Tag: Mental health

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.

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Posted in About today

Just some thoughts…..

Posted on by WeeGee

I don’t mean to be alarming, but I’m tired of this. I’m tired of how it goes, and what it all means and where this ends up. Where this ends up, by the way, is almost always me – wide awake while the rest of the world is sleeping – wondering why in the name of fuck I can’t just have one of those normal brains that behaves itself and gives itself peace and generally doesn’t do this shit 

By my reckoning it’s been about twenty days (or nights) since I last managed to get a decent night’s sleep under my belt. As a rule I can’t seem to get to sleep and even if I do I end up tossing and turning because I’m cursed by strange nightmares that wake me up way before I’ve had anything approaching enough sleep. Bottom line? I’m so very, very tired. And yet here I am: wide a fucking wake when by rights, I ought to be asleep. 

Insomnia isn’t new to me. I’ve been here, bought the t-shirt and come out the other side MANY TIMES before. Seriously. If the doomie gloomies think keeping me awake against my will FOR WEEKS AT A TIME is enough to beat me into submission? Well – the doomie gloomies never came up against a WeeGee like me before, I guess. 
This is a bad patch and that much is obvious. The fact that I can’t sleep is part of the bad patch and not sleeping makes the bad patch worse. On the surface it feels like a double injustice but at least I’m eating right because I LEARNED THAT LESSON and I’m not hurting myself BECAUSE I LEARNED THAT LESSON and I’m doing all I can to get through this BECAUSE I LEARNED THAT LESSON (Or, to be fair – I’m learning that last lesson as I go – it all counts)

In part – this post is what depression looks like. Something as straightforward as being awake when every fibre of your being wishes you were asleep. 
I’ve lived with depression, on and off, for more than half of my life. I’ve tried to talk about it, and write about it, and somehow make it real. I’ve lived with it, loved with it and lost with it. Sometimes it has been the biggest part of my life, and sometimes I’ve barely known it was there. 

This week is depression awareness week. In an ideal world I’d have written something different, more meaningful – something better to mark it. As it stands I couldn’t write the post I wanted to – depression stopped me.

Instead I wrote this because it was the best that I could do. My name is WeeGee. I have depression. This is a little bit of what it feels like but only a little bit. I’m not ready to write the rest. Not just yet. 

Posted in About today

Down at the bottom of the garden….

Posted on by WeeGee

As far as I’m aware, I never did pack a bag and run away to the bottom of the garden when I was a kid – even although I was probably exactly the kind of kid you’d have expected to spend her time packing bags and running away to the bottom of the garden.  
Now I’m a grown up……

No, that’s not quite right. Wait, stick with me, I’ll get this…..

Now I can do a reasonable impression of being a grown up…..

That’s it, that’s much better.

Now I can do a reasonable impression of being a grown up and running away to the bottom of the garden isn’t an option anymore. Dammit, fuck, fuck and fuckity fuck. Running away to the bottom of the garden isn’t EVEN AN OPTION anymore. 

I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d done it while I had the chance.

  
It’s not so much that there is anything I want to escape from because everything is fine. (For the avoidance of doubt – everything is really, actually and properly FINE and yes, I’m taking my meds and did I mention that everything is FINE?). It’s just that I’d like a bit of peace and quiet without all of this ‘life’ going on around me, or at least without me having to take part in it. I just want to duck out for a bit, you know? Be by myself and with myself and most of all I don’t want to have to answer for the quiet I need right now.

  
It’s tough, isn’t it? I love the people in my life. I’m glad that they’re in my life and I know that I’m lucky to have them. But right now? I want to be alone and I need to be in charge. I know that I’m not making a lot of sense to people right now but that’s because I need time to make sense of myself first. This is only ever going to make sense if I have time to find the sense for myself. I have to do things in the right order, in my own way and in my own time. 

Thing is, I’ll get there, to wherever it is I have to get to, so long as I can get there on my terms. 

I don’t need to run away to the bottom of the garden. I just need a little time. That’s the way things roll here in WeeGee land. Ever it was thus.

All my love and lots and lots of jelly tots and here’s a song…..

WeeGee xoxoxo

Posted in Recovery?

Whatever is in front of me

Posted on by WeeGee

Hello. It’s me, WeeGee. You remember me, right? 
I’ve been away for a while and, I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t entirely sure I was ever coming back. Everything had changed, you see, and this little corner of the Internet didn’t feel like it belonged to the new world order. This was about the me that was, back then, when the fabric of things was altogether different. 
  
I suppose, what I’m saying is that I’ve been busy being the me that is now – carving out a new space and getting used to spending time in it. It’s taken me until now to figure where my blog fitted in The All New (not exactly singing and dancing) WeeGee Land. I suppose, what I’m also saying is – I’M BACK , although exactly what the fuck that is going to mean remains unclear.

At the moment, life is very much about whatever it is that’s in front of me at any given time. It’s more than just going through the motions but it’s less than living life in full technicolour. As has often been the case, I’m stuck somewhere between two extremes – I’m sitting in the middle waiting although I have no idea what it is I’m waiting for. 

  

Every once in a while I still seem to find my way to the very edge of the universe; truth told, I think that this is just the way things will be for me. Mrs Mountain tells me I should accept and forgive myself and I know she has a point so I’m trying to figure out what the edge of the universe can teach me about finding ways to live the life that is in front of me. The edge of the universe is nowhere near as terrifying as I once thought it was: I used to go there and think about jumping but now I peer over the edge and know that there are softer places for me to fall. 

  
Recently it has struck me that its easy to romanticise mental health difficulties – to make it all about noble battles fought by brave warriors who are somehow stronger, more worthy, than the three in four of us who are lucky enough to remain untouched. I seem to see it all the time and, you know what? I’m calling bullshit on that bullshit. 

  
There is nothing romantic about the cruel tricks your brain can play on you. NOTHING. N. O. T. H. I. N. G. Living your life whilst your brain implodes, and meaning leaves you, and everything hurts, and hope disappears? That’s not romantic. That’s an awful reality that won’t leave you alone and that colours everything you are and everything you thought you could be. 

The bottom line is that my life is not a battle and I am not a warrior. My life is just my life and I want to live it, whatever the reality might be. So what if my brain is imploding, or meaning has left, or everything hurts, or hope has disappeared? That’s just what’s in front of me – a set of facts, not at all unique. No heroics, nothing special – just what’s in front of me. End of story. 

I needed to get that off my chest. I’m glad I did. 

Meanwhile in other news I’ve been wondering how you guys are all doing. I can see things have changed here on WordPress and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Give me a week and I’ll be right on top of this….. Nothing else to report today save that would you care for a song to wrap this thing up:

Love you all lots, like jelly tots

WeeGee xoxoxo

Posted in About today

Only tomorrow knows

Posted on by WeeGee

There is nothing remarkable about my story.

I can tell it so that it’s funny, or sad, or boring, or hopeful, or desperate, or happy, or tragic. I can tell it like it’s all of those things at the same time, or I can tell it like it’s none of them at all. I can start my story anywhere – at the beginning, in the middle, or at any of the endings so far. I can tell it backwards, or forwards, or in no particular order at all. I can have one big story or lots of little stories. I can tell it differently depending on how I feel or who I’m telling it to.

There is nothing remarkable about my story and, in that regard, my story is no different from anyone else’s story. My story, like every single one of the millions of other stories is really nothing but a changing and changeable narrative that frames a life lived and forces it to make sense. That is what my blog has been about: a space for me to tell the story of myself to myself – a search for sense and meaning hiding in the madness I must live.

When I stopped blogging my story didn’t stop and I certainly didn’t stop longing for sense. And so I found different ways to tell my story and I found meaning in places I hadn’t looked before. Blogging gave me one kind of narrative; not blogging gave me another narrative entirely.

It would seem, that for today at least, my story is happening here even though it hasn’t happened here for the longest time. Today, this space feels like the right space – the only place I want to be. Tomorrow may feel different or it may feel the same. Only tomorrow can tell how tomorrow will feel. I have learned to wait for tomorrow patiently, and with hope in my heart. I have learned that tomorrow always comes to move the story on, although not always to the place I expected to end up.

It may be obvious to you, I don’t know. But today I am whimsical, and thoughtful, and maybe not terribly focused on what I’m trying to say or trying to do. As far as comeback posts go, this is may be a little confusing to those living outside my head. But this is my space, I carved it out of nothing at my lowest ebb and I wanted to come back today – to make it mine again and have a different voice and a different story to tell. I wanted to come here. I wanted to speak.

Maybe I’m just nostalgic – missing WordPress and missing the blogging buddies that I didn’t take out into the real world with me. Or maybe this is something new: a new chapter, or a sequel to the last story, or maybe even it will turn out to be the beginning of a new story altogether. Only tomorrow will tell….

I leave you with a song, much love, and lots and lots of jelly tots xoxoxo

Posted in About today

Hello. It’s WeeGee

Posted on by WeeGee

It’s been far too long since my last post for me to begin with my usual ‘since last I wrote’ update. I thought about looking back over 2015 and writing some kind of ‘year in review’ piece, but in the end I decided that it all boiled down to pretty much the same thing: there has been life and some bits have been better than the rest. If that sounds a little pessimistic, it really isn’t intended to: when all’s been said and done, it’s only the better bits that count anyway.

Hello, by the way and happy new year (I realise now that would have made for a better beginning than the rambling paragraph I decided to go with. What can I say? You live. You learn). Welcome to the 2016 edition of How do you eat an elephant? I hope you’re all fine and dandy and filled full of the optimism and hope that a Brand New Year usually brings with it?

You may or may not be pleased to learn that I’m hoping to fit in a lot more blogging in 2016 but, at this stage and for the avoidance of any doubt whatsoever I need to make it clear that I have NOT made it a new year’s resolution. I’m not well known for finishing things at the best of times and the chances of me saying I’ll do something on the 1st January and still giving a flying fuck three days later, let alone a WHOLE year later are slim to say the least. The fact that it is January and I am (sorta) promising to do more of something in the coming year does NOT mean I’ve gone and made a new year’s resolution. Okay, so I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up…..

I may DEFINITELY NOT have made any new year’s resolutions but I am, nevertheless, pretty optimistic about the year to come. I quite like being at this end of the year looking forward before any of the time has run out. It feels shiny and new and there are endless possibilities. For example, winning the Booker prize for my first (as yet unwritten) novel only ever feels possible in the first few days of January – of each new year. I expect it will be ever thus, but I’m glad that the possibility remains, and indeed returns, no matter how many times the world has turned beneath my feet.

I head into 2016 in better shape than I headed into 2015, of that I am sure. I’m also sure that I headed into 2015 in better shape than I headed into 2014 so I’m marking the past few years down as a victory for progress. I’m still getting used to living with myself a little more, and a little better every day. The ebbs and flows of my brain don’t engulf me the way they once did – I’m safer in my own skin somehow. I catch myself when I start to fall and make running repairs as I go. Of course there are still grey days, and obstacles, and challenges and heartache. I know that these are things that will never be far from my side; I know that knowing is a large part of the battle fought.

Anyway. I just stopped by to share what’s in my head today. Now you know and I’ve achieved what I set out to. There is news – of course there’s news, there’s always news. I’ll save that for another day though and leave you instead with a song of old just for the sake of a song of old:

Love you all lots like Jelly tots,

With smiles, or hugs, or hope or whatever else you need, WeeGee xoxo

Posted in Welcome to my world

If I could talk I’d tell you 

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote it’s all been coming up WeeGee. I love the way that happens – you know, the way that even though it all seems arid and bare, green shoots manage to appear and suddenly, it all feels okay again. Life shuffles along, things get better, hope is important………

Last month was hard. It was hard on my brain but it was way harder on my heart. So often I’m told that my ‘problems’ live in my head but you know, the more the more I think about it and the more I feel it, the more I think that really the problem has more to do with my heart than anything else. Every time September comes around the thing that I have to deal with is a broken heart, not a broken head.

I’ve thought long and hard about whether I have any words for the heartbreak that September brought. I don’t. Not because the pain doesn’t deserve words, but because none of the words are good enough and because I can’t bring myself to say them and because somehow, even after all this time, I just can’t. If I could talk I’d tell you. But I can’t.

Of course, all of that matters because the things you don’t say matter even more than the things you do say. Fine. I’m going to leave it at that. There are things that I don’t, or won’t (or can’t) say out loud. Those are the most important things of all and they become no less important if I stay quiet.

I don’t have to shout about it for it to be important. The opposite of shame is NOT pride. It still matters if the whole world doesn’t know about it. Most of my heartbreak is quiet and introverted and none of any other fucker’s business. Still. My heartbreak, or the pain in my heart, or the pain in my head – adds up to an illness, in the same way that any other illness does.

I write about it because it makes me feel better, and because it allows me to connect. I don’t write about it because I want to be a spokesperson, or an ambassador or because I think that my experience of ill mental health ought to serve as anything other than one girl writing her life, if anyone cares to read it.

Here’s the thing, at least as I see it. Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes I love it. I feel responsible for the life I have, to make the most I can of it. But sometimes I can barely find my way through it. I want to survive and I want to do it quietly. I want it to be okay to feel depressed or a little manic, or separated from the world. I want to feel okay but I want to know that my place in the world is the same if I don’t feel okay.

I didn’t choose poor mental health.

I didn’t choose depression. I didn’t choose hypomania. I didn’t choose an eating disorder. I didn’t choose any of the things I got, but I got them. And I live with them.

If I could talk I’d tell you all about the life that I’ve had. But I can’t.

I’m not ready to talk yet….

Meanwhile in other news there really is nothing I can add. Nothing else to report save that I love you all lots, like jelly tots

WeeGee xoxoxo

Posted in Welcome to my world

The state of the WeeGee Nation

Posted on by WeeGee

I’m still feeling a little far away. Truth told I feel like I’ve started to evaporate – you know, like tiny little wisps of me are floating off into the atmosphere leaving behind a lesser version of the thing that was there before. There. I’ve said it: that’s how I’m REALLY feeling today, although I probably wouldn’t say it anywhere but here. Which makes me think, we might as well get a song in early today:

Of course, I’m doing my best to keep myself connected to things. Trouble is, I seem only to have managed a concentrated period of ping-ponging from one AWESOME activity to the next. Right now, I’m like a 1950s housewife on speed, what with all the pickling things which turned into frenzied chutney making which turned into serious time invested in perfecting chilli jam which reminded me I was going to make a knitting needle roll (!) which made me think I really ought to finish knitting that cardigan. I’ve also been baking stuff, and cooking stuff, and cleaning stuff and ironing stuff (to relax, like) In quiet moments I’ve continued to buy Tupperware at an alarming rate because…… okay, I admit it: I STILL DON’T KNOW WHY IN THE NAME OF FUCK I’M BUYING ALL THIS BLASTED TUPPERWARE.


 tupperware one

Ho hum.

So yeah – safe to say there’s a slightly odd state of affairs going on here in WeeGee Land at the moment but I’m mostly putting it down to September. September is my least favourite month of all and I tend not to be at my best whilst it’s in progress. I’ve dragged myself through enough Septembers to know that the best plan of action is to simply hunker down and go with whatever comes. I suppose that’s the bad news: September happens. The good news is:

  • September will be over soon
  • I’ll feel better once September is over
  • I’ve taken care of myself during September which means I’ll be well enough to spring back into action come October

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it isn’t going to be ho hum forever.

Meanwhile in other news the Rugby World Cup is well and truly underway. This is a good thing in WeeGee Land. Nothing else to report save that I have a surplus of Tupperware containers if anyone out there is going short…..

Tuperware 3

Hope the sun is shining on you, wherever you are.

Love you all lots, like lots and lots of Jelly Tots,

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in Welcome to my world

Pickle ALL the things

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being in hiding, partly I think because I’ve been a little under the weather with some kind of ‘virus’ that I can’t seem to shake off for once and for all. The less said about that the better.

I’ve also been feeling quite far away from myself which is just one of those feelings that seems to come along every once in a while. I’ve gotten used to my feelings and I’ve learned to rub along with them without losing myself but I know I have to be careful when I start feeling far away. Historically, I’ve had trouble staying ‘grounded’ and ‘attached’ and I’ve learned the importance of working hard to keep hold of myself if my brain decides it wants to fly away. If anyone needs me in the immediate future, I guess I’ll be working hard to keep hold of myself……

Apart from feeling unwell and far away, life here in WeeGee Land is still rumbling along nicely enough. My latest escapades include pickling ALL OF THE THINGS, reading the fantastic Constance Spry cookery book, going a bit leftfield with my box sets and watching Midsomer Murders from beginning to end, and buying a fuck-tonne of Tupperware, for reasons best known to (if not fully understood by) myself. Standard.

Meanwhile in other news I have decided that I’m going to start keeping a diary. I’ve done a lot of journaling in my time, but I really quite fancy doing the whole ‘Dear Diary’ thing again. So I’ve started one. In September, because if I wait until January I’ll only have forgotten about the idea and who says diaries have to start in January anyway? Nothing else to report today save that I wanted my diary to be ‘old skool’ and it ended up looking like this:

Secret diary

I hope you’re all rare and sparkly and unicorn like. I thought I’d take the liberty of ending with a song. When I was younger I thought it was THE most beautiful song in the world, and I don’t exactly disagree now I’m old(er). I’ve probably shared it before, but some things just keep on coming back to you, don’t they?

That’s it from me.

Love you all lots like Jelly tots,

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in Welcome to my world

Some girls are bigger than others

Posted on by WeeGee

Just so you know – I’m going to write about the life I lived when I had an eating disorder. There are no pictures and there are no numbers but it’s a post about having an eating disorder. So now you know, in case you’d rather not read.

I hope you’ll forgive the title. I pinched it from the Smiths, one of my go to bands when the going gets tough (and good, and middling. I love the Smiths, me). It seemed appropriate, given the things that have been on my mind this week and carries NO significance beyond being a pretty good song and a straightforward statement of fact. Human women people, much like human men people believe it or not, come in all shapes and sizes and some of them are indeed, bigger, smaller, taller, shorter and all kinds of other things than others.

—–

I write an open and honest blog about the experiences I have with poor mental health: that’s what I do here. I’ve written openly, and honestly about depression, and self-harm and suicidal behaviour because that is my truth and because I refuse to apologise for the pain I have felt. But this is my other truth: there are some things that never get better, and never go away. Some things stay with you, because some things, it seems, are sewn into your very soul.

I’ve never written about my eating disorder, not really. I’ve alluded to it, and danced around it, and acknowledged it without ever really saying anything about it. Why? Because of all the things I’ve felt, and all the things I’ve thought, the things I’ve felt and thought about food, and my weight are the things that hurt the most.

I couldn’t tell you where it started: I’d love to know how I ended up with this particular monkey on my back. In my mind, looking back, I know that my body started changing and I know that it felt wrong. I remember feeling ‘wobbly’ in the bodily sense, and I remember knowing, somehow, that I didn’t want to feel that feeling. There was a point, that I just wanted it to stop: the growing up, the changing body, the being in charge…. I wanted to disappear, to be invisible – I don’t know how or why I came to think that way, but I did.

As for the way I felt? I can’t begin to find the words. Of all the things I’ve felt the way I felt then, in my teens and early twenties, are the only feelings that I can’t bring to life with words. It was a time of ritual, and numbers, and fear, and horror: there has been no horror in my head quite like the horror that the eating disorder put there. To have an eating disorder is to become so absolutely and completely lost that ‘self’ becomes an impossible concept. There is no self – no anything, in the face of a monster like that. They’re sneaky little bastards, eating disorders – they hang around in the background, changing your habits, thoughts, behaviours and instincts. Before you realise it they’re there in the foreground and you’ve completely lost track of which way is up.

For most of my eating disorder my weight was a little low but completely stable. Those were the darkest times because those were the times when I had no help – I was hiding in plain sight. I lived with it alone, I tended it alone, I stoked the fires alone. Then, of course, there were the times when things weren’t quite so stable when my weight became too low, dangerously low, low enough to set alarm bells ringing.

My recovery was a slow one because it took me years to get past the notion that I could ‘get away with it’ and do things my way without anyone noticing. Put plainly, I got used to thinking everything was fine so long as I could convince others, by way of stable weight, that everything was fine. As I’ve already said – eating disorders are sneaky little bastards that conspire to keep you ill against your better judgement.

Nowadays I don’t pretend that my eating disorder isn’t there anymore. I wake up every single morning, look it square in the face and know, for that day, I’m winning. I struggle when I’m hungry, especially in the morning, because there’s a little eating disorder voice challenging me, and coaxing me to keep the hunger going. Every single day of my life I hear that voice and I override it. Because that’s what beating an eating disorder feels like. Every single day of my life I come across food that belongs on a list of ‘banned food’ and I eat it, if I’m hungry. Because that’s what beating an eating disorder feels like. Every single day of my life I refuse to count, and I refuse to weigh and I refuse to feel sorry for nourishing my body. Because that’s what beating an eating disorder feels like.

I was surprised, when I finally got to a point in my life that food and weight and guilt and control didn’t rule it, to discover that things STILL weren’t perfect. Right now I know that I’m still bleak, and over enthusiastic, and compulsive, and secretive, and frightened, and angry, and overwhelmed, and awesome, and hopeful, and happy and a MILLION AND ONE kinds of things. And that’s okay, because that’s what beating an eating disorder feels like. It feels imperfect, but it feels like life, and it feels an awful lot better than it did before…….

Love you all lots like jelly tots,

WeeGee