The best way to organise your thoughts I’ve found is to quite simply never give up. Forget, to the best of your abilities, what people did, what they said, how you were hurt, how you were disappointed, how you suffered, and how you may still be suffering, and all that it took away. And also everything you did, the parts you played, the decisions you made. It’s not always easy to forget. It’s not easy to go through Hades. So I accept that I have a deep need to remember, to revisit, to reflect, and go through the geography of emotions that define who I am today. Not everyone finds this necessary. It's not practical, and at times it is not healthy. Though my therapist did object to this when I said I was suffering from my previous ways, a conflict of conventionality vs bohemianism - she said no, actually, you've made a lot of bold, wise decisions and gone through a hard time, and what you are doing makes sense. It was one of those moments when I got mad at her because she didn't agree with me. After all, I felt I was expressing something fundamental about who I am, and yet what she said was true and reassuring. Taking time off and taking steps to heal from illness and then taking steps alone after going through treatment & isolation are incredibly wise but tough choices. The entire process requires a particular type of strength, acceptance, and lack of ego - which not everyone understands. You realise the vulnerability of your situation and the long-term risks. But there is no alternative. Now, I am relearning how to take care of myself because I haven't been able to for years - not really, though I am hard on myself, so maybe I was doing better given the circumstances than I let myself believe - and it is strenuous and emotionally charged. At times I do realise the symptoms were all there and I just had bad coping mechanisms. What I am doing now is relying on new, healthier coping mechanisms - and doing it as independently as possible since leaving institutional treatment. And it is hard but I am managing it, despite no family, no immediate friends, no other support - because I just moved and moved again - and the older you get the harder it is to form those connections. It's especially not easy when you are confronted with alternatives. A lot of "you should" - and perhaps that's what made it hard to comply, because it felt like compliance, and this feels like a choice. Doesn't make it easy. Remembering to forget is not easy. Relearning and recreating is a non-linear, scary task.Though for me it is an essential part of the process that I have been going through, painfully, one step at a time, for years now. I am in search of a creative community and refuge, and then perhaps a partnership as well. Companionship. It's going to be a longer search for me, it already has been, and I can explain it in less abstract terms by going through the very practical steps I have taken - in reality.
Let’s keep this simple, we’ll go through it in three parts (because you know, three parts is how I remember things) and it’ll make some sort of sense.
PART I - HADES
God of Death, the Underworld - it is Greek - of course. There’s very little light there. There’s speculation about whether or not the name Hades means unseen, and the underworld is undoubtedly referred to as a place that is unseen, and dark. Hades isn’t exactly Hell, it’s more like purgatory, a place of temporary suffering and misery, with the Last Judgment looming, brooding, waiting to be made. Eurydice was dancing with the Nymphs when she was bitten by a snake and sent to Hades. Orpheus then went to Hades, with his music, to get her back, and all he had to do was not look back as they travelled back up from Hades, but losing faith near the exit, as he could not hear her footsteps, he turned to see if she was there and lost Eurydice to Hades once more. Moral of the story: Trust your love? Forgive? Never lose faith? Maybe. It is almost always a fool's errand because that kind of love is impossible to understand and believe because humans are not characters in Greek mythology. Orpheus and Eurydice were newlyweds and what happened was tragic, but love asks for that since Euridyce was also perhaps being pursued by another lover, Aristaeus, and we don't know why the snake bit her. It implies infidelity, but all she did was dance, so some good old sexism, too. I know this story because someone I loved put it in a script. One of the reasons I moved back to Edinburgh is because this person I loved lived here with me many years ago and we met because of a script, a story which, then, oddly (because I also defied it), meant so much to me. Dangerously so. He was the writer and director and the project brought us together. When we fell apart, he wrote another script and this time he used Orpheus and Eurydice's story - and he did also come to get me, when I was in some sort of Hades, which I was, even then - and whatever not looking back means, whether it is trust or simply a test of patience - we lost each other and I ended up in Hades again, because trust and actions are a complicated thing. Sometimes moral codes are broken for reasons far more obscure and challenging than what mere social contracts allow us to understand and feel. So the moral lesson of Orpheus and Eurydice's story didn’t apply to us the same way it did for Orpheus and Eurydice. It didn’t matter in the same way because our story was real, and real people are far more flawed, complex, and gray. It wasn't simply about trust, obedience, and patience. And I didn’t actually go to Hades. I was Hospitalised because I was about to die from an illness that I did not understand, and then I did die - I was a living corpse - so I went to a much, much less romantic or artistic version of Hades - I went to Hell if it exists - but thankfully I came back alive. That relationship and those scripts taught me many things about myself that I am still trying to recover from. Out of respect for the person I will not divulge any further details. But I will talk about how I died of an illness, which in part might have been instigated by these experiences. If you read ABNORMAL PULSE thoroughly you’ll know why I died, and I’ll cover it yet again (it is painful and exhausting to do but it has to be done) in Part II.
PART II - HOSPITALS
Yes, indeed. Manic Depression, Bipolar Disorder, are you tired of me writing about it? Yeah, me too. Except I’m also living with it. So double boo-hoo for me. Have you ever witnessed someone having a heart attack? Or, maybe if we’re going to be a little less dramatic, just a fainting spell? It’s kind of like being struck by lightning. I think. Because the first time I was catatonic I didn’t understand why. That's when you are in a comatose state, and it happens in the early stages of severe depression. Around that time, after I somewhat recovered and also prior to reaching that state, I started reading more about mental health, because I found it hard to read anything else - loss of concentration - and there was this one film in particular, about a girl who goes to a mental health institution, that just resonated strongly and felt so deeply cathartic that I couldn’t help but suspect something was definitely wrong with my mental health. And I was right, though it took years to fully understand and realise just how right I was. I had been through multiple traumas and one very severe trauma, and two bouts of Bipolar Episodes - Psychosis and Mania. It started when I was sixteen. I started with a psychologist, then counsellors, then psychiatrists, more counsellors, and then the doctors, nurses, more doctors, more nurses, one hospital, two hospitals, three hospitals, four hospitals, a therapist at last, and then so many drugs - one for sleeping, one for anxiety, one for depression, one for bipolar mood stabilisation, one to take the edge of the mood stabilisation, another one for vitamins, then one for bones, one for blood, and recently I added two more pills for my gut because the rest of these pills take a toll on your internal system. The wake-up call is I can’t live without the medication and the sad reality is that it has taken me more than a decade - a busy, difficult decade no doubt - to finally, as I approach the age of 31, make peace with the fact that if I’m going to actually get anything out of the life I’ve lived, the work and struggles I've had, from the dreams I have dreamed, I am going to have to majorly change my lifestyle, attitude, and approach, which is difficult when you have a mental illness. I spent time in Doha doing this, again hospitalised and medicated, and I was pretty much under self-imposed but necessary house arrest - because isolation felt like the only way to really handle this illness. I wouldn't be able to stand being seen by others. I wouldn't know how to interact. And then when I finally summoned the courage to come back to Edinburgh, when I got better - on my own - I have to admit I began drinking again, which I was not meant to do and although it’s nowhere near like my teens and twenties, the truth is, I shouldn’t be drinking at all. And finally, in November 2024 - which I am calling No-November - my life-long sobriety officially begins. I’ve really, truly drank enough - and done everything else - to never miss any of it again. And if I do, there are non-alcoholic versions that will suffice, and healthy alternatives that I have begun using. I may smoke the odd cigarette or two - slowly phasing that out - but there are no other substances going in my body aside from the medication I mentioned and nutritious food because I can’t do it again. I can’t be in those hospitals again. I can’t go to Hades again. It’s not fair to those who had to be there to pull me out, and it’s not fair to me, who actually really did pull myself out. But life is hard, made even more so by shitty people, and I am a stubborn person who has chosen some incredibly difficult paths, due to some radical beliefs. Self-isolation is not recommended after you spend so much time alone in Hades and Hospitals. Yet, it is kind of inevitable. It’s deeply distressing but it’s the really tough part of reintegration that no one can fully comprehend. The only way I can explain it is like leaving prison - or multiple prisons actually - and then trying to say hello to new people because your old friends are kind of out of the picture, and in any case you were bad at keeping them due to your illness, and your family love you unconditionally and you have their support but have chosen to separate from them because you’re about to prove you can be a functioning, independent human being. Except it's not that simple. I need people. But I am finding it hard to let people in. So, step by step - as long as it takes. And the first step is trying to re-enter society by fulfilling life's basic demands, like getting a job to support myself as I pursue my greater ambitions.
PART III - HOSPITALITY
After the degrees and the breakdowns and the hospitals and the degrees and the breakdowns and the hospitals - because yes it happened more than once - and the moving countries, being uprooted, moving again - being isolated - moving again - there’s not much continuity or stability, and then the court cases, the criticism, the disconnection, the struggle - the complete disillusionment - that's when reality comes back and you have to confront it and rebuild yourself. That's where I am at right now and it is still taking a lot of time. This is the part where despite all your preparation and the moments in which you really can and should praise yourself for just having come out on top of really challenging personal struggles, you look around, and think - Wow, I was so stupid. How did I let that happen? Why did I let it happen? When that is not true. I had some control maybe, despite a lot of recklessness and rebellion, but not enough control in the face of an underlying, debilitating condition to actually prevent any of it. It’s just when you look around after being in Hades and Hospitals - you see a lot of new things, and when a lot of time passes, multiple times in your life, when you’ve been unable to truly connect with anyone and your brain has felt like mush, and you're in near constant, subtle but persistent pain - it’s really, really brutal to look at life as you once knew it, and see people who somehow - at least on the surface - remain unscathed. I have stared longingly at strangers and wondered - when I was in Hades, and then the Hospitals, you were right here. Happy. Or at least some kind of normal. You were living and I was not. And I’m looking at these people whilst I’m taking their food and drinks order, or bringing them food and drinks, bartending, clearing their plates, and bringing them their bill, and taking their often generous tips. Because I need to function, I need to work, and I can’t muster the strength to focus on anything else or everything else at once - my mind won't allow it - so whilst the creative aspects, my greater ambitions, are still taking time to fall in to place as my emotional, mental, neurological state recalibrates - here I am - out of Hospitals and in Hospitality because this gives my mind something to do and puts money in the bank. And I’m not even embarrassed or that upset by it because honestly, I'm just glad to be out - anything to be working, anything to be moving, anything to feel some kind of normal (though fuck normal). Maybe I don’t need the job. Definitely I can be doing other jobs and I do actually have other jobs, and I plan for other future jobs, constantly - heading in the direction of my creative dreams. But whilst none of that is making sense, and I am unable to meet those demands, I need to find a way. To function. And in that regard the Hospitality sector has been a true God-send because I can let my mind roam, I have the experience since I was sixteen so I am fully trained and it's quite easy, and it allows enough flexibility for me to pursue everything else. At times it even builds confidence. Though it can add to the loneliness since customers remind you about what humanity is like. Like I said, I just needed to make myself get up, make myself alert - and it’s so much harder than it looks - but most importantly it does to an extent kick your work ethic back into gear. Hospitality derives from Latin Hospes meaning guest, host, stranger, etc and Hospitalis meaning guest-chamber. So it’s a way for someone who has gone through what I have gone through to regain control, quite literally, from being a guest or stranger for an elongated period of time - one who is being serviced, tended to for years - to then becoming a server, so no longer in need of care. That is of course a romantic way of looking at it and not entirely healthy either because its truth is limited. Yes, you regain control, you have a job, you are in society, you are earning money. But you’re just surviving, not entirely living, definitely a little out of place, but functioning. Which is brilliant. It’s just not the antidote. It’s not the end goal. Which is why, like I said, I have other survival jobs, and I always quit Hospitality after short stints. Because I am just there to restart, to reset. And that is something I always remind myself whenever I have attempted to regain control, after feeling powerless, hurt, or slighted - that my methods for coping with Hades, or some form of purgatory, are never perfect or ideal, and breaking through the barriers in a mind that has been through trauma after trauma and overthinking and illness and medication and abuse and self-inflicted abuse and extreme stress and pressure - Wow! That is tough, tougher than you can imagine. But trying to serve customers and become hospitable rather than hostile is an aim - so again, it’s a romantic take on what Hospitality really is, but it quite literally does the job.
And what’s wrong with being romantic? Nothing. As long as your romanticism doesn't end up convincing you that Hades is some sort of paradise. Because then we'll be back in Hospital, and then Hospitality, and constantly neglecting and denying ourselves our true desires - and that cycle may never break. And it has to break.
I am breaking it. This is me breaking it.
It's all part of the process. Like an artist I sort of admire said - I recently saw a clip of him saying it - there is a reason why painters often name their paintings after they have finished them.
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