I was recently told that I’ve had my head in a plant pot for quite a few months now. I honestly didn’t think it’d been that long, but perhaps it has. It’s the 1st of May somehow and for sure there’s been a lot that’s been going on this past few weeks and months. The following I wrote here on the 8th April but never published:
Lately I have been feeling that things that once made me happy and enjoy myself, I have been enjoying less and less. Take gaming for example. There was a time I’d be all over fresh releases and be buying up my wishlist as soon as things were released. Now I’ve just uninstalled at least half of the games I had installed because the thought of playing them is either met with disappointment or simply not finding them fun anymore. People’s habits change, and that’s something I have to learn to accept. But it’s hard when you can’t even accept your own habit changes. Same thing goes for TV programs or Films. I was once a film buff, completely dedicated to the cinema and the best of what it had to offer. Then I went through a period of not watching any films and now I am in some kinda limbo where I want to go enjoy a film but I am finding I can’t hold my attention span or I can’t suspend reality for long enough to enjoy a complete film. – TV.. I used to think I was fairly easy going with what I watched and I was quite adventurous… But now there is more on my Netflix account that I’ve started and not finished than ever before.
I’ve noticed my mood can swing violently between high and low on the click of a finger with really no way of predicting how I am going to feel from one moment to the next. It seems I am able to mostly keep things together when I find myself outside, with friends or busing my mind with something other than my usual activities. It is extremely tiring and somewhat worrying to not know how you are going to be feeling in reaction to something that happens. Particularly when things that used to make you happy simply fall to the wayside. I never seem to be ‘in the mood’ at the moment. Other than for things I’ve arranged, like playing a particular game at a particular time or seeing friends, going to shows etc, anything else seems kinda.. pointless. It’s not purposeful either, not is it simply a lack of trying. It’s just the way I am feeling right now.
On the 12th April 2023 I had what I can only describe as a funny turn.. I wasn’t feeling great in myself in my mind and body beforehand, but at 6:24am on the 12th April 2023 I sat on the end of my bed and started cursing the fact that I was for the 3rd or 4th time that week feeling quite faint. This time was different however as the next thing I remember is breathing very heavily while looking at the underside of my desk. I know the exact time it happened as my sleep tracker recovered the three distinctive thuds as my knees, torso and head hit the floor. I had collapsed and smashed my face on the wheels of my office chair. My glasses were partially embedded into my face and there was some blood. It seems I had given myself quite the smack off the chair and on to the floor. It seems I went down knees first as they were aching. My feet were partially under the bed and my first source of pain was that of my big toes in agony from being pushed into the floor, it’s been some time since my feet have been able to bend that way under their own steam. My right arm was by my side but my left arm was somewhat underneath me. This made it a little easier to turn over and put myself into a position of recovery to get my breath back before having to shout my aunt for some help to get myself up. I ended up doing it myself by dragging my bag of bones to the stairs were I was able to use the banisters to lift myself up.
Why had I collapsed? – I really, to this day have no idea, as to this day thankfully I’ve not felt that faint as I had before. I think it could have been a deadly combination of both anxiety & stress and simply feeling a little bit run down. I tried post-collapse to make an appointment to see my GP or a doctor of any kind. I remember being advised that the soonest appointment my GP had was in May and that I shouldn’t bother going to A&E because of the ongoing Junior Doctor’s strikes. I remember at that point in time starting to question what the fuck is the point of our national health service if they can’t actually help me with an ongoing health issue. The feeling passed as my body started to feel the feelings of pain that I was having. The arm.. felt somehow strained, the neck feels like it has some whiplash, the knees were heavily damaged with bruising and the face.. well a large lump above my left eye eventually gave way to bruising and blackening around the left eye. Both the upper and lower eye socket got a battering, and the bleeding had stopped and given way to the feeling of a deep scrape, the kind you have when you fall outside and scuff your knees, hands and wrists. It took a good few days before I started feeling well enough to remove myself from the bed and a further week or so before the headaches had subsided enough to go out and start to get back to some kind of normal (whatever normal looked like at that time).
Now almost three full weeks later I have a little bit of a scar left on my face from where my glasses dug themselves in, a little bruising above and below the left eye, a very sensitive cheek bone / eye socket and two smaller lumps & some scraping above the eyebrow on the left. My left arm is still feeling some pain, a weakness perhaps sometimes when I lift certain ways and my left knee is still heavily bruised. The neck pain from the whiplash is still hard to deal with when the head is pointed in some directions. I’ve got some new glasses, because of course they had to break.. I had an eye test and thankfully there was no involvement with the eye or my vision itself. But it did cost a nice £150 in total for ‘cheap’ glasses, the eye exam and a further, more detailed scan of the eyes. It caused me to have to cancel some events I had planned including two London trips that I was really looking forward to taking and a local event that I had to go ahead and cancel too.
It was frustrating the timing of it (not that I had any control over when it happened or if it happened at all), but I had not long returned from a London trip where I had got to meet up and spend the day with a friend whom I have not seen in person for more than 10 years. I had a great day that day catching up with my friend and meeting their family for the first time. I was riding a high the likes of which I’ve not experienced in some time, so I am sure you can imagine the pain from the immediate and (as) sudden a downfall as I had. It would be fair to say that this latest ‘thing to deal with’ has been a major factor in, and the things it has made me have to cancel, have also had a hand in seeing my head return to that plant pot and to feel myself yet again spiralling down the well of hands failing to make a connection strong enough to keep me from sliding and spiralling further and further back down.
I have since been trying to simply keep myself busy and perhaps more simply still been trying to just keep on getting through the days. I’ve returned to volunteering when I felt well enough to again and in the past week or so I’ve had several clients come and contact me about work they need doing, so there’s that to do too. It feels like it’s been a busy couple of weeks with this or that to do and get on with, which has for the most part been a good thing. Keeping my mind busy generally means I’ll spend less time having the time to think of how bad things are and can get, but it’s always there towards the back of the mind anyway. The work will get done when it gets done. I can’t put myself under any more stress at the moment. More stress = not feeling good. Generally the night times are the worst at the moment. They are the loneliest, but the days too can feel pretty lonely these days. Everyone seems to have their own issues to be working through (which is obviously fine), but what it does mean is that my phone tends to make sound less and less to the point where it’ll be literally days between me and any contact from anybody within the outside world, and I know, send to receive etc, I get it. But sometimes, receiving a message without first having to send one, it’d just be something nice to experience.
Where is this post going? I don’t know? I don’t think everything needs a place to go as such. Perhaps it’s just one of those things that exist… There’s no silver lining to be found here, not right now.. If there was, I don’t believe my mental state would allow me to see it right now. I will continue to plod along as I have been but really when it comes down to it, there really is only so many times you can check your emails for outside contact, or look at your phone to see if it’s still working or not every day. There’s only so many hours I can waste away on TikTok.
