Tag: Depression

Posted in About today

The C word

Posted on by WeeGee

It’s okay – it’s not a post about that C word, because, you know, I’m rarely that vulgar…. This is a post about the other C word: CHRISTMAS. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right? Everyone loves it, right? Ho ho ho and it’s Chriiiiiiiiiiistmaaaaas. (A la Slade*).

For my own part I like this time of the year well enough, although I wouldn’t put myself down as one of those hard-core Christmas enthusiasts. Truth told, I’m happy to take it or leave it – I like buying presents, I like Dr Who, and I like being able to drink alcohol before twelve noon but apart from that, I like all of the other days of the year just as much as I like Christmas day.

drinking

I’ve been alive for 38 Christmases, and (of those I can recall) only three of them have been shitty. That’s a fairly good return, although PLEASE GOD can you not ask me to work out the percentages. Nobody should have to work out percentages during the season of goodwill…….

percent

My first shitty Christmas was 1996. I’ll never forget it, and to be honest, when I think about Christmas now my thoughts are still clouded by Christmas 1996** Christmas 1996 was, for me, Eating Disorder Central. I spent months worrying about how I would pick my way through the calorific reality that was coming my way, and then I spent months atoning for it. I sometimes wonder how different my life might have been, had it not been for Christmas 1996, but then I remember that there’s no good blaming your whole life on a few sausage rolls and I move on. Again.

My next shitty Christmas was my first year in Surbiton. That was the Christmas when everything I thought I knew changed IN A HEART BEAT and I found myself alone even though I thought I would never have to be alone again. It was also the Christmas I moved house and got tonsillitis all AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME. That year, it snowed four days before Christmas and I remember that because four days before Christmas I still hadn’t bought a single gift which meant I had to hike my way to Kingston in FIFTY feet of snow FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS and buy gifts for the people I loved even though I just wished I would drown in a puddle of melted snow, without the people I loved ever having to know. That was a pretty shitty Christmas…..

To this day, I still can’t explain my third shitty Christmas, unless being mental is an adequate explanation. Somehow I knew that Christmas was approaching but somehow I also didn’t give a shit about it. I stuck my head in the sand – as I’m wont to do – only conceding that Christmas was going to happen regardless a week before it actually did. It was around about this point that I shoved a tree up, flung some tinsel in its general direction and took to wearing a jumper with a quirky penguin on because, you know, quirky penguins are FESTIVE. Ho, ho and fucking ho.

I don’t think this Christmas is going to be a particularly shitty Christmas. I’m looking forward to it well enough (it’s that thing I said about drinking alcohol at noon): my tree is up, my gifts are bought and I’ll get to spend time with the people I care about. Most importantly of all, from my point of view, my head is in a reasonable place – I’m calm and collected and not especially mental. I head into Christmas knowing that a) I’m going to survive and that b) surviving isn’t going to be a problem.

Still – I keep thinking about those people who might be where I was during my three shitty Christmases: people who might be afraid, or alone, or just off the scale mental for no good reason. I keep thinking how difficult it is to find a way through at this time of the year, and I keep thinking how much I wish I could tell those people, who feel the way I once did, that however hopeless the hopeless things they are dealing with feel – there is hope to be found at the end of the hopelessness. You just have to hold on tight.

Christmas brings so many expectations with it, and it’s easy to get carried away with the idea that everything should be perfect for that one day. At Christmas all of your insecurities should somehow melt away, and you should be with everybody you love, and you should feel miraculously joyful and everything should be completely perfect BECAUSE CHRISTMAS. Here’s what I know: ‘because Christmas’ isn’t the answer to all of the challenges you were facing before Christmas. Here’s what I also know – ‘because Christmas’ doesn’t make anything worse, or more intolerable, or more unbearable than it might have been either.

Christmas is tough for so many people, for so many different reasons. But Christmas will be over soon enough, and the reasons make sense in the end. Tomorrow will come. Until then hope is important, shout up if you need help, and I’ll see you in the new year.

Oh. And ho, ho ho……

mofo

Love you lots like jelly tots

WeeGee xxx

*Wait – is it Slade? I’m starting to wonder if it might be Wizard…..

**Can everybody please be too polite to mention that 1996 was TWENTY years ago, thanks.

 

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Posted in About today

Today came around. Again….

Posted on by WeeGee

It always rains in WeeGee land on 19th September.

To be fair, I don’t know if it actually always rains, or if my memory just thinks it always rains, but it very definitely rained today and since that fits with my pre-conceived notions of what today should feel like I’m going to go with it.

It’s been fifteen years since the 19th September first meant anything to me. Fifteen years is a long time. It’s so long that I can’t properly remember the person I was back then. It’s so long ago that my friends are different, that my life is different, and that whatever it was I hoped and dreamed of at the time is long forgotten and given up on. I’m a grown up now – it’s all behind me – none of what mattered then matters now. Life moves on, people change, you stop looking for the big answers and start dealing with the little questions one by one.

Today shouldn’t mean anything to me. It’s an anniversary of something that only I remember and that has no meaningful impact on my life now. Like I said, life moves on.

Every year, the 19th September comes around. I dread it for weeks, and then it comes around and before I know it, it’s over with. I try to mark it, but I never manage to mark it well enough because…. Well, because – how do you mark a thing you want to remember but don’t want to acknowledge out loud?

As it goes, the best I can do is to withdraw into my own head for the day. All I can do is make today about today – I can let my thoughts rest on things I don’t otherwise let them rest on – I can stop for a moment and I can let everything that has happened in the last 15 years settle around me.

I’ll wake up tomorrow and today will be over with. That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? Today doesn’t matter because tomorrow is on the way.

What you’ve lost is less important than what you have. Hope is important.

Love you all lots, like jelly tots,

WeeGee xxxxx

Posted in About today

And so I kept living

Posted on by WeeGee

I wrote this post to mark World Suicide Prevention Day 2016, and it perhaps unsurprisingly, discusses suicide. Please scroll on past if that might put you in a difficult position. If you need help right now – pick up the phone, send an email (feel free to use my contact me form – I’m here, I won’t judge) knock on a door, head to A&E (ER). Take care of yourself xoxox

 —- 

Four years ago, I wrote this post to mark World Suicide Prevention Day 2012. So many things have changed in the years that have intervened – for me, for the people I love, and in the world – but sadly, one thing hasn’t changed much at all: the figures on suicide around the world.

According to the World Health Organisation an estimated 800,000 people worldwide lose their lives to suicide every year. It’s difficult for me to imagine the human picture behind a figure like that so I tried to break it down – it averages at around 90 people every hour; or three people every two minutes. In the time it hasn’t taken me to write this post nearly 100 people have taken their own lives. For every person who dies by suicide, another three people make an attempt on their life. So, in the time it has taken me to write this post 400 people have found themselves willing themselves out of the world. Sometimes, there are no words for how awful the human picture actually is.

Here in the UK, the picture is no less discouraging. In 2014 (the most recent year for which figures from the Samaritans are available) some 6581 people lost their lives to suicide in the UK and ROI – the highest number of men since 2005 and of women since 2011. Whichever way you look at it, the number of people who die at their own hand in the UK has increased – I don’t know whether that makes me more sad or angry, but I don’t suppose it really matters right now. I am a suicide survivor, and as hard as it is to say THAT is what matters to me right now.

As a rule, we still find it difficult to talk about suicide and that’s a huge problem because one of the best means of defence we have is talking about it.

Here’s what I know:

  • Talking about suicidal feelings gives you the space to examine them, outside of your own head.
  • Talking about suicidal feelings helps to remind you that you are never alone with them.
  • Talking about suicidal feelings gives you a distraction from the actions that are gathering ever more momentum in your mind.
  • Talking about suicidal feelings helps us to remember – above all else – that it’s okay to talk about suicide.

So – at the risk of repeating myself: I am a suicide survivor, and I am not ashamed. There have been times in my life that I wished not to have life anymore – it wasn’t ever that I wanted to be dead, more that I didn’t want to be alive anymore. The two things have always been, and remain, very different to my mind. The feelings that I had at those times don’t make a lot of sense to me right now but I remember the desperation, and hopelessness, fear and pain. I remember those things in my bones and in my heart – I carry them with me and use them to remind me that whatever happens, and however I feel: my life is worth having. And so I choose to live. I choose it every single god damn day.

Suicide is complex – nobody knows that better than I. But suicide is also, almost always, preventable. There is work to be done and we need to look to each other – to our family and friends, to our politicians, our media, our healthcare professionals – to make it happen. Most importantly of all we need to keep on finding the courage to talk about it, until all the shame is banished and until every single person who thinks they are lost is  in no doubt that we are ALL here for them, and that we are here to get them through.

I end, as I did four years ago, with some words that mean the world to me – words that have lifted my heart and carried it for me, words that have comforted me, words that have saved my life:

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

Lady Chatterley’s Lover. DH Lawrence

Keep your lights burning brightly, my friends. And remember, it’s good to talk.

Love you all lots, like a million and one jelly tots – WeeGee xoxoxo

wsp
Burning my very special little candle, in support and solidarity and hope
Posted in About today

He is home. That is all.

Posted on by WeeGee

Just a quick, bullet-pointy update because my brain is frazzled and my heart is too full…..

Headline

  • Gryff is HOME.
  • Hip, hip and double hurrah.

Boring cat lady summary of how the shit went down

  • Monday: Gryff goes to see the vet because he is a bit under the weather
  • Tuesday: Gryff is diagnosed with diabetes and simultaneously goes on hunger strike. This is not a good thing.
  • Wednesday: Gryff develops ketoacidosis (I’d never heard of it – but it’s SERIOUS)  and is admitted to the veterinary hospital where he is angry and growls a lot. WeeGee and Mr Awesome Thing Number Five prepare themselves for something I’d rather not mention.
  • Thursday: Gryff continues to be seriously ill and simultaneously ‘reaches the limit of his patience’ with the hospital staff because he doesn’t understand they are only trying to make him better. He does, however, agree to eat which is actually the best thing he can do
  • Friday: Gryff receives visitors, is grumpy but purrs a lot and promises to be good. Gryff is subsequently ‘quite good’ and let’s the nice hospital staff do what they need to do to make him well enough to come home. (The fact that they discovered a treat he likes may, or may not, have something to do with this change in attitude.)

gryff angry

  • Saturday: Gryff has an excellent night and manages a zero ketone and zero potassium reading in the morning. Bingo! WeeGee and Awesome Thing Mr Five return home with a cat who is very nearly back to his usual self, a shit-load of medication, and a growing sense of trepidation about the prospect of injecting a non-compliant cat on a twice daily basis. Shit.

BTW – He is very happy to be home:

Gryff home.jpg

And life is starting to get back to normal:

gryff normal

The bottom line

  • Gryff is HOME
  • Hip, hip and double hurrah

I’ll write again soon, once my head has slowed down but in the meantime – I love you all lots. Like lots and lots of Jelly Tots.

WeeGee xoxoxo

Posted in About today

Strength you your elbow, little man

Posted on by WeeGee

By rights, I shouldn’t be a cat person. Growing up our pets were goldfish, snails*, guinea pigs and eventually dogs – by which I mean I’m not exactly used to having cats around. More to the point, I’m allergic to them. Like REALLY allergic.

All things considered, cats don’t exactly make the most obvious choice of pet here in WeeGee Land. It’s funny the way things turn out, isn’t it?

I first met Gryff in 2005 – November the 4th 2005 to be exact. I made the 110 mile round trip from London to Milton Keynes and back again to collect him with my then boyfriend on the basis that he was a silver, black and white tabby – and silver black and white tabbies aren’t easy to come by. By the time it became apparent that he was in fact going to grow up to be a ginger, black and white tabby it didn’t matter one jot. By then, there was nothing that little dude could do to disappoint me.

The journey back from Milton Keynes wasn’t exactly smooth: we got lost and by the time we reached the M25 it was a car park. Long story short the whole thing took a lot longer than anticipated – far from ideal when you’ve got a tiny kitten with no capacity for ‘holding it in’ on board. Needless to say, the inevitable happened and we ended up with a tiny kitten who was inconsolable because he’d shat in his cat carrier on board.

It took three packets of baby wipes and a good half hour to put things back in order with Gryff getting more and more upset by the minute. In the end I picked him up, looked him square in the eye and in the gentlest voice I could manage said something along the lines of ‘It’s okay, nobody cares that you shit the bed you little fucker, just please, please, please stop crying. And he did – he looked right back at me and sized me up for a while. Eventually he blinked at me twice in that slow, trusting way that cats do and from that moment, I knew we had the measure of one another and I knew we were going to be the best of friends.

He was an awesome little kitten – mostly bossy, sometimes nervous and always good fun. His favourite pastime was scaling the bookshelves and knocking the books off, one by one, until he’d made a Gryff shaped hole to sleep in. He followed me around all the time, in the hope, I think, that I would open a drawer for him to hop into and empty of contents in seconds flat – his second favourite pastime. He was always a vocal cat and made sure to tell me all about it if ever I left him for so much as five minutes.

As time went on it became clear that whilst he would mostly tolerate his usual humans (provided we fed him promptly), he really wasn’t fond of strangers. He made a habit of creeping along the back of the sofa and biting visitors on the back of the head. Hard. He once chased a very frightened plumber into the hallway and refused to let him back in to look at the boiler no matter how much I appealed to his better nature. To others he probably seems like a vicious and aggressive cat but the way I saw it, he way always just a frightened little guy who came out fighting before anybody else had the chance to throw a punch…. It makes a lot of sense to me.

By the time Gryff was five it was all change in WeeGee Land. The then boyfriend was no more and Gryff and I set out on a new adventure together. It was the two of us against the world and we made a pretty good team. On our first night in the flat in Surbiton he burrowed under the covers, nestled right up against my tummy, and slept there all night. It reminded me that I was going to need him as much as he needed me and that was how we came at things from that point on.

During those early days in Surbiton, Gryff saved my life. It sounds so dramatic but that doesn’t stop it being true. When it all fell apart, and I stopped caring, and stopped hoping, and didn’t know where to turn Gryff was the thing that got me out of bed in the morning. He was the thing that helped me put one foot in front of the other, he was the thing that kept me trying. He was constant and forgiving at a time when nothing made sense and everything was harsh. Gryff kept me in the here and now when the past hurt too much and the future seemed liked a foreign land.

In time of course, we got through it and found our way to the other side. Life started feeling like life again and the future became a possibility. That said, when Mr Awesome Thing Number Five first arrived on the scene I think it would be fair to say that Gryff and I both regarded him with an equal measure of suspicion. For my part having a whole new person around in my life was a pretty big and scary deal and to be fair, I don’t think it was too different from Gryff’s point of view.

In the early days of Mr Awesome Thing Number Five and Gryff there was a lot of patience, endless gifts (or bribes) and some not inconsiderable injuries on the part of the Mr and not much more than the occasional glimmer of something a little better than contempt from the cat. It didn’t seem possible that relations would ever enter truly friendly territory between them. I suppose what happened in the end – which was nothing short of miraculous just goes to show how far a kind heart and the patience of a saint can take you with an aggressive, frightened and over protective cat. Gryff and Mr Awesome became, and remain, the very best of friends.

Gryff is 11 years old now and I’ve spent every single one of those years loving him. I love him even more than I ever thought possible and if I’m perfectly honest, I can’t think of many humans I regard nearly as highly as I do my boy.

Gryff is very, very poorly right now in fact, he’s in the hospital fighting for his very important little life. I’m doing my best to will him on from here because if the very excellent veterinary staff can get him through the next 48 hours then we’re in with a shout. Right now, I don’t need a miracle – I just needa shout. Like I said, Gryff gave me a reason to put one foot in front of the other for such a long time and I owe him a debt of gratitude. Now, I need him to find what he needs to find to get through this, because I’d like the opportunity to pay the debt off in cuddles, and tuna, and toys. But mostly in cuddles….

Strength to your elbow little man, strength to your elbow.

*  Yes, snails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in About today

On where I am now

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote a whole lot of time has passed. Some of it has been happy and some of it has been sad and some of it has been other things – things I don’t have a name for yet – things that don’t quite fit into the ready made categories we’ve got set out for them.

Also – I haven’t been eating right. It’s a difficult subject to tackle, and I’ve thought long and hard about how to write about it. I don’t want to end up with some kind of ‘pro ana’ blog on my hands because even at my worst I was never about encouraging that kind of shit. Even at my worst, and most poorly all I really ever wanted to do was leave that nonsense behind.

Still. YOU ARE WHERE YOU ARE. Of all the lessons I’ve learned, that’s the most valuable and important. You can only ever deal with what’s in front of you.

Okay – so what’s in front of me? Lots of meals that I don’t want to eat for reasons that I couldn’t explain to you if I wanted to. But, by the way, I don’t want to explain myself anyway. Take it all with a pinch of salt but I mostly couldn’t give a fuck one way or the other.

Here’s the truth. I’m not as ‘thin’ as I used to be. The trouble is that ‘thin’ is the only thing I’ve ever achieved. The thinnest I was? That was the best I was. The thinnest I was – that was the person I want to be, the person I should be. The thinnest I was – that was the best I ever was.

In so many ways I know that everything I’ve said is nonsense. It’s nonsense and bullshit and airy-fairy rubbish. At the same time I AM WHERE I AM.

And I don’t know where to go from here.

Love you lots like jelly tots xoxox

Posted in About today

Let’s have a bit of a chinwag, eh?

Posted on by WeeGee

Hello, good evening and welcome to my world. My world isn’t exactly awesome but I’ve got tea, a comfy chair, and plenty of hugs if you’d care to stick around for a little chat…..

How’re you doing? How’ve you been? Milk and sugar? Please, have a seat. Me? Oh – well I haven’t been too well lately but there’s no point getting my knickers in a knot about it now, is there?

All things must pass and these things are sent to try us and – I get knocked down but I ALWAYS get up again. I’m fine now. Well no. That’s not quite it – I’m not completely fine but the end is in sight and I’ve just about figured out how to get there. If in doubt, walk towards the light. That’s what I say.

Am I talking too fast? I’ve been doing that lately. I don’t really know why unless maybe I’ve been trying to make up for how slow it all feels on the inside. That would make sense, right? I mean that makes sense in your head as well as my head doesn’t it? I’m not sure I can completely trust my own head yet.

Work’s fine thanks. I’ve been lucky there really. It took me a while, after my last proper job, to find something I could settle into but now I have. I like what I do, and I’m good at it and I can split my time between home and the office which means I get to be useful AND have the doomy gloomies all at the same time. Sometimes it’s hard because my work puts me into contact with a lot of very angry people and it can be difficult to understand why people are so upset about the things they’re upset about when the whole sky is falling down around you. Still, I try not to take it personally and to be honest in reminds me that things could be worse. I mean, the sky could be falling down around me AND I could be very VERY angry about drains as well . Silver linings, you see. There’s always one.

silver lining.png

More tea vicar? I’m sorry. I’m incapable of offering a second cup of tea without saying that. Think yourself lucky I didn’t make a pot because then I’d be forced to do the ‘high tea, low tea’ thing while pouring and I’m yet to meet another person who finds that nearly as hilarious as I do……

Mr Awesome Thing Number Five is, well, awesome. Can you believe he’s been part of my life for three whole years?! The guy’s got the patience of a saint, really. I don’t know how he puts up with me but he does and I’m glad he does. When I look back, I think the past three years have been the steadiest and best I’ve had. That’s his influence because he keeps me more grounded than I’ve ever been or thought I could be. It isn’t the kind of thing I say, because you know, I’m not a squishy kinda person, but he is the best thing that could’ve happened to me and I love him for so many different reasons. Most of all I love him because he had the time and patience to let me be me.

More than cheese

Ahem. This is getting a bit serious, no? Why don’t I put some music on… Any requests?

I LOVE that song. I can’t remember how I came across it but it’s on pretty much every play list I make because it makes me feel happy in my heart. Anyway…..

No gossip to impart I’m afraid. I think the biggest thing on my radar at the moment is the forthcoming EU Referendum. Has anyone outside the UK even heard of the EU referendum? I don’t know, but it’s a pretty big deal in UK politics and that makes it a pretty big deal for me. Sadly – I am contractually and legislatively bound not to express an opinion on the EU referendum until polls close, what with purdah and all. That’s the worse thing about my new job – although maybe some people are glad to have been spared my usual political rants on various social media platforms. (There’s no need to agree quite so readily, really) This, I guess is the reality of being a civil servant in 2016: the pensions aren’t what they used to be and you can’t be a keyboard warrior when you want to be a keyboard warrior more than at any other time in your life.

Someone is wrong

Oh – I didn’t mention Gryff, my cat, hasn’t been very well. Nothing major as far as anyone can tell but he did lose an awful lot of weight for a while there which completely gave me the creeps and made me want to put him in my handbag and take him with me everywhere I went and feed him cheese and tuna and crisps (which he loves almost as much as I do). I didn’t put him in my handbag at any point – not least because that would have meant taking my life in my hands to get him in there. Nevertheless I did feed him crisps and cheese and tuna at every possible opportunity and he’s almost, but not quite, back to his usual grumpy self. What do you mean he’s getting old? I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good friendship but …how very dare you?! And anyway, even if he is getting old that cat is going to live forever because I’ve decided. Let’s change the subject.

More tea vicar? Shit. I’ve done that joke already – haven’t I?

sorry no joke

Our shower is playing up. Total pain in the arse and way beyond our considerable combined intelligence to fix… anyhow, I thought I’d mention it because if I wind up dead in the shower with either hypothermia or third degree burns you’ll be able to attest to the fact that it really was just a horrible accident and not the result of some kind of foul-play. I’ve been watching Line of Duty recently, you see, and I’m on my guard against fit ups and double bluffs and horrible deaths that may, or may not have been an accident.

This is just getting weird now, isn’t it? And boring. I’m sorry. Let’s wind this shit up.

I’m glad you stopped by. It’s been nice to talk about my life without getting lost in all the nonsense that goes on in my head. Sometimes I forget that no matter where I get to, my life keeps on going and that there is ALWAYS more to me than the mental shit I contend with. Onwards and upwards eh? Onwards and upwards….

which way you look.gif

Take it easy, chicken. And stop by again soon. It’s good to talk.

Love you all lots like loads and loads of jelly tots,

WeeGee xoxoxox

Posted in About today

This’ll do. For now….

Posted on by WeeGee

Things have changed since last I wrote because after a brief mental interlude we’re pretty much back in business here in WeeGee Land. By back in business I mean I don’t much feel like sitting on the floor with my knees gathered up to my chin, staring at the wall for hours on end any more. Sometimes that’s what progress feels like and I’ve learned that progress is one of those things that you just have to take wherever, and however you find it.

Most of the time I still hate myself from wherever it is I start right down to the bottom of my fingernails – I feel hopeless and wretched and desperate BUT, above all else I know that this will end, that life will intervene and that I’ll find a way back to myself. Again. Somehow.

Like I said – we’re back in business. I’m busy putting one foot in front of the other, and pretending like I’m some kind of normal person with some kind of normal life. I’m busy doing the necessary because I know that even though I’m not where I want to be I’m on my way there, by hook or by crook. You’re never going to get there unless you’re on your way there, right?

I’m trying to handle myself more gently and I’m doing my best to be kind to myself. I’ve realised that, when it comes to myself, I always come at it sharp side first and I’m trying to figure out what that’s all about, because I don’t really show my sharp side to anyone else. I’m trying to give myself the same breaks I think everyone ought to have. I suppose I’m trying to get bigger and better, because I’m trying to forgive myself – it takes the biggest and the best people of all to nail that kind of shit.

I suppose I’ve accepted that sometimes, I’m going to get lost. I’m going to be sad, and hopeless, and frightened. All the evidence suggests that I’m going to get lost time after time and after time again despite by best efforts. The reality is that every time I think I’ve got myself on an even keel, the sky will fall in all over again and you know what – I’m tired of raging against the natural order of things. I’m tired of heaping failure on myself for a self that I didn’t choose and which is way beyond anything I can choose.

Sometimes I get sad. Sometimes I get lost. Sometimes the sky falls in. Sometimes I hate myself down to the very bottom of my fingernails. And them’s just the breaks. Sure – there’s stuff I can do. I can take care of myself and I can find a softer place to fall and I can try and try and try. But sometimes I’m STILL going to be sad and my brain is going to misfire and I’m going to wish I didn’t have to live with myself anymore. Some brains are better than others, and some people know how to deal with this shit. My brain isn’t one of the better ones and, I don’t really know how to deal with this shit but I’m learning, and I’m holding on tight and, more than anything, I’m still on my way to that place I’m trying to get to – wherever that is.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make – if I’m trying to make one at all – is that it’s okay. It’s okay that I get sad, and it’s okay that I rage against the world, and it’s even okay that I hate myself down to the bottom of my fingernails. It’s okay because I only feel that way for some of the time, and because I ALWAYS find my way out of the mire, and because fuck it – nobody said it was going to be easy anyway.

Anyhow. I’m pretty much back on my feet and squaring up to the world again. Things aren’t all perfect and sunshiny but then again I never was going to morph into the kind of person who leaps out of bed cartwheeling around singing about the wonderful morning I’ve woken up into (it’s that thing about sharp edges) Still, I’m as up and at ‘em as I know how, and the mornings keep on coming around, and that’ll do. For now.

Love you all lots, like jelly tots,

WeeGee xoxoxoxo

Posted in About today

It isn’t easy being a WeeGee

Posted on by WeeGee

It isn’t always easy being a WeeGee. Sometimes, my brain gets mixed up and I feel sad in my heart, even though I have no good reason to feel sad in my heart. And it’s hard to go about being an ordinary little WeeGee when your brain is all mixed up and your heart is all sad and none of the sense you have been counting on makes sense anymore.

No sense

The past couple of months have been tough. I’ve been hurting, and I’ve been angry, and I’ve been perpetually awake. I’ve been confused, and unsure, and at times a little frightened. I’m not really any of those things anymore. Mostly I’m just tired. I feel washed up, like a shipwreck: scattered and broken – made up of pieces that used to fit together and amount to something.

Right now, I don’t feel like I add up to much mostly, I think, because I don’t care. I’m empty. I’m not doing the things I do, or thinking the things I think, or being the person I am and I can’t really bring myself to care. I keep thinking about who I used to be and how unattainable that person seems to me now: just another ship that sailed….

Ship has sailed

People change, and things move on, and nothing can stay the same. I know that but I wonder how other people manage it. How do you leave yourself behind, when yourself if the only thing you’ve been cultivating for your entire life? How do you go about getting older when you’re already an awful lot older than you intended to be by now? How does anyone make sense of this – day after day, month after month, year after year? How do you keep on doing it, when your brain is mixed up, and you feel sad in your heart, and nothing makes sense, and you are not who you used to be, or who you want to be, and you just keeping get older even though you need time to stop so you can think before everything changes again?

Stop the worlf

I’m doing the best I can. I’m waking up in the morning and I’m just going with it. I’m taking the days as they present themselves to me. I’m investing myself when I get the tiniest little spark that suggests I might actually give a fuck. I’m putting one foot in front of the other until I find my way to bedtime and I fall asleep hoping that tomorrow will be better because I know that if I can hope for tomorrow, I can hold on until it comes.

Hope is the most important thing of all. Hope is the thing that carries your heart when it’s too heavy for you to bear; hope is tomorrow and every tomorrow after that; hope is why things change, and hope is why things get better.

Hope is where you get to when you have nowhere else to go and hope is the best thing to cling to on your way there. At least that’s what I hope, and that’s what I’m clinging to….

there-is-always-hope

Love you all like lots and lots of Jelly Tots,

 

WeeGee xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in About today

What if you told the truth?

Posted on by WeeGee

Don’t you ever wonder what would happen if you told the truth? I mean if you really actually told it like it is in your head – if you didn’t sugar coat it, or make it palatable? What if you just came out and said it, as it is, whatever it is?

I spend a lot of my time wondering about that but in the end, I’m stuck with the way things are – polite conversation, behaving acceptably, not rocking the boat, and above all else not making people uncomfortable.

Nobody tells the truth because nobody wants to hear the truth.

If I were to tell the truth I’d say it hurts and that I’m angry and that I’m full of regret. I’d say that my nightmares aren’t full of abstract ideas but the one mistake I can’t live with, played out over and over and over again in all its gruesome reality. I’d say that’s why I can’t sleep – because every time I close me eyes THAT”S WHAT I SEE.

If I were to tell the truth I’d say I’m too old to put it right and that really, that’s what this is all about. Back then I thought I had so much time to make it better. I thought it was going to be different. I didn’t realise I was going to have to live with it, not like this. I thought there would be an ending. I thought I would put it all behind be and that would be the end.

If I were to tell the truth I’d say that for all the shame I feel that it wasn’t really my fault because I didn’t understand it – not like I do now. I’d also say that what I feel now is a just punishment, and that I deserve everything I get because WHY DIDN’T I MAKE MYSELF UNDERSTAND.

The truth can be contradictory.

Mostly, when you look at it, people do ordinary things with their lives. They find jobs and hobbies and people to love, and they buy houses, and fill them with things and children and pets and it’s all very ordinary.

When I was young I didn’t want ordinary, but now? Now I’d give everything and anything I could if I could have a tiny bit of ordinary in return. Everything and anything and whatever else it might take.

So yeah – If I were to tell the truth I would say that this person is not the person I was supposed to be, and this life was not the life I wanted to live. If I were to tell the truth I’d say that I’ve got it wrong – at every step, I’ve got it wrong.

If I were to tell the truth I’d say that I’m blessed with friends and family and love. And if I were to tell the truth I’d say that for everything I am blessed with, somehow I am cursed with more.