I did enjoy those Astral films didn't I (29th April 1997)

I did enjoy those Astral films didn't I, even if they weren't the best. I miss the Carnival Club. I've got to go back. Sunset or Boulevard. Sex makes the world go round. Doing something sinful stimulates my brain. 

By the time I go to Chelsea on Saturday, we could have a Labour government.

People who throw abuse at you, that says more about them than it does about me (28th April 1997)

People who throw abuse at you, that says more about them than it does about me. That's their problem, if they really feel that insecure. I don't want to waste my time talking about their problems. I don't recognise these people as being my superiors. If I see something admirable in someone, then fine, I might try to incorporate it into my personality somehow, but that's my choice. But the sight of these people making snide remarks to me, I find a very vile and ugly sight, they repulse me; I find it mindboggling they really think they've got the right to drop hints I should change to become like them.

Carnival Strip Club was just getting good (26th April 1997)

Carnival Strip Club was just getting good. Now it’s gone. Boulevard always has very big voluptuous girls but so American and open. Sunset Strip is so drab and ordinary, though there have been special moments. Astral Cinema is OK (it it remains) now and again. But I think I’m clean till Winter now. 

Carmen in a month’s time. It’s sexy to take risks. 

It feels so sexy to go into a whore’s room and strip absolutely nude and be rampant in there, waiting for her to come in. That’s the good part, when you give her the money and she tells you to strip while she goes out for a moment. If the Astral films had been better Friday I might very nearly have been tempted. To be in that warm room stark naked, waiting for her to come back in. 

I've got an intense resentment of people, and I want them to prove me right. That's a relief. Lets me off the hook. They can say these things but I'm never going to submit to that. They're never going to take away what's special about me. I have to put up with so much nastiness in my life, but I will rise above, and remain beautiful, like F.G.Lorca. People are always trying to look you in the eye, demanding something of you, and that's very tiring.

 

20th April 1997

 

Is therapy the new confession? (12th April 1997)

Is therapy the new confession? 

"Sigmund Freud, who started the whole thing off just over a hundred years ago, himself recognised the analogy, describing the analyst as 'a father confessor, who gives absolution, as it were, by a continuance of his sympathy and respect after the confession has been made.' By depression I mean a degree of unhappiness unwarranted by the objective aspects of one's life. For most people, to admit that they are sufficiently depressed in that sense, and in need of professional help is the essential 'act of contrition', for there is a taboo in our society on admitting that one is unhappy. Just articulating all one's bottled up misery to another human being in a privileged, confidential context can be an enormous relief. The therapist's job consists mainly of listening sympathetically to patients and helping them to recover their self-esteem. Cognitive behaviour therapy aims to get the subject to see that she is interpreting the facts of his/her situation in an unnecessarily negative way. The effectiveness of psychotherapy depends crucially on the skill and sensitivity of the therapist." 

I'm sitting outside room looking at back of men's heads, I'm looking at the back of my head too, I'm distanced from myself and watching myself in that room watching the girl. That's the only way it works. Like Herman in Despair. Pain is accumulating all the time, all Sarah did was to clear the backlog. I'd got silted up and bob was the final blow, I flooded. Part 2 of my life, start from scratch, though the water in the river still comes from the same source. 

"Creative people often find it difficult to comply with the demands of a prosaic world. The artistically gifted are frequently so dedicated to their vocation, whether it is music, visual arts or writing, that they can appear self-absorbed, impulsive, impatient and intolerant. Even in my medical lifetime there was a sub-group whom psychiatrists labelled creative sociopaths---a term now abandoned." 

He wears it with pride. Anything they attack him for, he wears it with pride.

Sarah looked a bit nonplussed when she said "I didn’t leave you with nothing. Did I?" (9th April 1997)

Sarah looked a bit nonplussed when she said "I didn’t leave you with nothing. Did I?" And I said "Yes. It does help me now, because I can’t get that black again, it helps keep my head above water and stops me getting too far down." She meant it should help me have relationships, but all I said was how it stopped me getting too black. No I wouldn’t be able to have relationships in the future. No not ever. But I’m better now, I don’t get black like before. 

She said "what happens if the black cloud descends on you again, what will you do then?" I shrugged; "go to the doctors I suppose, what else could I do?" "Is there no one else you could go to?" she said sort of sideways, probing. Confused, "who else is there?" I said. "Is there no member of your family you could go to?" "Oh!" I said realising now. Then remembering M’s letter. I said I hadn’t written back, she felt more like a stranger than ever. "Isn’t that like robbing her? She probably wants to get to know you. She doesn’t know you as a person." I said I had warm feelings for Sarah. Then she said "if you passed me in the street you wouldn’t look twice at me."  

I was trying to reassure her I wouldn’t get that black again, but she wanted to know if I could have relationships now.