I feel that I should blog. So here I am – blogging. It’s hard to blog about being mental when you’re not feeling especially mental…..
Whenever I start feeling okay I think “this is it; I’m finally okay” but I have to try to remember that it doesn’t really work like that.
Okay lasts as long as okay wants to and then it replaces itself with not okay again. Which is fine so long as I’m ready for not okay when it comes around. Trouble is it’s almost impossible to truly ready yourself for not okay when things are okay. If you see what I mean?
There are a few things coming up that I need to prepare myself for – anniversaries and such like. It’s daft because the only anniversaries that mean anything to me are the bad ones: it’s x amount of time since such and such a terrible thing happened. Why does that have to matter more than the fact that it’s x amount of time since something good happened? Broken brain is the answer I suppose.
Anyhoo. I’m not feeling particularly mental at the moment, but I’ve got this horrible feeling that the mentals are coming.
I thought it was about time I did a little update, but before I come to that there’s a point of order to attend to….
My name is WeeGee, I’m proper mental and I write a blog about how bonkers I am. My head is full of lunacy, insanity and nutty stuff – in fact, it would be fair to say that I’m as mad as a box of frogs. For the avoidance of doubt I am a whack job, psycho, off my rocker, crazy mentalist. Oh, and just to be completely sure you know what I’m about: I’m a double freaky weirdo loony.
So that’s the point of order taken care of and that’s all I have to say about that. The end.
Now for a little update…..
All things considered I’m doing okay at the moment. I might even be doing more than okay, but I don’t want to tempt fate so I’ll stick with okay. Okay is okay, right?
So I went back to work on Monday after a brief ‘rest’. I’m working part time at the moment which is good for two reasons. Reason 1) it’s good to ease yourself back in to things. Reason 2) working part time is just good full stop.
The good news is that the doom and the gloom seems to have lifted a bit and I can feel something that might just be optimism setting in. Sure there are a few things swimming around in my head that threaten to bite me on the bum at some unspecified point in the future, but whilst they’re not actually biting me I might as well ignore them. There’s no point worrying about them until they actually bite and you never know your luck, they might never do any biting – they might just go away.
I’m putting myself back together and making some little plans. I’m leaving some stuff behind. I’m doing okay. And everything is okay. Which is okay.
This isn’t just any old award though, it’s an extra special one because a) it was created by the very fair hands of the Quiet Borderline* and b) its creation is a beautiful and generous gesture of encouragement and support.
Anyway, three of my fellow bloggers have very kindly put me forward for this award: The Quiet Borderline, Angel Fractured and Bourbon and I have decided to tentatively accept the award. I say tentatively because I’m going to have to break the rules a little bit…. All will become clear!
The Strong Person Award
‘You heard me right! You are not weak, you are strong. You are not a failure, you are a fighter! This goes out to all mentalists. And it’s a gift from me (The Quiet Borderline) to you all – Please spread the love. Mental health is not something to be sneered at and it deserves much more respect. Stop the stigmatising’.
The rules of the award are:
1. Make sure to add in the text and image to spread the love and add how little or how much you want!
Done (see above!)
2. Name your diagnoses – Stand loud and proud! You can tell us a little about them also if you’d like. How you’re affected by these diagnoses and how you are fighting your way out of them.
Okay, so this is where I break the rules because I don’t talk about my ‘diagnosis’. It’s a personal decision that has nothing to do with stigma, or shame, or secrecy or any other bad thing beginning with ‘S’….
For a long time, even I didn’t know what my ‘official’ diagnosis was. I was worried that the ‘label’ would consume me and that I would use it to give myself permission to let the symptoms take the driving seat.
The thing about my psychiatric diagnosis is that it isn’t very important to me. It’s just a collection of words that describe the bit that is important to me: my symptoms. I suppose my take on it is that I’m not trying to fight a diagnosis, but the symptoms as they manifest themselves on a daily basis.
What I’m trying to say (I’m sorry, I’m not saying it well!) is that I am a person who has mental health problems which fit into a number of different boxes. It doesn’t matter which box I fit in to at any given time, what matters is that I am a person with difficulties who works incredibly hard to manage the symptoms of my broken brain.
Sometimes I get depressed; sometimes I hurt myself on purpose; sometimes I drink too much; sometimes I don’t eat enough; sometimes I don’t understand the world and the people in it; sometimes I hide; sometimes I wish that I wasn’t alive.
But most of the time I’m just WeeGee trying to make sure than none of those things get the better of me.
I hope you don’t mind that I cheated a little bit….
3. Add a photo of yourself, or some abstract picture that represents you, anything you like!
There aren’t a lot of photos of me because I have remarkable skills when it comes to hiding from the camera. Wouldn’t you rather have a picture of Gryff? He’s a handsome little fella:
4. Send this on to as many, yes, as many, people that you like. It can be five, ten, fifty.
This is one of those awards that is going to do the rounds, and I’ve already lost track of who has received a nomination. What I’d like to do is pass this award on to each and every one of my readers. Every time I sit down to catch up with WordPress I am blown away by how incredible my blogging buddies are. It’s just so amazing that in spite of what goes on in our heads we still manage to do all the things we do – the jobs and families and blogs and adventures and ups and downs. Truly. Amazing.
So if you are reading this, and you’re mental like me I’d like you to take heart. You are strong and amazing and I’d very much like you to accept this award from me. As the Quiet Borderline says ‘You are not weak, you are strong. You are not a failure, you are a fighter!’
Lots of love from WeeGee xx
PS – I’m sorry the spacing is all a bit weird. I tried to fix it for ages but my head got done in and I had to give up xx
I feel that I should write something. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to write, but if I don’t write something soon I’ll get out of the habit of writing and that’d probably spell The End for How do you eat an elephant? Which would be a bit of a shame…..
I suppose I should start by filling you in on the last couple of days which have felt like something approaching good. Yes, you did read that right – I said something approaching good! Okay, so I had a minor melt down at the start of the week but it had been a long time coming I suppose and I’ve just about forgiven myself because I feel like I’ve learned some important lessons along the way. Which is no bad thing…..
Important lesson of the week # 1: If you can’t keep going you have to stop keeping going until you’re ready to get going again.
I’ve also been busy taking care of myself and making a plan. It feels like ages since I’ve a) properly taken care of myself or b) had a plan. It feels so much better to have something to aim for other than Eastenders* I’m not talking about any kind of grand ‘sort your life out in four weeks’ plan, more of a ‘let’s get from a to b and worry about c later’ type plan.
Important lesson of the week # 2: You don’t have to do EVERYTHING right now because there’s plenty of time for everything.
I’ve had a few words with ‘the brain’. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs – we can’t hate one another for ever because we’re pretty much stuck with each other** and whether we like it or not we’re going to have to find a way to rub along together. The deal goes something like this: I will nourish rest and generally take good care of the brain if the brain promises to make a concerted effort to stop with all that over thinking it nonsense. In the fullness of time I’d like the brain to give up on all that up/down/backwards/forwards/shake it all about stuff, but hey! At least we’ve got a start.
Important lesson of the week #3: If you take good care of your brain it will be remarkably compliant when it comes to doing deals.
One week. One meltdown. Three lessons. Could be worse eh?
In conclusion I think things are looking okay. That’s as far as my ‘state of the nation’ update goes: WeeGee is okay. Which is pretty much okay.
Never fear – I’ll be back later with some of the more usual rambling idiocy
Love WeeGee xxx
*Yes. I watch Eastenders. What of it?!
**What with the frontal lobotomy being out of fashion and all….
Where to begin? I suppose I should start with the story of the last few days which can be summarised thusly: ‘the good, the bad, and the downright shitty’. As I write I am somewhere between bad and downright shitty which although not ideal is a whole lot more ideal than just plain downright shitty….
I’m currently signed off from work owing to the downright shittiness that descended on Sunday morning. Being off work is an unusual state of affairs for me and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. All I know is that I got to Monday morning (somehow) and it became blindingly obvious to me that I couldn’t carry on going on the way I was going on. My GP and my employer agreed.
Thankfully, it’s a short term ‘rest’ rather than long term sickness. I think a period of long term sickness would drive me mad (ho ho). I’m expected and expecting to be fit to return to work next Tuesday on a ‘phased return’, which would probably be a bit extreme were it not for the extent of the downright shittiness that has been upon me. By the way I’m not going to tell you about the downright shittiness – I’m hoping you will take my word for it: it was DOWNRIGHT SHITTY SHITTINESS for a little while there.
It’s tough enough for anyone to admit that they aren’t coping, but I manage to make it double difficult on myself, because coping is the only thing I do well: whatever the horror in my head, however low I go I make it my priority to function because I don’t want to let people down. I don’t want people to make allowances, or worry about me, or (to be honest) know how bad things have really got for me.
Trouble is that’s pretty much the same as pretending and you can only play make believe with your broken brain for so long….
In the end, for me it came down to a simple choice. Take a break, and go back to work in stages or find myself being a gibbering wreck, probably in hospital and definitely unable to work for a considerable amount of time. As tough as it’s been to say ‘Help!’ and ‘I need to stop’, I feel like I’m doing the right thing and taking care of myself (possibly for the first time in my life)
So I finally said it – in no uncertain terms: things are bad and I can’t cope. Truth told, I already feel like I’m coping better just for having said it. I don’t have to be ‘strong’ all of the time or rather perhaps I’ve misunderstood ‘strength’. I suppose you could call it a lesson well learned.
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’m in a bleak and vulnerable place. I don’t want that to rub off on anybody so skip over this one if you see fit….
I haven’t managed to blog for a couple of days because I haven’t had the mental capacity for it and, if I’m perfectly honest, I’m not altogether sure that I have the mental capacity for it now. Still, on account of the fact that no-one has invented a clever device that transfers my thoughts into a nice neat blog post yet I’m going to have to give it a go for myself.
Where to start? Hmm…. well, I suppose I could start with a confession.
I’m not being entirely honest with people about the place I’m in. I know that breaks so many of the ‘rules’, but I don’t really know what else to do apart from stick a smile on my face and say “I’m fine”. The alternative is saying “I’m hollow, and empty and I wish I wasn’t alive and there is nothing that can happen, or that you can say that will ever change any of that” Nobody wants to hear that, do they?
I know what people would say to me. They’d say that was ‘broken brain’ speaking’ and that you HAVE to ask for help. Here’s the thing – my brain doesn’t work properly – everyone knows that but IT DOESN’T MAKE ME AN IDIOT. So I ask for ‘help’. What is it that is going to help? More pills? A stay in hospital where I can feel exactly the way that I do now only in sterile surroundings? Talking about things that there is no answer to? It doesn’t help. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that. I don’t mean to be unkind or ungrateful to the people in my life who want to help, I really don’t. I just want them to understand that there is no help.
The people I know in real life are good and kind people and they are forever saying ‘just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help’. But I can’t tell them what they could do help, because it’s not the way the world works. What would really help right now is somebody gathering me up, staying by my side and showing me how it is that you go about doing this thing called living. Nobody wants to do that – it’s too much to ask.
So instead, I’ll do what I always do. I’ll smile. I’ll say ‘I’m fine’, ‘work’s great’, ‘Yeah I’m really busy’ and I’ll continue to curl up into a ball whilst staring into the mid distance and listening to all that living going on around about me.
Love from WeeGee (misery guts)
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!
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
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.
How do you eat an elephant? 