If, like me, you’ve recently become a host for a parasitic sentient jellyfish with aspirations of godhood, lost your home to an invasion of cockroaches on a fast-tracked evolutionary path to nuclear civilization, and suspect that this may all be due to your downstairs neighbor’s dabbling in black sorcery, you’re probably feeling a little down in the dumps – or even outright terrified for your own survival.

If this is the case, these tips will help you overcome your anxieties and put you back on your path towards a fulfilling life:

1. Ask a friend for support

Sometimes you’ll find friendship in the strangest of places. I found it on my leg while standing in a flooded train station underpass, in the form of a tiny jellyfish hellbent on the destruction of humankind. What is friendship, after all, other than a symbiosis between two organisms. (I’m totally not just saying this because I fear for my life and the jellyfish, the Great Old One, Cthulhu, has almost full control of my neural functioning most of the time.)

Cthulhu has agreed to come back with me to the teeming cockroach hive that is my flat to help me face my phobia of nuclear annihilation. That’s very kind of him, even though he doesn’t really have much of a choice, since he now appears to be fused to the skin of my calf.

2.  Confront your fears

Am I afraid of seeing what my flat looks like after being overrun by those monsters? Sure. Am I afraid of confronting an astronomically large population of cockroaches without the recommended personal protection gear – especially considering the possibility of nuclear radiation? Absolutely. Am I terrified of looking directly at the dark corner of my room that shifts and ripples? You’re darn right I am! And will I face these fears? I mean, I guess so. Most of all, I just want my cat back. And the thought of her being all alone in there is what I’m most afraid of.

Screw it all. I’m going in.

3. Clean up your living space

You can’t expect to be chuffed about life if, when you look around your home, all you see is filth and decay. The mess is usually not as bad as you think it is. That’s certainly the case for me as I swing open the door of my flat.

The first thing that strikes me is the fact that the cockroaches seem to have imposed some sort of order on the slight entropy that is typical of my flat. For a start, the dishes are no longer piled up in the sink or stacked in the drying rack. Instead, cups, bowls and plates have been placed upside down on just about every surface. In each one, a door and a set of windows have been carved out. They’re grouped in clusters, like suburban blocks, and between them, cockroaches casually stroll, pausing occasionally to lift a leg or two in greeting as they pass one another.

The second thing I notice is my cat, sitting straight-backed on a stainless steel throne constructed out of cutlery and stuck together with partially chewed Skittles. A conveyor belt of cockroaches delivers a constant supply of food morsels to the bowl at her feet. She meows aloofly when she sees me watching the procession. Ordinarily I’d be a little bummed that she doesn’t seem to miss me at all while I’m away, but I can tell she’s just trying to conceal the fact that she’s self-conscious about her recent weight-gain.

The third thing I notice is Mr Herschell from downstairs, rubbing his little hands together like a hungry praying mantis. Behind Mr Herschell, the shadowy corner that I normally try to stay away from has becomes a swirling vortex, through which lies vistas of unfathomable horror.

4. Don’t be afraid to meet people

Meeting your neighbors is a great start to expanding your social circle. Meeting a neighbor in your own apartment, opening up a portal to the netherworld – well, that’s just disconcerting. Mr Herschell is about eighty-five years old. He’s wearing a splotchy grey bathrobe that’s open enough for me to see spaghetti sauce encrusted in his patchy white chest hair. The robe is dangerously close to coming open all the way. He’s grinning at me as if the thought of this makes his toes tingle. Compared to Mr Herschell in his bathrobe, clever cockroaches and evil jellyfish don’t seem that bad at all.

Mr Herschell’s gaze slides down to the evil jellyfish fused to my leg, and his grin falters. He drops to his knees, revealing far too much inner thigh for my comfort.

“Cthulhu!” he cries. “O’ Great Old One, Emissary of Yuggoth, I am your humble servant, the one who opened the gateway and released you from your prison beneath Mount Yaddith-Gho on the sunken continent of Mu.”

I can feel the tendrils of the jellyfish prickle my skin as a fresh dose of venom trickles into my bloodstream.

“I knew it!” I say, feeling vindicated despite the strange circumstances. “I knew you were up to some freaky shit down there! And I knew these bladdy cockroaches were your fault too!”

“Why is it that Cthulhu has chosen you?” asks Mr Herschell, looking hurt.

“Hey man, you can have the little guy, whatever. Take him, and take your cockroaches too. Just leave me and my cat alone, and stay out of my flat!”

At that moment the toxin kicks in and the jellyfish takes control of my body.

5. Close that dark vortex in the corner of your living room by throwing your downstairs neighbor into it

No longer under my command, my feet pound across the floor of the small room and I am aware of a telepathic overflow of emotion coming from Cthulhu – raw irritation and deep annoyance. My legs launch me into the air, and my knees come up to my chin. With supernatural force, my legs piston out and my feet slam into Mr Herschell’s skinny chest. He flies backward with the weightlessness of styrofoam packaging and is engulfed by the fiery, gaping abyss in the corner of the room.

I land on my feet – or rather Cthulhu lands me on my feet – and my vocal chords are lacerated as they become a channel for the demonic roar of an ancient demiurge.

“Mount Yaddith-Gho is not my prison! It’s my retirement home and I liked it there, you arsehole! As retribution I shall destroy your species and construct a new refuge from their desecrated remains!” Then, in a quieter voice, “Geez, what’s a Great Old One got to do to get some rest? I’m old, okay? It’s in my title for flipsakes.”

Startled by the alien voice bursting from my throat, my cat is spurred into action. She darts from the spot on her new throne, leaps through the air and latches her claws into the skin of my calf. Her teeth tear into the squidgy mound of the jellyfish’s body and I can feel the tendrils burrowed beneath my skin retract. Snarling and jerking, she rips the evil little creature free and drops it at my feet. “There you go,” she seems to say. “I killed something for you.”

“Good kitty!” I say, once again able to operate my own larynx.

The oozing blob on the floor at my feet wriggles, and then, with frightening speed, squirms towards the rapidly closing portal in the corner of the room. Not fast enough. An army of cockroaches intercepts. I can’t tell for sure, but some of them appear to have gatling guns melded to their carapaces. They swarm around the blob while it lashes at them with its poisonous tentacles.

There are many casualties in this battle. But let it be said that they fought with honor and valor.

The final blow is dealt by the detonation of an explosive device launched by a young roach named Hank, according to accounts I hear later. Hank suffered a fatal injury, but his memory will live on.

6. Share a meal with some friends

In the end, Cthulhu is nothing more than a sticky stain on the floor of my living room. The corner that once rippled with shadows, and then became an infernal window into another world, is just a normal corner again.

The cockroaches agree to stay for one final feast with me and my cat. During the feast – I’m forced to eat off a paper plate because there are holes in all my crockery – the roaches reveal that they are actually guardians of our realm, sent to guard the portal to Mount Yaddith-Gho. They tell me that it had been prophesied that my cat would help in the great battle against Cthulhu, hence her excellent treatment, and that although the evil of the Great Old One has been extinguished, Mr Herschell lives on and will one day return to fulfill his mischievous agenda.

Then they left, one by one, through a hole in the wall under the sink.

I don’t know how much of this you should actually believe. They are cockroaches after all.

If you’d like to help replace my dishes that the cockroaches wrecked, or help to have the evil jellyfish stain removed from my carpet, please buy one of my books and feel free to come again soon!