Had a post all planned, following on from the great discussions of the last few days, but that'll have to wait. As much as I love pondering and discussing the wider vagaries of life I have to admit that at least part of that is escapism, somewhere nice and emotionally neutral to hide from my fucking life.

Came this close, ][ to quitting my job today. Over the past couple of weeks I've been bollocked by my line manager, in public, several times for either not completing an impossible task, (eg. ringing a guy who doesn‘t have a phone,); for doing exactly what I was told, (turns out they told me to do the wrong thing,) or for doing my bosses’ jobs for them.

This last one refers to paperwork I’m supposed to receive from the surveying team. Basically they’re way senior to me but under my bosses. My bosses have told me that if they tell the surveyors to do something they won’t do it, so it’s up to me to make them and I‘ll be getting the disciplinary if I don‘t.

Now this afternoon I could hear my boss taking a phonecall and gathered that the person on the other end was mentioning my name. Before the phone hit the cradle my line manager was balling me out across the open plan office, again, for something I’d had nothing to do with, again.

As regular readers may guess I’m not one to roll over in these situations. Up until now I’d managed to swallow it down, got rent to pay and all that, but today I’d had enough. Instead of making non committal grunts and waiting for it to be over I bounced up out of my chair and squared up.

Interrupting her once I told I hadn’t done what I was accused of. Unimpressed she tried to continue with her ignorant rant but I cut her off again, this time demanding that she speak to me in private. Out in the corridor she kicked off again and I let her run.

Once she’d wound herself down and grown tired of patronising me, she made to go back into the office but no way was I letting this go. I explained what had actually happened and told her that I wasn’t happy that she hadn’t at least asked for my side of the story first.

“I’d appreciate the benefit of the doubt,” I told her.

Walking away she replied, over her shoulder, “bear in mind it was a senior supervisor who told me that.”

Even if there’d been nothing else to piss me off, I can’t stand bad manners. Enraged but still in the measured tones of someone with a decent upbringing I called after her, “bear in mind he was wrong.”

I’m applying for other jobs and I know that storming out of this one won’t make that any easier. What worries me is my temper as I know that if my boss had had the manners not to walk away from me mid sentence and the conversation had continued a few minutes more, I would now be an ex civil servant.

I know this blog is usually about broad political or philosophical issues but today it’s about me. Sorry, but tough. My counselling finished a couple of weeks ago now and, while I’ve been referred to another course, it’s going to be over a month before I can even have an assessment with them. I’m really missing the opportunity to vent and be listened to.

I’ve been working out regularly and taking St Johns Wort three times a day for a few weeks now. It doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of good but who knows, if I hadn’t been doing that maybe I’d feel even worse. The fact is that while I am raging about how I’m treated at work there’s a whole heap of other stuff bubbling away underneath.

If I’m brutally honest, and what’s the point of being anything else, I hate my life. My day job, my career, my love life, my social life, my family life, they all make me fucking miserable and I hate myself for not doing anything about it.

One thing that came out of the counselling was just how I got out of such a funk last time it got really bad. In my mid to late teens I was self harming and even had a couple of suicide attempts. Just talking about it with my fantastic counsellor, (hello by the way if you‘re reading this ;) ) I realised that moving here to Leeds and starting Uni pulled me out it.

I didn’t stop being depressed, but the monumental upheaval, the complete change of lifestyle and surroundings, somehow made it easier for me to deal with things. I must admit the thought of throwing my life in the bin, fucking off and starting again feels really good, of course actually doing that is another matter. Also, say I did, what happens in another three or four years?

I hate feeling like this, I just can’t calm down, I’m SO angry and it’s been hours. I haven’t smoked yet today and that’ll make me feel better, but I hate using Mary as a crutch. She used to be my mate, I used to hang with her and we’d go to amazing places in my head. Now I just hide from the world behind her fragrant skirts.

All the old feelings crowd in on me, the urge to self harm muttering persistently in my ear. I’ve never truly understood that urge, even when I was its bitch. I don’t consciously want to hurt myself but my desperate desire to escape the dull sickening ache of being here just seems to lead me instinctively in that direction.

After those first couple of times, I dismissed suicide as an option, deciding I just couldn’t do it to my parents. At the same time however I sometimes, like currently, find myself tempted to cross roads without looking or similar, somehow the fact that it wouldn’t look intentional makes it feel more ok.

Now don’t panic, I won’t be doing anything ‘stupid’, I just need to get these feelings off my chest. As pathetic as it may sound this blog is one of very few reasons I have to stick it out. This is one of very few places where I feel I can really be myself.

It’s also one of even fewer places where I can not only talk about things I’m interested in but, more importantly for me, encounter people with something to say in reply. If I ever did summon up the effort to jack in all this shit and start anew, I’d be taking this blog with me.

Who knows, maybe in a few years I’ll be a successful writer and actually feel like I have some control over my life. Maybe I’ll look back on these times and think, it was worth it, I made it out the other side. That’s what I have to hope because I can’t bear the thought of the rest of my life being like this.

Hell, just ignore me, everyone else does. I’m just a very lonely person with a mental illness, barking at the moon. I’ll be back to nice, clean cerebral matters next time, no more self indulgence. Back to being a thinker and a writer instead of the universally dismissed ANGRY YOUNG MAN.