Despite the fact that I’ve done nothing but going backwards, forwards, up, down, left and right, I’m convinced it’s where I want to be.

In other news, I got my own name badge today! I couldn’t help but think “ooh, now I’m a real authentic nameless employee!” 

Now, fair enough you might be thinking. Anti-depressants, brilliant. I’ll be happy again, yay. Not quite.

Firstly, I’m quite pissed off at how easy it seems to have got hold of these things. It feels like I just asked and I was given, surely doctors shouldn’t do that? My entire point of mentioning the depression was in hope that he’d attempt to find out the cause of the issue, not to solve the symptom short-term. It’s a bit like complaining of a skin rash caused by an allergy to be given a cream to make the rash go down without ever acknowledging that the allergy ever existed. What continued to surprise me was the way he said if I need any more whilst I’m in Nottingham for Christmas, to visit any chemist, take the box and a note and they should just hand them over. Errrrm…

Secondly, I don’t like the idea of having to take pills to make me something I’m evidently not. In reading up about Citalopram, I found a forum where some people are discussing the drug and one comment  (”I have increased my dose again and now start to feel the person i want to be again“) actually shocked me. I really don’t want to be that - I don’t want to be controlled by drugs. I sometimes forget to take them every now and then. Routines don’t suit me…

Granted, the anti-depressants would probably help me no end. I’m told they take a couple of weeks of taking them before I notice any difference, but given as I’ve got a week and a half left at uni before I go home, go on holiday, go to the party, etc, is there really much point?

I’m finding this Christmas much easier than the last. As I write I’m six days away from having spent an entire year without self-harming. Not once have I picked up a blade and sliced myself since Dec 11th 2006. OK, it’s not been easy (for the most part it’s been bloody hard, especially over the past couple of months) but I think it’s something I can focus on, an anniversary which is positive and something to look forward to. I just need to make it 2 years then! Hence, I don’t think anti-depressants are that useful in this situation.

The other option, of course, is counselling. I did try that at the beginning of this year (January-April) and started to feel good by the end of it. However, I didn’t find the sessions that useful; in fact I found them very awkward and stressful. Though I think what was making me feel better was the fact that it was turning into Summer, the days were getting longer, brighter and warmer. It’s things like this which make me wonder if I suffer from some form of Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD). I know self-diagnoses aren’t good and are probably quite inaccurate but given how I seem to be getting quite depressed around Christmas, it surely could be something related?

See, this is why I’m annoyed that the GP just stuck me on these pills without considering anything else. I’m very tempted to make an appointment next week when I have the time and discuss the merit of taking them. Given my disappointment with the entire situation, I’ve yet to start on the course of drugs so going ‘cold turkey’ off them isn’t a problem to worry about. What IS a worry, however, is the published list of side effects. Most of them are quite rare but there’s a significant number of side effects in the “very common” and “frequent” sections such as nausea, eyesight issues, loss of sleep (it’s bad enough as it is), diarrhoea, etc, etc, etc. Significantly enough to concern me at least.

I was chatting to a good friend of mine who studies Chemistry (I think!) and comes into contact with these drugs on a regular basis. She was explaining that SAD is due to a lack of serotonin in the brain (though some theories think it could be melotonin) and hence the anti-depressants would do me some good - Citalopram is an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and would somehow increase the flow of serotonin to the right parts of my brain.

But then this links straight back round to my original argument. I don’t want to be on drugs to solve the symptom, I want (or at least would like) someone to medically recognise my condition and make a reasoned decision based upon that about drugs to give me, if it so happens I need medication to manage my condition. I can theorise all I like about this here, but it needs discussing with a medical professional.

I’m hoping this is a reasoned argument. Perhaps it’s quite biased one way or the other, perhaps someone needs to tell me to shut up and just obediently take the drugs, I don’t know.

Either way, I’ve got work now so I’m going!

It’s encouraging to know I can be liked, but at the same time it’s discouraging to realise the truth that I’m only used as a ‘last resort’. To you (you know who you are) - I am not interested. It was unexpected but I’m afraid I’d need a lot more to go on than what you presented to me. With regards to being “scared” (why did you feel the need to drag others into this?), I’m neither going to confirm or deny that. However, despite the breach of my confidence on the part of another party-goer, you already know the answer to that.

To you who asked whether or not things were actually happening with regards to the previous weekend: no, I could only dream.

My nightmares are playing on a lot of insecurities at the moment. Of the two I can remember most clearly, there was one I woke up with a bushy moustache/beard and I had a combover. The other, I found myself moving into a house with Russell T Davies. I don’t know what made it a nightmare but I didn’t like it.

There’s evidently a lot I don’t know in life, the universe and everything. And recently that lack of knowledge has made me look and feel absolutely stupid, worthless and useless.

I passed one of my resits. The other I didn’t fail *too* badly, such that it’s a tolerated fail and I’m through to the next year, but it was still a failure. Especially as how much effort I put into passing it and how little effort I put into it all the first time round. Not a big enough improvement to justify everything, really.

Meh.

So this week I’ve been back down in Swansea, doing two exam resits for ones I failed back in Jan and May. Moved into the house we’ve sorted for this coming year, which is a lovely little place.

Anyway, I get there and I start to think about bills and services I’m going to need in the home. So I call up BT on Monday and place an order for a new landline to be installed in the property. All goes through well, they take my direct debit details and tell me I’ll be contacted within 48 hours by BT Openreach to have my line installed.

So on Tuesday I’m contacted by Openreach saying they can’t find my address at 27 Gower Road in Swansea. I tell them what it actually is and the engineer says to me that as I’m on a different exchange to what they thought I was and that I’d need to put my order through again. So he says he’ll get sales to call back in an hour or so to get it sorted out.

An hour passes and nobody calls, but I wait until Wednesday to get on to them. I go out to the BT phonebox, about a 5 min walk away and call sales (who I was told was going to contact me anyway). Get told they can’t help with order numbers beginning with VOL (the order number I’d been given on Monday) and that I’ll be passed through to someone who can help. Spent about 20 minutes on hold that time to get through to someone who said that I’d be contacted within 2 hours to discuss the problem I’d been having.

Hung up, satisfied that I was beginning to get somewhere. As an aside I called Swalec next to get the gas and electricity bills set up. Answered within two rings on a geographic phone number (OK, I had to pay for this whereas the BT numbers are all 080 freephone but it could be worse - it could be an 0870 to an offshore call centre) and had everything set up within 5 minutes of dialling the number.

Later on that day, I still hadn’t received any word from BT and so I went back to the phone box to try again. Got through to sales, they couldn’t help as they don’t deal with VOL numbers. Got patched through to landline service to a woman who was sympathetic but still couldn’t deal with VOL orders. Got patched through to another call centre who hung up on me. On my second call I was told to call a different number who could deal with VOL customers. Tried to call that, waited on hold for about 40 minutes before someone came along who wanted to quickly call a taxi so I wasn’t going to make them stand about an wait for me. Tried again afterwards, the call was answered much quicker this time (within 15 minutes) and was told that she could read my order number details fine.

So she looked my order number up and told me my landline had been set up fine and that everything was working. Of course, I was quite happy at this and was about to hang up when I told her the story that they’d got my address wrong and as such, how would they have known which property to set up? She asked me to confirm my address and told me that she was looking at an order number for a property (I didn’t catch the address though she probably shouldn’t have said it in the first place) in WEST SUSSEX! Not satisfied with being in the wrong part of the city, I’m now apparently in a different country!

So she looks through all the VOL order numbers for Swansea and I’m the only one she can see, still registered as 27 Gower Road. I ask her if she can change the order and get it right, but I’m told she can only read the orders and not change them. So she puts me on hold and sends me through to a different call centre. When I get there the automated line tells me the system will hold my place in the queue and they’ll get someone to call me back when a free operative’s available. So I leave my number and wander back to the house. I get called back within 10 mins by a helpful gent in what sounds like Liverpool. I tell him my story so far, and I only get as far as saying the letter V in my order number when I’m told they can’t help, going to have to be put on hold and talk to someone else. So I spent another 20 mins or so on hold and my call’s answered by someone in Durham. I’m asked for my order number before anything else at all, immediately told she can’t help and to hold the line.

So then I get patched through to the VERY SAME call centre with the automatic place holding system. 30 mins later I’m called from Liverpool again, who yet again can’t help. By this time I’m getting rather fed up. I’m on hold for about 30 mins when my call is answered by someone in Scotland who is actually very sympathetic. However, it still doesn’t mean she’s able to do anything with VOL orders. So I get put on hold again.

Forty-five minutes later I’m starting to get VERY agitated at hearing the basic “ring-ring… ring-ring… ring-… Sorry but we’re very busy at the moment, please continue to hold and you’ll be connected to the earliest available operative”. There’s not even any comforting, happy hold music at BT. I’m then put through to an operative from…  BROADBAND SUPPORT! As you can guess, having been greeted by this when all I’m trying to do is get a landline installed is somewhat annoying, and I sadly ended up shouting down the phone to this man. I did apologise to him and said I know it’s not his fault but can he help? No, he can only deal with broadband problems. He offers to forward me to another call centre though, which I reluctantly agree to. However, after waiting again I get through to broadband service this time, whose best option is to give me the same 0808 number I’ve been calling since this morning!!

So anyway, I decide to give up. By this time I’ve hung up on the last operative, I’ve been on that call alone for 1 hour 31 mins (their incoming call to my mobile, their money, I don’t care!) and have spent about 5-6 hours on the phone today, having spent less than 20 mins actually speaking to human beings.

Thursday comes, I’m in all morning revising for my afternoon exam. For obvious reasons, I decide to leave my mobile on the table in the house. Nobody from BT had called when I walked out the door at 12:55.

When I get back from my exam, 3 missed calls, 3 answerphone messages:

1. Apparently I’ve missed my engineer visit this morning. They came to my door but nobody was in. Which is definitely odd - I haven’t left the house once all morning and I know I would’ve heard the doorbell going. I did have to wonder, though, if the engineers had turned up to Gower Road or West Sussex!
2. As I missed my engineer visit this morning, is there any preference on time I’d like for my next visit?
3. As I didn’t get back to them (I was in an exam, it wasn’t easy!), they’ve booked me in for the earliest date possible - Sept 10th in the morning.

September 10th?! They can’t even deliver me a landline to the wrong house until Sept 10th? Bear in mind I STILL haven’t managed to get my address changed on their database yet… Even if I did get the landline, I’d have to wait until that day to find out if I need to cough up £120 to install wires to the doorstep and to find out my telephone number. Only THEN can I wait the 14 days to get ADSL, meaning I wouldn’t have an Internet connection better than dialup until Sept 24th, at which point the new term will probably have begun. With all due respect BT, sod that!

On Friday, when I was back in Nottingham, I phoned BT to get everything cancelled. Typically, cancellations couldn’t deal with my cancellation request (what’s a VOL order number?) and neither could the special 0808 call centre set up especially to deal with these numbers. However, I get through to a friendly woman with “Customer Options” who was able to tell me that as there was technically no order in the first place and no landline, there’s nothing to cancel. I’m going to cancel my direct debit with the bank to make sure they can’t bill me for something I don’t have, and for all I care they can keep calling at 27 Gower Road or wherever in West Sussex until they fit a landline. It’s not mine, I don’t want it and I want nothing more to do with their stupid company ever again ever!!

So now I’m looking forward to getting in touch with Virgin Media to have their 2 for £20 offer installed giving me both a landline and the basic tier of Internet access, including free digital TV to boot! 

1. Why’s it always me who gets the short straw?For example, jobs are full of people (dare I say chavs?) who don’t want to be there, who hate working and who put 0% effort in to their work. So when someone like me comes along who’s looking for a job and is willing to put in 100% effort, I get turned down on the grounds that I’m not what they’re looking for, that I didn’t fill in their stupid psych test correctly and that I’m not going to be worth employing…

   Another example. I have to go down to Swansea in a few days’ time to resit two of the modules I took this year. Annoyingly enough I only failed one by 3% and the other by 5%. So, of course, being below the pass grade, I have to resit. However, what really pisses me off is the way some people got a lower grade than me and don’t have to resit. For example, one of the people on the course did fuck all work this year, decided half way through that they’d overdose and got their results on a platter because of extenuating circumstances. They’re not the only ones who’ve been through shit this past year but nobody’s letting me off anything. Now, I’m not saying I want to go crying to the exam board but it’s just bloody unfair…

2. Me. I’m just as ugly, as horrendous and even more bruised, battered and scarred than before. I can’t even wear shorts any more for fear of how I look… Still just as insecure and fed up as always…
3. Nottingham. Just can’t wait to be back in Swansea - getting absolutely fed up with parents and the way I’m still treated like a 5 year old despite being nearly 20 now…

Bleh… </rant>

Spent a lot of time with this down after my server had a catastrophic failure. Managed to recover all the data, just been biding my time until I could get something set up again. Having finally installed Ubuntu on my old 400MHz machine, whose hardware is horrendously unstable, I’ve managed to get this back up again! Just spent about 2 hours getting stressed at MySQL and phpMyAdmin wondering why it refused to work. [1]

So, not a huge amount has happened lately - been a lot more positive despite the circumstances (being back home, getting stressed at overprotective, overcontrolling parents). I’ve managed to completely fail to get myself employed - I seem to be completely unable to pass the ‘psych’ test thing which asks what kind of a person you are. I’ve told this to people who all say things like ‘well you need to sound outgoing’ and ‘why not just lie?’ and ‘be honest’…! I’ve tried all sorts, nobody’ll employ me

Speaking of not passing tests, I failed two modules of my CompSci course which I’ve got to resit on w/b 20th. Not going to be much fun - not only are they exams but I’ll have to spend 5 days in Swansea in a house with no Internet access, probably no phone, no TV, etc, etc.

Still, I *really* need to pass these - the last thing I need is to resit the whole year. I need 40% across the board (which conflicts with what we’ve been told by tutors and heads of department) and in the two I failed got 27% and 35%. Going to need a fair bit of revision in the former - I took that in January and isn’t as fresh in my mind. Probably going to take a lot of understanding I didn’t have before either.

Still, I am feeling quite positive about going back in September. My housemates may not be the easiest people in the world to get along with (they go hand in hand with the pranks they pull) and I reckon arguments will happen about various things but I still think it’ll be a lot more relaxed than living in halls. They’re also quite quiet, which is the thing that pissed me off about living in Hendrefoelan. Also a lot closer to the city which means I won’t have to spend countless hours on buses backwards and forwards. I’m considering if it’ll be worth buying a bus pass, but given the financial situation I’ve got into with too much partying at the end of the year combined with a lack of income, I won’t have enough. I’m very much considering taking a bike down with me, but I know what Swansea weather’s like and I can’t imagine cycling through the pissing rain’s much fun. I’ve also not cycled for years and I’m not overly confident on 2 wheels. Mind you, if I stick to the pavements (I know, I know!) I ought to build that confidence up quite quickly.

That’s all for now. It’s late, I’m tired, I want to finish HP7 and I will update soon enough

[1] If you’re trying to back up a MySQL database using the flat files saved from /var/lib/mysql or wherever, you’ll find that by dragging them back into that directory on the new server renders them read-only. The best workaround for this is to make a backup of the table you’re having issues with (see this page) and restore the backup. When MySQL can write its own stuff to the disk, it seems happy! NB: Google’s useless on this front for how to help.

For those of you who don’t know the inner workings of what used to be NTL (UK Internet service provider and telco), the ISP branch of the company ran for many years Usenet servers with local newsgroups in the ntl.* hierarchy. One of those groups was ntl.talk, in which was a tight, close-knit community whose members (for the most part!) got on famously.

As Lethe puts it:

We’ve seen many a young man and woman come in here Khyle - sometimes with more of a bang than a whimper - to talk computers, contribute to whatever was of interest here, groan about the rigours of school and family and, with deepening interest and seriousness, enter the demanding world of higher education. It has been our privilege to listen and advise when asked, to be affectionately amused and to hear about the first experiences of sometimes daunting places of work . We thank you Khyle for sharing such key aspects of your life with us.

Now, NTL recently re-branded as Virgin Media (having purchased Virgin Mobile and Telewest/Blueyonder) and have railroaded through two communities, trying to amalgamate the two, on Blueyonder’s terms. It may seem childish, but us ex-NTL weren’t overly happy with that decision.

Today, however, Virgin Media decided to shut down ntl.talk for good. Just a quick notice (which they got wrong, they were in such a hurry to get rid of us) and then made it completely read-only. This place has been such a source of inspiration for me amongst other things that’ve gone on in my life and it was just so saddening to see it (essentially) gone for good, I couldn’t help but have a quick weep.

In other news, I’d like to apologise for the lack of updates. Those of you who know me will know I’ve been seeing a counsellor lately. It’s been one helluvan uphill struggle but things seem to be improving for me. I’d rather not go in to explicit detail here (there are still some odd ends to tie up) but perhaps in time.

Since coming back to Uni, I actually for the first time feel able to smile and bounce up stairs (though depending on how little sleep I get!!). It’s been spurred on not only by finding ways to actually chat to flatmates (I managed to get involved in a vicious circle with people without being able to talk about it) but also the prospect that I actually have a future here - the time it took us to get a house next year was nagging in the back of my mind for months - there was a period where I was considering purposefully failing the first year so I didn’t have to worry about anything.

There’s now only 2 and a half weeks before I’m back home. Whilst I know I’m not meant to think in those sorts of terms, I just can’t wait as it’ll be a chance to relax! This term we’ve been absolutely bombarded with coursework - I had 2 deadlines Monday, 1 today and another 2 on Friday. We had 3 last week and although there aren’t any deadlines next week, our lecturers have said some will be given out (to be in during the last week!). Not fun!

Other than that, there’s not been a huge amount happening. Went home twice this term (I needed it with what I’ve been going through) and went to see Shell and Karl the weekend before last for a nice geeky weekend with some London Geocaching! Off to see steev (Pluto..nium) the weekend after next - no idea what’ll happen but should be good anyway! Just got to figure out how to get up there (and when!) and if I can sort of cheat and use my bus pass all the way to Carmarthen instead of just within Swansea!

Anyway, someone prod me when it’s updating time next!

Hyphen

In a sweeping generalisation, suffering from depression is a bit like how I expect schizophrenia to be. It’s not to say I know what it is like, it’s not to say I might be right at all, but all I know is how I feel. When I’m up, I tend to be very optimistic to things such as going back to University (this coming Saturday). I always want to blog and I write in my head. I write, I read it back to myself and I re-draft it somehow. I never actually get to write it down in case it brings me down with it. When I am up, I tend to be a lot more sociable, I tend to get up early and get to sleep well.

Conversely, when I’m down I tend to be very negative about things. Even though I do feel able to blog without it going round in my head, I never feel I manage to get my points across properly. When I’m down I think of all the negative things about going back; I think about dropping out or intentionally failing exams to force me out. I tend to be more wrapped up in myself, less open, less able to act in social situations and I have a nasty tendency to get myself into serious trouble this way.
This “split mind” theory is something that’s been floating around in my head lately and I’m not entirely sure if it’s correct for me to make such a generalisation.

I’m not going to mention anything medical here - it’s in everybody’s best interests for now.

I need to get some sleep. Still not tired though…

I’m not going to linger on the contents of my previous post too much - even though I haven’t blogged the more recent events, I’d consider Monday the 13th Dec a semi-major turning point in my life. On the Tuesday of that week I found myself in Singleton Hospital in Swansea getting 15 stitches. On the Wednesday I found myself in Morriston Hospital speaking to a psychiatric nurse. Overall, I feel let down by the NHS - they’re relatively happy to fix the issues on the surface but when it comes to what’s underneath, I keep getting passed about as if nobody really wants the responsibility.

I have been considering dropping out of university. I’m not entirely convinced it’s not for me. However, the hassle I’d have to go through to do that makes me wonder if it’s just easier to stick with it. People have been pissing me off to the extreme there but I’m hoping I might be able to talk to people to get it sorted out.

So far this Christmas holiday has been good - I spent some time at Colin’s to get me away from Swansea, which really helped. Then came the ntl.talk party which was generally fantastic. When I got back to Nottingham I met up with Shell and Karl, went to the pub and had a good day out with them.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what to say. I’m trying not to linger on the past (the events of last week have made me want to stop mutilating) whilst trying to look positive for the future.

Khyle.

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