Tag: Self harm

Posted in Recovery?

What went so horribly right?!

Posted on by WeeGee

SERIOUS POST ALERT. This post contains not one single hilarious joke. You have been warned….

It’s funny the way things change isn’t it? I’ve written so many posts trying to figure out what went so badly wrong after one of my ‘bit of a disasters’ and now I find myself writing in an attempt to work out what went right.  So – what did go right? The answer really surprised me and I think it’s going to surprise you too – because the answer is I did. Yep, that’s right, WeeGee finally worked out how to get it right and then went straight ahead and did it. How about that then?

Some people think that those experiencing mental health difficulties are ill, and others are of the opinion that they aren’t. For my own part, I lean heavily towards the illness theory if for no other reason than that sufferers can’t stop themselves from experiencing the difficulties in the first place. At the same time, I am of the firm opinion that mental health difficulties are not exactly the same as physical illnesses – primarily because when you become physically ill you are reliant on science, medicine and other people in order to get better; when you are mental you are reliant on yourself to get better –  if you want to recover you have to hunker down and make sure you recover. Sure you might need a bit of science and medicine and you are DEFINITELY going to need other people but none of those things can fix you. The problem is in your head, and in your thoughts and ultimately you are the only person who can fix it. This by the way is the most valuable thing I have learned in the last two years.

Here are just a few of the other valuable lessons I have learned:

·         The only way to deal with a bereavement is to let yourself grieve until you are ready to stop

·         There is only one place for the past and that is in the past which is not the same thing as saying memories don’t matter

·         If you let somebody hold you together you will fall apart when they stop being there to hold you together

·         Forgiving someone isn’t the same as accepting what they did was okay

·         Sometimes you have to stop just so that you can start again

·         Letting go isn’t the same as not caring

·         Keep on keeping on, because eventually you start keeping on without even realising you are doing it

·         I can write a whole blog post without saying something daft*

I leave you with one of Mr Wise’s favourite sayings which goes ‘You can’t change your circumstances until you change the way you feel about them’ It’s taken me 33 years to figure out how very wise that actually is and I don’t plan on forgetting it any time soon

Lot and lots of love (and please can you all keep keeping on) from WeeGee xxxxxxxx

*Actually I can’t. Here’s a little story for you: So – I’m at work, everybody is in this afternoon so the office is pretty packed and very quiet. And I go to leave the room, and my dear friend Mr Hilarious shouts the following across the room “WEEGEE! ARE YOU GOING TO THE TOILET** which I was, so then everybody knew I was going to the toilet*** and then when I was coming back from the toilet a small boy child**** said “Okay, now I’m confused – you walked up there and then you just came back again” And then I had to tell him I had been to the toilet as well…..

**I still don’t know why he needed to know

***I did of course enquire as to whether anyone wanted me to do one for them while I was there because I’m hilarious like that

**** I don’t know what the small boy child was doing there either

Over and out xoxoxox

Posted in Reasons to be cheerful

Leaps and bounds

Posted on by WeeGee

I went to see my GP before work this morning and it’s official: I am ‘coming on in leaps and bounds’. How EXCITING is that?! Unfortunately, my excitement was slightly tempered when I arrived at work and Mr Hilarious said ‘what have you done to your hair – it looks like you’ve got a comb over?’ and I had to spend ages wandering around to see if anybody had any hair straighteners because I did indeed look like I had a comb over……

Anyway – This is just a short post to let you know I’ve decided that I quite like coming on in leaps and bounds. It’s nice getting to know yourself again after all that time in hiding; it’s nice getting up and going about the days without once wishing you were dead; it’s nice taking care of yourself without having to even think about doing it; most of all it’s nice to laugh naturally in response to something funny instead of forcing yourself to join in because ‘laughing is what the normal people do’.

I’m still trying to be gentle with myself and keep up my routines and thinking tricks because I’m not taking any risks at this point. Plus, every so often a mental thought pops up and I act on it and I know I need to work on that. Most of the mental thoughts involve WeeGee getting a bit scared when she remembers people always hurt you in the end* and responding by pulling away and closing the boundaries down. That’s rubbish for me and rubbish for the people close to me because they think everything is swimming along nicely so end up feeling confused. I’m also conscious that thoughts of food are louder than they’ve been for quite a long time. I’ve responded by making new meal plans and banning myself from running until the thoughts have gone away. The main thing is I have responded – and that’s one of the reasons I know I’m coming on in leaps and bounds.

Lots of love from WeeGee xoxoxoxox

*Which isn’t actually true. Some people have hurt me in the past, but people might not hurt me in the future

Posted in About today

How do you date twenty five people at once?

Posted on by WeeGee

It’s been a funny old day in WeeGee land today. I am still very poorly but I am also a bit bouncy and enthusiastic which is a strange combination because it makes you do silly things like wearing an outfit you bought to go to  a wedding to work and feeling a bit over dressed for the rest of the day…..

I didn’t fancy a re-run of yesterday’s adventures in not boring yourself to death when you are poorly at home so I decided I might as well go into the office to try and not bore myself to death there instead. It’s actually quite easy not to bore yourself to death in the office on a Friday when everybody is in a good mood and therefore more susceptible to join in when WeeGee bounces around being distracted and generally hilarious. Much fun was had in the office this afternoon and I kept forgetting I was poorly, which was nice. We also decided what’s going to happen next in Homeland* and which one of the IT Crowd is most likely to buy an ipad mini even though they’ve already got a pad, pod and phone and every other gadget going – the conclusion was Mr Hilarious, by the way and that is exactly why Mr Hilarious is my best friend in the world bar none.

What next? Oh I know….. I had a particularly amusing search engine term yesterday which I thought I’d share: “how do you date 25 people at once?”. In the off chance that person comes back to my blog in an attempt to find the answer I’m going to point it out to them: YOU DON’T. THE END. Whilst we are on the subject of online dating here are my top tips for the day:

  • It is never, ever, socially acceptable (not even on the Interweb) to say the following to a stranger ‘hey there WeeGee can you tell me how fab your tits are?**’
  • If you’ve never met me and you call me ‘darling’ I will take an instant and irretrievable dislike to you***
  • If a guy sends you his number and the only thing you can think of to store it as is ‘Nick the perv’ you definitely don’t want to store it

I think that’s about it from an online dating point of view – although I should point out that I met a magician recently. As in a real life actual person who goes to work as a Magician every day. How cool is that?

Now for a small serious section

I’ve been having a few little worries to myself recently – not the big “I’m so worried I’m going to jump off something tall so I don’t have to worry anymore” kind of worry, but you know what I’m like with worrying so I thought it was the kind of thing I should talk through with Mrs Mountain. Mrs Mountain reliably informed me that most of the things I am worrying about are the things that NORMAL PEOPLE worry about anyway. Which was nice. She also pointed out that if you’ve spent two years wanting to climb up a tall thing just so you can jump off it it’s natural to be a little frightened by the thought you might actually like to climb up a tall thing just for the sheer hell of it – and that made a lot of sense to me.

We also did a bit of boundary checking today what with boundaries being one of the things I’ve been having a little worry about. My usual problem with boundaries is setting them too narrow so that nobody can get anywhere near me – I know about narrow boundaries and how to sort that out. What I don’t know about is boundaries that are too wide, and I suppose I was worried that the current attack of the bouncy and enthusiastics might have set my boundaries too widely and was giving too much of myself away. Anyway, we came to the conclusion that probably isn’t the case because I’m not ending up anywhere I feel uncomfortable and also because I know that I get to set my own boundaries and that’s the end of that.

The end of the small serious section

Meanwhile in other news I will shortly be going home to be poorly which sucks because everybody else in the whole entire world is going out to eat, drink and be merry and I’m quite bouncy so I’d like to do a bit of that too. Instead I am going home to eat healthy red, green and brown stuff, and then cuddle up with Gryff and watch Have I Got News For You. Rock and roll. Nothing else to report today save that…. Did I mention I am poorly?

Lots of love and awesome things from WeeGee Still McSickNote xxx

*If what we’ve decided is going to happen doesn’t happen I am going to be VERY DISAPPOINTED

**Because everybody knows that the correct terminology when addressing a lady such as myself is ‘breasts’. That is A Joke, by the way

***Most other affectionate pet names are acceptable apart from maybe sweet cheeks, I’m not keen on that

Posted in About today

Why must I do this to myself?

Posted on by WeeGee

I apologise in advance for this one. I’m afraid it isn’t very cheery. Today I am sad. Actually, I’m not only sad, I feel like somebody tuned out all the lights again….

It started, I guess when I was listening to this song*

And I was having a nice little hope to myself – thinking ‘please, please let me get what I want’ when it hit me. What if I can’t cope with not getting what I think I might want? What if I end up all devastated and bereft and the flat and empties return to torment me for another million years?

So I started to think about doing what WeeGee does when confronted with such situations – I decided hiding was the only option. Instead of waiting to find out if I might get what I want for once in my life I’ll decide I don’t want it. I’ll spend my time forgetting about my little hope and I’ll never find out what might have happened and I’ll head off something bad happening by making sure that nothing good happens.

Why must I do this to myself?

 

*Golden rule of recovery? Don’t listen to the Smiths when you are poorly and sad

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

A spot of quiet reflection

Posted on by WeeGee

Today marks the six month anniversary of How do you eat an elephant? An appropriate point for a spot of quiet reflection methinks……

I suppose the first thing to say is the fact that WeeGee started doing something new six months ago and is still doing it today. That’s a big achievement what my tendency to move on to the next obsession a little too quickly and all. In six months my blog has changed quite a lot – I guess it takes a little while to find your feet. You know what though? I’m actually rather proud of my little blog –that I started it, that I’ve kept on doing it, that I’ve managed to turn it into something that matters to me. Me being proud of something I’ve done doesn’t happen very often so I’m definitely giving myself a little pat on the back today.

Now I’ve had my pat on the back I’ll do a bit more reflecting on stuff. I’ve been a reflective mood for a while, so I thought I might as well turn that into a post. To be honest I’ve been reflecting on pretty much everything, but neither you or I have time for that so I’ll focus on the most important bits.

A lot of my reflection has focused on where I’ve been and how I go about keeping myself where I am now for as long as possible. As to where I’ve been, well I’ve been lost somewhere totally shitty. Looking on the bright side I’ve learned an awful lot about myself along the way and I feel like I’m coming out the other side stronger. I know also, how I got to where I got to – holding on too tightly to things that actually, when I let go of them, just floated away without doing any damage at all. That tells me I need to learn to let go because once in a while letting go is the right thing to do.

Keeping myself here feels like a slightly daunting task. As much as I tell myself I can do it, or how much I feel like I can do it, I’m scared that one day, out of the blue I suddenly won’t be able to do it anymore. I can’t predict what’s going to happen in my life which means I can’t predict what’s going to happen in my brain. I can’t promise myself that where I am right now is going to be where I’ll be forever. That’s the thought I’ve been having and writing it down made me realise that maybe that’s the whole point. I don’t want to stay here forever and maybe I have a better chance of keeping myself well if I keep on moving.

I’m anxious about happens when Mr Clever decides I’m officially better and no longer need the medication and small army of support workers to get me through the day. I guess I just need to be on guard –  if I feel like things are getting risky I have make sure I do what I’ve been guilty of not doing in the past: shout up. That’s quite a big challenge I suppose, although in the main scheme of things I like a bit of a challenge every now and then.

I had a bit of a revelation during my recent session with Mrs Mountain. We were talking about what happens when all the support stops and I said something along the lines of “I can’t have counselling for the rest of my life”. Her response was “Why not?” And the penny dropped. Counselling isn’t just about putting yourself back together when you fall apart – it’s also about keeping yourself back together which is actually the most important part….

Moving on – a good deal of my reflection has been about Mr Friendly. I think that’s fairly natural. For a long time I thought I just wanted him back in my life – that, if I’m honest, Mr Friendly in my life was the only thing that would make me well again. Guess what? I’m getting well again all by myself. Mr Friendly will probably always be my friend and I’ll always love him. The big thing for me is that when I think about loving Mr Friendly now I think of a friendly, fond kind of love rather than whatever kind of ‘love’ we had when we were together. Being back together with Mr Friendly is actually a really bad idea, not least because he hurt me very badly. What he did, or rather the way he did what he did was anything but okay and it really doesn’t matter that he didn’t hurt me on purpose. The thing is I don’t have to forgive and forget all that stuff and I don’t need to pretend that it’s okay – I just need to accept it and then leave it in the past.

Anyway – we’re almost 1000 words later and that, I think, is enough quiet reflection for one day.

In summary, I’m feeling pleased with myself at the moment: I’m still learning lessons, and I’m finally fairly comfortable in my own skin. Long may it continue?

I might be back later to update you on the developments in my online dating experiment. It’s quite exciting really because for the first time in a very long time – I feel a bit of an adventure coming on!

Lots of love from WeeGee who is getting to the point where she barely recognises herself and likes it!

Posted in Welcome to my world

What if I can’t stop?

Posted on by WeeGee

The first thing to do today is say: if you are at all vulnerable about food, weight, body image and other such things might be best if you skip over this one…..

I think there must be something in the air at the moment – because a couple of other bloggers have posted about similar things this week. Perhaps it’s National Former Eating Disorders Bite You On The Bum Week or something…..

I am recovering from an eating disorder. I say recovering rather than recovered because I don’t think disordered thinking about food ever truly goes away. It hangs around in the background and you have to work very hard to keep it there.

Nonsense thinking about food has been in the background of my brain for more than 10 years. During that time I’ve maintained my weight at an acceptable level with only one exception – when Mr Friendly and I split up. I lost an awful lot of weight at that point, dipped below ‘healthy’ and had a smallish battle to get back to where I needed to be. The point is, I did get back. The other point is that I have more or less maintained my weight for more than ten years. That other point is REALLY BIG NEWS by the way.

I still have a funny relationship with food. I eat because I have to. I rarely eat because I’m hungry and I hardly ever eat because I want to. The notion of ‘comfort eating’ makes no sense to me at all because I don’t ‘enjoy’ food. It’s just a necessity – like air.

My thoughts about weight are a little bit difficult too. I don’t know how much I weigh because I can’t know. If I knew it would bother me – I’d try to round the number down to something nice and even and then I’d get obsessed with it being even and I’d try to get it down as low as possible in an attempt to have the best chance at keeping it even…. If that doesn’t make any sense to you should count your lucky stars at this point.

Understanding of eating disorders has moved on a lot since I was poorly and I think most people know that eating disorders have absolutely nothing to do with being thin. What I don’t think many people realise is that eating disorders often have EVERYTHING to do with not being fat. It’s a subtle difference and one that still governs my life to a certain small extent.

I’m ashamed to say that I think unpleasant things about being fat. I have a morbid fear of being overweight and even if I could cure my fear I wouldn’t want to because it terrifies me too much to even think about it. This fear has nothing to do with vanity although it has a lot to do with outward projections and the space I occupy in the world.

Reading that back it must appear to you that I still have a very unhealthy relationship with food and weight. I know that it isn’t ideal but I do know that it is managed. I’m aware, I have insight and that means I can keep myself in check. It makes for a miserable existence at times, but the process of keeping a well body when you have a broken brain is actually like heaven on earth when you compare it to the horror that is an eating disorder in full flow. Forget the times when my brain wants to jump off a building, or eat three packets of painkillers, or write ‘POINTLESS’ on my arm with a razor blade. Those things are a walk in the park compared to what an eating disorder does to your brain, your body and your life.

I’m terrified of being fat, but going back to the dark days of the starvation diet terrifies me so very much more. It is genuinely my biggest fear in the world because I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you manage to beat twice in your life.

I suppose I should let you know why I’m telling you all of this (I’ve been putting it off). The thing is I’ve put a little bit of weight on recently. I know I have because I can see it, and because I can feel it. I know that I’m not anything approaching fat – in fact I look healthy at the moment. My backside has made a re-appearance and I can wear a WonderBra and look like I might have some kind of a bust going on. My skin is healthy, and there are two nice apple type things where my cheekbones used to live. My ribs are in retreat.

This is all great – it’s nice to look in the mirror and see a healthy human being looking back. But at the back of my mind there’s a scary, scary thought that won’t go away: what if I can’t stop.

It’s spinning round and round and round.

It’s screaming at me: WHAT IF I CAN’T STOP? It’s scary because I know exactly what the answer is.

The answer is JUST STOP. Just like that. Don’t just stop, make up for it – you don’t want to run the risk of being fat after all and the best way to avoid ever weighing too much is by weighing as little as possible. It’s like an insurance policy.

I know this is all ridiculous and disordered and not at all rational. But it doesn’t have to make sense for it to be scary. I am on guard at the moment. It seems I’m destined always to be on guard against something. If broken brain isn’t terrorising itself thinking about how pointless everything is it manages to find something else to keep me in a state of absolute terror.

Curse my broken brain.

Lots of love from WeeGee

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

Okay while it lasts

Posted on by WeeGee

I feel that I should blog. So here I am – blogging. It’s hard to blog about being mental when you’re not feeling especially mental…..

Whenever I start feeling okay I think “this is it; I’m finally okay” but I have to try to remember that it doesn’t really work like that.

Okay lasts as long as okay wants to and then it replaces itself with not okay again. Which is fine so long as I’m ready for not okay when it comes around. Trouble is it’s almost impossible to truly ready yourself for not okay when things are okay. If you see what I mean?

There are a few things coming up that I need to prepare myself for – anniversaries and such like. It’s daft because the only anniversaries that mean anything to me are the bad ones: it’s x amount of time since such and such a terrible thing happened. Why does that have to matter more than the fact that it’s x amount of time since something good happened? Broken brain is the answer I suppose.

Anyhoo. I’m not feeling particularly mental at the moment, but I’ve got this horrible feeling that the mentals are coming.

Why won’t they just leave me alone?

Lots of love from WeeGee

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

More lessons

Posted on by WeeGee

I feel that I should write something. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to write, but if I don’t write something soon I’ll get out of the habit of writing and that’d probably spell The End for How do you eat an elephant? Which would be a bit of a shame…..

I suppose I should start by filling you in on the last couple of days which have felt like something approaching good. Yes, you did read that right – I said something approaching good! Okay, so I had a minor melt down at the start of the week but it had been a long time coming I suppose and I’ve just about forgiven myself  because I feel like I’ve learned some important lessons along the way. Which is no bad thing…..

Important lesson of the week # 1: If you can’t keep going you have to stop keeping going until you’re ready to get going again.

I’ve also been busy taking care of myself and making a plan. It feels like ages since I’ve a) properly taken care of myself or b) had a plan. It feels so much better to have something to aim for other than Eastenders* I’m not talking about any kind of grand ‘sort your life out in four weeks’ plan, more of a ‘let’s get from a to b and worry about c later’ type plan.

Important lesson of the week # 2: You don’t have to do EVERYTHING right now because there’s plenty of time for everything.

I’ve had a few words with ‘the brain’. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs – we can’t hate one another for ever because we’re pretty much stuck with each other** and whether we like it or not we’re going to have to find a way to rub along together. The deal goes something like this: I will nourish rest and generally take good care of the brain if the brain promises to make a concerted effort to stop with all that over thinking it nonsense. In the fullness of time I’d like the brain to give up on all that up/down/backwards/forwards/shake it all about stuff, but hey! At least we’ve got a start.

Important lesson of the week #3: If you take good care of your brain it will be remarkably compliant when it comes to doing deals.

One week. One meltdown. Three lessons. Could be worse eh?

In conclusion I think things are looking okay. That’s as far as my ‘state of the nation’ update goes: WeeGee is okay. Which is pretty much okay.

Never fear – I’ll be back later with some of the more usual rambling idiocy

Love WeeGee xxx

*Yes. I watch Eastenders. What of it?!

**What with the frontal lobotomy being out of fashion and all….

Posted in Some thoughts about my journey

Learning lessons

Posted on by WeeGee

Where to begin? I suppose I should start with the story of the last few days which can be summarised thusly: ‘the good, the bad, and the downright shitty’. As I write I am somewhere between bad and downright shitty which although not ideal is a whole lot more ideal than just plain downright shitty….

I’m currently signed off from work owing to the downright shittiness that descended on Sunday morning. Being off work is an unusual state of affairs for me and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. All I know is that I got to Monday morning (somehow) and it became blindingly obvious to me that I couldn’t carry on going on the way I was going on. My GP and my employer agreed.

Thankfully, it’s a short term ‘rest’ rather than long term sickness. I think a period of long term sickness would drive me mad (ho ho). I’m expected and expecting to be fit to return to work next Tuesday on a ‘phased return’, which would probably be a bit extreme were it not for the extent of the downright shittiness that has been upon me. By the way I’m not going to tell you about the downright shittiness – I’m hoping you will take my word for it: it was DOWNRIGHT SHITTY SHITTINESS for a little while there.

It’s tough enough for anyone to admit that they aren’t coping, but I manage to make it double difficult on myself, because coping is the only thing I do well: whatever the horror in my head, however low I go I make it my priority to function because I don’t want to let people down. I don’t want people to make allowances, or worry about me, or (to be honest) know how bad things have really got for me.

Trouble is that’s pretty much the same as pretending and you can only play make believe with your broken brain for so long….

In the end, for me it came down to a simple choice. Take a break, and go back to work in stages or find myself being a gibbering wreck, probably in hospital and definitely unable to work for a considerable amount of time. As tough as it’s been to say ‘Help!’ and ‘I need to stop’, I feel like I’m doing the right thing and taking care of myself (possibly for the first time in my life)

So I finally said it – in no uncertain terms: things are bad and I can’t cope. Truth told, I already feel like I’m coping better just for having said it. I don’t have to be ‘strong’ all of the time or rather perhaps I’ve misunderstood ‘strength’. I suppose you could call it a lesson well learned.

Lots of love,

WeeGee xx

Posted in Welcome to my world

Living?

Posted on by WeeGee

I’m in a bleak and vulnerable place. I don’t want that to rub off on anybody so skip over this one if you see fit….

I haven’t managed to blog for a couple of days because I haven’t had the mental capacity for it and, if I’m perfectly honest, I’m not altogether sure that I have the mental capacity for it now. Still, on account of the fact that no-one has invented a clever device that transfers my thoughts into a nice neat blog post yet I’m going to have to give it a go for myself.

Where to start? Hmm…. well, I suppose I could start with a confession.

I’m not being entirely honest with people about the place I’m in. I know that breaks so many of the ‘rules’, but I don’t really know what else to do apart from stick a smile on my face and say “I’m fine”. The alternative is saying “I’m hollow, and empty and I wish I wasn’t alive and there is nothing that can happen, or that you can say that will ever change any of that” Nobody wants to hear that, do they?

I know what people would say to me. They’d say that was ‘broken brain’ speaking’ and that you HAVE to ask for help. Here’s the thing – my brain doesn’t work properly – everyone knows that but IT DOESN’T MAKE ME AN IDIOT. So I ask for ‘help’. What is it that is going to help? More pills? A stay in hospital where I can feel exactly the way that I do now only in sterile surroundings? Talking about things that there is no answer to? It doesn’t help. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that. I don’t mean to be unkind or ungrateful to the people in my life who want to help, I really don’t. I just want them to understand that there is no help.

The people I know in real life are good and kind people and they are forever saying ‘just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help’. But I can’t tell them what they could do help, because it’s not the way the world works. What would really help right now is somebody gathering me up, staying by my side and showing me how it is that you go about doing this thing called living. Nobody wants to do that – it’s too much to ask.

So instead, I’ll do what I always do. I’ll smile. I’ll say ‘I’m fine’, ‘work’s great’, ‘Yeah I’m really busy’ and I’ll continue to curl up into a ball whilst staring into the mid distance and listening to all that living going on around about me.
Love from WeeGee (misery guts)