How do you eat an elephant?

All the small things

Posted on April 30, 2012May 9, 2012 by WeeGee

I’m conscious that the lists I mentioned in my earlier post must seem rather small to a ‘normal person’ (it’s okay, I’m the one with mental health issues – I’m allowed to indulge in a little bleak humour if I feel like it) and to be honest, they’d probably seem quite small to me if I were feeling a little better. But I’m not feeling a little better quite yet and they’re about as big as I can get. For now.

Depression brings with it all kinds of negative thinking – paralysing feelings of hopelessness, an overall sense of dread and rather distressing thoughts of self harm to name a few – but none are more damaging that the guilt and shame that you somehow end up heaping upon yourself during a low period. The smallest of ‘failures’ is turned into a major catastrophe in the blink of an eye and the guilt and shame that you feel in light of this self imposed fail mark is enough to render you utterly defeated and send you yet deeper into the mire.

With this in mind, it important that, as I try to reach in a pull myself out of my pit, I don’t set myself unrealistic targets. What I’m actually trying to do is build achievements little by little without the prospect of guilt looming large and challenging my progress. So yes, the things on my lists (from here on in to be known as the ‘small things’ lists) seem fairly insignificant in the main scheme of things but I refer you to the wise words of Vincent Van Gogh:

‘Great things are done by a series of small things brought together’

So my take on it all is…. what he said.

Is seems like a good time to review my progress with the small things lists. It’s not looking too bad really (note the things I’d like to do are a little longer term so nothing to report just yet):

Three things I need to do:

Visit my friend and her new baby: In the diary.
Get a haircut: Well no, not yet. But then I haven’t decided what I want to do with it yet.
Make a new Spotify playlist: Most definitely in progress. It’s going to be a masterpiece so may take a while to complete.

Three things I like doing:

Walking in pretty places: Did you see the weather this weekend?!
Wii Fit: Check. Three sessions under my belt.
Reading: Finally got around to starting José Saramango’s Death at intervals.

I think that’s looking pretty good, no? Go me!

The small things lists

Being boring

Posted on April 26, 2012May 9, 2012 by WeeGee

One of the songs I heard on the radio this morning – courtesy of the rather marvellous Sean Keavney on the equally marvellous Radio Six Music – was one of my guilty pleasures: The Pet Shop Boys, Being Boring. If you’re not familiar with the song all I’ll say is that I suggest you acquaint yourself and leave it at that. I should confess to having something of a soft spot for the Pet Shop Boys (it’s a camp thing I think), but beyond that, the song has always resonated with me partly because it’s sad and sad always resonates, and partly because ‘being boring’ can be an outcome of depression for me.

I was a shy child and I grew up to be a shy adult; that’s just my character, and it isn’t much of a problem for me in normal circumstances. When I’m well, shyness is an obstacle I can overcome fairly easily – I can get out to do things and socialise, I can even, on occasion, bring myself to try new things and meet new people. But when I’m not so well, the low mood and shattered confidence I experience exacerbates the problem to epic proportions. I suppose you could say that the two things – shyness and depression – come together to form a perfect storm. Here’s why….

When things get bleak, I don’t like myself very much at all, and to be fair, my company sucks. That’s barrier number one – if you can’t bear to be with yourself why on earth would anyone else want to spend time with you (not an altogether illogical thought process). After a little while with my dark passenger on board, I start to resemble what my mum would describe as ‘death het up’. I’m not eating well and I’m usually not sleeping so I look tired and drawn. Being bothered about my appearance is beyond me and even getting a haircut is a challenge too far so I also look dishevelled and worn around the edges. That’s barrier number two because I don’t want anybody to see me like that, or for that matter think that I’m really like that (this one not quite so logical, granted). Barrier number three is the big one for me, because eventually I lose all interest in the things that usually interest me. Put bluntly, I don’t actually have anything to say apart from ‘life is unbearable for me right now and I wish I was dead’… not much of a conversation starter, eh? So, for me, all of the barriers seem to conspire to knock what is already a slightly fragile sense of confidence and increase my shyness tenfold.

By the time I’ve landed in my pit it really does feel like the only thing I can do is stay there and hide for a little while because I didn’t have the confidence to do the things I was doing in the first place. All of which just makes the barriers bigger and more difficult to break down. The challenge, of course, is to do something about all of this.

We’ve already established that I’m a little shy so I think it’s safe to say I’m not taking up speed dating any time soon. Some things, however, are more realistic and I’ve started by devising myself a couple of good old lists!

Three things I need to do:

Visit my friend and her new baby
Get a hair cut
Make a new Spotify playlist

Three things I like doing:

Walking in pretty places
Wii Fit
Reading

Three things I’d like to do:

Join a book club
Get a manicure
Join a gym

Finally I’m armed with some achievable lists and I can forget about the other things that crowd my thinking for a little while. There are lots of things I could do, but right now, these are the things I’m working towards. When I start pulling them together, I’ll be socialising again, taking care of myself and maintaining some interests. Feels like a plan. I’ll let you know how I get on….

Welcome to my world

Why would you eat an elephant?!

Posted on April 25, 2012May 11, 2012 by WeeGee

I was 15 years old when I was first diagnosed with depression which means I have lived, side by side with my dark passenger for more than half of my life. The symptoms come and go, over a matter of days, or weeks, or latterly, over a considerable number of months.

Managing the symptoms of depression can be an all encompassing experience. When you can barely bring yourself to get out of bed or switch the kettle on, living any kind of ‘normal’ life can seem to be completely unachievable. Sometimes the worst of it can be the frustration found in the knowledge that the things you have withdrawn from because of depression – even the simplest of things, like going for a run, cooking a meal, reading a book, or, for that matter, writing a blog – are the very things that will help get you started on a path towards a better place.

Over the years, I’ve gathered a great many motivational quotes (perhaps one day I’ll post a list!). It might sound a little daft but my treasured phrases and sayings have helped drag me through some pretty low times. My favourite of all is to be found in the title of this blog: ‘how do you eat an elephant?’ The answer of course, is ‘bite by bite!’ To my mind, trying to beat depression is a lot like the thought of trying to eat an elephant. It seems like a gigantic, overwhelming and impossible task in its entirety, but perfectly digestible when approached in bite sized chunks (no elephants were harmed in the writing of this post).

And so this is the story of my attempt to eat an elephant; my story about living with, and in the fullness of time, perhaps beating depression. It will certainly be a blog about my efforts to make some positive changes to ease the symptoms, and in honesty, might also be about some of the setbacks I experience along the way.

Most of all it will be about me: a person who is much bigger than the illness I suffer from. It often seems to me that at the heart of the stigma still associated with mental ill health is an assumption that a person in mental distress is nothing more than the manifestation of their symptoms. I think this is an unfounded and completely wrong-minded notion and hope that maybe my blog can play a small part in challenging it.

Wish me luck. I’ll see you on the other side.