John’s Mental Health Journal! AKA Living in the Present, Trying to Get On By...

John’s Mental Health Journals!

In 2007 (the year I walked out of my final job) I remember it being a dark evening. The nights were drawing in and the fear was there, but something comforting about sleeping on the living room floor. The flat had been rearranged for a new carpet in the bedroom. My cupboards and fittings were everywhere in the flat and I just laid there, in the dark, not knowing where my head was at.

From 2023 - 2024, I start to get tired more during the day. I sleep more and struggle to move. The nights drawing in don’t help. The days are short and I feel less motivated than I ever have felt before at home.

During the inbetween days, if I get up and face it, I’ll go to town.

The times I feel frustrated are when I feel anxious about stepping outside my comfort zone. I have to calm myself down with night medication for anxiety. Or sleep it off.

I can’t control how negative I feel about myself and the world when I really talk myself out of situations, going places and trying to feel normal. It’s like a massive cloud of self doubt that consumes me and nobody can bring me out of it, I go tense and feel sh*t about myself and abilities.

I don’t know what I want or have for future goals.

I fear the future being on my own as I try or maybe try too hard to control my present situation of going from Parents Place to my Flat and back each day, whilst trying to find time to take day breaks out in town, just to look around and feel as though I’ve been or done something.

Getting up in the mornings can be tough. Sometimes I oversleep and feel sluggish.

Sometimes, I’ll reach for a cigarette and buy a packet just to ease the anxiety. Originally, I quit in 2020. And sometimes I’ll feel guilty about smoking due to Asthma and sometimes feeling queasy. Silly, I know it is. Stress often can make me smoke, but sometimes I quit for periods.

In my own little, introverted way, I’ll listen to music on my headphones like I would as a Teen and shut out the world, but embrace the music, Also, listening to music at home or watching a film takes me away from it all as I just manage to chill out, even staying up late sometimes into the early hours of the next day. It feels great when I do, but waking up repeats the cycle of feeling sluggish sometimes. 

After talking to an Occupational Therapist at the Mental Health Centre, ideas were put forward that I should try Volunteer Work. The following week I went to my local Library and spoke to a Career/Work Advisor. My head was all over the meeting. It was Anxious and shaky before I had a rest an hour later in bed. It took me into the next day and I had to pull myself up to go for a walk and forget about the previous day and the work meeting.