the world is not alone

By Claire Wheeler

Troll

If the guy who left the comment at the end of my posting 'N.D.E. Epilogue' would like to meet up ? I am willing to travel. But as usual with these weak, inadequates he left no contact details. Lets meet up and take it from there? Show me how brave you are.

old classics

grey wagtail escapes

nursery lane watertower

ravens in the park

N.D.E. epilogue

I went to the doctors with suicidal tendencies last August. I got a phone call about five weeks later with a really sympathetic voice asking if I wanted to meet up for a chat and a prescription for anti depressants. I wasn't particularly depressed, I just thought it was time to bow out and leave the stage. I am getting slower at my work, my eyesight isn't what it was. Though my last piece was one of the most sophisticated things I had ever done I had a feeling I had done my best work. The desk I have designed for the office in Chelsea is pretty special though so I may leave that as my last piece once I've paid off my debts and change job. Furniture is a young mans game and I take no pleasure in designing for another's hand to make. My sex drive is not wat it was. I can't run like I NEC did. Most of all I was disgusted with myself for picking up another crack habit. It only lasted a short while but each night left my heart pounding and my mind suicidal. My best days seemed past. I kept thinking of oak antlers. The dead branches at the tops of oak trees that stand gnarled, seasoned, strong, toughened, and looking down at my worn hands, the same. There's something I always find depressing about the match of the day football pundits, their days of playing gone, just sat around telling young bucks where they are going wrong. The critic is the lowest life form. Even the worst practitioner does something but the critic just criticises.
I'd just had enough really. Tired more than depressed. I love my girlfriend and Dook but when you get that darkness you believe they would be better off without you. Suicidal thoughts are not rational. I'd wanted to make a little home for us and I had succeeded. But then the pipe took it all and left me with paradise lost. How do others do it? I see the thickest glombies who manage to establish a stable life style and home but every time I try I fuck it up. Addiction is a terrible affliction as is bipolar. You make failure to fulfill your self image. You self destruct through a need to prove your own guilt. Somewhere way back in childhood someone told you you were bad. That grows throughout your life. The belief you are bad. Letters come through the post telling you that you are bad. Courts call you in to tell you you are bad. Your destiny is to feel unworthy.
I remember after taking all the chemicals I couldn't walk or control my body, just ranted about death. After four days I began to learn to walk and as therapy took Dook out a lot, (I still am doing our eight miles each morning). I talked to him none stop. Passes by must have seen a right loony talking none stop to his dog about how the people here didn't like us and wanted us dead. I was convinced as I staggered through the undergrowth that I would find a dead man face down, and when I turned him over it would be me.
On our early morning walks I still half expect to see a swinging form from rope and branch. I still hear the crows calling out "skree, skree" telling the village lynch mob my whereabouts. I can't do some simple things and tire easily. Whether this damage to the brain is permanent only time will tell. Doctors estimated two months till recovery but methoxphenidine is a research chemical. Recommended dose is 80mg. I did 1800mg. I doubt another human on The planet has done that so doctors estimates are guesses but I am much, much better. Not able to work a full day yet and some logic eludes me where it ought to be elementary.
That's the trouble with suicide attempts. One in thirty succeed. People damage themselves severely but live. People shoot half their heads off and live. Once the afterglow of survival passes, once all the amazing support and freinds who came out of the woodwork return to it you are basically back where you started. I suppose its like the addiction mantra of one day at a time, if that's too much, one hour at a time, sometimes it might be just get through the next minute. The overview is unhelpful. We are going to be dead a very long time and we are heading there anyway so stick at it.

The Work Dole Dilemna

What do you do? Too mentally ill, too unpredictable, too unreliable to hold down a steady job, too weird at times to interact with other human beings. Yet driven by a belief that my life is my own responsibility, no one owes me a living. I would never take their money and have ian Duncan smith cackling his evil down on me. Yet I do know several freinds, more mentally stable than me with houses, disability benefits, mobility assistance, no council tax, free dentistry and glasses. So I do what I can. Sometimes I work very hard. But now I must rest and try recover. I say rest, I am making windows to pay the rent, building a porch to repay borrowed money. When you're on your arse everyone is happy to get half price work out of you.

Relative Safety Factors of Common Activities

Deaths per year from:

Amphetamines.                   19
Alcohol.                            8748
Anti depressants.                 65
Ecstasy/MDMA.                   6
Horse riding.                        10
Motorcycling.                     328
Road deaths.                     1713
Cocaine.                                17
Cannabis.                                6
GHB.                                      4
Climbing.                              11
Heroin.                                103
Benzos/ sedatives.                28
Methadone.                          82
Other opiates.                       81
Tobacco.                          79657

A Brief Visit From Tex

Due to my early walking with Dook I tend to be in bed before nine but something woke me last night. Perhaps it was Dook panting, it was a hot night, that triggered what I saw. But it had none of the qualities of a dream. It had the feel of reality. Looking up from my bed I turned my bedside light on. Both Dook and Tex lay peacefully sleeping. It was quite ordinary and I took it that way. No shock. I merely turned off the light and went back to sleep. It was only when waking later that I remembered that Tex died last year. Perhaps he has been the guardian angel that has seen me through this period. I asked and borrowed money but others straight up offered. Kindness beyond anything I had experienced before. My main client who I had run in to debt with firstly accepted my repayment plan and also allowed me as much time as I need to recover. He even paid a months rent so i could keep my home. Generosity I didn't really deserve. But I will pay back every penny. My landlord also accepted the offer of me making new windows for the house which are in a dilapidated state. At first he stated he was opting for plastic. I emailed again pleading that the architectural note gritty of the building deserved better and that, if I am guaranteed a long let. I would make the windows for cost price. The double glazed units are made up and I have machined up the timber ready to begin building them Monday. Mahogany was all I had so he is getting the deal of the century.
Other oddities occurred. We discussed how pleasant it would be to have an outdoor meal. As I walked Dook I found a mini barbecue. The lawn was getting out of control so after strumming it I found a JCB lawn mower outside a nearby house with free collector tagged to it. These gifts, all coming at the right time.
I used to say Tex was an angel in dog form for saving my life from paths I was going down. He put a stop to my teaching and lecturing as no one was able to look after him. More wolf than dog yet none violent. His separation anxiety was so great I, or a close freind had to be with him at all times. Hopefully Dook won't suffer this malady.
Why I do such stupid things as the earlier N.D.E. posts described I don't fully know. Its something self destructive in me. Something deep, deep down that when any success comes my way I will do something to destroy it. I don't feel I deserve anything. I have seen students from my college year I would describe as mediocre yet with self belief go on to great things. All good to them too. It is not their fault and they deserve to make the most of all they have. But deep down I know that they are mediocre. Given the drive and self promotional and human interpersonal skills I could have wiped the floor with them. And they know it too. This isn't bragging. I know when I meet a smarter man than me, or a stronger man than me. I am of the Van Gogh school of psychosis, self hatred, and self destruction. The current climate has floated over from the Atlantic and boasting is a requisite. Websites make me cringe as the artist brags in the third person attempting to inflate their work with a magic it doesn't have and wouldn't need describing if t did.
I often have a psychotic episode around the summer solstice. Looking back over the years it is clear. The other week during my MXP trip my dog needed to go out. I took him round the block but this didn't satisfy him so around midnight we set off for a few miles round the town. Something drew me to the top of Nunney road and looking down I saw a vast red moon rising. This is known as the super moon, when the earth and moon are closest. There are two more to come I believe early August then early September though not as powerful as this one. Solstice, super moon, maybe there is more to all this than I have as yet figured out. All I know is I have undergone a transcendental change. An experience of the numinous. Something beyond. My writings had followed an extreme materialist bent these last two years but something has blown apart what I though I knew. I know not what and describing how the changes are manifest I can only say a connectedness. Further than this words will not stretch.

the soiled and tarnished soul of skreeworld