Something about talking

Yesterday I posted about how tough I'm finding things. It is tough, but I'm getting help and have great friends and family. I had a bit of an awkward one today though. 

Logjammer was misbehaving over the last few days. I asked him why and with the honesty of preschooler, he told me because ' You're not fun much now"

I decided to try and explain the whole chemical imbalance in my head and how that leads to all my negativity. I brought Pirate O into the conversation too. It's difficult to explain Nero chemistry to kids. ( Especially with my very limited knowledge of it.)

I explained the lack of dopamine and serotonin in my system and how these are the chemicals that among other things control your levels of happiness. I briefly mentioned Ardrenilin and Noradrenaline ( ?) .  I explained that the medication i take is to help me make Dopamine and serotonin and to help reduce my stress levels. 

My kids always surprise me. They seemed to understand the basics if not all of what I said. I went in to explain the person I'm seeing also helps me by aiding me in taking small steps to getting my thoughts back to a more positive light. 

I did a diagram to help explain it. Logjammer then adapted the diagram and improved it considerably.

Something over due (again)

I hate how my head messes with me. Since Christmas I've been a cloudy headed cluster of tangential indecision and forget to do lists.  So much so that I'm way behind on all of the things I want achieve this year. I'm not  doing the Art in The gardens in Sheffield, as my silly anxiety ridden head can' t handle he amount of minimal planning that would take.

I've also shut down my etsy store. I'll probably reopen it at some point but I need to focus on getting  me better first. So me first, business later.

I'm still painting, with a focus on portraits. I need to tell my self constantly that I don't owe any of my self imposed goals to anyone. So i don't need to beat myself up when I miss a deadline/ don't do a thing.

The focus is get my mental health back on track. I apologised to my mental health keyworker today, because I felt I was wasting her time with my mild issues. She said I seemed to really need  the support and she said this lack of self worth is one of the issues we need to deal with.

Any ways just popping along to let anyone who drifts by here what is happening in the cathal-o-sphere.

Boo Ya I'm out of here

Something about me and what I've learnt in 2016

This will be self indulgent, sorry in advance.

2016

things I have learned

I have a group of people in my life online and in meat space who are just fantastic humans.

I like the term meat space more than I should.

I want time more than any thing else, well almost anything else.

Face book can teach you lots of things or rather it can inspire you to learn lots of things.

Magritte was onto something with his treason of images.

I have (had depression for a long time- teens I just thought I was feeling sorry for myself – every one of my friends had it tough. It was fine/gone for a long time in my 20's to 30's, but when it came back it came back bad.)
I have had to accept, I'm not fine, that I'm angry, lots. The anger is part of my anxiety and depression.

I'm apparently odd, and dark, and a bit intimidating to people who don't know me.

I have had to learn VERY quickly to ask for help. I'm still not good at it.

I need to create things, mainly drawing or painting. But anything will do.

I need to take better care of me. I don't look after me very well.

I need my quiet alone time. I can be a grumpy arsehole at the best of times, I get worse when I have no 'down time' . I use my downtime to make stuff, that making makes me happy. When I'm happy the world suffers my shit puns.

My puns are shit.

I get choked up showing my kids stuff about Ireland I thought was boring and lame growing up.

I've learnt that I don't find other tales of depression and anxiety to tally up with mine.

I think that because of this the following will either be pointless or helpful. It will definitely be poorly written and probably badly spelt with some bad deflecting puns in there. But no haikus( I can't be arsed).

…. I went back to Ireland to my parents house, with my lovely family for christmas. If my parents were your parents you would too. My dad is funny and the best cook, and my mum is funny and would do anything for you. They both cultivate a relaxed laid back atmosphere. My sisters are so different yet so similar, they are just the best funny, intelligent, loving, passionate (I'm getting distracted trying to tell you – who ever you are how ace my family are- ) , my brother is well he's hard to get a read on, but by feck is he intelligent, and when he gets going I think he is hilarious, he hides it but he is just as loving as my sisters, He is more hairy than them, but only just.. JUST KIDDING. Jesus....

anyways. Back to the most important one, ME. My anxiety/depression is linked to my wife having a brain tumor. Yeah it sucks. Recently she has been really depressed. And the burden of most stuff has fallen on me. ( The brunt of child care, housework and the constant nagging worry of the brain tumor hence forth referred to as Prof Plum.)

My shit (anxiety/depression – I am calling it shit because a) It is and b) Find spelling anxiety a ball-ache and c) I like to take shortcuts.) My shit has resulted in me thinking up weird scenarios in vivid detail. Like how things would pan out if a sink hole opened up in the back garden and O and I fell in. I imagined me cushioning her fall and dieing, her breaking a leg/ wrist and being in agony at the pain. She is there at the bottom of this sink hole with a dead dad and no one finds her and she starves to death. No reason for my brain to go into the details yet it can. Not recently thank fuck, but it did. These thoughts and other like them with sum zero results where things go as bad as they can would hit me at all hours of the day.

I'm getting morse code with this morose I ment morose. so ill cut a shit story short. My thoughts would make me feel trapped and I would get angry. Just angry and grumpy with every thing . The effort to not be angry at my family and people was exhausting and the easiest thing to do was grump and ignore. Or go away.
Being at home I realised ( well after the fact) was safe. And because I felt safe- My parents were there to take up the slack- look after the kids ( Who are fucking ace by the way) cook, clean do washing and all the day to day stuff (I normally feel like I'm the only one that does it) for me . I shut the fuck down. Completely. I would be in the room but my brain would zone out, I didn't care if you thought me rude for ignoring you, I didn't have ANYTHING going on in my brain. Just a lights are on but , a “Tyler gone” empty head. Lights on no-one home. I don't feel like posting this or writing any more.

Just to end on this. I see lots of posts saying hey my door is open any time come on in have a chat – directed at people who are depressed. That's a lovely thing to post, but when I've been in depression at it worst, I cant find it in me to get out of bed. I would know that I want to interact with you, but the effort to do so, would be exhausting and that’s if I was a good, close friend to you. With friends I'd just want them to let me hang out and be non responsive with out judgment or questioning me if I was okay. Being around people I didn't know that well would make me feel like I had to be 'okay'

Anyways if none of this made sense blame Obama, Russians , Brexit and 2016, oh and Big Farmers.

I'm off to kick a crow. Peace Love and Pitbulls, Love and Rockets, Shake and Vac.

I'm a bit drunk so I'm sharing this against my better sober self-conscious self's opininos  and just to fuck me off. HA HA IN MY FACE!!!! 

Something about what the hell Cathal has been up to.

I've had a Christmas and hope whatever you had went well. ( Hopefully lots better than I felt at times)

I've kicked of a year of portraiture way back in the month of mumble-mumble-ber, and I have wearied of gazing at my own face.( Unbelievable but true) So I'm now drawing faces/heads of people I haven't met and calling the series, ' People I haven't met' .  ( By meet I mean in the meatspace not the cyber net space.)

Here are some visuals of what I've scrawled so far. 

1 hourish self portrait on cartridge paper. 

Baron Harkonnen from David Lynch's Dune , unfinished.

20 Minute self portrait in ink.

30  minute self portrait in ink.

R/F about 1.5 hours on cartridge paper.

I might work some of these into paintings or I might not. The real goal is just to get better at drawing. I have already noticed my line work is improving.  I'm still not happy with my accuracy levels. I'm not aiming for hyper realism here, just an accurate representation of the photos I'm working from. I have a way to go and look forward to looking back next January at where I've got to.