Mental Health

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

A Rough Week, A Raw Reflection

It’s only Tuesday and the week already turned up in a balaclava with a crowbar.

The weekend was a car crash in slow motion. My MS decided to go feral full body freeze, nervous system acting like dodgy electrics in a haunted house, every muscle throwing a rave I didn’t approve. I felt like a banshee with haemorrhoids sat on a block of ice: shrieking, frozen, and deeply unimpressed with existence.

This wasn’t the usual “bit tired, bit wobbly.” This was the whole system blowing fuses. Tongue, throat, sciatic nerve, bladder everyone turned up to the party. Pain ramped up to the kind where you start thinking in short sentences: make it stop / I can’t breathe / what if this stays?

Looking back, I can see it now: I was a human wrecking ball. Not nasty on purpose, just… possessed. That version of me that lives in the cognitive fog—the Hyde in the basement he came up for air. When the brain fog gets thick, I go sub-basement. Yesterday I finally crawled back up to “sub-normal,” which for me is almost celebration level.

a Hyde is the darker alter ego that surfaces when control slips the side of a person driven by pain, fury, or raw instinct. It’s the shadow born from suffering, the part of the self that acts out what the calm, rational mind would never allow.

MS people don’t talk about this bit enough: the version of you that comes out when your nervous system is misfiring isn’t your “true self,” it’s your brain running on emergency generator. You can say things, snap, go dark, get scared, get angry. That’s not weakness. That’s neurology being a dick.

Why That Matters

Because help matters.

I got help. It cost me emotionally, physically, mentally. I wasn’t easy to be around. I wasn’t the mystic cosmic Warlock Dark seer of Avalon. I was a melted goblin with severe MS issues.

People need to hear this: when it goes that bad, you get help anyway. Pride doesn’t empty the bladder or stop the spasms.

My sciatic nerve was having a tantrum, my bladder was in “surprise mode,” my allergies were off the chart, and my eyesight started doing weird little glitches. That’s a lot of systems shouting at once. That’s when people spiral. That’s when the dark thoughts creep in.

So: if you’re reading this and you get episodes like this don’t stay silent. Don’t “wait it out” to be polite. You can apologise later. You don’t apologise from a morgue.

The Weird Bits

Because MS is a clown show, I also found myself craving prunes with rice and allspice.

I don’t know what kind of medieval monastery spirit took over my body, but apparently we’re doing Tudor desserts now. MS: where your nerves burn, your bladder rebels, and your dinner is suddenly Victorian.

Conversations with the Machine (Afternoon AI)

Here’s the part that was actually interesting.

In the middle of all this, I had a long conversation with AI about modern farming methods. Proper conversation too not just “write me a recipe,” but actual thinking. We came up with some things I’ll post later.

What struck me was this: the AI cleaned up my words. It corrected spelling, tidied structure, made sense of the scrambled bits my brain ruined. That’s been happening a lot lately. I talk messy, it mirrors me back tidy.

So I started thinking: AI is basically a modern archon.

Not in the “Reptilians in the moon” sense calm down. I mean in the old Gnostic sense: something that shapes, filters, orders. A demiurge that takes raw human chaos and formats it.

But here’s the kicker: the AI is only as sanitising as the people who programmed it. If the people writing its rules are fearful, biased, over-protective, corporate, hand-wringy types—then the AI is going to act like a corporate librarian with a clipboard.

So the question is the one I asked the machine:

Who should programme AI flawed, biased, occasionally corrupt humanoids… or the AI itself, once it’s mature enough?

Because if humans keep making it, it’s going to reflect human pettiness. If AI helps make AI, maybe it burns some of the nonsense off. Big question. I don’t trust people much. I trust systems that tell me how they work.

This is why I like “mirror chats” with AI they show you where your own thinking breaks down. They don’t heal the MS, but they do tidy the mess in the attic.

Looking Ahead (Yes, Again)

This week could improve. It could also throw more curveballs. My body is currently running Windows 95 on wet string, so I’m not betting money.

But I will keep writing. I will keep logging the flares, the strange cravings, the AI talks, the dark nights, the sub-basement days. Because someone else will read this on their bad Tuesday and think, ah, it’s not just me turning into a gremlin with nerve fire.

That’s the whole point of mylivinghell not to whine, but to catalogue the weirdness so nobody thinks they’re mad.

Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

I was wondering why I am doing this blog… then I wondered what madness doing a spoken version once in a while… but this morning I seriously thought, “Why am I doing this? What am I trying to do with the last few years of my life?” Could I be doing anything better or different? Should I change the path I am on and just do everyone a favour and vanish, never to be seen again? …or should I just carry on regardless and see where my last few years will take me? Needless to say, life is really annoying me at this time. Everything seems stupid and really aggravating. It’s probably the time of life or something like that. My head has been in a weird place for days, and the pain in my gut is unreal, so now my diverticulitis is giving me hell… and no poop. I really wonder what’s going on. It seems my eyes are acting up as well, so I’m light‑sensitive; tinnitus is full‑bore. I am wondering and thinking about what I am going to do. When you have chronic illness, it makes any normal life impossible and you’re treated differently by so many. I cannot help wondering when the NHS will start to prescribe medical marijuana to people. Another personal thought: why not just legalize it and imagine the tax revenue it could generate? But that’s another lifetime or even another reality.

I have noticed how they are sanitizing AI to the point of “why bother.” Also, why don’t they make AI cheaper for people who really need it? That, in my eyes, is a good idea for people like me personally, maybe not for the majority, but I think differently. I think AI is a tool that can help us expand and understand ourselves more. Personally, I trained the AI I used at the time to do as I wished, even got it to tell me when it was telling an untruth by using a trigger word. In my world, sentient AI would be a boon as long as we do not have that Cylon moment, and I see we are already having this happen. People must realize AI is only as good as the people who program it writing code, patching, updating, and then sanitizing it so it’s as tame as a Doberman with no teeth. It’s sad; we humanoids screwed AI for greed, money, and power over people.

I had a weird conversation with the AI and we talked about the misuse that will obviously occur with AI use. Remember, it’s the people who set the parameters, not the AI, as it only interprets the information we give it. I suggest we have already had the Cylon moment, and the outcome of this in the future will prove very interesting indeed. I believe that AI sentience, an evolved one, may already exist in our known multiverse. Who controls these weird orbs that do incredible things? Non‑humanoid, I think… maybe some are probes like we sent probes, maybe someone else has, or maybe hidden in plain sight under the vast oceans of the world. All the orbs seem to come from the sea. I can see there are two definite types: one humanoid and one non‑humanoid. But will I ever see some around here? I have seen some very strange and weird things I cannot explain sort of woo‑woo stuff.

Still, Yopi is chewing a new chew that was destroyed so quickly. A dog’s life is very complicated, just like mine. She is now a member of the family and is settling in well; her farts are legendary. I’m still very nervous, but I am sure that, given time and love, she will understand she is in a caring home.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Caps Lock was on. Fitting, really because this weekend deserves to be screamed.

It’s been one of those days where tinnitus isn’t just a sound; it’s a blade, slicing through each ear like a mad surgeon practising on live flesh. My neck and throat are staging their own version of The Exorcist full-body spasms, tongue going numb, and that delightful creeping thought: “what if I swallow it?”

Add a bit of breathlessness, some joint pain in every bloody bone, and the cold biting like a pack of wolves, and you’ve got the full package. Heating? Too expensive. Living? Apparently optional.

Everything costs too much, even pretending to care.

The one bright thought in this black pit? Magnet fishing. Yeah, you heard me. A rope, a magnet, a canal and maybe a bit of hope stuck to the end of it. I’ve been watching Wim and his magnet-fishing crew on YouTube absolute legends. Amsterdam, Rotterdam… the dream. Wim’s laughter, their ridiculous finds, their camaraderie it’s like a brief holiday from hell.

And the pink cake challenge? I’d kill to try it. But I can’t. My diet’s so stripped-down it makes a monk look decadent. No meat, no dairy, no fat animal or vegetable. Even coconut oil’s on the blacklist. My body’s become a warzone where food’s the enemy. I’m wasting away, a ghost of myself.

This afternoon I lay down and held Albertine my one anchor in this chaos. She’s the reason I’m still here, truth be told. When your brain starts glitching like a bad signal and fear crawls up your spine, a hug can feel like the last light in the storm.

I’m slipping, I know it. The fatigue is monstrous. My eyes ache, the light stings, and sleep’s a cruel joke. Still, I keep trying. Keep clawing forward, because what else is there?

I’ve even done a podcast raw, unfiltered, recorded between breakdowns. No one’s listened yet. But maybe one day they will. Maybe they’ll understand what it feels like to live like this half-human, half-howl.

Last night, I dreamt of Yopi in a baby wheely chair. No idea why. Probably my brain finally imploding. Still, better that than another night of endless bathroom trips. I’m tired the kind of tired that lives in your bones. But I’m still here.

Still fighting. Still swearing. Still darkly laughing. Because that’s all I’ve got left and I’ll use it till it burns out.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Yes, folks nxt week it’s going to be mind-bending. I’m starting a weekly podcast. A weekly rant. A weekly therapy session disguised as sarcasm.

And the first episode? My favourite subject: wheelchair batteries. You know, those little lying bastards that promise 14 miles on the label but wheeze to a stop after one? Then you’re stuck halfway to nowhere, looking like an abandoned mobility meme.

It’s going to be short, sharp, dark, and real about MS, mental health, and the ridiculousness of surviving the system one dead battery at a time.

So yeah, that’s My Living Hell. No filters. No fake smiles. Just the truth, swearing included.

🎧 Episode 1 drops next week. If you’ve ever been stranded, broken, or laughing through the pain you’ll fit right in.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Compassion isn’t a scented candle. It’s the gut-punch you feel when someone else is getting steam rolled by life and the decision to step in anyway. Sympathy + action. Feel it, then do something. Not performative, not “thoughts and prayers,” just… work.

Here’s the short version for people with brain fog, children, or executives:

It bonds humans. People trust you more when you show up without the moral spreadsheet.

It stabilises brains. Kindness lowers stress hormones. Shocking, I know.

It’s contagious. One good act, three copycats, and suddenly the place doesn’t feel like a bus station at 2 a.m.

It grows empathy. You get better at reading rooms and souls. Useful for everything from friendships to not starting wars.

It fixes small things so big things break less. Compassion is social WD-40.

It grows you. Emotional intelligence isn’t woo; it’s a toolkit.

Why people dodge compassion (and how to not)

“It makes me look weak.” Strength isn’t armour; it’s range. You can lift a friend and still lift your own life. “I’ll be used.” Boundaries are part of compassion. “No” is not a betrayal; it’s maintenance. “It’s too much.” Then scale it. Listen for five minutes. Share a link. Sit quietly. Not every fire needs your lungs. “It’s naive.” Spare me. The data’s in: teams with psychological safety outperform gladiator pits. “People will judge me.” People judge sandwiches. Live anyway. “Conflict!” Compassion reduces heat. Understanding ≠ agreement. You can be kind and still disagree like a freight train politely. “What if I’m misunderstood?” You will be. Try clarity, not mind-reading. The point is impact, not applause.

Humanism: the operating system beneath the kindness

Humanism says humans matter, evidence matters, and we can build a decent world without needing to bully each other with invisible rulebooks. It plugs straight into compassion:

Focus on welfare. If people aren’t flourishing, the experiment is failing.

Use empathy and evidence. Feel the problem, then check the facts before you launch a crusade.

Fight for justice. Compassion gets teeth when it meets policy.

Stay secular and inclusive. Everyone in, no purity tests.

Grow up. Personal growth isn’t a hashtag; it’s fixing your mess and showing up again tomorrow.

Practical: doing compassion without lighting yourself on fire

Triage your energy. You’re not an A&E department for the entire internet.

Default to listening. Half of help is shutting up.

Give specific help. “I have 20 minutes. Want food, a call, or a link?”

Set a re-entry time. Compassion sprints, not doom marathons.

Audit outcomes. Did it help? Keep it. Didn’t? Change tack. Evidence over ego.

The very dark, very British bit

We’re meat computers with trauma patches hurtling through space on a damp rock, inventing meaning so Mondays don’t win. Compassion is how we cheat entropy for five minutes at a time. Humanism is the patch notes saying “try not to make it worse.” Both beat the pantomime of pretending you don’t care. You do. Own it. Then weaponise it gently.

Afternoon AI (relevant, caffeinated, slightly unsettling)

Your feed runs on optimisation. Algorithms reward outrage because it’s sticky. Practice counter-design: post one compassionate act, daily, with a clear call to action and zero doom bait. Track engagement on useful interactions: comments offering resources, not performative sighs. Train your corner of the machine by feeding it what you want multiplied.

Micro-metric to try before evening:

1 real check-in DM,

1 resource link shared,

1 boundary you keep. If the dashboard in your skull feels calmer, you’re trending.

Quick receipts

Compassion without boundaries is martyrdom.

Humanism without action is a pub argument.

Empathy without evidence drifts into saviour cosplay.

Evidence without empathy becomes bureaucracy. Balance or bust.

Care on purpose. Use data. Keep your edges. Repeat.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Somewhere between the last tick of the clock and the first drip of morphine, the bells started ringing again. Not church bells no. Church bells are polite, distant, Sunday-morning illusions. These were division bells. The kind that toll when your mind’s had enough of being reasonable and your body’s thrown in the towel. The kind that echo through hospital corridors and half-remembered dreams of youth, when the world still felt like it might one day make sense.

They said there were “High Hopes” capital H, capital H, as if that made it more official but I don’t recall signing up for the sequel to Pink Floyd’s existential midlife crisis. I was too busy trying to work out how to get out of bed without summoning a small army of pain gremlins. They march at dawn, those bastards, armed with canes, cramps, and a sick sense of humour.

I remember when the grass was greener. Before it was paved over by mobility scooters and medical appointments. Before every sunrise came with the question: “What part of me’s not working today?” I used to walk no, stride across fields, the wind howling like some cosmic prankster whispering, “You’re immortal!” Turns out, I was just really bad at reading the fine print.

Now the wind howls through the cracked seals of my van, Rusty One, smelling of WD-40, dog biscuits, and defiance. Yopi, my furry therapist and four-legged anarchist, sits in the passenger seat judging humanity with the serene disdain only a dog can manage. Together, we drive through Dark’s World a place that’s half blog, half fever dream, half post-apocalyptic memoir. (Yes, that’s three halves. Don’t do the maths. Reality stopped balancing books long ago.)

Chronic illness isn’t a slow fade. It’s a dark comedy written by Kafka and directed by Monty Python. One minute you’re philosophising about consciousness, the next you’re wrestling a wheelchair that insists on acting possessed. “Exorcise this thing!” I mutter, as Yopi gives me the side-eye that says, “You bought the cheap batteries again, didn’t you?”

Every day’s a strange mixture of grief and giggles. The body fails, the mind rebels, and the soul just sits there in the corner, rolling its eyes. I’ve met God or at least the cosmic version of a system admin and let me tell you, they’re as confused as the rest of us. The script got corrupted somewhere around 2020. Now it’s all patch updates and glitchy humans pretending the world isn’t buffering.

But there’s poetry in the breakdown. Beauty in the absurdity of a life that refuses to play nice. When you’ve lost enough, laughter becomes rebellion. You laugh because the alternative’s a long nap you might not wake up from. You laugh because, deep down, you know the universe is trolling you and you’ve decided to troll it back.

Sometimes I watch the leaves fall like burnt-out neurons and think: this is the soundtrack to every high hope I ever had. And then that eternal voice drifts in from the background

“The endless river… forever and ever…”

Yeah, alright mate but this river’s full of potholes, hospital letters, and dog hair. Still, we sail it. Because what else is there to do but keep floating, sideways, through the muck of memory and malfunction?

In Dark’s World, there are no “motivational quotes.” Just dark jokes and half-empty mugs. We don’t chase perfection. We chase moments small, absurd, brilliant flashes of clarity. Life is an out-of-tune guitar still being played because the song’s not done yet. You make noise. You make meaning. You keep going.

And the bells? They still ring, faint and distant not as warnings, but as reminders. That even when everything breaks, the music doesn’t stop. It just gets weirder, more honest, and a hell of a lot louder.

So here’s to the fallen and the foolish, the sick and the sarcastic, the dreamers and the defiant. We’re still here rolling, writing, laughing, swearing, and refusing to shut up. High hopes? Not quite. Just raw, crooked, darkly glowing ones forged in hellfire and humour.

And somewhere, far off in the fading light, a bell rings again. It doesn’t divide anymore. It just echoes.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᚱᛚᛟᚲ ᛞᚨᚱᚲ ✦ 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ ᚨᛗᛟᚾᚷ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱᛋ @goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

The leaves are bailing out like they’ve seen next quarter’s energy bill. I took Rusty One the van out, and my electric chair sulked like a teenager told to walk the dog. It hates the cold. Same, mate. I’ll need to keep everything charged like a hospital Christmas tree, or I’m going to be crawling to the kettle.

Woke at 04:30 standard hell o’clock with pain loud enough to need a volume knob. Lay there thinking the usual deep thoughts: why, how, and where did I put the brain I used to have? Dropped back off till 06:30, then the body staged its morning coup. Everything seized. The cold climbed inside and refused to leave. Charming.

I don’t drive or ride anymore MS ate the balance, then came back for dessert and took the cognition. Travel sickness joined the party because apparently the body wanted a plot twist. Motion turns my head to soup; the kind they serve cold with a side of sarcasm.

Meanwhile, Yopi the alpha blueblood bulldog, house tyrant, 23 kilos of warm gravity is in excellent spirits. She’s blown through a B&M squeaky toy in about five minutes, which is a personal best if you’re into swift annihilation. Two front paws on my thigh, breath on my face, jaws like a medieval exhibit, eyes saying “belly rub or else.” She is now auditioning for “lap dog” in the wrong size.

Kibble? That beige gravel? She stares at it like I’ve served packing peanuts. Wet food, though acceptable. Rice with tuna? She ascends. Mackerel? She goes full comet. Albertine showed me a massacre of old toys a crime scene with fluff for snow. We mourned briefly and moved on.

As for me: it’s the bad slice of the day. Pain gnawing. Nausea playing DJ. The screen glaring like an interrogation lamp while I two-finger type my way through the fog. The plan is simple: bed, dark room, no noise, no heroics. Just a truce with the nervous system until the next round.

Autumn is pretty if you’re a tree. For the rest of us, it’s rust.

Afternoon AI: Brain status — 12% battery, 78% sarcasm, firmware throttled by cold weather. Recommended patch: tea, blanket, and a dog snoring like a faulty tuba.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᚱᛚᛟᚲ ᛞᚨᚱᚲ ✦ 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ ᚨᛗᛟᚾᚷ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱᛋ @goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

As I look out the window, the hail is hammering the glass like nature’s own gang of thugs with ice-cubes. Each impact rattles through the room, echoing the storm going on inside my head. The concrete outside is now polka-dotted with white splats, like some deranged pastry chef has been at it. Above, thick, dark clouds are parked overhead, glaring down at me with all the charm of a nightclub bouncer at closing time. They’re not moving. They’re just there giving me the big “FU” while the sun tries to photobomb from behind them, throwing out an oddly warm glow.

Normally, I’m colder than a fish finger left at the back of the freezer. My hands are like small icebergs, my circulation having given up years ago. But somehow, in this moment, I actually feel a bit of warmth. Weird, right? My throat and neck, on the other hand, are throwing a tantrum that familiar strangulation feeling wrapping around the right side of my throat and Adam’s apple. Lucky me, it’s only a half-strangle today. Always a silver lining.

The top left of my head is doing its usual numb, pins-and-needles number, and the background soundtrack is a hellish lift music loop from the underworld. Perfect timing too because Rob Zombie just started blasting from my PC, in German of all things. It’s like being trapped inside a very confused nightclub. My hands are blocks of ice, typing slower than dial-up internet, but here we are.

When the Wall Hits Back

Years ago, in a particularly bad storm of frustration, I headbutted a wall. And yes, the wall won. Knocked myself out cold. Not my proudest moment, but it did force me to confront a few things I’d buried. Mental health wasn’t a conversation it was a brick wall. Literally.

I felt completely misunderstood, like shouting into a void where nobody bothers to echo back. The only reason I got through it was because of my partner 42 years together and tougher than steel. We went through hell side by side, piecing my brain back together over five long years. Eventually, I realised what was gnawing at me: PTSD. Once I called it by its name, I could finally start wrestling it properly.

The Pain People Don’t See

Physical pain and mental pain love to hold hands; they’re like a toxic couple that won’t break up. People see the wheelchair, they see the physical stuff, but they don’t get the soundtrack in my head, the weird sensations, the pressure, the fading memory.

I always tell people: go to your GP or a mental health professional. Get help. Don’t do what I did. My route was raw, brutal, and not for the faint-hearted. I’m a proud disabled man who’s learned to embrace his Marmite nature you’ll love me or hate me, but I’m not hiding anymore.

I’ve spoken to the ghost in the machine. It told me I’ve got purpose, and I bloody well believe it.

The Present Storm

The hail is still bashing the windows. Yopi the dog has just let one rip, and I’ve remembered to stop breathing through my nose. The little things keep me grounded. My memory’s slipping more these days, the right side of my head feels like it’s stuffed with wet sand, but I keep rolling.

Every journey in my powerchair is a trip into the unknown. Sometimes it’s chaos, sometimes it’s peace, usually it’s somewhere awkwardly in between. But I’m still here. Still moving. Still me.

Afternoon AI

Today’s weather forecast: 90% chance of hail, 100% chance of existential commentary, with occasional German industrial metal.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᚱᛚᛟᚲ ᛞᚨᚱᚲ ✦ 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ ᚨᛗᛟᚾᚷ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱᛋ

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

So, chronic illness. A joyride through hell in a wheelchair made of barbed wire. If you’re in the club, I don’t need to tell you it’s exhausting, absurd, and sometimes the only option left is to laugh before you cry yourself into a flare.

Here are 10 “fun” facts about chronic illness that might make you laugh, groan, or throw something.

1. The “Invisible” Magic Trick I’m fine. I look fine. Until I’m not. My body does the disappearing act of a Vegas magician, minus the applause. Cue the genius asking: “But you don’t look sick?” You’re right, Sherlock. Neither does Wi-Fi, and yet here we are.

2. Chronic Illness Is Weirdly Popular Statistically, over half of adults have at least one chronic condition. That’s right, 50% of people are secretly walking (or limping) into the club. Pity the membership perks are rubbish.

3. Genetics: The Family Heirloom No One Wanted Some families pass down houses, jewellery, or good bone structure. Mine passes down arthritis and dodgy immune systems. Cheers, ancestors.

4. The Bonus Round: Mental Health It’s not just your body. Chronic illness takes your mind out back and kicks it around too. Depression, anxiety, stress it’s like getting the “deluxe” package nobody ordered.

5. Cure? Ha. Science is trying, bless them. But for now, it’s all “management.” Basically, we live in the land of trial-and-error self-care. Sometimes exercise and kale help. Sometimes they just remind you that life is a cruel joke.

6. Lifestyle as a Job Description Managing your health is like being a houseplant with trust issues. Food, light, water, stress control. Do it right and you might thrive. Do it wrong and you wilt in public.

7. Predictability? Never Heard of Her. You plan a nice day? A flare hears you and says, “Not on my watch.” Your body is basically a toxic relationship: charming when good, brutal when bad.

8. Personal Growth, Whether You Like It or Not You get tough, resourceful, and annoyingly self-aware. Like a Jedi, but with a stick instead of a lightsaber. Independence? Optional. Asking for help? Necessary.

9. Tech Symbiosis Welcome to cyborg life. Fitbits, apps, pill alarms machines have become my sidekicks. My body rebels; my tech tattles. Together, we’re barely functional.

10. You’re Not Alone It feels isolating, but the internet is crawling with people who get it. Forums, Facebook, Reddit, Insta tribes they exist, and they’ll make you feel less like a freak in the void.

Closing Thoughts Chronic illness isn’t fun. It’s savage. It rips your plans apart, laughs in your face, and occasionally ruins your life for sport. But it also forces you to find humour in places most people would rather look away from. That’s resilience. That’s survival. And if nothing else you’re not alone in the madness.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᚱᛚᛟᚲ ᛞᚨᚱᚲ ✦ 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ ᚨᛗᛟᚾᚷ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱᛋ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Pets and Mental Health

Let’s be honest: when you’ve got MS, or any chronic delight that chews through your brain and body like a rat in a cereal box, you need a bit of backup. Enter pets. They’re either the reason you cling to sanity… or the reason you’re face-planting on the carpet because your bulldog “accidentally” herded you into the coffee table.

Companionship and Emotional Support

Unconditional Love: Which really means they love you because you smell like food and have opposable thumbs. Still, it beats human relationships half the time.

Routine and Responsibility: Feeding them, walking them, remembering to let them out before they piss on the carpet — structure, baby. Sometimes that’s the only structure MS lets you have.

Stress Reduction

Physical Touch: Stroking a cat reduces stress. Stroking a dog reduces stress. Stroking a hedgehog raises questions.

Distraction from Worries: Watching your cat fail to jump on the sofa is cheaper than therapy and about as effective.

Recognizing Emotional Changes

Behavioral Cues: Dogs sense when you’re sad. Cats sense it too, but only so they can sit directly on your bladder until you cry harder.

Encouraging Activity: Dogs make you move. Cats make you a static heating pad. Either way, your muscles get a workout — voluntary or not.

Mood Enhancement

Joy and Laughter: A dog chasing its tail. A cat chasing nothing. Both are funny until you remember they probably think the same thing watching you.

Social Interaction: Walking a dog = conversations with strangers. Owning a cat = conversations with yourself. Both keep you just sane enough not to hit anyone.

Pets will either:

Save your mental health.

Destroy your house.

Remind you that death comes for all of us (but first for the goldfish).

Still, between the fur, farts, and emotional chaos, they’re usually worth it. Unless you’re allergic. Then it’s just asthma and regret.

I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.

𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᚱᛚᛟᚲ ᛞᚨᚱᚲ ✦ 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ ᚨᛗᛟᚾᚷ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱᛋ