I’ve been seeing others posting their 2020 retrospectives and being honest about their year, I’ll do the same, without apologies for just how horribly open I might be about it. Seeing as I’ve written a book on depression and suicidal ideation called How Not to Kill Yourself, and seek to (possibly hypocritically) encourage emotional honesty in men, it seems like I should endeavour to keep up that kind of personal openness. Although I’m sure I’ll often have cause to regret it (such as 3 minutes after posting).

The brief is that 2020 was the worst year of my adult life (hard to judge against school years because they’re such a different paradigm). It would’ve been the worst even without the pandemic.

At the end of February (I think?) my 8 year relationship ended. It was supposed to be amicable. Continuing to live together – and being thrust into lockdown together soon after – put a cruel stop to that. That first lockdown was the worst time in my life, just bumping out (narrowly, although impossible to really compare) my previous top spot of my experience in South Africa.

I won’t go into too much detail on a public space, suffice to say that it was terrible for my mental health, and I still have issues from that time (and from the much longer term quiet corrosion of the relationship) that I am trying to handle, and might well be a problem for years. Most significantly an insecurity and lack of self-esteem that has taken too deep a root for easy excavation.

Adding to that, I lost my grandma to cancer in April. It was too fresh on the heels of the loss of my other grandma in November of the previous year, and my old friend earlier that year (which was my first proper experience with grief). I am still haunted by the memory of the phonecall on my birthday this March, where I could barely understand my grandma she was so far gone. It was my worst birthday, for that reason and also to do with my ended relationship and already deteriorated domestic situation, and I was left feeling pretty isolated, wronged, and frustrated. This was the nascent beginning of what was to come. The next day lockdown hit.

I have spent so much time making excuses for others and for turning the tables on myself to find fault with me too, to make sense of it all in a more balanced way. In fact I just now wrote, “I’m sure I was at fault too”, but made myself delete it. I am fed up with going out of my way to “both-sides” my own upsetting situations. I don’t know anyone else who does it to the extent I do. It only continues to undermine my strength of character and allows unpleasant roots to burrow deeper. I will stand up now and say I don’t think things should have gone the way they did, I think it could well have been avoided, and I do not think I was treated well. Coming – over the whole year – to truly accept and understand this, to have more self-respect, is fundamental to improving myself in 2021.

Another negative thing of note was that in early June, not long after my ex departed, I had my final Laser Eye Surgery appointment, the one where they’d actually get down to it. I went to Leeds for it, driven by a supportive friend. I was left waiting for 3 1/2 hours only to find out I couldn’t get it done due to the rare particular shape of my eye. So I had to go home. I’d been wanting LES literally since I was a child, it meant so much to me and my sense of self, and I didn’t get it. So that was that.

Let’s move on to more positive things! I used the money not spent on LES to Kickstart expansive thematic boardgames. I acquired a new housemate the day after my intended LES, who I have quite a bit in common with, and has been a good and much-needed distraction from dwelling on things. I have made new friends, to replace those I felt I could not count on anymore.

I finished a book just before that first lockdown, then wrote another book in the lockdown, despite my miserable and unstable situation. Both of these books I believe to be two of my best and I am proud of them. I then made my own new website completely from scratch (and with a lot of stress), despite having no idea how to. Then, as well as editing and promotional stuff, and writing of various future ideas, I have made a lot of progress on a third book worked on this year, which hopefully I will finish before Spring. Some of the things I wrote down are very much inspired by what I was going through this year. Writing for me has been a catharsis more than ever before.

What else? I had my first proper photoshoot, with the great Dark Sphere Photography, of which the photo included below (and above) is from. My appearance changed somewhat – for the better, I think (no more Abe Lincoln chin strap). I got a new tattoo. I started wearing a cowboy hat nearly all the time indoors. I got a much needed and welcome ego boost from a new friend. I started, in a pathetically low-effort way, working out.

I’m sure there’s something else I’m forgetting. But this message has probably gone on long enough and I don’t think many people will read it as it is.

Shit, I haven’t even properly talked about coronavirus and the impact of the whole year’s tiers and lockdowns on me. Let’s just say it’s been a wee bit difficult, hmm? I’m sorry to anyone I took out my frustrations on. There was a lot of baggage behind all of that, as you have probably ascertained by now.

I really meant this message to only be a few paragraphs when I started, but isn’t that always the way with me. Sorry for the length (that’s what he said).

I am, as ever, thoroughly grateful for my ever-supportive family, without whom I’d have probably ended up face down in a gutter. And for those friends who have had my back – and just there for a much-needed laugh in dark times.

I wish everyone the best for 2021. My personal goals are to keep writing and keep on the very slow upwards slope of my career, to grow my self-awareness beyond just self-criticism, to improve my self-confidence and self-esteem and self-respect, to stand up for myself more, to be more assertive, to surround myself with those who have proved I can count on them, those I trust and value who show on the regular that they genuinely appreciate me in their lives. I want to become better friends with those left to me, especially new ones that I have made all on my own. I want to keep working on my own appearance, assuming I can keep up that thinnest, weakest, most straggly of motivations. I want to do more, to spend more time with people, to go out more. I want to have adventures. I want to have sex more. And affection and intimacy. I want to go a bit crazy at times, like nights of old, but without pressuring myself to feel I ought to live up to anything. I also want to feel safe and secure, as comfortable and as content as I am able.

I want to have a good time.

Now piss off 2020 and die in a fire. 

S.S.