A Pause

a note for readers

I had a bit of a .....I don’t know what you’d call it.... not a breakdown, but just a bad time.. yesterday. I’m certainly not looking for sympathy. I’ve had a condition called upper cervical misalignment for about 25 years, but it is only recently that this disorder is known to be the cause. It would not be exaggeration to say that it has half-killed me. I've been like a ringwraith for 25 years. It has had the effect that it feels – thoroughly- as though the person I was before the problem occurred, a “Ross” who was put on pause aged 20, has been absent from this body, or better, has been submerged in it since that time, and whatever half alive psyche that has been operating since then (it is the one typing this) is not really Ross.

It’s been like severe brain fog for two and a half decades. It’s been pretty horrible. I have spent thousands on doctors and trying to have it sorted (it wasn’t even properly diagnosed). I’ve ended up in psychiatric hospitals, I’ve indulged in alcohol and when I was younger, other substances. I went from a perfectly normal young man with a great upbringing, friends and prospects for the future to being....I don’t know, the opposite of those things. In the past, I suppose in desperate efforts to escape from the condition, I’ve been involved in mad shit. I’ve been arrested for violence, disorder...and just mad shit.

That was years ago now. But the very, very worst is the pain I’ve caused my family. Some families are difficult to say the least. Some people suffer terribly because of their family. I’m the opposite. They are wonderful people and the pain of having to survive while feeling so utterly disconnected from them and from the world has been more than confirming of the first noble truth of the Buddha. Life is suffering.

But in any case, I’ve been renewing my efforts to overcome this disorder now that I know what it is. That’s great, but as a consequence of working on those muscles and ligaments that have been twisted and frozen for most of the 21rst century (for me) I’ve been getting glimpses or deeply rooted remembrances of what life was like, what I was like, before the disorder. That in itself has been very difficult to deal with. The sense of loss and having lost out. All this to say I’m probably not going to be posting much if at all for the foreseeable future. I deeply appreciate all of you who have been reading.