God people are boring. LinkedIn is full of boring people. I suppose I am too. When you work with people you’re obligated to talk about boring things but sometimes people make it more interesting.

I don’t know if I’ve written about this before, certainly I’ve written about having a foggy mind, but it seems to exclude you from traditional workplace expectations.

I was online looking at YouTube when I saw a video on how to manage confidence issues and imposter’s syndrome. I watched the video, but listening to the guy, the issues seemed to be around doing things the right way or doing code reviews properly like he assumed you could think clearly enough to understand what everybody around you is talking about. And I know that I harp on about it. But it’s hard. On one hand everybody’s telling you that you’re normal, on the other hand some days it feels like I have dementia and can’t remember a damn thing. At the moment with the tiredness I suppose it’s to be expected but even when I was at work I couldn’t take everything in. People talk but they don’t pause to let you process what the hell it is they’re talking about and it doesn’t appear to be a problem for other people. When all you can do is code, what’s the answer?

Freelancing. I wish it was as simple as that because that has its own stresses like “Where the hell do I get my next client from?” and “I really don’t want to talk to clients” and “How am I ever going to wake up enough to have that meeting or to finish that work?” and more importantly “If I am multiskilled, and still using Udemy to learn things, when will I ever be able to dedicate my life to music?” Coz time’s getting on.

I really want to move too. Of course the tiredness is holding me back. I want the city experience. I feel like I’ve entered an age where people expect you to have settled down, but far from it, I am still a child wondering what the fuck it is I’m going to do and with all the social anxieties I’ve always had. On the up side alcohol is less of a stress. I expect it would become one if I moved to a city, particularly if I was invited out, but, I think I’d make sure I lived very much as isolated as possible so that were I to return home drunk I wouldn’t then get paranoid about judgement. I always do. Home never feels like home. The sound proofing is always terrible and I’m extremely self-conscious which then gets out of hand if I’ve had a drink and I get scared the neighbours will have heard me singing or talking to randoms online once I get home too pissed and too jolly to just be on my own. Most of them are idiots, but it’s some form of entertainment.

Which brings us nicely back to the B word. The location. Something else about the note: We weren’t sure the note was for us. This would make sense as my notes were accusatory. It would also make sense because the word we was used. I think if it were real, he might have addressed it directly from himself.

Something else I think I noticed after I’d just moved in. And it would make sense because my first neighbour left me utterly paranoid; I was hearing things. There have been times where I’ve just thought I had some kind of illness, and whilst it’s been really scary because it has turned into voice hearing, I don’t think there is illness. I think I’ve always been paranoid, maybe with some level of Asperger’s and I think that can spiral into hearing things that aren’t there when initially supplied with audio stimulus. Stimuli. Whatever. I’m a ruddy HSP! Who very much wants to stop studying. I’ve got this bollocky wordpress course and then the android one to finish and I just don’t have the energy to do anything else if that so I need to sort this energy stuff out.

Anyway! In my first flat, my neighbour would call me a “filthy fucking pouf”. Somehow I was cool with that. It was scary, mildly, enough to make you feel light, and I think, potentially, somehow that turned into “perve” and eventually “paedo” which then potentially led me to my second neighbour. I can’t think why, but I know that’s what it was.

There is another option. I’d been to the police and my mother had bitched about the neighbour to the agent — good on you Mum — but maybe the note was actually crafted in such a way that was, if found by the agent, to be seen as making them look innocent. Maybe he’d been asked to write that note. How can I exclude that possibility? Yes I am obsessed and I won’t ever let it go. I suppose that wouldn’t explain why they’d posted the notes back to me that I’d written to them. It seems unlikely that the agent would have asked them to do that. Not only that, the shouting that I’d heard…if he had done that shouting and shouted the same things I’d heard, then there would be no way that he would have thought I’d believe him.

Maybe this is important too. It was written in an email talking about how I was feeling:

I have consciously noticed the effect that paranoia has on my interpretation of what people are saying, as in, the words I hear. But that’s also a side effect of living alone and hearing lots of voices outside and upstairs! Don’t worry, I’m not crazy crazy paranoid, I’m feeling better, but when you can hear some words that aren’t unclear or clear, it’s so easy to draw conclusions.

I wonder what I meant by words that aren’t unclear or clear. Maybe that’s what my focus should be on; they were clear to me even though they couldn’t possibly be.

Anyway, that’s enough of the B place for now. I can’t move as I am anyway. My thinking was that if I had to move on benefits then at least a city would enable me to get places and do things even if I was struggling. At the moment it’s a mile’s walk before I’ve even got to the bus.

I think I just need energy and money. I did have a dream where I received what I thought was money from a stranger. A document that meant I was going to get some. Then Nick Knowles shows up. I can’t remember the details. Apparently it means you’ll get some money from somewhere unexpected. When I woke up I saw I’d had an email from the water company which I have shares with, usually to tell me I’ve made a few pence. Can’t blame the messenger I suppose. Whoever that may be.

The bottom line on Brighton; a lot of it wasn’t real if any. I know that. I think I know that. It’s been nearly seven years. Fucking hell. What have I done since? A lot of studying. Probably what’s depleted my energy.

If it’s dry tomorrow I’ll cut the grass. But I want to get out of here. I’ve had enough. And I really need a shave…