First of all, I am sorry that I haven’t posted for so long. In particular I am sorry (and grateful in equal measure) to those people who reached out to me during my absence. Please accept my sincere apologies if I was not able to get back to you in a timely manner or, indeed, at all. In a very real sense, as a result of what I’ve termed, ‘Bucket List Related Depression’, I have not been myself.

It seems almost comical now that, in February 2020, I wrote a post apologising that I had not written anything since the previous September. That’s five whole months that I went without posting (largely due to the fact that we moved house). This time it’s been getting on for three and a half years, not that it really seems like it from this end. Time, it seems, also flies in hindsight.

In February 2021, I wrote a post called, Is a Bucket List a Good idea?. In this post I speculated whether it was worth having a list of things that you really wanted to do before you died. On the positive side, a list like that would motivate you to get outside your comfort zone. Make sure you completed your wish list before it’s too late. You know, based on the idea that, on your deathbed, you don’t want to have any regrets about the things you didn’t do. Something, something, Mark Twain, something…

On the negative side, though, is the risk of really emphasising those same deathbed regrets, having trying and failing to tick something off your list.

In the end, I concluded that a bucket list was worth having, providing the items on the list were sensible. I did, however, acknowledge that:

The problem with illnesses like mine is that they are subject to unexpected twists and turns. These can catch you off guard and floor you. And, at some point, you won’t be able to get up again…

My bucket list was exactly two items long:

  1. Get a book published
  2. Play hockey for Wales

The first one is easy enough, particularly these days. Sites like Amazon offer services like Kindle Direct Publishing, where you upload your novel to the site. Then, any time someone buys a physical copy, it is printed off and delivered to them. Naturally, digital copies are simply downloaded to the app of choice. Technically I could write, “I am a fish” 25,000 times and make that available for purchase. Thankfully, I think I could do a little better than that. Either way, I could spam copies to friends and family at Christmas and, Bingo! Published book.

Image by Moshe Harosh from Pixabay

The second one, while not easy, was achievable with a lot of hard work, a lack of shame and a willingness to throw money at the problem. Having been to the Wales over 50s trials, I found that my skills were in the right ballpark. My fitness, though, needed improving, hence the need for hard work. But being in the right ballpark, skillswise, would not be good enough to displace an established player. You don’t leave out a known quantity, with whom you have years of history, for some noob who is just as good a player. No, you need a reason to pick the new guy…

Maybe there’s a match that your normal guy can’t get the leave for. Or, maybe, it’s just not cost effective for him to participate. Which is where I swoop in for the cap: paying what is necessary whilst ignoring any shame.

Like I say, achievable.

Right up to the point that it wasn’t.

In September 2021 I wrote a post summarising my fourth cancer recurrence. In this post I explained that the tumour I had been worrying about in the Bucket List post had been treated with SABR. Which was good news. What I also mentioned in that fourth recurrence post was that I had since been diagnosed with arthritis of the knee, which was undeniably bad news. Particularly as it meant that I could no longer play hockey…

In the post I explained that, on balance, I still thought bucket lists were a good idea, and that I’d just have to find something new to go on my bucket list. The bucket list entry that I suggested was:

find my way back to the happier person I was before I developed cancer.

It is worth noting that I only made three more posts after this one. All of which would have been started by the time I published the fourth recurrence post.

I think it is fair to say that, in the intervening time, I have not been able to find my way back to the happier person I was before I developed cancer.

In truth, I doubt that I will ever be able to find my way back to the person who wrote that line, let alone my 43 year old, pre-cancer self.

Without wishing to be overly dramatic, I can confidently say that having my ability to play hockey taken away from me, on top of all the cancer stuff, broke me. Mostly because it meant that I could no longer spend time with the people I had known and liked for years. Decades in some cases. But also because it meant I couldn’t complete my Bucket List. And, so, bucket list related depression was born.

And while I didn’t recognise it at the time, I crawled inside my shell and shut myself off from the World. It took more than two years for me to even recognise that I’d done so. Naturally, my wife had been trying to point me in the right direction but I just thought she was mistaken. During that time, I did try various antidepressants. I also tried talking to another therapist. Hell, I even tried going to a hypnotherapist…

Which was… interesting!

I also learned a new word, Anhedonia.

Anhedonia refers to the loss of ability to feel pleasure. I, however, would argue that it is the inability to feel happiness. Or, indeed, much of anything in the way of positive emotions. In case you’re wondering whether you can still feel negative emotions through anhedonia, let me assure you that you can. When my cat, Phoenix, died in November 2023, I was perfectly able to feel the full range of the despair and anguish that followed.

Image by Annick Vanblaere from Pixabay

It’s hard to describe what anhedonia is like for me, but I can give an example that I’m sure will resonate with many people. Do you have a favourite song? Or a favourite part of a song that, when you hear it, your heart lifts? A little zing of something, call it pleasure or happiness or something else; but you know what I mean?

I was driving along the motorway (freeway). I was actually in the process of coming off at junction 25, as it happened. Anyway, that part of the song that always lifted me came, and went, and I felt nothing.

I was genuinely shocked! That part of that song always gave my heart a zing…

But this time, nothing. And, in fact, since that time, nothing. So much so, that I can’t even tell you what song it was, because I don’t really listen to music much any more. But I can tell you exactly where I was when it happened.

For me, when I’m unable to feel pleasure or pride or satisfaction in the things that I do, it’s remarkably difficult to motivate myself to do anything.

And while I will ever be sorry that I didn’t post for so long, I’m not beating myself up about it. Which is astonishing! But the reality is that I didn’t stop posting because I was busy, or lazy. It also wasn’t because I was thoughtless: I tried on many, many occasions to get a post out. But when just clicking on Outlook to check my emails left me paralysed with anxiety, writing a post was way out of reach. This bucket list related depression of mine really left me a broken man.

And, look, I could spend pages driveling on about how low I felt during this time. But I won’t. What’s the point? That was then and this is now…

The question is; how do I find myself able to write a post now, when a few months I couldn’t check my emails?

Well, it started with a book.

Julie got me a copy of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book, Be Useful.

It’s properly called, ‘Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life’ but, to me, the first two words were all I needed. And I mean that literally. I never read a single word of the book because the idea already resonated with me. Why read tens of thousands of words giving anecdotes, examples and lists when those two words did the same job.

All I needed to do was find a way to be useful and my life would have some meaning again. Which led to the next question: how best to be useful?

I was giving this some thought in the shower (if you’re imagining me naked and soapy, that’s on you: enjoy the nightmares), when I misremembered a quote from the film, ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ (a good film if you ignore all the historical inaccuracies). As I recalled it, Orlando Bloom’s character, Balian of Ibelin, said:

What man can call himself a man who does not make his land a better place.

In my memory, he said this after digging a well on his land, to better grow crops.

The actual quote is, “What man is a man who does not make the World better”…

Close enough!

And I say this because, misremembered or not, it worked.

The first part of a book title, in combination with the mangled memory of a movie quote, allowed me to start trying to rejoin the World.

You see, our house came with five acres (two hectares) and a variety of farm, or farm-related, buildings. And at the age of 54, effectively retired but with a reasonable budget behind me, I had everything I needed to start making my land a better place. There was so much that I could do, that I could keep on making my World a better place until I was too old or infirm to do so any more.

In time, I became so inspired by this that I started videoing my my progress in these projects. I hoped I might be able to use this blog, along with my YouTube channel, to document my emergence from the depths of my depression. In the hope that my approach might be useful to others who found themselves dominated by the black dog. And, ultimately, something positive might be able to emerge from my bucket list related depression.

Not this black dog. This black dog is a good boy.
Image by Winsker from Pixabay

So that’s what I did.

I have hours of video of me digging, painting, building, etc…

The only problem was that half of this footage was just me gasping for breath after a couple of minutes of hard work. Or fighting reflux because I bent over or crouched in the wrong way. Quite often both.

Still, I persevered because I knew I would get fitter the more I did. Which was true. The gasping and spluttering eased with time but the reflux, if anything kept getting worse.

The logical thing to do was take a trip to the doctor to get a check up. But I didn’t need to because I had my annual scans at the end of August…

And they’d certainly identify if there was anything for me to worry about…

8 thoughts on “Bucket List Related Depression”

  1. An intriguing and interesting read Paul. Even though you’ve endured so much, I know just how strong your spirit is…. Nijmegen springs to mind! Life is challenging…the severity of which, varies tremendously from person to person. The one word that I throw at you is respect!

    1. ellipsis@hotmail.co.uk

      Hi Bill,
      Thanks for such nice thoughts, and reminding me of good memories.
      As I hope you know I’ve always had the utmost respect for you, too. I wore that pendant you sent me for a many years. Unfortunately the cord broke once to many times, so I stopped wearing it. In hindsight, that turns out to have been something of a mistake.
      Look after yourself,
      Paul

  2. Good to see you have / are coming out the other side Lumpy! I have often thought over the last few years, where you were up to with your trees and the orchard you were planting! How’s that going?
    Great to see that you have joined the world again! I hope that there is some positive news for you!
    Best wishes to you and the family. And those twin brothers of yours!

    1. ellipsis@hotmail.co.uk

      Hi Alistair,
      Thanks for getting in touch.
      I think I’ll try and do an update post on the trees, once they’re looking a bit more photogenic. I’ve passed on your regards to the twins.
      All the best to you and yours,
      Paul

  3. Paul, great to hear from you mate, but worried re the reflux having recently lost my father in law in similar circumstances. As always, happy to grab a coffee/beer/cycle if you are up to it, or maybe just trade dome messages, but no worries if not. Take care buddy x

    1. ellipsis@hotmail.co.uk

      Hi Andy,
      Lovely to hear from you.
      Sorry to hear about your father in law. My next post will better explain what’s going on with the reflux.
      I’m going to try and get to some Back to Hockey sessions before the season’s out. I’ll also try and catch a 4ths and 5ths game, if you’re still playing. Either way, it’s always noce to hear from you.
      Hopefully catch up soon,
      Paul

  4. Hi Paul… always find your blog quite fascinating and something that resonates well!
    I particularly liked you view on reading (or not) the Annie book and reminded me of a word. A word I thought I would share as you have done with ‘Anhedonia’
    My word is “Tsundoku” Japanese… the art of acquiring books and letting them pile up without reading them! I am sure you are well read and may already know the word but it was my way of sharing that I have read the blog and was thinking of you! Take care, until our paths cross again!
    “Whatever the song, play it loud”

    1. ellipsis@hotmail.co.uk

      Hi Mark,
      Nice to hear from you.
      I like the word Tsundoku. It seems remarkably similar to the approach I adopted at Uni, whereby I bought books, put them close to me and hoped the knowledge would transfer to me through osmosis. Results using this approach were… mixed!
      I’m currently enjoying Tom Odell playing Another Love live at Pukklepop 2023, although I watch this on YouTube, so it’s not hugely compatible with driving.
      Take care of yourself,
      Paul

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