Untopical

Even though I don’t know what is going to come out, or if I will even end up posting this. 

I know for a fact that I’ll never be as profound or quotable as I would usually expect of someone else posting something lengthy and inherently “emotional”, so I don’t know whether I have the confidence that anyone other than me will find it even remotely useful, but here goes anyway. 

It’s been a difficult year or three. I’ve spent most of my conscious time wrestling with bipolar disorder, self-harm, eating disorders etc., which doesn’t make for the most productive or enjoyable life, but I’m doing as good as I can remember, so I feel a little more open to being a little more open. 

It’s taken this long, but I think I may even be getting to a point where life feels - to a very small, but noticeable extent - like it could evolve into something more than a haphazard management of unpredictable and unpleasant symptoms. It sounds dramatic, but when it’s perpetually at the back of your mind perspective is the rarest asset to come across. It’s like being stuck in a dark hall with lots of doors leading to other dark halls. It gets tiring feeling around in the dark all your life. 

But I’ve just ended a course of therapy which has been incredibly helpful for pinpointing signs and coping with the feelings I can’t manage as well as other, normal people can. Along with this I have adjusted to the many pills I need to take which, I’m told, are pretty vital to keeping my shit together on a long term basis, which in itself is kind of awful. 

You hear so many stories about people who feel like they’ve “lost themselves” and other stuff, all because of their medication. But the truth is that I don’t really remember what I was like before the pills, so I don’t really know what I am or am not missing. I am pretty scared of getting too curious because without them it’s entirely possible that I go completely insane again, which nobody wants. 

Regardless, I need to at least try to continue on the road I’m on, because if there is even the smallest chance that I can begin to think about what I consider the basic fundamentals of the human experience - love, success/achievements, social normality - with a bit more optimism and ambition, then I’ll take the shit out of it. 

Saying that, I’ve got no idea if I will, or can even reach that point. There are complex webs of feelings that go with those things, and marrying them up with the even more complex webs of feelings that are already completely gunking up my head seems impossible. It only takes an unwelcome flashback to a bad night or a horror story you read about someone killing themselves, or, even worst, living to see their life fall apart, and it can strike the fear of God into you. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point where I can make a significant commitment to anything, because at the back of my mind I know that I should come with a giant warning label plastered across my face. I have the capacity to fuck up pretty much anything beyond repair given an opportunity, however small, to fall off of the tightrope.

And I worry that that’s how I will go through life. Like I mentioned, I feel as good now as I can remember since I became an adult, but I am still living under the shadow I’ve created for myself. 

I still consider the darker part of my brain like an appendix. It isn’t good for anything, and doesn’t serve any tangible purpose; all it does is sit there, biding its time before it flares up and kills me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop, change or predict it.

I know, I know. How defeatist of me. But I’m not afraid to feel like I’ve earned a bit of cynicism. 

So there you go. That’s a bit of what it’s like to be me, not that you asked. 

Hopefully I will be able to come back with something positive at some point in the future. Actually, I really hope that I don’t have to come back at all. 

But as I said, sometimes it helps just to write. Maybe I’ll even take the leap and post this. 

Baby steps.

assbutt-in-the-garrison:

carry-on-wayward-assbutt:

why is it more socially acceptable to be completely obsessed with a sports team than to be completely obsessed with a book, tv show, or movie?

Not that I am in any way against being obsessed by books, films etc., but it probably has something to do with the fact that sports teams are enjoyed by thousands of people, live, on a more frequent, much more organised basis, and aren’t inherently “finite”, in the sense that there is always going to be another sports season where there are no guarantees that there will be another TV season/sequel etc. 

Also sports is real. 

Sorry. 

(via supercian)

Margaret Thatcher was, at the very kindest, a cold, uncaring woman, with no concept of what it meant to be arrested by conditions beyond your control.

If, as some say, she was a moralistic ideologue who believed that society would take it upon itself to ensure that the gap of inequality was never too large and too significant for the less fortunate of us to achieve their goals, then she was flatly wrong. This is inarguable.

Her approach to governing was so callous that her legacy will, justifiably, be despised by generations that probably have not even been born yet. Hers was an unacceptable methodology, which she employed with a comfort and ambivalence so extreme that it has as yet never been emulated, with good reason, and we should hope it stays that way.

But with all this being said, it is an undeniable truth that our country is in a position today that we never would have been in were it not for her vision of a United Kingdom wherein people, all people, were free to seek out their own definition of wealth and happiness.

That is something that should never be taken for granted or forgotten by anyone who has experienced even a taste of the gifts capitalism can give.

Those who know me know that I am no supporter of the conservative way of thinking, and for me to champion capitalism as the be all and end all would be outstandingly hypocritical, so I will not be doing that. But I feel that I am more qualified than most to make an objective critique of its potential for both amazing success and crippling failure.

Half of my life was lived in absolute privilege. I am a son to a man who was once among the wealthiest men in Britain, and my childhood was spent living a lavish lifestyle, with globetrotting holidays, endless excesses, and more luxuries than most people in the world will ever see in their whole lifetime. I am incredibly thankful for that, and wish that it lasted long enough for me to have been able to share everything I had with the people I love, have grown up with, and most importantly, those who need it.

But unfortunately, this is not the way things played out. What transpired is an illustrative example of how cruel and punishing the capitalist system can be. My family, over the space of 3 years, was systematically stripped of everything that had been earned by my father over the past 30. We lost our house, we lost cars, we sold heirlooms, and endured the emotional hell that happens to families under the stress of having their lifestyle dismantled.

Since then, life has been a relative struggle. All of my family has, at some point received welfare; an unthinkable eventuality only 5 years before.

I have been through the wringer and back along with my family, but when all is said and done, I feel two things: 1) I am so incredibly, unbelievably grateful, so much so it verges on guilt, for having experienced that way of life, and 2) I feel comforted, optimistic even, that there will be enough opportunities for me, and anyone else who has been in a similar position, to remake it.

In a Britain where Margaret Thatcher had not left her imprint, it is true that the lows might not have been so low, but the highs would have been unimaginable. Dreams are one of the foundations of a capitalist society, and it is due to her in large part that I, and most others, can dream.

Make no mistake though, our system is broken. The inequality gap remains unacceptably large, and the current government is showing its unwillingness to narrow it - arguably driven by the remnants of Thatcherite loyalists who still seem to dictate the Tory party.

Unfortunately, Thatcher’s supposed faith in individuals is counterintuitive when paired up with free market realities. Those who make it to the top of the tree will do what it takes to stay there, and give little thought to who they have to knock down while they’re up there. For capitalism to function, there needs to be a degree of greed. This breeds selfishness, ruthlessness, and a mindset that allows no room for charity. Put simply, being amoralistic is an asset in a competitive economy. Whether this is what she would have wanted (or whether she would have cared) is up for debate, but there is no doubting that serious, sustained measures need to be put in place to ensure that the 1% doesn’t remain so concentrated, because in a post 2008 world, we know that they won’t be changing themselves for the good of the 99% anytime soon.

I can’t speak for the thousands of people whose lives were much more severely torn apart by her policies. My experience with capitalism comes with the footnote that I have been a major benefactor of the system much more than a victim, and I wouldn’t dare assume to know the real horrors of what it must have been like to have been at the mercy of her policies. My experience is relative only to myself, and I regret that some of the language I have used may be misconstrued as out of touch and ungrateful. If that is the case, it was not my intention and I sincerely apologise.

My final feelings on the matter is while she was a necessary evil, she was unnecessarily evil about it. Whatever the qualms may be about her as a human, her ideals laid the way for a lot of the things we enjoy about modern Britain. The upward mobility we seek to achieve is a goal, not a pipe-dream  which is in large part thanks to her vision. 

That’s why, despite her failings and my fundamental issues with her as a whole, I don’t betray myself when I say R.I.P.

iamtheoriginaltime-lord:

sasstielspn:

eatsleepcrap:

eatsleepcrap:

It’s official, British Problems is my favourite thing off reddit

JUST

LOOK

AT

ALL

THE

POLITE

BRITISH

AWKWARDNESS

AHHH!

is this how I am going to be remembered?

I’m British and sympathise with whoever had to go through these traumas

poor souls

Everything in this post is painfully relevant to everyday life in England. 

My favourite is the standoff between you and everyone else in a crowded lift to determine who gets to get out first. 

The silence is always deafening. 

(via jass-urweird)