The Tornado Files!

Attention! Attention! Attention!

2011-12-04T23:00:00.003Z

All those exclamation marks in the title make it look like I'm in a sitcom set in WW2.

It should read much more gently:- "Attention, attention, attention, dear boy." For that is the philosophy I am going to adhere to.

Despite not having an effing clue as to the language they speak in Buddhism, I continue to voyage around it. Indeed, last night I attended my first social event as a member of FP (not Fucking Prats as you may already have muttered involuntarily) but Foundation Programme. This means, I am in the swing of meditation and want to go a bit further and learn the 8 Steps to Happiness. There may only be 8, but it takes a while to get up 'em!
I have been attending for bout 7 months now and we're only on page 86...and I go twice a week!. It's definitely not this book! I really hope there are cats inside.

Still, it is helping to retrain the mind and I have discovered over the 7 months that many people that attend FP, struggle with depression and have found it helps enormously. There are bits of it that I simply cannot accept, but I'm learning to be more accepting of my lack of acceptance. Certainly, people who go to Buddhism classes like to laugh and on occasion, look positively radiant with it.
Last night's Winter Banquet didn't even try to disguise the fact that it was a Christmas party in all but name, and I like that! We had pretend champagne and the most gorgeous vegetarian food.
We had a raffle with (as our host said) enough prizes to take home about 6 each. Trevor won about 9, Marlene 12 and Jade 47, leaving 1 for me but as some people got nothing at all, I was happy with that :) We told jokes and pulled crackers and moaned about Ricky Gervais. We stuffed ourselves.Yes, a good night indeed. And for me, it was rather lovely to be in a room full of people on a night out where no one was drinking. It levelled the playing field a bit.
Anyway, readers of my other blog will know that it started a train of thought in me around addictive personalities. However, the knowledge alone hasn't lowered my calorie intake and so, I am about to start with you dear Filers, to monitor my eating behaviour via the wonder of my blog and in conjunction with a text on Buddhism, which boils down the whole religion into 3 medium-sized words "Attention, attention, attention". Buddhism is all about paying attention, to your thoughts, to your breathing, to the world around you but most importantly for me, to your body.
I am going to try to pay attention to my body, how it feels, where stress is gathering, whether I need to scratch my arse. In short, I will be monitoring what is going on for me.

I will do this for a month and then analyse the results. Or possibly, you can Filers!

So, now . It is 10.50pm on sunday 4th December.
My teeth hurt because I have been grinding and pushing them and I have a lot of tension in my jaw.
I have a dry mouth. This suggests that I am anxious. When I move my head backwards, I get little spasms of pain on my shoulder blades and across the top of my back, My fingers feel stiff and bloated and the joint between my index and middle finger on the right hand hurts as though it had been bruised. Indeed, following that line a little further down my hand and there is a bruise. My shoulders are raised. Something is stuck in my throat. Not a physical thing, but have been feeling a little nauseas lately. Something needs to come out (not like Alien, but a bit like Alien)
My stomach feels full of food but I was hungry just moments ago. I am thirsty.
My feet are uncomfortable. They feel like they need pampering with massage and oils and cream and hot towels. I have pains in my boobs and after minor panics about breast cancer, have just remembered that I probably strained myself cutting Paula's hedge yesterday.

Not hungry now, need to sleep. xxx

morning

had porridge 2.5 hours ago and am hungry again. It cannot be.

So, what's up?
1. Thinking of everything I have to do today and am a bit anxious.
2. Money concerns
3. Weight/excercise concerns
4. calls to make that I do not want to
5. christmas to afford
6. a 2 page list of jobs
7. A friend tells me that another friend isn't happy with me but I haven't seen her for weeks (unless that's it?)
8.jaw clenched
9. the looming spectre of christmas dos that I feel uncomfy attending and have no fat clothes to wear to...ooo that has caused a pain in my head!
10. parnets/christmas scenario
11. boobs hurt still
12.clenched body, roll of fat in middle annoying me.
13.not happy with myself over this weight gain, of growing older, of wrinkles,I must have done something wrong
14.that has made me tearful, so I have reached today's truth and I feel sad that I give myself such a hard time.
Off christmas shopping, I have relaxed a little.
Maybe because I googled old and found this :)

Sort yourself out!

2011-11-04T14:06:00.001Z

Hey Tornado hunters!
Cranked this back to life because the post won't sit well in the parallel universe. So I've come back over to the dark side

Just had a weird hour with the counsellor. I don't think I handled things well.

I ricocheted from one subject to another and bless her, she got to the bottom of it all, ~~then I ricocheted~~ (ricocheted is a bit like crocheted when it comes to spelling. That makes the sentence sound much better -think I'll go with it)..then I crocheted all over again!

Being very far up the shitty stick of poverty has prompted me to do something I have been thinking about for a while - reducing my psychotherapy sessions from 2 to 1 a week.

I had been using P as a bit of a sounding board as much as anything else but recently realised that people who are a one half of a couple do that over the dishes, or in the car or by throwing bags of crinkle cut carrots at each other in the frozen aisle of Morrisons.
So, if I could find some way to get rid of all the shit that comes with daily life and focus more confidently on moving my self forward with my life, it would suit me and my bank balance and would help me to optimise my week.

Unfortunately, although I had a sense of that when I went in and began asking for it very clearly, I soon descended into frustration, more crocheting and -of all things - a meeting between myself, my Guidance teacher and my Dad, 32 years ago.

Then apparently, I started wiggling my foot quite ferociously and I made several origami river- based wildfowl out of tear soaked tissues.
Then I pulled myself together at the end of the session to say I was going down to once a week as I paid and left.

It all feels rather unsatisfactory. It's as though I quickly pulled a plaster off a wound that I thought had healed, but it took a bit of skin with it. I feel that I've somehow let P down. It's as though I didn't handle it well, I didn't give myself enough time to get used to it and that this constitutes a psychotherapeutic FAIL!

Have I let myself down?

I've missed something. I know it. I can feel it.

If I can feel it, then that's progress. What have I missed?

Well, I know it isn't P that I need to feel bad bad about -she's a big girl, it's her job. She doesn't judge or take things personally, so it's me that I haven't been true to.

I just wanted to say my bit and leave.
Why was that?
Because I felt guilty saying that I had made progress? That she had helped me to the place in my life where I could go to the next level? That's a compliment.

Why do I always imagine that whatever I say, good or bad, impacts negatively on others?
Life generally, isn't all about me -but my life is and my sessions with P are, by necessity.
It's where I am learning to ask for what I want - to get right to the heart of it and not to skirt around it.
That's what I am going to work on, to practise getting right to the heart of what I want, for my own sake and no-one else's.

Ha!
I wanted to say it and leave because I found it difficult to hear.
I will find it hard even though I know it has to be done, that I want it to be done. I am like a child making those first painful first steps of independence from its parent.
P has been so instrumental these last 3 years that it sounds ungrateful.
I am scared to change the formula but it is what I need. It is what I need to do.
I have cried now, P.

I have found the figure.

Tornado Dead in East Midlands!

2011-09-26T20:56:00.001+01:00

Dear Tornadoers

I cannot tell you how much this blog has helped me since I have been trying to get my head round the polarities of my condition. The good news is that I have integrated myself; the two halves of my personality are now 1 and life is unfolding in an orderly and colourful fashion before me and so.....

I am now consolodating myself as 2 blogs are too much to manage.

So, Matt please switch you allegiance to www.postcardpam.blogspot.com and click the 'follow' button

Sarah, you already follow me in both my guises and for that I give lots of thanks and wonder at the serendipity of it all.

Cate, I haven't heard from you in a while but if you follow me here www. postcardpam.blogspot.com
hopefully, we can get back to entertaining each other (oo er missus!) I miss your voice in my blog.

Lesley xxx

Get back Boris!

2011-09-12T23:12:00.004+01:00

We have discovered in our house, that we know when a spider has crossed a line.

We possibly could not define this moment to the satisfaction of London Zoo or the British Association of Spiders, Tarantulas, Arachnids and Related Diplopod Species (BASTARDS for short) but, we could definitely show them a spider who has crossed this line.
Oh yes we could.

He's in our porch.

With the door shut.

Now, I am usually a bit brave with that sort of stuff. Well, I wasn't but then I went to Australia and I was cos I had to be.

Then I came home and after a couple of years I wasn't again.

Then I got married and had a husband.

But it turned out he was terrified.

So, we'd get one of the neighbours in
Or I'd suck it up using the hoover nozzle.

Then I left him and I wasn't scared again because I had no time for nonsense or fear.

6 years passed and I remained unfazed. I have an old cotton bud box that I catch them in and then release them back into the... wild? ...The hedge in any case.

Spring followed autumn and despite that being very confusing, my son was trained in the ways of the spider trapping. He learned all that I knew, at my knee. After many moons, he too could operate the box until one day, he asked for a box of his own...The following day, he came down to breakfast with a full moustache and side burns.

But, even together, we are no match for Boris, who would need a box extension with an awning to begin to contain his girth. Maybe even a tent!
He really is a huge fucker.

My son is a scholarship boy and so I knew that between us, this problem was surmountable.

So, after much stroking of the sideburns and fiddling with the Rubik's Cube, we are in complete agreement.

We hardly ever used the porch anyway.

Trial By Trimphone

2011-07-03T23:19:00.005+01:00

Never did finish all those words. Just did the 750. Ah well, the best laid plans are just a way of teasing yourself.
The bipolar rat bit me in the again last week and the week before.

I had several days of staring vacantly at the TV, thinking that the noise and sound hurt my head but somehow remaining magnetised to it and constantly eating junk food. I did not even contemplate my Comfort Box (new readers can catch up from the archives, this is NOT a Deep Throat situation)

Let's see! From now on, I think we can accept that 'Going a bit Funny' follows triggers and I like to think of these triggers as allergies. F'r instance, I am often allergic to alcohol and so can go a bit funny with unsuitable young servicemen or other folks' husbands.

Hence, I am now teetotal. I'm not sure exactly how long I have been teetotal but I think it's in the region of 5 weeks, 31 hours and 47 minutes, broadly speaking. I do not think I feel any different at all and am not craving alcohol, although I seem to be eating an awful lot of grapes!

Anyway, I have recently rediscovered that I am currently allergic to my friend and neighbour. She knows something is up and so keeps turning up with all sorts of excuses; I assume it's (a) to catch the allergy unawares by sneaking up behind it, or (b) to try to issue a vaccine surreptitiously......... Dream sequence follows this image accompanied by harp music

" What would that shell suit look like with the sleeve rolled up to where your tattoo of the barbed wire starts?"

"It looks like this, Dear Friend and Neighbour"

Then thwack! It would be in with the hypodermic and we would be back singing 'The Road to Amarillo' before you can order half a cider and Babycham.

Or (3) it's to get to the bottom of stuff without asking or saying anything relevant.

I'll hazard a guess she's plumped for option 3. You don't have to be Poirot.

Unfortunately, despite my intention to explain - without causing offence - that the allergy is caused by a similarity in my child hood experiences and her current situation, the moment that I see her, all the energy drains out through my feet and I feel exhausted, confused and panicky and just cannot wait for her to leave. I am down like a skittle.
I then have to spend the rest of the day comatose and pray that the next day is better.

Fortunately, it usually is. Unfortunately, she invariably pops round again with some flimsy excuse from her Getting-to-the-bottom-of-things-without-conversation Battle Plan, and we all go round the merry-go-round once more.
I would write her a letter to explain but letters bring her out in hives - that's something to do with her own childhood. I s'pose I could call, but I am 98% sure that the allergy has no respect for telephonic boundaries, and if there's anything worse than a face to face meeting without saying anything, it's not saying anything by telephone.
My Grandad used to do that (before he died, obviously)

Brrp, brrrp! ( It's a trim phone)

"Ahhhh!" I'd hear him state

" Grandad?"

silence.............

"Grandad?...... Are you there?"

silence ...... then..............a bit more silence....................

"Grandad, you phoned me!"

How much worse would it have been if I hadn't answered him!
Any ideas, received with gratitude.

Gok-ing my blog.

2011-06-22T23:26:00.002+01:00

(I have another competition deadline to meet. 5000 words for the Bridport Prize and so rather than a new entry, I thought I'd finally get around to calling a spade a spade and not be precious about it)

My beloved Tornado Files has given way to Bipolar Alley. It's the same blog with a different title but makes it easier for search engines.

To mark the occasion, I am reposting my first ever post in case anyone new should wander by and stop to rest awhile with me. Welcome, and please stay. x

FROM CATHERINE WHEELS TO TORNADOES

I used to liken my Cyclothymia to a catherine wheel.

I was once invited to a Guy Fawkes party in a lovely garden that led down to a river. The chap who was hosting it, nailed the catherine wheel to a tree then watched in horror as it jumped off its perch, whizzing and fizzing and firing its violent colours like a six shooter backing out of a saloon . Mien host chased after it, along the riverbank, in safety goggles and a V-neck sweater - attempting to bring it to justice with the aid of a long stick. I have rarely laughed so loudly and so long and when the suggestion that I might be bipolar arose, in my intial relief at an explanation of my life, I saw myself romantically as a catherine wheel. I was a gentle maverick, a children's entertainer, a rogue firework-sometimes getting out of hand and briefly dangerous but always entertaining and wonderful to look at.

In the months that followed though, as I hit my ups and downs with a new awareness that I found frankly quite terrifying, it struck me that unchecked, a catherine wheel could cause much damage and that I could cause more.

I have always loved extreme weather; growing up on a very severe coast line, fun for me was walking along the seafront when the waves were so vast as to overpower the sea wall by several feet and crash over the recently abandoned car park on the other side. I adored the drama of it-the power of nature; the feeling that it could snuff me out any minute, but that it wouldn't bloody dare.

As a result, I love the sea although, at the same time, I am more terrified of its vast power than of anything else. Thundestorms are another favourite; always torn between common sense and exhilaration when thunderbolts are thrown through the air and that delicious grumble of the gods invites you to party. How I long to go outdoors.... and so often, I do.

In retrospect then, it doesn't seem such a surprise that I ricochet constantly between the horror of fear and the freedom to be out of control. When did it all begin I wonder?

Now of course I realise that I am a tornado, not a catherine wheel at all. I sometimes -but not always- get a bit of a weather warning and ooooohhhh the excitement! I soar on anticipation. I see the tornado start to build and I feed it with glee, whipping and whipping it round like a spinning top until it has such a momentum that there's no stopping it. I am an awesome sight-mighty,powerful, intelligent and I do not suffer fools gladly-all are ripped from their place of safety and tossed aside. I am bright and witty and everyone is drawn into my atmosphere. I do not rest, nor sleep but go along my clever, clever way, taking all that I want and showing the world how it's done. I draw admirers from everywhere, everyone wants a piece of this phenomena. I can spin forever!

Yet in the back of my mind I know that this isn't how it ends, that the spinning will stop even when I don't want it to. I panic and struggle but sure enough, the cows and double decker buses get harder to lift and the debris starts to slow me down. I look for a man with a stick to help, but he has got bored now and wandered home for his dinner and after all, people have jobs to go to. I try only choosing light things to fling about me, but all the time the energy is being discharged ; something has popped the tornado like a balloon but it is me who deflates slowly until finally there is nothing by quiet and calm immobility and a sense of disorientation.

But the worst is yet to come, once the tornado of my soul has been snuffed out altogether and I look around, the horror of the decimation is revealed; the carcasses of friendships and reputations and time with children are strewn everywhere and I am completely spent and exhausted with a need to sleep and an inability to think. But even this is manageable, because I realise that when I do start to think, it won't be pretty. I am my own newscaster reporting on untold damage. I do not pull any punches. Apocalyptic is my style -I am a sensationalist after all.

But I have been thinking...thinking that if I were constantly a gentle breeze-neither a hurricane nor stagnant water- I think I'd find that less tiring.

So, welcome to Bipolar Alley: One woman's observations on how it feels to accept herself and the strategies she's experimenting with to pace herself.'... it's a working title :)

Normality to Vertigo!

2011-06-20T15:03:00.003+01:00

You have to take pot luck with me dontcha? Either, thoughtful observation, humorous aside or online diary . Today it's the latter, so you might like to reassess your position

Today
on my agenda was getting the online diary up to date (here we are), doing the business/tax paperwork and calling a few tradesmen. Instead, I have done some gardening (useful but not today's priority, same goes for the 3 4 loads of washing I have hung out), read over the competition entries I have submitted this month (gawd knows why as I have read them a dozen times a day since I wrote them and it's not as if the errors will have suddenly dissolved overnight)
I have had a shower and taken delivery of 10 substandard and overpriced shower curtains. not this one!

I have had my lunch and caught up with the blogs that I follow which is a treat I rarely allow myself. I have realised that the nick on my arm is not skin cancer as previously thought (again) but in fact a nettle rash. I have cleaned the laptop monitor, positioned my recliner chair so that the sun doesn't glare on the screen, read over old blog posts, checked my STATS for both blogs and they are woeful! I fetched a drink. Then I nodded off and so decided to use this rare piece of warm sunshine to do an outdoor meditation. So-obviously- I had to fetch some incense and 2 cushions. I didn't get off the recliner, just made myself comfier and more upright on it. I did my meditation breathing then imagined myself filled with light . This was easier than yesterday where I tried but could not shake of the feeling that I was filled with a hippopotamus.
I imagine that the recliner is evenly distributing the weight today. In an effort to be a good Buddhist, I will admit that I am not being kind to myself there, but I will be kind to those thoughts and to the thought that I wasn't being kind.
I know this is all putting off what I do not want to write, lest saying stuff aloud somehow makes it scarier.But now I think of it, I might have been coping quite well.

So, progress. Friday was a good day-bloody brilliant actually. I didn't win the lottery or get that much anticipated dinner invitation from Jeffrey Dean Morgan .

No, rather it was that I felt normal. You my friends, might take normal for granted, but let me tell you what a wondrous thing it is.
First of all, you have enough energy to both begin and end the day. Brilliant! You can see that something needs doing and so you do it. There's none of this adding it to the bottom of a soul-destroying list to do the day after hell freezes over and spending the next days, months and years feeling crap about it. No, not at all. You know you can't do everything in a day but can do some things and you quite look forward to getting them done and the resulting....result! There is a clarity in the air and in mind, body and spirit ; you wonder that things could ever have been otherwise and are hopeful but doubtful that they'll never be otherwise.
Decisions are easy "This is what I need to help myself in the future...this is what I will do about it " And for me, on Friday, it went hand in hand with "I have been off work for 8 months, I was going to read sunday papers, do the decorating, do the garden and make things. I have done none of those things which suggests that I am not the type of person who does. But, I love my work and so it's time to return to it and to use my wages to pay people who are good at the garden, the decorating and the housework and not feel guilty about it. (who gets the reference?Let me know)

And so, I e-mailed work that very day and I start back this week.

My job involves me working with children who are in distress, and so it seems sensible only to take on the less troubling cases for the time being. It feels right, it feels good. On Friday, my heart was going neither too fast nor too slow . It was a good place to be. P tells me that I was so grounded on friday that my voice was deep and velvety. Apparently, anxiousness raises the timbre of your voice.I want to get back to velvety. I think Friday arrived because I got some good news on Thursday, when I had been feeling overwhelmed. The shock of unexpected good news just jolted everything into place. relief obviously realigns my equilibrium but if I am not careful, it will send me ricocheting off in one direction or another. It's a jumping off point.
Saturday wasn't a bad day, especially the first half. There were lots and lots of laughs as my son told me he needed to stop off at the shops for a new PE kit before his sports day started which was in 10 mins time.. This was funny because he thought that possible and it was hugely entertaining watching him try to even walk in a pair of shorts at least 3 sizes too small and wearing odd socks. .
By the time I went out with the girls in the evening, I felt a bit annoyed and self conscious. Annoyance is ALWAYS an indicator that things are about to change and I was very tired when we got home at 11.

The next morning I was due to run a stall and got up at 5.45 as planned. I felt very sluggish and completely devoid of enthusiasm. It was quite difficult to think ahead and so I didn't go because I couldn't go. I went back to bed for an hour at about 9 and woke up with everything racing whilst simultaneously feeling exhausted. It's a horrible feeling. I dropped my daughter off and did a little shopping but was disorientated and had some vertigo
. I went home for another hour's sleep and a little meditation but I could still feel everything racing, muscles twitching in my face, blood pounding, entire body in tiny tremors and I know that I have had that feeling, very often in my life.
Trying to look after myself, I used the massage chair and had 2 baths, which helped. My anxiety levels were going through the roof until the meditation . It was an awful day and I feel bad for the kids, who see me this way too often. My daughter developed a headache and I can't help but wonder if it was linked.
I try to be a good Buddhist and try to feel how I feel instead of trying to fight the feeling. It helps a little. I then tried to recall how I had felt on Friday when I had lots to do but it was all doable, and that helped too. I think I realised that this state of mind was not helpful and I want to aim to return to Friday's state as often as possible. I want that to be my normal. My '0'. So, I slept like a top and got up better, less anxious but still racing. That's where I am now. I have lots of things to do, know I can do them but have to concentrate very hard on priorities. I still have vertigo but it should go in a day or so. I am used to it. The pattern is emerging. Maybe I need to be prepared after my next 'normal' day. Lots of meditation on the day itself may be required and to look after myself the following day. Whatever I did, I am on the mend and so it worked.
Thank you for walking beside me through my thoughts x

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink!

2011-06-15T10:15:00.003+01:00

Well, I have so much to do today that I don't know where to start, and so I have started with you :) It feels right.

I sometimes think that if I just started with you every day, then life would be clearer. Maybe I should try it.
When do you blog? Is there a routine? When do you read blogs?

I have been well recently and hope to stay that way. I have also been very busy.
Apart from writing (I am trying my hand at competitions) I have been away for the weekend on a retreat. Retraining your mind isn't as easy as it looks and this experience was a bit of a mixed bag whilst I was there, but the overall effect was incredibly useful and my meditation has really turned a corner.
Let me set the scene for you. I arrived first at a beautiful big farmhouse in Suffolk although the others (mostly arriving by minibus) followed shortly afterwards. I was wearing high wedges -nervousness always panders to me shoe fetish- and had brought an large canary yellow suitcase for 2 days, containing amongst other things, my laptop. I had a deadline due and wanted to make the most of no family responsibilities. Apparently, I had been told to bring a small back pack?!
I have the same level of obsession for luggage as I do for shoes. The yellow one is a CHUBB. Who knew they made suitcases? The lady in the shop said when they received staff training they were told to jump on the Chubbs to prove their indestructibility , since being makers of locks, they have a reputation to uphold. I can't help wondering though, what's to stop the thief just opening the zip like I do, but maybe, being professionals, they like to do things in a manner that demonstrates their level of expertise. Anyway, yellow Chubb has a purple Chubb big brother and a pink Dunlop little sister. Pink Dunlop had a big sister too but she's now disabled with a prosthetic wheel. We keep her in the attic for sentimental reasons. Anyway, my reckoning is that someone cannot hot foot it down the platform at Waverley station with an enormous acid-Purple case that didn't belong to them, it'd draw attention. Heck, I'm embarrassed to be seen with it!
Everyone else was in sweat bottoms or PJ's. In my defence, I was entirely unable to get into any of my old sporty clothes because of the weight gain and so dresses were my only comfy option, though I had stopped off on the way to buy myself leggings as the view of my sitting cross legged or some-such in a frock without the legging safety-harness is not the view one expects to see at a lotus-flowered shrine.
So, I was in peacock-coloured dresses all weekend, with leggings and when I needed to walk anywhere, resorted to the shoes that reminded me of my grandad, and that am sure I have seen Foggy wear on Last Of The Summer Wine.
Then I learned I had to share a room with 3 other women. I was mortified. I racked my brain to see if I had ticked the wrong box on the form. I had imagined a single suite, not a dorm with a dodgy shower. I decided to be a trooper and bear it. Straight into meditations.
These were hard. I really found the next 24 hours agony until the evening. I felt sick and headachey and I resented every moment that they left me alone with my thoughts. 6 hours meditation in 1 day really is too much if you're constantly rerunning a scary movie in your head; terrifying. By the Sunday though, I was able to tell them that and they told me three very important things:
1. NEVER forget your body whilst you are meditating. Now, this came as a huge surprise because I thought the point was to forget your body. Thinking this had generated confusion and fear in itself as I was simultaneously being told that meditation was good for me in order to keep me calm and relaxed, and that I shouldn't meditate because it took me out of myself and I already spend enough time in my head. So, knowing that I could meditate and constantly check out my body was a revelation and it made perfect sense. I would be constantly grounded by thinking how my body was feeling in that posture, how the carpet felt on my knees, how my body felt with each change of meditative focus, the emotions it brought up and so on. After that, the constant pain at the base of my skull and in my neck disappeared along with all the fear I was generating, because I was constantly checking out with myself if I was OK.
2. The second thing they said was that if you persisted in generating negative thoughts, then be kind to them and to yourself . !!!!!!!!! What? No self flagellation required? No kicking myself up the arse for not being able to do it right? Not imagining that my brain is 1 big area of terrifying quicksand? No? Oh, Ok then I'll give that a go............sigh...........breathe...............sigh................comfy............sleepy...............hmmmmm :)
3. The third thing, was that when practising Loving Kindness, you always start with yourself.
(Now, just to interrupt, for those of you worried that I have joined a cult, I need to point out that almost all of the 31 participants were not Buddhists, just people curious for a better way of life and who wanted some intensive meditation practise.)
Loving Kindness makes perfect sense to me because it gets rid of negative emotions. Anger, frustration, dislike all peter out and calm takes their place. I am someone who doesn't normally suffer fools gladly, and indeed I met a right cow on this retreat and had to focus on her very strongly for the 'Loving Kindness to someone you find very difficult' meditation. I am not saying that I was about to add her to my Christmas card list, but I did manage a forced smile a bit later. It'll probably take months if not years, before I am able to prevent rather than fire-fight in the suffering fools department. But, as Tom Hanks said in that deeply philosophical movie Sleepless in Seattle, 'These are things that I am willing to get to the bottom of'.
Once home, my Facebook status read "Thank Goodness I have been on a weekend retreat for now I can emanate loving kindness to the bastard that sent me a nasty message on eBay"
That about sums up where I am at the moment. But being kind to myself, loving myself? I found that incredibly difficult and it will take practise. But the idea that I can, that I should and that it will make me happier is like someone filling me a warm bath and putting a milky cup of sweet chai on the side. I will practise that, because I know it's the one thing that will improve my life. And, now that I can meditate in comfort and without nausea for as long as it takes, there's nothing denying me that lovely, calm, quietude that meditation brings- all day long if I need it.

Oh, and I didn't use my computer at all.

My name is Spikey, I'm a blogaholic!

2011-05-29T13:08:00.001+01:00

Oh hello, hello, hello!!!!

I have been blogged off for some time, there was a squirrel (or some-such) in the doobries. At least that's what Blogger Help tells me. I paraphrased obviously.
I have just this minute finished telling someone that I was going to concentrate my efforts on writing for cash and that I'd finished with the blog! Then abracadabra, I was back on line, looking at The Tornado Files once more and feeling enormous waves of relief pulsating through my body (no batteries involved) I had forgotten what a lifeline it is to me, since I had been forced to be without it. No wonder my mood slipped and I have been unable to sleep (honestly!)

I did a stupid thing yesterday T- Filers - I was enjoying a rare day without my children and had a celebratory bottle of beer in the afternoon, just because I could. Unfortunately (and I should have seen this coming) after one, I decided to have another and four beers later I was asleep.
I woke up feeling shit, having done nothing that I had planned or been looking forward to and then once that had gone , I felt really odd.
So, I am making you a pledge Filers. I am done with alcohol. It robs me of time and my life gets shorter every day. It also plays silly buggers with my moods. Please support me in kicking it into touch for I am resolute and resolution tends to waiver when I am thirsty. Every shitty, stupid, ridiculous thing that I have done in my life, I have done with alcohol as my partner.
Get fit, stop drinking, be a good pretend buddhist -these are my goals x
Is anyone else aboard the wagon?

Don't Panic, Mr Mainwaring!

2011-05-19T22:54:00.000+01:00

OK

I must admit that the last post may have been a bit.....odd. But hey, that's the nature of the beast. It was a brief journey off piste and quite lovely in lots of ways, though I realise that if I'd overindulged, the results would have been broadly the same as acid-abuse. I have never taken acid as far as I know, though there was a very unfortunate incident at Glastonbury a couple of years ago, that makes me wonder. I've never really got on with drugs. It's not a morality thing per se; I tried most things in my youth. It's rather that they always had an unexpected effect on me. I'd sleep instead of laugh, or be sick instead of dance and so I gave it all up as a bad job. After that last post, one can't help but be grateful for small mercies.

I seem to be able to trip without the need for drugs at all.

Anyway,I have been out of commission for 36 hours because someone posted the details of a writing comp through my door on Tuesday morning and its deadline is tomorrow. In reality, since Tuesday was spoken for, it meant I had Wednesday to write it and Thursday (today) to post it.
Spikey can't resist a challenge and so set herself the task of dreaming the storyline overnight on Tuesday and simply committing it to paper it on Wednesday. Job done. In theory. But in the end, tiny foxes scampered around my room whilst I slept and it annoyed me, because they used up precious dream time.
I needed 2, 500 words! I hadn't tried that in 20 years. I had managed 250 by lunchtime, which wasn't to schedule by anyone's book. I tried to cat nap to refresh myself but pesky foxes kept getting in the way. Then I realised that they were signposting me to a memory and then it wrote itself.
I slept for 5 hours last night as it still wasn't finished, and began again at 6am. I felt sick from looking at the screen for so long and from lack of sleep; I had a migraine. Then I realised I had 2536 words and a Post Office deadline to meet for guaranteed next day delivery. So, double vision notwithstanding, I axed a few and had no time to proof read it again. The 200 word cover letter about myself suffered, as by that point I had decided they'd have to make do with a paw print and 'See Blog!' and I headed off down to the Post Office. I had decided to include an A4 sized photocopied print of myself, rather than the passport photos I had had taken for my driving license last month. Those had left me wondering why no one had ever thought to tell me that I'd had a stroke.

Now, you ask, why did I bother at all? It's simple. It was the second competition posted through my door in 48 hours and I decided that if I was going to start listening to the universe, then I'd be as well to start immediately.
I know that I have a miniscule chance of winning, and I know that it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I was proud of it; despite the errors I have found since sending it, despite the lack of location information, despite myself. It was the best I could do in 24 hours, and it wasn't half bad. I know that because once I finished, I kept bursting into tears and getting all emotional and the crying reminded me of how I felt after I gave birth. It was my baby, being sent off to be judged by strangers.
I will love it however ugly it is thought to be, because it is my story.

Bloggeration!

2011-05-16T15:19:00.003+01:00

This bipolar business is a bit sneaky. It plays tricks on you. I am this Monday, marvelling at its sneakiness and having a giggle. It's tried to pull a fast one, but there aren't many flies on me! To be fair, there are some, but there aren't many.

I have been to Brighton!
(That's not the sneaky part- I knew I was going, it wasn't a delusion or anything)

Anyway, free at last, I began to write down some thoughts for a blog on the way down, creativity had been lacking of late and certainly a couple of blog entries were so shoe-horned that I removed them completely afterwards in shame. So, I was delighted to see the muse returning. I had been so enjoying my Buddhism classes, that I wanted some time to think about them since I had gone from hating it on Week 1, to finding it ridiculous but curiously comforting on Week 2, to loving it on Week 3. I was also STILL reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert (third time it has been renewed at the library) which is filled with Meditation and religion and the search for inner quietitude. I can't wait till I get to the Javier Bardem bit! Tbh, I had virtually decided, that I could be a non believing, all embracing buddhist if it was going to find me a bit of peace and allowing myself that, brought enormous waves of relief -a tsunami of a plan.

I seem to have spent most of my adult life denying myself a religion because of stigmas and rules and common sense and and and.... What I am now coming to believe is that religion of any sort (even a dedication to the healing power of stilettos perhaps) is a way of bringing peace to a life and I was beginning to feel that, this weekend, everything was converging and I was keen to discover all that I could. I could feel myself rushing towards pseudo-Buddhism like coming home. I was desperate to get there. As Harry says to Sally in the iconic film "Once you know you want to spend the rest of your life with someone (something in my case) you want that life to begin as soon as possible."

So, whilst I was away, I kept the comfort of my new wisdom with me, still having beers and milkshakes and seeing a concert that will stay with me for the rest of my life for reasons I may lay down in another blog : I gossiped, I lusted a little and all the while, felt this desire to rush toward calm water with open arms and felt that the day was coming.
On the way home the following day, I uttered my chant to Tare, the mother buddha, "Om Tare, Tu Tare, Tare Soha" whilst mentally asking for blessings. Suddenly, I found myself exactly in the same place in that train, same people in front and behind, but speeding through space and time with everyone else in my carriage. I could see clearly that we were all heading in the same direction on life's journey at that particular moment and that we were hurtling, quite safely through time and space and life, whilst simultaneously passing through the Home Counties; trees and housing passed by us at speed. I didn't think I was in a void. I'm not nuts!
Later on, I listened to some music that usually invokes emotion in me and I felt it so clearly. I felt it in colour and with every nerve end in my body; then I asked for Tare's blessings and once more hurtled through the universe in my train, the conductor checking tickets to the truth that lies beyond. I didn't feel scared in the least -quite the opposite. These episodes lasted only seconds at a time, but I found great peace and comfort in staring down the carriage thereafter. This religion thing was going to work for me.

Between changing trains, I sat down to record some of it but my pen couldn't write quickly enough. I decided to give myself a break and to read back over the (physical and mental) journey I'd travelled in 24 hours. I began with the first paragraph, written yesterday, 9.40 am.
" On a train to Brighton. Just had caffeine in the form of a skinny latte.I just thought 'bugger it! (I no longer allow myself caffeine normally) There must be 2 or 3 expressos in it. Hope it's OK". Then there followed discussion of my new found faith in faith which contained the sentences, "Religion is the essence of humanity. I can feel the euphoria building of what is to come."

BINGO!! That medium-sized word, euphoria. I knew in that instance that I wasn't having a religious experience at all, I was entering a manic state. Told you it was sneaky! It hides itself in all sorts of guises and now the terrible thirst that I have had for the last week and the pain in my shoulder blade, that I assumed was lung cancer, but in reality is my age old tension spot brought on when I start clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth, register themselves in my consciousness. So, it seems that these depression flags are present before mania too. Interesting!

I had a bit of fun with it later, I pushed the boundaries to see how far I could go before reigning it in and I had a lovely day if I am being honest. I listened to music that touched every sense in my body, I danced,

I laughed, I felt the wonder of life.
I spilled over with every emotion expressed in the music as I channelled the essence of the musician.

Every couple of songs, I'd put on a slow one to bring me down a little before cranking it back up. I do feel bad for those who cannot feel in colour; whose bodies cannot hum with the joy of being alive, with hope and wonder and beauty. Who do not feel, really feel with every fibre of their being.It is awesome.
I have that ability. I don't want to let it go. Maybe I don't have to, I just have to learn to integrate it better and I need to look after myself during these phases as much as during my depression. I need to get out my comfort box and tend to myself like a mother. In fact, I'll do that now.

just being

2011-05-13T21:22:00.000+01:00

I have always felt things deeply-really deeply. I also had an inclination that it was not in the same way as other people felt things. I seemed to feel ....more of it ... more of the shading of life. There was never just a day. Each day was a day filled with highs and lows and wishes and wonders

and regret and fear and intense,bright and blinding colourful hope.

That is when it wasn't filled with nausea inducing anxiety or a fatigue so deep that raising my head was an effort. In either case, life was exhausting. But I always felt that life was being lived. "At least I know I am alive" was the encouragement I gave myself when I saw others drift along on an even keel in a leafy waterway as I was riding the crests and troughs of a perfect storm. I could not envisage a life where emotions went by unnoticed, unappreciated or worse, were not there at all. It seemed somehow to take away from the magic of just being alive, of treasuring every moment.

But, I have to be honest, things have changed. I want the calm of a narrow boat on a summer's day now. Whatever God is, perhaps he'll grant me that. I have been grieving this past year for the excitement of open water in the form of the life I knew. The one that did not let any feeling go unhindered -each felt instinctively and deeply and categorised under goodie or baddy, black hat or white, John Wayne or Lee Van Cleef. Recently though, I have been actively cultivating an emotionless life. I need to do this so that I don't accidentally slip into mania and then downwards into grinding misery. I have resented every minute of that boredom, and yet..and yet in the middle of the boredom are sometimes moments of such peace that I could cry with relief. Peace is something very rare in my life because it is so very rare in my head. But it's my new goal. You can keep your highs and lows and the day to day feeling with every fibre of your being. Let me be. That's all. To be, quietly, unassumingly and without drama.

Sometimes, a lifetime of peace is so tantalisingly close that I can virtually taste it, but alongside this yearning for peace, I cannot stop filling my life up with things and striving for things. You'll have noticed that even peace is a 'goal' for me. I feel, that since giving up a job that immersed me in emotion whilst requiring me to suppress it, I have filled the extra time with writing and making and entrepreneurial things, decorating and gardening and cooking-all of which I desperately wanted to do, but all at the same time? I feel myself slipping back into an old pattern. Nothing is done well, everything is unfinished. P tells me that they are all more fulfilling things, things to ground me, but can I be honest with you? Apart from writing, I am unsure that I feel any more grounded and fulfilled at the moment. In some ways, I feel less fulfilled. I feel like it's all getting away from me. My mind still leaps from one idea to another and another. They are all good ideas-I am good at ideas. As my friend says 'Every one would make money, but there are far, far too many of them'. The things is, I feel compelled to follow each new one, leaving all the old ones half finished. It seems such a shame to squander them, but it leaves me feeling unfulfilled. This is very like the usual old me. What's nice to notice is that the ideas are there year round, they aren't dependent on my mood , as I used to think/feel.
Maybe the difference now is that all the ideas I have, I have for myself and my family, whereas before they were all concentrated on improving the lives of others. But I did feel fulfilled doing that, maybe it wasn't good for me, but it felt like it was. Maybe what I need to do, is see myself as someone in need of my help, and then go about helping myself. I used to have great success in helping others although I certainly used to feel awkward and unhappy when I had great plans and ideas on how to help people that I was subsequently not do because I needed to actually be in their company for inspiration to strike and the moment I left them, it left me.

So, peace alludes me when I fill my day up so. I can hardly even relax in the bath-my mind is busy all the time. Oh dear! I realise when I write this that it has always been thus, and that's what the meditation was for.
Thank goodness I'm a one-day-a-week Buddhist x

In the name of the Blogger, The Mother and The Sunday Roast. Ahem!

2011-05-09T10:02:00.003+01:00

Forgive me Weather Watchers for I have slipped.

It has been an uncharacteristically long time since my last confession. I have been unfaithful to this blog and preoccupied with a new venture. But please believe me....I didn’t plan it – it just got to the point where fantasy was no longer enough to slake my thirst. It doesn't mean that I do not love The Files, for I do. It's simply that I am vulnerable to distraction at the moment. I am weak. I reach out to you for absolution; I do so long to be back in the warm embrace of your Blogosphere.

I tell you Dear Reader, that last week, I actually (cover your ears) wonga-d up for this new project. And, I gave it some welly. Quite a lot of welly as it happens. Quite sexy welly.*

I put my money where my mouth had been. Do not think that I was brought up that way, oh no! I was taught that life should be really a bit shit. If anything looked remotely enjoyable, then it wasn't to be indulged in, for in that road lay ruin. Ruin I tell you!
I have tried to bear that in mind, honest I 'ave guv! But straight up, I cannot feel remorse, it doesn’t feel like I’ve sinned. I enjoyed it!! It had legs. The voluptuousity (hope Oxford English are reading) of colours and textures are runnething over my cup and dribbling down my chin. I can think of nothing else at the moment. It’s an addiction.

Every night before I go to bed, I try desperately to get back to the purity of my blog but it is not to be. My eyelids win the battle to meld with the flight bags under my eyes and exhaustion takes me - spent with the unfaithful labours of my day - and yet I yearn to return.
But,today is the first day of the rest of my life. I will not leave you so long again. Welly can wait.

Ahem.

* Warning! Wonga and Welly may mean nothing to international readers. This is not an error. International Blog Corruption has be quarantined to halt the spread.

holding page

2011-05-02T05:59:00.000+01:00

Terribly sorry chaps
normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a horse

She wears Short Shorts - Part Deux (or ASBO stands for Anti Social Behaviour Order)

2011-04-25T10:32:00.002+01:00

Another 2 hours before I collect Short Shorts from the party (you'll recall from a previous post that I am waiting up till 1 am!) .

Was that a noise? Jeez it's dark. I don't like being awake past 9.30pm.

I was once in bed in my garret when I heard a crash as though something had fallen from my roof to the patio below. Assuming that it was that bloody fat pigeon again, drunk on the contents of my garden, I ignored it, hoping it was suicide.
Welllll!! It often kept me awake with its strutting and cooing and its lack of respect for the downstairs neighbours as it thundered across the tiles in avian jack boots.

But this was followed by another crash and this time from inside the house.
I was now up to amber post-pigeon alert.
I had considerable experience of this threat level which involved my making the rounds of safety checks wearing a thug resistant dressing gown and carrying a substantial torch, only to discover that the toilet seat had flung itself on the mercy of the bowl when the strain got too much, or that the camping poles that I never get around to putting away, had developed exhaustion from leaning upright and passed out on the floor.

But this time, as I descended to the first floor the ruckus continued to continue in a continuous manner.
I yelled softly down the bannister that I could hear the buggers, but amazingly they seemed undeterred. I was incensed at the cheek of the bloody tykes, but didn't want to damage the torch. I was torn. The sounds of my cupboards and drawers being emptied and the contents strewn upon the floor were unmistakable; the professional sound of right villains and no mistake.
I tiptoed to my kids' rooms to ascertain that they had not been stolen. The oldest one is 16 and her brother, 15 months younger, has recently gone from preppy catalogue cherub to brick shit house, so he'd be tricky to pilfer. The little 'un was snoring with her mouth open. Adenoidal music to my ears.
I called the police. The brick shit house loves his mum like a good boy should and so, being the only male in the house, strode towards me to deliver a protective bear hug then handed me his baseball bat and went back to bed, asking me to tell him when the police arrived.
5 mins seemed an eternity but finally flashlights surrounded the house and garden. I thought for one ridiculous moment that the 'tea leafs' had called for back up, the dressing gown having proved too much but then I came to my senses. The officers were very thorough and one of them was really quite handsome.

like the one on the right.

"Love, there's a bin overturned in your garden-think they've been through this way"
"Erm, well actually it's been there for a while...I'm using it as a wildlife tunnel (I've always been a quick thinker). I could bore you with the cliche of the house being in such a mess that, although I knew there was no burglar once I had ventured downstairs, the police could not be. They were so patient about it, ' Better safe than sorry!' and all that. And to be fair to myself, the WPC had a bit of egg on her face as she had been searching the grounds of a different house altogether and turned up telling her tale in great gusts of whispered giggles.

Finally, having discussed suggestions such as a fox had been trying to get into the (upright) outside bins for example - the handsome policeman hovered around for a few seconds longer once the others had returned to their panda cars :)

I thought 'This is it girl. Brace yourself! You've done it at last. It may not be the most auspicious of starts, but love finds a way.' He leaned forward to put his hand upon my arm and as my breath quickened and bosom heaved he whispered "Em.. love. I think it might have been you hamster on its wheel. They can make a lot of bloody noise those can," and then he left.
I felt humiliated "Absolutely not!" I yelled after him "It wasn't that sort of noise!", but I was fooling no-one.

Silence

I gritted my teeth and walked with seething resentment back to the cage where ASBO Hamster looked like butter wouldn't melt.... She gazed at me, mustering every ounce of adorable that she could - plainly acting as her own defence "What guv? It weren't me guv. Honest! Would these eyes lie? I lurvvvv you," and sucker that I am, I believed her.

That is, until 30 mins later when I was either being burgled again or something else was afoot . When I trudged down the two flights of stairs for the umpteenth time that evening and surprised her with my flashlight, she was gripping the bottom of her metal cage with her teeth and trying to uproot it from its moorings with superhamster force. I'd got her bang to rights!

Chapter 2
I occasionally see the lovely policeman, laughing with public outside the bank or at the traffic lights. I can feel his eyes following me with mirth and I feel certain that he's retelling the 'Night of Nibbles' to the delight of all. I am so ashamed. Especially as, when he did leave the house, I could hear him calling out to question his colleagues in the car "Isn't this the house of the girl who said that we'd find her mate in the wardrobe?"

It is and they did.

Talking of Short Shorts, best go get her. x

Blog Off!

2011-04-24T00:24:00.004+01:00

I worked on the most enormous blog entry yesterday (that's 3 Innuendo Bingo points Paula!) and I just can't bring myself to post it.
I read and reread it and there's nothing wrong with it per se. It's just a bit ....whatsit. You see, I'm not even sure what being a bit whatsit entails.

   I'd say it rambles but it doesn't really. It doesn't go off piste.

'Talking Trollops' gives some valid points, it weighs up the arguments but somehow it doesn't feel right. It's informative but not very entertaining.

I think it's because I set out trying to write something about the topic de jour- 'Talking about Mental Illness' when what I really wanted to tell you was that I'd been punting up the Cam. None of these people are me.

And I was excited that my 2 favourite Australian Bloggers had responded to my tweets and comments
.http://www.woogsworld.com/2011/04/honourable-mention.html
http://catep36.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-of-easter-according-to-two-pissed.html

And I'd just been sent the most stunning version of Roy Orbison's 'You Got It'. Its beauty made me cry..an amazing gift.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvtC1Nf-KvI&feature=related

And I didn't really want to talk about being bipolar 'cos I'd just been to a Meditation shop (recommended by my therapist) and been told that I shouldn't be meditating at all as it was dangerous for me to go  further into Golightlyland, when what I should be doing is learning how to cope with life.
There was a look of grave concern and heartfelt sympathy on her face that made me want to kick her head in. I used to work in social services and never saw an honest-to-goodness do-gooder in the 10 years I was there. I've seen one now and it ain't pretty. It gives you rosacea.

Grudgingly, I have to admit that I had wondered myself whether it would be wise to head for Enlightenment when a milestone of that journey is a feeling of euphoria and light radiating from your solar plexus which builds until you have enough power and love rising within you to blow your fucking head off.

Well - to be frank - I've been there,done that, got enough T-shirts for Arsenal to play in, and I'm not allowed back.
  Not without Oprah.

I do find the irony quite delicious that I meditate away from the euphoria of madness, whilst half the world actively seeks it by doing the same. Priceless!

Anyway, to paraphrase my local Buddhist nun-I'm getting above myself if I think that I'm even going to find the bus stop to Enlightenment by meditating every alternate Wednesday, excluding holidays.
Phew, what a relief!

But the whole meditation shop scenario made me think about my blog. For the first time since my diagnosis, I can see that not EVERYTHING needs to be about being bipolar. I need not try so hard nor make everything relevant to it.
Now here's a phrase I read in my Bipolar handbook 'I am not defined by it. It is only part of who I am'.
At the time, I thought
Of course you must be defined by something that controls you.'
Now I am not so sure.

My ruddy-faced friend was right about something. Being bipolar is about an inability to cope with life and I find that that particular definition diffuses the fear.
I can learn to cope with life. I just have to retrain. I am not a patient.

       I am a student

When I started this entry, I was going to end by saying that I'd write 2 blogs but each one less frequently.
One on being biopolar and the other with day to day observations. People would know what to expect from each of them.
Now I'm thinking 'Sod It! Take Me or Leave Me!"'

(Actually, can I just qualify this by saying that I really need you not to leave me as an anonymous blog cannot be publicised down the usual routes).
   Cheers!

She Wears Short Shorts- Part 1

2011-04-21T21:01:00.007+01:00

I have just dropped off a 6 man tent to my daughter, who won't be staying in it and even if she was, it's now too dark to put it up.
I am also trying to stay awake till 1am.

I'll say that again in case you weren't shocked enough...I am trying to stay awake till one-in-the-morning in order to collect Number 1 daughter from the party with the tent, that several teenagers will have tried to put up in the dark.
The same tent that takes 10 sturdy festival-goers (sobriety mandatory) some 1.5 hours to pitch because of its geodetic design and its three 'pods'.

Not to mention its colour co-ordinated poles with fitted keys. The pods always make me feel very new age. Once we've played our annual game of tent wrestling , we shackle it to the ground and - still too scared to let go of the guy ropes - crack open a few celebratory bottles of hard liquor with our teeth.

Teenagers tipsy on weak punch will never manage.
It'll be a massacre.
It'll pummel them into submission.

I must remember to take my camera when I collect her.

Her 3 young, skinny, snorting stallions (ha ha ha ha ha) wrestled the tent out of the boot of my car and she skipped down the drive with a cheery 'Cheers Mum' in her very short shorts and the scarf in her hair, a- la- Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan .

I mentioned that to her the other day but she's never heard of it, nor has she seen Molly Ringwald in 'Pretty in Pink'. I must rectify both situations, she'd feel right at home.

She's wearing my very short shorts from way back when I could wear short shorts but still looked crap in them.
She looks fabulous; legs up to her ears.

She also now owns my old bomber jacket and various other bits of vintage. I am so proud.

She is independent. She has found her own style. Thank God she's finding her voice.

Actually, as I write that I can plainly see that she's found my style.

I am so proud!

Anyway- 1am.

Sigh!
Drumming of fingers.
'Pah' noise with mouth every now and again.
Sigh.
Usually by now, I'd have 2 cooking sherries and a swig of lighter fuel. At this rate, I'll have to actually clean the house to stay awake.

Sigh
I did tell her to bring home everyone that wouldn't fit in the tent but our bathroom is shocking!
The cooker has enough food on, under and around it to cook another meal.
If there was a fire, there would be no unobstructed path to the door.
You think you'll never need a tidy house after 9pm but there was always that time - with Nibbles.

Yeh! You can look all innocent!

Welcome Multiple Mum and her readers :)

eBaying The Rules (Dear Ms Zeta Jones)

2011-04-17T23:32:00.002+01:00

Foreword: eBaying the rules follows this short announcement.

Dear Catherine,
I really feel that I should write a topical post about my bipolarity, to reassure you, to raise awareness and to publicise the blog. But I can't...
And I can't because for the past few days, I've been FRIKKIN' FREAKING OUT about it myself!!!!

So, you'll have to read the previous 17 posts and in the meantime, here's my advice on how to be successful on eBay.

eBaying the Rules

SELLING

My advice for selling on eBay is roughly the same as my advice for having a car boot sale - if you decide to get rid, get rid. The price is almost inconsequential... but there are a few things to bear in mind..

Personally, I would never stick a ‘no reserve’ tag on an item or even a first bid of 99p because in all likelihood, it will go for 99p and cost you more to post than you’ll have gained. When calculating profit, the entrepreneur needs to factor in the amount of petrol/shoe leather it costs to take it to the Post Office.

In my case, once I have walked down to save on fuel, I normally find myself in the need of a vanilla latte and a bun. In real terms, this means that I have gained calories and operated at a pecuniary loss. Beware, dear reader, if not from my experience then from the size of my hips.

Adopt the 3 strikes and out rule. If it doesn’t sell after a week, relist it. It just takes 1 click and often all you need is to be in the right place at the right time. eBay often hosts weekends where they list items for free and if, after 3 weeks, it hasn’t sold then give it to a charity shop. Do remember that both eBay and PayPal (the preferred method for payment through the site) take a cut of the final value. There are links to PayPal on the eBay website

I always find that in selling, it’s best to have a final goal in mind. I once allowed myself a week’s holiday in San Francisco house-sitting if I managed to ‘eBay’ the fare together. This brings me to my next point; don’t spend the money accrued in the account by bidding on other ‘stuff’! You really don’t need it, whatever it is!! Again (and it’s the same for car boot sales) don’t sell your old horse-hair wigs in order to bring home someone else’s hot water bottle!

It’s my gambling rule... Have the money you are prepared to lose in one pocket and put all the winnings in the other pocket. Never confuse the pockets as it’ll end with you scratching your head, saying “I am sure I had it a minute ago” whilst the love of your life disappears round the corner with someone who has accrued the air fare to San Francisco.

ALWAYS but always describe the item correctly-even down to that last missing button or faint scratch on the casing. Your Ebay status depends on your getting positive feedback from your customers and although they might buy ‘imperfect’ if they know of it beforehand, something arriving through the post that was not as it was described, will land you in eBay negativity. Everyone can see (through the star and percentage rating system) who has tried to pull a fast one. I avoid buying from anyone with a feedback score of below 97.5%. Do not bill PVC bomber jackets as Italian leather lest you wake to find a horse’s head in your inbox.

Display 3 clear photos of your item wherever possible as it proves that you are hiding nothing. The site makes it very easy for anyone who can download photos to their computer, to start selling. It guides you through each short step.

When selling large items, such as furniture, it’s always best to make absolutely clear in the item description that it’s ‘Local Pick Up Only’. This is eBay speak for ‘Fetch it yourself’. There are two reasons for this; first of all the cost of delivery makes it prohibitively expensive to buy (and you need to give postage costs in advance) and secondly, if you don’t then people assume you’ll post it to them for free. Indeed, unless you state otherwise, they may have a case.

Each of my children had grown up around my dining room table; they learned how to manage cutlery whilst seated at it, stuck-and-glued upon it and blew out birthday candles round it. When I sold it, the young couple who bought it on eBay simply walked round from the next street and carried it home, one at either end, where our farmhouse table will see another young family through their rites of passage.

I find that a comforting thought . x .

I'll try to be good at being bipolar again in a day or so.

How to be a writer.

2011-04-13T10:28:00.039+01:00

I have wondered how to be a writer all of my life.

The things I have tried...
Mills and Boon f'rinstance. I thought it would be easy money when I was a young wife and mother. I dedicated myself to researching the genre to get that famous formula right. Of course I didn't, but my (not yet) ex-husband had the most pleasurable months of his life as I found the books a little racy and quite inspiring. He would have been happy (a word hitherto little recognised in our house) if I had stuck to Mills and Boon and never earned a penny.

.http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/21/mills-and-boon-art-portrait

I've written an episode of Casualty that reads like a pantomime, and a radio sitcom for BBC Talent... neither of which won despite complimentary condolence letters. I (nocturnally) nurtured whisky-fuelled poems when I went through my Jim Morrison phase; food was optional but absolutely anything else 'went'. I lost two whole days once and those 25 year old poems still win the odd competition. You can see why artists abuse and torment themselves - it makes tremendous economic sense.
There were songs too. I have folder after folder of 3-chord songs that I'd wail across valleys and housing estates, trains and stages in an effort to make sense of the confusion of my life.
The short stories were observational and humorous mostly. Maybe they'd count as essays or articles. I am not sure.
I entered the many lands of Bookworld from the moment that I could warble the alphabet and wandered their shores and skies 'til giving birth made it impossible to read and change a nappy simultaneously. I hope the Kindle will change all that for the next generation.
I remember, aged 14, 'helping' my mother by pushing a trolley round Tesco but completely unable to put down Dumas', 'The Three Musketeers'.

I wandered down the aisle at a varied pace, mole-blind to my surroundings, right arm working my pecs to keep the book at the required distance from my thirsty eyes. I can only imagine that my mother had to shop like someone on a fairground stall, trying to pitch assorted goods into a moving receptacle from her place at the shelves.
But honestly, who wouldn't rather buckle their swash with handsome, devilish cavaliers than be pushing Fray Bentos and Windolene around in their wonky-wheeled carriage? I adored Aramis; searching for piety and yet so very flawed. A fallen angel. He made me feel quite hot under the collar and years later, he came to be in one of my poems, in the raw, sexual guise of The Lizard King himself.

My early poems were full of sex. Lust swelled up and spilled out of them, leaving the (male only) readers I allowed to peak at them, a little flushed and heading home for a bit of a lie down. Sometimes I went with them.

But back in '79 after the 'Trolley-Gate' incident involving an elderly man, the bagatelle sounds of metal colliding and some bruised fruit, my presence was no longer required in the frozen aisles of this new fangled supermarket way of doing. I was allowed to read, unhindered by trolleys, in the concrete carousel seating outside the car park. Bliss!

In recent years I have produced training courses, promotional materials and sent enormous e-mails whether people want to read them or not. I keep 3 diaries simultaneously and write shopping lists that I never read. I take hours to write a tiny FB status update since everyone knows that the wording has to flow like a haiku and provoke laughter or stimulate thought. I write letters of commendation, complaint or explanation.

As I sat on the train on Monday and wondered yet again how to become a writer, shy tears of recognition rolled onto my face; hostages of truth gingerly blinking in the light.

Writing makes a writer.

I am a writer. It's who I am.

Home again.Home again, jiggedy jig.

2011-04-11T23:55:00.007+01:00

I am

Home again.

And what have I learned?

I have learned that I do not turn into a pumpkin if I play the dutiful daughter. I have learned that I am not playing. I have learned that it is not the whole of my extended family that is dysfunctional, only my end of it

I have decided to take the option of being happy.

Having met up with my beautiful cousins who have remained in stable and loving, supportive relationships with quite frankly, awesome spouses, it's made me think. This wider family represents my childhood and adolescence (including holidays) and even some of my early adulthood. That is until our grandparents died and by then I had already moved away.
Family support wasn't taken away, I removed myself from it. I buried it. I have not been kind to myself.

My own, tremendously handsome sibling and his beautiful young wife are another matter though. Not stable. Not happy. Trying- they are definitely working on it but they do not support each other in any constructive way at all because they don't know how to-complicit in dysfunction perhaps. I can't find the words to begin the conversation. He's ignoring, papering over, willing it not to be so. I know this cycle so well because he has not been kind to himself. He is lost and scared, spitting and fizzing to warn others off in a desperate defence reflex.

Not to me. To me he just lies.

All this beauty is in one room, with laughter and memories and cake. I am peppered with compliments for my organisation, for my children, for the decoration, for my ingenuity at keeping the surprise - but never, not once for taking my beautiful place in this beautiful family. I am invited here, there and everywhere and thanked for being the catalyst of the reunion, but no one tells me I look nice -not even my mother.
I am trying to let it wash away. It sounds so petty and ridiculous. It is petty and ridiculous, I know it. It just takes a lot of brushing off.

But, I can choose to be happy. I can choose to believe the gushing texts
that have been arriving all day.
I can remind myself that I
avoided mania-inducing states and
was not tired and lethargic for any of the visit, for what was possibly the first time EVER.

I controlled my cyclothymia.

Homeward Bound

2011-04-09T23:59:00.016+01:00

Weird isn't it, how you can't wait till you get somewhere and once you're there, you can't wait till you leave. My life is weird at the moment because I am not comfortable anywhere. I once spent two hours in Dubai airport waiting to change planes. It was 25 years ago and I was shocked to see soldiers with guns - waiting for something to happen - expecting it to.. menace was in the air.

There was an unhappy moment where I squatted down at the top of an escalator to see if what was at the bottom was worth the ride. Escalator-peering must be an espionage technique for I caused a bit of a furore. I wonder now whether they were ready to spring into action lest I decommissioned it by piddling on it, thereby inducing an amber alert electrical mishap with a side order of duty free inconvenience, but if not that then I am clueless. If any agents out there know what havoc I might have wreaked in a halterneck , feel free to get in touch as it has been an irritating ponderance my whole adult life.
Anyway, that's where I feel I am..Dubai airport. I am in a slightly menacing holding bay. I am also in my childhood home, which normally induces a mixture of alcoholism and indefatigable fatigue along with bouts of shopping. I had never realised before I wrote it that both sides of my bipolarity can be in play simultaneously. The last time I was here (not long ago) I noticed that the heady mixture of being in the warm bosom of my (male) childhood friends whilst drinking alcohol, set off a manic phase that I heroically struggled to control for 2 weeks afterwards as well as the inevitable depression for 3 weeks after that. It must have always been thus. So, when I saw them this time, I limited my beer intake, drank lots of water and reminded myself that nothing new will happen unless I do something new. I feel OK, I feel quite good and I'm not tired. I truly believe that I deserve more than my usual merry-go-round. Will this realisation alone, limit some of my phases? I frikkin' hope so.
Sadly, I came home for a funeral. I seem to be at that age when the older generation are thinning out and we have to step up to take their place. In the ghosts of that crematorium, I was flanked on all sides by friends with greying beards . Where I used to be able to balance my drink on the calm of their abdomens, now middle aged spread fights with waistbands but I felt supported and loved and sad . We have staggered through this life's journey together so far and it hasn't been an easy one for any of us. It isn't an easy place to begin a journey. But regardless of years and distance, we have made this friendship work- them and me. They visit1 at a time or together; with or without families in tow and I 'come home' to a place that never was home, even when I knew nothing else.

They love to see the grey in my hair emerging, they treasure every change. I treasure them. There's something wonderful in growing old together but I knew then, in that crematorium, that the chances of us being uninterrupted by fate were shrinking.The inevitable would be knocking on our door shortly with it's tales of percentages and one day at a time-ness. But for now, we all stand together for our friend who has lost her dad but not her mates, not yet by any means.

PJ's and Primary Schools

2011-04-06T09:35:00.002+01:00

Just done the school run in my PJs and slippers. I know what you are thinking... and you can rest easy. I wore a coat over my dressing gown. I was in the car, so folk only saw my top half and I was careful not to let my daughter out of the car until the pavement was clear and pedestrian parents couldn't squint at my footwear. I am wearing the pyjama bottoms that my dad tells me makes me look like the rear end of an enormous zebra. I would take offence but he only got this view when he made me look at some 'truffles' in my garden which turned out to be toadstools spawned by the damp (and frankly untended conditions) in the front garden. He was all for me entering Masterchef with them before we sought a second opinion.

Off on a journey today and I have enormous amounts of things to do first. Shan't do any of them, I know this by experience. The family and I will turn up with the usual combination of mismatched items that make us look as though we are from the Dennis-The-Menace school of fashion. It's not that we don't have matching outfits, it's just that I am shocking at packing, and I seem to have passed it on.

The house will remain untidy till my return and I may or may not remember to temporarily rehome the Hamster-with-an-Asbo. Neighbours are now used to panicky texts giving instructions in retrospect. They are fine with that as long as they have time to barbed-wire their kitchen cupboards.

The DVDs that I am determined to take back to the library today, will no doubt be due a fine by the time I get back. The daughter I am due to pick up from a dancing extravaganza, half an hour before we get on the train, is only small and easily forgotten. Her teacher will probably have to post her to me.....Again!!

LOL: Rudali

2011-04-05T09:16:00.001+01:00

LOL: Rudali:
This site makes me laugh!

To drink or not to drink....?

2011-04-04T22:12:00.006+01:00

Hmm. Had a bit of a tough day. Not tough compared to saving the world from man-eating sponges and not tough compared to driving an aerial taxi in your vest.. .... but tough compared to winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Underwear and then going home to cheese on toast and a Lambrusco with Colin Farrell. It was definitely tougher than that.
It has centred around provision for a child -my child- with special needs to go to secondary school. It depresses me just to have the need for the meeting. Anyway, in the scheme of things, I am hugely lucky with her as she is as happy as the day is long and the more I see of this world, the rarer I know that to be.
Actually, I can learn so much from her. She is unfailingly cheerful and copes with her limitations unquestioning -for the most part by ignoring them. She gets the biggest cheer at sports day from all the parents, reducing some of them to tears with her gung-ho cheerful determination to compete and finish in the best time that she possibly can. In her first year at school, a teacher nearing retirement came up to me (having taught my eldest two children too) saying:
"You have a very special child there". ....as if I didn't know that..:)
And yet..and yet... every physio appointment, every meeting with the paediatrician, every school review leaves me feeling hollow. I want someone to scoop me up and put me in bed and smooth my hair and tell me it's all going to be alright. Instead, I am just exhausted.

Eat,Pray, Love

2011-04-03T11:01:00.004+01:00

Is that what a coincidence is I wonder? Is it paying attention at the right times?

Recently, I have developed DVD attachment syndrome; the main symptom of which is a complete inability to return a book to the library without the urge to rent 5 movies whilst I am there.
Generally, I have the movie constitution of a primary school kid. I like the odd psychological thriller if I am feeling dangerous, or an adventure story, but cannot abide anything with violence, drugs or risky behaviour. Not because I have not had my fair share of experiencing them, but because it's not my idea of relaxation and escapism. It makes me uncomfy when I am sitting on the sofa. 'Passport to Pimlico' is my idea of a perfect film. http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Passport_to_Pimlico-V37384/

However, the films that I am choosing in all innocence at the moment, seem to be popping out of screen to give me bipolar-coping lessons. F'r instance, I rented 'Eat, Pray, Love'. I find that although I am not a huge fan of Julia Roberts, she is- as Douglas Adams would say - mostly harmless. Javier Bardem on a saturday night (or indeed on any other) would do any girl good, but beyond Javi, it is a film about acceptance of the self and it highlights that meditation can be a real struggle when you begin to make it part of your life. It can often seem too hard, but the benefits come with perseverance. I had reached a meditation crisis and it was reassuring to know that it is quite common. This despite the fact that the film itself had major flaws and the symbolism and cinematic devices were crowbarred in with such finesse that they might as well have just stamped ' POORLY THOUGHT OUT METAPHOR OCCURRING' over the image and we'd have all nodded in sympathetic agreement. http://www.eatpraylove-movie.net/

Then there was Julie and Julia. The awesome Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci came out of my screen to sit beside me on the sofa and give me the benefit of their experience . Both women were looking for some routine, some passion to adhere to daily in order to give their life meaning. That the Amy Adams character did her searching through a blog blew me away. Isn't that how I am making sense of my life? I am now up to 7 people who have wandered through accidentally and yet I love this blog. It's saving my life. Amy and I keep plugging away through distraction and rejection with determination because we want to change.

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/julieandjulia/

Regular readers (ha!) will know that illness is a flag-point for panic with me and so an impending doctor's appointment had me in a tailspin. But, I remembered the words of that well known philosopher Hugh Grant, who in 'About A Boy' measures out his time in units " Haircut; one unit." So, I planned the time to the appointment in units. I did some painting (2 units) , spent a couple of hours with Meryl and Stanley (4 units) and planned a blog entry (3 units). Horrible wakefulness, moulded into pleasure by me..and Hugh...and Stanley...and Amy... and Meryl.
http://www.about-a-boy.com/