The first song that I wanted to share with you today is so ‘obscure’ that I can’t find it on YouTube and I can’t think of an alternative so I’m a bit stuck as to how to get this post going.
I suppose I could share the other song I wanted to share. It doesn’t relate to the content of my post but it’s been my earworm for the past few weeks and I thought if I posted it on my blog I might be able to banish it from my head:
For the record, I’m not a Kate Bush fan and to be fair it’s probably this version of the song that is stuck in my head:
But no matter….. back to the point.
I had my counselling session today. I don’t tend to write about my counselling sessions because they’re private, but today’s was a bit different because I feel like I had a revelation so I wanted to share it. Be warned though, this is all a bit cryptic so I hope it makes at least some sense….
Mrs Mountain (that’s the counsellor) and I were talking about ‘waiting’ today. Sometimes, I feel like I’m waiting for the future to start which is what got us on to the subject, but it soon became clear that it isn’t just the future that I’m waiting for. I’m waiting for something very specific to happen, and even though I know in my heart that this specific thing is never going to happen, I’m still waiting for it to happen. I don’t know if that’s blind faith, or hope, or stupidity but it’s just the way it goes in my head. I’m happy to wait even if I’m waiting for nothing. Or at least I thought I was.
The thing is Mrs Mountain is good at examples that challenge the way I’m thinking and today’s example was a particularly good one:
If you turn up at a bus stop just after the bus you need has left and you stand there you are waiting – even though the bus isn’t going to show up because you missed it, you’re still waiting. If, on the other hand, you arrive at the bus stop just in time to see your bus pulling away and you choose to stand there anyway you aren’t waiting for the bus anymore. You’re doing something different.
“Fine” I said. “If I stand at the bus stop long enough another bus will come along”
And that was exactly her point. I’m not actually waiting for the thing I think I’m waiting for. I’m just telling myself that for now because I’m not ready to catch a different bus just yet – but deep inside I know I’m going to be strong enough to catch a different bus sooner or later. That, I think, is a small crypitc step in the right direction!
Love from WeeGee (waiting for a different bus after all)
I woke up at a funny time this morning – too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up. I decided that if I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to get up I might as well stay in bed and have myself a nice little rest.
Of course, it wasn’t long before my nice little rest turned into a bit of a think. I was thinking about wills: specifically whether I should revisit mine, and whether, if I did, I would be considered to have been of sound mind at the time of writing.
This got me thinking about my granny. She died when I was fifteen leaving behind only a few words dictated to my dad quite literally on her death bed. After her death these few words caused more arguments, and ill feeling and general nastiness than you can ever imagine*. It was my first insight into what a death can bring out in people. It wasn’t pretty.
The thing is, my granny died after a very long illness and for the last few months of her life, her diagnosis was terminal. I’ll never forget the conversation that I had with my dad as he tried to explain that there was nothing more that could be done – it felt like someone had taken my heart in their hands and wrung all the good things out of it.
We knew she was dying and she knew she was dying and it has bothered me for a long time that, under those circumstances, she didn’t have a will. She was an organised careful person and I just couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been organised and careful in that regard.
As I was thinking this morning it occurred to me that perhaps, even in the face of what she was told was certain death, she believed she was going to live. Maybe it was hope, or determination, or the survival instinct that kept her from writing a will. And that notion felt like it meant something to me.
Does that make sense?
I don’t want to be alive, but that really isn’t the same thing as wanting to die** and I often think about the survival instinct. My thinking goes something like this: If I found myself in a lift*** that was plummeting to the ground from twenty stories up, I imagine that for the whole of the descent I’d be thinking that something would happen that would make it okay. I don’t suppose it would occur to me that I was actually going to die until the very moment of impact (at which point it wouldn’t matter, because I’d be dead). Human beings are going to die, but we also seem to be programmed to believe that we’re not going to die at any given moment. Again, that seems to mean something to me.
Why do I mention any of this? I’m not entirely sure, other than what it seems to say to me is something about hope. Hope is important.
Love from a hopeful WeeGee xx
PS – I read somewhere that if you find yourself in a plummeting lift your best bet is to lie on top of someone larger than yourself. It seems a bit mean, but I do find myself taking note of the physical stature of my companions when I get into lifts. Just in case, you know.
*Shortly before she became ill my granny had remarried, so we ended up with two feuding families. I hated it.
**You will either understand that or you won’t. I can’t put it any better than that
WARNING: This post contains armchair philosophy and thoughts and ideas that might make your head explode or something.
Here’s a question for you: if you spend fifty percent of you time thinking that yesterday was better, and the other fifty percent thinking that tomorrow will be better – what does that make today? I think that’s my way of trying to understand time and existence. I’ve a feeling I’m biting off more than I can chew here, but I’m going to give it a go….
If you’ve ever had any kind of counselling or therapy ‘mindfulness’ will be a familiar concept to you. It seems that if you want to be normal rather than mental you have to keep your thoughts in the here and now: no past, no future, just the moment you’re in.
Mindfulness is something I struggle with in part because it’s only a few steps shy of meditation and meditation makes me giggle because it’s not the kind of thing I can take seriously. At all. Ever. The end.
Maybe I’m just too cynical for all this mindfulness stuff?
I’m also not entirely convinced that human beings can ever ‘exist’ in one moment alone. I understand the arguments, but I wonder whether we’re really wired that way. Everything that I am now is surely a culmination of everywhere I’ve ever been? Everything that I do now is surely a small contribution to who I’m going to be in the future. If all there is is now then who was I, and who will I be? Those things are important, no?
I suppose it comes down to what ‘existing’ is and whether you believe (is it a belief, I don’t know?) that the verb exist has a legitimate past and future tense. Existing isn’t just being alive. I’m sure about that because, for example, I’m sitting on a chair at the moment and the chair definitely exists and is definitely not alive* Some things ‘existed’ thousands of years ago but people argue that they only exist now in this moment. You are reading this in a different moment from the one I wrote it in. When does it exist?
I exist now and I’m fairly confident of that. And I know I existed yesterday because I can REMEMBER yesterday. That’s quite straightforward in a way, but tomorrow only ‘exists’ in so far as I can imagine it. Does that mean it exists or not…. I’ve never been to Madagascar but I know it exists, or does it – maybe it only exists in this moment if you are actually there? Do bears shit in the woods?
……. Dear oh dear. Is your head hurting yet?
I think I’ll have a nice musical interlude at this point to get my hurting head off the hook….. Here’s a (very) handsome man with a gruff and gravelly voice singing about tomorrow. It’s nice. It’ll make your head all better:
I got lost in existence for a while there. Sorry. But I think you have probably got the gist of the difficulty that I have with mindfulness?
The past matters to human beings. It forms a large part of our collective identity, and, I think of our individual identities too. The past is important and I don’t think you should wipe it away and I don’t think you really can – no matter how you train your brain. That’s why we have Armistice Day (as an example) because what people did in the past matters a great deal to who people are today, and for that matter, how they live today.
As for the future, I can’t imagine what humans would be without it. Would we ever have done anything? What happens to progress if there is no future? What happens to hope?
Living in the moment is all very well. But what if the moment you are in is terrible? I don’t really mean broken brain terrible (although that is quite terrible enough) but what if, for arguments sake you are being held in a Syrian jail and tortured within an inch of your life IN THIS MOMENT? I can’t see how you find happiness in that moment under those circumstances…..
I’m over thinking it aren’t I?
Here are my final thoughts on mindfulness…..
Google ‘mindfulness’ or ‘living in the moment’ or whatever variation on the theme you can think of and you’ll find people who have found ‘happiness’ by simply ‘living in the moment’. I think that’s fantastic for them, I really do, but what they never say is HOW they do it. Do they just wake up one morning and find themselves in the moment? If the only problem that I have is that I can’t live in the here and now, why can’t someone just give me a step by step guide to living in the here and now?
I don’t get it.
Finally – in my mind there is a very practical problem with ‘living in the moment’. Okay, so here I am today. I’m typing up a blog post and watching Olympic Volleyball. That’s all that matters because that’s now. It’s all I should be thinking about.
But here’s the thing. There isn’t a lot of food in my flat and one of my friends has a birthday coming up. That means I need to think about buying groceries and gifts and I will do both of those things in the future but I will plan for them now. If I stuck with the moment I’d just head out into the world to forage for food when I was hungry and I’d never get a gift to anyone in time. Sometimes you have to plan but if you ever say that to someone who is trying to teach you mindfulness they will say ‘ah, but that’s different – it’s a different kind of thinking, a different thought process’.
To me, that says that mindfulness is an intuitive thing and I end up back at wondering where my step by step guide to mindfulness is because I quite clearly don’t get it. As usual.
What a long post to say nothing more than ‘I’m confused and I don’t get it’!!
Lots of love from a philosophical WeeGee xx
*Unless I have well and truly taken leave of my senses once and for all!
Today didn’t get off to a good start: some idiot turned up outside my flat at 7:30am and started digging a massive hole in the road with a MASSIVE drill type thing. It woke me up (on my second to last day of annual leave) and Gryff didn’t like it so he went bat shit crazy and jumped on my head causing a small blood injury. It was tremendous fun.
I understand that the guy had a job to do. But why did he have to do it outside my window at SEVEN THIRTY IN THE MORNING on the second to last day of my annual leave. Plus what’s he digging a hole for anyway? In my experience these people tend to come along and dig a massive hole in the road. Then they come back a few days later and fill the massive hole back up again. It’s a stroke of genius if you think about it. I mean, you’re never going to be out of a job are you…..?
I’m still grumpy almost twelve hours later. Can you tell? Anyway, let’s move swiftly on.
I’ve had a busy little head today. There’s been the usual nonsense to contend with, because that stuff never really goes away and there’s been some pretty big stuff like time, and existence, and identity, and religion. That’s some pretty big stuff there, isn’t it? I don’t think I’m ready to write that post just yet!
The other thing that’s been on my mind is friendship.
And that’s what I’m going to write about today.
Here’s the thing. I don’t have many friends. I don’t say that in a boo hoo please feel all sorry for me kinda way. I say it as a simple fact. It doesn’t bother me because I think the few friends I have are as many as I can cope with without me going PROPER mental. And also because the few friends I have are special. They mean something to me.
Here are some of the reasons that I have a small circle of friends…. I’m shy. I’m quiet. I don’t trust people. It takes me ages to get used to people, but sometimes it doesn’t matter because on occasion I decide that I hate someone as soon as I meet them. There isn’t a reason for hating them, not really but that’s the way I feel. I’m told this is wrong. I call it a gut feeling. Who says gut feelings are bad?
Here are some more reasons: I don’t understand people. I don’t understand people’s feelings. I find it baffling when people don’t feel the same way as I do, or like the same things that I do. I don’t lack empathy (no need to panic!) I just don’t quite get it when it comes to other people.
Here is the final reason: I get attached to people. In fact, I get too attached to people. In my experience getting too attached to people is a sure fire way to get yourself hurt. There have been a number of times in my life when I’ve just let somebody disappear altogether because I sensed they were disappearing a little bit. Generally speaking, it’s all or nothing with me and all or nothing is a difficult thing to be friends with – it seems needy and clingy and selfish. Maybe it is. But in my defence it’s also incredibly loyal.
Still, ‘all or nothing’ hurts me because I let people go when I don’t need to let them go. If I could understand the middle ground I would have millions of friends. I don’t think I really want to have millions of friends because that would be a bit overwhelming but I do wish I could learn not to let people go in order to protect myself because once I get to a certain distance from it I realise that the real damage is in letting go completely, not losing a little bit. Does that make any sense what so ever?
Let’s have a Frank Turner song called ‘The real damage’ while we have a little think about it:
I’ve had a little think….. It makes sense, but then I would think that because I wrote it!
In some way ‘friendship’ is on my mind because of my birthday. My friends are busy people, not shitty people and that’s why it was such a quiet day. Plus I don’t care about my birthday and my friends were all aware of that fact. I know that. But then I went and got all worried that I was more attached to everyone I know that they were to me and I decided I was going to get hurt very badly and that I was ‘setting myself up for a fall’. I decided I shouldn’t care at all and that I didn’t need any friends EVER AGAIN. Everyone was excommunicated. WeeGee against the world….
But then I decided that was broken brain speaking and told myself over and over that it was going to be okay. It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?
My friends care about me – of course they do. Mr Friendly and Mr Hilarious and Mrs Sparkle all came through in the end. Mum and dad came through too and even my brother got his act together and sent a little text. You need to know my brother to understand what a big deal that is!
So it was all okay.
But then I thought about some of the people I’ve met on WordPress and how much I care about them. I mean genuinely care about. I thought wanted to meet everybody in real life because that would make it all better and then everything would be fine. And then I thought uh oh! You’re doing it again. You’re getting all attached and involved with people THAT YOU’VE NEVER EVEN MET and that is going to end in disaster one way or another. You’re going to get yourself hurt. So I decided that there was only one thing for it. I had to stop blogging IMMEDIATELY and forget about everyone I’d come across.
But then I decided that was broken brain speaking and told myself over and over that it was going to be okay. It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?
Starting my blog is one of the best things I’ve ever done in terms of managing my mental health. I thought blogging would give me an outlet, but what it actually brought was more support, reassurance and friendship than I could ever imagine. And it’s okay to care about people, isn’t it?
Since I started blogging I’ve met people that I genuinely care about: Sailors, and Bourbons, and lovely Brandics, and Mooses (is that the plural of Moose?) and Roxys and Potters and so, so many more – everyone, actually. And it’s okay to care. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing and you don’t need to meet the people you care about to make it all better. You just need to find comfort in the fact that they are out there, and that they ‘get’ you and they will support you and that you ‘get’ them and will support them right back. And that’s what it’s all about.
So it was all okay.
It turned into an Oscars speech in the end didn’t it? But it was a revelation to me….
Lots and LOTS of love from WeeGee (who has realised that it’s okay to care and that it’s probably going to be okay) xx
Don’t worry – this isn’t another one of my gushing posts about the Olympic Games. It’s a post about this song:
Or at least it’s a post about a couple of lines in this song:
“I wanted to be there with you / For I can only be normal with you / I’ve given my all for you”
Twice in my life I’ve managed to find another human being that I wanted to be with. Twice in my life I’ve managed to find another human being that made me feel ‘normal’. Twice in my life I’ve managed to lose the most special person on earth.
My conclusion to all this is that I must not be supposed to be with anybody and that certainly I’m not capable of being normal by myself. I don’t cut the mustard when it comes to all that belonging and normal stuff. You get what’s coming your way. What’s for you doesn’t go past you. If you get nothing and it all goes past you – that’s what was yours.
Everything I do is with reference to other people. That’s just the way my brain works and all the counselling and therapy in the world isn’t going to change that.
I am who I am.
I’m lost. I’m lonely. I’m mental. I’m not normal. This is what is mine. I wish I could make something matter, I really do.
Boo hoo. Woe is me. I hate myself and I want a pie.
Lots of mixed up miserable love (once more) from WeeGee xx
Yo! Whassuppp? (this is what happens to your vocabulary when you spend a week and a half of your life watching back to back Breaking Bad)*
I thought it was time I did an Olympics post, what with living in London and all…. This is the best I could do.
1. The Olympics and WeeGee’s ‘sense of occasion’
My mum says I have no ‘sense of occasion’ and I can’t really disagree with her, because it’s mostly true. I don’t usually understand ‘occasions’ so I really don’t see why it bothers her that I ‘always’ miss the first dance and the cutting of the cake at family weddings**
I mean I understand that a wedding is a big deal for the people involved and even to some extent for the guests. But all the ceremony is baffling to me – why do I have to be there to see people dancing if I already know they’re all happy and married and stuff? Maybe if I ever have a wedding of my own I’ll understand – although I don’t really understand getting married so it’s quite unlikely I’ll ever have a wedding of my own.
By the way, it’s not just weddings I don’t understand. It’s big occasions generally – like sporting events, and ‘events of national significance’, and award ceremonies, and great big huge concerts.
So why do I find myself so carried away with the Olympics? The Olympics is a big occasion but somehow, I find myself all interested involved. It’s most out of character. I went to see the torch relay twice and even cried the second time. Then I went to watch as the cycle road race as it passed through Kingston. Not only that, during the torch ceremony I high fived a policeman on a motorbike and cheered AND appropriated a flag for the cycling and waved it and cheered as some people on bikes whizzed past me.
I’m on leave this week and I’ve been watching all kinds of sports: people jumping off things, over things, people on horses, in boats, on bikes – people doing all kinds of things that I wouldn’t do.
And I’m enjoying it.
What’s that all about? Is it broken brain or is it brain getting fixed or does WeeGee just care about the Olympic Games all of a sudden? Who knows?!
Having said all that my sense of occasion has clearly not returned altogether… I decided not to bother going to see Bradley Wiggins cycle through Kingston today because Mr Hilarious texted to tell me that I wouldn’t be able to see a thing (because it was packed and because I was so wee). I saw him win on the TV but then I got distracted and decided to empty the bin. I missed the gold medal ceremony whilst I was emptying the bin……
2. The Olympics and being British
I’m not a patriot and I don’t understand flags. I think of myself as (in this order) a person; a Scottish person; a British person. The last two don’t matter to me very much. Oh, and I don’t understand flags. Maybe that’s because I’m a leftie (except I’m not really…..I don’t like labels either)
However – and here’s another contradiction for you – I am on team GB when it comes to the Olympics! What with all the people jumping off things, over things, on horses, in boats, on bikes, punching each other***, stabbing each other****, swimming and etc, etc I want team GB to win! Again – it’s most unlike me because I don’t tend to get tribal about such things.
Anyway all of this got me thinking about ‘my national identity’. As I’ve said I’m not a patriot and national identity isn’t terribly important to me but I can’t help being who I am – a person who lives in Britain. It occurred to me that I write a ‘very British Blog’. Most of my followers are British as is most of my traffic. I have interesting conversations with Brandic (a lovely lady from the U. S. Of A) about the differences in our common language and it strikes me that even if I don’t think of myself as British I just am. Nothing to do with patriotism or national pride – I just am.
So – now you have my thoughts on the Olympics. I’m going to the Olympic park on Friday to watch some hockey. Maybe my thoughts will change again after that. I’ll let you know.
Lots of love, WeeGee the Brit xx
*That’s not the worst thing that happens to your vocabulary but most of it is not civilised enough to be repeated.
**Because I’m either outside having a fag or, since I gave up, hiding in the toilets
***Boxing (which I hate)
****Fencing (which is interesting and useful especially if you do crosswords).
I didn’t make the title of this post up myself. I borrowed it from a clever man who borrowed it from another clever man – it just seemed right for today.
Yesterday didn’t go according to plan. That is what you call an understatement by the way. The plan for today had to change owing to yesterday not going to plan, but that’s okay.
The plan for today ended up being the plan that WeeGee is best of all at following – the plan you have to stick to in order to put it all back together again. Again. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to put it all back together again (again), but that’s also okay.
Today I took care of myself. I’m forever telling other people to ‘take care’ and I know I need to learn to take a little bit of my own advice. It was a quiet, contemplative day in WeeGee land. I fed myself and relaxed and I got my apologies in. When I was ready I did the routine de-brief with Mr Wise.
Mr Wise gets it. He always gets it even when I can’t explain it very well at all. I still don’t really understand why I called the crisis team and not him last night. Self sabotage I suppose. Next time things fall apart I have to remember to call Mr Wise because only he can look into my head and say ‘yeah, I see it, but it doesn’t matter because it’s going to be okay’
I’m about to have a birthday. It’s the second birthday I’ve had since the worst thing ever happened, which also means that it’s almost the two year anniversary of the worst thing ever. Anniversaries matter to me. An elephant never forgets.
Anyway – I’m rambling because I’m tired and a little bit mental (but not in a scary way). All I really wanted to say is that I have come to the conclusion that every once in a while things will probably fall apart for me. And that’s okay.
I will probably never get to a point in my life where I say – ‘that’s it; I’m never going to fall apart again’, but what I can do is learn lessons when I do fall apart so that eventually I will find a soft enough place to fall.
When you’re mental, holding on is something that you get quite good at doing. You ‘hang on in there’, you ‘cling on’, you ‘keep on going’. After a while, you get quite good at all that holding on to stuff.
I’m good at holding on. I’ve been mental enough to not want to be alive for more than half of my life and I’m still here. How’s that for holding on?
Today though, I’m thinking of the things I let go of so that I could keep on holding on. The people I loved, the things I cared about, everything I wanted to be – so many things that I had to let go of just so I could hold on to something. I don’t even know what the something I’ve been holding onto is.
We’re all holding on, aren’t we? I feel like I’m holding on to nothing much. What are you holding on to?
I think I’d rather have held on to the things I let go than whatever it is I’m holding on to now. Does that make any sense whatsoever?
This is a short post. It’s about holding on and that’s what we all do. I’m just not sure what I’m holding onto anymore. Boo hoo:
I’ve decided that it’s about time I attempted something approaching coherent – I’ve been meaning to write about all kinds of things but thoughts keep getting in the way.
The first thing to say is that over the weekend I reached the rather dizzying heights of…. One hundred* followers here on WordPress. Wow! I thought it was particularly exciting to reach one hundred, because, you know, what’s not to like about a nice neat hundred? The only thing is I thought I got a a badge or something from WordPress but I didn’t. Poor me. Anyway, I can’t quite believe that one hundred human beings have stopped by my blog and decided they had a little bit of interest in reading the nonsense that comes out of my head. Like I said… wow!
The next thing to say is that despite my recent rocky patch I am still ‘functioning well’. Those were my GP’s*** words and I guess I agree insofar as that I continue to cling on and make a reasonable fist of dragging myself through things. I’m not sure that making a reasonable fist of dragging yourself through things ought to be seen as functioning well – it’s more a case of functioning in spite of things surely? Anyhow, I didn’t want to get into another argument with her so I let her have that one. I also didn’t bother respond to the ‘I’m not as discouraged as you are’ comment because I was too busy trying not to poke her in the eye for saying such a ridiculous thing. So I’m depressed and I’m discouraged and you’re not depressed** and you’re not discouraged? Who’d have thunk it? (By the way, I went to see my GP yesterday when I was very angry. About everything. And everybody….)
Needless to say the argument with my GP wasn’t really an argument at all because WeeGee doesn’t do confrontation in the real world**** it was more of a difference of opinion. The GPs opinion was that because I can ‘afford’ to pay for private counselling I should perhaps come off the NHS waiting list for CBT which, by the way, I have been on for twenty weeks now. WeeGee’s opinion was that it wasn’t so much a case of being able to ‘afford’ it as being so terrified of myself that I couldn’t ‘afford’ not to find a way to ‘afford’ it. WeeGee was also of the opinion that the GP seemed to have missed the whole point of the NHS which, as I’ve always understood it, is essentially free treatment at the point of need regardless of your ability to pay (Mini rant about the NHS and how we’re all going to hell in a hand cart what with the Tories and all officially over).
More than anything, I think I’ve hit a wall of frustration. I’m doing everything right, I really am. I’m taking my medication, I’m mindful, I’m eating, I’m exercising and above all else I’m trying very (very) hard. I keep my appointments with my GP, Mr Clever the psychiatrist and my own lovely counsellor Mrs Mountain and I take everything that they say on board*****. I’ve got mood charts, progress charts, lists and self help resources coming out of my ears. I haven’t topped myself yet. I’m doing everything right but none of it is getting any better. Actually it feels like it gets a little worse with every day that passes.
I honestly don’t know what to do next. Is it really just a case of waiting it out? Will it pass in time? Or is the problem that I’m maybe throwing too much at it? Or do I just think I’m doing it right when actually I’m doing it wrong?
Who knows? Answers on the back of a postcard.
Meanwhile in other news I have continued to keep up with the 10,000 step challenge even though I’ve been a bit mental and the Olympic torch passed through Kingston today. I was a little bit underwhelmed by the whole thing but I did enjoy listening to the couple next to me arguing about who was responsible for forgetting to put batteries in the camera. Nothing else to report today save that the sun is shining upon the UK which means I have a sunburnt nose****** and the Breaking Bad obsession in coming along quite nicely thank you very much.
Cheerio, WeeGee xx
*Then it went up to 101, which is less neat but does allow me to say that I have more than 100 followers
**To my knowledge. Perhaps I shouldn’t make assumptions like that – a lot of people probably don’t think I’m depressed either
***AKA Mrs Helpful, but I couldn’t bring myself to call her that today
****I do okay at it when I’m at work but I’m just acting
I’ve had to write two versions of today’s post – a long version and a short version.
I wrote the long version first and then I thought ‘Crikey*, what a jolly* miserable post that is, it’ll probably bore the arse** off everyone’ so I wrote the short version too so you could still get the gist even if the long one bored the arse off you and you had to stop reading it in order to work out how to re-attach your (probably lovely) arse to your (definitely lovely) self…
The short version
The short version starts with this video:
And then goes something like this:
Boo hoo. Woe is me. Boo-bloody-hoo. I hate myself and I want a pie. Sob sob. The end. Sob.
The long version
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin….
I thought I’d start at the end today, just for a bit of a change. I know that it’s conventional to do the beginning, followed by the middle, followed by the end but this is a blog about my broken brain and today it’s the end that is at the front of the thought queue so that’s where I’m starting.
The end is this: None of this was supposed to happen. My life has taken me to the point at which I can only decide that this is all wrong, that this isn’t what I wanted and that this can’t possibly be what was supposed to happen even though it did. Now what?
Let’s have a song while I make my mind up:
I haven’t made my mind up yet. Oh bums.
One of the things I tell myself, over and over again is that the fact that I’m mental is the least interesting thing about me. Sure it means that from time to time I do some interesting things, but aside from all the mental madness stuff I’m essentially a proper person who cares about stuff.
Except I’m not; it’s a lie – I’m not real or proper and if you could look into my heart the only thing you would see would be more nothing that you ever thought imaginable. Nothing is probably the only thing on earth that you can’t bring yourself to care about***.
If I’m not a proper person, the only things that are left are the impressive**** collection of ‘disorders’ I have managed to collect over the years. That’s all I am now, disordered and broken and that’s all I can be, because it is all there is to me. Boo hoo, sob sob, boo-bloody-hoo, poor me.
It’ll probably come to no surprise to you that I live alone. It certainly comes as no surprise to me. I don’t want to live alone, in fact I mostly hate it but how can you be so broken and share it with someone? Some things are better done in private, especially being mental. The thing is I’m always going to be mental. There isn’t a magic wand or a make-it-all better pill so I know that I’ll always be mental and it follows that I’ll always be alone. But I don’t want to be alone. Cards on the table? I just want somebody to save me. I can’t care about myself and I can’t take care of myself – I only really work in relation to other people. I wasn’t built to be alone, even though being alone is the only logical outcome of my condition.
Nobody is coming to save me. I don’t know how to save myself. This wasn’t what I wanted to happen.
Boo hoo, sob sob.
Love from WeeGee (once again hoping tomorrow is better) xx
*Yes. That’s actually how I talk. You know I’m British right?!
**In America I believe you say ‘ass’ which is fine by me even if it does make me think of a donkey and cause impossible and disturbing images to form in my head
***Except for Margaret Thatcher and possibly, the Eurovision Song Contest
****I don’t really think of it as impressive, but you know what I mean
How do you eat an elephant? 