I was really touched by the comments my lovely WordPress friends left on my last post, Hold On. As always, you proved yourselves to be a thoughtful, kind and very wise bunch and the comments certainly gave me a little lift when I read them at lunchtime during ‘one of those days’.
What really struck me was how, no matter what goes on in our heads, we always seem to find something to hold on to. I think it’s amazing that we find different ways of just keeping on doing it day after day, especially when you consider all of the horror we face.
Anyway, I got to thinking about all the brilliant people I’ve met on WordPress all of the brilliant things they do – raise families, hold down jobs, study, write blogs and so much more. Most of it must seem pretty ordinary to a ‘normal’ person who can do all kinds of ordinary things without having to do battle with themselves first. In my book, that makes the fact that mental people do ordinary things in spite of being mental pretty extraordinary and, for that, I wanted to give anybody who wanted one a big friendly pat on the back:
As for me and what I’m holding on to? I think I’ve worked it out. I’m holding on to the fact that one day all of this will be better and I’m very determined that I’m going to be around to enjoy it when it is. So: take that, broken brain.
When you’re mental, holding on is something that you get quite good at doing. You ‘hang on in there’, you ‘cling on’, you ‘keep on going’. After a while, you get quite good at all that holding on to stuff.
I’m good at holding on. I’ve been mental enough to not want to be alive for more than half of my life and I’m still here. How’s that for holding on?
Today though, I’m thinking of the things I let go of so that I could keep on holding on. The people I loved, the things I cared about, everything I wanted to be – so many things that I had to let go of just so I could hold on to something. I don’t even know what the something I’ve been holding onto is.
We’re all holding on, aren’t we? I feel like I’m holding on to nothing much. What are you holding on to?
I think I’d rather have held on to the things I let go than whatever it is I’m holding on to now. Does that make any sense whatsoever?
This is a short post. It’s about holding on and that’s what we all do. I’m just not sure what I’m holding onto anymore. Boo hoo:
I’ve decided that it’s about time I attempted something approaching coherent – I’ve been meaning to write about all kinds of things but thoughts keep getting in the way.
The first thing to say is that over the weekend I reached the rather dizzying heights of…. One hundred* followers here on WordPress. Wow! I thought it was particularly exciting to reach one hundred, because, you know, what’s not to like about a nice neat hundred? The only thing is I thought I got a a badge or something from WordPress but I didn’t. Poor me. Anyway, I can’t quite believe that one hundred human beings have stopped by my blog and decided they had a little bit of interest in reading the nonsense that comes out of my head. Like I said… wow!
The next thing to say is that despite my recent rocky patch I am still ‘functioning well’. Those were my GP’s*** words and I guess I agree insofar as that I continue to cling on and make a reasonable fist of dragging myself through things. I’m not sure that making a reasonable fist of dragging yourself through things ought to be seen as functioning well – it’s more a case of functioning in spite of things surely? Anyhow, I didn’t want to get into another argument with her so I let her have that one. I also didn’t bother respond to the ‘I’m not as discouraged as you are’ comment because I was too busy trying not to poke her in the eye for saying such a ridiculous thing. So I’m depressed and I’m discouraged and you’re not depressed** and you’re not discouraged? Who’d have thunk it? (By the way, I went to see my GP yesterday when I was very angry. About everything. And everybody….)
Needless to say the argument with my GP wasn’t really an argument at all because WeeGee doesn’t do confrontation in the real world**** it was more of a difference of opinion. The GPs opinion was that because I can ‘afford’ to pay for private counselling I should perhaps come off the NHS waiting list for CBT which, by the way, I have been on for twenty weeks now. WeeGee’s opinion was that it wasn’t so much a case of being able to ‘afford’ it as being so terrified of myself that I couldn’t ‘afford’ not to find a way to ‘afford’ it. WeeGee was also of the opinion that the GP seemed to have missed the whole point of the NHS which, as I’ve always understood it, is essentially free treatment at the point of need regardless of your ability to pay (Mini rant about the NHS and how we’re all going to hell in a hand cart what with the Tories and all officially over).
More than anything, I think I’ve hit a wall of frustration. I’m doing everything right, I really am. I’m taking my medication, I’m mindful, I’m eating, I’m exercising and above all else I’m trying very (very) hard. I keep my appointments with my GP, Mr Clever the psychiatrist and my own lovely counsellor Mrs Mountain and I take everything that they say on board*****. I’ve got mood charts, progress charts, lists and self help resources coming out of my ears. I haven’t topped myself yet. I’m doing everything right but none of it is getting any better. Actually it feels like it gets a little worse with every day that passes.
I honestly don’t know what to do next. Is it really just a case of waiting it out? Will it pass in time? Or is the problem that I’m maybe throwing too much at it? Or do I just think I’m doing it right when actually I’m doing it wrong?
Who knows? Answers on the back of a postcard.
Meanwhile in other news I have continued to keep up with the 10,000 step challenge even though I’ve been a bit mental and the Olympic torch passed through Kingston today. I was a little bit underwhelmed by the whole thing but I did enjoy listening to the couple next to me arguing about who was responsible for forgetting to put batteries in the camera. Nothing else to report today save that the sun is shining upon the UK which means I have a sunburnt nose****** and the Breaking Bad obsession in coming along quite nicely thank you very much.
Cheerio, WeeGee xx
*Then it went up to 101, which is less neat but does allow me to say that I have more than 100 followers
**To my knowledge. Perhaps I shouldn’t make assumptions like that – a lot of people probably don’t think I’m depressed either
***AKA Mrs Helpful, but I couldn’t bring myself to call her that today
****I do okay at it when I’m at work but I’m just acting
Does anybody happen to know where I can find the ‘broken brain complaints department’? I think I’ve had more than my fair share of broken brain now and I’ve decided it’s about time I started kicking up a stink about it. I tried complaining to God, but it seems that broken brains are outside his/her/its jurisdiction. I guess that’s bureaucracy for you.
My broken brain has been giving me a pretty hard time of late. First of all it went all flat and empty and then it decided it COULDN’T COPE with being flat and empty for ANOTHER SECOND and tried to explode. Then it didn’t care about anything anymore and went into hiding before deciding it was going to do everything in it’s power to murder me. As if all that wasn’t bad enough when my nasty little brain discovered that I wasn’t going to let it kill me (because I’m quite strong for a wee thing) it filled itself up with spite and hatred with a little rage thrown in for good measure. Jolly good show broken brain.
Anyway, I’m far too full of spite, hatred and rage to do much today (including write a proper post) so I’m going to ignore myself for a little while. It’s Breaking Bad* box sets for WeeGee until my brain starts behaving itself or until I’ve watched the lot (whichever comes first).
Love from and angry little WeeGee xx
*Of course, after five episodes I’ve already developed a strong emotional attachment to Jesse because he’s a) beautiful and b) a bit vulnerable
Just so you know this isn’t going to be a particularly cheery one. Now you know….
You know how I love Frank Turner? Well here’s a Frank Turner song to get proceedings underway:
I love this song so very much for lots of different reasons, not least because I am of the delusional belief it’s actually about me. If only it was possible to ‘take away the part that hurts and let the rest remain’ things would be just fine and dandy for me. I’m not all rubbish, just a little bit rubbish. If I could just cut out the rubbish then I wouldn’t be rubbish at all. So yeah, fix me please.
I’ve been in hiding. It didn’t really occur to me that I was doing it until Mr Friendly pointed it out to me, mostly I think because it’s been a different kind of hiding. But I’ve been withdrawing from people, and things and from my blog – it all adds up to hiding, and I’m hiding because I simply can’t cope. Everything is futile and empty and there isn’t a point – to anything or to any of it. The only point is that you keep going even thought there isn’t a point. I can’t believe that I’m the only person who wonders why you keep on doing pointless things even though they’re pointless and there isn’t a point
I know what I need to do. I’ve had a broken brain for a very long time and, if nothing else, I know the drill. I don’t know why I’m not doing what I know I need to do. Maybe it’s that self sabotage button coming into play again? Or maybe it doesn’t matter whether I do what I need to do or not because it won’t change the fact that it’s pointless? I don’t suppose it matters because either way, I’m not going to do it, whatever it is. I know that much.
When I was a tiny little thing, I opened the back door of my parents’ house and a giant black bird fell out of the sky right before my very eyes and landed on the lid of the wheelie bin – stone dead. It should have been horrifying and maybe it was, in a way. But it also made a little bit of sense to me that a bird could just fall out of the sky like that, because even then I felt like I was right at the edge of something, ready to fall off.
Birds die and fall out of the sky; WeeGee lets go and falls off the edge of the world.
I told you it wasn’t going to be a cheery one, but hey – at least I’m not in hiding from my blog anymore…..
Lots of love from a tired but clinging on WeeGee xx
I’m a big fan of words, and I don’t usually believe all that stuff about ‘pictures being worth a thousand words’ but I’m making an exception today because all my words are jumbled up with my thoughts and I can’t say it better than this:
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
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!
If I knew where to start with this post it would probably have a better opening line. But I don’t know where to start, so that’s as good as it gets. Sorry.
Before I go any further, I should probably say (for the benefit of my British readers) the only thing that British people have said to one another for days now – WHAT IS IT WITH THIS WEATHER?* On reflection, that might have been a better opening line….
Before I go even further, I should definitely say that this is not going to be a nice organised, beginning middle and end kind of post. I’m just going to open up my brain and spill it out for your reading enjoyment. Who was it that said “you’ll like this but not a lot”? Oh yes, it was Phil Daniels (ageing magician not ageing mod). Anyway – what he said. Definitely not a better opening line.
It’s all got a bit mixed up in WeeGee land. Everything’s jumbled up and messy and I don’t know what to feel about anything. There’s probably going to be a me shaped explosion some time very soon** I suppose a mixed up exploding brain is the price I’m going to pay for all that thinking I was talking about in my last post. Note to self: do not think. Ever again.
For a start, my brain is a bit mixed up. It can’t seem to decide whether it’s flat and empty, a bit jittery, full of the horrors, or contemplating jumping my body off a tall building. If I knew which one it was going to do from day to day I could make a plan, but it’s a bit of a moveable feast right now and the plans aren’t working. It’s becoming a bit tedious to be honest.
Then there’s work which is possibly the most mixed up thing of all. Work is my refuge: it’s the only normal thing left, I swear to god. Except it’s not normal anymore – I’ve got three huge projects*** some particularly unhelpful colleagues and one specific senior colleague who is paid double what I am but appears to need me to do her job for her. I don’t say that in a big headed kind of way, but I can’t say too much more not least because I wrote the ‘Acceptable Use of Social Media Policy’ and it would therefore be a bit embarrassing if I was to fall foul of it.
Then there’s my heart which has gone massively wrong. I know that the heart is just a muscle, but I hope you will know what I mean and forgive the scientific inaccuracy. For ages I’ve been walking around with all the nonsense in my head and consoling myself with the part of my heart that had a little flag pinned to it which said ‘last hope for WeeGee’. Well now, my last hope ‘gone done’ a bunk. So now what? Is it just broken brain all the way?
Finally there’s the other part of my heart which ‘cares too much’, is ‘too kind’ and which ‘takes everything to heart’. As far as I can tell, these are the things that people say to you when they’ve been shitty to you but they want to make it your fault. Nevertheless apparently I’m doing it wrong again so I’ve got yet more stuff to figure out even though I was mixed up enough to start with….
In conclusion? Pfft.
WeeGee xx
*For those of you not in the UK – there’s some kind of apocalyptic rain thing going on. And I have to mention it because I’m British and talking about the weather is in my genes.
**When it comes I hope a)It doesn’t make a mess because I can’t stand a mess and b)that it doesn’t frighten the cat because he’s skittish at the best of times
***Three big projects being two too many even if you’re not mental.
I’ve been in a thoughtful mood of late – the thing about being mental is that you’re not really supposed to ‘think’. When a thought comes in you have to decide what to do with it, and if you can’t figure that out you have to tell yourself its only a thought and then stick it on a shelf (or in a box) for another day. Sometimes I wonder if all that thinking about thinking is more exhausting than the thinking itself.
I’ve mostly been trying to figure out where crazy stops and WeeGee starts because so much of the worst of me is really just an extreme version of the best of me. I’m beginning to wonder if I would still be crazy even if I wasn’t crazy.
At the heart of all the thinking is this notion that I have – you can only be who you are. Sometimes, I withdraw from therapists because I start to get the distinct impression that what we are really working on is making me into a different person. Sure I want to get better, but I really don’t want to find yet another person that I have to somehow pretend to be. I want to work out who I was to start with and then get on with being me.
It’s a bit of a standing joke that, at thirty two years old, I still haven’t figured out what I want to be when I grow up. In some ways, it is kind of funny because I’m transient to say the least. I keep heading back to University to qualify myself for yet another profession that I won’t quite pursue in the end; I take up new hobbies as regularly as I give up on them; I would change my hair colour like the weather if I didn’t have the kind of proper job that ruled it out. In other ways, it isn’t funny at all, because I don’t think anybody realises that I’m still trying to work out who I am and the person that they know is mostly make believe. As an aside – growing up is over-rated, no?
This is a short post, and I’ve no idea whether it will make sense outside of my head. There are some things in life that you just assume everybody knows, until one day it becomes painfully obvious that isn’t the case and that you’ve been wrong all along. I suspect feeling like a make believe person is one of them, but then quite a few nutters read my blog, so you never can tell!
How do you eat an elephant? 