On hauntings and/or grieving.

I don't know if this ought to be a blog, or a post... but I made it a post.

I am not talking about real ghosts (or imagined ghosts if you don't believe in them) but when one feels this sense of oppression just clamping all around you, but also for me in the last few months it has been a bit more literal.

I have always been interested in ghosts/UFOs/cryptozoology/etc

I don't really believe in anything that cannot be proved, but I also dont disbelief... I entertain the possibility of strangeness existing everywhere and kind of want to believe in it without actually being able to. I always watched these ghost hunting / ghost story shows, and can quite easily pick holes in what is happening but still watch because the idea of mystery and the unknown fascinates me I guess.

Since my mum died I think I have been getting more down, and I think in a way it is kind of expressing itself that I am getting more and more into these shows/stories. Sometimes I spend all weekend re-watching the series of "A haunting..." of "My Ghost Story" or podcasts of people telling ghost stories... I mean literally 14 hours of it per day.

I don't on any rational level expect my mother to contact me from "the other side" and I am not even sure I would want her to if such a thing was possible and if she still exists in any spiritual sense after she died. I just put it to the back of her mind, but I watch these shows about hauntings more and more and more. I have been going out less. I am still drinking a lot less (have probably been drunk 5 or 6 times the last year... which maybe is more than sensible, but I used to be drunk 2 or 3 times a week in my late 20's)

Where I used to live, I used to feel like the physical house was pressing in on me. It was a horrible mess, probably below the standard most people would consider even habital, and I knew it was but I never had the energy to sort it out and it just felt like it opressed me. And I know I'm starting to kind of feel the same with becoming obsessed with ghost stories.

Obviously you dont need to be a pyschologist to say "maybe you shouldnt watch them so much then, maybe you should go out and do something"... or maybe there is nothing wrong with being interested in mysteries. I turned off the show about demonic haunting I was just watching while i typed this.

I dont know if I am just being overdramatic and silly. I think it is human nature to externalise things in yourself you dont like. I dont believe that any external force is exercising a negative influence on me, driving me apart from other people. But sometimes it "feels" a bit like that, if that makes sense. When I live in Ipswich I felt somehow that that force was in the bricks of the house and the grey water of the river that ran behind it. Now I just feel like its all around me, a kind of cloying resistance in the actual physical air, numbing everything, draining everything. I know that it is just grief and losing my mother that is getting me down, but it feels physical.

I dont know if any of this makes sense. I guess watching 14 hours of ghost story shows in a go is good for anyone's mental health. A few people at work make an effort to ask me out to do things quite regularly and I always go along because I realise they are trying to help and to refuse would be selfish and self indlugent and rude. But I also dont know if its really enough. I feel fine when I am with people cos I am distracted.

When I'm alone I feel... I know I have said this several times but it is the best word I can think... oppressed.

I never cried or really faced up to how I felt since my mum died, and again I don't know if that makes me "stoic" or "cold" or just a normal man. I still have her phone number programmed into my mobile and this strikes me as ridiculous but I cant bring myself to delete it. I think on some emotional level I havent really accepted that she died, and maybe it is the knowledge that she did that I can somehow reconcile into my emotional world that is causing me to feel like this.

Or maybe if you are the type of man who cant even cry at your own mothers funeral, instead the sadness is spread out in a shallow, flat, covering of your whole life for months afterwards.

 

I had counselling for anxiety attacks when I was 19. A few times I have been convinced after a bad panic attack that I need to seek help as I am genuinely mentally ill. But after it goes away I feel normal again and I decide I can just cope with it and tolerate the odd episode of terror which I suffer.

After the last one (where I kind of heard things that werent there) I really cut down on drinking and it seemed to help.

Besides the panic attacks, I have always had times when I was down and times when I was up, but this feels more than just being down really.

 

to me as i lose people throughout my life, it gets heavier every time i lose someone. i walk around missing them and feeling that hole in my life. when i was a teen i was really into the whole vampire mythology and "living forever" but now i can tell that that would be complete nightmare for me. as i age it gets more and more difficult to make new friends and i can tell once i lose enough of my inner circle i'm just not going to want to be here anymore. in the meantime i try to enjoy days as much as i can but if you lose those closest to you a lot of the color gets sucked out of your days.

that said, i'm finding comfort from building myself up. i've been exercising and eating healthier and when i feel better from those things it helps when i miss my friends, which is every day. creating things and completing projects and building yourself up can be very therapeutic things if you don't want therapy.