Agoraphobia day!

Although I rarely mention it now as I rarely go where requested, I was cheated into accepting another evening in a not-local pub next week. Luckily the same person got me to survive an evening in another one recently so have the precedent, and although I could probably cope with a local one instead most have long since become blocks of flats so hardly any actually on the doorstep without either thugs or old miseries. My tablets are required to take the edge off the day, but may dwell on it on and off the whole time before it comes next week, that is almost as bad as the event as you can't live normally with a stone in your shoe.

Otherwise I've been out and about as it suits me, I took a lot (more remaining though) of private signs in Regents Park yesterday, as although they are not official have an old set just like the others in style and quite a few have been left unlike elsewhere. It's been raining again all day so scanned in the final photos and now have quite a few of our old cars and even half an old direction sign from before I was born. I must do the supermarket tomorrow or I'll run out of food, and beyond that is a mystery. If something else better takes my attention it can wipe out any concern about the pub, but that is outside my control if it does.

My other projects are so uncertain or personal they can't be mentioned here, but none are likely to happen for weeks at the earliest so can't expect any of them to do the job. My finances will be changing soon (for the better overall but not quite as reliable), I have also started laser treatment on my hair as the FDA in America have approved it with good results and a twentieth the price of having it done privately. That takes months before showing any results so just apply it three times a week and leave it alone otherwise and forget about it. The long term plan is to find another friend locally, male. female or both, and one not more trouble than being on my own. I've never looked for a friend in my life, they were just there. This is a first. Facebook has been useless so far, the one friend had just moved abroad after being round the corner (relatively) for years, and the latest fuckers just ignored my messages.
One who didn't although didn't remember me either suddenly invited me over, I replied when and she never answered. She is single but clearly for good reasons. It's like I'm tuned for 'weird' so like a magnet instead of picking up iron pick up weird people and repel the others.

But I must try and remain positive in all this, see there must still be guidance in it all and maybe the pub visit may ultimately lead to a leg over situation. Needless to say the woman is incredibly attractive or I'd just have sidestepped the whole thing, but I can't start fiddling around when crumpet is involved however unlikely the chances are of success. I'd understand if a woman didn't like going out but I've been there myself so would. I won't do nothing, but if she wants to go to a pub would like some say in which one, even though all mine have been demolished. She used to have a car so could come over when she wanted as well, but finances put a stop to that and if she comes over now needs arranging and me going to collect her and take her home. That's not a problem but means she can't just come and go as she pleases as she doesn't like being at home much herself.

So, a small turd hits the fan as they must from time to time, and only for me to deal with now or never. I know that's the reason and step one is to forget about it unless it comes to me, in which case I let the thought pass, till next week. Having something else to do will help and no idea what that would be.

Mental illness analysed

It was 955 posts already to the last one, not 916, they've really mounted up. Just get that correction out of the way. I was just reading something that reminded me how much Jewish humour is centred round mental illness. I said that people aren't bipolar, batteries are, but they fixed them when they started adding lithium. That is a typical example. Woody Allen made his millions purely by expressing neurosis, Seinfeld, the new series I love the Big Bang theory taking the mickey out of autistic spectrum disorders, and most of my own jokes since starting school. The world is a threatening place and anyone that sensitive reacts in ways that can only be joked about otherwise we'd all pack it in.

Jews don't get drunk as a rule, if they suffer they either complain or make jokes about it, usually a combination of both. I carry on this tradition and was so interested in mental health I made a profession treating it, as a calling. We are trained to see the funny side of problems so the sufferers can, although I don't laugh or make fart jokes as I would if not working. They do have boundaries. Maybe if I set myself up as the childish humour cure and made cracks about wetting pants, skid marks and opening the window maybe it would distract some people from their problems enough to distance themselves from them. Or maybe not. So I do it here instead. And everywhere else. But technically mental problems are only funny as an observer. If you have them they are no fun at all even when we make fun of ourselves. I'd rather not see crowds as threatening or travelling as a potential for disaster but if I can tell stories about looking for public toilets or queuing for hours to change flights home it can make it sound almost dramatic. In fact these experiences are hell, being stuck in any situation you can't escape is the ultimate driver of severe stress and easier to spend your life avoiding it rather than ever become immune to it, if that was even possible without tablets.

So although we can joke about counting cars and road signs and memorising phone and car numbers the actual reality is besides being able to recall lists from about the age of three, there is no other benefit in having a sharp mind as the rest means we notice every event and feeling and can't turn the reactions down. It also drives genius but in a world generally driven by averageness and mediocraty most people are prepared to put up with almost anything while we few can't bear the slightest discomfort, like the princess and the pea. But while royalty can just about escape the real world we are in the middle of it, and besides turning down 99% of invitations and avoiding half of the areas we live in then we are totally exposed to it all, worms and warts. But take away the heightened awareness and you become a zombie so hard to win. So make jokes about being stuck on the motorway, visiting psychiatrists, side effects of tablets etc but it's the price many of us seem to have to pay for our greater awareness of everything. Each time I read a list of famous sufferers from mental illness I wonder how many actually didn't have it.

So to conclude the story, my friends past and present include (at least) three bipolar, two psychotic depression, three paranoid schizophrenics, two depressives, an epileptic, an anxiety disorder, and probably quite a few more I've lost track of. Some also have none of the above and strangely enough tend to be the ones who disappear while the others are usually happy to hang around. I wonder if anyone else who hasn't actually met their friends in hospital as many do has the same collection or somehow I seem to have been fed these people, even though most had nothing wrong when I met them so can't say I had any part in it. I can't see my anxiety changing as it's no less part of me as my eyes, unless enlightenment is real and happens to me. Now if I became enlightened and kept it then I'd be a real curiosity, although I don't think it's meant to be possible to have both. Yet...