Hey...
So in the last post I talked about how I started at jitsu with some friends. How I loved it despite a couple embarrassing situations....How it gave me a bit of confidence and new friends.
......
Fast forward a few months...
.....
I've graded to yellow, the first belt after novice, or white belt. I've attempted a grading for orange, but failed. I think I may actually have tried more than once at that point. I tended to fail not so much on technique, but because I "didn't look scary enough". I was informed by the grading senseis that I looked "too calm" while performing throws. They joked that they couldn't tell whether or not they should be scared by that, but said that I had to show intent and a bit of aggressive spirit (it was suggested I "think 'KILL, MAIM, DESTROY!'") or I couldn't progress. I had to look like I meant what I was doing. This frustrated me as I obviously didn't want to actually hurt anyone. Plus, if the techniques were fine, wasn't that enough?
A few of the high school guys had stopped going; one because he simply couldn't relax enough to get the techniques down and was starting to be annoyed with it. He just could not be anything but tense it seemed.
Most of the others went gradually for varying reasons.
Then I did too.
I was taking a gap year between High School/Sixth Form and going to uni.
I had started working on the bar at a night club in the town centre. A pretty seedy, smelly, 'alternative/rock' basement bar that was famous for it's cheap Wednesday drink offers (at that time, 99 pence for a double measure of a low-quality spirit and mixer) and leaky ceiling. They would try and tell you the leak was from outside, but no one believed this as it was directly underneath the toilets upstairs. Further down into the club, the ceiling would drip with sweat from the crowded, unventilated dance-floor. The music was the same every week, and people (generally students, although there were a few older, regular patrons) went there to get absolutely smashed, pull, and wake up with no memory of how their clothes got to smelling so bad and why their pockets were full of 1p pieces.
It was fairly stupid as jobs go. I got it by asking drunkenly one night in there, and giving them my number to call me about it. About an hour or so later one of the managers came up with another bit of paper and a crayon or something and asked for it again as he'd already lost it. I was quite far into gin country by then and I wrote it with all the skill of a blind child holding the crayon in their mouth. I think I even got it wrong in bits and had to cross out and re-write numbers or put little arrows to show where they should actually go.
Somehow they still managed to call me a couple days later and told me I could start that week. I worked there for around 6 months, before being fired (caught in burger king when I should have been flyering). Another 6 months later, I was re-hired as promotional staff...before being fired again later that year (continual lateness).
The club only opened about three nights a week, and I wouldn't always have all three shifts. I would be working from about 8pm until 3 or 4am on the nights I did work, and staying to drink afterwards for an hour or so as well. This resulted in me becoming somewhat nocturnal, a sleeping pattern I would find hard to shift for years to come.
The wage was around £4-something an hour, the absolute minimum they could legally pay me. I heard it said they tended to fire people who got old enough to qualify for higher wages.
You would get paid after midnight on a Saturday, so if you weren't working or finished earlier than that you had to wait in the club til then to get paid. You would probably have a drink or two whilst waiting and so by the time they handed you a brown envelope with your cash in (generally around £30-60 for most people there) you'd be in the mood to just spend it on more drinks. So I made very little to no money there.
I also started drinking a lot at this point.
When I wasn't working, I was going out to the club anyway. I'd gotten to know a lot of the regulars and other staff - although I was always a little unsure, due to my social awkwardness and background levels of paranoia, that they actually liked me - and I enjoyed the night life, as seedy and cheesy as it all was.
When I was working, I was enduring the horrors of watching people getting that drunk and misbehaving by getting myself drunk, sneakily.
When the club wasn't open at all, the other staff and I would generally get together somewhere else and drink or smoke weed. Or both. Both was good.
I started to lose focus on jitsu, and generally everything else. I think the 'official reason' I had for stopping going was that I'd had a new lip piercing and wanted it to heal properly before I could take it out for training. But a few missed sessions turned into many, with priority increasingly being given to nights out drinking, and before I knew it I was no longer bothered about going back at all save for a nagging feeling now and then that I missed it.
I also had started a weird chain of getting boyfriends, losing them, and gaining new ones in quick succession. About half the time, they 'overlapped' slightly. I was getting a lot of male attention suddenly, and wanted to enjoy it without hurting people, but my sketchy self-esteem and need for people to like me led me to some pretty poor choices...
I managed to stay in one relationship for around 9 months, which was at that time about the longest I'd ever been with anyone.
It was nice really, although I spent about 6 of those 9 months virtually living at his house, smoking weed most of the day, nearly every single day, and watching a lot of daytime TV. I particularly enjoyed Countdown, Crystal Maze and Takeshi's Castle.
It was a good time, and the guy was incredibly sweet, if a bit prone to inertia; doing little but smoking and gaming. It much later came to my attention this was probably due to his own depressive tendencies.
I don't know exactly how, but the sexual energy kind of fizzled out of the relationship. Maybe it was all the weed we smoked and the fact we generally went to bed pretty late at night / early in the morning after sitting up all night watching stuff on TV. I remember feeling quite awkward some nights as I'd be really stoned, tired and not quite know if I ought, or wanted to instigate something, or not, so I'd just be laying there...kinda waiting and over-thinking it...with him possibly doing the same. I could have just made a move, but I didn't. I just froze there, frustrated. The more times that happened the harder it became to overcome it.
I didn't really know how to communicate about these things then, so for the most part I just didn't. Occasionally I would blurt something out during the next day and then feel weird about it.
The relationship ended when I cheated on him.
I was still going and hanging out with the guys from the club occasionally and we'd still get pretty drunk and messy together. There was a guy there who was very into me, and had made it abundantly clear before, and often. He was a bit sleazy, cheesy and sarcastic, really. I found it humorous enough, though I usually rejected his advances.
He persisted though, and began actually breaking through my defence at a party where we were all particularly pissed up, and I had been pierced by the club's DJ, through the septum (centre of the nose). Both he [the DJ] and I were drunk and so the piercing came out a little wonky (Note: He *did* use clean, new piercing needles). Said DJ also molested most of the contents of the hosts fridge, by putting it down his pants and then back in the fridge, breaking or eating the eggs raw etc...
Anyway...
I had decided in all my wisdom to inform my boyfriend of my new facial bling by ringing him right then, somewhat still bleeding, and definitely still drunk. His reaction was pretty bad. More because of where the piercing was than that I had got it drunk and at a party. He apparently hated the way those particular piercings looked. I tried pointing out that I could get a 'retainer' for it so it wouldn't be outwardly visible, but apparently there were all kinds of other negatives I wouldn't be able to counter, like it making noises when I slept (?) and it ''just being there'' being enough to make me less attractive.
It made me pretty sad. I didn't get why I couldn't do what I wanted with my own face, or why it would have so harsh an impact on how someone, particularly one who was supposed to love me, saw me.
When this guy at the party came onto me again, later on, I was in a weird, vulnerable mood. I needed validation for what I'd done. I needed to know I was still attractive and hadn't 'ruined my face'. He told me he thought it was awesome and if anything, made me look better. He probably would have said anything I suppose.
I told him I didn't want to cheat on my boyfriend, but that he seemed nice and maybe I'd have liked to do something if I was single...I felt weird and guilty for even just this, immediately after, but it planted thoughts in my mind that started to grow...
I can't remember when it eventually started up or how (so I imagine it was one of many drunk nights in the club)...but we ended up seeing each other. It was exciting I guess..something new and energetic after months of fairly motionless relations. But it was tinged with this deep sadness and a kind of panicky fear; knowing I was doing something wrong and potentially hurting someone. I couldn't stop though. Right up until everything had come out and exploded, when I decided I couldn't cope with the mess and the guilt and hadn't really wanted it in the first place.
The whole thing left me feeling horrible, unsurprisingly; I'd hurt people I cared for and I'd gotten myself a rep as some kind of easy, flaky wench. Which, to be fair, at that time, I apparently was. I didn't really know how to go about getting through the situation, or setting anything right. Even though my now ex-boyfriend proclaimed he would be willing to try if I was truly repentant and wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to.
I'd also not be able to go around to the house I'd been camped in for the last 6 months for some time. I had lost my smoking buddies, and my drinking buddies weren't that impressed either since I'd decided not to make anything substantial of the affair with their friend either.
I was more or less alone again suddenly, and it was all my fault. My head, and my life, were a mess.
....
Time passes...
...Wounds heal...though they scar slightly...
...
...things calmed a little, people got over the hurt enough to try and be friends again.
I moved in with a girl I had met at the stoners house, who was colourful, a little crazy and a massive stoner to boot but was very kind and fun to know and live with.
This girl suffered depressive issues too, brought on by tumultuous relationships of her own, and the stress of doing a dissertation. She seemed pretty highly strung at times. I ended up staying at the house rather than head to uni on the train (I was going to one outside of Cardiff) to either smoke with her or generally keep her company so she didn't freak out. Also, by this point, I was as much a stoner as anyone else and was pretty lazy with it. I didn't end up passing my first year (except for one module on Shakespeare which I got 74% in). I didn't pass my second attempt at first year either, and it was politely suggested I not return again for a third try. I took the suggestion.
Years passed in a haze of weed smoke, booze...and other chemicals. Going out to raves gradually became a thing I did not just occasionally but as often as I could, sometimes without actually being in the mood to even go, or in places I didn't feel safe or welcome.
There were more crappy bar jobs (working for Wetherspoons was quite literally soul-destroying) and up and down relationships with people. I screwed up most of them in similar patterns to the earlier ones. One of these break-ups hit me particularly hard and affected me for years after, in fact even recently it has still had damaging affects for both of us. That is another long story, for another time, though.
I lived in several different houses, moving each year into seemingly damper and shittier conditions. Nearly always with at least a couple crazy/depressed/manic people. And nearly always with mental neighbours. I'll have to write a post sometime about all the weird folk I've lived with... Some of them were helpful, some of them made my conditions worse.
From time to time I would talk about jitsu, how I used to do it and that I would have liked to start again. Now and then I would even bump into one of my friends who used to go, who it turned out still did - the only surviving member of our high school gang of ninjas.
One time I actually got it together to pack some stuff into a bag (either joggers or my actual gi, which I had kept the whole time) and go to the bus stop, ready as if to go to jitsu and check it out again. But something held me back and in the end I turned around and walked home again... It was like I needed to be taken by the hand and led there. I was sort of scared I wouldn't know anyone any more (even though, as I said, I kept occasionally finding out one of my friends still went). I wouldn't know the teachers, who were all different to the ones I had before. I would be really rusty at it, which I felt would embarrass me (if they asked me to do something someone of my belt should be able to, and I couldn't remember how). Also I was aware of how out of shape I had become; although my frame remained small and slim, I had virtually no stamina and smokers lungs. I hated running, stairs, and any kind of sport.
I also managed to physically injure myself quite badly some-when during this time. I was trying to do a jump and jitsu-roll over a bunch of people on the grass outside city hall. Obviously, I was very, very drunk.
I had insisted they all crouch down so I could do it. I think I may have managed one roll, or fluffed it a little perhaps, but I'm pretty sure it was the second attempt on which I sailed over and instead of rolling along my arm as you're supposed to, going straight down onto my collarbone.
There was an audible crack and a pure metric fuck-tonne of pain. I suddenly couldn't move my arm much at all. It hung useless, flopping around like someone had just stapled it onto me. I remember my equally drunk stoner friends bundling me into a taxi or something and taking me back to theirs, where I smoked a huge spliff, puked, and then slept badly on their sofa.
Despite the advice of pretty much All My Friends, and the fact that I still could not raise my arm properly, I refused to go to the hospital. I didn't even go to my doctors for around a month. I was determined it would 'get better on its own' and had some weird idea about not having to be in a cast before we went on our planned trip to Amsterdam (there are photos of me from that trip where you can still see some of the Huge multi-tonal bruise that came up slowly over my entire shoulder, some of my back and all the way down to my elbow).
I can't remember but I assume I did not have a job at this point, as I would have been bloody useless at it. I was getting dressed in the mornings by using my right hand to pick up my left arm and put it on a higher surface so I could pull clothes over it, since I couldn't lift it on its own.
Eventually, as it became increasingly evident I really had done something bad to myself, I went and saw my GP. I told them I didn't need an emergency appointment, thanks, because after all, what was another week now?
The doctor was fairly shocked to say the least when he worked out what I'd done and that I'd just ignored it for a month. He sent me for x-rays and they confirmed that yes, I'd broken my collarbone and yes, because I had left it so long, it was healing on its own. In slightly the wrong place. Not wrong enough to re-break and set though...
So...that's something I would just have to deal with.
I asked how long they thought I would be out of action for, in terms of work or contact sport. I still entertained the thought, occasionally, that I would go back to jitsu, soon.
They told me it would be a good few months before I could consider that, and that I should come back and get more x-rays later to check it was doing OK.
I didn't go to the second set of x-rays. I think I'd basically decided they'd already told me all I needed to know....
...
All in all...there was about a five year gap between me going to jitsu the first time, and coming back...
In that time my depression ebbed and flowed around circumstantial issues; some I've mentioned, some I may write about later. Occasionally it was bad enough that I felt suicidal. Sometimes it went away for long enough I thought I was getting better. There were times when I felt I'd actually gone crazy, times that I was terrified by the sheer depth a human being can sink into the darkness inside themselves and lose the outside world. Sometimes it was the outside world that terrified me.
My social handicaps were equally strong. I was intensely paranoid that people didn't actually like me, or that at any moment I might be rendered friendless by some stupid action or word out of place on my part.
I worried about money, and my jobs and how I was going to get out of them and into something better when I had no real qualifications after some fairly poor A level results, and no experience in anything but bar work. It upset me that I'd given up on uni, after failing.
Any decision I actually made, I would start going back on almost straight away.
My friends, some of whom were also experiencing issues of their own, worried me. I wanted to help but wasn't much use in terms of advice, since I wasn't much of a good role model. In some cases, helping out got me burned when people took advantage, or were beyond my help and I seemed to make things worse.
I worried about my lack of any 'real' skills, but couldn't stick at any activity I tried. I would either lose interest or feel too inadequate at it to continue. Sometimes I would literally just forget I was supposed to be doing things, because I was so very stoned much of the time. I worried about this too, about my drug use and drinking, but couldn't seem to stop it even after a few scary nights where I ran off or tried to put myself into danger (drink-fuelled cries for help via half-hearted suicidal activity) or flipped out at friends.
I worried about huge things too. Things like the fact that humans live inside cities instead of in fields. The government being shit. People being poor. The ice caps melting. The apparent impending apocalypse...I started following conspiracy theories and being intensely paranoid about those things too. I still am convinced, in some cases, but have learnt to keep that as a background-level concern, not an overwhelming, panic-attack inducing phobia that affects me any time I have a couple of pints and my brain eases off the brakes a little...
People tried to snap me out of it, when it came on badly, but nothing seemed to work for very long...
