sick

Ah, the NHS. Our beloved national institution where you enter with symptoms and leave with a prescription for “just try yoga.” Here are the top ten gaslighting moments brought to you by the experts in “it’s all in your head.”

1. “Your Bloods Are Normal, So You’re Fine” Because apparently if your blood test is fine, so is your life. Chronic fatigue, pain, cognitive dysfunction? Irrelevant. Your veins are thriving, love.

2. “Have You Tried Losing Weight?” Yes, because my demyelinating neurological condition will obviously resolve itself if I just drop two stone. Thank you, Dr. BMI.

3. “It’s Probably Anxiety” The holy grail of dismissals. Broken leg? Anxiety. MS relapse? Anxiety. Spontaneous human combustion? Must be anxiety.

4. “At Least It’s Not Cancer” Because that’s the only measure of suffering. You’re not dying of cancer, so kindly shut up about your daily pain, fatigue, and neurological decline.

5. “You’re Too Young for That” My cells didn’t get the age memo, apparently. They’re just here for a good time, not a long time.

6. “You’re Probably Depressed” Wouldn’t you be? Living in a malfunctioning body while being told you’re imagining it is basically a depression starter pack.

7. “It’s Just Part of Getting Older” Ah yes, at the ripe old age of 27. My joints, nerves, and cognitive function just decided to fast-track me to 97.

8. “We Don’t Normally Do That Test” Translation: We could investigate your symptoms properly, but we’d rather not.

9. “You Seem Fine To Me” Thank you, Doctor, for this enlightening diagnosis based solely on my ability to brush my hair and not scream during this five-minute consult.

10. “Come Back If It Gets Worse” Spoiler alert: It will get worse. And you still won’t listen.

Conclusion So there you have it. Ten glorious NHS gaslighting hits. Remember, your symptoms don’t count unless they’re easily fixable, life-threatening, or profitable.

     “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.”

               🧌✨ @goblinbloggeruk ✨🧌

🖤 “ coming Soon: A brutally honest ranking of the top ten alternative medicines.

What’s worth it, what’s useless, and what might just make life with chronic illness slightly less unbearable.”(Straight but brand-consistent) “Soon: A brutally honest ranking of the top ten alternative medicines. What’s worth it, what’s useless, and what might just make life with chronic illness slightly less unbearable.”(Straight but brand-consistent) “Soon: A brutally honest ranking of the top ten alternative medicines. What’s worth it, what’s useless, and what might just make life with chronic illness slightly less unbearable.”

So, you’ve got MS. Congrats on your new life sentence. Welcome to the club nobody wants to join, where your immune system treats your nerves like a chew toy and daily tasks become extreme sports. If you’re wondering how to cope with the relentless mental and physical torture that is Multiple Sclerosis, here’s your brutally honest, darkly comedic guide.

1. Eat Like You Actually Care (Even Though You Don’t) Sure, nutrition might help reduce fatigue, inflammation, and general bodily betrayal. Will quinoa and kale cure your MS? Absolutely not. But it’ll help you feel morally superior while your nervous system crumbles.

2. Exercise Without Dying Yes, exercise is important. But if you’re one squat away from sh*tting yourself or collapsing like a Victorian woman denied her fainting couch, maybe start with gentle stretching or a walk to the fridge. Small wins.

3. Train Your Brain (Before It Leaves You) MS can fog your mind faster than three bottles of wine. Crosswords, sudoku, brain training apps – all designed to slow the brain-melt. Bonus: if you forget to do them, that’s probably why you need them in the first place.

4. Sleep: Because Insomnia Isn’t Edgy MS fatigue is like dragging a corpse around all day. Insomnia makes it worse. Try regular sleep times, a dark cave-like room, and cooling your room so your inner demon feels at home.

5. Stress – Your Favourite Symptom Trigger Stress is the invisible gremlin that pokes your MS into full meltdown. Meditate, do yoga, or scream silently into your pillow. Whatever keeps you from becoming an actual murderer today.

6. Vitamin D & Smoking Low vitamin D makes MS worse. Smoking makes MS worse. The universe is basically telling you to quit cigs and take a supplement. Or keep smoking and accept your fate – dark choices only you can make.

7. Heat: Your Mortal Enemy Heat turns your already dysfunctional nerves into cooked spaghetti. Stay cool. Cold drinks, fans, icy glares at strangers – all recommended.

8. Depression & Anxiety: The Cherry on Top MS is a daily trauma loop, so depression and anxiety are loyal companions. Therapy, meds, and dark humour memes help. Talking to people might too, if you can be arsed.

9. Alternative Therapies Massage, acupuncture, cannabis oil – none will resurrect your dead nerves, but they might make the pain less unrelenting. Go wild. Or don’t. It’s your hell.

Final Pep Talk MS won’t kill your dark sense of humour, unless you let it. Implement these daily management tips and maybe – just maybe – tomorrow will suck slightly less.

       “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.”

                          🧌✨ @goblinbloggeruk ✨🧌

So, you’re thinking about medical cannabis? Congratulations on reaching that inevitable point where life hurts so much you’re ready to pay £200+ a month to not want to punch everyone in Tesco. Welcome to the club.

Here’s everything you need to know about getting a prescription for medical cannabis in the UK – because apparently, the NHS thinks your suffering is adorable, but not quite “let’s fix it” adorable.

1. Is it even legal? Yes. Medical cannabis has been legal in the UK since 2018, but don’t get too excited – it’s not like they’re handing out joints at your local GP. Only specialist doctors prescribe it, and mostly through private clinics. Around 20,000 people have prescriptions. Think of it as an exclusive club for the perpetually pained.

2. What can it treat? Mostly chronic pain, but also PTSD, anxiety, OCD, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and the general misery of existence (unofficially).

3. Am I eligible? If you’ve tried at least two medications that didn’t work, and you’re not actively hallucinating demonic squirrels daily, you’re probably eligible. A specialist will decide. GP referral is nice but not required. Just another British system that rewards stubborn self-navigation.

4. How much does it cost to feel slightly less sh*t? Consultations: £49 – £200 depending on clinic greed.

Prescriptions: £200 – £300/month for flower (oil costs more).

Total: Think of it as your new rent payment for your brain.

Some clinics have access schemes like Project Twenty21 to reduce costs if you’re happy being studied like a stoned lab rat.

5. The 5-step process to blissful legality Step One: Choose a clinic About 20 private clinics exist. Some focus on chronic pain, others on mental health. Shop around like you’re choosing a funeral director – carefully and with low expectations.

Step Two: Eligibility assessment They’ll ask for your medical history via a form or short virtual call. Most get approved unless there’s a serious safety concern (or you call them a c*nt mid-call).

You’ll need your Summary of Care records from your GP. Prepare for the NHS receptionist to act like you’ve requested the nuclear codes.

Step Three: Initial consultation Here you tell them:

What’s wrong with you (everything)

What you’ve tried (everything)

If you’ve used cannabis before (it’s fine, they don’t care)

What you expect from it (relief, obviously)

They’ll probably start you on oil, because flower = scary government panic.

Step Four: Choosing a pharmacy Clinics usually have a pharmacy they use, but you can take your prescription anywhere that dispenses medical cannabis. Your weed gets couriered to your door within 48 hours of payment, unless the UK postal gods decide otherwise.

Step Five: Follow-up consultation One prescription per month = one follow-up per month. Adjust dose, repeat the ritual, pray for relief, try not to commit murder in the meantime.

6. Final thoughts If it works, great. If not, at least you tried. Medical cannabis isn’t a miracle cure, but for many it means life becomes slightly less of a living hell. And isn’t that all we’re really aiming for?

Give it at least three months to figure out your dose before declaring it pointless – because sadly, your endocannabinoid system didn’t come with an instruction manual.

⚠️ Disclaimer: This is not medical advice, just my darkly honest take. Consult your doctor or your dealer’s dealer’s dealer before making changes to your meds.

     “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.”

                  ✨ @goblinbloggeruk ✨

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.”