Quality time

They've just got rid of the right-hand give-way rule on our roads. Or was it the left-hand rule? I don't think I'll miss it.

Dad left this morning. I'm lucky I'm able to talk to him so easily (unlike Dad with his father). He's interested in just about every subject under the sun, so at times we had some pretty in-depth conversations. Immigration. Interstellar travel. Italy. Insurance scams. Islam. And that's only the I's.

He loved giving me advice on what to do with the inside of my flat. Like a lot of things of late, I've been struggling to care. When I came home from work one evening he was studying a colour chart full of greens and yellows, each shade given some ridiculous Kiwified name. I'd had a lot of sinus pain that day. My head was full of Aotea Quay Yellow gunge. Fortunately the pain has since died down even if the gunge is still there.

Saturday wasn't a great day. I'd agreed to see the extremely popular Wellington Ukulele Orchestra with Rose that evening, but first Dad and I browsed some furniture and bed shops in Thorndon. Something about all that very nice but hopelessly unaffordable furniture brought out some quite negative feelings in me. Eventually we found a bed shop whose prices weren't ridiculous and I'll be having a bed delivered tomorrow lunchtime.

I felt very anxious that entire evening. The last time I met Rose I was surprised by just how much we had in common; on Saturday I was sure all those similarities were a mirage. She's a culture vulture who goes out fairly often; I live in a cultural black hole. We had a curry before the show, then on to the San Francisco Bath House. I had no idea what the venue would be like but it turned out to be a bar; there were simply far too many people for my liking. Rose and I turned up just after eight; a supporting guitarist came on at around 8:45; by the time the ukulele people came on stage it was almost 9:30. They were extremely good but all that standing and shoving and being shoved and sweating profusely meant I'd lost interest long before they finished, which was close to midnight. Rose wanted to get to the front so she could see. I didn't envy her one bit standing in high heels for four hours, but she happily danced to the strains of the ukuleles. The band was a motley bunch; just about every hairstyle was represented. The ukuleles themselves were almost incidental - it was really all about the humour, the banter, or as they'd say in Ireland the craic. Mum and Dad had seen them in Geraldine, which was one of the stops on their nationwide tour (that must have been quite a coup for a town of that size). The group tailor their performances to their audience; according to Dad their humour in Geraldine was less, er, anatomical than in Wellington.

In short, Saturday evening wasn't an enjoyable one for me, but these days I can't enjoy any more than I can fly. For that reason (mostly) I really want to come off my Efexor. I've heard horror stories about this so I plan to come off it slowly, 37.5 mg every ten days, then even more slowly when I get to 75 mg. To do this I'll need to get hold of the low-denomination pills. I'm fed up of bouncing around between various mental health services like I'm in some giant pinball machine, and never getting anywhere. It's about time I regained some control.

I saw the psychiatrist last Tuesday. She wasn't bad but I don't think she was the right person for me. She's an ADHD specialist and could tell very quickly that I didn't have ADHD. In fact I wish I could have an injection of the H bit.

Anxiety is still an issue in my latest role but it's no longer crippling. I certainly still have days when my output is reduced, but not to zero like in my old job. I have no idea what the future holds for me - any long-term solutions probably lie outside the corporate world.

I'm sick of this

This will be a quick post I hope. My weekend was a complete write-off. At about 3pm on Friday my nose started dripping like a tap. I got through those last two hours of work but I've had sinus headaches pretty much all the time since then. This is a recurrence of what I had last month (and never fully recovered from). I took today off work and didn't go to tonight's autism group. I'll try and get a good night's sleep and maybe go in tomorrow, although I'll have to leave work early (and presumably make up time later in the week) because I'm seeing the shrink at 3pm. My sinus problems and the other problem have certainly made life difficult for me since I moved into this place. I've hardly thought about buying or moving furniture, which would be like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Sadly I had to pull out of Saturday's tramp - would have been a lovely day for it too. The furthest I've been since Friday is the market on the corner of Willis and Vivian Streets; even that felt like an expedition.

This morning at around ten I realised I hadn't taken my pills for the day, then as I was about to pop open the packet I noticed I'd missed yesterday's pills entirely. It's been years since I knowingly missed a dose, but everything is out of whack at the moment.

The good news is that mentally I'm feeling better since my change of role. My anxiety levels at work - once I'd got Monday out of the way - were several notches lower than in my other job. Long may that continue. I had an enjoyable evening with Rose on Thursday - she and I have more in common than I realised.

My parents were very supportive of me when I told them of my trials and tribulations at work. They were away at the weekend - a very pleasant one at Moeraki and Hampden in their caravan - but Mum was worried when I didn't answer her texts.

Dad is coming up here on Wednesday for six days. That's given me some motivation to rearrange those deckchairs. I'll see how the shrink goes. I'm a little wary of psychiatrists but at least this one won't cost me hundreds.

Exercising my demons

I did Round the Bays on Sunday. Well I didn't run it all (that just be silly); I jogged the bit at the start, ran the last 500 metres or so, and walked the rest. Supposedly it was 7 km but I think the bloke who measured it must have done so using the dodgy clock in his car: I'm pretty sure it was less. Being part of a work team wasn't pleasant; as soon as I'd crossed the finish line (in about 57 minutes) I wanted to go home. The queue for the buses seemed to go on for ever - it was obvious that walking home would be the quicker option. I walked home with one of my colleagues and felt better after the exercise. All that tennis I used to play in Auckland would sometimes drive me nuts but I certainly benefited from the release of all those endorphins.

I've just been to the gym in my apartment complex. A lot of the equipment is looking a bit tired but that doesn't matter. Some weights that I could actually lift would have been nice though. They even have a squash court - I've got two rackets but I haven't played in ages. I was never any good.

On the same subject, Dad has just bought himself a rowing machine for $250 from the Warehouse.

I was glad to get February out of the way - all 29 days of it - but March so far hasn't been any more fun. I took yesterday afternoon off work (as annual leave, not sick leave) to meet up with one of my cousin's contacts about the business proposition. He was reasonably enthusiastic and would put me in touch with one or two people, but annoyingly he wasn't interested in any of the PowerPoint slides I'd spent many hours preparing! Today I checked my email just in case he'd sent me one, and there were seven of the buggers sitting there including one from a Christchurch businessman who wanted to arrange a meeting. He said Skype was OK but despite setting up two accounts I've yet to Skype anybody. Presumably all these people expected me to reply immediately on my non-existent Blackberry. Dad said that if they ever try and give me a Blackberry at work, I should give them a raspberry. Not much chance of that now of course.

After the meeting I saw the doctor. Like me, she's a pom who's lived in NZ for eight years. Now that I've maxed out my Efexor and it's not helping, she's putting a lot of emphasis on getting a psychiatric assessment.

Work was a little better last week. I've had a lot of (contradictory) advice on how best to handle my situation.

I really wish I could shift this cold. It's been two weeks and counting. But compared to some of the neverending colds I had as a kid, this is nothing.

The weather has been ghastly today (howling winds and torrential rain). The forecast isn't always trustworthy but this time it was deadly accurate.

I had fish and chips last night with my cousin and her family. She then introduced me to a very good Scrabble-based game called Take Two. I'll be seeing her again tonight for some advice on what to do with all these damn emails. It could be very positive but only if I don't make a complete mess of everything.

The mind gets dirty as you get closer to thirty

The above line is from Blur's End of a Century; who knows whether it's true, but I'll hit the big three-oh in just a year and a day. A bit scary really. Yesterday I got a cheque in the post from my mum for my birthday - after this weekend's finale to the tennis season, I could probably do with spending the money on some lessons. I played four matches all up and didn't win any of them. In two of those matches there was only ever going to be one outcome and I thought I played fine, but the other two were a real disappointment for me. We did enough to win our doubles competition (woohoo!) - I have the honour of being the winning captain, though going by my recent performances I feel we were victorious in spite of my presence on the team.

On Wednesday I went with Julie (who's already been to thirty and back) to see The Reader at the Bridgeway, the first time I'd been to the cinema since Christmas when I saw the latest Bond film (which I thought was total dross by the way) with Mum and Dad in Geraldine. The Reader wouldn't have been my first choice but I'm very glad I went. It was a great film I thought, and there was a slight irony in Julie and I watching a film involving a bloke having an affair with a much older woman, which wasn't lost on us. The various eats and drinks made it a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I don't know why, but I often find people easier to get on with the further their age is (up or down) from my own.

The following day I saw the psychiatrist, a shorter meeting this time, so it wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg but just a leg. I told him there had been a marked improvement (I think I've been extremely lucky) so I won't have to consume any substances beyond what I'm already taking.

Work is still, well, total dross. I spent a good deal of one of my work days (probably Friday) calculating probabilities for this newfangled poker game called badugi. In fact it's not really poker at all, but instead what could be described as four-card "anti-poker". The object of badugi is to make a badugi, which is a four-card hand with no pairs or cards of the same suit. You get three attempts to draw cards in order to achieve this. The probability that you'll be dealt a badugi from the start, known as a "pat badugi", is 6.3%, about the same as the probability that you'll one day meet somebody called Pat Badugi.

On edge

Mum left yesterday. I was really sad to see her go. She's been so good to me. I just hope that she isn't so alarmed by my situation that she spends sleepless nights from now on worrying about me. I also hope she didn't get too bored up here. She did catch the ferry into town on one of my work days, but unless you're into Gucci watches and Louis Vuitton handbags, there isn't much there. At least she can have no complaints about the weather - we've had glorious autumn sunshine up here the last ten days.

I got a written diagnosis back from the psychiatrist on Thursday. There wasn't much in the report I didn't already know (social isolation - check; avoidant personality traits - check), but as I always try to hide my past, seeing it there in black and white was a bit scary. My father was described as being "a very ordered man" - I found that pretty funny as he's about as disorganised as me.

On Friday I had a tension throughout my body that felt almost paralysing. Even finishing work for the week (albeit a short one for me) made no difference - I was just totally unable to relax. Mum and I had our celebratory dinner at Buona Sera in Devonport. The place was humming. My plate of pasta was colourful, spicy and yummy. We shared a bottle of white wine and a large plate of garlic bread, and each had what I guess you'd call a chocolate brownie cake for dessert. But even though I thoroughly enjoyed my meal (the fact that it was free helped), I was still on edge and not in the mood for celebrating anything. A shame because it was the first time I'd eaten out in ages.

More tennis yesterday. If you're a regular follower of this blog (there must be thousands of you out there, you're just too shy to tell me), you'll be glad to know that the tennis season is almost over and you'll be spared my inane ramblings about hitting a fuzzy yellow ball over a net (or not as the case may be) for the next few months. I played with Bazza in the first match; I felt terrible and didn't want to be out there at all. The yellow ball seemed even fuzzier than normal. I'd calmed down a bit by the second set, but my head was still in my hands between points, I never won a service game, and we slumped to a 6-3 6-4 loss. I must have been visibly distressed as I walked off the court. I was asked "what's wrong?" and told not to emulate one poor bloke who recently jumped off a motorway overbridge. After all that, for some odd reason I was confident we'd win the mixed, which we eventually did thanks to the occasional slice of luck along the way. Facing break point on my serve at 5-all in the first set, I attempted a high smash which doinked off the frame and somehow just cleared the net, landing inches inside the sideline. We hung on to that game and broke for the set at the sixth time of asking. The second set was even closer; it went all the way to the tie-break where at 5-all their bloke, who had been ultra-consistent on serve all day, chucked in a double fault and my partner put away a smash on the next point (slightly more authoritatively than my earlier effort) to take out the match.

Our team won 5-3 which might mean we've won the competition with a match to spare, but that was only part of the story. During our mixed match I saw Bazza lying on the court, his face as white as a sheet. He got up and carried on for two more games before retiring, but still looked terrible. The colour gradually returned to his cheeks and I took him home where he lives with his brother; he pleaded with me not to tell his brother anything had happened. It was the first time I'd stepped inside their house which they've just sold following their mother's death last year. He showed me his bedroom which was even more untidy than mine and stank of, well, Bazza. I noticed on their fridge was a printed emergency checklist of what to do in the event of a heart attack, with the key points emphasised by Bazza's trademark red underlining. He definitely needs a serious lifestyle change or else he'll keel over one of these days - he's got to lose at least two stone, or quite a few kay gees, for a start - but I don't think he's capable of making those changes by himself. I feel I need to do something, but what I'm not sure.

Keep taking the tablets

On Sunday Mum and I went to the beach, then I spent much of the next two days pretending to study. The singles interclub competition came to an end on Monday night. In the doubles I played with Superman again, which meant I never really relaxed from the first point to the last. Thankfully, unlike last time, we didn't both self-destruct in our own separate ways, and we won 6-3 6-3 in less than an hour. Then came the singles. I've been involved in all manner of bizarre singles matches this season so it was fitting to end on one. To cut a long story short, I was in all kinds of poo but managed to dig myself out of it, probably due to the youth and exuberance of my opponent. In the first set I was 5-2 down but reeled off five straight games; in the second I was even deeper in the mire at 5-1, but this time I won six games in a row, facing a couple of set points in the process. I struggle sometimes in winning positions because I go into my shell; he did the opposite. In some ways I felt he lost the match rather than me winning it, but after previous experiences this season, in which the boot was firmly on the other foot, I'll take it.

Yesterday I saw the psychiatrist. I was a bit apprehensive, especially as I started off by sitting in the wrong chair. I was dreading the Rorschach Inkblot Test but luckily I was spared that. The upshot of my hour in the chair (once I'd found the right one) was that I need to increase my dose of Efexor and maybe start on lithium. Apparently it turns out I've got some form of bipolar disorder à la Spike Milligan and Stephen Fry. That diagnosis came as some surprise because as far as I'm aware, I don't swing from the south pole to the north, but rather from the south pole to somewhere near the equator. Seeing a shrink is an expensive business, so I tried to get as much bang as I could for my buck by talking incessantly. I felt down for the rest of the day, perhaps because I had to go to work today. I started to lose the plot as Mum helped me sort out my bank statements. I went into fits of hysterics, and for some reason found the ASB statements utterly hilarious.

Today at work could have been a lot worse. I was nervous; it was almost like my first day again. I tried to turn over a new leaf by cleaning my desk which had become a bomb site. I also proudly displayed my "you've-now-passed-a-few-exams-so-you-must-know-something" certificate, which I'd been embarrassed about because I don't know anything. The highlight of my day was a letter I received congratulating me on reaching my fifth anniversary with the company. For my loyalty I get $100 to spend at a restaurant of my choice; Mum and I will have a slap-up meal on Friday night, just before she hops on the plane to go home. I was still agonisingly slow today; I was probably functioning at about 40% of capacity. But I'm hopeful I can turn things around. I just have to keep taking the tablets.

Losing my mind

Things have escalated in the last couple of days. On Sunday night I went to bed late, which meant I got up late, which meant I got to work late. At 9am I had my daily meeting with my boss and pretended that things were basically OK. Shortly after that, we had a team meeting - these are often a source of embarrassment for me because my boss asks each of us in turn what we've been doing in the past week and what we've got coming up, which for me is usually not a lot. But yesterday I had a smorgasbord of items on my plate so I rattled them off when asked, knowing full well most of them would remain untouched. After the meeting, time seemed to fly by: eleven, half-eleven, twelve, half-twelve, and I still hadn't done anything. I was constantly yawning. I ate a Subway at my desk, partly because I felt I was too far behind to take a proper lunch break, but mainly because I couldn't face sitting with the usual crowd and having to make conversation with people who are so jovial and optimistic and young and alive. Not that I have made conversation with any of those people at lunchtime for a while - I just sit there with the paper, if I can get hold of one (they're like gold dust) and do the crossword if the woman from Distribution hasn't already filled most of it in. There are a couple of ifs there so that means I often just stare blankly into space. Even though my concentration is impaired, I can still do things like crosswords because I've done them hundreds of times before. I've even compiled them on occasions. Anything new, on the other hand, and I'm screwed.

In the afternoon I tried frantically to find the one vital spreadsheet, out of those ten or so spreadsheets I had open simultaneously on Friday, that I needed to complete my most urgent task. I promised I'd have it done by the end of the day, which wasn't far away. A figure of eleven grand was bandied about that morning, but I couldn't find any figures on any of those spreadsheets that were even close to eleven grand. I called Brian over. "I've got a lot of spreadsheets open here, Brian, and none of them seem to be the right one." "Did you save it?" "Er, ah, I think so. Oh hang on, my computer crashed on Friday and I ended up crawling under my desk and turning it off at the wall. So maybe I didn't." "No worries," said Brian. "All you've got to do is change this and add in that and check the claims." "Thanks." Change what and add in what and check what?! I gathered this was probably a simple task but I had no idea what Brian was talking about. I went to the toilet and found myself writhing around in the corner of the cubicle, moving my head backwards and forwards, and after a while, laughing uncontrollably. Shit, I'm going mad. I must have been in the loo for twenty minutes. When I'd composed myself I went back to my desk and waited for the clock to tick round to five. Outside the office, nothing seemed real. The sunlight was almost intoxicating, rather like how it seemed when I arrived in New Zealand in 2003, having been accustomed to the weaker English sun. The walk to my car felt like a hike of several miles. I still hadn't sent off my assignment which was due at 5pm Sydney time. After a lot of faffing around (why do they make the process so damned complicated?) I got it sent off just before the deadline, not that it really mattered anyway. I can't see how I'll pass the exam. I haven't done any study for weeks now. I went to tennis - the boot camp session where you run around and hit balls and don't have to worry about scoring - for the exercise. I felt better after that, but then my mum rang. She's coming up from the South Island tomorrow; she managed to get one of those "grab-a-seat" fares. I was unable to talk coherently and had to hang up at one stage due to my inability to stop laughing. She's understandably very worried about me and I wish she could be up here for longer than just three full days.

I saw my doctor this morning. I was lucky to get an appointment at such short notice. I told her all my symptoms before again being overcome by uncontrollable laughter. I was told to take the next five days off work and to make an appointment to see a psychiatrist, which I did, in spite of the cost.