Tag: Today

Posted in About today

This is really happening, isn’t it?

Posted on by WeeGee

I don’t really like Radiohead anymore – I lost interest somewhere around OK Computer – but I do really like this song. I think it sounds like how I feel a lot of the time:

The line in the song that goes ‘this is really happening’ is a notion that strikes me every now and then, usually in the wee small hours when I can’t sleep and there’s nowhere to hide from all the things that are happening in my head. Sometimes I feel incredulous about it all because how very dare this be happening in my head, but most of the time I feel frightened because this is really happening and what if I can’t figure out how to make it quieten down again?

I had 11 whole years when I didn’t have to struggle very hard with myself. I had to struggle a little bit because I don’t think the voices* ever go away you just get better at answering them back, or ignoring them, or both. I think of my difficulties as a dark passenger** because they are always there at my side. I’ve carried my dark passenger everywhere I’ve ever been – sometimes it’s heavy and sometimes it isn’t so heavy; sometimes it’s almost silent and sometimes it’s very, very loud; sometimes it looks out the window as we travel and sometimes it takes over the driving.

For the past year or so my dark passenger has been in the driving seat and I’ve had to struggle very hard with myself. Compared to the 11 years where I wasn’t struggling much, the past year feels like it’s lasted for a lifetime. Sometimes, I get sick and tired of it all and I just wish that all the nonsense would disappear out of my head. Other times, I remember that it will never disappear completely and so I start to wonder what the point of struggling very hard with yourself just so you don’t have to struggle very hard with yourself is. Right now is one of those other times.

Today I feel a bit small and insignificant and, above all else, frightened. I’m wondering what would happen if I just stopped struggling and gave my brain over to the darkness. I don’t much like being in the dark, but I can’t help thinking it’d probably be a little easier on me.

Still, tomorrow I’ll be all brave again. Thoughts pass eventually because that is their way.

Wee Gee x

 

 

*I should point out to you that over the years I have learned that you need to be very careful when you’re talking about the ‘voices in your head’.

**If anyone watches Dexter, mine is not at all like that dark passenger – just for the avoidance of doubt!

Posted in About today

I did not see that one coming

Posted on by WeeGee

Okay, so the first thing I should say is that this post discusses self harm. If you think that might put you in a dangerous place please look away now, because it’s important to everybody that everybody stays safe.

{Pause to allow people to look away now}*

The second thing to say is that I’m currently on step number three of the safety plan**. I used to have three ‘real’ people I could communicate with if I thought I was in a risky situation: Mr Wise, Mr Hilarious and Mr Friendly, but now I’ve added my blog to the list of ‘people it is safe to communicate with’. The aforementioned Mr’s*** are otherwise engaged, and (as daft as it sounds) I’m not in the right place for crisis intervention so I’m writing this post in an attempt to communicate all this crazy stuff out of my head.

{Pause for a few deep breaths}

Here’s what happened. I sat down to write a post (it’s a funny story about me at a party so I’ll probably get round to posting it another time) and then I had a nosebleed. A proper, massive, wouldn’t stop nosebleed.

I don’t think I’ve had a proper, massive, wouldn’t stop nosebleed since I was about twelve years old and although I know it should have been a tad distressing, I actually really liked it. I liked it because all that bright red blood on a white tissue felt like the most sensible, meaningful thing on earth and I thought to myself that if my nose stops bleeding there would still be lots of other ways to get back to the most sensible and meaningful thing on earth.

I haven’t cut myself since last November. I didn’t really remember doing it but the evidence suggested that I made a pretty serious attempt to actually cut one of my legs off. To be fair, that was an isolated incident and it’s a very long time since each morning has been about working out what I’d done the day before with reference to the bloody rags and sharp implements scattered around me. I was in an awful, painful place, I have some pretty hideous scars and would do anything, anything, anything to go back in time and make it not happen. So why should it make any sense whatsoever to think that slicing myself open and watching the blood ooze out is the answer to a question that I haven’t even worked out yet?

Nowadays, I tend to work on the assumption that I am a grown up, and that I have therefore found grown up, subtle ways to hurt myself. As if that’s some kind of achievement! I know it’s a load of blinking rubbish, because most grown-ups don’t spend any time what-so-bloody-ever thinking about hurting themselves. What’s this thing about hurting myself even more than I’m already hurting? What’s this thing about bright red blood on white tissues? Roar, roar and triple roar. Can I start again please?

I’m sorry if this one is a bit rambling, but it was more about getting thoughts out of my brain than achieving a coherent post…..

Meanwhile in other news I have managed three meals and a trip to the outside world today, and my cat has just about got used to the new voile panel in our flat. Oh. And I went to a party yesterday.

Take care, Wee Gee x

*I hope you won’t think I’m being flippant because I’m really not – it’s just my way.

**At the moment my number one mission in life is to be well enough to be able to cope without a safety plan.

***I know perfectly well that Mr’s is not an ideal use of the apostrophe, but according to the OED style guide it is acceptable to use an apostrophe to ensure clarity of meaning. If I’d put Mrs it would have looked like I meant a married lady person, rather than the plural of Mr. (What can I say? I’m the grammar police so I’m getting my alibi in early….)

Posted in About today

I am angry

Posted on by WeeGee

If I knew my readers a little better I’d probably start off by swearing; really badly. But I really don’t want to offend anybody so I’ll keep the profanities for the cat (he doesn’t seem to mind). I don’t know what the matter with me is, apart from the fact that I’m grumpy – nothing has happened to make me particularly grumpy but then again I suppose even mentalists have normal off days. If you see what I mean.

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned the world can shut its mouth:

Apart from feeling a bit ‘boo to everything’ I’m doing pretty well  after the mahoosive ‘bit of a maddy’ on Wednesday. By the time I woke up on Thursday ‘no’ had quietened down and I was able to get myself through the motions once more. Fank gawd for that. Looking back there are a couple of reasons to be cheerful following my ‘moment’:

  1. I didn’t decide not to eat, despite being in hiding and feeling rotten
  2. I didn’t do myself a mischief, serious or otherwise
  3. It passed quite quickly
  4. I didn’t end up wandering around the outside world in my PJs raving at strangers

As is always the case with these things it could’ve been worse….

My appointment with the doctor today confirmed that the jitters are ‘almost certainly’ caused by the citalopram and that they should ‘pass in (an unspecified amount of) time’. That’s alright then. I’ll tell myself that next time I’m bouncing off the walls and considering jumping out the window*. Told you I was grumpy.

Meanwhile in other news, I sent an email today** and I’m off up to Nottingham for a few days with the folks tomorrow. It’ll be good to get out of London for a while and I’ve a few old friends to catch up with which is always cool.

Beyond that, I don’t have anything else to say for myself today but I wanted to make sure I posted something or it would have been the best part of a week before I did***.

That’s all from me folks.

Love (a rather grumpy but not in a mental way) Wee Gee x

* It’s okay. I only live on the first floor.

** I’ve been meaning to send it for ages – it’s a long story which I’ll no doubt tell in time

***If I left it that long I’d almost certainly give up and go all flaky.