Thee Headcoatees

I'll start as I mean to go on...There are times when I feel that there's not much more I can get out of life. My collection of impulses and responses do not produce zest in anyone and my physical make up appears to have the composition of the 'thing' in Eraserhead ie It's not quite apparent what I am. A growed up sexual animal is not what I am, that's for certain. Because of my life long lack of 'action' (thanks TLK) part of me does not feel human. This is a shallow and vacuous thing to say, I'm aware of that but it is a thought I've harboured for some time. Some of the citizens of the world that you meet are not 'pretty' but without fail I reckon that 'they' are all 'getting a lumber' and they are all attractive/desirable and so forth to a few. When I get down I start to feel that I haven't been 'invited' and that the the world is a stag's only club. These and other thoughts surrounded and bewildered me when I left the land o' the Interweb last night. Couldn't handle being alone. Didn't know what to do. Had the torrent of thoughts back. The T.O.T is a 'thing' of mine. When I'm ill I have this feeling of being assaulted by thoughts which fly at me faster than I imagined I could ever manage to think. They are all negative. Most (level one) tell me that I can't do one thing or the other and that I'll never amount to anything etc etc. Some of the thoughts pick up on aspects of an act, pick out the damaging, dangerous and illegal therein and attempt to batter me into submission with the consequences and the details of these (level 2) eg I once heard on the news that someone had been raped and killed. Soon after I read this I started getting this stream of shit that said 'You did it. You know you did. You want to do it again' . As soon as I had got myself away from this stream and realised that ...eh...no I didn't...the head moved on regardless to pointing out the consequences of doing it (level 3). For days and days I thought I was going to jail, I would be villified, I would be hounded. Over the years since I first had this type of feeling, I've had countless episodes. It seems to be brought on by thinking about things which I abhor the most or am most afraid of. I convince myself that I've done wicked horrendous acts or that I am about to be 'found out' for all manner of things, fuck knows what. I genuinely felt at first that I was hearing a voice of some kind. The thoughts came so quickly and established themselves so strongly that it seemed as if they were coming from outside me. Surely I wouldn't bring this on myself, would I? I was convinced that I had a serious illness. Everyone played the thoughts down when I spoke about them. This de-escalation/ lack of positive re-inforcement (fucking hell) often seemed to work and I've gradually managed to keep them down and at bay. I still get anxious but the last major episode I had of this was just before I moved to Edinburgh a year ago. I was convinced that I was going to attack people in the street, push them downstairs, throw objects at them etc. It seemed so real. I couldn't even consider that I wouldn't do it. Whenever I told masel that I knew I wouldn't do anything, I got the follow on thoughts re what jail would be like and 'how long I would get inside'. When I have this, it is the most frightening thing I've experienced. Maybe I am strong after all. When I think of the amount of situations in which I've probably come across as 'normal' and as if I'm 'getting on with things' when inside I am in fact fixated on how I'm about to strangle someone or how I'm going to do something 'erratic/crazy/damaging etc etc. Maybe you wouldn't have known anything was wrong but I can assure you that I felt completely messed up whenever I had this. It seemed as if my brain was using 99% capacity on nourishing/ fighting these thoughts and that I was doing work tasks/ functioning/ living on the other 1%. These days I put it down to living in Fife. That place just defeated me. I had so many feelings of negativity and horror re what it 'meant' to be a Fifer and to live there. The thoughts pretty much aren't there anymore. They made a minor re-appearance last night but only for a short time. I know it wasn't the full blown warfare like I've had in the past. Whenever I've seen a GP or a CPN or a shrink, they put it down to a manifestation of anxiety. At the time I first got them I was convinced I was a schizophrenic and that I was dying. I know now that neither were the case. I think the health folk were probably right re the source being anxiety. My mind got so wound up with dealing with day to day situations that it ran amok and took over. My mum once told me that she had similar problems when I was young. She couldn't go into a cutlery drawer because she started thinking that she was about to pull out a knife and stab someone. I remember talking about the thoughts with KB. One of the best rebuttals I've heard was when I told him that I was sitting there convinced that I was about to attack someone and carry out acts of violence. He said that I was 'messing with cause and effect'. This helped to give me some clarity and convince myself that I probably wasn't going to do anything after all. Maybe these days I'm less anxious. I can handle stuff more. Not sure what helped me to achieve this but getting away from the massive inferiority complex I had built up around being a failure in Fife helped big time. Sorry for another lengthy detour. Felt as if I needed to explain certain things. I understand some of the 6 and a half of you who read this might well dash off and call the police now but hell...so to come back to last nights 'reality'...the T.O.T was mostly about the aforementioned attractiveness and my lack of it...it was scale one T.O.T and it left quickly...to be replaced by more conventional but still damaging dwelling on the TLK situ. Felt truly alone. I also felt annoyed at TLK for what I perceived as her moodiness and her 'ways' but also desperately wanted to be with her. I would like to think that being with anyone would have sufficed tho'. Trudged through the rain wi' holes in both ma boots (ha..there's always been a Marcel Marceau element to ma schtick) in amongst a somewhat nondescript part o' town. It was oddly apt that I should end up in a Summerfield store. Restored a semblance of equilibrium when I noticed that Lars Von Trier appeared to be working at the deli counter. This did provide a waft of cheer, reinforced when I walked hame wi' ma nutritionally balanced (all junk...natch) bag of shopping and overheard a paroxided lass talking on a phone outside a grog hoose near the shithole. She was barking into her moby. She snapped "aye, I can go aw day on that Gin and Tonic. You should ken that". Another snippet of genius frae the Gorgie/Dalry vaults. I got hame and pissed about for a bit. Watched the start of 'The Last Picture Show'. Think I'm the only person in the world who's never seen this. It certainly starts well. Slept rather edgily. Constant feelings of there being an odd light in the room. Thought I heard the phone going in the middle of the night. I remember thinking that it was a sign of the financial service police being about to break down the door and 'find me out' (see above). In the morning I realised that it had in fact been KB phoning in case I was up which I usually am. It does appear that paranoia kicks in from time to time...woke up on Thursday mornin'. Felt totally shattered. Didn't want to go into work. Made myself get moving. Into the shower and off. The closer I got to the work, the more paranoid and irrational I began to feel. I knew TLK was supposed to be in with me first thing. I was 15 or so mins late. She wasn't there. Something snapped inside. I was totally convinced that she was doing it on purpose, that she was late just cause she didn't want to be alone with me and to 'have to' talk to me. I really did lose it for a while. I spoke out loud to myself. I started thinking that she was doing the 'avoidance' thing that is familiar to us anxious folk. I remembered how often I had done that when I couldn't face certain situs and people. It felt really horrid now that, in my mind, I was on the 'receiving end'. I rambled away. 'I know how she works. She's doing it on purpose.' As soon as I said this the key turned in the lock. She came in. I regained my composure. The blonde bits in her hair had gone already. She was happy. She asked me how I was. I grunted a bit. She didn't want an honest answer anyway, I know that. Nobody does when they ask that question. She seemed on good form. I opened up a wee bit. The tone got friendlier. She comes across as the loveliest person on earth when she's like this. Shit man, I have never seen anything like her smile...it APPEARS to be pure distilled warmth. It's a heady, giddy sight for me. Of course like yesterday whenever she comes across as if she's yer pal, I respond likewise. This is always...imo... where it starts to go wrong with her and me. We both went off and saw some clients. I bumped into her on the stairs. She was coming down. I hadn't seen her. She went 'BOO' as she appeared round the corner. She was bright and beaming from ear to ear. It was a special sight for me. I saw her later. Right away I resumed in pally mode. This was clearly the wrong thing to do. She didn't react to much I said. Later she got very 'directive' re a work matter. She snapped at me when I was trying to find some info for her. I couldn't take it. I stopped talking. I threw a piece of paper onto the desk. She said "What's up? You look in distress". I laughed. I snapped back "nothing". I was fucking gone again. I didn't talk to her outside of essential work stuff for the rest of the day. I couldn't. She's always had a manner while doing some work stuff that irks me. The strong personality comes into play at these times. I know that she believes she can do the job better than me and doesn't like me doing anything she could do herself. She has to take charge and she does. There were a few examples of manoeuvering today and I didn't like them. I've always hated this feeling. I've experienced it from a few folk, some at work and some neebors too. They can't handle the feeling of you maybe doing something that might in some way be seen as 'representing' their efforts or their work. They have to take charge and they make it obvious. I get totally flummoxed by this. I am not a big/strong personality and I cave in at these times, like I did today. The folk who do this are of course fully aware that I will collapse. I always present as helpless when this goes down. I'll make self- deprecating comments which sound as if I'm reinforcing or agreeing with what they're doing too. I couldn't take what she was doing. I felt devalued. She's been desperate to take over some work I've been doing and she did it today. I feel right now as if I can't work with her anymore. The stress of seeing her every day and having to communicate with her through various moods is too much. Again I'm not always that brilliant at dealing with peoples moods or with folk who can't cover up the way they're feeling that well. TLK, being a strong steely character, becomes distant and impossible when she's hacked off and that gets put across to you or at least it does to me. I'm hyper aware of it. It doesn't seem as if she's quite as abrupt with others, it really doesn't. She used to say that she noticed my own moods and got worried that I was annoyed at her. I have to say that I didn't believe she was worried at the time and I still don't now. She may have noticed my mood being down but she probably wasn't thinking about it all. Back then it maybe suited her to show or project that she cared or something like that. I wish I could be honest with her but I'm not going to tell her how I feel. It would cause a lot of mental strife for me. She would play the dead bat like she did the day I told her I was annoyed with her when I stormed out. Me making those comments has clearly effectively ended any suggestion of us being pals. She has cut me off in her own way. I didn't expect anything different to be honest. I think I know her pretty well...maybe I'm delusional. I believe that she doesn't 'do' self reflection. She doesn't want to consider anything which she thinks might be 'heavy' or fall into categories such as that. But I also knew she would never directly address this with me or tell me how she felt. Maybe she never valued me as anything at all which is in hindsight probably the case but ultimately I think it's just her being her. She can't or doesn't want to face 'hassle' and so she passes her feelings on to you by some bits of action but mostly by implication while maintaining a veneer of a status quo. I don't like that. I know that by writing all this I risk coming across as obsessed or a lunatic. I don't believe I'm the former. I might be the latter. I also know I'm not an arsehole. I've done some daft things in every friendship I've had and every situ I've been in but I hope I've not hurt folk. If I did then it was unintentional and was out of pure stupidity or confusion. I've been thinking re how she would feel if she ever read this blog. She would probably be annoyed. She might well think I'm freaky or mad. She might well call the police. Don't think she would be 'hurt' as such. You might not think TLK exists but she does. She lives and breathes. I probably paint a bad picture of her. I try to present what I think is an honest picture of everyone I write about in here. I believe I come across worse. I'm the one who's wasting my time endlessly dwelling on her, who's thinking of situations over and over and getting messed up by them. KB often says that I jump to conclusions (always negative ones) re how a person's feeling on a certain situation. He's mentioned that I've always tended to fear the worst about TLK. This is maybe true. All this ie my idea of what she makes of me etc etc might be in my head, it really might. The truth is probably somewhere between the two. I feel so many different emotions from every wee encounter with her. I think she's an amazing human being. I can honestly say that I find her almost impossible to read. I have categorised her as every single 'type' of person at one time. She doesn't fit in anywhere. My feelings about her change by the minute. She's exciting to be around. She's also utterly exhausting not because she's manic or outwardly erratic but because I don't know where I stand with her and I have the feeling at times that she's playing me like a fiddle. I'm not sure whether she struggles with her emotions and/or her 'nerves' or not. Sometimes it feels clear to me that she does. I've seen her get very upset and emotional but other times she seems so detached that I can't imagine her allowing herself to go there. I know there have been times when she has got embarassed and upset when she thinks she has maybe given too much away about her life and her past. This could just be an indicator that she doesn't feel right telling me about these things. I can only go by what I've seen and how I reckon she's acted towards me. From what I've seen she controls as many aspects of her life as she can and she doesn't go into any 'emotional' areas if she can possibly help it. She's good at getting certain things she wants. She is possibly the strongest person I've met. She comes across to me as being in control at all times. I tend to believe that she comes across as that because she is! Increasingly I reckon she shows you nothing more than what she wants to. I struggle when I feel folk put on as controlled an act as she maybe does. Every one puts on an act of some kind. That's how we survive. Nobody truly knows how someone else thinks either. I put on a different kind of act from her. Why am I still thinking about her? Well because I can't seem to stop, because she is the type of person who gets inside you, because I see her day to day, because I 'love' her I suppose or at least because I fancy her if you want to be crass, because she is everything at all times, because she's a whirlwind, but mostly because I'm a daft bloke who happens to like 'her type' and who is predisposed to thinking about something rather than nothing...We're both 'flawed' but then again we are human beings...shit...
So oddly enough after a Stelios flirtation I'm back at Maisie's. CS is here. She's still great. On the way here I saw at least 3 couples who consisted of very tall guys and wee lasses (I'm 6 foot 3. TLK is barely 5 foot). This was a truly funny thing to have witnessed at this time. I started thinking about my horoscope (it has indeed come to this) in The Metro today...and I quote..' At the very root of your personality, some change is afoot which will alter your daily routine. Whether this means you move house or storm out of your job depends on how the next few days pan out' ..freaky, huh? How do I feel right now? Tired, messed up, poor, fat, desperate, uncertain?...aw these...still thinking about 'the bridge'...it seems like a welcoming place but of course it isn't...