Inky Skies and Fading Light

The last vestiges of daylight have just disappeared into an inky western sky. On a day when the fierce heat and humidity diminished on an altogether cooler and wetter day I was relieved by the break. Another working week is done and almost un-noticed the shortening of the days has begun.

My week was quieter, more stable and I guess better. I am on the plus side of the scale with occasional hints of the soaring faux brilliance that was in evidence last Friday. Where my mood will go I do not know but I'm no longer in trouble. This Tuesday I will speak to my psychiatrist. And on Wednesday my therapist.

In the wider world the lockdown is easing. I went to a BBQ on Thursday and had a wonderful time. Tomorrow I will entertain for the first time since this all happened. Sarah will join me for rare roast topside of beef, roast potatoes, carrots, purple sprouting broccoli, Savoy cabbage and green beans. I will partake of freshly grated horseradish cream and she will decline. The thorny issue of Yorkshire puddings will be decided in the morning depending on a) what time I wake up, and b) if I'm hungover. Fingers crossed.

My holidays are now booked. I'm not going away of course but will visit Kent at the end of August to see dad and my friends. Two weeks time I'm also off and my old friend Marie will visit from Kent. And by next weekend the pubs will be open...hurrah!!!!!!!

So until then we wait, eat, drink, listen to opera, read, and try to be cultured. Now I return to Cosi fan Tutti and bid you all good night and happy Sunday. Sleep well.

I Heard a Voice.

Deep Ravines and Jagged Peaks

From the depths of despair to sublime brilliance. Low to high. Hell to heaven. The peaks and troughs of a mood disorder were given their full range this week. When I last spoke to you I was deep in the mire. A ravine so deep it felt as if I would never climb out. I did all the things I shouldn't have done on Tuesday, read, listened, looked and got immerse in what at the time seemed the darkest pit of a life. Breakdowns are like that. But I reached out in a way that I never could back then and they came in their droves. My friends came through for me.

Expecting a slow recovery what happened next was completely surprising. I went on a wild upswing in mood and found myself of Friday evening wanting to yell out about my greatness, to phone people on the other side of the world and wake them up, party like no tomorrow and to just be on top of the world.

I have managed to calm down and hopefully didn't offend anyone. Now on Sunday afternoon I feel okay but no soaring mood which is what I want.

Contented in the purgatory of the present I'm turning to opera and my kitchen once again. I did go for a little adventure in the woods via Sarah's house. Saw several people in a sign that after all these weeks the shackles are off. Took some food over to Bronwen in the pub yesterday and was rewarded with a pint in the garden. That certainly felt good. Back to today and Offenbach's La Belle Helene plays, the belly pork is prepared and ready for the oven. Perhaps it is time for a glass of wine.

The coming week will be, hopefully it will go well. Last week certainly did despite the terrifying mental journey I was on. Tomorrow will come tomorrow and I'm okay with that.

Take care everyone and have good week.

I Heard a Voice.

The Tears Will Flow.

Is there a greater battle than that with mental illness? I've never been in combat. I'm never battled cancer or any other physical illness. But what I do know is that all who face the terrible tragedies of life also battle their mental demons.

This day marks the day where it all began. The Ball. The letter. The girl from Alabama. The girl. The descent. The devastation. The loss. Branded a narcissist at 24 leads to further demons. It feels self indulgent to mourn myself. Yet that was sound advice from the Buddhist healer I met in the 1990s. Yes that decade of desolation for me.

That my life was utterly flawed and build on foundations of sand is abundantly clear today three decades on. I was vain, I was arrogant, and I was foolish. But what young Cambridge student wasn't in those days or these? I only knew the world I knew.

On this day I was catapulted into the world that has been my life for these past 30 years. My own life. My working life. My friends' lives. And those of my students. Some say I'm good at it. Some say inspirational. Some say a wasted life.

The cataclysmic change that happened in 1990 has left me scarred, frightened, but wise. Many come for my wisdom for what it's worth. I only have to see the messages of those who reached out to me today to know that my tragedy has brought good to many people.

Waking late I abandoned my plans and decided that the solitude of silence was what I needed for a while. Since Friday I have contemplated what to do, what to say, or to stay silent. Passus et sepultus est. That was an epitaph for that old foolish life. Et resurrexit surely marks my life now. Died and was buried. And rose again.

I am certainly not divine. I have no pretension to greatness. I hurt, I scream, I cry but I survive. The scores of funerals I've attended in those 30 years bear witness to the devastation that is mental illness.

Tonight I will look, listen and read. And I will mourn. Yes I must burn the past but not until I'm ready to do so. Today I'm not. The tears will come as they have yet to do despite Dido's Lament and Kathy's Song. The memories haunt me to this day. But I will fight back and I will win.

For now I leave you. Tosca plays, the sun is shining and tomorrow is another day. Please take care in your vulnerability in a world that can sometimes be hostile. We are all human. And utterly flawed.

I Heard a Voice

The Perilous Road.

Some days we just have to put down to experience. I have known a crash was coming for some time. I talked to my therapist at length about the upcoming anniversary on Tuesday and what that will bring for me on Wednesday. He was very helpful but it still doesn't cushion the blow when it comes. The surprise is that it came last night.

My Friday night catch up with the Selwyn crew has become a ritual for me during shutdown. I came to the party late owing to my fear of technology. Once I got going though it is now a valued part of my life. Yesterday came the old photos day. I don't have many photos of those days here. They may be at dad's although they may have been thrown out when he moved.

The shock was a hitherto unknown photo of graduation day. Tinged with fear and bad memories I had mainly expunged that day from my memory. Standing outside out house at 21, West Road, Cambridge in our youthful finery were my housemate Matt and me. It should have been a glorious day. In fact I had decided two nights before that suicide was the only answer. I was so close to breakdown yet nothing showed on that photo. Six weeks later I would be in hospital and in the grips of a full on psychotic breakdown.

Looking back I had already been in deep psychotic depression for a shade over a year. Some might say how on earth could I get a degree in that state? I do not know. But it was the end of a cherished era and looking forward all I could see was darkness and loneliness. Suicide was the only possible option that day.

Against my better judgement I posted it on Facebook. Not because I was looking for likes but because I knew it would make people smile. Later when the crash happened as it was inevitably going to do I wanted to take it down. Yet there it remains a monument to a terrifying day 29 years ago.

Today was always going to be difficult after that. And true to expectation that happened. All my plans fell through. With the exception of soy sauce which I failed to get last week my shopping expedition came back empty handed. My washing lays unkempt and undone. My cleaning didn't happen. And lunch was a supreme effort.

Wine has helped as had Handel. My natural instinct when like this is the shut down from the world. But my friend Ellie reached out and that helped. She too is in the grip of a devastating anniversary.

You may hear from me on Tuesday. I'm not going to work and will not communicate with the world except possibly on here. If you are reading and worried don't be. I just need a break from reality for a little while.

I Heard a Voice.

Rain and Bad Light Stopped Play.

To use the parlance of cricket rain and bad light have stopped play today. Not too many outdoor adventures today although might try and sneak in a quick walk at some point.

Sat in my gloomy flat with the lights on mid afternoon, nevertheless I'm listening to opera, supping Chianti and digesting my lunch. Rare roast beef, roast potatoes, carrots, Savoy cabbage, broccoli and freshly grated horseradish cream. I triumphed today although I couldn't be bothered to make Yorkshire puddings.

Don Giovanni and Arminio are today's chosen operas. I think I listen to Mozart and Handel more than anything else. My consumption of popular music has gone down considerably during lockdown as I'm not driving much. However I did listen to David Bowie's Hunky Dory on my travels yesterday. With the Farm Shop at Smallford finally reopened I ventured down yesterday morning. Saw my young friend who works there. I don't know her name but I always have a chat with her. Home via the Chinese and Indian shops in Hatfield so the fridge is groaning. Foolishly bought mushroom dark soy by mistake. No doubt someone will take it off my hands but means I'll have to do another trip next weekend.

If all goes to plan many more shops will open Monday week. Whether the feared second wave comes I do not know. Are we closer to working out what the world will look like? Or still floundering and confused?

For my part I'm still enjoying working from home and hope to do some of that still when we finally get back to campus. The weeks are unusually busy for June. The nice things is that students are getting their results now and we get to see the many triumphs. Given my own history of mental illness I have some idea quite how much many of my students have to overcome to get to that victorious moment. That moment when walking down the knave of St Alban's Abbey they can say fuck you to mental illness, today I won! That will be delayed for this year's graduands.

In the real world of mental health we don't often see an end game in the way I do at the university. Yes we talk of recovery but that has been tempered by describing it as a journey not a destination. I'm not recovered, I'm in recovery. We can learn a lot from the ethos of AA.

To dream that one day I will be cured and no longer have to take Risperidone is fantasy and quite frankly not worth the risk. I have what I have and it is part of me. But not all of me as it once was.

Have a great week everyone and see you soon.

I Heard a Voice.

Violence and Bigotry.

Thunder, lightning, rain and hail pervade my little corner of Hertfordshire. A prophetic epitaph? Nature taking its vengeance? In a world where plague, pestilence, violence and discrimination have come to the fore recently it is hard not to believe there is some power, divine or otherwise, that I do not understand that has come to punish our arrogant humanity. Nearly two weeks have gone by since I last spoke to you. And so much has happened.

As a white, male, middle class, straight guy I'm not really at risk. Yes I sometimes drink too much. I take my life in my hands with my love of a pub. When manic I say things that alienate people. My arrogance sometimes gets me into trouble. It is true as some have pointed out that all lives matter but not all lives are a great risk of violence. Why should a black person, a woman, a trans person, a gay person, a religious person, a disabled person be at risk more than me? Yes I have a disability and yes there is an argument that my mental illness has cost me jobs in the past but am I at risk? No.

The appalling killing of black man in Minneapolis by a white policeman has brought many onto the streets. I won't use the word tragedy as that somehow exonerates the guilty. I prefer the word catastrophe. Whilst we may look at American society and have questions, but that bigotry exists here too. The great strength of the University of Hertfordshire is its diversity. It is truly multi cultural in image and ethos. Also half of our students are from BAME communities. It is deeply saddening to me that overwhelmingly when I have to pull the trigger and call a Mental Health Act assessment or am told of it after the students are BAME. That is not just true with us but in the mental health world outside.

Although I am loath to make political comment on here and frankly feel unequipped and unworthy of making judgement from my privileged life I am human and I am compassionate. I detest bigotry. So here very quietly on the great complex world of the internet I pledge my support.

There is no need to comment on my life today, it feels small and insignificant. Another day calls for my culinary adventures, my opera, my wine and my books. So with that I leave you. Take care in this dangerous world.

I Heard a Voice.