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 November 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 November 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 October 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 October 2025 0

Running in the void

Drammenselva og Aass Bryggeri i måneskinn

Ever feel as if you’re going 200 miles per minute without moving an inch? Completely untethered, yet somehow confined by some invisible force that makes any type of forward movement impossible? You’re desperate to move, but void of course – any attempt at starting something new seems to fizzle out almost before you’ve even begun… Turns out there’s a word for that; Kenodromia¹.

The Greek term [Kenodromia] is used in astrology, as a name for the period “when the moon is passing through a ‘void’ region in the zodiac” (as defined by Porphyry of Tyre in Introduction to the Apotelesmatika of Ptolemy), meaning, in a sense, that any activities, planning or manifestations executed within the specific time period that falls on this region will be futile. There’s more on the meaning of a ‘void of course moon’ on Jupiter’s Realm, if this is your cup of tea.

Now, regardless of your views on astrology, I think just about anybody would be able to relate to the feeling of utter hopelessness that labouring with futility beckons. And hopelessness is certainly something most of us would like to avoid feeling. Hope is what gets us through when everything has turned to shit and there’s no guarantee things will get better. What is the meaning of anything, if we don’t have hope for the future?

Last Friday saw the marking of World Mental Health Day, a day with an objective to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world. A tremendously important day for too many reasons to mention, made even more significant for me this year, as this was the day that Jess from The Next Chapter chose to share her review of my book. I love how The Next Chapter keep their content fresh and unique – they’re a go-to for anyone looking to find new authors, books with interesting hooks, or even the locations of the most magical little bookshops. You can check out what they had to say about my book on Instagram by clicking anywhere on this sentence.

For those of you who have read Journey to the Centre of the Mind…, you will know that the the story’s protagonist is faced with the choice between giving up completely or accepting and dealing with the detrimental effects of untreated mental illness. Needless to say, I am all about raising awareness and spreading the word. I am truly honoured that they posted about my book on such a special day. What’s more, it gave me hope. Hope that the story can keep finding readers who need it. The hope that others will find hope for themselves or their loved ones by reading the story. The hope that we will one day be able to remove any stigma or misconceptions. The hope that governments will start allocating the funding required for the medical treatment and ongoing research of mental health issues and illnesses. And that’s why I thought I’d look at the significance of hope today. After all, hope is the reason we’re all here.

The meaning of hope, according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, is “to cherish a desire with anticipation”. Many renowned philosophers, such as Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz and Spinoza, distinguish hope from wishful thinking in that hope can be likened to confidence – something that can function as a catalyst once you realise that something is you desire is attainable. The theoretical likelihood of failure can be equal to that of success, but being able to see what needs to be put in place gives you motivation enough to convince yourself that the positive outcome is achievable. Hope’s opposite is fear, which we all know can function as a sort of assurance of negativity. One breeds optimism while the latter breeds negativity (guess which one is easier to succumb to).

Brian Lawlor, Founding Director at GBHI at Trinity College Dublin, wrote in the post pandemic article What is Hope and Why Do We Need it? that hope is “a feeling and a mindset that you have to work at in order to achieve your goals, despite trying and extenuating circumstances”. It seems to me that hope is indeed something that we need, for both sustenance and growth – collectively and individually.

Unsurprisingly, it seems as if hope can beneficial to healing as well. In a 2019 article on Psychology Today, Polly Campbell writes that “research indicates that hope can help us manage stress and anxiety and cope with adversity”.

Hope isn’t just a feeling or ‘wishful thinking’. Rather, it is the ability to see beyond the horizon. It’s not about trying to be optimistic where we should be realistic, it is about knowing success is possible and taking an active role in achieving it by figuring out the steps. It is about keeping your calm and trusting the process, even on those days where it feels as if we’re completely stuck and nothing works the way that it should. It’s like realising you will have to abandon pole position in a race to refuel when your car is running on fumes if you want any real chance at making it through the last few laps at all – when there’s gas in the tank, there’s still hope.

Maybe this feeling of running in the void is the universe telling us we need to take a break. Who knows? All I know is that hope is powerful.

See you next Tuesday, no doubt for some more blatant self-promotion.

Kenodromia is also the name of a band. You’ll find out what they sound like when you click on this sentence. ↩︎

14th October 2025 0

What if your perception of pain is all wrong?

Animation of person crying with inexplicable pain

There’s no bandage for a bleeding heart. No dressing for our emotional wounds. No over-the-counter remedies to dull the ache of losing a friend. Yet, this psychological, often dubbed emotional, pain can make us hurt like hell, in a very real and physical way.

(Personally, I don’t like calling it emotional pain – I feel like it takes away some of the validity of the experience, but maybe that’s just me. I really must stop being so emotional).

What’s more, psychological pain has no set expiration date. Physical pain, however, is often referred to as acute or chronic, meaning it comes with an indicator as to how long you will have to suffer and/or how often. (Although, I’d argue that psychological pain can also be both acute and chronic). Physical pain can be classified as either somatic or visceral, i.e. something that happens to the body visibly or internally but not the mind, and the person dealing with the pain will be able to explain or point to the location and extent of the pain with some degree of accuracy (providing they are conscious).

With a broken leg, you know the pain will stop at some point. If one of your toenails fall out after a long run, you know a new one will grow back in its place. Plus, there’s heaps of painkillers, bandages and other tools and remedies to help us keep the discomfort to a minimum while we heal. When the pain is coming from a place within that’s neither tissue nor bone, on the other hand, we’re meant to just suck it up and get over it. You can read more about the physiology of pain by clicking on this sentence.

My trusty Collins Thesaurus A-Z defines pain as “1 suffering, discomfort, hurt, irritation, tenderness, soreness 2 ache, stinging, aching, cramp, throb, throbbing, pang, twinge 3 sorrow, suffering, torture, distress, despair, misery, agony, sadness” (p. 200, 2008). I think we can agree that these terms can all be associated with psychological pain, some more than they can with physical pain – although, physical pain might lead to the third definition. In any case, pain is processed and interpreted by the brain, which then executes a response to protect us from whatever caused it. As far as I can tell. So one could assume that the pain suffered from a break-up could make someone hesitant to enter into a new relationship. But what is it that makes us hurt; the sensation itself, or the self-fulfilling prophecy of our expecting something to result in pain? Have we been conditioned to expect physical pain, when what we’re really feeling is a type of fear?

Imagine, if you will, that you are quite new to this world and gravity is still a mystery. The ground you know to be completely solid, your foundation, your only constant, is pulled out from under you and you are being pulled through the air by an invisible force with no feasible end in sight – wouldn’t you be fucking livid? Perhaps so terrified you soil yourself the first time this happens? Regardless of the accidental spillage of excrement, I am certain the experience might bring you to tears. And when you finally hit the ground safely, albeit with a bang, you don’t really care that you may have scratched your knee, but you’re so afraid this might happen again, that you can’t stop crying. And then, some unwitting adult in an attempt to make you feel better tells you “that didn’t hurt, get up”, as if the fear you are experiencing is invalidated as an incorrect response and that what you should be feeling is physical pain. Perhaps then, in your shell-shocked state, you feel as if you should be ashamed of your fear, that being afraid is silly.

We all know the adult in this scenario is only trying to make them stop crying by semi-gaslighting them into thinking that they are wrong to let the situation scare them and that everything is just fine and dandy, thinking the pain from the fall is what made them so inconsolable, but I’ve come to think that this is more than a little misguided. That, perhaps, our own conditioning has made us forget the real reason we feel like crying when we are faced with unfathomable or unexpected scenarios. If so, this could be detrimental to our development in a multitude of ways. You’d be inclined to suspect that it has shaped how our society views mental health issues, as well as the medical treatment of psychological symptoms and diseases.

Perhaps our first fall is when we start associating anxiety, fear and anguish with shame and begin to think that it is easier, or even more valid, to deal with physical pain, rather than ailments of our psyche? No wonder people self-medicate with booze, pills, sex or physical trauma in the shape of extreme sports or body art to escape the sort of pain that leads them to shame.

For someone who struggles with psychological pain, physical pain can be perceived as controllable. Being able to endure it can give you a false sense of control. No one can control the scenario your mind creates when you hear things go bump in the night when you’re trying to sleep. But it sure can make you feel like the smallest thing, no matter how big and strong you are.

That’s it for now. Just some food for thought.

See you next Tuesday for a fresh batch of verbal incontinence. I’ll try to use the word control a little less. Meanwhile, you can listen to the live version of the newest The Darkness album, Dreams on Toast, on their Bandcamp by clicking on the album title.

Perhaps you’ll listen to it whilst reading my book, which you can purchase by using the links on my Buy the Book page.

2nd October 2025 0

Life, anxiety and a “sticky” brain

Before we get started on today’s topic, I just want to give a huge, heartfelt thanks to those of you who continue to find the time in your busy day to read my posts – it really means a lot! If this is your first time on here, you can read my previous posts on the main blog page.

Now, for the subject I had planned on writing about last week; unwanted intrusive thoughts. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what they actually are and how they can manifest, and I have only recently been made aware of the fact that the term isn’t necessarily restricted to just thoughts and images. They are of course what we normally hear or read about, but that’s not the whole picture – it’s not just random thoughts and images. It can include unwanted sensations, memories and stories as well. Possibly more, I really do not know. But I’ve come across a few interesting perspectives and theories on this subject close to my heart that have made me feel a little more enlightened, that perhaps others can find some comfort in as well. BUT. There is, as always, a big dollop of my opinion in here as well, so take everything I say with a pinch of salt. Especially the part about coding. Anyway, that’s the disclaimer out of the way. On with the show.

It seems to me that referring to these uncontrollable impulses or processes as ‘thoughts’ is not only a gigantic misnomer, but hugely misleading, as the phenomenon can be better described as automatically generated impulses or processes that become unwanted when they feel intrusive in an unnerving way, causing distress and excessive rumination. If the brain was a computer, this process could be compared to a constant generation of possible and/or/not responses to any scenario or eventuality one might run into, where the ‘correct’ response – i.e. the action caused by the prompt – is picked based on true/false Boolean logic. Although I flunked out of computer science quicker than you can say 01001110101 20 years ago, this little part of simple coding somehow stuck with me. It works great for simple processes, but a more complex and unpredictable system just might crash once in a while, or let something inappropriate surface by accident.

What I can gather from most of the articles and research papers I’ve come across so far, is that the experts agree that we all have these concurrent processes going on all of the time – it’s completely natural. Which makes sense. Much like a computer that never switches off or reboots, our brain keeps processing and generating impulses that will keep us from switching off. And, much like when we are in the dream state of sleep, some pretty random stuff can manifest from one of the potential responses generated by some event that perhaps entered our subconscious via an advert, a TV show or something we saw out of the corner of our eye when we weren’t really paying attention, seemingly from out of nowhere. Since we did not interact with this event, in that it did not happen to us directly, our reaction (or response) is not necessarily in line with our conscious thoughts, wants or wishes. Needless to say, your mind suddenly doing something so outlandish to you it seems as if you no longer control your urges or behaviour, it can be a jarring experience.

Imagine, for instance, that you’re having a bad dream because you’ve watched A Nightmare on Elm Street, but instead of being chased by Freddy Krueger… you are the monster killer… only, you’re not asleep in your bed – you’re wide awake and thinking about stabbing the person next to you in the lift to death with a rusty blade. And this urge has made itself known despite your pacifist nature and philanthropic views, yet it feels so real, as if you’ve lost all control of yourself and that your sanity hangs on by a thread. Pretty terrifying, right?

Luckily, for most people, a sudden flash of an alternate reality such as this can be shrugged off as what it is; something bizarre, laughable, that would never, ever happen. But for those of us prone to internalising, overanalysing and rumination? When these unwanted intrusive responses land on our particularly sticky brains, it can become a real problem, sometimes leading to self-deprecating behaviour, negative self-talk and suicidal ideation. If you suffer from anxiety or a personality disorder, you might even convince yourself that this means that this is your ‘true personality’ shining through, and the more you think about it, the harder it seems to stick. I won’t go into specifics here, as to what some people can convince themselves to be capable of – it can be all too triggering.

And why focus on the negative, when there seems to be a universal concurrence among experts, that that is absolutely not the case? I mean, if something seems so foreign to you that you’re practically contorted by feelings of repulsion and anger, it is probably not your second nature. If you were to get a song you really hate stuck on a loop in your head, you wouldn’t think that to mean it was secretly your favourite song, would you?

Then, why can it be so difficult to dismiss these impulses when they occur? My guess would be that our anxiety feeds off of such things and it is far too easy to go into that unhealthy spiral of self-doubt and feelings of unworthiness.

Well, how the fuck can I rid myself of this affliction, then? you may ask.

This is where the experts tend to disagree. (Which is why I’ve chosen not to mention any of said experts by name, but I’ll include some links to articles on the subject below, if you want to read more about the different theories). Some say they will only go away if you ignore them, while others say that you simply must acknowledge them before you can let them go. Me? I am inclined to think that there is no cure-all. What works for your aunt Mildred might not work for you, and what works for you will probably not work for your best mate. We are all different, despite being similar in so many ways. But, what I am fairly certain might be a really good idea to do, if you are struggling from the distress brought on by experiencing unwanted intrusive urges, physical sensations, images, scenarios or thoughts, is to talk to a professional about it. You can start by finding a mental health help organisation that can point you in the right direction of someone that understands how debilitating living with something like this can be. Links to articles below.

Support groups in the UK

Mental health support phone service in Norway

Finding a good therapist in the US

That’s all for now. See you next Tuesday for another overshare. Or go buy my E-book – it’s on special offer this week.

Alex Dimitriu, M.D., an expert in sleep medicine and psychiatry, offers some tips on how to tackle – or even stop – unwanted intrusive thoughts in this article.

Read this article on Psychology Today on unwanted intrusive thoughts by Martin Seif Ph.D. ABPP and Sally Winston Psy.D.

Or this one, by the same authors, where they have a closer look at intrusive sensations and stories

How rumination harms your mental health

When Thoughts are Sticky; Pure OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, by Hannah R. Goodman

30th September 2025 0

Understanding repression

Snapshot of page 237 of the 2008 Collins Thesaurus A-Z

It is safe to say that the term repression has been rather dirtied since the emergence and popularisation of Freud’s psychoanalytical theories. When it comes to the human psyche and how we store memories, I quite like the third of Collins Thesaurus three definitions; to “subdue, abuse, wrong, persecute, quell, subjugate, maltreat” – opposites of ‘liberate’ (p. 237, 2008).

(Yes, I own a physical copy of the Collins Thesaurus because I am a big nerd. Also, I like the way it smells.)

I am writing this not to discuss or critique freudian views, but to have a closer look at what we know about these so-called repressed memories and, to some extent, the treatment of psychological symptoms that may be rooted in traumatic events, from which the brain decided to ‘quell’ the circumstances because it didn’t seem productive to dwell on them at the time of their occurrence.

Firstly, the repression of memories is largely understood as a defense mechanism. In my own words; the unconscious makes the conscious existence more tolerable by hiding something that may be too difficult to grasp, or even live with, when the event occurs. It is not a conscious decision to forget something – that would be ‘suppression’.

I found myself thinking a lot, when studying pedagogy and special education, that whenever my books or professors mentioned resilience in children, repression was part of the package. As in, resilience was synonymous with a natural ability to unconsciously ignore otherwise unbearable trauma by blocking out their occurrence. This may be true – I never managed to investigate outside of my notions – but I find that resilience is more of a fight or flight response in that it enables you to get through something. When the trauma turns into a prolonged event, however, there is no telling when or if you’ll come out of it.

I theorise that the above creates an accumulation of unwanted/repressed memories that in turn start to fester, ultimately manifesting as symptoms of depression, anxiety, paranoia, PTSD – a disease that makes every waking moment drip with existential fear – and no way of finding out where the symptoms stem from when the pressure is released and you finally have a second to sort your head out. Thus, you’ll find yourself in need of professional help. However, if you cannot explain to yourself what caused your view of the world, or your coping mechanisms, it is almost impossible to put into words and efficiently communicate that which is left of these events – mainly the ambiance, smells, the emotions you felt – to someone that can actually aid your becoming a functional adult.

I have struggled with this myself, in different scenarios, and I’ve also been very aware/fearful of the fact that the act of trying to bring forth a repressed memory can create an unreliable or ‘false’ memory due to the suggestive invocations facilitated during EMDR, or awaken something that one is not yet ready to deal with, at least not without accompanying memories to the event that may remain repressed after such a session. Psychology Today has an interesting article about the debate over repressed memories, where you can read more about how trying to force the re-emergence of a memory may not have the desired effect by clicking anywhere on this sentence. It’s an interesting read.

I found another article on the same site, where the headline simply read “There’s No Delete Button in the Human Psyche – Fortunately”, which is something that I found to be true this morning, when I was sent a document that highlighted something that I, from June 2002 and up until that moment, had absolutely no recollection of. What’s more, it dislodged a few other bits from the same time period. This is what possessed me to write about repression, rather than the topic I’d planned on writing about initially (just keep an eye on the blog next week – you’ll discover what that was then).

Our brain’s memory – our hard drive – can be a complex entity. I find that my own, very much like the Cloud or One Drive, oftentimes cannot be bothered telling me where it has stored something. It’s there, but elusive – it only shows up when I’m not paying attention – more often than not in the shape of a flashback that makes my whole day go topsy-turvy, spurred on by a familiar smell or scenario (or when I am trying to attach one of my most recently used files to an email, on my computer’s hard drive).

So, I think there’s certainly a link between repressed memories and childhood trauma. There is a good chance that we need to accept and acknowledge the fact that these memories remain inside of our brains as shadows, rather than perhaps trying to force them to come out, in order to heal our repressed adult selves. And I am sure there is no universal solution to how one should go about it either. But I reckon finding a professional hand to hold for the especially bumpy parts of the winding road that life can be is as good advice as any.

Learn more about Repressed trauma by clicking this one.

I also have a theory about the connection between repression and Alzheimer’s disease, but we will have to save that for another day.

As always, please go check out my book if you enjoyed my writing – you might like it.

I’ll leave you with a link to a YouTube video of one of the finest songs ever to be performed in a musical, by the great Elaine Paige.

See you next Tuesday!

23rd September 2025 0

Lessons loss taught me

This past Sunday marked the 30th anniversary of the death of someone very dear to me. Thirty years gone, and my grief is so tremendous, still, that it manages to throw me off balance and send me straight into the void of darkness. Surely, that’s not healthy? It never used to bother me before – back when my entire existence consisted of me wallowing in my putrid pigsty of pain – but as that’s no longer an option, I’ve been tempted into a little research project to find out if my current suspicion can be backed by science.

My theory is this; being unable to grieve properly at the time has affected how I deal with feelings in general and thus stunted my emotional growth. I am sure that a lot can be learned from the experience of losing a loved one and dealing with the loss. As cheesy as it may sound, I am curious to find out if allowing myself to feel will help me heal. I think it just might be instrumental.

There are a million articles online about how important the grieving process is, but I think the way writer Jon Scalabrini articulates the detrimental effects of suppressing or not acknowledging certain feelings in his article on Peacefully.com illustrates my understanding perfectly and succinctly:

“By avoiding emotions, one creates future challenges; thus, “moving on” in the short term ultimately creates long-term difficulties.”

You can read the article in full by clicking anywhere on this sentence.

In my case, I was forced to move on too quickly due to matters outside of my control. This taught me – and my subconscious – that my feelings were not valid or important and therefore should not be acknowledged. My black and white thinking made sure this would be applied to all future scenarios where I’d be likely to feel strongly about something – or someone – in any way. I was unable to see how this could be circumstantial. So, to make things easier for myself and everyone else, I adapted. Or, likely overcorrected. I adopted a few terrible coping mechanisms once I entered young adulthood, which have continued to block my path to enlightenment.

I feel as if this is something that I need to un-learn, so I was delighted to find an episode from the American Psychological Association’s podcast series Speaking of Psychology, where interviewee Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, spoke about her studies on grief and grieving and how grieving can be a form of learning, among other things. The episode is called How grieving changes the brain and is available on the APA’s website, as well as on podcast streaming platforms.

I was not so delighted, however, to find that I likely suffer from prolonged grief disorder. Oh well, I’m sure there is CBT for that. Anyway.

O’Connor goes on to explain how the grieving process involves having to learn to live our lives without the person we’ve lost in it, that we need to find out who we are, now that the world around us has changed in such a profound way. It’s a rewiring of the brain – a learning process. Neuroplasticity. It’s a very interesting episode, as they go into the difference between grief and grieving, links to depression and different types of therapy that can help with the grieving process.

My main take from the episode, to benefit the validity of my theory, is that we must acknowledge the feelings we are experiencing for us to go through the process and come out on the other side of it stronger than we were when we went in. It is my understanding that avoidance is the opposite of helpful if we want to learn and ultimately move on. And accepting a loss as reality does not mean that we have to stop loving the person they were when they were still here, but that we cannot let that loss or its circumstances dictate how we live our lives from that point on. We need to accept the fact that it is okay to love again, whilst realising how a new love does not take away from the old one. Moving on does not mean that we have to forget, but perhaps – with time – we can learn how to look back at the fond memories that made us cherish them so, instead of clinging to the sadness and the trauma we experienced when they were taken from us.

Now, back to those “long-term difficulties” from the Scalabrini quote. My experience taught me that I was worthless. A deep emotional wound that has kept growing and festered over the years, by giving me the gift of trust issues, self-deprecating behaviour and self-sabotage, and only allowing myself to “feel” or emote when I’ve had enough alcohol to justify letting the tears stream freely down my face. I’d schedule my emotive cries, so not to become emotional in public. But by doing this with my painful emotions, my brain would of course apply this to any positive feelings as well, meaning that I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge any feelings of happiness either.

It’s a lot easier to convince yourself that you’re unlovable, than it is to remain hopeful that someone will one day actually think you’re something other than a huge piece of shite. Unless you start administering some much needed self-care post-haste.

I think, based on what I’ve learned today, that my theory holds up. What’s more – because of this – I now realise that it is not too late to start rewiring my brain so that I can make my way through the final stage of the process of my prolonged grief. Acknowledging the feelings, accepting the loss and starting to look at how my life would be different if I wasn’t so gung ho on treating everything based on something I interpreted incorrectly three decades ago are all parts of the healing process.

Never let anyone tell you how you should or should not feel – it can only lead to bad things, as we’ve learned from my previous post on the importance of having your emotions validated.

That’s it for today. Buy my book! See you next Tuesday.

16th September 2025 0

Let’s talk about it

I took the header photo in my darkest hour. Well, one of my ‘darkest’ hours, I suppose. My phone tells me it’s been four years, so I suppose I’ve kept it for a reason. Looking at it now, I can see how it encapsulates my mood at the time, yet I am disturbed by the photos taken a few moments later – it’s as if they have been captured by someone else, yet I can still feel the pull of the darkness that possessed me at the time, splitting my personality in two and allowing the repressed self to break through to attempt putting us both out of our collective misery.

It wasn’t my first attempt – and certainly not the last – but it was the first time I stopped what I was doing to call for help. Interestingly enough, it was the complete lack of empathy and careless comment from the person manning the suicide hotline that had me put the shard of glass away and clean myself up, rather than plunging it deeper into my arm. They managed to piss me off, and that made me realise I had to stay to fight another day, that perhaps I had a purpose after all. Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD), so I thought I could give you my two cents on that.

The following should be regarded only as opinion based on personal experience. Nothing more, nothing less.

Apparently, the International Association for Suicide Prevention wants to “change the narrative”. What they mean by that is a little unclear, as their website doesn’t provide much information about anything other than who they are, so I am going to leave them out of this for now – the above link links to the World Health Organization, who partnered with the IASP in establishing the WSPD back in the early noughties, and their definition of changing the narrative.

I still find everything to be a little too vague. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that they are vocal about the need for systemic change and that mental health must be prioritised – the WHY of it all is covered – but there’s nothing on there that indicates HOW. So, how are we going to help governments and their leaders find ways to change an all too categorical system? I am but a humble peasant and can only offer my opinion, but let’s start at removing the stigma, shall we? Perhaps by tackling how we talk about mental illness.

There is a lot of stigma around suicide, not to mention the fact that attempted suicide is still a punishable offence in many countries. I’m not going to go into aiding and abetting, because I don’t believe anyone who would contemplate suicide because they truly see themselves as a burden would involve others in something that would potentially harm them. Only a sociopath would do that. And, who in their right mind would want to alert someone to the fact that they’re thinking about doing something illegal? The legal definition can be interpreted in a few different ways, so who’s to decide whether the extent of the harm you inflicted on yourself should be classified as too severe or not? (If you survive an attempt but you’ve suffered near-fatal injuries, you might still be held accountable.) And how is punishment going to make them better? Isn’t failure punishment enough?

Personally, I believe suicide prevention starts at the very beginning of a person’s life, through the nurture of loving carers. But we’re not all lucky enough to have that, and sooner or later we are faced with the loss of someone that couldn’t bear to go on, and it is the reaction of our community that shapes our view that first time; the way we refer to something can shape public opinion of the subject.

If an act is classified as a medical term, or it’s described using a negatively laden associative term, it can become alienating or viewed as something that does not concern them and they therefore cannot comprehend. It also makes it difficult to talk about, wouldn’t you say? Oh, and, if you think I’m wrong, do let me know. It’s not going to make me kill myself or commit suicide.

Oh no, you can’t say that!

Well, I just did, and this is largely how we still refer to the act of suicide; killing and committing. More and more nations are trying to refrain from using the term ‘commit’ these days, thankfully, but there’s still a lot of stigma. The act itself is just not something that we would like to see as anything other than dirty – something shameful that should be punished. So, we need to change how we view it. Educate ourselves somehow. And where do we start?

By talking about it! Not necessarily by discussing the act itself, but by talking about how we really feel, what depression can look like from different perspectives, how it is human to feel things that are uncomfortable an that the overwhelm simply does not go away by your ignoring it. When we learn about the human body in school, the mind should be included. If you need to take a ‘mental health day’ from work, you shouldn’t have to explain it, in the same way you’re not required to explain exactly what type of symptoms you’ve got if you have to call in sick with a physical ailment… But it should feel just as natural letting your manager know that you are feeling overwhelmed/depressed/suicidal as it would telling them you’re out with the flu.

We are all responsible for removing the stigma.

What are we so afraid of? It’s not like in Candyman – the suicide fairy isn’t going to come through your bathroom mirror one day and get you if you dare speak its name too many times. (Although the film was based on a true story – but I can assure you it was the opposite of talking about it, or, rather, of being heard, that caused the first cursed death to spawn the legend.)

For the person contemplating ending their life, suicide can feel like auto-euthanasia – as if they are eliminating the pain and suffering of the ones around them by doing it, rather than their own. Like cutting malignant tissue from a diseased cervix, they are removing the bad bits before it spreads. In short, you feel as if you’re not doing it for yourself – you are doing it for the greater good, like a psychologically driven vigilante. It’s rarely just about not hacking it anymore, but beyond that – you’ve somehow become convinced that everyone else’s wellbeing is worth more than your own. It becomes difficult to acknowledge any detrimental effects your suicide could have, because you can’t see your own death as a loss to anyone but yourself.

Perhaps, if we had been able to talk openly about such a thing, we wouldn’t have to get to the point where it’s just us and the abyss, and the only way out is death or external interruptions. Perhaps, if we had been more vocal about what it feels like to have lost hope, the “warning signs of suicide” posted on NIMH’s website wouldn’t have been so one size fits all, and someone would have reached out when they noticed the change in you.

Firstly, all of these signs imply that the person feels as if they have someone to turn to – if that were the case, you might not be at the end of your rope. Pardon the pun. Secondly, they cite ‘withdrawal’ as a sign, yet they fail to list the opposite. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I would do the opposite – probably in an attempt to scare people off – go into full-on exhibitionism (which might, to be fair, be classified as risk-taking behaviour). Social media followers saw it as confidence, that the over-sharing meant I was thriving, whilst the fact remained, that I loathed my existence. I would have never dreamt of talking about “wanting to die” or “being a burden” – to me, that would have made me more of a burden. I can remember thinking I didn’t want to be remembered as one of those people.

But then, for some reason, I found a reason. Or, it found me (I certainly wasn’t looking for it at the time). A reason to go on. It didn’t make life any less hard, but it gave me something to fight for. With time, it’s made me realise that I am worth fighting for.

What my reason was may be irrelevant, but the reason to change the narrative on suicide is not, because the stigma around suicide is the one thing that still makes me feel shame and guilt, even though I’ve not really done anything to deserve that. So, the darkness will reappear from time to time. I don’t think it’s healthy for me to ignore it, but it’s also not healthy to let myself get swallowed up in it, so I fight it by asking the questions it doesn’t want me to ask, by not backing down when I feel I am treated poorly, by letting people close to me know that they matter to me and why and, lastly, by acknowledging my own emotions and talking to the people I thought I was protecting (or not trusting) previously. Turns out it helps. Me and them. And, luckily, I’ve got professionals I can talk to about the really messy, shitty stuff.

World Suicide Prevention Day tomorrow, folks. I bet you’re sick of reading about talking about talking about it. I sure am sick of writing about it, knowing that I can’t change much from where I stand just now. But I found something that made me pull my own head out of my arse last night, and thought you might enjoy it as well.

I don’t know whether the people involved with the podcast episode I am about to recommend would be particularly happy to be associated with this post, but I believe in the power of really great, genuine, stories, and this is something they both continue to provide me with. I am in awe of both of these women and hope that they won’t mind me sharing. There is something incredibly soothing about something that happens during this episode, that really helped me from spiralling – maybe it’s just what you need too. In addition to that, you’ll find the rest of the episode offers some brilliant anecdotes. Listening to it made me feel something about myself that wasn’t entirely negative, shall we say. Anyway. The incomparable Miriam Margolyes guested Bryony Gordon’s The Life of Bryony podcast yesterday, and I suggest you listen to the episode. Link below.

See you next Tuesday. I am off to see where I can find Miriam’s new book, The Little Book of Miriam, when it drops on the 11th of this month.

9th September 2025 0