…

#1 – What geeks talk about in bed.

A late night conversation with my husband turned to fonts (naturally):

Sarah: ‘Oh, I like Calibri too!”Do you think the romance is dead?’

Camo: ‘It might not be dead but it is in italics.’

Badum-tish.

Further proof that we do indeed belong together. ‘At least they’re not ruining another couple’ as my mother would say.

…

#2 – What the criminally insane talk about in bed.

Camo reminded me of this conversation this morning. I’d been discussing requesting that future funeral directors embalm me with my scary face (don’t ask) and making sure it was an open-coffin funeral..

Camo: Well, I want to be buried with an animatronic arm so that when people lean into the coffin it will reach out and grab them.

Sarah: Yes! Tell lots of people about that..

Camo: ..why?

Sarah: ‘cos then when I bury you alive and you try to reach up for help they’ll think it was all part of your joke.

Camo: … and I thought I was being evil.

What?

…

#3 – It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you aka synchronicity is a bitch

I’ve been having a bit of a difficult time the last few months. I’m going to gloss over the details, as usual, but basically it’s become harder than ever to do anything especially if it involves leaving the flat. It’s got to the point where I’ve been reconsidering my decision to try and improve my mental health without medication (for now, for various reasons) and had been discussing the pros and cons of taking something again with my husband.

Not long after this conversation I received an email informing me that there was a new message waiting for me on my OkCupid account. For those of you that don’t know, I met Camo through OkCupid and we’ve both preserved our accounts (updated to show our new relationship status) for sentimental reasons. Sentimental and comedic reasons (sometimes the messages are pure gold). I hadn’t received a message for ages and then I received this:

Depressed or not, try not to take antidepressants particularly SSRIs. 
I have just spent the last 3 months weening a girl off them and it will be Christmas before she is free. 
Just my toupenceworth.

Now, ok, my profile does briefly mention my mental health and this person had contacted me once before – after I’d met Camo – I politely declined his offer of a friendship with possible ‘fringe benefits’ with him and his girlfriend and that was the extent of our communication (apart from one message in January 2011 to congratulate me on my engagement.) Why he decided to contact me fifteen months later with medical ‘advice’ is a complete fucking mystery.

Two days later, we attended The Sage to see Sharks Took The Rest (tickets very kindly provided for Camo’s birthday by our friend, John). I worried about having to go out the whole day and spent the hour immediately before exiting in tears. Pathetic, I know, but that’s just how it is at the moment. Despite Camo’s reassurances that I didn’t have to do this, I kinda did and I argued with myself that I was going to feel shit for not going so I might as well go.

We managed to grab a couple of seats (it was mostly a standing venue) which helped a lot as it limited the number of people around me. It also stopped me fleeing in a panic when the support act, Matt Stalker & Fables began to play this:

I kid you not.. even Camo’s jaw dropped at the line ‘Sarah, don’t touch the drugs’ .. tears began rolling down my face again. I know, I know, I’m not receiving secret messages from hipsters in pointy brown shoes and the lyrics are not directed at me. But, still, in an already fragile mental state it doesn’t take much.

Still, the rest of the night passed without incident and I eventually began to relax. The main act were truly awesome and I was very, very glad I’d been able to make myself go:

The jury’s still out on the medication debate but that’s purely because of the concerns and reasons I already had (that I don’t really want to go into nor discuss). If it’s still not the right thing to do it will be a decision I’ve made with my psych team, and not because Mr Mackey told me not to:

M’kay? :0)

…

I’ve also been trying to counter my reluctance to leave the flat with applying to do some voluntary work. Wallsend Parks have a few projects underway and I managed to make it to a meeting last Monday to discuss what I might be able to do. Sadly, the person I was meeting did not as he had come off his bike in Scotland :0/ He seems to be ok, though, and they should be contacting me again in a couple of weeks time.. hope he makes a full recovery: not a fun experience for him, poor guy!

Admittedly the poster could have been better.. but hopefully it’ll give someone a laugh – it certainly gave us one :0)

Perfect.

There was just a couple things I hadn’t counted on. The big one being snow. This was a few days before snow had hit England more generally: we’d had a very mild December and hadn’t seen any hint of white in Newcastle. That’s right, folks, we saw snow before it was.. uh.. cool..

Anyway. There it was. I might have been a little more clued-up if I’d actually dug out the description of the hike before suggesting and/or embarking on the trip:

Upper Teesdale has 20.8 days of snow in an average January and its summer temperatures are akin to those of Reykjavik

I would have also realised that the waterfall is actually still a fair distance from the car park.

Oops.

Still, it was a very picturesque drive and, after getting very lost, we stopped next to a village pub for a coffee and toilet break. Sadly, the pub was closed. So was the other one. And the public toilets were locked.

Still, it wasn’t that long before we found somewhere that was open. It was getting a little late by this time, however (did I mention we’d got lost?), so we headed back to Alston for lunch and to find our bearings again.

On entering Alston we noticed a shop named The Moody Baker; we giggled for a few moments and speculated about the goods on offer. Then, parking near a promising looking cafe, I spotted a sweet shop. ‘Ooh,’ I enthused, mouth watering as I pictured fudgy delights, ‘I might have to pop in there afterwards.’ We peered in the window only to be met with this sign:

Cue an extensive dialogue (in a broad, depressed, Yorkshire accent) that began:

‘I don’t do January. Not since the great bon bon disaster of ’92…’

‘The liquorice fire of ’87 should’ve been a warning..’

Etc. We were laughing so hard and gasping for breath between lines that, if the shop owner had seen us, they could have added ‘all the idiots come out in January’. Sometimes I wonder that we’re allowed out without supervision.

…

Eventually, we did find our way to Cow Green Reservoir. But the Alston sweet shop seemed to have set the tone for the area:

Bus times from this stop
Effective from 17 April 2011
Monday to Saturday (until further notice): No Monday to Saturday Service
Sunday (until further notice): No Sunday Service.

Okay, then..

I had hoped to impress Camo with Cauldron Snout but mostly he was impressed with the cold. To be fair, there was an awful lot of it.

The times when you have seen only one set of footprints.. that’s when I stopped to throw a snowball at you..

As if distraught by the lack of buses, the road itself had given up:

Still, it was good to see that someone, somewhere, still cared:

 Hello? Is that Batman..?

All in all it was a successful trip out; if not necessarily for the intended reasons.. Laughter is always awesome and the scenery was beautiful, if a little.. blue (no filters were used in the making of these photos, kiddywinks).

We’ll return one day and do the walk. But not in January. We don’t do January..

Pretty well..

Actually, it is: I’ve been exercising everyday and already lost a few pounds. I’ve managed to achieve goals even though my mental state has been somewhat crappy. Suck it, depression! *wibbles*

I’m not going to whine about how bad a place I was in or why; it suffices to say that I was. I’m still not out of the water, but I feel like I’m at least wearing an inflatable ring.

I want this one..

I am now in the process of actually doing what I’ve been trying to put into place for a while now: giving my days some structure by setting myself small, achievable, daily, weekly and monthly goals. I know, I know.. it’s common sense, right? But it’s common sense I’ve been ignoring for too long. There are a couple of areas that I’m focusing on but I’m also putting other little things down like ‘playing with the cats’ and ‘reading’ each day. Things that I want to do, and nearly always do anyway, but that are sometimes first out of the window when depression or agitation kicks in. Rewarding myself for achieving the little goals – even if the only reward is ticking a box – at least gives me something to look back on: today might have been awful but at least I did something positive – I’m winning the long-term fight.

The main part of my focus, however, is fitness and writing. There is only so much weight I can allow myself to keep gaining and only so many times I can say ‘I want to write‘ without putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) before it gets ridiculous. It’s also damaging; it’s keying into and reinforcing a sense of worthlessness. I know fine well the fitter I am and the more I’m writing the better I’ll feel about myself and the more defenses I’ll have against the bad days. I’m not expecting the bad days to disappear forever – hell, even normal people have bad days – but I need to stop letting them take over my life.

As I live on the internet, it’s only natural (and predictable) that I’ve managed to find a few things online to help me with my goals. I discovered a reference to Spark People in one of the vast number of sites I browse on a regular basis and I decided to check it out. It’s pretty groovy. A few years ago I used to subscribe to a paid site that was similar but not as good. Spark People lets me track nutrition and exercise as well as any other custom weekly goals I care to create. It also lets you accumulate points for achievement trophies which, given my addiction to Steam achievements, was a total selling point. There is also a strong social element to the site and I have signed up to a couple of groups including ‘UK Spark’ (the site started off as a US venture, but there’s plenty enough UK users and content to make finding the right foods easy – you can enter your own, in any case) and ‘dealing with depression’. The articles I’ve seen so far are also pretty good: motivational without being condescending and not full of pseudo-science. Did I mention it’s free? Sure, there are adverts for all of the stuff they want to sell you but they are not overly ‘in your face.’ Frankly I’m impressed so far.

I’ve decided to start out by exercising for 15mins each day – I was going to set it at 30mins but I need to make sure it’s something I know I can definitely do each day and it’s working: I’m already building on it. I’m keeping my calories under the recommended guidelines and making sure I drink eight glasses of water everyday. The last is something I often neglect despite knowing that drinking lots of water always makes me feel better; I just forget. So far, so good: even after a couple days I have more energy and I’m waking up earlier; I’ve ridden out a high and a low and I’m ok.

My current exercise-of-choice is utilising my trusty step whilst watching something on the internet (for the last three days that’s been catching up with Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy – available on 4oD or YouTube - I think perhaps you need to exercise through that..

..or drop acid) but I also intend to start cycling again soon.

For writing I’ve set a really small goal of 10mins a day. This is because I know just attempting to write can be a huge trigger for me – getting into the habit of it just not being a scary thing anymore is what I need to tackle first. There are various ‘distraction-free’ writing utilities out there but I actually typed ‘write for 10 minutes’ into Google and found this site. Once you sign up you can ‘create a new post’ and then a timer will run; when your ten minutes are up it greys out, but if you wish to continue writing you can click to do so. When you’re finished you can choose to make it a public or private post; they will be collected under your username. I have extolled the virtues of Liquid Story Binder as a tool for writing for years and I can see myself doing the same for writeforten – it’s perfect.

In addition to my if-I’m-going-to-do-anything-I’m-going-to-use-the-internet-to-help-me fanaticism (I’m also using this to make longer-term or one-off goals) I’ve also adorned the wall by my desk with a very simple tracker so that I know at a glance where I’m at with the important stuff. The blue pins are for the water I need to drink, the red and yellow to monitor my caffeine and decaff intake (I want to make sure I’m not drinking too much but I’m not giving up caffeine ever again: I did it for three months and had the worst ever headaches) and the green pins are for my three must-do daily goals: exercise, read and write.

It’s not the most attractive thing in the world (especially with the cat-attacked wallpaper) but it’s effective.

Should all of this fail, I also have a screen capture of some of my friend’s words set as my desktop background because something in them made all of this possible this week, and because sometimes I need to remind myself that I’m far from alone in all of this and that I can beat this – I can win.

J, thank you!

I have a superpower! I can instantly repel one of our cats from a room just by singing. Once I realised this I repeated the experiment.. often.. just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, honest. Each and every time she gives me a hurt look (I need to try to capture this expression: it’s a cross between ‘why do you hate me so?’ and ‘you’re scum’), mewls pitifully and walks out of the room in disdain.

Everyone’s a critic.

It amuses me no end; especially when I burst into song to stop her from pestering me or to distract her from trying to kill her sister. One line of whatever earworm I have running around in my head (currently Joplin’s Mercedes Benz - no idea why)  is usually all it takes to persuade her she really has more pressing business elsewhere.

I don’t abuse my power, though; it’s not like I’ve ever followed her around the house whilst singing.. ok, ok.. maybe once twice..

Sorry, Ninja!

Soon afterwards he declares, with apparently no ulterior motive, that his face itches and he is going to trim his beard. I don mourning and dab at my eyes with a tissue but Pierre was still sent to the guillotine.

However, it wasn’t long until I spotted a follically ambitious black hair growing near where Pierre had fallen. I called it ‘Alphonse’.

I win.

My husband puts up with a lot..

But, really, he only has himself to blame. He is my randomness enabler. His laughter and input only serve to encourage me to new heights. For example, our conversation on Sunday night somehow turned to how ‘everything’s better with bacon,’ a concept he accepts, despite being vegetarian (he also buys me bacon – now that’s love).

I suggested a couple of proverbs with bacon: “Better the bacon you know than the bacon you don’t.”

“More bacon, less speed,” he said.

‘Ooh,’ I squealed, ‘that’s funny and true!’

Never one to let a ‘good’ idea go to waste, I spent pretty much the whole of yesterday compiling this site before emailing the link to my husband.

‘YOU WIN AT INTERNETS’ was his reply.

See? That’s enablement right there. Except I probably don’t mean enablement; I mean reinforcement or some other annoying shrink term. But I like the word ‘enable’ whereas being ‘reinforced’ makes me sound like I need to be held up with scaffolding. Well, in all fairness, I kinda do..

Anyway.. I had fun making the tumblr site and, due to bacon being king of the internet meme.. or at least an arch-duke.. I only had to create one of the pictures myself. If anyone is monitoring my online activity I can only imagine the bewilderment that reading several hours of search-teams such as ‘bacon bed’ and ‘bacon weapons’ will create. Then again, they’re probably used to it:

…

Today I awoke to find this in my Google reader feed:

Bringing us nicely back to beards. Which reminds me, I keep suggesting to Camo that he should grow a beard-plait, or, more accurately, grow out his beard so I can plait it. And put bows in it. And maybe a few beads. Kinda like this:

So far he has remained strangely resistant to the idea.

Perhaps I need to create another tumblr site..

Last year, after suggestions that covered a whole spectrum of crazy, a psychiatrist gave me a new label to stick up next to depression. That label was ‘Cyclothymia.’ Although I am aware of the dangers of trying to pigeon-hole my mental condition, I have been fighting for something more concrete that I can, well, fight against. After going somewhat round the houses with various different things and in full knowledge that any diagnosis is made tentatively and can (will) be changed by the next psychiatrist I see, it certainly helps to have something I can use to explain to people what’s wrong with me. Or it would if anyone had ever heard of it.

Basically, Cyclothymia is a ‘mild’ form of Bipolar. It sits in the same family and shares many of the same characteristics. Except, whilst most Bipolar sufferers seem to have sustained periods of depression and mania,  I get rapid-cycling depression and hypomania with very few ‘normal’ periods. If you’d like to know more about it, there’s an excellent article here.

I believe I have had symptoms of this since I was a teenager but a couple of significant bouts of depression seem to have made it a lot worse. In the last few months it’s been so hard to sustain attention for anything that I pretty much gave up trying.

Well, enough of that shit!

I’m not a fan of ‘New Year’s resolutions’ but I am making one now (a little late – I had a god-awful cold at the beginning of the month): I’m going to continue to work on projects and build up my writing but slowly and steadily. I’m going to take a deep breath when my mind tries to run away on me and not let negative thoughts sabotage the things I love doing.

In that way, hopefully, 2012 will feel a lot more productive.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.