Despondency & Procrastination…

It’s been a manic few weeks since my last blog post to be honest and a very difficult time for me.

I feel myself constantly questioning things… The more I think about writing a blog, the more I struggle to find the words.

In a sense I’ve had an amazing 4 weeks or so… I’ve been out to India with retailers looking at textile production for my business which is very exciting, because it means that my focus on ethical retail production is moving in a very positive direction and will mean a lot if I’m changing the world, even one retailer at a time.

I’ve been part of an initiative called HeadTalks where they’ve filmed a segment for a website initiative designed to make mental health awareness more accessible, as well as giving people who suffer from a wide variety of issues, the chance to find their own solutions in hearing about others and our coping mechanisms.

I wrote a piece on ‘Vulnerability’ for the company Red Letter Days & the Building Societies Association. Which has gone out in blogs and magazines to their wider audiences.

In essence there’s a lot going on that’s exciting!

That said, there’s a darkness on occasion, that drives an area of my mind and doesn’t allow much room for deviation. It’s that feeling when you wake up and can’t bring yourself to the point where you draw back the covers… you despondently fumble some clothes on and mime your way through making a cup of coffee, hoping that at some stage the switch will hit you and your deeper commercial and vastly more energetic self, will surface and all will be well for work… But it’s not!

I HATE that feeling!

For those of you who share these moments, the loss of ‘will to move forward’ is probably the most difficult to stomach.

Sitting here now and thinking about everything I have to do to ensure I’m on the ball work wise is where the pressure piles on and the procrastination begins. I tried smoking for a while but regardless of the subjective calm it instils, the irony is, that in theory, I’m killing myself to get better! How do you remedy that…?

I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say here… I’m just lost. The mania of success, vs. the absolutely gruelling low points where you feel worthless is such a difficult thing to try and wade through. It’s a treacle that just doesn’t seem to shift for long enough to gain momentum.

A lot of the time it comes down to money, trying to stay afloat in terms of cash flow, while operating as a completely ethical and honest business and managing a range of staff at the same time to maximise growth, that’s always a tricky thing to wrap your head around.

You remove the staff and you make money, you have the staff there and the growth rate increases but you lose the profit… And I don’t have mummy and daddy to help me like so many people I meet day to day. I have to do this for myself and the agony of constantly worrying whether the rug will be pulled out from under me is such a farce.

Where do you go with mental wellbeing? I campaign across the UK at my own expense to try and make people more aware of the issues people with conditions of the mind face, how to spot them, how to ease the pain of dealing with those issues, but it just costs me more and more money and my mind is suffering through every element.

It appears that you could chat on stage to a few hundred people about what you feel and there’s an energy surrounding that freedom that builds you up inside… on the other front you know that when the hubbub dies down, there’s still an element of emptiness in your own self worth, that’s what I want to fix.

I feel fairly successful, I feel like I’m dynamic as an individual, but where does that leave us as individuals? I’ve seen friends go through things like manic depression and out the other side, but I never seem to get out of the tunnel…

Today it’s raining, when I step outside and smell the damp air and cut grass I feel like I’m back on a Cambodian beach travelling, there’s a moment of solace in an otherwise crowded mind. But that damp and the weather also brings with it that sinking feeling at the pit of your stomach where displacement remains…

In my blogs I usually try to instigate a driver, a push for change, a point… I think the point today is that just when you think you may be out of the grim, it creeps upon you like Harry Potters dementors.

A Dementor is a non-being and Dark creature, considered one of the foulest to inhabit the world. Dementors feed upon human happiness, and thus cause depression and despair to anyone near them. They can also consume a person’s soul, leaving their victims in a permanent vegetative state, and thus are often referred to as “soul-sucking fiends“. They are known to leave a person as an ’empty-shell’.

“Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself… soulless and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.”

Talk to someone, just talk to someone… Find a way to break through… It’s not easy, life would be a waste if it was. There’s something different inside you, you know what that is and only you can know… we as individuals have a light that burns in us, our end gain! Find that light and hold on to it… I’m going to start with breakfast, tea and another step outside into the wind just to feel that Cambodian sea one last time before I get back behind the desk.

Every one of us is in this together and I hope that if there’s someone else out there feeling this today, that you’re able to drive yourself forth into fruition! Think not of that wilting that traps our souls, think only of flowers in bloom! No one has the monopoly on pain, we all are consumed by it as we live and we grow, what sets us apart is our ability to purge the shadow from within and step forth… step forth into your mind tomorrow, when trees are greener than they seemed before and the sun only shines on you and your spirit within…

“Everything will be all right in the end, and if it’s not all right, then it’s simply not yet the end…” – Best Exotic Marigold Hotel