I seem so convinced that when cruel words are spoken they are real. The reamining vestige of my reason suggests I have imagined it, however. I have a persecution mania! I conjecture about how I look or seem “different” to people, or even perhaps that I have a sign saying “kick me”. This “kick me” is mentioned in Transactional Analysis. I was advised to practice neutral body language, and to be fair, I managed this in part. I am hung up about kids too. I feel that the rough or criminal element are “after me”. Of course the original delusion/dogma was that people were accusing me of being a paedophile or pervert. This deserves objectivity… In reality it is a piece of rumourmongering stroke malicious gossip, character assassination, that does happen sometimes. Perhaps the amount I seem to sense it around me is still exaggerated though. Yes such suspicions are part of ordinary life, but to get the syndrome nearly every time I go out is statistically too frequent and it is more likely that I do imagine it (mistakenly) a lot.

Can I reboot my intellect enough to activate a sense of objectivity which will reduce the syndrome? I certainly hope so. Many people find going out, perhaps especially at night to bars but also to the beach on a nice day, to be fun and to induce happiness. I don’t want to miss this slice of life because I need to be happy very much. Or I could self-justify and say “it’s a cruel world, why not chill at home and just accept it”. But perhaps seeing both sides of the debate too clearly reduces the capability to make strong decisions, like a hung parliament of the mind.

(ii) the struggle with the booze

If I am finding it hard to stop the drink, then maybe keeping in life-fitness by changing some other habits may give me an increased chance, working gradually, of changing this chief one of my “bad” habits. For instance today I have not switched on my phone upon waking.

Rationally I know I like waking up with no hangover, and the satisfaction of my willpower beating the addiction. But then I enter denial and lose the struggle the next day… Ahh well

(iii) the struggle with religion

This is also connected to Ian’s religion. Perhaps the onset was Granny’s death. I don’t want to be near my mother when she passes if there is religious stuff going on. It screwed me up last time and I don’t want it. Of course this becomes connected with various doubts and fears because if I start thinking that religion is valid and/or that god exists I will think that to be near the dying and involved in prayers and implications etc is a desirable thing. Then I will wrestle internally with it and, especially if I have no one to talk to rationally, the struggle will upset and stress me. In fact there is a clear example of the benefit of writing: if you have no one sensible to talk to, then “the paper” can be a good substitute.

Regarding my interest in esotericism: Should I roll back to just being a scientific atheist? There are many complex matters in life. My conflict with Ian and his worldview and character resulted in many doodled cartoons. I want to put him out of my mind now, though. I need to lay the troubled emotions he made arise in me to rest.

I have repeatedly said that schizophrenia and religion is a bad combination, and of course I have the two chief examples of this principle as Martin and Ian. I must resolve within myself and harden my conviction as an atheist. Whether I will succeed at this depends on how “well” I can become… i.e. master of my doubts.

(iv) the struggle with the wobbly body / poor coordination / itches

Is it brain damage? It intersects with the “going out problem” because I feel the wobbly body come on when I am uncomfortable or feel someone is being hostile to me (in Co-op for example).

I become clumsy and feel terror and deep anxiety when I nearly knock things over in the kitchen. I stub toes, bang arms and sometimes drop things as my arm muscles spasm. I get periods of itches where scratching one creates an afterburn of pain and immediately you have another itch somewhere else, to the effect that you spend actual minutes just involved in chasing the itches and scratching. My deepest fear in this area is that somehow the codeine addiction is the cause and that I have brain damage of some kind. Perhaps here this is the root thought with the booze too. “I’m fucked because of harming myself with the codeine, nothing left to do but drink”. Oh wow.

(v) health obsessions and hypochondria

I wake in the night feeling I’m having a heart attack. I need treatment with the sleep apnea. I worry about lung problems from the fags. Instead of being proactive I try and fight the worries or suppress them with drink. I worry about my teeth, my kidneys, liver, heart etc etc etc. In reality it is not hypochondria and I must ask mum to accompany me to the doctor. OK – situation resolved.

(vi) the problem of useful employment

I was troubled when I reduced my meds, spoke like Yoda, and thought I was the pied piper. Again I doodled and wrote quite a lot. Ian and Bill asked me what I wanted to do most and I said “write”.

I write, paint, draw, sing, code and calculate. There is no reason not to continue doing all of these. In fact it’s a non problem. I get a sense of achievment and competence when I do good work, and this boosts self esteem, as is widely known. Cool!

(vii) conclusion

So I guess that if the brain is holographic, or at least interconnected, that I start to see how every “problem” is in fact tied and complicit with every other. A person’s life is one mass, not a cloud of separate things.

As a positive note, I think that having assessed my life it is best to conclude “I am not actually doing that badly”. This helps self esteem, and confidence… it fights fear and depression. Great stuff!

============

Conversation with Ian led to thoughts about his espousal of christianity, and claims that he is talking to Jesus all the time. Not anti-religion, not against all religion, just against religion wrongly applied. and I should only tidy my own garden, not try to do it to anyone elses.

Fear of hell goes with OCD sometimes. Obsession… “spiritual preoccupation” goes with SZ.

Is my head like the thing in Yellow Submarine, where one head is full of ideas and the other just contains love? Does being intellectually oriented imply suppressing natural emotion and awareness? Is Ian’s head full of love? I am over analysing.

Writing is the solution to most doubts, you can reach conclusions, or you can fail to which is still helpful because it shows you that you don’t know something.

I am a person not an illness.

Joe wouldn’t recognise my special needs, and it destabilised me.

I think I have been slower to recover from this due to booze.

A person’s needs are very important. I try to recognise his… but he is not familiar with SZ as I am, so resorted to putting me under pressure to “just be normal” when I needed more understanding because doing that is harder for me.

It’s quite important what a person’s view of mental health is. Depending on their belief the life in question may vary a lot. Do you prioritise “thought-health” over “feeling-health” etc… do you strive for control, do you surrender control or somewhere in between?

Do you avoid people who activate your emotions, or do you keep everything safe? what is the right way to understand comfort zones? Is anger necessary for self defence? or is it toxic? or somewhere in between…

how adult should you be? or should you let the inner child out now and then?

Is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, universally applicable? or is it just a tool for certain problems, a partial truth. (yes). Psychiatric workers pull it out of their bag very often it seems.

My dream is already fading from memory.

Am I in touch with reality? I am preoccupied with myself. I self-analyse and seem to have a different state of mind to what I used to.

I seem to think the world is against me. I may be able to defeat this by reasoning that (i) “it’s the same world for everyone”, yet no-one else thinks it is against them! Ok I can follow the logic, but something within is stuck and I will still end up thinking it!

The main contradictory idea to this that arises is (ii) “it’s my world, because I am in it!”. This is more psychologically subtle, saying that I am the experiencer and everything I know is therefore contained within the “realm” of my experience. Perhaps this is more Eastern. I really need to disavow myself of it, though. I am lapsing into thinking that I am connected to all these strangers who I imagine are against me, yet according to (i) everyone sees roughly the same world and no-one else corroborates the existence of universal hostility and persecution. I do not have a neon sign above my head saying “bully me”.

Objectivity may even be a word or concept that I have got out of the habit of using. There are little bits of my thought processes that stall when I am trying to find my bearings and sort my thinking out. Someone once said to me: “in life you have to be able to prove that you are more philosophically sorted than the next guy”. This is precisely it. Lapsing in being “philosophically sorted” is a doorway into some of the worst problems, confusion, inner struggle etc.

My ability to sort may have been inhibited by the guts. I am so prey to these constantly shifting internal sensations, some of which I cannot name or explain. Electric buzzings, agonising rumbles from the gut, whinings just beyond hearing, clicks, movement of some interior membrane or surface. They interrupt important thoughts, they distract, the membranes and tubes, sphincters and organs are never at rest. So it’s almost as if a force is trying to stop me becoming philosophically sorted. I then rail against the injustice and feel persecuted once more.

My threshold for tiredness also seems lower. Exhaustion makes me give up the struggle to think before I have got the job (of making sure I’m sorted) finished. Objectivity is so important, and, if you lose the habit, what then?

At night you sacrifice the light level for peace and quiet.

I have blacked out windows in my bedroom and two wall brackets with candles. HP Lovecraft wrote, like Poe, of dungeons with skulls and memorabilia of the black arts. I find the darkness to be safe and enveloping. My mother tries to draw me out of my cave into the light and I resist. There is this ridiculous imputation that my love of darkness is “unhealthy”. A drama made without my choice or consent, where the rules are the rules and one has no right or room to move. Even now presences are hovering trying to condemn my wordstream.

I have a complex relationship with Co-Op. The nearest branch is round the corner from my flat. as I round the street corner I am in fear of other souls, the place is a bad one for me… I start to anticipate people barging me, indifference blaring out of their eyes. I feel like there might be a poster on the wall with my face and details of a reward offered. Maybe this would diminish if I went back on Prozac.

Later I lie in bed feeling the numbness of a bottle of wine spreading. It is doing its job of numbing but it is not providing any euphoria. This is a wasted dose and I should have avoided it, it will only make the withdrawal worse.

Presences come… old schoolteachers harassing me to join them in a life of service to the Great Mother-School. I yield at first thinking it might be nice to have a job, then eventually I chicken out and deny… the voices build in a storm until the coup de grace: “you are damned, Luke” says the old history teacher.

But still I wouldn’t mind getting to see the catacombs, where the Grail is kept.

Drinking

I guess my drinking increased after I came off the cocodamol.

It was almost a compulsion rather than an actual desire to drink. Maybe it is dipsomania. I started off on cheap white cider. At that stage Miranda was placing a lot of pressure on me to stop, and many people suggested that it was the cider that was making my guts bad. I didn’t really agree with them, but did later move onto white wine as an experiment. The experiment didn’t improve the guts but I stayed on the wine eventually.

Wine is stronger, so you end up getting drunker. By the time it had escalated to 3 bottles a day, I went for a liver test and it came back indicating problems. I stopped that day.

My Nurse

Initially when Judy first began to come and see me I thought that it was oppression. I had to work on trusting her but eventually it was successful. Now I have rationalised that there is really nothing to worry about, and nothing that I need to hide from her.

In a way psychiatric workers are soft-cops, there to keep you in line, but the fist is wrapped in a soft glove because they are also there to give a degree of care to you. My ability to cope with Judy’s visits depends on me forgetting that there is an element of social control in the process.

It may even be that my first statement about soft-cops is not true. I am a somewhat eccentric guy and it may be paranoia that some of the things I say or do arouse censure in her. She herself dresses punk and seems to be quite an individual in the style she adopts. Maybe I am wrong and everything is fine.

A good question would be: “Is she there to stop me being creative and thinking for myself?”. I honestly don’t think so. So overall, again, I manage to trust her. After all she has several times said that she can’t have me sectioned.

The most pessimistic man I have ever known was the “Angry Buddhist” Michael. Why must I still hear his voice tormenting me? He was against drugs and drink, and so of course I fail him there. He told me off when I said I was exploring Nihilism. Buddhism is meant to be peaceful but he was bossy with me, as if he was being a stern paternal influence, but cruel too.

I think he had a tradition of christian bigotry in his family and through adopting Buddhism he thought he would make a clean break with that. In fact he was just perpetuating it under a different guise.

I no longer have an interest in Buddhism. I think it is unreal to expect to be able to lift off into a perfect space in this world. It is also about whether I ever want to follow others, I’d rather graduate to being my own man. One has a chance to be an original thinker and follow one’s doctrines rather than a little person following some historic trend setter who found a place in the written canons but may not have been any smarter. Yeah Buddha as a hack!

When Bill and Ian were round yesterday I was plunged into a sick foul struggle. at one moment I thought Bill was being so submissive he would drag me down. Music played. then Ian was playing macho alpha male.

I had to fight back. Then it appeared that I was pouring out forbidden depressive thoughts and it was inevitable they would both turn against me. Do you see ? you are now my psychoanalyst. but in this contract to dose each other up with our word-spaces we will learn much. never try to deny that I have read hundreds of thousands of your words…

And thus I will in turn never deny the right that you should read mine.

Yours take off into the Zen of allusion. mine overwhelm you with a pool of tragic emotion that violently demands to be heard. Now my face is itchy.

My beard has a thousand bugs living in it, and as each walks along they create agonising itches, itches that are so fundamentally impossible to ignore that hand must travel to face and scratch rudely until satisfaction comes.

But still I will flood my emotion at you… as if I was a stalker. I will be heard. And so also you will be brought down. It is inevitable.

How weird that different humans are made so many ways.

One is a pool of deep black desperation, one a compulsive annoyer who pipes disconnected phrases, and still these two find each other. Come into my tomb, I will trap you with me forever. Open your mind to me, I will shake it up into insectoid overactivity until you burn out… no problem, happily done.

I am pissed off with Ian. I want to berate the bastard. he is locked in a child’s state of mind. Transactional Analysis speaks of this. He told me my computer was shit. what is it about these people who say “my car is better than yours”? And of all the horrendous cosmic cheek it is him who gets a fit girlfriend. I am vowing ever stronger to continue writing this to you Steven.

You must hear my words. there… now I am being like Ian – eternally emotionally open and demanding.

I slept ok and woke with the usual sense of optimism. I woke and slugged back several coffees and cigarettes.

Still smoke? wow join the 21st century man, you gotta conform, gotta go with the flow and do what all the others do… give up.

Give it up like your life depended on it! My neighbour has potty trained and potty trained her dog into a state of insanity. Every half hour she harasses it and takes it into the garden. She growls at it until it pees then showers love on it. She is like a neurotic abusive mother whose child grows up to be schizo-affective. One minute the child is the saviour, glowing with light in perfect love, when mother doles out her favour. The next minute the child is told off, love is denied and he/she thinks she is the execrated one, the Antichrist. The dog is the same. It has been driven mad and now it barks alone all day while I am trying to do my writing.

Seriously, Ian is like the dog, totally neurotic and desperate for love. He is not like me, he has a locked in mind that is permanently set as that of a naughty schoolboy. His hypochondria never stops, he perpetually asks for reassurance and love. I would probably be like that if the angels of cognition hadn’t given me an intellectual life. He is a child but he perpetually tries to gain dominance and ascendancy to place himself at the centre of attention as the ruler of the group. He would deny this but that means nothing.

He has psychiatric hypochondria and this is the worst kind. You are constantly observing your state of mind and having little phobic moments where you observe another malfunction and go on another stupid fucking trip where you have to ask Luke what’s wrong.

My food is being poisoned, my memory is failing, I have brain damage, I can’t sense moods, I am becoming impotent etc etc etc fucking hell.

And Bill gets annoyed by him too. Bill and he are polar opposites. Bill is measured and rational, a planner, believes in fitting in and accepting his lot. Ian is unstable, spontaneous, rebellious and cannot come to peace and acceptance about anything in his life. And there’s me trying to be in a rock and roll band with the two of them !! Here’s me every morning waking up to a new day and drinking too much coffee. Me sensing a world falling into disaster because I went radical and read alternative media on the internet. Bill watches TV news every day and has made a pact to believe everything he is told by this medium. Ian doesn’t know what the news is or what trying to make a life like Bill’s in the world is. They are like little and fucking large. I am a towering heroic conscious soul surrounded by pygmies. You sit, implacable in your doss house, waiting and counting time. I must come and see you, but first I must finish this letter. It is an eternal discipline. yesterday I did 4000 words. If I can do that each day I will have 40,000 in 10 days. that is good but you will be the unwitting saboteur of my life if you neglect to read it carefully. Then you will witness the final collapse of the tower, my life will finally be in tatters as I am beaten and overwhelmed by the fools. Please bear me in mind sir.

Did you know that writing class teachers recommend stream of consciousness as a way to overcome writer’s block? My stream is not totally careless because I still unconsciously get spelling and punctuation right.

I’ve been observing you Steve. You have taken stream of consciousness deep inside you and now you talk it as well as writing it. You truly have made it a way of life and I feel all literary giants of history should take note. It has led to a very clearly emphasised habit of living in the moment and talking what you see and experience around you as it happens. By way of a downside you seem to have de-emphasised conventional rational thinking. But fuck it I am going the same way. Stream of consciousness is the true literary radicalism because it always subverts any attempt to gain knowledge, to map and model, to schematise in the abstract detachment that is held up to be “how people should think” in the modern world.

Well done ! I spoke of a collapsing tower. (yes I have a totally free choice about what I talk about next). The tower is the Lightning Struck Tower of the Tarot. It is symbolic of a descent into madness when a person’s whole reality collapses completely. I feel this tower has bewitched and haunted me through these last years. It started when I was a child, living in the village of Ash in a small country cottage. My mother and sister were present and both read tarot. They were in fear of the times when the tarot tells you messages of darkness, despair and disaster. Yeah thats the three D’s, like a marketing slogan(!) If the cards truly do have a magic power then you might well be advised to fear the nightmarish extreme of collapse and tragedy that the tower represents.

I note that as I am writing there is formed a queue of ideas lined up waiting to be the next one, popped off the stack, to be encoded down on the paper. The rational mode of analysis wants to chew each one carefully and maintain its right as the Central Scrutinizer to insist on a rational presentation. The scrutinizer wants to check each idea for logical well formed-ness, absence of scatological content, how it sounds, elements of self betrayal by disclosing secrets etc etc. The true stream writer subverts the scrutinizer and allows a torrent of phraseology to pour down through the fingers into the keyboard and from the keyboard into the computer which is vessel of all you need to express. The Central Censor is also part of the process, maybe a sub- component of the Scrutinizer.

Frank Zappa.

The censor wants to hide sexual details mainly. This is why I have always been paranoid that Sally spread lies about me around the town. We can all celebrate and the assembled critics and observers may finally characterise the Molarch Conspiracy as a bunch of ruffians like Kerouac et al. who was likened to a “gorilla with a typewriter”.

For years the fear and paranoia of being hounded by Sally and a bunch of spitting snarling women (including Terry – the arm cutter) or even by a bunch of recruited thugs armed with crowbars and drills haunted me. Now I really can look back and laugh, I am safe in time, having gone through purgatory and come back into a free life. I know that Ian’s paranoia has thrown up similar issues (he had a thing like this with Mike Bishop). Sally also spread sexual rumours about Dilliway. Fishwives chattering evil dark secrets while hanging out their washing over the garden fence so that the destruction of male credibility is a hobby like knitting. This is the war against the individual in a banal and easily ignored form. No-one can stand tall without fear of social censure. the crime is to be alive and the punishment is to have your character assassinated by the fishwives. Man hating deviance police when their own minds scarcely exist, and their lives are a catalogue of the manifold failures of human consciousness.

Maybe that’s what the dark tower represents for me: the spreading of malicious gossip about dark aspects that can bring you down. I am unbeaten though, their plan failed and all has washed away in time…

this is it! I KNOW all of world literature. The phrases and descriptions slip off my tongue like a smooth virtual flow of treacle drizzling off a wooden spoon into my readers’ mouths.

Spice up the personal stuff with some external observations.

This may not even be necessary for everyone if you are willing to swallow huge tracts of ranting personal thought, of course you can question that, sure. But my balance is to talk about others a certain amount, and intersperse with some descriptions of scene and place.

I am writing in my bedroom. I call it the bat-cave.

Taped across the window is a section of light- excluding sheeting that was left over from my hydroponics days. My mother and sister tried to persuade me not to put it up, even complaining to my psychiatrist, but I won the day. I love the dark. The worst kind of light is not sunlight though, the worst kind is the strip-lighting in school classrooms ! I bet you remember (reluctantly I’m sure).

The mad ones who surround me (yes my family, none of whom are diagnosed as such except by me) believe in the primacy of The Light. Like stupid Christians they appear at my door trying to persuade me to come out into the world from the bat-cave.

Fools, what do they know about the bliss I feel when alone in the nurturing enveloping blackness of my safety. These are the same people who force extraversion and “mingling” upon you, when anyone knows that associating with 99% of other humans is hell and best avoided.

In the peaceful gloom of the batcave I can make my plans safely. Hmmm there aren’t many plans to make except to stay in the Cave and write. But at least this is a portion of my life where I am unmolested by fools.

I am coming out of my life into a period of freedom again after a period where I lost it. I withdrew the mind-altering shite of psychiatric drugs from my brain and allowed my consciousness to do what it naturally wanted to. I became “God-crazed” and wandered the earth in plimsolls that caused agonising blisters. I then returned to my home and had a run in with my mum and stepfather. They reasoned that I was “ill” and contacted the medical services. By this time I was a little desperate anyway so it didn’t seem so bad when I had to yield to the general prognosis of family and medics and agree to go back on my pills. I had a few days rest where the blisters healed and felt more conforming. I am now on 20mg of Prozac and 20mg of Olanzapine. I am stable. The only thing that’s really better is that I sleep more. My frontal lobes are suppressed and no eyebrows are raised at my presence in society. Its a shit compromise but I don’t feel like being God-Crazed again for a while anyway. Hard to know what you want though.

The endless self-analysis. I am like a monk in an obscure order who has been instructed to analyse himself until he finds the secret mental padlock and discovers how to unweave his ego to get Liberation. I think I would like to stop it, and I think that writing to you will help me stop it. The chatter of the conscious mind.

As a child I used to ask more questions than average.

This has stayed with me. I churn seeking answers but few come. The act of questioning is to give voice to insecurity. The need for an answer is a need for reassurance. Like the reassurance that the newspaper gives my dad: God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world. A place for everyone and everyone in their place.

“Stay in your place, serf!” I hope I am evolving, I guess everyone is. But to be cycling round in non-developing neurosis would be a shame. I feel a curiosity frenzy coming, where I will shoot out question after question, in crisis… in philosophical neediness. I MUST believe that some of my questions are being answered. In this I feel I am actually like Ian. He, being a child, shoots questions. questions about physics, computers, the nature of the mind etc etc etc… etc etc ECT What is the nature of the Self O Buddha. Give me a cyclic teaching, a teaching that heals… man with the child in his eyes.

Or else be an Army Dreamer and get fit, nothing running through the mind except the next work-out and how well the six- pack is coming on. Its in the trees…

it’s a cloud-buster.

Yeah Reich ! Did he know? Orgone is an interesting idea, for sure. Was it so true it drove him mad ? Or was he just bitching about being locked up by the FDA? I sensed Orgone after going to the Cinema in Westgate a month or two back. It was flowing around a gang of teenagers who were occupying their territory at the bus stop and abusing all the adults who passed by. Each thought they were a little movie star or TV celebrity, with fashion gear and gelled hair kept perfect. A minimum of two hours in front of the mirror before you go out because to be a natural human would result in pillory, ridicule, gimp status, bullied status, social failure and the necessity of self-kill. Enough it’s one of my least favourite subjects and a principal reason I stay in the bat-cave.

Now I’ve breathed myself into some feelings again.

This is the ultimate goal of the libertarian lifestyle, to kick zombie-mode off and be natural. Me being natural is usually me being quite hyperactive. Again that’s like Ian so maybe I shouldn’t blank him so much.

Having had a go at him for being a child I find I am being one myself. “sit nicely!” says a peasant mother to her toddler on the bus. when the child is squirming to escape the prison of forced motionlessness. And now I finally understand this other thing: “Relax!!!” everyone assuming that to be psychologically balanced is to be relaxed. In my innermost self I am perpetual movement. fuck being relaxed, even if it makes others nervous, its good for me. Its good for the people who it renders nervous too, because to be alive is to be in motion. It gets extreme after my usual 4-5 cups of coffee at wake-up time.

I remember asking my dad loads of questions. he would answer for a while but eventually lose patience.

I am not sure if any question is ever really answered.

As a child I showed the potential to be a scientist, with that insatiable curiosity. It would have been the foul repressive nuns at my first school who first tried to persuade me that it killed the cat. Their dogmatic world-denial is something I still struggle against now.

The horrible feelings of inferiority as I tried to make a go of a school where the natural self was slowly being suppressed by conditioning and training to “educate” where the misnomer implies all. I am trying to understand this, and the hyperactivity is when I break back into the real ME.

And so I realise I should not really blame Ian he is just trying to be the child he is, as am I.

And now I finally see. I have overdone self-analysis, and that is the best conclusion that this final piece of analysis can bring me to. I have hit a problem. I am paralysed like a paraplegic who has conducted too much self physiotherapy. My feelings are there and I am trying to live with them. Since I got up I’ve been feeling tempted to have a drink. I’ve phoned Bill and put off our next meeting. I’ve breathed a bit and gone hyperactive. now things are feeling trickier. Must be a big chunk of pain coming up.

Now I’ve had a drink and the temptation to go get some co-codamol has hit me. I became aware of Sophie wanting to see me too.

I am in search of insight. I see that the world is in the grip of trying to escape its own sadness. you dont even need Janov for that… Freud will do. Everyone is on a pilgrimage to their true feeling space.

Now I have just got back from scoring some co-codamol. it was an obstacle course, from making conversation with the taxi driver to getting out early and waiting for the bus.

I am overwhelmed. I just drew some filthy pornographic cartoons involving fat women proffering their tushes to a man who did them from behind. The neighbour’s dog downstairs is barking again. the taxi driver thought I was a junkie and I didn’t have the will to persuade him otherwise. My family are evil.

Good morning Vietnam.

I now have mental exhaustion after the trip out. Its that simple, but my summary of the situation is hiding a world of complexity. still maybe I have to hide that from myself too to keep living. The adventure of scoring was an engagement with a cheap world. The cab driver asked me why I needed to go to such a distant chemist. I told him it was private. He concluded that I was getting meth… I went along with his belief because it was simpler than explaining the truth about the codeine. I was dropped off on Canterbury road and after the second pharmacy I walked across the railway to wait for a bus home. I felt the adventure into the outside world was cheap, an encounter with a brutal realm of uncaring people who would ignore my tears.

Like trampling on your dreams, ignoring tears is a thing done by a world who will not honour the sanctity of your needs.

I snap awake as I type. This is not book learning I am giving out here. It is the One True University of Life. It is terrifying to be suddenly jerked awake out of a reverie and to find yourself facing a world. In the same way to be born into a world is the residual and remnant terror we all hold within us. It is Not A Joke in the canonical list of situation-summaries. But there is still everything to play for… thank god for Bill. I play his games and in return we sit in the same room as each other once a week hoping that company is an opiate that will medicate our desperate pain. Why am I saying this? because I want everyone to know that I do have a life. After they doubted it at the bus stop when I muttered. After I flinched when someone smiled, after my whole identity was discredited through a signed letter from a diagnosing doctor. Yes I want this, but why isn’t my madness simply a waft of smoke in a breeze, like yours is? Mine remains like an abscess and the pain comes again and again. the pain comes as a surprise in the small hours, the pain comes as an intruder when I am rolling a smoke… my arm jerks and baccy spills on the floor to a curse. The pain comes when I am suddenly persuaded the world is about to look manageable and peaceful.

“He’s an intellectual… stay clear of him” said Dave the rasta in the square to her. she in brown skinned glory, but innocent too. Intellectuals are unlucky in love, they cause problems, he explained. I could have challenged him but I didn’t. Hmm at least they acknowledge my job description. I am fantasising about her, she had her dog with her. Lovely, maybe 25. And as I imagine the voices blur in my head and she is really there, so I have to watch my thoughts. each one is transmitted to her instantly as I think it, and her response just as reliably back to me. Really I want to be able to fantasise about her without her knowing. It would give me a warm feeling, but I never get this desire of mine. I am telepathically flirting with her and its tricky.

Does doing this make me like a stalker ? Maybe to Dave and that’s why he said what he said. I only wish to treasure my little dreams after all, but again the Nature of Creation seems wired against me. Again I am in the story of the emperor’s new clothes, everyone laughing as I walk around naked. There is something so glaringly obvious about all human life… yes. And this is the one crucial fact I have never managed to learn. So I am Jack jumping over the candle stick, wee willy winky in a nightshirt and all the other ridiculous figures, the patsies from world mythology because I couldn’t learn The Thing. But what the fuck is the Thing? Ive been working on this for 20 years now and I still don’t know it. So what can I do ? stay wee willie winkie.

I am cheated out of love, and I can’t expose the manipulator of the game to get my justice ? And they ask me why I ended up on opiates?? character is a subtle thing. I have written about it for years but I still don’t understand my own. I am sounding like a stalker, and it is even nightmarishly possible that Dave will ward her off by drawing attention to this. He was born in a big house,, but he fell low… why is he living here then? she says. I don’t know, but he got diagnosed with a mental illness. Oh my god. she says. No don’t worry he’s mostly ok says Dave.

I am listening to all this happening outside my front door but I am too cowardly to take charge and burst out there. Would she be scared? This again is the mystery of character, even those who are of the light, and those of the dark like he is portraying me to be. I hide away in this dingy flat and all I want is to be able to have a youthful crush on a girl on the bus, but the cruel god of fantasy intervenes and they all know about it. I am discovered and my needs are turned into something…”dark”. Again that word, when really it is the appellation that the simple unexamining folk give to things that are of an exploration of the psyche.

I’ve explored my psyche shamelessly, and besides the accusation I can tell you that I am performing a great job here, turning all the darkness into light. Light of others knowledge.

Creating light and trust by bringing out my demons, to counteract this simplistic primary school pressure from the force of life to mate. I want to enjoy her, not to mate and create children with someone I never got to know because they couldn’t appreciate the alternate universe of my fantasies. This is it… God is against me, I have proven it now.

Martin is sweet to wake up to. His company is soft and gentle like my new boots. yesterday the taxi driver thought I was getting meth. I went along with it.

Consumerism has impregnated our world through the implanted TV. The box sits at the core of our lives and few people notice it critically. I have been off it for nearly 15 years. I can sit alone at home with no external stimulus for hours. It is as if boredom is the devil in the modern world. Boredom is rather the price we pay, since the universe itself is outclassed by man’s mind. My playroom is full of old toys that have lost their appeal. Discarded puzzles that I found too easy, but still my mind goes questing outwards in search of new stimuli.

I just saw martin on the way back from the shop. I told him about the brown girl, and how I wished to make her acquaintance, he wished me luck. he said “she’s all muscle” which was a typical non-sequitur of his. my breakfast is egg mayonnaise. 99p from the shop. Low-carb as usual, stuffed with protein and fat which is the best way to eat to get thin. Yesterday I started drinking in the morning. Its naughty but it gives you the feeling that you are free, even to break a fundamental law of life like “no booze in the morning except at weddings”.

There are downsides, like when you try to get off it and have the shakes and panic attacks when you encounter other humans, but still…

I do actually love the mornings now, which is a change from how I used to be. I used to wake up early, feel like shit, roll over and spend the whole morning trying to get back into a sleep vibe, until eventually I would arise at 11 or 12. Now I’m breezy at 7. I feel I may have got some of the pain of my life off my back so there’s less baggage I carry. I am chasing the emotionality down to the root. I explained to Ian that sadness was ok, and he kind of looked like he pitied me. He is not a profound thinker, and really is led by culture around him. He comes to my flat and takes a seat facing me. I’d really prefer to have him slightly turned to one side rather than directly looking at me.

He is mimicking the role of a baby, to latch onto the other’s face and hang on their every word. It tires me out.

I may crack a drink in a minute, the last note of freedom in the song of my life. I partly opted to go back on the prozac so I don’t pull bummers while drunk. This can get a little dangerous if its with my mum. I will become angry and shout at her about paedophilia, suicide, or mental health stigma. The usual game is to try and postpone the commencement of booze in the day, and one way is to do some breathing and try to get the emotions up and buzzing. I will try and do this instead. also one of the worst scenarios is to awake and drink too much coffee to try and get fired then need a drink to cut the anxiety of the coffee.

I once drove around Europe in a red Renault 4. The French call that car Une Quatrelle. We set out with a broken windscreen after a mud-fight in a wood. The AA couldn’t find a replacement screen and we got to the south of France before we could find one in a scrap yard. A French friend fitted it for us. It rained at various points before that and I had to wear shades while driving, the rain splatting on the lenses as I steered. It was with Anthony and Justin. Our rule was that we had to steal more than we paid for at each supermarket. We got to Italy, Tuscany, and then decided to go to Cadaques, the drive along the riviera was a great thing, drunk on Pastis, swinging the quatrelle round hairpin mountain bends, coaxing every bit of handling out of the car.

Cadaques was a glory in the sun, the best kept hippy trail secret of the Freak island. Everyone was going naked at that stage. Anthony dropped some acid and got off with a german girl called Utta. Someone gave me some coca leaves and my guts gave out. Harry was a Spaniard with the biggest member of all those gathered. he almost dangled it in the stew pot when it was his turn for cooking duty. There was a cop car parked on the shoreline rise observing us suspiciously but there was no bust.

Our original plan had been to go to Eos and try and get laid a lot. We turned back from that plan. I was getting the fear of the opposite sex and felt quietly glad. Ant and Just got lucky with two English girls in Italy and I felt that I was a total gooseberry. The lonely schizo in his single bed out on the Verandah.

My rats stare at me with curiosity as I pass their cage. I am breathing up some stuff. The memories of skinny dipping in the Alps on that trip. The icy water gave me a shrunken dinkle and in my mind this combines with the absence of sexual action on the trip. Too cowardly to go to a night club on a sex-mad island.

Blown out in favour of the other two by pretty girls in a cottage near Lucca. Me sitting in the back of the quatrelle hoping no-one would notice. Feeling vulnerable and nervous, inadequate and alone. As I breathe I entrust the feelings to my body. I pump deep draughts of oxygen into my brain and I integrate and remember. The shrinkle dinkle in the cold river, jumping off a bridge with my flesh visible to passing cars. going naked on the island, praying no-one would draw attention to my anatomy. Blown out by Jessica and Alex in Tuscany, chickenshit scared of sexual encounters on Eos. I breathe and breathe again, feeling and opening myself onto the paper. A confessional of neurosis. although you shouldn’t call it that because feeling is the opposite of neurosis.

Working my way round the kink in a mental road.

Accepting myself and healing.

Still pumping the breaths deeper and deeper. Humiliations from older brother. The Ian-adequacy through my life. “you little pouf” etc.

Laughter with his older friends, with I left to play with them. their taunts and jokes about subjects I couldn’t understand. The emperor in his new clothes who doesn’t get the joke. emperor unclad naked as he walks praying no-one sees and comments on the small member. Self therapy to lose and deny the fear.

Therapy for the wrong reasons. to be a stud, graced with a big todger. Breathing again, the fear that makes the scrotum shrink even further. The confessional of this writing – why do I bother. To expose my fragile mind is to expose the body but no shame this time, walking free on the freak island unconcerned about nudity.

Unconcerned about the exposure of such a judged-and-found-wanting fear of sex, my friend you have revealed your deepest fear I sentence you to be exposed before your classroom peers in a mincing machine on an album that was called “Music to Commit Suicide By” by my brother.

Older brothers: the bullies and perpetrators of humiliation that lasts a lifetime.

Me 13 years old, voice still unbroken, he 18 and getting laid, still making jokes about my immaturity. The joke is on me with his friends the Johnson boys. Johnson – there’s an irony. still pumping the breaths, still remembering, still trusting my body to release the hurt and fear.

Broken pride before I was a man, broken before the game started. turning to a psycho-the-rapist mother to try and lose the fear. not succeeding for decades until I discover the breathing techniques and have a breakthrough. All because of a worry about the size of my penis. Wee willy winky, jack be nimble, jack jump over the candle stick. Why do nursery rhymes sound like they are sexually themed. Knick Knack Paddywack give a dog a boner.

This old man played knick knack (he was a paedophile) etc etc cultural commentary as a sub-psychic level! no father present at home in Ash to help me understand how to be a man. No father in my life apart from a distant voice on a telephone. Voices in phone-space trying to make contact with each other. Living with a mad mother in an untidy country cottage. A mad brother sometimes staying and abusing a mad sister when he could.

And there’s Ian with his carnal obsession, cracking stupid fucking jokes all the time about how he was gay at boarding school. Triggering the same anxiety over and over. now he’s got a gorgeous girlfriend and I’m the gooseberry again. but I love it really, the anxiety, the trembling cut by cigarettes in my kitchen.

He – The One. the crucified schoolboy. There are people drawing in, looming over me. I am in my cot seeing a whole life stretched before me. still breathing the feelings as they come. Trembling in a shower. Naked in life with no armour. Thanks to Reich no armour worn and all females can see my fear and even reach down to tickle my tightened scrotum. Bonobos rubbing scrota together in a bonding ritual. Rugby players stinking of male pheromones in a pub. Teenage gangs of males hunting down smaller boys to humiliate. My brother again. and again. and again. Taunting and teasing, driven from his own insecurities. me growing up. A schizo in later life. no sex for decades. A loser who once wasn’t one. The British Sense of Humour.

I lose my virginity against a wall. Feel like a master, then I’m not again. the male being, the ego strength visible in a powerful body, muscles taught. Then periods of agoraphobia, muscles go slack. Naked and visible in shops as I choose my basket full of capitalist products.

Stream of conscience running like a river.

Reveries and being lost in the woods where there may be a flasher at large. The mystery of sexuality to David Bowie. The mysterious friendship between Ian and Bill.

Aaaaahhhhh aren’t they sweet the deformed monkey- being and the little old lady with a shopping basket who is his friend. Little and large go with noddy and big ears to toy-town. Ian seen as a sex criminal by virtue of a problematic dirty-joke habit. Bill the straight man. brunt of all jokes by the monkey-being. Ian rotating round and round on his obsession with himself. Bill so sensible chiding and chastising him for being wild and free. The Third Man Dunn observes in desperation at Noddy and his Otitic friend. The Third Man the spy, trying to masquerade as a man with no anxieties. His nurses call him laid back but really he is a desperate undercover child trying to escape suspicion in a grown up world. He, the Dunn, carries under-size anatomy out of sight while all the big boys are getting laid in Tuscany. He is hounded out of the adequate society into a loser environment where little and large are his only friends. Still creative with language he languishes.

I write “I woz ere” in letters 10 metres high on the harbour wall. A graffiti jam starts and Bill writes “I woz big-eres”. Ian wont play along and sets the tone by insisting on walking across town past gangs of chavs who tease and laugh because he has a small member too. Of course he does how else do you get sex-complexes? Even Steve the unbreakable beat hero is one day exposed on the front page of the Thanet times as possessing a small one. Maybe they are all paedophiles. and here I am slipping back into the Heygate-humour where exposure and blushing ridicule is all of life. Sex is all of life but it is perverted out of sanctity into a twist-up of pure humiliation where there’s always a patsy to the teasing game. It turns into the crying game and we all seem so tragic.

The monkey-being and his retinue are not due to visit for a week. The misunderstood genius is busy writing a letter to another misunderstood genius. outside it is civil war in Britain as usual. Not a war of guns but of dirty jokes. The two primary British obsessions: sex and class. the sex obsession manifests as the perpetual sexual humiliation game. the game has two branches: vaginal and anal. Ian straddles both branches and is opportunistic about cuckolding all his old mates. he has scored (not heroin – sex) with a female heroine named Loo-seat. Luke sits in the middle of the controversy breathing too deeply and Bill tries to control everything.

It’s the crying game really but toy-town is meant to be a happy place. Prozac is administered to the elves and gnomes.

down curving smile lines on the childrens’ drawings become up- curving smile lines and the great censorship of sadness is accomplished. There is laughter coming on the wind, but it has a manic edge and is too loud. Its Heygate again. No-one will touch us when we go out except other inhabitants of toytown.

The big folk are all around and hobbits get shy of them.

The big folk are all normality-serving adults with no sexual complexes.

Toy-town has been invaded and burly policemen are locking up all the toys. they make accusations of serious sexcrimes and Big ears gets sectioned. In the corner of the Toy-town bar sits Luke frantically recording events for posterity. “Don’t you mean posterior?” says Windy Miller. “Up your own arse of intellectuality again, yeahhhh that’s right.”

Suddenly the stream of consciousness writing coach appears in a flash of light. She is Wonder Woman, alias Tesher my ex. “this is all good” she says “But you need to set the scene more… lets have descriptions of Margate beach with fat women sunbathing. or graffiti-plastered walls next to kebab shops. lets have lovely descriptions of the Turner skies or analysis of the kentish yokel accent. lets have fishing boats at sunset to Jean Michel Jarre…” Ok love I’ll put some of that in.

Our goddess and benefactor is Tracey Emin. No-one of us has met her but she hovers over everything we do. She’s our potential road to fame.

Steve is in the process of writing a 400,000 word stream of consciousness letter to her. But the postman will intercept it and it will be archived at GCHQ marked “possible terrorist group based in Thanet”. The only terrorism that results is a consciousness terror.

Not my terror of being exposed but an iconoclastic indictment of modern Britain penned by a genius who lives in a small room full of broken computers.

The frequency of the word “nonce” has never been higher. There is a competition to see how many sentences on the page you can get the word into. Two or three in a sentence is common, but that’s not special because when you write stream of consciousness your sentences can be 3 pages anyway ! Talking of Loo-seat, Peter is longing for the presence of Dawn and Kate. Made famous in a previous collection of Luke’s writing that has now been destroyed in order to save his sanity.

the only remaining copy of Renfield, which describes so poetically Pete’s adventures in Masochism, is part of a pile of books stacked next to broken computers…

Guess where ? ha-ha can’t you? Steve is my only reader!! I have to plan carefully every time I publish to avoid copies getting near my dad, who would turn blue-faced and scream if he were to sample the textual terrorism. Or is it semiotic terrorism, the science and study of the one fundamental V-sign flicked up at conservatism and imagination-less conformity that our enemies practise. None of you guys have ever met my dad but you all kinda know him! Besides I am getting over my complex about publication, and realising Bill’s teaching of the quiet life. No-one will know what strange waters of genius Steve and I sailed. We are hidden masters, quietly holding together human destiny, but doing so under a bushel where none may know, except the chosen. That’s noddy and big-ears by the way, alias.

I am enjoying a fine altered state now, brought on by the breathing and loads of coffee and smokes. I can’t get amphetamines like Leonard Cohen used, but if you are creative with breathing and commonly available substances you can hit a nice mainline vibe with the textuality. I don’t even know who I am addressing this to, maybe you, Steve, maybe you, Pete. I don’t think we want to show it to Noddy because he will get paranoid that I have made him famous, infamous, fatuous. Also sweet Lucy shouldn’t be called Loo-seat I was digging not at her but at him, with a side-swipe at Pete when he licked one.

So terrorists we are, of the linguistic variety. huddled away in the corner of the country, hiding on the back-streets, in the darkness on the edge of town, trainspotters all, beaten and beatific. Bottom with Mayall and Edmondson was an inspiration, what came first us or the TV show. We are a lifestyle group that nobody bothers to profile because our combined income is less than Bill’s elder brother. If we were like the pink pound they’d want to know us, but we are Eddie Hitler so we get left alone. God I’m bored of Pete saying “Hitler!” nice one ! But here’s the final analytic frame to set the scene for all this. As wonder woman knows (my writing coach) WORDS ARE CHEAP.

There are too many genii languishing in corners of the country, undiscovered, hoping for the break. There are too many heroic introverts trying, lost in their own inadequacy, to create the next literary revolution.

There are many heroic gangs of “Bottom” lookalikes existing in the void of undiscovered talent. Words, and talk, are indeed cheap. But this fact is a kind of salvation to us, truly, as we are left alone in quiet lives, just as Bill wants. If Wonder Woman is a hovering spiritual entity presence to me, gently coaxing and coaching, so also Bill, alias Enoch the Patriarch, is truly an artistic guide. He wished to make sure we understand that undiscovered greatness is the best kind of greatness. Even Einstein said he’d rather be re- incarnated as a plumber so he could have a quiet life away from the prying eyes and the insufferable company of politicians and statesmen. So the cycle is complete, the prophecy fulfilled and we all leave the world exactly as we found it, which is what Martin wanted after he read the Tao Te Ching. (that was before he did the Book of Revelation on acid by the way..)

Stream of Consciousness is also called “The Documented Self”. As you write you road broaden horizontally by exploring cool-sounding anecdotes from your heroic life, and you deepen vertically by going into tragic explorations of your own inadequate introversion. There are two types of art according to Frog.

“Straight Art” is easy to grok, but “Neurotic Art” is always made wispier by delving into the psychological narrative of lonely weak men, wandering on the fringes and thinking that makes them cool.

I rest my case.

And so people always ask me: why is your characterisation so poor and reliant upon just mentioning a name and then saying some shit about what they said or did. why can’t we have descriptions of their features and anatomical peculiarities? why cant you describe their dingy homes and the strange smell of Stilton that lingers in the air, available to your nose when you visit? why can’t you give moving descriptions of strange epiphanies as you walk down Northdown Road being barged by Rumanians and smiling at Sikh taxi drivers? why can’t you record page after page of conversations with Turkish kebab shop staff, before hanging around with bipolar tramps on the bench in front of the church. I do, I do, I say.

Because words are cheap, and the bustling rushing drive that every embodied citizen conducts in a desperate scrum of similar citizens to make themselves a name in the world, and thereby a place, is so omnipresent that it has lost all meaning and yes, the guy in the queue in front of you in the benefits office is also an undiscovered genius and also has a hard drive full of pearls, alongside the porn !! Yes talk is cheap, and yes also you can spray ejaculate from your mind into the ether and it will be snatched away to disperse like the atoms of your body after death, to be lost like dandelion fluff that fertilises soil down the valley. The fluff is a seed, in truth, but fluff it is seen as, cheap and soon gone, as you, o reader drift away back into consideration of what you will have for supper, or how many milli-amperes your faithful TV uses in the socket.

And so what am I truly doing ? Just filling in time between coffees and smokes, just keeping myself pain, as a stent or pipe inserted into an agonising wound eases the pressure, and drains pus away that I save on a disk… and eventually send to you hoping that the scent and taste is acceptable… although god knows how since it is only pus, an exudate. and something that I was well rid of. So this is the grand, cosmic, all-encompassing irony… my waste products are something I hope to make me great. as the sun shines out of my arse so also my leavings are precious. Ahhh there’s the rub. there’s the good fortune. I excrete (from my mind) and people queue to buy it !! yeeeeehaa! because this is the great teaching: the scatological is the intellectual. as we know… Knowing someone biblically is buggering them. so knowing real conscious facts about life is a bit like collecting your bogies. And still they pay us ! That’s the end. That’s the bottom of the barrel, that’s all for now.

I got stuff for the flat to make it look posh.

I kept saying “if it ain’t broke dont fix it”. I was assessing all the systems of my machine for living – the batcave. I thought of buying a new portmeirion dinner service. I bought some silver and a rug as I had wanted to for some time.

I wondered if this was unnecessary… I blew about 500 quid on amazon and ebay… I also bought some expensive drinks from tesco. Aat one point after spending I worried that I might not get the money after all, or that it would take ages.

If it ain’t broke dont fix it – most of the home is good. I thought about hiring a cleaner and still may. Parents tried to persuade me not to, typically since they usually question everyhting I want to do by default.

I noticed that my brain was rewiring itself into a more empowered feeling. Plasticity is greatly affected by being poor and I felt fewer symptoms coming to me. I said to myself and others “that was a year of desperation”… maybe I was exaggerating slightly but it seemed true at first.

I was able to go to the shops with no problems at all, co-op, waitrose etc.

We had sunday lunch at the Dog and Duck, the only paranoia was when I thought a body builder was looking at me.

All in all I am feeling happier.

I tried to stop myself spending any more when I couldn’t be sure when the back-pay would come, or even if by some disaster it didn’t.

I’ve reflected on how the money has made me feel better, more in control, more able to think. After several days of shopping I was even a little tired because my expanded range of options had meant that I kept thinking a lot more which was slightly tiring.

During the “15 months of desperation” I drank too much and frequently went into outbursts via text, histrionics with family and inner rages. I was afraid of being evicted and even got to the stage of hoping my parents or uncle would die so I got some money. That was all cancelled by the good news. I felt like I was rich, had won the lottery. The spending spree was fun. Now if I stop thinking about it I can still sense some of the fear and desperation from before, because 15 months is a long time to condition yourself with the state of feeling economically desperate, so I anticipate that it will be a while longer before my brain state attractor has “popped” into a permanently less troubled state. I think it will happen.

Dad suggested I write a piece about the whole matter, but it was a case of him being bossy again.

I went to Masala Gate (22/09/18) for Jim’s celebratory meal after he got ESA backpay. Bob was trembling the whole evening and Jim was mute for some of it. I ordered Tarka Dhal and Jim said he didn’t like veg. After we went to Barnacles and I was amazed and pleased that I had no agoraphobia throughout the evening, although really the company was rather depressing. I decided after that I don’t have much time for eating out and going to pubs… Been there, done it etc.

I decided that if I didn’t get a cleaner I should learn to tidy more. The cleaner might be £15 a week but in a way it would be worth it.

I am still worried about abdominal pain, hope its not liver. On Tuesday I helped Geoff at Beach Road and got a good workout from carrying stuff down stairs. I am thinking of Mike’s views about writing, namely that hoping for publication is counter-productive. This is an interesting position… I will aim to write journal first thing every day, although of course permanent decisions are hard to implement.

Guts have mostly been good too. The only recent hiccup was the Ian/Doris fiasco where they wanted to stay the night. Doris had absconded from her foster home and Ian had tried to use me as a place to stay for them. His sheltered gaff has a rule that guests can’t stay for 3+ nights. Tosin came and decided they were using me, so she told mum and the duo skedaddled. I had a gut relapse from the stress but now I am back on the up. I even considered buying a Fortnum’s hamper !!

I bought Penhaligons soap and a steel bin for the bathroom. Then a leather sponge bag. For the kitchen a new kettle, metal bin, draining rack, grater, peeler… loads. a guitar stand, silver candlesticks… malachite bowl. I went through some thoughts about how I wanted to arrange the flat : immaculate and full of treasures like Wildham, or with a mixture of stuff, less pretentious and more lived-in, like Roxburgh. I decided it was a bad road to be too ostentatious, as if I was nouveau riche. I enjoyed acquiring a few status symbols, angostura, moutarde de meaux etc but I then corrected myself and returned to normality, not wanting to sink to that level. Be yourself, I said.

After all, the likes of Bob, Jim etc don’t know the difference between tat and quality stuff. Most of my guests would be unaware.

I inherited a green rug from Beach Road, two glasses, a coffee tin and some fridge magnets. The rug is cheap but my overall decision is not to become ostentatious. Again I sensed myself trying to enforce this as a “permanent decision” that would hold for life… again I realised that permanent decisions rarely last without at some point alteration of context or simply a change of mind once more.

So £5k is actually the most money I’ve ever had in my life. I kept wondering about using some of it for travel, but the desire and impetus never really came upon me. Be it abroad or just Folkestone, or to see Dave and Ben, or Claudie… whatever. This loss of ambition may change now the desperation period is over. I thought about telling Mum and Duncan to cut their payments to me by £50 each, but really I’d rather not.

Bearing Mike in mind again I will aim to write every day, just telling about most of the stuff that happens. I will make each day a separate text file and keep them in Dropbox. I will not embroider, elaborate or render into perfect form because this journal is not for publication, thx Mike

Each file will be given a title that most summarises the content, and I will let Sublime Text use the first line of the file for this automatically.

Other stuff that has been happening is a huge fitness drive involving going up and down my stairs every day, and long Thursday my sister walks. I have reduced tummy and feel and look better. Generally eating more veg and smaller portions, although on fitness days I sometimes get a shortfall by bedtime and end up with midnight munchies, this has to be worked on.

Previous to this last slice I had been worried about the neighbours and had reported them to Landlord, Police and Council. Now it is out of my mind, having been displaced by the spending spree etc. Before that it was the social phobia about seeing Paul and Laura. These sessions of anxiety seem likely to be less of a part of my life now, fingers crossed.

I considered making a Papier Mache bowl a while back, at the same time being aware that my motivation for projects is still lower. Ben would say this was negative symptoms. I didn’t need motivation for the spending spree, it came naturally, but with other stuff… I drew a life map on A2 felt tip. I got into the habit of preparing meals in advance with grated veg, cheese and precooked pasta (wholemeal). I lactofermented swede, I made live apple Jelly then threw it away.

There will be a my sister walk tomorrow, hopefully. I considered getting titanium Trangia bowls, and mugs, but parsimony stopped me.

I bought a spin-swivel steel ashtray and Doris annoyed me by pressing the knob every time she tipped ash. Then she said a Bendicks Bittermint was horrible, whereas Tosin showed a little bit of class by enjoying hers.

I am still worried about my teeth after scare stories by Mike. Preceding the hearing he had come three times, first occasion he cameat 2pm and left at 3am, then he came again and left at midnight. buggering my sleep cycle is not helpful, even though overally I enjoyed the chats. Jim thought it was excessive and said e would not have put up with it. Bob tried to organise a meal but I dipped out fclaiming gts. Nobbi, Bob’s Bangla friend annoyed me by wanting to consult about some trivial spam he had received, it spoiled a whole evening…Me screaming into the void, drunk, saying I didn’t want to help if he wasn’t going to go to the police, shifty bugger.

I have moved Youtube duty to mum’s old 10 inch Samsung tab. Spotify has replaced Torrents for me now, although I hate the ads. I took a deep breath, said “change is good” and deleted more than 11,000 tracks from external drive. phew. Dave suggested I might regret, but overall I have not.

I considered getting an Oculus Rift VR, or a Google home… but I just don’t need this stuff. My simple life works for me

Ian lost my tent and sleeping bag after I lent them. I considered blanking them from my life. Geoff came down in favour of being kind, and I appreciated it a lot. It is other family who can be cruel, urging me to remove people.

I bought a down jacket on Amaz but cancelled it. £150. Again, just no need. I should get the crampons though, £15. The Landlord has raised the rent to £525. I don’t care. If he wanted to evict me I would offer to pay more, (within reason).

So there is my assessment of where I am at currently…

I thought of giving my sister £200 and nephew £100. We shall see. I placed some ornaments outside the flat door, it makes it look more homely and saves space. I got a good photo of Ian and Doris, and a funny one of Ian laughing. I lay on my purple camping mattress with 3 books to keep the head in the right position. I am still working on posture taking after Mike with his obsession. I rest more frequently through the day. In short I am sorting my life big-time. Saw Justin, Twyms… Little bit more space from the codependency with Mum. Dave emailed saying he ws depressed, poor guy.

I read the David Deutsch Infinity book, then I bought Brian Greene but I just couldn’t find the will to read it. I wondered about this, whether I can get that much function back. I started watching LOTR again, but didn’t get inviolved , although I did cry at bits. The rationalist pop scI books make me more disatisfied with the thick people around me. Mum and my sister’s irrational worldviews. etc. I worry whether I can trim down the number of events that happen, so there is less journal to write and I don’t get such a busy thought life. Maybe I should lose the science, coding gives me a bad back… no motivation to do art, for example the papier mache didn’t move me. so much it is a question of thinking of what I “should do” rather than actually doing stuff because I have spunk and want to. “should” is a waste of time. It’s not acting for the right reasons.

I do have a strong minimalist aspect to my thinking, after all. Maybe I should just write and write and write. The Lectron story got rejected by Analog, I didn’t care so I put it on my blog. I’m still coaching Arka…

I am obsessed with Prometheus and Alien Covenant. Some of the bits in Covenant really turn my stomach though. I watched some fan documentaries and this was stimulating, it woke me up a bit to get actually interested. that and the fitness made the PIP hearing less nightmarish, but I was still numb afterwards and couldnt even be bother to go back in to hear the result. After my spending spree mum tried to frighten me by saying “you can’t be sure you’ll get the payment” but I reject this outright, it’s safe as houses.

Jim got 16k which made him cheer up. when he told me he said “are you jealous” and I said no, but then later, as if that was a cue I became slightly jealous. I don’t want to be a bread head. the plan is that now I am secure I will aim to think about money less, check my balances less etc. still save and simply not worry.

It annoyed me when he said he wasn’t into vegetable side dishes. Bob was trembling and then in the pub after he kept on looking side to side as if he was paranoid about people hearing what I was saying. this always makes me say more controversial, humourous and absurd things. His back is bad and although he can be wise and kind, some areas of his inner self are in a real mess with that bad posture and fear. I still like him overall, but ive demoted him to once a fortnight. I worry that admitting to diary that I sometimes hold Bob in doubt is too negative but I think releasing it will help, even though these files are now definitely stamped for private status only. I don’t have the same feelings towards Mike right now because Mike is more like me, more worldly, accomplished and with some more middle-class features. I have bonded with Jim more by appreciating his quiet aspects but sometimes he can be negative too, like anyone.

I’m quite surprised that I’ve managed to instate the exercise routine every day, and to have lost weight like this. I found a cognitive hook, a way to trick myself into action… This is always the best way. I need to wake up into the day, so I am more lucid if I kick start my metabolism very morning with some stairs, usually before eating. you burn more calories if you eat before exercise but I dont always manage that.

Geoff was nice when we did a tip run, he said I should carry on being kind to Doris Ian etc. I said his car didnt look like a banger and he thanked me. I said mum was being nasty and he agreed. this made me think that he will not snaffle my ineritance after all with the help I give him, manual labour at beach road or computer etc also being amusing and kind to both of them. singing for my supper and being good company. I think he will not snaffle.

I considered buying some electronics but I don’t feel I need to, be it a super kindle or a projector or an amazon echo whatever. I have narrowed down my needs and the primary things I want to focus on are writing journal and keeping up fitness.

Do less, read less news, write more. minimal-head not busy-head.

On waking I struggle for the first few minutes not to create negative thoughts that will affect the tone of the day ahead. I woke from a strange dream about exhibitionism. I feel that perhaps I have lost some of the connection between thought and writing. I cannot so easily stream down lots of what has been happening in my life, just like that. Maybe I must rebuild this. Is it actually a brain structure? Yes I think it is, a fluidity which allows total honesty, and gives me more actual volume to write.

In the dream I was naked and people were commenting on the size of my penis. I was not very embarrassed, it was more a matter of fact question about the objective size of the object concerned.

Yesterday I had a dream I was at the Olympics preparing for the Triple Jump. I was late for the event and couldn’t find my spikes. The other typical anxiety dream is that I have a flight to catch and can’t find my passport or pack my bag in time.

I woke the day before that from yet another (aren’t dreams always strange, though?) I was with Mollie Galant and was going to take her to the Mayor’s Ball. Patrick Le Pelley turned up and we found ourselves in a huge Chinese restaurant, busy serving hundreds of mysterious dishes, the secret kind that only Chinese eat. Margate was a metropolis in the dream, with its own chinatown and lots of different areas, all with the frenzied sophisticated feeling of a large city. I decided to try an unusual dish, so I ordered fried pig’s guts with rice. They got the order wrong and there was some confusion, which left me arguing with the cook.

Overall when I woke from this I was feeling good. It was as if the “smorgasbord” of dishes in the restaurant somehow represented the abundance of interesting and pleasant experiences in life. There seems to be so much to learn and experience. Normally I am not this buoyant on waking, and it must be because I spent some quality time with Paul where I was not stressed and too preoccupied to enjoy his company.

I am documenting my life – the more you write, the more comes.

There is more to do the older you get – I never knew this.

I am worried about my neighbours again, yesterday I even thought one was objecting to the sound of me typing. But it’s not noisy – I cant hear the other people in the block breathe, type or go to the loo!

Martin said “people are nice”, he is actually right.

Schizophrenia is a descent into a dark and menacing world full of strange impossible events and unreal magical phenomena. It is terrifying. It makes you more likely to kick off and become nasty or hateful with others too. The worry about the neighbours must be defeated. Would any of them freak out if they thought I had become obsessed with them?

But it is not obsession – I dont fancy any of them. I haven’t vowed revenge on any. It is because of the hallucinations and delusions that I think people are against me. On all rational balance I must accept they are not. This is crucial. Turning into a raging axe-wielding Krazee Klown is life-destroying, Martin’s principle can save you from this… People are nice. Better a happy simpleton than an embittered intellectual. No, the thoughts are silly and will hopefully fade as I stay off the drink and my meds work better.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO KEEP ENJOYING LIFE – ALL ELSE STEMS FROM THAT.

People are nice and even if there is some bad stuff there is more good and I live here in Westgate, in a quiet peaceful place.

When I am in the grip of these thoughts I tend to try and explain them by creating sociological or psychological theories to map the observed facts. I am not sure this is helpful because as far as I can see, a “theory” that is generated to explain a bunch of hallucinations dressed up as facts is in fact istelf something that must necessarily be called a “delusion”.

I attended the London School of Economics and during my first year I took courses about the history of ideas, and sociology. I have read all of Erving Goffman’s work and many other sociology and psychology books. Also social psychology and anthropology in general. I have been a writer since I could hold a pen or type in my early years, and have documented a lot of my own life.

But I am driven to theorise because in my life, my intellectual sense is a trusty sword with which I fight the “good fight” and help myself survive, help others, stay goal directed etc etc. I like thinking, I like science and objective reasoning. They are part of me and this is precisely why I am writing this now.

Of course this actual discourse might partially discredit me, because it makes clear my delusional tendencies, but I hope that what shines through is actually a sane man fighting off madness, rather than a hopeless case. After all I have reasoned that most of these problems are imaginary, so despite the fact that I admit I have suffered them, I would like to hope that the jury find me innocent of a complete loss of contact with reality.

After all, it is not as if there are no yobbish people, no delinquent cheeky youths, no petty little acts of character assassination, judgement, viciousness etc in society. No immaturity, no hatecrime, no prejudice, no workplace bullying, no racism, no homophobia, no sheer indifference to suffering… Anyone who claimed that would also have to be put in the hypothetical dock for fear it was really them who were delusional… deluded in thinking we live in a perfect world!

So I will tend to pursue theories, many of which become intricate and complex, to explain what I believe happens around me.

Sheeez… what next?

I just woke up with this little chant in my mind. I dreamed I was in Scotland out on a walk trying to reach my dad. I asked an old guy in a pub where the path was and he directed me to a turning. Suddenly I had a matchbox in my hand which had a description of the path explaining that you were allowed to drive Rally cars down it. I told the guy I wanted to move to the area and asked him if it was friendly, he said “Not really”.

Before that I had been in a house with John Gillman, who was packing and unpacking his bags. I began to pack too and had a sleeping bag in my rucksac.

This reminds me of a time in Elmstone where I seduced a very ill woman. John, an inpatient at the same time, thought it was disgusting of me, and I agreed. In fact I had been delusional and thought I had to do it as a religious compulsion. James did not understand this, really. It’s hard to see into schizy brains, after all. I mean the shrinks make a mess of it too. Another time I was round at John’s little house in Dane Valley. John went to have a sleep on a mattress and again through compulsion I lay down next to him and put my arm round him. I tried not to feel ashamed of myself, and worried he would think I was making a sexual pass, which was not the case. I thought I was being fatherly.

A quarter mile up the road on Millmead lived the person Sally and I knew as “little Anna” to distinguish her from “big Anna”. It was Anna who told me the news of Sally’s death. This was years later, maybe 15. I had seen her in the chemist’s off Cecil Square.

Then at least another year after that I was sitting at Wetherspoon’s with Friend Pollitt and Anna walked past again. I called her over. She looked rough, dirty and depressed, possibly on drink too. She told me she was homeless and on her way to Brighton. One of the sons had died. I was gutted. I don’t know which but the impression I got was that her life had spiralled with the loss. Friend Pollitt was not sensitive to this, and simply thought she was a smackhead tramp. That was sad. I gazed at her and was silent on receiving the news, she said simply “this is a spiritualised moment”. Soon she went off in the direction of the Station. Her phrase stuck in my mind.

I think the father of the boys was a guy called Jude, who made a pass at Maria once. He was also slightly aggressive to me when he thought I was slagging off Denise. These people are a far cry from my old set.

Ian just texted saying he can’t come today. I am free for my own plans once more. Or should I say “left to my own (electronic) devices”?

Mike suggested that early morning writing is a useful habit, so here I am. It’s 11.17am which is a late get-up for me. Last night I skyped Pollitt and drank a 3ltr bottle of white star. that’s equivalent to two 75cc bottles of 15% sherry. Not so good and the best way to reduce is to avoid stress and start later than before.

The only way I can keep writing is just to try and document and externalise any thought that comes to me. anything whatsoever. That is not so bad as a method, I guess. Im on second coffee and fag now. Hope a flow comes. It is definitely true that the more you pour out, the better some bits get. maybe a ratio is in order. 3000 words of personal outgassing, leaves about 500 that are nicely put together and have the ring of publishability to them!

Talking about Anna reminds me of Sally too. Sally who was 10 years older than me. Sally who taught me some things, Sally who finished with me by shouting on her doorstep that I was “a fucking queer”. unfortunate and inaccurate, I may add.

I had confessed to her of having sexual feelings towards her daughter. This was a hot potato, and for a long time I was afraid the story would sperad, having probably been embellished into accusations of full-on paedophilia. Sally did “do” rumours a lot – almost everyone on the estate did. This would have made me a target for vilification, hate crime, murder even. Sally’s friend Carly, the self harmer, the born again christian also turned against me. I like to be liked so much that it was agony. Carly would get hateful when she was ill. She was in Elmstone a year or two later when I came to visit Johnson. She called me “The Dirty Man”.

In a way I have a part of myself that does feel as if I am guarding some nightmarish dirty secret. When I see teenage girls, they are beautiful to me, like a fresh flower. I’m not kidding myself I think nearly all men get it. I told Michael Britter (the Angry Buddhist) about the Sally episode and he said to me “The problem is not the feelings you had, every man gets them, the problem was your compulsive and inappropriate honesty. Maybe this writing is too honest also, ahh well.

The other thing that was too honest was with Sally also, my Primal Scream phase. I screamed “mummy, mummy” into a pillow in our bedroom for several weeks. I wanted to heal myself, you see. Sally freaked out that the neighbours could hear. This influenced the daughter, Gemma, too. She began to engage in creative writing and drawing, and from the look of her work she was dealing with a shedload of depression and low self-esteem. I was glad that by setting an example of self-healing someone else got the ticket, but this was revolutionary indeed for Sally. “I hate myself and want to die” Gemma wrote in lipstick on her mirror.

I was very influenced by Proust, and the exploration of memory. Maybe that still shows in this stuff I am doing now. I’d love to get some speed and just write and write. But I have a different view of the past too to simply remembrance, I actually want self-therapy from it. I want to lift the burden of all these memoruies and obtain some kind of closure so I am unburdened. I don’t think Proust wanted that. Ive been on this self-therapy trip for years and it definitely started around the time of screaming in Sally’s bedroom.

But it also needs to be said that the floodgates open best when ruminating on one’s own past. If I can keep working on the flow, keep shaping sentences, keep the numbers game up, then I reason my writing gets better. And now it seems to me that I must be prepared to undergo thought-rush and exhaustion in the name of my work, there is no way round this.

I have a headache and just took 600mg Ibuprofen

Spam and scrambled eggs for breakfast. The rats had half a biscuit each. I was slightly disappointed Ian didnt come, but at the same time there was also a sense of relief that I could have the day to write. Is this boring? I can’t think of anything else to talk about.

Last night I watched a video about a man who lives out of a rucksac and decided that I want to do the same. I’ve changed my mind this morning. I often do that, perhaps it was the drink making me impulsive.

This is day 2 of morning writing.

I attained a state of clarity last night. There was a subconscious decision not to think too much, attached to a belief that it tired me out. I challenge myself now… I like thinking.

As I awoke I heard Martin’s voice saying “this is translucency”. In my daze I believed he meant some special meditative state I had got into. Then I heard Brenda’s voice saying “Martin is dead”. This is kinda occulty, but more schizy also. I wrote a poem last night about holding a hand, it came very fast. I facebooked it.

I have spent the day tidying both computer data and the objects in my flat. I have deodorised, bleached and wiped my way to tidiness heaven. All is in order.

But my thoughts are perhaps less ordered. I sit on my sofa, with my left arm draped ona cushion exactly like my father sits, staring into space. I sense something, I am not sure what, then I glimpse something I am equally unsure of. I actually see it with my eyes, as if it is a billowing field of some strange energy. I ask myself hard what this thing is, but I cannot say.

I just got up and did some more rearranging. I am trying to declutter. Ther ultimate extension of this would be to live just out of one rucksack, something I regularly start to plan, although so far those plans have not been actualised.

I am scheduling two bags of books to the charity shop. I wonder about hoarding mementos of the past, a book owned by my great grandfather, another of my fathers. trinkets and stuff my mother gave me. In some ways they have an appealing aura of nostalgia, but in other ways they are an encumbrance. The one thing you don’t want to do is regret lketting them go once you have, since charity shops turn over their stock fast and once gone they definitely are, for good.

I dont even know if the weight of too many possessions is what is holding me down from creative writing, I seem to be acting on this belief at the moment. It is not just the thought of moving stuff that puts me off accumulating piles, it is the complexity of the actual objects being near me, especially books. If I have one less thing to worry about holding and protecting, storing, curating… then surely my mind is then freed to soar into some kind of personal production, writing, art, programming or music… But then again this only occurs to me when I get the decluttering storm, a furious enthusiasm. The rest of the time I am not aware of being encumbered at all. aahh I can’t work it out.

At the back of my mind has been a kind of forbidden plan. Now I remember. To take off with just the rucksac and go on a globetrot, definitely to India again and probably to some other good places, places with wildlife, landscape, food, culture to explore. Yes that’s it. But it is forbidden because my mum wouldn’t like it. Gods what an embarrassment. To be beholden to that fucker. Instead I drizzle my life away, servile to her and Geoff. Two humanoids who will never break their complacent cycle and do anything worthy.

Ian said if I stopped drinking so much I would sleep better and my dreams would get more vivid. despite that I have been waking with a remembered dream quite a lot recently. The nightmare about the bugs was awful, bed bugs in trees that dropped onto you in large numbers and caused madness. In real life you could just say “don’t walk under the trees!” but in dream mode common sense is suspended like the judgement of a kind nurse.

I have been feeling that the Thursday meet-up is something I don’t want to do anymore, yesterday I felt very tired after Dan had gone. Dan’s silence – is it passive-agressive or is he just quiet? I don’t know but he is not coming next week, we have a jam session instead. I need my own company almost without interruption at all these days.

maybe I’ll win this time now I have written it.

Last night I thought I “heard” my neighbour saying something against me.

Background fact: I am, however, known for hearing stuff that isn’t real.

I tried to use Bayes theorem to disprove it. Bayes says that

P(A|B) = P(A)/P(B) x P(B|A)

in words this is a way of formalising that the likelihood of a deduction A given a piece of evidence B is proportional to the frequency of the evidence B occuring consequent to A, times the frequency of ocurrence of A, all divided by the frequency with which B occurs.

so here

A = she has spoken against me
B = I heard her speak

but I don’t have a value for how often objectively she has spoken against me because I might be imagining all the previous times too. Bayes wouldn’t work, or I lost patience with trying. Henceforth are my attempts to work it out less formally.

Fact: usually I find that I can’t distinguish actual words when she talks.

But I was in the loo with a lino floor so its possible the carpet wasnt muffling as much. Conversely I can’t hear Linton, the man in the flat above me, breathe or groan, so how can she hear the intimate soundtrack of my life in this flat?

I can hear her cough frequently, but not breathe. The impression suggested she can hear me breathe. It was as if she could hear my stertorous sighing and occasional moaning, when I am in pain with my bowel problems. Once I thought we were having a war to see who could clear their throat the most. Martin belives that women cough to indicate disaproval of a nearby man they have seen and taken a brief dislike to, but again in my rational sense I have to concede this may be rubbish. It’s rubbish that I have been guilty of believing too though.

The (possibly false) impression I got was that she said I grunted and groaned when I was on the lavatory. That this was somehow a “dirty” habit. I plead with anyone to see how difficult IBS is. The 20th trip to the loo becomes a chore of such depressing form.

I have been living here for nearly 7 years and often have experiences where I “think” I have heard her saying stuff. As an example I just thought I heard her down there saying something, but having checked whether her car is there I don’t think she is there, so again that must be an example of imagining it.

I’ve never heard Linton go to the loo. Never. So surely this is an observation about the general acoustics of flats in this block. I hope so.

I wondered if she is actively listening, to try and catch me out. She does cough a lot and sometimes it seems that she coughs when I have had a certain thought or experienced an angry feeling towards her, stemming from the persecution feelings I get.

This (thought transfer) is impossible according to the nature of reality and only shows that I am more likely to be being delusional/thought disordered and that there is nothing to worry about at all. But I have problems getting the knack of staying based in reality.

When I thought she’d gone to bed I started to smoke a fag in my bathroom and suddenly she coughed and it came from right below me. That is her hall, whereas she would have been expected to be in her sitting room which is below mine. So I thought she was testing me, and was listening out for my thoughts so that when I thought an angry thought towards her she could pounce and have me done for being a psycho, or threatening her.

In schizophrenia you mistake the causes and connections of and between events. as an example while I was trying to rationalise last night Linton kept making noises as he walked about his flat, and each time he did it seemed to change the flavour of what I was thinking about, with a sense that it was leading me nearer into the conclusion that she was actually against me.

No matter how hard I reason I can’t seem to shift this mistaken belief that she did say what I thought I heard.

To increase the discomfort, I do remember hearing John downstairs tell me that the last lot had to move out because she complained. I hate it when reality confirms my grounds for fear. I’d far rather put it all down to my imagination, bbut some of the facts are compelling. That’s why it was sad I couldn’t just use Bayes. The situation is too complex and I am somewhat lost in it.

But I have to hang on to the idea that conventional logic suggests… it’s just way more likely that I imagined it all!


Incident (ii)

Before that I had been standing on the doorstep with Geoff and I heard the two teenage girls next door who were hanging around on the doorstep say “Do you think that bloke is good looking?”, then they both laughed. it seemed that the meaning was “Fuck no! he’s a fat ugly cunt”. This seemed a good likely interpretation given my knowledge of how that kind of youth speaks. Although I didn’t “hear” this it seemed they were trying to demean me. I was actually less sure that I had heard correctly on this occasion. Again, did I imagine this?

I had just come back from the shops with Geoff and while we were walking past the park I thought, again, that I heard someone say “I don’t like that bloke, he’s a wanker”. I tried as hard as I could to ignore it. At the time I seemed to “sense” from Geoff that someonce nasty was nearby and that he was urging me to do what he always does which is to act meek, keep your head down, and ignore while walking steadily on. Actually Geoff never hears anything like that.

I felt my gait go out of kilter and a slight stumbling stagger develop. I fought this hard, believing that a wobbly gait draws the attention of the nasty person and makes them see they have hit home. The fact that they notice your emotional discomfiture at their insult leads them to escalate their attack, seems a common pattern. A common thing with people who find it sport or “a bit if fun” to tease and torment people around them in the public spaces. I suggest often they are very immature, possibly even from second or third generation single parent families. Delinquents and adults in the grey area of the law, of whom there are many in Thanet.

We walked on and I sneaked a look in the direction of the voice, it was a 20 something female with badly dyed blonde hair walking a dog. Hmmm… could she have said that ? I wondered. I can find no resolution.

Background history

Since I moved here 7 years ago I have frequently received “impressions”, either real or bogus (I concede) that my neighbour below doesn’t like me and is in the habit of slagging me off while she is on the phone. Each time it happens I seem to have “heard” slices of conversation as follows.

“yeah if it wasn’t for him upstairs everything would be ok”

“he says he works with computers I don’t know what the fuck he does up there”

“he groans when he’s on the loo, god knows what his family must be like”

“some of his friends look right weird”

etc

I do acknowledge it is possible that I have completely misunderstood the situation. by way of a counter argument that I have desperately repeated to myself, it has to be said that each time I have met her she has been nice. That is a strong point in favour of the idea that I am delusional, unless of course she is completely adept at being two-faced, which would invalidate that. That’s outlandish if one clings to the common sense idea that “most people are good, it’s just a few who…”

This series of beliefs has mingled with a general sense that I am not welcome in Westgate, by virtue perhaps of being too liberal, too modern in outlook, too creative, too zany, too interested in avant-garde thought, too friendly, too open, not petty enough, not cliquey enough… etc. In other words such a genuine, happy, free human being that I stand out among the slaves, the robots, the zombies, etc… At first this was a harmless conceit but now it has begun to be throughly uncomfortable.

In the past a lot of my raw material, in terms of moments of observation, experiences etc, for this conclusion was drawn from shopping in Co-Op or in walking down Station Road on my way to other shops as the situation of needing to buy something arose. Each time I did, or nearly each time I would suffer perceptions (true or false) that people were staring at me with contempt, speaking against me, insulting me, laughing and jeering at me or whatever. I felt that as someone from a socially higher background that it was inevitable that peasant types would see I was different to them and find it funny, exceptional, or worthy of a cruel comment. These comments seemed to be pitched at precisely the right volume for me only just to be able to make out what I had heard, and for there to be a tinge of doubt in my deduction that I had indeed just heard a statement correctly.

This is the same with the lady downstairs. I have tested myself to see whether it is actually possible for me to distinguish clearly what she is saying when she is on the phone. When I have been lucid I seem to have concluded that in reality, the intervening floor/ceiling is actually too muffling for clear impressions of specific words and phrases to come through. Add another factor that she is quite nice to me and seems kind (she votes Labour also). I must convince myself of this. Each datum is a factor in the equation. The solution is to pop the paranoia balloon forever.

So when I seem to be in doubt as to what is being said, and when I am in a less “objective” state of perception, I seem to conjure nasty, sinister messages in the stream of speech sounds I detect around me, many of which are very quiet.

Incident (iii)

It now occurs to me for the first time that I may even have imagined the rudeness I thought I have heard from one or both of the fat twins, Chris the flowerseller’s grandsons. Again Bayes would apply to this.

I thought once that one of them taunted me by crying out “oliverrr… oliverr… hahaha!” when he was with some friends. This may have been imagined. also I thought he tried to encourage his friends to taunt me by saying “look! look! weird bloke”. (On this occasion his friends seemed not to take his lead, perhaps because I was dead set on maintaining neutral body language and looking normal at that point).

Soon after I first moved in there were some kids in the park who again I thought said something defamatory, contemptuous, cruel, libellous and untrue. At the time I thought they must have been in care and thus disturbed and delinquent. After that I rang a mental health helpline and told them about this kind of stuff and the lady was very sympathetic. She said that a lot of people do get problems with kids. I am frankly terrified of these kids now. She also, interestingly, said perhaps I should go to a body language class where could learn to project neutral body language. I don’t even know if such classes exist, maybe they are run by mental health services, I’m not sure.

About a week ago I walked past a group of teenagers on a bench and, again, just when I was within earshot, heard “he looks like he might be a paedo”… “yeah, he does doesn’t he”. At times I have wondered whether it is not the mental health condition they sense but rather that I am unemplyed and poor, and that this somehow “shows”. Or at least “radiates” out from me and gives me a certain “look” that people can pick up on. “Again, possibly all bogus”, the angel sitting on my right shoulder says.

“Naahhhh it’s all true!! life is hell! Humans are evil!” responds the anti-Bayes demon sitting on my left. (This is just a metaphor for the mind here, not an actual delusion this time. I don’t believe I am interacting with spiritual beings in reality. Although of course through history many people might find such a metaphor helped their understanding of conscience and inner struggle. The Greeks would each talk to their “Genius”.)

Of course I should be placing the word “heard” in quotes there, since it was not a real act of hearing, rather one of imagined hearing, essentially a hallucination. I am wrestling with this.

If one is experiencing a troubling idea it is recommended by care teams etc that one speaks to a friend or family member and asks them what they think. If the response tends toward disbelief that such a thing really is occurring, then one should chalk up a point to increase the conclusion that one is truly imagining it.

This is sensible, and only now am I beginning to see that I probably imagined all of this, since no-one sane has ever really agreed that it is likely it was all real. All this has Bayes buried in it. Some insane people have, namely my friends Ian and Martin, but that’s all. Miranda, Mum, Geoff and Bill are all skeptical.

The frightening thought swings back, though: that I am actually not being deceived by all this, in which case I am in reality being persecuted by these people. Of course if I do decide to embrace that view then naturally I will need to ask why it is happening. On that I am stumped. Again and again I have wondered whether there is something different about how I look or come across. perhaps the way I move, or even something spiritual and subtle that I emit like an aura.

As I write this, though, I can feel the mental gears cranking skeptically to tell me that its all a non-problem. I truly do suffer from an illness that makes me hallucinate and become delusional. I would have no scientific credibility if I did not acknowledge this. Hmm. but still I wonder. Thanks to Mr Bayes anyway.. Who’d think that an equation would save lives? Well, me!

With supernaturalism like Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism and the Kaballa I tend to get bogged down and can occasionally have nightmares. In a way I am searching for a faith. Right now it seems that the “religion of the poets” is best for me, not an organised canon or church.

It is very important to look after your body core, never harm it, such as by drinking methanol. More usually, practise standing erect with head high, and feel the musculature around your lumbar regions hugging you like the rings around a barrel, all muscles balanced and aligned, like the chakras.

Thanks, Mike, for that concept. Shit, this is getting so random, sorry.

Inside me are memories not mine, but belonging to my deceased grandmother. She witnessed atrocity, horror in the War… and never quite got the help she needed to come to terms with it.

Or maybe she just had to help herself in an age before everybody thought they needed therapy. The Japs killed, raped, maimed and tortured… they tried to destroy souls as she saw it. But the soul cannot be destroyed.

Maybe it’s good that i have to walk from the room where I drink and smoke to the room where I write before I can record this. Although maybe I am in some ways a ghoul for trying to turn the death and suffering I have seen into something that will make me remembered, or whatever…

Deegee I owe you something. I see that now. You are my sister’s ex. You spoke with insight when you were present at Granny’s death. But what do you want from me? I try to give, I try to act with honour, and to credit your honour too. But you were too cruel, too bad tempered, we threw you out eventually.

You saw that Grannys memories in some way were unresolved. You saw this as an alternative person, a spiritual seeker. You even help me now to realise that poetry is a sacred testament, The words we say tying up and binding our deepest experiences, keeping a kind of power that can endure for lifetimes.

Granny needed therapy. She needed an external support. Or was what she really needed simply to trust herself enough to heal slowly. Maybe the wise can see that the love you receieve from someone else must be held, treasured and remembered, and that you must not cling, trying to milk more and more of it out, for your own needs. Like opium from a poppy… yes even like a junky.

Which I nearly was when I knew you, Deegee.

or neatly was… (typo)
actually was…

So granny never healed it all. But can we do that anyway? Any of us? to heal and return ourselves to a simple state of happiness. The world is troubled, wounded… in need of healing. But what actually can be healed if not just individuals? We have to countenance what is within, and much of within is in fact memory – So where now?

“Where now” is to personal healing, although Deegee probably still thinks I am aggressive, as he described me. Despite the fact that i am infirm. Or am I not? And Justin right – just cowardice.

“We are war babies” say Mum and Dad…”we are baby boomers” say Shelby and Peter. “but we were pre-war babies” say Bernie and Brenda. I look at these people I know for clues. But I must keep it in historical perspective too. These are generations arising, being born and dying (Highlander). War babies knew a tight discipline, not everything was free and happy at the time of their arising. Boomers knew a resurgence of joy at survival and the peace that came just in time for them to be at least a little more happy than those born the decade before.

Maybe this intense involvement with words is only necessary if you want to be a writer. After all can you really weigh the balance between two peoples souls and find to be lighter one of them, the one which had fewer words in it?

Of course not… but writers do tell stories.

I like to keep it simple when i say that, and we desperately hope that people will enjoy or benefit from our stories. After all you can still benefit if you didnt enjoy it, and probably enjoy it even if you didn’t benefit from it.

Two different cases there.

I am writing not for you, or for them, but for me.

That way I get to sidestep the pressure of dreaming one day I may be published and yet never quite getting round to sending out the manuscript. The procrastination is a trap that I have been stuck in for years.

Nutmeg equips the user with a woozy dreamy feeling. After I had taken it I felt the herb “re-wiring” my body and removing the stress connectors that link my brain to my bowels. I have been suffering IBS and was right as rain starting from the day I awoke after the Nutmeg had worn off.

I stayed in the batcave while I was intoxicated. My cave is my hermit’s hotel! I separate myself from the rat race and the rush. I steer my mind onto reflections of peace and pleasure. I escape stress.

Wikipedia tells me that corporal punishment was illegal in british schools by 1971. That was surely not the impression I got through my “elite” schooling where I was still being battered in 1983. what gives?

What gives is that a military state still needs officers who they think have been “toughened up” and thus can serve The State unconditionally. Anyone concerned who believes they are in a position to be in charge, like my old headmaster can still bend any law when they are on that kind of bad “higher power” trip.

I hear my neighbour below talking on the phone. I imagine her slagging me off. The hate pours out of her… or am I delusional? I have to do this trick a lot – de-schizifying. I “hear” her saying things about me on the phone. Later I reflect… but you cannot actually make out what she’s saying. The hallucination is compelling though, hard to conquer.

Similarly with another neighbour – Michaela, I imagine she hates me and has poisoned her son Luka against me.

There is an art to clear explanation of difficult topics. Somehow it may be that every complex idea has one true simple description, the one way in, “The Right Path” into a subject’s complexity. Nothing is more complex than the mind, and nothing needs its story telling more.

That is very much on my mind as I write this to you, Steve. Perhaps the twisting labrynth of another’s inner tangle is truly beyond anyone, but this confessional, this act of self therapy, needs so badly to come out, you see.

I have been conducting a long term experiment to see if i could “forget” scientific knowledge. I even had to forget that I had commenced the experiment to ensure that it worked. Throught this I realised that “losing” my rational view of the world was to lose a set of defences. (in some ways). Dfences against the unknown, which contains the Outer Darkness.

But in other ways we need our rationalism, I feel. After all people will sing the benefits – modern medicine saves and extends lives. A man on the moon, unlimited access to information. Cars and planes. Unless you are a total luddite-anarcho-primitivist, that is.

I now reconfirm that I believe science is part of our cosmic destiny.

I collected a load of coppers, a couple of kilos. then one day I scattered them all over the park. It was easter time, and perhaps in some ways I was hoping that kids would find them and enjoy the hunt for more. This might equip them with a sense of mystery about unusual things waiting to be discovered in unseen places. As I was surreptitiously wandering around the park dropping the coins I became aware that I was actually very frightened of being discovered. It was as if this small act was in fact a crime, by the fact that it was so whimsical and unusual.

I reflected on this and saw clearly how I am almost always afraid of standing out and arousing strange looks or adverse comments, of the kind people will give while they are enforcing some small town notion of normality.

If you take someone and turn them upside down in their world then their world will look very different. I have done this to myself, I think. I get this thing where the world becomes a menacing and confusing place, despite the fact that I am well equipped with a rational common sense understanding of the world usually.

This seems to be connected with the fear of being thought abnormal. of course someone might suggest there is an irony that my abnormal fears are of being held to be abnormal. A kind of strange loop, or a self fulfilling prophecy.

If you lie awake for hours in the night eventually you only get to sleep when you give up worrying that you can’t – trying too hard is counterproductive.

Can you fill your mind with thoughts so that eventually it is full? I choose to write in a terminal. Easy. Simple. Empyting…

I have a block. So many new thoughts have been coming, ones that I dont understand. I seem to be less intelligent than I was yet more empathic. I am aiming for some kind of philosophical resolution of the things that are bothering me, the things that are suboptimal about my life. I already think like a recluse or a hermit, but I am friendly and communicative with the people I know and encounter. So this is an illusion. I am not really a recluse after all.

Maybe someone like me could only be a recluse if they lived in a log cabin miles from civilisation. I still feel and sense the human world around me when I am alone here. So why did I think I was a recluse? Maybe my sister, Deegee and all their spiritual convictions gave me a wrong idea. One day alone, not going out, every now and then… big deal. Were they just trying to control?

Maybe this is the nature of the block, that I needed to “confess” as a way to free up my flow of self-expression. The reason I came upon this subject was because when I was in Cliftonville earlier I had a vivid sense that I was surrounded by evil and cruel people and that I was helpless to protect myself because they were all using tricks that I didn’t or couldn’t understand. This felt like being Romulus left on a mountainside to die, while only an infant. The sheer helplessness, trapped.

When I was schizy I often got the feeling that there was something everyone else around me knew yet I didn’t. I now realise that this was not the case. I wonder how I got this state of mind, and can only assume it was a remnant of a childhood experience where being small and innocent, I found myself in a world of looming threatening giants who were tormenting me, yet whose motivation I could never come to understand.

I have scanned a huge amount of my personal notes and archived the paper copies into sealed boxes in a bottom drawer. I may never need to open these again.

I have obtained closure on the aspects of my past that they represent. So rather than agonise over old writing, I want to do new writing. I did consider burying them in the park, for someone in a future century to find, but I am too self conscious to dig holes in public places. If I ever get my own home with a garden I will bury them there. I remember Pete telling me you had done this.

I have also organised my desk and emptied out a lot of trash and waste paper. This has made me feel more organised as if I have to feed the OCD monster with treats. I finally burned some dhoop and now all is at peace and centred.

As I read through old diary entries I began to see that for the first time I feel like all my memories cannot be summoned at once. My life has gone through enough twists and turns that parts of it are eclipsed by other parts in memory, now. I was reading the diary from about 5 years ago and as I surveyed the events described I was surprised by some of them since they had passed out of mind. This didn’t ever happen before this year.

I will go to the shop and buy bread and wine in a minute. I want white bread for a change. Did you get the photos of the Reculver walk? And the garden open day ones?

Mum has spoken of buying me a flat. This would certainly reduce the stress of living in fear of my Landlord’s wrath. But really the best thing to do is not think about money at all.

All thoughts can be fought and defeated by mental will. If something distresses me then I put it away out of mind. Usually this is ok but ignoring a problem that needs to be addressed is wrong too. So I run my thoughts carefully. I guess Buddhism is partly about excluding and eliminating distressing thoughts, so perhaps meditation can help.

I am still struggling with anger towards Ian. He has a habit of only ringing me when he is with other people, like Stacey or visiting his mum. In the last case he was at a Christian prayer meeting and I became wrathful when he teased me about being unfit.

I just spoke to my friend Joe and advised him to do daily thought dumps onto paper as a way of building a writing habit and reducing the amount of thoughts he “carries” in the head. Externalising so you don’t over internalise. I want to say to him that he is actually “fighting the devil”. This is because he constantly works on understanding and opposing the racism, imperialism and cultural injustice that happens in Africa. He recently visited Uganda and South Sudan, and has a bunch of perceptions that need to be expressed in writing… and, fingers crossed, actually published.

I am getting fit. Walking, weights, swims etc. Soon my belly will start to reduce which is great.

Where would I be without my years of thought-dumps? I have kept my mental space so tidy and stress free. I have piles of notes, some of which I scan and put on Flickr. The habit of expressing myself is deeply ingrained. Whereas some people’s mental space is a chaos.

I am still finding the drink to be a little bit out of control, the worst one is if you start getting in a bad mood by not being able to clear a handful of negative thoughts, which recycle and start to overwhelm you. It is so apt what Bill says: “if someone says something nice you enjoy it briefly, but if someone says something nasty you can remember it for a lifetime”. It is little events. Till staff frowns at me in co-op. Martin says something distressing about his religious obsessions like “people who worship the beast”. Ian takes yet another liberty. My sister is bossy. Mum and Geoff say something right-wing. There is a story on the news about paedos. There is another bombing. I get refused benefits… and so on and on. Life’s little nicks and cuts on the being body’s surface start to infect and then you put down 20 units of alcohol. and… suddenly you are a raging bull who sends evil texts out just before you crawl to bed.

You wake up the next morning and a smoker’s cough session makes you vomit. Then you start to go deeper into the past, back to earlier times or childhood. You trawl your memory digging up every bad thing that has happened to you, so burdened now it starts to affect you physically and there are gut twinges coming. You run to the loo and eject fluids. All is lost.

But slowly you begin to build yourself back up again. You promise yourself quiet stress free days. You resolve much with thought dumps. You get some exercise and feel proud of yourself, you hold a positive attitude, you are learning to keep your eyes down when you walk down the street, you manage to forgive Ian… and you begin to mend…

Thanks to the Universe for its grace.

I am in the process of recovering from the shock of being told that my PIP has been cut. This would potentially mean a loss of the 44 quid a week that I currently get from DLA.

I actually felt like harming myself the day I heard the news. I was drunk and distressed. I also decided to become a muslim. I googled an islamic song and wanted to play it at full volume out of the window, just erring on the side of safety, again. Thankfully this was all just a passing madness, which had faded from my mind by the next day.

I have decided to make my writing the core of my creative and intellectual life, not maths and programming, because it is the vessel within which the largest range of my thoughts, feelings and experiences will fit. Using this I hope to achieve a greater level of wisdom and peace of mind within myself. I hope to cathart, exorcise, lay to rest and integrate all sorts of stuff.

When I was in the grip of the benefits panic I made hasty plans to clear the flat of a lot of the detritus that has accumulated here, books and stuff. My mother always goes into despair when I mention to her that I want to declutter, particularly of books. I spoke of moving into a bedsit, which again depressed her.

Now 2 days later I am calm once more. I am burning dhoop with the lights low and my bedroom door shut. There was thunder and rain earlier but it is still hot.

I seem to need stimulus in order to crank my brain cell into wakefulness. Even now as I write I feel that I am only able to harness a limited range of thoughts which mainly base themselves around comments on the writing process, or simple descriptions of recent events. Joe looked at Vindication of Renfield and said he liked it, at first. But his parting comment was that it was “clinical”, which cut me a little.

The dhoop incense I am burning is the “wet” variety which is the consistency of sticky hash or plasticine. It contains cow dung and ghee. I feel a slight mind altering effect from it and wonder if it may contain small amounts of Bhang or some other psychoactive plant such as Datura. I even wondered if the dung itself causes an alteration of consciousness. The brand I have is called Lakshmi Dhoop and is specially meant for devotional offering to the Goddess Lakshmi, it smells delicious and brings back the unique atmosphere of an indian temple. I toyed with the idea of making a Shiva Lingam out of clay and painting it black, but again impetus is lacking for anything that looks like hard work.

Typically for me at first I was paranoid the neighbours, and/or the landlord would think the incense was drugs. This is anxiety I don’t need. I am sure I have quite bad OCD, which revolves around magnifying tiny details or events. It is part of me and does help understanding and my analytical abilities, but it also acts against obtaining peace of mind because it involves worry. If you read the papers you start to get a sense of journalistic language, and how it reflects on the general states of mind that are common among the population: “sexting and online bullying – should we worry as parents?” Worry is equated with decision making and analytic thought. And as I once read, I can’t remember where, : “worry is worship at the altar of fear”. Another one is “worrying is a form of praying for stuff you don’t want”. I used to think this about people who try to instill “worry about their future” in young people.

I am feeling hot. I have contrived a makeshift air conditioner out of an electric fan and a wet towel. The last time I did this was when driving through Europe in that Renault 4 I told you about with Anthony and Justin. The french call that car “Une Quatrelle”.

I feel slightly calmer and better now I have written this, which was definitely the objective. Thanks for saying my latest track was “coolant”. I worried it was crap at first but several people have said they like it. I recorded Bill’s guitar direct into the Tascam and then overdubbed using Audacity. I like the whistling, although there is fan noise in the background. I tried using a low pass filter to get rid of that but I need to learn more about how this works because if you set the Hz too low you get a muffled dead sound like a telephone speaker.

I am working on this poem:

You love soil in your garden or the woods, like art
But realise that muck on the street is its start

Give it a while and it may turn into something good

Though we wage perpetual war on dirt in our homes
Safe from the mucky street where the tramp roams

I love that litter on grassy patches of waste­ground
Fairies and nymphs inhabiting little patches of green

It’s reclaimed territory for them
Which they share with those tramps

Something faded and worn, frayed and humble
Is richer as spoor than a brand new bauble

Dirt has taught me to value everything
To tend what grows in the decay of my memory

Found objects are a rich trove as Julian knows
You gather what others didn’t want – old clothes

Scrump apples or forage for shrooms
It’s not superficial but the real flux

A treasured blade I found in the street
Olive warned me it would have germs

See foragers rummaging through bins
An essential part of the cycle of things

Scavengers to some, recyclers to others
Nature’s defenders, sisters and brothers