Tag: Family

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 Welcome to my world

Boo fucking hoo

Posted on by WeeGee

I’m just going to have to face up to it. You know that birthday post I’ve been promising? Well I’m afraid it isn’t going to happen. The birthday in itself was completely AWESOME, full of Mr Awesome Thing Number Five, and a sleepy little English town, and feeding baby penguins which shat in my shoe, and a visit from my parents and…… AWESOME birthday. The thing is, my birthday was a long time ago, and since then I’ve been feeling ALL OF THE FEELINGS and the recent past isn’t really something that I feel much like blogging about because I’m a bit lost in the here and now, which – let’s be honest – is a little better that being lost in the then and gone or the still to come and unknown. Am I sounding a little manic to you? I’m feeling a little turbo charged so I wouldn’t be surprised…..

I woke up this morning feeling a little bit disjointed, you know? Like my brain wasn’t attached to my body anymore. I used to get that all the time – that feeling that my brain was a completely separate entity from ‘me’. Experiencing it now, for the first time in a while, I’m struck by how little sense it makes. I’m inextricably connected to my brain so how come it sometimes feels so ‘other’ every once in a while? The answer used to be ALIEN but that feels a bit unsatisfactory today. I believe myself to be lots of things but I don’t really believe myself to be an alien. I mean, it would be convenient, and it would explain an awful lot but being an alien would surely throw up even more questions than answers so it can’t possibly be the answer. Then again maybe I need to work through all of the questions and maybe being an alien isn’t as daft as it first sounds.

Still a bit turbo charged but not exactly AWESOME here. Alien brain strikes again?

I know that I’m not AWESOME because I don’t want to talk to most people. I don’t mind talking to some people but when I’m AWESOME I want to talk to everybody and as far as I’m concerned everybody can fuck right off. I can’t figure myself out right now so other people are a HUGE step too far. World. Shut. Your. Mouth.

I’ve written this post as it comes to me – stream of consciousness style. I’m just glad Mr Clever doesn’t get to read what I have to say here because I fear I’d wind up in trouble…..
WeeGee is not a happy WeeGee. Not at all. The brain is all broken and I’m a little bit angry and a little bit STOP because I’ve had enough…… Time for a song:

Booooo.

Love you lots like lovely jelly tots xxx

Posted in About today

Ancient history

Posted on by WeeGee

I hate the past. Why can’t we just leave it behind? Why does what happened before have to matter to now? I loved history at school but I suppose that was because I was too young to have a history of my own then. I didn’t understand what the past was going to mean to me in the future.

Time again, eh? It makes your head explode.

This time two years ago I was happy. Truly – I was happy. Sure I had a broken brain but I was in charge – I was managing it and life was good. Then, one day it all changed. It really was as quick as that. One day I had one life and the next day I had another life. I never wanted the other life. I wasn’t built for it. You see this life that I have? I’m not supposed to be in it.

Let’s get rid of all that broken brain stuff. Broken brain is a big problem but, in the main scheme of things it’s the least of the things I have to worry about. The truth of it is, the biggest thing, and the rawest thing, and the thing that hurts the most is the fact that I am lonely.

I’m lonely because I’m alone. That stands to reason. I had a birthday the other day and do you know how many people I spoke to on my birthday? One. That’s one fellow human being – not just on any day, but on my birthday. By the way – I have two parents and one sibling. You can do the maths there, can’t you? I’m not a bad person. I’m not a horrible person. I’m just a frightened person. Or does being frightened make you bad and horrible? Is it another one of those rules that I don’t quite understand.

Where is everybody? Where are those people that I care so much for that it HURTS? Why do I care so much that it HURTS for people who aren’t even attached enough to drop me a line on my birthday? Why does any of this matter to me? If you tell people you don’t care about your birthday you shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t care either, should you?

What’s the matter with me?

I’m also lonely because my head seems to be different. It’s not that I think I’m special or unique – it’s just that my brain doesn’t seem to work like other peoples. Sometimes I say things and people look at me like I’m a freak or an alien or something. How do I always manage to get it so wrong? How did I end up being not real or proper? Am I really an alien from planet odd? Why can’t I be like everybody else?

Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m mental or just a bit of a weido… Either way, I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

Am I feeling sorry for myself? You betcha! Do I have good reason? Who knows?

Love from WeeGee – all mixed up and lonely and overwhelmed xxx

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 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 Welcome to my world

Tired of London, tired of life

Posted on by WeeGee

Hmm. In attempt not to do a flaky I am writing a post. Hey – I’m not promising great things.

I’m back in London after a super duper weekend away. I can’t help but wonder what on earth I’m doing back in London, since I only ever came here accidentally and the ‘accident’ that brought me here is long since over and done with. Samuel Johnson said ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’. Apart from the being a man bit, I think I might agree: I am in London. I am tired of life.

I’ve had a weekend full of people – and not just people, but people who care and people who know me (Mr Wise teased me mercilessly because of the jitters, which is good, because it actually is very funny) and now I’m home to a flat full of nothing and nobody to care*

Maybe I’m just lonely.

Maybe I need my bed.

Maybe though, I need to go home. Wherever the hell home is?

……I knew it would be a strange post.

xx

*Cue the violins