Thank you for all the emails and texts in the last few days after my disappearance from Facebook and MSN – i never knew i would be so missed. You all seriously need to get out more as i assure you my life isn’t that compelling. It is ridiculous, but i’m flattered. But where are my male admirers? Us boys can always be relied upon to forget about it each other, naturally.

Spending time with Peter (my coach) is always such a joy, and occasionally when he manages to crack through my hardened outer armour it can be really moving. He’s a very fatherly guy, and like when i see Marcos playing with Zair, i often wonder how things would have been different for me if i had a dad like either of them. Today we did an exercise that really pushed me somewhere i’d never been before and shook me to my roots.

Before that though, i noticed something i hadn’t in a long time, since i’ve been spending so much time in Hampshire dealing with the sale of my company and family issues. I really am a totally different person when i’m out of that place. Completely, totally different. I’ve really appreciated how negative an influence my dad is on me in the last week. I’ve always noticed it but i’d managed to forget it again. I literally transform into this utter shithead as soon as i walk through the door down here. My mood worsens, i close up, and i just start to take on so many of his more revolting qualities. I feel so helpless with it.

When i’ve been out for a day and had time to arrange things in my own life, i become so much more gentle and positive.

It’s not some holiday romance idea, but a truly noticeable change in personality that the people i know pick up on too. I relate it to the “Soppy Luna” effect that i named after Jose’s insane cat, as Luna was mad and vicious when kept inside, but as soon as he went out into the big bad world and got beaten up a few times, suddenly he was the most affectionate cat in the world when he walked through the door. As strange as it sounds, i think i am the same. This place can be like a black cocoon prison that makes me lash out all the time. It’s so insidious that i don’t notice it happening, but it is very real. It’s not an unhappiness with my life in general, more like a dark grey cloud seeping into my skin and changing me into the incredible angry hulk.

In the last few months my motivation to settle has been mainly that having a permanent home would enable me to actually have a proper relationship with Kel, as then i’d only be half an hour away and i’d also be making a safe place for her to stay when she was getting a new London-based career underway. Of course it was also for me, but that was a massive driver. But now it’s also taken on the form of making sure i keep myself away from my dad as much as i possibly can. It’s not that i can blame him for everything, but his effect on me is influencing all the valuable things in my life. For all i know the last 6 months could have been very different if i’d only been back rarely.

See here is the bitter irony of my life. I bet as soon as i deal with everything in Hampshire and finally cut off from it, i’ll be gentle, affectionate, calm, loving, kind and endlessly good-spirited because i’m free of the black family cloud hanging over me at the moment. And that will of course be 3 months too fucking late, because of course, it’s all gone up in smoke again just before i get to where and who i need to be. The Father must really have a bizarre sense of humour. You’d think he’s use it as an incentive, rather than a really negative punchline.

I’m told that guys with a fear of commitment tend to seek out situations where the person they are getting involved with is unavailable, as it’s safer and they can hold back. That definitely resonates with me, although i didn’t expect to fall in love with the chick. In fact, i didn’t expect anything at all, so i managed to really fuck it up this time. My cunning plan to stay detached went very wrong indeed but i’m still bashing myself and being pissed off that i found myself wanting more when i knew it wasn’t real in the first place. I thought it had become safe and she actually wanted things in her life to change and move on, and i didn’t expect to be the one she was passing time with until she had had a bit of a break from her ex.

In the car on the way back we had a very tongue-in-cheek discussion:

Me: “I have two exes that are absolutely terrified of me. I really don’t get it.”

Peter: “I can’t imagine you being frightening or scary. Certainly not physically, and probably not emotionally either. How strange.”

Me: “Well that’s what they say. Terrified beyond words it would seem, like i’m some kind of monster that gets tanked up on Stella and comes home to beat his wife so hard it knocks her teeth out. [removed] decided that because i was mean and scary that it was better to go back to her ex because he was cute and nice and wouldn’t be horrible and nasty like me.”

Peter: “Well a switch like that doesn’t sound very healthy to me. It’s the man and dinosaur theory again. Needing a back-up plan and thinking of men as a bundle of provided resources rather than a person.”

Me: “I don’t think it’s fair to compare the two situations either because i’ve had to deal with a hell of a lot more incredibly stressful things, so it’s been much easier for him to be shining kindness and light. Certainly is a lot easier to run a dictatorship if the other person pretty much takes anything you throw at them and calls it love. But there is a name for that – being a passionless mediocre fucking doormat.”

Peter: (laughs) “Aaaaaah! Alex maybe it’s your intellect that frightens them. That’s what i think it is. The way you have with words that can hurt. You know how to put things so that they really cut. I can imagine that is very intimidating.”

Me: “My intellect? I never knew advanced geometry and classical studies of ancient civilisation could be so profoundly threatening.”

Peter: “Don’t be facetious now. It’s the force with which you deliver the words, the intent, and the sharpness of what you’re saying and how you say it. Brilliant for the benches in Parliament but maybe not exactly pillow talk.”

Me: “But it’s how i express my passion and my frustration? To be honest Peter i’m not exactly one for sweet talking when i’m lying in bed if you know what i mean. What’s weird is my mum was just telling me about how kind i was to her when i was young, and my Nan told me i should be a doctor because of my bedside manner was so gentle and reassuring. According to them what set me apart was my kindness and my gentleness. Oh the irony.”

Peter: “Well what scares you in a relationship that would make you lash out like that?”

Alex: “Erm, i guess, not being confident in the other person’s feelings or commitment to me because that’s what i saw falling apart in my parents’ relationship, he says, being mister psychotherapist. That’s what keeps me terrified. You can throw insults or punches at me, but it’s uncertainty which is so difficult. I think i learned to verbally cripple people rather than physically. Maybe i need to express my anger differently so it doesn’t come out in my words although i don’t want to be some kind of fucking flopsy bunny.”

Peter: “OK well imagine that as the same kind of fear your words inspire. That’s probably what it feels like to know you are about to dish out serious emotional carnage. But that’s how you learnt to survive. Now it’s time for you to learn to live. We will make a little old lady out of you yet.”

Me: “When you put it like that, i really can’t wait. Should we stop it to buy some cat food and a lottery ticket? Maybe i could piss my pants in your front seat?”

I learn, and i just keep learning. Even more ironic is that fact that i actually speak very gently, even on a microphone. I often have to repeat myself so people can hear what i’ve said. Apparently you can be as ferocious as a lion even if my voice is gentle.

What we did today was about identity. I’m good enough now to be able to enter my subconscious with my eyes open in public, which is a great skill to learn. Peter’s tools are visualisation techniques where he asks you what certain memories, concepts and ideas look like, and then you manipulate them in the visualisation to re-order and re-program your subconscious. Like gene therapy you can target and surgically/tactically specific issues and beliefs so they are reset and work to your advantage instead of holding you back.

Today was about looking at 3 versions of me in a snapshot, all in the same room, and building a sense of history and identity between them. A heroic figure is in there with you and his characteristics are visualised as objects – mine were naturally very masculine and regal, but reflected kindness, righteousness, unconditional love and wisdom. There was a little me (an innocent trusting 7 year old), a 15 year old me, and a 30 year old me.

What was so enormously powerful to me was seeing the 15 year old me. Peter asked me what i wanted to say to myself, and the interaction between those two versions of me was so stark. But it was bizarre in that that person was weak, thin, almost dead, but crucially, massively numb. Totally powerless, helpless, lost, unable to think, indifferent, realise or feel, and totally blocked off to the rest of the world under the sheer weight of that numbness. Nothing at all could be said to him to get through to him in any way. No amount of compassion, no kindness, no fear or extreme feeling could move him. I felt desperately sorry for him. So young, so confused and so cut off.

Until.

When Peter asked me what i wanted to say to him, i didn’t know. The only thing i could say was to walk up to him and put a very strong, authoritative, knowing and massively powerful right hand on his left shoulder. A hand that was reassuring, loving, compassionate, kind but strong in a way that he knew it was proud of him and not violent. Almost like a hand that was bestowing strength. As soon as i saw and felt that, i was almost choking back the tears (i hate that feeling). It was the only thing that could get through to that very numb 15 year old boy. Only that masculine strength and authority could break through it. I couldn’t work out who was more emotional – the guy giving the hand, or the boy feeling it on his shoulder.

It left me very visibly shaken and shocked, so much so that i went outside for a cigarette to calm down, something unusual in a coaching session.

I started thinking about that numbness. It someone had screamed and pressured me in that state i would have been really fucking hostile about it. I don’t think anyone could have loved me out of it either, unless it was really intense love over quite a long period of time. It was the confusion and directionless-ness and lack of drive or purpose that struck me. Like he was there, but not there. Wanting to be passionate but trapped in a hazy indifference. Younger than his body. An empty garden, but ready to grow and sprout a whole new species of plant. Lonely but only knowing how to be alone. Not able to click or realise, and not knowing the spell he was under or the state of his own destitution. Overwhelmed and shut down, with no-one to guide him because he was mentally asleep.

I still have a heavy feeling in my chest after that. But it’s nowhere near as heavy as someone saying “i used to really like you” and you saying “i used to really like you too” back. Sometimes all those vicious words of mine count for nothing when the smallest and most honest things are what can rip you to pieces.