sixth floor. It's turned dusk. The view from …

We’re As Good As Each Other…And We’ll Talk Of Tomorrow When There’ll Be No More Sorrow

A friend of mine posted a well written blog yesterday regarding the stigma around being open about mental health issues (you can read that here and I urge you to do so). It made me think about how some people frown upon people who talk about it openly in public forums.  When we're brought into this world …

Nothing Touches Me The Way These People Do

This is a peculiar way to start a blog, but I want to start with something I've realised recently: Being depressed and suffering with anxiety has really helped me make some good friends. Through the many emotional ups and downs, sometimes in rapid succession, I've disconnected and reconnected myself many times in attempts to regain …

Mister Monroe – Looking Back At 2016

I published a blog from Mister Monroe last year that chronicled some of the changes he'd made as well as what he went through with his fight with depression (you can find that here). I asked him if he minded looking back on what was a huge twelve months which he agreed to. Here's 2016 through …