I fancied putting a few more thoughts out into the world so I’ll give a bit of an update as to what’s happening.

With where I am right now, I’m ok. Recent times, certainly the last 6 months, have had a bit of up and a lot of down. I have started treatment for depression, which I’m honestly not sure is making that much of a difference yet. Therapy has been very good and useful in helping me deal with the worries in my mind, though they’re far from gone yet. I’ve been taking medicine for a couple of months now so hopefully that starts to take effect.

It’s hard to write about, not that I’m one to hold in how I feel, just trying to find the words to explain these negative feelings is extremely challenging. I’m just realising how insidious the cloud of depression can be, it seems really easy for me to be having a good day and then it just strikes. Usually because a bad thought enters my head and I just can’t shake it. I think I’ve got plenty in life to feel bad about for now.

There’s a certain degree of guilt that follows; I feel like there’s a universal karma in play and this is a kind of payback for the wrongs I’ve committed. I feel I’ve lost friends because of depression, when other people have needed me to be a friend and support them but I haven’t understood their depression; I haven’t supported them when I should have. At this point I’m pretty sure I understand, and I kind of wish I didn’t.

On more positive notes, work continues to go well. There’s going to be a very stressful couple of weeks coming up because of impending deadlines. There’s a lot of work that needs to happen to get a product out the door by November, if I’m sensible I’ll limit my online presence so I can focus on that!

Eurofurnence turned out to be amazing. Despite all my anxiety and apprehension preceding it, and a few down periods during, it turned out to be a truly amazing week. Some of the highlights, Berlin for one, is just such a nice city to be in. I did the obvious touristy things: Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall. It’s a pretty cool piece of history to be able to walk up and touch the actual Berlin wall, there’s a lot of history to go with that concrete prefab.

The highlight for me was the ‘80s dance. I got dressed up as “bi-man” and just ran around starting light-saber fights with people and dancing jolly jigs. It was a pretty intense night of drinking and dancing and I didn’t sleep until 5am. It was absolutely amazing.

In general, I got to meet a lot of cool people (shout out to the EF dragon crew and session squad). Also had the opportunity to visit some fetish shops in Berlin; it turns out those are a thing and that’s awesome. Didn’t buy much but certainly counts as an experience!

One thing that did go well, I went along to an open mic stand-up comedy panel, stood up and for the first time ever I did stand-up comedy! I say I think it went well, people laughed and I didn’t even need to get naked. It’s inspired me to do more comedy. I’m trying to get enough material together to put together a podcast. I’ve got an idea for a show that involves a mix of stand-up and sketches. I’m hoping to do it a bit solo to start off with and maybe get a couple of folk on board if it goes well, be nice to try and bounce ideas off people.

Anyway, it’s late and I need to sleep.