Minimising my life

Yesterday, I thought, was a legitimate day off. As I was watching a documentary on Andy Warhol (narrated by Laurie Anderson), I took some perverse pleasure and parallels into his transition from shy and insecure ingenue into the cold and aloof artist. It was a conscious choice for Warhol to change and so, as I looked around my apartment from the huddle of my duvet, I also had to think that I had the same opportunity to change.

My whole life I've been chronically disorganised and I guess it's because I didn't live in my own reality. I accepted that things would get better, or I hoped they would. I just was blind to my whole self care and clothes. I used to go months without doing laundry (seriously - I know it's gross, but really) and it would sometimes take me months to clean.

I have recently tried to keep on top of my flat, but I know that there are bits and bobs everywhere and the closests and cupboards are full to bursting.

Tonight I will have off, I thought to myself. Tomorrow, I will start to declutter my life. I don't feel manic or mania brought on by the meds, more focused and I suppose that is a good thing. 

I woke up around 10.30am and I decided to take it slow, go for a coffee. So I wondered to the Coffee Lounge and bought an Americano and a banana. I then watched a video about 'focus' and how important it is in life, and in the video he described how focus is so important because if you just say yes to other people's demands your whole life, you will wake up one day and think, 'What have I done?"

Exactly.

And so, I managed to go for a 6k run, a kettlebell exercise and do 20 mins of meditation (to varying degrees of success) and surely, I started to declutter around 1.30pm. At first I went through all of my CDs and tech, which have been gathering dust in my closet and various other places in my flat and I scanned them all into the Music Magpie app so I can package them into a box and send them away. All the CDs I couldn't sell to Music Magpie I bagged up to be taken away. I kept a small box of Mansun CDs (my favourite band when I was 15) as memorabilia and the rest is going. 

I went through all my kitchen cupboards and cleared them out: plastic bags, unwanted gifts, odd coathangers, pictures, whatever... All thrown away. 

I went to Wilkos and bought two big document binders and I cleared my drawers, separating out important bills from personal documents or birthday cards I wanted to keep. The rest – bin.

I kept going until around 9pm, which finished with washing the dishes.

My mantra? I must raise my own standards.

I must bring joy to my own life.

I am responsible for my happiness.

My plan is now to slim down my wardrobe to just white shirts, blazers and jeans – remove the complications and choices from everyday life. Keep it simple and stylish.

I am also going to throw away all my pants and socks and buy brand new luxurious underwear.

I will also call a junk haulers to come and pick up all the stuff so I have no excuse as to why it is still in my cupboard.

I will then move my photography equipment and nostalgia into the closet.

This will pare everything right back and provide a clean slate, as well as making me more mobile and responsive to change.

Blue Monday

I'm not writing too much about yesterday because I would prefer to forget it. I spent the whole day anxious, with my other talking about if I had taken the wrong direction in life – maybe I should become a climate change scientist (?). I really said that. I think the meds are getting to me somewhat.

I ate a bad chicken dish my mum made and took the train back to London where I stood up for the whole journey. Inside I was freaking out and derealising, depersonalising... I just want to forget that experience. It was horrible. I kept telling myself I'll go home and wrap myself in a duvet and go to sleep and pretend this is a bad dream.

I put on the Bitch in Apt 23 and some pyjamas, then put the duvet on the sofa and went in and out of sleep. My manager called me yesterday and I said I would take the week off (she says she feels bad), so I felt no pressure to go in – just rest. I was falling in and out of sleep all night. When I would wake up, I would put on more Bitch, and go back to sleep again.

I woke up and it was very sunny, quite fresh. But then I felt it. I didn't want to get out of bed. I thought - that's it, I've hit the wall. Psychological meltdown. I put on the Carmen Sandiego cartoon series on Netflix and again, napped in and out of consciousness.

I had the appointment with the counsellor at the Trafalgar clinic at 12, so I took an Uber and got there on time. Carole was a frail looking South African woman in her 70s with blonde hair. She guided me to a counselling room and we sat down.

"Winnie referred you," she said

I began to cry.

I poured out about my panic attacks, the meds making my head spin... I don't know how I let it get so bad, I said. And how it may actually be a long suffering problem. The fact I have anxiety about catching HIV every time I have sex, or the anxiety I had as a child about going to school. There is a huge empty space in my life where my social and love life should be and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to live.

She looked shocked. Really shocked. And I was panicked.

Fuck. I've lost it. This is serious and the counsellor thinks it's serious so it's serious.

She suggested upping my medication, maybe seeing a psychiatrist for combination drug therapy and, of course, CBT and talking therapy.

This is an urgent case she said.

Omg.

OMG.

How did I let this get so bad? Have I been suffering for my whole adult life and I was just completely unaware?

I walked back home and thought that I need to take time to recover this.

I went to Lidl and bought an egg and cress sandwich and Skyr yoghurt to keep me going. My appetite is pretty much zero at the moment so I'm going to have to just nibble as and when appropriate. I've lost so much weight.

I've more or less been on the sofa since I came back from the appointment, watching Friends and YouTube videos on Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star.

In the past hour, I have looked around at the chronic disorganisation in my flat and I see reflected back at me the continual disorganisation of my life. Maybe I can tackle this.

I searched for the word 'enlightment' on YouTube and it is a video on... Meditation.

Before I had this break, I was meditating every day and trying to be enlightened. It has convinced me that tomorrow I will go for a run and meditate again. I am feeling capable of doing that, and it makes me think that perhaps I am not so broken.

If this is another sign from the universe... Then thank you.

Sane Saturday

After having finally rested for a good 8 hours, I woke up. That's the first time in a week that has happened and whether the medication is already having an effect or I was just tired, it was a welcome shift. I went downstairs to talk to mum and had some cups of tea. We watched some programmes about people emigrating to Australia and I tried to practice some radical acceptance about my situation.

Do I like the fact one day I will die? No.

Can I accept it? Yes.

Part of me started to embrace my own temporality. Think about it... When our time comes, I'm sure we all accept it peacefully and whatever sensations we go through in the last moments, they are meant to peacefully transition us into the next state of being. We can't ever know that till it happens, and I'm sure it will not be unpleasant.

However, staring into your own existential crisis, it seems all the hopes and dreams one has are only relevant in the context of a human society – one which is entirely constructed and mediated. So all the things we do right now only have a certain level of relevance and resonance. When we start thinking of our actual impact, one goes full circle right back to here and now. What do I do in this moment that's important to me?

Dad returned around 11am with a bacon roll and my sister Louise dropped off my niece Florence. She asked why I came home – again I decided to be completely honest. It is quite freeing not to have to pretend to be well or hide the fact that you're not okay. Florence helped a little, as she is such a sweet and sassy little character – a real madam at times!

Dad took me out to buy a tuxedo for the ladies night and it felt as though the meds were starting to do some work. I also bought a blue skinny-fit suit for £79 and charged it to my credit card... If I am 'derealising' from money and these archaic systems, I might as well use it to my advantage.

With the meds kicking in, Dad thought buying the suit had made me happier, when in fact I knew different. I sat and talked with mum and Louise before Louise suggested going to Starbucks. We drove in the car and laughed at the car's 'D-Mode', not knowing what it was. I had a skinny hazelnut latte and a chocolate and raspberry cake, which Florence ate all of the cream out of before I could get back to my seat.

"So what has triggered the attacks," my sister said.

"Death, dying... The universe, everything."

"Ah... and the balance is restored," she said, referring to a time a couple of weeks ago when our roles had switched and I said I was being the carefree one and her the worrier.

Louise said that everyone will die and my mind is creating problems it can't solve because there is nothing to worry about. She also said I need to be around people – possibly family. Perhaps she is right. She also said I need to go back to what is important to me – creativity, performance... Drag perhaps. We laughed and talked about how she might be able to help me with my make up, or how she might prepare me for Drag Idol and Pride's Got Talent next year.

On returning home, I decided that in some respects this process is quite freeing. I'm off the celestial hook. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to live one's life and therefore worries about living up to one's full potential or doing well for oneself are only read in relation to its relevance of society at the time. In 100 years, this idea of success will change and change again, and so it is okay to slack off, to play video games, to do whatever... Balanced with that is the thought that whether contributing to a productive society is equally useful or meaningful to the individual. My over-riding thought is one should only do things if they are useful to you at the time or if they are useful to the human society of the time. To think of your actions extending any further than that is a pointless task.



Dad started getting ready and I realised it was 4pm, and Louise also started doing mum's make up for the do. I wondered around restlessly as I knew it wouldn't take me long to get dressed, before putting on my tuxedo. Mum, of course, faffed around to the last minute, but we finally got a cab to the Masonic Hall at 5pm.

I thought I would be weird at the event but actually I was okay. I expressed myself a bit more confidently and told people I was a lecturer and had a doctorate, and for once I didn't really feel ashamed of what I did. We met Allan McColgan, an old friend of mum's, a man called Gideon and Dad's brother – Uncle Allen – was there too. It was good to catch up with him as he is the 'gossiper' of dad's side of the family and is always very talkative.

The whole event seemed very surreal, though. There is this whole entrance ceremony where everybody is announced (I was announced as Dr. Arthur Taylor – that didn't go away during the evening), and it felt so slow and unreal. Time has slowed down lately. Perhaps it is quite right that the brakes have suddenly been hit in my life so I can contemplate all these moments. In this time period, life seems so long and so these thoughts of death should be so far away.

I did drink - and perhaps more than I should on medication - but it's hard to explain to dad what the case is. The dinner, equally surreal with its speeches and songs, consisted of broccoli and stilton soup, hunter's chicken and chocolate profiteroles. The song 'Happy to meet, Sorry to Part, Happy to Meet Again' keeps ringing through my head as the key piece of the evening.

We emptied out into the bar briefly where Dad and I bought the photo we had taken on entering the hall and then we returned to the hall to dance.

Oh how I love to dance. Mum and I got up and danced to Baby Love by the Supremes, Boogey Wonderland, You Can't Hurry Love, Come on Eileen... It was wonderful – one of my favourite things to do.

I asked if we could go at 10.45pm. Dad did originally propose going at 9pm so I think he was happy we stayed a little bit longer. When they came in, they changed into their pyjamas and made me a cup of tea. I retired to bed, though, around 11.30pm and was sort of glad I went out after all...

Freakout Friday

Things reached fever pitch on Friday in the early hours, when I was up from 1am to 3.30am panicking about the end of the universe. Everything started to seem unreal... All the buildings we had created, toilets, tables... These things we had made out of molecules of the universe that would be broken down and re-used after we were gone. Even my body would be broken down and be in the earth of the earth...

I resolved that I am having mental health problems at the moment, and that these can be cured, so I should feel optimistic that I am taking the right steps to deal with it.

I woke up at 8.30am and consequently had a panic attack about the enormity of the universe and pottered around before my doctor's appointment. To calm myself down, I had a cup of tea at Cafe Nero in Balham and a blueberry muffin, wondering if I could ever get over this.

I went to the doctor's surgery and sat there for about 40 minutes. I remember some old guy coming in and me helping him to his feet. I was so anxious before going in that when I was finally called, I walked into the room and burst into tears.

"I'm sorry - it's been a long week to this appointment," I said to her... "I've been suffering so badly with panic attacks and anxiety."

I could tell she was shocked and alarmed. I said how I'd been feeling, that I'd been thinking of death and dying and how stressful things had been at work. How it had magnified all the other areas of my life and that I felt lonely and had no social life.

She said that it sounded like I was having an existential crisis and she put me back on my old medication – 10mg of citalopram daily. She also wrote out a list of helplines and places I could contact.

She held my arm and said, "You are not alone. You can get better." She made an appointment to see me next week, right then and there. And so I was comforted that I had done the right thing by seeking help – and that I would be supported.

As soon as I left the surgery, I took 10mg of citalopram as I wanted to ride out the symptoms as soon as possible. As expected, it exacerbated my anxiety and I started to go through a sensation of derealisation... I started thinking that humans had complicated the nature of life and we had become so far removed from what life really is. We should just be hugging animals and crapping in the woods rather than having all these sophisticated technologies and systems and economies, nationalities and complications... And all I can remember thinking, as I stared at the toilet in my own flat in Woolwich, is that it was just made up of molecules from the universe that we had repackaged into these things.

I tried to retreat to bed and hide, but my nerves being what they were I got up and packed a case, decided I should go home to my parents. I texted my mum to tell her from the outset what was happening:

Mum, I don't want you to freak out but I've been having panic attacks and the doctor has put me back on citalopram. I'd like to come home and get some TLC, be with people I love if that's okay xx

Being honest about what is happening to me has helped so much because I don't need to pretend to be normal when I'm freaking out inside.

I did some more work on the UEL validation document before I had a second appointment for my PrEP check up. I was waiting for over 45 minutes trying to keep calm in the waiting room before I was finally picked up by the clinical nurse, contemplating the ultimate fate of the universe.

When she took my blood, I said to her "I'm sorry I'm really anxious..."

And she said, "Oh I'm sorry we kept you waiting so long"

Then I burst into tears and I went, "It's not you, I've been having panic attacks and I've started back on citalopram which is making me worse"

And she said, "So what's triggered you."

And I said... I keep thinking about death and dying

And she said... have you been near death? Did you see someone die?

No, I replied.

She mentioned the sexual health clinic had a counsellor and that she would make me an appointment straight away. I was gobsmacked. She made an appointment for 12pm on Monday, which must be the fastest appointment for therapy on the NHS ever.

Her name was Winnie – I will not forget her kindness.

After replenishing my PrEP treatment and giving me the HPV vaccine, I said feebly, "Do you think I'm a nutcase?"

And she said... No! No. There may be stigma and you may be dealing with issues from when you were a child. But just like any other infection you have mental health problems right now and we need to get you fixed. Complete wellbeing.

I took the bus home, slowly freaking out inside but kind of deciding that going home to see mum and dad would be the best thing to do. I took my suitcase from home and walked out. I was having a small window of clarity – just get home. You can't spend the weekend all het up or you could easily go the other way.

However, on the train I could feel I was 'derealising' again... All these trains, all these networks. How did we make life so uncomplicated and unnatural? These machines, this pollution... Why?

I kept thinking to myself I just needed to get through the next hour. I got off the train at Kettering station and got a cab back to Corby for £24. Anything ANYTHING to get home.

When i came home, I told mum everything that had been happening, and she held me on the sofa, held my hand. I asked if she was mad at me for taking medication. No, she replied – she was glad I had the sense to go to the doctor and to come home.

O, the curse of being a genius she said to me.... Sometimes better to think like a fool.

I knew what she meant.

Dad came home with pizza and champagne, and I told him exactly what was happening. He said he loved me and was concerned about me and that I should come home and be with family for a while.

I think this is not a bad shout and I may start spending weekends at home while I get better, and surround myself with people who love me while I recover.

Dad opened some champagne and I thought it would teeter me over the edge, but it did relax me somewhat (thankfully). And we watched the film Bohemian Rhapsody... I went to bed around 11.30 and thankfully I was tired enough to drift off to a relaxing Saturday.

Rolling up a rough week

I did have an initial wakening at 5am, but I felt good for sleeping through. I watched E4 for a little bit and then drifted back to sleep, waking again at 7.30.

It was bright and I felt fairly refreshed. I also decided not to go straight to the gym and exercise, and to try to nap a little and enjoy the refreshment of sleep. I took the morning slowly and woke up, dressed in my blue/red/great short/blazer/brogue combo and went to the Coffee Lounge to get an Americano and a banana. Even though I had no lesson prepared for my first lecture, I cobbled together a couple of presentations from previous years and went through them with the students, asking them to grade them and give them feedback. They were:

The Sun Online/WW1 pitch
Drink/Driving campaign
Barclays Academy

As I went through them I sensed a low level anxiety inside of me and every time there was something that pertained to death (e.g. war veterans, graphic imagery around drink driving), I could feel little palpitations. The only way I could get through it was by fully throwing myself into the presentations and feeling the emoitons, otherwise I would have had a full blown anxiety attack in front of the students.

After the break and in the workshop, one of the students Michaela talked to me about an issue she has with me. Before Christmas, I unfortunately shouted at her in front of the class and she felt embarrassed and humiliated. I do feel bad about that, but she has been licking her wounds ever since. She kept on trying to rely on the story that she is a black girl who has had it rough 'I don't know her'. And then I said 'You don't know me - I'm the queer kid from a smalltown who got beat up every day. Rise above it.'

I gave her some tough love telling her she needed to hold herself accountable but I could tell she just felt sorry for herself. It will be a lot of hard work with her.

The other groups are on track: Imogen's group are being productive with a campaign called 'Unmute yourself' and getting young people to speak out about issues that matter to them. One group want people to take an ASBO Pill, which I suggested they leak as a PR or publicity campaign. Michaela's group are doing something on rebellion. I really want them to pull it out the bag because it will be less of a headache for me and a real victory for them to push their campaign over the line.

In between lessons, I rang Anxiety UK, who basically told me to go to the GP - I have a GP's appointment tomorrow. I am wondering if I should go back on the meds and the woman on the phone said maybe I could give myself a timeline of 6 months and come back off them, to help me through an especially difficult period. This seems like the most sensible course of action, but I am not looking forward to symptoms and bouts of hypomania.

I then went to the Insight journalism lecture, where Debbie and Paige presented photos from their genderqueer shoot. Zak, Marta and Fay went to take more pics for Instagram while George stayed to do page layouts. Debbie and Paige are editing something verbally in the background as I write this and Suzanne Dixon, my manager has just texted me.

This is possibly in relation to the 'media 11'sending another request to meet as the validation deadline is approaching soon.

I went to see Suzanne and she asked me if I was worried about the letter. I said no, but it had placed a focus on other areas of my life where I wanted to put more energy into (e.g i’m Freaking out about everything). Then we met with Rebecca from enterprise to talk about how we might incorporate them into next year’s programme. It should be simple enough.

I didn’t get to spend much time with the journalism students in the end, and departed the lesson to meet with David Dorrington from games. I told him I was suffering really badly from anxiety at the moment and I know he was looking at me really weird. He is having problems too though. But we went through his programme and tried to align it with the proposed changes. I briefly spoke to Helena the QA woman before going home - when will we do something nice she asked me? Good question.

I went home and ordered a chicken Bhuna and mushroom rice. I watched a documentary about bear death experiences and also listened to the recording from a psychic I went to see in the summer. It made me feel better for a little while to have some belief, some faith in life after death. Is that so bad? I resolved that dying in itself is probably not an unpleasant experience but the terror I am feeling around it is untenable.

I spent the rest of the night in anxiety until I rang David. He had been out drinking four pints and he is celebrating his new business. I feel selfish thinking about my own mental state... I asked if I could go round as the doctor’s is closer to his than it is mine. I was in a real funk until I had a brainwave - that I should ask my friend Andy if he wants to move into the Atelier. I thought it would be exciting and allow me to live my dreams if he says yes. He is married to new cross though and so i’m Not sure he’ll say yes.

David was trying to cheer me up but I was nearly because i’ve Spent the whole day on edge. We watched family guy and discussed me going back on meds. I feel this is probably the best option for the tome being, as I am losing the ability to think straight. I’m currently laying here freaking out about the world millions of years after my existence and it is terrifying.

Back to square one...

Today has been a rather challenging day. I woke up at 1am and found it hard to drift back off again.. Awake till 2am I then finally went to sleep and woke up around 7.30. But this time I stayed in bed. And I thought... it's that familiar feeling. Anxiety tying you to the bed and not letting you get up. At 8.15 I decided to get up and still do a run, still do a kettlebell workout and still go to work for 10.30. I'm still trying to go slowly at my pace and at what is important for me.

Except I forgot I had a call with my colleague Martin Heaney at 10 and I missed it. I rang him on my mobile on the way over the bridge to work and told him that I took extra time for self care. Yeah, I'm cracking up and I don't care who knows it at the moment. I discussed how difficult recruitment had been in light of the strategic portfolio development, as we'd both been charged with upping student recruitment recently and he told me to take care.

My focus was supposedly the cluster validation document but I had so much admin to do in just communicating things to students such as being in Kazakhstan for a week at the end of March and also students who aren't attending (!) and therefore can't present (!) at the assessment.

I tried to focus on doing the validation stuff but I was going into meltdown. The residual anxiety was just taking over me and it felt like the greyness of the day was just overtaking me. I sat and wrote and précis of what 'projects' means as defined in the corrections, but I kept on reading and reading the corrections and thinking... OMG. It's too much. I can't do it.

Andrew Branch, one of the 'anti-media cluster' who signed the letter came into my office to smooth out things. Out of everyone who signed the letter I thought he would have signed it the most out of peer pressure, and so I didn't have any qualms but he tried to push things – he asked me how I thought teaching would be distributed, how I saw economies of scale panned out. Instead I ended up popping off at him and saying did he think sending such a letter was a good thing? Did he think the conversation with management was going to be a 'friendly discussion'? By the look on his face he had not considered this. I also said Kathy Walker and Jonathan Hardy were playing a dangerous game by wilfully refusing a reasonable request, which I thought was dangerous territory.

Part of me wanted him tos hit his pants a little bit and realise what a duff move he had made. And part of me wanted him to tell his little gang that was the case. So while I should have been restrained, he caught me on the wrong day and maybe it's good for him to see me a little bit angry.

Today I really, really would have advocated for meds if I had them. In fact I wrote an online message to my GP saying I had had an anxiety relapse and wanted to hear the options from my GP. It felt like my body was pumping a constant source of low-level adrenaline that was just enough to keep me on edge. I felt terrible because I knew soon after is a low mood or depression. I thought to myself will there ever be a time in my life I'm not dealing with emotional crisis – where things are just 'okay' and I can ride out the wave, or focus on enriching my life in other ways.

The day felt really oppressive. I was supposed to go for dinner with my colleague Julia and I went to find her in her classroom in WB2.06 but it all felt oppressive and claustrophobic with the lighting. I sat in Costa and waited for her, then I burst out crying and told her I was cracking up. Told her about all the death anxiety. I don't think Julia is the most consoling person but she did at least care. She seemed to think my death anxiety was tied to a very specific thing around achievement and doing well.

We went to a bar called the Moxy and while she drank a red wine, she went through the requests from Suzanne Simon and Andy (management) and got angry. She made me realise they are , essentially, 'busy work' requests and they are putting all of this on me.She said to stop trying to be perfect and pay those requests lip service, submit it and let QA deal with the document. Essentially it means management's stupid requests would be bypassed to the people that really matter.

She bought me some wine and actually I relaxed. I spoke enthusiastically about Derrida and Auslander, and it really calmed me down. We talked about vibrations and frequencies and the universe and – while it is more mystical – it comforted me. And because of the comfort I allowed myself to just be there.

I told Julia about my entrepreneurial plans for Creative Wave and the Atelier and i tried to remember my own purpose. She seemed pleased.

She told me she hadn't been this excited about being back at UEL for ages – that I was powerful, that I had saved UEL and no one had risen to the occasion – and I could yet rise even further.

I escorted Julia, drunk, back to the station and I left feeling slightly more relaxed, wondering if I would be able to have a full night's sleep. And, if so, that I wasn't going to totally crack up tomorrow.

Living through joy – the scary way

So last night I resolved to myself to approach life with joy instead of fear. Why wasn't I doing all the things I found exciting? Had I found my joyfulness? Why had I been drinking and distracting myself? When I had not been drinking I had done it through punishment. Exercise was done through punishment.

I woke up around 3.30am feeling quite excited by this new notion – to bounce back at life with fearlessness. Unfortunately it kept me awake until 5.30 and so I decided to get up later. I meditated, I had a coffee and relaxed. Luckily, I had woken up to a gorgeous sunny day and I was so pleased because it made it easier to cope with last night's meltdown.

Because my first engagement was a meeting at 10.30, I decided to still go for a run, still do some kettlebell exercises but to do it in my own time. Self-care has to be the most important thing right now after such a core-shaking experience. It made me feel better, and I paused to enjoy every single moment. I don't want days to pass me by anymore, or to be frantic, or to just let time slip away from me.

I've got to stop being so hard on myself. For the next few weeks, I have to take it easy and realise that what I have already done and achieved in my life is enough. I need to take deep breaths, spoil myself, do things I love to do, feel the sun on my face, enjoy simple pleasures and try to calm the voice inside me. To give life a chance!

I knew I was running ten minutes late to my meeting, so I texted in advance to say so because taking my damn sweet time was more important for my head than anything else. I had to go to University Square Stratford to talk to our head of civic engagement, Gail May. We were discussing a summer project to get young people from Newham involved in the university, and she relayed a story of a young boy who walked into one of their youth centres and was stabbed. It nearly made me cry, to be honest. I was so saddened that this stuff was happening and my colleagues were eschewing 'the death of cultural theory' in the academy. If you want to do something to change the world, change the horrific things happening on your doorstep.

Also present at the meeting was Anthony Nwachukwu, who works on music production and was very passionate about community engagement. I was very excited by his ideas and we decided that this summer we would work together on a four-day workshop in which young people would form their own band, write their band bio and 'band identity', produce a 1 minute track and film a short social media promo for it. Then they would pitch their band on the last day and present what they have made. Gail agreed that we would apply for funding from the Office for Students, and I'm very excited about how this could be realised - this is set to happen in June.

Afterwards I took it very slowly back to my office in Docklands where I Julia swung by my office, and I confided in her I had a rough weekend and that I was in tears on Saturday. She told me she wished I had called her, but I don't know how much 'crazy' I want to disclose! I told her I wanted to go and hug animals in Africa and remember what is important in life. She said that she just wanted to go for walks in ruins in Essex and it was telling that I said 'Africa' as to how far I wanted to move away from all of this.

We had a quick one hour lunch before the BA Advertising Programme Committee Review where Ben, Shanel, Nicole, John Sugrue and Luca were present along with IT Richard and Library Simone. Sabiha took notes. The students generally reported positive things and I mentioned the strategic portfolio development, which was well received.

Afterwards I taught Campaign Design and Execution, and KD2.18 was filled with journalism students. They played music and annoyed me, so it was hard to spend time with the groups. Jess's group and the Durex campaign is on track. Katie, Stefan and AJ have an okay campaign with Bacardi – a competition where people can win a mentorship. I don't want to interfere too much as it will become my idea not theirs. Lucia the Spanish girl opened up some rank-smelling pasta dish that smelled of garlic, then got annoyed with me when I told her to eat it outside of the room. At 3.30pm, I started to dip again, feeling anxious, and so I set the students up to delegate their tasks for next week then retreated to my office.

I focused again - 30 minutes answering emails. Then my colleague Anna Robinson came in to discuss how foundation level will feed into the main undergraduate media programmes. I allowed myself to become absorbed in the conversation and feel good about what we were planning for the students. I think we managed to create a very cohesive structure and that we had met the requirements from management. The creative strategy I am great at and enjoy so much! Delivery will be the next phase, but it's a bridge you have to cross...



I came home feeling good about myself and thinking I am making a difference and I am creating positive impact. I had booked to go to a Creative Entrepreneur's networking evening with The Tomorrow Network. At the event, Liverpool Arts Society and a woman named Kaya who had set up her own agency did a live podcast from 31 Below in Marylebone. I met a French journalist called Alys who was studying and MA in Journalism at City University. I also introduced myself to Kaya to tell her about my social enterprise Creative Wave and the person organising the network who was also called Allan (!) but was French. I briefly met a guy called George who was developing an app called Honeypot. In my opinion, it was a bit too Sloane-y for me, but I sipped a Diet Coke (no drinking at the moment) and basked a little in being in the company of people who were motivated to do their own creative things.

On the way home, I detected 'the death anxiety' again, causing me discomfort. The tube gets me... Seeing all the people everywhere and thinking about the fact they will all die. Someone posted a story on Facebook about how we wouldn't be able to blow a meteor out the sky if it came towards the earth, which set my senses ringing...

It started to rain, which feels very comforting at the moment – these 'big sky' things we can't control and make us feel alive. Munching on some nuts and having a cup of green tea, my predominant thought about today is how long and full the day can be if you really enjoy it. I want to enjoy the fullness of every day from now on and not let it speed by. Simultaneously, I have to 'trust' in the day because I'm still finding drifting off to sleep hard. i need to have faith in the passing of days, enjoy the flow each day brings and try to be in the moments.

Most of all, I have to stop thinking I can control or predict the future, that I will feel better about the future if I know exactly what will happen and that a fundamental truth of life is none of us knows what will happen in the next five minutes, let alone months or years. I need to get comfortable with living in this space of uncertainty – of not knowing what happens. That is just the way of life and no matter how much I think about it or confront it, it is not going to change the very fabric of life, time and nature.

And when that gets hard, focus on getting through the next 20 minutes.

A gratuitous picture of Paul Smith in Marylebone