Giddy up!

Makes me that much stronger
Makes me work a little bit harder
Makes me that much wiser
Thanks for making me a fighter
              'Fighter' Christina Aguilera

I have only one word to say today and that word is 'wheeeeeeeeeee'. Is wheeeeeeeee a word? Never mind, it is in my book and that's what counts. Have I suddenly become Gen Y or younger and completely uncaring about what constitutes proper English? No. All the same...wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Today Sandy is very tired and massively dizzy.  Hello ME my old friend, you've come to mess me up again!

I fear the last week has caught up with me. Actually I don't fear it. I have gone through most of the gamut of emotions over the last few years since I was first diagnosed and fear has certainly featured quite a bit, along with despair, sorrow, rage and general pissed offness.  Hmmm, another made up word.  Never mind, it's a sign of creativity apparently. Like clomnintigginess.  That may not actually mean anything, but it's creative and that's what counts, apparently. Get me, I'm an artist!

I am also a raving loony today for which I can only apologise but never fear I am a relatively happy one. Or I think I am, I'm too tired and giddy to be sure. Anyway, I don't fear the last week has caught up with me. It's just caught up with me. And it's all right.

It hasn't completely stopped the despair, sorrow, rage and pissed offness but these days I am less likely to fight these kind of days the way I used to. This is partly because trying to fight them got me nowhere except in the shit with my former employers and eventually pensioned off....a process which made me realise trying to fight it actually made it worse.  It turned a bad day into a bad week, a bad month, a bad year and ill health retirement. Post the pensioning off bad days can still quite easily be turned into bad weeks. There's a lesson there. Fighting is not always the way to beat something.

Am I saying don't fight or learn to fight smart? I'm too fucked up today to be sure but there is wisdom to be shared here and I'm sure I'll find it eventually. Patience everyone!

I am both annoyed and attracted by the Buddhist philosophy of accepting suffering rather than fighting it in the hope it enlightens you or at least stops you from wanting to beat the shit out of something. Annoyed because it goes against my and the Western world in general's philosophy that the harder you fight, the more likely you are to win. Attracted because experience has taught me that willy-nilly fighting not only doesn't always work, it takes a lot out of you, making you less able to fight the next battle. And there's always another friggin' battle, trust me.

I've got it now, I'm trying to say fight smart, is what I'm trying to say. Adjust what you mean by fight. Today I am fighting the ME by sleeping in, resting, taking it easy in the knowledge that what that means is I might feel better tomorrow or the next day, as opposed to next week or 2017. Health by stealth!

In accepting where I am today and not beating myself up because of what I can't do, a better tomorrow is a possibility rather than a dream. It gives me a chance to fight harder as well as smarter another day. It means I'm not a pissweak failure but a work in progress.

And better a work in progress than tired, cranky, pissed off and despairing.

Wheeeeeeeeee!!

Ghost busting

Swallow all your tears my love, put on your new face
You can never win or lose if you don't run the race
                'Love My Way' Psychedelic Furs

Am not long back from a 70 minute walk. Go me! Actually, it's my fourth walk since Monday. Go me quadrupled!

I was walking quite a bit earlier in the year but wound up with a knee injury and then there was the month of massive flu, so it's been a while since I hit the road.  Pretty happy that I've been able to maintain most of that fitness even though I haven't been able to exercise for the last couple of months.  It's absolutely streets ahead of where I was a couple of years ago. Success!!

I did hit the wall ME wise yesterday after a big week of poorly husband and poorly cat and job applications and mind blowing self esteem concepts but in one of those kismet moments it's resulted in another breakthrough and it was all because I refused to give in to sooky Sandy and decided to self-hypno myself out of a self beating uppage dip instead.  I do find it a lot harder to stay positive when the ME is kicking. I bloody hate being tired and then I wind up in a 'how long am I going to have to put up with this shit' spiral and before you know it I am despairing of everything and hating myself with a passion and then hating myself more for allowing myself to drop into the spiral in the first place. You can see why I need to harden the hell up.

Chronic illness is a bitch and there's no getting away from it but all I can say is don't let it rob you of a second more of life than you have to. Actually that's not all I can say. I would also look for the gifts in it.  That's not the rantings of a nutter, that's the observation of somebody who has learned a lot about what matters in life from being chronically ill...in my case, most importantly, the amount of energy you waste with thoughts and beliefs and habits and people who are basically bullshit.  I don't think I would have learned that if I hadn't had nearly all the energy sucked out of me by ME and realised the bullshit was taking what little I had left. Would have preferred to learn it by reading a nice book, but hey ho, whatever works!

Anyway, was shattered most of yesterday and by the evening was letting Sandy-bashing slip past my lips (sorry, hypno-dude) and sliding down a bit into the spiral of wallowing sookiness.  This is where I start to think I may have actually learned something over the last few weeks because I wound up saying 'fuck this' and forced myself to sit down and self hypno. Success again!!

That wasn't the breakthough though...

While I was self hypnoing, my thoughts drifted off to a dear friend of mine, the bass man, who died four years ago. It's a long, long story but let's just say while I loved him, the last couple of years of his life in particular ripped us both to shreds and since he's died I have been haunted by what was done and said, what should have been done and said and how I should have done better, apparently. Because I'm always supposed to do better, aren't I? Apparently.

Grief is another bitch and it can really mess with your head and where the bass man is concerned the mess has been pretty fucking messy.  I honestly believe that most people do and act the best they can with what's put in front of them in life, but particularly when associated parties are no longer around it's easy to suck up the guilt and the blame...even if the guilt and blame are basically figments of your own tortured imagination.

Last night, in the middle of my self hypno, my thoughts drifted off to the bass man and something in me just broke and I said enough. Enough of carrying around real and perceived blame. Enough of the guilt for things that I shouldn't feel guilty about and can never, ever go back and change. And I let it all go.

I'll never forget him and I don't want to forget him but I can't carry the can for our mutual failings any more. It's too much. It's too much and I don't deserve the shit I have given myself dragging the can around for the last four years.

Game over.

I woke up this morning feeling like a ton of bricks had been taken from my shoulders and I swear looking in the mirror it's taken a couple of years off me too. That second bit could be the paranoid about ageing Sandy having a major delusion but either way, I'll take both.  I'm just happy that I seem to have finally reached a point where I can let this particular part of the past go.  I hope the bass man is happy too, wherever he is.

Sporting chance

When you feel the heat the world is at your feet
No-one can hold you down if you really want it
                   'The Cup of Life' Ricky Martin

I bloody did it!! I applied for a job without having a panic attack!!!

Got up yesterday morning, got on the lappie and bashed out the application by lunch while being only slightly distracted by ABC Grandstand Digital's coverage of State of Origin!! Well OK, I could have turned it off I know. But I couldn't. But I could have. But I couldn't. It's my cultural heritage! Not going to happen!

Anyway, could not have been further inspired in my attempts to move upwards and onwards than by listening to my beloved Queensland side slaughter New South Wales.  Ah, my boys did me proud!

OK I realise that a large number of you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. State of Origin is an annual three-match rugby league competition between Queensland and New South Wales and is probably the most intensely fought rugby league competition in the world. The. World. I'm not just saying that because I like rugby league and support Queensland. It is sheer power and fury. It is freaking awesome.

This victory was particularly sweet because the current Queensland side had been branded by the opposition as old, fat and past it.  As somebody who has frequently felt old, fat and past it, I can't help but take encouragement from my boys proving everyone wrong. Especially Johnathan Thurston, who pulled himself off a drip in hospital to play and blitzed the entire match. Legend!

Even if you're not into sport, that sort of character and tenacity can't be faulted.  Picking yourself up off your arse and keeping going despite everything? Winning even when everyone is screaming at you that there's no way? Isn't that exactly what I'm trying to achieve with this self help malarkey?

Isn't that what we all want deep down, really? Unless you're one of those sooky whingy princesses that expect everything handed to them on a platter and I don't think there's many of them reading this blog. Although they probably should.

When you are backed into a corner and by you I mean we, you have two choices: sit in the corner and cry, or fight your way out of it.  There have been plenty of times I have chosen the sitting and crying option. I freely admit it. Hello, my name is Sandy and I have been a sooky la-la more times than I care to count. But today I pledge to you, myself, and the Queensland State of Origin side that I will continue to find ways to fight and win.

It's only a job application, but it's a big step forward for me in terms of confidence and getting my life back. And I bloody did it. Happy. That is all.

Now what's next?

You say you want a revolution

Sometimes we gotta go
Where nobody knows your name
Leave all the things we knew
And learn how to start again
             'I Go Hard, I Go Home' The Presets

Well, today didn't go quite as planned. Not in a bad way, just after my pledge yesterday about finding and conquering a scary thing and finding not one but two scary things, I had slightly different things in mind than having a massive wardrobe clearout and hauling off two huge bags of good but not really Sandy clothes to the local Age UK shop. Is this me trying to avoid the scary things, or simply another part of the self help clearing of the decks? I'll go with the second. Works for me haha.

The scary things chosen for the testing of my confidence mettle is applying for two jobs I found online yesterday. The fact I am typing that without cringing, palpitations or wanting to eat my bodyweight in chocolate digestives is, believe it or not, progress. I am obviously a fuckup but you've already worked that out by now. I have had jobs and a couple of them were quite creative and responsible, but it's been a while and let's just say my last job ended car crash fashion in 2009. Ah, 2009, the year of living dangerously. I didn't get sacked or thrown out in disgrace or arrested for fraud, but the ME was bloody awful and employers take a dim view of people who arrive late, leave early and have to nap in the loo to get through a morning's work, even in the civil service.

They pensioned me off in the end so you could say that was that and the ME is better now if not gone and let's move on, shall we? Except now, when I'm feeling half human half the time and would really like a job for the extra cash and intellectual stimulation and social interaction and all the good things that come with jobs, 2009 still haunts me like a bitter vindicative relative.  There have been times when even looking at online job sites has been enough to give me panic attacks.

Combine that with moving to the other side of the world where I'm not that sure really how the job market works and you begin to understand that this whole job search malarkey is a big, big deal for me. It says something for how far I've come in the last few weeks that I'm writing about it and not sitting in the corner rocking. Success!!

Of course, I have to still actually apply for these jobs but I'm feeling pretty good about it right now. I can't vouch I'll be the same should I manage to get an interview, but one step at a time.

The clearing out of the clothes today kind of took me by surprise but it's more progress.  Fat women and their clothes have a love-hate relationship and by that I mean there are plenty of things that you only wear because nothing else will fit over your arse. You don't like the clothes and going by the way you look in them, they're not too keen on you either. It's easier now that I've lost five stone, but I have made a resolution. I'm never wearing or buying any item of clothing that will just do ever again. Hence the culling of the just dos today.

While I was having my massive clearout, I was listening to an interview with Boy George on 6 Music and in one of those kismet kinds of moments he talked a fair bit about clothes and style. About finding your own groove and letting it evolve with you.  I'm pretty big on this whole thing of evolving as a person and expressing it in how you live, including how you dress. Who wants to do or be the same their whole bloody lives? Apart from my whole family and most of the people I went to school with, that is. Why would you want to restrict yourself that way?

I've only just managed to convince the kindest man in the world that David Bowie isn't an opportunist who changes his image for fame, he's an artist and the different personas are part of the artistry. I'm not Bowie by any stretch, but I kind of aspire to evolve my style and my life in a similar way.

Of course, moving to the other side of the world has brought this all into sharper focus for me. It scares the crap out of me at times, but by the same token I'm very conscious that not many people get the opportunity to leave everything behind and completely remake themselves. It's a gift I don't want to waste, which is another reason for the self help malarkey.  I've let enough pass me by through fear and self loathing. Enough already. Just bloody enough.

I don't know who Sandy will be this time next year or next decade, but for once, I'm looking forward to finding out.

Seeing is believing

'You take what you get, you get what you please
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees'
                       'US Forces' Midnight Oil

Feeling quite bouncy this morning and no that's not a fat comment.  I did a reasonably late night self hypno session last night which was focused on this new mind blowing concept of feeling at ease with myself and also eating like a thin person. Woke up this morning feeling epic! Have had my thin person breakfast and nuclear strength coffee and I'm ready to rock!

Later this week I have to provide a mid week report to hypno-dude with not only what I've done but evidence of progress. I am to provide concrete examples of how I am improving in the whole confidence-building stakes. I'm feeling too epic to say 'eeeeeek' but it does bring into focus a niggling thought in the back of my head from last week that it's all very well floating along on this fairy floss cloud of self help satisfaction, but the actual goal is to change my life...i.e. go out and do stuff I wouldn't or couldn't have done pre the self-help malarkey.

I think I've made progress, the kindest man in the world thinks I've made progress, hypno-dude thinks I've made progress and we are all intelligent, observant human beings so I'll take that. Admittedly the kindest man in the world is utterly biased where I'm concerned and that may affect his judgement to a degree. He just thinks I'm wonderful all the time, which is of course a crock of shit. He's upstairs asleep in the moment but I sense his lovely blue eyes getting that hint of steel as he pounces on my perceived self beating uppage. Nobody is wonderful all the time, not even me haha but it's nice there's somebody around who will argue to the death that I am.

So what is progress? Need to think about this one as the less shitting on myself from a great height part is good and feeling better about myself and my ability to change my life is also good. I am however the queen of pragmatism and as such I want to see practical outcomes of all these head games.  Weight loss is obviously one.  Not being terrified to get out and apply for a job is another.  I have a few business ideas I'm working on but need a bit of supplementary income while I'm sorting those out and honestly, I need the social interaction as well. I think I've mentioned before if I spend too much time at home, even productively occupied, the agoraphobia starts kicking in and that's not a road I want to go back down.

Confidence to keep chipping away at the business ideas is another one as I do tend to have a mental spasm occasionally and not work on stuff because I convince myself I and the ideas are shite.  They aren't shite and neither am I but every now and then I get that rabbit in the headlights feeling and freeze and nothing gets done.  You can see why I need this self help malarkey. I'll get there one day I'm sure.

There's plenty to be cracking on with there. Need to pick a couple of things I'm shit scared of and do them I reckon. I'm starting to feel the eeeeeek welling up underneath the epic.  The eeeeeek can go do one!! No surrender!!!

Missions for today: pick scary thing to conquer and think about how to conquer it.  Self hypno to power conquering of scary thing. Continue to have mind blown by concept of feeling at ease with myself. Seriously, it's been a revelation. I can feel at ease with myself?? Really??? No wonder I feel epic...

The days of judgment

'Still so young to travel so far
Old enough to know who you are
Wise enough to carry the scars without any blame'
                         'Distant Sun'  Crowded House

Saw hypno-dude yesterday and am feeling quite a bit better about my ability to crack on with this whole self-help malarkey...which is good, as I was absolutely flogged and desperately searching for pins to stick myself with to stay awake on the train trip down to his. It would have been a bugger to have gone in that state and come back thinking well now I am not only flogged but despairing of myself as well. It wouldn't have been the first time I've been both flogged and despairing of myself, but it's not a state I recommend lingering in.

We talked a fair bit about confidence and Thailand and bullying and Dr Martens and vodka and being at ease with yourself.  The first five I can discuss with some authority, even if I only really have a grip on Dr Martens and vodka, but this idea of being at ease with yourself is something I haven't really considered before. That you can just be comfortable being you in any social circumstance. Comfortable being yourself? What sort of strange magic is that?

I want to be me, have worked hard on being me, been militant about my right to be me, and occasionally have even been happy to be me.  At ease with me? Nevvvvveeeerrrrr. Well maybe not never, but I can't think of any examples of times where I have been, so nevvvvvvereerrrr is probably right. I'm always agitating in my head about wanting to be better and do better and while I don't think that has to necessarily have to be a bad thing (because why else would you move on in life) it's rooted in a feeling of not being enough...for me or anybody else.

This is where the hippy dippy pan pipe CD playing incense burning positive affirmation chanting freaks come in and pat my hand and say it's because I was adopted and had issues with my adoptive family, there there dear, here's a tissue.  Thanks for the sympathy, but fuck off. We are the masters of our own destiny, our own self esteem, our own levels of ease with ourselves. The fact I was adopted or that my adoptive family was a bit psychotic and never really understood where I was coming from may be regrettable but it was me who chose to believe that made me not enough.  Nobody held a gun to my head and said now shit on yourself or else.

I've talked before about having this veneer of confidence over the nervous shambles that is the actual Sandy and you could say it works in social situations for the most part.  When we went to Manchester the Yorkshire rose and I discussed confidence and not having it and trying to get it and she said if I hadn't told her, she would never have regarded me as somebody with confidence issues. The veneer kind of works and it might help me wing life, but I'm bloody sick of flapping. At ease with myself? Wow. Just wow.

We all get so sucked in to what other people think though, don't we? I seem to have had a few discussions about bullying and general prejudice this week. Hypno-dude told me yesterday about how he got beaten up regularly in high school. I got tormented for being fat and having sight problems. My best friend in high school got shit because he was gay. The kindest man in the world got bullied for liking the Beatles and having acne and recently got branded a pervert for telling somebody she had nice eyes.  A friend of mine in Glasgow, one of the strongest, most fabulous women I know, took up running at 20 stone and is now 14 stone and has people laughing at her in the street for daring to be a fat runner. People get judged on their background, their size, their skin colour, their sexual preference, their clothes, their hairdos, their accents.  At this point I would just like to say to everyone who's out there thinking somebody else is weird because of how they look or where they're from or what gender they shag or what they choose or don't choose: will you please just calm the fuck down and live and let live?

I don't understand this gang mentality where everyone has to dress the same and speak the same and do the same to be accepted and where everyone who doesn't conform is viewed as a threat to be smacked down. We live in an age where we are supposedly above prejudice and value individuality. Pig's fucking arse. Do the gang members really think they're superior, or are they so insecure in themselves they need to pull down anybody that threatens their idea of normal?

More to the point: why do we, the so-called freaks, allow ourselves to get sucked into somebody else's narrow minded bullshit ideas of how we should live? And by we I mean me. Yeah, me, Miss You Are Responsible For Your Own Actions And Reactions, the one who needs to learn in middle age how to be at ease with herself because she allowed herself to think that everybody else was right and she was wrong.

Why does anybody read this blog, I am obviously a whackjob. But at least I'm an evolving whackjob. Suck that, judges of normal.

Lost in translation

'I said to the man 'do you speak my language?'
And he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich'
                      'Down Under' Men At Work'

Sandy is relatively back on deck after what could reasonably be described as a godawful week of fatigue.  May be over the flu though, she said, wishing she believed in any kind of god so she could ask the flu gods for mercy.  Fatigue levels not really helped by trips to Liverpool on Monday and an overnight trip to Leeds and Manchester yesterday and today. Hey ho, would have been buggered anyway. Might as well get out and live!

Food becomes more of an issue when the ME is kicking and it's not just a comfort thing. Sometimes it's literally an attempt to stay awake. Need to work out why I feel I have to stay awake when the option is there not to be.  Displaced sense of social propriety? Guilt? Sheer bloody stubbornness? I tend to suspect A, B and C with a distinct leaning towards C.  Regardless, in terms of food control, it ain't good and considering I've been barely able to move for a month with this currently lovely flu/ME cocktail I've gone from feeling like a beached whale to feeling like a beached whale in calf. Bloody awesome.

Self-hypno has also gone a bit belly up (pardon the pun) i.e. it hasn't happened since Sunday.  Well, I did have a crack at it last night, but I fell asleep in the process. I see hypno-dude tomorrow so hopefully he'll slap some sense back into me. Literally or figuratively, I don't mind. Will deffo do a session tonight.  My motto for this year has been fall down seven times, get up eight. I'm getting back up.  No surrender!!

On the upside I have managed to skirt around emails from not one but two companies that sell Australian foods here in the UK and by food I mean mainly crap.  Because all homesick Australians need to stuff themselves stupid with Australian lollies and chips, apparently. That's sweets and crisps to my UK readers. Nothing says Australia like a bag of banana-shaped lollies that taste slightly of banana but mainly of nuclear fission.  I'm sure they tasted better when I was younger and that's probably why they should carry a warning saying 'may contribute to your arse becoming massive in the mid to long term'. Probably wouldn't have taken any notice of that when I was six, though.

I have not, touch wood, been unbearably, gutwrenchingly homesick since I've lived here but I have definitely had my moments and that's where insanity like 'I need to buy some Black & Gold musk sticks, Arnott's Mint Slice, Fruit Tingles, Jatz crackers and Twisties so I can feel closer to home' starts to kick in. What the actual fuck? Maybe if I made all the empty packets into a raft they might get me over the English Channel, but they're not going to get me to another hemisphere.  Food is not a plane ticket. If it was I would have gone around the world first class 300 times by now.

You're probably gathering I'm a bit frustrated with my own weaknesses at the moment and you would be right. Fortunately this time around, despite being both exhausted and homesick, I only filled up the online shopping cart with crap. I didn't actually buy anything. Success with relatively minor levels of annoyance!

There's a fairly logical sequence of events going on here, really. I'm been crook for a month. (Crook is Aussie for sick.) ME is kicking because I've been crook for a month. So am crook and tired and when I'm crook and tired I feel vulnerable and the first thing you want when you're vulnerable is comfort and something familiar and when you're 10,000 miles from home, sometimes the familiar can be very, very thin on the ground.

I need to dig my heels in and harden up on this one because the ME is not going away just yet and Australia's not getting any closer. Although I did watch something on the BBC last weekend which reckoned the whole continent is moving north and will eventually crash into Asia.  That should save me a shitload of money in airfares to Thailand should I ever move back home.

Twisties and Fruit Tingles might taste of home, but they're not home. They can't do what I want them to, because nothing can. I am an expat. No amount of shite food from anywhere is going to give me what I really want, which is that sense of being with people who get what you're about and what you're on about. Who won't give you blank looks when you go on about pointing the bone, bushwhacking and secret women's business. None of those are sexual innuendos, by the way.  I wouldn't have to tell an Aussie that. Sometimes it's a relief to talk to somebody who just gets it.

I don't think all is lost, though. Last night in Manchester me and my friend the Yorkshire rose were at the MEN...two women who met a couple of years back after spending their lives on opposite sides of the world, yet were as one while both belting out 'It's A Sin' along with the Pet Shop Boys. You really don't need Fruit Tingles to feel part of something. You just need some kindred spirits.

Things to ponder 6

Transmission has been temporarily disrupted...

ME kicking. Sandy very, very tired. Normal service will resume shortly....

Revelations

'I've got a song that I can sing
If I fail to sing it and my soul be lost
Ain't nobody's fault but mine'
              'Nobody's Fault But Mine'   Blind Willie Nelson

Ah, the twists and turns of the psyche.  After my big rant yesterday about not being able to hide and not wanting to hide, I proceeded to stuff my face...which says there is a big chunk of me that still wants to hide. Bloody awesome. Still, nobody said the road to well adjusted was easy. Back to work.

That's all you can do, isn't it? Get back to work, I mean.  What's your alternative? Go backwards? Stay maladjusted? Moan about what you could have done or been? Fuck that. I don't know how it happened but somehow, despite all the odds,  I've managed to get to this stage of life with hope left in my heart that I can do better and be better. There's a reason for that, I'm sure. If nothing else, the fact I'm a nosy cow makes me want to keep working so I can find out what.

We all want the bloody magic wand though don't we? Somebody to come along and say there there dear, let me fix it. To absolve ourselves of  responsibility for ourselves and our actions. It's all too hard. There's too much to do. I'm not up to it. Boo freakin' hoo, I'm a sooky la-la, I can't be arsed to do anything but feel sorry for myself. Harden up!!  You're better than that!!

Apart from anything else, what if you used the energy you used in wallowing to do something constructive? Self pity is not the easy way out. It is fucking hard work. Changing your life is work. If you have to work, why not work at something positive and see where it takes you?

What I SHOULD have done yesterday when looking for a place to hide was not bury myself in the bread bin. Should have self hypnoed for one.  Didn't think of it in the heat of the moment. Eating is the reflex action of decades. That's not an excuse, it's a statement of fact but it needs to change and it will. Probably something to work on with the self hypno where I tell the unconscious mind what it needs to do when I'm feeling threatened.  (Why do I call it 'the' unconscious mind? It's mine innit?)

There's your magic wand. It's called thinking things out and acting positively on them.  Look at me, I'm my own fairy godmother!

In the end, what do you learn if all your problems are magically taken from you by something or someone else? I don't want to be like one of those lotto winners who wind up with millions and then piss it all up because they don't know how to deal with it. When I get skinny and well adjusted, I want to stay skinny and well adjusted. I don't want to keep making the same mistakes over and over until I learn what I was supposed to in the first place. Note to the lotto gods: this does not mean you shouldn't give me millions.  I promise I won't spend it all on handbags and vodka.

Today is Father's Day in the UK. Neither Stormin' Norman or John-boy (my adoptive and birth fathers respectively) are around these days and I know we had our moments fellas but I do know this, you both did the best you knew how to do. And for that I thank you, wherever you may be x

Things to ponder 5

Yer not from round 'ere, are yer?

The years ended in confusion
Don't ask me, I don't know what happened
But I am a man with a mission
Must be the devil I don't know
Finally marching to a different tune
                           'I Walk Away' Split Enz

Today I have been into town and owned Asda! Well maybe not owned it, but this carrying myself with confidence malarkey has been getting a bit easier.  I decided that one of my (many) issues is while I have no problem glamming up if I'm going out, my motivation for looking good mooching around the house or on errands is not so hot. This is at least partly because the little East Midlands market town we live in is not, bless its cotton socks, renowned for its thousands of stylish residents.  The kindest man in the world insists I'm the best dressed woman in town, but even he admits it's not a high bar to jump.

So the effort in looking good going out has not always been there and I don't wish to sound shallow but it has had an effect on my confidence.  This is where the kindest man in the world chips in with 'you are not shallow darling, and if anyone says you are I'll kill them and use their feet for slippers'. You have been warned haha.  It shouldn't matter that I look a bit of a bag of shite when everyone around me looks a bit of a bag of shite. But it does. But it shouldn't. But it does. It does and it doesn't matter that it does. I am not shallow. Really.

So I did my hair and whacked on a bit of slap and walked out of the house with my head up and owned the bus and town and Asda.  I could have owned Home Bargains as well, but one has to maintain some standards.

I have a dilemma. I'm a bit of a whackjob. I have eccentric dress sense. My hair colour can't be found in nature. And I do love that about me, I really do, buuuttt....part of me just wants to blend in with everyone else.  It's that hiding thing again. Hello, my name is Sandy and I am a walking contradiction in terms. I can't hide, there's no way I can hide.  I'm loud and enormous and I have a foreign accent. I can't hide and I don't want to hide. But I do. But I don't. But I do. Aaaaaaaghhhhhh!!!

Why even fret about it if it's never going to happen? Another bloody waste of energy!

They say the older you get the less you care about what people think and it's true but not true enough for me. I still haven't accepted who I am. There it is.  How old do I have to get for it to happen, 103?

If it's never going to happen and at this stage of my life that's pretty much certain, then I should just stop dreaming about hiding, right?  Right.  I'm not from around here.  I'm from the other side of the world, for fuck's sake. Even when I was on the other side of the world, I wasn't from around there either, really. So shall we just embrace our individuality and move on?

I like makeover shows, but they annoy the shit out of me at the same time. Yeah OK some of the makeover recipients are in serious need of help, but by the same token, why do they all come out looking polished, but basically the same? Are you not really 'made over' until you've become generic?

I want to be me, but why has that not been enough for some people? More importantly...why has that not been enough for me?

Missions for today: self hypno and no more hiding.  I shouldn't be trying to do it anyway.  I am really, really crap at it.

Onwards!

Of science and the human heart, there is no limit
There is no failure here sweetheart, just when you quit
                             'Miracle Drug' U2

Occurred to me yesterday in my still flu addled state that I've done a lot of philosophising on this blog lately but not a lot of updating on actual progress (smack botbot). The whole self help malarkey is going pretty well, I think.  I didn't get to see hypno-dude last Saturday after all, as he was ill and has had to reschedule, so he may have something different to say when I see him next. He's got a reputation for being a bit of a hardarse, which I haven't really seen yet. Could change haha.

Overall the self hypno is, I think, going really well now. Seem to be able to get in the zone and stay there for a good twenty-five minutes to half an hour without any hassle.  Have had to work on a few practicalities to achieve this idyllic Zen state, including keeping the Kransky sisters under control.  The Kranskys be our cat and dog, Kira and Cara, who as stepsisters get on pretty well but occasionally the cat element likes to stir the pot by unsettling the dog element...usually when you are on the phone, deeply involved in a TV programme or, in my case, trying to nuke my brain into positive action with the self hypno. I don't think wanting to strangle one of our furred companions is really a desirable outcome of working towards and achieving an alpha state. Solution, when self hyno-ing one of the Kranskys is locked out of the room. Ahhhh, peace.

I should explain that the Kranskys are named after The Kransky Sisters, an Aussie comedy act the premise of which is three elderly stepsisters who put a happy family face on and yet are massively suspicious of each other. Pretty much sums it up as far as the furry Kranskys are concerned.

Self confidence wise...going pretty well too. I don't call myself a stupid bitch anywhere near as often and when you have spent most of the last few decades calling yourself a stupid bitch every 6.3 seconds on average that's pretty good going. I am neither stupid nor a bitch. I do know it really but it has been very, very easy to revert to stupid bitch mode under duress or when things aren't going to plan. Which let's face it in modern life is pretty much all the time, for all of us. Best learn not to blame ourselves for the foibles of the 21st century. We might think we're shit at times but you can't really blame yourself for the accumulation of centuries of social disintegration. Even I can't hate myself THAT much.

The kindest man in the world, who has been keeping a close eye on the self help proceedings, also thinks the whole self beating uppage on my part has drastically decreased, so it's not just me lulling myself into a hippy dippy sense of self satisfaction. Success!!

Still thinking about the whole projecting confidence thing and trying to do it when I remember, which unfortunately is not that often. Not deliberate but keeping all the balls in the air is not my forte. So semi success on that one.  I do have a new hairdo and am looking at my wardrobe.  I mean I'm not just looking at the wardrobe, that would be weird, I'm looking at my clothes and what I'd like them to say about me other than I really, really love Dr Martens.  Ideally I would like to project an off the wall confidence and competence...because if it's not off the wall, it ain't me. The idea of this exercise is enhancement, not erasure. I don't want to be anything other than me, just the upgraded super-luxe rockstar version. I've got it in me I'm sure.  Just need to find it first!

Weight wise....weighed myself this morning and am the same as two weeks ago.  Would have liked to see some progress there. What is progress? Losing weight, apparently but willing to accept there is more to progress than that. Kind of. Yes there is. I think. There is. There is!! I am more than a number on a bloody scale!! Eventually this confidence malarkey is going to morph into some more weight loss action I am sure.  For the moment I'm just happy not to be stuffing my face with Kit Kat Chunkies because I'm frustrated by not being able to lose weight. I do see the paradox there, but at least I'm not stuffing my face with Kit Kat Chunkies.  So success there too.

So much of this weight loss game is between your ears.  I want to be back in the weight loss zone and get the job done, and I'm sure that I will be and that I can.  But I've gone past just wanting to be the skinny chick. I want to be the skinny, happy, confident chick. If being all three takes a bit longer that just being skinny...so be it.  I'm going for the trifecta and I'm going to win.

Onwards and upwards. That is all.

Things to ponder 4

Regrets, I've had a few

Hello, my name is Sandy and I am obsessed with the TV show 'Hoarders'.  If you haven't seen this, it's basically about people with chronic hoarding issues and by chronic hoarding I don't mean they own a few too many things. I mean they are swamped by crap. Some of them sleep in their cars because there's no room in their houses any more. They can't use their kitchens or bathrooms because they can't get into them.  Their families and friends are almost literally pushed out the door by a solid wall of largely useless garbage. Some of them see there's a problem and some don't. But whether they see it or not they all have the same problem: they just can't let go of things that are ultimately destroying their lives.

The kindest man in the world, who is generally pretty tolerant of my love of reality TV, can't watch it and I totally get that. It can be very painful viewing.  A couple of the participants I have wanted to reach through the TV screen and punch because of their apparent inability to see that they are destroying not only their own lives, but other peoples', or their complete ingratitude that other people have made the effort to try and help them out of the shitpit that they themselves have created.

Whoohoo, what a vista of frolics and laughter! No wonder you watch it, I hear you saying, and by that I mean I can hear you muttering 'bloody hell, what would you want to watch that freakshow for' and again I totally get that. The thing is, I also get the show participants.  I may not live in a house packed to the rafters with empty cans and cat poo, but I understand. While also horrified and occasionally having to at the screen with my hand over my face, but I understand.

My name is Sandy and I have been a hoarder. You can get through my front door and sit down and have a coffee anytime without the fear of a wall of boxes falling on your head, so don't be afraid to come around to my house, but I hold my hands up to hoarding. I've put a lot of work into not doing it any more, but occasionally I need to force myself to have a good clearout.  Because while a hoarded house is bad, a hoarded mind can be even worse.

If you've read my previous blogs you've probably worked out by now my life has been a tad eventful and it has, at various phases, left me with a lot of baggage that I have successfully and unsuccessfully managed to unload. I say both successfully and unsuccessfully because I think I'm pretty good at the taking responsibility for my own reactions to things part. What I haven't been so good at is letting things go and if you watch Hoarders often enough you know what that means. It means you get buried alive under a pile of empty pizza boxes, ten month old milk, unwashed clothes and manky Christmas cards from 1973.  Not a place you want to be, but if you let that stuff accumulate long enough you can have a very, very hard time getting out from under it.

Why do I still allow space in my head for the people who shat on me, the opportunities I missed, the things I fucked up, and all the rest of the crap which I can not only not go back and change but has occasionally stuffed my head so full that it's left me outside myself not knowing how the hell to get back in?

I don't believe in living in regret, because you can't go back and change anything.  Not the people who you shouldn't have trusted, the job you didn't put quite enough into, the bone you broke, the massive hangovers, the friend you lost, the time you ate your own bodyweight in Jaffa Cakes. None of it. It is gone. End of. Game over.

And yet somehow I still find myself at times thinking that if I had done better, been better, managed better, WAS better....those things somehow would magically have not have happened and I would be sitting here a well adjusted woman who is not at all unhinged or obese. And maybe it could have happened that way. It didn't. Suck it up and move on.

I don't want to spend my life clinging on to boxes of garbage, or even things that are attractive but clutter me up.  I've seen it stuff up people too often. A dear friend of mine, now departed this earth, spend most of his life accumulating bad memories and regrets and wound up shoving nearly everybody out of his life. I still occasionally shake a fist at the heavens and tell him 'you could have been happy, you stupid bastard', in the same way I occasionally shake a fist at myself and say 'you can be happy, you silly bitch'. It's too late for him, but it's not too late for me.

The self hypno is my cleaning crew at the moment and I hope to soon have a pristine mind free of negative crap in which I can live a happy, contented, productive life. I will not hoard stuff which is useless to me any more. I, and the people I love, deserve better than that.

Confuse me?

Why'd ya have to go and make things so complicated?
                        'Complicated' Avril Lavigne

Occasionally, I am awed at how incredibly simple it is to overcomplicate something.  You go looking for this finely honed, well thought out solution to an issue and then it suddenly hits you that you are overthinking it in spades.  Today's great revelation is this. I don't need to fret about how I split up my self hypno between self confidence and weight loss. I am meant to be doing 2 self hypno sessions a day. I can....gasp........spend one session a day on each!!!!!!!!!

Absolute freakin' genius. Both things get covered adequately and also encourages me to do both sessions every day! I am a self help goddess!!

When you are facing big, complicated issues in your life it is so easy to think that the solution also has to be big and complicated. Sometimes, it's just a matter of looking at things differently. I talked a few days ago about interpretation and perspective and they've been bouncing around in the back of my head since like a couple of annoying beach balls, but really the way you perceive things determines both your quality of life and the way you work through things. Or indeed, IF you work through things. There have been plenty of times where my perspective on things has paralysed me to the point of not being able to do anything.

What the hell is the point of that? Your own mind jamming up under stress, I mean. I have done it many, maaaaany times and fairly recently I might add.  You know you have to move on, change, evolve and yet your own perception of what that might mean terrifies you and by you I mean me. I may not like it, but at least I own it.

At least one of my weight loss issues has been not being able to drop beyond a certain point (i.e. where I am now). You could say this is due to physiology or my abiding love of cheese but part of it is definitely fear.  I've never really been below this weight in my adult life.  Who is that skinny person I'm trying to be? Will I like her? Will she be a bitch? Fat Sandy is bloody terrified of her, really. Fat Sandy needs to go and do one but you see what I mean.

Realistically, how bad can Skinny Sandy be but it's the unknown innit. Loss of identity, even though I don't particularly care to be identified as that huge loud chick. Loss of protection, like fat protects you from anything other than cold and I'm not a bloody Eskimo am I! And........................OK this is the first time I have admitted this in public, so be gentle with me.  Loss of excuses.  Fat Sandy has reasons for being a pathetic loser, because she can't even control what goes in her own gob, the stupid cow. Skinny Sandy has no excuses. She's just who she is. She can achieve whatever she wants to achieve. She doesn't have limits.

That woman scares the living shit out of me.

I want to be her, but I don't think I can live up to her standards. Does that make sense?

So there you have it, I am a fucking nutcase obviously but at least a moderately self aware one. Now how do we move on from here?  Because I am over being frozen in my own insecurities. One thing chronic illness teaches you is how much of your life is wasted on bullshit, and living like this, frankly, is bullshit. You owe it to yourself to grab hold of every good thing in life and run with it, not eye it with suspicion and fear and wonder what the hell to do with it. And by you I mean me. And you.

There is no confusion here, I want to change and I will change, and Skinny Sandy isn't just a scary enigma. She is me, minus the bullshit. And I can't wait to meet her.

Fever in the morning, fever all through the night

You are responsible for your life. You can't keep blaming somebody else for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on. - Oprah Winfrey

I have the flu. Again.  Actually I'm not sure if it's three flus in the last four weeks, or the same flu that pretended to go away and then pounced back on me ninja style when I was lulled into a false sense of non-fluey security.  Not happy about this, but feeling quite positive about other stuff which is good because I had what I think is an illness-induced meltdown on Friday night. As it turned out even that had a positive because I corrected myself instantly when complaining about my inability to change.  No, said Sandy, I can change, just some days it appears more difficult than others. Success!!

I really do feel like a big pile of poo this morning, sore throat and banging headache, but at the same time I'm kind of buzzing with creative energy.  One of the things I've been doing with the self  hypno 'dissociation-reintegration' stuff is suggesting to my unconscious mind that one of the things that should replace the negative shite is creativity. I've always been a pretty good ideas person but feel my creative side has been stifled somewhat and by that I don't mean just my ability to write, paint, or do traditional 'creative' things but come up with creative solutions to issues.

Let's face it, life is a complex thing and sometimes 'normal' ways of doing things don't cut it.  Or as Oprah once said, keep doing the same thing and you'll get the same result. I can't believe I've quoted Oprah, let alone twice in the one blog. Doesn't matter because it probably wasn't her quote anyway, but you get where I'm coming from.  What's the point of banging your head against a wall because the thing you've done to try and change your life has failed 300 times, even though it's what you 'should' be doing? Obviously it's not your lack of effort, or you wouldn't have done it 300 times. Sometimes different tactics are called for and it takes a bit of lateral thinking to find out what they are.

The hypno is one of the different tactics for me and I'm hoping from that more expansive ideas will come on how I can make my life better, in all ways.  I bang on about my weight and that's obviously a big issue (pardon the pun) which I'd like to resolve. I'd like to expand my creative life.  There's an artist in me trying to get out. That sounds like a major wank but is basically true.  I'd like to think more outside the box. Some would say I'm far enough out of the box already but you don't know what awesome ideas Sandy will come up with once she loses the fear of being laughed at, or worse, given that 'oh dear, what's she on about now' look.

I got that look growing up. A lot. Largely because I was a slightly off the wall kid living in the land of 'what yer wanter do THAT for'. Let's just say that outer suburban Brisbane in the seventies and eighties was not a hive of creative energy and the height of my aspirations was meant to be a nice job in a shop until I got married and spawned. Which is fine if you want to work in a shop until you get married and spawn, but is a bit of an arse if you don't.  My father didn't even want me to finish high school for fuck's sake.  Waste of time, all that reading, if you're only going to get a nice job in a shop until some bloke says 'you'll do'.

I'm slightly or very pissed off with myself that I allowed all that to hold me back and that even when I went all 'in your face, expectations!' by going to uni as a mature age student I probably didn't get everything out of it I could have because I didn't really think I belonged there. Why the hell not?? I belong anywhere I want to be, end of.

The only mental limits we have in life are the ones we put on ourselves.  The only person who can remove those limits is us.

Missions for today: self hypno and thinking outside the box. I've got some catching up to do. Fortunately, I also have the power to do it.

Things to ponder 3

Massive flu. That is all.

The juggling act

Oh dear, have fallen to pieces with fatigue the last couple of days.  Arse!! I would say 'not happy' but I'm too tired to be unhappy.  Which is some sort of positive at least.  So is the fact that I seem to be more and more catching myself before I say shitty things about myself. The shitty things come when I'm constructing the sentence in my head, but I'm pulling myself up and not letting the shitty version come out of my mouth.  The goal is some kind of nirvana where I don't have the shitty thought to begin with. Remarkably, I'm also quite positive about reaching that state. So although I didn't do any self hypno yesterday (smack botbot) progress is evident and Sandy is happy.

I'm probably fretting a bit too early in this process about all this positive energy not really translating into controlled eating. Miracles should happen after a week and a half of positive thinking and self hypno. Apparently.  This week has been pretty erratic in the eating arena and it's not thrilling me much but as I said in an earlier post may have to suck that up temporarily while concentrating on the confidence/self esteem issues, which ultimately are why I'm fat.  Just don't ask me right now would I rather be skinny or have great self esteem. The answer may not be entirely politically correct, but I at least realise now I can't have one without the other.

I sometimes get massively frustrated with my ability to keep what I see as all the necessary balls of my life in the air.  Why shouldn't I be able to work on my confidence, eat like a weight loss champion, exercise, look after the kindest man in the world, the dog, the cat and the house, maintain good friendships, come up with and develop great business ideas, focus on finding a job, expand my mind and look fabulous while still being basically chronically ill with ME? Why? Because I'm not a fucking octopus, that's why but for some reason I still feel like a failure for not doing all of the above and more. You see why I have to focus on self-esteem right now.

I know a few gorgeous women who are in the same position only more hardcore because they have kids. I would never dream of calling them slackers or useless or failures.  I think they are awesome, and tell them as much on a regular basis. Why am I not that, even though I don't have kids? Why are my 'weaknesses' so much more terrible than other people's?

I sometimes despair of my utter freaking headcaseness, I really do.

I don't think it's a bad thing to have high expectations of yourself, that's how people achieve in life, that's how art is created and records are broken and science has breakthroughs and all the other fabulous things that happen when humans extend themselves mentally and physically. But the line between high expectations and unrealistic expectations seems to be a bloody fine one. Or is that just me?

I don't want to be lazy or mediocre or half baked, but I also don't want to be continually fretting about not getting (as I see it) far enough fast enough, in my weight loss, my emotions or my life.  Largely because I can see how it backfires on me in self beating uppage and loathing, thereby paralysing me, thereby making me not progress far enough fast enough. Hmmm, seeing a pattern here...

Missions for today: self hypno, self belief, and remembering I am not a fucking octopus.  They're very tasty fried with loads of salt and chilli, but I don't want to bloody be one.

Things to ponder 2

Brand me slightly dubious

I know much smarter men have never got this far
                                'Monsoon' Robbie Williams

Went into town today and had a crack at the 'positive body language' malarkey that hypno-dude suggested to me last week.  Decided to start simply by trying not to be so conscious that I'm squinty and limpy and currently sporting a really bad hairdo. Seriously, it needs work. I'm getting it sorted out this Thursday. Major zhoozing required!

Managed to walk a little taller, shoulders a bit further back and didn't feel squinty or limpy. Success!

I probably need somebody objective to tell me if it's actually the case but I think I do manage to project confidence a fair bit of the time. Not feel it certainly, but project it. Or maybe I kid myself into thinking I do, because otherwise I may not get out the front door. I'm well past the serious agoraphobia of my twenties, where I went through a stage of being almost literally too scared to go out of my bedroom, but it still bites me on the arse every now and then. If I don't get out often enough it can get harder and harder to do it so part of my harden up routine is to force myself out the door when I'm starting to get a bit jittery about it, which seems to keep it under control. I don't really kid myself that I could never go back to the bedroom-lurking days. I won't, but I could.

I know I rant about hippy dippy attitudes but there's enough of the egalitarian hippy in me to be slightly pissed off that projecting confidence matters.  I'm sure it's a direct result of having been judged on my appearance (ie fatness) my whole fucking life but I absolutely refuse to judge anybody's worth on how they look, dress or present themselves. Except for myself, of course, that's different innit. Apparently. The kindest man in the world has massive issues about being bald and having skin problems.  I couldn't care less. That man's heart  is more beautiful than the lushest head of hair or porcelain-like skin in the world. It's the person that matters, not how well the package is wrapped. Except for me. I do realise the hypocrisy there.

Another thing that gets my hackles up is this concept of 'personal branding'. I understand why people want to do it, particularly in a world more and more driven by image, but by the same token  it makes me despair for humanity.  The cynic in me also says it's a really, really good way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear. I worked in marketing and communications for a while, mainly promoting government initiatives and programmes.  Let me tell you, I made some friggin' beautiful silk purses out of some incredibly manky sow's ears. They were still bloody sow's ears. As the Americans like to say, you can't polish a turd.

But, and I am literally scewing up my face as I type this, maaaaaaaaybe branding yourself wonderful isn't so bad.  I suspect that ultimately it's better for one's psyche that what I've been doing, which is branding myself shit. It wasn't deliberate but it was the natural consequence of walking around thinking and saying that I am shit, thereby projecting the message 'I am shit'.

All those silk purses out there may actually be sow's ears but at least they attempt to like themselves and think they're worth something. Is that bad? It's better than what I'm being doing to myself. Innit?

I keep going on about contributing to the world but part of what's brought me to this journey of self discovery was the realisation that branding myself shit doesn't only affect me.  It's affected everybody I could have helped, encouraged, made laugh and inspired had I not been so tied up in bloody knots with my own insecurities. For that, world, I am sorry. I'll make it up to you eventually.

Past it

Sooner or later, we learn to throw the past away

                    'History Will Teach Us Nothing' - Sting

Interpretation is everything. - E. H. Carr

I'm torn at the moment between blogging and lying out in the sun in the hope the sunshine will nuke the germs out of my fluey body. Yet feel I am on the verge of articulating something cool, so blogging it is.  I may of course be feverish, so if I wind up spouting a crock of crap you can blame it on that.

No self hypno yesterday (smack botbot). I would say does thinking about it count but this may land me in the poo with hypno-dude when I go back and see him this Saturday. No excuses, no surrender!!! The kindest man in the world has said both last night and this morning that he thinks I'm doing well and has noticed I'm not shitting on myself from a great height anywhere near as often.  Also thinks the process is allowing me to 'reprocess things and put them in another basket'. I'm not sure what basket yet or where I should put it or if I should just throw it out. I'm sure this will become clearer as time goes on. 

Have been thinking about the process and premise of the hypno and how it allows you to reinterpret things in ways that make you not want to shit on yourself from a great height.  The thing that sold me on hypno was the simple concept that the unconscious mind doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction.  This kind of blew me away when I heard it, because suddenly me being desperate to change, willing to work on change and yet being seemingly unable to change made perfect sense. All the shite my unconscious mind had sucked up from others and me about being useless, unloveabale and dumb as a bucket of rocks was still lurking even though intellectually I know none of those are true. Mostly. No, I do. Mostly.

When I was at uni I studied historiography, or the study of the ways history is written and for what reasons.  I realise history isn't a popular subject these days, mainly because Gen Y think nothing existed before them and the internet but I'm into it, mainly modern sociopolitical stuff (ooooo, get me) and have always been fascinated by different interpretations of why things happened and continue to happen.  Because regardless of whether you like history or not, things happen due to cause and effect. There are reasons the world is the way it is and there are reasons I've spent a large part of my life feeling useless, unloveable and dumb as a bucket of rocks. 

Historiography will tell you that facts exist, but interpretation of those facts comes purely from you, your experiences, your background, your slant on things.  Does your interpretation make the facts wrong or right? No. Does your interpretation of the facts shape your view on the world? Yes.  The Vietnamese call the Vietnam War the American War. Australian Aborigines call the British colonisation of Australia invasion. Are they wrong?

Dwelling on the past is fucking pointless and I don't want to do it or suggest that anybody else does but I am more than happy (well not happy, but still) to hold my hands up to the knowledge that my interpretation of my past is basically what's fucked me up and by that I mean yes shit things did indeed happen and they can't be regarded as anything other than shit.  But it was me who chose to believe on some level that those things actually made ME shit.

Fact, people who start a sentence with the word 'fact' are really annoying but we really are responsible for hauling our own arses into gear and becoming happy, productive people who can contribute something to the world rather than sooky la-la's wallowing in our own puddles of self-induced loathing. And ok, some of us have to haul their arses further and longer to reach this enlightened state. Suck it up, princesses.

Things to ponder 1

Another Gandhi moment. That is all. 

Now and Zen

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. - Gandhi

Going to try and keep this one brief today as I seem to be getting some bloody fluey thing not that long after getting some other bloody fluey thing and there are a few alarm bells going off in my head about a possible ME dip, which is not going to friggin' well happen.  After a couple of OK years with it this year has been a bit of a struggle, I think due to a very, very hard winter here in the UK and me trying to kickstart a new business.  Let's just say that pacing myself is not my forte but over the last few years I have had to learn or wind up with permanent viral ache and/or having to sleep all day.  I repeat, not going to happen.

Very happy with the self hypno yesterday when I was non-hungover enough to do it haha. It is progress, and if I'm making progress, I'm happy. My normal inclination is to want to progress about eight billion steps forward a day but my inner Zen master tells me even one step forward a day is fine.  This sometimes makes me want to tell my inner Zen master to go fuck themselves, but that's only because I'm annoyed that they're right.  Also need to accept that some days one step takes the effort of about eight billion so don't knock the one when it happens. It's still forward, that's what counts.

Advice from hypno-dude on Friday was also to work on projecting positive body language. I am to consciously move as a positive person free of crap. I'm going to have to think about this one, not because I don't want to do it but I'm not totally sure how to work it in practice. I do know there are times I'm out where I just wish I could do what I have to do, not talk to anyone and go home and/or shrink into the background unnoticed where I am (apparently) safe.  Realistically nobody who's five feet nine and seventeen stone can shrink into the background, particularly when they dress like me, but the thought occasionally comforts me while at the same making me want to slap myself stupid for such terrible logic.

The fat has definitely been a hiding mechanism and it says something that your mind can somehow lead you to honestly believe you can hide from the world when you are (as I was) 22 stone. What the actual fuck? You can't hide a moving target, let alone a bloody enormous one!

Was very sad to wake up this morning to news from Aus that Mandawuy Yunupingu has died. Mandawho Yunuwhat I hear you ask? He was probably best known internationally as the lead singer of Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi, but was also an incredible motivator and educator, somebody who worked hard not only to improve the lives of his own people, but for reconciliation and frankly in Australia that can be a hard road to hoe.  I have to thank him not only for his work but for a song which has motivated me to get off my arse and sort myself out for the last twenty years. It's not his or the song's fault it's taking so bloody long. (Inner Zen master now reminds me about the one step. Persistent git.) RIP Uncle.

(By the way, please, please don't watch the vid to this, just listen to the song.  Note to Youtube users...if you are going to do a lyrics vid, get the lyrics and spelling right!!!!!)

Anger management

Sometimes I wonder what all these chemicals are doing to my brain
Doesn't worry me enough to stop me from doing it again
                               'The Nips Are Getting Bigger' Mental As Anything

Hello, my name is Sandy and I am not an alcoholic. Today however, I am massively, massively hung over.  How the hell did that happen? I mean, I know how it happened but I don't really do massive hangovers. I have a foolproof plan for avoiding them which involves only drinking vodka and soda. Usually works a treat but I had no soda water to take to our friends the Lambretta King and his missus' place last night. Wound up taking light cranberry juice instead.  See, it's the bloody fruit, not the third of a bottle of vodka!

As a result it's now about three in the afternoon and no I have not done my self hypno today yet because I was in bed until about two feeling really good as long as I didn't attempt to move. Normal service will resume  shortly I am sure. I would say I'm never going to drink again but I'm Australian and to speak such heresy may result in me being thrown out by the immigration authorities when I try and go back. I'm sure I saw an episode of 'Nothing To Declare' where that happened.

Progress report from yesterday. One self hypno session done and quite productively I think, but need to work out a way to alert the kindest man in the world when I'm doing it because he'll wander past and start having a chat, disturbing the aura of Zen calm I've worked so hard to develop.  Maybe I need to hang a sign around my neck.  It's not as simple as just telling him 'I'm going to self hypno now, please bugger off' as it may be he's just come down from having a sleep and I'm not going to wake him up to tell him stuff unless it's about something really important, like football scores or Thatcher dying. Also can't say 'if my eyes are shut just walk on' as he's partially sighted and sometimes can't tell. Need to get my thinking cap on about this one.

When I saw hypno-dude last Tuesday, one of the things he asked me was if I had a lot of anger and I've been pondering this one for the last few days.  I don't regard myself as an angry person. This may be a tad delusional on my part. I get angry at myself for allowing things in my life to crush my self esteem and occasionally lead me to eat my body weight in crisps.  I get very angry at stupidity, and given the current state of the world and the number of fucktards that are given air time these days that is a shitload of stuff to get angry at.  My friends on Facebook are used now to me ranting about the stupid actions of governments, the EDL, Justin Bieber, moronic opinions about immigrants and people who are threatened by marriage equality.  Gay marriage threatens the institution? Fucking spare me. Think of an argument against it that isn't based in fear, ignorance or religious superstition and I will still disagree with you but at least you've thought it through intellectually rather than dribbling biased shit.

Had better stop that train of thought before it turns into another rant haha but yes I do get angry and I sometimes wonder whether it's a way of deflecting my own crappy self esteem. Yes I am passionate about social justice, inequality and wanting to shoot Simon Cowell before he inflicts any more shit music on the world, but in some ways those things are a lot safer to get angry about than thinking about the hole I've dug for myself and getting angry as hell that I didn't put my energy into something more productive.

The problem, if you can call it that, with assuming responsibility for your own big pile of poo is that you can't blame anyone else.  I don't want to blame anybody else for my pile of poo, and I will not blame anyone else for my pile of poo. My life, my responsibility, end of.  But if I don't want to blame anyone else...why am I so happy to blame me? Aren't I worthy of the same respect I give other people? Other than members of the EDL and Justin Bieber, of course. I can't respect morons.

I don't want to be angry with me because it's yet another waste of time and energy in pursuit of happy well adjusted Sandy and frankly more than enough time and energy has been wasted in that regard. All it does is get me deeper into the cycle of self beating uppage and that's one particular roller coaster I am frigging desperate to get off.. Lesson for the day, accept damage done to self without judgement. Can't change the past, but can work towards a better tomorrow.

Let's get metaphysical

OK so only three or four days in but this new journey of self awareness seems to be chugging along fine so far.  Self-hypno done yesterday and update sent to hypno-dude, who has reassured me that my wandering mind is not a problem (in this regard anyway haha) and gently suggested I may be overcomplicating the crap out/good stuff in part a tad...which doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I think that sometimes I need to think less about thinking.  Do you think I'm right? I thought so.

In terms of how all this is affecting my outlook, I do feel like I'm making progress in feeling like a worthwhile human being but it hasn't stopped me eating.  I put the full stop there because that's where the full stop came in in my mind and better to put it there and acknowledge it, ather than rethink it into something more socially acceptable. I don't want to stop eating, really. I made a pretty good bulimic in the past but I would be an absolutely terrible anorexic. Fancy not eating at all! I don't want to stop eating, I just want not to think about it so bloody much (there's the thinking thing again, bugger it). This week has not been stellar in the food stakes but I did weigh myself this morning and I'm only up a pound so that's good going as far as I'm concerned.

I am (admittedly reluctantly) coming around to the thought I may have to put my weight loss (five stone so far, go me) on hold a bit while I work on other stuff that needs fixing,  which let's face it probably was the cause of being ten stone overweight in the first place. Do I just want to be thin, or do I want to be happy in myself and relatively well adjusted? Do I have to choose? Right now? Aaaaaggghhh!!!

This morning I've been rereading a very fine book, 'Living Well With Pain and Ilness: The mindful way to free yourself from suffering' which I first bought when I arrived in England two and a half years ago. Two and a half years? That doesn't sound right. No, it is. Forgive me, I've been back and forth so much in the last few years, and am so crap at maths that it's hard to keep track. I bought it a while ago, that'll do. I'm currently rereading it primarily to see how I can help the kindest man in the world, who after 28 years of type 1 diabetes has, among other things, major neuropathic issues with his feet which are currently keeping him awake at night and painkillers and medication really aren't cutting it. What do you you do when Western medicine has no answers, but you still want quality of life?

The author explains it's an attitude adjustment. She's a Buddhist and very into the whole 'suffering is caused by wanting' philosophy of Buddhism, in this case, suffering is caused not just by the pain but wanting not to have it and railing against it. So there's primary suffering (being in pain or ill) and secondary suffering (fighting and railing against it, or trying to block it out completely) and ultimately it's the secondary suffering which affects your life the most and makes you miserable.

I do have issues with this whole suffering caused by wanting thing, which is probably as much my ignorance of what it really means as much as anything. But, but, have to also accept that a lot of the pain in my life has been caused not by the actual shit things that happened but how I responded during and after.  But, but if you just accept everything that happens to you in some Zen induced hippy dippy it's all written in the universe way, doesn't that make you a victim? Haven't some of the greatest injustices in the world been stopped by fighting them?

Obviously I haven't really got to grips with the book yet. Maybe the answer's in a chapter I haven't read but I can't get away from the knowledge that trying to run away from (block out the suffering of) stuff that has happened to me has never, ever helped me feel better or be a better person. Fuck knows I've tried!!

In the end, you can't escape pain of some sort, can you? It happens to us all, physically, mentally and emotionally. Are you going to spend your whole life bitching and whinging about it or learn what you need to learn from it and move on to something else? If the pain is permanent, are you going to spend your whole life bitching and whinging or are you going to learn from it and grow? Well, Sandy, are you?

I have two very dear friends back in Australia, Gary and Tanya, who lost their four year old daughter to meningococcal disease a couple of years ago. We visited them when we were back in Aus last year. Their pain is still excruciating and obvious, but at the same time they're carrying it with a dignity that awes me. In the two days we spent with them, Gary said something which I think will be with me forever, that he has fully accepted that there's going to be an undercurrent of sadness in him for the rest of his life. No bitterness, just acceptance. Does this bring his daughter back? No. Does it let him live the rest of his life and look after his wife and son in the best possible way? Yes.

I'd feel like a twit chanting and incense does my sinuses in, but the Buddhists may just be on to something.