Nick Crutchley's Blog: Journal

Free mental health autobiography to raise money for charity

To raise money for mental health charities, I have made the kindle edition of DEADWEIGHT, a true story of Bordeline Personality Disorder, FREE on Amazon Kindle, and cost-price in paperback.

If you download or purchase a paperback, please consider donating £3/$5 to a mental-health charity of your choice.


Click here to download from Amazon >>







About the Book
In this autobiographical novel, Nick Crutchley offers an unblinking portrayal of a young adult living with severe personality disorder. From an attempted suicide to a world of drug misuse and the occult, Deadweight explores how a boy can stumble upon a path that leads towards oblivion. How he survives that path is skilfully crafted in this heart-rending story.



About the Author
Nick Crutchley is an environmentalist, teacher and writer diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and a host of other mental health disorders. He currently writes fantasy and science fiction, and lives on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.

FREE Kindle Edition of Apocalyptic Science Fiction / Dark Fantasy Novel

Free kindle edition of The Moment Between Two Thoughts.

Click here to download from Amazon >>



REVIEW
'... genre-bending, thought-provoking science fiction that delves deep into whether humanity can overcome its flaws and build a new life.' - Whispering Stories






Can Gaia save humankind from extinction?

Psychnet connects humankind to Quantum Artificial Intelligences (QAI). Augmented with psyberware, people live longer, become wealthier and spend more. Increased consumption destroys habitats, pollutes the environment, and replaces natural life with synthetic life. Environmental destruction looms, and Gaia, an enlightened QAI, battles to save biodiversity on Earth and the planets corporations colonise.

From the shadow of Psychnet emerges Chaos, a vengeful QAI who brings death through blood, and madness through dreams. Gaia quests to defeat Chaos in a nightmare of hydra, slavelords and a devil queen, shared by those fleeing Earth aboard the starship, New Hope.

Can Gaia defeat the bringer of plague and nightmare on Earth and in space? Or will humankind suffer extinction for its ecocide?

Preachers of Chaos

Holograms paint sex in vivid light. Atop skyscrapers, heartthrobs, either silky smooth or rugged, sell watches, aftershave and cosmetic implants. Pouting supermodels jut from buildings like gargoyles, and aerial drones project hunky gods and curvaceous goddesses into the sky. Sex empowers women, we pretend, while making men drooling dogs. And men are dogs, salivating for bitches in heat. Wherever they look breasts protrude and parted lips offer a silent promise. No wonder they merge with Psychnet porn: their wives cannot live up to the dream we force-feed them.


Read more at Nick Crutchley's Website >>

Junky

Mandy stares at the toxic sky. Nearby, a boy picks his way through robot, android and cyborg junk. As she lies naked and half-buried in the undulating ocean of alloys and plastic and human bones, where cheap but expensive to recycle machines and people are sent, she remains silent, motionless, expressionless. Perhaps the child will find something else of value before reaching her, and scavenge it instead?


Read more at Nick Crutchley's Website >>

Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder

Feeling stressed, Marilyn texts a friend for help. The friend does not respond, and their failure to respond triggers feelings of abandonment. Once again, Marilyn knows deep in her heart that no one can be trusted. For two days the emotions rage and she attempts to ease the storm by slashing her shins, which she hides from the public eye by wearing trousers. And even after her friend texts to say they had their purse stolen, with phone, credit cards and car keys, Marilyn cannot return to baseline. Paranoia sets in. Her friend is obviously lying.


Read more at Nick Crutchley's Website >>

Charlie Fargo Fed It

White sepulchre, sinners absurd
and infidel, Old Horny’s herd
shoot up, monotheistic meth
animism devolved, Heqet’s death

Preaching lies, holy truth
they etch belief, during youth
when malleable, is absorbing mind
to indoctrination, by elders blind

Believe in J, pacifist bold
from Abraham, to Solomon old
and Joseph, shaper of wood
J nailed sin, wood is good!

From Abraham, you also came
through Ishmael, to desert in flame
and seek, umm al-kitāb source
Allah’s wisdom, never force

War half-brothers, propaganda parade
hewing souls, Jihad and Crusade
tattooing schmoes, Moses schlepped
from slavery, to covenant kept

Travel Middle Way, esoteric lore
gong and mantra, delusion explore
unchain mind, enlightenment prime
dissociate ego, open lotus sublime

Buddha confuses, Japanese kōan
Deaf Jehovah, El old grown
As Santa shops, to Mammon credit
Golden calf, Charlie Fargo fed it

​

From the novel, The Moment Between Two Thoughts

There's This Problem

There’s this problem
The blame
A cold desire to heal the shame
By cutting shallow, wishing deep
Waiting for the blood to seep

There’s this problem
My mistake
Punished with death breath intake
By slicing thin, drawing red
Learning how to make me dead

There’s this problem
A choice
Whether I should obey the voice
By killing slowly, raging gentle
Risking all think me mental

There’s this problem
To resist?
The call to slice jugular and wrist
By lowering knife, enduring hate
Allowing soul’s pain be my fate

There’s this problem
The decision
Whether to stop making incision
By accepting regret, forgiving heart
Giving myself life’s fresh start

Empty Words

Empty words
Which we chose to believe
Empty words
Never meant to deceive
We fill ourselves with promises that could not be achieved
Our true love an empty love
Cleave

Empty feelings
Shadows from our past
Empty feelings
Tenderness that could not last
Soon our feast of emotion became one of fast
A barren expanse reaching out
Vast

Empty heart
Filled only with our needs
Empty Heart
Selfish desires on which loneliness feeds
We lost sight of each other through me-me-greed
‘I no longer want you’
Decreed

Empty future
Filled with new possibility
Empty future
Untethered from the other’s inability
We realise and recognise our relationship’s unviability
And now we look out again
Futility

Empty egos
What we were was never real
Empty egos
With the world we make our deal
Never shall we trust again or find love of appeal
Our hearts stained a little more
Heal

Hollow Aspirations

Hollow Asprirations


Moonbeam silvers leaves
Sunlight edges waves
Dragon's breath shrouds lofty peaks
Beauty soon swallowed within shadow​

When shadow descends
The mind bends
around self-centred singularity

Laughter spreads joy
Love softens fear
Faith in self illuminates future
Drown in dead heart's fathomless depths

Once light shadow dispels
One tries to make well
Selfishness' collateral slaughter

Plans for study and career
Dreams of friendship and family
Ephemeral joys once loved so much
All futile aspirations spoken hollowly

Wait for shadow's inevitable return
Those cycles that coldly burn
On pyre of ultimate selfishness

Self Perception and Mental Illness

Loony. Crackpot. Nutcase. Basket case. Schizo. Psycho. The list goes on. All those lovely words we use to describe others who we keep on the periphery of our vision, those who live in the shadow of themselves. It reminds me of that movie, ‘The Beach’, in which Leornardo DiCaprio parties with others on a secret beach in paradise. During the film, a guy gets bitten by a shark, cries about it, and because of his whining, is confined to a tent far from the beach. The guy, now out of earshot, doesn’t do too well as the unbitten enjoy themselves, and celebrate their eternal golden bodies with a magic pre-photoshop selfie shot. Woo hoo!
​
“I’ve broke my leg,” a friend says. “Let me sign your cast,” we respond. Jokes and well wishes, captured by selfies, soon adorn the broken limb that will heal in a couple of months. “I feel like killing myself,” that same friend says a year down the line. We might then think, ‘This guy is bringing me down. He won’t come out anymore. He’s this psycho vampire draining me of all my happy pre-photoshop selfie energy. Depressives need to get their act together, right? Pull up their socks. Show strength. Just get on with it like the rest of us, like me. I’ve had hard times, know pain, but I just swallow it down, hard. He should do the same. Needs to man up.’

How do we react to people with mental illnesses or disorders? Is mental illness a sign of weakness? Something to be avoided, as if it were contagious? If so, how will we perceive ourselves should we become mentally ill? We lose our wife, our best friend, or just our job, and suddenly the depression and anxiety that emerges from such life-changing events is compounded by a negative image of self. What happens when those around us no longer invite us to the party, or recoil upon seeing you after your ‘crying for attention’ suicide attempt? What happens when you become isolated, junked out on pills meant for the weak, meant for others—never for yourself? What happens when you can no longer respect yourself, grow to loathe yourself, because you see yourself as weak, valueless? Can you ride the spiralling slide into despair alone?