Scandi Christmas; from bloodletting to hygge in 7 minutes

Gather ’round your tablets and let me tell you the tale of how scaring a nation of Odin-worshipping farmers and warriors into believers of a bastard child saviour from faraway lands ended up tarting up the winter solstice celebrations, but first, yule probably want me to explain what the hell I am on about… Ha.

Firstly, massive thanks to those who replied to my desperate cry for inspirational input on the socials! It was a close call. However, faced with the choice between writing about cannibalism and yule and solstice, I opted for the latter. Cheers, Durand!

I might save cannibalism for next week, for those seeking alternatives to the traditional Christmas dinner – I bet the calorie density of a human arse is less than that of a serving of crimbo pudding alone. Not that I’d recommend eating either of those, of course.

Interestingly enough, the parents of the Icelandic Yule lads actually did eat human children (presumably fictional lads and children), but that’s neither here nor there, as I don’t know if we can safely assume that a troll is a humanoid creature and, as we all know, cannibalism refers to humans eating other humans.

Right, let’s dive into this.

The Norwegian, Swedish and Danish word for Christmas is ‘jul’. This we can all agree on. In Icelandic, it’s ‘jól’. Yule in ye olde English. It originally stems from the name of the heathen winter solstice celebration; jólablót. ‘Blot’ is the sacrificial spilling of blood of an animal or human. I didn’t really have to do much research on the etymology, as I grew up in the place that saw the last ‘blót’ with a human sacrifice in Norway – heads of the Norse gods they worshipped are to this day displayed inside the church that now sits in the place where they used to perform the blót, with human blood so ingrained in them that it is still visible if you study them up close. Gross. And weird. Like most organised religion, I suppose. I digress.

Anyway, you can read about Mære kyrkje in the Snorri saga Heimskringla, if this has tickled your fancy. Me, I had to translate Heimskringla from Old Norse to Norwegian about 20 years ago and have had my fill. Here’s an article about how king Olaf the Holy beat the heathen king Olve, in Norwegian. Now, if you’re in the market for a far more interesting person of the same name, you can check out the split album True Kings of Norway, by clicking anywhere on this sentence.

So, how did they go from blood sacrifice to carolling and decorating their homes with stars, paper hearts, deformed versions of Santa and his family members and bloody angels?!

Etymologically, jul/yule/jól is believed to be Proto-Germanic, whichever way you spell it. Perhaps we can blame the raping/pillaging vikings for this, perhaps not. Regardless, it is the name of a heathen winter festival that was held either on the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year, leading into longer days and brighter times), or over the course of three days surrounding midwinter night. It appears historians cannot agree on this. My take is that some historians take what’s written in the Snorri Sturlasson sagas as historical facts, whereas others do not. What they can agree on, however, is that it was a heathen festival that has somehow “merged” with Christianity during the Christianisation of Scandinavia between year 900 and 1200.

It also appears most online sources do not know the difference between paganism and heathenry, thus use the terms as if they are interchangeable, so let us just, once and for all, clear this up: They are not. Ha. You can Google this until your heart’s content, I’m not getting into it today. But what we do know is that the Scandinavian yule traditions predate Christianity and its celebration of the birth of Christ.

What sort of traditions are we talking about here? Well, like most other nations, the Scandinavian countries have as many different variations of traditions as there are families. Norway, Sweden and Finland are all fairly lengthy from the south to the north, and narrower in the middle – the climate varies vastly. This has always affected – and continues to affect – diet, fashion choices, political views, infrastructure… you name it. So, just food-wise, Bergen residents do not have the same jule-meal as people in, say, Lillehammer. I’m inclined to think this was the case in the olden days as well.

Anyway, back to yule. (To me, to yule). The celebration of the winter solstice was in many ways a ritual that marked the beginning of the end of the darker period of the year. A feast with the best produce stored from the last autumn harvest, along with cooking up an animal sacrifice made to the gods to secure a good spring, brought the community together. Seeing as it was likely freezing and the microwave was yet to be invented, you can imagine they had to set fire to some of the foodstuffs to avoid the need for a dentist (which, spoiler alert, didn’t exist yet either), which has carried over into the Christmas pudding booze volcano tradition. I do not know of any Scandinavians that are setting fire to their Christmas dinners these days, but judging by what they eat, perhaps they should.

Any gifts were for the gods. The incessant gift-giving came with the three “wise” men of Biblical fame. There might have been the odd wreath, handmade candles or a stray straw yule goat here or there, but the decorations we see today are far from traditional and not so much linked to superstition.

The aforementioned cannibalistic yule lads of Iceland do have some similarities with the Scandinavian nisse (not to be confused with the modern day ‘julenisse’, Saint Nick/Santa Claus); nefarious barn dwellers that were after livestock, punishing naughty children and play pranks on farmers who hadn’t managed to get their shit together before the solstice. Not too different from Krampus, but smaller in size, magical and with no coal for your stocking. An evil hobgoblin dressed in red, if you may.

The nefarious creatures and superstitious decorating likely stems from needing to protect their produce and cured foodstuffs from prying eyes (and mouths) before they were ready. No wonder they were made to look like horrible little trolls. Additionally, the often long and hard winters could take their toll on just about anyone. With no medical knowledge or ways to predict logical weather patterns, superstitions such as warding off evil spirits with a wreath or a goat helped people pull through the tough times. And for those who didn’t, it was fairly easy to blame it on not having completed the seasonal rituals in time.

To finalise, the winter solstice represented a positive turn – a way out of the darkness. This was marked by a feast, with an animal sacrifice and and rituals to celebrate the gifts received from the gods in the past year, something I believe was fairly widespread in pre-Christian times. The lack of reading and writing skills around the days where Christianity thrust itself onto most any unsuspecting nation might help explain why there are so many different versions of what might have actually happened and just how the traditions merged – I suspect most people just shrugged and said ‘ I guess we’re Christians now, eh’ and got back to the grind, not really caring if they mixed a little bloodletting in with their Sunday mass.

I might investigate this further, but if I continue now, I can feel myself getting into dangerous territory. Not today.

By the way, you might be interested to know some Satanist groups celebrate Yule around the same time as the Christian holiday is observed. Contrary to popular belief, though, with no worshipping of deities of any kind. Satanists are secular hedonists – not stupid.

So, to end this on an even happier, ding-dong-merrily-on-high, note, I wish you a pleasant rest of your day, now that you’re armed with some fun new facts to dazzle your co-workers with. If you find yourself surrounded by just too many £20 notes, you can always get yourself a copy of my book – hell, even FOUR of the E-book. See you next Tuesday!

16th Dec 2025 0

Advert-induced holiday blues? Nein danke

Do you ever have one of those days where everything just seems to turn to shit, whatever you do and no matter how well-positioned you are to averting life’s many crises? Yeah, same here. And, somehow, their occurrence appears more bountiful the closer we edge towards to the 25th of December.

If you truly love Christmas, I urge you not to read this. I’m not in the business of trying to ruin things for people who don’t deserve it. Also, this is largely an opinion piece, with very few – if any – links to other sources. If you want something more well-researched and less opinionated, you can buy a copy of my book for yourself, as a wee crimbo gift.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Everything is dark, cold and humid, every cunt on public transportation seems to have left their manners at home and are sneezing into each others gluttonous faces, without even as much as contemplating covering their mouths, and everyone is on a wild hunt for gifts for ungrateful (and very naughty) friends and family members. What was once a celebration of the birth of a bastard nail connoisseur has now become a competition of who can manage to chuck the most of their salary down the toilet in the quickest way possible.

I remember a time when any gifts were reserved for particularly well-behaved children – and often used to make particularly nefarious ones behave – and therefore not procured until after the child had upheld their end of the bargain. There were no guarantees. And if your parents were unable to afford a gift? Well, you’d go without. Perhaps you’d even treasure something homemade.

Today, on the other hand, once humble wishlists have been replaced by demands and shop registries, and friends and relatives of parents and parasite alike are told in no uncertain terms what to get them. The more you spend, the better. No surprises under the tree, and nothing that isn’t currently – or recently has been – trending on TikTok. Anyone not celebrating this atrocious holiday, for religious or economical reasons alike, are either forced to take part or shunned for refusing to spend money on something so appalling. Madness.

Don’t get me wrong – I actually love gift-giving. Hell, sometimes I even enjoy receiving them. BUT. Not just because it’s Christmas. I like to give people something from the heart, something special, so they’ll know that they, too, are special for receiving it. Sometimes that might be something I’ve made, or I’ve come across something that made me think of the person. It shouldn’t really matter. I don’t need someone else telling me what to buy for someone I love, and I don’t appreciate someone (or something) telling them that receiving something that’s not on their list is a bad thing.

It’s the goddamned adverts, man.

And it’s not just the blatant disregard of those who don’t have a whole lot of money to spend on something someone else will look at once before chucking it into a corner, never to be used or played with again. It’s the fact that these so-called Christmas adverts (why not call them what they are; the Q4 adverts? It’s not as if they are reserved for the last month of the year) sends the not-so-subliminal message that everyone has someone to spend the holidays with. Everyone can afford the foods, the treats, the fucking meaningless bloody decorations, the electric bill matched only by that of all of fucking Paris. And it is literally impossible to escape the madness, should you want (or need) to – the adverts are everywhere. On streaming services, public transportation, the supermarket, billboards and the blooming airport.

So, what does it do to those of us that simply have no time for this farce of a religious holiday? If you are a believer of the Christian faith, surely you must be appalled? The Christ mass has become nothing other than a golden calf. Then there’s those of us that for various reasons have no family of our own, or you have a non-related chosen family that does take part in the celebration. We’re normally used to, and most of us even quite content with, spending time alone, but now were bombarded with signs that there’s something wrong with us and that we are on the outside of society looking in.

Lifestyle by Homecare Services reported in 2024 that “1 in 4 adults in the UK feel lonely during the Christmas period. 52% of older people say that Christmas is the loneliest time of the year”. An article posted by Boise State University that same year, revealed that 61% of Americans experience “sadness and loneliness” during Christmas time. Imagine, if you may, how bad it must be for someone, when they’re ready to admit that. In fact, I am willing to bet that there’s at least another 10 per cent unaccounted for, in each of those surveys, that feel the same way but are not willing to subject themselves to scrutiny for revealing it.

Surely, you don’t feel any less lonely or sad when every time you go into the supermarket or a shopping centre, there’s Christmas music and images of people enjoying the holiday time and lots of people drinking and carolling and desperately clinging on to traditions that can be potentially harmful in the future, for our mental health, the economy and the environment. It just escalates the differences between us. It’s not ideal for anybody, not even those who are on the receiving end of your hard-earned money.

As you may have already gathered, around this time of year, I start thinking about what it will be like to spend Christmas on my own. A lot of us do – I’m under no illusion that I’m unique. Some of us may have chosen this ourselves, whereas others have not. And each year, if we are to believe the statistics presented in the articles above, there’s more of us. Some of us are… fine with this. I’d say most of us are fine with this, but then we’re bombarded with this illusion that everybody has to have that family connectedness, the food, the togetherness, which then leads our feeling as if we’re missing out on something.

I don’t have any solutions for this, other than trying to make my own little ritual and giving myself things to look forward to, that I can enjoy when “everyone else” is celebrating. And who’s to say you can’t celebrate on your own? Being alone doesn’t have to mean you can’t have a nice dinner and decorate your house. It’s just a little challenging to stand by your own conviction when you can’t even switch the radio on without getting Grinch-blamed.

Christmas is not my cup of tea. I don’t like the food noise, the greed, the fighting that comes from the consumerist fuckery, the endless need to numb the fact that you’ve spent more money on gifts for people whose names you can hardly remember than you have on the dentist in the past decade with alcohol… But I look forward to the things that I can do when no one else is around. I can sit down and watch a horror movie (or 10). I can go for a really long run and not have to worry about traffic. I can finally get some work done, because everybody else is off and I can do my work uninterrupted, or I can catch up with others like me. Or I can just learn to enjoy the solitude. I’ll just have to stay away from the TV, the adverts, the bus, the fucking shop, because they will get to you. They’re incessant and there’s constant noise.

And if I at some point hear the box of wine start calling my name, I thank fuck that the wine shop is closed for the hols and that I’ve got Bryony and Millie to keep me company – all I need to do is listen to their ADVERT FREE podcast episode on how to deal with all of the booze noise, and you can too if you click on this sentence.

You can read about how advertisers lure their way into your subconscious on Psychology Today by clicking this sentence.

Go to Mind.org.uk for tips on how to cope over the holidays, and learn more about others like yourself.

See you next Tuesday, for a shiny new rant.

In the meantime, you can listen to Bad Religion‘s Christmas album.

9th Dec 2025 0

Is this love…

… that I’m feeling? Not bloody likely, research says. If you’re anything like me, that is. But as it turns out, I’m far from unique in this respect.

You might recognise the words above as lyrics from the 87′ Whitesnake hit ballad Is This Love – if not, you should click on this sentence to watch the original video on YouTube. My undying love (?) for David Coverdale is such that I have every intention of naming my dog after him, once I can get my hands on an Airedale Terrier. Regardless, it is a fantastic song, as all-encompassing as the feeling itself, and one I’ve wailed along to countless times. But was it really love that I felt all of those times, that led to my heartbreak? Or was it in fact limerence, which is more akin to symptoms of withdrawal than love. Whatever that is.

As you may probably already be acquainted with ‘love’, I won’t waste a lot of time going on about it. I’m quite fond of Strapping Young Lad‘s definition; “a way of feeling less alone“. Urban Dictionary has posted a few rather interesting definitions. One of the few I liked (you can read all of them by clicking here) goes as follows: “Love is beyond the ego. There is no ego when you love.”

The above is enough for me to assume that no one really knows how to define ‘love’. Perhaps it’s just one of those feelings that shouldn’t be analysed? Of course people had to go and shit on it by trying to pigeonhole it.

And then, of course, someone decided there is such a thing as a ‘one true love’ for everyone out there. Which resulted in a whole lot of entertaining film and literature, which a lot of people has taken to be something other than entertainment – perhaps even a sort of manual for how love works – and then went on to drill that into the heads of their unsuspecting offspring, leading to a lot of unnecessary heartache, resentment and social awkwardness.

See, the romantic relationships often presented in popular books and movies are so over the top you can’t help but be a little mesmerised. But surely you wouldn’t expect to find the Sam to your Annie on Tinder, swiping away and getting his leg over with every Tara, Doris and Helen, when he’s meant to be your one?

Art is meant to make you feel something, to give you a temporary escape from reality for an hour or two, or even be inspired to do something you’ve always wanted to – everyday life will very rarely give you that over the course of 300 pages or 90 minutes. So the main characters have to fall in love over a week’s time. Or at first sight. Or go from enemies to lovers seemingly by the drop of a hat – or pair of knickers. But that doesn’t mean it works that way in real life.

Things take time, for the most part. I am aware there are exceptions to the rule, but in most cases – and certainly with folks who tend to emotionally dysregulate – any instant fireworks are likely to be limerence and not much else. And that shit wears off faster than you can get rid of the STIs you contracted from hopping into bed (or onto the pub toilet) with mister/ms/they/them right within minutes after meeting them, because why would you need to use contraceptives if they are ‘the one’? That means they are practically a virgin, right? Or at least that you’re the only person they’ve ever managed to penetrate without any love gloves, right?

Wrong. In-cor-rectum.

I’m not saying I don’t believe in ‘the one’. In fact, I’d really like to think that there’s a person out there just for me. But if there is, I am a hundred percent sure that they won’t make me feel as if I am suffocating when I’m not breathing in the same air as him, that I’m missing a limb when we are apart, that I’ll die if he’ll ever leave me. Limerence makes you feel like that. And, despite my mother telling me it is “not possible to fall in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same way about you”. And so I walked the earth for a total of 41 and a bit years before realising that not everyone feels this way about things. Or, indeed, people.

So, I held on to the lies, until I rather recently naïvely exclaimed to a friend this summer: “You know, that feeling when you’re thirteen and have a crush on someone and you feel as if you’re gonna die – when you just know” – and they didn’t. Know, that is. In fact, they very gently but firmly informed me that this was a bit of a pink flag, if not all red. Which led me to purchase Kerry Cohen’s Crazy For You, through which I first came across the term (if you have a complicated relationship with love, I suggest you give this book a read).

Psychologist and love researcher Dorothy Tennov coined the term back in the 60s or 70s, to describe the intense infatuation or ‘love madness’ one can experience when it is not yet known if the romantic feelings are being reciprocated by the other person. This early phase of ‘love’ can be defined by symptoms such as “intense euphoria, a profound sense of emotional connection, mood swings, intrusive thoughts, over-arousal, obsessive infatuation and involuntary craving for the other person”.

More recent studies have shown this to be not uncommon, but for most people it wears off and develops into a real bond once a consenting relationship has been established. For others, like me, the unreciprocated obsession is often replaced by feelings of disgust or self-loathing. In any event the feelings are reciprocated, limerence wears off without turning into lasting love in about 18 months.

But this doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships. I get this feeling whenever I am faced with the prospect of something new and exciting, whether that’s a new job, a potential platonic friendship, a shiny new education, or something as banal as a packet of salt and vinegar flavoured Monster Munch.

Alas, when these feelings are not reciprocated (or my craving for the non-romantic prospects above remains unfulfilled), the poor limerent sod is left in a mental state that interferes with their day-to-day. An all-encompassing, undying desperation takes hold of the individual. Perhaps you miss work, because you are waiting up all night for them to call, or you spend all your savings on grand gestures to make them see that you mean business.

Hell, I once took off work, booked a flight and a hire car just because the person in question – whom I’d known for precisely one month by that point – doubted my ‘love’ for them. I’ve moved across the kingdom for someone I thought was ‘the one’, because they had mentioned, half-jokingly, that we’d probably be together if we didn’t live so far apart. (And, like me, they didn’t care much for the adventures of Harry Potter). I had 500 grams of Candy Corn shipped from the US, the special delivery alone costing me nearly 60£, just because I felt as if I couldn’t go another day without the flavour in my mouth. That’s not love. That’s obsession. Not like Stephen King’s Misery levels of obsession, but still. Close enough.

I’m not entirely sure where I was going with this – one can only assume that I felt inclined to explain my chosen singlehood in more scientific terms; I’m not getting myself into any more shit until I learn to differentiate between real attraction and, well, fatal attraction.

The jury might still be out on this one, but I am quite certain that I have yet to experience the privilege of being in love. Like never before, I find kinship and solace in the unforgettable words of Joni Mitchell:

It’s love’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know love at all

That’s it for now. I shall see you next Tuesday – if you’ve any topic suggestions for my next post, leave it in a comment below, or drop me a message on Instagram.

Oh – and check out my book, please xx

2nd Dec 2025 0

A gift for those dreading the holidays

It’s Sunday, so I’ll keep it brief – this is just a bit of blatant self promotion anyway. And, boy, do we get enough of adverts thrown at us around this time of year, eh? Anyway, this post will be dedicated to the story of Hannah; Journey to the Centre of the Mind – a Particularly Mental Gap Year, and why you should bring it into your life if you haven’t already done so.

The two pieces of feedback I’ve received most often from my readers is that A: The book is almost impossible to put down, and therefore a quick read, even for the slower readers out there, and B (possibly most importantly): Hannah’s story lets them know that it’s not just them having a shit time of it – other people struggle with some level of the same shit too – that black dog can be an impossible beast to tame if you’re doing it alone.

This book is for the ones that know that there are layers to every feeling, that any tiny speck of happiness rarely comes without a tiny sliver of guilt, the outsiders, the ones buckling under the pressure of society’s expectations (or their own expectations), it’s for those who don’t have anyone they trust enough to share their stories with, those who feel so out of place that it feels as if the universe is working against them. And for those that are trying too hard to be a good friend to someone who struggles, and end up pushing them away in their misinformed attempt at helping.

In my humble attempt at persuading you to buy a copy of my book, I will share with you what made me write this in the first place.

I occasionally go searching for that terrible review that’ll crush my dream of any writing career. Squinting so heard that I can barely see – in sheer terror of what I might find – I type the title of my book into the search engine. The last time I did this, though, I was pleasantly surprised – to say the least. One might even suggest that I did the same search on a few different devices and in incognito mode before accepting the reality of the fact; three 5-star ratings on Goodreads, and two reviews that brought tears of joy (and relief) to my eyes. One of them posted by the magnificent Jess of The Next Chapter fame. You can read the reviews on Goodreads by clicking anywhere on this sentence.

My book is print on demand only (because I like trees), so if you feel like giving someone a different book for Christmas this year, you need to order it by the 5th to get it from the printer’s on time – it’s available in most countries and I’ve collected a few links for you if you click on this sentence.

The Ebook, however, is of course instantly available if you find yourself searching for something special on the day itself. I’ll include the link again here, as a lot of the outlets above offer up the electronic version as well.

Should the reviews inspire you to grab a different Christmas – or Hanukkah – gift this year, for yourself or someone you thing might need it, you have until the 5th of December to get it back from the printing press at Books on Demand in time, using the links above.

If you prefer reading your literature on an E-reader, the electronic version is cheap as chips on most platforms.

In the famous words of Skeletor: Until we meet again!

(Yes, Tuesday, as per)

30th Nov 2025 0

Single and forced to mingle

Recently, big business found yet another way for consumerism to separate us from our wages, under the guise of discounts and special offers in celebration of a new (to me, at least) money making scheme/unofficial global shopping holiday; singles’ day. As far as I can tell, the tradition goes back a decade or two, as a celebration for people that are not in relationships to come together for a fun time, but I refuse to put the phrase into my search engine to find out how old this new organised shopping frenzy is. Regardless, I suspect this capitalist take on the event has been created to make room for the useless shite shops, hotels and airlines need to stock their digital shelves with for Black Friday.

I would have applauded the celebration, had it actually celebrated singlehood and single folks. It would have been great, had the offers and discounts been exclusive to those of us ‘fortunate’ enough to pay our bills by our sorry selves – living alone is bloody expensive – yet that’s of course not how it works. Not only can married/coupled folks benefit from the same singles’ day ‘offers’ as those of us sans soulmates – I even received an offer from a travel agent (that will remain unnamed) via email, where they offered me an “even better discount” if I was “travelling with a partner”. Another email explicitly said “don’t worry if you’re not single, these discounts applies to you as well, as long as you use the code XX”. What the fuck?

So, as a single person, I am expected to pay more for my flights and accommodation when I travel somewhere by myself all year around, but couples can save more on a deal – a deal that exists because of single people – than the actual single solo traveller? Why should they get my discount on the one day out of the year where businesses could have done something nice for us and let us save a few bucks on something that’s not in bulk, for once? But no. Once again, the singleton is reminded of their place in society and capitalism is the ultimate victor. Enough, already.

I get it. The economy is fucked. But that doesn’t justify screwing us over. Just because we’re used to not getting any, doesn’t mean that we’ll happily lie down and take it when offered the chance.

And with this, I find myself at what inspired my little rant today; the difference between consent and compliance. By no means do I claim to be the first person to point out the fact that there is a difference – I will gladly admit that my inspiration comes from not one but two podcasts I’ve been listening to lately (Speaking of Psychology and MissUnderstood/Sorry, I Missed This), I just found that their take on it made me see some of my past mistakes in a new light. Additionally, being able to differentiate between the two will never not be important.

If you’re missing the logical connecting step from shopping to consent here, I will list a few of the reasons why I am single (and have been for most of my life).

Non-singles and ‘normal’ singles alike tend to assume that all single folks are tirelessly and desperately looking for ‘their person’. Whilst many are doing precisely that, there are also those of us who have found the one we would like to be with, but like with many of the universe’s cruel jokes, our beloved does not be-love or even be-like us back, or they are simply in a relationship already. So me being the way I am (i.e. possibly a smidge hyperfocused on anything and everything that manages to tickle my fancy) will more often than not be inclined to wait patiently for their relationship to peter out before making a move and/or moving on. There’s a need to know if they would feel the same if they could. In short, it’s not my lacking the ability to find someone, or having impossibly high standards. Nay, for me to give up my life for a relationship, I need it to be with a person that I actually like enough for me to feel as if I’m not giving anything up at all.
It’s about the person, not the relationship. It seems a lot of people are desperate to be in a relationship. So desperate, in fact, that they suffer through physical violence and psychological warfare, prostitution, childbirth, vasectomies, you name it. They just want to show the world that someone chose them. But, did they, though? Noooooo thank you. Also, I quite like the peace and quiet. Next!
Then there’s the rejection sensitivity that comes with my ADHD, and the RSD, the misguided attempts at second guessing every move, over analysing every word, every movement, my forty years of being told that other people’s needs are far more important than my own, which incidentally has caused me to gaslight myself into thinking that compliance is consent.

As you can tell, it is probably best that I stay away from the relationship game. I have been in too many situations where I’ve felt as if I had to choose between having to deal with a negative reaction if I’d said ‘no’ or accepting the awful feeling of guilt that would come from not meeting their needs and having them hate me on top of it. There was no way I could win. Just the thought of hurting them hurt me more than the pain that they – and, to some extent, I – put me through. I’ve been too afraid to go to the police when I should have done, on more than one occasion, just because I couldn’t handle the thought of the implications it would have for my attackers. Why I didn’t think as far as what damage they would be able to do to others when they were able to walk free is beyond me – I guess I just assumed that I was the only sort of person that would deserve being treated that way. No one in their right mind would do such horrible things to someone pretty, someone nice, someone that’s worth something. But I’ve realised now, that it’s not only us uggos that get raped. Unfortunately, it seems a lot easier for people to believe the pretty ones.

Now, I’m not saying romance is dead. Quite the opposite! And I have a lot of lovely couple friends that have great relationships. I think they deserve all the love in the world. I’m just saying that on singles’ day, they can back off and leave the special offers to those of us that don’t have anyone to split the rent with. I promise not to take any of their valentine’s day thunder. And, who knows – perhaps there’s love on the cards for me as well?

Yes, I am looking at you, Michael Palin.

It’s late! We should all go to bed. But before you do, remember to buy a copy of my book – if you want it by crimbo, you’ll need to order it by the 5th of December.

Next week, I’ll write a little something about limerence. See you next Tuesday!

25th Nov 2025 0

Bridging the gap

The structure you see looming over what may or may not look like a portal to an alternate universe took just over three years to complete. The bridge it replaces had served as a link between the two sides of the city centre since the 1930s. With the bridge gone, it was as if a great divide appeared in the wake of the demolition – at least from a commuter’s point of view. Sure, there were pedestrian crossings nearby, but no direct bus link or road access, unless you fancied the deluxe version of the scenic route. The new bridge sure is a sight to behold, though. Also, very functional and bridge-like.

I’m not entirely sure where I was going with this – I just like the photo.

And I am blocked.tae.feck. Not just writer’s block, but blocked in every sense of the word. You may wonder how that came about. Or, perhaps you’re wondering why I am so dead set on trying to squeeze out a few paragraphs anyway. Well, here’s why; it’s not just my liking the photo that has compelled me to pound the keys so ate in the evening – the thing is that I constantly find myself expecting everyone to expect me to bridge the gap for them, the way I always used to. I am overwhelmed, with being underwhelmed. And, being overwhelmed really trips me up, so I am inclined to think that I’m not the only one. Yes, I said I was going to write about menopause, but then I just thought to myself; why the hell would I do that, when there’s more interesting things to write about the sex life of the albatross (spoiler alert, they are NOT monogamous, at least if we’re to believe the Ocean Conservancy), or, indeed, some random bridge I decided to shoot from a weird angle.

Looking up at this massive structure, expected to be strong enough to hold the weight of the world, and at the same time be diplomatic and pleasant enough to bring opposites together, I guess something struck a nerve.

I cannot begin to describe just how bizarre it feels when you start recognising cyclical aspects to your own personality. My psychoeducation and treatment has lent me the ability to somewhat objectively observe my own behaviour in a way where I can now almost foresee my actions and reactions before they manifest, but with no means to stop them from happening. Yet, anyway.

There are hundreds of articles on ADHD overwhelm online. On Beyond BookSmart, we learn that “ADHD overwhelm can essentially lead to you feeling frustrated and upset with yourself, causing you to shut down completely, both mentally and emotionally”. Check. The Attention Deficit Disorder Association wrote about how overwhelm can lead to ADHD paralysis and ways to get past it. Others refer to ADHD overwhelm as ‘flooding’. Basically, those of us with emotional dysregulation and/or RSD can get so overwhelmed by our own emotions and environments that we shut down completely. Check, check, check.

I can get so overwhelmed by the one thing on my list that I’ve not managed to check that it feels like the items I did check don’t really matter. Because I do get shit done. Quite a lot of shit, actually, but that one little thing – even if it’s something as silly as booking in for an eye test – makes it impossible for me to move forward with the speed I expect from myself if I keep putting it off. It makes me feel like a failure. It doesn’t matter if I managed to solve 13 Rubik’s cubes in 3 minutes, or if I’ve submitted research that helped cure bowel cancer that same day, everything becomes irrelevant due to my inability to do get the easy, less important, tasks out of the way first.

It is almost 23.15pm and I’ve one more thing to check off my list before I go to bed, so I am going to take the fourth advice on the ADD’s list to heart and “focus on completion, not perfection”. I have a billion thoughts and ideas still fighting over the limited space in my shell-shocked noggin, so I will no doubt be back with something hopefully a little more profound next week. Just need to bridge a few gaps first. Make sense of some stuff. Until then, there’s a new Catharsis album out that I quite enjoyed. Link below.

See you next Tuesday! Oh, and there’s more substantial ramblings in my book, of course. Check it out by clicking on this here sentence.

18th Nov 2025 1

Rumination, rebranding and other disasters

Tuesday is upon us, at long last. A home office workday has come to an end and the evening gig is but three hours away – just enough time for me to spew out some thoughts.

On the 27th of last month, I came to the realisation that something had to change. I needed to revamp my website, get an email address suitable for an adult female, start letting go of the things that no longer serve me (like the millions of threadbare band tees taking up space in my closet, so littered with holes they make the infamous emperor’s new clothes seem less revealing) – the time had come to fix my life. Yet, it’s taken me almost three weeks to justify shelling out the three bucks for a domain name I decided on back in 2014.

I should explain that this is not a unique event. These eureka moments occur at least thrice a year. BUT. The thing is, whenever I have thought something through, I always (almost without fail) end up overanalysing and ruminating until there’s very little left of the original idea and I’ve lost track of what was so great about it in the first place. Yet, spending hundreds of pounds in one transaction at Boots (or equivalent) doesn’t make me bat an eyelid. In fact, historically, my lack of impulse control in that department has been rather shocking.

So why – OH WHY?! – have I been unable to trust and listen to myself when I know in my gut exactly what I want and need to do (or, what I do NOT need or want, for that matter)? The need to meditate was hanging over me like a raincloud, so I ventured out on what was to become my fastest half marathon in three years, with only three Haribo Happy Cherries (my drug of choice) for sustenance and two hours worth of podcast episodes in my ears. The result? One very delighted and surprised middle-aged sweat-machine with a sore hip, fully determined to start cracking on that decade old to do list.

Incidentally, I think I cracked the code on that whole thing with the “ADHD super power”. When they mistakenly claim hyper focus, or their ability to make tough decisions when faced with potentially life-threatening scenarios, to be a super power, when in fact these symptoms are merely a conduit for the real super power; the masking of symptoms.

I got the idea from something someone said on a podcast about dyslexia and how some people would mask their difficulties by for instance learning a text by heart so that they could recite it in class, rather than reading it out. In much the same way, I taught myself to ‘take photos’ of pages in books that never spoke to me (trigonometry, anyone?), so that I could pull the images out whenever I had a test. As a defense mechanism, I effectively gave myself a photographic memory.

Perhaps I’ll write more on this next week. I haven’t decided yet. I might write about perimenopause. Either way, I’ve gone full gonzo. Gonzo With the Wind! Perhaps it is time to conclude this post.

Why menoPAUSE when you can menoFINISH, amirite? Ha. I jest. See you next Tuesday.

In the meantime, you can listen to the inimitable David Eugene Edwards and his Wovenhand on Bandcamp by clicking anywhere on this sentence.

11th Nov 2025 0

Hair today – gone tomorrow

Pulled out hair next to a computer keyboard

– What..? Why are you shouting at me? What’s going on? Hannah squirmed in the ancient armchair, trying to decipher her mum’s facial expression. For some reason, she just kept shouting at her:

– Can’t you see the mess you’re making?! The floor is filthy with your greasy strands… it was clean an hour ago! her mum barked, red in the face now. Of course the floor had been squeaky clean, Hannah had only just finished the weekly deep-clean and had finally been able to sit down for a second and not worry about cleaning everything twice (God forbid she’d clean something in odd numbers, so she’d probably cleaned everything at least four times, if not six). Still, she looked around to see if she’d missed something, and when her gaze fell on the floor under her left hand, she had a start – the knock-off hardwood floor was covered in hair. Hannah went to touch the side of her head, as if to check she hadn’t completely lost the plot. Shit! Another bald spot. And all she’d done was sit down and zone out for just a second.

Hannah had been 16 when that happened – the big, ugly thing that had them ship her off to the child psychiatrist’s, who only managed to make things far worse than they had been in the first place, but that’s a story for another day.

The pile of hair on Hannah’s floor was a result of a type of incessant hair-pulling, a condition that had started to affect her everyday life in a major may, typically categorised as a body-focused repetitive disorder (BFRD) called trichotillomania. Many might think that the disorder only applies to the pulling and removal of one’s head hair, as that would be quite noticeable, but it applies to all hair on the human body, from eyelashes to leg and pubic hair.

You can learn more about trichotillomania, other body-focused repetitive disorders and the specifics by listening to the episode Speaking of PSYCHOLOGY did on BFRD by clicking anywhere on this sentence. I will leave a link to the podcast episode at the bottom as well.

Why am I writing about this, you ask? Well, because it is still something that has a lot of stigma and therefore isn’t really talked about or even diagnosed, unless the patient mentions it themselves. Even then, some professionals may not have heard about the condition. Also, if you search for it on line, almost every single one of the top 10 hits will be misleading.

Additionally, there’s a lot of misconceptions around it, as it (and other body-picking disorders) is often overlooked and/or attributed to something else, like an aspect of obsessive compulsive disorder (it is a common comorbidity), low self-esteem, et cetera.

This means there has not been extensive research on the matter. Funding has been pulled from a trichotillomania therapy programme and reallocated towards the OCD clinic at the University Hospital in Norway. But this is a very real disease. It can ruin a person’s life. And it’s not vanity or even picking at something that needs to be removed, it’s an urge that won’t go away. It’s not new either, we can actually track it as far back as ancient Greece. Yet, we still haven’t determined whether it’s \just another anxiety disorder’, or if it’s a different beast entirely.

Luckily, there are people brave enough to take matters into their own hands and shed some light on this. Things are finally about to change, thanks to Oxford professor Clare Mackay and her upcoming book (expected on 2nd April 2026): Keep Your Hair On: Understanding Urges to Pick, Pull or Bite.

Another brave person that’s helped put trichotillomania in the spotlight in recent years – and, in my opinion, helped starting to normalise it – is the fantastic force that is Amy Schumer. In the Hulu series Life & Beth (with a link to the show’s Instagram below), she portrays a young woman that suffers from the disorder. Schumer’s performance is such that you can’t help but get under Beth’s skin. She’s so relatable, and at the same time unique. She’s impossible, yet entirely lovable. Beautiful, yet hardened to fuck by life’s lemons. Wild, yet longing for stability. Much like you or me. (Unless you are an AI robot – one that’s not Gigolo Joe – Because, if you are, you can fuck right off). If you haven’t yet, you should watch it for the casting alone. It’s wonderfully raw, but at the same time uplifting, in a weird way. And the show demands attention towards something that I am very passionate about; seeing mental health issues as something other than someone else‘s issues.

Personally, I cannot wait for another season (please, please, Amy!). Meanwhile, I will continue reading my Stephen King book, also in anticipation of Professor Mackay’s 2026 outing.

See you next Tuesday!

4th Nov 2025 0

Fear: From flight or fight to soft power sorcery

Last week, I said I would write a little something about fear in my next post. And I will. Now, my initial thought was to write about the fear of success. But after an intense re-watch of series one through five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and a traumatising reintroduction to the alien fear demon from space. Ick!), I thought to myself; why complicate things? I’ll just write about fear, full stop.

If you, like me, still remember the far too brief heyday of Crystal Pepsi, you may at some point during the early 90s have been glued to the TV set every time Are You Afraid of the Dark? was on. I loved it. Plenty of jump scares, but the stories were just far-fetched enough that you wouldn’t lose any sleep over having watched them. Around the same time, though, another show reared its ugly head; The X-Files. Also very much supernatural in character, but the show was so well written that you didn’t need too much persuasion before you believed the stories to be true – apart, perhaps, from the episode with the insects. The Smoking Man did it for me. This was the real deal – the aliens were coming to get us.

Anyway…

What really freaked me out with The X-Files was the fact that it had too many real aspects to it – the more episodes I watched, the more convinced I became that these scenarios could easily play out in real life. It was starting to instil a fear in me, that maybe the government wasn’t paying attention. Or maybe they were hiding the truth? It was all too much for my 11 year old brain. It was starting to affect my ability to think straight. Just when the hormones started to kick in as well. A recipe for disaster – good thing I was too young to vote at the time. Anyway. This sort of brings me to my point, but I’ll chuck in a definition of fear before I go any further.

In an article entitled The Psychology of Fear, Lisa Fritscher writes:

“Psychologists define fear as a protective, primal emotion that evokes a biochemical and emotional response. Fear alerts us to the presence of danger or the threat of harm, whether that danger is physical or psychological. Whereas the biochemical changes that fear produces are universal, emotional responses are highly individual.” (VeryWellMind.com, October 2025)

These biochemical changes equal the flight or fight response. For those of us partial to a good horror film, our emotional response might be equal to the feeling we get when we’re excited – a sort of ‘good’ irrational fear, if you may. We love the jump scares. An article on Inspire the Mind claims that “When we experience “recreational” or “staged” fear, our brain releases dopamine, a feel-good hormone associated with feelings of pleasure”. This view is supported by many other articles linking horror movies and enjoyment – there’s a particularly good one on everydayhealth.com.

Dopamine is like a drug – you’ll be wanting it again. I wonder if there’s any research on whether or not there’s a link between horror fans and ADHD, as the low dopamine levels in such individuals may be causing inattentiveness? I suppose the same would apply to adrenaline junkies. But I digress. And I’m no neurologist.

So, we know that fear activates the fight or flight response. What, then, when fear is planted as a seed and cultivated over time? Instead of a jump scare, that induces said response and goes away once the imminent “danger” is gone, it festers, breeds desperation and develops into something that changes our behaviour, our beliefs, our way of life. Real fear. Real fear affects our ability to think straight. Real fear is what makes us vote for the wrong political candidate.

Oops, another digression.

My point is this; what is instilled in us over time can be just as scary, but instead of shocking us into action, we get wee droplets of ‘proof’ that sustains the fear and makes us paranoid. In politics, this is called soft power tactics. Basically, it’s gaslighting. Fear mongering. Whatever you want to call it. The work of a sociopath.

It’s like the first movie in the Paranormal Activity franchise – the first 70 minutes is just build-up, where they play to your subconscious, making you go on high alert by using subtle noises and music – when that duvet is finally pulled from the bed by an unseen force (which isn’t that scary, if you think about it), you’re already terrified because you’ve been at the edge of your seat waiting for something to happen, because someone has told you that it will. You are no longer in control of your biochemical responses. I’d wager it’s not the scene itself that causes us to jump at it – and stay on alert for the duration of the movie – I think it was the shock coming from the fact that we’d gone waaaaaay past the point of no return for us to shut the stupid thing off.

Sustained fear. Can’t be good.

Ending on a serious note here, but… It’s almost midnight. To be continued, I suppose?

See you next Tuesday. Until then, watch yourself around the thinning of the veil or whatever. Don’t take candy from strangers. Eat you vegetables. Buy my book. And, remember what Betty Ann said:

“If you’re really into a story, you become part of it and you start to imagine what horrible thing might be sneaking around the corner, ready to pounce. It’s your imagination that gets you into a story, and unless you’re very careful, you might need your imagination to get you out.”

Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Season 3: The Tale of the Bookish Babysitter

28th Oct 2025 0

Procrastinato ergo sum

I know… pretty pretentious header, right? Also, I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as ‘procratinato’ in Latin (or any other language, for that matter) and I refuse to Google it. Perhaps a good name for a super villain. Surely better than Dung beetle Man or whatever DeeC or Morvil is franchising these days. Anyway – if you thought I’d forgotten all about what day it was, you’d be mistaken. I have just been completely unable to complete the first (and easiest) task on my to-do list for a good ten days. Now, for some reason I am only able to cross things off my list in the assigned order, yet I have managed to do a shit-tonne of things not on my list instead. Sound familiar?

Procrastination. Expertly defined by the Government of Western Australia Department of Health as “making a decision for no valid reason to delay or not complete a task or goal you’ve committed too, and instead doing something of lesser importance, despite there being negative consequences to not following through on the original task or goal” (CCI, 2025).

Defined everywhere else as “self-defeating behaviour”. Both correct, both very in my nature. In everyone’s nature, if we are to believe the Internet. Is there a miracle cure, or does it serve a purpose? I mean, the shelves in my fridge have never been cleaner, but they weren’t really that dirty in the first place. Certainly not to the extent that I can justify potentially losing my job over choosing to scrub them for hours on end. Why do we do it?

Some say it’s a perfectionism thing, but I’m not willing to buy that. I’d say it’s the fear of success, a symptom of unhappiness with the situation that requires you to do said task, the task’s implied simplicity fucking with our heads and making us look for pitfalls that aren’t there, or a combination of the three. Or maybe you crave the rush of completing the task at the last minute to obtain a tiny dopamine hit. Prolonged procrastination can be indicative of adult ADHD, but this has to do with poor executive functioning and task initiation. You can read more about the link between adult ADHD and procrastination in an article posted by Berkeley Psychiatrists by clicking on this sentence.

Regardless, procrastination isn’t something that just affects people with neurodevelopmental disorders – it can affect the best of us. And, boy, is it a blooming time suck!

Anyway, that really has to be it for now – I’ve got about a fortnight’s worth of work to do in 72 hours (don’t worry, I can manage) and should get back to it. I leave you today with a link to a podcast episode I was enjoying earlier today (before I realised what time it was and nearly had a stroke). The first one is on ADHD and willpower, the other is an interview with Marishhhhhhhhhhka Hargitay. Next time, I think I’ll write about FEAR, if I haven’t already.

Hypertentionally Yours, E. C U next Tuesday!

21st Oct 2025 0