Listening to Dad.

On the mornings I drag myself out of bed at 5.30 (yeah, yeah ok, 5.45… 50. SHUT UP.) my lovely Dad drives me to the train station on his way to work. And every morning, just before I fall out of the car and stumble my way to the platform, he says two words to me. In fact, they are the same two words he says to me most days – whether I’m glaring at him grumpily from the passenger seat, heading back to work eight hours after I’ve arrived home, or popping to the supermarket or going to the doctor. At 6.45 this morning, as I untangled my bag from the seatbelt and tried to get my foot to fit into my trainer (I am the very epitome of a ‘morning person’), my Dad turned to me and said ‘have fun’.

As with most mornings he received a derisive snort and a less than cheery goodbye wave but, once I’d arranged myself into a fairly neat pile of human, clothes and book, his words came back to me. I tend to think that when he says these words he’s being ironic, sarcastic, some other word ending in –ic that describes his attitude to the world perfectly. But… what if he’s not? What if my Dad – the quiet, moody old chap that I spend my life arguing with over things that don’t matter – is trying to tell me something?

My Dad is a funny combination of someone who finished their education at 12 and has produced three (ok, two plus me) fairly intelligent children whilst spending his life torn between struggling for the simple things and ignoring the fact that he is – like his littlest child – an emphatic thinker. We tend to ignore that side of him because that’s what he wants us to do. He’ll sit and stew over bits of life that we wouldn’t even have stopped to think about and then tell us to ignore him. But this time, I think I might take him up on his suggestion.

Maybe it is just a blasé comment, a routine phrase from when I was small(er) and skipped off with my Mum to do exciting things while he went to work and was under paid for doing too much. Or maybe he’s giving me the best piece of advice I’ll ever get.

Today I put a smile on my face and ignored the fact the train made me 25 minutes late into work. I laughed, I joked and – after being released from my prison cell two hours early (see, smiles work!) I dumped my shopping bags against a fence and sat on a swing. We don’t get another chance at life. If work gets you down tomorrow, laugh. It doesn’t matter. Leave it at the office and walk in your front door without the frown. If you’ve too much studying and the essays are piling up, take a good hard look at what you’re doing and appreciate the fact that it was all your choice and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get somewhere. But most of all, folks, have a little fun with your day, with your week, with your life. What else have we got at 6.45 when the trains are delayed and the tickets are too expensive and we know that once we get to work we’re just going to end up being interrupted every ten minutes by someone whose dog has peed on your nice, clean floor?

Things to remember…

Today is World Mental Health Day. Perhaps you’ve heard about it, perhaps someone mentioned it in passing, maybe you’ve seen Google’s special desi- oh, no, wait, they didn’t do one, did they? Interesting.

I’m not going to tell you that it’s important for you to pay attention to mental health issues. If you don’t know that then I’m not sure I can be bothered to waste my breath. But one in four of us are going to wake up tomorrow morning and we’re going to test the mental waters of our minds because we don’t know what’s going to be there. One in four of us are struggling, are waiting for help, are on the verge of giving up or fighting a bloody hard fight that we might need some help with. I don’t like to preach but I’m not one of the three; I am that one and I’ve spent a lot of time realising that there are things that help and things that don’t.

If you’re a one – if you ever have been or you’re not quite sure but, you know, sometimes it gets a bit full up in your head or your mind starts racing and you just can’t breathe – then you should remember some things. They’re personal to you but these are mine and they might be yours one day too.

This doesn’t define who you are:

Whatever the thoughts are, whatever they do to you and wherever they come from… they’re not you. You is the thing that gets trodden on and kicked aside while they run riot in your brain and you is the thing that is left nursing the bruises when they’ve gone. Sometimes it feels like the things that are going on in your head, your chest, your life are all you’ve got. Sometimes the labels you’re given can make it seem like you and your problems are the same. But that’s not true. You and the negative/intrusive/disruptive thoughts are separate entities and as soon as you realise this, you’re getting there.

You’re not mad:

You might be. I am. Utterly, bafflingly loopy. With cherries on top. But not because I have a ‘disorder’, not because I sometimes freeze in shops and have to leave without buying anything, not because I have had panic attacks over things that make absolutely no sense at all. It’s not madness. It is, quite frankly, an illness and it is something that you can learn to live with. If you start foaming at the mouth and chewing arms off babies, you should probably scratch this one off the list but otherwise, it’s not madness. It’s horrible, it’s scary, it  makes you feel different and it makes you feel shit but I promise you, you’re not even on the way to being mad.

People aren’t always going to understand:

I don’t want children. Not even remotely. I can’t fathom why anyone would want a… a baby. I mean, YUCK. The only maternal bones I have in my body are reserved entirely for four-legged furry things and people who need cakes making for them. My mum thinks it’s bizarre and I think she’s an idiot for repeatedly showing me photographs of small, bald humans who all look EXACTLY THE SAME.
That’s the thing, see. People are very, very different. Each of us is so far from the next person that we may as well all be our very own individual species. Sure, your boyfriend likes the same music as you and your best friend laughs at the same TV shows. Doesn’t mean she’s going to know what you mean when you tell her that you have to touch this corner 17 times or everyone you love is going to die.
I wanted people to understand. I expected the people who love me to just get it, the way you assume people get you when you can chat to them for hours. But they can’t, not all of them and not all the time. All that matters is that they let you talk about it, they listen and they hold you afterwards. Honestly, it makes no difference if they come out of the conversation even more clueless than they were before. Just as long as the conversation happens.

Get to know yourself:

This is the most important thing in the world. Once you realise this, I honestly believe you can do anything. It takes a while. The more you find out, the more you realise there is to know. It’s probably going to be the most relentless battle you’ve ever had but keep at it. Eventually you start to recognise the warning signs and work out things that you can do to help. Perhaps you’ll need advice on this or maybe, like me, you’ll be a stubborn arse and take the long route. It doesn’t matter, just don’t give up. Work out what makes you happy and find a way to build a life that makes those things a prominent part. It might mean sacrifices, it might mean hard work but good god, it’ll feel good when you get it. Mostly though, just cut yourself some slack. You’re brilliant. You’re the best friend you will ever have and the most important person you will ever know. If you can’t accept yourself for who you are – bad weather and all – you’re going to have a hard time in life.

There’s always someone there:

Pick up your phone and call your friend/a sibling/your parents. Talk to your cat. Take that bloody difficult leap and go to see your doctor. Visit the Mind website or have a look at what the people at Time to Change have to say. Read that book where there’s the girl who thinks exactly like you and you have to keep stopping to re-read sentences because you’re pretty sure you said that once. Listen to that song that made you cry the first time you heard it because they’d written it for you. Don’t do any of those things, do something else. But there’s always someone, somewhere.

Maybe you’re thinking that you’ll never be able to think these things or get to this point. Yeah, I know that. I used to read these things and people would say that one day something happened to them and they changed everything. Nothing happened to me. I guess I just got sick of it being so damn loud in my head and so quiet in my life. 6 years ago I spent a year of my life pretty much only leaving the house on Saturdays (to go to football, of all places). I’d look in the mirror and want to carve off bits of my body. I couldn’t have a conversation with my own brother and I was awake until 5am every night, because the thought of closing my eyes and not being in a position of control was terrifying. Now… I have a job that involves a lot of speaking to people, I have almost made it through a very stressful month in one entire piece and I am not even remotely freaking out about the hairdresser’s appointment I have booked. Am I fixed? No bloody way. But I’m more ok than I used to be and that’s all any of us can ask for.

And you never even know who pushed you.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Hannah scooped up a handful of peanuts and dropped them one by one into her mouth. She cast him a scathing look as she crunched them, sighing as he blew smoke across the garden and returning to her chiding as soon as her mouthful was gone. “You can’t expect falling in love to be easy. It’s shit. Really shit. Remember all those times you got too drunk to stand and fell down the steps outside some club or another? Sometimes you fell awkwardly and the bruises stuck for a week, the next time you landed softly and laughed for half an hour? Well, that’s what falling in love is like. Doesn’t matter how grand the steps are or what dive they lead away from, the fall feels the same until you land. Landing is the scariest thing because that’s when you get to see if there’s anyone waiting to pick you up and kiss you better.”

Jack stubbed his cigarette out against the cracked side of the ashtray and poked at the ashes with the burnt out end. He nodded solemnly but didn’t bother to raise his head. She knew he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about but when it came to love that was probably the whole point.

I have a storm inside of me…

I have a storm inside of me… It’s always been that way. Part of me is cloud and rain and sometimes hail and snowflakes… The weather can change in an instant.

I am reading the most beautiful book. It is called The Man Who Rains and is the second of Ali Shaw’s novels. So far it is almost perfect.

I have stopped too many times, finger halfway down a page and free hand scrabbling around on the floor for a pen. Some quotes need to be kept and savoured long after the story you have read is back on the shelf. I have always believed that the words people write are important in the route to finding yourself – because of the way you interpret them. The above is, really, a perfect example of  this.

I also have a storm inside of me. It lives in my head and sometimes it makes an escape. The clouds gather between my eyes and the rain leaks from my face and the thunder hits against my chest like the horns of some terrible creature. It whips at me, it howls through my mind and it floods my life. I have a storm, and it has a name. Its name is Anxiety (or Fred. Sometimes I call it Fred, just to try and make friends).

I have had my storm since day 1. I think, back then, it was probably a combination of a little fluffy cloud, an over-active imagination and an introverted nature that didn’t quite work with the rest of my family/friends/the world. It grew, as all storms do. Sometimes it broke loose and drove me crazy without me understanding why. I’d sit and worry until I sobbed and then I’d sob until I worried and then… well. Then the clouds parted and the sunshine poked through and I was fine again. I thought it was normal.

I suppose it wasn’t.

It took me almost 20 years to realise that not everyone had a storm. I had always suspected mine was larger than the average person’s but I just assumed that it was something everyone had. And then, amidst a rabid, worry-fuelled Googling session (goodness, doesn’t that sound filthy? …) I stumbled across something that made me realise my storm wasn’t your average bad weather day.

After diagnosing myself, I went to see my doctor and allowed someone other than me/my boyfriend/my mother/Giz to listen to my tales of the storm. Turns out I should have been a doctor myself because I was spot on.

I have something called Generalised Anxiety Disorder. I also have a dusting of OCD and a light sprinkling of SAD (people, not weather). I suppose that means that my storm has its own stormy pets. Which makes my storm pretty special, I guess.

You can’t always control a storm. The best you can do is find somewhere safe to shelter and wait for it to pass you by. When you start to understand your own weather, you can recognise the warning signs and seek out that place before the rain starts. This usually involves music, cake and football. It works pretty well. But sometimes you are so busy looking at shiny things that you miss the signals and the storm sneaks up behind you. The first you notice of it is a lightning bolt to the back of your head. Thwack.

I am learning to realise that the storm is not a fault or something that is wrong with me. It is just there. Some people would call it an illness but I refuse to let it be that. It is just weather, and without weather the world wouldn’t work so well.

It took a long time for me to realise that the sunshine inside me is strong and bright and bloody awesome. The storm ruins that sometimes, other times it emphasises it. I don’t cope so well with situations. In fact, right now I am torn between two things and have resorted to emptying chocolate chips onto my duvet cover and shovelling them into my mouth at a rate of… well, of very fast chocolate gobbling.

Sometimes life gets pretty cloudy and the thunder gets very loud. But when the storm isn’t there (and, as I touch as much wood as I can, this is becoming more frequent) the sunshine inside of me gets to show itself to the world. And if I feel too much, if I get too sad sometimes, imagine what it’s like when I’m happy. That’s got to be worth something.

On the much needed need for muchness.

In 1865 a rather nonsensical chap by the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll to Amazon and us) sat himself down and penned a little tale about me. Clever really, considering I was born 126 years later but people with foresight and ingenuity are able to do such things, I suppose.

As I child I was far too wrapped up in the idea of falling down a hole and finding a special kitty with a vanishing face to take much notice of the bigger picture. Some would argue that that is still the case today and I would not have a leg to stand on in my own defence. But the thing with Alice and her delightfully fantastical adventures is that, underneath the sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll tea parties, what Mr Carroll did was write about us all.

Unfortunately, I’m not sat here to blather on about that. As much I could, if I were to list every time he’d written a sentence that embodied what humanity needed to find I would be here until November. I am here to talk about Alice and her muchness.

Ironically (if, to you, irony is rain on your wedding day or a traffic jam when you’re already late (it’s not. It’s really, REALLY not!)) for this, I need to do something I hate to do. And that is make reference to a film version.

“You’re not the same as you were before. You were much more muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.”

So said Johnny Depp to little, tiny Alice as she huffed and puffed and refused to slay the Jabberwocky. But what did he mean? Her muchness? What on earth is a muchness, where could one lose it and how should they go about recovering it?

It’s got to be in there somewhere…

Well, I’m going to tell you what your muchness is.

You know those moments when you’re alone in the house – in the kitchen washing up or trying on some new jeans – and you’re suddenly overcome with a fleeting feeling of being absolutely invincible? You’re happy and the world is beautiful and everything around you is bright and clear. That’s not your muchness.

Your muchness comes afterwards. It’s the bit of you that lingers in moments like that, that clings to what is good in you and holds it all together when there’s no reason to smile. Your muchness is easily lost and very, very good at hiding. Your muchness is you.

Where do you lose muchness? Anywhere. Everywhere. Some people have never found it, some let it fall out with the tooth they lost on their ninth birthday and others have wrapped themselves up so much in the idea of being somebody else that their muchness has fled to Bulgaria. (That is not to say that Bulgarians possess deeper, larger quantities of muchness. They may do, I haven’t checked.) Sometimes people chase your muchness away, other times it’s just very shy. And here’s a secret – everyone’s a little scared of their own muchness because it is your muchness that makes you everything and nothing all at once.

Where do you find your muchness? God, don’t ask such ridiculous questions. I’ve no idea where you’re going to find yours. I found mine in a hopeless pla- no, wait, hang on, that wasn’t me. I have found my muchness many times. I often lose it again. I am disorganised in my mind and, unlike in the physical world, you can’t loop your muchness around your neck by a cord. There’s one thing that you can do, one thing that helps. You can look in the mirror, look at your goddamn awful face and say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry for letting you be lost. I would like you back.’

Then smile. Look outside and tell the world it’s the best bloody thing you’ve ever seen.

No matter how much you need your muchness, you can’t always remember where you left it. But you can open up the doors to yourself and wait for it to come back home.

 

NB: Killing Jabberwockies does not denote having a good hold of your muchness. Killing is mean and the Jabberwocky, despite its eyes of flame, is a very nice thing.

A change of heart.

I have never been a ‘people person’. In fact, I have always been one of those people sat stubbornly in the corner, scuffing the toe of my dirty, peeling trainer against the splits in the floor and refusing to meet anyone’s eye. I have always been the one to shrug my shoulders, turn away and talk to the cat instead. Fact is, in all my many years (ok, ok, twenty one of them) I have met dozens more animals I like than I have people I can tolerate. If you think about it, I bet most of you will feel the same.

And yet, the other day I applied for an application (huh?) to volunteer with The Samaritans. I am also considering digging out my long buried information pack from the CAB. Somewhere along the line – just a guess but I’d imagine it’s the bit with a big old knot in it that’s been yanked at a few times and eventually skipped over – I realised that people aren’t all that bad.

I volunteer with a cat charity and have done now for just over a year (how long this will continue for is another internal debate entirely). As well as the joyous poop scooping, pen cleaning and kitten cuddling (ok, that bit’s fun) I’m also the one that deals with the people who need to find new homes for their cats. I have been bribed (‘Bring my cat in right away and we will donate LOADS of money’), threatened (‘If you don’t have my cat, I’ll have her put to sleep/thrown on the streets etc’) and lied to (‘This is a stray cat. She is not my cat. I do know for absolute definite that she’s vaccinated and neutered though. She told me.’). In fact, had I not been a devout Anti-Humanity campaigner to begin with, this probably would have put me off people a lot.
Fortunately, there are the other people. The ones who cry down the phone because they’re so grateful for your help; the ones who come to visit their cats until the day they have to fly home to care for sick parents; the ones who pay a great deal of money to help with the vet treatment of cats that have wandered into their gardens. And it makes you think… Sure, there are people out there who are awful. But there are people out there who are fantastic and deserve good things, good treatment, good…. stuff. You know? That big, gooshy, pluffy, gooey fantastic stuff that tastes like brownies, smells like petrichor and oozes BLOODY GOOD GUNGE.

So, now I want to help people too. Not just cats, not just ponies, not just hamsters with very short legs… but… people. Ew. It makes me feel a little bit disloyal to myself and the toothless, diabetic, old black cat that sits at the sanctuary waiting for his new home. It’s not though. I like liking people. I think I might stick at it.

(Nb: This does not mean that I like all people. This certainly won’t lead to the end of my moaning. I will still rant about (definitely but not exclusively) the neighbours who don’t walk their dogs but just open the gate and let them run across the park; schoolgirls who wear belts instead of skirts; scrawny pikey men who walk around shirtless even though it’s not all that hot and neither are they; anyone who has a child that makes a noise; leaflet distributors; Theo Walcott. Look, this is all new to me. Give me time.)

10 reasons every other season is better than this one.

I have finished my essay. I am yet to release it into the world. I refuse to let it go, clutching it to my chest like a mother bird who knows a cat waits beneath her nest for a mere sighting of her child. Actually, it’s pretty crap so if I were a mother bird I’d have kicked it out ages ago. I’m not a mother bird, I’m just a wimp.

Today, oddly, it has been sunny.
And today, coincidentally, I have been huffing and puffing at the sky. Why yes, I am one of those insufferable creatures who just likes it to be a little bit colder. So, why is every other season (every.single.one. Even you, Autumn, season of dead things and brown) better than ‘Summer’?

1. No wasps at the window, buzz-buzz-buzz.

Other seasons do not involves wasps. Spring does sometimes stab me when I turn away, skipping laughing from the garden it has filled with small, yellow and black ninjas, but on the whole it is Summer that shoves the little shits to my window. And shoves them, and shoves them, and shoves them.

 

2. Jackets and hoodies and jumpers, oh my!

I do not like summer clothes. They are flouncy and pouncy and if anyone (ANYONE) tells me to buy a skirt this year I will exterminate them. Hooray for snuggly, cuddly, sleeves-so-long-I-no-longer-have-hands clothes!

 

3. Chocolate.

Summer is the season of all things evil, Summer is the season of melted chocolate. Melted chocolate is great when it is deliberate. When it’s smeared across a wrapper, stuck on your fingers or crusting on to your (long-sleeved) top it’s not so great.

 

4. What’s fun about Summer?!

Spring has Easter, Winter has Christmas, Autumn has, er, well Halloween I guess. These are FUN things. More importantly, these things involve decorations, exciting ideas to make boring food fun and… chocolate.

 

5. Baby things.

Screw you Summer, Spring has lambs.

 

6. You don’t ever get let down.

When the weather is terrible for three-quarters of the year, we can pass it off as seasonal. When it’s terrible in Summer, we just have to deal with the fact that we’re British. And that’s not a good thing to have to deal with. Plus, when the weather lets you down everyone starts moaning. Personally, I love it when August rains for three weeks straight but that’s probably because I’m a miserable cow and I never go on holiday.

 

7. Sport.

I apologise in advance to this Summer. After all, it is providing me with the Euros and the Olympics. Unfortunately it is also providing me with Wimbledon and that odd bit of the year when there’s no league football.

 

8. Children are forced to stay in school.

They let them out at Summer. They should not let them out, ever. Keep them away.

 

9. Less infestations.

Summer means that you can’t open the door in the evening without half the bug population of the world shoving their buzzy/fluttering little bums into your house. Simply to bounce off the lightbulb until they get bored and bounce off the window instead. I don’t like insects. Especially those ones that are actually flying spiders. Bastards.

 

10. Things don’t stick.

Seriously. Summer is obsessed with getting one thing stuck to another. Summer wants the world to be like the inside of a cheap bag of boiled sweets, where the only way to get one thing off of another is to smash the planet against the side of the moon and hope someone doesn’t lose an arm in the process. I do not want things stuck to my food. I do not want my food stuck to me. I do not want my body stuck to my clothes and I especially don’t want someone else’s body stuck to mine.

Vote Spring, folks. Or better yet, Sprinter. That’s the little bit between the two, where Winter still wants to snow but the daffodils are popping their heads up, challenging the sky to even dare think about sticking white stuff on those lovely golden crowns.

(Here I should apologise to the cat population. Summer is very bad for fur, I’m sure, but they don’t half moan about every other season of the year. Actually, they just moan about everything…)