November 16th.

I tell people I'm having phone trouble this weekend, I'm not, I'm drowning actually. I'm coming off one type of antidepressants and taking another, so have the double whammy of withdrawal and new side effects if the new one all at once. Things had slipped. Over all I'm miles better than I was.. My teeth are being 3D scanned at the dentist so I can be fitted with a swanky gum shield as I've started grinding my teeth again in my sleep, med side effects. £243 but still, better than choking on a cheap thing. 

Dust everywhere, a sink of unwashed plates, sleeping on an unmade bed. All is not green in my valley, certainly for my usually well tended collection of succulents, bought from Ikea in 2016 and still persisting. A bit dusty yes, a few segments falling off. I've promised them for a whole week they'll get a water and they just have, I could almost feel their relief. Roots too long in one place. Yep. I relate.

Hours snoozing in the heat to hide from things I should be doing.  I'm not but when life gets on top of you a cacophony of voices just don't make sense and don't help me focus, constant bongs on a phone from people who on the surface of it are flourishing. Thanks to an algorithm on TikTok up on the screen pops a shaolin monk, who looks sickeningly well on a vegetarian diet. The sex and alcohol and takeaway-free martial arts expert tells me to "ignore the mind voice" and just do things you are capable of. The mind voice with depression is like an internal handbrake - ignoring it is a very good idea. You get things done. 

You can generally spot my intent to sort out the flat and it pans out like this. I buy fresh flowers on the market, the stall holder knows me, lets me pick what I like then do him a bank transfer when I get home. This suits us both. I love the element of trust, like squaring things later with a market stall holder on an episode of Eastenders. He likes it as I generally buy a stem or two more than I normally would. I don't have a garden so bringing in a bit of nature's important. 

When we were kids growing up in Worsley we'd play out in the woods all day in the seemingly endless summers. When I was older I'd walk my dog through glades of heady scented bluebells and leafy wild garlic. We'd watch a kingfisher, or see sticklebacks in the water, wondering what lived in the holes in the banks, It stays with you.

Being alone it's easy to get depressed in a town like Bolton.

I think it's a real struggle in life when you were never really wanted or planned. The support network just isn't there. Sure enough my single parent did love me in her ill prepared wounded way, often it wasn't happy as a kid - it was terrifying. But now with her no longer here and no relatives apart from my brother and an often tense relationship dynamic he has with my sister in law, I really can't be around them given a sometimes fragile mental state. I can't be criticised or told where I'm going wrong as I would never presume to do that. I've never said this, as how do you broach that? 

So my main life is cut adrift and you need a huge head of steam to keep that going, realising you could quite feasibly be one of those stats where you popped your clogs then weren't found for two weeks. Two foolish adults should not have kids, another unwanted side effect in life.