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Meal, medication, mum.

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Edited by Daniel Frederick Best, Thursday, 1 Jul 2021, 23:38

Hi. 

Complaining. 

Lots to complain about. Woke in such a bad mood, and also in proto-psychotic funk, from dreams that tell me I could once think better, more freely, and more happily than I can today. 

People will say, "You're doing a maths and physics degree, what's the problem?" When have the nightmares that I have, which are the most horrific psychological torture you can imagine, only then you know the problem. 

So, I've gone out last night, for the first time in over a year and a half, to eat out with the boys, in honour of Ashley, God rest his soul. And we've gone to El Vaquero, which is an all you can eat meat grill, where they keep bringing out all manner of pork, beef, lamb, chicken, in all different flavours and styles. Only thing is, I'm vegetarian (pescatarian), so I've gone for the fish option. Said fish option is all you can eat salad and a couple of fillets of seabass. The meat option was something like twenty five/thirty quid, and my choice was twenty two fifty. 

So I've got there - early - and met Steven and Lee, and eventually helped myself to some salad. I loaded my plate and it was admittedly nice. They started bringing out meat for the boys, and they start filling up. We're joined by some others and they also start filling up. Then eventually my fish is brought to me. It's two fillets of seabass, and it was gone in three minutes. So I sit there watching the boys fill up, and we're joined by some more including Eugene, Ollie, Daniel and Charlie. There's eight of us. They're all filling up on every fucking meat under the sun, and I'm sitting there watching, drinking tepid tap water. 

I brought some photos, of a holiday we all went on to Magaluf twenty years ago, and the boys look through them, and we see some shots of Ashley, and the boys appreciate. The boys are filling up on all manner of beef, chicken, lamb and pork. I'm sitting watching them, occasionally sipping my tepid water. 

About an hour later I get another plate of salad. The boys are filling up on meat, and they are getting pretty full. Some boys order drinks. It's all good. 

The boys are talking and laughing, and occasionally I am noticed. 

I daresay, from these type of meetings, there is no way that the boys can possibly have seen the best of me. I'm quiet the whole time, occasionally saying something, while full blown conversations go on all around me. Eugene is his normal raucous self. People just don't seem to be very interested in me. I've got so much more to offer than what they see of me. They're nice guys, don't get me wrong. But they talk too much about subjects. I mean, for God sake, it's Covid time. How can you possibly have had the life you've claimed to be living. I've resigned to accept that the boys just don't think I'm very interesting or have much to say for myself. Yes, cheese is nice. Yes, I watched the football. Yes, I like strawberry jam on toast. 

Jesus, guys, I've quit weed, I'm doing well on my degree, I'm doing computer coding, I've written a book, I've got a girlfriend - I've sorted myself out! Someone ask me what I'm up to? 

I think, perhaps, with the nature of what these boys are more used to, success is natural. They've all got money. There is at least one millionaire among them. So they don't care about my petty successes: it's all natural; you should be successful. 

So I'm not very interesting to them; I accept that. I was sat so patiently and nicely. I'm off all drugs. I just wanted to be good. They talk loudly, and fair enough - their vibrant enough. And in fact it was nice to see them - nice to see Shneider, Gold, the Kerns, Jackson, Gaughan, and even Silver. Although Charlie has never so much as asked me a single question - never seemed very interested at all. That's life. 

So I've gone out for a cigarette or two, come back, and now the bill has been discussed, and it's come to £280 between eight of us. So they've worked out that we'll split the bill. Everybody paid, except Eugene who has very little money at the moment, and Ollie sorted him out. And it turns out to be thirty five quid each. 

The waiter has walked off before I've had a chance to pay, and he's saying it's all good, it's all paid. But I haven't paid, and I tell Lee, "I haven't paid". Anyway, long story short, the waiter finally comes back and says, "You're right, we're short," and so I paid thirty five quid from my card. 

And I tell you, it was gutting. I've never felt more ripped off. 

Okay, so there's eight of us, and we should split the bill, but Jesus, guys! You just each ate about six times more meat than I even could sniff at. When I looked at the bill, my meal was exactly £23:00. I drank tepid water all night - no alcohol, no coke, not even a mineral water. Why have I just paid one point five times the cost of my meal. You all saw me sitting there with two measly fillets of fish, while you all ate ten pounds of meat each. I have blatantly over paid to the tune of twelve quid. 

For fuck sake guys, we've got a millionaire over there, we've got the guy who wrote Borat next to me, we've Ollie who is paid highly enough. We've got some rich people here. Why is the person who is on a living wage paying for the bulk of drinks that everybody had? 

I was absolutely gutted. Thirty five quid for two plates of salad and bit of fish. That's a tenner a plate of salad and fifteen quid for the fish. It's not good enough. What a rip off. 

Anyway that's that. That's what happened. 

Okay, fair enough, Eugene needed a little helping hand. But that's after the fact. I didn't know about that. You don't say, "You're paying for so and so's meal," after you've paid. 

I just wish there was a little thought. 

So it bothered me. I went to bed, admittedly stuffed, and had a nightmare. There was a lot to this nightmare, but the only part I can recall is when I dreamt that Lee was actually black, and he had convinced me that he was Jewish my entire life, and part of the dream I was trying to twist my mind back so that I could see him as the Jewish person I knew he was. 

Actually, there is no way of explaining the psychological horror that this dream gave me. It's a mental thing, and it has to do with the fact that I'm medicated. I often have these dreams, that remind me that I was once not medicated, and once had a perfectly fluid brain, and even once had a massively lucid brain, with all manner of thought at my disposal. I no longer have the fluid thoughts I used to have, and I woke up fully aware of the fact. 

I woke up in a foul mood, and could feel the antipsychotic effects as strongly as if it I had just started taking them yesterday. 

It's an imposition. When I first took medication, I had done nothing of the sort of thing that could possibly warrant the shock and pain that they cause. When you're hospitalised the law is that they must monitor you for a month before making any attempt at diagnosis, and especially before medicating you. These corrupt part-timers diagnosed me and medicated me within five minutes of meeting me. Okay, I'm pre-empting the diagnosis. They hadn't even diagnosed me. 

I saw Tamsin today at Costa, and I complained a bit to her, about the injustice of it all. I say it like that, in a way which makes people think it's a minor complaint. But the type of treatment I have had is barely even reserved for those people who are criminally insane. For fuck sake, all I did was have an argument with my brother, and the wankers gave me a lobotomy. I know, you think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. Medication is a lobotomy. That's why I'm complaining. Every so often it becomes a real issue. I hate the way medication makes me feel. All patients do. That's why they strive with everything in their might to try to get away from it. 

I'm so tired of trying to make people understand what medication is all about. IT'S A LOBOTOMY!! Mum doesn't understand it at all. She lives in her little fancy world where birds tweet and crickets chirp. Mum, do you realise that a part of my brain is missing? Fuck! It's impossible to get my point across. You can't do that people! All because I had an argument with my brother. 

So I saw Tamsin, and had a little complain, and she understands; she gets it - she's one of us... she's medicated. So she made me feel a little better. 

But once I got home I lay on the bed and started machinating about all the times I've seen psychiatrists, and how utterly stupid they all are. They spend years in medical school, and they learn nothing practical whatsoever. They learn no mathematics: no mechanics, no algebra, no calculus, no matrices, no group theory. They learn nothing except what medication to give to which people. That's judging. They learn to judge, and they spend five years doing it. What a waste of time. What a waste of life. They see someone like me, animated and anxious to communicate, and even though they haven't got the first clue about what might be going on inside my head, they put my behaviour down to a thought disorder. If I'm sitting in an office with a psychiatrist, and this psychiatrist has for some unknown reason been given the power to decide what my characteristics mean psychologically, by someone who is not qualified to know the contents of my thoughts, then I'm in that environment. And they are clutching at straws. Because if I was a drummer in a rock band, I'd be expected to be animated. If I'm in a psychiatrist's office then of course you're going to think there's something wrong with me. 

And all you can do is judge me. That is all you can do. You think you have dispensation over what goes on in my head - you don't. All you can see is my angry face, angry because you're so imposing and rude, and you hear my words, that should be talking to people who love me, who aren't judging me. That's all you can see. But let me tell you. You haven't seen the best of me - I'm not this face, I'm not this body, I'm not these words I say... 

I live in here..... inside my head. 

You couldn't possibly know what's going on in here. Even if I were to write for a thousand years on the subject you wouldn't even have scratched the surface!!

Anyway, long story short, I'm absolutely gutted that life is continually unfair to me. 

There is nothing in a doctor's intrigue that has afforded even a modicum of respect from me, because they have fucked me over at every step of the way. 

Every step of the way. 

Here I sit, like a good boy, doing exactly what I'm told. I'm the worst kind of sheep imaginable. I even like the government, can you believe that? It happened. Medicine has won. 

And you know, through all the experiences I've had, which you yourself could never imagine possible, and all the treatment I have had, all that I've learned is how to lie. 

I'm a great liar. 

I'm not deluded. The things I've seen are real. You are the deluded ones, for thinking that this is all there is and all there ever could be to life. Life is capable of a thousand, a million times more than you know. It is an amazing gift. It is full of secrets, and secret rooms, and secret levels, and secret cities. There are angels. There are gods. There is a God. 

I spoke to mum earlier, and tried to complain about the events of last night. "Suck it up!" she said. I hung up on her. I've been doing that more and more often recently. It's becoming more and more what I do, and I think she might notice. Mum likes to live in a world of cheeping birds and chirping crickets. But that's not the world that we live today. She might not like it, but you know.... 

Suck it up. 

Daniel

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Gill Burrell, Friday, 2 Jul 2021, 12:14)
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at home

Boring day and the attitude of God.

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Hi, hello, all that. 

And blogging - my pain, my sorrow, my frustration and loneliness. If it is possible to get out of bed on the wrong side, even at four in the afternoon, then I have succeeded today. And what I noticed was the residual effects of the medication running through my system - something which a year ago would have been eased by a dose of weed. I am off the mary jane these days, and for a year, but boy do I miss it. I can't seem to engage with this empty feeling. 

Now, a year into lockdown, you could say it's taken it's toll. I am sooo lonely, and there's not much I can do about it. This empty feeling does not help. You wake up and you have to deal with this indescribable sensation coursing through your veins, like a negative replenishment, punishment. Like God has said Fuck You. That's what it feels like. 

I need something good to happen soon. I wouldn't mind if someone phoned me up to ask me how I am. It's strange how soon we are forgotten. 

But I must remember, I am not alone. It's a lot of people, and I have some things very good. 

I have finished and submitted my TMA06 assignment, and now there's TMA07 and TMA08 just to complete, and then the exam, and then it's four months until Level Three university physics undergraduate life begins. 

I actually think I'm a pretty strong person. A year in perpetual loneliness, solitude, and all the while I have not wallowed in my own pity. But it takes its toll. 

I could do with a smoke. And there is where I wish I was stronger. 

But the problem is, my brain changed. And not to go on too much of a schizophrenic psychosis tip, but my brain significantly changed. If I ever smoked weed or hash again, I would crumble. That would be the end. I would fail so badly. I would kill myself. 

There are negative aspects that I need to think about. There is the goodness of having an occupation that involves a modicum of credential attainment, that is, my student life. And I mind it not. And I know it's only a fleeting feeling, but I must not dwell on the feeling, and perhaps get down to writing, and study. 

The exam will go well, and I will pass with a reasonable mark. I will pass, and that is enough, and perhaps I will pass with a modicum better than the grade 4 pass I made with last year's physics course. I hope so. But it is not withstanding. 

I wish God did exist. I find myself in a position of frustration, that is, I am a deeply frustrated agnostic. The weed would bring God back, and the weed would bring back everything else... everything else which being a recovered schizophrenic prevents me from explaining. 

And yet, I have my physics. And I pine for quantum mechanics, and something into which to get my teeth. They say it is an abstruse and difficult course, but I know I can do it. For I can understand anything. 

Yet there are gaps in my learning. Yet not everything is about learning. 

I must write in my book. I feel like that's a release. I must type up the passages of my new book. 

I greatly anticipate the coming of the time when I am paid for my services as a television consultant for channel four. I am happy that Lee has been nominated for an Oscar, it's quite an accolade. And I very much hope that this accolade promotes our work on the script. I would very much like to see our work put into practice. 

And I am happy for Adam. He seems most excited about his movie. Although, I don't think it will be the hit he imagines for it. It will be funny, and I can only give the lad ideas, and would like to take a bigger part in the making of it. Adam? No complaints. What a privilege to have a good friend as he, to be able to talk for an hour every one or two days. He has a lot to say for himself. No complaints. 

Tamsin. No complaints. She has made a lasagne. I am to visit her apartment on Saturday to feast upon her creation, and I should feel happy about that. It will give me a chance to get out of the house. And I need exercise, yet I suffer laziness. I am so lazy, and I wonder why I am fat, and out of shape. 

Having said that, pizza is good for your self esteem. I just had a pizza and chips and icecream feast. It filled a hole. The hole in my life. 

I am a very dire person. I am very boring. I might go for a walk. 

 I'm bored now. 

I love you all. 

Daniel

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Gill Burrell, Friday, 19 Mar 2021, 14:29)
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