1066 All Stars

Today's weight - 11st

Thoughts

* Happy Star Wars day!

* A weekened of eating flith sees my weight barely shift but there was definite movement in my mental state. With the fight of the century on, I decided a pizza and some other snacks would be ok but then spent most of the night / morning procrastinating to self about what I was eating to the point that what went into my stomach was more importan than the fight. In the end, I retrospectively came to the justification of 'it's only one weekend, I think I'm allowed,' but it was torture getting there.

* My target weight remains 10st 6lbs. I gave myself until the end of the year to achieve it and I think that remains a realistic ambition. I must also acknowledge that, fight night apart, I have been allowing more snacking and so it should come as no surprise that I have failed to move below 10st 13lbs on a consistent basis. A return to a more disciplined diet appears to be in order, with some leeway allowed for the kids' birthdays that are forthcoming.

*Anxiety continues to dominate most aspects of my life. Awareness is good, as is the knowledge that these are issues that can be overcome, but it is proving difficult to manage by myself.

* I like to use metaphors to illustrate aspects of my mental health in an attempt to try and help others understand.

On this theme, I have come to consider my anxiety as like being a balloon trapped in a box. At the beginning, when the balloon has no air (or anxiety), everything is still and calm. But as time goes on, it starts to fill with air. Slowly at first, but the pressure soon begins to build. The balloon is happy though, it has plenty of room to expand. But soon, as it gets bigger, it starts to believe that the box it is in is covered by invisible pins, ready to prick and burst the balloon. They can't be seen, but the balloon just knows that they are there. But worrying about the pins just seems to make the balloon fill with air quicker, only now it can't stop, the air coming in faster and faster, the pins only millimeteres away until...

*POP*

The balloon bursts. Not from a pin, they never existed. Instead, whilst worrying about pins that weren't there in the first place, the balloon lost sight of the fact that if it didn't stop taking in air then it would burst anyway.

* Work also remains a constant thought stream in two flavours.

Firstly, the issue of progresssion. My instincts are to always push myself for more but then my instincts led me to hospitalisation so can they be trusted? Redundancy continues to cast a shadow too. Metaphor time!

I look at like I am a football manager. I joined a lower league team, first as just a coach but quickly found myself asked to manage the team. We had early success, getting promoted, expectation increasing. It seemed only a matter of time before we reached the Premier League. But then our form started to drop, subtely at first, until all of a sudden we found ourselves in a slump of form we couldn't get out of. I received the dreaded vote of confidence before we parted ways 'by mutual consent,' any good achieved cancelled out in my mind by the way things ended.

Then, after a short break, I find myself offered a job on the coaching staff by a rival team. It is strange not being in charge but I enjoy someone else having the responsibility. But soon I get the itch to manage again, only I am not sure that I retain the passion to do so. I invested everything in my last team, my hometown club, I am not sure I have the desire to do it again.

* Secondly, the issue of identity. This has flared up with the forthcoming election, as well as during my Football Manager save. At a fundamental level, I don't know who I am, what I believe in and what I want out of life. I try to think about it, to define my place and my mind appears to just cloud over and drift. I cannot focus.

Perhaps this is depression, or a legacy thereof. Perhaps it speaks to the fact that I have become lost in a sea of mediocrity. Or perhaps it is who I am.