Month: October 2014

I have to admit, today wasn’t one of my best days.

I do flip between a Happy State and a Sad State. Often, it’s beyond my control when I flip into the Sad State, so I ride the wave of the Happy State as much as possible. A big trigger of Sad Pete is when I think I’m being ignored or otherwise being deprived of the human contact that I crave.

(That was only part of the story today – a big part was the self discipline slipping and me doing some more damage – oops !)

That combined with definitely lacking on the energy today made things somewhat miserable. Being in the Sad State has other effects too. I’m sure other people who suffer from depression will recognise the feeling that the world just doesn’t care about you. Having a lack of feedback when you try to talk to or send messages to people reinforces that feeling of being unloved.

You’ve seen me mention Okcupid here a few times haven’t you ? I have no issues whatsoever with the site. It’s fast to navigate on both mobile and desktop versions. It presents matches clearly. It has a well realised editor. It’s a great site and the Match % couples fairly well with what I read in people’s profiles.

But … And this is the big but. A site like that depends on the people on it for successfully fulfilling its purpose of making singles into partners.

What’s the result so far ? I’ve been messaging occasional people on there as their words and pictures catch my eye. I usually put a compliment in there and / or questions based on what I’ve read in their profile.

So – how many answers, how many ignore ?

I’ll go back to 1st August when I was feeling a lot better and thinking recovery was just around the corner. I’ve sent initiating messages to 16 lovely ladies. Of them, I’ve had :

2 sorry not interested or talking to someone else. I’m ok with that. They showed a little interest and had the courtesy to reply. I wish those two ladies well.

That’s what I’m all about. If a lady goes off with another bloke, I’m fine with that. What’s important is that they’re happy. If that happens to be with someone else instead of me, that’s ok. It doesn’t do much for my need for Hug but their happiness is what counts.

Back to numbers – 2 had short conversations, of which 1 was fairly promising. Until I translated my description of “shredded”. Not heard from her again, despite : My condition will fix in time. Her condition will not (she has a degenerative skeletal disease).

1 lengthy conversation with a lovely interpreter lady. That conversation had me grinning madly, especially when she diagnosed me as having the Crazy. I like the Crazy (happy crazy, not lock me up crazy) because it means unpredictable spontaneity and hopefully fun. I hope I hear from her more. She was interesting and I don’t use that word with many people.

That leaves 11 ladies who did not bother replying – at all. Even to the questions I asked them based on what’s in their profiles. I’d call that rude but it goes beyond that into being obnoxious.

I see that lack of response way too much actually. There’s another lady I talk about here a little too much perhaps who hasn’t given me anything by way of response. I know she checks the posts because Google privately gives me the fingerprint trace that shows the link they click to get here. But I get no response back. That shows either :

Lack of interest – just let me know that. There’s a 12 year age difference which I think unnerves her.
Shy inhibitions – there’s only one way to fight that, go outside the comfort zone.

Yeah – I’m a bit upset at the world at the moment, feeling unloved.

But … this is my message to all the people reading this who are touched by depression. Remember the positives. For me, it’s keeping a few faces in my mind :

The lady down south who is new to the organisation. I’ve been helping her figure out how everything fits together and she’s been helping me from her own specialisation too.

(People say I’m an outrageous flirt. That’s true. I don’t deny it. But … If the flirting and being nice to people means they answer my questions quicker, I’ll keep doing it. Besides, it costs nothing to be nice and makes everyone feel better.)

I caught the Snow Queen around lunchtime on Tuesday. And had the benefit of that little smile she carries around. Our Snow Queen is amazing, even at my most confusing, she can follow what I’m thinking. That’s tough and shows how smart and understanding she is.

All those hugs from CrazieQueen. She suffers more than I do and those hugs help us both out.

Having an email out of the blue from the Naughty (but so Nice) Angel. And then completely coincidentally spotting her waiting for a lunchtime meet up. It was great to talk again.

Having all those people at work who answer my smile with their own and often a Hello. That definitely helps being my smile back.

But lastly, Miss Barbara. Her name’s not Barbara but she is almost the image of a childhood sweetheart of that name (and I’m struggling for codename inspiration). She’ll walk past my desk and try not to be distracted by the grinning idiot looking up at her. But if she catches the grin, her face will first twitch and then erupt into an ear to ear smile.

And it’s those smiles that make life worth living. And it’s smiles like that which help point the way to finding my Happy Pete mojo again.

Yep

Improving. But slowly. There’s still a fair bit of damage on me but instead of staying nasty, it shows healing fairly quickly. Of course, I’m still being my own worst enemy with it because I can re-damage the healed bits very easily, with that tending to happen before my self-discipline wakes up.

Still struggling though. I have my hyperactivity being balanced by a lack of sleep again. I like to finish on high notes, so let’s get the bed out of the way first. You know, like when I do that cataloguing of the problems so I can deal with them better.

Energy levels. This is the hyperactivity being balanced by the lack of sleep. I usually have enough to see me through the day at work and then go Zombie when I’m home. I can carry the energy levels when I need them but I pay for it later.

Outside struggles. The skin’s genuinely getting better. But I still have to be incredibly careful with it and there’s no way I’m wearing shorts yet. I’d be shot by Zombie Hunters.

Inside struggles. The lowlights are a nasty neck which is really cramping the Meerkat style. You know, the one where the person sitting at the desk pops up their head to see who is walking by. It’s costing me smiles ! I need to go on an exercise regime too, to reactivate legs that have lost the power I’m accustomed to having.

Ok, ok – that’s enough for struggles. Positives ?

I’m getting huge amounts of Smiles. I wrote something somewhere which said “Dwagonman, Powered By Smiles”. I love giving and receiving smiles. Even She Who Curdles The Milk has caught the grin and even said hello the other day. I nearly fell off me chair. (She’s not that bad)

Even people I don’t know get caught by the Grin. Including Pretty Lady Waitress tonight. Energy levels were really low and were helped out by another pasta dinner (I’m getting addicted to F+B’s Chicken Romana) and those Pretty Lady Waitress smiles. She was on her third straight shift and still managing to maintain that smile plus energy levels that let her zoom around.

Losing the weight.

I love this. I hit 14st, which is what I call my upper limit. It’s not an obese weight for me because I carry that on a relatively broad frame with a lot of the weight taken up in power legs. I’m now 12st4(ish) and appreciating losing that weight. With improvements in my outside condition, I have most of my old agility back. All thanks to losing that weight.

How did the weight fall off ? I haven’t been exercising, although I need to start again when my outsides are clear. It’s from a change in diet, to a more carb rich pasta type diet. There’s a 3 for deal in A Supermarket which led to about half my meals being these pasta ready meals (must learn to cook them myself). That’s set calories plus healthier components.

I still sadly have a double chin. Don’t think I’ll get rid of that any time soon. Oh and when I get banned from the car park (for living too close to work), the walking to and from the bus will soon sort out those legs. I won’t be playing cricket next summer though, I’m too broken and the fun had gone out of it.

Talking of fun …

A good belly laugh always helps heal the soul. And the less said about The Equaliser (watched last night with Crazies) there, the better – well made but very nasty film. I’m looking forward to a few films coming soon. The birthday movie will be Interstellar, I’m a sucker for a good scifi movie. Other forthcoming films I’m looking forward to include :

Turtles ! Must see, even though it is a Michael Bay
Annabelle – and if a certain little lady needs someone to hug in the scary bits, I’d be overjoyed to oblige. This one made me jump in the trailer. That never happens !
Fury – is a WW2 film about a tank crew
Hunger Games : Mockingjay – should be good if it’s up to the standard of the first 2.
Imitation Game – another which a certain little lady might like (it has the Benedict) but I’ll watch it for the WW2 codebreaking story
And Hobbit 3

I hope that pretty little lady does read this, there’s a few things that get said that just make me want to offer the hug and a someone to talk to who is away from her normal world. You know, a safety valve where you can let your guard down and … relax and regenerate. We both seem to be locked into a form of mutual loneliness. Mine is due to that skin condition, it’s been an enforced thing because I haven’t wanted to inflict it on anyone. But I’m hoping to be clear “soon.” by the end of this year at least which will be about darn time.

I mentioned a good belly laugh didn’t I ?

While I don’t really have the energy to put into playing the games in the evening, that doesn’t stop me watching the gameplay videos from people like Yogscast. There’s two I’d particularly like to mention. And you’ve seen me mention them before – it’s Hannah and the ever adorable Kim.

Hannah is the wild child of the group. Her commentary is nuts. And huge fun. It’s totally unfiltered and shows how much she enjoys the game. Or how much she’s affected by it. There’s a scene in Mass Effect 3 where Mordin Solus, Salarian Scientist goes off to a heroic end. You know he ain’t getting out alive. And it nearly brings the tears out (in me too!) because you know it has to be done. Well, you can hear the tears in Hannah’s voice as you see it play out. And you hear the evil chuckles as she’s being sneaky in something like Assassins Creed (must play that soon).

Kim is the maverick. Unpredictable with a dirty laugh that’s always bubbling away, waiting to erupt. And this as a little person with a massive personality. 100% adorable, 100% of the time.

And it’s that mucky laugh and the antics in the videos that tends to send me off to bed with a big smile.

Laughter is truly the best medicine. And I’ll finish off on this note : Keep smiling. Keep that positive vibe going. Grin, laugh, concentrate on the good. A good laugh will shake off all manner of tired thoughts.

Guess who’s about to chuckle along to my 2 favourite youtube people ?