Got all these demons and I can't stop 'em
To tell you the truth doc, I might have a problem
Robbie Williams 'Good Doctor'
And another thing, what's with these people who start blogs and then just friggin' disappear? Tossers...
All right, so I've been away for a few months and it's not like I haven't thought about blogging but there have been various phases of my life where my head is so densely packed with the contortions of my own psyche that I literallly can't get them out and I am just coming out of one of those phases now. Could be worse, could be like when I went to counselling in my late twenties and spent at least three sessions unable to speak at all to the woman counselling me. I wanted to, just couldn't find the words to get it out. Not sure if she understood that or was just thinking yippee here's half an hour where I don't have to listen to somebody whining. You see why I remain cynical about counselling.
I haven't looked back to see what I said last time I wrote and I won't, because while I am sure it was full of my usual wit and wisdom har har I mean it when I say I am sick of looking back. This is because I have spent too much time looking back recently and for fucking forever before that. Why do I do it? Spending my time in regret and then regretting that I spent so much time in regret. Aaaarrrrgghhh!!
Since last writing I hit a wall and it has been a hard one. Was sick for a couple of months, the kindest man in the world was sick, had a big ME relapse, was definitely suffering some form of post traumatic stress thing after the visa palava, started putting weight back on and possibly as a result of all that started reflecting waaay too much on my last three years here in the UK and coming to the conclusion that I've basically been banging my head against a wall the whole time...probably the same wall I smashed into in December, when a stupid disappointment crushed me and I basically couldn't get out of bed for a week. I'm not going to say what it was because I feel like a bloody idiot that it affected me so badly and yeah I should be kinder to myself because I was run down and low anyway, blah blah blah, doesn't stop me feeling like a bloody idiot unfortunately. Can't help it, that's how I roll but suffice to say December was bloody awful and I was immensely lonely and homesick and feeling very, very much a stranger in a strange land. Definitely needed a nice cup of harden up, or maybe a vat!
I am a person who likes progress. I like to progress, I like to work towards progressing and I get immensely frustrated when circumstances conspire against me and I can't move forward. I have never been a person who can just be, in a Zen like state of blissful oblivion, letting life pass her by. It would have been a fucking sight easier if I was. I sometimes wonder whether the ME was the universe's way of teaching me that my value is not is what I do or achieve but who I am. If it was, sorry universe, I am shite at this. I suspect I may always be.
Homesickness has been a big, big theme of the last couple of months and it's been a hard one to deal with because the kindest man in the world, bless him, blames himself for 'dragging me here' so I don't really want to talk about it with him and I honestly don't want to go home for good because I think there's still stuff in this hemisphere I need to learn from but, but I really want to go home right now. Just for a while. Not saying you Britishers are terrible or awful but I long at the moment to see open Aussie faces and talk full on Shazza shit with my friends over a cold beer in a hot humid beer garden. This has been part of the darkness of the last few months, where I fear that I will go home and things have shifted and my longing to talk shit with my friends results in finding out they have moved on. From me. Moved on from me.
This is a hard one. I've never really felt like an important person, somebody that someone would wait for, somebody that somebody would go seriously out of their way for. Therefore while I know while my friends love me and I'll get back and it'll be like I haven't gone, I don't know it really. And it scares the fucking crap out of me. My friends are my family, more than my whacked out actual family is. I can't lose my family, not again.
Along with all this, I made a huge decision in December (what was it about December ffs) and that was to sell my house in Brisbane. There are all sorts of logical, sensible reasons for this which do and must outweigh the fact that house has been home for fifteen years and while admittedly some of those fifteen years in that house were utter shite, it is still home and a house that I love. But it's time to part the ways.
For someone who likes progress so much, I really do have trouble letting go and it's come to me in the last couple of months why. I don't really believe in the concept of letting go of something and being assured that better will come. Call it bitter experience. I believe the theory but the practice has proved otherwise. All the more reason to keep letting go until the good comes but having given up so much over the last few years, up to and including my country, I'm a bit over it at the moment. When does the reward for the sacrifice come? Will I ever really feel like I have a life here?
Anyway, all that and panic attacks too, it's been an eventful few months but am ready to move on now thanks. Got my design course to finish (one of the few things that's been going well) and need to get my shit back together and get some more weight off and confidence back and a social life and tickets back to Australia and some vestige of sanity. I like to think that's not asking too much. I bloody hope not.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Sound and vision
I need perspective, I can't trust my eyes
'Perspective' Peter Gabriel
Got a new toy yesterday and I am mahoosively excited!
Yes, after months of to-ing and fro-ing about it, Sandy has bought a graphics tablet and promptly gave herself huge eye ache transforming an old pic of snow and ice on the front gate into something a bit more artsy and brooding...
All right so I'm probably the artist currently known as not an artist, but I see this as evidence that along with the design course, new avenues are opening up ready for me to walk down and that is a very, very good thing. I'm big on saying keep putting one foot in front of the other and new vistas will open up but at times wish I could either walk a bit faster or the vistas weren't quite so hidden in friggin' mist. You would think that the older I get, the easier being patient would be. Unfortunately it just makes me look at my watch more and mutter 'can we bloody get on with this now?'
You've heard me bitch plenty about not being where I'd like to be at this stage of my life and you'll be thanking the non-existent deity that this blog is not going to be bitchfest version 193.6.29...kind of like iTunes updates, but less prone to fucking up your entire music collection. Noooo, this blog is about hope and where you find it...which is usually not where or when you expect.
I'm a bit of an authority on this, having found the kindest man in the world on the other side of the world and the other side of me thinking I would ever find anyone, evverrrr. I used to work for Dutch cafe owners who told me there is a Dutch saying about relationships which translates as 'there's never a pot so odd you can't find a lid to fit it'. I would have told you a few years back that the Dutch obviously talk out of their arse. As it turns out, they don't and I was wrong. I couldn't see that I was wrong at the time. I could only see a very odd, lonely pot.
I've been thinking a lot about perspective and not only because I've been doing weird design exercises involving masking tape and hand tracing all week. Part of this whole blogging malarkey is me trying to find answers to my own questions, which are endless, apparently. I think I've pretty much plumbed the 'normal' ways of sorting yourself out, whatever the hell 'normal' means. But if I am an odd pot, and by this stage I have to hold my hands up to that one and, as hypno-dude keeps telling me, embrace my uniqueness, why did I think I would sort myself out with normal anyway?
The thing is, you can't always believe what you see. My eyesight is shit, so definitely don't believe what I see. I have Aboriginal heritage and a black mother and but look pure Skippy (Aussie for white Anglo). I'm Sandy, daughter of Norm and Noela. I'm also Patricia, daughter of (freaky coincidence) Sandra and John. Basically I am my own parallel universe. There are fragments of life you can't knit together, no matter how hard you try. But is that necessarily a bad thing?
It can be a bad thing if you like everything neat and ordered and explainable...which part of me does. Part of me would adore being Sandy, uncomplicated boring person, mainly because I think if I was I would have had less headspace trauma and heartache. But then I wouldn't be the fascinating person writing this blog today, har har. I think I've come around to the fact I am where I am in life because I'm meant to see things differently. The self help freaks say this is the universe guiding you along paths that make you grow. I call it an almighty pain in the arse, but at least one that makes me a multifaceted, compassionate human being. Hopefully.
You can see Sandy the Anglo or Patricia the Murri, they are one and the same. In the same way you can see hurdles, burdens, issues and problems and think 'fuck this I am over it' (which I can say is true because I have done it many, many times) or you can see the same things and ask what you need to learn...which I am doing more often although still swearing about it. It's all perspective in the end. You can believe what you want to believe and act or not act accordingly.
I want to continue to open my mind and see what comes out of it other than the occasional bitchfest. I'm not saying there will never be another bitchfest. There may be one in an hour but while I'm willing to grow there is hope for better. And where there is hope there is possibility and where there's possibility there's opportunity and success. That's all the perspective you need, with or without masking tape.
'Perspective' Peter Gabriel
Got a new toy yesterday and I am mahoosively excited!
Yes, after months of to-ing and fro-ing about it, Sandy has bought a graphics tablet and promptly gave herself huge eye ache transforming an old pic of snow and ice on the front gate into something a bit more artsy and brooding...
All right so I'm probably the artist currently known as not an artist, but I see this as evidence that along with the design course, new avenues are opening up ready for me to walk down and that is a very, very good thing. I'm big on saying keep putting one foot in front of the other and new vistas will open up but at times wish I could either walk a bit faster or the vistas weren't quite so hidden in friggin' mist. You would think that the older I get, the easier being patient would be. Unfortunately it just makes me look at my watch more and mutter 'can we bloody get on with this now?'
You've heard me bitch plenty about not being where I'd like to be at this stage of my life and you'll be thanking the non-existent deity that this blog is not going to be bitchfest version 193.6.29...kind of like iTunes updates, but less prone to fucking up your entire music collection. Noooo, this blog is about hope and where you find it...which is usually not where or when you expect.
I'm a bit of an authority on this, having found the kindest man in the world on the other side of the world and the other side of me thinking I would ever find anyone, evverrrr. I used to work for Dutch cafe owners who told me there is a Dutch saying about relationships which translates as 'there's never a pot so odd you can't find a lid to fit it'. I would have told you a few years back that the Dutch obviously talk out of their arse. As it turns out, they don't and I was wrong. I couldn't see that I was wrong at the time. I could only see a very odd, lonely pot.
I've been thinking a lot about perspective and not only because I've been doing weird design exercises involving masking tape and hand tracing all week. Part of this whole blogging malarkey is me trying to find answers to my own questions, which are endless, apparently. I think I've pretty much plumbed the 'normal' ways of sorting yourself out, whatever the hell 'normal' means. But if I am an odd pot, and by this stage I have to hold my hands up to that one and, as hypno-dude keeps telling me, embrace my uniqueness, why did I think I would sort myself out with normal anyway?
The thing is, you can't always believe what you see. My eyesight is shit, so definitely don't believe what I see. I have Aboriginal heritage and a black mother and but look pure Skippy (Aussie for white Anglo). I'm Sandy, daughter of Norm and Noela. I'm also Patricia, daughter of (freaky coincidence) Sandra and John. Basically I am my own parallel universe. There are fragments of life you can't knit together, no matter how hard you try. But is that necessarily a bad thing?
It can be a bad thing if you like everything neat and ordered and explainable...which part of me does. Part of me would adore being Sandy, uncomplicated boring person, mainly because I think if I was I would have had less headspace trauma and heartache. But then I wouldn't be the fascinating person writing this blog today, har har. I think I've come around to the fact I am where I am in life because I'm meant to see things differently. The self help freaks say this is the universe guiding you along paths that make you grow. I call it an almighty pain in the arse, but at least one that makes me a multifaceted, compassionate human being. Hopefully.
You can see Sandy the Anglo or Patricia the Murri, they are one and the same. In the same way you can see hurdles, burdens, issues and problems and think 'fuck this I am over it' (which I can say is true because I have done it many, many times) or you can see the same things and ask what you need to learn...which I am doing more often although still swearing about it. It's all perspective in the end. You can believe what you want to believe and act or not act accordingly.
I want to continue to open my mind and see what comes out of it other than the occasional bitchfest. I'm not saying there will never be another bitchfest. There may be one in an hour but while I'm willing to grow there is hope for better. And where there is hope there is possibility and where there's possibility there's opportunity and success. That's all the perspective you need, with or without masking tape.
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Square pegs and round holes
If nobody loves you, and you're feeling like dust on an empty shelf
Just remember, you can love yourself
'Love Yourself' Keb'Mo
See, I haven't even started writing this blog yet really and I'm already questioning myself over whether I'm going to sound wanky. This must be some sort of sign that what I'm about to say is interesting and important. Or that I am wanky. The fact I'm writing a blog about my life'/struggles/mental gymnastics is kind of wanky anyway, isn't it? Or at the very least, self indulgent. The ultimate word selfie! I'll be taking photos of myself and putting them on Facebook next. Oh, hang on...
Sometimes I really wish I was one of those people who thought enough of what they had to say and contribute to society that they never apologise for saying or contributing. Admittedly a lot of those people are massive pains in the arse who overall have nothing to say or contribute that's going to do anyone any good whatsoever. But what if they say something awesome one day? What if we tell them to bloody well shut up and we miss it and it could have changed the world? I'm going through a headcloud ME phase at the moment and can't think of an example of such a person, but I know they exist. They do. Really.
All of this is leading up to what I want to actually say today (eventually) which is that my whole life I have spent waaaay, waaaay too much effort trying to fit in when what I really should have said was this is me, like it or fuck off. To myself as much as anyone. I am the ultimate questioner of self but have never really asked the most important question: why do I think it's always me who has to change?
Years and years ago I was on a plane from Melbourne to Brisbane reading an article in the inflight magazine about a famous Australian actress and getting irate and wanting to punch her because she said something along the lines of being too expansive for the world she found herself in as a teenager and having to 'halve herself and halve herself again' to fit in. The fact I am recalling this the better part of a decade later is probably enough evidence that I was getting angry not because, as I thought at the time, she was an uppity cow who needed a good slap. It was because Sandy is a halver. I am actually cringing as I type this. Annoyingly, it's not so much because of the thought of being a halver and therefore compromising myself. It's because of the thought of sounding like an uppity cow who needs a good slap.
And if I am an uppity cow who needs a good slap...what the hell does that matter really?? Seriously. I get bollocked by people anyway. What's the difference if I believe in myself or don't believe in myself or am me or not me if I still get bollocked anyway? May as well be true to myself, blue hair and all.
What's brought this all this on, well as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am now a design student (oo er) and now find myself sharing my creative side with an actual arts community. I don't regard myself so much as an artist as a good ideas person who wants to find creative ways of expressing them. There are however seriously arty people doing this course. And that is great, but why does that lead me to the thought 'fark, another place where I'm a square peg in a round hole'?
I am cringing again now because not only I am I now exposed as a halver, I'm one of those people who just wants to fit in. But I don't. But I do. But I don't. But I do. Aaaaagggghhhh!!!!!
Actually, I don't want to fit in. I want to be invisible. I blame my real father. I didn't realise until I met him obviously, but suddenly whole facets of my personality made sense when we were sitting on his balcony in the middle of an enormous block of land and he told me he had bought acreage so he could avoid people. They scared the shit out of him. They scare the shit out of me too. Unfortunately I don't have acreage and do have regardless of blind terror of humanity an absolute passion for all the good interesting stuff in the world and sharing it and contributing to it. You see my dilemma. I want to hide but I can't. Bugger.
I don't really see myself as a square peg in a round hole either. I'm more octagonal and instead of running around trying to find square holes or force myself into round holes I should get off my arse and carve myself out a nice octagonal hole to fit in. Not half an octagon either. A whole one.
Haters gonna hate, but hopefully, one day, the hater that gonna hate me won't be me. Hypno-dude told me a while back that I need to unleash my individuality and I told him the world probably isn't ready for it yet. It probably isn't. I'm probably not entirely ready to not halve myself either, honestly. But I need to. So best get on to it.
Just remember, you can love yourself
'Love Yourself' Keb'Mo
See, I haven't even started writing this blog yet really and I'm already questioning myself over whether I'm going to sound wanky. This must be some sort of sign that what I'm about to say is interesting and important. Or that I am wanky. The fact I'm writing a blog about my life'/struggles/mental gymnastics is kind of wanky anyway, isn't it? Or at the very least, self indulgent. The ultimate word selfie! I'll be taking photos of myself and putting them on Facebook next. Oh, hang on...
Sometimes I really wish I was one of those people who thought enough of what they had to say and contribute to society that they never apologise for saying or contributing. Admittedly a lot of those people are massive pains in the arse who overall have nothing to say or contribute that's going to do anyone any good whatsoever. But what if they say something awesome one day? What if we tell them to bloody well shut up and we miss it and it could have changed the world? I'm going through a headcloud ME phase at the moment and can't think of an example of such a person, but I know they exist. They do. Really.
All of this is leading up to what I want to actually say today (eventually) which is that my whole life I have spent waaaay, waaaay too much effort trying to fit in when what I really should have said was this is me, like it or fuck off. To myself as much as anyone. I am the ultimate questioner of self but have never really asked the most important question: why do I think it's always me who has to change?
Years and years ago I was on a plane from Melbourne to Brisbane reading an article in the inflight magazine about a famous Australian actress and getting irate and wanting to punch her because she said something along the lines of being too expansive for the world she found herself in as a teenager and having to 'halve herself and halve herself again' to fit in. The fact I am recalling this the better part of a decade later is probably enough evidence that I was getting angry not because, as I thought at the time, she was an uppity cow who needed a good slap. It was because Sandy is a halver. I am actually cringing as I type this. Annoyingly, it's not so much because of the thought of being a halver and therefore compromising myself. It's because of the thought of sounding like an uppity cow who needs a good slap.
And if I am an uppity cow who needs a good slap...what the hell does that matter really?? Seriously. I get bollocked by people anyway. What's the difference if I believe in myself or don't believe in myself or am me or not me if I still get bollocked anyway? May as well be true to myself, blue hair and all.
What's brought this all this on, well as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am now a design student (oo er) and now find myself sharing my creative side with an actual arts community. I don't regard myself so much as an artist as a good ideas person who wants to find creative ways of expressing them. There are however seriously arty people doing this course. And that is great, but why does that lead me to the thought 'fark, another place where I'm a square peg in a round hole'?
I am cringing again now because not only I am I now exposed as a halver, I'm one of those people who just wants to fit in. But I don't. But I do. But I don't. But I do. Aaaaagggghhhh!!!!!
Actually, I don't want to fit in. I want to be invisible. I blame my real father. I didn't realise until I met him obviously, but suddenly whole facets of my personality made sense when we were sitting on his balcony in the middle of an enormous block of land and he told me he had bought acreage so he could avoid people. They scared the shit out of him. They scare the shit out of me too. Unfortunately I don't have acreage and do have regardless of blind terror of humanity an absolute passion for all the good interesting stuff in the world and sharing it and contributing to it. You see my dilemma. I want to hide but I can't. Bugger.
I don't really see myself as a square peg in a round hole either. I'm more octagonal and instead of running around trying to find square holes or force myself into round holes I should get off my arse and carve myself out a nice octagonal hole to fit in. Not half an octagon either. A whole one.
Haters gonna hate, but hopefully, one day, the hater that gonna hate me won't be me. Hypno-dude told me a while back that I need to unleash my individuality and I told him the world probably isn't ready for it yet. It probably isn't. I'm probably not entirely ready to not halve myself either, honestly. But I need to. So best get on to it.
Thursday, 3 October 2013
War! What is it good for?
I've spent too many years at war with myself
The doctor has told me it's no good for my health
To search for perfection is all very well
But to look for heaven is to live here in hell
'Consider Me Gone' Sting
Forgive me bloggies for I have sinned, it is several weeks since my last confession. It's just as well I gave the Catholic thing up when I was about 11 or I would be up to my arse in Hail Marys right now and that I can assure you is a place I don't want to be. Apologies to my Catholic friends for whom Mary is a comfort. I don't have anything against her personally, I just don't see the point in asking her to do stuff for me, particularly when I'm capable of getting off my own arse and doing it myself.
The truth of the matter is that I have been living and debating too much in my own head to get the thoughts out in a blog, and that's pretty much another place I don't want to be. I'm not saying it has been a bad few weeks, there's been plenty going on and plenty to be proud of. Plenty to be fucking annoyed at too, but hey ho that's life innit? But along with being overall pretty happy at how life is panning out, I have been more or less at war with me and my own perception of where I should and could be, if I just tried harder. Because that would solve everything, wouldn't it? Apparently.
I don't really do self-acceptance that well and by that I mean I despise what I see as my own weaknesses and this, if I think too much about it, can lead me to despise me...add that one to the list of places I don't want to be, along with Mary and in my head and North Korea and places where they don't sell Vegemite or at least allow you to carry it in your hand baggage. I'm quite tolerant of other people's weaknesses, some would say empathetic and forgiving. Haven't quite got the hang of doing the same for me. But then I'm not worth it, am I? I am, I know I am, plenty of people whose opinions I trust say that I am. I am. But I'm not. But I am. Maybe.
You start to see where the war theme is coming from. Tomorrow, when I'm not feeling so crapped off with myself, I will change my mind but today I reckon I should change my name to Afghanistan because it's a good name for a region where internal conflict never seems to bloody well cease. They could call me Stan for short, or Afghan when I was wearing a fluffy coat. Or Bloody Idiot for wanting to change my name to Afghanistan because I can't sort my own shit out. Aaaaaggghhhhhhh!!
Right, let's talk positives for a minute. In the last month, I have increased my fitness through loads of walking, my diet has improved nutrition-wise, I've started studying design and it's interesting and engaging. No idea where it's taking me currently, but it's expanding my mind. I no longer have the stress of the Home Office hounding me out of the country. Husband and dog love me and the cat tolerates me as long as I feed her promptly. Well, to be fair, she probably loves me but it's hard to tell with cats. Or is that just Cara?
Negatives: probably as a result of increased activity the ME has been biting pretty hard and it's fucking me right off. I'm constantly having to duck and weave around symptoms to get things done at the moment. I missed being in Australia to celebrate my best friend's milestone birthday and was crushed about that and massively homesick as a byproduct. Eased off to just homesick now. Would really, really like to go back to Aus for a visit but not sure when we can afford it.
And the negative which is probably fucking me off the most, not because it's worse or more important than any of the above (because it's not) is despite training for a walking half marathon and eating good food and watching portion sizes my weight is up and down like a friggin' yo-yo. Still. Have been losing and gaining the same three or four pounds for ages. To be fair my weight has been pretty stable for a long time and that's progress for me but not the progress I really want. Pah!!
Is it just that my weight seems to be the barometer for my life? My mood and optimism are up and down at the moment. Scales are reflecting it. Not so hard to understand really, but, sorry I have to shout this because I am really bloody frustrated with myself right now I AM FUCKING SMARTER THAN THIS, WHY HAVE I NOT GOT PAST MY OWN FUCKING DEMONS BY NOW???!!!!!!!
That's it, that's why it's pissing me off so much. There, in numbers, is the proof that despite years of effort and work and tears and anger, I still really don't have my shit together. That's what's getting on my tits really. I would really like to think that at some point all my efforts at trying to improve my headspace and my life would result in someday not having the headspace or life issues that brought me here in the first place. I'm probably all the more frustrated because I do believe it can happen. I believe in the power of people to massively change their lives. I even still believe it can happen for me.
But if I am putting effort into change, working on it, believing in it...why is it taking so fekkin' long??? Faaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk!!!!
This is where the self help gurus talk about living in the moment and acceptance and self love and shit like that. Well all right, it's not shit but I'm really glandy and sore and tired today so they can say it but probably better if they phone me rather than turn up at my door because they might get punched. Put that in your mantra and smoke it!
Last weekend I had one of those illuminating but disturbing moments when you realise how far you have to go. People who have read my earlier posts would acknowledge that while I can be regarded as a tad unhinged I have at least been putting a fair effort in trying to improve myself and my life. Thought I was doing all right too. And I am really, but I think it finally hit me on the weekend how low my sense of self worth really is. Call me dumb, but it shocked me. At the intellectual level, I acknowledge my own value, brilliance, individuality and all the other shit self help gurus go on about. At the soul level...I still have some serious work to do. Hence all the sooky la-la above.
I sometimes wonder whether the ME was the universe's seemingly crap gift that stripped everything away so I could see where I really was and start again. Grinding fatigue has this way of taking everything back to the bare bones. Maybe I needed the current dip to take stock and see where the next battle is. Or being tired and sore is making me delirious and talk bollocks, I'm not sure which.
Either way...war sucks and I am over it. I'm a pacifist at heart. Just need to remember that losing one battle or even four or five or 182 doesn't mean losing the war. No excuses, no surrender!!!!
The doctor has told me it's no good for my health
To search for perfection is all very well
But to look for heaven is to live here in hell
'Consider Me Gone' Sting
Forgive me bloggies for I have sinned, it is several weeks since my last confession. It's just as well I gave the Catholic thing up when I was about 11 or I would be up to my arse in Hail Marys right now and that I can assure you is a place I don't want to be. Apologies to my Catholic friends for whom Mary is a comfort. I don't have anything against her personally, I just don't see the point in asking her to do stuff for me, particularly when I'm capable of getting off my own arse and doing it myself.
The truth of the matter is that I have been living and debating too much in my own head to get the thoughts out in a blog, and that's pretty much another place I don't want to be. I'm not saying it has been a bad few weeks, there's been plenty going on and plenty to be proud of. Plenty to be fucking annoyed at too, but hey ho that's life innit? But along with being overall pretty happy at how life is panning out, I have been more or less at war with me and my own perception of where I should and could be, if I just tried harder. Because that would solve everything, wouldn't it? Apparently.
I don't really do self-acceptance that well and by that I mean I despise what I see as my own weaknesses and this, if I think too much about it, can lead me to despise me...add that one to the list of places I don't want to be, along with Mary and in my head and North Korea and places where they don't sell Vegemite or at least allow you to carry it in your hand baggage. I'm quite tolerant of other people's weaknesses, some would say empathetic and forgiving. Haven't quite got the hang of doing the same for me. But then I'm not worth it, am I? I am, I know I am, plenty of people whose opinions I trust say that I am. I am. But I'm not. But I am. Maybe.
You start to see where the war theme is coming from. Tomorrow, when I'm not feeling so crapped off with myself, I will change my mind but today I reckon I should change my name to Afghanistan because it's a good name for a region where internal conflict never seems to bloody well cease. They could call me Stan for short, or Afghan when I was wearing a fluffy coat. Or Bloody Idiot for wanting to change my name to Afghanistan because I can't sort my own shit out. Aaaaaggghhhhhhh!!
Right, let's talk positives for a minute. In the last month, I have increased my fitness through loads of walking, my diet has improved nutrition-wise, I've started studying design and it's interesting and engaging. No idea where it's taking me currently, but it's expanding my mind. I no longer have the stress of the Home Office hounding me out of the country. Husband and dog love me and the cat tolerates me as long as I feed her promptly. Well, to be fair, she probably loves me but it's hard to tell with cats. Or is that just Cara?
Negatives: probably as a result of increased activity the ME has been biting pretty hard and it's fucking me right off. I'm constantly having to duck and weave around symptoms to get things done at the moment. I missed being in Australia to celebrate my best friend's milestone birthday and was crushed about that and massively homesick as a byproduct. Eased off to just homesick now. Would really, really like to go back to Aus for a visit but not sure when we can afford it.
And the negative which is probably fucking me off the most, not because it's worse or more important than any of the above (because it's not) is despite training for a walking half marathon and eating good food and watching portion sizes my weight is up and down like a friggin' yo-yo. Still. Have been losing and gaining the same three or four pounds for ages. To be fair my weight has been pretty stable for a long time and that's progress for me but not the progress I really want. Pah!!
Is it just that my weight seems to be the barometer for my life? My mood and optimism are up and down at the moment. Scales are reflecting it. Not so hard to understand really, but, sorry I have to shout this because I am really bloody frustrated with myself right now I AM FUCKING SMARTER THAN THIS, WHY HAVE I NOT GOT PAST MY OWN FUCKING DEMONS BY NOW???!!!!!!!
That's it, that's why it's pissing me off so much. There, in numbers, is the proof that despite years of effort and work and tears and anger, I still really don't have my shit together. That's what's getting on my tits really. I would really like to think that at some point all my efforts at trying to improve my headspace and my life would result in someday not having the headspace or life issues that brought me here in the first place. I'm probably all the more frustrated because I do believe it can happen. I believe in the power of people to massively change their lives. I even still believe it can happen for me.
But if I am putting effort into change, working on it, believing in it...why is it taking so fekkin' long??? Faaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk!!!!
This is where the self help gurus talk about living in the moment and acceptance and self love and shit like that. Well all right, it's not shit but I'm really glandy and sore and tired today so they can say it but probably better if they phone me rather than turn up at my door because they might get punched. Put that in your mantra and smoke it!
Last weekend I had one of those illuminating but disturbing moments when you realise how far you have to go. People who have read my earlier posts would acknowledge that while I can be regarded as a tad unhinged I have at least been putting a fair effort in trying to improve myself and my life. Thought I was doing all right too. And I am really, but I think it finally hit me on the weekend how low my sense of self worth really is. Call me dumb, but it shocked me. At the intellectual level, I acknowledge my own value, brilliance, individuality and all the other shit self help gurus go on about. At the soul level...I still have some serious work to do. Hence all the sooky la-la above.
I sometimes wonder whether the ME was the universe's seemingly crap gift that stripped everything away so I could see where I really was and start again. Grinding fatigue has this way of taking everything back to the bare bones. Maybe I needed the current dip to take stock and see where the next battle is. Or being tired and sore is making me delirious and talk bollocks, I'm not sure which.
Either way...war sucks and I am over it. I'm a pacifist at heart. Just need to remember that losing one battle or even four or five or 182 doesn't mean losing the war. No excuses, no surrender!!!!
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Work with me
I've been afraid of changing, because I
Built my life around you
But time makes you bolder, even children get older
And I'm getting older too
'Landslide' Fleetwood Mac
Remember how I said in my last blog that if the shit hit the fan it was all right because shit isn't shit in the end? Well bugger me, I am a prophet because that's exactly what happened. Long story and I am over talking about it and it's time to talk about something else now. But the shit did indeed hit the fan courtesy of the Home Office, resulting in a cross country dash to Liverpool and me getting my permanent residency visa. Stress!!!!! Relief!!!!!!!
Time to do and think and be other stuff now for which I am very bloody grateful and I am sure you are too. There's only so long you can be a moaning minnie about one particular subject before everyone wants to shove your head in a bucket of water and even you think it's a good idea to leave it there.
In the midst of the shit hitting the fan, other than deportation I was thinking a lot about the whole concept of 'bodymind'...that idea of the body and mind being an integrated whole and therefore needing to be treated as one. I should point out that for a lot of reasons I have spent a lifetime and a lot of time and energy trying to keep my body and mind separate. Hard going as even if you don't buy the integrated theory one is pretty much stuck with the other innit? Hmmmm.
I think all you need to grasp the concept of bodymind is to observe the effect of extreme stress on the body, which is what I was doing the day after I found out the Home Office was returning my permanent visa application a week before I was due to become an illegal immigrant. Well, observing the effects of stress on the body and trying not to fall over or throw up, because I had an absolute killer migraine. Why did I have a migraine (a body thing)? Because I had stress (a mind thing). If the body and the mind were separate, would I have had stress but no migraine or migraine but no stress? Hmmmmm.....
Extending that idea...does the way you think about yourself and respond to the world, not just stress, have a direct effect on your body? Louise Hay talks a lot about this stuff. I'm not sure I'm down with her list of emotional conditions and the directly corresponding list of illnesses resulting from it because frankly I don't know if, for example, not being able to forgive your mother for burning your birthday cake when you were 12 can correspond to ONE thing that can go wrong with your body. We are much more complex creatures than that. If it was that simple we'd all be perfect specimens of mental and physical health, wouldn't we? Or am I just overcomplicating things? Wouldn't be the first time haha.
But, but, can't get away from the basic concept that the way you think ultimately determines what you are. If you don't think you can improve your life or you physical or mental health, you probably won't. You only need a crumb of belief to get started, but if you don't have the crumb, don't look for it or choose not to eat it, won't your mind and your body respond in kind and just give up?
In one of those 'confirming your thinking' kismet moments I happened to be reading an old Grazia in the bath this morning (as you do) and they had an article about emotional cellulite, i.e. you may have dumpy thighs because of your inability to let go and forgive yourself. No wonder my thighs are massive!!
All right so you probably shouldn't take the word of women's magazines on complex physiological and psychological issues but do they have a point? If I can get migraine, more hardcore ME symptoms and neck ache through stress, why not incredibly chunky legs? Is the size of my arse a reflection of my lifetime of self loathing and doubt?
I hold my hands up to spending waaaay too much of my life trying to get rid of symptoms rather than address the disease, or dis-ease as the self help gurus call it. Given that I have spent a fair bit of my life in chronic pain, overweight and trying to overcome a past best described as challenging, that is a lot of symptoms and a lot of life and there are some things you can't take pills for, because frankly there are no drugs that good.
There are plenty of times I would have quite happily climbed out of both my body and my mind and gone in search of a better place to live and no that's not a veiled suicide reference. There have been a few occasions where death looked pretty good but I'm too bloody minded to give in basically. I'm only just now getting to the stage where I'm comfortable enough with myself to think my own mind and body are actually OK places to be, even if some fresh paint and repairs are required. Climbing out of your own body and mind is not an option obviously so as the renovation experts say, don't move, improve.
Need to think more about this stuff and what it means for me, the weight, ME and general physical and mental wellbeing. Also call a meeting and convince my body and mind they are actually on the same team. If I can't work with me, who can?
Built my life around you
But time makes you bolder, even children get older
And I'm getting older too
'Landslide' Fleetwood Mac
Remember how I said in my last blog that if the shit hit the fan it was all right because shit isn't shit in the end? Well bugger me, I am a prophet because that's exactly what happened. Long story and I am over talking about it and it's time to talk about something else now. But the shit did indeed hit the fan courtesy of the Home Office, resulting in a cross country dash to Liverpool and me getting my permanent residency visa. Stress!!!!! Relief!!!!!!!
Time to do and think and be other stuff now for which I am very bloody grateful and I am sure you are too. There's only so long you can be a moaning minnie about one particular subject before everyone wants to shove your head in a bucket of water and even you think it's a good idea to leave it there.
In the midst of the shit hitting the fan, other than deportation I was thinking a lot about the whole concept of 'bodymind'...that idea of the body and mind being an integrated whole and therefore needing to be treated as one. I should point out that for a lot of reasons I have spent a lifetime and a lot of time and energy trying to keep my body and mind separate. Hard going as even if you don't buy the integrated theory one is pretty much stuck with the other innit? Hmmmm.
I think all you need to grasp the concept of bodymind is to observe the effect of extreme stress on the body, which is what I was doing the day after I found out the Home Office was returning my permanent visa application a week before I was due to become an illegal immigrant. Well, observing the effects of stress on the body and trying not to fall over or throw up, because I had an absolute killer migraine. Why did I have a migraine (a body thing)? Because I had stress (a mind thing). If the body and the mind were separate, would I have had stress but no migraine or migraine but no stress? Hmmmmm.....
Extending that idea...does the way you think about yourself and respond to the world, not just stress, have a direct effect on your body? Louise Hay talks a lot about this stuff. I'm not sure I'm down with her list of emotional conditions and the directly corresponding list of illnesses resulting from it because frankly I don't know if, for example, not being able to forgive your mother for burning your birthday cake when you were 12 can correspond to ONE thing that can go wrong with your body. We are much more complex creatures than that. If it was that simple we'd all be perfect specimens of mental and physical health, wouldn't we? Or am I just overcomplicating things? Wouldn't be the first time haha.
But, but, can't get away from the basic concept that the way you think ultimately determines what you are. If you don't think you can improve your life or you physical or mental health, you probably won't. You only need a crumb of belief to get started, but if you don't have the crumb, don't look for it or choose not to eat it, won't your mind and your body respond in kind and just give up?
In one of those 'confirming your thinking' kismet moments I happened to be reading an old Grazia in the bath this morning (as you do) and they had an article about emotional cellulite, i.e. you may have dumpy thighs because of your inability to let go and forgive yourself. No wonder my thighs are massive!!
All right so you probably shouldn't take the word of women's magazines on complex physiological and psychological issues but do they have a point? If I can get migraine, more hardcore ME symptoms and neck ache through stress, why not incredibly chunky legs? Is the size of my arse a reflection of my lifetime of self loathing and doubt?
I hold my hands up to spending waaaay too much of my life trying to get rid of symptoms rather than address the disease, or dis-ease as the self help gurus call it. Given that I have spent a fair bit of my life in chronic pain, overweight and trying to overcome a past best described as challenging, that is a lot of symptoms and a lot of life and there are some things you can't take pills for, because frankly there are no drugs that good.
There are plenty of times I would have quite happily climbed out of both my body and my mind and gone in search of a better place to live and no that's not a veiled suicide reference. There have been a few occasions where death looked pretty good but I'm too bloody minded to give in basically. I'm only just now getting to the stage where I'm comfortable enough with myself to think my own mind and body are actually OK places to be, even if some fresh paint and repairs are required. Climbing out of your own body and mind is not an option obviously so as the renovation experts say, don't move, improve.
Need to think more about this stuff and what it means for me, the weight, ME and general physical and mental wellbeing. Also call a meeting and convince my body and mind they are actually on the same team. If I can't work with me, who can?
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Sleepwalking
I tell myself I won't do it again, but I know I will be
Lying in my bed my thoughts racing
Like they always have been
'Wide Awake' The Twang
I am awake. Well, that's probably self-evident, although for all you know I could have the ability to sleep type. I don't, which is fortunate. I manage to contain my mentalist rants OK when I'm awake, but gord knows what would come out of me in an uninhibited sleep state given a keyboard under the covers. Note to self: leave the laptop downstairs!
I am awake in the middle of the night again and it's safe to say after a couple of weeks or three or four years of this I am over it. I'm still not sure how somebody with ME can regularly have sleepless nights. I am however sure the combination is frying my brain. You can imply an apology for lack of bloggage lately and potential upcoming massive rants from that.
While not gracing blogland for the last week and a half I have been busy trying to sort various bits of my life out while the most important bit, whether I get my permanent residency or not, hangs around in the corners like a bitter smirking relative pointing out everything that can go wrong. The relative does have a point. I can work my arse off trying to get signed up with the Open University and getting a stall for a Christmas craft market and thinking about part time jobs, but what's the point if I'm not going to be here? That's a lot of pointing for one paragraph and of course I am going to be here but, but, until I get the barely polite letter from the Home Office saying oh all bloody right, here's your permanent residency, how do I really know? I could be having endless debates with the Open University about my residency status for nothing. That would blow, particularly as I would lose the opportunity to strangle one of their staff. That's a whole other story probably best not told while I'm trying to convince the Home Office I don't have violent criminal tendencies.
This whole process has led to an uncomfortable discovery about myself. I like to think of myself as this easy going, let life take you on an adventure and go with the flow kind of person. As it turns out, I'm actually a rabid control freak. You can tell me that handing my and the kindest man in the world's fates over to an unfeeling, uncaring bureaucracy and having no power over the outcome and feeling a tad stressed by that is a normal reaction and you're probably right but it's that feeling of loss of control over my own destiny that's doing my head in right now.
It will be all right and even if it won't be all right it will be all right because I may be a chronically fatigued insomniac with no brain right now and I don't know how the universe works really but I do know that one way or the other, sometimes with shit hitting the fan and sometimes without, that things work out for the best sooner or later. Warning, I'm about to go Zen master on your arse but some things are just true whether you want them to be or not. If you keep working towards better, shit still happens but in the end it all comes good, even if it's not the good you planned for or expected. That much I've worked out. How not to get stressed during the 'shit happening' part I'm still working on, but I'm sure I'll get there one day.
How not to be a control freak in the face of uncertainty is another thing I need to work on but if I've just acknowledged that life is self-sorting if you let it be why do I feel the need to control everything?? Pain aversion, obviously. Pain can be avoided, certainly, but only if you avoid everything else that makes life rich and varied and awesome. And I want to live, dammit!! I don't want to hide in a nice safe infinitely boring corner. Best learn to take the bad with the good, knowing you can't have one without the other in any sort of life worth having. Yin and yang, woman, yin and yang!!
So life goes on, courses get signed up for, business ventures get pursued, and somehow in the middle of all this I have *looks around furtively* managed to get my eating back under control...six days and counting yeeeaaaahhh!! I've made a decision, I'm not thinking about having lost five stone already. I'm approaching it like I've just started. It's new and shiny and fresh and I'm not complaining about having lost so much but still having so far to go. I just have some weight to lose and every day I wake up and say right I'm eating well today and not thinking about having to do the same tomorrow, or the next day, or in two months. This particular mountain will be climbed, conquered, and danced like a loony on. It's happening. That is all.
Self hypno has also been awesome and while the Sandy who wants instant results might be peeved slightly with what might be termed concrete progress, particularly in the weight loss arena, the holistic bodymind Sandy is bouncing and not only because of the size of my arse. It's evolution rather than revolution right now with the occasional smashing of mind walls. Can't complain at all about that. Beats devolution and despair hands down and I sense the wall smashing is leading up to something big. Could be delusion on my part but I'm still working for better and better will come one way or the other.
Life goes on. And really, it's all good.
Lying in my bed my thoughts racing
Like they always have been
'Wide Awake' The Twang
I am awake. Well, that's probably self-evident, although for all you know I could have the ability to sleep type. I don't, which is fortunate. I manage to contain my mentalist rants OK when I'm awake, but gord knows what would come out of me in an uninhibited sleep state given a keyboard under the covers. Note to self: leave the laptop downstairs!
I am awake in the middle of the night again and it's safe to say after a couple of weeks or three or four years of this I am over it. I'm still not sure how somebody with ME can regularly have sleepless nights. I am however sure the combination is frying my brain. You can imply an apology for lack of bloggage lately and potential upcoming massive rants from that.
While not gracing blogland for the last week and a half I have been busy trying to sort various bits of my life out while the most important bit, whether I get my permanent residency or not, hangs around in the corners like a bitter smirking relative pointing out everything that can go wrong. The relative does have a point. I can work my arse off trying to get signed up with the Open University and getting a stall for a Christmas craft market and thinking about part time jobs, but what's the point if I'm not going to be here? That's a lot of pointing for one paragraph and of course I am going to be here but, but, until I get the barely polite letter from the Home Office saying oh all bloody right, here's your permanent residency, how do I really know? I could be having endless debates with the Open University about my residency status for nothing. That would blow, particularly as I would lose the opportunity to strangle one of their staff. That's a whole other story probably best not told while I'm trying to convince the Home Office I don't have violent criminal tendencies.
This whole process has led to an uncomfortable discovery about myself. I like to think of myself as this easy going, let life take you on an adventure and go with the flow kind of person. As it turns out, I'm actually a rabid control freak. You can tell me that handing my and the kindest man in the world's fates over to an unfeeling, uncaring bureaucracy and having no power over the outcome and feeling a tad stressed by that is a normal reaction and you're probably right but it's that feeling of loss of control over my own destiny that's doing my head in right now.
It will be all right and even if it won't be all right it will be all right because I may be a chronically fatigued insomniac with no brain right now and I don't know how the universe works really but I do know that one way or the other, sometimes with shit hitting the fan and sometimes without, that things work out for the best sooner or later. Warning, I'm about to go Zen master on your arse but some things are just true whether you want them to be or not. If you keep working towards better, shit still happens but in the end it all comes good, even if it's not the good you planned for or expected. That much I've worked out. How not to get stressed during the 'shit happening' part I'm still working on, but I'm sure I'll get there one day.
How not to be a control freak in the face of uncertainty is another thing I need to work on but if I've just acknowledged that life is self-sorting if you let it be why do I feel the need to control everything?? Pain aversion, obviously. Pain can be avoided, certainly, but only if you avoid everything else that makes life rich and varied and awesome. And I want to live, dammit!! I don't want to hide in a nice safe infinitely boring corner. Best learn to take the bad with the good, knowing you can't have one without the other in any sort of life worth having. Yin and yang, woman, yin and yang!!
So life goes on, courses get signed up for, business ventures get pursued, and somehow in the middle of all this I have *looks around furtively* managed to get my eating back under control...six days and counting yeeeaaaahhh!! I've made a decision, I'm not thinking about having lost five stone already. I'm approaching it like I've just started. It's new and shiny and fresh and I'm not complaining about having lost so much but still having so far to go. I just have some weight to lose and every day I wake up and say right I'm eating well today and not thinking about having to do the same tomorrow, or the next day, or in two months. This particular mountain will be climbed, conquered, and danced like a loony on. It's happening. That is all.
Self hypno has also been awesome and while the Sandy who wants instant results might be peeved slightly with what might be termed concrete progress, particularly in the weight loss arena, the holistic bodymind Sandy is bouncing and not only because of the size of my arse. It's evolution rather than revolution right now with the occasional smashing of mind walls. Can't complain at all about that. Beats devolution and despair hands down and I sense the wall smashing is leading up to something big. Could be delusion on my part but I'm still working for better and better will come one way or the other.
Life goes on. And really, it's all good.
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
The rules
Actually I don't really want to call this post 'the rules', because I don't really like rules. But I have this collection of principles by which I live (or try to) and, inspired by Gibbs from one of my all time fav series NCIS, it might be time to get them all in one place. I could go all hippy-dippy and call them life philosophies or learned wisdom. I could, but I think you know why I won't.
As with the famous Mr Gibbs I should probably point out that I don't live by these all the time. They're not aspirational as such, but occasionally one has problems picking oneself off one's arse to live by them. What can I say, I continue to try!
So here it is, Sandyology in a nutshell. Or case, I'm not sure which.
As with the famous Mr Gibbs I should probably point out that I don't live by these all the time. They're not aspirational as such, but occasionally one has problems picking oneself off one's arse to live by them. What can I say, I continue to try!
So here it is, Sandyology in a nutshell. Or case, I'm not sure which.
- Why be half-arsed when you can use your whole arse?
- Life is too short for one hair colour.
- Only listen to the opinions of people you respect.
- Dr Martens ARE appropriate for all occasions, especially now they have ones with high heels.
- Self esteem comes from yourself. That's why it's called self esteem. Don't be looking for it elsewhere cos it's a waste of time.
- Would a fashion designer wear a shirt with YOUR name on it? Think about it.
- Never give up or chicken out. You don't know what good stuff you'll miss out on if you do.
- Strength doesn't come from physical capacity, it comes from an indomitable will. (That might be Gandhi's idea).
- Work for better, live for now.
- How about putting all the energy you use hating yourself into something constructive?
- Justin Bieber. Just don't.
- You aren't always wrong or always right.
- Nobody makes you feel bad about yourself. You allow them to. Deal with it.
- When you take a chance, sometimes good things happens and sometimes bad things happen. If you take no chances, nothing happens.
- Even the bad things can come good in the end if you let them.
- Western democracy would be a good idea. Yeah, I nicked that from Gandhi as well.
- Not everybody loves Raymond.
- Gratitude for the things you have makes you happy and less of a whiny pain in the arse to those around you. Win-win.
- Self-help gurus do have a point, even if you occasionally want to strangle them.
- As Gibbs says...sometimes, you're wrong.
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