Hello navel – where have you been hiding all these years?

Photo of a belly button, dressed up in a wig and bathing suit

Diving deep into the metaphysics of it all this week, upon discovering a term previously flying far too far below my radar (and, incidentally, my navel) to receive any acknowledgement; metacognition. Naturally, this sent me into a frenzied bout of sceptical introspection… Scepto-ception?!

Good grief, if Susie Dent were to stumble upon this post, she’ll no doubt have me decapitated. With good reason!

On with the show…

So, metacognition is really just the ability to understand your own thought process. I suppose you could call it a sort of mindful thinking, where you dissect every morsel to see how it came to be and how it can be reconstructed or directed to develop further. I like to envision it as cognitive metamorphosis, where the thought process takes on a physical form… like a fertilised brain-egg, dividing itself into tiny clusters of what-ifs, pausing here and there to contemplate whether it would like to become a Falkor-type hero or a mini Mengele. And, should it fail its mission and choose the latter, it would cause itself to implode and would have to restart the process. Anyway, don’t take my word for it when you can read all about a few different definitions of metacognition on Science Direct, by clicking anywhere on this sentence.

What brought me here today, though, was my reaction to hypnosis. Which, in turn, brought me to a state of such relaxation that I found myself watching a full reel of this lady going on about metacognition and how it is more likely to occur in individuals who, for one reason or another, have had to teach themselves to anticipate the needs of others ahead of time in order to avoid conflict. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.

Now, if this is not your first time here, I suspect you can smell a rant coming. But first, I’d like to once again touch on this hypnosis business. First of all, it was nothing like what popular culture has taught us – I hope you’re picturing a man being hypnotised by a magician on stage, instantly turning into a Clockwork Orange-esque giant baby by the snap of the magician’s fingers – it was quite the opposite. Although, the main principle of becoming relaxed enough to have one’s subconscious manipulated remains, it is a far more active experience that I thought it would be. (Active, in the sense that I was fully conscious for the whole thing – there was no ‘and now you’ll enter a deep sleep’ nonsense). Rather, this was quite similar to my experiences with guided meditation. Apart from the fact that during hypnosis, I was allowed to move if I had to – ultimately removing my urge to do so. And so, for the second time in 42 years, the other time was during a yoga class at the Quartermile PureGym in Edinburgh, I became so relaxed that I became a little emotional.

If you’re ever in need of a good PT, you should check out the lovely Beth – just click on this sentence and you will find her.

But, yeah, I relaxed for all of 20 minutes and then I cried. And then, on my way home, I began contemplating my navel. Normally, I’d say nothing good comes from such an activity, but it had me stumble upon a personality trait that I have come to detest in a certain type of so-called neuro-fluencer types; ignorance. The most painful realisation being that I had been guilty of the same on one or more occasions.

‘Me, me, meeeeee!‘ amirite? I jest, I know how to spell. Here comes the rant!

Owning that you’re a little different is great. But being different does not entitle you to be insufferable. Just, you know, come off it. You may have felt something click inside you when you were diagnosed, but that doesn’t mean you get to preach about like you’re possessed every time you’re in a social setting. Did it ever occur to you that your friend(s) might like to talk about something other than you for a change? They are the main character* in their respective lives too. It’s not as if they’ve been sat around, patiently waiting for you to find yourself. And it is certainly not their fault that you’ve felt as if you’ve had to hold your tongue for your entire life and have finally been given permission to speak up.

In fact, it is now you that are doing to them the injustice you thought others were serving you, when in all likelihood they weren’t even thinking about how their actions affected you. But you, the oh, so metacognisant, you are doing it despite your awareness of the potential harm your behaviour might cause. So, come the fuck off it. Talk to your therapist about your experience, discuss it with them, that’s what they are there for – don’t talk their ear off for an hour, and then go talk at your pal about talking in therapy for an hour afterwards.

Ever heard of active listening, ya feck?

You’d want a friendship to be transactional, don’t you? Well, then you’re going to have to treat them with a little kindness and gratitude (and not serve them a lecture that would put a certain cheeto-looking dictator to shame).

Just enjoy the fact that you found something that works for you, and that your healthcare system can arrange for a professional to listen to you go on about everything and anything, from emotional scars to grief and that one time someone down the pub told you that you looked exactly like Jabba the Hutt… I digress.

You’re different – great! Now, put what you’ve learned to good use and be content with finally accepting who you are. You see, your pals already have. There’s no need for you to convince them of what they already know; that you’re worthy of their friendship. Perhaps your frantic waving of your freak flag was exactly what brought them to you to begin with – who knows? Either way, maybe now is the time for you to show them that the feeling is mutual.

Anyway, why don’t you have a look at the video below?

See you next Tuesday, for more madness!

*Links to an article on how ‘main character energy’ can pose a problem, on Psychology Today

4th Mar 2026 0

You feelin’ alright?

Snapshot of a YogiTea Simple Yoga exercise

Thanks for askin’, Joe, I’m actually not feelin’ too bad myself. For a change. (Yes, those were the words of Dave Mason of Traffic I just butchered, but I prefer the Cocker version. One of my favourite songs, actually, so I’ll leave a treat for those of you who make it to the bottom.)

It’s bizarre, with everything going on in the world, that I’ve managed to remain seemingly unperturbed. During a Blood Moon, no less (!). I hadn’t even thought about the fluctuations in the earth centre’s gravitational pull until I saw the big old pizza 3.14 up in the sky when I left the house earlier.

For once, it seems I’m in a state of not needing a rant. I am not pining for the fjords. The ranter has ceased to be. I am an ex-ranter.

Or perhaps it’s the lack of sleep in the last 24 hours.

This might be the least connected I’ve ever felt to the lyrics of the first verse of Feelin’ Alright.

And that is why I’ve decided that, instead of adding onto all of the other shit going on by screaming my fingers off and stirring shit up today, I will urge you to try and find some peace and block out all of the noise. You can do the yoga exercise in the photo (cheers, YogiTea!). If only for a second. The world’s not going to stop burning without us.

(OK, subtle wee rant, but that’s it)

What’s changed? Nothing. Everything? Perhaps I’ve tried hypnosis and it really sort of helped? I’ll write about that next week, but for now we’ll relax for a bit. Accept the fact that there’s some things we can’t fix and that we’d be better off focusing our energy towards what we can – or even show our support for those who can.

I’m not going to try to persuade you into buying anything here today – not even my take on some far-fetched theory. All I want from you, dear reader, is for you to know that your reading this is helping someone.

I will leave you with some more words from Feelin’ Alright, as performed by the late Joe Cocker, one of the finest singers to have ever graced this earth:

“Don’t get too lost in all I say
Yeah, by the time, you know, I really felt that way
But that was then, and now, you know, it’s today
I can’t escape so I guess I’m here to stay
‘Til someone comes along and takes my place, yeah
With a different name, oh, and a different face”

If there’s still something for us all to wake up to tomorrow, I shall see you next Tuesday. Until then, stay weird and don’t be afraid to get in touch. Let’s hope they keep light on for another couple of years. This thing is just starting to get good, and I’ve got “too much to do before I die”.

3rd Mar 2026 0

Hume-our me or go Home: a minute of your time for some chat about passionate reasoning

Now, as a young first-year Philosophy student, I must admit I was never partial to David Hume’s school of thought (although I did find it funny that he supposedly changed his name from Home to Hume, because “no-one in England went by Home”. Pretty far-out behaviour, for someone from Lawnmarket, Edinburgh.

Looks like the drugs are finally out of the system – let’s celebrate the return of my ever-charming personality!

So, why the hell would someone in their right mind all of a sudden start reading Hume, when they already know they won’t like it? Next-level asceticism? The short answer is no, this was not an act of self-harm. In fact, I’ve not been reading at all – he was quoted (if only very briefly) in a podcast episode. I cannot for the life of me recall what podcast this was, and I refuse to go through the log on my streaming app, seeing as I’ve listened to hours and hours of music since. But I know it had something to do with reasoning and causation.

The original (and full) quote is from section 3 of the third part of the second book in Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature. It is grossly taken out of context – much akin to a headline from The Sun – and reads as follows:

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” (1739-40)

The quote is often seen in combination with another part of the text so far down on the same page that you have to assume the latter works as a sort of book-end to the former, after a series of examples of how the ‘self’ defines reasoning driven by passion. The latter does not follow the former without some degree of detailed explanation. You can read the entire thing by clicking anywhere on this sentence.

Now, feel free to call me on my jumping onto the express train to judgement city, but I’ve spent enough time behind semi-dodgy boozer bars to recognise the drunken ramblings of a grown man with certain, shall we say, repressed urges.

Nevertheless, it turns out the 2026 version of me actually quite likes these musings of Hume. And, what resonated was the part about our passions bleeding into our reasoning – and not only in matters of the heart. What are we, without passion? To me, life would have very little meaning without it. The joy you feel when a risky venture pays off. The slack you might cut yourself if it doesn’t, because the passion drove you to act carelessly.

I believe that any human creature capable of emotion can be passionate about a multitude of things. I mean, need I bring up the bog roll conflict?

When shit gets, well, real shitty, my passion-fuelled reasoning is the only thing that can shift my focus. Albeit not always in a good way, but still. Just like a limp handshake, a passion-less existence is not for me. Which might be why antidepressants only make me unwell – I need the passion to feel alive. I thrive on the chaos I’ve created, because I lets me access this superhuman stress-tolerance in the event that real chaos erupts. When you flip the switch, however, just crossing the street might feel overwhelming.

If you ever feel overwhelmed, dear reader – or if you’ve had enough of these seemingly unstructured ramblings – I’d like for you to drop me a message via the contact form. I’ve got loads of ideas, but I’m up for a challenge. Finally! 10 points goes to the first person that manages to stump me.

I am going to love you and leave you for now. I shall see you again next Tuesday!

Until then, this video had me mesmerised for so long I lost track of time the other day… Enjoy responsibly (by clicking on this paragraph, or get your ya-yas out to the embedded video below).

24th Feb 2026 0

Discontinuation depersonalisation

“Shivering, muscle pain, fatigue, excessive sweating, headaches, weakness, vertigo, gait imbalance, dizziness, ataxia, tremors, paraesthesia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, electric-shock-like experiences in the brain (referred to as brain zaps), visual disturbances, insomnia, vivid dreams, nightmares, agitation, irritability, anxiety, tearfulness, sexual dysfunctions” (Special Issue Psychopharmacology of Affective Disorders, 2021) – these are a few of my favourite things.

I jest, of course. You’d be hard pressed to find so much as one of these things anywhere even remotely near the list of things I’d wish on my worst enemy (apart from maybe the diarrhoea), yet they are some of the more common symptoms associated with the discontinuation of the ‘serotonin modulator and stimulator’ (a type of antidepressant) Vortioxetine.

Other research studies mentioned such lovely side effects as depersonalisation, emotional incontinence and the inevitable return of the depressive symptoms.

Needless to say, I stopped taking my meds due to their inefficacy and rather intolerable, to me, side effects (I have an intolerance to certain types of medication, and I am not claiming this to be some sort of universal fact or that all drugs are bad. This is just my personal experience.), and now I’ve gone a bit extra bonkers. I’ve been so out of it, it didn’t even occur to me that it could be withdrawal symptoms (I was on a very low dose to begin with, and tapering is not normally necessary), until it was pointed out to me by a professional.

The good news is that it’s not permanent. One day, I’ll be less likely to start greetin’ like a wee bairn whenever I hear any hit song from 1995, and I can get through a whole day without feeling as if I’m only observing my physical body from another realm hidden by a thickening veil… Perhaps one day I’ll be a little less pretentious-sounding as well.

Anyway, my recent lack of inspiration and focus has an explanation. My brain will resume its brain-like activities yet again – soon, even. Multiple trusted internet sources tell me that I am at around the time where the more adverse symptoms reach their climax (YUCK), and that I can expect them to taper off and (hopefully) disappear within the next fortnight.

Just knowing that there’s some logic behind my very odd behaviour in recent weeks helps a great deal – I’m sure I’ll be back to writing fascinating content about, say, how far a human fart can travel before losing speed, aroma or altitude in no time. Perhaps even next week?? You know you’re in for a treat – here’s hoping no one will steal my idea whilst I’m contemplating my existence, the meaning behind the lyrics to Tears for Fear’s Shout, or the secret behind Michael Hutchence‘s incredible charisma.

I dare you to click on the above ‘fart’ link.

Whilst my synapses have been frying themselves in the last drops of oil meant for lubricating my myelin sheaths, and my prefrontal cortex has fucked off on an all-inclusive EasyJet holiday to Lanza-fucking-rote, the world has been burning. But, at the same time, people seem to be finally waking up. I’ve noticed more people spending less time on their phones on public transport this past week, making eye contact and even smiling (!) at strangers. Perhaps there’s hope for our species yet? If not, I’d better hurry the fuck up and finish the second book before we all go *poof*.

Regardless, I’m pretty sure I’ll see you next Tuesday. Until then, you can read this post that I wrote about something absurd, or you can listen to one of the finest NWOBHM albums of all time, Killers, on YouTube.

17th Feb 2026 0

Time is running out

Frankly, if I’d owned a blimp or some sort of rocket ship, I’d be running too. Out, up and beyond. Over the hills and far away will no longer suffice, mark my words. Like a phallic metallic turd, I’d be blasting into space at full throttle. The hills are of little use to me now, for they are dead, with the sound of silence. Where did all the good people go? What happened with wanting to heal the world, make it a better place? What becomes of the broken-hearted?!

So many questions, so little time… So many links, to the songs mentioned above, in the titles. The clock tickens, as nine year old me might have said, having no clue as to how or why one would ‘thicken’ a plot. I like my version better, so the clock tickens it is.

The alarm clock in the photo is the loudest thing in the world. In fact, it likely raises the dead, but I live too close to the graveyard to dare have a peek through the curtains just after the alarm’s gone off. It really is everything louder than everything else. Motörhead.

You might be wondering by now, if these are the ramblings of a woman gone completely bonkers. That my brain has become the dish that ran away with the spoon. (Mystery link!) I don’t know what to tell you – it’s just one of those days where I found myself shouting at my phone to ‘shut the fuck up’ over and over until it stopped ringing, rather than just hanging up. Surely, that happens to all of us, right?

If I’m the only one, please, feel free to have a chuckle on my behalf. I’m sure it looked and sounded pretty funny to the recently undead that were kicking about in the garden at the time. (Alarm clock, remember?). The thing is, it’s just stress. And the more stressed I get, the foggier my brain. I woke up mid-vomit this morning, terrified of having overslept. All I can say is, thank fuck no one’s here to witness it all.

What can possible be so stressful that it makes me throw up in my sleep, you might ask? Life, my friend. Life is stressful. And, had I just dealt with the one thing that kept getting in the way of everything else when I first noticed the pattern, I may have been able to avert the chaos. Instead, I left it to fester, and now even the slightest inconvenience (accidentally placing the loo roll the wrong way around, anyone?) will throw me off my already weakened game. Which brings us back to time.

Time wasted on avoiding the menial tasks on my to-do list by starting new projects. Time wasted on negative self-talk due to having begun said projects. Time wasted on being annoyed with shit that’s beyond my control. Who wants to control everything anyway? Because, ultimately, attempting to control something or someone is a futile gesture indeed. The only thing you can control is your own perspective, if that. But my perspective is bound to be tinted by my past experiences, my situation or my expectations. What caused me to view X as Y, et cetera. There’s no control.

If you want to get into the metaphysics of causation, you can head over to the Stanford University Philosophy Encyclopaedia and have a gander.

People are so hung up on who’s to blame for something, but they’d rather spend time discussing the big, horrible thing than actually doing something about it. Because, if the scapegoat goes away… how will they know for certain that they wouldn’t get the blame themselves the next time?

And I’m now wasting precious time thinking about what I want to write about next week. All I can tell you is that it’ll likely be a little more structured than this. But certainly not rant free! You’ve been warned.

Pending finally being able to manage the 15(!) remaining pages of the book that’s been eating away at my sanity since mid-November, I shall see you next Tuesday!

Until then, buy my book, or perhaps give me a shout via the contact form. Like Arnold used to say in his Pump Club podcast: “I want to hear from you”.

10th Feb 2026 1

The unavoidable convergence of kindred energies

In the not too distant past, I said I’d write something about friendship. But then life happened and the flames died down, leaving nothing but an ember behind. Well, the wait is over, because someone stoked the fire into a mighty roar!

If you manage to read through the whole thing, I’ll include the very words that inspired me at the bottom of this page.

All my life, I’ve flitted from loner to loner like a very busy little people-pleasing bee, trying to find matches for those who seek me out. Not bothering to seek out people I’d consider a good match for myself, of course, because that’s far too scary. (Also, I never planned on being around for very long in the first place, so why bother).

Regardless.

I wound up becoming everyone’s pal and confidante, but without having any real pals of my own. And with my constant need to be everyone’s best friend, I was ultimately an unpaid agony aunt-cum-matchmaker.

(Boo-hoo, poor me! Relax, it’s not that kind of post). But, if you’re in the mood for something a little darker, head on over to another one of my posts here, or buy my book.

I did get to a point, though, where I’d had it with the upkeep of these one-sided, fair-weather friendships, and I’d have to move far away and/or burn all bridges as thoroughly as humanly possible. As it turns out, you simply cannot rid yourself of a real pal that way.

I’ve known my very best friend for 30 years, and it’s the most effortless human relationship I’ve ever had. That’s not to say that we don’t go all in for each other when needs be – because we do – but it doesn’t feel like work. I know she doesn’t expect anything from me, and vice versa. We’re not afraid to say what we mean to each other, because there’s an unconditional love tying us together. She’s been there for me through some really horrible shit, and she’s still there – she must be nuts. But she’s my nutter.

The interesting thing here, though, is that we’ve lived hundreds of miles apart for the better part of those 30 years. For the longest time, I suspected this physical distance to be the only reason anyone would ever stay friends with me for any longer than a few boozy hours down the pub. These days, however, I’ve realised that’s not the case.

The pandemic probably helped change my mindset as well. In Edinburgh, we didn’t really have the opportunity to socialise the way we used to- at least not face-to-face – so if you did reach out to someone, it was out of a genuine wish to interact with that particular friend. And even now, as I live miles and miles away from my home, these guys are the ones I speak to more regularly than the people sat next to me in the office every day. And, as it turns out (with one or two exceptions in my geographical proximity), the friends I’ve made that are scattered all over the globe, are the ones I consider my closest.

What might have started out as a need to protect myself from the potential hurt of losing a friend has ended up being a sort of confirmation that I am worthy of being someone they’d want to keep in their lives. And the other way around.

Apparently, there’s something about ADHD and challenges with adult friendships worth researching, but I think all adult friendships require something more. They need to challenge you, to sustain you, to elevate you and keep you grounded, to enable you to see your own story from a different perspective when you’re stuck in a downward spiral (or a narcissistic doom loop, for that matter), and you need to be that for someone else as well.

My plan was to research this properly, because I came across a podcast episode on this. Not just one, to be fair. There are hundreds. But this one seemed like the real deal. I’ve yet to listen to it, so I’ll share the link below so we can all listen to it together.

And, as promised, I will now share the inspirational words of Mr. B (with his permission, of course). This, to me, is what friendship is all about. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have been on the receiving end of these words:

I share with you the strive to do better, to be better

I share self-loathing and self-sabotage

I share self awareness.

I share distrust of others.

I share utter devotion to the (very) few.

See you next Tuesday. Drop me an email if you have a topic you’d like me to write about!

27th Jan 2026 0

Creative differences

If you consider yourself to be a creative person, I am willing to bet you have also found yourself staring so deep into the abyss on enough occasions to either having sat across from a mental health professional at some point in your life, or someone has pointed out to you that maybe that would be a good idea. Regardless, you’ve had a chance to consider whether or not medication is for you. And many of us tend to opt out. We’d rather live with crippling depression, biweekly panic attacks, compulsions and partner-repelling mood swings than potentially lose the one thing that makes our existence make sense; our creativity.

Let me just pause for a second to let you know that I am aware that this is a myth that’s been thoroughly busted. You can read about this and other SSRI related myths by clicking on this sentence.

Still, it’s a very real fear that needs to be acknowledged. If you cannot fathom why, this post is not for you. Go read something else. I can recommend my book. Or, if you have yet to listen to Rob Halford’s autobiography on Audible, you should go do that. It is fantastic.

If you do know what I’m talking about, though, you’d be very interested in what I heard in a podcast I listened to recently… What we (us mental patients of the neuro-spicy kind) mean by creativity in this scenario is not necessarily how it’s perceived by the people prescribing the meds. On the contrary, when we state our fear of losing our creativity as the main reason were so sceptical, they seem to think our meaning is that we’re afraid we’ll lose the ability to think outside the box. I.e. they think that, by creativity, we mean creative thinking, in regards to problem solving.

Whereas most of us mean the ability to create something unique, freely and without template, fuelled only by an inner compulsion to create. Essentially, its our life force; what makes us us.

Perhaps we should’ve used the word imagination instead. But, it’s not on us. As defined in most thesauruses and dictionaries, creativity is “artistic or intellectual inventiveness”. Yet, in a post found on Psychology Today, we see another example of the writer seemingly focussing on the problem solving aspect rather than the imaginative.

I would be remiss if I’d concluded that all mental health professionals are of the same opinion as this single writer and the neurologist from the podcast, but I do think that it’s worth noting that the person being prescribed the medication might not be equally as immersed in the DSM diagnostics sociolect as the person holding the prescription pad.

It is a myth, though. SSRIs or ADHD meds won’t kill your creative ability (although some SSRIs may cause brainfog, but most ADHDers experience that regardless).

Some lyricists may fear that they can only truly write when they’re depressed, because that’s when they’re the most connected to their emotions or whatever. That’s a load of bollocks. You can certainly learn from depressive episodes, but being depressed isn’t going to make you the next Bob Dylan – if that were the case, you could get the same effect from downing a bottle of red. If you’re really talented, though, you don’t need any of that shit – the talent is part of your personality. And, as far as I know, they have yet to make any FDA approved personality altering drug.

There are logical solutions to creative blocks as well – we’re just too impatient to admit it.

That’s it for today. I reckon my next pist might be real morbid. (Or I might go down a panic attack related wormhole, full gonzo).

Either way, see you next Tuesday!

Also, the featured photo is of one of my favourite paintings, ever, found in the Voodoo Museum in New Orleans (quite possibly a Voodoo Charlie original). If you’re ever down NOLA way, you should check it out.

20th Jan 2026 0

Grievances from a shallow grave

I never quite managed to tell The Tell-tale Heart and Death of a Salesman apart – or the latter from Fiddler on the Roof, for that matter – I was so bored out of my skull from all the pretentiousness that I somehow blocked out the differences. I’d rather read The Salesman Fiddler Tell-all (Death on the Roof). (I mean, who wouldn’t?)

What’s this got to do with the price of moth-eaten stockings? Well. All three of the aforementioned works of fiction (one would assume) are quite dark. And being introduced to them during my hormone-infested formative years, when I was already submerged in thoughts about the frailty of the human body, they all seemed to embody the same message; death will come for us all. I suspect that’s when I first decided that I wasn’t going to let death take me by surprise – I was going out on my own terms.

And, thus, my fear of death was born. Much thanks to the flawed human psyche. I wanted to finish myself off. I had made my peace with dying, but I had a few things to tick off my list before I could escort myself off the ledge, as it were. I didn’t dare to sleep, in sheer fear of never waking up again. (Which eventually resulted in fainting from the exhaustion, but you’d be surprised at just how long a stubborn child can manage to stay awake if left to their own angst-ridden devices). Thanatophobia, for you learned folks.

I know I promised you a post about suicide and friendship, but I changed my mind. And then, as I was running through a graveyard to catch a bus yesterday, I started thinking about the link between death anxiety and suicidal ideation – surely there must be one. But now I cannot find any research on the matter, so I am hoping this finds its way to a person in the position to do a proper study on it. In the meantime, you can read about “Attempted suicide and Death Anxiety” on the American National Library of Medicine. It was the only thing slightly scientific, not in a Reddit thread.

And instead, I will give you my two cents on how forced time off work/paid seasonal leave can lead to burnout if you have fallen out of love with your job. I’m not talking about going away on holiday here, I am talking about being faced with whole days completely without team meetings, work calls, the constant need to check your phone for notifications and the endless to-do-lists, and you haven’t had to ask for it.

Most people will enjoy the time off, fill it with family activities, festive pish, a Tinder-palooza if so inclined, and some might feel a bit anxious about not being able to respond to emails, or they didn’t manage to get everything done before they left the office on the last day, but even those people will be able to relax after a few days have gone by without any disasters. And, depending of just how many days one is awarded off, some of these people might start to notice how their sleep pattern improves. Some might notice a slight weight loss, their complexion clears up, all of a sudden, it’s been a full week without them reaching for a single Paracetamol. But they might think very little of it – they might even brush it off as them finally starting to get over that cold that somehow came over them mid-October and never quite left.

But then, as if by magic (or, rather, a curse), the last day of the holiday arrives and they unable to fall asleep, because they’re terrified the alarm won’t wake them, so they pass out some time around 1am, only to wake up in a pool of sweat two hours later, which then has them twisting and turning until about 40 minutes before the alarm’s set to go off, when they finally fall asleep. One alarm and five snoozes later, they’re standing in front of the bathroom mirror, wondering what has happened to the person looking back at them the day before, when they hadn’t even needed an alarm to get them out of bed by 6. The week is off to a shitty start, and when they get to the office, they are inundated by emails they are unable to respond to, because of the incessant post-hols chatter between the more cheerful colleagues, who have been looking forward to seeing everyone again (and no doubt get to see a little less of their respective families). So, little by little, the sleep-deprived shell of a human being just sits there, staring into their computer screen(s) looking for the meaning of life, as the first headache starts to brew, accompanied by a fever and a slightly elevated heartrate from the stress. This, of course, is followed by nausea, but at the same time they are overcome by a seemingly insatiable hunger – they can feel their body expanding just at the thought of food… If this is you? I have one word for you; burnout.

We don’t talk enough about the physical symptoms of burnout, or the detrimental effect it can have on our everyday. There is a chance that a change of scenery can fix it, but, regardless, you can benefit greatly from seeing your GP about this. Just talking about it with a professional can be a tremendous help. This is your body screaming at you to stop what you’re doing and tend to it before it shrivels up and dies a slow, painful death. Or, if you’re just dying to leave a cortisol-filled middle-aged corpse behind, continue ignoring it.

If the prospect of going to work feels like a fate worse than death and fills you with dread – or worse, with indifference – you might want to update your LinkedIn profile…

I leave you today, with the immortal words from Clare Harner’s 1934 poem Immortality, as published in the December issue of poetry magazine The Gypsy:

Do not stand
   By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
   I do not sleep —
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
Do not stand
   By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
   I did not die.

Because, I am not there. I did not die. I just listened to my body and managed to get myself pulled out of the abyss before I was buried alive. Now, go buy my book, please. Or, you could send me a wee message! See you next Tuesday.

13th Jan 2026 1

Why you should say f*ck off to faking it

Today, I’ll start by giving you a choice; you can see this post as the trivial, banal waffle of a fortysomething spinster, or as a welcome distraction to the soon to be if not already 3rd world war currently monopolising every news broadcast out there. Regardless of your choice, please be aware that I will now be diving straight into a rant, in an attempt to escape the harsher realities of my own existence.

If you’d like something more palatable, I suggest you go watch this episode of Banana Man on YouTube – you can do so by clicking anywhere on this sentence. It is quite delightful. Also, made by actual human beings using their actual minds. Even the voices are real.

Or you can pass START without collecting 100 dollars and instead spend a fiver supporting the poor by clicking on this one.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘fake it until you make it’, but as dishonest as such an approach may be – at least it used to come from a place of needing to accomplish something (and more often than not, the fakery came with a valuable learning experience or two). With the rise of AI, however, the faking has become the norm, and what’s more, no one seems to see the need to learn anything, even when it comes to developing a personality. What was initially designed to be a helpful tool to help develop ideas has become the thing that surely will eradicate both art and empathy in modern society. I’m not presenting this as fact, but I’d say it’s a rational fear at the very least. By faking your way through life using nowt but shortcuts and with no desire to add to your skillset, you’re not only lying to the people that have to suffer through your incompetence – you’re lying to yourself. It’s the ultimate injustice. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself (and that this is a common trait for neurodivergent folks), it’s that I cannot stand injustice. Thus, there is no way that faking it to get ahead is the best solution for us.

To those who still don’t get it, I ask you this; what will you do once you reach the proverbial top? You’ve faked your way there and learned fuck all along the way. How the hell do you expect to carry on the charade?

I have chosen this particular topic, as I keep finding myself in positions where I am meant to pick up the ball from where one of these fakers left it, with no trace of them having done any actual work. In one such scenario, I kept asking for an overview of the processes and tasks I was to become responsible for in their absence, and was (after almost a month) presented with a list of links and a Word document with instructions for using software in which I am already proficient. Me being me, I thought I shouldn’t knock it before trying – maybe they had a better way of doing things – but I soon found myself stumped by the inaccuracy of the instructions. So, of course I asked them to clarify. (I’ve been wrong enough times in my life to know better than pretending to get it…). At which they simply replied; ‘oh, it’s easy, I just asked ChatGPT and jotted down the response for you’. No wonder the ‘quick fix’ tips did fuck all!

At least, with a paid version AI, you can get some decent guidelines, but you should probably run a few tests before listing them in an on-boarding document, eh? Also, I’d much rather do a non-assisted search to find three credible sources and take it from there, instead of having to fact-check anything generated by artificial intelligence.

I know I could’ve let this go – perhaps even should’ve, but I ended up wasting so much of my time trying to make use of the so-called instructions (and doubting myself) that I just couldn’t. It would have been better to just crack on the way I always do, and to revise my textbooks and course videos if and when I’d get stuck.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen so much of this and I’ve had enough. Why should people like me get punished for wanting to do the work and, for instance, writing my own CV and cover letter, when fakers, who’d rather sit all day and chat about what colour they’re going to paint the nursery than doing any actual work, get all the jobs they apply for because they don’t bother fact-checking the lies the AI bot has produced by creating a text out of their poorly worded bullet points? GAH.

Hear me when I say that I am quite irate. You’ve poked the bear one too many times. And this is much, much bigger than me being annoyed at lazy fakers.

Imagine, if you will, that something truly horrible happened to you – a crippling illness, or you were wrongfully accused and incarcerated for murder – would you trust a doctor or a public defender that “got “earned” their qualifications by taking shortcuts? Or, if all of the pipes in your house suddenly burst and needed replacing in the middle of winter, would you trust yourself or a partner using AI and YouTube videos to fix it over a certified plumber?

I certainly hope not.

So, what’s this to do with mental health? I hear you ask. Everything, I say.

Initially, I’d left myself a note to write and research how faking it rarely works for those with ADHD and a side of rejection and/or justice sensitivity. You can read more about this in Amelia Kelley (PhD)’s article on Psychology Today: How justice sensitivity amplifies world issues for ADHD.

I didn’t realise this was a thing until I got diagnosed – I’d just always thought I had a strong sense of justice. This helped explain a few things, but mostly why it felt so unnatural and just wrong for me to be faking anything. It’s like lying to yourself, and our need for justice will help our subconscious see through the lies, so we’ll end up feeling as if we’ve effectively tried to pull one over on ourselves. It’s like masking, but when we really don’t have to – or even should. (One could argue that you should never try to hide who you really are, but hey).

Which brings me to the scary, and most of all really quite harmful, side effect of masking: SKILL REGRESSION; defined on Psychology Today as “behavioural “backtracking” or reversion to earlier coping mechanisms that can occur as people progress through different stages of development”.

This was explained in much simpler terms in a podcast episode I listened to the other day (link at the very end of this post), as the regression of skills you learned while masking. Once you get treated for your symptoms and no longer need to mask, some of these skills may even need to be relearned and new neural pathways need to be constructed to help locate the seemingly forgotten skill. (Thank fuck for neuroplasticity, eh?). I wonder if this works for repressed memories as well. Who knows.

Anyway, I am at the end of my rope here and I need to get ready for work. I promised you a link, so enjoy this episode of Hypercast by clicking on the Spotify link below.

See you next Tuesday! There may or may not be a post on suicide recovery and friendship. Stay tuned.

6th Jan 2026 1

Finding calm with a busy brain

I took this photo at a gig this weekend, just as the shutter on my camera stopped working properly – hence the blur. Not a great thing to have happen mid-show. Alas, when I was going through the hundreds of images I had uploaded from my trusty Canon onto my desktop in the hope of finding something usable, my heart jumped a little at this particular photo. THIS is what my brain feels like when I’m told to be quiet or to sit still for any undisclosed length of time. It might resemble noise pollution to most, but, to me, it is more akin to an everchanging tapestry of neurons firing and processor overload.

If you, like me, have a slightly over-active mind, where there’s no end to the constant chatter going on behind your eyes, you may have been guilty of rolling your eyes so hard at the mention of the word ‘meditation’ that you’ve given yourself a headache on more than one occasion. Like trying to silence the voices in your head whilst sitting completely still for who knows how long is going to be anything other than a gigantic waste of time. Because, as we all know, this is how it works; the road to enlightenment/serenity is awarded only those who can shut down completely, sit in a lotus position for hours on end, breathe in and out in a pattern of inhalation for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for seven, without getting caught up in the counting, stop thinking about anything other than roots springing out of your arse and into the centre of mother earth (and also avoiding thinking resentful thoughts brought on by the word mother), be oblivious to the fact that the earth’s centre is filled with lava that will surely burn your rectal roots and not ground them, all the while trying to keep your eyes closed and not check the time every five seconds, to make sure you’ve counted your breathing seconds correctly. WRONG!

This might be how traditional meditation has been presented to most of us through books, films, YouTube channels and podcasts, and “everyone” all claim that meditation is “great” for people with ADHD, but no one’s ever bothered to tell us why it’s so great, shared with us the philosophy behind it, or let us know that there aren’t really any rules to how you should meditate. Turns out, you don’t even need to keep your eyes closed!

If you started reading this under the misapprehension that it would be another well-researched post filled with interesting links, I apologise. I’ve been under so much stress lately that I’ve been searching rather desperately for anything that could help, so when I came across this random podcast episode where they were discussing ADHD and meditation, I didn’t remember to bookmark it for later. (Very clever, I know). But the general gist of it, I remember, because the host and their guest confirmed something that I have been theorising for quite some time; that meditation can be relative to the person doing the meditation.

Let me explain for a second: I find running meditative, especially when I go hard enough that my body becomes so tired that I can no longer stop my thoughts from flowing freely, which in turn brings forth many a solution to any conundrums I have had in the past. If I need to sort something out, that I can’t get my head around, or have an impossible deadline and keep procrastinating, I go for a long run, aiming for a PB. That works for me. I’ve tried sooooo many guided meditations, both live and to recordings, and all they do is stress me out. There’s too many rules! And how am I meant to find inner peace when people keep breathing, or the so-called guide keeps mispronouncing certain words or saying nonsensical things? Why can’t they just shut the fuck up so I can collect my thoughts for a second? Oh, I’m meant to “empty my mind and let go of what no longer serves me”. Right. How about giving me a goddamned second to think about what that might be? Oh, we’re manifesting now. Okay. What the fuck? I need to do things my way.

Needless to say, I was more than relieved when I heard the aforementioned episode, because – like many others with ADHD – I need confirmation on certain things. I need to know I’m doing things correctly. (It’s a miracle that I ever manage to walk anywhere without overthinking my every step, because no one has ever confirmed that I’m following the foot placement recipe correctly).

So, I thought I’d share this with whoever else out there needs it. It gave me some piece of mind and I am allowing myself to stop torturing myself with the biweekly guided meditation pod I’ve been following for the past three years. That’s more than 39 hours of time wasted… but it could have become a lot more had I not realised that I can meditate in the way that I see fit.

So, what is the purpose of meditation? I like what I found on study.com: “Meditation is an act of connecting the mind and body to the present moment.”

They also list seven different types of meditation, in which we find ‘movement meditation’. I feel like so many have focussed on the relaxation aspect of mindfulness meditation, that it’s become ingrained in our culture that we need to be half-asleep in order to connect with our truth. There is something to be said for the breath work in meditation, of course, but I don’t necessarily think that you would have to follow a pattern set by someone else. Do you have someone set the temperature for your shower as well? I certainly hope not. It can of course be helpful to have a look at different techniques and what works best for which type of meditation, but at the end of the day, your meditation practice needs to work for you. It’s precious alone time for you and your brain – even the busier kind!

To finalise, this is a time of year when there’s more unwanted noise coming from every angle than normal. Perhaps we can find a way to turn all that food noise, money noise, people noise into background noise by finding a small pocket of alone time in a day. Just five minute can be enough, this podcast told me – that’s less than an average poo!

And on that note, I bid you farewell for the last time in 2025. See you next Tuesday!

Oh – please buy my book. I am very poor and in need of a new camera.

Perhaps I’ll kick the new year off with an interview with an up and coming band from Norway’s metal scene… Keep your peepers peeled!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MAY THE NEW ONE BE A BIT LESS SHIT.

Wee update! I found a great article on ADDitude.com, where they provide a detailed account of how you can make meditation part of your daily routine without too much hassle. Click anywhere on this sentence to read. Cheers!

30th Dec 2025 0