Like A Tattoo!

The shame I’m compelled to wear because of my Psychiatrist’s specious diagnosis!

Like the scar of age,

Written all over my face,

War is still raging inside of me,

I still feel the chill,

As I reveal my shame to you,

I wear it like a tattoo!

An excerpt of the lyrics from “Like A Tattoo” by Sade.

I’m lounging in bed scrolling, not doomscrolling, but just scrolling on Social Media, occasionally glimpsing over my iPhone at the Snooker on my TV, thinking, when and how did life get so comfortable? So comfortable that I can’t bear to focus on “glass-half-empty” feelings of whether Zhou Xintong might lose to John Higgins. I was never like this in my childhood. Despite the fact that I used to sit and watch all manner of sporting events without fear or favour as a kid, I’ve now simply allowed myself to be conditioned into my comfort zone of anxiety. Into a life, always with one eye on an outcome over which I have no control. Too scared to ride my rollercoaster of feelings in such experiences as sporting contests on TV in case I wind up disappointed. Which is weird because, as an avid Manchester United FC fan growing up in the eighties, I was perpetually disappointed, and yet at no point did I ever consider jumping ship. No urge either to get up and switch channels on my toggle button Cathode Ray TV, nor, in the larger scheme of things, by switching teams to become a Liverpool supporter, who won virtually everything during that decade. And yet, strangely enough, by and large, I was a happy kid. No Mental Health travails to speak of. Go figure!

Maybe, just maybe, the lack of faith that Dr X, my Psychiatrist, now has in me as a human being is dictating the lack of faith I have in a consummate professional like Zhou Xintong. Which tells me all I need to know about my social network’s ability to lift me up or, more specifically in this case, drag me down. Either way, Dr X needs to be deleted or purged from my social network, but as yet, I can’t until I apply for a Full Discharge. Because I’m still fighting to change his mind about his specious Psychiatric Diagnosis, though it appears to be a losing battle, before I make that application.

I might just be that fool who doesn’t know when to quit. Hell is a place on earth, and I’m, somewhat oddly, enjoying it! And so, despite the periodic clouds Dr X induces across my psyche, I’m still, somehow, managing to sing in the rain from said periodic clouds. Life, it seems, is such sweet suffering. Dr X’s Psychiatric Diagnosis is my shame, and I wear it like that unwanted Tattoo one might have acquired from a drunken night on the town. His bogus diagnosis has become part of me, I neither want nor need.

In any case, Zhao Xintong ultimately prevailed by ten frames to seven! Ergo, hope springs eternal! All I need now is for Dr X to pull his finger out! Because his apathetic ineptitude continues to scar me deeply.

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