Welll...

... this is under doctor's orders.

Not exactly orders, but doctor's strong suggestions. The story thus far:

Last post, I think, was January. I had vague intentions of writing more, but to be honest, not a lot more than vague. I was writing a book and running a clinic. I had two hundred thousand words and two hundred patients to look after. I had other issues.

My dad, as I may or may not have related, had been diagnosed with lung cancer - stage four non-small cell. The prognosis was exceedingly grim. My brother was going through an on-again-off-again divorce.

And to show it's not all been grim, there was Deadwood and Breaking Bad DVDs, and Facebook, and nights spent lying on the couch eating chocolate with glorious Sarah.

(Hideous realisation: I have forgotten everyone's noms de strange. All I can remember is my wife and my niece. For everyone else, imagine there has been some kind of alien invasion in where-ever the hell this is set, and the aliens have renamed everyone.)

((The above makes no sense to me whatsoever.))

Anyhow - things went on. Then I got burnout.

That was a difficult thing to say. I looked up the symptoms - yes, it's all medicine 2.0 here - and I reckon I had most of them. The staring at the screen for hours while nothing actually got done. The heavy, cold dragging feeling in the chest on the way to work. The concretised thinking. The tendency to cut to the simplest solution rather than work towards the best one. The endless cunctation*.

"I have a new form of bipolar disorder," I said to Dr Tesla (?). He inclined his head.

"Moderate-cycling, where I am deeply depressed Monday to Friday and perfectly normal the other days. And on holidays."

He suggested a few weeks off. I took five days. I went back and it was crap. I took another few days, where I went to the World Science Fiction Convention, Which Sounds Glamourous And Exotic Until You Realise It's Only In Melbourne.

I came back. It was more crap.

I went to my GP. She said don't go in for a fortnight, minimum, maybe a month. See this person, make an appointment to see so and so, do this.

And so, here I am.

And I have also been looking into narrative therapy, writing down things to deal with them. And so, again, electronically, here I am.

Anyhow - I will write more of this soonish. I think if I can write a swathe of stuff, to help "get better", and subsequently keep this to at least weekly, to "stay better", I will be able not only to live my normal life, and write, and face-book and stuff, but also be able to work again. Be able to look go into my workplace, and pick up a file, and actually do something with it.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

John

*actually a real word. Better spelt than spoken aloud, but useful in staff meetings.