My Diary

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 7/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 7/10
Confidence 4/10
Relaxation 3/10
Stress 8/10

I'm feeling a little strange today. My body is tense, tired, stiff and achy. My chest feels a little tight. I know that I feel this way because my body is braced for danger. It's very frustrating because I have been proactively trying to relax- I've been having a swim, a sauna and a jacuzzi every morning, I've also been playing sport.

I'm sure that my job has a lot to do with the way that I'm feeling. I get up at about 7.30 am every morning to take my fiancee to work, then I go to the gym, then I spend a couple of hours on the computer before going to work a 2-10 pm shift. I know that I'm pushing myself hard, but I find it hard to relax. If sit around I start to feel anxious that I should be doing something with my time.

On the plus side I'm waking up in a morning feeling a bit more relaxed and comfortable than I have done and I'm getting on with my fiancee much better. I just wish that I could relax more "an anxious mind can't exist in a relaxed body".

I saw a bit of the tv programme "seduction school" last night, where experts taught aesthetically challenged men to be more succesful with women. The first guy took 15 minutes to build up the courage to talk to a girl. "Confidence is the expectation of a positive result". I can relate to how the guy feels. I've never been very good with women, but more generally the issues of fear and confidence. Looking at it from the outside, it's hard to see what the guy's getting himself so worked up about. It's the same with my fears. I have panic attack's a lot when we go to the local pub. I'm not especially scared of the pub, but the atmosphere raises my anxiety levels and that makes my chest feel tight, which then causes me to think about dying and having a heart attack, which causes me to feel panicky.

When I was younger I used to think that cancer, aids and all those diseases would be wiped out by the time I was older. I remember, when I used to take drugs, thinking 'whatever!' if I died. Now, my self-preservation instinct is so strong that even the slightest danger causes me to panic.

Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 7/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 8/10
Confidence 3/10
Relaxation 3/10
Stress 8/10

Today feels like one of those days that I'm wasting, that I should either be doing overtime, doing something really great socially or relaxing in a different way. I know that that is lose-lose thinking. I've been and played football, we've watched a home movie of a trip to London that we did and we're going to watch some football later on. I just feel like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing and that's so frustrating. I know that I feel that way because I'm tense and restless and because I can't settle, but I don't really know how to make the feeling go away.

The people next door are playing dance music. I know that I've always been socially very awkward, but it makes me feel like I've really missed out on my youth. Ok, I've done a bit of clubbing, I've tried drugs, I've been into drinking, I probably haven't had as many sexual partners as I would have liked and I haven't been quite as adventurous as I would have liked....but really what is it that I think I'm missing out on? Maybe I have an idea that most people go out on a weekend, have a great time with their mates, get really drunk and go home with a gorgeous girl, which will last a few months, before they end up with another gorgeous girl. Deep down I know that very few people have that and that the ones that do aren't even especially happy, because they have trouble maintaining relationships.

On a more realistic note, it would be great to have quite a big social circle and to be able to go out and do things with different people- to feel wanted and popular. I am developing relationships with people through my volunteering, but I don't feel like I have a 'gang' or really close mates from it at the moment. On the positive side, I am around much more positive and proactive people at the moment.

I have been feeling quite depressed recently: a dense, swirling feeling in my head, sick in my stomach, tense muscles, negative mood. Watching the movie of our trip back made me want to be sick because I felt very critical of the way that I looked and came across and also because, at the time I had anxiety about motorways, but not about the earth generally and the thought of me now doing that made me feel a bit sick. We watched footage of us on a tour bus and my mrs's cousin said 'I bet those bus drivers get so bored', I was thinking the same thing, but my thoughts progressed to 'I bet the bus drivers feel so depressed' to 'I bet people in London feel so depressed' ....and so on, which made me feel depressed.

I know that I've been depressed most of my life and I don't see why I should be, because I've actually got a lot going for me. It's harder for me to remember times when I was happy. The happiest time of my life was when I first got together with my first girlfriend- I felt like a new person living a new life.

I think that I know the things that are missing in my life. I need to feel purposeful and that I am growing- that's probably going to have to come from a change of job. I need to feel like an important and liked part of a group. I am working on my social life. It would be great to have people saying 'we're going to a restaurant tonight do you fancy joining us' or 'are you coming to the pub tonight' and to have people around who can help me to feel positive and secure. The other thing is to not feel so over awed and intimidated by the world and life. I need to be able to travel and see the world.

I guess I need to keep recognising when my thinking is faulty, keep working on being more positive and more relaxed, keep trying to learn, keep pushing my fears and keep trying to be open. It really is so hard though, because I feel like I'm doing so much and I still feel awful.


Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 6/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 6/10
Confidence 4/10
Relaxation 4/10
Stress 7/10

I'm quite stressed at the moment because the football team that I'm organising is short of players and we've been getting behind with our match fees. I've done almost everything that I can think of to get new players in, including putting notices on my website and noticeboard, getting players to bring their friends and trying to persuade people from work to play. A fe people who have said they were going to come have let me down. I do appreciate though, that about 6 players are either injured or away on holiday, so we'll be fine when they come back.... so I'm trying not to get myself too worked up.

My voluntary work is one of those things where I wonder 'Would I feel better if I didn't have the stress of trying to organise things?', but then, on the flipside I do get satisfaction from organising things, it's quite good for my social life and it's good for my cv. Plus, being the manager of the football team is good for my confidence and assertiveness.

Another stressor/depressor is that every month we run out of money really early. We had a crazy spell when we first got together where we spent a hell of a lot of money and we're certainly paying for it now. I would say that we've learned our lessons about loans and credit cards though and, on the plus side, we're far from the only people in this situation, we're not burying our heads in the sand, we're trying to work it out and (hopefully) we've learned our lesson from it. It's just so hard having to be devious to get money all the time, counting every penny and hoping that you won't run out of petrol on the way home. We're going to work to a strict budget this month, so that should help.

On of the things that causes me a great amount of anxiety and depression is feeling like life is a game that I don't want to play. I feel daunted about the size of the world. I'm trying not to think about what is beneath my feet or all around me and just to concentrate on what I see, but it's so hard as, every so often I get an adrenaline rush and I think 'oh my god'. I'm trying to think like other people think and to either accept the world or to put it out of my mind. I'm trying to enjoy adrenaline, like positive/optimistic people do, the sort of people who get a buzz out of bungee jumping.

Do people who travel all around the world have no fear? How do I lose my fear? I know I have to change my mentality.

I know that one of the biggest faults in my thinking is that I dread most things rather than feeling excited about them. I dreaded my brothers wedding, I even dread going on holiday. There have been days when the sun has been shining, I've been off work and going to play football and I've felt miserable- that is how I would chose to spend an ideal day, so why didn't I feel happy?

I think one of the major things in my life is that I haven't had a job where I feel secure, valued and fulfilled. I also haven't really had a close circle of friends or many interests. How could I not feel more confident and happy if I had those things in my life?

I also keep feeling that I'm drawn to destructive things. I feel tempted to sleep with other women.... I guess most men have that problem too.

I just wish that I was a more calm, positive and happier person. This has been so hard.



Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[W.I.F.T.S.]

I used to be much more confident that I would live a long life. I used to think that I would get to 75 no problems. I took drugs thinking that I wouldn't die. I think that confident people have that same arrogance.

These days the thought of death (which is an obsession) causes me to feel panicky. Whenever I'm anxious my chest feels tight, which causes me to panic about having a heart attack.



Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 6/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 6/10
Confidence 5/10
Relaxation 4/10
Stress 6/10

I feel like confidence is the missing ingredient in my life. The reason that I feel anxious and depressed is because I lack confidence. It's wierd though because consciously I feel like I can do things, but it feels like my subconscious holds me back. It's that little voice of doubt chipping away at me. I guess that comes from my dad and his side of the family being quick to jump on my faults and slow to praise my successes.

Not so long ago I composed a questionairre as part of my voluntary work and spent a lot of time in the gym talking to people and handing them out. I felt like I 'summoned' up the confidence from somewhere to do it because I knew that it was ridiculous to be too shy or anxious to do it and I didn't want it to be a roadblock in the way of my development. The disappointing thing is that I didn't feel 'high' afterwards because I'd beaten my fear, I instead felt rough, like the experience had traumatised me. I get this quite a bit after I do something that scares me, which is really annoying and upsetting.

I can imagine myself feeling a lot more confident and going out into the world and doing things. I know that if I was more confident I would be a lot more relaxed and a lot happier. At the moment I feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be, which makes me feel depressed. I think that I feel that way because I have little faith in the choices that I make for myself, I know that I've chosen to live at home because it is the path of least resistance rather than because it's what I really want.

Today I was driving and I imagined living in one of the houses that I saw and it made me feel sick in my stomach!

I know that they say the way to feel confident is to do things: learn a new skill, do something that scares you. I am trying, I really am. Maybe I'm not doing it properly because the confidence just doesn't seem to stick. I've done quite a few things recently that have scared me and I've felt good about them, but then the next day I have felt really awful. It really is like being on a rollercoaster (something that does scare me) and everytime you think it's coming to a stop it starts again.

I was talking to my mrs last night, saying that whenever we leave the football on a Monday night I feel depressed. I've concluded that this is because I've invested so much to try and expand my social circle and after the match people go their own way, whereas in my ideal world we would be much closer and go for a drink after the match or make plans to play golf during the week. My feelings of depression are frustration that I don't get the satisfaction that I want out of the experience. I have invited them out a few times, but it's hard going. because I feel that way there I then create an anchor/ short cut about that place, time and I immediately associate it with feeling depressed and the feelings come back each time. I need to change the routine and break the anchor. I've decided that I'm going to pay for the match beforehand so that I can walk to the carpark with the team and I'm going to invite them for a drink after the game on September 11th.

back to confidence. I've done pretty well academically, I've done pretty well sportingly, I've travelled a little bit, I've met loads of people throughout my life. Why do I feel so unconfident? I know plenty of people who haven't achieved half of what I have achieved who feel confident enough to go and live abroad or to start a business.

Ok, a big part of it is the way that I was brought up. My dad used to make me feel very guilty about things as a way of making me behave and that affected my confidence a lot. I grew up in a rough area and we were very poor. I was smart, sensitive and not as tough as the other lads, so I got bullied quite a bit. My mum was convinced that I was gay, which didn't help my confidence as I most definitely wasn't. I did feel as if I stuck out like a sore thumb growing up, which made me very self-conscious. I felt lik

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 5/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 5/10
Confidence 5/10
Relaxation 4/10
Stress 6/10

Right at this moment in time I don't feel too bad really. My body is still very achy, tired and tense and I do feel a bit off, but nowhere near as bad as I have done.

I think I'm realising that I have to let go, that I can't brace myself for every possible danger, I have to just go with the flow and let whatever will be be. I think the thing with anxiety is self-preservation, not wanting anything to go wrong or to hurt you but (as I say in my tagline) 'ships in harbour are safe, but that's not what ships were built for'. If we never went out we might get to live to a hundred, but what kind of life would it be? We could also suffer from some sort of illness that could affect anyone. Ok, don't be reckless, but go out and take chances, that's what life's about. Happiness certainly isn't found in playing safe all the time.

I know how hard it is. I'm trying to convince myself of it as much as anyone else. I've been driving to work with the urge to turn round and get home as fast as I could so that I could cower under the bed, but I've said to myself that if I can't drive 10 miles down the road I might as well stop at home and never go out again.

As I've left my car to go into the building I've felt like a rounders player not sure whether to stick on this base or to try and steal the next one. I've wanted to walk into work confidently, but another part of me wants to cling on to the nearest tree or fence for dear life!!

People go around the world on holiday, they do scuba diving, they climb Everest... they are no stronger or less fallible than me, it's more about attitude than ability, it's psychological. I need to get my mind right for it.

Without realising it, for most of my life I have been dreading absolutely everything including holidays, birthdays and weddings. I need to turn that attitude around and start looking forward to things... and I am doing that. I was best man at my brother's wedding last week and normally my thinking would be to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. However, I consciously decided to try and look forward to it and I was actually a lot less nervous and anxious on the day than I would have thought.

The thing with me is that I know that I wind myself up into a panic. I was best man at my mates wedding a few years ago and I got myself worked up into a terrible state. I felt a bit like I did it to try and get a laugh out of other people and to get them on my side. Maybe it's because I feel so tired and lethargic all the time that I do it to try and get my adrenaline going so that I am more alert and energised, but I actually get am undisirable result- anxiety? I've been driving and felt quite calm and thought to myself 'I feel quite calm' and then the next thing I start feeling anxious and panicky. maybe I'm sabotaging myself, maybe it's because I'm thinking too much about the way that I feel, maybe I try and summon up anxiety to test how strong it is at that time and whether my coping strategies have improved? I don't really know the answer.

I do know that I don't quite feel right and I think that is why I've still been feeling anxious.

It's not very nice at the moment because everyone is talking about holidays and I feel unable to go. It's a bit like when I was at school and everyone had branded clothes and I had really cheap stuff because we were so poor.

I do quite fancy going to Scandinavia (Copenhagen, Stockholm), but I'm struggling to psyche myself up to go to North Wales, so that's out of the question at the moment. I just wish that I was tougher and more adventurous. As a kid, I remember getting really homesick whenever we went away and I wasn't keen on camping or anything. I really wish I was tougher because I do actually quite fancy doing things like that. It's so annoying and frustrating.

The thing is that I don't feel scared of physical things so much, it's more the feelings that I get when I feel scared, anxious or depressed. The last time

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 6/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 6/10
Confidence 4/10
Relaxation 4/10
Stress 6/10

I've been telling myself that life is a game, that the goal is happiness and that that is achievable through relaxation, through contributing to the world, through stretching yourself and through positivity.

The world has freaked me out for a long time, just the size and scale of it, but I'm trying to tell myself to accept/ forget about that and just get on with things, because it's probably not going to have much bearing on my life.

It really is hard when you start searching for meaning and purpose. I used to panic a lot because I'd sort of say to myself 'you do know that you're stood on the earth?' and it used to cause me so much anxiety. It still does really.

I find it hard not to be overwhelmed by space-time, life-death and I feel rooted to the spot because of the seriousness and gravity of it all.

I was talking to a guy this morning who's flying on Saturday and I said that I don't like flying anyway, but I'd be especially nervous after todays events in the news. His attitude was 'if you're going to get blown up it's meant to be'. I can kind of see where he's coming from, don't let fear stop you from doing things, but on the other hand I can imagine myself on the plane bracing myself for a bomb to go off at any minute and I'd have an horrendous time.

I know that it is possible for people to change their attitudes, it happens all the time, it's part of human nature. My mum was always very tense and nervous, but flying doesn't bother her these days. It's just hard to imagine such a shift in my personality, where I'm really calm and confident.

I think one of the biggest flaws in my thinking is that I generalise. I was watching tv before and they were on a beach in Ireland and the sky was grey. My reaction to that is something like 'what a MISERABLE day...I've got to stop in... there's nothing to do... those council houses in the background are really depressing.... I'll never better myself... I'm wasting my life... everywhere's miserable... I'll never enjoy anywhere... I'll never be happy!!!!'

With my mrs, we've had about three weeks where we've got along great and couldn't do enough for each other and I've felt much happier about being with her. We then had a bit of a row last week cos we didn't have any money and she sulked quite a lot and she yelled at me and she was moody (she's very fussy, she's got OCD and she's pretty aggressive anyway) and that's made me feel crap too. When things are like that I think that I'd be better off on my own because her moods and tension are causing me to be anxious, but then I think 'I've got no friends, I'd never go out, I'd feel even more depressed on my own'- genearlised thinking again, like a big grey cloud over everything.

I know that I feel rejected, but it's actually probably me doing the rejecting. I have had jobs offered to me and I've turned them down because I thought I was worth better or I didn't want to be tied down. There have been people in my life who I probably haven't given enough credit to, my brother especially. I have achieved quite a lot, but I've never been satisfied with it. I imagine myself going 'ah, this is the life', when I do feel satisfied, but it's so hard just to be able to sit back and think 'yeah, I did a really good job there, I deserve this'.

I do compare myself to other people a lot. I know that I'm smart (although I probably think that I'm cleverer than I am- as a kid I was sure that I was an undiscovered genius, ala Adrian Mole), it's just frustrating that I can't seem to apply myself. what am I doing working in the warehouse for a supermarket? The mundanity, the same, old, boring routine drives me nuts, it was something that I'd always wanted to avoid, but when i came home after becoming ill I thought that I'd do it because it would give me stability and because everyone else seemed to manage it and they don't have the same problems with depression.... so I thought.

I know that I do need much more stimulatio

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 6/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 6/10
Confidence 5/10
Relaxation 3/10
Stress 7/10

My parents had a really fraught relationship. My dad worked shifts and when he wasn't at work he was either in bed, watching horse racing on the tv while lying on the sofa or in the pub- that's how I remember things anyway. My mum was very tense and nervous. I remember one time she had a fit on the floor- I still don't know what that was about.

My parents seperated when I was 13, much to my shame, although I wasn't too distraught because I knew that they had a miserable relationship and I thought that atleast this way I would get more attention from my dad. I know that they had serious financial worries. My dad's job wasn't too badly paid, but I think they'd got themselves into horrendous debt (they had to sell their house and move into a council house in a nasty town) and my dad was never one for budgetting, he'd always spend money fairly freely. Whereas my mum counted every penny. We really were paupers- my toes are squashed together NOW because my mum couldn't afford to buy me new trainers all the time to cope with my ever-growing feet. We'd be on free school dinners, which was deeply embarrassing for me- especially as I hung around with the more middle class kids in the bright sets at school.

Soon after my parents split my mum got together with a new man. He was never violent or anything, but I think kids exasperated him- funny how he's great with my nephew now! They'd go out on a Sunday night and when they came back, even if we hadn't been downstairs, he'd huff and puff about the mess we'd made and start clattering things about.

My dad got a run down terrace of his own close to work. Me and my brother used to absolutely dread going to stop with him because their was nothing much to do there and he'd either be sleeping or in the pub. He got together with a woman from Liverpool who was a real character and an inspiration and we'd look forward to going to stop with him on the weekends that she was there.

I was a real geek as a kid. I was tall and thin with big feet and bad skin. I hated the way I looked. I was pretty introverted. My dad took me to join a football team to build up my confidence (he wasn't all bad, he also used to take me camping and stuff), but then he told the manager in front of all the lads that I was rubbish and I hadn't come to join the team just to have a practice!! There was another time when I was competing in the County high jump trials and my dad coached me and I won. Shortly after that I was running for my county and I asked my dad if he could buy me a vest so that I could keep it as a souvenir, rather than me having to borrow one out of the scum bin. He did buy it for me, but he laid the guilt on afterwards, saying how they couldn't afford to go out all weekend because of me!!

I guess that the two biggest 'buttons' with me are guilt and fear. I remember another time when my dad had came in from the pub and he laid into me about how I shouldn't stop at my gran's every weekend (which was a break from home and close to my school and friends) because she couldn't afford to keep me and she'd asked him for money. I was maybe 14 at the time and I was in absolute floods of tears.

I think that guilt and fear affect me so much because that was how I was controlled as a kid 'it's because of you that we can't do this', 'all that we've done for you and you give nothing back', 'don't do this or such and such will happen'. I guess with the fear it has always been more a fear of doing the wrong thing or getting told off. My dad loves telling the story of how I was 15 or 16 and I wouldn't ask him if I wanted a biscuit, I'd whisper to my brother for him to ask instead. I was very timid and awkward as a kid.

The thing is that I still don't really feel like I've grown up. I feel like an ugly duckling that hasn't yet made it into a swan and I'm 30!! I was reading an article about an actor called Mark Ruffalo, who's 39 and he said that he only just feels like he's grown up (he does loo

[W.I.F.T.S.]

I think that the way in which anxiety and panic cause me to be depressed is because I don't want to do things in case it causes me to feel anxious. I don't want to go to the pub, I don't want to go out for a meal, I don't want to go on holiday, I don't even want to stop at home!! I know that maybe 6 months ago I was a bit more excited about doing things- I wanted to go canoeing up the canal! I wanted to go and watch football matches.

I guess that my illness has changed over the last 6 months. We don't go to as many gigs as we used to or weekends away and I don't leave my small town so much any more, so my comfort zone has decreased. It's really hard because I know that to increase my comfort zone I have to go and do stuff, but I get to places and I feel really on edge, anxious, depressed and it's horrible.

I know that there is a way out of this. When I've done things that I've been really scared of I've got such a high out of them and feel so much lighter and real.

It's just that I tend to think of everything as being very sinister and shallow when I'm feeling particularly depressed. I notice the grey skies and it feels like no one gives a toss, that everyone is screwed up and selfish that there is so much danger everywhere.

Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Anxiety 4/10 (how bad I feel out of 10)
Depression 5/10
Confidence 6/10
Relaxation 5/10
Stress 6/10

At this moment in time I'm actually feeling pretty good. I'm hoping that I'm really getting better and that I'm not a million miles from recovery now. The hardest part has been that when I was really, really ill and didn't feel real that I was constantly trying to ground myself and tell myself that things are real. I then went through a stage of thinking 'Oh my god! the world! It's physically under my feet!'. So, then I've had to try and 'let things go' and 'float through them' as Claire Weekes would say to take things more lightly and less seriously and to only think about the immediate world around me and not let my mind think any further than that.

There have been quite a few times recently when i have thought 'I feel almost normal' and my general anxiety levels seem to have come down. I know that it's all psychological and the reason that I'm so tense and anxious is because I focus too much on what can go wrong and not enough on the rewards that I could gain. When I lived in London I used to get stoned quite a lot and then I would hate being very far away from home or even outdoors. We lived in North London and South London would seem like the other side of the world.

A lot of people that I know are going travelling at the moment. One girl is travelling across Malaysia. When she said it I felt sick in my stomach. I really do find the thought of going so far from home daunting. On the plus side I used to just push the thought to the back of my mind 'I'll never go there', so don't let it bother me. I think that that has been an unhealthy way to deal with things because whenever someone has mentioned travelling I've thought that I'd love to do it, but my fear of being too far away from home, my fear of boats and planes has made it practically impossible.

I've always been very fearful, I don't like planes, boats, the channel tunnel, trains.... so I've been very restricted in the way that I've been able to experience life. Before I let the fear rule me, because i thought that I couldn't change or that it would be too difficult. Now, I want to break through the fear because then I can really start to enjoy life and banish depression. It is so hard though.

I really do think that the way to be happy is to want to go out and do stuff, to want to meet people, to want to accept challenges. I think that the more that you do those sort of things, confidence and enthusiasm builds. I feel stuck in a rut at the moment because I haven't been out of town very much recently. I remember though that when I have been doing things, the excitement of doing those things has given me loads of motivation to want to go out and do other things.



Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.