Every day is a struggle with my demons, the little buggers trying 24/7 to bring me down, every day, those voices, "you can't do it!"- it can be deafening! But I fight harder than my demons, they give me their best shot, mine's better, sometimes I land a sucker punch, my voice is louder than theirs, I drown out their filth! My demons try ...
FORGOT TO TAKE MY PILLS!
"Feeling like the lights are on but no one's in, like I'm being punished for committing a sin, silence, nothing doing, brain not working, I'm not shirking, my brain really is not working, it's like my on/off switch is in the off position, I haven't got the mental wherewithal to make a decision, I just cannot think, can't do anything, I've lost ...
RUNNING: THE BLACK DOG HATES IT!
https://www.facebook.com/628655827/videos/10160092453125828/?extid=H52BaLjSH8dj2pfI
BIPOLAR?
https://www.facebook.com/628655827/videos/10160086388020828/?extid=YtiZl75zF6XarBSE
‘DEPRESSION: IN THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE’
TRIGGER ALERT! PUBLISHED ON 30 AUG 2020: I do NOT feel like this now! https://www.facebook.com/628655827/videos/10160036980515828/?extid=H5RbAiJ232Gd1IKf
‘GREAT RUN’
https://www.facebook.com/james.gould.754/videos/10160053716905828/
‘DEPRESSION: SELF-HELP’
https://www.facebook.com/james.gould.754/videos/10160047968055828/
WHAT’S THE POINT?
https://www.facebook.com/james.gould.754/videos/10160051134860828/ IMPORTANT, re the following poem, it does NOT reflect how I feel NOW! PLEASE DO NOT BE CONCERNED! I nearly didn't post it, so sensitive is the subject of suicide, and I know that it'll concern a lot of people but, please, do take note of the positive attitude in the second half of the poem. I ...
MY STORY: LIGHT, NOT DARKNESS
https://www.facebook.com/james.gould.754/videos/10160037490145828/ ‘A tweeter, Lauren Kay (@laurenikay) asked us to say, to tell her, what inspired us to tell our stories: I write my story, sometimes dark, but oft times, one of glory, to help people who suffer, who might be having a rougher time than me, - and I have been through tough times: I write about them in my rhymes. Mental illness is my story, depression, regression, darkness – ...
SOME MORNINGS…
'Wake up in the morning, sun outside,but inside, it’s pouring,not fully awake, mentally still snoring,pain,nothing to gain from getting out of bed,legs of lead,weighed down,it’s written in the frown on my face,anxious about re-joining the human race. Can’t see,nothing’s clear,everything distant,nothing, except the darkness, is near,my speaking, monotone,feeling lonely, alone. It’s just one of those days,the sun’s ...
SUNDAYS CAN BE TOUGH DAYS
"Some days, just getting up in the morning can be an achievement, It can be difficult when you feel like you’ve suffered a bereavement, Take it easy, don’t frown, Don’t let depression get you down. It’s Sunday, it needn’t be a fun day, Life’s a rollercoaster, lots of ups and downs, Not every day is for jesters and clowns. Cut yourself some slack Don’t look ...
‘OUTRUNNING THE DEMONS – lives transformed through running’, by PHIL HEWITT: A ‘MUST-READ’ BOOK!
Phil Hewitt’s book, ‘OUTRUNNING THE DEMONS: lives transformed through running’, I have never connected with a book quite like I have done with this one, never has a book so resonated with me, never have I been so energised in the reading of a book, never has “I just couldn’t put the book down” so ...
A LIFE-CHANGING BOOK: PHIL HEWITT’S ‘OUTRUNNING THE DEMONS – lives transformed through running’
I often read a book and say afterwards that it's a "life-changing book" but I'm not sure that any has actually proved to be that - life-affecting, perhaps, but "life-changing", hmmmm....I don't know. However, a book which I'm reading now, and haven't finished yet, I already know that it'll be, for me, life-changing. In my ...
WHY I’M EXCITED ABOUT NEXT WEEK’S ULTRAMARATHON DESPITE THE FACT THAT I KNOW IT’S GOING TO HURT…
NEXT WEEK, at 12.01am on 16 June 2020, I'll start, with my son, my/our first ultra-marathon. On that day, I turn 54 years old. We're running 54km (33.75 miles) up and down 730m-long Herzl Street, Ra'anana. It's part of a training programme geared towards a 100-mile (160km) run, all on Herzl Street (222 times up ...
‘MONSTER-MARATHON MENTAL MILLION CHALLENGE’
‘MONSTER-MARATHON MENTAL MILLION CHALLENGE’ As many of you will know (publicity-shy I am not and, in this matter, it’s just as well!), Ziv and I have set ourselves a challenge: NAME OF CHALLENGE: ‘MONSTER-MARATHON MENTAL MILLION CHALLENGE’ WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE? THE “HERZL HUNDRED”: To run 100 miles (160km) on Herzl Street, Ra’anana* (less than half a mile long) in under ...
ADDICTION: IT’S AN ILLNESS! “THERE, BUT FOR THE GRACE OF G-D, GO I…”
2006, Hank Jones introducing: “…Next is a young pianist…you’re going to hear a lot more from (him) in the coming years and his name is Mr. Austin Peralta…" Austin was just 15 years old at the time. A star, becoming a legend in his own time… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=__7k0Bb0jSg Fast forward to 2012, Austin, a man who had a golden future ...
OUR CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH IS BEING IGNORED! SITUATION: CRITICAL!
It’s 8am, I walk downstairs, I see my daughter sitting, motionless, silent, expressionless…. She’s got a bagrut exam this morning (she’s 18, the bagrut is the Israeli equivalent of an English A-Level): “What the exam today?” She thinks for a second, translates the Hebrew into English for me: “Jewish philosophy”, she mumbles, her face still expressionless. “Jewish philosophy”, I ...
34C/94F THIS MORNING: WHAT DROVE ME TO RUN IN THIS HEAT? WHAT DID I GET OUT OF THE RUN?
It was a hard run this morning, much harder than it should have been! It wasn't a long run, only 10km, but it was hot! My alarm was set for 5.10am. I should have been out the door by 5.30am, on the street for the run. Unusual for me but I slept through the alarm. Showered and dressed ...
‘STAND-ALONE’ EATING DISORDER OR ‘JUST’ A SYMPTOM OF OCD and/or OBSESSIVE PERSONALITY?
I’m watching, and loving, ‘The Sopranos’. One of my ‘issues’ in life is calorie counting and keeping tabs on my daily protein intake. I keep myself on a tight food rein and what they seem to do most in ‘The Sopranos’, more than killing people and going behind their wives’ backs, is eat - eat, eat, eat, ...
AM I SUFFERING FROM AN EATING DISORDER?
Perhaps a little obsessive on the calorie counting, protein counting front. Everything I do during the day, working, resting, playing, it’s all under an umbrella of calorie counting, it’s all part of my 24/7 food, eating, nutrition and running mindset. Everything outside of food, eating, nutrition, running is subservient, in terms of importance and priority, to ...
‘JOKER’ (2019): MOVIE REVIEW
Sometimes, you go to the cinema to see a movie (yeah, I know, when you go to the cinema, it is usually to see a movie), you go in the evening, you wake up the next morning and the movie weighs heavy on your mind, sometimes in your heart, sometimes in your soul. Sometimes, I’m ...
A ‘MUST READ’ BOOK! “JOG ON: How Running Saved My Life”, by BELLA MACKIE.
I’ve been reading a lot of books which resonate with me these days: Bella Mackie’s terrific, inspiring "JOG ON – How Running Saved My Life” is one of them. In fact, Bella’s book, her story, mirrors my story in many ways. I so ‘get’ Bella, I can see so much of myself in her struggles ...
CLINICAL DEPRESSION: IT’S AN ILLNESS, IGNORANCE STILL ABOUNDS AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT IGNORANCE CAN BE FATAL
A conversation I had yesterday with a pal of mine, a guy in his early 30's, from India, a guy with very little money who grew up in poverty, in India (poverty by Indian standards!), it shocked me (though I'm not sure why) but, more than that, it terrified me. My pal (protecting confidentiality, I'll call ...
MY EXPERIENCE OF THE DARKNESS THAT IS DEPRESSION
An excerpt from a message I sent someone yesterday, a message in which I tried to convey some of the dynamics of a depression ‘episode’: "...mental illness, depression et al, it is so destructive and, tragically, still so misunderstood. One of the big problems with depression is that although it manifests in many ways, although the ...
I AM WHAT I AM
During a recent conversation about the creative advantages of suffering from ADHD, I made, in relation to my own condition, clinical depression, the following comment: “I'm sure that my mental illness, clinical depression, gives me an insight, an x-ray vision, which is more pronounced, deeper, when I'm going through an 'episode' (except when it's really deep ...
DEPRESSION: OFTEN AN INVISIBLE AND FATAL MENTAL ILLNESS
Following the latest, heartbreaking, tragic case of terminal depression at Bristol University (Ben Murray passed away just a few weeks ago, in May), Sam Gyimah MP, speaking at the University of Buckingham’s Festival of Higher Education, reiterated his call for providers to see themselves as being in loco parentis for vulnerable young students who were living away ...
PEOPLE WHO DIE FROM WHAT TURNS OUT TO BE TERMINAL CLINICAL DEPRESSION, THAT IS WHAT THEY DIE FROM, THEY DO NOT DIE FROM/OF SUICIDE – THAT IS ‘JUST’ THE FINAL, FATAL SYMPTOM OF THE DEPRESSION – AND, FAMILY AND FRIENDS, DO NOT BLAME YOURSELVES!
A lady I know, her son suffered from terminal clinic depression - he passed away a few years ago. She still, to a degree, blames herself inasmuch as she can't stop wondering what she could have done to prevent him dying. I responded with this post (in the interests of confidentiality, I have changed her, and ...
SALLY BRAMPTON: ANOTHER TRAGIC SUICIDE WHICH, MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED
I read this on the BBC News website last night and it upset me to the extent that I could not compose myself enough to be able to ‘write’ a blog. The upset remains but some of it has given way to anger which has enabled me - motivated me - to blog: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37769093 I look at ...
DEPRESSION: AN INVISIBLE ILLNESS
Mental Health and Invisible Illness Resources: "I HAVE A CHRONIC ILLNESS DON'T BE SURPRISED IF... I DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE OR REPLY TO MESSAGES STRAIGHT AWAY; I CANCEL OUR PLANS, ESPECIALLY AT THE LAST MINUTE; IT SEEMS LIKE I'M NOT LISTENING OR NOT INTERESTED (BRAIN FOG); I LEAVE EARLY FROM A SOCIAL GATHERING OR PARTY; I SUDDENLY NEED TO LIE DOWN OR REST. I ...