Today I had a severe anxiety attack having not had a bad one for a few years. i am wrecked. I have been trying to reboot my life a bit and its likely to fail spectacularly. It seems that in the last few years everything I have done has been a series of false starts and stuff that has just broken or been to ill conceived and on far too shakier a foundation to flourish. I need other people to function, but people that are open and not shady devious individuals or malicious manipulators. But now as I write this I feel out to lunch and scared and weird. I just can’t shift that feeling right now. The last time I had a really bad episode I was home alone and it was during the lockdown. So I went out for a walk on a hot day and eventually felt Ok. Today not so much.

To the extent that I have seriously considered retiring from live music apart from the odd special event. I just feel too insecure about stuff at the moment and I worry that I won’t be able to get back on the bus again. I think I have made the mistake of trying to fit in a little too much this year and that’s made me a bit fed up as its got me nowhere, then it’s made me angry and frustrated as well. I have tried to be cool when people have behaved like arseholes when I should have said enough already. And I have allowed others to undervalue me or disrespect me and said OK fine, but it’s and I would not I hope do that to others.

I should have taken a harder perhaps more risky road in some of my endeavors, but I got too comfortable and as hey I had an income and its cool, so I kind of gave up on what I really cared about.Failing is not the worst thing and I have shrunk my comfort zone down to zero. And I may just have left things too late. I have kind of put myself in a box… To fit in but then you realise others just don’t care about things the way you do or consider then important. I have been backing the wrong horse basically and I feel betrayed somewhat but perhaps by myself in this case. I think in a way its almost like being in a cult. I am obsessed with music and people that are not in my tribe and cult followers might well consider it madness… Music was my church then perhaps? Perhaps it is a form of madness. Who knows. This is one day and maybe tomorrow will be different of course. I don’t like to mention the mental problems I do have but equally I have to accommodate them in daily life of course and today I just couldn’t find a way to mitigate them to be honest. All my usual tricks and rouses and diversions simply didn’t work.

So far this week has been a bit crap. I am wobbling a bit at the moment as the bipolar thing can make indulge in risky behaviours (and in my case that would not be buying an expensive musical instrument) and I seem to be in that zone at present. I just stopped myself from doing something a bit daft that could have been a short term gain but potentially long term misery. A close call.

Got lots of aches and pains today (weather perhaps), but I am feeling a lot calmer. I think part of my anxiety might also have been triggered by straining a chest muscle/Sternum which I have done before. You hurt something and get in to a cycle of shallow breathing and off you go. I have a mystery bruise just above my left boob and I have even cracked ribs in the past without knowing it at the time. But I have got to be more honest about stuff that goes on in my head even at the risk of potentially losing a friend or too along the way. Ducking and diving doesn’t work all the time.

I am finding it difficult to accept my limitations and its a a bit of time for a reckoning and trying to come to terms with it all, You may have heard me say that before perchance.