Category: About today

Posted in About today

I don’t care

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being disassociated. That’s not necessarily the way I would describe it, but you know, sometimes you have to put your trust in the White Coat People because at least they’re trying to make you better.

If I had to choose a word, I’d be forced to break the rules and choose three because I DON’T CARE and that’s the only way I can think of to put it. Christmas: I DON’T CARE; new job: I DON’T CARE; my life is infinitely better than it ever has been*: I DON’T FUCKING CARE…… (granted, that’s four words)

All this not caring is difficult to explain. I can say the words and people seem to understand what I mean but I can’t seem to make them know how it feels. I can’t help thinking that I’m just supposed to shrug it off, that somehow what I’m feeling isn’t real or if it is real that it’s just something that everyone feels and that everyone somehow manages to get over. This is the news: I can’t get over it. Trust me. I’m trying.

I know that I’m going to get through this mostly, I guess, because I’ve got through it before. I also know that things aren’t nearly as bleak as I think they are because I’m still out there in the world putting one foot in front of the other. I suppose what I’m saying is that it doesn’t really matter whether I care or not – all the things that are going to be will be and I’ll be there and I might still feel the way I do now or I might feel a whole lot better.

The sun will rise, the tides will ebb and flow, life will go on, and things will be. It doesn’t matter whether they feel good, or bad, or indifferent – because sometimes just being is the best you can hope for. And the best you can hope for is very definitely enough.

I’m trying to set myself targets at the moment – nothing big of course because I DON’T CARE and because it’s important that I don’t ‘overwhelm myself’. Little by little, bite by bite and all that. I’m also trying to connect myself, or re-connect myself, with the things that I care about: books, politics, music, blogging…… Here we have a blog post which is a target met, a pat on the back, and another step forward. Whatever happens, I’m planning on taking another one every single day.

As is traditional I’ll leave you with a song, for the sake of fun, and for the sake of a smile, and for the sake of songs that lift your heart – because those are the songs that matter the most.

Love you all lots, like jelly tots,

WeeGee

Posted in About today

Life by increments

Posted on by WeeGee

I’d love to tell you the story of the last three months – you know, start at the beginning, flesh out the middle, and take great pleasure in getting to the end. Sadly, it isn’t going to be as easy as that, not least because I’m not entirely convinced that the end is in sight.

Truth told, I’m not completely sure when it even started. That’s the thing about unravelling: it happens so silently, so slowly, and so subtly, that you really don’t have a cat in hell’s chance of spotting the first stitch getting picked unloose. The fact that it happens RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE is just your broken brain’s way of ADDING INSULT TO INJURY.

There I was, bowling along in my little life quite happily thank you very much. I’d moved in with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five, I’d started a new job, and I was making a whole lot of progress with that whole being alive thing that had proved so difficult for me in the past. Let’s not make any bones about it: life was good.

And then I was struck down by a severe and chronic case of AWAKENESS. In hindsight, maybe that’s where it started.

I’ve written about my propensity for insomnia before – many times before, in fact. Insomnia is as much a part of my life as the sun setting and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember. Which is really just to say that I’m not going to lay the current bout of the doomy gloomies entirely at its door. But you know, being awake for all but three hours a day FOR WEEKS AT A TIME hasn’t exactly helped matters.

And then there was the winter. Or, more accurately, there was the clocks going back.

If winter was nothing more than five months of shitty weather punctuated by the useful distraction that is Christmas that’d be just fine and dandy by me. It’s the shrinking hours of light – the getting up in the dark, pootling around all day in the dark, coming home in the dark, the fact that the WHOLE OF YOUR LIFE IS DARK – that does for me. Thing is, I can make things dark enough for myself. I don’t need the actual dark filling up the corners I didn’t manage to get to.

And then there was the fact that, and I’m loathe to say it, I miss my old life.

I can’t bring myself to write a whole paragraph about that one. It speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Basically what I’m talking about is nostalgia. Mostly it breaks my heart.

—-

I’m going to call time on this instalment – I’m finding it exhausting and I’m frustrated that my words ran out so soon.

I’m reminded that there were times in my life when I approached the EVERYTHING in increments. Out of bed. Kettle on. Cup of tea. Shower. Clean Pants. Endless trivial tasks, one after the other, and every one of them an achievement.

Life by increments.

It seemed so pointless to me at the time but, hey – it worked. There’s no reason that finding WeeGee and her voice can’t work that way too right? Little by little, step by step, bite by bite. After all. How else am I supposed to eat the elephant?

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment of WeeGee losing herself and then spending AGES trying to find herself again…..

—–

Meanwhile in other news Frank Turner has a new album today which gives me the perfect excuse to indulge.

Nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots. Like lots and lots of Jelly tots.

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in About today

I don’t know what to call this…

Posted on by WeeGee

I don’t blog like I used to. Things have changed and time has moved on and no matter how hard I try I can’t find the space anymore. Sure – once in a while I pop up, mostly to lament how much time has passed since my last post, but it doesn’t seem to matter what I write because it’s just not like it used to be.

More than anything I wonder what happened to WeeGee because WeeGee seems to be conspicuously absent from my life right now. I won’t make any bones about it: I made WeeGee up. She wasn’t real. She was a figment of my imagination, and a representation that I wanted to make, and I completely made her up. That said she was as good a representation as ever there was and now she’s gone and it feels a bit empty. I don’t how that happened.

Truth told, I’ve lost myself and I’ve lost myself in a way that only I seem to know how. I’ve somehow managed to build a whole world around me and that sounds great, right? Except it isn’t because it strangles me, and stamps on me, and makes me small: it makes it so that I’m lost and silent and resigned to the dullness that surrounds me. You’ll have gathered by now that my tendency for melodramatics hasn’t quite left me….

You’ll also have gathered that This Is Not A Good Time.

I’m writing because I don’t know what else to do. I’m writing because – once upon a time a long time ago – I wrote a lot and it made it right. I’m writing because somehow, in amongst it all, I still desperately hope that I’ve got something to say. I’m writing because maybe it’s just what I do when the chips are down, and the hope has gone, and there’s no other place to go.

More than anything I’m writing to say ‘hello’ to my much loved mental friends. I know that whatever I say here that someone out there will say ‘I get you’. I don’t think too many people in the real world are getting it right now, so, you know.

It’s a tough old path isn’t it? And I’m still treading it. I think I’ll be back tomorrow for some more emotional vomit, which is what you got tonight and I apologise. In the meantime I could sure so with a hug.

Love you all lots like jelly tots,

WeeGee (Gail) xxx

Posted in About today

All the things

Posted on by WeeGee

The eagle eyed amongst you have probably noticed a sudden glut of posts here on How do you eat an elephant? I don’t know what’s gotten into me all of a sudden although I must confess that hitting the five hundred follower mark has spurred my blogging mojo on a little* It’s also fair to say that I’ve got time on my hands at the moment mostly because I went into super organised mode and I’ve pretty much packed the flat up two days ahead of schedule. This is a remarkable feat of achievement, particularly when you consider that I’m always spectacularly late. For EVERYTHING.

late

Anyway…. it turns out milestones are catching because after discovering my little blog had 500 followers the other day we’ve only gone and reached another. This post here, the one you’re reading right now is post number 250. This is another remarkable feat of achievement by the way because it means that blogging wasn’t just another of my many passing obsessions. Two years ago I started something AWESOME that I’m still doing today which, given the way my brain usually works, is pretty AWESOME in itself.

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So. To celebrate all of these milestones I’ve decided that it’s time we shook things up a bit. Of course How do you eat an elephant? is, and always will be, primarily about WeeGee’s adventures in being a mental person. But there’s an awful lot more to WeeGee and I think it’s about time those things got a look in too. To be honest, I’m thinking I might take a leaf out of Mental Mama’s book** with some regular features and one or two writing challenges***. I think it’s also time I shut my other blogs down and brought all of the content under this one umbrella: brace yourselves for recipes, food porn, book reviews and the occasional political rant.

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It’ll be great, sorta like How do you eat ALL the elephants…… Who’s in? Oooooh. Which reminds me: anyone out there interested in guest posting here. I think that would be a lot of fun…..

Anyway. I’m pretty sure this is going to be my last post before the move**** and possibly for a while because I’m going to have NO INTERNET for a couple of days*****. What can I say? I’ll see you on the other side. It’s going to be AWESOME.

Love you all lots, like jelly tots.

WeeGee xoxo

*I’m still super excited about that.
**Y’all know the Mama, right?
***But not the Daily Post. Definitely not the Daily Post.
****Fuckity fuck this is actually happening.
*****Please pray for me.

 

 

Posted in About today

Thank you from the very bottom of the bottom of my heart

Posted on by WeeGee

One day in April 2012 I decided to start a blog. I called it ‘how do you eat an elephant?’* and I had no idea WHATSOEVER how much it would come to mean to me.

When I started writing I was in a pretty bad place and I was trying to find a way – any way – to put my life back together. Here’s the thing…. 26 months later and I’ve managed to put my life back together and them some. In your face my broken brain: IN YOUR FACE.

Blogging has taught me all kinds of things – perspective, and how to be engaged, and how to reflect on the things in my head. Starting my blog has been the single best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health. Ever, ever, ever. I’d recommend it to all of the mental people….

Anyway – it’s late and I don’t have an awful lot to say apart from the fact that I woke up this morning to discover that FIVE HUNDRED whole people have clicked the follow button on my blog since I started writing.

500 followers

FIVE HUNDRED!

So yeah, thank you to each and every one of you from the very bottom of the bottom of my heart. I’m feeling very proud of myself tonight, and very grateful to each and every one of you for your support. My favourite thing about blogging is all the wonderful, super, brilliant and AWESOME people I’ve been lucky enough to get to know because of it. That’s you lot, by the way. So thank you, lots of love and hugs and…. did I mention you are AWESOME?

blogging5

Normal service will be resumed shortly….

Love you all lots and lots like at least a million jelly tots

WeeGee xoxox

 

*Bite by bite

Posted in About today

Down but not out

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being down but not out. Truth told there is one hell of a ginourmous mess going on in my head. My brain is loud, and chaotic and out of control, but somehow, I’m still managing to put one foot in front of the other, because that’s what the WeeGee does when the chips are down….

Everything really ought to be fine and dandy but perhaps the fact that I know that is the biggest frustration of all. Instead of planning, and hoping, and getting super excited about our shiny new flat I wake up in the morning with that huge ‘NO’ surrounding me. My thoughts flutter around in my head, resting on one thing, and then the other, and then another thing entirely. I can’t seem to make them settle on one thing for long enough to do the slightest thing about any of it. It – if IT’S not one thing IT’s another thing.

One thing is what happens in my head when the big guy doesn’t play fair with the little guy, when someone says one thing and does another, when people hide behind the men in suits. In short, it’s what happens when there is an injustice of one sort or another. I’m facing a choice – do I take on the big guy, even though I am the little guy, and even though this particular little guy isn’t exactly the most adept at dealing with the kinds of stresses the fight is likely to bring with it? Which is really just to say do I stand up and insist that I’m right, and that they’re wrong because that’s what I believe you ought to do OR do I take care of my mental health at all costs because that’s also what I also believe I ought to do.

As you can see, I’ve thought my way into an impossible conundrum there.

Another thing is what happens in my head when a political party comprising entirely of idiots, racists, sexists, homophobes and every other kind of unpleasantness is somehow and suddenly viewed as a mainstream political party on the country I live in. It bothers me. And I mean it really bothers me that we’ve somehow come to the position that significant portions of my compatriots think it’s okay to say they’d prefer not to live next to a ‘migrant’ family. It’s under my skin and it’s making me dismayed and angry and hopeless. Mr Awesome Thing Number Five thinks I’m stressing myself out about nothing. And who knows, maybe he’s right. Or maybe I’m right because you have to care, and you have to stand up to it. UKIP stand against EVERYTHING I believe in. I can’t ignore it, but I can’t think of anything sensible to do about it.

That there is impossible conundrum number two.

Yet another thing is the absolute chaos that is my living room at the present time. I’d post a picture but I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it. Now – on the one hand it’s an inevitability that there will be a certain amount of chaos when you’re moving house but on the other hand I can’t seem to find a way to deal with chaos. When things are messy my brain gets messy and when my brain gets messy it starts to think about giving up on me. I’m managing to keep myself out of the pit, but it sure does feel inviting. I could pull the covers up over my head and hide from the world in a heart beat but I’ve got stuff to do and I’ve got my regular life to go about living and I know only too well that once you’re in the pit you have to stay there for a very long time.

It all feels a bit doomy and gloomy doesn’t it? That’s just the way my brain works. Some days are better than others, and I know that all I really need to do is put one foot in front of the other and hold on tight for the better days. I know that they always come, eventually, in their own good time. I know that I want to be ready for them when they do.

Most of all I know that at some point in the future I’ll read this post and wonder what all the fuss was about. This is how I feel today, these are the things that matter now, but the future isn’t very far away at all and in the future feelings are different and things have moved on. I can’t help thinking that the future isn’t anything more than the past that happened yet which means you’ll survive the future, because you’ve always managed to survive the past.

Nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots like jelly tots and flower pots.

WeeGee xoxox

 

Posted in About today

No-one knows

Posted on by WeeGee

I think it’s safe to say that I’m one of life’s natural born worriers: worrying is what I do, and, when I come to think about it, I do it pretty well. Perhaps I ought to call it a skill because, you know, it’s nice to have a skill.

For me, worrying is deep rooted. I’ve always done it, and therefore worrying has kind of become who I am. I can’t imagine me without worrying because me without worrying doesn’t make any sense. There’s always something to worry about, and, as those who know me well enough have joked in the past, I’m not happy unless I’m worrying about something.

In my mind, I don’t think worry makes me happy. Then again I know that making plans, and writing lists, and getting things organised makes the worry go away and, when the worry goes away I’m pretty much happy. I’m led to believe that ‘happy’ is what I’m searching for.

It sounds a bit like happily ever after doesn’t it?

Here’s a song

Love you lots, and all that stuff xxx

 

 

Posted in About today

I didn’t expect perfect….

Posted on by WeeGee

Hello there you lovely people you – how’s it all going? I hope it’s all happy and shiny and sparkly, or, at the very least, calm where you are?

Before we go any further I suppose we should get something out of the way. It’s the middle of the night where I am as I write. I’m guessing that all the sensible people in the UK are already asleep, or at least if they’re not, they’re probably not writing blog posts but hey – nuts to convention. Insomnia does as it pleases and I’m not in the mood for arguing.

I think it would be fair to say that I’m a little bouncy and excitable. I also think it would be fair to say that my bouncy and excitable demeanour is playing at least a small part in the fact that I’m still awake. On the one hand I know that’s a little bit of a problem. On the other hand, if you’d been to see this guy tonight, and you loved him as much as I do, you’d probably be just as bouncy and excitable as I am. Forgive the crap acoustics:

My last few posts have been a bit miserable haven’t they? Thing is, as miserable as I might have been at the time of writing those posts I don’t think ‘miserable’ gives an accurate representation of what’s been going on. Not really. I mean I’ve been up against my brain, and things changing, and some kind of massive and irrational fear of being happy….. But then there’s the other side of the coin to consider.

Looking at things now I think that maybe there are things to worry about* and things to be unsure about** and maybe even things that I wish I’d done differently*** But all of that aside there are many things to be glad about, and to look forward to, and generally not get all bloomin miserable about. This by the way is me looking on the bright side and ABSOLUTELY meaning it.

The exciting news is that I’m moving in with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five. I know, right?! Of course it’s scary to go from where I am, in my own little flat, with my own little cat and with no-one to interfere to actually living with another human being. The thing is I really feel like we’re building something together. We’re not just getting ready to share a place, we’re kinda getting ready to share something bigger than that. Thing is – I’m easily scared and so that seems very scary, but before that, if I can just let myself it feels very exciting.

I suppose that sort of sums up the other side of the coin. I really am struggling to find my way through the fog but I’ve a reason to get through it and so I’m definitely going to do my best. I think I’m learning that when it comes to being alive perfect really doesn’t exist. But actually, that doesn’t matter too much at all anyway.

Perfect is something you didn’t expect it to be.

Meanwhile in other news – oh bums I’ve got nothing. Nothing else to report save that I love you all lots. Like jelly tots.

WeeGee xxx

*aren’t there always

**which is just the same as worrying.

***as is this

Posted in About today

My secret is my silence

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last we spoke it’s been the usual mixture of highs, lows, and everything in between here in WeeGee land. Some things never change….

I think it would be fair to say that I’ve been trying to write this post for a little while. There have been a couple of unsuccessful attempts and at least of MILLION drafts in my head. It’s that same old thing again: I can make it make sense until I try to tell someone else about it at which point I start sounding like an alien from Planet Mental.

I had one of those odd little moments today. I was on my way home after my Mrs Mountain appointment. The sun was shining, the appointment was positive, and I was still all shiny happy shiny after a lovely little evening with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five. And then I started crying. At first it was just a few stray tears that were well hidden behind my sunglasses but before I knew it I found myself sitting on a wall sobbing. There might even have been the occasional howl. Eventually a kind dude stopped to ask if there was anyone he could call which, it turned out, was the only intervention I needed to help me pull all the disparate parts of myself together again.

I dispatched of kind dude fairly quickly – I mean, he was kind an all but I wasn’t much in the mood for conversation – crossed the road, bought a packet of cigarettes, returned to the ‘wailing wall’ and smoked two of them in quick succession thinking “Well….. that was a bit different wasn’t it?”

That pretty much sums up where I am at the moment: it’s all fine until you scratch at the surface because underneath the surface there’s a whole heap of crazy trying to leak out. Every so often I forget myself and wind up with a massive load of crazy to mop up.

The thing is, I can see what’s happening and I’m working as hard as I know how to stop it. Unravelling is such a weird thing – you can can see it, and see it, and see it, and then suddenly you can’t see it anymore because you’ve gone alien again. That’s EXACTLY where I’m trying not to get to.

It’s difficult – I’m not depressed and I’m not about to harm myself in anyway shape or form. At the same time I know I’m not right, and I know that might equal trouble. I’m detached from everything and especially from my life. There’s so much going on and it’s not that I don’t care, it’s more that I’m just an observer so what does it matter? There are things I need to do but instead of doing them I’m over focusing on the weird and the wonderful – a holiday in Orkney, a half baked idea for a business, what my new haircut might look like, penguins. Anything that isn’t reality.

I’m also a bit lost in that long forgotten idea that I let everyone down, and that everyone leaves in the end. I’m convinced that everyone hates me because, well because how could they do anything else? These are such old ideas and I thought I’d left them behind. I only half believe them but that seems like enough….

Do you know what? I’m completely terrified. This isn’t at all what I was hoping for because I thought I had my brain on side and that it would it would be happily ever after. Then again, perhaps I was being naïve to think that it was as easy as all that.

Anyhoo. I think that’s as far as I can go for now. I hope it sorta makes sense.

I’ll leave you with a song, because it’s traditional and sometimes songs say it better anyway….

Meanwhile in other news I’m on a massive high horse about UKIP at the moment at the moment, because they’re deplorable and stuff. Nothing else to report today save that I love you all like jelly tots. Which is A LOT,

 

WeeGee xoxoxo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in About today

Fade away

Posted on by WeeGee

Evening chickadees! How’s it all going?

We had one of those miserable little posts earlier in the week, didn’t we? It had been a tough day, during a tough week, at the end of a tough month and I’d been doing my best to pretend none of it was happening. When I put it like that it’s no real surprise that I popped up with one of those miserable little posts…..

I’ve been blogging for a while now, and I’ve written an awful lot of posts where the most sensible start seemed to be “I don’t know where to start”. I really don’t think I’ve ever meant it more than I do now. So many things, so many feelings, so very many squillions of things I ought to say and not one single clue about how to get the ball rolling. In case you haven’t noticed I’ve also been blogging for long enough to know that when you don’t know where to start, writing about not knowing where to start is a perfectly acceptable way to get the ball rolling.

Now the ball is rolling I can’t help thinking that the best thing to do is cut a long story short, mainly because it’s a VERY long story with lots of ins and outs and bits in the middle but also because the whole story doesn’t belong to me and, when it comes to telling stories, I’m pretty careful to stick only to my own.

The only way to make the story short is to say that it really is ALL CHANGE here in WeeGee land and that’s making for confusing, if occasionally exciting times. Everything is up for grabs: where I live, where I work, what I do for a living and how I go about living this little life that I’ve carved out for myself. It feels like a tall order because I’d only really got back to the straight and narrow after what I now know, with the benefit of hindsight, was a pretty major attack of the mentals.

When I was unwell I felt that I was constantly on the edge of something – usually a cliff. I feel a bit like that now and if I’m honest it isn’t a feeling I much like. Right now I think I’m feeling a little scared because I’m going to have to face up to a lot of endings in the coming weeks. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will understand exactly where the fear is coming from. WeeGee doesn’t really do endings and I think I’m learning that that doesn’t change when WeeGee is well and medicated and not in the frame of mind where jumping out of windows seems like a good idea.

Earlier in the week I wrote that I didn’t really know which way was up at the moment and I think that was the only part of my post that made any sense. On the one hand I’m in a place in my life where opportunities are around every corner. On the other hand reaching out and taking them is going to mean saying goodbye here and there. Every time I think I’ve got that figured out in my head it all unravels again….

Anyway. I think that should just about do it for today. I’ll be back once I’ve had another one of my little thinks – they are in plentiful supply of late.

I leave you today with a song from my past. It’s one from my teenage years when I was angry and optimistic and cynical and hopeful all at the same time:

While we’re about it, we might as well have a sweet little acoustic version of the same song because it’s nice to mix things up a bit isn’t it?

Meanwhile in other news I have nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots, like JELLY TOTS,

WeeGee xoxox