An Academic Pinnacle?

On this day I dressed in finery. On this day I lunched in splendour. On this day I processed. On this day the traffic stood still for me. On this day I entered an ancient seat of power. On this day I emerged into the sunlight. On this day I fled in terror. On this day my demons won.

A quarter of a century has now passed since that day on which I graduated from Cambridge. The end of a moderately successful but ultimately underachieving academic career. And into the bleak darkness of total mental breakdown. It was the day I had my first panic attack. Passing the empty void of failure and unnamed mental illness I subsided in 5 weeks to a mental asylum and drowned in years of madness.

As I look back on a dull evening where there is not much to report I am tired and achieved little. My mind was so foggy when I woke up I almost gave up and didn't go in. I had to cancel a meeting and then I came home.

Reflections can still take me down dark paths. Out of sorts my mind could so easily wander. The chicken vindaloo I cooked did not stay the wandering or wondering. It was poor. My selected opera is dull, I think I will replace it with something else.

And what of the morrow? It seems like an awfully long week already. I face a 3 1/2 hour meeting on a subject I know nothing about. Being on safer ground is enticing but then again so is the cloak of sleep.

Go away world for at least a few hours. I'll let you know when I wake up.

I Heard a Voice.

Tense, Edgy and Uncertain.

Given the turmoil that has marred the last few days I could have done without a return to multiple nightmares. All day yesterday I struggled. So much so I avoided contact with people last night. Today I feel unsettled, on edge and having a sense of doom.

As before I do not profess to understand the political earthquake nor do I wish to get into political battles either on here, in the street or in the pub. But I'm finding it very hard to deal with the ranting, raving and divisions that have been stirred up since we went to the polls on Thursday.

Facing another huge group to train tomorrow at work my anxiety has risen and by extension my low mood deepened. I want to shut the door, turn off the phone and ask the world to leave me alone. But that will only turn my mind in on itself. And that is never good.

How did I manage all those years of nightmare after nightmare, night after night? I'm really struggling today.

The aroma of gammon and cloves fills my flat and I have a good bottle of Malbec to accompany it but that is doing little to change things. Merely the hours will slip by on another weekend and I face what I fear.

Tomorrow will be here before I know it. Another week, another grind. Please mood, will you lift soon?

I Heard a Voice

Riding the Earthquake.

The voice of David Cameron resigning as Prime Minister on the radio woke me up yesterday morning. A momentous vote ended up shocking most of the world as the UK will leave the European Union. And with that the earthquake began.

What happens next is anyone's guess. Political instability certainly. Looks like the leader of the opposition may also be ousted. Stock markets and currency are in free fall. Those who voted to leave are crowing and that is fine but people must acknowledge that we are going into a mighty big unknown.

My Facebook page was littered with friends in dreadful turmoil and professing embarrassment for being British. The catastrophe they all predict may or may not happen. Will the EU break up? Is Europe lurching dangerously to the right? Will immigration, the key issue that led so many to vote out be under control? Who knows.

I simply didn't feel intellectually or factually informed enough to cast a vote. Perhaps more people should admit that. The backlash and fierce debate is turning ugly. A decision has been made and we will know more in a year, two, three.

There is very little unity in my country now. Let us hope rifts will be healed.

And with that life goes on. I've been hosting Beka which was lovely. Stayed up a bit too late and drank a bit too much wine. But we don't see each other often. Tomorrow will be a day of rest. There is gammon to roast, opera to hear and reading to do. Miriam's birthday is next week. It's also pay day. Let's have a great week.

I Heard a Voice.

Staring Down Destiny.

The air was heavy and there was thunder in the sky as I drove home in the depths of the afternoon. Handel accompanied my journey home. It was a day of triumph. There was a time when I used to have a mind set when asked to provide mental health training that I am the best and I will blow them all away. That confidence is long gone as I retreat from my mini mania into what at times is a battle simply to get through a day. But not today.

On Monday I held court to 60 people with IT problems and a whole load of anxiety. Some regarded it as a triumph. Some in their arrogance continue to dismiss me. Today I faced a smaller group of 19 and for a couple of hours had them in the palm of my teaching hand and triumphed. On the days I'm good I can be really good. The upshot? More demand. I have always wanted to train everyone there in the world of madness. But there was not the time, the political will nor interest for that to happen. Now I'm in demand.

Those days of triumph feel rare now and normally I celebrate with a trip to see Yang. But not today. It was simply leftover pork, Jersey Royal potatoes, organic carrots and fine French beans. Simple but delicious. And then my first cherries of the short season. Living alone and not having a freezer makes it hard to eat seasonally. But late spring for Jersey Royals and early to mid summer for cherries are some of my most glorious attempts at culinary seasonality.

Outside the world moves on for tomorrow we meet our destiny. As you know I don't often make political comment on here but those of us old enough to vote in the UK must tomorrow decide yes or no if we stay in the European Union. Almost everyone who has mentioned it-I don't ask-says they will vote out. I am still undecided but a vicious campaign of fear and racism has not endeared either side to me. But I must vote. Too young in 1975 for the last referendum on Europe it is the most important decision I will make in my insignificant life time.

I Heard a Voice.

Rolling Clouds and Quiet Sundays.

What started as a promising Sunday has clouded over, become colder and generally disappointed. Not that I have really been out other than to buy the paper. But it would have been nice to go for a walk in the sunshine but it was not to be.

This week's opera offering is Mitridate, Re Di Ponto, long but rather nice. The offerings in the paper were highlighted by news of England's series win in Australia in the rugby. The downside was the continued coverage of the tragic murder of politician Jo Cox by a right wing extremist on Thursday. There is much talk of the man arrested as being mentally ill. But a word from the wise and I have been around an awfully long time hatred is not a mental illness. Contrary to what many of my MH brethren may think we are culpable for our actions and insanity is no defence for such hideous crimes. I had not heard of Jo Cox until this week but it transpires she was a student at Pembroke College Cambridge a few years after I left. Cambridge will always mourn its own.

So what to do now as the opera comes to an end? Well the pork is going in the oven at 4 pm. And I will take the opportunity to finish reading my second book of my holiday. I got through Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive in 2 days. My other read is Paul Moody and Robin Turner's The Search for the Perfect Pub. I've really enjoyed both books and it shows what can be achieved in my reading world away from screens and phones.

The quiet summer season at work will roll on tomorrow. I'm delivering a training course in the afternoon-not delivered it to such a big group before. Then at the end of the day I don multiple hats as a governor, practitioner, university employee and service user at a meeting about re-validation of HPUFT's university status-I'm moving in exalted circles! Talking of governors it seems I have been reappointed unopposed. Not sure whether that says something about the quality of my contributions to the organisation or that there simply weren't enough nominees to hold an election.

I Heard a Voice.

Cutting the Heavy Air.

Storms aside it has been pretty humid and heavy the last few days. Such days are always tiring and hard going. My return to work went okay with our strange and noisy air conditioning at its worst. The quiet season is well and truly underway and it is harder to get through the day.

Now that the weekend is here I find myself feeling a little vague. The dreams of the early morning shook and unnerved me. Why do they come in waves? The plan was to keep things quiet and simple. And so it was, a little shopping, lunch with Yang then home for tea, reading and Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. Back when I played the violin so poorly I tried to learn that masterpiece of 19th century music but found it way beyond my abilities. Pleasant to have such a quietly cultured afternoon.

After my post on Thursday you will be pleased to know I did manage to put it in a safe place. We must move on to what is next. For dad it was moving house yesterday. What seems to have been such a long process was completed around lunch time. Many thanks to everyone who helped. Must pay him a visit soon to check it out.

My culinary adventures for this weekend will include a Malaysian prawn curry with fresh curry leaves and roast pork tomorrow. I even collected some bones from my butcher to act as a trivet-saw Mr Stein doing it on TV in the week and was reminded that bones add flavour. I had a surprisingly successful gravy making effort with my lamb last week in which I sieved it. As a result I decided to buy a chinois today to make that process better. I'm determined one day I will master what so many people find so simple yet I find so hard.

I wonder if we will get a storm from the gathering gloom outside? Until tomorrow.

I Heard a Voice.

Fade to Grey.

People tell me time heals. They say memories fade. Does it? And do they? It is that day again that I mark each year on this blog when I recall. Recall memories as vivid as they were then. When I recall what might have been, and recognise my own failed mortality.

I read yesterday the tragic story of a young man described by his father and many others as "brilliant", who should have gone to Cambridge but instead threw himself in front of a train at Meldreth station just south of Cambridge. So young at 18, so so young. A sudden and unexplained descent into madness. Inevitably a charity was set up and like all the others it will change the world. Good luck!

That day in my life when I was oh so young and had a sudden and unexpected descent into madness is what I recall now. Was I brilliant? No. Was I good enough? No. Did I deceive everyone? My madness says yes.

I was just short of my 21st birthday when it happened. I'm now just short of my 47th birthday. I had a breakdown which started on the day that refuses to fade.

Today I am fading to grey. Some say I do brilliant things. Yet I doubt all the time. Even when I moved to Hertfordshire my fight back had been so phenomenal few could believe it. I was confident, bright and willing to fight for the mad.

Now I wonder. Was it worth it? I survived and sometimes I thrived. But did I ever get back what I lost that day? The artefects of that day are now at mine, rescued from dad's before they got lost in the move. Time doesn't heal it merely changes our perspective.

I have not collapsed into a morass of depression and despair as I once did on this day. No I'm contemplative. Sad. Tired. But different. It is my day I recall my own loss. Caroline told me once it was okay to mourn for ourselves. So today I mourn, tomorrow I go back what was once bright and is now grey.

I Heard a Voice.

A Damp Start to May Week.

Clive James long time resident of Cambridge wrote a book called May Week was in June. May Week is when exams are over, the May Bumps are finished and Cambridge University parties. It all starts today which is affectionately known as "Suicide Sunday". Well it got off to a pretty damp start today. It is a day long fixed in my memory as the trigger to my illness occurred on the final day of the Bumps the day preceding "Suicide Sunday".

All these years later, 26 to be precise, I'm at home avoiding the rain, slow roasting a half shoulder of lamb, watching the intermittent cricket and putting off tomorrow. I head back to reality in the morning. A few hours of nothing left then I'm back where I started.

Am I refreshed? I'm not sure of the answer to that just yet, maybe ask me on Wednesday. I certainly needed a break. There will not be another long break until August. I have 2 1/2 days leave left to use, perhaps a long weekend is in order at some point.

Mentally I haven't really been keeping track. Given that I haven't been under pressure for 2 weeks it all seems quite good. Must get back to my mood diary in the week.

So see you all again after the lamb has been consumed, the alarm has gone off and I have completed some time back in reality. It has been good to suspend reality recently.

I Heard a Voice.

Dark and Brooding Mountain.

There could have been a number of titles to this post and it is one I have been thinking of all week. Scary Clifftop Roads, Coach Chicken, Drunk Northern Twats, Olives, Lemons, Oranges and Grapes, Beauty and the Beast. So many. Yet I settled on the main feature that dominated our holiday, the mighty Vesuvius.

For all the sites we saw it was the shadow cast by that extraordinary force of nature that will forever lie with me. It could have been Tolkien's inspiration for the Misty Mountain in The Hobbit and Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings. Dark and brooding enveloped much of the time in cloud of its own weather systems. Going to Pompeii I now have an understanding of the scale of the catastrophe that happened on an August day in 79 AD.

We are back from our trip and glad to be home. It was great but exhausting. I saw the best of the Italians and the worst of the drunken Brits. I was terrified on the mountain and cliff top roads. I marvelled at the skill of the coach drivers on said roads as they hurtled towards each other passing with just inches to spare.

As ever dad and I had our share of getting lost, losing things and generally being ourselves. But we made it in the end and had a pint in The Hedgehog straight from the plane.

He rang just now to say he has arrived home. He moves house on Friday.

Despite some notable exceptions the food did very little to change my at best indifference to Italian cuisine. It's just not my thing. That said I had a glorious dish of linguine with prawns and fennel on the beach, a beautifully grilled squid simply dressed in olive oil and lemon on a bed of rocket. I loved driving through the olive groves, the vineyards and the orange and lemon trees. Coffee was exquisite as was the ice cream.

Italy made a refreshing change for me, my first visit since 1989. It is good to be home although Monday looming is not great. In the meantime England just beat Australia in the rugby, we are on top at Lord's and there is a football match later.

I have food, shoulder of lamb tomorrow, chuck steak for today and some Gloucester Old Spot sausages for the week. Now maybe a glass of Pimm's.

Hope you enjoyed my break from here, take care and have fun.

I Heard a Voice.

Passing Time.

The day is slowly edging away. The countdown is on, the murk and gloom continues, and I'm listening to the radio feeling somewhat flat. It has been a nothing day. Town, lunch, pint, and cold. Those hours to be wiled away before we fly.

Dad arrives tomorrow afternoon. We fly Friday afternoon. Being at a loose end for a while never really agrees with me. But it must be endured.

During our absence my friend Kym's son will have an operation. Anxious days ahead for them. I feel a bit bad not being around to support her but I will be thinking from afar. Time stops for no man or woman, it just keeps marching on.

I'm trying not think of our return too early. Being away from work has allowed me to catch up on some sleep despite the dream interruptions. Nothing too much to worry about. They will of course survive in my absence. It just means someone else will have to pick up the pieces if things go wrong.

Has the summer really arrived already? Only yesterday we had roast goose and decadence at Christmas. A couple of months to 47, edging closer to a milestone. I wonder what 50 will be like?

This is likely my last post before we go. If so take care, have fun and enjoy life. Not sure if I will have an opportunity to make contact in Italy. Maybe you will enjoy the silence. Until next time.

I Heard a Voice.