Tag: Mental health

Posted in Recovery?

What the heartbreak left behind

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being sentimental because when all’s said I’m done the WeeGee is nothing if not a sentimental old fool….

As I write I’m sitting in my packed up living room, trying to come to terms with the fact that it very nearly isn’t my living room anymore. It’s worth mentioning, I think, that tonight is the LAST EVER night I will spend alone in this little flat that I’ve come to call home.

I moved in here a little over three years ago at a time when (and I don’t mean to be melodramatic) it felt like my whole life was falling apart. It wasn’t just that a relationship had come to an end – although with hindsight I know that the grief that came with that was a large part of it – I’d lost friendships, support structures, routines, every single reference point that I thought I could rely on. I was all at sea and there was no shore, or at least no shore that I could find. I’d been lost before, plenty of times in fact, but when I moved here I was lost in a whole new way – mostly because I was lost alone.

Of course the heartbreak subsided because that’s what it does – it was that thing that people talked about when it first happened ‘time’. I didn’t believe them then and if it happened all over again I still wouldn’t believe them because the heart doesn’t learn lessons nearly as well as the brain does. I guess you need the time to happen before you believe it’s going to help.

Once the heartbreak was over I didn’t feel like I’d been left with very much – a silent flat and a WeeGee who not only had no idea who she was anymore but who also didn’t really care was pretty much all I had in my head for the longest time. It was the worst of me – the worst of who I’ve been and worst of who I can be. Everything was nothing and it wasn’t so much that I wanted to be dead. I just didn’t care one way or another. My brain has taken me to some spectacularly awful places but this was the first time that I didn’t feel that I had anything to get better for. I’d been unwell before, sure, but there had always been people around to save me. This time, all I had was myself and I’d never much cared for her

Needless to say, I’ve learned an awful lot since I moved to Kingston. I learned how to be with myself, and how to let myself be who I am, and, to a certain extent, how to forgive myself. I’ve learned how to put one foot in front of the other JUST FOR ME. Most importantly of all, I’ve learned how to save myself from the worst my brain has to throw at me.

I thought I was going to hate living alone, and for a long time, I did. But eventually I realised that I needed to be alone because I’d become so used to fitting in around other people that I had no idea how to be me when the other people weren’t around anymore. On reflection, maybe that’s the most important lesson I learned here: I matter. And I matter whether there is anyone else in my life or not.

—

At this point, it seems worth a bit of fast forwarding because the time I spent alone, coming to terms with myself and working out who I might be if I ever grow up put me in a new place. It put me in a place where I was ready to meet Mr Awesome Thing Number Five, who, I would like to put on record, is the love of my life. I don’t love Mr Awesome Thing Number Five because he loves me and I don’t adapt myself or lose anything of me in loving him. I bring as much to his life as he brings to mine – I’ve never had that before because I never cared enough for myself before. I’ve always been too willing to please and too quick to compromise no matter what the consequences. Who knew that you had to learn to love yourself before you could make space to love any one else?

—

Living in this little flat gave me my life back and helped me to learn lessons that I might not otherwise have learned. What it also did is give me the opportunity to move on sensibly in a grown up and deeply loving relationship that has a future. Being heartbroken seems like a lifetime ago but it gave me things that I never thought I would have. Nothing you ever feel is wasted; everything you survive is significant. Hope is the most important thing of all.

Lots of love, WeeGee xoxoxo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in About today

Thank you from the very bottom of the bottom of my heart

Posted on by WeeGee

One day in April 2012 I decided to start a blog. I called it ‘how do you eat an elephant?’* and I had no idea WHATSOEVER how much it would come to mean to me.

When I started writing I was in a pretty bad place and I was trying to find a way – any way – to put my life back together. Here’s the thing…. 26 months later and I’ve managed to put my life back together and them some. In your face my broken brain: IN YOUR FACE.

Blogging has taught me all kinds of things – perspective, and how to be engaged, and how to reflect on the things in my head. Starting my blog has been the single best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health. Ever, ever, ever. I’d recommend it to all of the mental people….

Anyway – it’s late and I don’t have an awful lot to say apart from the fact that I woke up this morning to discover that FIVE HUNDRED whole people have clicked the follow button on my blog since I started writing.

500 followers

FIVE HUNDRED!

So yeah, thank you to each and every one of you from the very bottom of the bottom of my heart. I’m feeling very proud of myself tonight, and very grateful to each and every one of you for your support. My favourite thing about blogging is all the wonderful, super, brilliant and AWESOME people I’ve been lucky enough to get to know because of it. That’s you lot, by the way. So thank you, lots of love and hugs and…. did I mention you are AWESOME?

blogging5

Normal service will be resumed shortly….

Love you all lots and lots like at least a million jelly tots

WeeGee xoxox

 

*Bite by bite

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

Guacamole

Posted on by WeeGee

Since the last time I wrote I have mostly been being wide awake.

To be fair, insomnia and I are pretty well acquainted – it’s been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I suppose it started during my late teens and took firm root when I was at University, but I’m pretty sure it was present even before that. Then again, I’m not sure how much of that was only a little girl who loved her book so much that she didn’t want the story to end just yet….

Insomnia 1

Sometimes being wide-awake when the rest of the world is asleep is whatever the opposite of AWESOME is. Sometimes it feels like the biggest injustice that you’ve ever been dealt. Sometimes, most notably when your brain is in “I know, let’s jump out the window” mode, it feels pretty bloody dangerous. But sometimes, insomnia isn’t really as bad as all that. So long as you manage to get enough sleep to function* being awake in those silent, threadbare hours can actually be something of a blessing in disguise. Then again, maybe I’m only saying that because I’m a seasoned insomniac who knows the wide-awake club drill inside out.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about dealing with sleeplessness. Warm baths, cool rooms, calm and quiet bedrooms: there is NOTHING I can’t tell you about ‘sleep hygiene’. And of course there’s self-soothing and mindfulness to throw in to the mix because is there anything mental that doesn’t need a spot of self-soothing and mindfulness throwing at it already? Sometimes one of those things, or a combination of those things will work but other times there’s only one thing for it – you just have to accept that you are awake and put the time to good use. Which is what I’ve been trying to do these past few days.

My brain is busy at the moment. I’ve got all kinds of things swimming around in my head – stuff about the move, stuff about work, stuff about the past, and stuff about the future. Stuff, stuff and triple stuff. And as much as I know that it’s the stuff that’s keeping me awake, I also know that I’m not going to sort the stuff out during the day what with the people, and the noise, and the life going on around me. So, when you’re tucked up in your bed sending up the zs? I’m busy putting my head in order and lining up my ducks. Trust me, the thinking time insomnia gives me is what’s keeping me sane at the moment. Plus, if I run out of thinking to do, there’s always the Internet.

Insomnia 2

Anyhoo….. Apart from the whole chronically awake thing, I’m doing remarkably well. The move is now ONE WEEK AWAY, there are still a million and one things to do, and it’s just starting to dawn on me that I’m leaving my beloved Kingston behind. I’m still monumentally rubbish at endings, and I still feel slightly tearful every time I remember that this particular chapter in my life is coming to an end. I came to Kingston to put myself back together so it does, and always will mean an awful lot to me. That said, I keep reminding myself that I wanted to put myself back together again so that I could go about living my life again, and this move, is the first big step on that particular journey.

Meanwhile in other news I’m pretty sure that once I’m all moved and settled** I’ll finally have the time and space to get back to regular blogging. At the moment I only manage to pop up every once in a while to let you know that I’m still here, that I’m still mental, and I’m still doing an AWESOME job of coping with stuff – there’s SO much else I want to share with you but right now, I just don’t have the space. Nothing else to report today save that I’ve been struck by how FANTASTIC and AWESOME my SUPER LOVELY blogging buddies are:

Insomnia 3

Oh – and just in case you’re still wondering where the title of this post comes into it I refer you to this song. It’s about insomnia. Sorta:

http://youtu.be/uGdpBZOv5gU

Love you all like lots and lots of jelly tots

WeeGee xoxoxox

*And believe me, you’d probably be surprised how little that is

**Next to no time, I’m sure :-/

Posted in About today

Down but not out

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being down but not out. Truth told there is one hell of a ginourmous mess going on in my head. My brain is loud, and chaotic and out of control, but somehow, I’m still managing to put one foot in front of the other, because that’s what the WeeGee does when the chips are down….

Everything really ought to be fine and dandy but perhaps the fact that I know that is the biggest frustration of all. Instead of planning, and hoping, and getting super excited about our shiny new flat I wake up in the morning with that huge ‘NO’ surrounding me. My thoughts flutter around in my head, resting on one thing, and then the other, and then another thing entirely. I can’t seem to make them settle on one thing for long enough to do the slightest thing about any of it. It – if IT’S not one thing IT’s another thing.

One thing is what happens in my head when the big guy doesn’t play fair with the little guy, when someone says one thing and does another, when people hide behind the men in suits. In short, it’s what happens when there is an injustice of one sort or another. I’m facing a choice – do I take on the big guy, even though I am the little guy, and even though this particular little guy isn’t exactly the most adept at dealing with the kinds of stresses the fight is likely to bring with it? Which is really just to say do I stand up and insist that I’m right, and that they’re wrong because that’s what I believe you ought to do OR do I take care of my mental health at all costs because that’s also what I also believe I ought to do.

As you can see, I’ve thought my way into an impossible conundrum there.

Another thing is what happens in my head when a political party comprising entirely of idiots, racists, sexists, homophobes and every other kind of unpleasantness is somehow and suddenly viewed as a mainstream political party on the country I live in. It bothers me. And I mean it really bothers me that we’ve somehow come to the position that significant portions of my compatriots think it’s okay to say they’d prefer not to live next to a ‘migrant’ family. It’s under my skin and it’s making me dismayed and angry and hopeless. Mr Awesome Thing Number Five thinks I’m stressing myself out about nothing. And who knows, maybe he’s right. Or maybe I’m right because you have to care, and you have to stand up to it. UKIP stand against EVERYTHING I believe in. I can’t ignore it, but I can’t think of anything sensible to do about it.

That there is impossible conundrum number two.

Yet another thing is the absolute chaos that is my living room at the present time. I’d post a picture but I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it. Now – on the one hand it’s an inevitability that there will be a certain amount of chaos when you’re moving house but on the other hand I can’t seem to find a way to deal with chaos. When things are messy my brain gets messy and when my brain gets messy it starts to think about giving up on me. I’m managing to keep myself out of the pit, but it sure does feel inviting. I could pull the covers up over my head and hide from the world in a heart beat but I’ve got stuff to do and I’ve got my regular life to go about living and I know only too well that once you’re in the pit you have to stay there for a very long time.

It all feels a bit doomy and gloomy doesn’t it? That’s just the way my brain works. Some days are better than others, and I know that all I really need to do is put one foot in front of the other and hold on tight for the better days. I know that they always come, eventually, in their own good time. I know that I want to be ready for them when they do.

Most of all I know that at some point in the future I’ll read this post and wonder what all the fuss was about. This is how I feel today, these are the things that matter now, but the future isn’t very far away at all and in the future feelings are different and things have moved on. I can’t help thinking that the future isn’t anything more than the past that happened yet which means you’ll survive the future, because you’ve always managed to survive the past.

Nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots like jelly tots and flower pots.

WeeGee xoxox

 

Posted in About today

I didn’t expect perfect….

Posted on by WeeGee

Hello there you lovely people you – how’s it all going? I hope it’s all happy and shiny and sparkly, or, at the very least, calm where you are?

Before we go any further I suppose we should get something out of the way. It’s the middle of the night where I am as I write. I’m guessing that all the sensible people in the UK are already asleep, or at least if they’re not, they’re probably not writing blog posts but hey – nuts to convention. Insomnia does as it pleases and I’m not in the mood for arguing.

I think it would be fair to say that I’m a little bouncy and excitable. I also think it would be fair to say that my bouncy and excitable demeanour is playing at least a small part in the fact that I’m still awake. On the one hand I know that’s a little bit of a problem. On the other hand, if you’d been to see this guy tonight, and you loved him as much as I do, you’d probably be just as bouncy and excitable as I am. Forgive the crap acoustics:

My last few posts have been a bit miserable haven’t they? Thing is, as miserable as I might have been at the time of writing those posts I don’t think ‘miserable’ gives an accurate representation of what’s been going on. Not really. I mean I’ve been up against my brain, and things changing, and some kind of massive and irrational fear of being happy….. But then there’s the other side of the coin to consider.

Looking at things now I think that maybe there are things to worry about* and things to be unsure about** and maybe even things that I wish I’d done differently*** But all of that aside there are many things to be glad about, and to look forward to, and generally not get all bloomin miserable about. This by the way is me looking on the bright side and ABSOLUTELY meaning it.

The exciting news is that I’m moving in with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five. I know, right?! Of course it’s scary to go from where I am, in my own little flat, with my own little cat and with no-one to interfere to actually living with another human being. The thing is I really feel like we’re building something together. We’re not just getting ready to share a place, we’re kinda getting ready to share something bigger than that. Thing is – I’m easily scared and so that seems very scary, but before that, if I can just let myself it feels very exciting.

I suppose that sort of sums up the other side of the coin. I really am struggling to find my way through the fog but I’ve a reason to get through it and so I’m definitely going to do my best. I think I’m learning that when it comes to being alive perfect really doesn’t exist. But actually, that doesn’t matter too much at all anyway.

Perfect is something you didn’t expect it to be.

Meanwhile in other news – oh bums I’ve got nothing. Nothing else to report save that I love you all lots. Like jelly tots.

WeeGee xxx

*aren’t there always

**which is just the same as worrying.

***as is this

Posted in About today

My secret is my silence

Posted on by WeeGee

Since last we spoke it’s been the usual mixture of highs, lows, and everything in between here in WeeGee land. Some things never change….

I think it would be fair to say that I’ve been trying to write this post for a little while. There have been a couple of unsuccessful attempts and at least of MILLION drafts in my head. It’s that same old thing again: I can make it make sense until I try to tell someone else about it at which point I start sounding like an alien from Planet Mental.

I had one of those odd little moments today. I was on my way home after my Mrs Mountain appointment. The sun was shining, the appointment was positive, and I was still all shiny happy shiny after a lovely little evening with Mr Awesome Thing Number Five. And then I started crying. At first it was just a few stray tears that were well hidden behind my sunglasses but before I knew it I found myself sitting on a wall sobbing. There might even have been the occasional howl. Eventually a kind dude stopped to ask if there was anyone he could call which, it turned out, was the only intervention I needed to help me pull all the disparate parts of myself together again.

I dispatched of kind dude fairly quickly – I mean, he was kind an all but I wasn’t much in the mood for conversation – crossed the road, bought a packet of cigarettes, returned to the ‘wailing wall’ and smoked two of them in quick succession thinking “Well….. that was a bit different wasn’t it?”

That pretty much sums up where I am at the moment: it’s all fine until you scratch at the surface because underneath the surface there’s a whole heap of crazy trying to leak out. Every so often I forget myself and wind up with a massive load of crazy to mop up.

The thing is, I can see what’s happening and I’m working as hard as I know how to stop it. Unravelling is such a weird thing – you can can see it, and see it, and see it, and then suddenly you can’t see it anymore because you’ve gone alien again. That’s EXACTLY where I’m trying not to get to.

It’s difficult – I’m not depressed and I’m not about to harm myself in anyway shape or form. At the same time I know I’m not right, and I know that might equal trouble. I’m detached from everything and especially from my life. There’s so much going on and it’s not that I don’t care, it’s more that I’m just an observer so what does it matter? There are things I need to do but instead of doing them I’m over focusing on the weird and the wonderful – a holiday in Orkney, a half baked idea for a business, what my new haircut might look like, penguins. Anything that isn’t reality.

I’m also a bit lost in that long forgotten idea that I let everyone down, and that everyone leaves in the end. I’m convinced that everyone hates me because, well because how could they do anything else? These are such old ideas and I thought I’d left them behind. I only half believe them but that seems like enough….

Do you know what? I’m completely terrified. This isn’t at all what I was hoping for because I thought I had my brain on side and that it would it would be happily ever after. Then again, perhaps I was being naïve to think that it was as easy as all that.

Anyhoo. I think that’s as far as I can go for now. I hope it sorta makes sense.

I’ll leave you with a song, because it’s traditional and sometimes songs say it better anyway….

Meanwhile in other news I’m on a massive high horse about UKIP at the moment at the moment, because they’re deplorable and stuff. Nothing else to report today save that I love you all like jelly tots. Which is A LOT,

 

WeeGee xoxoxo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in About today

Fade away

Posted on by WeeGee

Evening chickadees! How’s it all going?

We had one of those miserable little posts earlier in the week, didn’t we? It had been a tough day, during a tough week, at the end of a tough month and I’d been doing my best to pretend none of it was happening. When I put it like that it’s no real surprise that I popped up with one of those miserable little posts…..

I’ve been blogging for a while now, and I’ve written an awful lot of posts where the most sensible start seemed to be “I don’t know where to start”. I really don’t think I’ve ever meant it more than I do now. So many things, so many feelings, so very many squillions of things I ought to say and not one single clue about how to get the ball rolling. In case you haven’t noticed I’ve also been blogging for long enough to know that when you don’t know where to start, writing about not knowing where to start is a perfectly acceptable way to get the ball rolling.

Now the ball is rolling I can’t help thinking that the best thing to do is cut a long story short, mainly because it’s a VERY long story with lots of ins and outs and bits in the middle but also because the whole story doesn’t belong to me and, when it comes to telling stories, I’m pretty careful to stick only to my own.

The only way to make the story short is to say that it really is ALL CHANGE here in WeeGee land and that’s making for confusing, if occasionally exciting times. Everything is up for grabs: where I live, where I work, what I do for a living and how I go about living this little life that I’ve carved out for myself. It feels like a tall order because I’d only really got back to the straight and narrow after what I now know, with the benefit of hindsight, was a pretty major attack of the mentals.

When I was unwell I felt that I was constantly on the edge of something – usually a cliff. I feel a bit like that now and if I’m honest it isn’t a feeling I much like. Right now I think I’m feeling a little scared because I’m going to have to face up to a lot of endings in the coming weeks. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will understand exactly where the fear is coming from. WeeGee doesn’t really do endings and I think I’m learning that that doesn’t change when WeeGee is well and medicated and not in the frame of mind where jumping out of windows seems like a good idea.

Earlier in the week I wrote that I didn’t really know which way was up at the moment and I think that was the only part of my post that made any sense. On the one hand I’m in a place in my life where opportunities are around every corner. On the other hand reaching out and taking them is going to mean saying goodbye here and there. Every time I think I’ve got that figured out in my head it all unravels again….

Anyway. I think that should just about do it for today. I’ll be back once I’ve had another one of my little thinks – they are in plentiful supply of late.

I leave you today with a song from my past. It’s one from my teenage years when I was angry and optimistic and cynical and hopeful all at the same time:

While we’re about it, we might as well have a sweet little acoustic version of the same song because it’s nice to mix things up a bit isn’t it?

Meanwhile in other news I have nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots, like JELLY TOTS,

WeeGee xoxox

Posted in About today

Not the post I thought

Posted on by WeeGee

I can’t quite believe the amount of time that’s passed between today and my last post. I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way – I’ve had so much to say. I just didn’t know how to say it. I think we might have arrived at the story of my life.

My head’s pretty jumbled up right now. I’m a little bit AWESOME insofar as that I’m full of good ideas. And what’s wrong with being full of good ideas? I sorta know the downside….. And I’m scared of myself. Of course I am. Awesome is exciting but I just want the steady life.

This isn’t the post I thought I’d write.

Okay.

I’m better than I’ve ever been. I’m not jumping out of any windows, or hurting myself, or trying to get away.

Truly though? I’m not okay. I’m not coping and life is tough and my brain won’t play.

But I don’t know what I wanted.

Hmmm

Posted in About today

Not ready yet

Posted on by WeeGee

You can usually get a pretty reliable sense of what’s going on in my head by looking at the music I’m listening to. Right now I’m on Radiohead, The Smiths, Jeff Buckley and Elliot Smith which is really just to say it isn’t exactly jolly o’clock here in WeeGee land. Here’s a song that sums it all up at the moment:

On the face of it, it all started last week but now I come to think of it I can see that this has been sneaking up on me for a long time because you can only turn the other cheek for so long. There’s no good to be found in trying to pretend.

I’ve been trying to pretend that everything is okay but everything is not okay. The worst of it is that I don’t know how to go about making everything okay again. Running away might help, but it isn’t exactly a sensible option….. Maybe things aren’t meant to be okay, not for me anyway.

I can’t tell you too much about what’s going on – it wouldn’t be fair on the people and the things that are involved. All I can really say is that I find myself in a situation, which circumstances aren’t helping. I know that if the circumstances went away the situation would be better which, by the way, seems to be what everyone wants. But nobody seems to want to help me with the circumstances and so we’re stuck with the situation. There is no help and there is no end.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a ‘problem’ What with one thing or another I’m always the difficult one, the one who does things the long way round, the one who doesn’t quite ‘fit’. I’m tired of being nothing other than a problem. It doesn’t seem to matter where I manage to get to – there’s always something waiting to pull the rug from under my feet. It’s usually my brain. Why isn’t my brain on my side?

I frighten myself when I feel like this mostly because I don’t want to feel like this. But what do you do when there’s a war in your brain, and you’re always the problem, and when there is no help and no end?

How do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite…..

Love you all lots like jelly tots,

WeeGee xoxoxo

Posted in About today

Absent minded

Posted on by WeeGee

I’ve spent most of this week wandering aimlessly around my life as if it doesn’t belong to me. If I’m present it’s in body alone – my mind is elsewhere, if indeed, it’s anywhere at all. There was a time when my feelings were all red, and angry and violent. Now I feel a little bit grey and little bit blue – inky I guess. Some things happen and some things don’t happen and I look on feeling quite certain that it doesn’t matter one single little bit whether I’m here to watch them happening and not happening. Things will happen and things won’t happen whether I’m here or not. I’m not going to be jumping out of any windows any time soon but if someone offered me the opportunity to clean disappear  from my life I’d bite their hand off to take it…..

It all started with one of those throw away comments. You know the sort of comments that don’t mean anything unless you have the kind of brain that likes to pickle throw away comments so you can think about them for the rest of time? I’ve never had a shortage of pickled comments to beat myself up about although to be fair, I’d kind of hoped I’d reached a point in my life where I wasn’t going to add anymore. It’s laughable really. Sometimes I think that hope is the most important thing and then I go and have a little and I remember exactly what hope does for you.

There is nothing wrong at the moment – at least nothing a good nights sleep, plenty of clear fluids and some good food won’t sort out. On the one hand I know that, and on the other hand it doesn’t matter that nothing is actually wrong. Everything FEELS wrong and I can’t figure out how to make it FEEL any better. Feelings, eh? Who’d have them?

I think this might be the most pointless blog post I’ve ever written and I hope you will forgive it. I decided that if I could write about what’s going on I’d have to think about what’s going on. I guess I need to kick start one of my little thinks – so look at this as CPR for WeeGee’s broken brain. I’m feeling very broken but at least I’m still looking for ways to put it all back together again.

I’ll be back with an AWESOME post for you very soon. 

Love you all lots like jelly tots

WeeGee.