Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

The long and the short of it

Posted on by WeeGee

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

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

Careful what you say…

Posted on by WeeGee

I haven’t really written a proper post for ages, and that’s no accident. There’s been an awful lot of nonsense in my head lately* and to counter it, I’ve stuck my head in the sand and gone about hiding in awards posts and games of tag. The thing is whilst it’s one thing to spend your time in the real world pretending that everything is okay, it’s just plain daft to attempt to hide the extent of your broken brain in a blog that you keep to document your journey with a broken brain. I suppose the only person I’m cheating is myself….

Something went wrong – somebody said something to me that they oughtn’t to have said. If they’d cared at all they wouldn’t have said it which means not only do I have to struggle with the fall out of what they said, but that I also have to contemplate the fact that they, along with (and, this is about my broken brain) everyone else I know simply doesn’t care.

So – you know I’m doing this 10,000 steps challenge? It was going really well and people were being incredibly generous** and I was just about proud of myself. And then Mrs Black and White popped up to say:

“And how did you get yourself involved with this? You’ll need to eat like a horse not to lose any weight”

Boom! End of feeling proud of myself.

I started to feel apologetic. Like I’d let her down because she clearly thought it was a bad idea and at the end of the day, I just want to please people and most of all her. Then I felt stupid…. what have I got myself involved with, what a ridiculous idea? Then I felt unloved because surely, for once in her life somebody who had seen EVERYTHING I’d been through could bite her tongue and say ‘good luck’ even if she thought it was a bad idea. And then, and this is the worst thing of all, I went a bit weird about food – as if to prove her right.

I am recovering from an eating disorder – which is to say that I have (more or less) maintained a healthy weight for EIGHT years having once almost starved myself to death. I don’t count calories, nor weigh myself. Heck I don’t even think about eating. I just do it when I’m hungry. But when it comes to food, I’m vulnerable. I guess I always will be and I hope I will always be brave enough to keep on doing the right thing however hard it gets: which is why the comment hurt so much.

My biggest fear in life is going back to where I was. I don’t need to think about it. I don’t need to remember. I need keep on keeping on. I don’t need the people who are supposed to care reminding me of who I used to be….. And this person really should have known better. It was just unkind to make something positive into a great big fear of being unwell.

From one little comment comes a spectacular unravelling. That’s the way things go around here. It doesn’t take much for me to unravel because I’m fragile. When you’re fragile people have to be very careful about what they say and do which in the end means that people don’t bother because it’s easier not to bother than to be careful.

I shouldn’t let it get to me. I know that, but it isn’t that simple in my head – I don’t get to decide what bothers me and what doesn’t; the way I feel just happens and most of the time I can’t cope with the outcome. WeeGee doesn’t do feelings well

*Yes – even more nonsense than normal

**I’ve raised £235 so far. £15 more and I get a certificate from Mind!

Posted in Poetry

Don’t laugh

Posted on by WeeGee

I am about to post a poem. It’s a poem what I wrote.

I write a lot of poems. I spend weeks of my life tweaking them until I’m happy and then I place them in a box full of stuff.

Every so often I go through the box full of stuff and throw all the poems away. I don’t know why…..

Crocodile tears

You always were reptilian – cold blooded,
Treacherous and extremely dangerous to know.
A three chambered heart,
Sealed off but beating

Beating behind a row of heavy carbon teeth.
You stretch out sinister smiles,
Marble eyed and perfectly still,
Summoned and unreal.

You coerce tears watching as their sharp edges
Gather in the deep dark pools
You tend like a garden.
Unforgiven, you do not forgive

There you go then. A poem what I wrote and put in a box. But now it’s on my blog and I can’t throw it away!

WeeGee xx

©WeeGee 2012.

This post does not fall under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial share alike licence. All rights reserved.

Posted in Little things that made me smile

Tag round….. Ohh. I’ve lost count….

Posted on by WeeGee

These are Bourbon at Crazy in the coconut’s questions:

What is your favourite YouTube video?

It’s probably this:

What is your signature dish?

Maybe Pavlova which is the only sweet dish I do. Or perhaps guacamole which is my latest obsession.

How did you come to choose your blog name?

Like so many things in my life, it comes from one of my dad’s sayings: ‘How do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite’. Which is really just to say you can overcome anything if you take it step by step…

How many languages can you speak?

Rather embarrassingly, only one fluently: English

What is your guilty pleasure?

Phil Collins. I know.

What is your favourite feature about yourself?

I’m not daft, in fact I think I’m quite clever(ish). That’ll do me.

If you were a fly on the wall for a day, which wall would you choose to sit on? 

I’d sit on my own wall and maybe that way I could work out what on earth was going on in my head.

What is your first ever memory?

I’ve no idea, but nobody seems to believe me when I say that.

If you had to live in a different country from your own for a year, which country would it be?

I’d head to Madagascar to meet the frogs 🙂

What is the craziest outfit you’ve ever worn?

Erm? Dunno. Happen I might be wearing it right now!

How are you today?

I’m alright thank you very much.

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

What if?

Posted on by WeeGee

My granny used to have a saying that went something like this: ‘if it’s for you, it won’t go past you’. It’s one of those things you seem to have say to people when they have a broken heart, as if words can really take that away and make it all better. Plenty more fish in the sea and all that….

I have a broken heart. My broken heart is a big part of my broken brain. When people say it’s all in my head, I can at least challenge them, because some of it is in my heart, rather than in my head.

I’m told I care too much. Does anybody know what that means? Is it even possible? I tend to look at things in opposites – so I care too much and the opposite is not caring enough. In light of that I don’t accept that I’m doing it wrong. I know where I want to be.

The what if is what if you had what was for you, and it went past you because you were mental?

What if you left behind who you were and the things you could be just because the person who made you all those things couldn’t live with the mental?

What if your brain went wrong and what was for you did go past you? What then?

A confused and unhappy WeeGee xx

Posted in Little things that made me smile

Tag – round one squillion and two

Posted on by WeeGee

Thanks to Undoing Crazy, I’m it again….

I’ve already posted the rules, made up some questions and tagged some folks so is it okay if I just answer the questions? I hope that isn’t a terrible cheat….

What kind of computer do you do your blogging on?

Usually I blog on my slightly crappy but ever reliable Acer latop, but sometimes I do it on my PC at work and less often on my iPhone.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

I know this isn’t really a superhero power, but I’d like to be a boy for a day. Just one, though, beyond that I imagine it’d all get a bit grubby. Sorry boys.

What is one thing you can’t live without?

Just one? Oh crumbs…..

I want to say a working Internet connection, because what is life without Google? But it should be something more meaningful, shouldn’t it?!

Could you recommend a good book please?

Of course, it’s a pleasure. How about Death and the penguin by Andrey Kurkov? It’s funny, sweet, quirky and incredibly brilliant. I’ve got lots more though if that doesn’t work for you….

What’s the best advice you’ve been given regarding treatment of your mental illness?

It sounds so daft, but when the chips are really down for me my dad always says, “just you keep your head WeeGee” in his broad Glaswegian accent and it always helps. The second best advice I’ve had is “put your shoes on and leave your flat”.

Are you a Starbucks person? If so, what is your favorite drink or treat?

No. I’m not a Starbucks person mostly because I don’t drink coffee anymore.

Do you have a special spot you go to to blog?
Not really, although a lot of my ideas are formed walking down by the river.

What is one thing you are proud of?

I’m exceptionally proud of the qualifications I have, all of which I completed whilst being bonkers, nutty and/or mental. It took me a little bit longer than it should have done to get to where I got, but the main thing is – I got there!

What is your favorite car?

I just don’t have one I’m afraid. I live in London so I suppose my favourite car is my legs.

What would you do if you could do anything?

Honestly. If I could do anything I’d just make myself okay. I’d probably make everyone I have met on WordPress okay too, because I can do anything, right?

What should I ask if I really want to get to know you?

You should just ask me who I think I am and then listen. Either that or you could ask me about summer 1997 but I almost certainly won’t tell you 😛

Much love, WeeGee xxx

Posted in Little things that made me smile

A seal of approval

Posted on by WeeGee

Okay -so this one has pleased me. The Depressed Moose has made me one of two inaugural recipients of a brand new award. Hurrah. It pleases me because a) its new, b) it’s an award, and c) I’m a bit needy so a seal of approval goes a long way….

Here’s the award:

And, as I’ve already mentioned I recieved this from a rather lovely (if depressed) Moose called Garry. I suspect a Moose would never meet an elephant in the wild, but it seems to be going okay for us thus far….

Here are the questions and my responses:

If a film was made about your life what would the title be?

It’s only a matter of time before there is a film of my life, surely? I think I’d like it to be called ‘Becoming WeeGee’. I just would.

Who would play you? (Can be an actor/actress that is dead or alive)

It would have to be Scarlett Johansson owing to the striking resemblance she bears to me. Ahem.

What genre would the film be?

It certainly would be a comedy, but probably a kinda bittersweet one.

Who would direct the film?

Maybe Noah Baumbach? Or maybe I’d just do it myself to deal with all my control freakery stuff.

Who would play the love interest in the film?

Does there have to be a love interest? Films are like real life as far as I’m concerned: better without ‘love interests’. Yes. I’m bitter and twisted. So what….

If there really has to be one, I’ll have this guy (but I’ll be playing myself if this particular scenario unfolds):

Morgan Parra (AKA the little French kicker)*

Which song would feature most heavily in the film?

The soundtrack would be the complete works of [Sir] Frank Turner and the most prominent song would be this one:

If you could have played a part from any film what would that be?

Obviously, it would be the mad woman in the attic in any of the many film adaptations of Jane Eyre…. I’d do a good job of that.

Ta ta for now, WeeGee xxx

*Two pictures was gratuitous, I know. But in my defence I couldn’t help it!

Posted in Reasons to be cheerful

A WeeGee award ceremony

Posted on by WeeGee

I’m in a funny old mood today, so rather than inflicting it on you lot, I thought I’d take my mind off it by writing an awards post. I like blogging awards – I think they’re a nice little token of mutual respect, and I enjoy answering the questions (and reading the answers) that come with them.

The Daisy Award

* Thank the person who nominated you

I was nominated by Angel Fractured so…. thank you very much Angel Fractured. Angel fractured keeps not just one, but two lovely blogs and you should probably visit them both if you’re not already familiar.
* Tell your readers 7 unusual things about yourself

  1. I have never seen any of the films from the Star Wars or Alien franchises and I have now reached a point in my life when I never will because saying I’ve never seen them is surely far more interesting than sitting and watching them?
  2. I experience mental health problems which is only a little bit unusual since such problems affect one on four of us. (Probably more if you are reading my blog!) The thing is, some people still seem to think that a mental health problem marks you out as different and weird, which clearly, it doesn’t.
  3. I suffer from psoriasis which in itself is only a bit rarer than being mental. However, the kind of psoriasis I have is an awful lot rarer than being mental – so much so that a dermatologist is writing a whole paper about the behaviour of my strange skin as we speak….. Fame at last.
  4.  I speak with three distinct accents depending on who I’m talking to or on my mood:
    1. Plummy southern: It is allllriaght, isn’t it daarling?
    2. Midland: its awwwright, int’ it duck?
    3. Glaswegian: it’s awrit init pal?
  5. In my life I have never started reading a book and not finished it with only  two notable exceptions:
    1. The Mill on the Floss
    2. The Shipping News
  6. I can’t do jigsaw puzzles. My brain just won’t work that way.
  7. I can do an uncanny impression of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings films…. it gives grown men the heebie-jeebies.

* Nominate some worthy bloggers

I’d like to nominate two bloggers who are both, like me, quite new to this whole blogging thing. Both blogs are interesting, engaging and (I hope they won’t mind me saying because I mean it in a kind way) are about being mental amongst other things:

The Depressed Moose

Madness 42

And then I’d like to make a special Daisy award to Brandic at Nothinginmynoggin because I love her blog, because I want to and because I can:

“Dear Brandic, ‘Chin up chumley’ (ps that’s a very British saying), Love from WeeGee xx”

The Inspirational Blogger Award

The very inspirational and very lovely Roxy at AdverseUniverse put me forward for this one. If you don’t already follow Roxy – seriously, why not? She’s very lovely and very inspirational and she’s incredibly brave to boot. Thanks lovely (I promise not to swear in my acceptance speech)

The nice thing about the Inspirational Blogger Award is that there don’t seem to be any rules, so you can just make them up as you go along. I’m good at winging it so this one is right up my street 🙂

First up I’m going to nominate three inspirational blogs:

  1. The Quiet Borderline: The Quiet Borderline is amazing. It doesn’t seem to matter how difficult things get for her, she manages to write beautiful and insightful posts and she just seems to keep keeping on in the face of adversity. She truly is an inspiration.
  2. Magically Mad: Magically Mad is also amazing. She says the kindest things which help you through your bleakest of moments, even though things are pretty bleak for her. She’s one of life’s all round good eggs.
  3. Hello Sailor: It must get boring for Sailor getting nominated for so many awards, but I don’t think she realises just how special she is, so I’m chucking this one at her too in the hope she will eventually realise it. Her blog is absolutely beautiful and she is a huge source of inspiration for me, and I imagine, countless others.

In celebration of this award, I thought I’d post a couple of photos of my cat (the best cat in the world). Well you know?  There are no rules and I am a mad cat lady when it comes down to it.

The best cat in the world (ps. sorry they’re all different sizes and rubbish quality, I’m not much of a photographer and they were all taken with differnt phones):

Posted in About today

And now for something completely different

Posted on by WeeGee

Okay, so you know I write a blog about being a bit mental? Well this one is all a bit odd, because this post is about not being particularly mental…. well, at least for a little while.

The normal state of affairs in the WeeGee household of a work day morning goes something like this: alarm; snooze (repeat indefinitely until panic about being late kicks in); moment of okay; rubbish nonsense and mental stuff rears its head and washes over self; mental battle with self commences; switch on radio* and say “Good Morning Shaun”; much chaos, tripping over a cat who claims to be STARVING and running late ensues; morning over; day continues.

I’m used to it. It’s a routine if nothing else. But this morning was slightly different.

My alarm went off, but instead of hitting snooze I just got myself up. I switched on the radio and said “Good Morning Shaun” and went about what is normally chaos in a not particularly chaotic way (of course, the cat still claimed to be STARVING).

So there I was listening to the radio wondering if I could wear both a denim jacket and denim shoes in the same ensemble with this song in the background:

Which was just fine by me.

And then it occurred to me that I’d been awake for more than an hour and it hadn’t occurred to me that I was mental …. The only difficulty is that you can’t un-occur something once it has occurred. But it was nice whilst it lasted.

(By the way, the answer to the denim shoes, denim jacket conundrum is that it looks okay but leaves you feeling like you are trying to ‘do a trendy vicar’ by wearing something conservative whilst chucking as much denim as you have at it as if to prove that you are a cool kid really underneath it all.)

*The Radio Six Music Breakfast Show is the only breakfast show worth listening to as far as I’m concerned.

Posted in Errors and omissions

Errors and omissions

Posted on by WeeGee

It has been brought to the editor’s attention* that the post ‘Mixed up things’ of the 11th July 2012 contained a factual error.

The ageing magician famed for the catch-phrase you’ll like this but not a lot’ was of course Paul Daniels:

Who should not be confused with the ageing mod Phil Daniels:

Sorry about that. The editor is mortified

*Thank you to Madness42 and Sailor for their diligent knowledge of ageing magicians and/or ageing mods.