The weird eccentric ramblings of a multiple sclerosis sufferer

You’d think buying a watch is simple. You choose one. You wear it. It tells the time. Job done.

Nope.

Instead, it’s a full-scale psychological assault. Amazon probably thinks I’m running a black-market watch dealership by now with the amount I’ve sent back.

All I wanted was a watch that:

Tells the time

Tells the date

Has a big face so I can see it

Doesn’t require a PhD in Chronology to set it up

Instead, I got:

⏰ Knobs that have a life of their own, turning randomly like a possessed ouija board.

⏰ Buttons that demand fingers with precision I no longer have, thanks to numb hands that make the simplest task feel like I’m defusing a bomb underwater while blindfolded.

In the end, I went atomic. Or “atomik”, as I now call it to sound edgy and slightly deranged.

This atomic watch apparently speaks the time and date. Brilliant, I thought. It arrived, promising “easy setup” in the advert. 😂 Easy setup my arse. It took Albertine several hours of cursing to set up. She’s my go-to tech guru when life’s gadgets decide to humiliate me, and even she looked ready to launch it out the window.

I just sat there, numb hands useless, staring at it and laughing like a lunatic while she pressed random buttons in despair.

But hey, it works now. It talks to me. It’s large enough to see. And it hasn’t tried to kill me in my sleep yet. So it’s a win. Kind of.

           “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                     By storm and silence, I survive.”

     “The views in this post are based on my personal
      experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.” 

🧌✨ @goblinbloggeruk ✨🧌

Letting Windows 11 install itself is like giving the keys to a drunk valet — somehow, it worked out fine. No explosions, no blue screens. Quite the miracle, considering my experiences with Windows Millennium and its rogue’s gallery of dysfunctional predecessors.

To be fair, Windows 10 and 11 are slick. But the code bloat? Don’t get me started. I miss the lean days of Windows 7 and XP, the glory years before Microsoft decided your machine needed 45 services just to check the weather.

But I’ve moved on — I’m Linux-bound, baby. Mint on a USB stick. Kali for when I’m feeling dangerous. Both free. Both slick. And everything I need is already there. Open source is the truth. Why pay absurd amounts of money when SourceForge and the depths of the internet provide a smorgasbord of brilliance?

Now imagine this: Black Sabbath is blaring – Iron Man rattling the walls, the Doobie Brothers soothing the existential dread, and some Bach organ symphonies levelling it all out. Meanwhile, joss sticks waft from the lavatory, and my body decides it’s time for another round with the infamous MS Hug — a vice grip on your ribs, only with the bonus prize of a surprise bowel evacuation.

Yes, Multiple Sclerosis is the gift that keeps on giving: Pins and needles, numbness, muscle spasms — I’m basically a vibrating sex toy on Mach 10. If it weren’t painful, it’d be hilarious. Actually, it is hilarious, in a cruel cosmic way.

But hey — it could be worse. Back in the ‘70s, I was 13, smashing pavement with a pneumatic drill during school holidays. Smoking Embassy Gold, Players No.6, or if I was desperate, the glorified paper stub that was No.10. My next-door neighbour Steve (legend and bad influence rolled into one) got me onto Marlboro and joints. Life was motorcycles, tattoos, rock ‘n’ roll, and too many warnings from mothers about dudes like me. Now? The wheels have changed — but the fire's still here. And the stories? They’re just getting started.

           “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                      By storm and silence, I survive.”

“The views in this post are based on my personal  
    experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

                🧌✨twitter or x @goblinbloggeruk ✨🧌

🖤 Brutally honest. Darkly hilarious. Another night, another spectacular symphony of spasms and piss. Didn’t even eat jam—so no excuses. Still ended up piddling all night. Up at 4 a.m., and that’s it. Done. Might as well accept it: I live on four hours of sleep and pure defiance now.

My bladder? It’s got its own postcode and personality. I can’t even wheel past a bloody tap without it throwing a tantrum. The sound of water? Instant dribble. It's never a full empty either—just a cheeky squirt, like it’s laughing at me from the inside.

Forget catheters. I invented my own fix. Because willy pipe of doom? Not a chance. I like my manhood unperforated, thank you very much.

And then there’s the daemon bum. Thanks to numb fingers, wiping is like blindfolded surgery with oven mitts. Too soft? Still dirty. Too hard? Hello blood. Throw in a bout of dehydration, and now we’re in full bowel battleground mode. Constipation? Got a hack for that—but it’s borderline medieval.

Oh, food. Where do we start? I’m allergic to everything. Meat, fish, animal fat, most veg. Yes, vegetables. I can’t even eat like a rabbit. Instead, I lurk near the kitchen extractor fan while bacon fries, sniffing fat molecules like some kind of culinary pervert. Minutes later—BOOM. To the loo. Escape velocity.

Let’s add the pain, shall we? Neck, back, gut, everywhere. MS is giving me a right walloping. Pins and needles across arms, legs, face. Tinnitus screeching in my skull like a broken fire alarm. And today? Extra loud. Extra lovely.

Stress level: 9.7 on the “Why am I not screaming?” scale.

Time to hit the THC-CBD oil and vape some Mary Jane to calm the chaos. Not because it’s edgy—because it works. Better than half the legal shit they try to hand out like sweets.

Outside? Dark clouds. Inside? Just me, my squeaky-wheeled trolley (cheers, WD-40, made it worse), and a nervous bladder ready to pounce.

Still here. Still wheeling. Still laughing at the madness. What else can you do?

          “The views in this post are based on my personal
            experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”   

               “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                      By storm and silence, I survive.”

Another system rebuild. Another round of pretending this time it’ll work, that nothing vital will vanish into digital smoke. Maybe I’ll stick with Windows 11—just long enough to hate it all over again. Or maybe, finally, I’ll throw myself into Linux like a man falling from a burning building. Kodachi. Mint. Whonix. Take your pick, all flavours of escape.

The plan? Dual life. Linux on a pen drive for when I need stealth and sanity. Custom Windows on the main drive for when I need chaos and legacy apps. But before anything happens, it’s backups. Backups of backups. Then backup the backup of the backup.

I’ve lost too much already. Files. Art. Music. Decades of moments. Things that mattered. Gone because I trusted the wrong hard drive, or hit “yes” on a prompt I didn’t read at 4am because I couldn’t sleep from the pain—or the thoughts. Terabytes lost to time and stupidity.

I’ve been part of this madness since the early 80s. When computing still felt like rebellion. When you could feel the electricity in the keys. Back when 40GB was god-tier and 32MB of RAM could change your life. When you didn’t need permission from five corporations to run software.

Today, I did get out. Ended up at Fat Tony’s. Sex toys, incense, grinders, masks, and the surreal scent of liberation in the air. I could feel the laughter in my bones. Albertine grabbed a few curious bits and pieces. Good man behind the counter. Real. No masks. No script. Not like the world outside. Not like doctors.

Came back home. Wheelchair of death started vibrating like it had unfinished business with the earth’s core. Loud enough to wake the ghosts I wish I could forget.

The jam was a mistake. No sleep. Peeing every hour. Kidney screaming. Bladder playing drums. Night’s silence broken by the symphony of my body's decline.

I asked the doctor for sleeping tablets. He laughed. Said I might sleep through an accident. “What,” I asked, “like shit myself?” He didn’t laugh back. Just stared at me like a creature in a tank. Something dying slowly behind glass.

That same doctor once told me there was nothing more they could do. I rolled out of that office in my chair and into the hallway of despair. Slammed into the door just to feel something. I wasn’t a person to him—just another file closed. “Mr Goblin,” he said. As if I wasn’t already invisible.

You think it ends there?

I got a phone call years ago. I was stressed. The voice on the line? A GP. He tells me, flatly: “Oh yeah, you had a heart attack at some point.” Like it was the weather. Then the line goes dead.

I went ice cold. Started spasming. Couldn’t breathe. Ambulance was called. Paramedics came. One looked like death in a hi-vis vest. He barked at me about not labelling my door clearly enough. I nearly told him to check my pulse and guess the address that way.

ECG said yes, it happened. A “heart event.” Another ambulance came. The serious kind. They jabbed, they drugged, they stabilized the mess I was.

But in that moment, on the floor, shaking and half-naked, I thought: So this is how it ends. Alone, misunderstood, staring at the cracked ceiling while the world rushes by outside.

But no. I lived. Again. Like I always bloody do.

And still my mind drifts. My half-sister. It’s been 10 years. Maybe she thinks of me. My older sister? Try 30. A lifetime of silence.

Being adopted is a lifelong mind-fuck. You're the cuckoo in someone else’s nest. A mistake nobody admits. A problem to be hidden in a file folder somewhere.

My family judged me because I lived in a council house. Because I was disabled. Because I wasn’t their version of clean or proper.

But when they gave me a chance, I proved them wrong. Every time.

Still… no calls. No letters. No visits.

I wonder if my brothers are still alive. I wonder if they’d remember my voice.

But hope is a slow suicide. So I smile instead. Laugh when I can. Back up my data like I’m guarding a soul in binary. Sit in my chair and watch the world pretend to care.

I’m not done yet.

Not by a long shot.

Goblin still here

         “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the south west area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky ... many thanks sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

          “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                    By storm and silence, I survive.”

So I’ve been thinking — I know, shocking — but let's face it, MS really does blow chunks.

You walk into a doctor’s surgery, tell them what's going on, and they're glued to their computer screen like they're checking the footie scores or writing a memoir. You wait for the questions, but it’s just nodding. Half-arsed. Then they look up at you like you’re the inconvenience.

Let me paint the scene:

I rock up in my wheelchair, scraping the doorframe because apparently, accessibility is still a mythical concept in parts of the UK. It’s one of those surgeries that's older than most of the patients — falling apart, steeped in the smell of wet plaster and resignation. I apologise for the door. It's that bad.

I wheel in and the doc looks at me like I’ve just insulted his nan. I’ve found that neurologists in particular have a real flair for hating me — probably because I ask awkward questions that don’t come with a neat textbook answer. Their reaction? Condescension, mostly. “This is how you should feel,” they say. Oh, should I? How enlightening.

To be honest, I didn’t want to be there. Waste. Of. Time.

I’m sitting there trying not to blow a fuse while they judge me like I’m auditioning for Britain’s Got Neurological Issues. These days, though, I’m lucky. I moved. New docs. Better vibes. Now I hand over a list — symptoms, patterns, the works. I sit back and let them squirm.

Still, I suffer from white coat syndrome so I’m already stressed the moment I see the antiseptic blue of NHS decor. But hey, the list helps. Unless you get that one GP who glances at your entire medical history like it’s a Wikipedia article they can’t be arsed to read.

Everything, apparently, is caused by MS. I could sprout a second head and they’d say “Ah yes, classic MS.”

So what have I learned?

Being me — unapologetically, sarcastically, chronically ill me — is actually kinda liberating. I say it like it is (within reason… ish). I watch the world spin, watch my life fade out into this mad oblivion — and I keep fighting, whether it’s through brain fog, pain, or a poorly designed doorway.

I’m sick as fuck, but such is life. And I’ll keep going — until my last breath or brain cell. Whichever taps out first.

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky ... many thanks sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

          “The views in this post are based on my personal  
           experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

           “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                         By storm and silence, I survive.”

"MS blows chunks. I keep fighting."

It was over 30 years ago — but this horror never really leaves you. Like an ex with teeth, it's always in the background. This is my catheter initiation, and yes, it’s every bit as bad as it sounds.

So, picture this: it's a hot, stressful afternoon. I'm self-employed, sweating it out, holding together life with string and sarcasm. Fast forward a few decades — now I languish on Universal Credit. MS (Multiple Sclerosis) does that. You ramble. You lose the thread. Your bladder decides it's not on your side anymore. And you get a visit from... The Bowel and Bladder Nurse™.

She came in like Judge Judy's meaner cousin. Silent, judging, late middle-aged, seen it all, smelled it all. I’m a tall bloke with tattoos, piercings — basically a walking episode of "What Not to Bring to Your Urology Appointment.” She didn’t like me. That was clear. It was mutual.

Fired questions at me like she was being timed by MI5. Eventually scanned my bladder and declared, “Go on, have a wee.”

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried peeing on command under pressure — but it’s up there with defusing bombs. Naturally, nothing came. She looked disappointed, like I’d failed some secret test. Her solution?

Her solution? “You’ve not emptied. We’ll have to catheterise.”

She pulled out a tube — a foot-long medieval torture device. It looked like it came from the same catalogue as plumbing snakes. I looked at her. She looked at me. No gloves, no chat, no dinner first.

Panic. Stress. Dignity out the window. I insisted on doing it in private. She reluctantly agreed, still glaring like I’d stolen her cat. So into the lav I go. Now imagine pushing a thick plastic cable down the eye of your penis while sweating and crying inside. It didn’t just hurt — it screamed. Blood. Pain. Liquid betrayal. I returned to her like a war veteran holding the remains of my soul.

“Oh,” she says. “Wrong catheter. You’ve got an enlarged prostate. Should’ve been a curved one. That size’s a bit thick.” Cheers for the heads-up. You couldn’t have led with that?

(For the record — I used THC/CBD oil, prostate back to normal. Do your own research, obviously. Not medical advice, just bitter experience.)

I never went back to her. But years later… the next nurse made her look like Mother Teresa. That, my friends, is a story for another post.

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky ... many thanks sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

            “The views in this post are based on my personal  
              experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

          “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                 By storm and silence, I survive.”

In the season they call SAD, when the clouds refuse to blink, And rain is just sky sweat with delusions of grandeur, She came like a banshee on a Bonneville, Tyres hissing spells in the petrol dusk— A woman? No. A prophecy in leather and eyeliner, Named Albertine, Long-suffering wife of Death himself, Who sulks in a wheelchair and smokes cloves ironically.

Her hair: a demi-wave abyss. Her smile: pure tarot seduction, One glance and even the moon blushed, Then wept behind cirrostratus shame.

Oh, Albertine! You ride like prophecy, Read palms with a sneer, And throw cards with such venom They hit truths no therapy ever could.

She is palmist, astrologer, Tarot priestess of all things doomed, With a Motorhead patch sewn onto her soul And eyeliner sharp enough to open portals.

By her side, in his wheeled throne of bone, Death groans through another solstice, Wearing a “Don’t Talk To Me I’m Mourning” T-shirt. She calls him Mad Moon Ms. in public. He hates it. We love her more.

They arrive at Ritual Panic, That sacred sabbat of forgetting where you put the damn wand. She lights incense that smells like resentment and rosemary. He levitates just to show off. She tells your future with a flick of the wrist And a voice that sounds like bourbon-soaked prophecy:

“You’ll fall in love with a ghost and regret everything but the kissing.”

Full Moon Tantrum follows, When the skies go hormonal And witches cry glitter. She dances. Oh gods, she dances. The kind of dance that ends marriages and starts cults.

You ask,

“Albertine, are you a goddess?” And she just laughs, Blows smoke in your face, And says, “No love. I’m worse. I’m aware.”

Post-Script from Death (dictated, not written): “If you see her again, run. She’ll read your birth chart, your palm, your doom, and your libido. She’ll burn through your soul like it’s a sage bundle on discount. But gods... what a sexy ass.”

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky ... many thanks sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

          “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

         “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                  By storm and silence, I survive.”

Let’s face it: the original Wheel of the Year is lovely and all, but it never quite captured the true essence of seasonal British existence—grey skies, passive-aggressive weather, and the looming existential dread of another trip around the sun.

So I’ve created My Wheel of the Year, reimagined with all the grim hilarity and dark sarcasm you’ve come to expect. No fluffy bunnies or overenthusiastic flower crowns here. Just raw, seasonal truths filtered through a bottle of gin and a Spotify playlist called “Witchy Vibes & Regret.”

The Sabbaths (or, “How I Learned to Hate the Sun”) January – “The Month of Lies” New Year, New You? Please. You’re still eating Christmas chocolates in your dressing gown and pretending it’s meal prep. This is not a fresh start—it’s an overhyped Monday with fireworks.

February – “Cupid’s Fever Dream” Valentine’s? More like Singles Awareness Month. Light a red candle, write your ex’s name backwards, and curse the Hallmark industry. Repeat while crying into heart-shaped pizza.

March – “Spring Tease” The equinox allegedly brings balance. Lies. It’s still raining sideways, your SAD lamp’s judging you, and you’re debating hexing the weather gods.

April – “The Festival of Allergy” You awaken the land, and in return, it fills your sinuses with tree sperm. Bless the earth with antihistamines and sarcasm.

May – “Beltane Burnout” Fire festivals? Yes. Bonfires of all your ambitions, mostly. Frolic responsibly, with one eye on the bail money.

June – “Solstice of Delusion” The longest day of the year—and somehow, it’s still overcast. Celebrate the triumph of light with SPF 50, rain boots, and an existential scream into the hedge.

August – “Lammas of Regret” The harvest begins. You reap what you sow. Which, let’s be honest, was mostly anxiety, bad decisions, and a dying houseplant.

October – “Samhain or Bust” Ah, spooky season. Finally, an aesthetic you relate to. Dead leaves, dead people, dead hopes. Light your candles, talk to ghosts, avoid your family.

December – “Yule Fuel” Pagan Christmas before it was cool. Stockpile mead, fake joy, and ritual candles like it’s the apocalypse. Because, let’s face it, it probably is.

In Conclusion: Spiritual? Yes. Cynical? Absolutely. This is a wheel that turns not with divine grace but with the sarcastic grinding of a society clinging to ritual and wine in equal measure. Join me. Or don’t. Time is a flat circle and I’m late anyway.

        "SAD Season," "Ritual Panic," "Full Moon Tantrum"

🧌 @goblinbloggeruk — Witchy, Weird, and Just a Bit Unstable 🔮 Read the blog, question your life.

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky ... many thanks sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

         “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

           “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                   By storm and silence, I survive.”

It’s funny, isn’t it? You’re in a room with one other person. Just the two of you. You speak. Your mouth moves. Actual words come out. But somehow… nothing lands. It's like you're a ghost, a passing breeze, or worse — background noise to someone else's ego monologue.

Welcome to my reality: Selective bloody hearing.

Let me paint the scene. You're fighting off a brutal illness, spasms hit like a freight train, your brain fogs up like a broken kettle left out in the English drizzle, and then comes the cherry on top — people don’t listen. Not can’t. Won’t. They avert their eyes, mumble condescending clichés, or — the fan favourite — promise they’ll “call you soon.” (Spoiler: they won’t.)

Is it the wheelchair? The drooping face? The occasional dribble? Or do they just prefer their disabled friends silent, motionless, and conveniently non-existent?

Maybe They’re Just Uncomfortable? Oh yes. Heaven forbid they feel awkward while you’re being eaten alive by something terminal and nightmarish.

I started calling them out. Can you imagine the chaos? Apparently, honesty from the terminally ill is too real. It makes dinner parties awkward. And honestly, I’m well past the point of caring. If I’m going to be ignored, I might as well scream in Black Sabbath and let Ozzy do the talking.

Paranoid? Nah. At first, I thought maybe it was just me. A bad day. A misread signal. But no. There’s a pattern. The looks. The empty promises. The slow fade-outs. The way friends evaporate like cheap aftershave. You become a "thing," a problem they can't fix and don't want to look at. I didn’t ask to be a medical freakshow — but here I am, feeling like the last carnie in a ghost-town circus.

It's Raining, I'm Buzzing Brain fog is a beast. Been digging into DNA research (who was I before this monster arrived?), but my head’s a bag of wet socks lately. Tingling lips. Numb tongue. Probably allergic to the air again. And that damn straw — it always goes missing, like some household Bermuda Triangle.

Wrestling Is My Religion Say what you want — yes, it’s “fake” — but pro wrestling is realer than most people I know. There’s truth in the ring. Pain. Theatre. Keyfabe. Art. The ghosts of the squared circle still dance under the spotlights in my head. And let’s be honest, “Real life is fake. Wrestling is real.” That’s my gospel. That’s truth.

📢 Follow me on X/Twitter: 💀 “If you like your humour dark and your truth darker, come hang out with a chronically ill goblin on a ranting mission of mayhem. Pro wrestling, spirituality, weirdness,disability, sarcasm, and survival served raw.”

🧠 @GoblinBloggerUK 📍 Because somebody's got to say it...

              “REALITY IS FAKE. WRESTLING IS REAL.”
                            — @GoblinBloggerUK

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky ... many thanks sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

         “The views in this post are based on my personal  
            experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

          “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                   By storm and silence, I survive.”

So I’ve been digging through the digital attic of my mind—aka my ancient text files—and it turns out I’ve been documenting my strange little existence for quite some time. Lucky you.

Expect a handful of funny, weird, and possibly unhinged blog posts coming soon. There's going to be everything: chronic illness, unbearable despair, overcoming adversity, and that one time I almost became just another gravestone in the plague pit thanks to a brush with COVID.

Spoiler: I survived. Obviously.

Now, I don’t like to brag (I love to brag), but MS has never managed to take me down. I’ve clawed, dragged, and side-eyed my way through everything life has lobbed at me. From the murky dungeons of fatigue to the unholy bureaucracy of the NHS, I’ve stood tall (ish) and refused to go quietly.

Then COVID showed up. It was hell. And not the “bad curry” kind. The “gasping for air, praying to every god you don’t believe in” kind. I was this close to joining the worm buffet.

But I fought back with what I like to call Kitchen Alchemy and Sheer Bloody-Mindedness.

Trusty onion – peeled like a warrior's weapon. Ever smelled like a casserole while crying? That's strength.

Colloidal silver – controversial, yes, but so am I.

Vitamin C and D – so much C I nearly pooed myself into another dimension. Worth it.

Ginger shots – made me feel alive and like I was being punched in the throat.

Turmeric, black pepper, and coconut oil – aka The Golden Bullet. Sounds like a mystical remedy, tastes like regret.

But I made it. Again. Because the moral of my life is simple: never underestimate someone who’s already been to hell and keeps receipts.

More soon. Possibly with more onions. And fewer near-death experiences.

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky ... many thanks sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

         “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”  

              “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                       By storm and silence, I survive.”